After Ael'aendir's fight the remaining pairings felt very lackluster. The fights that followed were fine, some of them were even really good. But after watching Thra’kara’s and Caitlynn’s intense fight and the Sun-Elf's fight with Nyx that lasted basically a second, most of the people in the courtyard had quietly and unanimously decided that the day had already given them its best. Karzen let the day run its course and called it when it was done. And when the sparring session was over, it was time to go shower and clean up.
The academy's bathing area had two options. There were the individual, enclosed showers along corridors that most of them had been using since they arrived, and a larger separate wing further in that Elayna had walked past a few times without really thinking about, the pools and the general open showers.
Zyvara had thought about it.
"The pools," she said on the walk back, in tone of someone who had made a clear decision. "We're using the pools today."
Nobody in the group argued.
They all showered quickly on their own first, washing off the dirt and dried sweat and for some of them dried blood, and then wrapped themselves in towels before they made their way to the pool wing.
The room was warm before they'd opened the door fully. Several large pools were spread across a wide floor at varying depths and temperatures, steam rose gently from the hotter ones at the far end. This was a place that had clearly been built by people who understood what the students might want after some serious training.
They walked across the smooth stone floor to a pool located around the middle of the area, it was large enough for several people to bathe in it with ample space for everyone, steam was rising low from the water's surface.
They stood at the edge for a moment.
Then they got in.
All four of them got in at approximately the same time, lowering themselves into the warm water, and the collective exhale that followed was long and completely unguarded. And all four of them made the exact same deeply satisfied sound. Their bodies that had been training and fighting hard all day had just been told they could fully relax, and they all intended to.
"Oooohh," Elayna said as she lowered herself chin-deep in the water and closed her eyes.
Zyvara had her head tipped back against the pool's edge already with her eyes closed.
Even the expressionless Kiri looked like she was in heaven, she sat at the edge of the pool with her back against the wall and had her knees under her chin with her fox tail floating gently behind her, looking like she was about to fall asleep.
Evelyn stretched her whole body as she sat down, arms stretching straight up in a V-position before letting them fall down on the edge of the pool as she leaned her arms and head back against it.
They stayed like that for a while.
"We should do this every day," Zyvara said, eyes still closed.
Evelyn settled herself more comfortably against the edge. "We won’t have time for it every day," she said as she closed her eyes.
"Every day," Zyvara repeated, with more feeling.
"Mmm," Kiri said, half asleep resting her head on her knees.
Elayna looked up at the ceiling with a dreamy expression. "...I don't want to leave."
"None of us do," Evelyn said. "But we should probably—"
Zyvara had an expression between sorrow and anger, "if you say we’re leaving the pool this moment I'm going to drown myself in it," she said.
Evelyn pressed her lips together. "...We really should start heading for class soon."
A sound rose from the pool that was not a groan and not a sigh but contained the essence of both.
Before they all had got out and some of them were still sitting there. Zyvara opened one eye and looked at Elayna.
Who was standing at the edge of the pool, having just emerged and re-wrapped her towel around herself and was reaching for her things.
"That," Zyvara said, leaning her head back and closing her eye again, in the tone of someone reporting an observable fact, "is still an unreasonable amount of woman gathered on one person, in one place."
Elayna went pink immediately, instinctively knowing the comment had been about her.
Evelyn looked at Zyvara with her blue eyes and a smile she was visibly trying to contain. "Zyvara," she said, in a warm innocent tone of someone who was absolutely about to say something not innocent, "might it be that you’re jealous?"
Zyvara's both eyes opened fully, immediately, and locked on Evelyn like a predator locked onto something that had made the mistake of moving.
"Huh?!" she said, sitting up straight. "What did you just—"
"You are quite slim," Evelyn said, casually, tone not demeaning in any way, smile still very much present, "comparatively speaking—"
"I will BLAST you," Zyvara said as she stood up, pointing a pale grey finger at her, red eyes wide. "I will fire an orb directly at your stupid pretty face—"
"In the pool?" Evelyn said with a small innocent tilt to her head.
