Who: Naga & Lina What: Attempts at friendliness and Lina discovers who Naga's little sister is. When: Backdated to Naga's shameless drunk texts. Where: That big boobed bitch's place. Rating/Warnings: Low, mostly! Status: complete!
Actually taking the time out of her personal life to see Naga the goddamn serpent was weird. Everything about this was weird, and on her way in Lina stopped by the burger place she kept on babbling about and picked up several things detrimental to her cholesterol. All for her, none for Naga, so piss off the curly fries, Balloon Tits.
But if there was one thing she was right about, it was this: they were all each other had from the dreams, even if Naga hadn’t tagged along with the crazier things. Lina had decided that this place would never give her who she wanted. She might never meet Amelia, Zelgadis. Or Gourry, and while it was probably best they stay out of this crazy mess, it sortakindamaybe hurt a bit. So instead this place gave her Naga, the one person aside from Martina who she’d love to strangle, and...Xelloss.
Here, luck. See Lina’s middle finger for how she felt about that.
“Hey. Hey. Open up.” Her knock was loud and obnoxious, then her fingers dove into the bag for a handful of fries to stuff in her mouth.
“I told you for the last time, I’ve already heard about your lord and savior.” Naga threw open the door, wearing little more than a bathrobe that was barely tied closed. Even her hair was unkempt. Her words were a little slurred, but it looked like she’d tried the cold water sober up trick. “Oh. It’s you.
“Oh my god!” A hand went over her eyes, her poor innocent eyes. Her corneas felt like they were burning. Last time she’d seen Naga naked, they were both in a drunken haze and it was dark, okay, she didn’t need to uncover memories that were buried so deep they must have been lost in Narnia somewhere. “You knew I was coming, you idiot. Put some damn clothes on.”
Eyes squinted shut, Lina chomped on a burger blindly while she waited Naga to get decent. Who the hell opens the door like that to anyone?
Rubbing her head, Naga turned, leaving the door open so Lina could help herself in. She tossed her robe onto the couch and disappeared into the bedroom. She came out two minutes later in jeans and a tank top. She looked suddenly a lot more like her usual self, even grinning sassily at Lina.
Naga’s apartment was small, though cluttered with assorted things that she’d picked up over the years from various conns.
Finally, she’d been brave enough to peek a bit and see the coast was clear - meaning, Naga wasn’t being obnoxious and parading around in her birthday suit, lucky her. Grumbling, she stepped in and kicked the door shut, and snatched a napkin from her fastfood bag to clean her hands from curly fry grease. “There, see. Do you open your door to everyone like that? On second thought, don’t answer that.”
God, no. Lina didn’t need to know all the sordid details of when Naga thought it was appropriate to play nudist. Anyway, she settled the back to the side and gave her a quick lookover. “Sobered up a little bit?”
“A little bit.” She squinted at Lina, before plopping down on her couch. She wondered why Lina had come. She decided to roll with it. Tilting her head back and laughing, she added. “And you only wish you could answer the door like that and have people stare.”
It just kind of slipped out. She was only a little sorry.
Okay, that was a big fuck you too. Lina crumbled up empty burger wrappers into a ball and pelted her with it. “Next time, it’s a fireball I’m tossing - right to your ass, and I’m burning down everything you own,” she threatened with a huff, red eyes squinted into a glare. “You know, for someone whined about being so damn lonely, you still don’t make an effort to be less of a pain in the butt.”
But that was their relationship, wasn’t it? Always doomed to be either friends or enemies, depending on the situation and what suited their particular interests. Here and there. Naga wanted to be friends, right? She’d make the effort, sort of. Check on her to make sure she wasn’t drowning at the bottom of a bottle, because Lina had been there, done that, especially during her first couple months here.
“I’m beginning to wonder if I belong,” Naga whined. “Here. Awake. It’s not like we can wander off in search of magical artifacts and awesome power.” It was, in a word, boring. But that was the part of her that wanted to don a costume and find more power. The part of her happy to be one of Leliana’s nightingales was less enthusiastic about the idea.
“Those were fun times,” she admitted, taking a noisy sip from her lidded soft drink. “Getting into trouble, trying to find what we considered treasure, it was a fun purpose.” Traveling in time, fighting in golems modeled after them (she was still bitter about Piko-Piko Lina, okay), the Shadow Reflector…
Actually, no, the Shadow Reflector can go fuck itself.
