Mad Because Small
When she had said it was bad for her heart, she'd actually meant that comment in more ways than one. The prince's expression was languid and cool, his voice soft and composed, his bearing loose, yet somehow still regal. The way he moved, talked, and acted -- all of it brought to mind a big cat, sure of its superiority and free to live however it wished, but unburdened by the need to affect any strength -- for its strength was beyond question. Less a lion, roaring and proud, and more like a leopard -- content to lurk, to watch, and to wait, but surely deadly when roused.
...A description which the young, impressionable lass had no doubt derived from the description of the male lead in one of her chivalric novels, because... well... Not only was he a prince, but he looked like everything you'd imagine when you heard the word! Pale, flaxen brown hair with an ever-so-slight curl to it -- eyes as blue and still as the surface of a frozen northern lake -- a slender yet powerful body, perfectly in line with the feline image his mannerisms conjured up in her vivid mind. To put it in simpler terms...
He's so pretty that I can hardly even look at him without feeling jealous! Why?! He's actually a guy, but he'd probably look better in a dress than me!...That was a dangerous thing she just started contemplating there. Julian shook her head and hastily dismissed the still-hazy mental image before she awakened to something strange, welcoming Signar's remarks as a distraction from this rather concerning line of thought.
...Or, well, at least until he started
definitely making fun of her, unlike his honest mistake before!
"Oi. Just who are you calling 'sprout?' I'm still growing, you hear?! Just you wait, I'll be taller than you before you know it!But the Valeforian youth merely laughed it off and beckoned her onward to dinner, following the others to the barracks with long, carefree strides... even as one very angry munchkin hounded his heels like a particularly small, excitable puppy, practically running to keep up with him and bouncing up and down with each furious step she took -- her voice loudly echoing through the empty courtyard in his wake.
"Don't think you can just buy my forgiveness with food! Take that back! Hey, are you ignoring me? Don't call me smaaaaaaaall!!!"Even her own echo seemed to mock her, as the word "small" was all that came bouncing back off the high stone walls of the castle.
The Eastern Barracks was, surprisingly, a quite appealing home, despite the sorry state of their division. It was built into the side wall of a large courtyard just off to one side of the main gate leading into the palace from the King's Bridge, meaning it was quite far from the distant waterfalls on the opposite side of the palace grounds, while the rampart above it and the inner castle wall on the opposite side blocked the more severe gusts of wind, save for a gentle breeze that coursed between the twin edifices. It was shady, and already somewhat dark, as the sun was no longer directly overhead and thus its rays were broken up by the towering spires of the inner palace. The courtyard was also, surprisingly, lined with trees placed in the gaps between the shadows, where the light could yet easily reach them. The rustling of leaves and the quiet whistling of the breeze made the overall mood... surprisingly peaceful.
The building itself stood two stories tall, and, judging by a staircase downward to the side of the main entrance, also had some kind of lower cellar area. Of course, Julian had already been down those very stairs, and knew for a fact that the mess hall was located there in the basement -- right next to the storage rooms for food, and the kitchens. After all, she had helped the servants in... pretty much all of those places, actually, over the last week -- as a way to stretch her already meager funds and earn some meals to keep herself going until the results had been announced. The inside of the building itself, however, was a mystery to her -- so, despite her hunger, she ended up following the rest of her new comrades in the Eastern House into the ground floor entrance instead.
The first floor seemed to be taken up mostly by a large, open lobby with some benches, chairs, tables, and other such furnishings -- a common area, no doubt, to encourage intermingling between the various squads while off duty. Off to one side, there was an entrance into the neighboring building, which appeared to house an equipment storehouse and armory, while to the other, there was a door out into the courtyard, facing a few other buildings which seemed to include a stable, an archery range, and a bathhouse.