"Don't think I won't—"
"Hm!" Kiri interrupted, barely audible with her mouth under the water.
Kiri raised her lips slightly out of the water. “...Don’t destroy the pool.”
Elayna stood at the edge of the pool very pink-faced and said nothing, which was definitely the right decision here.
Zyvara grumbled and agreed for a temporary truce and they got up to head for the next class.
Mana theory passed the way it usually did, quietly and slowly, the teacher moved through the room and spoke about mana and its history with enthusiastic warmth. Elayna sat there understanding most of it already and spent a small amount of time thinking about how Cait had looked during her fight instead of the lesson content, which she felt was reasonable given the circumstances.
After the class when they got back to their dorm the 'evening routine' took place. A routine that had established itself over the last week without anyone commenting on it or thinking about it.
Zyvara came through the door first, dropped her bag, and flopped directly onto her bed with the full commitment of someone performing a deserved collapse. She always landed flat on her back and draped one arm over her face, her boots always stayed on. She usually laid there completely still for approximately one minute while the others got in and settled and redressed.
Evelyn would stretch her whole body for a minute or so and then sit on her bed and take her boots off, calmly but efficiently.
Elayna just dropped onto her own bed most days, and stared at the ceiling thinking about the day.
And Kiri would put down her bag beside her bed, take off her boots and then sit down at her desk.
This was more-or-less how things went when they got home after they'd finished their classes for the day.
Zyvara moved her arm off her face.
"Annoyingly strong," she said, to the ceiling.
Evelyn looked at her. "Hm?"
"The second years," Zyvara clarified. "They’re annoyingly strong. And the ones who aren't strong are annoyingly good at moving out of the way of my orbs."
"You lost a lot today?" Evelyn asked with a warm but knowing smile.
"Three times," Zyvara said, with the flat disgust of someone for whom this was three times more than acceptable. "Three."
Evelyn hummed a sound that was trying to appear sympathetic and was not entirely succeeding.
"...Don't," Zyvara said.
"I'm not doing anything, I-I also lost a couple of times today" Evelyn said, her voice very carefully level.
Zyvara furrowed her brows slightly. "You're doing the thing where you try not to laugh because you think this is funny," she said with mild frustration. "I can hear it."
Evelyn lost the battle briefly, a warm laugh escaped before she caught it, and covered her mouth with her hand. "Sorry. It's just — it's normal, they're our seniors of course we'll lose in our first weeks or months, and the way you call them annoying is just—"
"It's not funny," Zyvara said dryly.
"It's a little funny," Evelyn said, still smiling.
"Kiri?" Zyvara said to the ceiling.
"I also lost," Kiri said quietly, from her desk, without looking up. "Twice."
"See," Evelyn said, gesturing everyone in the room. "We all did. Me, you and Kiri, I’m sure even Elayna also lost at least once."
"Yeah..." Elayna said, "I lost once," she added, slightly quietly.
Everyone but Kiri looked at her.
"Once? Really?" Zyvara said, sitting up slightly on her bed.
"To Malto," Elayna said. "He’s a Half-Elf, a second-year spear user. He uses metal transmutation magic, he uses it to extend the spear and change the shape of it and he often does it mid-strike. I didn't read his range properly and by the time I'd adjusted for or learned the range it was already over."
She frowned slightly at her lap. "His use of his magic was really smart. I should have been more careful."
"Malto," Evelyn said, with a growing recognition in her voice. She paused. "I think I watched him fight Gorakk today."
"And?" Zyvara said, gaze now flicking from Elayna to Evelyn.
"He fought quite well," Evelyn said. "Pretty well, actually. Gorakk won, it wasn't exactly close I think but Malto did very well."
A short silence.
"You only lost to someone who fought decently well against Gorakk," Zyvara said, looking at Elayna.
"... Uhm. Yes?"
"Elayna," Zyvara said, in the tone of someone arriving at a simple conclusion, "you're actually surprisingly strong."
