Rhen must be so stressed. XD But it's funny to see her and Lars arguing. XD

Cliff-hanger!! XDD

love it! and the:
Quote:
made me go OMGWTHBBQ SHE ACTUALLY SAID THAT 8D

WTG, blurble! waiting for more.

Back from my 5-week long break.

Expect that tomorrow will be full of me getting AV3 out of my system with a few short (really) ficlets and then I'll look over my screenies, get myself back into a Rhen/Lars mood, and pick up where I left off (Lars knows Rhen's dress size. Someone write me a fic explaining how. It hast he potential to be truly hilarious, warm and fuzzy, disturbing, or all three)

“Master Harald!” she said, forcing a smile. (Not now, not now, I can’t deal with this right now, she thought desperately.)

“I wanted to discuss something with you,” Master Harald continued, and her heart sank.

“Oh, I- ‘Discuss’, that’s very... I hope it’s not something bad?” She said at last, with a little giggle.

Master Harald frowned. “Well, I wouldn’t say bad…”

Rhen closed her eyes. Maybe if she just… counted to three, she would wake up and the past 24 hours would turn out to have been a horrible dream.

“Rhen?” Master Harald said. “Are you coming?”

She opened her eyes. “What? Oh… Yeah, I’m coming,” she said, and miserably followed him to his office.

“So,” he said, sitting down at his desk. “I spoke with Sirona today.”

She gulped.

“Um. You did? That’s… that’s…”

“I have decided that you might not be suitable, personality-wise, for teaching a class.”

Funny, how something she’d been telling herself for the past hour could sound so awful coming from someone else’s mouth.

“No, I- Master Harald, I’m just getting used to it, it’ll be fine-”

“So,” he repeated, “I spoke to Sirona.”

He paused. Rhen could hear the clock ticking, could feel the floorboards shifting ever so slightly.

So this was what it felt like to have your dreams crushed. Sort of like staring into an endless black pit, and the silence and the misery was like a stadium of people yelling “Jump! Jump! Jump!”

There was nothing she could say. All the protests had died before they could reach her lips. This was pretty much it.

“I understand, Master Harald,” she said, and noticed distantly how dead her voice sounded. “I guess I’ll… go clean out my room…” she said, surprised by how painful it was to force the words out. Had it been a week ago that she had been so excited about getting an apartment? What a stupid little girl she’d been.

“What do you mean?” Master Harald said.

Rhen blinked. “Well, if I don’t have a job here anymore-”

“You think I’m going to let one of the most talented swordsingers this Academy had ever produced walk away?” He said. It was his tone of voice more than anything that got through to her- somewhere between amused and incredulous, even if his face was still as perfectly deadpan as always.

“But… But you just said that I-”

“That you pretty clearly can’t teach a class, yes. That doesn’t mean there isn’t what you could be doing for us here.”

She straightened up proudly. “Master Harald, if you’ll excuse me, but I don’t want a consolation job. I have a certain dream and I can’t-”

“I would not do you the injustice of offering you a ‘consolation job’, Rhen. I am thinking specifically of something you are uniquely suited to do.”

She stared at him.

“Would it… would it include the possibility of eventually becoming High Swordsinger?” She blurted out, and then with a gasp covered her mouth. She hadn’t meant to say that.

Master Harald stared at her for a moment and then very slowly began to chuckle.

“I see you have very grand dreams,” he said.

She flushed. “I didn’t mean… I’m not trying to be disrespectful or anything, of course I’m far too young, it’s just a… just a dream…” She trailed off.

“Well,” he said, “Who knows? Maybe you will, someday. But if so,” he said, expression stern, “standard protocol is that you will need a recommendation from us first.”

“Um,” she squeaked.

“As I have already said, I don’t think you are suited to teaching. It takes a very specific set of skills to do that, not just swordsinging. But I do think you would probably make an excellent tutor.”

“Tutor?” She repeated, numbly.

“There are certain students in Shadwood Academy who are… unique. Difficult, if I may be frank. But I think that you… and your unique experiences… would make an excellent match. I noticed today that your style is more suited to one-on-one interactions. I have already checked with Sirona and she has agreed to give you up as an assistant.”

“Agreed?” It was barely a question.

“Yes. With some enthusiasm, I noticed. She also said some things it is not necessary to repeat.”

“I would… I would be tutoring students?”

“It can be a difficult, time-consuming job,” Master Harald said. “If you’re unwilling, I suppose I could-”

“Tutoring?” She said.

