Ow, sweet,
they'll come soon,..
Great chapter, and seen new writing style, i had,

YAY update! So the story is near it's end? Once you finish the fic. please, please, please go back to "The Little Joys of Living, Lying, and Falling in Love" Cause I'm waiting for an update! Nah I'm not gonna give you a break from writing (jk) Really I just want to read the next update for that fic. And this update was short and cute in a way. ^^

sana96: Actually, I am very much hoping to finish Little Joys... it's just that I wrote most of the remaining part (it has only 2-3 chapters left) and then gmail ate it. Considering that the story has been lost two times before, it's kind of depressing and demoralizing that when I finally managed to start again it got eaten. So. Yeah. But hopefully when this is finished I'll be able to think about Little Joys again, yeah.

@shadowshed: I have difficulty understanding your comments. I mean, thanks for the sentiment, I appreciate it, but I don't really get what you're trying to say.

----

This story does not end at the confession (there's a few more stops after that)- but the confession is just around the corner, yeah.

She caught up with him outside of class.

Maybe it was a bad idea. But she had sort of not been able to stop herself from at least going to his hallway and then of course he saw her standing around so she couldn’t exactly leave- she’d swallowed the “run awaaaaay” instinct because that wasn’t going to work twice without him catching on that something was up.

“Hi Lars,” she said.

“Hi, Rhen,” he said, raising an eyebrow at her.

“So. Um.” She said.

“Yes?” He said, patiently.

“Um,” she said.

“Lars!” Shrieked a female voice from down the hallway.

---

“Oh god.” Lars said, as the woman began teetering towards them in her precarious high heels.

Rhen looked at him, confused by the irritation in his voice.

“Who is this?” She asked.

“Um.” He said. “Ylitta. Former childhood friend. You remember her.”

Her eyes widened.

“Not that horrid girl who-“

“Yes,” He whispered. “And she’s still a nightmare. Now shhh.”

“Laaaars!” Ylitta squealed, and flung her arms around him.

“Er,” he said, looking distinctly traumatized, and futilely tried to remove her.

“Oh, I’m sorry, am I interrupting something?” she said, giggling, and kept her arms around him as she turned to see who he was talking to.

Her expression changed from an inane smile to pure disgust in .03 seconds.

“Oh lord,” she said, and made a retching motion. “Not her. Lars, this stupid infatuation has gone on long enough. I came here to tell you that, actually. I did a lot of soul-searching about it- it was very hard, and heart-breaking, too, but you are so very important to me, Lars, and I value our friendship far too much to allow you to make such stupid mistakes.”

“I’m sorry, what-“ Rhen began.

Ylitta turned. “Surely you understand as well, you- um, you- In any case, surely you also agree this is ridiculous, underneath that thick skull of yours? Even servants must have some sense of what is proper, after all.”

“If I just understood what you were talking about-“

At this Lars made a choking sound.

“No, that’s quite enough, I think.” He said, and began dragging Ylitta away. “We need to talk,” he hissed in her ear.

“Don’t pull me away, Lars, I was just about to explain to the servant-girl that-“

“You have absolutely no right to come down here, you addle-prated fool-“

She stomped down on his foot, hard, digging the heel of her shoe in.

He yelped in pain and let go of her.

“Girl,” she said, stalking imperiously towards Rhen.

“Rhen,” Rhen corrected, gritting her teeth.

“Right. Whatever. I don’t know if you have any principles, but surely you must at least have scruples enough to realize how shameful it is for you to continue to take advantage of Lars here like this.”

“I haven’t the slightest clue what you mean,” Rhen said, coldly.

Ylitta sniffed irritably. “Surely you realize how ridiculous it is for a man of his standing- a cousin to the empress herself- to be associated with one such as yourself! Why, it defies description! If it weren’t for his being sadly out of his mind- I refer, of course, to his ridiculous infatuation for you- it would scarcely be believed!”

“I think he has the right to associate with whoever he- wait. Infatuation?”

“Yes, his silly little crush on you,” Ylitta said, impatiently, as if speaking to a child.

Rhen said, slowly. “Lars isn’t- Lars doesn’t-“

She turned to him for confirmation, still confused but certain she must have misheard.

She paused as she saw his expression.

He’d gone white.

---

He knew he need to say something to undo everything Ylitta had just said, to wipe that expression off Rhen’s face, something, anything, it didn’t matter, if only he could-

More than anything he wanted to be ten feet underground right now. No, more than anything he wanted Ylitta to drop dead on the spot.

