The Problem With Pink Hair and Cat Ears

The door opened without a knock.

A tall blonde woman stepped in, dropped a bag on the nearest unclaimed bed, and looked around the room with the look of someone trying to take in a new place for the first time. Deep blue eyes moved across the space, the beds, desks, bathroom doors, window, and then they landed on Elayna and Kiri.

"Ah—" she said, now registering them. "Should I have knocked?"

She asked it without any real concern, but more in the way someone might note they'd forgotten to say please.

"No," Kiri said, from her desk.

The woman looked at Kiri for a moment, started visually taking in her short height and pretty features, the white hair, the fox ears, the flat purple eyes, the complete absence of any readable expression and appeared to make a quick but concise internal summary about the Foxgirl.

"Right," she said, in the tone of someone who had now immediately understood something and chosen to move on to the next matter. She turned to Elayna with a small smile. "I'm Evelyn."

"Elayna!" Elayna said, smiling back immediately with the kind of innocent brightness of someone who had seemingly been waiting to meet this exact person. "And that's Kiri."

Evelyn nodded at Kiri. Kiri looked back at her with flat purple eyes and said nothing, which Evelyn appeared to accept as a greeting.

She looked back at Elayna.

She looked at the face first. Wide golden doe-eyes, her lavender hair cut to the shoulder, facial features that were striking in the specific way of something that had been put together unreasonably well. High cheekbones, a soft mouth almost with a natural resting subtle pout, the kind of face that portrait painters would have very strong opinions about. Pretty and cute in a way that was immediately obvious and didn't require any effort to notice.

Saints she’s adorable, Evelyn thought simply. She looks so tiny and soft.

Then her eyes moved lower, the way they inevitably did when you were actually taking a look at someone, and—

She looked back up at Elayna's face.

Elayna was currently telling her something about the ceremony, eyes bright, hands moving slightly as she talked, completely absorbed in what she was currently saying and radiating the distinct, pure energy of someone who found everything and everyone around them genuinely interesting in some way.

Oh, Evelyn thought. She has absolutely no idea.

Not a judgment. Just a cold fact, landing with the sudden clarity that comes when something is just very plainly obvious once you'd seen it.

Her face was one thing. A doll-like prettiness carrying something underneath it that the features alone didn't fully explain, an openness so complete it bordered on dangerous. Elayna wore the expression of someone who had never learned to be guarded because she'd probably grown up sheltered and safe and had never needed to be. Every thought and every feeling landed on her face entirely visible and entirely undefended. She radiated a pure innocence that made Evelyn want to stand in front her of and protect her, on instinct.

And then everything below her waist, which was just the complete opposite of the face. In every possible way. The kind of opposite that had absolutely no business belonging on someone that naive, cute and clueless looking.

And Elayna was most likely walking through the world with both of those things happening simultaneously. With the complete and total innocence of someone who had not only failed to connect those two facts about their appearance but appeared to have never considered that there were two facts to connect in the first place.

That, Evelyn thought, was going to cause problems. Probably already had — no, definitely already had.

She put the thought away, as something to remember and be very aware of, and smiled at whatever Elayna had just finished saying.

"Sorry," she said, "I missed the last bit—" She dropped back onto her bed, landing on her elbows with the easy comfort of someone who had decided this was her space now. "Where are you both from? I'm Awenholt born and raised, never lived anywhere else actually, so." A small easy smile. "I'm curious."

"I grew up outside the capital," Elayna said, which was technically true.

"Well, that’s not very specific. And Kiri?" Evelyn glanced over.

"South," Kiri said. "The Kaelith jungle."

"That's in the Aerthveld," Evelyn said, eyebrows raising. "That's very far south."

"Oh! So you're from the Aerthveld!" Elayna said, basically shouting from the side, sounding very happy for some reason.

"Yes," Kiri said, completely flat compared to Elayna's excitement.

Evelyn looked back at Kiri. "How did you end up here?" she asked.

