It was finally the weekend. Rachel’s first weekend at the academy where she didn’t have to worry about classes or searching for the fairy. She didn’t have any plans besides lunch with George. Sadly, there was no time to make friends and her roommate was rarely in their room. Rachel was wondering whether she would see her roommate in the morning on the weekends, but when she awoke in her bed looking around the room, she found that she had already left. With slight disappointment, Rachel prepared for the day. She had plenty of clothes to choose from washing her dirty and clean clothes after she finished shopping yesterday. Looking at her drawers, she chose to wear the top she purchased yesterday, which was a dark blue fabric with multiple different colored stripes sewn into it, and her black pants from home. Rachel had already packed her cloak in her purse, but after putting on some casual boots and sitting on her bed, she still brought her purse to her side and checked again that it was still in there. It was and it brought instant comfort to her. With her purse, Rachel set off to the academy’s eatery. She wanted to grab a light snack before exploring more of the academy to whittle away the time she had before meeting up with George.

From the eatery, Rachel could see from its large stained-glass windows the field with all the Military Arts students practicing routines on it. She knew where the Military Arts, classrooms, and infirmary were. But where was the Performance Arts section in the academy? The agricultural classes were towards the back because of the field they used to practice farming techniques in. By this logic, the Performance Arts would be near the auditorium. About an hour before her meeting with George, Rachel set off towards the auditorium. She could hear squeaking on its wooden floors. There were many girls dressed in cultural outfits working through a routine in sync, sometimes branching off in smaller groups and then rejoining. There were some guys too, but they were sitting out at the moment. Other people dressed in different cultural outfits were working with tools and wood building some sort of structure. Rachel knew her roommate was in here somewhere, but she couldn’t find her as there were so many people moving around. But it was interesting to see what the cultural dances of Gerais were and what the Performance Art students studied here at the academy.

After having been captivated for thirty minutes, it was time for Rachel to meet George at the front of the academy. She walked back the way she came, looking out at the military field again, this time it was empty, but she noticed that it had accumulated more red-tinged dirt. At the front of the academy, Rachel saw George, in plain clothes. It was a bit of a shock since he’s always been in his armor when she had seen him, but she recognized him well enough. But he wasn’t alone. There was another guy with him and more importantly a swarm of girls. George and his guy friend were trying to dismiss them. It backfired. As Rachel walked closer to the pair, she could hear the girls squealing and giggling between comments about how sexy they were and how dreamy their voices sounded. She laughed at all the trouble they were having. Rachel’s mission was to repay George’s kindness and it wasn’t going to be stopped by love-struck girls.

She cleared her throat and when she was close enough to be in earshot of George and his friend, she shouted, “Excuse me.” The girls’ craziness stopped, and they looked at Rachel and began to clear a way for her, although they weren’t sure why. As the path to George opened for Rachel, George seemed embarrassed by the situation and froze, unable to move. When Rachel was a few feet from him and his friend, she again addressed the girls surrounding them. “Well, if you all don’t have business with George, I’ll be taking him and his friend to lunch now.” The girls understood the message and began to leave.

“Well, I didn’t know you were that popular.” Rachel smiled at George.

“They think they can move up in the world if they get close to me. It’s frustrating.” George scoffed.

“And who is this?” Rachel said motioning to his friend.

“Oh, well, he wasn’t supposed to be coming with us, but he was caught up in trying to get those girls away from me. This is James.”

“Oh, from the infirmary! You can join us if you want, I’m paying!” Rachel said excitedly.

This was her chance to make some friends. Although it might not be a good idea to make friends that are very popular, seeing as she was alone in this country, they were better than nothing. James wasn’t sure about this. He was supposed to gather information about Rachel in secret for George, but his cover has been blown so might as well join them.

“Sure, I’ll come along.” James calmly said, exchanging glances with George.

“Hurray! I haven’t eaten in town yet. So, whatever place you think is best, we should go there.” Rachel informed them.

“Okay, I’ll lead the way,” George said, leading James and Rachel away from the academy.

Rachel noticed that the shops they were heading to were in a different area than the clothing shops she had been to yesterday. The signage hanging from the walls of the shops was wooden, with images carved into them indicating their products or services for sale. There was one bakery, two breweries, and one restaurant. With only a few shops selling food, it was a wonder how the air smelled so wonderful. Rachel wondered which shop they were going to go into and if they all offered seating for food cooked to order.

Before George walked into one of the four shops, he turned to Rachel to ask her opinion on what she might want to eat. “These are the four shops that offer food in this town. We shouldn’t go into the breweries as the academy’s students, so that leaves two shops, the bakery which offers to-go meals and the restaurant which offers seated meals.”

“Well, we should eat whatever you like. We could go to the bakery if you don’t have time to wait for the food.” Rachel said.

“Let’s do the bakery, we can eat outside since it’s a nice day out,” George replied.

“Does that work for you, James?” Rachel said, not forgetting George’s friend.

“Yeah, it’s great the bakery has some good stuff!” James exclaimed.

They walked into the bakery and found a list of products that they offered other than bread, such as cured meat, cheeses, and meat pies. Rachel was very unfamiliar with these foods, she decided she should try all sorts of different items while she could, especially since they were cheaper than she thought they would be. George noticed that Rachel seemed unfamiliar with this situation.

“Well do you know what you want?” He asked Rachel.

“Nope, do you?” She smiled back.

“Yeah, I always order a meat pie,” George replied.

“What about you James, what do you get?” She asked.

“Um, bread with meat and cheese.” He said, already drooling over the food not yet ordered.

“Well, both sound good. George, if you could order for us that would be great. And get as much as you want. I just want one meat pie and one bread with meat and cheese.” Rachel smiled, also almost drooling. She did notice that this shop was producing some of the sweeter smells when she walked inside. George placed the order and when the clerk calculated and told him the cost, Rachel whipped out the money from her purse in a flash trying not to show how much she had left and handed it to the clerk. Both George and James were surprised at how a single girl could easily without worry afford this much food. George had ordered his usual, two pies and two loaves of bread with meat and cheese for James, along with one each for Rachel. They were keen to find out. But first, Rachel was concerned with what they were going to drink with all the food that they had ordered.

“So, while we wait for our food, what will we drink?” She asked George and James.

“We passed a waterspout we could drink from on the way here,” George replied.

“That’s perfect!” Rachel said, clapping her hands together.

Minutes later the food was all wrapped in cloth for transportation and the group of three headed to some benches off to the side of the road near the waterspout George had mentioned.