Romantic Souls

Natalia loved gossip like she loved cheese, and high society tea parties were like giant, gossipy candy canes! But best of all, there was romance! Oh, the sweet, bubbly romance that always swirled around the Imperial Arcane Academy. It was like, like… a sparkling fairyland, and the students? Well, they were like… oh snap, she couldn't think of it! What was it that kept buzzing from Eydis's mind, constipation, wait no, that didn't sound right. 

Constellation! That's it! Lately, all Eydis had been thinking about was stars. Stars and… whispers. Weird whispers, and something about dust and noises. Maybe Natalia should carry a dictionary around Eydis, honestly, was she even a maid before or did she just fall from the star-studded sky? 

Aaanywaay, back to the latest gossip! Lord Wallace and Lady Erika, what a waste! Sparks flew between them like enchanted fireflies, but poof! Gone, snuffed out by those stuffy matchmaker priests who care more about magical affinities than connection. Love in Alchymia was as fickle as a snowflake in July, one minute hearts ablaze, the next, stuck in an arranged betrothal as boring as watching paint dry.

Natalia threw her hands up, her fiery braids swishing like flames. But a flicker of sadness touched her eyes as she thought of Eydis's lingering words, 'breeding machine', the words haunted her mind ever since they had been uttered. 

Somewhere deep within, she knew her obsession with romance wasn't just about gossip or stolen glances. It was a desperate yearning for a love that transcended bloodlines and magical affinities.

She shook her head, dispelling the dangerous thought. No, no, back to fluffy heart-shaped clouds and stolen glances! So what if Lord Wallace and Lady Erika hadn't landed their happily-ever-after? There were many other couples to root for, afterall.

Natalia practically vibrated with excitement as she launched into another failed ship saga. Her voice bubbled, but her bright eyes flickered with concern every time they landed on Eydis. The brunette sat idly on her chair, gazing out the window like a sleepwalker lost in a daydream. "And then, imagine their faces when..." Natalia's voice trailed off, the tea party suddenly less interesting than the storm brewing beneath Eydis's surface.

"Earth to Eydis!" Natalia's voice echoed, snapping the brunette back to reality. Eydis blinked, a fleeting glint of defiance sparkling in her amber eyes before she plastered on a nonchalant smile. 

"Right, the tea party."

Before Natalia could continue, Eydis's thoughts erupted like a volcano.

'Another tedious social gathering? Fine – I have a backup excuse, and a backup for that backup, ready to go.'

Natalia huffed in mock indignation. "Come on, don't be a killjoy. It'll be fun...ish."

"Your idea of fun usually involves questionable cheese and even quainter dance partners," Eydis retorted, flicking a playful finger at Natalia's fiery braids.

A burst of giggles filled the room as Birgit and Colete joined them. Their conversation swiftly descended into a familiar flurry of dress critiques and jewel comparisons. But Eydis's mind remained stubbornly anchored elsewhere.

Half an hour of dissecting the latest hemlines later, Natalia's eyes landed on Eydis. "What's brewing in that mind of yours, Eydis?"

Eydis shrugged, feigning nonchalance. "Why do you ask? Open book, remember?"

Colete rolled her eyes. "Sure, but we have our suspicions. You've found a way to bend your curse, haven't you?" She leaned in, lowering her voice. "What truly occupies your thoughts, Eydis?"

Birgit agreed, her brow furrowed with concern. "Ever since Ker Ys, you've been..." she trailed off, searching for the right words. "Distant, distracted somehow."

This was the moment Eydis unleashed her special Ds: Deflected, Denied, and Dazzled them with her resourceful list of Distracting Diversions. Natalia just knew it!

"Caught in a cosmic dilemma," Eydis confessed, her words carrying an unexpected vulnerability. Natalia's mouth hung open in sheer surprise.

Colete chuckled, "Honesty, even uncertainty sound like ballads from your lips."

"Tell us, what kind of problem could even you not solve?" Birgit chimed in, her curiosity bubbling over.

