Bethas 13, 2720 - After Practice
Cerise sat on the edge of a group of other girls alone, and all she felt was exhaustion. Practice had been tiring, as it always was. She had, perhaps, pushed herself harder than she might have on any other day. Not just because of the upcoming team selections, although that was what she would tell anyone if they had asked. That's what she wanted it to be, and not this aching tenderness she couldn't shake ever since she got back to school after seeing her father. The first time in more than a year. She should feel better, or at least more normal.
All she felt was empty.
A hand came up to press on her eyes as she squeezed them shut. Better, she reminded herself fiercely. She should feel better. She wanted to feel better. Walking away upset after seeing her father was nothing new. Certainly nothing she shouldn't be used to already. The uneasy discussion of books, perhaps, was less usual. Maybe it was just that which made it linger in her mind, reaching to grasp at her throat whenever she was still for too long.
"...Vauquelin? Helloooo Vauquelin--are you listening?" The voice was followed by a gentle nudge from a perceptive field, familiar and friendly. Cerise snapped her head up to see Raquelle standing across from her, blonde eyebrows raised and a smile on her oval face.
"No, I'm sorry Rae--were you talking to me?" Ticks, was she really so inside her own head? Raquelle, to her credit, didn't seem surprised or upset. She just laughed, joined by a few other girls nearby who had been watching as the blonde girl tried to get Cerise's attention these past few minutes.
"I was just asking if you wanted to come out to the Stacks with on the five--Astrid, Mel and me. On a group date. We need one more girl, to make it even, and I thought, maybe...?" Raquelle blushed, but her gaze was earnest. Cerise blinked, surprised into momentary silence. They asked her, from time to time--she had yet to agree. It wasn't that she didn't like Raquelle and Astrid, although she was less than fond of Melpomene. But the whole scene seemed to terribly tedious. What did she want to go on a group date for--or any date at all, for that matter? She was busy enough, she thought. Her life was full enough, without that in it. Cerise opened her mouth to say no.
"Sure," she said instead, surprising both herself and Raquelle, "why not?"
"Oh. Oh!" Now it was Raquelle who was taken off-guard; Cerise couldn't blame her. She was amazed herself. If her confusion hadn't dissolved into such shy delight, Cerise would have taken it back. Nevermind, she should have said, I forgot I'm busy. With something. Homework, or Sish, or... something. But her brown eyes were bright and her pleasure so genuine, Cerise found herself smiling back instead. "I wasn't sure if--that's. Oh! Wonderful, it's wonderful. Mel, Astrid--she'll come after all!"
Astrid, short and dark like her Mugrobi father, turned to her with a smile and a thumbs up. Mel looked--well, she didn't seem upset, which was better than Cerise had expected. Their relationship had been strained since coming back for their final year. Cerise never had figured out why, and it had seemed too exhausting to ask.
Maybe, she told herself, this is what she needed. Not homework, not practice, not her nightly jogging laps around the campus. Company. And it was their last year together--she should try, she thought, a little bit. Before she couldn't anymore. Cerise had avoided going into the Stacks for a long time. All of last year and the end of the one before--maybe it was time to stop. After all, she really just had to avoid the one bar. No matter how popular the Badger was, it was only one bar among many. What were the odds they would go there, of all places?
Bethas 15, 2720 - Happy Hour
The odds were, it turned out, higher than she had thought. At first, she had been too swept up in the novelty of the outing to take specific note of the path they wound through the narrow maze of streets. It had been a long time since she had been out in company, and longer still since she'd been in the Stacks to do it. Cerise had even dressed herself with a little more care than she usually did, just for the change of pace. They had all met at the gates before heading out. Mel had even offered her a compliment on her choice of earrings, which had been both unexpected and pleasing. The rest of the group had politely refrained from saying anything about Sish's presence.
Her date, such as he was, had been pleasant enough thus far, if dull. Lionel McAllister was a mildly handsome static conversationalist that she knew not at all; he was no duelist, but on some sports team or another. Cerise knew he had told her, but she had forgotten as soon as the information had reached her ears. He seemed content enough to talk about himself with or without Cerise's input, so she tuned him out and lost herself in the buzz of warm, excited fields. She hadn't come for him, anyway.
It was only once it had become far too late to turn back or feign other plans that she realized she knew where they were going. She was, in fact, quite familiar with the route, even if she had not taken so direct a one as this. Her stomach twisted and sank, her heart settling like a stone at the bottom of it. Of all the bars in the entire city, they had ended up in front of the only one she wanted to avoid: their little group had arrived at the Singing Badger, and there was nothing Cerise could do about it.
"Father, of course, thinks to give me a position with his company as soon as I've graduated. He wanted me to take a junior clerk's position--to 'work my way up'. Can you imagine? His most senior clerk is human, if you can believe it. So I told him, under no circumstances would I work under--" Lionel went on, and Cerise made some kind of vague sound before she turned to Raquelle. Lionel was still talking to the back of her head; she was starting to have regrets about her agreeing to come.
"Have you been to the Badger, Vauquelin?" Raquelle asked Cerise, turning away from her own date--a perfectly nice young man that Cerise had a vague memory of perhaps being her fiance and not a date at all--with a warm smile. Cerise's eyebrows rose, at a loss for words.
"I am familiar. It's--been a while, but I remember enjoying it." That was true, at least. If Raquelle noticed a slight awkwardness in her tone, she gave no indication.
"Oh wonderful! It is really quite charming, isn't it? I should have invited you before, since you like it here! Well, now I know." Cerise smiled, stiff and without touching her eyes. Raquelle didn't notice, she just let her possibly-fiance open the door for them all. At least it was a five, she thought desperately. Emiel didn't work on some fives. Unless, of course, his schedule had changed in the last, oh, year and a half. Cerise prayed to every god in the Circle that it had not.
But the gods, it seemed, did not listen to the prayers of one such as Cerise Vauquelin. Her eyes had turned, automatically and with the ease of a habit she hadn't seemed to lose, to the bar. The path of her sight had arced unerringly to a familiar face. Handsome and flashy, glints of gold she could see even from the doorway. She would have been able to see him from any distance, she thought, in any crowd. That made her angry, and she couldn't have said why or what with.
It hurt. She hadn't thought it would, after all this time--but she was the one who had nursed that wound, kept that grudge alive. Any time she had felt it fade, she had pressed on it, ripped it open to keep it fresh and bright. She had pressed on it more, this month, after seeing her father. Anger and sorrow and some kind of tender aching all at once; Cerise tore her eyes away and took her seat with the others at the table, next to Lionel and across from Astrid on the outside end. Sish settled in her lap, giving her somewhere to set her inside hand.
Cerise picked miserably at the table with the other, Lionel's voice in her ear, and all she wanted now was to leave without Emiel noticing. All she had to do was avoid looking at or thinking about him and his position behind the bar for, oh, at least an hour or more. Just that. Simple and easy.
This had been a terrible mistake.