And She Was

The Beginning

"You want to fly that by me one more time?"
Gareth cursed under his breath as he glanced at his friend and dungeon master, Eddie Munson. Despite the constant stream of conversation that flooded the cafeteria of Hawkins High, the table that the Hellfire Club occupied had gone eerily quite.

"I'm not going to be able to come to Hellfire this week."

Eddie leaned forward, drumming his ring clad finger on the tables sticky surface. "That's what I thought you said. And what, pray tell, could be so important that you suddenly can't attend our newest campaign? One," Eddie added, "that Gareth the Great has a key roll in?"
Groaning, Gareth clasped his head between his hands in frustration. "It's so stupid, man. My aunt and cousin just moved to Hawkins and my parents want to have a family dinner or some bullshit the same day as Hellfire. I tried to get out of it but ma won't budge."

The other Hellfire members started talking over one another, various exclamations of displeasure coming from their mouths. Ignoring them, Eddie chose to focus on Gareth. "Why don't you just bring your cousin to Hellfire, then?" And once again, the table became a silence amidst the chaos. It wasn't like Eddie to invite an outsider to their sacred club. Especially someone that hardly anyone knew anything about. Gareth hesitated, thinking it over. With a firm shake of his head, he retorts, "No way. One, they've never played. They wouldn't be able to keep up. And two, I don't think they would even want to come. It's not something that they would even find interesting."

"No one," Eddie drawled, "said your cousin had to play. They merely need to sit in. Besides, it's fantasy!" Shoving back from the table, Eddie sidled his way between Gareth and Jeff. Wrapping his arm around their shoulders, he asked, "Now what kind of kid doesn't like fantasy?"

Gareth scoffed, rolling his eyes. "Man, my cousin is almost as old as you are, not a kid." "Wait, what? So, does that mean—?" "Yeah, my cousins attending Hawkins High too. I'm actually surprised she hasn't shown up here yet." Eddie straightened to his full height, glancing down at Gareth. "She?" "Yeah, my cousin Aileen. She started last week."

Eddie scanned the cafeteria, searching for any unfamiliar faces in the sea of students. Which was proving to be quiet difficult because he realized that he didn't actually pay much attention to those outside of Hellfire and those who bought weed from him. He briefly glanced at the basketball teams table, but disregarded it when he noticed that nothing new was going on there.

"Why didn't you mention this before?" Jeff asked. Shrugging, Gareth picked up a now cold fry, popping it in his mouth. "Didn't seem relevant, until it started to mess with Hellfire. She and I aren't close. I didn't even..." Eddie didn't hear the rest of the conversation because that's when he saw her, walking into the cafeteria with Robin Buckley flanking her left side. He didn't know how he knew she was Gareths cousin, but man...

At first glance, nothing really stood out. She was wearing a plain pair of blue jeans, a Talking Heads tshirt, and a denim vest, similar to his own but without all the metal regalia. Round glasses were perched on a straight nose that was sprinkled with freckles, with eyes the same shade of evergreens gleaming behind them. The corners of full lips the color of dusty rose turned up slightly as she responded to whatever Robin had just said, and her hair was chestnut in color, tied back loosely with a scrunchie. She stood a little shorter than Robin but what made her stand out to Eddie was her figure. Most the girls at Hawkins High were as thin as an arrow, which wasn't bad. But Gareths cousin, Eddie decided, was voluptuous. She had a softness to her body that almost demanded to be worshiped.

"Yo, Eddie...Eddie!"

Snapping his gaze away from the fascinating creature before him, Eddie turned his attention to his club, who were all staring at him, perplexed.