“See?” Ylitta was saying, oblivious. “She thinks it’s preposterous too. Don’t you, Rhen? It’s laughable, really. You’ll put this ridiculous nonsense of yours aside now, won’t you, Lars?”

“I don’t think it’s laughable, actually, no.” Rhen said. She didn’t bother to look at Ylitta, instead keeping steady eye contact with him.

He swallowed, painfully. Tried to bring back moisture in his mouth as he began- “You don’t need to pay attention, Rhen-“

“Oh, no, I’m paying attention,” she said.

“It’s not-“ he said, and couldn’t deny it.

He looked away, humiliated.

“Well then, Lars,” Ylitta said, looking back and forth between the two of them, tapping her foot uncomfortably. “Let’s get going then.”

He shook her off angrily.

“What exactly were you hoping to achieve with this, you horrid little b-“

“Yes, do tell.” Rhen interrupted, pleasantly. He still couldn’t read her expression. Or tone, for that matter. It was absolutely nerve-wracking. “What were you planning to achieve with this?”

“Well,” Ylitta spluttered. “Obviously. You realize how ridiculous it is for him to like you. I thought having it out in the open might finally allow him to recover his senses.”

She tried, once again, to take hold of Lars.

“I’m afraid I don’t really see how it’s ridiculous at all,” Rhen said, slowly, deliberately.

Stop it, Lars thought, I don’t need you to try to make this better out of pity.

“After all, I like him myself,” she said. “So I’m actually quite happy to hear he feels the same. Even if I’d have preferred to have heard from him myself.” She glanced at Lars.

He gaped at her.

“So thanks,” she continued sweetly. “That clarified a lot, Ylitta. If you don’t mind I think I’ll be taking Lars now.”

---

They ran, Rhen taking Lars by the hand, Lars following numbly behind, as Ylitta screeched after them- “Stop! I demand you stop! You presumptuous little brat, how dare you!”

“I don’t think she appreciated my stomping on her foot as we left,” Rhen observed, laughing, as they rounded the corner. “But then she had it coming to her.

Lars just gaped at her.

What?” she said. “Stop staring at me like that.”

“What was that?” He said.

“What?” She said, innocently.

“That. Back there. What you said. About. About li- about liking-“

“About liking you?” She prompted, cheerily.

“That.” He said, bright red.

“The truth,” she said, too easily.

He sagged. “Rhen. There’s like and there’s like, you know? You don’t need to pretend- You don’t need to feel guilty, I don’t mind us just being friends-“

“Well, I do.” She said.

He blinked, uncomprehending.

She leaned against the wall, panting, hand against her chest. “My heart is beating so fast you can’t comprehend. I wasn’t planning to let you know like that, it just slipped out and- And here I thought there was no way you’d like me back and I’m so happy I think I might pass out.”

He didn’t believe her. He was pretty sure she was lying. But she was laughing giddily and if she was or if she wasn’t lying either way there was one way to tell.

Hesitantly, terrified of what he was about to do and nevertheless certain that he was going to do it, because if she was lying than this was the least she could offer in return and if she was telling the truth then- then this was her revenge for her being so cheerful and careless about it-.

Very softly, very carefully, he kissed her.

----

Sometime later they sat down together in the quiet shade of a willow tree on the school grounds and pieced together what had happened.

“I thought you- didn’t you- Master Harald?” He managed to ask.

She began to laugh.

“That was a lie,” she said. “You actually believed that?”

“Well, you’ve been known to have bad taste in men before…”

“I still do,” she said, cheerfully.




---

A/n: I could've dragged it out, really I could have- I agonized over it, in fact- but you know what? They both like each other. They are now both aware that they both like each other. How much drama can you come up with, without it feeling ridiculously forced?

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OOOOOOMMMMMMMMMGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS SO AMAZING I CAN"T EVEN TALK! I'm sooo happy!!!!!!!!!!!! thanks soooo much for posting this right before I had to leave! this is soooo amazing eeekk I can't type! erg! omg! I just can't hold myself together! infact I read the whole thing standing up! in a formal dress just when I got home! omg this is so wonderful! I couldn't take my eyes off the screen! omg omg omg!

That was So. Freaking. Adorable.

=BARELY contains fangirl squeal=

I love you ;~; You are one of my favorite authoresses~!

