Days turned into weeks. Patterns established themselves.

Penny became Team BXPS' official timekeeper. On all school days, she woke them up in the morning, ushered them into bed at night, and shepherded them to classes in-between. There were only two minor incidents about bedtime in the first three weeks. One was the night before a quiz, when Weiss was very high-strung and insisted on over-preparing. The second time, Blake was using her Faunus night vision to continue to read after lights-out, until Penny silently caught her attention and waved her down. Other than that, Penny's internal chronometer kept them on schedule, down to and including when she made her nightly wish on her name-star.

When it came to studying, Penny had wanted team study sessions, while Weiss argued for solo study. They settled on partner study: Blake and Yang went to the library while Weiss and Penny stayed in the dorm.

Their study nights turned into a kind of game. Weiss would take small details or tricky concepts out of their lecture material and quiz Penny on them, testing her notes against Penny's memories. Time after time, she was unable to ask a question Penny couldn't answer, despite Penny continuing to take no notes. Penny found the game great fun; Weiss became increasingly aggrieved.

In Weiss' defense, it wasn't her fault. She didn't know just how good Penny's memory was. Penny couldn't remember everything that happened to her every day—her storage had limits—but it didn't take her long to figure out that not everything was worth remembering. Selectively forgetting low-value parts of her day became part of her nightly routine. Even certain high-value parts of her day, like classes, could be greatly reduced in storage size when remembered as a text-only transcript, rather than keeping full audio-visual data.

Even as Weiss failed to "stump" Penny (to her increasing chagrin), the study sessions seemed to be meeting their purpose, as Weiss' grades were outstanding. Penny was proud of her for that and let her know it. Whatever Blake and Yang were doing seemed to work for them, too, because their grades are also quite good, if not quite as pristine as Weiss' and Penny's.

Their free time wasn't all studying. Yang and Penny went on walks almost every evening. It was a new experience to Penny, traveling without a destination. She'd only ever conceived of travel as a means to get somewhere. Walking around for its own sake was interesting in ways she hadn't expected.

After their second week, it turned into a pairs activity. Pyrrha had asked to do something like that with Jaune, and Jaune had remembered that Penny and Yang went on walks, so he proposed to make it a group thing for the four of them. Pyrrha's face had cycled through several emotions in rapid succession, too rapidly for Penny to parse, before she said, "That sounds grand!"

Her voice did not sound very "grand" when she said this, and it looked like her smile was at least half grimace. Penny tried to ask about this, but Yang stopped her, so it remained a mystery.

The team negotiated Penny down to once a week for painting their nails. Weiss insisted on remaining in shades of blue and white, but Yang went on a trip to Vale City and returned with several different colors for the rest of them to try. Penny found that she gravitated towards the reds, which she found curious given how much she liked green in her outfits. Yang said, "It suits you," and then fell into an almost Blake-like silence.

As for Blake, she began to accept being team leader with less fear and cringing. She ruled mostly by negation, shooting down Penny's more ambitious proposals or mediating Yang-Weiss disputes. She even advanced a few proposals of her own, which was progress.

There was a bigger thrill, though, a different change that caused almost as much excitement as all the other things together: Professor Goodwitch announced that their combat classes would now include duels.

They started with duels between teammates.

"This is part of the team building process," said Professor Goodwitch. "Being together as a team means knowing what your teammates, and especially your partners, will do in battle. You build that when you fight side by side, but you can also learn it by fighting against them. There's no better way to learn how your teammates will attack than forcing you to defend against those attacks."

Penny couldn't wait, and not just because of Professor Goodwitch's logic.

Tactical certainly appreciated being able to see and analyze many different fighting styles of future opponents, but this was more than just a Tactical thing. Penny was excited to see her classmates in action, and even more excited to test herself against them.

There was so much to learn!—about herself, and about her place amongst her peers.

She didn't learn much from the first few bouts. Cardin Winchester won his match going away, scoring a big first hit against his partner, Russel Thrush, and snowballing that into a lopsided victory. The next fight was also very one-sided, even if it played out differently. Lie Ren disassembled Jaune one swipe, trip, and palm-strike at a time. Jaune's armor and shield left few enough gaps that Ren couldn't reach them easily; he had to pry them open. But even with Penny and Pyrrha cheering him on, Jaune was unable to come to grips with Ren and never landed a hit.

