It's not long before the principal's nose is turned up at us. We stand across her, as she swivels back and forth in her chair, tapping a stylus impatiently against a walnut desk. She draws a paper out from underneath before looking down and asking us to go through the events that led to a limp body sprawled across the floor.
Barlo's still in shock, squeezing his nose in a blood drenched napkin, he tries to explain himself but the words come out in an unintelligible mumble, muffled by the napkin covering half his face.
"Since your little ogre friend here isn't able to speak for himself, perhaps you may." The Principal, swollen with her own importance, doesn't even bother to look up, eyes fixed on the blank paper, hand twitching to write her twisted version of events. She's never been the nice sort, always seemingly looking for faults to point out. A shirt stain here, an unmade bed there. She doesn't even spare us a glance when talking, the fact that she's Exalted, a single league higher, makes her think she's a god.
I speak slowly, carefully, making sure I don't let anything slip that could be used against us. This would be Barlo's third disciplinary of the year. Mine? Fourth. My explanation is mostly the truth, I begin by explaining how Sera threw the chair across the room at Barlo, clearly trying to start a fight. How Barlo had stepped in to defend me as Sera made her intentions clear, to cripple me. I make sure to hang on that last word. Patricia looks up for the first time, eyebrow raised, she turns to Barlo.
"Is that true?"
A brief nod is given by my now timid looking friend, still pinching his nose with a bloodied cloth as it drips steadily from the bottom. I see the principal jot down the emphasised word before I continue. Maybe we'll get away with this. Feeling invigorated, I talk about the fight, making sure to frame every aggression from Barlo as self defence and every act from Sera as an unprovoked attack. I even go as far as to sprinkle in an extra few falsified details when I outline what had been said in the exchange of whispers during the fight. Something so grotesque no one would dare risk lying about. Something only a person who has secretly snooped through the principles belongings would know.
The stylus in Patricia's hand, previously flowing across the page, now comes to an abrupt stop, blunting under the pressure. She shudders as she looks up, eyes wide in horror.
"Is that true?" Whispering now, seemingly in more shock than Barlo was ten minutes ago. Barlo moves the cloth from his nose and opens his mouth for what I can only assume is to provide some sympathy and comfort, but a quick nudge from my foot under the table tells him otherwise. My heart isn't as kind, I can't help but feel a slight sense of satisfaction as I watch. Her eyes stare into the distance as a painful suppressed memory claws its way out of the depths of her memory. Noble's suffer tragedy daily. Wallow in your sorrow, wretched Glintface.
Barlo clears his throat, mercifully bringing Patricia's focus back to the present. She sits up and pushes her hands down across her dress, composing herself, yet the trembling of her voice gives her away
"Ill submit my report and you'll face judgement in the morning. Begone."
Morning comes bleak. Rain hammers mercilessly against the windowpane, waking me early from my slumber. I watch it trickle down, leaving grey soot streaks. It's quiet in the dorms; the others are still asleep. A loud disturbed snoring comes from my left where Barlo lays, still struggling to breath through a now blood clotted nose. Suddenly, yesterday's events flood my memory, ruining my brief respite as I reflect. The story I told should be enough to get us out of trouble, but what of Sera? If the principal finds no fault in us, then surely all the blame falls on her. And that lie… It's unprecedented in its monstrosity, in the way it cuts deep, there's no way to tell what sort of judgement will be handed for such a thing. What if the principal finds out it was me who snuck into her office? The doubts start flowing in and my palms become slippery from cold sweat. It was reckless of me to look through her belongings. Still, I couldn't resist noticing her door not looking quite right, a dropped hairpin had got caught in the doorframe that day leaving the lock ajar. I retrace the steps of the past; I had left nothing behind, no breadcrumbs, yet anxiety still plagues me.
My thoughts drift back to the freakishly large woman. Somehow I find myself worried for her wellbeing. After all, she did end up unconscious, falling face first on a cold concrete floor.
A child left alone at the bottom of society's hierarchy. I know only too well how that breeds rage and hatred, forcing your hand to do things, not out of choice, but out of necessity. She's one of us. Those J-bud's she threatened to steal? Theft, a trait bred into her to survive in this world. Just like me. And if she had gotten her hands on them, no doubt she would have lit one up and breathed smoke into the cold air of the night. An act to escape the cruel reality of this world, if just for a moment… just like I had intended.
I decide to pay her a visit while the institute sleeps, hoping it will somehow dull the guilt now building inside me. My steps are rushed as I pass through the cold hallway and into another dormitory. This one's smaller than ours in every way, as if there was much to take away from in the first place, somehow the institute still found ways to cut costs. They don't have the luxury of small desks here, the mattresses are thinner, shorter and supported by creaking wood bedframes. There's a crack in the ceiling that drips constantly with a maddening presence. The guilt digs in as I picture Sera living here, her legs spilling over the edge of the bed with a mattress too feeble to support her weight. She may as well be sleeping on the concrete.
I pan my eyes across the room, looking at each sleeping student one by one, heart sinking further and further with the chances of spotting her fading.
One student rises from their slumber, rubbing one closed eye and squinting at me with the other.
"What are you doing here?" She asks, still dreary from her sleep.
"Looking for Sera." I continue to scan the room without meeting her gaze.
She points to an empty bed sarcastically.
"There she is! Nimwit. Last I saw she was being dragged by the likes of Blans and Zemir. After your friend did a number on her." Her finger jabs accusingly in my direction.
My heart drops as I put the pieces together, she was in the infirmary during our meeting with Patricia, yet she had not made it back after. In that moment, I look down and pray. Pray to a God I do not believe in. A God the leagues ripped away from my soul when they executed an innocent woman. I pray for Sera's safety, praying that she's still recovering in the infirmary, because I know not what the alternative is.
I hurry back to my dorm before breakfast, shaking Barlo awake. His face droops as I run through my morning with him.
"Zant, maybe we should continue searching for her."
It's only an hour before the mess opens, where Patricia will undoubtedly stand at the tail end of the room and read her verdict for yesterday's events. It is the way of the institute, to make an example of rule breakers so others may be deterred, in fact, it's inspired by society's creed.
We split up, combing through different rooms; dorms, kitchens, toilets, any area not off limits, we check. When asking passer-by's for clues, they offer us little but sour looks and blame. In the end our search bears no fruit. She's nowhere to be seen.