04 - For Glory!

Earth In Words Institute, Wooded Path

Sara glances at her schedule for the first time while walking toward her first class.

Ironically, since she arrived so late, she was close enough from the exit to sneak out even before Aston finished her speech, which put her well ahead of everyone else in the end.

Many of her classes are still up to change, but soon, she knows that might not be the case anymore. Vacancies will fill, classmates will settle, and begin to know each other.

Sara knows she should care about which classes to choose; beyond those she's required to, anyway.

Tsk.

Well, she'll worry about it once her head doesn't feel like it's ready to fall from her shoulders. Regardless, the Gaming Center is a given for most of her mornings, being her main club activity of choice, and she's already heading in its direction.

Containing a yawn, Sara waves away her personal Community page, enjoying the morning brise and path vegetation for their silence, even if it does make it much harder to remain awake.

'Music?'

"Yeah, sure," Sara concedes.

Rock blasting over her thoughts, Sara settles to walk the remaining distance toward the large, dark building looming in the distance.

***

As Seijuro suspected, and feared, it didn't take long after she started walking to find someone.

Seijuro holds a sigh and closes the Community page where she had been glancing through the last posts about her speech. Opening a polite smile, she weakly waves her hand at the girl walking in her direction.

Vacation has made little difference to Beatrice's appearance, which means her heart-shaped face, long blond hair, and petite figure, unfortunately, continue to be as perfect as ever. Only the Gods know how she avoided a tan over all of the trips she took.

"Hey, I was waiting for you for hours! What took you so long!?"

Beatrice's smile is as bright as the sun, and equally as obnoxious to stare at. Seijuro struggles to contain her irritation in check once the girl immediately locks their arms together and begins to drag her along.

"Swain," Seijuro greets softly, smile strained. "You really didn't have to wait for me. We have class together in what, five minutes?"

"Nonsense! I needed to congratulate you personally for that awesome speech!"

Seijuro looks at her, and the girl stutters.

"Er… I swear I was paying attention, just don't ask me to repeat anything, okay?"

"Why would I?"

"Right! Exactly! Why would you?!"

Beatrice exhales, so visibly relieved Seijuro has a hard time stopping herself from teasing her… Then again, the girl did take away her peaceful walk to class, which she was very much looking forward to. Perhaps some punishment is in order.

"So, which was your favorite part?"

Beatrice chocks, quickly averting her eyes in the opposite direction as she pretends a sudden interest in the flowers they've walked by thousands of times before (though thankfully, not together). "M-my favorite… part?"

"Yes. The speech meant a lot to me. I'd be happy to hear what you think of it."

"I- Uhm… It was amazing! Everything you do is…! Ah… My favorite part was when…! Uhm…" Beatrice laughs awkwardly, large, innocent blue eyes meeting Seijuro's with something akin to pleading despair in them. "The opening?"

Seijuro smiles gently at her. "What about the opening?"

"I loved the opening because… It made me feel… Good?"

"Is that so? Well, I'm glad you enjoyed… the opening," Seijuro continues, adding just a pinch of disappointment to her voice. "But, on second thought, maybe I should walk by myself, after all. I wouldn't want weird rumors to spread about us… Again."

She might as well have physically hit Beatrice. For a moment, staring into her shocked, quickly blinking blue eyes, Seijuro wonders if the girl might start crying. Are they really about the same age? From the same school? Being a Swain, a member of one of the families Seijuro has to maintain good relations with as the heir, Beatrice has the privilege of not being ignored by her, a privilege she seems fully intent on abusing at every opportunity.

"Can we just… start again? Please?" Beatrice murmurs, after a moment of tense silence since Seijuro told her to disappear.

Notice the girl's downcast eyes, and shaking hands, Seijuro sighs. You'd think her arm is what keeps the Swain afloat, for all the strength the girl's putting into strangling it.

"Well, I can't exactly stop you, can I?"

"Uh… Yeah, I'm pretty sure you could. But I know you're too nice for that."

Seijuro rolls her eyes. So, she pretty much admits to taking advantage of her goodwill.

"Go ahead, Beatrice. Don't make me regret having given you the chance."

Beatrice bits her lower lip. "Uhm, please don't hate me? I was busy choosing my classes during the speech. I didn't pay much attention to it, but after I saw everybody cheering, I really regretted not listening."

Seijuro stares at her until Beatrice fidgets under her gaze.