“Yes, Rhen, tutoring.”

“One-on-one? Not in front of a classroom?”

“If you have been listening to a single thing I have said this entire time-”

“I… I… I’m so happy right now I think I might hug you.”

“Please don’t.” Master Harald said. “I take it you are interested in the job, then?”

“Yes yes yes yes please.”

“Alright,” he said, almost smiling (very impressive for Master Harald). “Well then, I will have the paperwork delivered to you later this evening.”

---

She walked up to her apartment wallowing in the glory of the opportunity she’d been granted- an escape from Sirona, an escape from the classroom she hated, an opportunity to actually teach the way she wanted instead of being forced to parrot things she disagreed with… even the students she was being assigned, who would probably not be the kind that mindlessly went along with whatever an adult said…

Actually, she could see how that could become a problem. But.

But she hadn’t anticipated that things could possible turn out this well. This was much, much better than she had dreamed of. She hadn’t even thought tutoring was a possibility but as soon as it was presented it seemed obvious, that she’d prefer the chance to individually work with someone and to have time to explain, carefully, exactly what she meant instead of having to go with what would work for the majority of the class even if it left some kids behind.

She was so distracted by it that she didn’t think of Lars until she reached her apartment.

That nasty, horrid little…

Why was she so angry? She couldn’t remember anymore. There was just a white-hot rage coursing through her, so violently strong it left the tiny part of her mind that was standing apart from the storm rather surprised.

He had taken her out to dinner.

She wasn’t sure why.

Everything else fit into what she expected of Lars. Gloating at her misery? Nothing new there. Making nasty comments? Practically standard.

This was Lars, for heaven’s sake. The Lars that had taken Rhen the innocent, happy girl and tortured her into Rhen the angry, repressed teen. Admittedly some other people had been involved as well, notably Ahriman, the slave trader… But it had always been Lars she had blamed, in the back of her mind.

The realization gave her pause. She hadn’t- She hadn’t really realized that she hated him this much.

No, she hadn’t realized. Adventuring had held it off for a little while. She had been too full of what needed to be done to have any room left for what needed to be felt.

When she felt herself cringing when people looked at her, she was always aware that once upon a time she hadn’t been so shy. No, as a child she had been very outgoing and talkative. Introversion hadn’t come naturally, it had been forced upon her by a year and a half of slavery in which she had been harshly punished whenever she dared to open her mouth. And when at last she had gotten a chance to escape and be free, he had followed her and made her life miserable once more. She knew that there had been happy, wonderful moments during her time at the Academy, but what she remembered most vividly were the miserable ones.

And in her mind Lars had, for a very long time, been the cause of all that misery.

So of course she hated him. It made perfect sense.

It was just that… Somehow, things weren’t the same anymore. It was all well and good to say that her feelings had been held in suspension during her adventure, but life had not. Lars had… Lars had apologized, as if that would ever come close to being enough-

But what more could he do? He couldn’t turn back time, he couldn’t… He had fought by her side all the way until the very end, he had been the only one who had never, ever left her, even if it was only because of his stupid, stubborn pride. And she had said she’d forgiven him. She had meant it, too.

Only… that sometimes she got confused. She was so used to hating him. She had been for such a long time…

And why had he brought her to that restaurant anyway? She struggled to come up with an answer, with no success. And when she finally went to sleep that night it was still turning round and round inside her head.

---

At three in the morning she sat up bolt upright in bed.

Oh God.

She had walked out on him.

The hatred and anger from earlier that evening had left her, like a bad dream or a bout of insanity. She was left cold-sober, staring blankly up at the ceiling, pretty much ready to curl up into a ball and die.

What the hell was wrong with her? First of all, she didn’t hate Lars. She hadn’t, for quite some time now. You run around the world with someone through all kinds of hell, you don’t hold on to little grudges from back when you were just kids. She was supposed to be beyond that. That day in their house in Sedona when he had apologized she had been fully aware of what she was doing when she had forgiven him, and she’d thought herself mature enough to go through with it anyway.

And last night…

He had gone to the trouble of taking her out to a restaurant and suddenly she realized that he had probably done it to comfort her, for reasons presumably understood only by Lars Tenobor.

And then she’d had a breakdown and walked out on him.

Well, of course she had, she’d been miserable and depressed and positive that she was going to be fired, or that worse she was going to have to face Sirona again the next day.

But now neither was going to happen. The future was bright and rosy and wonderful, and she had behaved perfectly abominably towards him.

