Chương 138: 53. A Bandaged Wound Still Hurts

As I stare down at the sheet of questions before me, sweat forms on my palms and stains the paper. Sweat is my nemesis of the day—another way in which this body is designed to irritate me as much as possible. It's not like we don't sweat normally, but I'm used to having a fine coat of summer fur to capture that moisture. It's not exactly comfortable, but I'd take that over beading and dripping, stinging my eyes, and just generally distracting me all the time.

It's a hot day, but that's not actually why I'm sweating so much. I'm nervous, and apparently that's just a thing this stupid body does for some reason. What practical purpose could that possibly serve? The reason I'm nervous is just as stupid, and it all comes back to another of Maev's pointless squabbles... *"So..." Allie drawls.

"About last night..." I furrow my brows and pointedly ignore her, leaning back against our bed and concentrating on my puzzle cube. Solving, shuffling, then solving again. It's not really mentally engaging, but it does take some focus. I'm also trying to solve it faster, but it's not like I'm timing myself or really putting effort into the practice. It's kind of meditative.

"Vi?" Allie insists.

"Can you hear me?" I sigh.

"It's impossible for me not to hear you. You're in my head."

"Well you weren't saying anything."

"I wonder why?" I mutter.

"Come on, Vi," she huffs.

"The silent treatment? I thought you were more mature than that."

"I thought you were mature enough to keep a simple promise," I retort.

"I suppose we both overestimated each other." A piece of the puzzle cube pops out as I twist it a little too forcefully, causing me to flinch. With a sigh, I retrieve the little cube and press it back into place. I'm confident that I put it back correctly, but I lost my place in the algorithm so I just shuffle the cube again to start over.

"I said I'm sorry!" Allison complains.

"That was stupid of me, and it won't happen again, I promise."

"Unlike Maggie, I believe you," I grumble, quickly finishing the first two layers of the puzzle. It took me a while to get used to symbols instead of colors, but I'm adjusting.

"Against my better judgment, I do."

"Then why are you still mad at me?" I set aside the puzzle with an exasperated sigh.

"I don't know, Allison! A bandaged wound still hurts! I appreciate the apology, but it doesn't magically repair the damage done. You can't fix this. Just drop it already!"

"I—okay..." The silence that follows is welcome, but I know Allie too well to expect it to last.

"Is there anything you want to do?" she asks.

"It's your day today, as agreed, and I'll even give you my next one since this one kinda got ruined too." I pinch the bridge of my nose and grimace.

"Allie, I'm doing what I want to do."

"It's just not like you," she insists.

"I thought you'd be more eager to work on our classes now that you've mastered [Savior]."

"Am I not allowed to just relax, sometimes?" I sigh. The worst part is that she's right. I wanted to slow down, collect my thoughts, and take a bit of time for myself, but it's stressing me out. Every day in this place is another reminder of how desperately we need to catch up, and how impossible that actually is. Pushing myself to keep moving forward is driving me crazy, but trying to take a break is just making me anxious.

If I weren't so annoyed with her right now, I might even appreciate Allie keeping me on track.

"Sorry. I didn't mean it like that," she murmurs.

"I just want to make sure that you're okay."

"Well, I'm not. I don't think any of us are. We've been beaten, kidnapped, and roped into an ancient conspiracy, and I'm not sure there are enough comfortable beds and puzzle cubes in the world to make up for it. We're trying to get through this one day at a time, but where does it even end? Is there another side, or is the rest of our life going to be dedicated to carving what little comfort we can find out of a world of constant misery and suffering?!" I'm out of breath by the time I finish.

I don't even know where that came from.

"You know," Eva interjects out of nowhere.

"That's how most people live their lives. You say it as though you're suffering some unique and unbearable torture, but you're a guest of one noble house and being courted by another. You are experiencing unimaginable luxury by the standards of most people, and all you can do is complain about it." I clench my fists and grit my teeth.

"I don't want to hear it from you, Evelyn. Despite my initial misgivings, I thought we were getting along reasonably well, but I'm much more upset with you than Allison right now."

"Me?!" she squawks.

"What did I do?"

"You were part of the same agreement that Allie was," I remind her.

"At the time, you were quick to take Allie's side and point out that we were being unfair. But then when it came to respecting the boundaries we set, you didn't hesitate to break both of them in a single breath." If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"I keep trying to tell you that I'm not one of you—" I shake my head.

"That shouldn't matter. If anything, it makes it even worse. Why should you be allowed to offer up our body for your own gratification?"

"I didn't do that!"

"Not for lack of trying," I retort.

"And Allie at least pretended to follow the letter of our agreement, even if she violated the spirit. You made no such attempt!"

"Which is it, then, Violet?!" she shouts.

"Am I supposed to try to live, or am I just a prisoner trapped in this body?"

"That depends on you, doesn't it?" I ask.

"If you aren't one of us, then what are you? A friend? Guest? Enemy?"

"I don't know! The Goddess—""I'm not asking her, Eva, I'm asking you! What do you want to be?!"

"..." She doesn't respond, and I don't know what else to say. Obviously relaxation is out of the question, so I guess thinking about our classes is a reasonable idea, but I'm just not up for it right now. Instead, another idea starts to form—one that might offset some of the stress I'm feeling onto the two that are so insistent on bothering me. I furrow my brow a little.

