Catching Stardust Ch. II
Livin' on a Prayer
Zorina keeps her obituary in her back pocket.
Her family is one of immortality through various means, as her grandmother so often says, but tradition and fame are the preferred fountains of youth.
By 16, Zorina's father, Leon, was both a father himself and the Champion of Galar, having overthrown the longest reigning champion ever, and by 26 had faced down Eternatus; a monstrous deity in possession of devastating power.
Zorina, however, by the age of 20, was a college drop-out with a rejection letter from the University of Opelucid permanently in her pocket. To most, it was a rather inconsequential piece of paper that simply meant general disappointment and some edits to their career plan, but to Zorina, it was condemnation as a mortal in a family of immortals.
At first, Zorina was angry about it. She spent hours in the forest behind her grandmother's house in Wedgehurst, fuming at and cursing the divine powers that clearly had a vendetta against her. Eventually, however, Zorina came to accept that perhaps she was cursed to be mundane in a family meant only for the extraordinary, and she pretended not to notice the sad, disappointed eyes that lingered on her when she entered the room at family gatherings.
Not one to give up easily, Zorina attended Queens College in Wyndon for two years before applying for the University of Opelucid a second time, hoping her chances as a transfer student would be higher. Her transcripts were pristine, her internships at her mother's lab dazzling, her grades impeccable, her letters of recommendation awe-inspiring; and yet her rejection letter came in the same envelope as before, the words verbatim from its predecessor. Zorina dropped out of college that same week, and her grandparents on her father's side all but disowned her.
By then, Zorina's cousins-of-a-sort, Heidi and Lancel, took it upon themselves to reach into the divine on her behalf.
For hours, Zorina sat on her fuzzy bedroom rug, her fingers splayed wide and speckled with ash and bone, her palm lined with sweet-smelling oils and read in whispers, her fate foretold by shimmering cards spread across velvet cloth. Candles and incense were burned, blood drawn, herbs and tea leaves read, and each supernatural divination was the same: The Isle of Armor.
In less succinct, direct words of course, but the twins were convinced that Zorina would find her answers there.
Zorina didn't know what to believe, but she did know she had nothing to lose, so her father pulled some strings for her acceptance as a pupil on the island, and the rest is history.
'The Admissions Committee has carefully reviewed your application to the University of Opelucid…'
Zorina turns the volume on Lancel's MP3 player higher, trying to drown out her thoughts with the heavy bass of Vices & Hexes latest album. Piers' vocals were strangely melodic in spite of the grating, screeching, nails-on-chalkboard- effect his guitarist was doing.
'...we hope you will accept our best wishes for all future academic endeavors…'
Zorina rips off the tip of her thumbnail and doesn't flinch when blood begins to bubble at the quick, her gaze fixated on the endless sea outside of the window. If she focuses on the endless blue and the curved line of the horizon, it makes her and her problems feel small.
A tap on her shoulders draws her attention away from her self-pity, and she turns to see Heidi moving her lips without sound. Zorina pulls her earbuds out, the loud music she hadn't really been listening to pulsing loudly.
"-land in a few minutes, so put your seatbelt on."
"Thanks." Zorina smiles, turning the MP3 player down all of the ways and shoving it in her bag, earbuds still attached. "Nervous?" Zorina asks as she wraps the seatbelt strap over her lap, eyeing the neglected astrology book in Heidi's lap.
Heidi chews on her bottom lip and picks at one of her snakebites. "A little."
"Don't be." Lancel pipes up from the aisle seat as he slaps his laptop shut and shoves it into his bag, the various chains and trinkets on his wrist chiming as he does so. "I did a tarot reading the other night. All of our readings were pretty optimistic. Like, the King of Wands and the Ten of Cups and other positive cards." Lancel zips up his bag and sets it between his legs to make it easier to grab it and go when they land.
Most of what Lancel said is lost on Zorina–they're the psychics, not her– but she's learned to have an open mind and trust in the twins' abilities.