He had behaved perfectly abominably back, but he was Lars, wasn’t he? Acting like an insufferable jerk was his default mode, he probably had it etched into his DNA. She’d spent three years traveling the globe with the guy, she had thought she’d finally learned how to look past the… the… insufferable jerkiness.

In any case she certainly should already have known that it took him special effort just to act like a normal human being. And he’d probably been trying, and in any case there was no denying that he had in fact paid for a meal for her, which meant that in any case she owed him some gratitude, not just a…

Walking out on him.

She rolled over and stuffed her face into her pillow, willing herself back to sleep. Tomorrow she’d find him and… sort this out, somehow.

Slipping down the waaaaay post

---

ETA: Holy cow I've written over 40 pages in Word of this thing.

(tryign to finish up next chapter... gah)

Note: Chapter five has been edited in a small but significant way =D

Wow This Story is really Good!!! Just like all the others excellent work Blurble. Like i said before i love your writing!!! Please Update soon!

plz hurry and update soon i really want to read more

Hey, this is great! Loved what I read so far. Can't wait for the next update

Thank you everyone, I really appreciate your support =)
In any case, the next bit fought viciously, kicking and screaming, but will probably be coming soon. Finally (That thing gave me bruises, you know. Nasty little thing.)

(Amendment: At least I hope it's nearly ready *crosses fingers*)

Great! Eagerly awaiting the next update.

Sunlight streamed through the wide glass windows of his apartment, and seemed almost to focus on Lars’s bed.

“Mnnghghg,” he grumbled, pulling his large fluffy down blanket over his head.

A moment later he threw it off again. Too stuffy, couldn’t breathe.

Outside several birds began singing. It could possibly have been pretty had there been only one, but as it were they each clashed horribly with all the rest and the combined effect was something like a rusty saw.

Oh, dammit all, he was going to have to get out of bed, wasn’t he.

He rolled himself off of the bed and onto the floor, and lay there for several minutes, still contentedly swaddled in his blanket. He was starting to gently sort of drift… back to… sleep… when a draft began blowing from under the door.

Eyes still firmly shut, he managed to struggle into a sitting position, reluctantly peeling the blanket away.

He rose with a yawn, stretching, and padded on bare feet to the bathroom, where he washed his face. He paused for a moment to glance in the mirror- Why yes, he was every bit as good-looking as he had been every day before. And brilliant, too, with a charming personality. Practically perfect in all ways, actually.

There was absolutely no reason Rhen Darzon shouldn’t like him.

At this thought he scowled. It wasn’t like it mattered to him whether she did or not. And if it did it was strictly as… friends, as she so frequently insisted on putting it. Just friends.

But it didn’t- matter to him, that was- so that was irrelevant in any case.

And now he was in a bad mood. Just great. Fresh scrambled eggs on toast did not improve his mood, either- he ate them sullenly, mouthful at a time.

Time to go. His bag was already leaning against the door, prepared with all the stuff he needed for the day. Lars liked to be ready in advance.

He swept angrily out of the apartment, door slamming behind him, a dramatic exit that got ruined by his bag-strap getting stuck in the door.

---

The next morning she found herself walking to her usual classroom without realizing it.

She was a hallway away before it dawned on her that this wasn’t her classroom anymore. The thought filled her with such joy she was surprised. It was like a weight she hadn’t really noticed had slipped off her. She turned on her heel and walked away, humming.

But of course there was someplace else she had to be. She walked quickly down to the office, and waited on a rather short line.

“Oh, Rhen,” the woman at the desk said, looking vaguely familiar. “I was expecting you.”

“Um…” Rhen said.

“You’re switching to Assisted Studies, right? I have the student files and room key for you. If you need any additional supplies you can always ask, in general we’re pretty lenient as to what can be used.”

“Oh, thanks.” Rhen said. “Wait, so when do I have to…”

“The schedule is attached to the folder,” the woman said, pointing. Rhen looked down and saw that, indeed, there was a blue sheet of paper attached to the top folder with a schedule neatly printed… Her eyes skimmed immediately to the current day of the week.

Wait, what?

“I’m sorry?” The woman said, and Rhen realized she had spoken her thought out loud.

“It’s just… I’m sorry, is there a mistake on this schedule?”

“Not that I’m aware of, no. Is there some reason it should be?”

“No, no, I’m just- kinda used to having morning classes, is all.”

“You do, on Thursdays and Fridays. But today’s Wednesday.”

