Valse Triste (Conrad)

School had only started this week and yet Zhenya already felt overwhelmed with emotions. There were so many things to deal with. The sixth year felt that this would be the hardest year yet and it didn't help that she hadn't really had time to relax all summer. With the artistic flying competitions and the open day at the flying school she had been busy as a bee. What the girl really wished for was a day off, just a single day with no obligations. A single day when she could be a normal teenage girl. However, she knew that it would not feel right even if she just took the time for herself. She had the O.W.L.s coming up this year and she didn't want to fail them. While academic achievements were not the top priority in her family, she didn't want to be a disappointment to herself and her family. Especially not considering that the newly crowned European junior champion felt like her career as an artistic flyer might not be quite as successful as she had always dreamed. It was strange that now that she had got the title she felt like she wasn't good enough. 

Everything just felt so wrong. Since August her world had been turned upside down. Things that had felt normal were now entirely strange. She had won the championships without winning a single competition part. It felt like a mockery, a bad joke. It didn't help that her rival, Iroda Alieva, did not miss a chance to tell her that the sole reason for her success was her family's name. The Uzbek girl was probably even right. Otherwise her gold medal made no sense to Zhenya either. Everybody seemed to deserve it more than she did, Zina, who had won the technical exercise, Iroda who had won the free program... And now Iroda had transferred from Koldovstoretz to Durmstrang, to remind her of how undeserved her title was. The worst thing was that there was a mentor program now and fate clearly was sticking out its tongue at her. Zhenya had become the mentor for Iroda out of all possible Koldovstoretz students. It was ridiculous and Zhenya clearly didn't feel up to the task. She had no time for it anyway!

As if that wasn't enough, Zhenya was also rather worried about her idol and distant relative, Aglaya Tikhomirova. She knew no details but during the open day at the flying school at the very end of August Aglaya had apparently been taken to the hospital because of a poisoning. She had heard about this through the newspaper where a journalist had mentioned such a rumour. Nobody had told her anything personally. Just after she had read the article and went to inquire further she had received the confirmation that this had indeed happened. She was told though to focus on herself and not to worry. However, with so many questions on her mind, Zhenya found it hard not to worry. She didn't know in which condition the artistic flying champion was now, she didn't know what had happened and all she wanted was to receive a note that she was recovering well.

The girl had decided to practise on her own today. Feeling that she'd burst into tears if she got to talk about Aglaya or the European Championships with anyone. She was determined to work on a combination of split jumps. Yevgeniya could do beautiful spins and a lot of amazing moves and positions but jumps were a hit and miss for her. One day she did them flawlessly and the other day she didn't manage to properly land on the broom. Hence practising jumps made absolute sense. However, in her current unfocused state the Drakonya Krov student was struggling more than ever. While she was clever enough not to fly up too high so that her occasional falls weren't too painful, she could take no precautions to prevent the broom handle from ending up in her face whenever the broom had moved too far, giving her only a chance to land on the tail and thus catapulting the handle up into a vertical position. While she caught the handle just in time two times in a row and managed to steady herself on the broom again, the third time didn't go quite as well. 

"Ouch!" she exclaimed as the handle hit her nose and she found herself laying in the grass on her back. Tears were now watering her eyes and the girl sat up wiping her nose with her sleeve. It was bleeding. She remembered that Aglaya had once been hit a lot worse in a competition and, thinking of the older athlete again, she couldn't control her emotions anymore. She sat on the ground, sobbing for a while before taking her broom and heading to the common room. It was already quite late and she hoped that most other students had already retreated to their dormitories. The last thing she now needed was a confrontation with anyone and she clearly hoped that Zina would not see her in this state. Sniffing, the sixth year peeked into the common room before daring to properly enter it. She saw Conrad on a couch and decided to join him. Conrad's presence just had a strangely soothing effect on her.

"hey," she quietly said, her voice sounding somewhat nasal. The girl placed her broom gently on the floor and sank onto the couch next to the boy, totally unaware that she had not wiped off all traces of blood from her face.


@Conrad Sturm

Conrad was waiting for curfew; he’d meant to do schoolwork (a composition for sigilimancy) but some noisy fifth years had taken his usual table for gobstones. He didn’t want to go up to his dorm -- his roommates were up there -- and so he’d stayed in the common room, cross-legged, trying to write four feet on runic translation on a textbook balanced in his lap. Perhaps needless to say, it was not going well.

