03 - For Their Eyes

Earth In Words Institute, Auditorium One

'Time?'

'07:41 am, Miss Aston.'

If anything, the System's answer only sinks Seijuro's stomach further. The professor who was supposed to make an opening for her speech has been speaking for the last eleven minutes and shows no signs of stopping anything soon.

From her place among the staff, it was easy to notice the principal's expression growing from annoyed to full-on killing intent during the last five minutes, the woman's smile now able to cut through diamond.

Seijuro herself feels similarly. Her speech was rehearsed with a certain time limit in mind. The time limit she was supposed to have, now cut short by a whole six minutes already.

Given the circumstances, Principal Adela might understand if she went a bit overtime. Unfortunately, given Seijuro's last name, failure is and has always been simply an unacceptable outcome.

As far as the world is concerned.

As such, careful to not exhibit her fear and anxiety plain for all to see, Seijuro scans the crowd of bored teachers and staff members one more time, gaze landing on a man who's very visibly not bored or spacing out.

Vice Timor seems short of a panic attack, just barely; Seijuro is able to spot the sweat accumulated over his forehead and bald scalp from meters away. And she might not be able to speak with Adela directly, or Mr. Odell, the professor currently attempting murder by boredom upon the Institute's students, but since Vice Timor was the one responsible for the nominations for the day, she does have access to his link.

'Connect with Timor Stern,' Seijuro orders, watching as the man's eyes jump in her direction a second later, full of panic, fear, and hope in equal measures.

'Connection accepted,' announces the System, voice as emotionless as always.

'Good morning, young Aston,' Timor greets, his voice deep, dark chocolate sliding against the back of her neck and firing alarms inside Seijuro's head in all the wrong ways for all the wrong reasons. 'I take it that wonderful, carefully prepared speech you bragged to me about doesn't take into account a minor change in our timeframe?'

The man's tone doesn't portray his expression, which soon returns to stare at the mass of students ahead of them, regaining some of its usual composure.

It wouldn't do to have people realize things went awry so ridiculously, after all. The school would be made fun of, taking a blow to its reputation, and so would them.

'No plan survives first contact with the enemy,' Seijuro quotes, citing something her father often used to. Having now experienced enough of such situations firsthand, she has come to recognize the wisdom behind the words. 'I can shorten the speech, but I need an exact timeframe to work with. Right about now, if possible.'

Timor narrows his eyes at Professor Odell, then gives Adela a thoughtful glance.

'On the name of my house, he'll stop speaking in about a minute. How does that work?'

'Works well enough for me.'

'I knew I had made the right choice. Good luck.'

She did not brag. It was a good speech. How dares he? Were the situation less urgent, Seijuro might have pouted.

Unfortunately, she has no time to waste. With a thought, she triggers a long stream of words to hover over her vision, otherwise unseen by anybody else.

Her carefully prepared and rehearsed speech.

Using her mind as eraser and pencil, Seijuro quickly makes adjustments, taking out big chunks of words.

She can spare no attention to anything else if she is to finish in time. She'll be cutting it close and have to improvise a decent amount. Still, failure is not an option. Which is no different than usual, really.

"…with pleasure, I invite one of our most accomplished students, whom I'm sure you're more than familiar with, Seijuro Aston!"

A wave of unenthusiastic yet loud applauses breaks Seijuro from her trance.

The man sure knows how to kill a crowd, doesn't he?

Mr. Odell offers a strained smile as they walk by each other, small eyes as those of a dear faced with sudden light.

Seijuro contains a childish urge to flip the man. It'd be very unbecoming of a princess, after all. Had she any time to waste, she might have wondered what could have possibly led him to think this was a good idea.

Then she has reached the podium, and all other thoughts escape Seijuro's mind other than the role she is supposed to play. Fifty thousand faces, all of their eyes on her, gleaming with expectation.

At the corner of her vision, time trickles down, and Seijuro smiles. "Thank you, Mr. Odell, for your brief… introduction. But now let's begin the real game, shall we?"