Sighing, Lina opted to take the spot next to her vastly breasted frenemy, tucking her legs under her some to get into that ‘comfy curled up’ position she liked so much. “You have family? To...I don’t know, visit, make amends with, whatever you do with family nowadays?”
Where the hell did Naga come from, anyway?
“I wonder if we’ll see any of that. It might be fun. Like old times. Blowing up something that actually deserves to blow up.” Naga rolled one shoulder, then leaned back with her arms stretched over her head. This pushed her tank top near to the ripping point. “I don’t really talk to my family.” She let a little bit of southern drawl out before she caught herself.
Well, Lina blew up plenty of things. Didn’t mean they deserved to be blown up, but even in times of ‘doing the right thing,’ there was always collateral damage when it came to this particular bundle of crater-making terror. “You’d be surprised at the actual chance of an opportunity like that happening,” she pointed out, because it was true. With this place? Naga might have actually jinxed them.
An arm reached over across her to grab her paper bag - it still had some food in it - when the accent popped up, and Lina caught it. Looked at her with some suspicion, but let it slide. Maybe she didn’t hear right? “How come? I mean, I don’t talk to mine because I’m afraid they’ll ground me for thirty years after all the crap I’ve pulled, but what about yours? They know what you’ve been up to?”
And Naga? Naga kind of wanted the crater-making terror. It was the spice of life and her life was anything but spicey right now. “Ooh. Well I hope so! We could leave a trail of righteous destruction!” Naga and ‘righteous’ anything didn’t generally go together but she did have delusions of grandeur and, ultimately, she was her father’s daughter. “Not really. Just my sister, sometimes. I’m the eldest and I’m trying to avoid obligations.”
Righteous destruction? Lina snorted a giggle. Yeah, call it that, it seemed accurate enough. Practically every dream shenanigan that involved Naga also ended up in the use of a Dragon Slave - or ten in a row, actually, that did happen once - but back in their world, blowing things up in the form of magic wasn’t terribly uncommon. It was a biiiiiiit different around these parts.
“You have a sister?” Huh, news to her. Now all she could think of was what her sister looked like - probably the same. Big boobs, outrageously tall, obnoxious laugh that made ears bleed. A second Naga, ew. “You two get along, or…?”
It brought back memories of her sister. The Ceiphied Knight, in the dreams. One terrifying bitch. She was still a cranky waitress that said a lot with little words and had the capacity to make Lina soil herself.
There were probably a few places that could stand to get blown up. Naga had a list. Now if only she could get Lina to teach her that big boom spell…
“You’d probably actually like Amelia.” Naga laughed. “We sort of get along. I don’t… think she’d be too happy with some of the things I’ve done in my life.”
Amelia’s name was the last thing she thought to have ever uttered from Naga’s mouth, ever. Lina actually almost choked a little on the remainder of her fries and pounded her chest, clearing up those semi-clogged airways for a painful swallow. “Um,” coughcough. She winced. “Amelia? Did you say Amelia?”
No, she was gladly swimming up the rivers of denial and drowning herself in it. The idea of Naga being related to someone like Amelia and PHIL, the righteous giant dwarf of justice, was just terrible. Hysterical and terrible. But mostly terrible, and all she could pray was that it was a coincidence. Wasn’t entirely outside the realm of chances, was it?
“Yes? Why is that such a surprise? Did you really think my name is actually Naga the Serpent? That I somehow sprung from my father’s brow?” She thought about that for a moment and started to cackle. “Well I am a goddess.”
“Ummm…” Another cough, this time accompanied with a wince and Lina had to discard the bag of remaining fries. Her eyes shut tight, gears in her mind turning, and what the fuck was her life. Amelia. She knew Saillune’s princess had an older sister, off traveling somewhere - what was her goddamn name?
An eye opened. Lina swallowed. “Please tell me your name isn’t Gracia. Because I don’t think my heart could take it. Literally.”
Naga’s face went a little paler and her eyes widened. She didn’t say anything right away, but her expression was impossible to hide. She went through a dozen possible responses before settling on one that wasn’t too terrible antagonistic. “I haven’t answered to that name in years. Where did you hear it?”