"W-what? Please say something!"

Seijuro snorts. "Next time, just tell me the truth. I know it's not your first instinct, but I'd appreciate it if you stopped trying to make a fool out of me."

"What do you mean it's not my first instinct?! I'm a nice person!"

A stalker is what you are.

"And you pretend all the time too! Do you think I don't know your real personality is-"

Beatrice cuts herself off, intaking a sharp breath.

"You never gave a fuck about the speech, did you?"

"Not particularly, no."

"Seijuro! I can't believe you played with my emotions like that!"

Seijuro shrugs.

"You ignore my messages for months, you don't visit, you don't connect, aren't we friends?!"

Seijuro blinks. Twice. Certainly, Beatrice doesn't think their tug-and-push relationship, much of which was built around the other girl stalking her, and the rest of which was built around Seijuro making use of her convenient services, amounts to… friendship? Somehow?

But a look in the girl's direction, into her indignant, hurt expression, reveals that indeed, Beatrice does think of her as a friend; Which means she was probably bothered by the fact Seijuro chose to pretend she didn't exist during vacation.

Delusion of the highest order.

Still, staring into her big blue eyes from so close, Seijuro can't bring herself to crush the girl's hopes.

Maybe Beatrice is right. She is way too damn nice.

"I was busy." Not a lie, exactly. "And none of your messages seemed important. But I saw the pictures. Oras is beautiful."

Beatrice blinks, then beams. "I know, right!? I spent the entire time wishing you were there! You meanie, I bet you completely forgot I existed!"

Meanie?

Seijuro's brow twitches. "Wouldn't dream of it."

"What about you? Have you checked your Rankings recently? I see with my pretty little eyes someone has gone up in Popularity again. Oh boy, was it because of the speech? You're first now. Charlotte is going to have an attack."

Seijuro sighs. "It was inevitable. She must understand as much. And besides, she's close from nineteen, and soon she won't have to worry about me."

"Yeah, until you're nineteen as well, and she's condemned to eternal second place."

"Truly, a fate worse than death," Seijuro deadpans, rolling her eyes. "I'll be sure to beg for her forgiveness next time we meet. Maybe she'll even accept, if I offer her my birthright as blood payment."

Beatrice titters. "I thought you were for a merit-based country."

"I am. Once you find someone better fit to rule, make sure to send them my way."

Beatrice scuffs. "As if there could be someone better than you at something."

Seijuro considers pointing out there are plenty of things she's not good at, but remains from doing so.

If she is to tolerate the imp's presence, she might as well enjoy what few benefits come from it.

***

The Gaming Center. Two floors of dark glass, concrete, and metal surrounded by vegetation. Sara used to get a kick out of imagining the place as a mad scientist's lab, hidden in plain sight, ready to be explored.

Today, starting up at it just makes her head hurt.

'Analyzing user's body… Detected: Overtaxing of frontal cortex. Most likely cause: Frequent lack of proper sleep. Recommended: A trip to the infirmary, followed by several hours of uninterrupted sleep. Recommended: A new sleeping schedule.'

"Shut up," Sara grumbles, "The last thing I need is your yapping making my headache worse."

'Objection: I do not "yap".'

"Sure you don't buddy, sure you don't."

The building's doors slide open automatically as Sara approaches, revealing rows upon rows of last-generation computers behind a large, modern-looking reception table, all waiting for the first wave of students to arrive.

Church-like silence fills the place now, except for soft typing and clicking noises coming from the reception table, but Sara knows that in less than half an hour the place will become one of the noisiest in the entire institute.

It smells like home, and Sara might have even felt happy, if not for having recognized the woman tending to the reception table immediately, moments prior to her glancing up.

Shit.

"Sara?" Kay raises her eyebrow, doubtlessly allowing her character to die if it was in the middle of a fight.

"The one and only."

Seeing no other alternative given that the woman already stopped playing in order to talk to her, Sara stuffs her hands into her hoody and walks up to Kay, carefully avoiding her eyes while pretending to inspect the reception's hologram and the first-person perspective of looking up at a giant waterfall.

"Drew the short straw today, did you? Training?"

Kay shrugs. "Thought I might as well. Doubt I'd be able to fight anything properly with you brats interrupting all the time."

"Can I see it?"

Kay blinks, surprised, then shrugs again. "Sure, why not?"