…

Blah, blah, blah…

Sara holds back on a second yawn, forcing her eyes to remain open. It was a good speech, in all fairness. No, really. She doubts anybody could've done better, given the subject, and about half the auditorium seems downright excited for the beginning of a new school year now, a more than impressive feat on the princess's part.

Her words and smile are honest, encouraging, light. Sara almost believes them. Almost. Shame she arrived late. Shame the stream of words blocking Princess Seijuro's gentle expression ruins a lot of the effect for her.

Words she doubts she's supposed to be seeing.

'I could hide it. Your call.'

She could have screamed. If only she had enough energy left to care. Eh, at this point, if she's caught, she'll gladly accept the swift embrace of a painless execution, if it means she'll finally be able to sleep in peace.

'Executions have not been common practice in Elysium for more than two hundred years, Miss Palmer. I'm uncertain an exception would be created in this case.'

Right. Instead, she'd have many, many boring years ahead of her.

Sara tries to keep her eyes open as the princess's words go into one ear and out the other.

To think it took more than ten minutes to convince the cops to check her status as a student, and that she still had to return for her papers before being allowed to use the station. Madness. No respect for Outer citizens at all, ass kissers sons of a-

'I calculate a ninety-nine percent point three chance of a successful track and sabotage operation. They'll never see it coming.'

Of course they won't, since it will never happen. What would she do, sabotage their Community accounts? Send cringe messages in their stead? Break all of their Links?

And all she'd have to risk is lifetime in an Excavation Site.

Even if she is never caught in what she has done, the paranoia and fear are bound to give her a heart attack sooner or later, Sara is sure of it.

…

Seijuro curtsies, scarcely registering a deafening ovation from her peers midst the waves of relief washing over her body.

Given the end of the school's opening, students are free to head to class, though Seijuro doubts she'll have such luxury. And sure enough, she has yet to walk five steps when a wave from Principal Adela forces her to change directions.

Maybe she could've pretended to not have seen it if the woman wasn't so damn tall. Shame.

"Principal Adela, Vice Timor," Seijuro greets politely, performing another curtsy upon approaching their group.

Principal Adela irradiates confidence, her toned body standing a whole fifteen centimeters taller than Seijuro's. Her hair, fully painted white, glows eye-catching silver today, falling beyond her lower back over a dress of the same color.

"Seijuro! Oh my, what a wonderful speech it was! One of the best our Institute has ever seen!" Adela's silver eyes gleam in a way akin to hunger, though the princess refuses to avert her gaze, simply smiling instead. She has no idea if the woman is being serious or not. "I take it you've never met before?"

Vice Timor, who is also a whole head taller than Seijuro, stands by the principal's side, his suit in apparent danger of being ripped apart by the man's muscles as he beams toward Seijuro, showing perfect white teeth.

And completing their small circle, are two men Seijuro doesn't recognize.

"I believe we have met before… but Princess Aston was probably too little to remember then."

The first man, almost as tall as Vice Timor, smiles as he approaches, performs a fluid bow, grabs her hand, and, to Seijuro's surprise, presses his lips against it.

"Ambassador Oreo from Crecia, at Your Highness's service."

"In this case, I'm glad we were able to meet again, Ambassador Oreo from Crecia. I won't forget again."

The man's dark eyes glow with something more than the warmth of a polite greeting, though Seijuro doubts he is flirting with her. His dark skin and tick accent would've given away his foreign origins easily enough if the title hadn't already.

"And this is Dave, an executive from Ouroboros. I'm sure you have heard of their outstanding success lately?" Adela concludes, gesturing her flawless nail polish toward the last member of their group.

Investors. No wonder Adela decided to call her over.

Dave, in this case, wears a white social shirt and black jeans. He is tall and slim, though his slightly hunched-over posture takes little advantage of the fact.

"He's the silent type," Adela whispers as if confiding a particularly funny secret.

Years of practice prevent Seijuro's smile from faltering once the man returns her polity curtsy with a simple nod of his head, lifeless small brown eyes merely swiping her general direction from behind his glasses. Clearly, the presence of his future queen is below his attention.

