Chapter 137: Thera's Perspective

Words : 995 Updated : Oct 9th, 2025

chapter 137: thera's perspective it turned out the entertainment ben had in mind was board games, and lots of them. while their house had lowmage to play for whenever they got bored, it seemed he’d decided to take the time to recreate a few from his own world and made sure to carefully explain the rules of each before cracking them open and giving them a go, the result of which being ben's total defeat. “hey thera, how is this possible,” he asked, voice full of exhaustion. “it’s not like i thought you didn’t have a chance at any of them, but i figured i’d at least win the first rounds for sure while you were getting the hang of them. to not have a single victory, am i under some sort of curse?” she patted his shoulder and tried to console him. “there there, you did your best and they were a lot of fun, we should play them again sometime.” they really were enjoyable, no worse than any of the other games the world had to offer. both checkers and chess felt like they could be simplified versions of lowmage, but even more interesting were the cards. with so many games that could be played if you owned a set, she didn’t doubt they were as common on his world as he’d led her to believe. “well we can play whenever you want, they’re all yours. happy birthday thera.” she wasn’t sure what to say. it was the first time she’d received a gift from a friend on her birthday, at least someone she could consider a genuine friend. in the past, she’d received things from the children of government officials working under her mother, but she could always see the fear in their eyes and she’d hated it. receiving a gift from ben who was smiling at her, even if he seemed wrung out from defeat after defeat was infinitely more touching and she felt a blush spread to her cheeks. ben for his part didn’t give her time to say anything. “anyway, enough time should have passed. put on something nice and let's go meet with falk and sonya.” “hmm? aren’t they just coming here?” “it’s a surprise. now come on, throw on whatever you think looks good and we’ll be on our way.” she felt genuinely confused about what they could possibly be doing but did as she was asked and went to her room, thinking they might be eating at her uncle's home instead, as odd as that would be. still, it would be nice to dress up for it. she had a few nicer outfits, but they were only worn occasionally while at home. if she went out there was a greater than not chance she’d ruin it either by training or by hunting, so most of the time she had something old and comfortable on under her cloak. she ended up going with a light blue shirt with some nicer black pants before throwing her cloak back on and meeting ben back in the living room. he’d changed earlier, going from his worn-out shop clothes to a plain black shirt and pants, but it was a nice look and he quickly dragged her out of the house. she hadn’t realised just how dark it had gotten after she’d worked on treating ben's bruises and playing a few hours of games, but it was clear the sun would set soon and she just hoped sonya and falk wouldn’t have been waiting long. “celebratin’ your birthday of course,” her uncle answered. “okay, but why here?” “it was ben’s idea,” sonya said, turning to ben and expecting him to go on. “it’s nothing crazy, you said you liked the food here before so i just figured you might like the chance to try out eating at the actual restaurant and enjoy it fresh. anyway, we rented the place for a few hours so don’t worry about it and let me know what’s good on the menu.” “wait, renting out an entire restaurant isn’t nothing!” she yelled, ignoring ben’s request. “this is nice, it really is, but you guys shouldn’t spend so much.” “well, falk and i didn’t actually contribute to this at all,” sonya told her. “ben just panicked a bit when he found out he only had a week to figure out what to do for your birthday.” “so you made all of those games on top of arranging all of this?” “it really wasn’t that much so don’t worry about it. by the way, is anyone going to judge if i order two meals for myself? everything here sounds great so i can’t decide.” “you know, you could just ask to try some of ours instead of stuffing yourself,” her uncle told him with a sigh. “oh, i fully plan on grabbing some bites of whatever you all order too, i’ll go last so my orders don’t double-up at all.” “i can’t believe this,” thera muttered to herself as she looked over the menu. it was kind and sweet and altogether too much. even if it had to be done once the restaurant was supposed to be closed, wasn’t this the sort of outing she’d long stopped hoping to have for her birthday? just a day of normalcy that anyone else could enjoy, going out and celebrating with the people she cared about. now that she was here, what was she supposed to do? as ben and her uncle kept talking about food, her aunt took her hand and lightly leaned in to whisper for her. “just relax and have fun, this is your day after all.” she took a breath. her aunt was right, not many days like this would come, she needed to enjoy it while it was here.

Chapter 137: Thera's Perspective

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