He’d borne six years of Durmstrang so far with the same bad attitude; it hadn’t failed him yet, though he knew he couldn’t honestly say it’d done him much good either. He’d known even before he’d had vague plans for his adulthood that he wasn’t ambitious enough for a career, or clever enough for success. For a long time he’d anticipated working with his parents when he graduated -- it was an ugly prospect, and had been even before he’d started to hate being at home.

It was probably because it was his seventh year, but this year, recalcitrance was giving him a sour taste in his mouth. For six years he hadn’t given a damn about disrespecting the institution -- Durmstrang was centuries old, it had survived bad students and would surely survive countless more -- but he was worried, now, that he hadn’t made quite the point he’d wanted to make. It couldn’t be denied that Durmstrang had failed him -- he had only barely scraped through his OWLs, and he knew his NEWTs would be more challenging, and his goals would be less motivating -- but he’d proven a failure too.

Despite this, he still believed his work ethic was better than anybody gave him credit for, and was trying to prove so. He’d done this dance before -- made a hearty, determined attempt at being an actually good student, until he’d gotten his marks back. He didn’t mind doing it again. Perhaps that was where his greatest failing was -- that he didn’t mind the track he was on. It seemed like a worse shortcoming than laziness.

But what did he know of philosophy?

His handwriting was starting to get more cramped, as he moved down the page -- penmanship had always been a struggle for him, and it was worsened by his poor grasp of the language and his posture. But he was at least trying.

Conrad tended to ignore the comings and goings of his peers, the milling around the common room; he didn’t notice Zhenya until she’d sat next to him -- “Good evening,” he mumbled, and looked up, mouth dropping open. Carefully, he uncrossed his legs, setting his things haphazardly on the side table -- “Hei, what happened to you? Did you get in a fight?” he asked, before he remembered that Zhenya, along with most of her family, was constantly doing foolish broom stunts. More nervously he asked, “Does it hurt?”

Knowing Conrad, Zhenya found it absolutely normal that the boy didn't look up at her until she sat down and addressed him. She couldn't really tell why she felt more relaxed in his company than in other people's company. It didn't seem like there was a real reason for this but there was something about him that was different and different was sometimes what she really needed. Her family, everybody who was really into the sport was so driven and hard working. It felt like she was slacking whenever she sat down for five minutes doing nothing at all.

His reaction to her presence was unlike what Zhenya was used to and she narrowed her eyes as she saw his mouth dropping open. Then he asked her if she got into a fight and the girl became aware of the fact that she should probably have gone to the bathroom to wash her face properly.

“Oh...” Zhenya said, blushing now. “I…” she didn't know what to say. She had not got into a fight, of course. Although with Iroda being at Durmstrang now it was only a matter of time. However, she assumed that any fight with the other girl would more be a verbal fight than one that would result in a broken nose.

She shrugged as Conrad asked if it hurt. It was so nice of him to care. She sniffed, feeling how emotions were welling up again. “Yeah, it does,” she muttered, before quickly adding, “a little anyway.”

Her cheeks felt like the were burning as she chewed on her lips and tried to find the right way to ask him if it really looked so bad. “It is obvious then?” she finally asked. “Do you think you…” She looked down at her hands that rested in her lap. “Could you, er, heel it? Maybe?” she asked sheepishly. “I do not want to go to the hospital wing and I guess I cannot just leave it as it is either...”

“Never mind,” Conrad said, realising he’d made her feel awkward with the question. “You were flying.” He felt stupid not having realised that immediately.

He had never known how to feel about artistic flying. Some of its performers seemed to love it like it’d slipped them old Amortentia -- they didn’t eat, they didn’t sleep, they barely studied. For years Conrad hadn’t understood it -- he hadn’t had real passions until he’d started listening to music -- but even with a working understanding of things beautiful enough to suffer for, he didn’t understand it with artistic flying. But he’d never done well with pain, and he had no desire to fall off a broomstick. Zhenya must have gone face-first, to break her nose, so it was a wonder she was as unhurt as she was.

Her nose wasn’t so bad, he thought -- but then Zhenya had a nicer nose than he did to start with. Straight instead of bumpy, narrow instead of wide. “Not that bad,” he said, frowning -- he was struggling to picture her nose the way it usually was. He’d never paid particular attention to it.