“Oh. Oh. Um… So… I guess I don’t have anything until this afternoon? Sweeeeet.”

The woman looked mildly taken aback. Rhen stared at her, puzzled. There was something…

“I’m sorry,” Rhen blurted out, “but you look really, really familiar and I just can’t place it.”

“Oh,” The woman says, looking a little surprised. “I’m surprised you remember. I’m Neya, I woke you up that day you were supposed to assist in Professor Tenobor’s class.”

“Really? Oh right, I remember. Haha, fancy we’d meet again.”

“It’s not actually that surprising, I do work here. It was bound to happen eventually.”

“Well, anyway,” Rhen said, smiling. “It was nice meeting- I mean, seeing you again.”

For a moment Neya looked like she was about to say something else, but then she stopped.

“Anyway… Good luck,” Neya said.

“Thanks!” Rhen said, surprised. She scooped up her papers and prepared to leave. “Well, see you around.”

---

That had been nice. Neya seemed like a sweet person, actually. Rhen considered that for a moment as she sat on a sun-warmed bench in the front lounge. Hm.

Anyway, there was something else on her mind right now. It wasn’t like she’d exactly forgotten, but even if she had Neya’s mentioning him by name would have reminded her.

Lars.

Dammit, she really didn’t want to deal with this. Just thinking about it filled her with an irrational sort of dread.

Actually, though, now she had several hours free. So she could take her time and come up with some sort of plan.

How to Apologize to a Sorceror. Yeah. She hadn’t a clue.

Oh, well at least she didn’t have to…

Some sixth sense of hers made the hair on the back of her neck prickle. She turned around slowly.

Oh, damn.

There was no mistaking it. Coming through the school’s double-door entrance was the one and only person she most desperately didn’t want to see right now.

Stupid, stupid fates. They probably hated her because she hadn’t followed the Oracle’s advice. Yeah, that was probably it.

Otherwise how would you explain how Lars was coming straight at her, the sound his boots made each time they came in contact with the floor sort of like a death knell?

“Um… H-Hi,” she managed weakly, leaping up.

He didn’t even glance at her, just swept past like she wasn’t there.

She stared blankly at his retreating back, and slowly slumped back into a sitting position.

---

Alright. This wasn’t so bad.

So he was clearly really, really furious with her. Fine. She would have been, too, had she been him.

And possibly he didn’t want to see her ever again, and hated her guts.

Fin. She would have been, too, had she-

Dammit.

Once upon a time she really wouldn’t have cared. But then, she could say ‘once upon a time’ about a lot of things.

Once upon a time she wouldn’t have done anything. Once upon a time she would have pretended not to notice. Once upon a time she would have let him make the first move towards reconciliation.

Well, once upon a time she’d been a heroine, saving the world. Once upon a time she’d loved Dameon. And now she wasn’t and she didn’t and it was time to grow the hell up.

So she angrily blinked back the stinging beginnings of a tearfest and stood up. She was going to go for a walk to clear her head. Then she was going to apologize. No more beating around the bush.

---

Why did he have to see her just then?

He walked into his classroom in an awful mood, to find the usual kind of chaos that results form a teacher being a few minutes late.
‘
He cleared his throat. They settled down.

“Don’t ask why I’m late,” He said, shortly. “Let’s get down to business. Everyone, have your staffs or wands out- We’ll be learning some more advanced control exercises today, I think you’re just about ready for them by now.”

He felt himself growing less tense as he spoke. He didn’t need to think about her at all right now, he could just relax and enjoy teaching. And he really did enjoy teaching, it was one of many, many talents that came to him easily and-

She’d been having difficulty with teaching, of course. He hadn’t really bothered himself about it, but last night it had seemed to him that maybe she wasn’t just having a little bit of difficulty after all. She had seemed so upset…

And Rhen was the kind of person who bore with anything. That was what he’d come to admire about her, her perseverance and her optimism and dammit, he wasn’t supposed to be thinking about her!

“Um, Professor?” He heard someone say, and he realized that he’d pressed too hard against the piece of chalk he’d been writing with and had snapped it in half.

He went to his desk to take another piece, trying to look like nothing had happened.

And why was she so upset, then? He refused to believe it was just some difficulties with the teaching job, she was obviously worried about something bigger than that. Nor did he understand what was going on with her and Dameon. He was beginning to feel guilty about restraining himself from encouraging her to return to him. It had been selfish of him, that on the basis of his own feelings he had allowed her to ignore hers… If she was with the guy she loved, she would be happy… Yeah, that was right, she would-

“SNAP!” went the piece of chalk in his hand. This was getting ridiculous.

