[Arianna]
There is cleaning up to do, both of the cabin and of themselves, and Arianna is more embarrassed in the daylight to find the blood she has left on the bedclothes and washcloths. She does not feel shame in what they have done, but still the blood left like this strikes her a little cold. They have grown up knowing how each hair on their heads, once separated, can lead back to them. Surely this, then, would lead back to the both of them; surely this blood will tell their secrets, spill it readily if asked. And there is an unfamiliar ache in her center, a raw- and soreness that does not stop when she has made herself presentable. Silas does not move as if he carries any such ache, she notes, watching him out of the corner of her eye as she struggles with the buttons of her shirt. Still her wrist does not wish to cooperate fully with the closures.
There is no argument over who will carry the basket this time. Arianna has one good hand and may need it to steady herself in the forest or in crossing the river. The ground is slick with mud and it is slow going until the crossing, and then it is perilous due to the high water and at least once one or the both of them thinks that she might fall. She is not so smug and trickster-like this morning. There is relief in her eyes when both feet alight upon the far bank and put the stream (which is not in truth a river) behind them. Then back, again, until the clearing beyond the walls, when the keep rises above them with its turrets and stained glass windows. They can tell, already, from just outside the walls, that it is abuzz with activity. There is shoring up to do, if any damage was done by the storm, and Xavi is in the entry hall discussing with the prefects what is to do about the missing two. All sorts of mischief has been managed while the collegium attended to the storm. They will not be the only two who have found opportunity for such trysts, though perhaps they are the only ones to spend the night so isolated and apart.
Through the gap in the wall, then, and into the circle of the wards and Silas can feel her shoulders stiffen beneath his arm. They make it as far as the lower kitchens before Initiate Exemptus Haellewyn finds them, sweeping in with purposeful strides and taking stock of the situation all in one comprehensive glance. It lands on the disheveled teens as a whole, and then specifically the tear and blood at Silas's knee, and the tie wrapped around Arianna's wrist and the way that Silas seems to support her. He assumes, correctly, that they have sheltered in place together after getting caught out in the storm.
"Let's get you both up to the infirmary," he tells them, stepping in at Arianna's other side to offer her support if it is needed. The look sent Silas's way is not rancor or dismissal, but tacit appreciation. His manner with her is not that of a jilted lover, but rather a concerned older brother. "I'm glad you two were together," he tells them. "Your parents will be glad to know you're safe."
No mention is made of her missing stockings. If the nurse in the infirmary suspects something more has passed between them, then she doesn't ask. Ari's wrist is bound and Si's knee inspected, and they are set free to return to their dorms separately or together. It's then that Silas makes his statement, and it's then that Arianna leans in to be cradled against him for just a moment. "No others," she repeats.
From the hallway, the Smythe girl overlooks this parting. And there is something about the haughty folded arms -- which also prop up her breasts, but nevermind -- that belie her displeasure at this turn of events. If the collegium turns a blind eye to whatever passed between them, Katja does not. And she does not miss the clarity between them so much as takes it as a challenge. The Giametti girl, a consor, relatively pretty but before now not much to be troubled over, is now firmly in the harpy's sights.
[Katja]
When Arianna parts ways with Silas and heads back toward her dorm, Katja gives it just long enough for her to round the corner and then sidles up to Silas's open doorway and knocks twice upon the frame. That she is also leaned against it in a sultry pouting way cannot be missed, nor can the way her arms push forward the mounds of her chest, or how one too many buttons of her blouse are undone to be precisely demure.
"I was so worried about you, Silas," she tells him. He's in the middle of pulling off his shirt, impatiently and over his head, so he might be surprised at her voice and her presence. "I am so glad you're back safely." And then, a little gasp, rather restrained for Katja's normal ways. "What happened to your knee?"
She has found him, alone, and without her gaggle of girlfriends. It can only mean that she is after one thing. But Katja has not crossed to him yet, to touch him and lay some unspoken claim on him. She seems to be aware enough to know that game is not afoot just now. So she lingers in the doorway and waits, and if he wants to shower he will have to push past her, and the glide of her fingertips across his stomach, and the scent of her body spray and hair and other calculated things.
