Anya had run out of tears. The corners of her eyes were crusted with salt to the extent that no matter how much she tried to wipe them, their stinging sadness remained.
Anya stayed silent on the entire drive home, although she stared vacantly at the scenery going by. In the reflection of the window, she noticed Twilight's gaze flick between her and the road, but he didn't say anything. He didn't need to.
When she got home, she dumped her bags at the opening to her room before rushing straight to the bathroom. Hopefully, a hot shower would settle her and clear her mind.
It was so hard to think, but there was so much swirling in Anya's head that she needed to figure out. She told Becky about her past, and she just hoped beyond hope that Becky wouldn't hold any of it against her. She had lied to her best friend and everyone around her for twelve years, and somehow, her deepest secret was unravelling faster than she could understand or control. The secret had weighed her down for so long that she honestly expected to feel some kind of relief, but instead a different sort of dread had managed to settle in her bones. How long would it take before Becky tired of her strangeness, and her terrible secret, and didn't want to be best friends anymore?
Anya dipped her head under the scalding water, and watched as the water slowly turned a light pink colour - almost the same as her hair - as it washed away the blood in her hair, the reminder that her powers had turned against her, weakened her, if not for how she managed to use her powers at the last minute.
Then there was the other worry - she had accidentally shared her mind with Damian, something she had never done before. She had projected her thoughts, had given him memories, but letting him see through her eyes was something she just couldn't understand. She didn't even plan it. In that moment on the wall, her hands shook so hard that she thought she would slip, her palms clammy and slipping on the surface of the climbing holds, but the volume of voices assaulted her so violently that it rendered her unconscious. In those last seconds of wakefulness, as she felt herself shutting down, the desperation overwhelmed her, and all she wanted to do was to tell someone that she needed help, that she couldn't move, couldn't hold on for much longer - and somehow her mind reached Damian without her even trying.
How did that happen? How was she ever going to learn to control her powers when it did things like that?
And, finally, an aching disappointment weighed down on her chest and sucked the air out of her - the disappointment that she failed. Failed to win the Tournament, failed to win a Stella Star, failed to become an Imperial Scholar. It was her last chance to protect Damian, and now she would have to live with the consequences forever.
Tears gathered at the edge of her eyes, and she pressed the heels of her palms hard against her eyes, hoping that the hot water from the shower would hide their salty tracks. She had had enough for one day. She had already cried more than she ever thought possible, bled more than she ever had before, and she felt as though her heart had been ripped out of her at least twice in the space of one hour. It was all too much, and Anya didn't know what to do except to lie down and sleep, and not have to speak, and not be forced to move or do anything.
Thankfully, her father seemed to understand her despondence. Twilight didn't speak a word to her on the entire drive, and he didn't have to. It was obvious that she had a bad day from the red rims of her eyes, to the vacant melancholy, and the nurse had filled him in on what happened during the Tournament, while Anya pulled at her sleeves, once again keeping her scars hidden, because deep down, Anya knew that she had failed Twilight, too.
Anya sharply switched off the water, and hurriedly dried herself off before stepping into her pyjamas, and wrapped her hair in a towel. She quietly left the bathroom, and only spotted a glimpse of her father's figure in the kitchen before she darted to the safety of her bedroom.
She had barely managed to flop onto her bed when her father knocked on the door.
"Anya," Twilight's voice broke her out of her spiralling thoughts. "If you're not feeling well, it's important that you look after yourself."
Anya groaned through the pillow, but Twilight only took that as an invitation, and swung the door gently inwards, letting in a sliver of light into the otherwise dark paused at the door a moment longer, checking for her reaction, and when she didn't say anything further, he crossed the threshold of her room to sit on the far side of her bed.
"And," Twilight continued, his voice heavy with resignation. "You shouldn't push yourself. If you need to sit out on the Imperial Ball, then that's alright."
Out of sight, Anya furrowed her brows as a piece of information tried to show itself to her. It twisted in the air, right within reach, and it took a few moments before it clicked in her mind.
And her entire body went cold.
Becky's voice echoed in her mind: Come to my house tomorrow and we'll get ready together, okay?