"You are," Evelyn agreed warmly, with a happy expression as she looked at Elayna. "But not surprisingly." She looked at Zyvara with a slightly harsh look.
Zyvara raised one questioning brow and shrugged her shoulders.
"Hm," Kiri said, with the small forward tilt. "I agree."
Elayna looked at her hands and was quiet for a moment. She felt something warm in her chest and was privately very pleased about the praise.
She briefly looked at her friends before she felt her face go warm and cast her eyes down to her lap again. “T-thank you...” She said with a small but earnest smile.
The conversation drifted for a while, eventually to who they all had won and lost against, to who of the second years they thought were interesting and hard to fight against.
Then a brief silence passed.
"What about the fight between Thra'kara and Cait?" Evelyn said, after a while.
"Yes," Zyvara said immediately, sitting up properly with her arms crossed. "Let's talk about that."
Evelyn appeared to be deep in thought and stared at the ceiling for a moment.
"Well." She started. "They're both incredibly intense, Thra’kara has unreal strength and a good and effective combination with her punches, tail, magic and dragonfire... but Cait is still so completely chaotic and... It just feels like she’s very experienced. Fighting experienced, I mean."
Zyvara also looked up at the ceiling, closing her eyes in thought. “Yes. There’s no better way to explain how she does everything so naturally in fights. She reacts to everything on instinct rather than having to think about how to react... Well, we already knew Caitlynn was incredibly strong. ”
With a shake of her head Zyvara got the discussion back to the actual fighting.
“So, Thra’kara has some serious power in those punches, Zett couldn’t take them head-on even when she was pulling those punches. And Cait took at least two of them at full strength.” She said, large red eyes staring ahead at nothing in particular with a slight frown.
“She’s tough for sure. Still.” Evelyn said, “I was really surprised about Caitlynn’s magic. I also use body enhancement but mine doesn’t really visibly appear around me when I use it.” She added with a thoughtful expression. “I’d imagine she also has some sort of offensive-magic or defensive-magic.”
"Didn't she say something to Thra'kara at the end?" Elayna asked.
Evelyn and Zyvara looked at each other and then shook their heads, Kiri said nothing, so no one seemed to have heard anything.
"I think your hearing must be much better than ours Elayna." Evelyn said with a shrug.
"...W-well I didn't hear exactly what she said anyway. I just thought I heard her mention offensive magic..." Elayna admitted.
There was a short silence.
Kiri then looked up from her desk but stared straight ahead, not looking at any of them. “...I think Thra’kara’s magic’s interesting.” she said. A short pause. “Wind with fire, the fire-wall she used to push Cait back was smart.”
"And the laser," Zyvara said. "When she breathed the dragonfire laser I felt that from across the courtyard. The heat of dragonfire is frankly absurd."
"What about her tail swipe at the end," Evelyn said. "If that had hit Cait it would have broken every bone it—"
"But Cait jumped it," Elayna said.
She sat up slightly. "The way she moved the whole fight, her footwork is so fast and chaotic but it’s always perfect, and every swing or thrust with her swords went for the gaps in the scales, specifically, not randomly. She'd been aiming between them from the start and then the regrip she did after she took the hook to her stomach where she let the long-sword roll through her hand—" Elayna was gesturing with her hands now without noticing, "—after that I think she was even more accurate with her strikes. And then the body enhancement, you could see the difference immediately, and then when she threw the shorter—"
"Elayna," Evelyn said patiently, with a growing smile.
"—and the spin after she dodged the tail-swipe, two full rotations mid-air and she placed the thrust exactly in the gap between the scales and pierced—"
"Elayna."
She stopped.
Evelyn was looking at her with a wide smile that she’d given up on holding back. "Elay—" she started, and then a short soft laugh escaped. "Hehehe, Elayna, you have hearts in your eyes."
Elayna's mouth closed.
"Is it for Caitlynn," Zyvara said leaning forward with a haughty smile, red eyes bright, "or for her good technique?"
Elayna looked at her hands.
She thought about it for one genuine second. Which was enough.
