[Student] Css Upgraded -> [Lady] Css Obtained

  [Lady] - Level 4

  Skill - [Official Seal] Obtained

  Lily snapped awake. For a dizzying second, she was deeply confused. She was ying in the snow? What happened? But then it all came rushing back to her.

  The fight with the goblins. Standing in front of the dying one, arguing with Sunica and Adelina. Getting Sunica’s help dragging the goblin back to her cabin. Another argument about whether the injured would be allowed into the cabin. Sunica absolutely refused. Lily ended up starting a fire outside and using magic to keep warm. Then she fell asleep in the snow.

  Now… she had the [Lady] css? What the hell? Didn’t someone tell her that css changes didn’t happen till way ter? And weren’t title based csses supposed to require… a title? Like being born into a noble family or something?

  Well, time to figure that out ter. She sat up, and shivered. It was cold. It was still the early morning. The sun wasn’t up yet, and it was overcast so there were no stars. Exhaustion and her spell had let her sleep despite everything. Across the fire, the goblin slept fitfully. As far as she could tell, they were still unconscious. They hadn’t been coherent at any point since getting hit with Adelina’s spell. She’d need to check over bandages soon.

  She looked over her spell. It was working just fine. Removing mana from her and using it to heat the air around her. Oh. That’s why she was so cold! The snow had melted. So she was in wet clothes. Great.

  “Stupid snow. Stupid cold. Stupid Sunica.”

  At least the warm air was enough to keep her from freezing. Although she was feeling drained despite getting some sleep because of the mana it took to run it. Sunica had insisted she come inside and leave the goblin out here. Lily had refused. There was no way she was just going to leave the poor goblin out here alone unconscious in the snow. Even with a fire and a spell to stay warm! What if wolves came?

  Not that Lily thought she could kill wolves if she tried. Or for that matter, wanted to. But maybe she could scare them off? Yeah.

  More than the tiredness and the cold though, her heart stung. She had just started to make friends. Actual friends for the first time in… really the first time she could remember. And now she had burned those bridges. Sunica was barely tolerating her keeping the goblin around, and Adelina would probably hate her now.

  “Stupid Lily.”

  She felt the tears start to well up in her eyes again. Why’d it have to go like this? She could have just kept her head down and let them protect her. Everything would have been fine.

  Except it wouldn’t have been fine. Because that wasn’t the right thing to do. You don’t just let people die. In the aftermath though, she didn’t feel right or good for standing up for those morals. She just felt empty.

  What if she apologized? What if she knocked on the door right now, told Sunica she was wrong and sorry. Found Adelina tomorrow and bowed her head. Asked to be friends? Could it all go back to how it was?

  The goblin across from her made a small pained sound. She thought for a moment they might wake, but they didn’t.

  No. Lily couldn’t do that. But her heart ached. Time to think about something else. Anything else. The st thing she needed was to be a sobbing mess out here.

  She had two new skills. Yesterday was so busy she never actually got around to trying to figure out what [Mental Notes] was. Now she had [Official Seal] to worry about too. She always imagined living in a world like this while pying games as a kid, and thought she’d be so beyond excited to get new abilities that she’d be unable to focus on anything else.

  But now, Lily just wanted her friends to still want to be friends in the morning. But she had nothing else to do. So, for now she put out her hand and tried the obvious.

  “[Mental Notes].”

  Nothing happened. Figured. But it was the clear first thing to try. Was her memory just… better? If so, how could she tell? It was testing time. She pulled over her bag and dug around inside until she found her notebook. She opened it to a bnk page and started writing. For now, numbers. She was going to write down a bunch of random numbers in a row, close the book, and see how many she could remember a few minutes from now. Once finished, she closed the notebook and put it back into her bag. Alright, one test started. What about the other skill?

  It was still weird to think she got the [Lady] css. That was so not… her. Right? She wasn’t some impossibly elegant noble. She was a garbage creature. So, what the hell? Either way, if she had a skill she should learn how to use it.

  “[Official Seal].”

  Again, nothing happened.

  “Why can’t things just be easy?”

  Lily groaned. Must be missing something. Well, a seal was usually like a personal emblem that signified a person, right? She didn’t have an emblem like that. Did she have to come up with one first? Lily wasn’t exactly an artist. It’d be a disaster if she doodled something that looked awful the first time and it was stuck that way. She should probably just ask about that one. Adelina would probably know. But…

  Lily gnced over at the goblin again. She wondered when they would wake up. Maybe she should check on them more thoroughly? It was still dark, but she could try. But as she started to move, she heard the door behind her creak open. Lily almost jumped out of her skin.

  Sunica had been dreaming. A long time ago, she had a dog. When she was a little girl, and thought having a pet might ease her loneliness. A creature that would look at her through eyes untainted by the same indifferent otherness that the people of Veni had for her. At the time she was still living in Veni proper. It hadn’t been a good idea. She was a child, not someone who could be relied on to take care of a dog.. But, it had been a long time since she’d thought of the animal.

  The dream hadn’t been a good one. She’d awoken from the mix of memories and dreamy strangeness with tears in her eyes. She missed that dog. But her heart hurt for other reasons too. Probably why she’d had the stupid dream in the first pce.

  As she y there, drying her tears in the dark she thought of the day’s events. She’d been so happy to get to show off what she did to Lily. But the stupid goblins…!

  Not only had they been stealing from her, but they would have stabbed Lily if her and Adelina hadn’t intervened.

  Lily. Why did she care so much? They’d only been around each other for, what, a week? But a lot had happened in that week. And she really did like the girl. A lot. Sunica cared what Lily thought of her, and seeing her yesterday…

  It was the first time Lily had looked at her with the same coldness that other people looked at her with. The reason was much worse too. She didn’t think Sunica was just an outsider. She was looking at Sunica like she was a murderer.

