Ameliorate

Chapter 12: Learning

The rain appeared to pause as Darryl scrolled through Twitter. Zak was sitting at the table to his right, looking at the fanart on Twitter.

Some more recent art showed Addison, Elizabeth and Will all jamming out to 'Your New Boyfriend.'

Darryl made sure to save some of those to send to both the girls.

"Hi guys," Elizabeth greeted as she walked into the kitchen, sitting across the table from Zak and Darryl.   She set her laptop on the table and had her wireless headphones around her neck.

"Hi, Elizabeth, how's it going?"

She brushed her blonde hair out of her face. "It's going well, swapped out with Niki for Among us so I can get some writing done."

"I don't think I've asked you yet, what're you writing?" Darryl asked as Zak continued to scroll.

Elizabeth's blue eyes lit up. "So there's these two teenage boys from Earth that get abducted by aliens, as they do."

Zak snickered. "As they do."

"And the aliens want to invade Earth, I don't really have a reason for that yet other than just it being a SciFi cliche, but that's ok. But one of the boys is a werewolf."

Darryl blinked. "Wasn't expecting that one."

"That was my hope, make it a little more unique. He's gonna have ties with the Fae back on Earth-"

"Oh, so it's both, then," Darryl reasoned. "Space and fantasy."

"Yes!" Elizabeth grinned. "The pair gets unabducted and the Fae stir up trouble for the Aliens and help fight them off."

"That sounds really cool!" Darryl smiled.

"I'm glad you think so!" Elizabeth beamed as she opened her laptop.

"Also, did I hear you say you liked STARSET?" Darryl asked. "I think I heard you say it at some point, but I'm not sure."

"Yes, I love STARSET," Elizabeth smiled. "Have you listened to them, Zak?"

"If I say no are you gonna make me listen to it?"

"Yes."

"Then yes."

"Well, I'm pretty sure you're lying, so you're gonna listen to it anyways," Elizabeth stated, handing Zak her headphones.

"That's what I figured."

Zak placed the headphones over his ears as Elizabeth started to play 'Into the Unknown.'

"Oh, I also had a question for you, Darryl," Elizabeth stated.

"What kind of question?"

"Knife throwing. One of the characters is going to use throwing knives, and I want to know how to write it realistically."

"Oh, I can help with that," Darryl told her. "What do you want to know?"

"Just...how is it done, I don't know how to chuck knives."

The trio stayed there for several minutes, with Darryl telling Elizabeth how to throw knives and Elizabeth taking notes in a Google Doc.  Zak continued to listen to STARSET.

"Thanks, Darryl," Elizabeth said. "That was very helpful."

"Of course!"

"Ok, STARSET has some cool songs," Zak admitted, taking the headphones off and handing them back to Elizabeth.