"He just looks so clumsy," said Yang with a frown.

"That's my Ren!" cheered Nora as Ren tumbled under a horizontal stroke and kicked Jaune in the side. "He's all smooth moves and grace! You should see him on the dance floor!"

"Are we sure he's that good?" said Weiss. "Or is Jaune just that bad?"

"Could be both," said Blake.

"Nah," said Nora, "it's all Ren. Just try him, he'll make you look like a bumbling buffoon!"

"The way this class is structured," said Penny, "I believe we will all get that chance."

"You're a big cheerleader for him," said Yang, shooting a grin at Nora. "Seems like you two are pretty close."

"Sure!" said Nora, except that the moment the word was out of her mouth, her eyes went wide and her composure failed. "In a totally friendly way! You'll never find better friends than me and Ren, and we would never do anything to endanger that friendship!"

"Methinks she doth protest too much," muttered Blake.

"Quite," said Weiss.

It took a longer-than-usual search for Thesaurus to find that idiom, but it came through once again. "Oh!" said Penny. "You mean you don't believe-"

"And that's the end of that," said Yang loudly just a moment before the horn sounded the end of the match.

"Good job!" called Nora down at the stage, though she sounded strained.

Professor Goodwitch gave the boys a debrief of their fight before dismissing them. "Next up," she said to the class, "we have Penny Pallas vs. Weiss Schnee."

"Darn it," said Yang, "I was hoping I'd get my crack at you."

"You could spar whenever you feel like it," said Weiss crossly.

"Not the point."

"Maybe next time," said Penny. "Come, Friend Weiss."

"Is that really what you want to be calling me right before we fight?" said Weiss.

"We're friends now, and we'll be friends after," said Penny.

"According to you," said Weiss crossly. "Well, you'd better not get your feelings hurt by what happens down there."

The two descended to the stage. All students had been directed to come to class with their weapons and gear ready to minimize downtime between bouts. Penny didn't have 100% of her gear, though, and Weiss noticed. "No jetpack today?"

Penny gestured around the room. "There isn't enough space for those kinds of maneuvers, and I believe that ring-out is a win condition, correct?"

"That's right," said Professor Goodwitch. "You can win by depleting your opponent's Aura, by knocking them off the stage, or by forcing submission. Leaving the stage voluntarily is still a ring-out."

"To be clear," said Weiss, her head scanning about as she surveyed the room, "all the space above the stage is free game, correct?"

"All the way to the ceiling, yes."

"Excellent," said Weiss, and she strode off to her end of the stage. Penny took position at the opposite end and brandished Elektra. She felt some small regret for not having finished Elektra's redesign yet. She'd gotten so bogged down in admiring her options that she hadn't chosen any of them. She was still stuck with the Integrated Burn Dust Projector. She'd just have to make do.

Tactical had been busily comparing Weiss against Penny and simulating the bout. It submitted its results to higher consciousness.

Hm… given Weiss' extreme maneuverability, maybe Penny should have brought her flight module after all.

The key would be patience.

"Begin," said Professor Goodwitch.

Even as Penny took her first steps towards Weiss, Weiss was activating Dust. A gust of wind pushed against Penny, slowing her down. If Penny had been the weight of a human her size, that much wind would have stalled her out, maybe even swept her from her feet, but built the way she was, the wind only took off 20% of her speed.

Weiss' eyes went wide as she realized this, but she was already fleeing before Penny caught her. Up she leapt towards a glyph in mid-air, angled so that her next move would take her behind Penny.

As Penny planted and turned, she used Elektra's Burn Dust to shoot flames at Weiss. She didn't expect much from it other than cover, and that's what she got: Weiss lost her chance to attack and leapt away instead.

Penny started to charge again, but Weiss clearly wanted to stay out of melee as badly as Penny wanted to get in. Up Weiss leapt, bouncing from glyph to glyph in unpredictable directions to keep out of Penny's reach. Penny was fine with that; if Weiss just played keep-away all day, she wouldn't get closer to winning.

Weiss saw this as clearly as Penny did. As she leapt from her next glyph, she swung down on Penny as she passed over, the tip of her blade sparking against Penny's Aura. Weiss completed the move—still in melee range of Penny.

Penny swung.

