Chương 199: Chapter 220: Finals

I've made sure this week to set up as many appointments as possible. I've got two weeks with no classes and no interference. While it would be awesome to take this time just to relax, I need to make the most of these opportunities. Anytime that I started getting tempted to slack, I have to ask myself how much it would suck if I was just four or five days late when it really mattered, and I would blame it on those two weeks I took off. That thought put me back to work.

But It really would be so great to simply hang out in a room at the the White Waterfall Inn, with room service and maid service and nobody even knowing how to reach me, to just lay down and don't think, don't act, don't cast, don't write, for two whole weeks. Bliss. But what if I was late when it mattered? So I had a day set aside with Kimothy, a day set aside with Tiviti. A few lunches with Thumper and two of her tournaments, some picnics and concerts with Trazom.

A few rendezvous with Quarl and Rabert, to finally sit down and have some very frank discussions, as well as that charity auction we'd agreed to. Another meeting with Pynut and the rest of Yheta's criminal contacts, and some serious sit-down time with Petty and Bruce. There was a certain jeweler that I need to speak with about an order that was placed years ago. Ah, and some blackmail. Finally. I'm quite ready for that job to be done with. All told I'm going to be incredibly busy these next two weeks.

But, after that we move back to the stifling pace of the school schedule again. I try to count my blessings: when I graduate from the Academy, it's going to be like this all the time. I'm about to start an extremely intense two-week course that is just going to help prepare me for spending two full years of the same intensity. I try not to remind myself: this is the easy part. That's why I need to keep training, keep preparing, keep gathering resources and allies: to be ready when it really matters.

And that, in turn, is why even when I'm not busy with all the rest of those goals, I'm still going to be squeezing every hour for meetings, talks, appointments. Exactly the sort of thing that everyone has gotten used to me not doing. So, I have extra steps to go through setting up these gatherings. Elica came out of the restroom with her hair wrapped in a towel, her body wrapped in another towel. She spotted me and stopped in surprise.

"You're at your desk."

"This is where the inkwell and stationery are," I replied. I was not in my best mood, but I kept myself polite.

"Sure sure," she said, dismissing my explanation immediately.

"But you are at your desk. Between first and last bell. I've only seen you do that three or four times, and usually you're just sitting down." It would be faster to explain to her than to argue with her.

"I've been doing this at night, but I fell behind, and I'm trying to make up for it. There's a lot of documentation that goes into setting up a confidential conversation."

"Maybe you should have thought of that before you decided to make everything all about you," she snipped.

"If you would behave like everyone else, you would have it a lot easier."

"I got arrested! Before that, there was the magister, and the royals. A random creep tried to cut my hair off. I've walked a bridge over a giant acid pit this week, and I had to face down three-count-them-three liches only last Sixthday. I had my neck broken in front of a crowd of people for the sake of field sports. The royal dungeons have a room set aside just to restrain me specifically. And every part of those has been more welcome than my interactions with my brother or parents.

It's not like I'm going through all this to make things easy on myself, I promise you." She moved to the wardrobe on her side of the room, and flung it open. In this position, the open door was good enough for a privacy screen. Her towels flew off to land near the hamper but not near enough for me to think she actually tried to hit it.

"I know all that," she said, exasperated.

"And I'm also sure that you're holding back some stories. You do keep secrets, after all. I'm just saying that I might get tired of hearing your name all the time." There was something in that sentence that snagged my attention. I stopped the correspondence I was working on, moved my unused ink back into its inkwell and left the current pages out to dry.

"Elica, could you tell me what it was you meant by that?" I asked, turning to her. She walked from the wardrobe to the door, wearing her shift and stockings.

"Oh, come now Natalie. You can fish for compliments anywhere, don't put your hook in me." When she said 'tired of hearing your name all the time', her voice had a current of bitterness and envy. Not the sort of thing she normally indulges with some nasty bit of rumormongering, but something deeper and realer. I folded my hands.

"No fishing, Elica. Only my curiosity." Her hand rested on the brass latch of the door, and she looked back at me, hair in wet lavender streamers around her face.

"What's to say? You are the biggest deal in Hearstcliff, or Hearstwhile. The brightest star and the most favored horse, whatever your favorite metaphor is. When I walk among the Brunblings at a banquet or dance, I get closed in by meddlers and gossips who surround me with questions about every tiny detail about you. I spend as much time as anyone in your presence and that makes me Hearstcliff's leading expert on Hearstcliff's most important woman." She deflated a little.

"When I came here, I hoped that I'd be important and sought-after. And thanks to you I have that. And it tastes like ashes." I pressed my fingers to my mouth. This was something I had not heard about, or anticipated. How much would it hurt the pride of someone like Elica to be seen only as a conduit to someone else? Also -"Elica," I said with my softest voice that would carry to her.