"Well, if Ser Lancelot The Divine foresees our good fortune, then we have no reason to worry." Zorina teases, happy to have a distraction from her previous ruminations.
Lancel snorts. "Call me that again and I'll hex you."
"No need to threaten me with a good time."
"God, could you two stop flirting? I know first cousins are technically legal in Galar, but the ethics are still gray at best."
Zorina and Lancel share an expression of mortified disgust.
Heidi pretends to wipe away a tear under her eye. "I'm a comedic genius. You're welcome."
"Glad you're feeling better," Lancel grumbles, though without any real malice.
Zorina busies herself with checking the details of their next flight.
Heidi and Lancel engage in conversation about their future gym and the logistics of all three of them receiving an endorsement from Mustard. Heidi still needs some reassurance, but Lancel is confident in his readings.
Zorina has to admit that she's a little confident in them, too. Not entirely, but it's still comforting to know that the powers that be or whatever Lancel communicated with saw a pot of gold at the end of Zorina's rainbow. Or, as Lancel said, the King of Wands and the Ten of Cups or could vaguely remember what the cards looked like in her mind's eye from all of the seances the twins had performed on her behalf in the past, though their meanings were unknown to her.
"It's all gonna work out," Lancel says, folding his arms behind his head and leaning back against his seat. "-we're all gonna get endorsed, make waves in the Gym Challenge, fuck off to Unova to pursue our dreams, become stupidly rich and have immortal legacies, and thus make our mummies and daddies proud."
"Yeah, chin up." Zorina says as she screenshots their next flight number, pretending the bit about "mummies and daddies" wasn't entirely directed at her, unless he was referring to the two urns he kept in his room to hide his blunts back in high school. "Ser Lancelot The Divine has spoken. He's never wrong."
"Unless it's about the lottery." Heidi scoffs.
"Or a chemistry exam."
"Okay, I take it back, you're both getting hexed," Lancel says sharply.
Heidi and Zorina both snicker.
The plane landed in Circhester with only 15 minutes to spare before their next flight, and so Zorina and the twins are breathless as they shove their luggage into the overhead storage of their second flight. Zorina's arms tremble under the weight of her suitcase, and she begins to worry it isn't going to fit until Lancel takes over and is able to cram it into the small space. Zorina mutters out a sheepish 'thank you' and regrets packing so heavily.
The plane to The Isle of Armor is significantly smaller than the plane from Motostoke to Circhester and significantly less populated. There are only a handful of other passengers, all quiet, nervous looking, and around the same age as Zorina and the twins. Lancel closes the storage compartment over Zorina's head and gives the other passengers a narrow-eyed glare.
"The competition." He mutters to Zorina before taking the window seat next to Heidi.
Zorina rolls her eyes at him and sits by the window across from them, happy to be alone with her thoughts and Lancel's poor music taste. Well, maybe not terribly poor. Vices & Hexes, specifically Piers' siren vocals, are growing on her. Just a little.
Zorina leans her head back against the polyester headrest and closes her eyes, breathing out slowly. It still didn't feel real that the trajectory of her life had changed so drastically. If she dwelled on it for too long, it became hard to cope. Feelings of inadequacy, self-loathing, and anger would bubble in her chest as she tormented herself over the stinging rejection from the university, and how it wasn't really rejection from the university that hurt so much, but rather, the heavy expectations on her shoulders and the disappointed looks her parents and grandparents gave her.
So instead, Zorina busies her mind with loud music with chaotic lyrics and unhinged instrumentals. It matched her inner chaos in a way that made her think that maybe Lancel was onto something when he said it was therapeutic.
A rapid, almost painful tapping on her shoulder prompts Zorina to open her eyes. She expects Heidi, and so she can't hide her surprise when she's met with some strange woman with puffy pink hair and a bizarre, moth-looking headband.
The woman is talking quickly without sound, and Zorina quickly turns down the volume on the MP3 player, still blinking in surprise.