"I was sent," Kiri said, in the tone of someone for whom this explained everything necessary.

Evelyn looked at her for a moment, decided that was supposedly the full answer, and nodded.

She looked around the room at the four beds, the window, the afternoon light going golden. "Strange, isn't it," she said, more to herself than either of them. "A couple of days ago I didn't know either of you existed. Now we're—" she gestured at the room.

"Roommates!" Elayna supplied, sounding very happy about it. "For maybe seven years,” she added with an excited smile.

"Seven years," Evelyn said, letting it land. She looked at both of them, Elayna was looking back with warm eager eyes. Kiri was looking past her at nothing in particular with her flat calmness.

Something small settled in Evelyn’s chest that felt, already, like this was the start of something.

"Could be worse," she said.

"I agree," Kiri said, looking at Elayna as she answered.

“I’m so excited!” Elayna beamed.

The dinner bell rang through the building, distant, clear, and unmistakable.

All three of them looked up at approximately the same moment.

"So, that means dinner," Evelyn said, already standing and stretching with the unhurried ease of someone entirely comfortable in their body and surroundings.

"Do you guys want to go together?" Elayna asked, already on her feet.

Evelyn glanced at Kiri, who had risen from her desk with the quiet manner of someone who had already decided without being asked.

"Together," Evelyn confirmed.

"I don't know where the dining hall is," Elayna admitted, as they stepped into the corridor.

"I do," Evelyn said, already walking.

The dining hall was at the bottom of the building. It was enormous, warm, and considerably more impressive than Elayna had expected from a student dining hall. It looked less like a hall feeding students and more like a place people went to when they wanted to eat more food than they possibly could.

Long tables filled most of the space, already loud with first and second-year students, the noise bouncing off the high ceilings. Along the far wall ran a generous spread of food, several hot dishes, cold dishes, breads, soups, things Elayna couldn't immediately identify but wanted to try. And in a corner there was a small separate stall with a large handwritten menu on a board above it, with the exotic smell of something expensive and extravagant being cooked coming from it.

Elayna stopped walking.

She stood there and looked at everything twice with wide eyes.

"There's so much," she said, pure, unbridled awe in her voice. "So much food." She wiped drool from the corner of her mouth.

Evelyn looked at Elayna and smiled, then looked at the food. "Come on," she said.

They were making their way toward the queue when someone stepped toward them, specifically someone with hot-pink hair with same-colored cat-ears who was immediately visible above most of the room.

Cait had apparently already been to the corner stall. She was moving away from it with the unhurried stride of someone who had just ordered what she wanted and was now simply existing until it arrived, she had changed direction the moment she saw Elayna, quickly heading straight for them.

"Hi. Believe we're all from the same Class," she said, by way of explanation, stopping in front of them. Her green eyes moved to Evelyn first, running a quick and clean assessment of her that she didn't bother disguising.

"I'm Caitlynn. Nice to meet you."

Evelyn met her eyes steadily. "Evelyn."

Something passed between them. Something brief, unsaid, the mutual recognition of two people who had both immediately understood what the other was doing and had both decided to let it happen. Cait's eyebrow rose the smallest fraction. A slight incline of her head, almost imperceptible.

Evelyn's expression didn't change. But she was already taking serious mental notes on Caitlynn.

Cait turned to Kiri. "And you?"

Kiri looked up at her with her mildly interested pale purple eyes.

"Kiri," she said.

Cait looked back at her for a moment with mild genuine amusement.

Kiri's gaze moved over Cait. Slowly and unhurriedly, the same flat observational sweep she applied to most things and then returned her gaze to the space in front of her.

"Indecent," she said to no one in particular. Staring straight ahead as she usually did, with her half-lidded, still eyes.

A short silence.

Cait's mouth curved slightly. "Kiri," she repeated pleasantly. "Lovely."

Then she turned to Elayna, and her expression shifted into something warmer and considerably more deliberate.

"And we," she said, warm smile becoming a teasing one, "we've already met. Haven't we Elayna~?"