She made herself small. She drew her shoulders in, chin going down, and said very quietly, to her lap:
"...P-probably both."
Zyvara pointed at her. "I knew it was the Cait face! It’s been changing a bit every day but I knew—"
"Leave her alone," Evelyn said, still laughing.
"She said probably both—"
Evelyn chuckled. "Zyvara."
"But it’s not probably both! Elayna's a combat junkie! And it's even more damn obvious Caitlynn also is!"
"Hm," Kiri said, from her desk, which didn't help Elayna at all since Kiri did her signature approval nod.
Elayna chose to stay small and pink-faced and stared at her lap until the noise died down, which took a while.
After that she mostly sat quietly and nodded while the others talked about the fight. Thra'kara's dragonfire combinations, Caitlynn's body enhancement, the point where it had become unclear who would win. She occasionally added something small when she couldn't help it. Which was often. And often about Caitlynn.
"And then Eiric," Evelyn said eventually.
"The evidently not so average one," Zyvara said dryly, kicking her legs off the edge of her bed.
"I genuinely didn't see it coming," Evelyn said honestly. "He just looked so... Normal. And then he took apart Gorakk like it was nothing."
Zyvara made a strange snorting sound. "After we'd watched Gorakk and Cait fight," she said, sounding personally offended. "We all thought Gorakk was incredibly strong. And then that completely average looking guy just—" she made a dismissive gesture. "Done. Just like that."
"When a second-year mentioned he was one of the top three," Elayna said, “I-I didn’t really believe it at first.”
"I couldn’t believe it," Zyvara said flatly. "I sort of still don’t,” she added while staring straight ahead.
"He is skilled," Kiri said. "You could see it clearly. He never wasted a movement."
"Which makes it so funny, or so bad rather," Evelyn said with a crease between her brows, "that nobody noticed."
"I didn't notice him at all when we arrived," Elayna admitted. "I think I walked right past him."
"We all did," Zyvara said with her arms crossed, staring hard at the dormitory door. "That guy looks like he’d rather bake bread for his mother than fight."
Evelyn looked at her pale grey friend with a smile. “He’s still our senior Zyvara.”
Zyvara snorted softly in response.
A short silence passed the room.
"But we all know what was even more shocking," Evelyn said, "the Sun-Elf, Ael’aendir."
The room went slightly quieter.
"He knew where Nyx would be," she continued. "Before she moved. Before she even decided to move."
"The fire tunnel probably wasn't even meant to hit her," Evelyn said slowly, as if she was realizing something. "He was just... forcing her. Forcing her to escape to the left."
"And then he was already there," Zyvara said. She paused. "That's still not — that's not... What if she went to the right of the tunnel?”
Evelyn looked at Zyvara then briefly down at the floor. ”That’s the part I still don’t get, maybe he didn’t force her to escape to the left. But just wanted her to escape to a side? I just don’t get how he knew which side.”
Zyvara looked calmly at Evelyn and Elayna, then stared straight ahead again.
“Well we won’t figure it out sitting here, staring at each other. We’d have to see him fight more, or look more closely at Nyx when she does her blur-steps". She said in a tone of someone stating something obvious.
"...How strong do you think he actually is," Elayna asked. "Of the three."
Nobody answered immediately.
"Stronger," Kiri said.
"Than both Thra'kara and Eiric? We haven’t seen any of them fight more than once" Evelyn said.
"Probably... He’s probably the strongest," Kiri said flatly, quietly, staring at her desk.
Zyvara looked at Kiri then back at the door, "I believe so as well."
Another silence. Outside the window the academy moved on quietly.
"I need to train harder," Elayna said quietly, to no one in particular.
Evelyn laid back on her bed with her hands going behind her head. "We all do," she said with a small smile.
The conversation had drifted again, and went inevitably back to Cait. Specifically to the end of the fight, and Elayna was in the middle of saying something about it when the dinner bell rang below them, low and clear.
They still continued the conversation for a while.
And a short while after they heard it. One knock.
The door opened immediately after.
