Time for a new chapter! Thank you so much for your reviews. It makes my day at every new one. Also, thank you Vigriff, you actually taught me a new expression! [and to answer to your review... You have no idea *sadistic laugh*]
Chapter 5, STAAAART!
Picking a day for the lesson wasn't an easy job. Aqua could not carelessly go to the Keyblade Graveyard and just ask to see Vanitas. Neither could she openly put a note on the main door for him to see (and she doubted he would be able to read a full note yet anyway).
But they had found a solution. She would hang on one of the trees of the clearing a coloured ribbon. There were seven of them, one for each day. Monday was white, Tuesday was red, Wednesday was blue, Thursday was green, Friday was yellow, Saturday was purple and Sunday was black. That way, Vanitas could open a portal just long enough to see the colour of the ribbon, and come the right day. It happened he couldn't come, or she. He'd sometimes add a ribbon next to hers, to ask for another day.
Today was Sunday. She did her usual morning jogging before the breakfast, and checked that only the black ribbon was tied to the branch. He had not put another one – Sunday was fine with him. She ran for another twenty minutes before rushing to the shower then to the kitchen.
Something was off. She couldn't tell what exactly, but something was off. Perhaps it was the way Terra said Good Morning, not sounding quite cheerful. But everyone had rough mornings, from time to time. It could have been how the Master stared at her for at least ten seconds, before looking away without a word. But he was quite often lost in his thoughts, he might even not really have noticed her.
Only Ven was his usual self. Until he had his breakfast, he groaned more than he spoke, but once his hot chocolate gulped down, he turned back to his cheerful and dynamic self. Aqua sighed. She was probably the tired one, overthinking things.
They trained until lunch, and then the master gave them a lecture on how the worlds were connected. Aqua absent-mindedly smiled: Vanitas would probably have been really interested by that. She did her best to memorize it all to tell him later.
However, at the end of the lecture, her master asked her to wait. Ventus looked at them, curious, but Terra dragged the boy outside. Aqua knew it probably meant nothing, but she still felt her stomach knotting. Could he know?
"Aqua, I need your help. See, I have recently collected all these books, and I need to put them on the shelves, but I've got so much work to do. No one knows how the books are sorted better than you in our library, child. Would you mind taking care of that for me? That is, unless you had something else planned, of course. I can still ask Terra or Ventus to do it."
She tried to imagine one of her friends figuring out where which book should go, and the mess that would end up being, and she couldn't help but smile. She had been wrong to worry. That meant she couldn't meet up with Vanitas though – unless she worked really hard. Yes, she would do her best and then run to him.
Of course, she didn't expect so many books. She was fast, but the pile never seemed to grow smaller. She was a bookworm, but even she started to wonder if they needed so many books. What was strange was that some of them looked familiar. She couldn't quite put the finger on it, but the uneasy feeling she had this morning came back. That was until she saw the book. Realm of Light and Constellations – by A. Smollet. That book was the reason she knew so much about stars in the first place. She opened it and even found that piece of paper she used as a bookmark then. This book was nothing but new. The reason she found the books familiar was because they were – she had read some of them before. But why the master would pretend they were new, and not tell her that he just had picked quite a lot of them for his researches, and never put them back? Her hands started to shake. It felt weird. The knots in her stomach were back.
"Aqua? What did the master want?"
She looked at Ven. How pure and innocent he looked, with his big blue eyes on her. She smiled, not wanting to worry him. "He wanted to to put back these books to the shelves. No big deal, really."
"What? But I went to his office yesterday, and they weren't there! When did he have time to read that all?"
That could have been the reason he had lied to her. She would have been curious. Why would he need so many books on so many subjects at the same time?
"Ven, aren't you training with Terra?"
Ven pouted. Aqua's heart would always melt at this pout, but this time, it just started beating faster.
"No. The Master and him said they had some business in the woods and that I should go back and study. I don't know what kind of business that is, though, they were using code names or something."
"Code names?"
"Yeah. All I heard them mention was that there was a Black Ribbon. Don't know what that means."
Oh, but Aqua knew. Her heart stopped beating frenetically. It completely stopped beating, actually. She turned as pale as death.
She knew what that meant and started running.
Because they knew too.
Do you like Master Eraqus? I don't like Master Eraqus. Like, at all. So my own judgement might actually influence this story... a bit... Oops.
See you around for next chapter then ;) (plz don't hate me. Hate Eraqus instead. He deserves it more than me.)