Always laid back in a way Sara has never been quite able to pull off, Kay immediately yanks keyboard and mouse into her grasp once more. While Sara leans over the counter to watch, Kay smiles, and the image moves, rapidly advancing through a large body of water by jumping from stone to stone, heading straight for the waterfall.

"You skipped the opening," Sara points out.

"Somebody had to be here." Key doesn't move her eyes from the game. She also doesn't hesitate before each jump. "But I watched it. Aston had me tingling all over."

Sara rolls her eyes. "I'm sure she did. Am I the first one here?"

"Nope! Some people skipped the opening completely, said they arrived too late to be let in."

Kay begins her climb through the waterfall without a single pause, stepping over stone protuberances so small Sara can barely spot them before the woman has moved for the next one. Sara feels her jaw slacking.

"What?! That was an option?!"

Kay laughs. "No, it wasn't. They'll have merit deductions."

"Shit, how much? I'd have taken the deduction over the speech."

"I'm sure you'd have. You know, I wasn't sure I was going to see you here again."

The stones become sparser over the climb, their form twisted and deceiving. Still, Kay rarely spends more than a brief split-second before each dangerous jump, only enough to have the hologram's image flash in red at its corners.

"You're slowing down," Sara points out.

"You little shit. You think my eyes don't work?"

Sara laughs. "Are you sure you should be talking to a student like that? Besides, what else would I have signed up for? Riding? Archery? Martial Arts?"

"You could use the exercise."

'Concur.'

Sara snorts. "Piss off."

"I could have you cleaning the school for talking to a teacher like that."

Kay climbs rapidly, and her expression shows increasing wrinkles of concentration as the image flashes in red faster and faster.

"You know, Kay, I realize now you have a terrible personality."

"You're the last person I wanna hear that from."

"And who do you think influenced my young, impressionable mind to become this way?"

Kay almost glances in her direction, which costs her a precious moment of concentration, and a priceless second of hesitation, though, impressively, Kay still avoids plummeting her character to its death, reaching the top after one last precise jump.

Even through a monitor, the view is breathtaking. Smugly, Kay emotes her character to sit over the stone at the giant waterfall's edge, staring over the world below with a satisfied grin.

"A minute twenty-three? Not bad," Sara comments, glancing over the paused timer at the hologram's top left corner before leaning back.

"Not bad? Most players can't even reach the top."

"You're an ex-pro. It'd be embarrassing if you failed to reach the top."

Kay throws her a dirty look. "An ex-pro from a different game. Is your record still one ten?"

"Yep. Avril's one seven though, damn monster that she is. Braden is one eight."

"Grace is one ten now. A couple milliseconds behind you."

Sara pauses. "Shit."

"Yeah. I saw you barely logged in last month. Or the month before that."

Sara winces, despite the lack of condemnation in Kay's tone. "I… Kay, do you think…?"

"They'd take your sorry ass back? Hard to say. I had never seen Avril so pissed before. But she seems to have a soft spot for you, and we both know the others will follow her lead. Got a speech prepared?"

"Plan A is to beg on my knees and make puppy eyes. Think it'll fly?"

Kay laughs. "Glad you decided to come back, Sara. But I'd start working on that plan B, if I were you."

"That's what I thought. Shit."

"I'll talk to them, soften things up for you. Why don't you take a break down here today? Those bags do not look healthy."

Sara breathes, blinking rapidly to contain a sudden intake of cozy feelings from overflowing into tears. "Thanks, Kay, you're the best."

The woman stares at her for several seconds, unblinking. "You know I can't promise anything."

Sara nods. "Y-yeah, I know. I fucked up, got my priorities mixed up bad. Still, thank you for giving me another chance."

"No problem kiddo. You're way too damn young for that expression right there."

"Shut up. You're what? T-thirty?"

"Twenty-nine, thank you very much."

Kay watches Sara whipping her tears on the sleeves of her hoody with unconcealed love and a smile on her face. It's almost more than she can handle.

"May I use a computer?"

"Ha! Don't think I've ever heard you use that word before."

"Fuck off! You're so insufferable! It was a long morning, okay?!"

"Fine, fine!" Kay laughs and raises her hands in surrender, then points her thumb toward the many rows of computers at her back. "I already gave you permission. You still remember where everything is?"

"Sure."

"See you tomorrow! Don't be late!"

Sara waves at her, but her ex-coach is already back to playing the game.

Well, that went… much better than expected, actually.