The first thing Mercury saw when she woke up was a dimly-lit ceiling.
The second thing was the blanket draped over her, thick and a little too warm, and the pair of metal bedposts at her feet. Beyond the bedposts were closed white plastic curtains, one on each side except for the wall behind her and the one to her right, where a single window stood slightly open to reveal the night outside.
Mercury rolled over with a quiet groan. On the window side of her bed stood a nightstand with a glass of something on it that she didn't bother to recognize before snatching it and downing it in one gulp, almost choking on the strangely fresh, minty taste. Her head grew clearer in an instant. Memories came flooding back, hazy at first, then more and more vivid until she knew everything that had happened yesterday. Georgiana, the bus, the trip through the Otherworld...and then everything had gone blank. Where was she? Her dorm? No...she knew rooms like this. The white everywhere, the curtains, the minimalistic furniture, the potted aloe plant on the nightstand...
The nurse's office, huh?
Mercury rolled over. Figured. Somebody must have taken her here after she had passed out, and she had slept here. How long, she wondered? Could she just get up? Would somebody come and check up on her anytime soon and maybe dismiss her, or was she supposed to stay here until morning?
Something came in through the window, a faint, quiet noise that she couldn't quite identify. She listened closer. That noise, it sounded almost like...like...someone snoring? Under the window?
Peering right and left, she slipped out of bed and padded over to the window, opening it wider to glimpse outside. The room was on ground level, she noticed, patches of grass and gnarled trees growing from the ground below. Somewhere in the distance an owl hooted. But nothing that could have snored–
Mercury glanced down and almost choked on nothing.
Sitting slumped against the wall, right below the window, was a figure. Mercury couldn't see their face; all she could see from above was a mop of messy hair, a pair of knees pulled up to a chest, and long arms wrapped around the knees. Tied around their shoulders was something akin to a blanket cape.
Why was somebody sleeping here? Were there homeless people in the area? But why doze off in a spot like this, with no shelter from the weather over their head? They'd get sick! Unless this person was somehow resistent against the cold. Or maybe they weren't actually human but some kind of supernatural being that could only sleep outside? Hey, it could happen–
The figure mumbled something and shifted, and Mercury suddenly caught sight of their face. A face she recognized.
"Raoul?" she burst out, unable to stop herself.
Raoul awoke with a start. "It wasn't me," he said quickly as he opened his eyes. For a moment he looked around, disoriented, then his gaze finally settled on Mercury, the drowsiness disappearing from his face.
"Mer...cury?" he asked, squinting up at her as he scrambled to his feet. "It's you, right?"
Mercury nodded with a confused laugh.
"Okay." Raoul grinned sheepishly, scratching the back of his head. "Sorry, I probably shouldn't have left my glasses in my room. I can't see a thing." He pretended to grope and feel his way around like a blind man. "You're that way, right?"
"You can't be that blind!" Mercury replied with a laugh, and Raoul grinned. Dropping the blind act, he gripped the window-frame with both hands, peeked around to make sure no one was watching, and climbed into the room.
"Ah, it's so warm!" he exclaimed in a whisper as he snuggled up against the heater. "Dude, I was totally freezing outside! So nice..."
Mercury frowned at him, unsure if she should be concerned for him or herself. "What were you doing outside my window in the first place, anyway?" Raoul looked at her, and she quickly raised her hands with a blush. "I–I mean, not technically my window, but, you know, how do I put this..."
Raoul blinked for a few seconds, then he blushed too. "Hey, I wasn't watching you sleep or anything, promise! I'm not a creep, okay? You believe me, right?"
"That's not what I meant!" Mercury answered hurriedly, breathing a slight sigh of relief. "Just...Don't you have a room or something? I mean...there's no reason for you to sleep outside, right?"
"Oh." Raoul ran a hand through his hair, visibly embarrassed. "About that...After they took you here nobody wanted to let me see you or tell me how you were doing, so I waited outside. But nothing happened and they sent me to bed, so I wanted to sit here and listen through the window to know what was happening. Thing is that nothing happened, and I kinda fell asleep."
Mercury gaped at him, torn between shock and laughter, too baffled to even blush. "You went that far just to know I was fine?"
"Hey, I was worried!" Raoul looked more embarrassed than ever. "They way you passed out on me yesterday...I just wanted to hear that you were okay, and then I would've left. Just kinda waiting for you to wake up and stuff..."