Suddenly Twilight's reassurance made a lot more sense, and she sat bolt upright.
"It's tomorrow?!" She panicked. "It can't be tomorrow! It's too soon! I thought I had more time!"
Twilight blinked at her, not understanding her panic. "Is this because you still need to get a dress…?" He valiantly tried to work it out, saying the first thing that came to mind.
"Well - yes - but - I thought -"
I thought I would be an Imperial Scholar by now. I thought I could protect Damian from the mission. I thought we had more time before everything changes.
Twilight watched her carefully, and under his discerning gaze Anya knew that she wouldn't be able to keep the recent developments a secret for long - not that she wanted to. She only wanted more time to think through everything, to come to terms with them, but at the same time Twilight was the only person that would be able to help her with any of it: her changing powers, the mission, Damian - and now Becky.
Anya gulped. It wasn't going to be easy.
"Papa," she croaked, and resisted hiding her face with her pillow. "I have to tell you something."
She waited until she felt the weight shift on the bed, before she turned her head, finding Twilight sitting closer to her, listening attentively, and she finally felt like she could tell him everything. Every worry, every incident, she drew it out of herself like poison, or a horrible confession, and by the end of it, her eyes stung from holding back tears again, and she staunchly avoided looking him in the eyes, while Twilight stared at her wide eyed, his hand clenched so tight she could see the whites of his knuckles.
"Please don't be angry with me," she said in a quiet voice, and at that, Twilight very carefully took a deep breath, and slowly released his grip, flexing his fingers as an experimental gesture.
"I'm not angry with you," Twilight said calmly, but his stiff posture had her on edge.
Was he lying? She couldn't tell, feeling all too impotent without the use of her powers, and she held her breath, waiting for the sword to fall.
But then Twilight's eyes softened, and he sagged against himself, leaning forward with a bottled-up sigh.
"I'm sorry," he began, and Anya wracked her brain, trying to think of why her father was sorry for her failures.
He continued: "I'm sorry that I ever put so much pressure on you. Operation Strix is my mission, it's my responsibility - not yours."
Anya blinked, confused. "But… I thought…"
"I know," said Twilight. "I've involved you too much throughout your life even without you knowing, but it wasn't fair on you. I understand that now. I never realised just how much of this burden you had been carrying by yourself."
Anya nodded slowly, unsure how to reply to the version of Twilight that was trying to separate her from the mission.
She picked at the skin around her nail, and spoke in a quiet voice. "Are you angry that I told Becky?"
And to her surprise, Twilight shook his head. "You have every right to talk about your past, especially with people that you trust." He patted her shoulder. "I'm proud of you."
"Oh," Anya said quietly, and frustratingly, her eyes started to sting again. She lowered her head and hoped he wouldn't hear the quiet waver in her voice. She didn't want to worry him.
"But," Twilight sighed, withdrawing his hand. "It's understandable because that's your secret, but you can't reveal anything about me or your mother - that would put too many people in danger."
"I know," Anya nodded solemnly. "I understand."
"As for sharing your thoughts with Damian…" Twilight pinched the bridge of his nose, and Anya's stomach clenched with apprehension as the silence drew on for longer than was comfortable.
"You cannot keep doing this," he said eventually, and Anya was surprised that he didn't seem as angry as she thought he would be. "Sharing thoughts with Damian is dangerous, and I'm beginning to wonder if you should be sharing your mind with anyone at all. Even me."
Anya stared at him, stunned, wondering if she even heard her father right. Twilight didn't want her to use her power? But wasn't that the whole point of being recruited as an apprentice spy - that her abilities gave her an advantage to succeed in any mission?
And… she liked sharing her thoughts with Damian. It was like a secret language that was only for them. If she didn't show him her memories, he wouldn't have believed how much she loved him. If he didn't hear her thoughts, he wouldn't have known how much she was hurting. If he didn't feel her pain, he wouldn't have known that she was about to fall, and he wouldn't have rushed in to try to save her, prompting everyone else to action, too.
