The purple lights of Astrid's room soothed her, the plants dotted around - fake, she was never around enough to take care of real plants - gave the room a homey feel, a perfectly peaceful place just for her.

Her legs were curled up, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders with the light of her computer screen lighting up her face.

"I think we've got this" the semi-familiar voice came from her headphones, "at least enough to get to dodgebolt, then we can win" he continued.

"High hopes, Dream" she mused back, clicker dragging along the screen as she replied to emails, not fully engrossed in the game like he was.

It had started as team training, all four of them practising for hours until it was just the two of them and, whilst awkward to begin with, they got on well.

"Listen," he started before swearing under his breath, his block character falling again, "I'm just confident in our team,"

"Too confident, maybe" her eyes flicked to the Twitter tab left open on her second monitor, words cutting into her like stab wounds.

"I don't care what anybody says, you're a good player Astrid! I am fully confident in our team, the whole team"

A smile made its way to her lips.

Whilst his words didn't get rid of the terrible feeling in her gut, they helped. All of the boys had been so supportive of her and helped build up her confidence over the last few days, playing the mini-games for hours just to build her confidence, bigging her up when she felt down.

The idea to quit had crossed her mind a few times, she'd talked to George about it and come to an uncomfortable decision. She hated to let Dream down, but it'd be an unfortunate casualty of her downfall.

"I don't know, maybe I should just quit" she spoke lightly, as if he wouldn't hear her if she didn't speak.

"What?" He spoke, voice a little clearer in the mic as he sat up in his chair, "why would you quit?"

"I don't know..."

"You're going to do amazing, even if you come 40th you're still going to be great and we're still all going to be proud of you" he spoke quick, too quick for her to cut in.

"But-"

"And it's just a game! Like, sure, I'm competitive and would like to win but that's not what it's all about," he finally stopped to take a breath, "you're meeting new people and pulling in a new audience, you can make so many new friends just through this community Astrid"

He stopped, maybe waiting for a reply but she stayed quiet, biting at her thumb as she listened to his words.

"I mean, I don't think we would have spoken if it wasn't for this and that's already a win, we don't need a crown or MCC coin to come out of this successful" his voice had trailed off, seeming out of smoke.

"I know, and I really appreciate all the help, but...it's just"

"Look," he cut her off, "if you want to quit go ahead, but I'd really love for you to be on my team, win or not we'll still gain something"

Now that, was something she wanted to hear.

——————

Written: 30th August 2022

Published:9th September 2022