The young man behind the counter looked at her with a puzzled expression. “Are you alright? I couldn't see it all, but it looked like you bumped into someone!”
She gave him a dejected look and nodded. “Yeah... something like that,” she replied to him quietly. “Can I buy another tub please?” She asked him, knowing that it was expensive, but she was determined to bring it back for Irisyla.
The young man looked back outside at the commotion, then at her solemn expression. He gave her a bright smile and shook his head. “Don't worry about it!” He reassured her before rummaging through the freezer again. Moments later he put another tub of ice cream on the counter for her, then placed a small single box with a picture of an ice cream bar. “It's on the house, and a little something extra for you.”
Elizabeth stared at him and his little gift, her lip quivered ever so slightly as everything that had been welling up that morning threatened to burst. A couple tears rolled down from underneath her eyepatch, but that was all she dared to let out. She moved the eyepatch away briefly to wipe away the wetness from her eye and cheek. “T-thank you so much,” she spoke with a bit of a crack in her voice. After fixing the eyepatch back into place and clearing her throat, she thanked him again and apologized for the scene.
“Don't worry about it! Really, it's the least I can do to help.” The young man said, looking a bit worried after he almost saw the poor girl cry. He thought for a moment, grabbing a plastic bag from underneath the counter and putting Elizabeth's items inside it. “That should help prevent another accident from happening. If you don't live far, you don't need to worry about hurrying before the stuff melts. I can vouch that it stays cold for quite a while, so take your time!”
She nodded gratefully, giving him a small smile as she took the bag from him. With the plastic bag in hand, she wasn't nearly as worried about dropping the ice cream again this time. Making sure to keep herself at a steady pace, she gave her goodbyes to him and left the store once more.
By the time she left, the commotion appeared to have settled down and Tessa's crew was nowhere to be seen. The only evidence of anything happening was the smeared spill of mint ice cream on the grass, not even the book that had been thrown remained at the scene. Now that she had what she came for, she turned down the path towards the side of campus where the shed was.
About a minute later, she went down the stone stairs on the path to cross through a large park-like area. More people seemed to congregate here between classes than anywhere else, but today it was fairly quiet. While passing through, she noticed something at the huge fountain nearby. Once again, Tessa was sitting there with her face cleaned off, and her girls sitting next to her. Elizabeth noticed as well that a couple boys that would tag along with Tessa's group were sitting nearby.
She realized that she accidentally made eye contact with Tessa, and saw her mutter something to one of the boys who was playing with a football in his hands. Not knowing if the vengeful woman would try to come at her for a third round, she quickened her pace to get away as fast as possible.
Nothing happened right away, so Elizabeth thought she was safe. However, her heart jumped when she heard one of the boys run past her, and the other yell “Go long!”. She immediately turned around, eyes wide as a football came flying towards her face.
It happened again, that alien feeling washed over her body, that moment she had before the ball would hit her felt longer than it should have been. When the feeling left, the divine intervention was as obvious as it could have been. The ball had somehow -in midair- changed its course. Before it could hit Elizabeth in the face, it had defied physics and veered far off to the side. It smacked against a tree nearby, bouncing off and flying back at the guy who threw it.
He was so dumbfounded by the turn of events that he didn't react until the ball hit him square in the face instead, knocking him back against the edge of the fountain and into the water. There were only a few people besides Tessa's group that were present, so only they seemed to notice the strange turn of events.
Tessa stared at Elizabeth, momentarily locking the girl in place as rage filled her eyes. “Are you some kind of haunted freak or what?!” she shouted. Her voice hinted that she actually seemed quite disturbed.
Not knowing what was happening, and generally feeling unsafe today near Tessa, she hurried away from the scene as fast as she could. She knew the man at the store told her not to hurry, but he wasn't aware of the full circumstances or chain of events that was happening to her today.
After a few minutes of running, she stopped to take a quick breather when Tessa's group showed no signs of following her. “I just want to get home now...” she thought to herself. She was practically dreaming of Lilith's flirty antics at this point to help as some sort of distraction.
Before continuing her walk she made sure that the ice cream was safe and her extra little gift was still in the bag. She let out a deep sigh of relief that she hadn't actually been struck with misfortune a third time this morning. Now that she was only a couple minutes away from home, Tessa's words burned into the back of her mind. “Am I really haunted...? These feelings have to be related to magic in some way, but what could it be?” She decided that the first thing she would ask when she got home would be if anyone had insight to the events that occurred to her since leaving her class today.