Elayna straightened. "Yes," she said, with great composure. "We have."

"Mm," Cait said, with a small smile that suggested she found the composure very charming.

Cait looked them over briefly once more, "Shall we queue together?" she said. Evelyn looked to the stall she'd come from with a questioning look. Cait saw the look and answered with a smile, "I eat a lot."

She was not wrong about eating a lot.

By the time they had even barely reached the food Cait already had a plate that suggested she ate her food out of genuine hunger rather than indulgence, which Elayna found oddly intimidating. She turned her attention to all the different kinds of food in front of her and slowly but surely felt her brain go slightly quiet with the lovely problem of too many good options.

She loaded her plate with everything that looked tasty, and reconsidered none of her choices and kept adding more.

They found a table in a quieter corner where the noise of the hall was still present but manageable, a place of relatively nice quiet in the general chaos of hundreds of students all eating at once.

Elayna set her plate down. She looked at Evelyn's plate. Then Kiri's. Then Cait's.

Then at her own.

"Oh," she said quietly.

Hers was considerably larger than everyone else's... Though perhaps not quite reaching Cait's, which was its own kind of impressive. Several dishes she'd thrown on in quick succession had apparently added up to something that could only generously be described as ambitious.

She picked up her fork and poked at her food for approximately ten seconds without eating anything, feeling like she'd never manage to eat it all, not sure where to even start.

"It's fine, Elayna," Evelyn said, without looking up. "Just eat."

...Elayna ate.

The conversation quickly settled into something easy enough, albeit a little careful around each other, specifically everyone talked with a slight tenseness to their tone with Cait, except Kiri, who barely spoke. Cait talked easily and listened well, which Evelyn took note of. She noted down a lot of things about Cait, something about her just prickled Evelyn.

Kiri ate with quiet efficiency and said very little. Elayna talked about the training halls with barely contained excitement and now quickly ate away at her enormous plate with complete unselfconsciousness, which appeared to amuse everyone at the table in very different ways.

After a while Kiri looked at Cait directly.

"...You're dangerous," she said.

Not to the table, not to the room in general. Directly at Cait, completely dry and flat, like she'd been identifying what Cait was and had now finally come to her conclusion.

Elayna and Evelyn stopped eating.

Cait looked at Kiri. Then smiled, a true one, slightly surprised at the edges.

"Why, thank you," she said.

"...It wasn't a compliment," Kiri said, looking up indifferently at her.

"I know," Cait said. Her smile didn't move.

Kiri's unreactive, half-lidded pale eyes looked at her for one more moment, then returned to her food, Elayna and Evelyn slowly went back to their own.

The conversation at the table had quieted down, then a staff member appeared at Cait's shoulder and set down a plate without ceremony, a large piece of something a bit dark and well-seared, the smell of magical beast meat that was always immediately distinct from everything else on the table. Rich and slightly electric, the faintest trace of something that wasn't exactly found in normal food, traces of mana.

"Oooh," Elayna said, looking at it. Looking very much like a jealous kid over another kid's toy.

"Mm," Cait said, cutting into it with casual ease of someone who had done this many times before. She looked at Elayna. "Want some?"

"Uhm..." she said, "I have plenty left—" Elayna gestured at her own considerable plate.

"That's not what I asked," Cait said pleasantly.

Elayna looked at the steak. Then at Cait. Then at the steak.

"...Yes please," she admitted, shyly.

Cait speared a piece with her fork, and held it out to Elayna. Elayna blushed and leaned forward a bit, barely opening her mouth to take the offered bite.

It tasted amazing. "T-thank you..." she said awkwardly.

Cait smiled at her. "You're welcome, sweetie."

It happened mid-dinner, while Elayna was in the middle of saying something about the academy gardens she'd walked past earlier.

Something brushed against her calf.

She stopped talking.

Her fork froze halfway to her mouth. And her brain paused mid-operation, staring slightly wide-eyed straight ahead at nothing with the expression of someone who'd just felt something large and slimy touch their foot when walking into the ocean.