Cait leaned in the doorframe with that easy presence. She looked at the room and found Zyvara on the couch, Evelyn on the bed, Kiri at the desk, Elayna mid-sentence, and Cait smiled.
"Am I interrupting?" she said pleasantly.
"We were just done talking about you," Zyvara said, without missing a beat.
"Hm, good things I hope?" Cait said with a bright smile.
Zyvara stared blankly at her, “more or less.” She said in a flat tone.
“Well, shall we go eat together? I’m starving after today.” Cait added with an exaggerated expression.
They went to dinner together and found a quieter corner of the dining hall, all five of them sat down. The food was good and the room was warm and loud around them. Elayna ate with the gratefulness of someone who had been training hard and now got to enjoy lots of tasty food, she ate fast and heartily without thinking about how she looked.
Caitlynn watched Elayna eat with a gentle and amused smile.
The group talked briefly about the day and about the second years and so on. When they mentioned they’d been to the pools Cait said she’d love to join next time. Elayna had been eating and making small comments throughout the conversation. But ever since Cait said she’d like to join them in the pools she had stopped commenting and ate in silence.
Cait noticed, and smiled without looking at Elayna.
About halfway through the meal Zyvara looked up at Cait across the table.
"The red shimmer," she said. "During your fight. What was that."
Cait looked up. Chewed her food. And swallowed.
"Body enhancement magic," she said simply, and took another bite.
Zyvara stared unimpressedly at Cait with lidded eyes. "Well yes, we could see that. But what was the red shimmering? Most body enhancement magic isn’t exactly visible," she said.
"Well, mine is," Cait said, pleasantly.
Zyvara considered this, stared at Cait with her large red eyes, then realized this was probably the most she was going to get, grumbled, and went back to her food.
“Is it your own magic? I’ve read and been taught by my family a great deal about enhancement magic, and it’s quite rare for it to be so visible as yours,” Evelyn said, “I’m also just guessing here. But I don’t think that’s even close to all there is about your magic. You most likely have a defensive-magic or offensive-magic, I'm guessing the latter would make more sense for you.” She said, her deep ocean-blue eyes on Cait with quiet curiosity. "I'd also guess that your offensive-magic would be more fleshed out and practiced than your enhancement magic."
Cait kept chewing on her food and gave a very pleased smile to Evelyn. She didn’t answer.
And while Cait didn’t answer out loud, Evelyn surmised that her guesses about Cait’s magic were true from that smile alone.
Cait's eyes moved to Elayna, who had been quietly minding her own business and felt the shift in attention the way you felt a change in temperature.
Cait watched Elayna with bright green eyes and a teasing smile. “Did you enjoy watching me fight, sweetie?” she asked.
“E-enjoy?" Elayna stuttered. "W-well I think you fought very well and—” Elayna had to stop herself as she felt something brush against her right thigh. As she looked down she saw something pink and fluffy dance between her leg and the table.
“You thought I fought well, and?" Cait asked, with the audacity to look at Elayna with innocent eyes, like this was the tail acting on its own.
Elayna was about to tell her to stop when she quickly realized. She didn’t want the tail to stop. Every time she’d seen the tail she wanted to touch it, when she felt it earlier this day on her face, she thought she’d made it to heaven. So. She made a decision to endure this heavenly suffering.
“You fought well and y-you—” the cursed, lovely tail brushed up her leg, “you were incredible towards the end, with your jumps and your movements. Y-you looked amazing...” Elayna added the last part in a quiet voice as she felt the heat rise up to her ears.
Before Elayna had the chance to see Cait’s reaction at being called amazing. She had already leaned down and pecked Elayna on her lips.
“—!”
Elayna made a short, surprised sound. Not the kind of surprised from Cait kissing her. She’d kind of gotten used to that, this was the surprise from being kissed in front of her friends. Elayna felt her already warm ears heat up to a temperature you’d expect on something that had been left near an open flame.
Zyvara made a sound that was not quite a gag but a sound of profound personal suffering.