There was a momentary sheen as some sort of Dust was expelled along the length of Weiss' rapier, bolstering its defense—but it was more than blasted away from the sheer power of a full-strength Gravity Dust-enhanced blow from Elektra. The swing forced the rapier back against Weiss' body with enough leftover momentum to launch Weiss skyward.

Graceful as a cat, Weiss twisted mid-flight and landed on her toes, already firing icicles back in Penny's direction.

Penny twirled Elektra like a drum major's baton, blasting the ice chunks into so much snowdrift—only too late seeing that this was a distraction, she'd have been better off just tanking the hits, because deflecting had kept her in one place as a new glyph formed beneath her.

A fist of stone punted Penny into the air.

And Weiss met her still flailing mid-flight, new glyphs forming as she juggled Penny with one, two, three unblocked hits from different angles before pummeling her with the pommel straight down.

Penny slammed against the arena floor flat on her back.

Penny blinked.

After a moment spent gauging how much Aura she'd lost, she said, "Ouch."

And stood back up.

Weiss' mouth opened in disbelief and affront. "You did well," Penny said, trying to smooth things over. "Those were good hits!"

It was true; by Penny's calculation, that barrage would have shredded the Aura of many of their classmates. Oh—was that it? Was Penny not supposed to have withstood that?

Weiss' face reset, her determination taking over once more. Penny thought she understood. Weiss' Dust was potent, but finite; the same could be said of her semblance, drawing as it did on her Aura. The more Weiss drew on those resources to avoid (or survive) meeting Penny in melee, the faster she exhausted them.

Did Weiss have enough power to finish Penny off first?

Tactical didn't know, but Penny was eager to find out.

She couldn't just wait for Weiss, though; that would let Weiss find another clever way to crack her defenses—Penny had to keep the pressure on. She took a more even, steady advance this time, not a full-on charge, trying to maintain some flexibility.

Weiss narrowed her eyes, like she was calculating something as Penny approached, then flicked her fingers to the side.

Penny heard new glyphs growing into existence all around her, creating a ring with her in the center. Tactical spread her sensors' attention broadly. Where would the attack come from?

Weiss sprang onto the glyph nearest her and fired across her circle like she'd been shot from a railgun. Penny got Elektra up in time to deflect the blow—but she'd barely begun to turn when Weiss was already blasting across the gap again, this time behind Penny, and her rapier struck home as she passed.

Again.

Again.

Again!

Faster and faster, impossibly fast, too fast for Penny to track her motion and understand where the next attack was coming from, each passing stroke taking out another chunk of Penny's Aura…

As ways to convert Aura into damage went, Weiss' barrage was a very effective one.

Too fast to track, too fast to predict…

Oh. But when Weiss was trying to stay behind Penny, almost all of her attacks required her to pass through the same area of space relative to Penny…

Penny blindly stuck one arm straight out.

Splat.

Weiss was clotheslined on Penny's outstretched arm. Her flailing body hit the stage near Penny's feet.

The fastest, most direct follow-up was not to swing Elektra. It was to use the same hand. Penny grabbed Weiss' ankle before the disoriented girl could collect herself and swung her overhead in a 180-degree arc.

She smashed Weiss down against the stage with so much power she dented the reinforced arena floor.

That wouldn't be enough, she knew, not for someone so efficient in using her Aura as Weiss. But she still had a hold of Weiss' ankle. So she repeated the motion in the opposite direction, swinging Weiss overhead again like an inverted pendulum.

Smash.

Enough strength to stop a speeding truck on the spot, enough to throw a megoliath skyward, enough to pull an airship to the ground…

Smash.

…all concentrated on swinging Weiss like a flail in perfect parabolic arcs.

Smash!

Now Weiss' Aura was buckling, one more ought to—

Zap.

Penny's hand spasmed; she released Weiss and backed away, only realizing afterwards that Weiss had imbued her rapier with Lightning Dust… just enough to break Penny's grip.

Fine. Penny still had a double-breadth claymore. She swung Elektra again.

As before, it worked as a launch even through Weiss' hasty guard, sending a gasping Weiss airborne towards the stage's edge. Even before Weiss landed, Penny was charging. Weiss wouldn't have time or space to escape her now.