That's an oddly Maggie-like thought, and I almost abandon this entire line of thinking based on that alone, but I'm too aggravated to care right now.

"Allie, you and Eva are both at the cusp of mastery, aren't you?" I ask—a rhetorical question, since I've been keeping meticulous track of everybody's levels.

"Yeah, I think so," she hedges.

"Why?"

"Because if we're going to have another discussion about choosing new classes, it would be better to do it all at once," I reply.

"You two should finish mastering your classes."

"I mean, sure," Allie says slowly.

"But we don't know how long that's going to take."

"Maybe not, but the mechanism tends to recognize achievements—especially conclusions. And there's one very obvious conclusion that can occur between a student and teacher, don't you think?"

"Uh... maybe? You're talking about graduation, right?" she suggests.

"Final exams or whatever?"

"Exactly."

"Do you really think we're ready for that?" I shrug, feeling just a tiny bit vindictive.

"Only one way to find out." * And so, here I am. It took Miss Allie most of the day to come up with the questions for this final test, and watching her do it did absolutely nothing to prepare me. If anything, it only made me even more nervous. If this is Violet's way of punishing us for our transgressions against her, it's working. Of course, thinking about that just distracts me even more from the test. I really do feel bad.

At first I was only concerned with how much I embarrassed myself, but I've had plenty of time to think about Violet's dressing down and... she's right. I was being thoughtless—even cruel. I keep trying to convince myself that I'm not one of them, that they are others —even monsters. Especially Maggie. But in doing so, all I've done is justify my own monstrous acts. Argh! Why must this be so difficult? Why has the Goddess revoked her guidance when I need it most?

Why, in all her names, are these questions so bloody difficult?! The test questions, I mean. The moral ones too, but this test is brutal. Miss Allie held nothing back, and while I recognize some of the themes from our previous lessons, I'm struggling to figure out how she intends me to piece them together. Nevertheless, I persist, if only as a kind of penance. If this is what Violet wants us to do, then so be it. It takes a long time.

I have to take several breaks along the way, and each question feels like it was designed specifically to give me a headache. At one point, Allison makes me solve a challenging math problem, only to then have to describe my solution in writing. I couldn't even read before we began, much less write. And I still can't. Allie and I have developed a method of reading and writing Fa'aun using symbols from her language that is completely worthless to anybody but us.

We've also been working on learning how to read and write proper Fa'aun, but that isn't on the test because neither of us is ready for it. While attempting to explain my solution, I realize that I made a mistake. I have to go back and correct that error in the previous question, but then I'm faced with a new problem. Do I revise the written portion to include only the correct steps, or do I pick up where I left off, including the explanation itself as part of the solution?

And that's just one complication among many that takes me long into the night before I finally complete the exhausting test. * When Evie finishes her test, my first instinct is to just go to bed and deal with it in the morning. I may not have been "awake" during the test, but that doesn't do anything to stave off the physical and mental fatigue that I just put her through.

We really are stressed, and I'm starting to understand that while we may express it differently, it's not really possible for one of us to be fine while everyone else is stressed out. At best, one of us might be able to temporarily shoulder more of that burden, like Vi keeping calm and walking me through bandaging our leg. Blood and acid, that feels like a lifetime ago, now. In hindsight, she must have been freaking out just as much as I was. When I finally discovered magic, it almost broke me.

Maggie saved me from that, but neither of us came out of that at our best. No matter how it happens, or who seems to be "most" affected, anything that hurts one of us, hurts all of us. Including... or maybe especially each other. And we hurt Vi. Evie and I both. Probably even more than she's letting on, since she tends to hide her feelings. I think this has been an important lesson for all of us, and one that took way too long to learn.

I wish I could say that we've learned it, but I'm sure this isn't the last time we make this kind of mistake. At least, I hope that with this, we'll be more prepared for next time. But for now, I have a test to mark. I've never really done it before, but I knew some grad students who would always complain about grading. Though they usually had entire classes to deal with, while I've only got one student. Grading Evie's test is a surreal experience.

Her handwriting is completely atrocious, and she struggles to remember some of the different letters. It looks like first or second grade writing, and trying to parse Fa'aun written alphabetically on top of that takes a lot of getting used to. Because of the large letters and sloppy writing, I'm naturally primed to expect simple language and child-like reasoning. Which is stupid. I've heard Evie speak, and while the alphabet might not match, it's still Fa'aun.

She's never had a hard time articulating herself, and while she sometimes struggles with certain ideas—and almost always fights me on how important or useful the lessons are—she does understand when she puts her mind to it. It takes me all night to get through it. My eyelids are heavy, my hands are stained black from charcoal pencils, and the first rays of dawn are peeking through the window of our room, but as I stare down at the test, I can't help but smile.

For all her nerves, complaints, and struggles, Evelyn is a better student than she thinks. In the bottom right corner of the last page, I summarize her performance with a few quick strokes of the pencil, then circle it for good measure. 100% [Level up!] Teacher has grown from level 9 to 10. Student has grown from level 9 to 10. +1 Ego. +1 Will (E'ava'al'n). Teacher has reached its maximum threshold. [Upgrade] or [Fuse] the class to unlock further progression. Student has reached its maximum threshold.

[Upgrade] or [Fuse] the class to unlock further progression.