Plus… it made her feel closer to him, like he didn't judge her for her strangeness, and actually accepted the telepathy as a part of her. He never thought that she was a freak, or a witch, and he was never afraid to speak to her through her mind like it was natural. He even appreciated that she could understand him better, especially when words failed him, and he didn't know how to express himself, but it almost didn't matter because he knew that she knew, and that was enough. Their conversations transcended sound, and their connection to each other grew stronger every time.
She didn't want to lose that.
Anya desperately tried to come up with an excuse, a last-minute thought that could get Twilight to change his mind.
"I thought you said it would work like a radio in case communications were down?"
Twilight was silent for a long moment as he considered his daughter, knowing that she couldn't read his moment at that moment in time. "You're studying action potentials and nerve cells in Biology, right?"
Anya nodded and wondered where he was going with this new line of thought, but she didn't question him out loud.
"In neuroscience there's a saying: 'cells that fire together, wire together'. Do you know what that means?"
Anya groaned. "Papa! Are you seriously making me talk about Biology right now?"
"Just try it," Twilight encouraged her, and Anya huffed in response.
"What was the question again?"
He repeated it to her, and Anya crossed her arms in thought. "Does it mean that when the cells activate, they're more likely to be linked?"
"Close enough," Twilight started as he leaned forward and held his hands together in what Anya recognised as his 'thinking pose'. "In short, our brains are made up of nerve cells that communicate to each other by sending electrical and chemical signals. It's the basis of all neuroscience. Are you with me so far?"
Anya nodded slowly, recognising the words from her textbooks. "I got it."
"So," Twilight continued. "When each cell sends a signal to another, it creates a pathway, so that it's easier for the same signal to be sent again. In this way, you've practised your telepathy enough over the years to have created very strong pathways, to the point that using your power is almost second-nature, taking no effort from you at all. Does that make sense?"
At Anya's assent, he continued: "Now, when you project your thoughts, or share your mind with someone, that forms a slightly different pathway in your brain. Right now it's still a new ability so it still takes some effort on your part, but the more that you do it, the more you reinforce this connection, and the more you will do it unconsciously. Do you see how this could be a problem?"
Anya held her breath.
"Oh."
He had warned her about the dangers of sharing her mind with Damian too often, and now she sought him even without meaning to, even without being aware of it. How long would it be until he saw something dangerous? Something that could change his life, or hers, or irrevocably destroy the relationship they had so determinedly built? Sharing her mind saved her life this time, but what if it went wrong next time? What if she ruined everything? What if he found out she was an apprentice spy, or that she had been using him for Plan B, for Operation Strix, for so many years? He would never speak to her again. He would never trust her again. How many of her secrets could he take before it broke him? Before it broke them?
Anya quietly put the thoughts together in her head. "How do I learn to control it?"
"Perhaps it's time I did some research of my own," said Twilight thoughtfully. "But in the meantime, I have an idea - do you remember the breathing exercises I taught you?"
Anya gave him a dead-eyed stare. "Really, Papa? Breathing?"
"Yes."
"What's breathing got to do with my powers?" she said in exasperation, getting increasingly more frustrated with him, even though she knew that he was only trying to help, but it just didn't make sense in her mind at all.
Thankfully, Twilight had the answer, and he responded patiently to her.
"It's fundamentally a way of training your brain. It's a technique I teach my patients to help them to refocus their attention, especially when they are angry, anxious or overwhelmed, and I suspect that it could be useful for you as well. Find a time that suits you - it doesn't matter when it is. Morning, breaktime, lunchtime, that five minute slot before class. The point is that if you practise when you don't need it, then when you do need to control your powers, you'll already have a way to refocus your attention. Does that make sense?"
Anya muttered something to the effect of 'don't think it's that easy' and 'can't believe you're making me do this', but Twilight ignored her grumblings.
"Practice ten minutes every day, and see how it goes, and in the meantime I'll keep looking for information on how your powers work. Does that sound okay?"
"Yeah, okay," Anya relented. "It's not like breathing is difficult."
Twilight relaxed, probably relieved that Anya had decided not to fight against his suggestion, even though it sounded to her like it was too easy. He had spent twelve years helping people as a psychiatrist, despite it being only a cover, so Anya wanted to believe him, and trust the theory behind his methods - but more than that, she didn't want to let him down.