He's kind of an idiot. The thought crossed Mercury's mind with a sigh, but even so she couldn't help feeling a little guilty for making him worry like that. "Sorry, I should've probably woken up earlier–"
"Hey, don't apologize!" Raoul jumped to his feet again. "I'm just glad you didn't die or something! Just what did you do yesterday?"
Mercury hesitated a little, then she told him. Raoul listened in silence, his face betraying little emotion except for the slight frowns that crossed his face when she spoke of Georgiana, and then of the giant Otherworld mouth, omitting only the details of her argument with Georgiana and the fact that she was Twilit. When she finished he stared at the ground in silence, and then without warning he reached out and grabbed her shoulders, fingers digging into her skin.
"Are you crazy?" he hissed, his eyes wide with horror. "Do you have any clue how dangerous that was? Girl, you could've died for real!"
Mercury fidgeted with her sleeves. "Uh, no," she admitted quietly. "I barely knew what the Otherworld was..."
"It's a pretty nasty place. Everything's screwy in there." Raoul shuddered. "Don't pull that kinda stuff again anytime soon, okay? Most people who walk in there don't come back out. You were pretty damn lucky this time." He cracked a grin again. "Or pretty amazing."
Mercury reflexively looked down at her feet. Her face felt hot. "Not really..."
"Sure you were. That place eats people alive and you just walked in there like, whatever, no big deal." Raoul's voice was warm, gentle, oddly comforting. "And got back out. You can brag about that, ya know?"
Mercury laughed awkwardly. "Thanks, but I'm not planning to. Really."
Raoul grinned. Mercury smiled back. Her face was still glowing, and Raoul's cheeks looked a little pink too. They exchanged a glance, then they both simultaneously took an interest in their shoes.
"Hey," Raoul said after a moment of silence, "uh...that Georgiana girl."
Mercury tensed up. "W-What?"
"She...Did she pull that stuff 'cause you're Twilit?"
Mercury's body went cold.
"Uh, uhm..." Crap, what should she say? Would Raoul react the same way as Georgiana did if she said yes? Should she lie? But he'd find out sooner or later...But what if he rejected her? After all, Georgiana had seemed to like her at first too, and then...
Raoul looked down at her with shining eyes, his expression bright, almost excited. "Are you? You are, right? Right?"
"I–"
"Nice! Me too."
Mercury gaped at him for a good minute, her eyes growing to the size of saucers, her mouth hanging open, trying to process what he had just said.
Raoul...a Twilit Mage? The one other Twilit Mage in her year? Of all the people who might have been Twilit...it was Raoul, the same Raoul she had already befriended all those months ago?
And then it hit her.
She'd been right to come here. She'd been right to keep going despite her doubts. Because no matter how the others reacted to her background, she wouldn't be alone. She had already found a friend who would go through the exact same thing, a friend who was just like her.
Tears shot into her eyes. She was glad Raoul didn't have his glasses to see them, but the shaky, overwhelmed smile that spread over her face was more than enough to betray her emotion. She turned away, but Raoul's hand on her shoulder stopped her. "Hey...you okay?"
"I'm fine." She hated how cracked her voice was, but Raoul didn't seem to care. "I told you, I'm a crybaby. It gets really bad when I'm happy."
Raoul opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment a door opened and footsteps approached the curtains, and several things happened at once.
Mercury jumped back into bed. Raoul threw a glance at the window, realized there wasn't enough time to climb out and escape, and quickly searched for a different hideout. He peeked under the bed, saw he could never fit underneath it, looked right and left, and finally crouched down next to the nightstand, grabbing the potted plant and holding it over his head.
The curtains opened to reveal a tanned woman in her mid-thirties, short and chubby, looking tired but still very much awake. Her brown eyes were twinkling brightly, her short hair was dyed an intricate pattern of red and orange and spiked upwards like a flame, her odd haircut and excessive eye make up clashing wildly with her bland turtleneck and oval glasses. She let her gaze roam over Mercury and the bed before finally settling on Raoul, who was sitting perfectly still.
"Hmm," she said at last, grinning slightly. "Has the nightstand always looked like this?"
"Nope," Raoul answered without taking the plant off his head. "I'm a beautiful prince who got cursed into a nightstand, but the princess just woke up and set me free." He nodded towards Mercury, who was torn between laughter and massive second-hand embarrassment.
The woman gave him a long look, then she smirked. "Weird. I don't see any beautiful princes in here."
Raoul almost dropped the plant off his head. "Hey, rude!"
"And anyway," the woman added with an even wider smirk, "why's the nightstand still there if you got released from your curse?"
