Everyone follows Salacia’s directions and they walk to the station, Reggie, Jackson, and Mikan having been invited to join them. They spend the five minutes on the train in somewhat uncomfortable silence, get off, and walk to the park. They pass by the path Elen had her first encounter with the beast, and she notices that the area is nearly repaired before they reach the center where the fountain is.
Māra is already sitting on a bench with Iris parked next to her, but with no Zephyr around. “Where’s your handler?” Áine jokes.
“She had a recording session to go to. And nobody knows I’m here.” Iris looks much too happy to be somewhere as innocuous as a park without a chaperone but nobody comments.
They take their seats on the benches after introductions and Jackson lays a hand on Elen’s shoulder in an attempt at comfort. “C’mon, E, what happened? I thought for sure you’d be a lock.”
Elen drops her head into her hands while groaning. “First off, Jessie is a right royal bitch.”
“I thought everyone in the school knew about that.”
“She nearly made me and Alex fail the project because of it! I wouldn’t be surprised if she got on academic probation for this. And then Mrs. Zhou said that my singing was all technique and no soul and that’s why we only got a B on it.”
There are sympathetic “yikes” from everyone.
Mikan declares, “You have plenty of soul in your singing! Play it for us!”
“Yeah! Play it!”
With some trepidation, Elen takes out her phone and scrolls through to the shared drive. Making sure the volume was turned all the way up, she presses play and sets it on the bench’s armrest so everyone can listen to it. When it’s done, Elen waits for everyone’s response but only sees them with serious looks on their faces.
“Well…” mumbles Iris. She stops at everyone’s expectant looks and starts twisting her ring.
“Well, what?”
There’s a hum before Reggie says, “Darling. As your friend, I’m going to say this: Mrs. Zhou wasn’t wrong.”
“It sounds… tense,” Salacia adds. “Like you’re trying to force it out.”
With another groan, Elen once more buries her face in her hands. She feels Jackson rubbing her back. “It’s okay,” he soothes. “We can try again for the autumn quarter.”
“But I was looking forward to performing with you. I chose that song specifically for our dance routine and now I can’t reuse it. What’s so different between the recording and being on stage?”
There’s a click of shoes and Elen looks up to see Mikan kneeling in front of her. “Remember what you told me before my first performance? You told me to relax and to let my instincts guide me. Maybe that’s what you need?”
Flora’s words and shame swirl in Elen’s head. If she’d heard about this, she’s sure that Flora would laugh and lecture her about what a performer actually is.
“Why don’t you perform it for us?” asks Salacia, nearly bouncing in her seat. “We’ve never seen you before!”
Jackson immediately springs from his place on the bench and reaches out with his signature cock-sure grin. “You know you want to.”
Elen huffs and curses Jackson as she takes his hand and stands up, knowing he’s right. There’s no way she’d ever pass up the chance to perform for anyone. She searches through the shared folder again, selects the instrumental version, and gets into first position.
‘Let my instincts guide me.’
The routine is simple, all things considered. Ballet set against a pop song that may seem strange at first glance but actually matches well. It’s sensual, somewhat romantic, and there’s an overlay of desperate longing in Elen’s voice.
Elen’s voice.
Salacia, Áine, Māra, and Iris are stunned as they feel their chests warm the same way as when they’d first met her. It’s different from the recording. Her voice is enthralling and haunting. It’s genuine like they haven’t heard from anyone, even Zephyr.
And when she pirouettes… For a moment they see Elen’s long, golden hair trailing behind her. Her gown flaring so they can see her crystal pumps sparkling in the light of stars. It looks like she’s unbound and free and like her wings are going to let her take flight at any moment.
When they blink, they see Elen again. Short hair, school uniform and all, and somehow they’d been surrounded by a crowd. They look as hypnotized as they had been as they watch her and Jackson dance, and the two appear to be oblivious to them. Like they’re lost in a world of their own making.
It feels like a lifetime when they realize that the performance has ended. The audience starts clapping as Elen and Jackson bow to them, finally noticing but not letting their surprise show. Reggie and Mikan join in with so much enthusiasm that Māra thinks would be more appropriate for a proper concert.