[Silas]
"Katja," he says, and if she's surprised him it only shows in the way her name spills off his tongue, so harsh and abrupt after how he'd held Arianna's there. He finishes with the removal of his shirt, but then stops, watching the girl in his doorway with a wary sort of assessment, and now he can see the stance that Arianna had mocked yesterday. It doesn't bother, but does amuse, and thankfully he keeps his laughter internal. "Of course we're back safely. Adventures are nothing new for us."
It's 'we' and 'us' now, and this is hardly likely to make Katja any more pleased about what she'd witnessed in the hall before Arianna went her way and Silas came here. And while he's speaking, he's gathering shower things; the night was long, and without the amenities of the Keep. And his tone with her now is completely lacking in any of the flirtations that may have been there so recently as yesterday, before he and Arianna left for their picnic.
"As to my knee, it was raining, and slippery. Nothing too bad, nothing that won't be healed in a few days. Excuse me."
When he moves past her, it's carefully to keep as much distance as he can, though the doorway is not particularly wide, to allow him to get by without touching her in some way; his shoulders have widened significantly in the last year or so, and the stomach over which Katja's fingers glide is toned, muscled. There is not much in the way of softness to be found in anything about him, just now, and the body spray and fold of her arms to make her breasts seem larger might have caught his attention yesterday, but what he sees today is not Arianna. So he is not particularly patient with this game.
"I've things to do before I go to class. Shouldn't you be on your way to breakfast?"
Yes, Katja, that's dismissal. And that's Silas pulling his door closed (in more ways than one, perhaps), and turning his back to head for the shower.
[Katja]
"Silas," and one hand alights on his arm in emphasis to his name. "You wound me." And if he so much as turns his head to look at her, he'll find her stance changed. The arm the crosses her has been lowered across her middle, and it does give the effect of seeming smaller, and perhaps also somewhat shamed. The hand on his arm retreats once it has stopped him for a moment, and that arm, too, crosses her middle. There is no mounding of her breasts, now; she is plain standing, with proud shoulders slightly rounded.
"Can one friend not ask another if he is well? I am glad you are both back safely," she says, and it is a plain spoken echo and understanding of his we and us. "I'll see you at breakfast."
And then comes the strangeness. Katja, whom he has always known to push and wheedle and cajole, steps away from him and down the hallway away from the showers of his dormitory level. For all intents and purposes seeming as if she were headed down to breakfast. And the wily Smythe girl does not so much as look back over her shoulder at him as she turns the corner. Though there is something a little wounded in her carriage.
[Arianna]
There is similar but different attention for the Giametti girl when she arrives back in her room. The roommate had been quietly hoping that Ari would return unharmed and also even more quietly hoping that she might not and that the roommate, thus being aggrieved and somber, would be allowed a single room for the rest of term. Arianna's return, though, is met with relief and happiness, and so the kinder sensibilities win out, and there are very many questions which Ari handles with more grace than Silas.
"Pippa, I beseech you, it was such a long and frightful night, and I am so tired, and I so long for a shower than I think my very Will might turn to water if I stand upon this moment any much longer. Pray, hold your questions. If you will help me braid my hair," she holds up her wrist, bound in bright white by the infirmary staff just moments ago, "I will answer what I can while you work."
Then, with a treaty struck, Ari is left alone to shower and dress in peace. There are not many girls in the washroom at this time, most having gone down to breakfast already, so it is mostly quiet. She does not have an audience for any new marks that may be on her skin, and no one of the gaggle of girls this age thinks anything of blood between legs -- beyond sympathy, really, as that passage each month is not pleasant for any of them. When she returns to Pippa and her questions, Ari feels more herself. Her scent is no longer muddled with Silas's on her skin; she cannot smell the faint musk of sex. The skirt of her jumper is a little longer than the pleated skirt she wore the day before and there is no gap and her waist where hands might slip under shirt and vest. It makes her look younger than the skirt and vest does, but perhaps, today, that is subtly calculated too.
Once Pippa has plaited her hair and Ari has kept Pippa focused on tales of Silas's heroism in helping her find shelter from the storm, they two wander down to breakfast. The tables, here, are segregated by rank and not by year. Still, Silas and Ari are de facto of separate classes. She looks for him when she enters, makes eye contact if she can, and Pippa follows that look toward him and then grins with the sort of bubbly good-natured excitement that some girls feel when watching a love story unfold. And she is convinced that this is a love story, a slow, sweet one, with childhood friends slowly transitioning into something more.
"Did he kiss you?" she asks, whispered, as they carry their trays to the consors table.
