Ruairi | Water | Freyja, Floki, Henriik, Arah

“I don’t know. There were at least four adults, and maybe a child. It’s really hazy. I want to go see it, I feel like if I were to go there it would make the memory clearer for me.”

Those words sunk in while Ru quietly reflected on them as the air steadily grew colder around him. Freyja’s logic made sense to him, even if it was an optimistic reach to grasp anything that could provide him more clarity about the past. He didn’t enjoy dwelling on any of this, and yet it stuck to his psyche so strongly that he was beginning to form an obsessive itch in his head that he desperately needed to scratch. Ru very badly wanted to remember, and maybe revisiting the scene would do more for him than stewing.

“Was I really the first person to call you Ru?”

The blond shivered. Whether it was sourced from pain, from being cold, or from the question was impossible to decipher. His gaze dropped from the sky to meet Freyja’s eyes. It wasn’t fair that his sworn enemy had given him such an important staple of his life here at the academy. Ru. It was a very clear memory, even if he held reservations about trusting his memories at the moment. This one, though, had to be real because it was so vivid. He recalled how casually she had said it the first time, as if she had used it a thousand times prior, but it had stunned him at the time. Stopped and restarted his heart. It was so personal to him that first time, it made him feel seen, wanted, and accepted. “Maybe, not that my memory has served me well as of late. So who knows.” He lied.

“Your girlfriend is a siphon. And if I’m right, she’s far too old to be a student. She’s up to something.”

Whatever sentiment he had sank into evaporated. Not having a moment to articulate a rebuttal to such an outlandish thing, the simulation ended. Too quickly he returned to a state of being physically fine, and mentally an absolute wreck.

</////////>

Ruairi refused to say a word to Henriik as they waited in uncomfortable silence for their turn to enter the simulation. The blond’s arms were tightly crossed, a testament to the anger that manifested his absolute silence. Bullshit is what Ru had called the news of him and Freyja being ‘co-winners’. There was never a tie before, and he wasn’t oblivious enough to not see how strange everything was surrounding it. He didn’t go out of his way to look for Heris last night, either. Between crossing him by injuring Arah in the survival challenge, and the idea Freyja had inserted into his head, he just didn’t want to see Heris’ face until he worked out everything that was bothering him.

All things considered, it was more than expected that Ru’s fear this year pertained to Freyja, betrayal, generally something he’s faced before. As for Henriik’s, Ru assumed the air element’s fear would be lame. At the very least, it should have been a relatively quick run-through of the simulation. As their pair was called forward, he briefly cast a glance towards Henriik to gauge how anxious he might have been. To Ru’s pleasure, the air element looked a little uncomfortable in his own skin, but there was little time to relish in the sight before they stepped through the portal.

Ruairi wanted to disappear from the scene they stepped into. A tale of status and great opulence was told from the floor up of the spacious manor interior they found themselves in - from the marbled flooring, the receiving space boasting lavish furnishings, and a spiral staircase in the center of the vast layout. The walls were white. The floor was white. The furniture was a deep blood red. This place was not one Ruairi expected to step into, and the fact that he could not discern why his home was the setting of his challenge concerned him deeply.

“Well, I guess you can consider this an unwelcome tour of my humble abode,” Ru said, sparing a glance toward Henriik as he began to approach the staircase. His gaze had strayed to the direction of the manor’s dining room and found the sight was a blur, which was mildly irritating. It was clear this simulation would force him to go through this place in a specific route, instead of crossing through the kitchen sculleries to the larder that possessed a coveted passage he knew would lead him outside. Every room, hall, and passage of the manor was something Ru knew like the back of his hand. Aside from the eerie existence of catacombs he was not permitted to enter beneath the estate.

Ascending the stairs to the second story, Ru paused on the last step simultaneously as his blue gaze locked onto the fog that had consumed the entirety of the main hall from left to right. The hairs on the back of his neck stood as he took a precautionary journey forward, turning left to follow a vague flicker of illumination at the end of the corridor. The fog dispersed with each step he took toward the light, and he couldn’t help but notice all of the doors and decor that were supposed to line the hall were gone, leaving the white walls bare.

Coming to a stop at the source of light, Ru found its origin to be from the doorknob of the only door here. Looking back down the hall and past Henriik, the fog had enveloped everything but the space they now occupied. An inhale of confidence came before Ruairi turned the doorknob, and pushed the door open.

“What a mess you’ve made.”

His father sat in a rather lax stance at his study’s desk. If it weren’t for the degradation of his tone and the sharp gleam in his hauntingly silver eyes, Ru wouldn’t have felt so physically ill. From the sight of the older man’s equally bright, silver-streaked brunet hair that was meticulously combed back, and the white uniform that reflected both status and wealth, the water element was paralyzed. With a dizzying sense of realization, Ru came to grips that this was much more than an insecurity, it was a nightmare.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t hear about how your pathetic pursuit of befriending that fire element girl came back to burn you? Literally, I might add.”

Ru shivered as a smaller version of himself passed through him, stopped at the front of the desk with his head hung low and his eyes incapable of meeting the eyes of the man who had warned him of fire and its wielders from an early age. This was a painful memory. A painful reminder.

“I was almost proud when I had initially been informed by your mother of this blossoming friendship,” his father laughed, the sound chilling. “I congratulated myself, thinking you had finally grown into your own skin, I had thought you had the wit to keep friends close and enemies closer. That you just might take the initiative to gain the trust of someone like that and use it against them.” His father stood from the desk and began a slow, predatory-like walk around the obstacle in his approach of a very still, young Ruairi. “So imagine my surprise to hear you had disillusioned yourself with a fantasy that she was actually your friend. It came as no shock that your fantasy backfired, I just wish I could have seen your face when you realized it.” His father’s hands tightly gripped the young Ruairi’s shoulders.

“I am tremendously disappointed. You’ve humiliated yourself, me, and your mother. This is unforgivable." He could hear the smile in his father's tone. "However, I think you’ve been given a great gift that will serve as a reminder of how stupid of a mistake you made.” One of his father’s hands gave him a harsh pat on the back, right over the burn scar he had just so recently acquired. The younger version of himself flinched. “I can’t even imagine how you’ll ever stomach seeing yourself in the mirror after this, let alone such a hideous stain on your body your ignorance is responsible for. It disgusts me just to envision that atrocious mark on your skin. You disgust me.” With a sigh to further reinforce his father’s disappointment, he mussed the smaller Ruairi’s blond curls in an act of insincere affection. “I can’t entrust you with the responsibility of becoming my regent when you’ve graduated if I can’t trust your judgment, so I sincerely hope you’ll put these boyish antics behind you now, and be the son I’ve raised you to be. In my image, of course. Or do you lack the motivation to be more than this family’s source of embarrassment?”

Ruairi slammed the door closed, unable to withstand how destroyed he had felt beneath that man’s gaze. Watching the scene as a spectator did not spare him from the rage and disgust he had felt towards himself that day, and he was grateful the simulation was not torturing him with the events following that scene, nor of memories that were far viler in comparison out of his father’s desire for him to fit the mold of ‘his image’. It made sense, now. Beneath the layers of other things he’s concerned himself with lately, he had buried how utterly devastated he truly was to have nothing left to look forward to but life in his realm, to be a puppet on strings played by his parents, and how much he feared becoming so hollow inside that he would become content in being viciously merciless with no instinct to seek forgiveness or remorse. And worse, to no longer be capable of truly caring for anyone or anything else but himself and power he didn’t want.

As he turned around, cold sweat enveloping his skin, he noticed both he and Henriik were no longer in his house. It didn’t matter the setting now because the scene that had made both young men pale was blinding. A pairing ceremony to unite Freyja and Henriik. Ru’s gaze remained stationary on Freyja, a bride in black, being the customary color of the pairing ceremony for everyone. Something Ru found to be sick. They must have already taken the pairing potion as both she and Henriik had laid down on a bed of roses, and Ru could have sworn he tasted vomit in his throat. For just a moment, Ru couldn’t tell whether this was an extension of an insecurity he had, or if it was truly Henriik’s.

There was no longer a deliberation of the thought as Ru noticed a symbol on Freyja’s wrist appear. It was familiar enough to make his stomach drop, being one of the glowing symbols he had seen in the Sanctum with her. The blond’s gears were beginning to churn in his head as he studied the mark. Glancing at Henriik as the two of them in the simulation had been pronounced dead, Ru kept his gaze on the air element because he didn’t want to know what dead Freyja looked like, nor did he want to feel the false grief he knew he would have if he allowed himself to. For a moment, though, Ruairi had sworn that the simulation was beginning to alter a little, as if preparing to implement a new insecurity for the challenge as muffled voices from the background of the pairing ceremony were almost clear enough to decipher.

Then it was all over.

“What the hell did you do?” Ruairi asked, glancing around the space they had been in before entering the portal. “Did you seriously use magic or something to disqualify us?” The water element asked, gaze tethering in a heated glare on Henriik and not giving him much of an opening to speak over him. “You’re such a pussy, no wonder Freyja wears the pants,” Ru growled. Obviously they were disqualified and Ru didn’t even get an exact answer as to why, or what Henriik did for that to happen.

Storming in a quest to find Freyja and confront her about her shady boyfriend, he was puzzled to see the hall he turned into filled with so many students. Marveling and whispering about something, although Ru didn’t care so much to let it prevent him from forcing his way through the crowd as he kept walking down the hall. Only when he heard someone mention Freyja by name did he pause and look past a few bodies to glimpse red hair attached to the head of the woman he was looking for. Except what he was looking at was very wrong. Very unnatural.