Weiss only had a moment, long enough for Penny to see her eyes light up with panic, but with the edge of the stage there she had no room to retreat…

She stuck her rapier's tip into the stage.

Penny's next step was false, sliding out from under her; the world swirled as her gyro screamed confusion at her. There was an impact on the ground which gave her a reference point; she twisted, trying to get something under her, only for the ground to not be where it was supposed to be.

Then her foot touched ground, not when nor where it was expected. She staggered badly, waved her arms madly to gather herself, and was at last able to restore her sense of where she was.

Which turned out to be off the stage.

A horn sounded, and Professor Goodwitch raised her hand and called out, "The winner, by ring-out, is Weiss Schnee."

Penny had to laugh. She'd been defeated, she realized, and yet she felt energized, excited. Was something wrong with her? She thought that losing would have disappointed her, so why was she feeling so thrilled?

She clambered back up onto the stage to see what had gone wrong. Yes: Weiss had projected a sheet of ice across the surface of the stage in front of her, so that when Penny had charged at Weiss she'd lost her footing and slid right off the edge.

"I am so glad that worked," said Weiss in between heaving breaths.

"It did work, Friend Weiss," said Penny, bubbling over with cheer. She looked up at the Aura meters displaying above them. Weiss' Aura was in the low yellows, just above the red range; Penny's was comfortably above half. "One more successful hit, or two blocked hits, would have exhausted you, but you found a way to win regardless. Well done!"

Weiss collected herself and shot Penny a wary look. "You're taking this defeat with suspicious grace."

Penny had been wondering about that herself. She had a sneaking suspicion that Friend Weiss would not have accepted defeat so easily… Oh, that was why. "You are my partner and my friend," said Penny. "Am I supposed to be upset that my friend is capable and clever?"

Weiss frowned. "No...?"

"Good," said Penny. "Because I find that knowledge very reassuring. I want a partner skilled enough to beat me!"

From the expression on Weiss' face, she'd never considered that dynamic.

"Team-building aside," said Professor Goodwitch as she stepped closer to the girls, "what other takeaways do you two have?"

"I badly underestimated the danger of ring-out," Penny said. "I had so much momentum built up I had no chance of recovery once the ice went down."

"It feels like cheating," said Weiss.

"How so?" said Professor Goodwitch with an arched eyebrow.

"I didn't beat her," said Weiss. "If the fight had gone on longer, I would have lost. It feels like I got away with something, like I didn't earn the win."

"You're not the first to think that way," said Professor Goodwitch, "but we include ring-outs as a win condition on purpose. Tell me, is a grimm that you kill with your sword more dead than a grimm you toss from a cliff?"

"Assuming the grimm actually dies when it falls," Weiss said, "I'd have to say no."

"Correct. We fight the grimm not to prove a point, not for its own sake, but to save the people entrusted to us. This demands efficiency. Boarbatusks are dangerous and thickly armored, but they have much more aggression and much less control of their momentum than Miss Pallas. Baiting them into killing themselves is how Beacon's graduates deal with them six times out of ten. Are you starting to see now?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Weiss, and she did look mollified.

"Good. A wise Huntress uses all the tools available to her, especially the terrain."

"Did you hear that?" Penny whispered at Weiss (though her definition of 'whispering' was expansive). "Professor Goodwitch thinks you're wise!"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Professor Goodwitch said severely. "She has the potential for wisdom. We'll see if she gets there. Now, ladies, return to your seats while I prepare the arena for the next match."

The partners went back up to their places in the gallery, which was abuzz with excitement. "You two were awesome!" shouted Yang.

"When you put up the ring of glyphs," said Pyrrha, "you were moving so fast I could barely follow your attacks."

"How many times did you hit her during that move?" said Blake.

"Eleven," said Weiss, and she was starting to puff up beneath the praise.

"Eleven? Drat," said Pyrrha. "I only counted eight."

"Better than me," said Ren. "After the second, all I saw were flashes."

"I didn't even see the flashes," said Jaune.

"And Penny, you were amazing, too!" said Yang. "Those were the biggest hits anyone's landed so far! You were taking Ice Queen's Aura off in chunks."

"Hey!"

"I'll say," said Nora. "You might even be stronger than me without my semblance! I wanna arm wrestle you even more now!"

Even that ominous pronouncement didn't ding Penny's mood. "It was a good bout, wasn't it, Friend Weiss?"