Ari's cheeks color slightly. "Yes..." she whispers back.
"I knew it!" Pippa bounces a little as Ari looks back to Silas once more before they settle down among their peers.
[The Rumor Mill]
By the first passing period, this much is widely known and circulated:
The Robinson boy and the Giametti girl were caught out in the storm together.
Silas is soooooooo brave, and chivalrous, and he helped get her to safety after she fell and hurt her wrist.
They adventure together often, didn't you know?
HE KISSED HER!
I bet he more than kissed her... a whole night together, in the woods?
In the woods! During such a storm. I would have been so frightened.
I would have been frightened of more than the storm. I've heard he's quite.... *hands spread just so*
[Silas]
Katja retreats, and he considers calling an apology or something to her back, but there are showers to be taken and classes to attend, all of which take precedence over a girl with whom he's had fun, but of whom he's not particularly fond. He's lucky to have the shower largely to himself as most of the school's population is at breakfast. So there's small talk of a 'hey man, glad you made it back all right, crazy storm, huh? The Giametti girl went missing too, did you know?' sort, and a much improved Silas emerges to join his table at breakfast. He is accepted into his group with pleasure and the Hermetic equivalent of fistbumps and high fives, but it's Arianna he looks for even amidst all that. Their eyes catch and the smile he gives is small, and private, and all for her. There's mischief there, and amusement, and pleasure at seeing her, as if they hadn't parted company minutes ago. Pippa is not the only one that catches this look, of course; teenagers are hardly known for their subtlety.
So it is that he's asked some questions, and he answers in a deflecting sort of way now, here, in public.
"Were you out together? I heard you helped her when she fell or something," comes from Adam, someone on the fringes of Silas' 'popular table' in the cafeteria. To which Silas rolls his eyes.
"Of course we were together, we've been adventuring since we were children."
At the table, it's all similarly innocent. It's not until later (after a meeting in the hallway during passing, wherein Silas is unsure how open they're being about this new thing between them, so hesitates before hugging her and letting her go; there is awkwardness abounding now, when he's less driven by his Avatar), when there's a small gathering of boys in the room he shares with Matthew, with contraband from the kitchens in the form of both food and libations that he tells more of the story - still not all, but enough interesting bits to have them all hanging on every word.
"I learned something," he says without specifying when, not thinking about how easy it might be to put together that he learned this with Arianna, while they were out of the Keep together. "There are more than three ways."
And so the boys laugh and clamor for more details, some incredulous, all intrigued. And so the conversation goes, and so things progress over time.
[The Rumor Mill]
I thought she was frigid! Hardly looks at anyone, and only really speaks to Initiate Exemptus Heallwyn. Did you know . . .?
More than three positions!
Of course there are more than three positions. Haven't you ever watched porn?
I wonder if she's available. It's not like Silas is ever serious with anyone - just ask Katja.
Sounds like something might be available, if you know what I mean.
Better be careful - if he still likes her, he may black your eye for that. I heard his mother . . .
[The Rumor Mill]
Rumors are self-replicating, self-aggrandizing, and above all, self-protective. The Mill churns on, but it is careful to avoid Arianna's input. Things are distorted and embellished, some details grow beyond their seeming. Here and there a deft hand shapes and redirects the interest, making Silas the triumphant rake and Ari ever more his easy, consor mark. Expectations are set that she is more than available.
[Arianna]
In passing between the morning classes, Arianna garners more looks and whispers from the other Consors than is usual, but she pays it little mind. They were out beyond curfew, these things happen. And if some of the boys at her rank stand a little closer than she'd like, well, then, the pretty Consor girl would call that Tuesday and pay it no more mind. It's the lack of subtleness in how one of the students in the lecture she is giving on symbology and Art that catches her out, a lewd and lingering look at the hem of her skirt that trails upward from her knees, paired with the unkind smirk-smile, and then the way he makes a sport of staring at her chest. That begins to be uncomfortable, and she is glad for Initiate Exemptus Haellewyn's escort between this class and the next. Xavi, to his credit, pays little mind to rumor beyond concern for how it is affecting the Giametti girl.