Elayna balled her hands into fists and put them in her lap, but there she found the tail still resting so she quickly glanced up to distract herself.
Evelyn was looking at her, and her lips were doing something Elayna had come to recognize as something Evelyn did when she was trying to not laugh.
She didn’t have the time to look at Zyvara or Kiri’s reaction, because the tail that had been resting playfully on Elayna’s thigh snaked its way onto her balled up hands. She looked at Cait and found her staring back with a delighted expression, then she felt the tail slowly grind and brush over her hands several times before Elayna’s hand made their own decision yet again today. They opened up and her fingers lightly touched and gently held the tail... it felt so unbelievably soft. Her hands continued touching the tail for a while and Elayna’s mind quickly went somewhere quiet and amazing, a dreamy smile formed on her face without her knowing.
Her mind came back fully from what Kiri said next:
“She looks happy.” Kiri said, then looked down at her food. “Elayna must really like being kissed—”
“—No! Th-that's not it! It’s because of Caitlynn’s—”
Before Elayna could defend herself and blame the tail. Caitlynn had already cupped her left cheek and leaned down. The kiss started with Elayna's lower lip, soft, warm and attentively. Then it moved to her upper lip, and then back to her lower lip. Cait's soft mouth moving against hers with calm focus of someone who had decided to kiss Elayna thoroughly. No rush. And no mercy. Just Cait's warm and full lips, finding hers again and again until Elayna had completely forgotten what she was about to say, and now had absolutely no way to deny Kiri's statement.
Then Cait caught her lower lip. And bit it gently, and something embarrassingly delighted came out of Elayna's mouth.
After that, Cait decided to have mercy and leaned back.
But the damage had already been done.
This time Zyvara did gag.
“Wh-whaaa—what are you—you—” Elayna shakily stammered.
“—!!!”
Elayna had forgotten the tail on her thigh. But she had forgotten it because it had at some point left. The tail wasn't what came back though, now a strong hand gripped it. Cait’s strong hand. It gripped her thigh before gently caressing it in slow, relaxed circles.
Cait looked down straight into Elayna's eyes, with an easy, smug smile.
Elayna’s body had already started doing the things it had been doing as of late after the kiss. Now they intensified. She felt her chest lock up and her heart pound, she felt that familiar warmth that had been crawling further down every day. And this time she thought she could feel its location quite clearly. It was very close and right next to Caitlynn’s hand that was still caressing her thigh. Just as Elayna was racking her brain around what this all meant—
Cait squeezed her thigh once. Hard.
Elayna felt her mind burst.
“ENOUGH!” Zyvara shouted at Cait with an almost hostile expression, “I will not sit here and watch you embarrass our poor Elayna for your amusement! We’ve accepted you being with Elayna because we thought you at least had the common decency to be gentle and pure with her! I mean! Considering how innocent she is! And clearly kissing in public is about four steps too far for her! SO! TONE IT FIVE STEPS DOWN!”
Zyvara had at some point during her increasingly loud rant, pointed a firm finger at Caitlynn.
Caitlynn was watching Zyvara with a slightly shocked but clearly amused expression.
“Well.” Cait said after a chuckle, “you’re probably right.”
Zyvara looked offended. “Probably!? Look at her—”
“I’ll talk to her.” Caitlynn said, with a raised eyebrow, “you don’t have to worry about me wanting to embarrass her. Sure, I do find great enjoyment in teasing her. But I don’t want her to actually feel bad. So yes. I'll tone it down. I will also, talk about these things with Elayna.” She said as she looked to her side, and smiled widely and happily, as she could tell with great pleasure that Elayna was still having serious troubles processing her hand on her thigh.
“That you should definitely do,” Evelyn said, now that she had collected herself from first laughing at Elayna’s reactions, to then also having to contain her laughing at Zyvara’s outburst. “Elayna is very clearly, confused and slightly overwhelmed by all of this.” Evelyn looked at Elayna who was staring hard at her lap, with a warm and tender smile. She then looked Cait directly into her eyes with a harder look.