And you used Ylitta too! You're the only one besides me who has put Ylitta in a story that I've seen!

So it happened!!!! Whoo hoo!!!!!! And it's all thanks to Ylitta, what an interesting twist.

WOW!!
it told by an acident,
umm, and you may ignore my ununderstandable comment above,
just again,
love this story!!!!!

"My heart is beating so fast you can’t comprehend and I’m so happy I think I might pass out."
Same Here! <3 <3 <3 ZOMG ZOMG ZOMG ZOMG! <3 <3 <3 I loved this chapter so much! Still do though XD

OOOOOOOOOOOH!! it happened!!! I LOVE YOU SOO MUCH!!! this is such an awesome story!!!

Ack! So sorry didn't reply earlier, but Blurble-neesama, you've really outdone yourself. Still, I must say that if anyone wants any help in AV1:RQ, or even AV2:EQ and GoN, they can PM me. I pretty much replay games once I finished them (replayed AV 4 times, AV2 2 times, GoN 3 times...) so Blurble, and even agas, my sercives are open and free.
That's not really the point but seriously, Master Harald?! He's as old as Rhen's father! Still. Epic crack, people.
Epic crack.

--

Squee.
That is all.

Running away from my giant test by posting this chapter (I am suffering a tiny bit from writer's block ldskhfsklfh)

---


“So… How does this work, exactly?” Lars asked, after school that day.

“What?”

“You know. Us. What do we do now?”

“We could go on a date!” She suggested.

“Um.”

“To a restaurant!”

“Um.” He said, grimacing. “That’s not the best idea-“

“C’mon, if we’re dating then obviously we have dinner dates sometime or other-“

“If it was anybody but you, sure, but I really, really don’t think this is the best-“

----

“I need to stop bringing you to restaurants,” Lars groaned, as they staggered out together into the street.

Rhen giggled.

“And you need to stop drinking. No, seriously. You have no tolerance for the stuff, at all. And is there any bottom at all to your stomach? You ate seven plates of food!”

“It was really delicious!”

“Seven plates!”

“But I love youuuu,” she said, twirling. Not a particularly good idea while drunk. “Ow.”

She tried to peel herself off the wall.

“Lars, help.”

“Don’t you dare throw up on me,” he warned.

“Okay, I won’t,” she said, and managed to keep her promise, only barely.

----

The next day, she appeared in his classroom repentant and a tiny bit hung over.

“I might be an itty bitty bit too attached to food,” she said. “Maybe we should go on a different kind of date.”

“Fine with me,” he said. “Let’s try the zoo.”

They headed over after school. The Veldaran zoo was small, hot, cramped, and overpoweringly smelly.

“Oh wow. A sloth.” Rhen yawned. “This is fascinating.”

“Shh, I think he’s about to do something- oh wait, no he’s not.”

“The monkeys were more interesting.”

“Until they started doing that- that- thing.”

“Well, actually,” she considered, “that was interesting too. In a way.”

He shuddered. “I don’t think the zoo was such a great idea.”

“They have paddleboats. We could try those.”

“You only want to have a chance to push me in.”

“Well, obviously. But it would be fun,” she insisted.

“If it wasn’t posted explicitly as being grounds for getting thrown out of the park, sure.”

“What, seriously? They have that as a rule? How lame can you get?”

“…I don’t think the zoo was such a great idea,” he said at last.

“Right. Gotcha.”

----

They were staring, blankly, at a famous fountain when someone snuck up behind Rhen and put her hands over Rhen’s eyes.

“Guess who,” the person said.

“Neya, stop it,” Rhen said.

Neya let go, laughing.

Lars coughed.

“Oh, I’m sorry, am I interrupting something?” Neya said. “Not another friendly outing?”

“Er,” Rhen said. “Actually.”

“Yes, you are,” Lars said.

Neya looked back and forth between the two of them, Rhen determinedly avoiding meeting her eyes and Lars looking impatient.

“No way,” she said, her smile changing to a full grin.

“Um,” Rhen said.

“I take total credit for this,” Neya said, gleefully.

“What on earth is going on?” Lars said.

“Never mind,” Neya said. “I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone, then. Bye, Rhen. Nice seeing you around. And also-” she leaned in close and whispered, in a gleeful sing-song “I told you so, I told you so.”

---

After they gave up on the fountain, they tried to go shopping together. It was… not the best idea in the world.

