Fable

Asking for help is the number-one sign that something is off with Fabian. The number-two sign is that he isn’t calling him The Ball.Riz prides himself on being pretty damn observant, especially when it comes to his friends (especially when it comes to his best friend, captain of the Owlbears and notoriously cool and popular guy), but he’s only a little bit embarrassed to admit that he didn’t figure out Fabian’s whole sometimes-being-small thing. He knew that something was going on, of course, tiny signs he’d first spotted after the corn fight in freshman year growing more and more pronounced, but he attributed them to increased stress as their lives grew more hectic. After summer break that year, he saw them a lot more—Fabian ducking behind Gorgug and clinging to his hoodie, or going quiet and drifting closer to Adaine—but prying into something so un-Fabian-ish seemed a little like pressing on a live nerve.(Fabian has a bad day at school and goes to Riz for help. Despite Riz's worries, it goes pretty okay).