"Uncertainty isn't a void; it's a canvas for possibilities, one I've never feared," Eydis murmured, her finger tracing the grains of the oak table.

Natalia's fingers twitched like she was holding a live butterfly. This was pure gold for her fiction notebook! But holding back was as hard as resisting a triple-cheese sandwich. Getting Eydis to open up was like cracking the world's toughest nut! Even if she couldn't understand a thing that Eydis had just uttered.

"But lately," Eydis continued, hesitantly, "It's unsettling."

Natalia choked back a gasp, earning a silent glare from Colete and Birgit, eager to absorb every scrap of vulnerability from Eydis. But Eydis, predictably, stopped. Her gaze drifted toward the window, as if searching for something elusive in the afternoon sun.

Colete pressed, her voice gentle. "Why?"

The brunette didn't answer. However, in a blink of an eye, her aloof brown eyes sharpened, darkened, like a predator spotting prey. Natalia's eyes followed the line of her gaze, her breath catching in her throat. The object of Eydis's attention: Astra, the academy's ice princess, gliding past with Melissa, the blue-haired snob, trailing like a shadow at her heels. It was an odd sight. Ah Blue had been following Astra like a lost puppy these days, her cloying sweetness a stark contrast to Astra's aloof grace.

A low growl, barely audible, rumbled from Eydis's lips. The sound was so unexpected that Natalia seriously considered whether Ker Ys had taken the real Eydis away and replaced her with someone else. "Are you two still...not on good terms?" Natalia blurted the question without thinking, curiosity getting the best of her.

Eydis's eyes remained fixed on the couple, her voice strained. "On the contrary, Astra's been around. Often."

Puzzled, but undeterred, Natalia patted Eydis's back. "Well, are you maybe jealous of the attention Astra gets? No fret, my friend, despite her body being practically a work of art, she holds no candle to you!"

Birgit bounced in her seat, "B-B-Body? What do you mean?"

Natalia flushed, recalling the story. "She had this terrible fever," she mumbled, "and doctor Eydis asked me to help with a bath, and well..." Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, "I couldn't look her in the eyes for days, you know, god is unfair, that's all I'm saying."

Colete snorted, "I'm sure half the boys at this academy are very very jealous of you right now, Nat."

Natalia grinned bashfully, but before she could reply, Eydis rose abruptly, her chair screeching against the stone floor. Without a word, she strode out of the room, leaving behind a trail of confusion and unanswered questions.

Natalia frowned, picking at a loose thread on her sleeve. Eydis has been as unpredictable as the weather lately. One day, she was playful, teasing Astra as if it was her purpose. The next, she'd turn stormy at the mere mention of her roommate's name. It was like watching a puzzle with missing pieces, and Natalia wanted nothing more than to figure it out.

Suddenly, Natalia's train of thought derailed. Melissa shot her a fiery glare that vanished as quickly as it appeared. Natalia blinked, then rubbed her temples. Was it just her imagination, or had Melissa been giving her the stink eye for a while now? Had she unknowingly offended the snooty socialite? The thought sent shivers down her spine. Maybe it was time to lay off the glitter glue and unicorn puns around the common room.

**

Crimson rage simmered beneath Eydis's skin, intensifying in the searing afternoon sun. The oak door slammed shut, a defiant boom shaking the hallway. Her knuckles, white against the polished wood, mirrored the storm erupting within. This couldn't be happening. Not here, amidst the suffocating expectations and hollow laughter. Yet, the truth burned brighter than any stolen jewel, incinerating her carefully constructed logic.

"When did it start?" she thought, collapsing on her bed, her mind racing in desperate circles. The answer eluded her, refusing to solidify. Was it a slow burn, a gradual flicker that consumed her without warning? Or was it a singular spark, a supernova moment that forever altered the landscape of her heart?

No, both were wrong. Neither a flickering flame nor a fiery explosion captured its essence. It was a star, she realised with a sudden, shaky laugh. Astra, a fitting name for a celestial body so dazzling, so captivating. And so utterly out of reach.