“Freyja?” Ruairi asked quizzically as he approached her, his brow raised and his expression nothing short of conflicting confusion and uncertainty. Arah briefly filled him in - Floki had barely managed to get her out of the simulation of a burning village of sorts and fled after shifting the responsibility of Freyja’s care onto Arah. For a second he was amazed at how frail this moment of distress made Freyja look. It was disturbing. “You should probably try to coax her back to your room now before this roadside attraction gets out of hand.” Ru spoke after a brief silence, vowing he would swing by later.

<////////////>

Nothing alleviated the headache Ruairi had from the events of the day, and days prior adding up. If he could shake his head so hard the thoughts fell out, that would be wonderful. Or maybe if he lost a considerable number of brain cells he wouldn’t be capable of complex thought for longer than a few seconds at a time. Until he discovered how to obtain that kind of solution, Ruairi had kept his promise to return to Freyja and Arah’s room, only to be met with a single inhabitant.

Being given a vile of the serum Arah made for Freyja to tolerate water, and another brief summary of how little Freyja had bounced back from the insecurity challenge, the blond set off in the vague set of directions he was given as to where he could possibly find the fire element. It took a considerably agitating amount of time wandering around the academy grounds before he found Freyja sitting in the grass of a space not so far from the boathouse. Between seeing a false vision of her pairing with Henriik, and the jarring sight of her so broken down on the hallway floor, he thinks he’s seen too many variants of Freyja today.

“You know,” Ruairi spoke, announcing his presence as he began closing some of the distance between them as he slowed his gait. “It’s so clear that your insecurity for the challenge was enjoying that minute of sex we had arranged, but did you really need to put on such a dramatic display of distress in the hallway over it?” He smiled, though not as smugly as his tone would have otherwise suggested. Having her attention, Ru tossed the vile of serum Arah had given him to her. While he had initially only wanted to talk to her about her boyfriend, this exact moment didn’t quite feel right enough for him to bring it up. “You’re my greatest enemy, but the insecurity challenge is something I wouldn’t even wish upon you. It sucks.” He said, hands sliding into his uniform’s pockets. While he believed Freyja might have deserved to experience various levels of torturous agony, he just couldn’t find satisfaction in seeing her reduced to such a broken state. This feeling of strained empathy reminded him that he wasn’t the hollow man his father wanted. Not yet.

Freyja | Fire | Ruairi

At some point in the blur of the day, Freyja had been ushered back to her room by Arah, who had been suddenly insistent on moving her for some reason she just couldn’t comprehend. Since she’d come out of the simulation, she’d been struggling with the effects of the simulation so greatly that she hadn’t been in the mood to control anyone or anything, which was quite contrary to the person that she typically was. She was dealing with years of emotion that she hadn’t had to manage, primarily because she had never remembered going to that place or being there at all. As much as her rational brain wanted to tell her that it was all fake, the insecurity challenge generated insecurities based on the individual who was competing. They didn’t create the scenarios beforehand, so it had to have come from deep inside her. It had to have been true, even if the truth in it was that it was the image that came to mind when she recalled what she’d been told by Henriik’s uncle that he had done.

As she continued to process the emotions and logic of the events over and over again, she continually went through cycles of crying, then heavy silence, then something resembling catatonia. Knowing Freyja well enough to know that her emotions could make her do unpredictable things, Arah stayed in the room and attended to the tasks she would have been doing anyway, keeping an eye on the fire element at all times but never directly confronting her. Her emotions were the source of her power, and Arah didn’t want Freyja to make any mistakes that could add to her grief and guilt. She was better off alone, dealing with whatever it was that went on in that mind of hers.

After she’d managed silence for an hour or more, Freyja quietly announced to Arah that she was going out. She didn’t tell her where, but she assumed the young woman had gone to the old cemetery near the boathouse. The cemetery that held the majority of the bodies buried at the academy was held in one of the courtyards off of the main building, but a few of the oldest graves had been scattered loosely near the bank of the water the boathouse sat on. Arah knew that Freyja had a strange affinity to dead people, something she had always attributed to the red-haired girl losing her family so young. The earth element had no idea what she really did out there, but it was typical for her to spend time alone sitting in the presence of the few lonely graves. She was doing just that as she heard someone approach, not bothering to look back until he spoke.

“You know, It’s so clear that your insecurity for the challenge was enjoying that minute of sex we had arranged, but did you really need to put on such a dramatic display of distress in the hallway over it?”

She almost smiled as she turned back to meet him, features illuminated by the ripples of light that dotted the murky pseudo-sky. Her green eyes reflected the darker colors of the water due to the glare of the boathouse lights, and her expression lifted just barely. She had a million thoughts going through her head, but she couldn’t manage to say one of them out loud. Not the ones that mattered, anyway. And not to him.

“You know, you’ve really got to stop coming around here looking for Arah when she’s asleep.” It was a terrible deflection, but it kept the emotional distance between the two of them that she was dependent on. She caught the vial he’d tossed her, burying it in the tall grass as she leaned back against the headstone.

“You’re my greatest enemy, but the insecurity challenge is something I wouldn’t even wish upon you. It sucks.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets which drew her attention to the uniform he was still wearing. He was so opposite of her in every way, even in these small details. He rarely changed his clothing, and she changed for every occasion. She was fire, he was water. Their whole lives they had been trying to kill each other, and now she wasn’t even sure why. To avoid his burning gaze, she slid her body farther into the grass, feeling the sting of the dew on her back. The side effects of the mass consumption of Arah’s water resistance liquid were making her groggy, and she didn’t mind feeling the burning sensation because it grounded her absent mind.

Staring up at the obscurity of the sky, Freyja wondered what it was like in other places. She’d talked to Arah about the realm that she and Ru had come from several times, but it never quelled the aching loneliness inside of her. She’d had a home elsewhere, somewhere, and she didn’t remember any of it. The only other place she’d been was the site of the explosion that had occurred in the challenge today.

Not bothering to respond to his attempt at empathetic words, Freyja’s distant gaze slid over to his only when she saw him mirror her position a few feet away, now lying in the grass beside her. He’d left enough room that she didn’t feel uncomfortable with his presence. In fact, he was quite a calming presence for her. They spent many moments together, staring up at the sky in silence before Freyja broke it.

“Is it similar to this? Your realm?”

As he spoke about the place he was from and would eventually abandon her to return to, Freyja studied the water element’s face with more interest in him than in his words. He spoke about it in such a complicated way, as if it was part of him but not part of the person he wished he had become. She studied the way the pale light made his eyes turn colors of blue and green she’d never seen before, and how his expressions were uniquely his. He was her enemy, and yet, she was beginning to realize that an enemy could be the highest object of one’s devotion.

She was still tracing his intricacies with such attention and precision that she didn’t register that he’d asked her a question or otherwise finished speaking until he turned and held her gaze with a mix of concern and confusion. She held his stare for what felt like an eternity, yet it captivated her in a way that made her forget the rest of the world for just a moment. There was something so tangible between the two of them, something that bound them together in a way that made Freyja feel grief like she had never felt it before. In a few months, he would be gone from her life forever, just another devastating loss in the series of losses that characterized her lifetime. Whatever was between them could not bind them so strongly that it could protect them from the fate of their perpetual separation.

Suddenly, still on her side, eyes glued to his, she repeated the words she’d once asked him, the ones which had bound them together so many years ago, tears welling up in her eyes again as she realized the infinite and timeless truth of the statement, both then and now.

“Why aren’t you afraid of me? Everyone is.”

Ruairi | Water | Freyja

“You know, you’ve really got to stop coming around here looking for Arah when she’s asleep.”

Rolling his eyes in an act of feigned displeasure, Ruairi replied with a subdued smile. “Right,” he said, gauging how much of the Freyja he had seen in the hallway earlier was still lingering. The image of her so crumpled was burned into his head. While he was abundantly curious about the details pertaining to her challenge and what was so gripping that it broke Freyja, of all people, he wasn’t so insensitive to rub salt into whatever wound she had sustained from the experience by prodding. Besides, he doubted very much she would even tell him. However, it wouldn’t stop him from trying to pull any information from Arah at a later time about it.

A few moments of silent contemplation for Ruairi passed before he took a few steps forward, just to be in an optimal position to lay himself back in the grass. It wasn’t as unpleasant as he thought it might be. Running his fingers through the blades of grass, and enjoying a moment to appreciate the simple act of breathing was something he needed. If Freyja did this often he could understand why. Zoning out on the sky and the serene sensory of the ground made for a content experience. The person he usually couldn’t stand was feet from him, and yet this wasn’t so bad a moment in the slightest.

“Is it similar to this? Your realm?”

The sigh that was pressed out of his lungs was heavier than he had intended it to be. “It’s colder where I’m from,” Ru replied, which was a dual truth for the weather most of the year, and just how he perceived the atmosphere of the place he was raised. Cold. Very briefly did he touch on the few things he appreciated in his realm; the sunsets when the skies were clear, the solstice celebrations held in the capital, and the older architecture found in the outer cities. As he thought about it, there were few things he genuinely felt attached to when it came to the realm he was supposed to consider home. Home is where the heart is, but for as long as he could remember, he never felt like his heart ached to be there at all.

Only when he had finished speaking and shifted his attention from his own inner monologue did he turn his head to Freyja. He expected a comment of some degrading caliber from her, although she stared at him as if he was something worth paying some degree of attention to. It was hard for him to look at her with the mutual hate they shared right now. Did enemies do this? Lay a few feet from one another and exchange a connection he didn’t understand through silence? The most unsettling aspect of this moment was that he could not confidently call her an enemy in his eyes right now.