Penny had promised Weiss that the outcome wouldn't change how she felt about their friendship, and she wanted Weiss to know she meant it. From Weiss' expression, Weiss understood. She even consented to smile—and it seemed like a friendly one, at least by Weiss' standards. "It was well-fought," she allowed. "I just hope I never have to fight you without a cliff."

"Team JNPR is putting together a movie night," said Yang. "They invited us to join 'em."

"Did they really?" said Blake skeptically. "Who exactly invited you?"

"It was Pyrrha's idea, but Jaune gave us the invite," said Yang, and an understanding passed between Yang and Blake that Penny didn't grasp at all.

"What's the movie?"

"We'll find out when we get there."

"I highly doubt this is a good use of my time," said Weiss.

"How many movies have you watched?" said Yang innocently.

"None of your business," Weiss said with a flush, which seemed a disproportionate reaction to Penny.

Penny was starting to pick up on the patterns in Weiss' behavior. Just as she would on the battlefield, she picked an appropriate counter. "It is okay, Friend Weiss. I have not seen any movies either. But inexperience doesn't make me want to avoid movies, it makes me want to try some to see what they're about. I can't say if they're worth my time or not if I've never seen them, now can I?"

Weiss fidgeted. "Well, if it's for educational purposes..."

Yang's face looked like it did what she went for a finishing blow in a spar. "Pyrrha will be there," she said. "It's worth her time."

Weiss closed her eyes. "Well, if it's good enough for Pyrrha, I suppose I can get behind it."

"It's settled, then," said Yang. "We're all going to movie night."

"Hooray!" said Penny.

"Unless our fearless leader wants to exercise her veto power," said Yang.

"Not this time," said Blake, turning the page of her book. "Have fun."

"Nuh-uh," said Yang. "We're doing this as a team or we're not doing it."

Blake looked up with her mouth open to speak, but saw three faces staring at her expectantly and instantly bent. "Alright, fine."

"Great," said Yang. "The movie starts in fifteen. Head over there while I go help Nora make popcorn."

The reminder of Nora's presence gave Penny a jolt, but not too bad of one. Tactical saw it as highly unlikely that watching a movie would bring electricity semblances into play. This would likely be as safe as things got.

So the team, as if by reverse osmosis, transferred over to the JNPR dorm.

"Your dorm is a lot cleaner than ours," Penny said immediately.

It was true: even with Penny having few possessions to add, Team BXPS' room was full to bursting with personal items of all kinds, from Blake's extensive collection of books to Yang's exercise and weapons care gear to Weiss' suitcases upon suitcases of clothes and Dust-related supplies. The fact that those two things, one benign and one life-threatening, came in suitcases that looked exactly the same, meant that no one but Weiss dared touch them. That meant, in turn, that until Weiss was properly motivated to find a storage solution, the suitcases were left wherever they fell.

In short, Team BXPS' dorm room was a compressed minefield.

Team JNPR's dorm, by contrast, was incredibly neat, almost bare. Two hampers stood on either side of the door to the bathroom, and no clothes were visible anywhere else. A four-step vertical shelf above the desk contained all the papers and books that otherwise would have been on the desk, which was itself tidy. No personal belongings were visible anywhere.

"Jaune figured out how to keep it all in order," said Pyrrha warmly. She reached beneath her bed and drew out a sort of platform on wheels. "We have under-bed trundles for everything that's not clothes."

"I didn't figure anything out," Jaune said modestly. "That's just how we did it back home. Ten people in one house, you have to conserve space somehow, you know?"

"I never would have imagined it," said Pyrrha.

"It is efficient," said Blake. She walked further into the room and settled on the floor between the two right-most beds, sitting low enough that only her bow was visible.

Weiss took two steps in Pyrrha's direction, but Pyrrha was moving to the foot of Jaune's bed. "Sit with me?" she said, batting her eyelashes at him.

"Okay," said Jaune, and he sat on Pyrrha's left.

"May I?" said Weiss, gesturing to Pyrrha's right.

"Sure!" said Jaune before Pyrrha could answer.

Penny blinked, not sure she was seeing things correctly. Each of Pyrrha, Jaune, and Weiss had gotten what they wanted, but none of them looked happy about it.

"What about you, Penny?" said Blake.