It is lunch before Arianna and Silas have a chance to reconnect in truth. She is waiting for him at the base of the grand stairs, in line of sight of his usual gathering. The Smythe girl is waiting at the top of the stair, and she will catch him first with a warm smile and some polite well wishes. Perhaps it will strike him as pleasant that Katja seems to be taking this all so well, and when she falls into step beside him she declares only that she would like to meet his adventuring friend, and with such utter absence of her usual malice that it may seem convincing to him. And, in Silas's compass, Katja is friendly and welcoming to Ari.
They don't get much beyond polite endearments before Silas steers them away, and Ari willingly follows. She loops her arms around his middle, making their gait go awkward for a moment until he readjusts. He loops one of his around her shoulders. The Rumor Mill, ever present and chirping, has more than enough evidence to corroborate its suspicions and to begin anew the spread of lies and tinted truths. When they are well and truly out of sight of Katja, and he asks if she's already, Ari only answers by tipping her head toward him and placing a quick kiss on his jawline. It's hesitant, and a little uncertain, but also hopeful. She says nothing about the consor boy who looked her over so very thoroughly in class; it is a thing she is actively trying to forget.
[The Rumor Mill]
Did you see them go off together?
I bet I know what they're up to. *wink wink, nudge nudge*
More than three ways isn't enough for her!
Lucky man. I wonder if he feels like sharing...
He shares Katja. I don't think he'd mind.
Do you think she really?
No, not Arianna. Look at them together: they're sweet.
But he's got a reputation.
Maybe he's reformed.
Hah!
Maybe she is.
Hmm.
You don't think she really?
She might have.
[The Keep]
So it goes for a few days in relative calm; Silas and Arianna are sweet, and together every possible moment. Sometimes there is kissing. Sometimes, if the place is private enough and the mood is right, there's more. But mostly, there's an apparent return to normalcy that's good for everyone - the exception being how sweet Katja is being. This is not just to Silas and Arianna, but to everyone, and to those who don't know her plans perhaps it's a bit unnerving.
If consors (and Awakened) are looking on Arianna with that kind of consideration more than usual, they are more subtle about it; Arianna catches it now and then, but nothing like the day when her student looked her over so blatantly. And if people are whispering the main players aren't hearing much of it, if any.
[Silas]
"Hey Silas, did you get that bit in Herbology? I didn't understand how to tell the difference between . . ."
This is how Silas is kept from the halls during the first passing period on the third or fourth day after the storm, how he misses what happens. Perhaps Katja misses it, too. Or perhaps she had something to do with its orchestration. Who knows?
[The Older Boys]
It is a day like any other, though she's felt quite a bit less like there's a large, red S or W on her chest. Her interactions are almost normal, and she gets to be with Silas as much as their divergent schedules and living arrangements allow. Xavi is amused, and pays only enough attention to ensure that his charge is well and safe. So it is that he, too, is absent when she's approached by a group of three boys, hangers on to the fringes of Silas' usual crowd that she's heard him call large and dumb and loud often enough to think that perhaps they just weren't paying attention when they came this way, blocking her in, up until she finds that they're too close, and that she has no easy retreat.
"'lo, Giametti - we heard that Robinson wouldn't mind sharin' what it is he's gettin' from ye." With this, one of them touches her hair, curling a strand around his finger, but that's the only touch beyond his breath when he leans in to murmur quietly. "I know just the place. But will ye take all of us at once, or by turns?"
And they're laughing, the other two, when he gives that lock of hair a little pull before letting her go.
"Cat got yer tongue? Ah, well. Let us know when, girlie. We'll bring the wine."
And before she has much time to respond they're on their way; while it definitely felt menacing to her, there's little in the way of audience to prove it were she to make a report. Even Collegiums full of Awakened and consors have their limits, don't they.
[The Rumor Mill]
Moving on from Silas, is she?
More than one at once, I heard!
I wonder if he knows. Think this means Katja will be after him again?
I'm pretty sure he's done with Katja. I think he and Arianna both really like each other. She wouldn't . . .
Maybe that first time was just the beginning.
Lucky Silas, am I right?
[Arianna]
She's cornered, and her arms tighten around her books and she wishes for the thousandth time that she were awakened and with the capability to make her voice loud, or her blows strong, or her mind resolute or any of the other tricks that her father has intimated are waiting to be at her disposal when her Will makes itself known and one of the big dumb boys reaches into her space, which causes her to jerk back and into one of his cronies. The first one catches her hair and it is not at all a thing she likes. Her heart is in her throat as she stands as tall and she is able and she leans away from him when he leans in. Maybe that's why he tugs.