There was a small voice in her head that told her that it couldn't be that easy, that Twilight was only fobbing her off with something that sounded vaguely practical while they both floundered in the dark, but she couldn't afford to do nothing. There were too many people relying on her to keep them safe, and she didn't want to think about what would happen if she failed them because she couldn't control the powers that she had had for over fourteen years.
Twilight spoke again, sensing that the previous conversation had come to a close.
"Do you think you'll be able to go tomorrow?"
Anya paused. She thought about how much her head hurt, how she almost didn't want to be around people ever again for as long as she could, in case she got overwhelmed again. She thought of the fear of dying, and the helplessness of her situation when she couldn't escape the voices that bombarded her.
And then there was Damian, and she thought of how he would feel if she told him she couldn't go, after years of attending the Imperial Ball by himself and hating every second of it, and a knot formed in her stomach.
"I have to go. I can't leave him there." Anya decided, and she blushed, realising what she said. "I already… made a promise…"
"You can still see how you feel," Twilight encouraged. "Get lots of rest tonight, and if you're not feeling well tomorrow, I'm sure Damian would understand."
"He would understand!" Anya exclaimed. "Which is why I have to go! Don't you see?"
Twilight blanked. He did not see.
"He's done so much for me, Papa. So this is my way of making it up to him," she explained, but even as the words came out of her mouth, it still didn't feel quite right to her.
She had to go to the Ball to show him her support, to make it up to him - and because she didn't get a Stella in time to be an Imperial Scholar so she had to get in to try to progress Operation Strix - so that they would be able to arrest Damian's father - and she tried not to think about how that would hurt him - even though not going would hurt him still -
Anya groaned and rubbed her temples. The mental gymnastics were getting worse.
George Glooman heaved a big sigh as the technical equipment from the Tournament away. He had carefully tied the cords and cables together so that they were in neat bundles, ready for the next commentator to take for the next event, and he helped them shift them from the observation tower.
"I really thought Forger was going to win-" came a young female voice, which George identified as Hilde Hahn, a Year Six student from Cecile Hall. "She was clearing everything so fast! She was incredible!"
George recalled that Hilde usually associated with Emily Elman, Emile's younger sister, and sure enough, her voice was the one he heard next.
"Right?! I can't believe she was even beating Watkins. That's some superhuman stuff right there!"
"She must be some kind of prodigy."
"Yeah, shame that she nearly got hurt though-"
George pursed his lips, but he didn't say anything, choosing to lurk near the outer corners of the group. Instead, he leaned closer down to the boxes of wires, pretending to fidget with the ties, so that everything looked secure. He waited for the other volunteers from the Tournament to filter out of the store cupboard, knowing that they wouldn't notice he was gone.
Long ago, George theorised that there were two types of people: first, were stars - those that you couldn't help but notice when they walked into a room - Desmond, Blackbell, Watkins, and especially Forger, were the perfect examples of that, natural protagonists in their own right.
Then, there were people like Ewen and Emile - satellites that orbited the stars, pulled in by their gravity, still visible to onlookers and those around them.
And finally, there were people like him. Not bright enough to be a star, not interesting enough to be a satellite, he fell into a different category altogether. Unseen and unimportant, he was a shadow - an absence of space that people passed without thinking, not even knowing what their eyes had glossed over.
He hid behind one of the shelves, hoping that they wouldn't spot him, and breathed a sigh of relief when they turned off the lights, leaving him in darkness.
George reached for the torch that he kept in the empty spot on the shelf for exactly this purpose, and switched it on, blinking to adjust to the low light, and then George backed away from the equipment, and from the shelves, and retreated to the hidden corner that he regularly hid himself away in.
George had discovered this hidden spot when he was six years old, after that terribly embarrassing day when he was sure that he was going to leave Eden Academy forever, and he soured his friendship with everyone, and in a rush of tears he came to this very room to hide, and what he found there changed his life forever.
