Glasses (Alarian)

“But I don't really need Glasses!” I shout stomping after Leliana as she goes through the halls “Yes you do Ali whether you like it or not. We’re going come on.” I frown “I can see fine though!” She points to the sign at the end of the hallway “What’s that say then?” I squint at it then look at her “Even I wouldn't say that.” She takes her bag off the chair “Wrong. You're getting your eyes checked. Let's go.” I groan and roll my eyes. “teenagers” Leliana mutters “Hey that's not nice! And besides I'm technically older than you by a long shot!” She laughs “I'm kidding.” Morrigan peaks out from the library “what's all the noise about?” I point to Leliana “She's making me go to the eye doctor and- and I don't wanna go.” Morrigan leans against the door frame “you scared?” I look at my feet “little bit.” I mumble a slight bit embarrassed “well why didn't you just say that? Here, I'll make you a deal. We go see doctor Haruko and then we can go get lunch or something. And then go pick out your glasses. Deal?” I go grab my shoes that are by the door and bring them back over dropping them at my feet “Fine.”

Leliana fills out some forms as I lace up my shoes and drag on my coat, my green cloak in currently in the wash because Wynne said it was “filthy”, so I search through the closet and come across a navy blue toggle coat. “Ok, let's go.” I stand at the front door waiting, Leliana grabs her keys and we go on our way, walking down the cobblestone path towards Denerim.

“So your positive this isn't a trick like last time?” We walk through the marketplace “yes I'm positive, we only did that because if you knew you'd probably freak out and refuse.” She takes my hand and pulls me out of the way of a cart that comes rumbling by. “If I remember correctly, I did freak out and refuse and you three left me there!” Leliana sighs “how many times do we need to apologize? And that was for the best, you're in a better place now, and even you can't deny that Ali.” I shrug “yeah I guess.” We walk up to an apartment looking building and open the door walking into a doctor's office. I sit down in one of the chairs, it looks like a nicer version of Anders’s clinic in Kirkwall, a much nicer version. Leliana check in and comes back with a clipboard and a sheet of questions, she asks me them and fills them out gradually until the sheet is complete. Now we wait, forty seven minutes and twenty nine seconds later we are called in...yes I kept count. The nurse has me sit in a chair and look through some strange device, she adjusts it until the picture becomes clear, tells me not to blink, and then there's a clicking noise, all done. Afterwards she leads us into a little room with a large chair, a lot of little bottles, and more weird stuff. I sit in the chair kicking my feet back and forth “I'm going to dilate your eyes now Alarian.” Ohhh nooo not this thing, it's literally they squirt stuff into your eyes. Ahhhgjghjfgjdjj that stuff burns owww. I groan and squirm around, the nurse tries to calm me down and says that the worst parts over and the doctor should be in momentarily. I glare at Leliana “you owe me Leli, you owe me big time.” She smirks “I know, I know.” There's a knock on the door and the doctor enters, he shakes my hand first “Hello Alarian. My name is Moto Haruko, I'm your opthamologist.” He turns to Leliana and shakes her hand “and you must be mom?” She shakes her head “legal guardian.” She corrects him. He nods with a smile and looks over some papers. “I see no previous records, except for one when you were very little, it showed slight strabismus of the eyes and a recommendation for glasses. But that was nearly 16 years ago.” I bite the inside of my lip slightly. “This won't hurt, I'm just going to position this and you'll look through it and tell me what you see. Easy enough?” I nod “good.” He takes another strange mechanism and places it over my eyes. I can see some letters, until they get to a point where it's just fuzzy stuff. We continue doing that with different settings until Dr. Haruko takes the thingy away, leaves for a second and comes back after some calculations “Well Miss Cousland,
It seems that you do need a slight increase in prescription. Not too much and you don't need to wear them all the time, just mostly for reading and writing with smaller print.” He tears off the page and gives it to Leliana, says good day and leaves. I throw my head back with a groan “ughhhhhhgghhd...why.” Leliana pulls me out of the chair and onto my feet, “come on let's go eat.” I drag my feet as we walk out of the office and down the stairs out of the building. I follow her to a place in the eastern quarter of the market place, a little kosher diner, it's delicious. We sit at the counter and look over the menu. It's a bit hard going out to eat for me sometimes though, because I'm allergic or sensitive to a lot of different things. So I'm constantly told “you can't eat that! Or this menu all has stuff that you can't eat”. Or I'm what I consider ‘semi-kosher’ meaning I'm sometimes kosher and sometimes I'm not. But on holidays like Yom kippur and others that require fasting, I fast. Luckily we go here a lot for breakfast when we’re in Denerim so they know me. The owner is an older Jewish man who used to work as a rabbi in the alienage. Though he has a name, he's better known simply as ‘rabbi.’” “Shalom Ali, Shalom Leliana! How are you today, good?” He leans on the counter “Shalom rabbi! Yes we are well, just got out of a doctor's appointment.” I reply and then ask “you don't have any bagels and lox do you?” He laughs “For my little friend...of course I do. What would you like lady Leliana?” She looks at her menu and at the end she orders the same thing as I do, a bagel and lox. I spin around on the stool as we wait, and watch the people walking by. I see some familiar faces but mostly strangers off going to work or something like that. In a bit I hear two clatters on the counter and there's my plate… I sigh, aaaahhh who ever knew how delicious a bagel could look. It's slightly brown on the edges because it was toasted and has a fresh piece of salmon and some cream cheese. If you've never tried a bagel and lox, I'm just gonna say this, try. One. It's amazing. Leliana eats hers very daintily like a bard would do, and I- I eat mine how you'd expect a warden to...wolf it down, but do it classily, we aren't some plain old soldiers no no no, we are pretty much the apocalypse special forces. We have class, sass, and ass. Meaning some of us *cough cough loghain cough cough* can be conceded murderous treason-prone jerks but you also have the price of Fereldan and the queen of Tevinter. Leliana looks at my plate with wide eyes “well you were hungry.” I shrug. After lunch the two of us chat with Rabbi for a while, catching up on current events and the like, then bid farewell and head off to the glasses store. We open the glass door and walk in, it smells like the eye doctor’s office, clean and cold and unnatural. We look through frames until I find a pair I like. It's a simple pair of ovalish shaped glasses, made of metal and a bit of plastic and silver colored. Leliana pays and the worker gets us a case for them and sends us on our way. We go back home. “You do realize I will do everything in my power to not wear these, right?” I kick a pebble as we walk, Leliana puts an arm around my shoulder and pulls me towards her “I know. And eh, yeah you annoy me sometimes, but I probably do the same, if not even more. And know you're one of my closest friends no matter what.” I smile to myself. Today wasn't so bad after all.