She cleared her throat. "—and the trees were really—" she tried, before whatever it was snaked its way up further.

Her train of thought had left the station without her, it had left her completely alone.

Cait, across the table, was looking down at and eating her own plate with complete calmness, as was everyone else.

"Here," Cait said, cutting another piece of the magical beast steak and holding her fork across the table toward Elayna. "Try it again."

Elayna looked at the fork. Whatever was brushing her leg had currently stopped but her brain was still catching up—

"Is it her," Kiri said.

Not loudly. Just completely from nowhere, said to the air in front of her. The way she seemed to say most things, to no one in particular and therefore to everyone simultaneously.

Elayna managed: "Wha—"

The thing came back to brush her calf.

Kiri looked at Elayna for a moment with her flat pale purple eyes.

"She could protect you," she said.

"...Probably."

Then she looked at Cait. "You have my blessing."

"Blessing for what!?" Elayna said, turning to Kiri with wide eyes which was the exact moment Cait pushed the fork gently into her open mouth.

Elayna bit down on instinct and realized what she did. She looked slowly up at Cait and went very pink.

Kiri glanced between Elayna and Cait. "For everything," she said, and returned to her food.

A short silence settled over the table.

Evelyn, who had watched all of this from Elayna's left with the steady attention of someone doing a very thorough observation, looked at Cait.

She didn't say anything. She didn't need to. The look said it clearly enough — I see exactly what you're doing with her. And I'm watching.

Cait met her eyes.

She held the look for a moment. Calmly, and very much unbothered, not a flicker of discomfort on her pretty face. Then she lifted one shoulder in a small unhurried shrug.

What? it said. I'm not harming anyone.

The corner of Cait's mouth turned into a lazy smirk.

Evelyn looked at her for one more moment. Then picked up her fork and went back to her food.

She hadn't decided on anything yet. She was just making sure Cait knew.

Elayna continued to stare down at her own food for the rest of dinner, her calf kept getting rubbed against and she'd had her suspicions and was realizing what it was. She looked up very pleadingly at Caitlynn, and after that it had ended.

They said goodbye to Cait at the dining hall doors, or rather Cait said goodbye to Elayna specifically, warm and without hurry, and then included the others more as a gracious afterthought.

The corridor back to their room was quiet after the noise of the hall, not really awkward silence, just the kind of silence when no one knew quite what to say.

They walked in a loose comfortable cluster with Elayna in the middle, Evelyn to her left, Kiri to her right — and for a long moment nobody said anything.

Then Kiri said, into the silence:

"I like her."

Evelyn glanced over. "Cait?"

"Hm," Kiri said, with the small forward tilt.

A short pause.

"She really is dangerous though," Kiri added, in the same flat tone. Like a footnote. Like both things were simply true and equally worth stating.

Evelyn looked at her briefly with the look of someone who had arrived at the same conclusion though through a completely different route.

"Yes," Evelyn said simply. "She is,” she added with a bit more weight in her voice.

They walked in silence for a moment.

Then Evelyn looked at Elayna with the calmness of someone choosing their words carefully while not knowing if it was even their place to comment on it.

"She's interesting," she said. "Just — be careful, Elayna. Make sure you know what you want before... before someone else decides that for you."

Elayna felt her brows pull together. "...What does that even mean?"

Evelyn was quiet for a moment, then her eyes went uncertain.

"Right now I suppose it means that when you figure out you have feelings you don't understand, come talk to me." she said. "Before anyone else."

She said it without pressure. Just left it there like something Elayna could pick up whenever she was ready.

Elayna looked at her for a moment.

"...Okay," she said, which was the most honest response she had to something she didn’t fully understand.

Evelyn nodded with a small smile, and that was apparently the end of it.

They walked the rest of the way in comfortable silence.

When they reached their dorm, Elayna put her key in the lock, opened the door, and stopped.

There was someone in the room.