Mercury could practically see the gears turning in Raoul's head. "I climbed out of it," he said with a grin. "Like a snake...taking off its skin? No, what's that word...that...stripping?"
"Shedding?" the woman offered.
"Yeah, that thing!" Raoul replied eagerly, taking the pot off his head and placing it back on the real nightstand. "Wait, that's not just fur?"
Mercury put both hands over her mouth to hide her laughing fit. The woman shook her head, gave a half-amused, half-exasperated sigh and ignored Raoul for the moment, turning towards Mercury instead. "Looks like you're awake now," she said with a smile. "How are you feeling?"
"Good," Mercury said without a moment's hesitation.
"That's great. You were pretty exhausted and dehydrated when you got here, but looks like that had no lasting effects. Go back to sleep and you should be all fine by tomorrow." The woman gestured towards the bed and nightstand. "Do you need anything? Hungry? Thirsty?"
Mercury shook her head. "Not really."
"Okay then. If you need anything, I'll be next door." The woman nodded in the direction of an inconspicuous door that looked like it was leading to a small office. "Or just shout. I'm Bonnie, by the way. The school nurse."
Mercury smiled, then she remembered what her parents had taught her about manners and nearly jumped. "Oh, a-and I'm Mercury! Sorry, I almost forgot...Oh yeah, and nice to meet you!"
"And I'm Max," Raoul added with a smirk.
Bonnie gave him a long look. "Weird, I could've sworn your name was Raoul Warden earlier. Anyway, Mr. Whatever-your-name-is," she crossed her arms and stepped up to him with a challenging look, "you better get out of here. The princess needs to sleep."
Raoul made a face, but Bonnie pretended to grab him and throw him out, and he made an even bigger face and got up with a pout. "Okay, okay, I'm outta here." He waved at Mercury. "Good night, Mercy– can I call you Mercy?"
"Sure," Mercury blurted out before fully processing the information. Had he just called her a nickname?
Raoul smiled and waved again and climbed out the window the same way he had come in, walking over the grass and out of sight. Mercury followed him with her eyes until the darkness swallowed him, then she crawled back under the covers as Bonnie bid her goodnight, closed the curtains and turned off the lights.
For a long moment she just lay there, staring at the window, the curtains, the ceiling. All around her the school was fast asleep. It was strangely peaceful to listen to the silence, the faint chirping of the crickets, the occasional hooting of owls in the trees outside, almost as if the whole word had fallen asleep and she was the only one listening to its deep, quiet breaths.
She was still worried about tomorrow. She was worried about seeing Georgiana again, worried about not being welcome, worried that her old habit of spacing out would catch up with her and make her embarrass herself in class, worried that she might be terrible at magic. But now that she knew Raoul was with her, it didn't seem all that scary anymore. Whatever went wrong tomorrow, she knew she didn't have to deal with it alone.
Mercury had almost drifted off when a quiet knock on the door pierced her consciousness, closely followed by footsteps and the sound of a doorknob turning. There was a moment's silence, and then Bonnie's voice crossed the room, hushed and muffled yet strangely loud in the quiet.
"You again," she whispered, her tone cool and irritated, the complete opposite of the Bonnie from earlier. "What do you want this time?"
A second voice answered, distinctly female but deeper and colder. "How is that girl doing?"
"She's fine," Bonnie hissed back. "Back off, she's sleeping."
"I should check on her."
"Now? In the middle of the night?" Bonnie breathed a laugh. "Should've come earlier. I already took care of her. Or do you not trust my skills, Miss Genius Alchemist?"
"Don't be stupid." The second voice was calm but not without a trace of irritation. "You've been up since six in the morning, you could have overlooked something. I'll check up on her, that's all!"
"Forget it!"
"Bonnie–"
"Stop sticking your nose into my business! This is my turf, all right? I don't care if you think you're better at this than me. This is my job." There was the sound of a hand slamming against a doorframe. "Now leave. She'll be just fine without your help."
The second voice paused. Then there was a sigh, exasperation mixing in her tone. "Fine." Another sigh, then the voice went even quieter, softer, almost gentle. "I'm just saying you should rest, Bonnie. You can take lasting damage from a lack of sleep."
"Don't tell me what to do."
The door closed, Bonnie's footsteps shuffled back, and silence fell once more. Mercury briefly wondered who that second person was and why Bonnie seemed to dislike her so much, then she decided she was too tired to care and her eyes fell shut once more.
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