The morning after her party woke Laniy with a sunrise as bright as the day before, though the floor being under her instead of her bed was not something she expected. She pulled herself up and groaned seeing Karane sound asleep in her bed.

"Get out of my bed!" Laniy tugged on her friend's arm. "You have your own."

"Five more minutes..." She turned over and pulled the covers tighter around herself.

Shaking her head, a spiteful idea grew in her mind. She picked up the bucket from the day before and headed into the hallway to fill in the washroom. The return trip had her almost colliding with Professor Horwell.

He eyed the pail and then turned his gaze to Laniy, an eyebrow raised. "Why do you have a bucket of water?"

"Oh, no reason, just wanted to wash my room."

"Really? Early morning cleaning?"

"Yeah, no better time to."

"You're going to pour it on Karane, aren't you?"

"Yes," she sighs, dejected at being caught.

"Carry on."

She stared after him as he continued down the hall before returning to her room. The bed was empty when she entered, sending her into high alert.

The bucket was pulled from her hands and overturned above her head, completely drenching her.

"You have to get up pretty early to pull one over on me," Karane taunted as a knock sounded and the door slowly pushed open.

"Laniy, I wanted to..." Horwell's voice slowly faded out as he caught sight of her soaked top. His face turned belated in embarrassment. "I'm so sorry!" He quickly shut the door behind him and left.

"Dear Hylia, please take me from this world," Laniy moaned as she fell face first onto her bed. "If you truly are merciful, end my suffering."

"Don't be so dramatic," Karane said, plopping next her. "I'm sure this'll all turn into a funny story to tell your kids someday."

"Stop trying to help." She pulled herself up. "I'm going to change, can you go away?"

Karane shrugged and headed off to give her friend some time to spend alone in her misery.

Laniy did just that as she moped about, slowly changing her clothes. The emerald dress she chose was matched with off-white leggings, a brown leather belt and similar boots.

When she finally built up the courage to leave her room, she found a note tacked to her door.

Dear Laniy,

I sincerely apologize for intruding on you as I did this morning. I have no excuse, though I hope you can forgive me.

Furthermore, if you are still open to the idea of being my assistant, I would be glad to work with you. I have a class teaching some of the younger students after lunch break today, if you wish to sit in and observe how I teach my lessons. I look forward to seeing you.

Your friend,

Horwell

Turning to the open window, she saw that it was still early enough to be on time for breakfast. The thought of seeing Horwell, while it still felt a bit awkward, made her happy. The note was carefully folded and placed in her pocket.

Karane had saved her a seat as she finally made her way to the dining hall. Laniy grabbed some pumpkin porridge before making her way to sit next to her friend.

"I'm sorry for this morning," Karane opened with.

"It's fine," she smiled. "Either way he would've walked in on one of us with our shirt all but see-through."

Karane laughed in agreement and they set about eating their breakfasts and making small talk.

After several minutes the headmaster walked in. The students turned to listen to what he had to say.

"Attention students and faculty," he intoned, making sure everyone in the room heard him. "The female students will not be attending classes in the coming week as they shall be required to participate in maiden training unless they are already signed up to compete in the Wing Ceremony. Whom so ever is deemed worthy shall be granted the honor of representing our Great Lady Hylia."

Excitement spread through the young women as they chatted animatedly about the coming week, but Laniy did not feel their enthusiasm. She laid her head on the table and groaned. "Great, a week of advanced manners training. I could be practicing something useful, like, I don't know, fighting, but instead I have to spend six days being told I don't bend my knees right when I curtsy."

"Aww, is someone upset about training?"

She raised an eyebrow to the red-head. "Yeah, I just don't think we should have to compete if we don't want to."

"Hey, cheer up, it's only a few days and then we can go back to goofing around like we always do. Why don't we go fly our birds for awhile to take your mind off it."

"Sounds perfect. When do we need to be back for practice?"

"Sadly, training begins after noon meal," Horwell answered, having been walking past to hear the question.

"Man, that sucks." Laniy sat up to look at the professor. "I was looking forward to watching your class."

"I suppose I'll just have to have you by another time." He smiled. "Perhaps the day after the wing ceremony?"

"That sounds excellent." She returned the smile.

"Are you truly looking forward to being my apprentice?" When she nodded, he continued. "How would you like to come train with me after training today?"

"Well, I'm usually pretty tired afterwards, but I could try to swing over." He patted her head as he turned to leave.

There was a soft smile on Laniy's lips before she turned to see Karane's shit-eating grin. "Don't," she warned.

"Awww, you're so cute!" Karane ignored the warning, clapping her hands together. "You two are going to have the most beautiful babies! If you have a girl first, can I name her? Like Jinora or Kenzie?"