Another feeling however had been gnawing at her the whole time, that feeling since earlier that she was being watched or followed. She wondered if it was Tessa again, and that thought filled her with immense anger. She stopped in her tracks and looked behind herself. Nobody seemed to be there at a glance, but upon closer inspection she swore she saw someone's hand move behind a tree. “Was that a woman's hand... It is her, isn't it?!”
Elizabeth resolved herself, she would try to stand up to the nasty woman by catching Tessa off guard. She moved around the next corner, the shed was now in sight. Instead of retreating home, she waited there for a moment. She listened as light footsteps hurried across the grass around the corner. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves, then a step forward.
Unfortunately she miscalculated the distance of the sound, and ended up stepping into and banging heads with the person following her. Both of them yelped in pain and fumbled onto the grass. She instinctively protected the ice cream on her way down this time and kept it from spilling everywhere.
Elizabeth rubbed her head and looked at who she bumped into, initially prepared to give Tessa what was coming to her. However, that was not the one who was currently sitting inches away from her. Instead of Tessa, a young goth woman was there, rubbing her backside after it had slammed against the ground.
She was entranced by the woman in a similar way that she had been to Lilith, but not exactly the same. Her hair was long enough to flow past her knees, and black as night with violet highlights that were tied at the bottom. Her bangs covered her right eye, but her visible eye was a shining gold colour with a violet hue to it. There was something familiar about her, especially her dark clothes and makeup really stood out. But she couldn't quite put her finger on it. “Were you the one following me around?”
The goth woman immediately noticed Elizabeth staring, the glare having quite a bit of frustration behind it since it was meant for Tessa. She covered her face with her delicate hands to hide her embarrassment. “I-I'm so sorry! I didn’t mean to do anything bad!” her quiet, shy voice pleaded into her hands.
Upon seeing how frightened the girl was, Elizabeth realized she was coming across as standoffish and loosened up her expression. It was odd, like looking at herself in a lot of social situations, but cranked up to a stronger degree. “I'm sorry as well! I thought you were someone else and well... I was kind of prepared for something different.” She wanted to still get to the bottom of the stalking, but she could feel the sincerity in her plea of meaning no harm.
She peeked through her fingers, her tense body relaxing upon seeing Elizabeth give her a smile. She slowly moved her hands away from her pale face, but looked down at the grass nervously. “M-my name is Sarana...” She introduced herself as she reached her shaking hand out.
Somehow seeing this girl act way more nervous than she was gave her a bit more confidence. “I'm Elizabeth..." she paused while shaking her hand, “wait a second..." Her mind was reprocessing Sarana's appearance with the similarities to the other women she had met recently. She caught a glimpse of fangs as she spoke, and noticed the sharp eyes. That's when the name dawned on her and brought everything together. “Sarana! Aren't you one of the succubi at the Umbreise mansion?!”
Sarana whimpered and nodded, fidgeting with her skirt while making the slightest amount of eye contact with her. “Y-yes you are correct... I'm a succubus. I've been living with you for a while...”
She couldn't help but find relief that her 'stalker' was at least someone she knew was safe, as she doubted that the other succubi would allow someone harmful near her at home. She remembered the other day when Irisyla tried to introduce them to each other, but failed since Sarana wouldn't leave her room or speak. “Have I done something to make you uncomfortable?” she asked. Her voice was a little gloomy since it seemed the succubus had been actively avoiding her since she moved in.
Upon seeing how dejected Elizabeth was, she shook her head vehemently and took the human's hands into her own. “A-absolutely not! You've done nothing wrong!” She declared to her, 'shouting' in her soft voice. “I've actually been in your history class since the year started, before you joined our clan.”
She was taken aback by Sarana's sudden burst of energy, but the revelation made more sense now as to why she looked so familiar. A few times since the school year started, she had noticed a goth girl sitting off in a corner seat on the opposite side of the lecture hall. “So, you were nervous because you had seen me in class before?” she asked. She was trying to find the connection between Sarana avoiding her and being in the same class.
She shook her head, letting go of Elizabeth's hands to instead fidget with her skirt again. She rubbed her knees against each other in the grass, the portion of her face not hidden by her bangs turning bright red. “T-the truth is...” She stammered a little, her eye contact moving all over the place before she shut her eyes completely. “I've been attracted to you... since I saw you on the first day. When you were brought to the mansion, it was too much for me to handle! So I've been hiding from you ever since!!!”
Elizabeth nodded slowly in understanding. “I see... I understand why you would act that way then,” she paused on her own words. The reality of what she just told her actually hitting her like a baseball bat to the back of the head. Her own face started to burn brightly as well. “A-attracted to me?!?!”
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