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By the time Auberon’s knock sounded on her door, Lienna was already awake, albeit wishing she wasn’t. She was no stranger to early mornings, but she’d been able to convince herself to sleep in enough times since coming to Garreg Mach that it was always a slap in the face when old habits came back to drag her out of bed even earlier than Auberon did. At least when he did it, she could blame someone else. 

To add insult to injury, Auberon’s knock came even earlier today than expected; the sky was barely light when he arrived at the door, and she held her breath until she heard his footsteps resume, hoping he’d assume she was still asleep and not bother her about it. She was already irritated from waking up so early; she didn’t need the first face she saw today to be Auberon’s. 

By then, her fruitless attempts at going back to sleep had succeeded only in frustrating her, and Lienna reluctantly got out of bed and went about her routine. Truth be told, she didn’t feel as bad as she expected to, and a look in the mirror showed the usual shadows under her eyes had begun to fade. Probably because, for the first time since arriving at Garreg Mach, she’d slept… relatively soundly. Normally she was hounded by confusing, distorted dreams and started awake in the dead of night with the same urgency as any Srengese raid, haunted by that ever-present feeling of being watched as she tried to lull herself back to sleep. But while her sheets were undeniably twisted from tossing and turning, she never did wake in a cold sweat, and she didn’t feel the eyes on her back with the same intensity as before. Why would that be?

The thought tumbled in her mind as she went about her morning routine. Was the increased guard presence around the Monastery finally quelling her dread? She had never found much comfort in guards before. As she pulled off her nightgown, she noticed the new smoothness of her arms, looking a little less corpselike than the sharp bones she was accustomed to. Her ribs were a bit less easily counted, too. No doubt the new abundance of food and shelter was the culprit; Hells, maybe her new lifestyle was making her softer in every respect. 

That was fine by her. The sooner she could start taking survival and safety for granted, the better. Dipping her hands into her wash basin, she was distracted by a thin sheet of ice forming over the surface, blooming out from her fingertips like blood on snow. She watched with interest until the whole basin was covered, the paper thin skim of ice taking on the filigree pattern of frost on a window. She poked a few exploratory holes in the ice, her routine momentarily forgotten. 

Maybe that was what had her at ease all of a sudden; these new Crest classes had her mind abuzz, not to mention her extra meetings with Tomai. More and more she found herself too busy thinking about Crest theory and sorcery techniques to worry about how many times a day a hidden assailant might jump out from the shadows to abduct her. 

Honestly, it was a welcome change, if not a smart one. 

Having had her fun, she finished getting ready, buttoning her bishop sleeves and tying her scarf around her waist in a limp bow, as had become her habit. She wasn’t out of her room quite as fast as some others, but the dining hall was still empty enough when she arrived that she could have a hearty breakfast in peace and make it to class without being the last one to arrive. 

In fact, to her surprise, she was almost the first to arrive – or the first of the Rose Unit, anyway. Lienna initially thought she had the wrong classroom when she was greeted to three unfamiliar faces and her geography professor, and almost turned and left before she saw Tomai and Michail at the head of the room as well. Not hiding her look of offended confusion, she simply slipped past the strangers (and Clarissa, who was talking to them) and took a seat far enough away that she hoped they wouldn’t bother with her. She tossed an especially disapproving look to the girl scarfing down danishes as she walked past, giving her a wide berth as if to avoid any splashback of pastry from her churning jaw. Maybe she was just biased from growing up hungry, but it was awfully irritating to see someone go to town on their food that… excessively. 

She tipped her head in silent greeting as she passed Professor Tomai, looking grumpier than usual. It would be funny if she didn’t share his frustration, albeit possibly for a different reason. He was probably put out over whatever they were doing this morning, which didn’t bode especially well, but Lienna figured some of that discontent must have been coming from their… less-than-successful meeting yesterday. It had been mercifully short, only about an hour compared to their usual three, but what it lacked in length it made up for in absolute dead-end unproductivity. Tomai had it in his mind that her lineage might be the key to her “abnormally presenting Crest”, so the evening was spent with Lienna being reminded how little she really knew about her family and Tomai being frustrated there wasn’t more information to be had. Shock and awe, turns out coming from a fractured family wasn’t super uncommon in the Faerghian region ruled over by redheaded manwhores. 

Macuil’s heels, she could have told him [i]that[/i] in five seconds and saved them both a lot of time. 

Content to let that debacle live in history, Lienna turned her focus to the geography professor, already hard at work drawing a detailed map on the chalkboard. She somehow doubted that they were called in early for a special cross-unit geography lesson, so why bother with a map? The other students were speculating that it was a field training exercise. Lienna wasn’t thrilled at the prospect, but she hoped that if that was indeed the case, they’d have at least warned the newbies to give her a wide berth. With any luck, the professors wouldn’t soon forget what happened on their last little excursion. 

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