  Which was ridiculous! Goblins needed to be killed. Everyone knew that. If left alone, they’d just attack people weaker than them indiscriminately. If Sunica had run into that group alone she’d have fled to the guardhouse in Veni. They’d probably have been gone by the time Avea and the others came to kill them. But she wasn’t a fighter. Much less a murderer.

  But yesterday, when she saw the goblins drawing on Lily, she had done what she had to do to keep the human girl safe. Because she cared! Because she really liked Lily, and didn’t want her to get hurt. And now, Lily was looking at her like she had blood on her hands. She just wanted things to go back to how they were. But she wasn’t about to let a goblin in her house either. They’d be lucky if it didn’t wake up and stab them in the night!

  Not that it could move much with those injuries. But you never knew. Goblins were unpredictable. Come to think of it, what if the goblin had woken up? Immediately, thoughts of leaving her cabin in the morning and discovering Lily’s corpse crossed her mind. She leapt out of bed, pounded over to the door and swung it open!

  The human girl sat facing away from the cabin towards her fire. She jumped and turned as Sunica opened the door. Oh. Sunica didn’t expect her to be awake, even if she was unharmed. She felt blood rushing to her face.

  “Sunica?”

  “Oh. You’re up. Ah… couldn’t sleep?”

  The girl nodded softly. She looked so… pathetic. And sad. None of the fire that had been in her eyes earlier was there anymore. Sunica pushed away the urge to throw her arms around the girl and drag her into the cabin.

  “Yeah. Is the fire keeping you up? I’m sorry. I’ll find another pce to camp tomorrow.”

  Words like daggers through her heart.

  “Huh? You don’t have to do that. The fire’s fine.”

  “It’s okay. I don’t want to cause you trouble.”

  Where was this coming from? The girl had been no end of trouble since she got here, but it had been welcome trouble. Sunica didn’t want her to go away. What was she supposed to say to that? She had a ball of feelings in her chest, that made her almost want to yell at the girl to stop being… whatever this was. But, she didn’t want to push her further away. So, she swallowed them, and tried to find the words.

  “I don’t care. Don’t get even further away. If it wakes up and attacks you, you shouldn’t be alone.”

  She kicked herself internally. That came out so cold! Fuck! Sunica sucked so bad at stuff like this! Sure enough, the girl looked like Sunica had kicked her. God damnit. She tried again.

  “I mean. Look. I don’t approve. But I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Lily’s ft and quiet voice came back. This wasn’t going well. Of course not. Sunica had no idea how to say what she wanted to. She wasn’t used to stuff like this. No one in Veni cared how she was feeling in the first pce, and now that she had someone that did all she could figure out how to do was push her away the first time there was a real conflict.

  Why did she care? Lily was never going to stay around her to begin with. Sunica couldn’t see a world where Lily stayed more than another few weeks before moving onto Avezare when her Mom started getting serious about talking to her. And then in the pace with all the opulence and luxury, why would she ever want to return to Sunica’s little cabin? It was a passing fantasy at best that she might get to have a sting friendship with Lily. Much less anything more.

  “You’re soaked. You should come in and get dry. I know your magic is keeping you warm, but that can’t be comfortable, yeah?”

  Lily shrugged.

  “Can I bring the goblin so I know they won’t get attacked by animals or something?”

  Sunica froze, and took a deep breath.

  “Lily, I wish you’d listen to what we have to say about goblins. They’re dangerous. It’s not a good idea to be around one. Even if you can talk to them, they’ll stab you in the back the moment they can. And that’s the nicest thing goblin tribes do to women from other races.”

  “I’ll be fine out here.”

  Sunica’s careful hold on her emotions was starting to crumble. She didn’t want to scare Lily off, but she couldn’t hold back much longer.

  “You’re so stubborn! Don’t you trust me? I thought we were getting close! And you won’t believe me about one little thing? I just want you to be safe! So stop looking at me like that! Just let me protect you!”

  “Protect me? I–”

  Sunica watched as the girl’s eyes filled with tears. Ah crap. She’d gone too far, hadn’t she? Lily was so… fragile sometimes. Sunica felt like a monster that couldn’t help harming the girl when they talked a lot of the time. She felt self hatred flow through her. Why was she like this? She just wanted to be comforting and gentle, but it was like she didn’t have the emotional dexterity to be anything other than a brutish oaf.

  “I’m sorry, I went too far…”

  “I can’t just let you hurt someone helpless right in front of me. But I don’t want you to be mad. I don’t want you to hate me. I just want you to like me! I just want things to go back to how they were!”

  Sunica paused. Lily was shouting some of her own feelings at her. She just wanted things to be how they had been too. But…

  “Okay.”

  “What do you mean okay?”

  Sunica felt a calm suddenly wash over her. She’d made up her mind. It was easy, really. She’d do both.

  She knelt down next to Lily, and wrapped her arms around the girl. Lily really was quite cold. She could feel the smaller girl’s body shuddering as sobs overtook her, and fought to hold back the tears herself. She didn’t want to cry over something like this. It was just new to her, having someone’s emotions to consider and be gentle with.

  But, when she asked herself what she’d do to make Lily happy, the answer seemed obvious.

  “Okay. We’ll get the goblin inside. We’ll warm you up. And things will go back to how they were. It’s what we both want. I won’t hurt the goblin unless it tries to hurt us. But if it tries to kill you, I won’t hold back. Is that fair?”

  “I– You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “Really?”

  She held the trembling girl closer. In this moment, she felt like an idiot for ever doing anything else.

  “Anything for you, Miss Outsider.”