Panic thrummed in her veins. She understood fleeting thrills, but not this. This impossible, forbidden desire was so overwhelming it threatened to engulf her whole. 

"Panic?" 

She should be celebrating instead, shouldn't she? The crystals she collected from the Kraken Tower, potent vessels surpassing even Ethereum, held the key to her liberation. Her own compression algorithm, a masterpiece of code, promised to turn it into a weapon of unimaginable power. Yet, all these achievements, once sources of pride, now felt hollow compared to the vibrant reality of her feelings, woven from stolen glances and moonlight.

Eydis had forgotten the language of stars. The city, a hungry behemoth, had devoured them whole, leaving only a canvas of flickering neon and indifferent, distant planets. Here, under the obsidian canvas of this endless night, the stars were no longer luxuries. Yet, one star, one rebel stood out from even within celestial galaxies.

It started as just another star.

Until it changed.

It pulsed with a white-hot intensity, its gravity tugging at Eydis's very soul. It wasn't just its brilliance, though that was enough to make her heart skip a beat. Up close, it wasn't a diamond in the void, but a molten eye weeping tears of fire, threatening to consume her whole in its searing embrace.

Astra. The name, a brand etched upon her soul, tasted like lightning on her tongue. She wasn't naive. Icarus had fallen for a lesser blaze. The rules of Alchymia were clear – nobility chained to nobility, desires strangled by progeny. 

Yet, her eyes, drawn by an invisible thread, sought Astra again and again. Before conscious thought could intervene, teasing words laced with unspoken yearning tumbled from her treacherous lips, a probe, a prayer for a response. A response that would tell her, finally, if the fire that burned in her own heart reflected in Astra's amethysts.

Astra, a beautiful paradox, a tempest of fire trapped in a mask of glacier ice. And she acted just as such. There were times where she had been present, ever-present. It was the curve of Astra's lips, the reserved smile that held the promise of a thousand unspoken secrets. It was the way her husky voice, cutting through Eydis's doubts, offered a glimpse of a future bathed possibilities. It was the way her name, Eydis, finally spoken, felt like a whispered promise in the wind. And there were rare occasions where she returned the teasing with the same fervour, overwhelming Eydis with her intoxicating presence.

But then, there were the ice storms. Occasions where Astra retreated, her presence a chilling wind, her gaze as distant as the frozen stars. Yet, even in those frozen moments, the embers of hope remained, kindled by the memory of her passionate pronouncements about life, their shared understanding about the chains of fate, the fire that danced in the depths of her amethyst eyes. A fire that, Eydis knew, with a terrifying clarity, resonated far too deeply within her own.

Her Amelia instincts, honed in the shadows, screamed at her to analyse, to dissect, to control, to fix this weakness. But this vulnerability, this raw yearning, was a rogue variable, a backdoor in her carefully crafted firewall, spilling forth a heady mix of desire and fear.

It was too much, all of it, it was not enough. Her heart hammered against her ribs as her hand, already hovering near the waistband of her own skirt, froze. Hacker of minds, unraveler of secrets, brought to her knees by a simple…crush? A snort escaped her lips, sharp and bitter. Crush? Why deny it? What she felt for Astra was a celestial fire threatening to consume her whole.

Screw gilded cages and whispered expectations. Screw love deemed unfit for progeny. Astra's power, a forbidden sun rising in her veins, was a Pandora's box she'd gladly pry open with her bare hands.

She had rewritten the rules of magic in this land. Who said she couldn't rewrite its rigid social codes? The question wasn't if she would act, but how. Would Astra accept the storm that was coming, the hurricane she was ready to unleash?

Eydis sat up, her amber eyes blazing with a newfound fire, like molten gold catching the last embers of a dying star. Draping herself in an ivory cloak, its cool silk barely muffling the thunderous rhythm of her heart. No more hiding, no more waiting, no more testing the waters. 

No more games. 

Her steps, purposeful and resolute, carried her to the heart of the storm, to the object of her desire, to Astra.