“Come on Ben, I don’t want to make them wait.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming.”

“You’re dragging your feet a bit,” Thera laughed at him. “Do you really object to even getting this close to it?”

“No… Maybe. I’m just going to do my best to not look at the volcano while we’re eating. I’ll probably manage.”

“How are you still not used to it yet? It’s not going to erupt.”

“When I’m inside I can pretend I’m literally anywhere else, it’s a lot better for my mental health. Your friends couldn’t have met us in the city?”

“She doesn’t want to worry her parents by running off. It’s fine, if something happens then I’ll protect you.”

He still seemed less than confident but Thera took his hand and dragged him along a bit farther up from the volcano’s base for a small activity. A picnic to let Insia and Rocky meet Ben.

Since he’d been spending so much time working, there hadn’t been a chance for the three to be introduced, but she wanted it to happen. Thera had pretty firmly decided she wanted to maintain her relationship with them at that point and since Insia didn’t seem to have many friends amongst the fairies, introducing her to Ben felt like a solid choice to help broaden the girl's social circle.

It wasn’t hard to find her either. The little blue fairy stood out in the distance from the light she gave off and Thera waved her down, ending with her and Rocky racing over and flying around Thera’s head before landing on her shoulders and giving Ben a curious look.

“Hi there, you must be Insia, Thera’s told me a lot about you,” He said brightly, hiding whatever discomfort the volcano was giving him to prioritize making a good impression. “And you must be Rocky. I’m Ben, it’s nice to meet you both.”

“So you can see me as well? Unusual.”

“Ha, I have a couple of skills that can work in tandem to let me manage,” He explained, not going into the specifics of which ones. Telling anyone that he had such a high level of sacrilege that he could see the bits of faith within them was bound to create an odd impression at best, same with revealing he was a mind reader who was using that ability to know what Rocky was trying to say. “Anyway, I brought food for us but now that I’m here, sorry if this is a dumb question but do you guys need to eat or do you live off of mana like spirits do?”

“I only need mana. Thank you though.”

“I can eat depending on what it is,” Insia spoke up, looking interested as he reached into his bag and pulled out sandwiches, two regular-sized ones for him and Thera and a smaller one for the fairy and watched as she tried it.

Or what he took to be her trying it. She didn’t bite into it the way that he or Thera were eating theirs, instead, ripping off small chunks and burning them with her body heat, making each bit combust as she took in the flames it produced before dropping the remaining ash to the ground.

“Delicious!” The girl said happily. “No wonder Thera was talking up your cooking so much!”

“Uh, glad you like it,” He told her, even if on the inside he was suddenly filled with questions about the finer details of fairy biology, keeping them to himself in an effort to show any amount of tact. “So Thera’s been telling me you’ve been keeping her pretty busy, showing her all kinds of cool stuff in the area.”

“Oh, there’s tons! There’s a beautiful crystal cave pretty close to here if you want to see anything too, it just might be a bit of a squeeze for you.”The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Maybe another day,” He laughed, desperately trying to hide how much he didn’t want to go anywhere on a volcano that could be described as a squeeze. “I guess you know this area pretty well, huh?”

“Well, it’s my home after all. Of course I know it,” She said proudly. “Anywhere you’d want to see, I can show it off.”

“Well, maybe I’ll take you up on that the next time I’m in the city.”

It was a simple statement to avoid being pulled along anywhere that he thought might spell his impending doom, but it got him a gentle elbow from Thera and a small pout from Insia.

“So I guess you’re both leaving soon?” The fairy asked, obvious in how glum the prospect left her.

“A couple days,” Thera said. “But I’ll come back to visit before you know it. Like I’ve said, it’s basically a quick gate away for me so even if we both need to get back to work soon, it won’t be hard to make time to pop through. I’ll even bring something fun next time I come.”

That perked her up. “Fun?”

“Sure, I happen to know someone who’s excellent at making games, I’ll bring you some when I’m back,” She promised, giving Ben a wink as she did.

Alright, looks like I’m figuring out what I can make that won’t burn. A lot of board games can be made out of metal and stone so those are options. Cards would be harder to fireproof but I can probably think of a way to make them work, it just might take some experimenting. Of course, Thera has been saying she’s worried about the girl being alone so some solitary options would work too. She’s a fairy so she should have the mana control, maybe I could see about how small I can make different video games for her to play with? If I go all out it shouldn’t be hard.

“It’s a promise then! No letting us down now that you’ve said it, we’ve got our hopes up, right?”

“Right.”

…And apparently I’ll be working on a way to make sure that elementals will be able to play and enjoy everything too. Okay, this is still probably doable. I’ll see if Thera can talk a spirit into helping later. And I’ll cross my fingers that the two races are comparable enough that one enjoying what I make will translate to the other liking it too. Oh well, nothing wrong with a new mini-project to kill some time.

They spent another hour chatting, Insia continuing to show either her nature as a fairy or perhaps her youth by fluttering in excitement as she wondered just what sort of mystery present she’d get from beyond the gate until it was finally time to part as the sky grew dark.

They said their goodbyes for the night, Thera promising to meet up with the two of them again the following day, leaving her and Ben alone for the walk back.

“They seem nice,” He told her. “I can see why you’re getting along.”

“Yeah, she’s sweet,” Thera sighed, forced to think that the girl would only have Rocky again when she was gone. “Ben, you’re social enough. How do you make friends? Or help people make friends?”

“Ha, usually it’s shared interests or being stuck with them long enough that it just sort of happens so long as you don’t hate each other. Are you that worried?”

“I just… Yeah, I don’t want her feeling alone when I’m not going to be here anymore.”

Maybe it was just the memories of her own youth making her project, but the fact that the girl didn’t seem to have other friends was bothering her, with the lack of easy solutions only making it worse.

“Hmm, we could always force my three idiots to meet and get along with her if you want?”

“You are not seriously suggesting that I try and set her up with people who were watching you bleed out, are you?”

“Sure, why not? Even if I don’t like them, I don’t actually think Nati’s that bad now that things have been resolved and I don’t think Xilly is ever going to emotionally recover from the reveals Yuzu gave her so she’s solved. As for Zallith, well, I don’t think I’ve quite broken his spirit yet, but it shouldn’t be long till I have him accepting his proper place in life as a footstool and when I do there shouldn’t be any worries there either.”

“...I think I’m going to ignore most of that and place it down as a soft maybe. If you really think they wouldn’t be bad influences then we can try to make it work, but only if you’re positive they won’t do anything to hurt her. I am fully willing to see how many levels of sacrilege I’ll get for murdering a priest and a god's relative, Ben.”

“And as much as I love that we’re officially sacrilege buddies, don’t worry. I’ll tear through their minds to make absolutely sure and if I see any problems I will break them down to a point where they won’t even be recognizable as the same people.”

“Alright then, sure. I’ll see if we can arrange a meeting for the last day and from there that’s one less thing to worry about.”

Neither paid much thought to the direction the conversation had taken, nor how it had sealed the fates of Nati, Xilly, and Zallith. Instead, Ben thought about what he’d have to do tomorrow and Thera enjoyed the sense of reassurance he’d given her as they made their way back to their room to enjoy the rest of the night.