“Why aren’t you afraid of me? Everyone is.”

Ru stared blankly, completely caught off guard by the question that took him back to a place in his life he had discarded to protect himself. Freyja was no longer the woman with teary eyes who betrayed him as the memory that question sparked played behind his eyes, she was the girl who had accepted his invitation of everlasting friendship. “I’m not everyone,” Ru had replied in his youth, grinning widely. “I’m your best friend now.”

“I’m not everyone,” the words were spoken quietly with Ruairi’s expression of confliction. The latter half of what he had once told her no longer really applied to them, and he wasn’t expecting the tightness in his chest in his acknowledgment of that fact. Whatever they were right now was well beyond his vocabulary, if there was even a word in existence to capture the complexity of their meaning to one another. The longer he stared at her and considered everything she had been to him once upon a time, the more he understood the passion of their hatred. Not that he wanted to accept what had fueled his own loathing for her though, but he did understand. True hatred cannot flourish without the foundation of affection. And as much as he would deny it to himself, he used to care about her. So much more than he ever should have.

An uncomfortable sensation set in, one that spurred his gaze to avert back to the sky, and for him to permit the existence of silence between them. “I think we should go back,” he said after an extensive internal deliberation with himself, turning his head back to her. “You said you wanted to go back, that being there again might make the memory of what really happened between us clearer. I’m not as optimistic, but I don’t think it’s the worst idea you’ve ever had.” With a grin, he propped himself up on his elbows. “I propose we go tomorrow morning, skip the rest of the trials. It’s not like we haven’t seen it all before, anyway.” Ruairi was both surprised and relieved that she was not looking at him like he was an idiot for his suggestion. Better yet, to his astonishment, she agreed with no friction.

A short conversation transpired before Freyja began to get up, and detecting a sense of departure, Ru mirrored her in standing up. “I’ll walk you back,” he said, if only to carry on a little more conversation about their impending absence from the academy. He felt assured that she was just as serious about leaving as he was, if not more so. The notion to ensure she didn’t say anything to Henriik at all was on his tongue, as well as the urge to press a little about the remarks she made about Heris the day before. Those conversations weren’t exactly ones he felt prepared enough for though. Henriik was strange to him and someone he never actually considered a close friend, not even when they were children. While Ru couldn’t place why was never abundantly fond of the air element, the feeling was only reinforced after seeing the pairing scene between him and Freyja. It still disgusted Ru to think about. And Heris was a different story he didn’t want to touch right now.

“I’ll meet you here early tomorrow,” Ruairi stated upon reaching her room. Staring at her, he felt like he should have said something more. Something characteristically witty or snarky. Nothing came to mind and that was an uncomfortable blank to draw considering how easily those comments usually came when he was around her. “Goodnight,” he said, drawing away from her and turning to walk back across campus to his own room. It wasn’t even the idea of gaining the clarity of their past that felt the most outlandish to him, but simply the moment they had shared on the grass, the absurdity of what he had suggested, and the wilder notion of her agreeing to it. The scope of it all clung to his thoughts as he replayed it all in his head, and further speculated the reality actually of leaving with her. He felt insane about this all, but she must be even more so for going along with it.

Freyja Eloquijm | Fire | Arah, Edward, Heris, Ru

“I’m not everyone,” he’d replied, and she hadn’t known what she’d been expecting but somehow those words brought her more comfort than she had expected them to. Really, she was asking the question to get an answer. They’d been enemies for more than a decade, and nothing she’d ever done had made him fear her. Hate her, yes, but never fear. Not like the rest of the people around her, not like Henriik, not like Arah, not like the staff and students. In some ways, his answer was the answer she was looking for. He wasn’t everyone, he had the ability to wield enough water to kill her in an instant. Yet, he never had. Because he didn’t fear her, which only brought her back around to her initial question.

When he first said they should go back, Freyja assumed he was talking about returning to the dorms. She knew he had Heris, and in theory she had Henriik too. Although it was difficult to read his expression in the dark, there was something about it that told her his guard was up. Maybe it was her own insecurity from the day, but she could have sworn that if she reached out to touch him he would have jumped back or left. Not that she really would have, she was perfectly sober and it wasn’t even like she ever threw herself at him when she was drunk anyway, right? They were enemies? With this mindset, it was quite curious when she realized that he was, in fact, suggesting he accompany her to the place where the incident had occurred. Because she was surprised and a bit off her game anyway due to the events of the day, she quickly agreed. If she was so certain about the truth lying at the place where it all began, it wouldn’t hurt to bring him too. She wouldn’t have to explain herself to him later on or try to convince him that whatever she discovered was the real truth. He could be so stubborn, so his willingness to volunteer himself for the trip was actually a weight off her shoulders.

As he walked her back, they fell into a serious and purely logistical conversation regarding their trip. They agreed that it had to be done in the four remaining days of the pairing ceremony since the primary focus was on the events at hand and the staff wouldn’t have the resources to juggle that and a search party to go out and find them. They also agreed that bringing other students would be useful in aiding their trip, namely the new scholarship students who could equally manipulate light and darkness, Floki because it would be difficult to not invite him and he served some purpose for Freyja in the survival simulation, and Arah in order to protect her. They both agreed that, while she served little purpose, they would have rather had her with them than left to deal with individuals who were seeming shadier and shadier by the moment. They agreed on a spot, and parted ways. For some odd reason, Freyja began to feel the sinking feeling of despair again the moment he left her. Arah’s presence wasn’t the same, it didn’t make her feel as safe as Ru did, and she couldn’t place exactly why.

“How are you holding up?”

“Fine,” Freyja replied, looking the dark-haired girl dead in the eye. “Arah, I need to talk to you about something.”

“About what?”

“Listen, you know the story about how Ru tried to kill me and I burned him?” She nodded. “We think it’s a lie, we think it’s something the administration made up to-”

“To what?” Arah scoffed, “you two decide you like each other now and suddenly everything that’s happened is a lie?”

Freyja stared at her incredulously. It wasn’t like her to stand up to Freyja. Even on Freyja’s worst day. Giving up on providing the reasoning for it, Freyja simply stated, “it’s not safe here, we’re leaving in the morning to figure out the truth and we want you to come. For your protection.”

“I’m not coming, absolutely not. What you two are doing is dangerous and irresponsible, and you’re going to get kicked out. What’s Henriik going to say? What’s his uncle going to say? What happens when you come back? When they suspend you?”

Although it hadn’t really been a consideration, Freyja couldn’t see how any of the possible consequences could outweigh her burning desire to know the truth. “It would be worth it to know what really happened, and if you can’t understand that then you don’t know me as well as I thought you did.”

With that, the pair sat in a tense silence with Arah lying in bed and Freyja packing a few of her more useful possessions in a bag for the morning. She was upset with Arah, but more concerned for her wellbeing. She would talk to Ru in a matter of hours about it, though she was tempted to go to his door then denying any and all ulterior motives. Between that interaction and the events of the day, she didn’t sleep at all for fear of nightmares. She’d had them for years as a child, and she was afraid that the memories from the challenge might have triggered them to return. She simply laid in bed and stared at the ceiling, thinking about everything that had occurred and how overwhelmed she was with the state of her life. Ru’s words continually echoed in her head. I’m not everyone, I’m not everyone, I’m not everyone. But what did that make him to her?

At the break of dawn, Freyja was packed and prepared to leave the academy. She’d left the task of recruiting the light wielder to him considering that she believed that the only reason Sala would risk her scholarship would be for a boy she liked. She knew that Sala would recruit the darkness wielder and provide a sudden incentive for Floki, which would solve the rest of their problems. Except for Arah, who was still sleeping peacefully, or pretending to. She left the room quietly and made her way to the front of the dorms where they’d agreed to meet. Since she was waiting for everyone, she didn’t find it odd to hear footsteps coming up behind her. However, when she turned to see Heris, the feeling of disgust washed over her. She balled her fists, willing herself to command magic at any moment. Considering what she’d told Ru about Heris, the best case scenario for this interaction was either that he didn’t feel secure enough to leave her behind or that this was another stupid trick of his. That he’d made her believe he would be there and he’d lied. As she considered how genuine he seemed the night before, she regretted ever trusting him, even for a second. Even if she’d been vulnerable. Enemies were enemies, even if they were pretending to be something other for the good of the cause.

“Ruairi told me you two were leaving this morning. Unfortunately I can’t let that happen.”

“He prefers Ru,” she spat back, narrowing her eyes. She balled her fists and summoned her power, easily getting to an overwhelming amount of magic due to the easily accessible emotions she was feeling for the girl in the present. “If you’re jealous, I understand. I would be jealous of me too.”

These words inspired rage in Heris in ways that Freyja could not even begin to imagine with her limited knowledge of the woman’s background. Immediately, Heris stretched her arms outward and sucked the magic out of Freyja, not even beginning to show signs of stopping when the girl fell to her knees in the grass, nor her stomach. Heris was fighting to kill. She wanted every last drop of Freyja’s power, and she wanted it for herself. Finally. Once and for all.

“It was meant to be me,” she murmured in something of a stupor. “It was meant to be me, not you.” She dragged the unconscious body away from the public eye, continuing to talk to it as if Freyja was still alert and fighting back. Heris harnessed all of her power, her source of life. And some of Arah’s, Ru’s, and Henriik’s. Maybe now Edward would want her. Now that she’d left his prized possession for dead in the tall grass on the other side of the magic boundary that kept her safe. She couldn’t regenerate her power from the wilderness beyond the academy, the same area she’d set out to venture before their interaction.