"-ara. Is this seat taken?"
"Uh, repeat that?"
The woman covers her mouth with a white-gloved hand and giggles. "Sorry 'bout that. My name is Klara. Is this seat taken?"
The woman, now known as Klara, gestures to the empty aisle seat next to Zorina. Zorina looks at the dozens of other available, private seats. She wants to tell her that yes, yes it is taken unless she bought it, but she is as timid as she is mortal.
"Uh, yeah, sure, I guess."
Klara bounces up and down her heels and brings her hands together in an excited clap. "Yay!"
She then busies herself with trying to cram her giant, pink sequin suitcase into the overhead storage, already talking a mile a minute. Lancel glances over from across the aisle with a raised brow. Need any help? His face says. Zorina shakes her head quickly. Klara seemed nice, ish, and Zorina doesn't want to be mean.
Zorina slouches in her seat and puts one of her earbuds back in, hoping that maybe this Klara woman would get the memo that Zorina isn't half as sociable as she seems to be.
Klara sits down next to her, her knees turned in Zorina's direction and her eyes bright. Zorina stifles a sigh.
"Thanks for letting me sit with you! I hate being alone with no one to talk to."
Zorina smiles tersely.
"What's your name?"
"Zorina."
Despite being the one spearheading the conversation, Klara seemed rather uninterested in it. Instead, she was busy digging around in a lime green sequin fanny pack. She pulls free her phone and a pack of pink bubble gum. "Want some?" Klara offers the gum out. Zorina declines, and Klara shrugs and pops a piece into her mouth.
"Zorina's a cool name. It's like Serena, but a little…quirky. Why'd your parents name you it?"
Zorina frowns. Klara's adjective for her name doesn't feel very complimentary, and she's wearing a sickly sweet smile that didn't meet her eyes.
"It's… a…uh, family name." Zorina lies.
Klara pops her gum loudly. "Who's your family?"
Ah, the dreaded question. Zorina shuffles uncomfortably and hopes she hasn't been recognized. "It doesn't matter." She says. "Uh, Klara is a cool name." Zorina attempts to redirect the conversation.
Klara gives Zorina a narrow-eyed look before popping her gum and smiling again. "Thanks. It means famous, which is what I'm going to be after the gym challenge."
Zorina smiles another terse smile before pulling out her phone and scrolling aimlessly; it's the universal signal that social interaction is over. She hopes she isn't being too rude.
Klara doesn't seem to mind or notice, and instead types furiously on her bubblegum pink Rotom Phone. Zorina eyes it warily from the corner of her eye, recognizing the brand and hoping Klara isn't bright enough to make any connections. Unfortunately, Klara notices Zorina's staring and thinks she's admiring it.
"Isn't it epic?" Klara holds the phone in Zorina's direction and wiggles it with a bright smile.
Zorina shrinks back but covers it with a smile and an awkward laugh. "Yeah, Rotom Phones are top of the line. It's… nifty, that you have one."
It's clear Klara values compliments and praise, and seeming that Zorina is really shitty with boundaries and thus stuck with her for the duration of the flight, she tries to give the metaphorical dog a bone.
"Yeah, I bought it after a modeling gig," Klara smirks as she pulls the device back. Her eyes drift to the black MP3 player in Zorina's lap. "How utterly vintage of you! Look at this 'lil relic."
Without warning, Klara snatches the MP3 player from Zorina's lap with enough force to wrench her earbud from her ear.
"Hey!" Zorina protests, though she can't bring herself to speak above a loud whisper.
Klara puts one of the earbuds in her ear and then stifles a giggle with her hand over her mouth. "Oooo. Vices & Hexes. How controversial of you. I heard his career sort of went under after Pomegranate Pussy and rehab. It's nice that you're a loyal fan, though, in spite of his violent acts of assault and battery and drug use."
Zorina's face heats up. "It isn't mine."
