《Hiraeth | Regulus Black》Chapter Fifty Five
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"I look bad... Do I always look this bad?"
Esme tugged at the neck of her jumper and added, "Don't answer that."
Piper folded her arms across her chest, trying to come up with the best way to say what she was thinking. Esme didn't look bad. She never looked bad - the girl was stunning.
It was just... She didn't realise it.
Esme wore the same rotation of old baggy jumpers over and over again and never did anything to her hair other than brush out the knots.
"Maybe try a nice top? That jumper looks about sixty years old." Piper suggested, standing beside Esme and checking out her own blonde hair in the mirror.
"It is about sixty years old." Esme grumbled, "I don't think I have any nice tops."
Piper laughed, "Want to borrow one of mine?"
She sighed, "But your clothes are so... Bright."
"Well we can't all dress in exclusively shades of grey." The older girl muttered under her breath, "Besides, I probably have a black top somewhere."
Esme turned away and collapsed backwards onto her bed, sighing dramatically, "This is the worst."
When she initially agreed to a first, official date with Regulus, Esme hadn't quite thought it through. In the moment, she hadn't considered what she was getting into. Sure, they'd practically been dating for almost a year, so at this point a date would just be the two of them hanging out and having a nice time.
Yet... Esme and Regulus had seemed to do the whole relationship process backwards, and this put a lot of pressure on their first date.
Or so Esme thought.
Regulus, honestly, just wanted to have lunch.
Standing outside in the cold, spring air, Regulus was beginning to regret not wearing a coat.
Though he couldn't get the thought of a warm lunch out of his mind. He had spent the whole week fantasising about having a bowl of chips and a Butterbeer, and now the only thing between him and lunch was Esme.
For some reason, that had at no point been explained to the boy, Esme had insisted upon meeting outside the Three Broomsticks instead of walking down to Hogsmeade together.
It didn't make much sense, but then again not a lot of what Esme did made any sense to Regulus.
"Okay, it's not my fault I'm late, I promise!"
Regulus turned to see Esme jogging towards him.
He had to take a deep breath to stop from choking on the air in his lungs.
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"You-I... Oh-No, I don't-wow, you..." He struggled to even form a coherent sentence as he tripped over his words. He had seen Esme dressed up at parties before, but never had she looked like that.
"Piper insisted I try on every single item of clothing she owns." Esme grumbled, tugging at the bottom of the skirt she was wearing.
Regulus tried not to stare too much, but it was difficult, "Piper knows what she's doing." he mumbled.
"What?" Esme asked.
"Nothing. I just... You look unbelievable." The words fell past his lips.
She groaned, "Is it really that bad? I feel like people are staring."
"Possibly because they don't recognise you."
She was wearing a dark skirt and tights, paired with an tight aubergine-coloured top that greatly pleased Regulus. He was fairly sure he'd seen Piper wearing it last year whilst she flirted with a seventh year Gryffindor boy in the hopes of getting him to do an essay for her.
"Bloody lucky I brought my coat with me." Esme complained as she adjusted the jacket folded over her arms, "Piper tried to tear it out of my hands. She was shouting nonsense about it being ugly. I think it has character."
"I..." Regulus forced his gaze up to the sky as he tried to figure out what exactly it was he wanted to say.
"Reg... Is everything alright?"
"A-absolutely perfect." He nodded.
Esme tugged her coat on over her shoulders as Regulus held the door open for her and they entered the Inn.
"I'll go get us some drinks. Butterbeer?" He offered.
Esme smiled softly, "Great. I-er, shall I get a table?"
"Sounds good."
Needless to say, they were both a little all over the place.
Regulus was feeling a little insecure that Esme was completely out of his league. He'd always thought it, but it was another thing if Esme realised it. She might actually realise that he wasn't as exciting as she was and then Esme would definitely get bored of him.
Esme, on the other hand, was completely certain that she was going to ruin this date. She had been building up the expectations of this date to astronomical heights and now, was dreading the fact that she was going to destroy everything. Typically she wasn't a super warm or charming girl and, now that Death Eaters and war were off the table for conversation, perhaps Regulus would realise that she just wasn't good enough girlfriend-material for him.