———————————

Barely clinging to life, Freyja only came to when she passed back through the invisible boundary to the academy. She barely had her faculties about her, but she felt the warmth of a body near her, one that was clearly using magic to keep her warm if the tingling sensation on her insides was any indication. Her eyelids fluttered, and when she heard Ru’s voice, she mumbled in a way that lacked coherence, “Heris, it was Heris, it was Heris.”

She’d exhausted herself on that side of the boundary with the feeble attempts at identifying her attacker and had apparently gone unconscious again because when she came to she was in close proximity to Ru. He was so warm and she felt so safe in his arms, so weightless despite the lack of physical coordination she had. She felt as though she was in a coma or one of Edward’s trances he used to help her cheat on math tests. In her mind she was there, but her body was so detached from her mind. She was getting continually jostled around, and the beating of his heart vibrated against her skin. One of her hands clumsily dropped to his chest, to the calming feeling of the vibration that seemed to be pounding so rapidly in slow motion.

He smelled so nice, too. It clearly wasn’t Henriik, who refused to give up wearing the same cologne despite her repeated decisions to buy him new ones that were more tolerable. She was beginning to believe it was flame repellent. Maybe it was. Regardless, he didn’t smell nice, and he didn’t feel warm, and she didn’t feel safe in his arms. Not like she did in that moment, not like she did with Ru. His body was so warm, and it was the only thing that was helping her to survive. Without fire magic, she couldn’t regulate her own temperature she way she could have normally. Her strength was vaguely beginning to return to her in small ways, but not quickly enough to make up for the shock that her body was in from the rapid temperature decrease she’d experienced. Not when her body temperature was much higher than the average person’s and Ru must have been exhausting himself to keep her alive. Her eyelids fluttered, and she nestled her head into the crook of his neck, feeling the warmth from the better heat source. It was then that she noticed herself shivering uncontrollably, and she assumed her lips were as blue as her fingers. She barely had any feeling in her limbs, and she liked the security that he was providing for her in such a fragile state. She kept trying to bury herself deeper into him with weak, uncontrolled muscles, as if she were trying to crawl under his skin for warmth like a tattoo. Though there was something psychological about the trust and security she felt in unconsciously making those movements, the reason behind them was purely a survival instinct. The one person who threatened to kill her the most was the only thing keeping her alive.

Ruairi | Water | Freyja, Floki, Sala

Ruairi sorely regretted agreeing to recruit individuals who would only make him feel like the ring leader to a circus of intolerable clowns. With very little sleep under his belt, and working with a hair-thin string of patience, Sala’s lively personality was an irritant he did not care to conceal from expressing. If it hadn’t been for Floki’s obsessive stalking of the girl, Ru wouldn’t have even known where her room was to talk to her, or her schedule that he hadn’t inquired about yet Floki had the incentive to share anyway. The broody, darkness wielder was an entity Ru could not recall ever really noticing, though he attributed that to him simply not caring to. In any case, Ru had ensured Sala was very well aware it was her duty to get the broody kid to tag along.

“Is that my hoodie?” Ru asked, the dark gray material having caught his eye on Floki’s side of the room draped over the edge of his bed.

As expected, anything subjected to Floki’s presence was touched by chaos and his side of the room was no different. Things were astray in a wild system that only the green-eyed sound enthusiast was able to navigate. It bothered Ruairi to the core and has been the subject of more than one mild argument. The books, instruments, instrument cases decorated with faded stickers, papers, clothes, shoes, and cheap knickknacks were cluttered and astray across the small vicinity. It was like all of Floki’s belongings resided in the space, that he had decided this was free housing, and he moved in intending to stay for a lifetime. A stark contrast to Ruairi’s haven of space which lacked much of a personal touch at all. Everything was confined neatly to his desk and its drawers, his clothes were all neatly folded in his mahogany dresser, books were divided between the top of his desk and a bookshelf above it. No plants, pictures, or items of sentimental value. The only thing remotely a staple to who he was as a person was the two large water bottles he kept on his nightstand.

“That depends, do you want it back?” Floki smiled, raising the item by hooking the hood with his forefinger and extending it outward. “Before you ask, I didn’t wear it or anything. And that’s all you really need to know.” With the item being tossed in Ru’s direction, the blond’s glare communicated very clearly how displeased he was with his clothing being tampered with. While he wanted to know what had been done with it, that was a problem for later. However, it did remind Ru to bring a backup hoodie for the trip, which he just slid over his otherwise casual wear of a white T-shirt and black jeans.

“What did Sala say when you went to her room?” Floki changed subjects faster than Ru could zip his bag closed.

“Nothing about you,” Ru wasn’t oblivious to the starry-eyed look Sala consistently gave him whenever he made the mistake of looking at her. She made him uncomfortable. Assertive kindness and an assault of compliments were not something he knew how to accept, considering his sarcastic and borderline demeaning comments went over her head. In the case of Floki being very obviously interested in the sprite-like girl, Ruairi would not mind going out of his way to redirect Sala’s unwelcome attention off of him and onto his roommate. The excursion they were about to set out on would theoretically be a perfect opportunity for him to execute being a wingman as well.

A short period of time passed before Ru made well on his promise of meeting Freyja at the front of the dorms, where he fully intended to inform her that the tag-a-longs might be more of a burden than they’re worth. For him, anyway, which is what mattered. It didn’t sit right with him that she wasn’t already waiting for him though, since even he had taken his time to get there. In his experience, she usually went well out of her way to be first in anything they did, and this should have been no exception. He could have very well been reading too much into her absence, he was running on limited brain power this morning. But even his two working brain cells were able to generate anxious ideas surrounding Freyja ditching him and abandoning the idea of the trip. Or worse, she had been here first, and her way of getting one over on him was actually leaving first and taking satisfaction in making him catch up to her. That seemed much more like Freyja.

Clinging to his impulsive conclusion, Ru began a very heated trek across campus, sparing Freyja no kindness in the things he grumbled under his breath. This is what he gets for trusting her, she just can’t help herself to besting him, could she? Ruairi is no better, but right now was not about him. Just before he came to the point of crossing the threshold of the academy’s barrier, he froze at a sight he wasn’t entirely sure was real. It’s not very often he recalled having such vivid hallucinations from sleep deprivation, and he couldn’t have been tired enough to see what looked like a very real Freyja, laying in the grass, and looking very dead.

“I swear if this is some kind of sick joke you’ll wish I had drowned you when we were kids,” Ruairi mumbled in both concealed fear and anger as he crossed the barrier and knelt down beside her. “Freyja, seriously, this is low, even for you.” The blond said as he reached out to shake her arm, only to recoil his touch from how cold she was. Easily horror overcame his features until he checked her wrist for a pulse, and he wasn’t so sure he should have felt the kind of relief he did knowing she was still alive if he hated her as much as he claimed. There was no specific thought he had when he began using his magic to warm her from the inside, he just did it. In times of absolute crisis, Ru has found it simpler to detach himself from his thoughts and emotions and focus on acting, if only to get through the moment without wasting time by second-guessing and panicking.

“Heris, it was Heris, it was Heris.”

The words passed through his ears and were locked into a vault he would revisit later as he picked her up from the ground and stood. She was freezing. His eyes briefly traveled from her pale face down the length of her in his arms just to assess her. No injuries, which was wrong for someone so close to death with how cold her body against his own was making him. A short time ago he had seen her just as still, and silent as he had watched the pairing ceremony in the insecurity challenge. His heart thrummed against his chest as he carried her, and as much as he tried to shut the thought down, he couldn’t help but briefly wonder based on the emotions he was repressing whether the fear of her death was truly Henriik’s, or if it had been his own buried one.

Freyja’s head pressed to the crook of his neck and he would have dropped her to end this kind of contact if it weren’t for his every move being the product of adrenaline, and the fact she genuinely was relying on his actions for survival. How much longer would it have taken before she passed the point of no return if he hadn’t found her? Every movement she made though, and the slight raise in her body temperature through his magic reminded him she was very much alive, and more importantly that there was no reason to get hung up on feelings of false grief or fear.

“You killed her? I thought your frequent vow to do so was just a figure of speech this whole time,” was the first comment out of Floki’s mouth after Ru had brought her into their room.

“I wouldn’t have brought her back to my room if I had,” Ru retorted sharply, before nodding at Floki, “pull the blankets and sheet down on my bed so I can lay her down,” the water element instructed. Using so much concentrated magic to keep her warm was tolling in itself, but he figured layering her in blankets and bedding was a better way to both keep her warm and not force him to overdo his magic. Once he had cautiously laid her down on his bed, Ru pulled up the covers to her neck, pressing his fingers to her neck just one last time to assure himself she was alive before he stepped back.

Running a hand through his hair as he sat on his desk and took a drink of water, he felt his adrenaline high begin to flicker and fade. Which really only opened the door for every thought and emotion he had to threaten to escape where he had imprisoned them.

“Addressing the elephant in the room, what happened?” Floki shamelessly asked, wide-eyed and staring expectantly between the two other bodies, waiting for one to confess the details of the situation he was dying to know.

“Can you be quiet for five minutes?” Ru snapped, shaking his head with a sharp exhale as his arms crossed over his chest. “I don’t know what happened,” the blond added, which was primarily a lie.