When they move away she swallows hard, and her footsteps down the corridor in the opposite direction are faster and heavier than she would like. Head down, arms hugged to her books she runs full tilt into Silas as he is emerging from Herbology, which is nowhere near the class she is crossing from or crossing to, and Ari's eyes are bright and her cheeks are flushed, and her hands cannot uncurl from the margins of her books which doesn't keep them from scattering across the hallway floor.
"Sorry," she mumbles, bending low to pick at the looseleaf pages. But she is careful to tuck her skirt under her bum so it is captured by the bend in her knees and doesn't offer an unwitting view to anyone who might be wandering through. "Sorry," she says again, sweeping up her pages quickly without even looking up to see who it is she's smashed into at such speed. Her hands are shaking.
All the while she is second guessing herself. Is the pleated skirt too short? Is that why? Would Silas ever offer to share me? And that, that brings up bile at the back of her throat. It pricks tears in her eyes. Will ye take all of us at once, or by turns?
"Sorry." Again. "I'll clean this up. I'm sorry." By now, Silas has probably heard enough. If he stops her, if he gathers her to him to ask what's wrong, she'll hold to him fiercely, slip her chin over his shoulder, and shake her head in answer.
[Haellewyn]
There is a lot that Initiate Exemptus Haellewyn lets slide in the interest of staying out of his charge's way. His missive from her father is explicit: bodily harm against Arianna will not be tolerated in anyway. He is not to police her social choices or her friends or interject in matters that are not related to her physical safety. As such, he has little opinion on her choice of beau, or on whatever did or did not transpire between them on the night of the storm, or about their current doting on and devotion to one another. A line is crossed when he hears of this more than one at once rumor.
Because there are few things that the handful of years between him and Arianna grants Xavier, and one of them is the understanding that no one should speak about a young woman in such terms, another is that no woman he has ever met has ever indicated a desire for such things (and he may consider them anatomically impossible without some form of bodily harm ensuing). He is also fairly sure that the darker turn of these rumors inspires a particularly uncouth type of behavior in young and unruly men, and a particularly vitriolic one in young women of a similar age. This is too close to the line regarding bodily harm for Xavier, and so he sets aside his studies and the responsibilities he has in collegium for awhile to investigate.
It is amazing what simply walking the halls will tell you, if you have a more than rudimentary grasp of Ars Mentis. The likes of Tweedle Dumb, Dumber and Dumbest are not hard to sense from their combined malice and stupidity, and while he is not certain that they have yet approached Arianna, Xavi is certain that he does not like the cut of their jib. Jibs. Whatever. The cut of their whatever leaves him with a decided urge to hit something, hard, until it bleeds.
So, then, and with the flick and flourish of a well practiced rote, and the expediency of a concerned Warder, a small rote is sent flying through the halls to find her position and report it back to him. It is an imposition on her privacy, and not one he uses lightly, but what was an ill feeling when he departed his study has risen to well-reasoned concern after a stroll among the Academy's finest. Xavier is not far behind this scrying spell, wending his way through the halls -- and keeping his ears out for more immediate threats -- until he reaches the Herbology classroom. This will be significantly after Arianna has collided with Silas, but perhaps not before they have moved to some quieter place to talk. Xavi's eyes are dark, and his hair is dark, and the expression he wears is dark and displeased, and the look of Arianna frightened and crying does nothing to alleviate this. He wears the imposing colors of House Flambeau, and his oft-caged but now-rising temper threatens to make good on all that offers. If he can make eye contact with Silas without her noticing, there is no mistaking the solidarity in righteous anger Silas will find there.
[Silas]
Of course he helps Arianna pick up her things, and draws her up to her feet and into the classroom (the door is left open, and quite possibly the teacher is still there - a look from the Robinson boy can shut the mouth of nearly anyone when applied properly) for quiet, and relative privacy. This is, perhaps, the one time he calls her by her nickname where others can hear. This young, he generally feels like such things are private, sacred.
"Stella, love, what's wrong?"
That he's concerned is clear, and that he's made more so by her lack of answer is more so. So it is that Xavi finds them in the Herbology classroom in an embrace; it is a simple hug, nothing more, and yet there are layers and layers of intimacy to it that appear nearly impossible to unravel. Someone with the right knowledge might be able to see that this is more than friendship than childhood, and more than a teenage romance.
