I emerged from the shower dressed in a perfectly pressed set of dark Nazarite novitiate robes I'd "borrowed" from the laundry room. The silver sword pin on my lapel caught the light as I adjusted the silver-black cross collar. Thick, round glasses sat on my nose, making my eyes look far larger than they were.

Cinder became visible, perched with a look of worry on the narrow bed.

"Good evening, fair lady," I grinned at her, adjusting my new thick-rimmed glasses. "Shall we go meet your parents? I believe I'm properly dressed for dinner now."

Cinder stared at me, her feathers shifting through 50 shades of disbelief. The transformation was complete - gone was the scruffy, sweaty nullie in layered hexasuits. In his place stood a proper young Nazarite novitiate, complete with perfectly pressed robes and a demure expression, hair slicked back with plentiful application of gel.

"You look..." she struggled for words.

"Respectable? Trustworthy? Like someone who definitely helped evacuate students during a flesh-tree incident?" I suggested helpfully.

"Like a completely different person," she finished. "How do you DO that? What the fuck. I didn't think that you could look like any dweebier and yet here we are. Holy Shit, those effin' glasses."

"The glasses are essential," I adjusted them with a practiced gesture. "They make me look harmless and scholarly."

"You look like a Larry Potter tv set reject," she snickered.

"Uh-huh. Text you parents," I ordered. "Ask them if your friend, Nazarite choir manager Alexander Glock, can stay over for dinner."

"That would be... Pretty out of character for me, but fine..." Cinder stared at me for a long moment, then pulled out her phone with an exaggerated sigh. Her claws tapped rapidly on the screen.

"Mom says yes," she reported after a few minutes, sounding surprised. "She's... actually excited? Says she's been wanting to meet the 'brave young man' from the Spring's End Festival. Wait... how in the Abyss did she already know about that? What the fuck is happening?"

"Father Matthias sent a very nice email to your parents about half an hour ago, praising their daughter's volunteer work with the church youth choir and mentioning how wonderful it was to see her again today," I smiled innocently. "The email included a lovely photo of you and me serving soup to the destitute of Scab Row’s soup kitchen."

"WHAT?!" Cinder nearly dropped her phone. "We never... I would never... How did you...?"

"AI-generated images, remember?" I adjusted my large glasses again, showing her the soup kitchen photo on my phone. "The lighting really brings out your angel wing colors."

"You just... effin' created an entire fake history between us in less than an hour! Wtf!” She stammered.

"Not fake," I corrected. "Alternative fiction. The best lies are built on partial truths. You were at the Spring's End Festival flesh-tree summoning. You do have an amazing singing voice. I am very interested in helping you produce music. We did meet recently. The rest is just... creative interpretation of events. Now, tell me - how did we meet? Did you think of anything?"

"N-no," Cinder admitted. "I'm not good with this shit. I've been sitting here freaking out!”

"Fine," I said. "Listen carefully..."

I laid out the narrative as we sat on 'my' dorm bed.

"You met me at the Spring's End Festival. I was there helping with the choir arrangements. When the flesh-tree emerged, I helped evacuate the attendees while you fought it. We didn't really talk much then - just a brief 'thank you' moment, after I pulled you behind the temp soup kitchen's steel door when the flesh-tree was about to pulverise you.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

The Quetzi nodded.

“Recently, you ran into me again at the cathedral where I was organizing sheet music for the youth choir. You felt very bad about so many people dying at the festival, so you started to help out at the soup kitchen, got to know me, got to listen as I directed the choir. In January, I joined Skyfall Academy as a student. Today, I was at your show and I saved your best friend Em from an interdimensional monstrosity that knocked Graves out. You were in shock and I helped bring Em back to life. Don't even have to make much up for this part. You were so grateful that you invited me to dinner with your parents."

Cinder stared at me, her feathers shifting through thoughtful blues and worried purples. "That's... actually fairly believable. Except for the part where I'd help at a soup kitchen."

"Why not? It shows character growth," I pointed out. "No backtracking. Your mom already thinks you've been doing it. The photos are quite convincing."

