All Of Us - Part 1: Summer

Chapter 5 - Leader

- Dæor -

What in the world... What is this ? It's green but has hints of pink, for some reason ? and little bits of something bobbing around, like tiny ducks. I poke one of them with my spoon and it dives down before resurfacing, greener than ever. Ugh.

Someone sits down in front of me and I look up. "Morning, Gail."

"So ? Do you like it ?" She is unsmiling, but I can sense the nervousness of her frown. Ah. She's the one who made it. That explains a lot. "I haven't, uh, had some yet."

"Well, try some !"

With stars in her eyes - literally - she sits there as I painfully attempt to smile and spoon a sizable portion of the... gloop into my mouth. Immediately, my eyes water and it takes all my self-restraint to not hurl it all out. Suddenly, an image of the burning Summer Palace throne pops into my head. The flickering, dancing fire as it consumes the gilded wood, eating away at the lies and horrors and blood till a mere chair is left. My chair. Slowly, a smile creeps on my face and widens till it lights up all of my features.

"Glad you like it," she nods. Getting up, she strides away to harass someone else.

Making sure her back is to me, I bend over and spit the remnants of that thing back into my bowl. Erk, that was revolting. I wipe the tears from my eyes and abundantly rinse my mouth with water. Screw breakfast. I rise and tip the stuff in a nearby trash can. Grimacing, I tell myself that I'll just get a big lunch.

As soon as I leave the mess hall, I collide with someone. Oh - Keiti. Jerking my thumb back towards the hall, I whisper to her a word of advice: "Don't eat the food in there, I'm telling you-"

She doesn't listen. In fact, she acts as if I'm not even there. She brushes past me silently and enters the mess hall.

I stand in the entrance, stunned. I had forgotten about the fight. Since when do I let things like that just breeze over me ? How...

Actually, the more I think about our argument, the madder I get. But not at myself. How could she just do that to me ? Barge into my room and throw that... thing back at me ? I can feel my face go red. I can't run into anyone like this - I might snap their head off. There is only one place to go.

I enter the training room and strap the gloves on my hands. The room is empty - good. That means I can have the big punching bag to myself. I move over to the middle of the room and start to hit it as fiercely as I can.

How could she do that to me ? There was nothing wrong with taking care of the Princess first. And I am perfectly entitled to this... this ambition ! I am going to be the one to overthrow the King, after all. It's normal that I take up his place ! Absolutely normal !

I stop and steady the bag. I am out of breath. My heart tweaks slightly. I don't know why, but I feel as if I should apologize to her. She can be as stubborn as a donkey when she wants to, so there's no way she's going to apologize first. And even though my pride will take a hit, I prefer that over losing her.

I breathe out heavily through my nose. What a terrible start to the day.

A sound. Someone just entered the room. Keiti ? I spin around, and immediately scold myself for being so hopeful. I'm acting like a six-year old. I need to get a grip of myself.

"Liam," I greet. "Do you have the time ?"

"I think it's about seven thirty. Time to get the day organized ?"

"Yep."

I walk out of the training room without a backwards glance. Here's the plan: give my planning to everyone, then apologize to Keiti. Here we go.