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"There you are." Regulus placed down the two drinks on the table, sliding one across the wood towards Esme.
Where they sat, in a booth in the far corner of the Inn, they were almost out of sight of everyone else in there.
The pub was very warm, with a noticeable layer of smoke coating the air and a blanket of tipsy laughter and chortling embracing the atmosphere.
For a minute, Esme and Regulus just stared at each other. Both of them feeling surprisingly nervous having worked themselves up so much.
"You... Er... I don't know how to say this." Regulus ran his hand through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck.
"How... How was your day?" Esme asked, immediately frowning to herself as the words slipped past her lips.
Regulus looked at her, "Excuse me?"
"Anything interesting happen?" Esme hated small talk. She hated to waste her breath on conversation she simply didn't care for, but she wanted to show Regulus she could be kind and thoughtful.
"Er... I don't think so." He replied, "Why?" Regulus, on the other hand, was very adept at small talk on account of having spent much of his youth being forced to socialise with his extensive family that he didn't particularly care for. "Is something going on?" Regulus asked.
"No!" Esme stammered, "I'm-I'm just making pleasant conversation."
"Esme..." Regulus sighed, "It's been about four hours since I last saw you, not a lot has happened."
"Right." She nodded, looking down at her hands in her lap.
Regulus leant forward, resting his elbows on the table, "Are you alright? You're acting... Different."
Esme sighed, leaning back in her seat and looking up at the ceiling now. It didn't take much to crack her as she finally exhaled, "I'm afraid you don't think I'm nice enough, so I'm trying to be more teenage-girly."
"What? Why?"
"Piper was telling me all these things that girlfriends are supposed to do, like smile, giggle, compliment, and make pleasant conversation and... I suck at that." Finally, she lowered her eyes to meet Regulus' stare.
His shoulders slumped down as he insisted, "Esme, if I wanted to date someone like that I'd ask Piper out."
"She's gay."
"That's not the point."
Esme smiled softly as Regulus continued, "I like that you have strong opinions and you voice them. I was never allowed that and it's amazing that you have such confidence and freedom. I like that you're straight up, you say what you mean and I don't have to second guess with you. You do know I love you, don't you? That means I don't want you to be someone else."
"Alright, I'll never be nice again." Esme nodded with a big grin now.
Regulus let out an airy laugh, "I'm glad that's what you took from that."
"So, then..." Esme picked up her drink and swirled it around before taking a small sip, "Why are you acting weird?"
"I'm not." Regulus blurted out a little too quickly to be casual.
She pursed her lips, "You're lying."
"Well... I really should have said this to you outside but... I can't really work out the perfect way to say it." He admitted.
"Say what?"
Regulus took a deep breath, "I mean, you look absolutely breathtaking. You always do, don't get me wrong... But, wow."
"Oh." Esme replied, her voice cracking slightly. A small blush emerged on her cheeks but, thankfully, it was too dark for anyone to notice in the corner of the pub.
"I don't... I don't know what to say." She finally mumbled after a quiet moment.
He chuckled again, "You never did know how to take a compliment."
"So..." Esme thought for a second, "That's why you were acting a little awkward?"
Regulus grimaced as he continued to admit, "Partly... You're absolutely a million miles out of my league. Like, look at you. Why would you possibly want to date someone like me?"
Esme reached across the table to take ahold of his hand, "Looks like we've both been feeling a bit insecure."
"So you don't think I'm dull?" He asked.
"Of course not! Are you kidding me?" Esme laughed suddenly, "Reg, we're literally fighting Death Eaters together. That couldn't be further from dull."
Regulus sighed, leaning back in his seat and taking a swig of Butterbeer, "That's a relief."
"Can we... Hang out? You know, not get in our heads about stupid worries and not obsess over the Dark Lord and war. Can we just have a nice time like normal teenagers?" Esme suggested.