Oh. Yes, she needed to be somewhere, too. She moved in-between the left-most beds and put her back to the wall. She wasn't more comfortable sitting than standing, and from here she could see better.

"Are we settled?"

Penny's head whipped to the sound. There was another person in the room. Ren. Had he been there the whole time? Tactical was unsure, which was upsetting.

Penny tried to gauge Ren, but his expression and posture were completely blank. Penny's pattern recognition failed because there were no patterns to him. Ren reminded her of certain statues in Beacon's art gallery. They had vacant faces without any sign of emotion or humanity, more disturbing and less human than if they'd just been left as smooth rock. Ren was like that to her.

Even worse: Penny relied on reading patterns in voices and expressions to understand people. Ren always looked and sounded exactly the same, which polluted her data pool. Ren, by being unreadable, inadvertently made it a tiny percentage harder for her to read anyone.

She didn't think he was trying to do any of that, but the result was the same.

"Now we're ready!" said Nora as she and Yang barged into the room. They were both holding metal bowls of popcorn so large it required not just both hands but both arms to port them.

"Sheesh," said Jaune, "do you think you two made enough?"

"Not even," said Yang and Nora at the same time. Both their heads snapped to look at the other as matching grins rose on their faces.

"Uh-oh," said Blake.

"So, you think you have a bit of an appetite?" said Nora.

"Enough to eat you under the table," said Yang.

"Oh, yeah? Well, I accept your challenge!" said Nora.

"Sucker," said Yang. "I've been trained in the Xiao Long style of Combat Eating. You don't stand a chance."

"Well, I never needed any fancy training! I just need to be me and this is a wrap," said Nora.

"Is there any chance we can get any of that?" said Weiss.

Without breaking her staredown with Nora, Yang extended her tub of popcorn in Weiss' direction. Weiss tried to grab it, except it was so bulky for a moment it looked to fall out of her grasp; a second later it was sitting in Pyrrha's lap and it was unclear how it had gotten there.

"I'm sorry," said Pyrrha.

"This is perfect, actually," said Jaune. "Now all three of us can reach it."

The faces that Pyrrha and Weiss made to this pronouncement were some of the most confusing Penny had seen yet.

"Are we ready now?" said Ren with infinite patience.

"Just start," said Blake. "They'll either miss the movie or they won't."

"Fine," said Ren noncommittally.

"What movie is it?" said Penny curiously.

"'My Best Friend's Getting Married'," said Ren with the most emotion Penny had yet heard from him.

Jaune nodded knowingly. "Classic romantic comedy," he said with authority. "One of the great examples of the genre. Allen Karst made himself the go-to rom-com star with this role."

"Sounds lovely," said Pyrrha.

"We'll see," said Weiss.

Yang and Nora didn't seem to have any opinions on the subject, as the only sound coming from them was the crunch of popcorn and the scraping of fingers against the tub.

All of which left Penny with a dilemma.

On the one hand, while she had some cultural references loaded, she had no true experience with culture, and getting some exposure could only help her. On the other hand, watching and understanding her friends' reactions was likely to be just as fascinating as the movie itself. She wondered what the proper resource allocation would be to track both activities.

Then Ren took a seat on his own bed as the movie projected against the opposite wall, and all of Penny's attention was drawn to that and that alone.

"That was a lot of fun," said Pyrrha.

"Yes," said voices from either side of her. This was followed immediately by confused glances from all involved.

Ren, to Penny's astonishment, was dabbing a sheet against his eyes. "So beautiful," he muttered.

"I bet the book's better," said Blake.

"Heretic," hissed Ren.

"I ate too much," groaned Yang.

Yang was lying on her back, one hand over her stomach, while Nora stood over her with a hand on her hip. "I dunno, I think I could do another half-tub at least. Unless you're ready to admit defeat?"

"Uncle, uncle," said Yang. She pulled her head off the floor to look up at Nora. "How do you eat so much? Where does it all go?"

Nora just flexed and smiled.

"Thanks for the show," said Blake, rising and heading for the door.

Yang was hauled to her feet by Nora, and the two patted each other's shoulders. Yang looked to the room at large. "Same time next week?"

"Sure, we could make a thing of this," said Jaune.

"If we watch more rom-coms," said Ren.

"Spruce Willis or nothing," said Yang.