“I’m sorry,” he said, to the class, “If you’ll please excuse me for just a moment…”

He walked out, aware that behind him whispering was already starting, and headed straight to the water fountain.

He drank it, forced himself to focus on the way it slid cool and refreshing down his throat. For good measure, he splashed some of it on his face as well.

Now to go teach his class. And not think about Rhen Darzon, just this once.

---

She couldn’t do it.

She had waited outside his classroom for him to finish.

But as soon as she had seen him begin to wrap up- as he placed the chalk back on the desk and headed towards the door- she had dashed away as fast as she could, heart pounding furiously.

Apologizing was really hard.

Now she was sitting in the library, gazing down at her cup of coffee, trying to see the future in its swirls of creamy goodness.

She was supposed to be looking at the papers Neya had given her, but thus far all she'd managed to do was stare blankly at the schedule for a good ten minutes now, interrupted by bouts of therapeutic coffee.

What was she supposed to do? Clearly the “charge ahead head-first” approach wasn’t going to work. How about… ambush? Kidnapping? What was wrong with her?

All this… thinking was making her head ache. Stupid Lars was too complicated, dammit.

Fine. She would try again. All she needed to do was-

WHY was he coming into the library? What was he doing here? This wasn’t even funny, this wasn’t even funny, this was like one of those awful nightmares where that thing you never want to have happen repeats itself in an endless loop.

Also known as running into Lars on a Bad Day, over and over.

He probably hadn’t seen her yet. The library was angled so that a bookshelf would almost definitely be blocking his view of her right now. What should she do?

This was the perfect opportunity to apologize, she realized suddenly. It had practically landed in her lap. So naturally, as he began walking towards the reception desk (and a straight line of sight towards her) she found herself diving under the table.

Crouched there, staring at the pieces of dried, moldy gum people had stuck to the underside of the table, she found herself considering life. How beautiful, precious, and fleeting it was.

“Hello,” Lars said, bending over to give her his most evil smile. “Care to explain why you are hiding under a table, Rhen Darzon?”

…How she was going to be saying goodbye to it painfully soon.

“AAAAH!” She screamed, instinctively jumping up. Which of course was a bad idea, seeing as there was a table in the way.

“Ow…” She whimpered, curled up in a ball of pain.

“Um… Rhen?” Lars said. For a moment he seemed more concerned than furious.

One hand still gingerly covering her poor, injured head, she found herself nonetheless inching backwards.

“Where are you going?” He asked, in the soft singsong voice Lars always used when planning something nefarious. Fear jolted her back to her senses and she found herself skittering out from under the table as fast as she could manage.

Not fast enough, however. An iron grip latched around her ankle.

“That looked like a pretty nasty bump you got there, I think you should probably have it checked out-”

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry,” she found herself babbling frantically, “I behaved horribly last night I was completely over-reacting it was really nice of you to take me out please let go of me-”

And as his expression changed from “inches-from-the-kill” to “confused shock”, she took advantage of his loosened grip, kicked out hard, and dashed from the room, still clutching her aching head.

In- dammit, not much more than an hour and a half, how did time vanish so quickly?- she was going to have her first tutoring session ever, and she really needed to visit a healer first and get her head fixed. In more ways than one, probably.

---

"...Wait, what?" Lars managed to get out, at last.

In the distance, a cricket chirped.

yay!! a great update!! this is great!! more more more!!

Great story!

cant you pleeeeeeeeeeeeease write more RIGHT NOW!?

LOL I would have been shocked too if i was Lars XD Nice Update! I really Enjoyed it

"cant you pleeeeeeeeeeeeease write more RIGHT NOW!?"


-laughs-

I'm working on it. And I have written around half of the next chapter already. But I'm not one of those people who finds it easy to write blindingly quick, so it might a bit.

I'll try to get it up faster for you, though =D. Your enthusiasm encourages/amuses me.


---

@sana96: I imagine when he bent down to see her under the table he was not even /close/ to imagining that that was what was bothering her.

well at least you're working on it. so when's the next update? today? tomorrow? the day after?

no no no no baaaaaaaaad me, dont even think about "the day after tomorrow".......thats waaaaaaaaay to long

I'm going to try very hard for "tonight".

Bad news is that after that, I will be very busy and by necessity updates will have to slow.