Well, that's a first for her.

"Anyway, Ambassador Oreo, I'm sure your son will feel particularly at home in our Riding and Archery classes. Seijuro would be happy to show him the ropes."

"I'm having my first Riding class this week," Seijuro corrects, "But I'd be happy to show him around Advanced Archery if we happen to bump into each other. May I ask for his name?"

"Uren," the ambassador reveals with an easy smile. "But I'm afraid my son has grown tired of the traditions in which he has been raised. I believe his interests lie in what your people call… online gaming."

Try as she may, some of her disdain must still have shown because Oreo takes a look at her face and bursts out laughing.

"Yes! My feelings exactly! Alas, the boy has been hooked to them since he was young, and no amount of scolding on my part has been able to straighten his ways."

"But that's no trouble at all!" Adela interjects, "Our students have the freedom to assemble their recreation period however they like as long as it fills in the minimum number of hours. And I'm sure your son will find our gaming space to be more than satisfactory."

Oreo nods. "I'm sure he'll enjoy it. But won't it affect his future?"

Adela beams. "Are you aware of Elysium's E-sports scene? Many of our students might play the games for fun, but our end objective as an institution is still to encourage competition and growth. Uren will be far from idle, and he'll have access to many opportunities within our gaming community, including professional scouting if pursuing a carrier in the area is his objective."

Trying not to look visibly bored, Seijuro gives Dave a glance. If she isn't mistaken, Ouroboro's main field encompasses all types of offline, online, and more recently, virtual reality games.

Though he seems duly impressed, Oreo still shakes his head, frowning slightly. "We'll be returning eventually, and alas, an E-sport scene, as you've put it, might not exist in our homeland for many decades still. I'm afraid access to luxuries is widely a commodity for the rich and powerful outside of Elysium's paradise."

Their war! Seijuro remembers suddenly. Their civil war, in which her father has refused to interfere! Of course! How could she forget?! They've had arguments about it!

Seijuro blinks. Wait. Wasn't one of their princes called Uren…? The ambassador addressed him as a son, but given that Crecia's former king died almost a decade ago, it is possible Uren has been raised by the ambassador, who brought him to Elysium as a war refugee of sorts.

How will she…? Should she bring any of this up? Apologize for her country's noninterventionist stance? Surely, Oreo must have realized she might recognize the prince's name. They didn't bother to use a fake one. Or… could the name be a coincidence?

Seijuro almost brings herself to ask, when a loud hem from Timor fetches the party's attention to his broad and apologetic smile. "While I'm sure Miss Aston enjoys our company full-heartedly, I'm afraid classes are about to begin. It wouldn't do to have our star student arriving late after such a passionate speech."

"Timor! Couldn't you have reminded me earlier?!"

The large man shrugs as if to say: It's your school, remember?

"Seijuro, darling, I'm so sorry! He's right, we shouldn't have kept you for so long!"

Smiling, Seijuro performs another quick curtsy, managing a bow from Oreo, and a second ambiguous nod from Dave in response. Timor winks at her.

"It was a pleasure, Ambassador. I'll see about helping Uren if I can. Dave. Mr. Stern, Mrs. Woods."

Thankfully, almost all the students and professors have already left at this point, giving her an easy escape through the back exit.

Outside, a cold breeze wind brushes against her face, and Seijuro pauses atop the small vantage point for a moment to admire the view.

Trees extend far into the horizon, cut by many paths, large buildings, fountains, and small gardens, places filled by hovering bots, and hushing students, ants trapped in a maze of vegetation and modernity.

Massive and beautiful.

Seijuro wishes she could feel something from the view. She knows many people don't have the opportunity to experience it. It wouldn't change a thing, but then again, neither does her melancholy.

Games and smiles, she is so fucking tired of both.

With a sigh, Seijuro raises her smartwatch. Soon, a holographic mirror image of herself appears, wearing a tired but satisfied smile, and she makes sure it captures the Institute in its full glory before taking the picture.

'Would Miss Aston like to add a message?'

"Don't bother... It doesn't matter."