They both felt silly at the children’s park.

They could not manage to find a museum that interested both of them at the same time.

“I don’t think this is working,” Lars said, wearily, as they took a break on a bench together.

“Neither do I,” Rhen said.

“What are we doing wrong?” He asked, after a long pause.

“Dunno,” Rhen said, with a shrug.

There was another long pause.

“This feels weird,” she said.

“It’s not usually like this.” He concurred.

“Yeah, we usually have much more fun than this.”

“It was kind of fun,” he said. “In a forced sort of way.”

“Yeah,” she said, laughing. “ But… whatever It’s weird. I usually don’t have to consciously force myself to enjoy it when I’m with you.”

“I think I have more fun talking to you like this than running all around the city, to be honest.” He said, slowly.

“How about we save this for ten years from now and just do what we used to do for now?” She said.

“Yeah. Let’s.” He said,

“Think we can still reserve a practice room?” She said.

“Sure,” he said. “But there’s no hurry. Let’s just sit here for a while.”

“Mmmm,” she said, and they stayed there until the great red ball of the sun had finished sinking below the horizon.

---

Three weeks later, Rhen came storming into Lars’s classroom.

“What the hell is this?” she hissed.

“What?” He said, utterly confused.

“This,” she said, thrusting the paper into his face. “This update on the competition. The competition isn’t going to be a straight out duel? We’re not prepared for this!”

“Uh…” Lars said, eying his students. “Sorry, guys, I think I’m going to have to go for just a moment. I’ll be back, so in the meantime just practice that firesnap spell I’ve been showing you.”

His students snickered and made kissy faces. Lars ignored them.

“First of all, calm down,” he said, once he and Rhen were safely in the hallway. “We have time. This isn’t the biggest disaster in the world, you know.”

“I don’t know display swordsinging! At all! I skipped all those classes in school, I always took combat!”

“Seriously?” He said. “That’s a bit more of a problem, then.”

“Well, yeah!”

He glanced at the paper. “It’s not like the competition will be entirely display spells- only one section. There’s also a display of raw skill and an elimination battle. If you do really well in those…”

“Even I can’t rely on doing well enough in those to ignore an entire third of the competition-“

“’Even I?’ Wow, I’m rubbing off on you,” he said, admiringly.

“Focus on the matter at hand, please,” she said, waving her hand in front of his face. He was getting that look he tended to get right when he was about to kiss her, and she wasn’t quite in the mood right now.

“Right,” he said, snapping out of it. “Sorry. Display spells. What about that spell we bought at the circus?”

“The fireworks one? Oh. I haven’t had the chance to try it- hm.”

“Actually, scratch that. I seem to remember another spell we got from there.”

She snickered. “Heh. Still, it’s worth a try. It might not be totally useless.”

“We were going to need to go shopping at some point, anyway,” he said. “You can’t exactly compete with a generic sword.”

“Well, school is going to have a mid-term break… We’ll have plenty of time then.”

“You’re really okay with not practicing display until then? We’ll be a bit short on time…”

“Whatever, I’ll work with the fireworks spell and my flashier battle spells for now.”

“Okay,” Lars said. “Fine. We should start practicing, though.”

----

“So the thing about display spells,” Lars said, “is that they aren’t as fixed as attack spells. They have a lot more flexibility in terms of what you can accomplish with them… but it’s primarily visual. Which is to say attack spells are very concentrated, sort of like if you’re punching someone and you want your entire weight to be behind the punch. Display spells have more leeway to be all over the place.”

“Um,” Rhen said. “Right.”

“But it’s also somewhat more draining on the concentration and mana. Again, because battle spells needs to be efficient. They’ve evolved over the years- old spells became obsolete and they stopped teaching them, because they weren’t effective enough. The Empress pours huge amounts of money into funding this kind of research.”

“And the point of display spells?”

“Senior mages are convinced they can be manipulated into useful applications. It’s a problem they’ve been working on for years. You notice how the lights in the Academy turn on or off… that’s display magic, low-intensity stuff battle magic can’t handle. But the street lamps are plain kerosene. Because they haven’t really worked out an effective way of harnessing the magic.”

“Right. Okay. Um. This has to do with me how?”

He glared at her. “If you’re going to be High Swordsinger-!“

“Sorry. Alright. I’ll listen to you rant on and on, then.”

“No need,” he said, sulkily. “We’ll just start practicing.”