For a six year old, it was a refuge, and it stayed a refuge for six years until one history class taught them about the war from their parents' time. There, George learned that the school had been built with war in mind, from secret doorways to hidden tunnels, the most famous of all being the Imperial Scholar's Corridor - where once only reserved for evacuation purposes, it was now seen as a quick way for teachers and the elite members of the student body to get to their classes and to their assigned duties.
Of course, the other corridors and doorways and rooms mentioned were just rumours, but while the other kids giggled and wondered during the class, they forgot all about it by the next day, focusing on the next shiny thing as all kids do. Except for George, because George Glooman knew that it was the truth, because he had a secret room all to himself.
And the more that George saw, the more he learned. To the other students of Cecile Hall, and Eden College as a whole, war was something that only happened in other countries, or so long ago in the past that they weren't even worth thinking about. George theorised that the strict education and focus on the elite was meant to train children of the upper class to be the ideal military officers of the future, with practice in decision-making, strategising, and even testing the physical limits of the human body. It was the darkest secret that all boarding schools carried, deep in their history, out of sight to everyone.
The curriculum of the elite was meant to reinforce their status - the genealogy presentation from the start of the year was just one example of that. Their role as students was not just to learn - it was to lead. Once they graduated, they would be seen as the next generation of leaders.
But he kept his thoughts to himself, and while class was in session, he dedicated all of his focus to his studies. His curiosity was really just something that he saved as an after-school activity.
The stones under his feet started to feel uneven and smooth, and George knew that he had made it to his destination. He felt for the hidden handle, and pushed it open when the smooth edges changed beneath his fingers.
Over the years, he had decorated the secret room to his liking. He had dragged in seats and cushions and rugs, mostly as insulation from the cold stone walls, but he always thought that it wouldn't hurt to recruit a few more members to his secret club if he ever saw a potential candidate (alas, he never did). Then, there were neat clusters of water bottles and snacks, sustenance to keep him going while he worked his way through his homework, and at times, his theories. Electricity never got installed in this part of the building, so he usually took a few minutes to light all the candles that he kept in good stock, before clicking the torch off to save the battery.
He gently lifted a notebook from the stack, and flicked through it, adding more notes and thoughts where he could. And then he tore off a page, and using a pin added the piece to the sprawling map of threads and newspaper clippings and photographs and scrap pieces of paper that covered the entirety of the walls, and stepped back to consider the new piece that he had just added, seeing how it fit into the big picture before him, illuminated by flickering candlelight.
9th Dec 197X - Physical ability: Hammer throw (Strength: compact muscle mass? Can't just be good technique). Should have been 1st place (Speed). Possible increase since last evidenced. (Commentator Quote: "Is she even human?")
Connected by a string to several more in a clear timeline:
20th Oct - 26th Oct 197X: Mysteriously disappeared - Could be some kind of government conspiracy (or aliens?).
15th Oct 197X - Chased down & caught a fox: Dexterity (getting across the river). Speed (outran hunters). Good eyesight (how she tracked it?).
19th Sept 197X - Desmond kidnapped & rescued by Forger? - implies hidden abilities. (Alien?)
And then more scraps of paper, arranged in clusters of dates and names and sources -
27th Oct. 197X - Kuning disappeared (New student - NO explanation from teachers?!).
8th Sept 197X - Does demonstrate weakness, esp. crowds (Source: Desmond, overheard. Fire drill). Severity: High.
15th Sept 197X - Apparently stopped a robbery over the weekend (?). Source: Truth or Dare (overheard: Fein). Corroborate with 'The Ostanian' news article: 12th Sept 197X. MYSTERIOUS HERO THWARTS ROBBERY ATTEMPT.
Dozens and dozens and dozens of them, too many to count, with one name in the centre of them all.
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I am cackling, honestly. I've been wanting to write George's POV for quite some time now 😂😂 so now you guys all know what he's been up to ahahha
In the meantime, the next chapter will be the start of the Imperial Ball arc, so I am VERY excited for the big changes that will bring 👀 I hope you guys enjoy it...
Next time: Becky and Anya reconnect and get ready for the Ball together! Hopefully I will be finished for Saturday 😁
thank you all so much for your support and encouragement!
