It had been a very weird day. Partially because they’d won more than they’d lost, but also partially because Quince was there.

She hadn’t really been prepared for how much just having someone there who was willing to be on her side would actually do.

She’d even managed to courage to actually tell Doug that trying to force her way into south lane before either of the outer bases were down was a bad idea. He hadn’t wanted to hear it, and she’d made the terrible decision, failed to get enough compensation for it to make the whole endeavor worthwhile, and they’d lost the game because of it, but she said something!

It was probably not a good thing that that was so exciting, but it was. She just wished that Doug would listen to her when she told him how long certain things would take or how effective certain choices would be.

It wasn’t exactly the most difficult thing in the world to remember someone’s speed curve over time, particularly when you played with them almost every day for months, but he seemed adamant that she had access to her whole speed range well before she could.

Emma appreciated his faith in her ability to make her way around the highly constraining Worm’s Den and Tunnels in the south lane approach vectors, but it would be for the best if he tempered that somewhat with the understanding that there was a reason that Rangers were usually the larger threat there.

She could somewhat ameliorate that with her particular movement ability, but she had to trade shield strength for it. Which was fine, in the mid and late game, but early and early-mid she just didn’t have enough to freely catapult herself around. Nor did she have the crowd-control to make a grounded approach viable enough without the element of surprise– it was certainly doable, but she was mostly built as a burn tank with a gimmick, not a controller.

The weirdness, though, wasn’t even entirely based around that. They hadn’t done as much review as she’d wanted to after the games, but when they’d left… She’d been feeling okay, not like she’d rather die than get started on the next thing.

All she could attribute it to was the talk she’d had with Quince afterwards, complaining about how much more difficult her job had gotten once Doug moved to the carry role and started asking for different warding and ganking patterns.

It wasn’t that the ones he changed to using were bad, exactly. Many of the top teams used them, even, though they were mostly teams that were running a carry who had sacrificed mobility for even more power.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

They just weren’t the ones she was used to, and…

Well, she didn’t think they were the most effective for their team, either. Not that she’d say that.

Yet. She’d been able to say something today! And she’d talked to Jess, too.

Maybe that wasn’t much of an achievement, but she kept coming back to it. It, objectively, probably wasn’t. But after she’d spent so long without doing either one of them, that didn’t really matter to her.

She got out of the VR pod, staring at her room.

Messier than she liked. Solvable, and she really wanted to right now.

But that would probably just eat up that motivation she was feeling right now, not make it better. Instead, she dug around for a minute before finding her running attire.

Clean, luckily. That hadn’t slipped, at least.

Less than three kilometers away, there was a reservoir with a nice trail around it. Not the nicest to do with as much sun as the city was getting at the moment, but…

Well, it was quiet, at least. People were on it when she got there, but less than usual. And it wasn’t exactly a long way down the path that part of it split off, one way going directly around and fairly quickly completing the loop, while the direction she followed took a few extra turns, increasing in elevation all the while, until it came to a point opposite the developed borders of the reservoir, overlooking the main path and shaded by a couple of fairly anemic trees. They’d been planted a while ago in an attempt to give this overlook shade, she knew.

They weren’t very good at it. They’d never really been well taken care of, and the drought immediately following their planting that forced the city to cut back on watering them hadn’t helped matters.

They were still enough to be worth stopping under, particularly with the sun going down as it was.

The sun was at her back when she looked across the pit to where she’d come from.

It was strange. Emma thought for a moment about how, with the sun going down, she probably should have been somewhat worried. The number of people on the trail was cutting down, and all she had were her keys and her phone.

But with her hands on the poorly-maintained green-painted railing in front of her, that didn’t really matter.

Instead, it felt…

She wasn’t sure.

Quiet might apply, or maybe serene?

Probably not, though. It mostly just felt…

Like she’d like to do this again, in a few days.

Strange, that. It wasn’t exactly a common feeling. It was how she felt about talking to Quince after the team meeting.

It was how she felt about finally, finally just saying anything to Jess again.

It wasn’t complicated, at least, and thinking about it wasn’t even that appealing.

Instead, she just waited until the trail’s lights came on, watching the area in front of her for…

For nothing. It was just watching. Being there.

Once they were on, the first order of business was just to get home, which she managed in short order.

The room needed to be cleaned, so that was obviously the first priority as she walked in the door.

It had been a very weird day.

But maybe a good one?