When Xavi enters, the two are side-on to the door, with Arianna clearly the protected one; it's Silas that looks towards the door in a manner that speaks potential violence for anyone that dares approach. Perhaps there are others, the next class period, piling up outside through which Haellewyn has to weave his way before he finds them there, but that look? It gets a nod of understanding. Silas is well able to handle many things, but it's always good to know he doesn't have to do it alone.
[Haellewyn]
The rumor mill among largely privileged adolescents is often a dark, cruel thing. He picks up things about who's part of an illicit poker game, who prefers trysts with those of the same gender, which teachers aren't averse to trysts with students, and more. His main concern is, of course, those bits that have to do with Arianna, and so he learns what people are saying about her, and about Silas, and about the two of them together. When one is truly listening, one finds that these people, little more than children, are not nearly so subtle as they may think they are. (Somewhere in there, there are also probably rumors about what Arianna may or may not do with Xavi himself. Or with him and Silas together. But in this, the Initiate Exemptus, years older, is not so interesting as their peers.)
[Silas]
"Are you well enough for your next class? If so, Initiate Exemptus Haellewyn and I will accompany you there - or wherever you'd like to go."
His voice is low, quiet, and seething. That he means to do something about what happened is in every bit of his bearing.
[Arianna]
Stella, love, what's wrong?
It is foolish. Arianna knows it is foolish that his kindness only makes her cling more completely to him. That the stupid boys with their stupid meat-headed threats and their stupid invasion of her space and their stupid assumptions about her promiscuity should reduce her to tears is intolerable, and yet she does cling. And there are tears. And embarrassment and indignation and wounded pride burn in her cheeks, but also there is fear underlaying it that some might make good on their meat-headed intentions. Arianna has never been afraid of her classmates before. It tastes bitter in her mouth, this fear, and the seething note in Silas's voice does little to quell it.
[Haellewyn]
"We will accompany you to my study," Xavi says, in a tone that brooks no argument. It is the tone of an older, wiser, and for now calmer head prevailing. Once Arianna has steadied enough to school her emotions, they sweep through the halls toward the vaunted Collegium offices, Initiate Exemptus Haellewyn leading the way, robes swept back and billowing with the intent of his progress, the colors of House Flambeau on show in his cowl hood and his tie, and, lest any question the imperious right with which he stalks these Academy floors, his wand at the ready in his projective hand. To the prefect who keeps the threshold between the student and staff corridors, he says only: "I require these pupils in the interest of a matter of the Collegium."
Few question a Flambeau with fire in their eyes.
Haellewyn's study is particularly orderly for a War mage. There is, of course, a brazier for workings of a more elemental sort, but there are also tall bookcases and a stately desk. There is a wide window, through which the light of midday spills, with a bench before it that seems both comfortable and practical. It is a pleasant place, and a refuge after the rumormongering of the student halls. When they are both inside he works a sigil over the door and speaks a few familiar words in an angelic tongue. There is a flashbright of working magic, and then the sounds of the Collegium are dimmed to those within the office, and the sounds within his office are so obscured to those in the corridor beyond.
He waits until the two are settled, undoubtedly together on the bench before the window, where the warmth of sunlight streaming through compliments the natural effusive warmth of the Robinson boy, and the bright of it catches in the red of her hair and they are spring and autumn intertwined and it is impossible to miss that they are threshold seasons both, neither the apex nor the drowning low point of the year. He waits until they are settled and then, without anything so vulgar as words, he invites Arianna's explanation of events from his cautiously casual perch on the edge of that stately desk.
[Arianna]
It comes in plain words, accompanied by hand-wringing and a look cast down into her lap, at the offending edge of her skirt, at that hemline that is neither too immodest nor too protective, at that boundary which has failed her. She is not particularly good at keeping her feelings from the retelling, which is bad for Silas's blood pressure, but relevant to Xavier's interests. To speak it so plainly makes the matter small. Unwanted things were said. Unwanted things were intimated. Though, at closer examination, it was not necessarily a direct threat and ... the fear of it feels misplaced and foolish when the words of it, and the whole of it, are forced into relief.
"It is not that different," she tells them, with rue touching her tone and the green of her eyes, "Than the way I've been looked at. Save that looking I can ignore, but this I could not. If they wanted to be heard, they were heard. Still... Silas... I cannot believe you would offer to share me..." This, wounded, and incredulous, but not quite as thoroughly incredulous as either young man would want.
