Adrian took a seat in the pizzeria next to a very calm Nora. He himself did not know how everything had reached this point and he was not referring to his romantic situation about which he felt quite good nor was he referring to how he felt so much power again as a fusion which is something he will have to study later or even the reactions of his friends and acquaintances. All of that was and is quite obvious as long as you pay attention to the behavior of people which is something too easy when you already have a contextual basis of their personalities but anyway he is expanding too much on useless details. What he was referring to is what will happen soon.
How events gather to give rise to a chaos of occurrences in which the ideals and points of view of Nora will be put to the test. She is practically the protagonist of this world. Why did he call her by her name? Because she is a person before any other way of describing her. That is what he thought of her as well as every being in this world and such a stance would not change.
While it is easy for him to admit that he is at a power level in which nothing in this universe could really do anything to him unless he quite literally describes the inner workings of all psionics as well as the exact way to counteract it. That would really be a stupidity unless he uses inaccurate information just for some plan, a foolish plan if it even occurs to him to tell the right beings cough White Diamond cough such a thing.
Adrian could and would be there for her when she needed a shoulder to lean on but as he himself has already admitted he CANNOT do it all NOR should he try to solve all the problems of this world with a snap of not so metaphorical fingers. Doing that would be reducing every being in this world to just a character in the background, to just a metaphorical line of text. To do such a thing would be taking away their free will. It would be making them mere puppets of a plot created by him and when you have so much power there is no difference from being a God. To give an idea for him it would be like taking away all the development they would eventually have leaving them stuck in what they are while they depend on him to solve everything which he does not want for them. He only wants the people close to him to be able to choose. He is as simple as that.
Is this how God felt? And he was not referring to his distant relatives the big four or the golden guy. Besides it is not like he ignores his resemblance to the guy in golden armor who seeks human supremacy but they are not the same situations nor the same people so he does NOT intend to take that path as an option since being trapped on a golden throne as a corpse god did not seem like a good future expectation.
But the doubts about whether he should measure his actions in general just enough so that others continue growing as well as the dilemma of comparing himself with GOD were set aside to enjoy this moment before the plots of this world are unleashed either by his manipulations or by fate itself making an appearance once more as this world loved to twist itself to reach an expected result over and over again. That not so small reflection did not take much more than a mere instant for him in which his gaze was lost among all his friends and acquaintances. He smiled at the sensation of Nora's hand intertwining with his own. Yes, all his future actions will be valid in his heart if he can maintain this peace for a little longer.
Lapis Lazuli could wait for him to finish appreciating this moment with his friends before they release her from her prison in which she has been locked up for what? Five thousand years? Man he just hopes nothing gets out of control since this world was not nearly as he remembered it nor was it so dangerous.
Dinner began in the Pizza family restaurant. Clearly Nora and he were the center of attention for being the only formal couple of the group nothing more and nothing less if he could say besides being the two frankly supernatural beings of the group which made them have more attention than he would really like to receive.
The moment was going quite well with Jenny innocently teasing the two of us a little to try to get some reaction but she did not get much. From me she only got one of my looks with raised eyebrows patent in progress and from Nora she could only get some embarrassment the first time after which there was only a laugh from her while she looked at me with affection so the joke died quickly with that. But she stayed by Nora's side trying to get gossip out of her while the smell of pizza and the music of a family place traveled through the room.
Connie and Kiki were together talking about that book series she loved so much. You know the one about a noble girl who stays with her magic bird type invocation which she falls in love with or something like that. Generic teenage romance combined with good writing as well as high medieval fantasy was the only thing he could get when Connie presented that saga of books to him. He did not disparage them but he presented her with a bit of what he loved to read. Recreating with some magic a couple of Lovecraft books or something inspired by him did not take him long but it was worth it when Connie looked at one of those writings and then looked at him and the book as if connecting dots. The statement he gave to her several months ago had less and less weight with each new supernatural action he performed but he could not complain since he had already gotten over that.
Unfortunately not the whole group could gather. You know Ronaldo was with his girlfriend on a date now that it was summer season while Peedee was in charge of the restaurant along with his father. He took a mental note to bring some pizza to the boy before continuing with his normal thoughts.
Buck, Sour Cream, Lars and Sadie were engaged in a small discussion about the depth of their own problems as almost adult teenagers. You know the typical things about their parents, school or in the case of the boys of the group getting a girlfriend or romantic interests. I will only say this: LarsXSadie. But seriously now the rest of the conversation apart from his not so noticeable and by that he meant very noticeably his support for that ship was about problems they were discussing.
Which were not such happy nor such primary teenage things as one might think but rather gray enough to be a serious talk about things. This was noticed by each of those four friends. Buck is being pressured by his father to enter an administrative position in the mayor's office as soon as he finished his studies so the boy was up to his neck in a kind of silver cage. Sour Cream was also being targeted by expectations from his stepfather who wanted or rather actively demanded that he be a fisherman but if the blonde boy had made something clear to Adrian in these few months of knowing him it is that he is too free a spirit to be chained. Sadie, well she was a bundle not of nerves but of insecurities about herself in almost every aspect. Frankly the girl did not have a shred of self confidence except when she had a uniform on. The attempts to generate confidence by her mother also aggravated things a bit. Finally Lars who was perhaps the one who was worst off himself since it was not such a secret that he is a person who started transitioning by his own choice a few years ago. This is something he did not regret but well it is NOT a simple process. Adrian did not know much about those things so the situation for him was also complicated by the fact that his parents still consider him a woman.
Yes the pattern about the parents might seem like a thing regarding his friends but he at least can understand why they do such things even without having seen the series. Buck's father only wants his son to follow in his footsteps which worked for him. Sour Cream's stepfather wants his son because he considers him as such to have a guaranteed future not just dreams about music. With Sadie it was a problem of self confidence that her mother did not know how to treat so they ended up in a stalemate when trying to make her gain more confidence. With Lars's parents it was not that they did not support him but that it is complicated to get used to the change as well as the vision of the world that their son has because he refuses to consider that the lady who gave him some cookies to die for is a bad person.
Yes he did not intend to do that competition about who was or suffered more. He did not want to compete against Nora or against the boys for that position if possible. You know what he said about his memories was quite true in many aspects. He remembered who he was but it was confusing because most of your life you spend interacting with others. So only having information about what you did but without the people involved was a great mechanism for confusion about many events of his life but well at least he did not victimize himself in what he said so that is great progress on his part. Now if he focuses on Nora he would not know how to tell you how many traumas and quirks the girl has. Obviously she wants to fill the shoes her great mother left. I hope the sarcasm is noticed as well as the expectations of never being enough, of not being a real Crystal Gem. Those feelings of hers were only what he could notice. Then there were the countless things that were not shown on screen and that just because she was older she must have experienced many more things.
The night passed quickly among laughter, sarcastic comments, a bit of reality distortion to accompany things but only enough to make it interesting like the pizza that never ends as well as teenage hormones, a bit of dark humor on his part and the looks between him and Nora. Hey it was a good memory one that he will appreciate having in the near future of that he has no doubt. But all good things must end at some point and this time they did when a fairly ornamented silver mirror reached the conversation from a Nora who was tired and happy to be carried on his shoulder.