"The convergence of vectors not originally intended to intersect almost always provokes an anomalous reaction—especially for an observer standing outside the system."
Yuvel-day
The morning of Yuvel greeted us with silence. Not the empty, ringing silence that follows a storm, but a dense, almost tangible quiet—like air frozen in amber. I stood at the window, watching the first rays of light trace perfect, cold lines on the snow. However, Catherine herself had become the primary object of my observation.
She was getting ready, and every one of her movements was an attempt to return to a familiar ritual. She was adjusting her blue and white traveling dress for the third time, turning before the mirror, but her gaze was directed not at her reflection, but through it. The tension in the line of her shoulders indicated a shift in the vector of her anxiety. This was not a simple reluctance to see Ren and Nova. It was a feverish attempt to return to predictability, to the simple world of dresses and journeys, after she had peered over the edge and seen how fragile reality could be.
I stood silently at the window, watching the morning light of Yuvel fall on the academy buildings, the trees outside, and the snow-covered courtyards. Sometimes, simple contemplation brings a pleasure that some mortals are incapable of ever grasping.
Catherine cast a sidelong glance at me, as if seeking confirmation of something that troubled her. Perhaps she was just checking in with herself, perhaps she was thinking about the book Ren had given her and comparing me to its characters, or perhaps she just wanted to understand something for herself. Regardless of whether she perceived my observation, her eyes would periodically narrow, betraying an inner tension. She was aware of my observation; perhaps this awareness bothered her, or perhaps she was merely seeking confirmation of a conclusion already implicitly understood between us.
I turned to her. Her gaze, fixed with intense, almost painful attention, was not on my face but on my hands resting calmly on the windowsill—the same hands that had woven a cocoon of darkness and order, yet had refused to perform a healing. There was no plea in her gaze, no admiration. Only a tense attempt to understand how the same power could both save and refuse. She was not thinking about braids. She was trying to look beyond the veil.
I was the first to break the silence. My voice was even and functional, intended to restore the established routine.
"Are you ready?" I asked, looking her directly in the eye.
"Almost," she replied. Her lips trembled slightly; for a moment, not long enough for an ordinary person to register, but Catherine knew I had noticed everything, and she quickly turned away.
Catherine adjusted the belt at her waist again, which emphasized her figure. There was no need for the gesture; it was superfluous, but in this way, she was trying to relieve the senseless internal tension, likely caused by a spiritual debate.
To ease her tension, I went to my writing desk, stood with my back to her, and picked up one of the textbooks on elemental air magic. After mindlessly flipping through a few pages to feign that I was engrossed in reading something, I noticed she had become more at ease, after which she confidently asked a question that she probably would not have dared to ask from a different angle of conversation:
"I still don't understand why Nova insisted so much on this trip today of all days. Maybe we should just cancel it all?" Notes of anxiety and something else barely perceptible sounded in her voice.
Perhaps in another situation, I would have agreed with her. After the situation with Lilian, the trip was not the best decision, but I could not give up the opportunity to observe Ren and Nova. And it was precisely to avoid developing her further thoughts on this matter that I quickly answered without turning to her.
"Nova was convincing, and her arguments sounded reasonable. Besides, don't forget that we are practically a 'team' now; a last-minute refusal would be absolutely impolite."
Catherine took a deep breath. The last phrase seemed to have caught her off guard; her shoulders trembled, and she hesitated for a second before answering awkwardly, "Arta…" She paused. "It's one thing to go when everything is fine, another…" Her sentence was cut short by a sharp knock on the door. She froze. The knock was insistent, sharp, with a broken rhythm.
"It's open," Catherine said, and in her voice were notes of disappointment, as if something important had been interrupted.
Ren burst into the room like a chaotic whirlwind, disrupting the space with unnecessary movements, smells, and bright colors. She was dressed in a white traveling cloak, from under which a red dress the color of her hair peeked out. Her attempts to structure her hairstyle, securing it with various white bows and ribbons, looked like an attempt to create order where there should be none.
"Girls, are you ready? The carriage is already waiting!" she exclaimed enthusiastically, approaching Catherine. "Cat, I'm so glad we're going together! At the fair, we absolutely must find the booksellers from Anix!"
Ren, without waiting for an answer, enveloped Catherine in her arms. Catherine's reaction was a flawless example of passive resistance. She did not pull away—she simply ceased to exist in the embrace. Her body froze, becoming stiff and unresponsive, like a doll's, turning Ren's emotional gesture into a mechanical and meaningless action.
Ren, not noticing or ignoring this, pulled back with a wide smile. Her gaze fell on me, she froze for a moment, and then refocused on Catherine.