“And I do agree with Zyvara on one thing. We’ve indeed sort of non-verbally completely accepted you being with Elayna because we all think you’re at least a decent person, and most importantly we thought that you wouldn’t harm her. But we both know how Elayna can be... And about you, Caitlynn. You know I know." Evelyn said, emphasizing each word. "And you know exactly what I mean by that. And even then I have still, not personally interfered because even with you, being as you are Caitlynn. I understand that you wouldn't want to make Elayna unhappy or do something she wouldn't truly want. Am I correct?”
“You are very correct. And I'd love nothing more than to make her happy.” Caitlynn agreed, as she leaned her body slightly on her chair, getting comfortable during the conversation.
Evelyn softened her expression and straightened up. “Well, this quickly became way too serious for a dinner conversation. But I feel like we’ve touched on important topics. Topics I’d still like to go back to. But. Some other time? she added as she glanced back at Caitlynn.
“Some other time,” Caitlynn agreed, with a loose smirk and slowly took her hand off Elayna's thigh.
Elayna was still completely lost within her thoughts, thinking loudly to herself asking what the saints happening to her, when she felt a hand loosely shake her shoulder.
“Elayna?” Elayna looked up and saw Evelyn, with a mildly amused but slightly concerned expression. “Have you finished eating? Everyone else already left.”
“...?”
Elayna looked up at the table, and found to her surprise, that everyone really had already left. It was just her at the table and Evelyn behind her. She also found, after her thoughts now had come to a merciful stop, that she was still hungry.
Her stomach growled. “... I’m still a bit hungry,” she said quietly.
Evelyn's hand left her shoulder and she went to sit down next to Elayna. “I can stay. Eat.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I’ll stay... Eat.” Evelyn said in a calm, warm tone.
Elayna ate. And was also privately thankful that Evelyn stayed. After she’d eaten, they got up and started heading to their dorm, and she asked Evelyn where and when everyone had gone. Evelyn then laughed softly before saying they all left a bit after Caitlynn kissed her and no one ate much after that. Elayna realized she’d really spaced out bad this time and felt her face change color.
“Hm-hm,” Evelyn chuckled, “it wasn’t that embarrassing Elayna. I can tell it was the first time Caitlynn kissed you in front of someone, it’s fine. No one thinks you’re weird or anything like that, in fact, it’s Caitlynn we’re all having complicated feelings about.”
“... She didn’t only k-kiss me” Elayna said very quietly, staring at the floor as they walked to their dorm.
“Hm?”
“... I-I want to talk to you later...” Elayna admitted, shyly and still very quiet.
“Of course. It’s about Caitlynn I assume, and maybe about what I said the first day. You remember what I said?”
“Y-yes... And yes it’s — it’s about both...”
Evelyn looked at her with a warm and kind smile as Elayna kept staring down at the wooden floor they walked on the whole conversation.
“We’ll talk.” Evelyn said in a gentle tone and a promising smile as she looked forward.
When they got back to the dorm and settled down Zyvara quickly commented on Elayna’s shutdown at dinner and Evelyn had to come in to defend her while holding her own laughs as Elayna quickly remembered why she had been so stunned and was again, locked in a battle with her thoughts over Caitlynn’s kiss and thigh-grab.
The conversation about dinner eventually died out and they had a brief conversation about the day tomorrow and its expectations before they turned off the magical lights on the roof and went to bed.
Elayna’s thoughts kept going back to the moment Cait had caressed her thighs, and when she remembered how it had felt when Cait had then squeezed it, her body kept doing strange things.
Eventually everyone had fallen asleep, but Elayna still lay awake with her mind occupied by the kiss and her thigh getting grabbed and squeezed.
She tried to fall asleep again, but found she just couldn't stop her mind from keeping her awake. So she opened her eyes and made a decision... Elayna knew what she was about to do was probably very rude, but she was starting to realize she really needed the help.
She laid aside her thick blanket, got out of her bed and walked across the room in the dark.
She then walked up to one bed and poked her finger at the silhouette under the blanket.