"No shame if it is. There's nothing wrong with being a hipster." Mercifully, Klara returns the MP3 player to Zorina, who immediately turns it off and stuffs it in her pocket.
"I think we're going to be good friends!" Klara giggles.
Zorina just frowns quietly, her face heating up more. She glances over to the twins, hoping that maybe she can use morse code with her eyes or something to signal for help, but it's in vain. Lancel is sleeping with his mouth hanging open, and Heidi has her nose in her book and her headphones blasting. Klara follows Zorina's gaze.
"I wouldn't try and get close to them. They're on a different wavelength than you, no offense." Klara is looking at the twins as though they are on her wavelength, however.
Zorina isn't offended, and instead shrugs it off, not bothering to give Klara context or details. "You're right." She says.
And, in all fairness, Klara is right.
The twins possessed an ethereal beauty to them. Lancel is a poltergeist of black leather and chains. His bone structure was chiseled by the hand of the divine spirits he communicated with, his hair is long and silky and adorned with silvery charms, his eyes are a shade of mint green so piercing it looks like he wears contacts, and his makeup is always a work of art.
Heidi is the same, but a little inverse; a specter of soft white lace, frills, gemstone jewelry, soft cherub features, and just enough leather, chains, and corsets to make it clear that she's just as goth as her brother.
Zorina, however, is mundane at best. She shares her mother's attractive bone structure, but that's the extent of her distinguishability. Her hair is cut short and a lusterless brown like her eyes, and she dresses non distinguishably, trying to fit the appearance of a simple, feminine wallflower with a fashion sense that doesn't stand out from the crowd. The nail that stands out gets hammered down and all that, and Zorina has been hammered down enough.
Klara pops her gum and tilts her head, looking at Zorina with narrowed eyes. "You look familiar. Have we met before?"
Zorina keeps scrolling aimlessly through her phone and wills her hands not to shake. "Nope."
"No way, we totally have."
"I just have one of those faces."
Klara frowns, unsatisfied. "Must be."
The flight attendant at the head of the aisle calls for everyone's attention as the plane engine growls to life, and she prompts everyone to turn off their electronic devices and buckle their seatbelts. Zorina is happy to have an excuse to not respond to Klara and enthusiastically does as she's told.
Next to them, Heidi shakes Lancel awake. "Ew, gross, you drooled on me!"
Lancel wipes his mouth and yawns theatrically. "You're welcome."
"Could I have a tissue please?" Heidi looks over at Zorina with pleading eyes, and Zorina snorts before nodding her head and opening her satchel to find her packet of tissue.
"Oh, I have some!" Klara exclaims after a brief second of looking between the twins and Zorina with slightly bulged eyes. Klara produces a handkerchief from her fanny pack with blurring speed and enthusiasm and hands it across the aisle to Heidi, who takes it with furrowed brows, but a polite smile.
"Thanks." She says, and then dabs her brother's drool off of her shoulder.
"I'm Klara. So awesome to meet you!"
"Heidi."
"And I'm Lancel." Lancel says with a deep frown. He stares intensely at Klara, until she's blushing.
"I know who you guys are," Klara says, still blushing. She has turned so far that her legs are basically hanging out in the aisle, her back to Zorina. Zorina feels forgotten and irrelevant, which, to be fair, isn't an unfamiliar feeling.
"I love Devilish in Pink! Bede is my idol! I slept on the sidewalk waiting for the doors of RotomWireless to open when he launched his exclusive Rotom Phone design." Klara holds her phone out for the twins to see, practically buzzing with excitement.
"Awww! How sweet!" Heidi gushes, though Zorina can hear the superficial air in her voice that she takes with fans. Lancel is still silently unimpressed, and his bored expression as he looks between Klara and her phone is evidence of such. If Klara notices, she doesn't care and continues blushing.
"Sorry about my brother, he's only nice to Zorina." Heidi adds quickly, kicking Lancel's feet as a less than subtle sign for him to be nicer.
"Ow, fuck!"
