Ch 2.48: Dry

“So,” Elaina said, once again laying  naked on the rock just outside the water, “we probably could’ve planned this part better.”

“Yeah…” Carly was on the other side of the rock, their backs to each other. Carly was also naked, and though they’d long since decided bathing time was over, there was still the small issue of drying off. “The same thing happened with Flora the other day and I meant to bring towels this time but I just sort of got caught up in the moment and, well, forgot.”

Elaina chuckled as she looked over her shoulder, only seeing the top of Carly’s wet hair. She wanted to get up, take in more of Carly’s body, but she was trying to be respectful, for the time being at least. Carly of all people couldn’t blame her if she happened to accidentally get a look at her while they were getting dressed, right? But no, Elaina would avoid that too, reluctantly. She’d explicitly given Carly permission to do those things, and she’d wait until Carly was ready for that step too.

“At least it’s getting warmer,” Elaina said as she sat up, bringing her knees to her chest.

“Maybe next time you have to use the ‘it’s so hot’ excuse to take your clothes off’ it’ll actually make sense.”

“Shut up!” Elaina said with a laugh. She was a little surprised at that coming from Carly, but happy she was opening up a little at least. “I doubt our hair is gonna completely dry, so we can probably go soon.”

“Alright.” Elaina heard footsteps as Carly stepped off her side of the rock, and despite her earlier resolve to be respectful, Elaina’s eyes did wander in the direction of the sound, seeing Carly walk back over to her bag and pull a fresh set of underwear out.

She really didn’t mean to stare, but Carly didn’t make any attempt to hide herself as she got dressed, barely even seemed to register Elaina was there until after she’d pulled up her panties and was pulling her bra up. “You going to get dressed too?”

“Uh-huh,” Elaina said as she crept off the rock, finally braking her gaze and going back to her own bag. She did manage to keep some semblance of control over her eyes once she had a goal to focus on, dressing herself side by side with Carly until they were finally both decent and started off back towards school.

“Class again tomorrow,” Carly eventually said as they were approaching the school entrance. “I have to go do some homework for Medicine in the library. I had a deferment if we were gone the whole weekend, but I don’t think it’ll count since we came in so early today.”

“Okay, I think I’ll head back up to the room.” It was all she really knew to do at school with Flora and Tira both gone.

Carly stopped as they entered the hallway, Elaina stopping with her. “I guess I’ll see you later then. I, uhm, had a good time.” She leaned forward taking Elaina into a deep hug.

Elaina’s initially reaction to the embrace was to freeze, look around to see if people were there. And people were there of course, but they were just walking along, talking amongst their groups, or otherwise engaged in minding their own business. No one even seemed to notice the two girls stopped off to the side of the hall, so Elaina returned the hug, relishing in the touch before releasing, beaming with a smile.

“Maybe you should hang out in the common room,” Carly said as she pulled away.

“Oh, uhm, I don’t know,” Elaina said. “People still don’t like me after the whole… the whole orientation thing.”

Carly frowned, shaking her head. “I think you’re too worried about that. Maybe just give it a shot. I’ll talk to you later though!”

Carly was gone before Elaina could protest anymore. She guessed she didn’t really have to do it, but would Carly feel bad if she didn’t? She had to go through the common room anyway, so maybe a few minutes wouldn’t be that bad.

Resolved to at least humor Carly, Elaina took a breath as she entered lounge area below their dorm room. It wasn’t as populated as it normally was, just one group of three students she didn’t recognize over by the fireplace. Still, she’d told herself she’d try it, so she sat down on one of the single chairs, decided she’d stay ten minutes, and then head back up.

Except she felt awkward immediately. There were only three people there, and she wasn’t talking to them, so why even bother staying? She could just tell Carly there wasn’t really anyone to talk to, right? Yeah, that would be the truth, no need to stay at all really.

“Hey, Weaver, right?”

“Huh?” Her had snapped as her worst fear was realized, that someone actually wanted to talk to her. For a moment she thought the two boys walking through the doorway and headed towards her were Waine and his crony-friend Ivis, but she sighed a breath of relief when she realized it wasn’t them. They did look vaguely familiar though.

“I’m Leen Sturgess. We have Engineering together now,” the lead boy said as he sat on the couch across from her.

“Oh, you’re the one that makes swords.”

“Ah, well, weapons in general,” the boy said with a blush. “But mostly swords, yeah. And this here is—”

“Brink,” Elaina blurted, the name coming out of her mouth as soon as she recognized him, the first person she’d had a proper sword duel with, not counting the aspected duel with Waine.

“Oh, you know each other?”

“Hmm. Fencing,” Brink said as he walked off.

“Cool! Well, nice to meet you officially,” Sturgess said as he leaned back and kicked his feet up on the table in front of him, surprising Elaina with his brazenness. “I wanted to introduce myself to you a couple times, but you always seemed to be in a rush whenever you came through here.”

“I, uhm, was probably busy…” Elaina said with a flush. Maybe Carly was right after all about the actual damage to her reputation orientation had done.

“Yeah, I get it,” Sturgess said as Brink returned with three glasses of water, setting them down on the table and taking a seat next to his friend. “Brink here doesn’t have much homework, but us with technical aspects sure get the brunt of it,” Sturgess continued as he placed his arm around Brink. “Anyway, we just got back from a quick trip to Castletown. What’ve you been up to?”

“I was actually just there too,” Elaina said as she took a drink of water from the glass she assumed was for her. “My party, err, my practicum team had an assignment out that way.”

“No shit? Well, your weekend might have actually had more excitement than ours then. I wanted to go to Mirage yesterday, but Brink here got cold feet at the last minute.”

“S’expensive. Addicting.”

“Mirage?” Elaina asked. She’d heard the word before, but she was pretty sure it was something to do with the desert, which she didn’t think they were anywhere near.”

“Oh, right, you’re a commoner,” Sturgess said as he took a swig of his water. “Forgot not everyone grows up hearing stories of Castletown nightlife. It’s a game house. Poker, dice, stuff like that. And we’re definitely going next weekend.”

“Hmm,” Brink grunted in agreement. “Special event. Only need to pay entry fee.”

“Special event?” Elaina asked. She’d grasped they were talking about gambling at least, but she wasn’t sure how a special event for that would work.

“Dunno. The whole thing’s kinda hush hush, just got announced last night. But it’s a poker event with points instead of money, and there’s some big grand prize.”

“That’s sounds kind cool actually,” Elaina said. “What’s the prize?”

“That’s the thing,” Sturgess said with a snap, “no one knows! Some people think it’s a person, but I know that even Mirage isn’t going to go that far.”

A person? “Why in the stars would people think that?”

“Well, they aren’t saying exactly what the prize is, but they did give it a name. They’re calling it a ‘Temmie.’”