Revamped!

[As I publish this chapter, I am currently writing the ending of this arc. I thought it would have taken longer to write but apparently not.]

Forming Clay Soldiers: Part Five

Artemisia, Luna

Winter panics, unable to take control of the situation. She suddenly feels suffocated and faint. Cinder takes Winter's hand and squeezes tightly to say that she's here and she'll try to manage this as much as she can. Like Kai said at The Rampion, they'll take on some of her worry.

"Cinder, what do we do?" Winter asks anxiously.

Cinder is scared as well. "I have no idea. We have to tell someone because if we keep this a secret from the military involved, it could be a crime."

Winter thinks back to after the soldier questioned her, when Levana said she'd be committing perjury if she was keeping something from them. "We can't tell anyone. I love Jacin and I can't tell anybody about this letter."

"We have to!" Cinder argues. "Jacin could be in serious trouble!"

Winter puts her feelings aside for a moment and puts that into consideration. "We can't tell Levana."

"We wouldn't and, besides, Mayor Rikan will have her working late for a while."

That was beneficial for them only because Levana was out of the way. In terms of a cohesive plan, they still have nothing.

"I can't…" Winter mutters. "My head is telling me to help him -"

"Winter," Cinder cuts her off. "Jacin will be -"

"Jacin is like my medicine because he's the only one who can calm me down. Now I don't know where he is!"

-o-

The next day, at school, Cress leans against a wall of lockers, next to Thorne who rummages through his. Cress doesn't comment on the lack of textbooks or binders that Thorne keeps in there (and they're not in his empty backpack either) since she knows that Thorne has little to no respect for school. She wonders where he keeps his homework and if he does any of it.

"You know," Cress starts, "the year you went to military school was the year I came into town. Admittedly, I fell in love with the talk about you being a cadet."

"When in reality, I was a sad child that my parents wanted to get rid of," Thorne replies with a small smirk on his face. They had this conversation when they were lost in the forest and shared their first and second kisses with each other.

"I doubt you got expelled solely because you wanted to go home to them. So, what'd you do?"

Thorne closes his locker and is face-to-face with Cress. She's smaller than him so when she looks up at him, it's even cuter. Thorne looks at her pleading eyes and blushing cheeks. He didn't think that a simple girl like Cress could tempt him so much but he's weak in the knees.

"Again, Cress," Thorne says, "I'll tell it some other time or maybe never. Long story short, I got expelled for doing the same thing as Jacin - running away. I got caught though and usually, they don't do anything if a cadet were to leave but it's how I left that got me my beloved plane ticket home."

Cress is more interested now. "What did you do?"

Thorne smirks. "I said that's a story for another time."

Cress nods. Thorne admires how she isn't continuing to pester him about his final days in Andromeda Academy. She accepts (for now at least) that he isn't telling her. If this is a tactic on her part, then he'll never know. Again, Cress is very tempting to him in such a simplistic way. It's like she doesn't even try and stars it amazes him.

Thorne leans back on his locker. "It's hard to keep me from just jumping on you and kissing you like there's no tomorrow."

Cress is suddenly on her toes, her cheeks blushing like a wildfire. That got her off her persuasion act since she didn't see that coming. Her and Thorne have been close ever since their night in the forest together but their romance and intimacy seemed to have stayed there. Still, the hinted romance was pleasant for the two of them.

Cress raises an eyebrow. "I can feel your eyes roaming all over me. What's stopping you?"

Thorne is now the one who didn't see that coming. Cress, flirting intentionally? This was all new to him but he did like it. A lot.

As their little mind games continue, both unsure whether the story of how Thorne got expelled will be told or if some kissing will be going on instead. Either of the two would be nice for Cress although Thorne would prefer the latter.

Their phones both ding and they both look and see the same message from the group chat containing their social group in it. Now, the group chat's name was currently called: Ex-Cadet Carswell's Crew. (Thorne made the group chat under the name "Captain Thorne's Crew" but everyone's been changing the name just to spite each other, mostly him.)

Group Chat - Ex-Cadet's Carswell's Crew
Members: Captain Thorne, Crewmate Cinder, Crewmate Kai, Crewmate Scarlet, Crewmate Winter, Crewmate Wolf, Little Crescent Moon

Crewmate Cinder: Rampion. After school.

Crewmate Scarlet: Be there or be square ;)

Crewmate Cinder: Dear stars, you didn't just send that.