Zhenya asked timidly, then, if he knew how to heal it -- Conrad sat bolt upright. A part of him was flattered by her confidence in him; the rest of him was appalled. “Heal it?” he repeated. “I don’t know how to --”

That was a lie, so he corrected himself: “I only got a ‘par’ in Melioration Magic, that’s why I take Survival now.” A par wasn’t bad, and his marks had been so low because of his alchemy and not his wandwork, but it felt prudent to warn her anyway. “What’s wrong with the hospital wing? You probably wouldn’t be penalised for being in the corridors if that was where you were going. And it was an accident.” Conrad had been scolded before, but only when he had been being stupid -- kicking at sharp-toothed gnomes in the hills or throwing rocks at doxy nests. Once in Alchemy he’d picked his cauldron up from the bottom and burnt both his palms. He’d been lucky the potion wasn’t dangerous.

He frowned at her nose again, leaning in a little -- it truly wasn’t that bad. Just an episkey. Grudgingly he got his wand off the side table -- “You’re sure?” he asked again -- if he fucked this up it would not be his fault.

"Yes," Zhenya nodded as Conrad realised that she had been flying. She wondered if he wanted to hear details of what had happened and if she felt like sharing them at all. It was not like she had done anything as spectacular as a back flip to end up with a broken nose. It had been really just her own fault, her lack of concentration.

"Somehow managed to catapult the broom handle right into my face," she tried to smile, making it seem like she could laugh about it but she really didn't feel amused by her mishap at all. "It's not my day, it seems," she added and sighed, thinking that it was not only the day that was not going right. "Not my... time, actually."

She offered a little smile when Conrad said that it was not that bad. It probably really wasn't. She hadn't been knocked out and her nose had stopped bleeding for now. Tentatively she lifted her hand to touch her nose. It was sensitive to the touch and hurt.

When Conrad began telling her that he didn't know how to fix her nose, Zhenya felt a wave of disappointment hitting her. The exhaustion, her broken nose and everything that was going on made her feel like crying but she tried her best not to do so. She chewed on her lip and turned her gaze down until Conrad went on talking.

"Nothing is wrong with it, I guess," Zhenya said quietly, "I just don't want to go there and explain things and..." be judged.

Conrad took his wand and Yevgeniya looked at him, feeling a little unsure now. Since he had been reluctant she suddenly wasn't sure if she could trust him to be up to the task. However, she still nodded in response to his question. "Yes, please, give it a try." She paused, wondering if he needed more encouragement. "I'm sure you'll do it right," she, therefore, added. "And if it does not work out... well, then I can still go to the hospital wing as a last resort."

So she hadn’t fallen; he had been wrong. “Oh,” he said. Zhenya sighed -- Conrad shrugged his shoulders at her. He’d convinced himself quite thoroughly that unluck was far more common than luck; it didn’t surprise him if his friend was going through a bout of it now. He pitied her for it, though -- like him, he knew her parents put pressure on her to succeed. She was just less likely to fall short than he considered himself.

Conrad furrowed his brows slightly as she gingerly touched her nose, trying to gauge how badly broken it was. Zhenya was tough -- though she seemed badly upset, he doubted it was all because of her nose; he’d seen her hurt worse and less upset about it. Either she was hiding another injury, or something else was wrong.

Her vagueness, her refusal to go to the hospital wing, seemed like confirmation of this. “Explain what things?” said Conrad, suspiciously. Barely, he resisted the urge to look her up and down.

Zhenya seemed to steel herself before she agreed to let him have a try healing her, which Conrad wasn’t sure he should have taken as encouragement. A knot in his stomach had tightened a little bit bitterly -- she doesn’t trust you, and she’s right not to -- but he was fighting a more righteous thought too, a defensive why shouldn’t she trust you? He swallowed, nervously -- “Okay,” he said. As a gesture of goodwill -- one he hoped she wouldn’t take him up on -- he added, “If I get it wrong I’ll tell the nurse it was my fault.”

Having a long record of both reckless self-injury and willful delinquency, he was rather sure this would protect Zhenya from any trouble; it wasn’t an appealing prospect, though. They were only a week into term. He’d just have to do it right. Gently he touched her chin to tilt her face down, pointed his wand as confidently as he could. “Episkey.” Her nose popped back into place, but Conrad wasn’t ready to rule out the possibility that he’d fucked up. “Did that work?” he said, nervously, lowering his wand.