Directly adjacent to the door, a makeshift receptionist's desk had been hauled in, and a grizzled-looking knight with a scar across one eye appeared to be either attempting to kill the new recruits with his pointed stares alone... or maybe just hand them their room keys. He called out each squad's number in turn, and when its members presented themselves, identified them, rattled off a suite and a room number, shoved a key into their hands, and then moved unceremoniously on to the next name on the list, all while giving the mother of all death glares with his working eye.
Squad 13's turn came after a good twenty minutes of waiting, listening to the awkward squeaks and "Yessir!"s of the other cadets, whose mood was as tense and somber as if they were being called to the gallows rather than to receive a simple key. Julian, for her part, when her squad and name were called, just trotted up to the man and, with surprising calmness, gave him a big grin.
"Present and accounted for, sir!"The man reached out to hand over the key, muttering irritably under his breath -- then stopped, realizing he was handing the key to thin air. He looked down, then awkwardly lowered it -- and Julian
almost managed to not let her annoyance show on her face as she took it. Once again, she was being looked down on! Even so, she could tell. This man was grumpy and tired, but he probably just had a scary face to begin with. There wasn't any overt hostility or disgust in the way he was looking at her -- not like what she was used to. So, it'd be pretty mean of her to act scared or angry at him because of something he couldn't really help, even if he did make her feel annoyingly small.
Suite 13, Room 4, on Floor 2, he had said. 13 4-2. A more superstitious person would have thought that combination of numbers to be a particularly foul omen -- surely a forecast of dire tragedies and misfortune to come. But Julian didn't have the slightest inkling of numerology, nor would she have cared overly much even if she had known. Her mood was soaring higher than it had been in weeks, and no dark clouds on her horizon could even hope to bring her down.
"Thanks!" She called back, giving a hasty wave before trotting across the room towards the stairs. There were two hallways along the back of the building, appearing to lead back inside the rampart itself to where a few of the cadets' rooms were no doubt located. That sounded... pretty horrible, to be honest. No windows, no light save whatever torches or candles you lit yourself, crammed into a dark stone chamber along an equally dark and dreary hall. Just imagining it sent shivers up her spine, and reminded her of... Well, never mind that. There was still a chance she'd end up somewhere better, right? Things were going her way, so this time she tried her best to shake off uncomfortable memories and stay positive.
Her destination was the long upper corridor just along the inside of the castle wall, with doors on each side that she quickly noticed, much to her delight, were numbered just the way she had hoped. Even numbers were on her right... and odd numbers were on her left! Which meant, sure enough, that Suite 13 was... facing the inner courtyard! Opening the door, she strolled inside and looked around, and gave a sigh of relief as she found herself greeted by sunlight -- coalescing into streams that seemed almost solid to the touch as they lit up the dust drifting lazily through the air of the now formerly unused chamber. This was no dark and foreboding prison cell -- it was somewhere she could surely call home.
The central room appeared to be a common room, albeit much smaller than the one downstairs, with two doors on each side and a single window on the far wall. It was mostly devoid of unnecessary decorations, with a featureless red rug, a large rectangular table and some benches in the middle, and a few empty shelves in the corners. It wasn't much, but the atmosphere seemed cozy enough.
Where the problems started was with the personal quarters, though. Opening Room 4, she found it to be... well, extremely narrow and cramped. There was maybe enough floor space for four people to stand front to back, with another window taking up one of the side walls, a few cupboards built into the back of the room, and two sliding doors and a ladder in the remaining wall. Hopping up the ladder, she slid one of these small doors -- almost like that of a cabinet, rather than a full-sized door in and of itself -- open, to find a small bed with blank white sheets. Then, this was where she'd be staying... in this tiny alcove in the wall right above somebody else's bed?