"We are almost ready, Ren," Catherine said. Her voice was even, devoid of any intonation—a polite, automatic reply, carrying no content.
Ren looked thoughtfully at Catherine's bookshelves as if trying to understand what interested her, and while she was doing so, footsteps were heard in the corridor, and a moment later Nova appeared in the room. She was dressed in a heavy gray traveling cloak of thick wool, tightly buttoned up.
"Are you ready?" she asked reservedly, while trying to be as friendly and welcoming as possible.
I nodded. She looked at me, nodded slightly in return, and without asking anything more, went out into the corridor, expecting us to follow her.
I took my dark woolen cloak from the wardrobe and went out into the corridor after Nova, carefully buttoning it. Catherine came out a moment after me, and only Ren, after lingering for a while in the room as if there were meanings known only to her, came out last.
Closing the door, we walked through the corridors into the academy courtyards, and then toward the gates leading to Eldenbridge.
Catherine walked silently, staying close to me. She tried not to be intrusive, but closer than was necessary. I did not object, following Ren and Nova, who were engaged in a casual conversation about the weather, classes, and today's trip.
Reaching the gates, we saw a carriage already waiting. The elderly coachman respectfully tipped his hat upon seeing us, and the team of three black thoroughbred horses snorted as if in greeting.
『 🜁 』━━━⋆✶⋆━━━『 ⚶ 』
The seating arrangement within the carriage formed organically. Ren sat by the window on the left, with Nova next to her. I took a seat on the opposite side, closer to the door, and to my left sat Catherine.
The carriage was spacious, the space within it arranged organically, and none of us had to meet each other's gaze instantly. Catherine's palm rested on the velvet upholstery of the seat, and her fingers trembled nervously. Perhaps she was concerned about sitting almost opposite Ren, or perhaps she was trying to calm herself from something known only to me.
The carriage began to move slowly, and I shifted my gaze to the window on the door to watch the snow-covered landscapes of the Astrarium. Ren began to speak. She spoke too much and about almost everything: books, booksellers from Anix, the fair, the academy. The flow of her speech was not directed only at Nova; it was directed at everyone, creating unnecessary noise in the small space. Perhaps she could not stop, fearing the silence that might reveal her own inner emptiness.
Nova listened attentively to Ren, but she did so not out of politeness, but out of respect for her partner, and although her shoulders were relaxed and her gaze was fixed, she increasingly cast glances at me and Catherine.
Catherine, on the other hand, sat silently, only occasionally looking at Nova and Ren. Her hand on her knee trembled almost imperceptibly, but the reason for this tremor was not the cold, but an internal rhythm failure. The proximity to Ren caused her a hidden irritation, but she did not dare to break her mask, to destroy this fragile structure of social propriety.
The first houses on the outskirts of Eldenbridge flashed by the window. Ren, feeling that her monologue was drowning in indifference, decided to change tactics. She interrupted her speech and, theatrically pressing her hands to her chest, exhaled with delight, "This is it… We'll be there soon. This trip… it's like a little story, isn't it? As if we are heroines of a novel, trapped in a single moment that is about to end."
She surveyed us all with a radiant gaze, expecting us to pick up on her game, to join her romantic scenario.
Silence fell. A dense, weighted silence.
"A trip is a trip, Ren," Nova said evenly, not taking her eyes off the landscape outside the window.
Catherine, for her part, demonstratively turned away, her gaze finding mine as if seeking salvation from this contrived drama.
Her attempt to impose her scenario on us had failed. The silence that hung in the carriage became dense, almost physically palpable—a vacuum in which all words were frozen. And it was at that moment, faced with a wall of cold indifference, that she decided to escalate. Her smile became sly, almost predatory. If she could not involve them in the performance willingly, she would force them to become its participants.
She moved even closer to Nova, whispered unintelligible words in her ear, and with her characteristic instability, tugged at the cord. The heavy velvet curtain fell over the window, plunging half the carriage into semi-darkness.
And then, in the next instant, Ren, with a swiftness inherent to chaos, moved closer to Nova and quickly but distinctly kissed her on the lips. The kiss was not consensual, not intimate. It was a response. A demonstrative act designed to shatter this unbearable silence and reclaim the attention she had just been denied.
Nova froze, her eyes widening in surprise, and her cheeks instantly flushed. I glanced at Catherine. She did not flinch, did not gasp. She simply froze, her back straightening, and on her face appeared an expression of icy, almost disdainful disapproval. Her gaze was fixed not on the kiss, but on Nova's face, and in it was not surprise, but sympathy for the humiliation she was experiencing.