Satisfied, he flopped back into the couch, folded his long legs back up in front of him. He wasn’t ready yet to return to his schoolwork, so he left it on the table -- instead he said, bluntly, “So, what else is wrong?” There must be something.

Conrad asked her to explain what was going on and the fact that he seemed to be actually interested in her made her tough façade crumble a little. She felt how her eyes were watering and blinked a few times, hoping that he wouldn't notice anything and that she'd manage to compose herself.

“Let's get the nose thing done first,” she said, hoping that once her nose would feel better she'd be able to talk about the things that busied her without ending up a sobbing mess. She didn't want to cry in front of Conrad, didn't want him to see her weak and feared that he'd make a beeline for his dormitory to avoid her if she failed to stay strong.

“That's sweet of you,” Zhenya said as Conrad said he'd take the blame if he failed at fixing her nose. “I don't think anything will go wrong, though.” Well, it didn't matter. She felt that her nose really was the smallest of her current problems.

She squinted as he pointed his wand to her face and said the incantation. It was tickling sensation when the bone went back into it's rightful place and she touched her nose carefully again. It was still a little sensitive to her touch but not quite so painful any more. The bridge was smooth again but it seemed to still be slightly bruised. She figured that was quite natural as episkey mostly just fixed the bone. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “Feels much better already. See, you can do it.”

Conrad asked her what else was wrong and the girl hesitated for a moment. Should she really spill her heart and make herself vulnerable? Zhenya chewed on her lip as she contemplated her options.

“Oh, it's…” she shifted her position on the couch and looked away briefly before looking back at her friend. “It probably sounds pathetic…” she added nervously. “I just…” she sighed again and shook her head. “The last few weeks were so strange… I don't know if you heard of the European Junior Championships… but,” she shrugged and smiled sheepishly. “I've won there but… I didn't really win any competition part. I mean, I have always dreamed of becoming a champion but… this was not at all like I imagined. I felt that the trophy was mocking me. I just couldn't keep it. Zina won the technical exercise. She deserved it so much more than I did. She was so disappointed and I was just… not really good at all. I was third in the technical exercise, second in the free program behind Iroda and… it's ridiculous that I won over all.” Again the girl sighed and shrugged helplessly. “And now Iroda is at Durmstrang and...” She shook her head, looking entirely upset now. “I'm her mentor!” her voice was high pitched now. The fact that she'd have to play the mentor for her rival and biggest enemy had totally caught her off guard. She assumed that Conrad would hardly be able to understand why all this felt so wrong and she decided to tell him as much as she could about the other thing that was on her mind.

“And then we had the open day at the flying school,” she went on. “I've told you about Aglaya and Anastasiya before, I think. They're my distant cousins and the best senior flyers out there.” Her voice broke off. “Aglaya was poisoned during the open day and...” She took a deep breath, trying to compose herself but she felt that a first tear was already making its way down her cheek. “I only heard about it in the papers and my family only told me that this has indeed happened but I don't know how she'd doing and what exactly happened.” Her voice was brittle now and she looked at Conrad through tear filled eyes. “And I've been made the captain of the artistic flying club. I feel so honoured but it's so much pressure. It's all just… too much to handle.”

See, you can do it -- Conrad grimaced and shrugged rather than answer. It was difficult not to be a little insulted, even though he knew she was just reacting to his own insecurity. It just never felt good to be noticed that closely, to feel like he had to be careful of his words before they were thrown back at him. Zhenya was just being nice, he reassured himself -- but it wasn’t much of a comfort that she thought he needed it.

She seemed to need it too, though -- she stammered her way into answering his question -- what else is wrong? -- and Conrad settled back against the arm of the sofa to wait, propping his head against his fist, frowning with concentration. (He was glad that speaking Russian was still allowed outside of class -- if it had been Swedish he thought he would have drifted off midway through the first sentence.) It was a lot about artistic flying and not a lot he could really follow (typical, he thought a little grumpily. Girls and their problems had never made much sense to him.)

“Iroda?” he said, lifting his head upright and zeroing on the first thing he could comment on -- presumably, he thought, Iroda was an unlucky Koldovstoretz student here on exchange (he had prayed over the summer to be sent to the Russian school, to no avail.) “She’s another flier, yes? Do you not like her?” The squeaking had suggested not.

He tucked his head back into his hand, frowning, as she went on -- he didn’t know what an open day was but poison did not sound good. (Was that an artistic flying term? Surely not?)