What Freyja had speculated about Heris circulated in his head as well as her adamant and barely conscious mantra of this being Heris’ doing. If Freyja was right, then this was a truth Ru wished he could be blind to. Wrapping his head around the very real possibility of Heris being a siphon and doing this was a difficult feat. He had chosen Heris as his girlfriend on a whim, for no other reason than that she had a pretty face. Had he really let someone so dangerous so close to him? Shared a bed with someone capable of nearly killing someone else? Even if this was all a sobering reality, what reason would Heris have to kill Freyja? Ru didn’t think it could have been jealousy despite his arguments with Heris where Freyja was the primary subject. Maybe he just didn’t understand Heris’ specific motives, or women in general as much as he thought he did.

“Should I begin to assume this little sweet escape is on hold then?”

“You shouldn’t need to assume when the answer is more obvious than your inability to be quiet,” Ru retorted without looking at his roommate, rather focusing on the body in his bed where his magic was being solely directed. This was the second time in a short span of time where she was completely vulnerable. This time her green eyes were closed though, and he preferred them open and preferred her calling him a thousand terrible things over her looking lifeless and being as silent as a corpse. Maybe he should have brought her to Arah, but not only did he not want to be seen with her body by carrying her somewhere else, but he didn't want to risk Arah accusing him of doing something to Freyja and turning around saying he saved her. While Ru would do a lot to one-up the fire element, something of this magnitude was disgusting even to him. Besides, he wouldn't have jeopardized precious time by postponing their journey with a stunt like this. Delaying this trip was not something Ru wanted, not at all. Yet, he was prioritizing Freyja’s well-being. It was a foreign thing to consider her so much in a way that mirrored the concept of caring about her in no way an enemy should. As of late she’s been taking up too much space in his thoughts as it was, but then again, he was beginning to realize that she always had. The only difference now was that he was coming to terms with acknowledging how much space she truly held in his head.

Freyja Eloquijm | Fire | Floki, Máx, Ru, Sala

The next time Freyja’s eyes fluttered open, she awoke to the sight of a bare ceiling. She was still shivering, but layers of sheets and blankets seemed to be making her warmer than she would have expected they would. Initially, she assumed she was in the comfort of her own room, though as her senses returned to her she realized that could not have been the case. There was nothing personal about the space she was in, or as much of it as she could see without moving her weak muscles. Her chest burned from shivering for so long, and she had an awful headache that she could not place.

Faintly, she heard movement around her, which opened her mind to the possibility that she could have been kidnapped by the woman who had tried to take her powers and her life. If her room was so bare, it would make sense considering the fact that she wasn’t a student at all. Her mind was foggy, and it was difficult to think, but the few thoughts that went through her brain caused significant alarm. Henriik’s uncle must have known when he admitted her, hadn’t he? Had she even come with a family? None of it made sense, and she didn’t really want to make sense of it at that moment.

The next thing that came into her thoughts was that the sheets and blankets smelled familiar and comforting. She placed the scent after a moment or two, and the vague memory of what had occurred came soon after. Shamefully, something within her would have preferred to be back in his arms and to have that feeling of security again. The realities of everything that was happening around them were getting scarier by the moment, and just for a second she’d felt completely safe. Not that she’d ever admit it, not to him.

As she started to move her fingers and get some control over her still-shivering body, Freyja tilted her head to the side to see a dark-haired annoyance perched over his bed, big, curious green eyes staring at her as if she were some sort of spectacle. The glare she gave him said more than a million words would have, and the expression that followed from him told her that she’d gotten her point across.

“Where…is he? I need…I need…to talk…to him.” Her words were mumbled and barely coherent, though she didn’t have the strength to articulate them any farther. Besides, Floki would be an idiot if he didn’t understand exactly who she would want to see. Surely he’d been there when the water element carried her in? Surely he knew that Ru was the consistent object of her attention and interest, and that very little else would have mattered to her on her death bed than getting in one last opportunity to prove him wrong?

When he wasn’t moving quickly enough, but seemed fixed on something in the room that was out of her eyesight, she impatiently began again. “Now…I need him…”

To her surprise, the blond appeared out of the bottom of her sight as if he’d never been absent. She was still too groggy to fully comprehend that, or to focus on more than one thing at a time. Her body was exerting an immense amount of energy to not only survive but to regenerate her magic which was taking a painfully long time, even within the confines of whatever magic they’d utilized to make regeneration within the academy possible. Subconsciously, her hand extended to reach for him, but her mind caught up and stopped the action. She felt grateful that the action had occurred under the sheets, and didn’t seem obvious in the ways it might have if it were totally visible.

“Hi,” she said softly, more gently than she ever had. Her eyes betrayed her in revealing the genuine relief and happiness she felt to see him as opposed to Heris, although something in the back of her mind still made her weary to trust him. He couldn’t have been in on this, could he have been? A startling change of expression occurred on her face as she slowly processed these doubts and fears, and instead of giving the details as she had formally wished to, she went for something vague. Just in case. She could test him later, couldn’t she? Didn’t she have three days to do so?

“I was…right,” she spoke slowly, restrained by the violent shivering that was still happening despite the gradual increase of her faculties. A weak smile graced her ghastly features as she added, “...as always.”

She paused briefly, hugging the mountain of blankets closer to her. The thought came when she looked down at the bed that he’d saved her life. It didn’t mean enough to her to erase the doubts she was having about his affiliation to her. She just couldn’t be sure. Not with him. Not with anything these days. “Took all my magic…not sure…what she’d do…with all of it…burn down…the school?”

———————————

An hour or two passed and Freyja insisted on following through with the expedition despite Ru’s protests and Floki’s useless opinions that always seemed to manage their way into her conversations with his roommate. Finally, Freyja’s physical condition caught up to her will, and Ru reluctantly agreed to leave with the group in the early afternoon after the fire element repeatedly reminded him that they weren’t taking the light and dark magic wielders because they wanted to make the trip purposefully horrible. Despite a very tangible tension between the pair that was sustained by spare glances and an intentional lack of proximity, they managed to make their way toward the barrier once more without once voicing a feeling or a thought about what had occurred.

The journey was long and primarily consisted of Freyja insisting on one path, Ru insisting on another, and a significant number of empty and fulfilled threats to break off the group and see who could get there first. These, along with the frequent detours, caused the pair a lot of time that might have gotten them to their destination in a more efficient amount of time. After the first hour or several, Freyja and Ru had stopped arguing with one another for the most part and primarily united over the common enemies of Sala and Floki, who seemed to need to voice any and every thought that came to mind regarding the wooded landscape, the weather, or members of their group. At that point, the tall, brooding man became an object of their appreciation, and besides him, it felt to Freyja that she and her least favorite person were co-parenting two annoying children who they had not asked for and did not need.

After hours and hours of walking and an increasing negative correlation between the rising tension and the plummeting patience of all group members, Freyja and Ru got into another argument about where they would stay the night. The air was increasing in humidity and started to make Freyja’s skin tingle, threatening to burn her. She didn’t understand the sensation because she had not ever experienced it before, and she didn’t want to seem dumb by expressing that. Máx stayed quiet because he was tired of everyone, Sala was quiet because she was mad that any attempt she made to walk beside Ru resulted in him shutting her down and re-focusing his attention on Freyja, and Floki seemed mad that Sala wasn’t responding well to his advances with eyes so focused on the blond. Freyja was absolutely certain that Henriik’s father had some sort of beloved hunting cabin in the forest not far from the lake, and Ru wasn’t willing to veer out of the way to find out if she was right or not. After he said something to the effect of not wanting to take any chances, Freyja replied, “well, god forbid we take any chances. Those haven’t been going so well for you lately, have they?”

Somehow, this response got Floki to agree with Freyja that a chance at some sort of shelter was better than none, perhaps out of a deeper fear of what Ru might have done if that claim had been left in the open for too long. Freyja steered the group through the dark as the humidity seemed to increase, and thunder rumbled. She jumped back, concerned.

“Did you hear that? Something’s coming.” Of course, Freyja had never heard thunder before, because that was something that would have required her, Henriik, and Ru to work together in an academic setting.

“A storm,” the darkness wielder responded in a neutral tone, although the fact that he’d spoken at all indicated the bigger question that was on his mind. Didn’t she know, like everyone did, what a storm was? Didn’t they have those in her realm?

Not wanting to sound dumb for the nth time in their journey, Freyja stayed quiet until water droplets began landing on her jacket. She swore, directing her anger at Ruairi. She assumed it was payback for what she’d said, though her attention was quickly diverted to the structure that Máx identified with his night vision. Sala was using her light to guide their path, but her counterpart was scanning the horizon for danger and signs of their destination.

As they arrived at the cabin, Freyja managed to open the door which was coded with magic. She knew the ins and the outs of the security measures utilized by the Delamaters, and it was light work for her to crack it. The inside was a bit musty, but had clearly been utilized recently. Freyja wasn’t slow to jump to the conclusion that perhaps it had been Heris, just prior to her arrival at the academy weeks prior. Yet, she didn’t voice it. Not when there were more important things to do.

“As the most powerful person here, and the most dangerous, I should sleep in the bed on the end, near the windows. That way, if something or someone comes, I can protect us.”

Ruairi’s response was quick to come back, expressing doubt regarding her ability to protect herself earlier in the day. He wanted that bed too, although there were quite literally beds spread throughout the horizontal structure. It could have slept at least twenty, and there were only five of them.

Feeling the insecurity that came with the truth of his statement, and knowing that she wasn’t able to protect herself earlier, she did the rational thing and deflected. The other three had already lost interest, and were focused on something else on the other side of the room, which only annoyed her more. There was nothing Freyja loved more than having an audience.