"You guys know Zorina?" Klara looks back at Zorina in disbelief just as Zorina was becoming content with being free of the woman's social graces. Zorina curses inwardly.
"Obviously we know Zorina." Lancel's frown turns to a scowl as he glares Klara down. "She's our cousin."
"Of a sort," Heidi adds out of habit, though her gaze is locked fiercely on Lancel. She's basically screaming 'be nice!' with her eyes. Zorina glares at Lancel too, though for different reasons.
"Oh. My. God. I knew I recognized you! You're Leon Kingsley's dau-"
"Shhhh! Not so loud!" Zorina springs forward, her finger on her lips as she looks wildly at the other passengers. Thankfully, they all had earbuds and/or were glued to their phones.
Klara jolts and squeaks in surprise, her hand on her chest at Zorina's sudden outburst. "O-Oh! Okay!"
Zorina sighs in relief, her hand also on her chest, though it's mostly to act as a buffer to keep her heart from launching out of her chest cavity and flopping around on the floor.
"Sorry," Zorina mutters, leaning back into her seat again. "It's just, if people know, they won't leave me alone."
Zorina wishes she could shrink into herself like a snail and disappear. She closes her eyes tightly for a split second to physically stave off intrusive memories of flashing cameras, speeding cars, and passive-aggressive talk show hosts.
Klara pops her gum and smiles at Zorina. It doesn't reach her eyes. "No worries, I completely understand!"
Zorina isn't sold on her sincerity.
The rest of the plane ride is relatively peaceful. After take-off, Lancel and Klara swapped seats so Heidi and Klara could gush over their shared fashion sense. Heidi is enamored with Klara's fuzzy jacket, bold hairband, and her anklets with matching, moth-shaped ribbons on the heels that Zorina hadn't had the fashion savvy to notice, and Klara is equally enraptured with the praise.
Lancel and Zorina share earbuds and continue to listen to Vices & Hexes and Zorina tries not to feel embarrassed about liking it after Klara's previous comments. She brings it up to Lancel, but he just shrugs it off and says it wasn't as bad as the media made it out to be. Zorina isn't sure how "not-as-bad-as-the-media-made-it-out-to-be '' 6 months in rehab could be, but she doesn't press it.
Zorina is almost asleep when Lancel lowers the tray on his seat and begins shuffling his tarot deck.
"Ask me about your future." Lancel purrs as he parts the deck in two and then uses his thumb and index finger to gracefully shuffle them back into one another with a zipping sound.
Zorina knows she isn't getting out of this, so she straightens her posture and stretches. She thinks for a moment, not sure what she wants to ask the cards that Lancel insists are divine. He says that they are connected to vibrations, to a world that she can't see, and can be manipulated by that world to answer questions and give guidance. Even if Zorina is pragmatic in nature and has some doubts, there's no reason to refuse Lancel an opportunity to practice. Besides, hadn't those same divine interventions gotten her on this plane?
"Okay, fine," Zorina says and then hums as she thinks, resting her knees on her thighs and her chin on her palms. "I'll ask the basic one: what does my current life path have in store for me?"
"Boooo! Boring. But whatever."
"Shut up and read my fortune."
Lancel snorts before shuffling the cards again and getting serious.
The first card he lays down is a tower–labeled appropriately The Tower–being struck by lightning, and two people falling to their deaths. Zorina doesn't need to look at Lancel's grim expression to know that it isn't one of the good omens he had promised earlier.
"Wow. So much for good omens." Zorina scoffs.
Lancel doesn't respond and instead lays down his second card. It's a long-haired woman petting a lion, labeled Strength. He then lays down 4 more cards: A woman circled by a green wreath, The World; A knight on a horse bearing a golden cup, The Knight of Cups; A man and a woman each holding a cup and facing one another, The Two of Cups; and finally a man and a woman holding one another with two children playing nearby, waving to a sky adorned with ten cups, The Ten of Cups.
