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Lienna was exhausted out of reflex when the order came down to gather in the Black Eagles’ classroom at the end of the day. It wasn’t like she had anything else planned – much like many of her classmates, she’d been spending the bulk of her time since the announcement yesterday tucked safely away in her room – but it was hard to appreciate the protection of a few more bodies when it came at the end of a tiring day wading through dusty old tomes and strategy lectures. 

Ugh. The least they could have done was give them some kind of training exercise; at least then she could have channeled her focus into magic instead of flitting back and back and back again to the news. As if she didn’t see enough shapes in the shadows already. Now she had to keep her head on a swivel once again. Wouldn’t be so much of a big deal back home, but after convincing herself those days were over, taking up the old torch was more exhausting than it would have been to never lay it down in the first place. 

She filed in with the other Lions, taking her seat among them, although her gaze ended up somewhere off in space. Professor Tomai did catch her eye for a moment, and she was reminded how close she’d come to asking him to write a letter to Francis in her stead and get her out of here. Considering he’d yet to make good on his promise of an update on the Hanneman machine’s progress, she figured she probably made the right choice sitting tight. Tomai didn’t seem cruel, but he didn’t seem like the type to let his “ever faithful guinea pig” scuttle away over rumours either. 

Lysander (she’d already forgotten his last name) opened the meeting just as dully as every other that day, but Lienna didn’t miss that veiled confession about Professor Simeon. Why on earth would he think a lecture – a lecture [i]he[/i] was conducting – would result in injuries? And why couldn’t they use a proper healer if so?

Lienna’s hand went to a lump under her sash, where her grandmother’s needle box was tucked safely away. She didn’t know what the skinny runt was playing at, but she wasn’t planning on being poked, prodded or anything of the sort. Not that a little box of bone needles and thread would do her much good, but if it came down to it, she did have a much more powerful weapon at her fingertips; there’d be some collateral damage, but in a space this small she was pretty confident she could skewer Lysander with ice before he got the chance to try anything funny. 

The thought relaxed her enough to let her hand fall, and she turned her attention back to the strange little professor in time for him to reveal that the students in the Rose unit had all been chosen for their Crests. Hm. Lienna wasn’t as surprised as the others; honestly, with a school crawling with highborns, she’d expected most students would have them. Any peasant like her who got in must have; she figured the only ones without would have been distant noble children never set to inherit anything anyway, coming to Garreg Mach to learn to command armies or whatever nobles had their children do. Come to think of it, that was the box she’d put Kellen into; she [i]was[/i] a little surprised about him. 

What didn’t surprise her at all, though, was Derec and his terrified thousand-yard stare. After all that bravado about trusting people and letting them have your back, he was in the same boat as she was. Some noble somewhere in his family line wormed a crest into some peasant woman, and now here he was, a diamond in the rough taking the opportunity for all it was worth. She’d almost respect him for it if he wasn’t so saints-damned sanctimonious about it. Where was he from, anyway? With that hair she’d swear he was a Gautier loose end just like her. 

The rest of the lecture would have captured her attention if it wasn’t all stuff she’d heard before. But now that it was in front of her again, she thought back to a problem she’d discussed with Tomai in private: what about Crests that [i]don’t[/i] grant special powers? Tomai was convinced that every Crestbearer had some kind of beneficial power conferred on them by their Crest, but that sometimes it was just unknown or difficult to discern. Even so, Lienna had trouble believing she had any special power. Such a thing would have come in pretty handy as a kid, so wouldn’t whatever it was have “activated” then? Maybe she had one of those bullshit “ungoverned” powers that only came out when it felt like it, and none of her prior troubles apparently made the cut. She supposed she’d find out if her dreams started predicting the future instead of replaying the past. 

She raised her hand anyway, but this time, her question was directed at both professors. [color=baa7c7]“So if this is about Crests, then what's with Lysander’s comment about getting injured? Did you round us up to research us or something?”[/color] The look on her face said it all; she wasn’t a fan of the idea, and Lysander had another asshole coming if he thought he was going to get one hair out of her without a fight.

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