"Shut up! Do you want someone to hear you? I swear, if you don't stop I will hurt you." She just kept right on snickering as Laniy pulled back a spoonful of porridge to fling into her face. Karane ducked away from the attack right in time, but the projectile instead hit the back of Gooses' head.

"AUGH!" he cried out, turning to face the two of them as they struggled to hold back their laughter. "Which of you got goop into my perfect hair?!"

The two laughed aloud and pointed at each other, Karane wheezing as Laniy doubled over, clutching her stomach. Groose growled and grabbed both of their bowls and overturned them onto the hysterical girls' heads.

"What is going on here?" called Professor Owlan as he marched to where the ruckus was taking place.

"Nothin's wrong," Laniy answered, trying to catch her breath.

"Yeah, everything's great," Karane concurred.

Owlan gave them a disproving glare and sighed. "You three come with me to my office now. And you will be assigned cleaning duty for this, even if you are not scheduled." He gave Groose, who was about to complain, a look that made him close his mouth. "And you two," he said to the girls, "will be deducted points from your training."

"It's not like I want to do the training anyway," Laniy sighed to herself, the the professor heard her.

"Laniy, you are required to participate in this, whether you want to or not."

"Why? There's no use doing it if I'm not going to win."

"I promise you that attitude is why you never do. There are a great many fair reasons for participating, not the least of which is simply that it is your duty as a student of the knight academy. Now, come." He turned and headed from the dining hall, not looking back to check that the students were following him.

The group made their way up the stairs to Owlan's office. Once inside, Owlan casually made his way to the seat behind his desk as the young adults waited for him to speak. There was a pregnant pause as he looked them over.

"Why don't we begin with you telling me who started the soup throwing." He turned his gaze directly to Laniy. "Well?"

"What's with that look? You always assume it's me that starts things, I mean what if it wasn't me for once? It was, but it's still rude of you to accuse me like that."

"Laniy." His voice leaked exasperation. "You have lived her your entire life; I know what you're capable of. I don't understand why, but I know. Regardless, it is high time you acted your age so I am pulling you from the Hylia training and putting you back into your normal classes, as well as extra classes you'll be taking with Horwell and myself."

"Extra classes, how many?" She couldn't even celebrate not having to attend maiden's training as Owlan held three fingers up. "You can't be serious, three?!"

"I assure you I am quite serious. Until you learn to act like a grown up, you will have to face consequences for your childish actions." He finally turned and addressed Karane. "You, Karane, will lose ten points in your training and will clean the dining hall with Laniy this morning before lunch. Groose, you will have to clean the hall after classes before dinner. You're all dismissed."

The three left the room in varying levels of irritation. Groose left them and headed outside as the girls went to clean as they had been told to.

Laniy was seething. It was just a little soup and he took away all her free time and her chance to be Horwell's assistant. She was practically growling as she wiped the tables. Karane wisely kept her mouth shut the whole time. They returned to their rooms after finishing and Laniy threw herself onto her bed.

After a short while, a knock sounded at her door. "Go away," Laniy called. "I don't want to talk to anyone."

"It's Karane. I just wanted to see if you still wanted to go flying this morning."

Laniy rose and opened the door to see her best friend standing with a bucket in hand. "What's with the bucket?"

"In case you fell asleep." That got a laugh out of the brunette.

"We don't really have enough time for flying," Laniy said standing aside for her friend to enter. "We can still hang out for awhile, though."

Karane entered and set the pail an the floor beside the bed. "It sucks that we won't be able to hang out much for awhile."

"Yeah, no flying between the islands, gambling away our pocket change. Whatever, this school is stupid anyway."

Karane side-eyed her friend. "Didn't you choose to be here?"

"Not really. My parents died before I was able to decide if this was where I wanted to be, so they just stuck me here."

"I didn't know that." Karane smiled. "Well, at least you met me. I can't imagine being here without you." Laniy smiled back before reaching to pick up the bucket.

"I'd better go dump this back into the tub, if you're not going to be needing it." Karane shrugged and stood.

"I'll go with you," she said. "Nothing better to do for a little bit."

The two headed out to the washroom at the end of the hall and emptied the pail. As they were heading back, Laniy heard a faint laugh and turned to her companion.

"Did you say something?" she asked.

Karane shook her head. "No,why?"

"Nothing, just thought I heard something." She sighed loudly. "I'm really gonna need some social interaction or I'll end up like Owlan with only plants to talk to."

"I would join you in those extra classes, but I have maiden training. And I wouldn't want to impose on your alone time with Horwell." She waggled her eyebrows and Laniy punched her shoulder.

"Gee, what a considerate friend."

"Lazanna, It's time for you to come home," sounded a soft, far away voice. Laniy turned to look for whomever said that, but Karane was the only one around. She began to tune out the other girl as she tried to focus on the source of the voice she heard.

"So, you're finally going to listen to me? Tell me, when do you plan on returning home." It was then she realized; the voice was inside her head.