Lancel cracks his knuckles as he prepares to translate the divine's message. "Okay, not bad, not bad." He says. Zorina folds her arms and leans back to listen.
"So, each card has a distinct meaning, but I like to use them more as guidelines for my own intuition." Lancel begins, as he always does. He brushes a lock of obsidian hair from his brow and then places his finger on The Tower.
"Shit's gonna happen. Your world is gonna be rocked. Hell, this could be a reference to the kerfuffle with U of O, but I think that it's predicting something in your future, so brace yourself. It feels rather big, somewhat foreboding. I won't lie to you, it could be devastating, but," Lancel drifts his finger to the woman with the lion. "Strength." He says.
Zorina frowns deeply. "If I wanted glittering generalities, I would have gone to a carnival psychic."
"I'm not done!" Lancel says hotly, his face flushed red at the jab at his abilities.
"Strength means more than just the obvious: strength. It also means triumph and victory over hardship. Like the hardship outlined by The Tower."
"Next is The World. This one has to do with life cycles. Typically, it means there is a pause between one life cycle to the next–like, from high school to college, marriage to parenthood, that sort of thing– but for you, it feels a lot bigger."
Zorina has to admit, Lancel is good at this. He has Zorina leaning forward with a hungry, curious mind. His voice is soothing and calm, his explanations succinct. Much as he may loathe to admit it, he could have a solid career as a carnival psychic.
"I think," Lancel says, his finger drifting to the tarot card with the knight and his cup. "You're going to meet your soulmate–or mates, it isn't entirely romantic."
Zorina chokes on her own spit and slaps a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing too loudly.
"I'm serious!" Lancel protests."You're going to get your world rocked. You're going to go through something possibly traumatic but have an opportunity to rebuild through strength. Something about this situation you're going to be in is going to be deeply spiritual and a major part of your life cycle, as will this new relationship in your life." Lancel moves his index finger to The Two of Cups. "The repetition of the cups is telling me that it will likely be one person or a very small group of people who are connected in some way. All of you will work together in some way to overcome whatever hardship is lingering, and then," Lancel places his finger squarely on The Ten of Cups and slides it to Zorina. "Everything will work out, and you'll remain together. Happily ever after and all that bullshit."
Zorina nods her head to make a show of ruminating over his words, but she can't keep the grin from spreading across her face. "So, I might go through something, then I might have someone, maybe someones, help me through a hard time, and then will live happily ever after?"
Lancel snatches his cards off of the tray and shuffles them back together. "Okay, fine, so maybe it's a little glittery and a little general, but that doesn't mean it's not right! It's supposed to be accurate, not specific."
"Okay, okay, you win. Not trying to doubt, just trying to tease." Zorina says quickly with her hands up in surrender. Lancel is a great friend, but he can hold a grudge, and she doesn't want him ignoring her for the next three days.
Lancel scoffs indignantly and still seems a little peeved, but when he turns the MP3 player back on, he still offers her one of the earbuds.
When the plane lands at the tiny island airport, Lancel shakes Zorina awake. She stretches and blinks, feeling sleepier than she ought to be, and her stomach rumbles.
Lancel helps Zorina get her bag down from the overhead storage, though when Klara asks for help he pointedly ignores her and keeps walking down the aisle. Klara takes it in stride, though Zorina can see the vein in her jaw throbbing when she smiles.
Forever timid and a wallflower in the hopes of not drawing attention to herself, Zorina is separated from the group as she lets passenger after passenger move ahead of her, mortified by the thought of cutting someone off and holding back traffic as she yanks her giant suitcase free from the narrow gap between the seats.
When Zorina finally scurries down the aisle to exit the plane, one of the flight attendants gives her a pitying smile.
Zorina has to jog through the boarding tunnel to catch up with the others, one of the wheels of her suitcase clacking annoyingly every few seconds as the gear or something catches. Thankfully, she isn't too far behind and is able to follow the small herd of teens and young adults so as to not get lost. She is only a little bitter that the twins didn't wait for her.