Ren pulled back, her silver eyes shining with a chaotic triumph. She cast a quick, almost predatory glance at Catherine, expecting to see shock, jealousy—any strong emotion. But, meeting with a cold, judgmental silence, she was momentarily taken aback. Her plan had not worked as she had expected. Trying to save face, she nonchalantly pulled the cord, and the velvet curtain rose, returning the diffused light of the winter day to the carriage.
Nova did not pull away. For a moment, her face became completely inscrutable, like an ivory mask. But I registered a barely perceptible tremor at the corner of her lips—an external marker of the furious storm she was holding back inside.
Ren, in her egocentrism, did not notice or did not want to notice this change. A self-satisfied smile appeared on her face.
"What is it, Nova, my dear? It's just… an expression of feelings. Isn't that what you've been waiting for so long? A little… spontaneity?" she reached out her hand to touch Nova's cheek but froze, meeting her icy gaze.
Nova's voice, when she spoke, was quiet, almost lifeless, but each word pierced the space of the carriage, "Reina… do you really consider this an expression of feelings? Or just another act in your endless performance, where we are all just props for your… whims?" Nova paused, her gaze slowly moving over Ren's face, then sliding over me, lingering for a fraction of a second on Catherine, and returning to Ren again. "If you wanted to humiliate me—congratulations, you almost succeeded. If you wanted to prove something to them,"—she nodded almost imperceptibly in our direction—"then you only demonstrated your… amazing inability to understand basic boundaries. And other people's feelings. Including mine."
Nova's speech hit Ren like a physical blow. Her smile faded, her face fell in confusion, and in her eyes appeared a childlike, almost pathetic hurt. But her Chaos did not allow her to admit defeat. She lifted her chin, trying to cloak her desperation in theatrical drama.
"Nova, but I… I just couldn't hold back anymore!" she exclaimed theatrically. "You know how much I love you! How much I've missed you! I just wanted to show that no prohibitions can kill true love!"
Nova just slowly shook her head, her face remaining pale and inscrutable. "You just didn't think, Reina. As usual," she finished in the same quiet but firm voice. "Or you thought, but only of yourself."
Ren, seeing that Nova had closed off and that Catherine was sitting motionless like an ice statue, turned to me in desperation—the last resort that could justify her action.
"Arta, at least you say something! Isn't it romantic? Shouldn't strong feelings be above all these stupid rules?" She paused as if she didn't know how to continue her speech and began to speak obvious nonsense, "You're from Tarvar, everything there is probably so strict, so functional… Even love there is like a function! But it's not forbidden, is it?!" Ren's speech did not let up for a second. "And they also say your fairs are just an exchange of goods, no soul, no romance! But here… here…" Her voice became more emotional. "Here feelings rule the ball! Sometimes they just burst out, like… like right now! Is it so bad to be sincere in one's impulses?"
She did not understand what she was saying. In Tarvar, forbidden love is not recognized, and her manner of operating with the terms "fair" and "romance" only revealed her inability to express structured thoughts.
I looked away from the window and met her eyes.
"Fairs in the Tarvarian Empire are functional, Ren," my voice was cold, without a hint of the emotion she so hoped to hear. "They serve their purpose. And 'sincere impulses' that are based on ignoring the feelings and boundaries of another person, and which are used for public demonstration or provocation, usually testify not to the 'strength of feelings,' but to deep egocentrism and immaturity. Or, as Nova said, to the desire to turn someone else's life into a stage for one's own performance."
Hearing my cold, analytical verdict, which reinforced Nova's words, Ren's constructed facade collapsed. The chaotic sparks around her dissipated, rather than flaring. Her lips trembled.
"Oh, what precision… and what… soullessness," she whispered, and her voice broke. "You are both so… so proper. So boring…" This was no longer rage, but a weak, desperate attempt to defend herself. She sharply turned to the window, but I managed to register how her shoulders trembled finely, and she quickly wiped a tear from her cheek, which she was desperately trying to hide.
The silence that once again filled the space was heavy and thick, saturated with unspoken pain. I returned my gaze to the winter landscapes. Catherine relaxed slightly, her posture changed. Her gaze slid over me—without a question, but with a new, deep fixation. As if a puzzle she could not solve had just found its missing, key piece. She had heard in my words an echo of her own, unspoken thoughts.
Nova, for her part, began to look out the window on my side; she did not want to meet Ren's gaze. The corner of her lip was slightly lower than a few minutes ago. She was restoring her inner calm and probably thinking deeply about something.
The carriage, with its rattling wheels, continued to move, and each of the occupants was thinking about something of their own, and meanwhile, the configuration was preserved for now, and my observation continued.