"My parents are going to have so many questions," she groaned, falling back onto the narrow bed. "They're going to want details..."

"Do you really give your parents details about your life?" I asked.

Cinder snorted. "No. I barely talk to them at all these days."

"Perfect," I nodded. "Then we just need to let them fill in the blanks themselves. People are really good at seeing what they want to see. Your mom probably wants to believe you're secretly doing charitable work, that you were acting out and now want to change. Your dad will want to believe you're hanging out with respectable church people instead of inhaling interdimensional smokes and summoning eldritch horrors into abandoned subway tunnels."

Cinder blinked at me. "How'd you know about that?"

"Your brother told me about the tunnel children's song stuff," I said. "Your family aren't clueless idiots. They know what's going on in your life."

"Oh," she deflated.

"They're probably relieved you're finally bringing someone 'respectable' home," I continued, straightening my novitiate robes. "A nice, proper young man from the church who helps direct choirs and feed the poor. Much better than your usual crowd of disaster magnets."

Cinder's wings shifted through irritated reds. "My 'usual crowd' are my friends!"

"And I will be setting all of your friends on the righteous path as a Goodly Nazarite," I said in an exaggerated pious tone, then dropped the act with a grin. "Or at least, that's what your parents will think. In reality, I'll be helping you build something way better than the Dreadful Delvers."

"Which is what?" Cinder demanded.

"I don't know yet," I said. "You've got real talent, Ci. Not just with singing, but with performance in general. The way you commanded that stage, melted my brain with your song? That was incredible. Your Bard delver skill is absolutely baller."

“I'm not doing any more shows," Cinder's feathers shifted back to depressed grays. "Not after today. And... I don't want to sign up to extra delving outside of Delving class. If I do, my brother will figure out how to attach me to his team on a permanent basis and it'll be nothing but annoying-as-F rules and checklists and wearing bulky-as-shit multi-layered armor that makes me look like an ocean diver and doesn't accomodate for my wings."

"We'll make our own delving team," I said. "With you as its Captain and me as Quartermaster. We'll set up whatever rules we want to, figure out how to get the most out of Arx and other worlds. Delving class has multiple excursions, yeah? According to the online course description - there's field trips to Thornwild, Novazem, Andross, etc."

Cinder pursed her lips.

"I'll see how we can apply your voice most optimally on each world. I want to understand it all. Not just dungeoneering, but everything. I want to know where the Kitlix come from, who makes them and how. I want to study dungeon monsters and other worlds' inhabitants and Magitek things and improve upon it all!"

"Who would even be on this delving team?!" Cinder asked.

"You, me, Io, Vee and.... Katherine Kells."

"Katherine?!" Cinder's feathers bristled. "The wheel-chair-bound girl who never talks to anyone? She's practically failing delving class, can barely function in sunlight. Why her and not I dunno... Solace or something?!”

"Solace is pretty much the definition of a knob. She's tough-skinned, extra-hostile against mixies and very stubborn, thus she can remain Em's only friend,” I said. “Leaving Em without someone to yell at is bad. On the other hand, Katherine is an incredible artist, a clever and hella-dangerous hunter," I said. "Her dimensional magic is insanely useful for my... endeavors."

"Lots of people in school have useful talents," Cinder pointed out. "Katherine doesn't like me one bit. In fact, according to her own words - she hates everyone. Why her?"

"Because she knows something important," I revealed.

"About what?"

"About me," I admitted. "About you. About... something else. Something bigger than all of this." I gestured vaguely in the air towards the massive cathedral visible through the tiny gothic window. "But that's a conversation for another time. Right now, we need to focus on the dinner mission with your parents."

"Right..." Cinder stood up with a frown, clearly not looking forward to interacting with Katherine or maybe stressing about my social hacking shenanigans. "My parents are going to ask about your family. Your background. What are you going to tell them?"

"Exactly what the Skyfall and now Nazarite Cathedral records say," I smiled. "It'll be fun, trust me."

I pulled out my phone and texted Io that we were done.