[Haellewyn]
It falls to Xavi to explain to Silas, and also to Arianna, that words alone are not enough to bring a matter before the Academy administration. Especially as the boys are unknown to Ari, and that they did little more than loom and touch her hair. Undoubtedly there is a loud argument from Silas, stifled by the Flambeau's personality alone, and the redirection of that rage into compassion toward the wounded party in their midst. Fact is separated from fiction thus: Silas has said no such thing about sharing; Silas has given them no reason to believe he would; Silas does not believe her consent is his to give out and trade upon as currency between the boys. Though how the particulars of what Silas and Ari may have done have leaked into the common knowledge, Xavi is careful not to touch upon. There will be time enough to lead Silas to that realization and it is better done when Arianna is not present.
This, though, he can offer them: "I will sign you out of your coursework for the remainder of the day on Collegium business. Keep out of sight of the masses, and you may do what you will. Recuperate. Make yourselves strong against the vicious words traded by your peers. This storm will pass, but if it strengthens first and crosses an intolerable line, I will present the case to the Collegium myself, with Initiate Robinson as second counsel, and the weight of it will be enough to force consideration more fully than if brought by a consor herself."
This is the sad truth of their caste-based system. Arianna's word, on its own, is nearly weightless. The combined Wills of Xavi and Silas, though, will command enough attention to have the matter handled.
[The Rumor Mill]
Signed them out of their classes! Oh ho ho!
The three of them together in his study with a Warded door!
I would have never taken them as a triad, but it's so easy to see now.
Does Haellewyn take her by the back, you think, and the Robinson boy her front?
Is that even anatomically possible?
If three at once is, then two most certainly is...
... is three at once?
We heard she's done it.
I wonder if it's a trick of Ars Conjunctionalis...
It has something to do with arse-es.
So it seems he does share her.
And that he enjoys the sharing!
I bet he wasn't even her first.
Or if he was, then she's fallen quickly.
She'll get herself pregnant, if she keeps going like this.
It's a shame, since she's so pretty.
She won't be pretty with a belly.
She won't be here with a baby belly.
That's right, they'll kick her out. Just like Justine.
Her daddy's important; at worst they'll transfer her.
I kind of feel bad for her...
......
[Silas]
"I would never!" Is the indignant expulsion at Arianna's statement about sharing - not that she can't believe he'd offer it, but that she thought for however long that he might have done. This sentiment is, of course, agreed on by the voice of his Avatar, wherever it resides, and not for the first time at least some part of him wants to reassert that claim he'd staked on Beltaine, in the woods. This, though, is neither the time nor the place and for once on this subject, man and Avatar both agree.
But the misunderstanding is cleared up and Initiate Adeptus Haellewyn is thanked both for sharing this information and for excusing them from their classes for the day. Silas is understandably frustrated with the shortcomings of their administration, but on some level perhaps he has a plan of his own. And so there's snuggling Arianna close as she recovers, and a murmured, "I know a place we can go, if you'd like. Or I can see you to your dorm, if you'd prefer to be alone until Pippa finishes classes."
[The Hunt]
She is ours. OURS, not theirs, those sub par lackwits. We will make them rue their transgression, and remind her what it means to be ours, and that to be ours means that she is in our protection. They will be repaid for their audacity.
[Silas]
It is agreed that she will come with him and so Xavi releases the wards; Silas takes her by the hand and leads her up to a clean, but seldom explored part of the Keep. They find themselves in a gable of the attic, where there is a box of apples, a small collection of books (some closer to capital B status than others, but none of true value), an old dorm mattress and blanket in a beam of sunlight (when such a thing exists in this rainy bit of England), and an armchair likely pilfered from one of the lounges downstairs. He's a bit shy about introducing her to it, when they get there though a tight passage from the main part of the attic; how someone managed to get the chair in there is anyone's guess, though there are the residuals of goodness only knows how many years of magic. This is, perhaps, why there is so little dust when the rest of the attic is a mess, why the apples are as crisp and sweet as when they were picked even in the off season, and why even the rumor mill doesn't seem to know about this little room.
"It's quiet here," Silas says as he indicates she can take chair or mattress if she likes; wherever she sits, he sits or stands near to begin a gentle, calming massage of her back and shoulders. "And I don't think anyone really knows about it. It's always exactly the same as when I found it, no matter how I leave it. I tried, once, to leave an apple core out and a book open, but when I came back the book was in its spot and the core was gone."