And, oh, no, she was crying now -- Conrad sat bolt upright, a little panicky at the prospect of dealing with a girl’s emotions, something his dad had always told him to steer clear of. “Oh, don’t --” he had no idea how to deal with girls crying. He reached out awkwardly to rub her shoulder, squeezed it . “I’m sure she’s…”

That was a totally useless thing to say, I’m sure it’s okay, so he switched tack. “Why wouldn’t your family tell you anything -- wouldn’t they want you to know?” He’d never understood the Shishkins.

Conrad blew out his breath with relief, at the last complaint she had -- finally something he could help her with. “If it’s too much to handle,” he said, as reasonably as he could, “Why not just -- stop? You don’t have to do all of that.” It was advice characteristic of him -- he knew that was what his father would tell him -- it made him feel a little guilty, like he was setting Zhenya up to be as much of a failure as he was. But she’d hurt herself, taking on too many responsibilities -- wasn’t she setting herself up to be hurt more in the future, if she kept it up?

“Do I not like her?” Zhenya repeated, staring at Conrad as though he had just asked a rather offending question but she soon got a grip again and took a deep breath. “Well, no, I don't,” she began to explain. “She's another artistic flyer and she's such a mean person. I mean, she might even have a point but…” Zhenya sighed and looked down, unsure if she should tell Conrad what was on her mind. Would he be able to follow anyway? Would he want to try to understand her?

“Iroda made it quite clear that she thinks that I've only got the gold medal because of my family and not because of how I did in competition.” She wondered if her friend could understand how it felt to be told such a thing. “The worst thing about it is that I feel that she's right. I do not deserve the title. Zina was better, Iroda and Liza were better… I shouldn't be the European junior champion. It's so wrong”

As Zhenya felt that she was finally losing her calm and Conrad gently rubbed her shoulder, she looked at him tears now running down her cheeks and she couldn't do anything about it. He did not proceed with the sentence he had started and Zhenya felt that he was right to stop before saying something that he could not know at all. She could tell that he had been about to say that Aglaya would be fine but at this stage nobody really knew that.

She swallowed and tried to calm down enough to answer Conrad's question. “I don't know,” she said, her voice high pitched. “I suppose they are worried that if we know it might get out to the press sooner or later,” she shrugged helplessly. “I've been wondering what their motives are for the past few days but I really have no idea. I mean, maybe they also want to spare us in a way but the uncertainty is the worst thing ever. I mean, I know my siblings and cousins are also worrying. How could we not? Aglaya is family and an outstanding artistic flyer. It's…” her voice trailed off and she sighed.

“Stop?” Zhenya asked incredulously as Conrad suggested she could quit. “I cannot stop! I mean, my family thinks that the artistic flying club is very important. I need to work hard to make it a success. It's a way to spark more interest in the sport and help the family business. And school… well, they do not care about my grades so much but I need to pass at least some exams…” Sighing again, Zhenya shook her head. “I mean, I would not mind getting out of this mentor program but… I guess that's the one thing I cannot really do. It would be unprofessional to quit that, wouldn't it?”

This was probably the closest that Conrad had ever gotten to understanding why artistic flying gave Zhenya so much grief -- he felt a twinge of pity for her, thinking about the high expectations her family must have imposed on her. He’d always hated realising his efforts weren’t noticed: he thought it must be like what Zhenya felt when her successes were dismissed as preferential treatment -- at least, at first.

Zhenya was worried less about her hard work being minimised -- she was upset because it hadn’t been, upset because she felt she didn’t deserve her wins. Conrad didn’t understand that, at all -- he thought he would rather like to be appreciated for no reason. He chewed on his lower lip, but couldn’t make himself say so: instead he said reasonably, “I bet you’re more talented than you think, they wouldn’t have given it to you if you were terrible. Even if it is because of your family -- wouldn’t they just give it to your sister?”

He didn’t know how artistic flying competitions worked, he supposed. He was grateful for the change in subject, even though it seemed like she was crying harder -- what, was he doing this wrong? He stopped rubbing her shoulder, just gave her a pat and returned his hands to the safety of his lap. “What’s wrong with it being in the press?” he said, “Doesn’t everything end up in the press eventually?”

It seemed like a lot of worry for -- frankly -- a stupid reason, but then Conrad had never seen any merit to keeping secrets within families. He’d seen over the summer how that went.