When the crowd disperses, Elen and Jackson drop back down on the bench. Jackson swings an arm around her shoulders as they laugh off their high. “Feeling better?”
“Yeah. Much better.” She does. Truly. “I was an idiot, wasn’t I?”
“No, not an idiot. You just have a one-track mind sometimes.”
Elen looks to Reggie, eyes narrowed. “You’ve been attending most of my recording sessions. If you had any opinions, why didn’t you tell me?”
Reggie holds up his hands. “You were already stressed enough. And I didn’t want to be on the receiving end, considering that row you had with Jessie.”
She grumbles, but doesn’t refute it. These past few weeks certainly were a rollercoaster for her. And her blowups weren’t nice.
“You really have a talent for performing,” Mikan says. “It felt as if I was actually part of the song. It really was much better than the recording.”
She smiles. Now that Elen thinks about it, she never once felt that way when she was in the recording booth. That warm feeling of freedom she’d get and the desire of wanting to share it with everyone.
‘Maybe that’s what’s different,’ Elen thinks. ‘I was just thinking about the grade. Not enjoying it. Mrs. Zhou was right to give me that grade.’
“Now, let’s plan for the autumn Quarterly Concert! We can’t go on to our third year without performing in it once!”
“Let me know when you have it down. I’ll make sure you two shine brighter than anyone else on that stage.”
“I hope you don’t mean that literally, Reggie. I’ve seen your designs on the school website.”
“Are you talking about that light up suit for the spring project? What’s wrong with that?”
“Babe, I love you and you have amazing ideas, but that suit nearly burned me when I put it on.”
Elen giggles as they continue their discussion on costumes and routines and which song would be the best to try next. Right. Obsessing won’t change what happened, and it’s not her style. What Elen needs to do is to keep moving forward just as she always had.
)O(
While Elen continues to banter with her schoolmates, Salacia, Áine, Māra, and Iris lean together. “You saw that too, right?” Áine asks. The others nod.
“Do you think that was her in our past life?”
“Can’t think of anything else it could have been.”
They look back, seeing Elen’s smile lighting up her face while she laughs like a song. She looks so much more relaxed and happy, and some inexplicable feeling of relief washes over them all.
As if it’s been eons since they’d seen this side of her.
Māra whispers, “Let’s keep an eye on her. There’s something else going on here.”
They all nod. Elen had told them before that she didn’t completely trust the story David had told. It did sound suspect, like there were missing-missing details, but they never questioned it because any explanation seemed like a good explanation.
Maybe it’s time they did question it.
)O(
“She really is something else,” she comments. “I’ve never felt magick like that, even with the Lady of the Lake.”
“She and her companions are the ones we’re targeting, after all. If they had normal magick, we wouldn’t be tasked with this.”
But it is unusual when he thinks about it. That kind of magick was something neither of them had ever felt before. Yet it feels… familiar. Nostalgic, even. Almost the same kind of nostalgia when he thinks about his sister back home, but much more melancholy.
The feeling was the strongest when he had mixed into the crowd to get a closer look at her. It was more intense than when he’d bumped into her on the street. When she was singing in that club or when she’d fought the beasts. His heart is still beating a mile a minute just from being in her vicinity, and he had to leave quickly because the world seemed to be tilting from under his feet.
His right wrist is still hot as the brand shines like a beacon. The girl settles on the other side of the window’s balcony and leans over to look at it. “Excalibur seems excited.”
He thumbs the brand, hoping that it’ll soothe it but it does very little. It’s been glowing since he’d seen Elen spinning and he must’ve seen some kind of vision.
That golden hair that looked like it was spun from sunlight. The gown flowing like water. The hint of the smile that had entranced him like—
“You’re not reconsidering this mission, are you?” He’s snapped out of his musings as his companion comes closer, her yellowish-green eyes narrowing and the cat ears twitching under her cloak’s hood. The same expression as when they were kids and she questioned his intelligence when he would do some jack-ass stunt. “She is pretty. And dragons are weak against pretty things.”
He scoffs. “You know we can’t afford that. We need to see this through.”
She hums, not entirely convinced. “So we’re going to go on to the next phase of the operation?”
“Yes. And I know exactly which one is next.”
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