Aether's Legacy | Elysium [Dreamnotfound]

Nashville

Dealing with conflict wasn't exactly one of George's fortes—especially when it came to dealing with his best friend.

They didn't fight often, but when they did, George refused to be the one to confront Dream. As stubborn as Dream was, he always ended up being the one to start their apologetic conversations. Yet it had been almost a day since their fight and Dream had yet to approach him.

It was admittedly a stupid argument. Dream had pressured George to use his powers so they could hide in a tree from Sapnap while playing hide and seek. While Dream had climbed the tree effortlessly, he had left George staring up and wondering how in the world he was supposed to reach him.

"Just try to levitate yourself or something," Dream insisted.

"I'm not supposed to use my powers outside of class."

Dream groaned. "It's not like they'll know. Come on, he's going to find us."

"I'm not going to do it. It's dangerous."

"That's what they've told you, George. But have you ever thought that maybe it's only dangerous because you make it dangerous?"

George frowned, crossing his arms as he glared up at Dream. "You have no idea what it's like to be a Psychic, so how would you know?

"Just stop making it such a big deal and get up here."

"Oh, so now you think my powers aren't a big deal?"

"Why are you angry? It's not that—"

"Whatever. I'm leaving."

They hadn't spoken since that afternoon, and the next morning during breakfast, they had avoided each other's gazes, leaving Sapnap to sit awkwardly in the middle and try to diffuse the situation.

If George's day wasn't already turning out to be dreadful, then came his Intro to the History of Extramundanes class.

Ms. Lamar had assigned them to create a presentation on an influential figure of their class and type, leaving George to choose from a very limited list of the Psychics who weren't looked at as complete menaces to society.

His presentation had started off fine. Despite the distracted glances he kept sending Dream who was sitting near the middle of the classroom staring out the window with his arms crossed, he was mostly able to keep the tremble out of his voice, even when a third of his classmates coughed and snickered at random times to purposely throw him off track.

"— and so Julian Hernandez played a crucial role in allowing Psychics a fair trial under verbal oath and a polygraph test during the 2070s."

It was awkwardly silent for a second, and George wasn't sure if he should end his presentation a certain way.

"Fair enough. Any questions for George?" Ms. Lamar asked the class, not bothering to look up from her stack of grading papers. Not that George wasn't used to being disregarded by her. She wasn't exactly his favorite teacher during his fifth year at AGE, and he certainly wasn't her favorite student.

One of the girls in the front of the class, Alina, raised her hand in an instant.

"Um," George sheepishly glanced at Ms. Lamar who was too busy writing to pay them any attention. "Yes?"

Alina tilted her head and forced a smile that made George's stomach twist. "How exactly do you justify Psychics having a fair trial when some of them are telepaths?"