Crewmate Scarlet: ;)

Captain Thorne: I hate this group chat.

Crewmate Wolf: This group chat hates you too.

Captain Thorne: -_-

Little Crescent Moon: Minus me. I like you.

Captain Thorne: At least one person here likes me.

Crewmate Wolf: Cress doesn't count.

Crewmate Kai: Yeah, she doesn't.

Little Crescent Moon: HEY! RUDE!

Crewmate Thorne: At least Winter cares about me. Right, Winter?

Crewmate Winter: …

Captain Thorne: I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS!

Crewmate Winter: We are, it's just…

Crewmate Cinder: JUST MEET AT THE RAMPION OH MY STARS!

-o-

After school, still in their uniforms, the group aka Ex-Cadet Carswell's Crew at the Rampion. They sit in the circular booth, even Scarlet who didn't have an after-school shift. Cinder and Winter sit on the ends of the booth, distributing the milkshakes that a waitress brings them.

"Jacin sent me a letter while he was MIA," Winter explains. She opens her backpack and pulls it out. "I want you to read it and understand it."

Winter slides the letter across the table for them all to see. Thorne, Cress, Scarlet, Wolf, and Kai all cautiously read every written word. As they do so, Cinder nudges Winter's milkshake closer to her and she quickly takes her medication.

"Dearest Winter, I'm sure that by now, you know what's going on. However, you might also be wondering what is going on. As the centre of this problem, I can honestly tell you that I have no idea what's happening. I had to get out of Andromeda Academy and clear my head to figure it out. I left my phone behind so please don't waste your time calling or texting me. Don't worry about me. I might not know what's happening or what I'm doing but I'll be fine, I promise. Love, Jacin."

Cinder flips the letter over.

"Winter, please, if you truly loved me, then you won't tell my parents about this letter…"

The table is silent.

"Where do we start with this letter dissection?" Scarlet says. "I say we deal with the confusion motif. Jacin has no idea what he's doing."

"I think there's a paradox here," Kai points out. "Jacin doesn't know - or at least says he doesn't know - what he's doing, but he did know that he has to get away from where he was."

"So, he knew that he didn't know," Cress states. Everyone who just read the letter nods in agreement. "Okay, so we can move on from that point."

As they continue their discussion about the letter as if they're in English class, Cinder and Winter's jaws drop in utter shock. None of them expected to see this academic-like analysis done on this letter. Aces, they're putting more into this than a poem for class. They were right to have come to their Ex-Cadet Carswell's Crew for assistance.

"Jacin does call himself the centre of this problem," Wolf says.

"Well, he did run away," Thorne states the obvious.

"Do you guys find any important, subliminal message that we're missing?" Cinder prompts.

They shake their heads as they continue to analyze.

Winter clears her throat. "You guys don't have to do this."

"Don't be ridiculous," Wolf tells her. "Your problems are our problems. Besides, we Lunars - with Scarlet, Thorne, and Kai - gotta stick together."

"Besides," Kai says, "what's the point of doing this if it weren't possible? Asking for the impossible to be done is a waste of time."

"Really?" Thorne questions. "Because this letter is confusing me."

"...me too."

"We'll be here a while…" Scarlet mutters. "We'll be needing more milkshakes."

-o-

Location Unknown

Jacin places his bag on the counter of a gas station bathroom, not thinking or caring about how disgusting it may be. He zips open his backpack and pulls out a plastic bag from a convenience store he went to earlier. Inside it is a box of do-it-yourself hair dye. He tears open the box and skims through the instructions. Spades, he'll figure it out himself. Jacin takes out the components and mixes all that has to be done. As he shakes the formula together, he looks at his reflection in the grimy mirror, focusing on his long blond hair that flops around.

He knows that his parents will have people looking for him and one of the noticeable factors about him is, shockingly, his blond hair. A good handful of the population has that feature. Jacin knows that his current decision is hasty but nobody will suspect that some random dude with blue hair is the one they're looking for. At first, Jacin thought about dying his entire head but changed his mind.

Jacin starts applying the blue dye on his tips. He doesn't care much about rinsing the excess dye out since his only option is to use the sink which is extremely dirty. Instead, he puts his hood over his head, pulling his blue tips out to show them off. Now, it just looks like his entire head is dyed blue. He can't risk staining his clothes or his skin with blue dye or else that will look suspicious.

He likes this plan better.

[In case you're wondering: yes, we will eventually learn how Thorne got kicked out of military school.]