At least there was a shutter, and there even seemed to be a latch on the inside; so she could probably close and lock that if she wanted to undo the bindings around her chest while she was sleeping. But she'd then have to redo them with the door closed in almost complete darkness, because it didn't seem like there was any feasible way she could change or mess with her clothing out in the open unless her roommate had already left. But then again, it wasn't as if she had much in the way of clothing to begin with aside from the somewhat ragged and oversized patchwork of a tunic and trousers she was presently wearing... though there did seem to be two cadet uniforms already folded and placed neatly in each of the cabinets. Just to be safe, she took one of them and placed it inside the upper alcove where her bed was, since she'd need to change into it for the training exercise tomorrow. Thankfully, her eyes were well used to dark places... and even now, she was only a little bit afraid of the way the walls and ceiling of her bunk seemed to close in around her tiny form, as if to crush her.
...Well, it might easily have been better, but things also could easily have been much worse. Maybe it wouldn't be all sunshine and roses like she'd imagined, but... she could do this, and anything was better than what would be waiting for her back at home if they found her out. She just had to tough it out.
...Come to think of it, though, if she was going to be sharing a room with someone, she wondered who it was? Maybe Signar, if she was lucky? He seemed nice, after all, and he was the only one she'd really met in the squad so far. Then again, though... If the bunk bed seemed cramped for her, was he gonna be okay? Maybe they'd made special arrangements for whatever room he was in... but if so, that definitely meant he wasn't with her.
Shrugging, she decided to check, and strolled back out into the common room, where the others now also seemed to be arriving, and glanced at the nameplates next to each of the doors. On Room 1 -- which seemed to have some kind of sealing enchantment hastily inscribed on the door in addition to the lock, giving it a rather foreboding aura -- the plate was labeled with the names of Liese and Dot. She supposed they must have been important somehow to warrant... whatever this seal was supposed to be. Probably some kind of added security or something. Maybe they were worried about assassins? But then why didn't the Prince's room have one?
Room 2, speaking of which, was labeled with the names of Prince Rossweine and Kaiser Underwall -- the second being the squad's Third Seat. It looked like that room was a little bit bigger and more luxurious on the inside, with actual
beds instead of glorified... sleeping closets -- one on each side of the room, still leaving plenty of floorspace to access the wardrobes along the back wall. Well, that was just the disparity between officers and everybody else, she supposed... though she did hold out hope that maybe, if she placed well in training, her own room would see some improvements too!
Room 3 seemed just about the same as her own, and was assigned to... Signar Wayland and Zenshin Ferros. She breathed a faint sigh of disappointment, but wasn't overly surprised at what she saw. Peeking in through the partly-opened door as the room's occupants went about settling into their new quarters, she noted that at least they had a rug on the floor, as well as a long, narrow spare bed rolled in under the windowsill to accommodate the room's larger occupant. The pillows and covers on their bunks also seemed a little bit bulkier and fluffier than the ones in her room, but she might have just been imagining things.
That meant the only odd one out was... "Nathaniel Lothwren." Her roommate, apparently. There was that name again, though she still couldn't place why it was familiar... It was pretty strange, though. They'd clearly gotten the worst room of the bunch, but his name sounded... well, big and important. He was probably a noble, right? And he was supposed to be the Second Seat of the squad. So then why had he ended up paired with her? Was he being bullied, perhaps? The thought that he might be meant to keep an eye on a suspicious street rat and impose some discipline on her as a cadet never crossed her mind -- though her initial guess was probably closer to the truth.
At any rate, it wasn't like she had anything to unpack, so, she just sort of awkwardly returned to her room and peered out the window down into the courtyard. It might have been small and cramped, but... the light coming in from outside reassured her a bit, and so she found herself just staring aimlessly, taking in the view -- a tiny, fair form, haloed in the light that illumined all the dancing particles around her and lit up the shadowy corners of the room, bathing it in a fleeting, picturesque radiance. To any who might observe her in this extremely rare, tranquil state, they might see in her an odd sort of elegance, like that of a regal portrait or a scene from a play.
...It was unfortunate, then, that the one who would find himself face to face with her would have absolutely no appreciation for any such aesthetics, in light of his already vehement distaste for the subject of the scene before him. But Julian hadn't the faintest apprehension of who it was she was about to meet... or that this wasn't their first encounter.
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