Twisted Destiny

“Why the frown, Amicia?” Hilda asked.

“Was I frowning?” I countered. “I was just thinking about something, don’t worry about it.”

“Bad thoughts?” My sister added.

“No, really, don’t worry about it.” I didn’t like repeating myself. “I’ll send Veanya a message as soon as we get our stuff settled back to where it should be. Like this amazing food that should be in your fridge.”

Nikki nodded and put the cards down before she got up and beckoned Sam and I towards the kitchen. “There should be enough space left, and if not we can put it in the freezer.”

“Their food is best when it’s not frozen though.” Sam replied.

“Pretty much every kind of frozen food will taste worse than the fresh dish." Nikki smiled.

"Eh, I'm pretty partial to frozen pizzas though. There's some frozen pizza's that are definitely better than some pizza's I've had in restaurants before." I stated.

"I mean… that's true, but generally speaking…" Nikki started to scratch her cheek mid-sentence. "Well... I kinda like bread after it's been frozen too."

"That's a wild opinion, Nikki." Hilda gazed at us over the back of her seat. "Are you for real on that one?"

"I can't help it." Nikki shrugged, opening the fridge for us. "It might be a crazy opinion, but in my opinion it's true." She then took one of the bags out of Sam's hand and started puzzling it in. "We will try to eat most of it tomorrow. It should still be fine then, right?"

"For sure." Sam laughed. "I was mostly joking anyway. My parents freeze most of their stuff themselves when hey can't give more to their neighbours. Food waste is a big no-no for us."

"We should honestly watch our waste better ourselves, if your parents have any tips concerning that, tell them they are free to let us know."

"I'll let my mom lend you her cookbook 'Less Food Waste is better Food for your Waist.'"

“Why does that sound like one of those cheesy diet cooking books?” My sister squinted at the thought.

“Because it is, hah.” Sam laughed. “But she swears by it and I am not about to start doubting my mom’s cooking or she might actually disinherit me.”

“I can imagine your parents being very strict on you not criticising their cooking, yeah.” I giggled as I started to puzzle the bags of food into the fridge as well.

“Strict doesn’t even start to describe it. I once complained about the seasoning of her tomato soup and my mom didn’t speak with me for a week, even though dad told me behind her back that he kind of felt the same about it.”

“But he was wise enough not to tell her.” Hilda chuckled.

“Yeah… I learned a very important lesson that time. But luckily it hasn’t happened again since.” Sam gave a thumbs up. “I’m a fast learner.”

“I have noticed.” I gave my girlfriend a peck on her cheek.

In response Sam hugged me close and whispered into my ear. “Good to see your mood has improved.” Before she kissed me on top of my head.

“Do you two want to join our games by the way?” Nikki asked as she walked back to her seat after stuffing away the food we brought.

“I might.” Sam nodded.

“I’m not going to.” I replied honestly. “I’m going to send a message to Veanya and then I am getting my stuff to work a bit.”

“Gonna go and do that in your room?” My sister frowned slightly.

I shook my head in return. “No, I’ll come sit over here. I can handle the noise while I’m letting the creative juices flow.”

“Alright, I’ll get some chips and snacks for you to snack on too then, just for your creativity’s sake of course. Unless you are too full for that.”

“A snack is always welcome in my mouth hole.”

Everyone snorted at my little quip.

“Do I get snacks to put in my mouth hole as well?” Sam asked.

My sister shook her head and squinted. “What? Of course not. I’m not about to feed the competition.” She smirked. “What do you want?”

“Cocktail sausages if you have any.”

“Of course. Canned and ready to go.”

“Yesss.” My girlfriend clenched her fist in victory. “But first I’ll help Ami.”

“Sure, I’ll deal some cards for you already.” Nikki kept her word and immediately started to reshuffle the cards.

While my family did that I moved off to my room with Sam following closely behind me. When I got in I waited for Sam before I closed the door and fished out my phone to message our Godly friends like I promised, though my mind completely blanked on what to type, almost making me want to just put away my phone again.

In the meantime Sam helped me by taking my drawing stuff together. “Don’t know what to write?”

“Kinda.” I admitted. “There’s something wrong with my head, please send help. How does that sound?”

“Maybe a bit overly dramatic.” Sam chuckled somewhat nervously.

“Is it wrong though?”

Sam put all my stuff together on my little desk and sat down on my bed, beckoning me to sit next to her which I did. “You tell me. You’ve been acting a bit agitated to your family too, way different from how you were around my parents earlier.”

“I guess…” I agreed. “But it’s not like it felt foreign or strange… Does that make sense?”

“Like it wasn’t so forward like your vision of death.”

“Yeah. Exactly. It just felt like me.”

“Not any anger because of your other… ‘feature’ either?” Sam used her fingers to put that word between quotation marks.

“Red vision? No, nothing even close to that either.” I shook my head.

“Hmm… well, that’s good then. We don’t want you to go berserk on your family.”

“I would never!” I violently shook my head. “I was maybe a bit annoyed at them but I would never hurt a single hair on their bodies.”

Sam smiled and put her hand on mine. “Then we just put that all in text together with everything that happened earlier and report that to Veanya and the purple tornade cat in CC.”

“Heh, purple tornado cat. Gamma the PTC.” I chuckled as I lifted up my phone.

“Or I could type it if you want. Then you can just laze with you head on my lap for a couple of moments. How does that sound.”

“Say no more, girlfriend of mine.” I immediately offered my phone to Sam and bowed my head towards her and in mere moments I was turned into a purring puddle just melting on her lap while she typed the message to the holy duality.

I was gutted that Sam was such a quick typer and that she had asked to play together with my family but that’s just how life is from time to time. Although she did promise me that we would continue this later this evening if I wanted to, which I definitely did.

We made our way back to the living room with my drawing supplies in hand and I quickly installed myself on the other side of the table from where the poker game was about to continue.

“The message has been sent.” I anticipated their question.

“Yep, I typed it for her while she was being my lap cat.” Sam’s smug smile made me blush a little.

“T-talking about lap cats… Where are Pocki and Mocchi?”

The moment I called out their names I saw two little cat heads pop up from behind the sofa against the wall.

“Heh, what are you two doing there?” As I talked to them my feline friends quickly ran over to me. “Did you two find a new place to sleep?”

My cats meowed.

“Oh, I see, I see. You are hiding from my big scary sister.”

“Hey! That’s not what they are saying!” Élise pouted. “I can’t speak cat but that’s a big fat lie if I ever heard one. They love sleeping on my chest too much to be afraid of me.”

“Hehe.” I giggled. “I was indeed joking. They just said they like the cozy feeling the enclosed space gives to them.”

“Now that I can believe.”

“Élise, don’t let your sister distract you too much, it’s your turn first to play and I would like to take all your fake money while you are paying attention. Otherwise the victory would feel a bit hollow.” Hilda started with the smack talk.

“Big words coming from you, chief. I don’t think you have won a single hand this evening.”

“It’s all a tactic to put you on the wrong foot. With these cards I can’t lose.”

“Are we playing or are we just going to talk about playing?” Sam had well and truly installed herself in her seat as she sucked up one of the cocktail sausages my sister had prepared while we were away.

“Alright, I’ll raise then.” My sister began the round with a smug smile. “I’ll bleed you all dry by the end of this evening.

And as it would seem, Hilda’s bluff appeared to not have been a bluff after all as she managed to get a Royal Flush that same game. My sister was not amused.