Ch 3.7: Expectations

Elaina had far too many thoughts running through her mind as she walked down the halls away from Alonse’s office. Other students seemed to be making their ways out of the cafeteria and back to their dorms, and their whispers and glances her way only added fuel to the fire.

“That’s her?”

“Naked naked?”

“Prisma too?”

Elaina did her best to ignore the words. It was only a few dozen of the hundreds of students at Endrin that had actually seen her, but word spread fast for something like this apparently. I wonder what it’s like for Prisma.

Not even close to the things she needed to worry about right now. That night was over, Prisma had made it clear their friendship was over despite everything, and the only thing Elaina really should’ve been worried about in that respect was Prisma’s still lingering class.

Of course the way her classmate’s eyes fell on her as she wandered the halls only drug her mind back to that night every time she tried to wriggle her thoughts away. The vast majority of them hadn’t seen her, but their eyes fell on her as if they had, gazing across her chest, drifting down her torso, between her legs, piercing through her clothes with their imagination, and no matter how accurate or inaccurate their mental images were she just couldn’t focus her mind on the things that actually mattered, couldn’t get her head in control instead of her lust.

Her hand was knocking on the door as she squeezed her legs together.

“Come in,” the voice came from the other side.

Elaina shook her head clear, clear as it could be, and pushed through into the Watch’s office.

“You so missed out,” Flora said. “We ran there, swam around a bit, did some other stuff.”

“You— you were all gone quite a while…” a pouting Carly said, glancing up at Elaina as she continued in. “What kind of stuff?”

“Enough!” Tira said, feet kicked up onto her desk and glancing back at the crystal monitor behind her. “Elaina’s back, and we need to know what’s up.”

“It can wait five seconds,” Flora said with an eye roll.

“No, it can’t,” Elaina said, taking a seat next to Carly. Tira softened her face and sat up straight, and even Flora seemed to sense the seriousness of the situation.

Elaina explained it in simple terms. There wasn’t much to it, really. They were being recognized for their performance in Shein’s illicit crystal mine, and as a reward they were being shipped off to war.

“You’ve got to be fucking with me,” Tira said, eyes pointed like she’d just been insulted in a foreign language she almost understood. “Alonse is actually okay with this?”

“I mean… At first he seemed hesitant, but as he was trying to tell me it wasn’t that bad he sort of seemed to convince himself instead.”

“But it’s not actually like, war war, right?” Carly said. “I mean, I still would rather not go, but…”

Carly’s face grew more somber as she trailed off, seemingly answering her own question. No one else seemed keen on adding to the thought.

“You said other students were going too, right?” Flora said.

“Yeah, other second and third-years. We’re just special because we made an impression on our mission…”

“This fucking sucks,” Tira said, throwing her head back and groaning. “For so many reasons. We’re going to have to tell Shein.”

“And figure out what to do with Temmie,” Elaina added. They probably should’ve had her here for this discussion, but when they planned to go over her meeting with Alonse they hadn’t quite expected it to be something like this. “There’s two of her now, not even counting the one in the cave. We can’t leave the subcores in my dresser forever.”

“We can’t leave them here for… however long we’ll be gone,” Tira said. “I guess we just have to take them.”

Elaina nodded, and each of the girls seemed to drift off into their own thoughts. Elaina’s were firmly in the realm of practicality again, trying to think of some way out.

“What if we just leave?” Flora said.

Elaina had considered it. “Temmie’s still here, the main core anyway. I mean, it’s not like we can move her anyway, and she probably wouldn’t be found, but…”

“Where would we go?” Carly asked. “And what would we do? We’d be expelled.”

“Expelled doesn’t even begin to cover it; we’d probably be arrested.” Tira stood up, tapping the device on her desk that caused the monitor to change pictures. “We need to lay low, get this over with with as little incident as possible. They’re not going to have us out there permanently. I’ll ask my mom for advice, if I can convince Alonse to let me write to her about it.”

“Your mom?” Elaina asked.

“She’s been to the border.”

Tira’s explanation didn’t seem complete, but she remained focused on the monitor as she swapped pictures over and over, cycling through the entire list of pictures without sign of stopping.

“So we’re actually doing this,” Flora said, standing up herself and walking to the door. “Sooner or later, I suppose. At least our parents will be proud.”

“Yeah, yours,” Tira said, slumping back into her chair and letting her head fall to the table.

“Parents…” Elaina said, mind suddenly racing again.

“You okay?” Carly asked as she got up as well, eyes glancing between Flora walking out the door and Elaina sitting with a blank stare.

“Yeah, it’s just… I’m from near the border. My parents are still up there too.”