Naga’s reaction said it all. Her response only cemented it, and Lina craved a terribly cheap drink to wash away what this actually meant. Hands scrubbed down her face and she grabbed onto her cheeks, stretching them down dramatically while letting out a very exaggerated ‘uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggghhhhhh.’ “Dreamwise, after finally ditching you, Amelia joins my squad of traveling misfits every once in awhile. Your Uncle Randy tried to kill your dad, then Amelia tried to convince me to teach her the Dragon Slave - didn’t work, obviously. About a year later, your dad fakes his death because your cousin Alfred made some deals with monsters about taking over Saillune for Garv. The Chaos Dragon Garv. So, yeah. I know your sister.”
Amelia was practically her little sister there, they’d only been about a year apart in age (yet she had bigger boobs and Lina hated her for it). And to connect the dots and think they were all somehow related…
“You got beer, at least?”
Naga stared blankly at her frienemy, trying to absorb all that her family was getting up to in her absence. “Beer is in the fridge.”
She sank down further into the couch, her mouth flatlining and her face sagging. “I shouldn’t be surprised, my family is insane. Amelia is the only other sane one!”
Helping herself to a beer, she thought it’d be nice to fetch Naga one too. So she returned, two in tow, and used her shirt to twist open the cap. “Royal families are complicated,” she mumbled, the thought of Naga being a princess was just...ugh, what? Really? This was just her luck, wasn’t it? It was practically always her goddamn luck. “And if you and Amelia are the sane ones out of the bunch, then that concerns me.”
Lina had to take a couple gulps of the beer - it didn’t even taste all that good, but something had to wash away the taste of...ugh, the taste of what the fuck, okay. The only way to put it. “Where are you, during all this? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t really miss you in them, but…” Really, right now, she had Martina tagging along and that was practically dealing with a different version of Naga, laugh and skanky sorceress outfit included. “You know how we dealt with a lot of...crazy stuff? Well, it got crazier. To the extreme. To where the world’s been threatened, I’ve saved it, and people still think I’m the biggest plague to the world.”
Probably has to do with all the property damage she’d inflicted throughout the years, but c’mon. A lot of it really was collateral damage for the greater good?
“It sounds like you met my father and uncle, right?” Naga wrinkled her nose as if that should explain everything. She fell silent, letting Lina talk. Her expression soured noticeably and she knocked back nearly half of her beer in one go. “Avoid enchanted pottery.”
Avoiding enchanted pottery sounded like sound advice, sure. Why not? “Now that’s a story,” she snickered, leaning back against the couch. The beer wasn’t doing shit if she were honest, but she could at least sort of pretend it did. “If you haven’t seen Amelia in awhile, you maybe should. You’re the big sister, right? Make sure she’s okay.” And it had to do with Lina wanting to know if she was fine, too. Attachment to people she never met was a weird thing, but it couldn’t be avoided, could it?
It was a story, and not one she’d talk about unless pressed. Would she have any idea how depressing being stuck in a suit of armor was? And to make matters worse, Naga barely remembered who she was in the dreams. It was like having a part of her stripped away.
“That would mean showing my face in front of the family again. Ugh. We own a plantation, of all things.” There. That slight southern twang again.
“At least call her?” That didn’t involve literally ‘showing her face,’ and it was better than no contact. Lina’s attachment to Amelia was of the sibling variety, and even if Phil was a walking joke, there’d been fondness for the hairy giant too - and she was mostly nudging Naga for her own gain. A peace of mind, to know that one of her closest and dearest people from dreamland was actually okay. “It’d be nice to know if she’s doing okay, you selfish twit,” she huffed.
Mostly because these dreams weren’t spelling out anything good, and she’d take comfort where she could.
Naga frowned, the expression all but a pout. “I wrote her. Last year. I think.” She scratched the back of her head, then sighed heavily, as though Lina were putting her up to something dreary and unnecessary. “Fine. I’ll call her. It might be nice to hear a friendly voice for once.”
Lina tried fighting a grin, and failed. “Good! And to make sure you actually do it, I’ll be around when you do!” Oh, she wasn’t giving Naga a choice - it’d enforce the entire thing, plus it’d be...nice to hear Amelia’s voice. Even if it was over the phone, even if it was just only a little bit. It was the closest she’d get, so she’d take it.