It was house elves, perhaps, or that residual feeling of still, quiet, preserving magic.
"I'll make it right, Stella."
[Arianna]
She seems better the further they get from the common halls of the Collegium and Academy. Best are the moments when they cross between buildings, out of doors and in the brisk wind of what passes for a summer's day. Though Silas can tell that the morning has changed her, as she is careful to hold down the pleat of her skirts in the wind, and as they climb up to the rafters there is care taken to not offer too much of a view. She is reserved, all of a sudden, and even with him where she was carefree and unabashed only a few days before. Emerging into the attic space, she breathes a sigh of contented relief and moves away from him enough to explore the magic of the space. It is an adventure, then, though of a quieter sort and Arianna is pleased by it.
She trails her fingertips over the leather arm of the pilfered chair and glances over at him through his lashes, or rather something in her looks through her and him to something within him and speaks in tongues older than any of the languages of man in the glint of green to her eyes and the specific posture that she holds and the barely there sweep of her fingerprints over the sheen of it. This is a moment caught darkly, and in passing, and it is not so much of Silas and Arianna now as of who they may someday be.
The now of them is more in how she captures a book up in the crook of one arm and an apple in the other and flounces down on the mattress and blanket to stretch out on her stomach and echo so many of their more innocent adventures. To read, shoulder to shoulder, of adventures on the page -- though the two of them pressed onto a twin mattress's width is less innocent now, and shoulder to shoulder becomes snuggled up beside, becomes held and spooned, and then becomes her on her stomach again, reading aloud, as he trails his fingertips and kisses over places neither innocent nor chaste and the break of her spoken cadence is all the reward she will give him just now. But it is a glorious reward. And so she teases him with her feigned indifference, with the indomitable (we know that to be untrue) strength of her will, with the words about some swashbuckling adventurer, and the little...
... gasps ...
... that belie how her attention is anywhere but on the page.
And somehow, by the turn of the next chapter, its heading read out clearly in impeccable oration, her legs have slipped a little further apart, and she glances over her shoulder to him with mischief and appreciation and challenge and permission all tangled up in that look. Then clears her throat, and continues to read:
Our adventurer has found himself stranded on a desert isle with nothing but coconut palms around him. The sea is flat and steady toward the horizon. There are no sh--
... i ... ips. No ships in sight.
[Fade]
[The Rumor Mill]
I saw Haellewyn in the greater library. He isn't with those two.
Do you think they're up to something?
I think something's up, if you know what I mean.
Everyone knows what you mean. That wasn't particularly subtle.
Ooooh, someone's not getting any.
Did anyone see where they snuck off to?
[Silas]
And so they spend the rest of the afternoon wrapped up in each other, reading and eating apples and giggling and other soft, companionable things in the comfort and privacy of this secret bit of the attic; so far as Silas knows, no one else knows of this place; they are undisturbed for the several hours they spend together, talking of summer plans or what they'll do when they graduate or of shared adventures both past and future. Perhaps they have known, on some level or another, that this coming together would happen; goodness knows, the people who encouraged it are strong enough of Will to cause all sorts of things. Goodness knows the kind of trust and intimacy that come with being friends since childhood has a strong influence.
Eventually, though, they have to leave their little nest; they have to eat more than apples, and as comfortable as this place is, their beds are more so when it comes time for sleep. When they are both again fully dressed, and put together as they should be, they stand together at the opening to the passage back into the main attic of this building reluctantly, Silas with his arms wrapped around Arianna. It's been days, and it's been a lifetime, and it's not the first time he's said these words but it is the first under their new conditions. "I love you." He kisses her head, and whether she returns the sentiment or not it's off through the passage and back down for dinner. Silas is sorely tempted to flout the rules (be they school or simply social) and sit with Arianna, but no doubt they are again separated.
[The Rumor Mill]
They came back looking normal, that's hardly interesting. What do you think they were doing all day? And where?
I know Arianna didn't go to the dorm to shower or anything.
Neither did Silas.
And did you see how tight they were to each other? Of course they did something 'interesting', even without Haellewyn.
You know how Silas can be, I'm surprised the ones who bothered her are still undamaged.
Maybe she keeps him to exhausted to do anything about it.
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