He nodded with a grin, "I'd love that."
-
i adore writing these cute chapters with just esme and regulus
they're so cool and the minute that it's just them they become absolute dorks
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Dungeon Core Chat Room.
This is a slower-paced "experiment and dungeon building" web novel that tries to use the idea of peer-to-peer communication with Dungeon Cores instead of Dungeon to slave monster communication to break up the detailed dungeon building. Rank 1 description: (minimum met for system initialization...detailed description as follows) Each race was given a system by the gods to make up for their shortcomings and balance their place in this world. Humans: Abysmally bad at understanding and using magic unable to use more than the lowest of magic were given the "Skill System" magic in the form of premade skills with use, study, and mastery tied to experience. Elves: Intuitively understand magic and have long lives leading to vast knowledge and skill in their chosen fields. However, as a species, they have nearly zero sex drive and less than low fertility, so they were gifted the "World Tree System" with experience gained through the care of natural areas – gifting the chance of children to increase their numbers without dirty copulation. All “natural” or “wild” monsters are given an "Evolution system" designed around killing and consuming as many creatures as possible, slowly increasing strength and, at thresholds, allowing mutations to alter them multiple times. Dungeon cores are different. Unlike humans, they can see, manipulate and live off mana. Unlike Elves, they naturally crystallize after extended periods of time in high mana level areas. However, they cannot easily move or communicate and typically go insane without companionship. As a species other than the odd eccentric they are unimaginative. Brute forcing solutions without the drive to truly innovate. Thus they have been gifted with the "Dungeon Connection System" a magical version of the internet accessible by their peers that allows them to barter and sell: bait, traps, monsters, and knowledge, as well as entertain each other with “adventure streams” using exciting recorded battles and humorous reels of arrogant chumps biting off more than they can chew to often fatal effects. This is the casual story of a dungeon unluckily spawned far from potential adventurers forced to innovate beyond its peers to find its place in this world. Rank 2 Description: Justification. I've been on a dungeon core kick for months and while I love the genre – it's sparse with entries. Often the forced conflict gets repetitive and frantic solving of threats "power levels" the protagonist to god levels to progress the plot – taking away the nice steady progression fantasy I'm looking for. (Progression in this story is linked to how strong of monsters/traps/whatever he can create not his "level"...this is demonstrated by some of his newer monsters beating his older monsters not with discrete "this monster has 10 attack this one has 40") Additionally, the focus on 3rd parties with their drama takes away from the reason I’m reading dungeon core novels in the first place – I'm looking for magical crafting, experimentation and kingdom building – not defence from higher and higher levelled enemies looking to steal/destroy/control the MC. This novel is kind of just me writing the story I wish I could read. I like thinking about the experimentation that can be done in fantasy settings using 'mana' as an excuse to make up rules and try to keep them internally consistent. IE once I define how a rule works, I'm going to commit to keeping it – no breaking hard truths I've given when it's convenient, even if it backs me into a corner. Hopefully, that should make the story interesting to read even if it's SOL and less action-oriented. There will be problems to solve and a clear progression in strength (of created monsters and knowledge) however due to not wanting to force conflict for the sake of conflict the general theme will be closer to slice of life with few action sequences and no overarching goal so please keep that in mind when picking this up as the genre is not for everyone. Finally, I have a clear goal of what I want from this story (not an endless romp but a series of arcs and then a conclusion that's a couple of dozen medium-sized chapters long) I want to commit to finishing it or at least bringing it to a point of rest. I hate all the engaging stories that stop with a “hiatus” indefinitely so in the event I lose motivation I'll work to end this even if the ending becomes rushed/unsatisfying just to give a sense of closure. I’m planning on including several polls in terms of direction and taking feedback heavily into account if I get enough readers (but may choose to ignore it if it deviates too far from the direction I want to take this as in feedback like: “The MC needs a cartoonishly evil arch-enemy that wants to enslave him and force the mc to pump out magic items” or “the MC needs to make a body and learn teleportation then live with humans” will get shot down without consideration.)
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