She grinned. “Excellent!”

“You’re shameless,” he grumbled, as they headed up to the practice field.

----

“So first just use the spell,” he instructed. “Same way you use any spell.”

She stepped forward, stepped sideways, swung down, and pulled the energy of the sword in to her, the motion amplifying the feeling of power, power at her fingertips, power just beyond her grasp-

A shower of sparks exploded in all the colors of the rainbow. She flinched- but they landed on her arm harmlessly, twirled into pinwheels and faded.

“Ooooh,” she said, awed.

Lars snorted, unimpressed. “Amateur.”

“Hey!” she protested.

“Whaaat, you’re denying it?” he drawled.

“Fine, do something better, if you’re so great!” She said, irritated.

He grinned, evilly, and bowed. “With pleasure.”

He stood, holding his staff, eyes closed. She resisted the urge to poke him.

And then he snapped his eyes open, and suddenly there were mirrors, mirrors everywhere.

“Isn’t this the spell you bought at the circus?” She said. “How utterly impressive, Lars. I bow to your superior skills.”

He didn’t answer. He was focused, intently…

The mirrors whirled into a great glittering star, fragmenting light all over. They split apart and spun through the air. Rhen had to fight the urge to duck, as a great swarm of what looked like seriously deadly shards of glass dove towards her in swallow formation.

At the very last moment they disintegrated, leaving behind little afterglows of light.

“…” She said.

He smirked, hugely satisfied with himself. “Utterly impressive, was it?”

“Alright, alright,” she groaned.

“Who was it who was afraid of losing to you in the competition?”

“My next door neighbor the frog, now can you please just show me how you did that?”

“I dunno… it’s hard to explain… sometimes it’s just a talent, y’know?”

“…Right.”

He laughed. “Alright, I’ll try to explain it. Reaaally slowly.”

“I’m going to kill you in your sleep one of these days,” she said.

“You’re welcome to try,” he drawled.

She felt herself going red and looked away.

“Anyway.” She said.

“Focus,” he said, stepping up behind her. He placed his hands on her shoulders, steadying her. Breathe in and out, call on the spell, but don’t just release it, like you do normally. Hold it on a leash inside your mind, will it to be something, feel the essence of it and then form that to your intentions…

“Right. Okay. Got it.” She stepped away, shaking him off, ignoring the expression that flitted briefly across his face. For a moment he seemed about to- but then he reconsidered, withdrew.

She needed to concentrate.

Once again, she stepped forward, twirled, swung the sword so that she could feel the heft of it in her hands, could feel her muscles strain- just barely- as she pulled it up from the down-swing and slashed rapidly sideways, and the power bust out from her, a great flickering ball of sparks that faded away rapidly.

“Aaagh!” She hissed, in frustration.

“Try again,” Lars said, but she hardly needed to be told. She was already moving, slashing…

Yay for the update! I can't wait for that competition. How cool is that gonna be! <3 And Neya was awesome! I love annoying the hecky out of people too! XD

Thanks Sana.

(And sorry I didn't get around to responding to people's kind comments last chapter)

Oh yeaaaahhhh.... The competition!!! I can't wait to see what it's like

You're such a cool writer, Blurb. I love you so much Especially those cracky conversations you leave me in the Collegium.

awwwww

hehe... I really appreciate all those cracky blurbs (no pun intended) you sent my way.

Well if this is you with writer's block...good job! I admire your ability to write fanfics that stay true to the characters in the game.

Wait, THAT was you on a writer's block? If I'M on a writer's block, I won't be able to write anything!!! You're scarily awesome, you know that?

This was only mild writer's block, I've had much worse. (There have been periods where this story stopped for weeks, haven't there?)

My non-writer's-block writing tends to go more like: *HAS IDEA* *WRITES LIKE MAD*

Whereas mild writer's block is: *writes a sentence* *wanders off for a few hours* *writes a few sentences* *forgets about story for a day or two* *sits down and forces self to write paragraph* etc...

Writer's block is: ASFWASDAGESHB SEGRFDGSEDFSDV CANNOT WRITE SZBZSDBZQEHB SHBFSHBERG and it can and has lasted for months. In fact starting Uncertainty Principle is what broke me out of a year-long slump.


((What I was complaining about was slightly-worse-than-mild writer's block involving something a little later on in the storyline... talked to a friend, who told me to do it entirely differently, and I reworked it and the problem's gone.))