Role Play - Alison Hendricks Page 0,69

person that I was honored to be included alongside her. To share that space in Elliot's heart as someone he loved.

I kissed him again, sweetly, a wave of giddiness washing over me as I realized this really was the start of something new. Our life together could be whatever we made it. We could both care for David, take pride in the man he became, and continue helping kids. Together.

The corner of my lips tipped upward when I realized there were other things we could do together, too. "I've got one condition, though. And it's a dealbreaker."

He looked at me questioningly, his gaze narrowed in suspicion.

Leaning close, I whispered in his ear. "You have to wear that pirate costume again sometime."

His laughter was warm and free, his arms around me the salvation I hadn't realized I'd needed so badly. He buried his head against my shoulder briefly, then pressed a kiss to the underside of my jaw.

"Deal. But next time, I get to be the mutinous sailor and you get to be the captain."

"I think I can handle that," I said with a grin, leaning in to kiss him one more time before we headed back out into the main room, taking those first few steps toward starting our life together. A life sure to be full of love, laughter, and maybe the occasional costume.

Because why limit ourselves to just pirates?

Epilogue

Elliot

"That's a twenty-three to hit," David said, his face mostly hidden behind the DM screen as he looked down at his dice tray.

"That hits," came Reuben's response.

"The wolf bites you for..." Dice were rolled again. "Eight piercing damage, and you need to make a Constitution saving throw."

Reuben did as his nephew asked, failing the save and getting diseased for his trouble. Before David moved things along, though, I cut in.

"When you think about the wolf attacking him, what do you see?"

For the past year, David had gotten more and more comfortable playing with different groups and systems. He was even more comfortable playing the role of his character instead of just going by the numbers to decide everything. That incident with Sheila, his ranger's boar, had really stuck with him, and I referred to it often as a frame of reference.

Only because David showed an eagerness to learn and explore this aspect of his own creativity. Some of my other players had no interest in it. If he'd stayed in that same camp, I would have been perfectly happy to keep giving him the encounter-heavy sessions he liked best.

After about eight months of gradually warming up to the idea, he decided he wanted to try his hand on the other side of the table. I'd slowly encouraged the kids to give DMing a shot, but I knew it was something that would take David a while to settle into. The more time I spent with him, the more I saw that he often got caught up in the details and missed some things along the way. This led to him getting frustrated later on when he didn't understand the logic behind something, which had created more than a few occasions where Reuben had needed to smooth things over with his teachers.

Part of me wanted him to transfer over to my school, but despite the fact that he and Reuben had moved in with me -- only a couple months ago now, since David needed to warm up to the idea -- I knew it wasn't a good idea. I'd be too worried about him, and I'd use my status as a teacher to hover. I'd probably just annoy him more than anything, and what he needed was a chance to stand on his own two feet.

DMing was something I could help with, though, and I was glad to do so. He'd taken a full inventory of his strengths and weaknesses and told us he wanted to work on being more descriptive, so I nudged him when I thought it wouldn't be too overwhelming.

"I saw the wolf lunging and opening its jaws wide. Maybe with green-tinged saliva dripped from them as it clamped down on his leg."

"Hell yeah," Reuben said. "Love to get diseased by rabid wolves biting my leg."

I couldn't help laughing at that. Reuben was always so supportive. It was one of the many things I loved about him.

Combat continued, with our characters up against a pack of five wolves with a larger dire wolf alpha. It was definitely close. I ran through all of my spells and Reuben's