The only satisfaction Ruairi found amid the tolling excursion through the woodlands was witnessing Freyja’s fear of thunder, or more accurately, what thunder entailed. Though she questioned the sound as if it were an entirely foreign concept, and Ru did not shy away from giving her a look that spoke volumes as to how condescending he contemplated being toward her about it. Luckily for Freyja, the wielder of darkness had responded to her about the storm in a far kinder manner than Ru would have ever graced her with.

As much as the blond had wanted to hang back to delay himself from encroaching on any cabin affiliated with Henriik and his family, his pride wouldn’t allow him to just let Freyja lead, nor did he want to deal with shooing Sala out of his personal space for the millionth time. Even as the group made it to the cabin, and Freyja went to work on the magic of the place, there was no sensation of ease he felt in the proximity of the cabin. The door opened and Ru couldn’t help but be the last inside. Everything that had bothered him about Henriik amid the challenges was more present now, and he had absolutely no one he could share his concerns with. Floki was a leaky faucet, he wasn’t sure Arah would understand, and Freyja, well, she was the last person he would ever truly confide in.

“As the most powerful person here, and the most dangerous, I should sleep in the bed on the end, near the windows. That way, if something or someone comes, I can protect us.”

The sound Ruairi made in response to that laughable reasoning was a cross between a scoff and a snort of disbelief. “You’ll protect us? The same way you were oh so greatly capable of protecting yourself when I saved your life this morning? You’re either delusional or hit your head in between your inability to protect yourself,” following his barrage of verbal insults, he tossed his bag onto the left side of the bed from where he stood. “Cute attempt, but I’ll be taking the bed.” In his own world, he figured if his belongings were on the bed in question first, his claim was more valid than hers. However, she did not seem to adhere to his rules.

“Oh, I didn’t realize it was my fault that your girlfriend tried to kill me. I wonder who told her I would be there, who was so worried about what he might do if we were alone here that he felt the need to invite someone for safety?”

Freyja’s abrupt presence in his own space was more than vexing, which was expressed in the tight clench of his jaw, but it was the sheer audacity she had to suggest he had any part in what Heris had done that offended him. Was she clinically stupid? Only Freyja could make a man regret saving her life. And he certainly didn’t like what Freyja’s comment insinuated about him being around her.

“And look how that went for you. It’s shameful, really-”

Having heard enough, and being so at the end of his rope with patience and lacking the self-control to not blow up in the moment, Ru grabbed her arm and forcibly spun their bodies so they had traded places in their positions: Freyja pressed against the wall Ru had been close to being backed into, and the blond in looming proximity as his right hand was pressed against the wall beside her head. Between the storm in his blue eyes, his taut expression, and his absolute disregard for how close he was to the fire element, his rage was transparently palpable.

“It really is so shameful how I let the cancerous parasite that you are to me live. I could have looked the other way when I found you, Freyja. If I really wanted you dead, you would be, and you would have been a very long time ago if I did.” With his tone dropping into the realm of being huskier, the blond’s eyes narrowed as he gripped her chin with his left hand, holding it hostage in a manner that was far less tight than his tense body language and aggressive stance would have otherwise suggested him doing.

“I wouldn’t ever hurt you like that, I’ve never tried to hurt you like that.” She frustrated him to no end because she didn’t understand, and even being perfectly eye to eye with the fire element made him feel no closer to properly conveying that he hated her, but not enough to want to see her dead. Never that. His gaze briefly drifted to the ceiling as he wrangled his thoughts, swallowed a sigh, and lowered his gaze back to tether to her green eyes.

“Only you could make someone question whether saving your life was worth it. It’s not like you would have done the same for me, not in a thousand lifetimes. I guess my pity just outweighed my rationale this morning.” Dropping his hand from her chin and releasing her from the tight box he had held her in between himself and the wall, he decided he was sick of her face today. Sick of the way she stared at him, her voice, everything.

Ru wasn’t oblivious that they weren’t the only ones in the room, but he didn’t care. It was raining now, he could hear it pounding as fiercely against the cabin as his heart was in his chest, and she couldn’t follow him to push him further even if she wanted to if he was in the center of the downpour. Feeling wound up enough to sense his hands being close to trembling out of anger and days of mounted stress, he took an abrupt exit outside, purposely slamming the door behind him as he did so.

Standing in the rain was far more cathartic than a shower, if only attributed to the roars of thunder above him that he could live vicariously through instead of physically yelling back at the sky in frustration. While his hands ran through his damp curls, he had to remind himself how important breathing was when he got this upset. He had avoided the stage of trembling, it was always the catalyst for a larger stress response he didn’t want to experience within a mile of anyone in the cabin. It was strange though, usually it was a sudden spike of panic and anxiety that convinced his body that it was dying, that his heart was failing, and that he couldn’t breathe. This time it was just a snap of stress that nearly broke his threshold of control, although he couldn’t even be entirely sure it was just his feelings in that moment that really got to him. Not when a thousand fears were tearing him apart at any given moment lately.

In hindsight, his reaction toward Freyja didn’t feel as warranted as he thought it did in the heat of the moment. Not that he would apologize. It made Ru feel utterly pathetic to consider, but now that he was, she had hurt his feelings. Where she got the idea that he would have been involved with what Heris had done was entirely over his head. Freyja’s comments in general were irritating, but this one stung. It wouldn’t have as much if he hadn’t actually been afraid that she was dead when he found her, or that he thought they were on similar ground based on the night before. Not on the level of friends in the slightest, but he didn’t exactly feel like her enemy when he had taken it upon himself to carry her back to his room. He hated himself for all of these thoughts and feelings, and Freyja even more so.

</////////>

Stewing in silence was primarily how Ru spent the rest of the evening when he had decided to go back inside, dry off, and change into drier clothing. While Freyja had beaten him to actually being on the bed that he had rightfully claimed, he was too stubborn to relent and yield what he had declared as his. Replacing where his bag had been on the left side, Ru laid down on his side, his back to the fire element. Unlike how he had behaved earlier, he ensured a decent margin of space between them as he made peace with laying closer to his edge, his arm beneath his pillow as he stared at nothing.

Freyja | Fire | Ru

Freyja’s words were abruptly silenced by the sharp pull on her arm that flung her around and slammed her against the wall. She could feel other pairs of eyes on them at this point–primarily due to the loud sound her body made when it made contact with the flat surface, she assumed–but it did nothing to divert her attention away from the intense, blue gaze of the blond. She smirked as she watched him come undone, only proving her point as he utilized sheer force to express some level of what she assumed could be labeled as rage.

“It really is so shameful how I let the cancerous parasite that you are to me live. I could have looked the other way when I found you, Freyja. If I really wanted you dead, you would be, and you would have been a very long time ago if I did.”

This almost made her feel some semblance of relief inside, though it didn’t show on the outside. Her demeanor was still bulletproof, ready to fire back some sexual remark that drew more attention to the decreasing gap between their bodies than the emotional sentiment behind his words. The first sentence stung for a reason that she couldn’t rationalize in that moment, and she wasn’t ready to unpack that yet. His arm was inches from her face, and his body was closer to hers than it had been since she’d kissed him. It wasn’t exactly like it was the best time to reevaluate sentiment.

Just as she opened her mouth to respond, his gaze narrowed and his other hand came up to hold her chin. Her face blanked at the unexpectedly gentle touch, for although it was firm it sent a different message entirely. She exhaled sharply, feeling her breaths shorten with the increase of her heart. Her brain went fuzzy now in their shared space and she was unable to comprehend any thought or feeling other than a confusing and urgent desire to do more with him than just argue. Her face flushed as she stood, properly stunned, and confused beyond measure.

“I wouldn’t ever hurt you like that, I’ve never tried to hurt you like that.”

His voice took on a quality she couldn’t recall, although she wasn’t sure she could have recalled anything in that moment other than him and what was between them at that exact moment in time. As if the unrelenting physical contact wasn’t enough, his words made her stomach drop. They were so earnest, and the sentiment behind them was something no one had ever promised her before. Not even Arah, who frequently warned her that she wasn’t sure if whatever concoction she had prepared for her would end up killing her or not. No one had ever made a promise like that to her, and it made her feel like she was melting in a way she wished she had some semblance of control over. Couldn’t he see what he was doing to her, how he was affecting her, what kind of damage words like that could cause?

“Only you could make someone question whether saving your life was worth it. It’s not like you would have done the same for me, not in a thousand lifetimes. I guess my pity just outweighed my rationale this morning.”

Clearly she had read the desperation and exhaustion on his face, but the whiplash she got from the contrasting statements was cruel. He’d finally done it, he finally managed to get her to her breaking point just to twist the knife in deeper. She fought the tears that threatened to well up in her eyes, swallowing to combat the pain she felt in her throat. Did he really think that she wouldn’t have done the same thing for him? Did he think that the game they were playing was real, that all these years of holding him at arm’s length and testing him and making him the focus of everything she did, did he equate all of those to pure, unfiltered hatred? She loved him. Oh, god, she loved him. And she was only realizing it as he was giving up on her and walking away.

“You just can’t keep your hands off me,” she mumbled weakly, more of an expression of defeat than a callback to her initial claim. She had half a mind to follow him out into the rain, to make sure he was okay even if it caused her inevitable death. They were far from the threshold now, if something happened to her here there would be no rescue. Not like before. Somehow, amidst the thousands of feelings overwhelming her mind in that moment, death might have been nice. Quick, better than the agonizing truth of what he meant to her and what she so obviously didn’t mean to him. It would have taken a thousand lifetimes of saving his life just to get him to forget one of the things she’d done to him in the last ten years. She was thoroughly devastated, and burdened with the sense that his departure from the academy in a few months’ time wouldn’t make the feelings go away. Somehow, she felt that in his absence or his presence, she’d spend the rest of her life suffering in regard to him.