“Who would poison her, anyway?” he said. “Who would care that much?” It was probably rude to ask -- he knew how important artistic flying was to Zhenya -- but he also thought Zhenya didn’t value it enough for assassination attempts. He’d never been a part of something like that.

Clearly, he didn’t understand at all -- Zhenya balked when he suggested quitting. Conrad scowled, almost immediately on the defensive, but she was a good friend: she didn’t turn it on him. (He felt almost guilty for assuming she would.) “Why is it all your responsibility?” he countered -- “There are others of you, aren’t there? Couldn’t your brother help you? Besides -- how can your family business need your help? You’re still a student -- leave it to the adults.” He couldn’t imagine his own family asking for his help stoking up interest in their work; it seemed like a desperate thing to do.

He slouched back again, traced one finger in a circle on the arm of the sofa. “Would even they let you quit?” he mused, then shook his head. “I don’t think it matters that much in the long run if you quit.”

“Hmm...” Zhenya looked at Conrad thoughtfully now. He did have a point. If Zina had been better overall she would have won if it was just because of their family. “Thanks,” she said, trying to smile at her friend for the nice things he had said. “I don't know… I mean, Zina was amazing in the technical exercise. I don't think I could have beaten her there even if I had been clean. She had some struggles in the free program which cost her a medal. They could have given the title to Liza though, she was really good. Even Iroda was, at least in the free program. I don't think I really did well. None of my performances was clean and it all just didn't feel right; I didn't feel confident. It's...” her voice trailed off and she sighed deeply, realising that Conrad had next to no chance to be able to follow her train of thought.

The press… well, according to Zhenya's family there were things that ought to be in the press and others that had to be kept out of it whatever the cost. How could she explain this to Conrad though if she didn't really understand it all herself? “Well,” she began, sitting up a little straighter on the corner of the sofa as she tried to find an explanation. “Some things should be in the press – like good results of our family at competitions, anything that is good advertisement should be printed, really. However, how does it reflect on us, on artistic flying in general, if a multiple-time champion gets poisoned during an event at our artistic flying school that's meant to spark more interest in the sport?”

Who would poison her? It was a good question and Zhenya just shrugged helplessly. “I have no idea. Aglaya and I are not particularly close. Maybe her closest family members know more about it, but I don't think so. I really don't have a clue and I can't see why anyone would do such a thing to her.”

Conrad said that it couldn't all be Zhenya's responsibility and that it didn't matter if she quit and the girl shook her head. “I've been chosen to be club captain. It's an honour as much as it's pressure. What do you think what my family would do if I quit anything that matters to them? We all need to play our part. My siblings and cousins will help with the club I'm sure...” she felt how her cheeks reddened. “We are family and help each other, but we are also rivals. I feel flattered that I got chosen and not any of them… And, of course, I'm still a student but the adult family members cannot run the club at Durmstrang, can they? I get a chance to help the family business even before I graduate. That's something, isn't it?” She glanced at Conrad, hoping that he'd agree although she felt that he wouldn't and, truth be told, she wasn't sure about this herself either.

Zhenya shifted her position on the sofa, getting more comfortable, and sighed again. “It's all so terrifying,” she admitted quietly, getting back to the previous topic of the assassination attempt. “I mean, our family wants to keep it a secret what happened on the open day and I think they forget that we all are people too, we do have feelings. We want, we need to know what's going on. Besides, if nobody has any details – does anybody even visit her? Do they even care about her? About us? I...” Zhenya sniffed now although she had been quite determined not to be this weak in front of her friend. She couldn't even finish her sentence any more and hid her face in her hands.

In reassuring her, Conrad had been meaning to get Zhenya to stop talking about this artistic flying competition. It wasn’t working -- she kept explaining it, mentioning names he didn’t recognise and things he didn’t understand, until she trailed off eventually, with a little sigh. He had gone a little glassy-eyed with confusion after the second sentence -- he snapped back to attention and said, “Well there’s nothing you can do about it anymore, so it’s fine.”

Zhenya sat up straighter to lecture him on what her family thought; Conrad unfolded his legs and put his feet back on the floor, slouching back to listen. He hated having things explained to him (particularly things that, once they were explained, made sense) so he stared straight ahead at the fire instead of at Zhenya, glancing back at her only at the end of the comment. It was probably a rhetorical question but Conrad still wanted to answer to it; he rubbed his palms together thoughtfully, frowning.

