Magician's Melody: Hymn of the Fallen

Part 2

As we walked down the road we met up with some of Daniel's friends.

"Long time no see Big D!" The only other guy there came up and bro-hugged Daniel. Daniel pushed him away.

"Please stop calling me that," Daniel cringed as his friend used it again.

"No promises Big D." Daniel shook his head. "Never mind. Parker, this is Nikki from my art class. Nikki this is Parker."

"Nice to meet you." He gave me a friendly fist bump before we went through the rest of the greetings with the group.

Allyssa, Parker, Daniel, and Lyric.

We spent time beginning to walk towards the mini-mall, I decided to keep quiet and watch the friend group in action.

Parker is the practical jokester of the group.

Allyssa, I think, is in a relationship with Parker, but she's quiet and he's really loud... So it's hard to tell.

Lyric I had seen around before in other classes. Quite the science whiz and very smart.

Daniel seemed close with everyone, and he wasn't shy but quietly reserved.

We talked more on the way there and got to know each other.

"So where are you from Nikki?" Daniel asked first.

"All over the place. My dad used to work for the military."

"Used to? Did he retire?" Parker piped in.

"Uh no. He... he passed." I stammered, Daniel shoved Parker and gave him a glare.

"Sorry, I didn't know." Daniel sympathized.

"It's alright. You couldn't know." I shrugged my shoulders and we walked in silence. Crap, I always do this, say something dumb and make it awkward for everyone.

After a while of me mentally hitting myself, Allyssa spoke up. "What was he like?"

I was shocked, most people don't like to bother with it. "He was good. He would do anything for our family." I shoved my hands into my pockets. "He was strong and sweet. He taught us how to make pies and even how to tackle someone." I chuckled.

"Well don't let me drag the mood down," I said with a forced smile. "What do you guys want to do first?"

"Lunch!" A shout from behind us startled me.

A young girl with short brunette hair and an electric blue streak came running up behind us and jumped on Daniel. She nearly knocked him down, which was impressive because Daniel is big. She was a couple of inches taller than me. Her height was closer to the two guys than the rest of us girls.

She had this huge ecstatic smile. A confident stride brought her up to me.

"Hi! You must be Nikki. I'm Iris." The girl chimed.

"Hey, it's nice to meet you, Iris. How did you know my name?"

"Group chat." She smiled and moved along, talking about all the group chat gossip and how much she missed hanging out with everyone.

"Well, if you came to school you would see us more," Parker responded to her social chatter.

"Eh, school is too boring for my taste. I like work, action, actually doing something that feels productive." Iris gleamed with pride.

"You don't go to school?" I asked curiously. "Then what do you do?"

"Work at the gym around here, and then do whatever I want," she shrugged and carried on happy to be with her friends.