Freyja spent the next twenty minutes or so doing mindless tasks that were supposed to get her to stop thinking about what had transpired but didn’t. Her gaze was fixed on any window she passed as she organized and re-organized her things, moved his things off of the bed she’d claimed, and lit the logs that the darkness wielder had arranged in the fireplace. He was turning out to be the only useful guest they’d invited, in more ways than she had anticipated. None of it seemed to matter when the water element had ripped her heart out and taken it with him to wherever he’d gone, however.

The other three waited a gracious amount of time before insisting on turning out the lights and going to bed. Freyja sat on the end of her bed for a while, watching the darkness outside and trying to make out shapes in the obscurity of the night. Máx hadn’t seemed very concerned, so Freyja lulled herself into bed with the unconfirmed notion that he wasn’t freaking out because he could see Ruairi in the dark. Still, all she could do was lay there, heavy with emotion and burdened by thoughts. Thoughts about him, thoughts about the academy and what everything meant, thoughts about the fact that she should have died earlier that day and didn’t, thoughts about what the insecurity challenge meant and what might have happened if she died without knowing the truth about who she was. The thought then occurred to her that it had been over a day since she had gotten sleep that wasn’t induced by her body shutting down, and that emotions were clearly running high because of the trauma of the two isolated events, neither of which had much to do with the blond. She would be okay, the feelings she felt were unrelated to him. She just needed sleep. And, somehow, in that moment, the risk of nightmares returning from her youth was less concerning than the living nightmare she had been experiencing for the last several days. With this, she finally managed to drift off, feeling oddly comforted by the presence of the water element’s things on the floor beside the small bed.

Sometime later, Freyja awoke abruptly, heart racing from the images she’d seen in her slumber. She was back at the village with homes burning around her. She wasn’t watching it as she had been in the simulation, but she was instead herself, the child who had been there. There was a tall, looming figure, someone indistinguishable to her in features but not in size. He was trying to kill her, and he chased her through the village until others caught up to her. Just as they were about to end her life, she collected all of her fear and created a massive explosion that ricocheted through the entire space, killing everything in it except for her. That was when she woke up, as she had when she was a child.

Sitting upright in bed, she only then realized that she was not alone in the tiny space. At first, she was quite alarmed to find that there was a second body in her bed with her, which caused her to jump nearly upright out of the bed, straining to summon a ball of fire that wouldn’t blow the entire place up given the level of fear she was feeling. As the flame provided light, she saw the blond, now vaguely awake and shielding his eyes from the brightness of the magic she’d summoned to protect herself.

“Jesus,” she mumbled, whisper-yelling at him at a volume that was much louder than anticipated due to the adrenaline that was rushing through her veins. She took several deep breaths and self-regulated to the point where she was able to get back in the bed against her better judgment.

Now they were both laying on their backs, shoulder to shoulder in a bed that was never meant to hold the two of them together. Freyja stared at the ceiling in silence for a few moments, but the effects of what she’d seen in her nightmare made her feel terribly lonely and afraid and childish and willing to sacrifice almost anything to keep him awake and present in the darkness with her. She was glad he was okay, upset with him for the way he’d made her feel, and confused as to why he’d decided to sleep next to her instead of choosing one of the many empty beds inhabiting the space. What was more, the bed wasn’t damp at all, so he must have taken considerable effort in drying himself off so as not to expose her to the water he’d gone out into. At least, the other three had told her that the knocking sound on the roof was water hitting it.

“I’ve had nightmares since I was a kid,” she admitted, worried about exposing herself to the vulnerability of telling him something that he could so easily exploit. Something that mattered. “They went away for a while, but the insecurities challenge, it brought them back.” She sucked in a slow breath. “I guess they were always there.”

She tilted her head to the side, but she felt the close proximity of their two bodies and the way his gaze burned into her in the dark and decided it was better to keep her eyes glued to the ceiling. God knows what might have happened if she hadn’t, and she wasn’t willing to revisit that after what had happened between them hours prior.

Mistaking his silence for anger, she continued, “I’m sorry I kissed you like that the other day. I didn’t think you would let me prove you wrong if I asked, so I did what I had to do to avoid asking. I won’t kiss you again unless you ask.” She paused, thinking about the humor of the words she’d just spoken, and perhaps the fact that it made her sound like she would be a willing participant. “Then I’ll reconsider.”

Turning on her side now, perhaps to put the slightest bit of distance between them, she searched for his eyes in the dark. It was hard to see, and she regretted choosing a time to say something like that when she couldn’t read his facial expressions. “And, for the record, saving your life is the last thing I would do, but it’s still on my list. You’re not everyone,” she echoed his words back to him, the only words that made sense to describe what exactly he was to her being the ones to describe what he wasn’t, “and don’t think I’m stupid enough to not realize that.” She smiled. "You're worse."

Ruairi | Water | Freyja

The shift in the bed sourced from the other body in it did not go unnoticed by Ruairi. He had half a mind to mumble for her to stay still in his groggy and hardly coherent state of mind. After what could have been seconds or a few minutes in his warped sense of time, a more abrupt movement in the bed spurred him to roll onto his back to see what the hell Freyja was doing through squinted eyes. Regretting even looking her way as his arm stretched out to try and block out the light, the blond mumbled something to the degree of “what the hell, Freyja?”.

“Jesus.”

“I prefer Ru,” he replied after a few seconds' delay in a more quiet whisper than she had used, more than groggy as his eyes adjusted once the light dissipated and she got back onto the bed. He should have known a few hours of decent sleep was something he wouldn’t get, and yet he was still immeasurably disappointed to be awake and slow to register everything around him with the sluggish pace his thoughts were crawling at.

“I’ve had nightmares since I was a kid.”

A beat passed before he fully turned his head to face her, while his eyes struggled to make out her definitive features in the dark, his retinas having been burned from her light moments ago not helping his visual clarity. A nightmare. That made sense enough as to why she had been so startled, so he assumed. Why she felt it was worth sharing with him, he didn’t have the mental capacity to understand.

“They went away for a while, but the insecurities challenge, it brought them back.”

Now that he had been staring at her for a considerable amount of time, each blink he had delivered him closer to clearly making out her face. She looked afraid, and it vaguely reminded him of how she had been when he saw her in a puddle of vulnerability in the hallway after the insecurities challenge. Albeit, what he had witnessed in that hallway had been more severe in comparison than what he was looking at now. He was only looking at the side of her face, so maybe he was inferring more of what her expression was from her whispered tone. It was at this moment he also came to the conclusion that he was staring more than listening, and had to consciously remind himself to juggle both tasks.

“I guess they were always there.”

What could he say to alleviate the fear of what she had just experienced in her nightmare? He knew it was bad, judging from her reaction after the insecurity challenge. Floki had said it was a village, or something of the sort, on fire. That a smaller, younger version of herself was the only living thing among the flames that had engulfed her surroundings. Younger Freyja was the recipient of a softer part of his heart. Back then, seeing her in distress of any kind would have buckled Ru into doing whatever he could to alleviate her despair. He would have been anything she needed him to be. That’s what a best friend did. It brought a frown to his face to think about that version of Freyja in the insecurity challenge, that version of Freyja that had existed before he entered the picture of her life, and both of those versions of Freyja were blurred with the girl he was looking at now. The more sound-minded separations he had between his current hate and former affection for her was difficult to untangle when he was too tired to even articulate anything worth saying to her at the moment.

“I’m sorry I kissed you like that the other day. I didn’t think you would let me prove you wrong if I asked, so I did what I had to do to avoid asking. I won’t kiss you again unless you ask.”

If he could have looked surprised he would have. Freyja apologizing? For something he had perceived her doing as an unapologetic act? The only thing he was sorry for when it came to that kiss was giving her the opening to hurt him. There were a ponderous number of times he had done so, and an equal number of times it had ended the exact same way. Ru never had learned his lesson when it came to her. Time and time again, he gave her an opening, and he let her hurt him. Maybe that made him more pathetic than he gave himself credit for.

“Then I’ll reconsider.”

Ru almost smiled, and made the sound of a low hum to at least convey he acknowledged the only kind of apology Freyja was capable of giving. It wasn’t perfect, but neither was she, no matter how hard she tried to fool everyone around them that she was. He saw through her the same way she was usually able to see through him. As she turned to her side, and his gaze found itself better acquainted with her own, he could only do what he’s been doing this entire time. Silently stare. Was that moment they had in her room weighing on her thoughts as much as it had been his own? There were times he had run his hands through his hair and thought about how delicately hers had entangled themselves in his curls. Even as he grew more coherent, his head was everywhere. It’s a mess. A disaster of poorly organized thoughts, memories, and comprehension.

“And, for the record, saving your life is the last thing I would do, but it’s still on my list. You’re not everyone, and don’t think I’m stupid enough to not realize that. You're worse."