She was standing in the middle of it. Someone with straight black hair, slightly pale grey skin, with two small dark nubs on her forehead, and large red irises that were fixed on Elayna's bed with an expression of very intense focused displeasure. She stood there, completely still, in a way that implied she’d been standing there for a while and was intent on staying like that, indefinitely.

All three of them stood in the doorway looking at her.

She became aware of them. Turned around.

"What!?" she said, as if they were the ones being strange.

"Sorry—" Elayna started and then walked over to her bed. "We — we're your roommates?" She said, as if trying to defuse the situation.

The girl looked at all three of them. Then at Elayna specifically. Then at the bed behind Elayna. Then back at Elayna.

"You have my bed," she said calmly, not accusatory. Just as if it was a fact.

"Oh—" Elayna looked back at the bed she'd chosen — closest to the window. "I'm so sorry, here take it, please—"

She was already moving toward her things.

The girl stared at her.

"...Why," she said after a pause, without any change in her expression or voice.

Elayna turned around and blinked. "Because you want it?" she said, sounding a bit confused.

A short silence. The girl looked at her with an expression of someone encountering a strange phenomenon. Elayna took the silence as permission, and turned around to gathere her belongings.

"...Huh," she said, looking at the head of lavender in front of her.

She then turned around and looked at Evelyn. Then at Kiri. Then back at Elayna, who was cheerfully beginning to move her things without any apparent resentment or any deep feelings at all over the matter.

Something in her expression shifted. Not into warmth exactly, just a lot less guarded than a moment ago, like she'd been bracing for an argument over the bed that had simply never shown up. It never existed to begin with, apparently.

"I'm Zyvara," she said finally.

They settled around the common table all four of them, the room feeling suddenly much more complete than it had an hour ago. Zyvara sat with her arms folded and her red eyes moving between each of them with the frank assessment of someone who didn't see the point in being subtle about it.

"You," she said to Evelyn, "are going to be the responsible one."

Evelyn raised an eyebrow slightly. "Is that so?"

"Obviously." Zyvara's eyes moved to Kiri. "You don't talk."

Kiri stared blankly at her. "Sometimes," she said.

Zyvara stared at her for a moment, decided this was an acceptable answer, and moved on. Her red eyes landed on Elayna. Moved down. Came back up.

"And you," she said, "are going to have serious problems."

"Me?" Elayna said, then tilted her head to the side. "Uhm, what kind of problems?" .

"Your hips and buns, stupid." She said it the way you'd point out someone had their shirt on inside out. "With how short you are and with a face like yours people assume one thing — and then they see the rest of you and probably lose their minds entirely. And you're clearly too friendly and naive to deal with it properly. Too clueless."

Elayna looked down at herself. Then back up.

"...Uhm," she said.

"You didn't know," Zyvara said. It wasn't a question.

"I-I'm starting to figure it out," Elayna said in a slightly ashamed tone.

Zyvara stared at her for one more moment, then looked away.

"Acceptable," she said, to no one in particular. Like a verdict.

"What are you?" Elayna asked, after a moment. She said it with complete casual curiosity. "I mean your race. I don't think I've ever seen... what are those on your forehead exactly?"

"Horns," Zyvara said, looking at Elayna like she was disappointed she didn't know that.

"I-I know they're horns," Elayna said, slightly defensively, "but what kind? What race are you?"

"Zy'kael." She said, the ‘kael’ part was pronounced very harshly.

Elayna looked at Evelyn. Evelyn looked at Kiri. Kiri looked at nothing in particular.

None of them appeared to have any information about Zy'kael.

"I've never heard of—" Elayna started. "Do the horns do something? Do they grow? Are your eyes red because of your race?" She felt her curiosity get the better of her.

"Yes, yes, and yes," Zyvara said. "The horns connect to my magic. As they grow my control improves."

"They're small," Kiri then said, blankly, with her unreadable eyes slowly observing the horns.

There was a short silence.

Zyvara turned and looked at Kiri with her large red eyes.

"So?" she said.