The boarding tunnel leads to the second, loft-like floor of a modest station that appeared to double as a flying taxi drop-off and loading point. Already, the atmosphere is different. The air is lighter, a little briny and warm, and not even the giant fans mounted to the high ceiling of the station and the whirring AC can completely stave off the humidity already clinging to Zorina. The far wall that stretches to the shared ceiling of the two floors is just a collage of asymmetrical windows framing the sapphire waters, lush palms, and golden sands outside like a thousand different picture frames. Zorina can't peel her eyes off it as she goes down the escalator to meet the majority of the group in the lobby.
The group is small, a dozen at most, and so finding the twins and Klara huddled by the lone vendor isn't difficult. Zorina isn't sure how she feels about Heidi bringing Klara into their fold, but now that Klara knows her identity, Zorina decides to play nice so as to not have to look around in the trees and bushes for cameras.
"Sorry, didn't mean to ditch you. I have a tunnel-vision brain." Lancel says when Zorina approaches and holds out a tray of probably-soggy, fried, hopefully-fish-and-not-a-pokemon, and chips. Zorina takes it readily, her earlier bitterness forgotten.
"Don't sweat it," Zorina says as she pops a delicious, hot, soggy chip into her mouth. At least in this strange, sandy, coastal land, they would still have the comfort of shitty metro-station food.
Heidi is going to chow-town on a greasy slowpoke-tail burger as she walks over to stand nearer to Lancel and Zorina with a somewhat disillusioned Klara in tow as she watches the younger sister of her idol wipe the grease of a super-processed, calorie-filled monstrosity from her chin with no regard for her foundation.
"I can't believe we're actually here," Heidi says, stealing one of Zorina's chips and offering her burger over in an exchange. Zorina readily takes a messy bite. "Like, it's a little insane that we're all going to be pokemon trainers."
Lancel is watching the two girls with an expression mirroring Klara's. "I thought you were vegan."
"I was for a week, but my quality of life without slowpoke tails and moomoo milk was unsustainably poor." Heidi shrugs, shoving the last of her burger into her mouth and tossing her wrapper in the nearby trash. She holds her hand over her mouth and adds something to her reasoning, but it's unintelligible to Zorina. Lancel gags. Klara smiles and laughs dryly and does a poor job of hiding her disgust.
Zorina finishes her meal and tosses it in the garbage a few moments later, a little bummed there is no compost or recycling bin. "So, do we just wait around, or…?"
"I think there's supposed to be a guide, one sec, I'll try and look something up," Klara says, pulling out her phone only to frown. "I don't have any signal."
After checking their phones, Zorina and the twins come to the same conclusion that they're lacking signal as well. A quick glance at the expressions on a few of the other soon-to-be-dojo-students reveals that it's likely everyone is out of service, and Zorina inwardly cheers.
"Yoohoo! Hello, dears!"
Zorina looks up with the other students to see a beautiful red-headed woman in her mid-thirties waving at them from the railing of the second floor. "Sorry, I'm late! The wind was just wretched on the way from Wyndon."
Zorina recognizes the woman as Honey, the sweet fiance of Mustard from all of Zorina's trips to the Dojo with her father years ago. However, judging by the massive diamond on her finger, it looked like Honey had become Mrs. Honey during the years of Zorina's estrangement.
But that isn't why Zorina's mouth falls open.
It's the man beside her.
"Oh my fucking God," Lancel whispers from beside her, his face mirroring hers. The other students begin whispering as well.
"Holy shit."
"No way-!"
"Is that-"
"I don't believe it!"
"That's Piers Motherfucking Steele." Lancel's voice breaks in a way it hasn't since middle school.
Author's Cameo
The fish is a paid actor from Misty's aquarium from way back when in the anime, not a pokemon. Or, like, probably not a pokemon.
If you've managed to find this buried within FF and have read this far, please feel free to review!
(translation: i am crippled by my need for validation and praise)