That did it. It broke Ruairi’s previously steadily neutral expression into something softer. The words themselves had a violent effect on him. Not the kind that directly affected his external self, but the kind that obliterated the limited mental function he had in his current state of exhaustion. She could have killed him with her smile. There was a sentiment to her words that were delivered through that smile and it took his breath away. Ru’s gaze briefly traced the outline of her lips, looking for a fault in the sincerity of her smile. She was his nightmare: living, breathing, and disguised as a red-headed daydream. Freyja’s smile reminded him of every little thing he’s let her get away with. How everything she did to him fractured his composure, shattered his walls of self-preservation, and made him question everything he’s ever known. The way she was smiling at him right now yielded a similar effect.

When his eyes found hers again in the dark, he had finally managed to find his voice. “You’re confusing ‘worse’ with ‘wonderful’. It’s an honest mistake,” he replied, managing a small smile. “If we’re marking things on the record though, let it be noted that I would never need you to save my life anyway. I would never give you the satisfaction of one-upping me like that.” Ru added, attempting to sound smug and falling short. Resisting the urge to roll onto his side to mirror the way she was facing him, he sighed as he circled back to her admission of having nightmares. There was no advice he could give her when he had yet to master how he coped with his own fears, but he didn’t think Freyja would take much advice from him even if he had something worth sharing.

“The insecurities challenge was a bitch.” The blond commented, dipping his toes into foreign waters with her. She had exchanged vulnerability with him, he’s been a witness to quite a bit of it recently as well. That didn’t mean he would give her the necessary tools to take advantage of his own, but there was a strange sense of security he felt with this hushed conversation in the dark setting. “I think the only thing that’s gotten to me more than a past I can’t change is a future I have no control over, and very little say in.” Ru didn’t know how to explain to Freyja of all people that he was afraid to return to his own realm, afraid of becoming someone he didn’t want to be. She would never understand, and he didn’t trust her enough to divulge into the complexity of his fear.

“If you’re going to sleep in my bed for the rest of the night,” Ru began, diverting his focus away from the comments he had previously made, “I would appreciate it if you didn’t move so much.” He said, as if this topic was more important than any of the ones she had been on, and vastly more important than anything he had previously said. Despite his engagement with her, the sleepiness he still felt was weighing heavily on him, and he knew he had a terrible habit of saying more than he should, and expressing things he usually kept contained when he was tired. There was already a lot of what she had said to him that he would unpack and dwell on at a more conscious time, but he couldn’t risk saying things he couldn’t take back. Or staring at her for any longer than he already had.

Freyja | Fire | the gang

“If you’re going to sleep in my bed for the rest of the night, I would appreciate it if you didn’t move so much.” Freyja assumed that this statement was made in an attempt to distract her from his brief self-disclosure, and she was feeling too vulnerable to do or say something that may or may not have made him snap and sent them spiraling back to where they had been earlier in the day. She scoffed, still smiling like a child in the dark. He just brought it out in her in a way that no one else could.

“You wish you could get me to sleep in your bed,” she mumbled, rolling over. She was too afraid of what could happen if they didn’t honor the inch or two of space that sleeping on their sides created. This was still a perfectly normal situation, with two perfectly normal enemies sleeping in a tiny bed when they could have easily put together two beds or slept separately. But that would have been too easy.

———————————

The next morning, Freyja awoke to the raven-haired boy standing at the foot of their bed like a sleep paralysis demon, saying something that hadn’t yet come into coherence but was clearly about them if the hand gestures were any indication. She turned her head to find Ru in the same state as her: groggy, annoyed, and regretting the choice of ever bringing him. The only blessing was that the blonde was sulking in the corner, not joining Floki in his madness as she had expected. Máx seemed perfectly awake, but had done what the pair in the bed had not yet managed to do: tune the others out.

It should have been less of a shock that Floki was an early riser considering how easily that matched the other annoying qualities he possessed, yet Freyja was still affected by this knowledge as she moved into a condensed version of her typical morning routine. She had little desire to dress up for the occasion, nor to deliberate as she typically did in front of the mirror with Arah. Her morning routine typically took so long because it was the only time she spent in the same space as her roommate, and it was their time to catch up. It was also typically hours later than whatever ungodly hour Floki had decided on, so she wasn’t in much of a mood to talk, even if there had been time.

The pair set out less than an hour after rising with the full intention of returning to the cabin for the evening. The sky was clearer today, but there was not one person in their group who felt confident in their ability to spend the day searching for something with only subjective knowledge to guide them and still have the time to travel back overnight. Without the weight that the magic within the academy grounds took off of them, they were already feeling weary from their previous day of traveling, and Freyja especially so from the buildup of physical trauma she’d endured. She had mostly healed when she’d insisted on leaving the day prior, but there was still some level of internal damage that hadn’t completely healed. Not to mention the mental aspects of what had occurred, which were taking as big of a toll on her as her last few interactions with the water element. After getting some level of rest, everything that had happened between them was even more confusing than it had been before. She believed him when he said that he hadn’t been in on what Heris had done, but something about it was so suspicious that she couldn’t help the doubt that still lingered. Then there was the matter of him sleeping beside her instead of in one of the other beds in the cabin. Was he really that stubborn? She couldn’t wrap her brain around any of what had occurred, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to. She was already overwhelmed, and she knew that whatever they figured out when they arrived at the water would only make things worse. No matter what, clarity was not exactly what Freyja believed this excursion would bring them.

After an hour or two of walking, the group arrived to a clearing in the woods that opened into a lush meadow. At the edge of the meadow, the ground opened into a large body of water that went quite a ways until disappearing into the treeline, narrowing into what she assumed was a creek or a river that was fed by the one near the academy grounds some ways off. The water was smooth on the top with no current, and not even so much as a fly seemed to inhabit the area. For as beautiful as it looked, it was eerily empty.

“Ru,” she said urgently, not bothering to check to see if he was tracking her thought process. He always was when it mattered.

After telling the rest of the group to stay back, Freyja set off with Ru toward the bank of the river. They argued about the exact location of where they’d fallen until finally, they found a patch of grass that seemed imperfect, charred.

“That looks like my doing,” she said, looking over to where Ruairi’s gaze was fixed on the water. A faint aura of purple came off of him, and though she was afraid, she followed his gaze to see what was happening. To her surprise, something like a movie was reflecting off of the water where he was looking, not unlike what it had been like to be in the insecurities challenge. Yet, the feeling remained that this was the whole truth, and what she had seen in the challenge was not.

Freyja was there, clearly in some sort of stupor she could not comprehend when looking at the memory as a third party. She stood blankly, eyes elsewhere. There was a lack of expression present on her face, and she stood stiffly at the edge of the shore. Four adults were there, two of which she recognized and two of which she did not. Henriik’s uncle was there, standing beside the boy expectantly. An older woman was also there that Freyja recognized as the former headmaster, although some sort of tragedy she could not recall at that moment had befallen the older woman and she had not returned the following school year.

“Go ahead, Henriik, do it,” the man whom she’d made squirm just days prior was standing over her, expression stiff with malice. Henriik, who had been immeasurably less handsome and noble as a child, shook his head meekly. He had never had any grit, not really.

“Do it,” the man barked through clenched teeth. “This savage killed your father, your family. You would let her live?”

He nodded meekly, and his uncle slapped him. He started blubbering, and Freyja remained motionless, clearly under the influence of someone’s magic as the group stood on the bank overlooking them. Just as the adults were about to take matters into their own hands, a little blond boy emerged, moving rapidly as he tried to shove Henriik’s uncle out of the way. He was trying to protect Freyja, who clearly couldn’t protect herself. It wasn’t unlike what had just happened between them the day prior, and she couldn’t help but draw her attention to those parallels.

Henriik’s uncle grabbed for Ru as he clawed at the older man, fighting his hardest as they tried to manage him. Clearly, they were not trying to kill him as they were Freyja. For some reason, they needed to keep the water element alive. With all attentions diverted, Freyja finally came to from the trance she had been in, and she looked around fearfully, bound by chains that had obviously been put on her by the group. She was rendered useless to the situation as she watched Henriik’s uncle deliver a huge burn to the boy’s back. As he shoved the blond off to the side, he turned to Henriik.

“See what happened because of you? You’re right, her death would not be enough of a punishment for you. Instead, you’ll be attached to her for the rest of your life, and she’ll bring about the end of you as she did your father. I’ll see to it.” Turning to the group, he said angrily, “get me Edward. If we can’t keep them apart through death, we’ll use other methods of separation.”

As he said this, the images on the water flashed forward to a moment when Edward, who had ceased to age since this memory, mind-controlled Freyja and Ru at the same time. They were huddled together closely, stuck in the dungeon below the Sanctum. “You will believe that Freyja burned you, and you will believe that Ru tried to drown you in the river. You’ll hate each other more and more every day until it is time for you to know the truth. You’ll remember these memories for as long as it takes to bring justice, when you’re both prepared to.” And with that, the pair who had previously been holding each other for warmth in the cold, dark cell burst apart, immediately filled with hurt and anger toward one another. They began to exchange awful words as Edward walked away, exchanging places with a guard who released them from the cell. The parting scene was the pair walking away from one another, both teary-eyed.

Clearing her throat from the burning feeling that had come with the heavy emotions, Freyja continued to peer into the water, lifeless. Ru must have followed them when he knew they were trying to kill her. She wasn’t really sure. She didn’t remember much other than the former headmaster coming to her room to kidnap her, then coming to at the edge of the water. She’d never been drowned. He wasn’t lying when he said he’d never tried to hurt her. All he’d done time and time again was continue to save her life. She was too overwhelmed to know what any of it meant at that moment. Henriik, Ru, Henriik’s uncle, all of it was fuzzy. She felt faint.

“You didn’t try to drown me,” she mumbled, “you had a weird childhood crush on me, and you saved my life.”