"We'll talk about it," said Jaune diplomatically.

"See you next week," said Blake, and Team BXPS left the dorm and returned to their own.

Finally.

Because Penny had questions.

"I'm not sure I understood that movie," said Penny as the door shut behind her.

"It wasn't that complicated," said Weiss.

Yang shot Weiss a glance before saying, "I'll hear you out."

Penny gathered herself. "The male lead…"

"Allen," said Yang.

"His character's name was Gary," corrected Weiss.

"Yeah, when the actor's Allen, no one ever thinks it's anyone but Allen."

"Allen, then," allowed Penny. "Allen called the female lead his friend, but he was actually in love with her the whole time?"

"He didn't understand he was in love," said Yang. "It was really close friendship, and he just sort of assumed she'd always be there. It wasn't until the female lead fell in love with someone else that he realized his feelings were love."

That checked with what Thesaurus understood. So far, so good. "So Allen then starts trying to break up the female lead's new relationship."

"Yep."

Here was the critical point, the part that had bedeviled Penny. "And this is funny?"

There was an awkward silence all around. Penny's optics momentarily registered a tumbleweed blowing by, but Tactical was sure that was impossible.

"It sounds a lot worse when you put it like that," said Weiss.

"What's funny is more how it doesn't work," said Yang. "Like, everything he did to try and embarrass the new love interest, it only made that relationship deeper. The way it all backfired makes it okay-er."

"Oh," said Penny, because Thesaurus was struggling to construct anything more complex.

"That's part of it," said Weiss. "But it's also funny how Allen is trying to be helpful. He has to make everything he does seem useful and supportive to the female lead, which means he has to be friendly to the new love interest even when he really wants them to go away."

"So deception and hypocrisy are funny?" said Penny, more confused than ever.

"No!" said Weiss reflexively.

"Er… sort of?" said Yang.

"It's complicated," said Blake.

"It does seem complicated," said Penny. None of her subroutines were close to cracking the problem.

Weiss and Yang looked as confused as Penny felt, but Blake was much surer. "All movies—all stories, really—are a kind of fantasy. We see people do things we would never do. They let us imagine what it would be like to do those things without doing them."

"A simulation," Penny said.

"Almost, but with other names attached so it's not personal," said Blake. "When you cut this movie down to its basics, what's it about? Person A wants to be happy, but what would make them happy isn't what would make Person B happy. Can Person A make them both happy? If he can't, whose happiness does he choose?"

"That doesn't sound very funny," said Penny.

"How it's presented is what makes it a comedy. If Person A makes the wrong choice, it's a tragedy. If Person A agonizes over it, it's a drama. If Person A acts stupid, but ultimately makes the right choice and is rewarded for it, it's a comedy."

"I say it's not a comedy if I'm not laughing at it," said Yang.

"Then you have no classical education," said Weiss.

"Guilty as charged."

"The point is," Blake said doggedly, "plenty of people have been in situations like this, but no reasonable person does half the things Allen does in this movie. It's all absurd. And because it's absurd, it clashes with your idea of how people act, and the difference between those ideas is funny."

"Now that makes sense," said Penny. Which, she realized, was why she struggled so much with humor. Her ideas of "how people act" were so very underdeveloped. Without them, there was no contrast. One thing looked as acceptable/unacceptable/absurd as the next, so none of it was funny.

"I should have known that someone who reads so much would have a grasp of literary theory," said Weiss.

"You say that without knowing what she reads," said Yang with a grin.

"What difference would that make?" said Penny.

"None at all," said Blake, but she'd shifted behind her bed and seemed to be sinking out of sight moment-by-moment.

"Well, what do you read?" said Penny, brimming with curiosity as always.

"Books," said Blake, and now only her bow was visible.

"Of course, but what kind of books?"

"My kind."

"And what kind is that?"

"The kind I like," said Blake, seeming to sink even further out of being.

Even Penny understood when someone was done answering questions.

As the women around her began their bedtime routines, Penny reflected on the movie and her new understanding, and one thing stood out to her: deception was not as funny in real life as it was in the movies. She wouldn't be able to play off the reveal of her secret for laughs.

That may not have been the point of the movie, but it was the lesson she'd learned.

Her wish on her name-star was especially fervent that night.

Next time: Metalhead