"I think I owe you much gratitude that I was not aware of. I was not aware that this was something that had been affecting you. And I know that usually when people ask you about other people, the results are.... not excessively flattering." You are practically a professional at character assassination and you actively revel in destroying reputations.

"And yet, carrying that with you, I know that you've been kind to me, behind my back. There's so much that could be used against me, but you have kept my confidences even when people in your own house, your family would ask direct questions about me. I know you have been complimentary to me because if you were not my stock in this city would be a shambles." And she smirked.

"Oh, certainly do credit me that, and maybe say so in front of other people, do. But between you and I and the inkwell, I have kept your matters confidential for my own reasons as well. Every secret that we keep together makes me more important. Every secret I tell another would only dilute my distinction." She opened the door and let Rinnie in, and they got started attending to her hair and clothing. Rinnie put the fallen towels into the hamper without breaking stride, just a reliable part of her morning routine.

It had probably been a great stroke of luck on my part that the premiere rumormonger of this Academy class was my roommate and had seized on me as her best friend. Only because we were of similar rank, and only because she craves the contact of nobility. The traits that made her such a vicious villainess in Nathan's run were exactly the same traits that made her my most valuable ally. Even more valuable that she would likely stay my ally no matter which romance options I chose or neglected.

No matter how she deflected, I likely owe a large portion of my current success to her good graces and faithful silence. It was hurting her heart that her own house was approaching her only in relation to me, and rather than taking that bitterness to scorn me, she had doubled-down as my best friend. I can be surprised that Elica is a better person than she should have been. Petticoats rustled from the wardrobe, and I had more work to do. I started back in on the invitations.

I am trying to network in the off-hours so that I'm not just "the party girl", but I can't simply make the connections the easy way everyone else does. I do not send letters, and I have made sure this is something everyone knows about me. Maybe they believe that I just don't have time, or that this is some personal eccentricity. Or, gallingly, they may believe that I am so poorly-lettered that I do not send out correspondence for my own pride. Frankly, I would rather that they believed that.

But I have steadfastly refused to my address, my agent, or my mark to anyone in all this past year. My only exceptions have been the invitations I sent out, which I thought were safe because they came through a print shop. But I had underestimated my brother, he was quite capable of bypassing even that precaution. The very day that I realized that Nathan and I were going to have a more adversarial relationship was the day I stopped commending any information to correspondence.

In this culture, this kingdom, fully half of all communication takes place through the post, and my brother is one of the most brilliant forgers of this generation. You know where that leaves me? Drafting up documents to be submitted to house agents, solicitors, stewards, and aides. Not a friendly letter, but a full notice to a dispatch agency with a full description of handling procedures. I have to go to a lot of trouble to send letters that cannot be interdicted, falsified, or altered.

And I have to pay a pretty penny too.

But what I get is a messenger that goes to the addresses, rings the bell to speak to a steward or legal representative of the addressee, and the messenger can produce a badge and credentials, and will tell them that authoritatively his or her dispatcher had spoken to me in person and verified me exhaustively, then took my messages, and passed them directly to that messenger, and that neither the dispatcher nor messenger had set the messages down or left their person between that moment and the delivery.

An unbroken chain of personal face-to-face verifications. Countersigned by the recipient, and relayed back to the dispatcher who keeps the completed forms in a safe. This is what it takes to keep Nathan from fucking with my basic communications. And I think it's pretty secure, I don't see any gaps in this process, but since I also thought the print shop invitations were safe, I'm not as confident.

Of all the things I can resent Nathan for- all the swindles, the sabotage, the manipulation- and all the shit that he pulled in those last five weeks particularly- the thing that probably makes the biggest difference is knowing that anything I take for granted, anything that I assume is safe, is actually my blind spot and the most easily breached part of my defenses. If I'm comfortable and confident that means he's about to get me again. Rinnie glanced over, taking a break from pinning netting over Elica's hair.

"What is that? Is it for your finals?"

"No. This is what I have to go through to get a brunch with the chancellor-exchequer to discuss a streamlining process of interduchy taxation."

"Oh. Can't you just mail a letter like everyone else?" I declined to answer her. I gritted my teeth and kept working. My math final was damn easy: all we had to do was turn in the project credits. By which i mean we took all three notebooks from all three liches, handed them over and called it a day. I was ready to go sit back down but Kurumi had choice words to share about liches, acid vats, undead monsters and assigned project parameters.

I let her rant, even though half her material was about my lackadaisical and unsympathetic demeanor. Based on the content of her rant, she was more mad at me than at any of the liches. She didn't mention the money. Make of that what you will. After that dressing-down, I patted her on the shoulder and left with a "see you next semester". But she's hardly the only designated love interest that I won't be seeing over the break.