Kiri looked back at her with complete flat calm.

"So your control is limited," she said. A short pause. "Currently."

"I know that," Zyvara said, with the annoyed energy of someone who knew that already and didn't need it pointed out.

"Hm," Kiri said, and looked away.

Zyvara stared at the side of Kiri's head for a moment. Then looked away herself.

"...Acceptable," she said, but slightly grudgingly this time.

"Why are you at the academy?" Elayna asked, a little while later. She'd been working up to asking everyone. "What do you want to do?"

Evelyn had said something about wanting to test herself properly. Kiri had said "become stronger" in two words that apparently covered everything she needed to say. Elayna talked about being a master sword mage for slightly longer than she'd intended to and apologized for it.

Then they all looked at Zyvara.

"Kill demons," she said, something slightly serious coming into her voice.

A short silence.

"...How many?" Elayna asked carefully.

"As many as possible," Zyvara said, with complete matter-of-fact certainty.

Kiri tilted her head approximately three degrees.

"That’s a lot of demons," she said.

"So what," Zyvara said immediately, turning to face her.

"Nothing," Kiri said flatly. "Just a lot."

"I know it’s a lot. That's the point," she said pointedly.

"Hm," Kiri said, and looked back at the table.

Zyvara stared at her. Then at the table. Then at the ceiling.

"What is wrong with you."

"Nothing," Kiri said, still looking at the table.

Evelyn covered a small smile with her hand, finding the duo very endearing.

The conversation drifted the way late evening conversations do, into the training tomorrow, which classmates they thought were strong or interesting, what they'd brought from home, whether the food would always be that good. Zyvara had opinions on everything and delivered them without being asked. Kiri contributed occasionally with single sentences that were always either completely accurate or completely baffling. Evelyn held it all together with a small smile the whole time like a cousin babysitting their favorite relatives.

"I just think," Elayna said at one point, with complete sincerity, "that we're all going to be really good friends, I can feel it."

Zyvara stared at her. "You've known us for an hour," she said.

"I know, but I can feel it." Elayna smiled earnestly.

Zyvara looked at Evelyn. Evelyn offered nothing. Zyvara looked at Kiri. Kiri looked at the table.

"I don’t disagree," Kiri said, after a moment.

Elayna beamed at that. She looked at them all and felt something very warm and slightly overwhelming in her chest. These were going to be her roommates. Maybe her best friends.

Seven years, she thought.

"Hmmmm!" she said suddenly, in the tone of someone who had been thinking very hard about something wonderful and could no longer be reasonably expected to keep it to themselves. "I can't wait for tomorrow! I want to see how everyone in our class fights! Their different magic types and what kind of weapons they use and everything!"

Zyvara looked at her. Then at the ceiling. Then back at her.

"If you keep spouting such embarrassingly, genuinely, sincerely naive nonsense," she said, with great feeling, "I will beat it out of you at the training halls tomorrow."

"Hey..." Evelyn said, from across the table. "Be nice."

"I am being nice," Zyvara said. "I said tomorrow. I'm giving her time to prepare."

"That is," Kiri said, "considerate."

"Thank you," Zyvara said.

Elayna looked between all three of them with an excited smile, then she felt her eyelids become heavy and she let out a yawn.

"...I'm getting tired," she said, "I'm going to bed..."

They went to bed not long after. First light came early and the training halls wouldn't wait. The room settled into the quiet of four people who had known each other for approximately six hours and was now trying to fall asleep in the same space. The kind of awkward silence that happened when people who had only just met were all pretending to be asleep at the same time.

Elayna lay in her new bed and stared at the ceiling, entirely unbothered by the silence.

She was thinking about tomorrow. About the training halls, specifically what they'd look like, what her classmates would look like with weapons in their hands, what kinds of magic she hadn't seen yet, whether they'd spar on the first day. She really hoped they'd spar on the first day.

She closed her eyes.

Tomorrow, she thought, so excited that it was hard to contain. I can't wait!