“I mean,” he said, to be fair, “I think it would spark more interest in the sport.”

He was tempted to interrupt her as she started off again, this time about her family, but he waited instead, until she had talked herself around the topic once or twice. The more he heard about her family, the less he liked them. What kind of person raised their children to see each other as rivals? Sometimes he was glad not to have siblings -- he didn’t think he could stand to be the least favourite child. It was bad enough being less dutiful than the dog.

It was something, wasn’t it? “Yeah, a burden,” Conrad said. “It’s only a good chance if you really want to do it. Do you?” He doubted she’d deny it -- whether or not Zhenya really loved artistic flying, she probably believed she did.

He’d thought they were through the hard part, but his friend was starting to sniffle again -- Conrad, put back on the spot, reverted to his first instinct and patted her shoulder again, more awkwardly this time. “I don’t think I can answer that for you,” he said, though he did think he would like to. Her family ignored her requests for information, and kept secrets from her, and set her against her siblings, and still demanded her work and effort for something as trifling as a club? Come on.

“No, it's not fine,” Zhenya said, shaking her head. Her friend didn't understand her and what was even worse, he didn't even seem to try. She could tell that he was not paying her his full attention and it just upset her more. Just because she couldn't change things that had happened didn't make them any more acceptable.

“What?” the junior artistic flyer stared at Conrad disbelief written all over her face. “You think it's good for us, for the sport, for the school, if, right under our nose, our most accomplished athlete gets poisoned?” Her voice was shrill and she was about to burst into tears again. She was so disappointed in her friend now. Sometimes she felt that Conrad was the one person who wasn't a part of the artistic flying scene who got her, whom she liked to spend time with, but right now she wanted to throw something at him.

Conrad was now making things even worse and Zhenya couldn't deny that she was getting quite frustrated with him. She was totally forgetting how grateful she had felt moments earlier when her friend had fixed her broken nose.

“You said it yourself, it's only a burden if I don't want to do it. I want to do it though.” She said bitterly as she flung her hands into the air, feeling quite exasperated with how little the older student understood. In fact, the girl's mood was somewhere between furious and depressed right now. She wasn't sure if she wanted to yell at Conrad or to curl up and cry.

It didn't help at all that he awkwardly patted her shoulder. Truth be told, she saw it more as a mocking than a comforting gesture now. She jumped to her feet and looked down at the boy, her eyes red from crying. “Of course you cannot answer this!” Zhenya burst out. “You don't even try to understand me. You don't give a damn…” Tears were now streaming down her face and the girl turned around quickly as she began to sob. Without looking behind she picked up her broom from the floor and stormed off to her dormitory.

[out]

“I’m just saying to be glad it’s over,” said Conrad, starting to feel like he was coming across wrong. “It does you no good to keep thinking about it.” If she was so pressed, she should just keep practising so it wasn’t a problem in the future and she didn’t have to keep dragging him over the coals of this conversation -- but that thought felt vindictive and petty and he knew better than to voice it.

It seemed like what he had said already was digging him a deep enough hole, anyway. She had a good point, that it really didn’t look that good for her family to have had an assassination attempt at their school, but he snapped, “I didn’t say it was a good thing, I said it was interesting. Nobody in the world even cared about artistic flying twenty years ago and now you’ve got people murdering each other over it?” She was getting shrill and he was getting defensive, hands dropped to his sides to clutch uselessly at the seams of his trousers.

Exactly as he’d expected, she insisted that this was something she wanted for herself, which meant he wouldn’t get anywhere telling her that her family was writing her goals and her dreams for her. Girls were irrational, he thought, starting already to swell with indignant anger. Irrational and stupid. As soon as he tried to touch her she was on her feet and yelling at him. If she hadn’t also been crying he’d have jumped up and yelled back -- he could feel his face getting hot and flushed, his stomach flipping in his gut -- but instead he just felt guilty. He’d made a girl cry -- what kind of bastard did that?

He shouted as she raged away, “Well, it was a stupid question!” but she was already going anyway; for a moment he glared at the fire, and then at his abandoned Sigilmancy essay, before he began snatching up his things and putting them away, still in a terrible temper. It was almost curfew anyway; he slung his bag over a shoulder, bent down to get his boots. Nothing he could do but go to bed and forget all of this. He had only made it about a week before skipping a homework assignment because he didn’t feel like it -- a new low -- but he didn’t really give a damn anyway.

OUT