As promised, Professor Ryichsur gave me a perfect grade for the year even though I only turned in two assignments, as a lark. He gave me the names of two more psychiatrists for me to look into during the break, but Hearstcliff has not moved past Freud-level quackery. After a couple of basic questions (can I expect any degree of patient-doctor confidentiality, do they even have a degree that means anything) I elected not to pursue those. He told me he's going to continue looking into solutions for me.

He does not think that capybaras alone are going to stop me from burning out. The healer, Licard, is going to be out of touch. When I nudged him for information, his response was much like Rinnie's.

"I'm going someplace that not a single Academy student can find me, and it's gonna stay that way." There was a real sense of finality and decisiveness to that one. I let it lie. A few delicate opening questions was enough to establish that there was no chance that Nux Gysmo would be free for any off-campus time during the vacation. I only barely had enough leverage and sway to make that happen when there's a full staff running and he's expected back in a few hours.

Having him potentially out in the wind for two weeks before any of the staff could alert the management? Not happening. I suggested that maybe they could just trust me. I've gotten traction with that before, but apparently this issue is a bridge too far. And, to my shame, I haven't asked about Belisa. I still have no idea what the school's actual accommodations for her are; they can't have a regular standing policy for what to do if one of their students becomes nearly cataleptic but stays enrolled, right?

Nothing appropriate to a student losing their soul and becoming an unrotting, still-breathing shambling undead. I think that this is one of those things that has happened because of a game mechanic, that the designated love interest must be in certain classes at certain times. But there's been several examples where I examine the mechanisms of game mechanics through the lens of worldbuilding, and usually the answer is something horrifying.

Like the Uchislowi jungle giving me evidence that this world is evolving specifically to get rid of humans. Like the hints about several major dark ages where all previous history was purged. The implications of a civilization that is in complete cultural and artistic stagnation for at least the last hundred years. Like my fucking math teacher assigning tomb raiding missions as a major test grade, which should be both unconscionable for her to consider and illegal for her to do.

The borders between "what the game demands" and "how the world makes sense of it" is almost always lined with atrocities, and I don't want to know how bad Belisa's situation really is. I've already got so much going on. All around me I can see other students having much more normal situations. The background for all this is still ordinary teenagers having ordinary reactions to final exams and winter break, signing each others' yearbooks, Normal stuff.

For them this is a normal school experience and there's a few weird people here, mostly with aristocratic titles, who seem to be involved in everything and always generating drama. For ninety-percent of this school, I'm a passing curiosity or a particularly odd bit of local color. To them, this is just a school year.

And if I'm very, very good and/or very, very lucky, then in twenty years they'll be telling their kids "yeah, I went to academy with Natalie Harigold and honestly I never interacted with her that much". I want about a thousand people to have that be their story in twenty years because that would mean that the whole world does not end in four years when Nathan has his twentieth birthday and/or the wedding that comes with it. In some ways, having such a distinctly firm timeline for future events is a huge blessing.

I can't imagine what it would be like trying to save the future if I did not have firm concrete guidelines. On the other hand, it means that I can never stop watching the calendar. I can physically count how many days I have left to save the world. How many of them I should spend getting railroads started. How many I can devote to politics. Which day the king and queen should definitely be dead. For them the future is a thing that will happen.

I'm surrounded by people who look at the future as possibilities and mysteries and opportunities. I have a hard time seeing anything but an itinerary.

"Winterwane 18: last possible date to secure Kudder Ironworks." For me the future is not an endless stream of new experiences, it is an hourglass that is bleeding out my chances to fix things. The road ahead is not branching out into a million versions of 'what-if'. All I have is a collection of paths that are gradually sorting themselves into win conditions and lose conditions. It feels weird to me that they're all having normal lives. It feels disconnected.

Their way of seeing this world is so different from mine, they're not reconcilable. To them this is just school, the way I remember from my first life. If I didn't have that, I don't think I'd be able to blend in as well as I do. Which, in all honesty, is sort of touch-and-go as it is. I'm hitting checkpoints and locking in alliances and trying to organize my schedule around blackmail and murder, and I'm doing this from inside a school full of teenagers in various degrees of normality.

I'm following a script that only I can see, trying to interpret the intentions of mysterious forces by looking at the titles of my quests and following breadcrumb trails of experience points. I've got my own secret scavenger hunt. Friends giving each other a quick hug in the lunchroom, promising to write each other over the break. Students that had homes or families in Hearster were offering to host those whose roots were further afield. It was like I was watching it all through glass.

For as weird as my life has become, it's only when I look closely at all of them that it all starts to feel surreal.