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A small chill roused Aoife from her slumber. She felt the feeling crawl up the small of her back to the nape of her neck, slowly brushing against her chin as she yawned. The morning light pierced the thin white draperies lazily warming Aoife’s blushing cheeks as she pulled the blanket tight to her body, her muscles tightening to stretch.  She roused, finally, at the sound of a bird calling for breakfast. Her stomach gurgled as she thought of the same.

She rushed through her morning routine, brushing her hair and teeth with a hand each in a white tee and a pair of acid washed blue denim overalls. She looked at herself, examining for differences from what she remembered herself looking like, but there wasn’t anything too specific she could notice. She launched out of her room, not thinking much about her new roommate who was still sleeping as she slammed the door and took off running towards the cafeteria, picnic basket in hand. 

“Alice, right?” A man wearing a stained apron looked at an order chit with squinting eyes that told Aoife he was in need of glasses. “Two roasted chicken sandwiches?”

[color=0892d0]“Yup, that’s me!”[/color]  Aoife chirped carefully placing the sandwiches into the basket, carefully avoiding the drinks she’d prepared prior to leaving her room.

The man looked over her shoulder at two fishing rods stuck in a makeshift sling that looked equal parts professional and practiced. While many Sturmgaards of past hadn’t bothered to sully their dainty hands, since the fall of the family and certainly by the time Aoife was old enough to practice, this had been their way of life. “You fishin’?” he grumbled. 

[color=0892d0]“Maybe if we find a spot,”[/color] Aoife mumbled stuffing sandwiches into the basket. And before the man could further learn about Aoife’s plans she had already taken off, like a Void out of church she bolted down back towards the dorm rooms to grab her new teammate.

Aoife hadn’t been able to spend much time with her new team outside of exercises and lessons, and she certainly hadn’t had the time to get to know any of them all that well as far as personal lives were concerned. She was off in the direction of Selma, the burly brawler who towered over Aoife. Selma had quickly made a distinct impression on Aoife in their first fight that had kept up to this point. When examining her at meals or in the middle of a scuffle one might assume Selma was the charge in first ask questions later type, but Aoife had been shown otherwise. 

While she did charge into combat, that was simply her entering her most effective range for fighting. She had an eye for tactics and was quick to formulate a complex strategy at a whim of analysis. It was something that impressed Aoife as she hadn’t done much dueling or sparring before coming to the academy. She passed by windows that shone with golden orange morning light as she made her way to Selma and Chie’s room. She made a mental note to connect with the other members of her team as well as soon as more free time came along, but for what she had planned she had assumed Selma would be the most interested. 

A quick trilling knock sounded at the door and Aoife heard a tired grumble at the door as Selma came out, a small piece of toast hanging from her mouth. 

[color=0892d0]“All ready?”[/color] Aoife asked, redundantly as she began to march away from the door.

Aoife’s hike took them to a ruined spot of town, an old train tunnel that had been filled with waist high water. She huddled onto a toppled over train car around halfway into the tunnel. She cracked some glow sticks and threw them into the anachronistic river lined with iron tracks and watched contentedly as fish spiraled around the lights. 

Aoife handed a sandwich to Selma as the two sat in relative silence in the now luminescent tunnel. Aoife handed a rod to Selma, carefully handling the hook, impaling a worm on it and then handing it over to Selma. She did the same to her own fishing road, carefully resting it between her knees as she began to eat her sandwich. 

[color=0892d0]“So, Selma, do you miss home?”[/color] The question echoed both ways down the tunnel, escaping into the open air as it did. Selma looked like the kind of girl to brace the question easily and say no, that she was doing fine, vigilant as ever and that this was her life now. Aoife, was not. 

[color=0892d0]“I do,”[/color] she whispered. Her smile weakly fought back against the doubt on her face. [color=0892d0]“But I’m really glad I was put on this team, you’ve all been incredible to watch so far.”[/color]