The Exiled Gem

A Spy's World

If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living.
- Gail Sheehy 

Alexandra pushed aside the recollections and the bitter details. She got up and pulled the window pane open. Sticking her head out and turning right, because if she did that, the clock came into view.

It was two in the morning - she yawned widely. Getting up before the sun did had felt torturous. Now, after so many years, it felt like a routine - all emotions attached to it had promptly dissolved. She went back, picked Moira up, and proceeded downstairs.

A very normal start to her day.

***

'I've heard there are no exams in the fourth year,' Paul said, shaking his head. Everybody was in the mess, the fourth years with one table to themselves. There was a lot of noise in there - with so many people rumbling out at the same time.

'We know it since the second year, you blockhead.' Venly disparaged. Alexandra was silently waiting for the food to arrive, after a whole month, they could finally give up eating the "Bland Grass".

'How?' Paul asked, looking at him, frowning. 'How do you know that?'

'The fourth years compete in the tournament with the second years,' she enlightened, all the same hoping that they had something fine for the day's breakfast. 

'Who brought you to the Council, Paul?' Hans asked.

'I brought myself,' he winked. 'Though that means - we have to do that wrestling thing all over again?!' He then added, sounding positively apprehensive at his own realization. 

'Yes,' Watson stretched out, tossing a pamphlet he had been reading on the table. 'This year Second Years are - how many? Sixteen.' He then answered himself, as Alexandra picked up the pamphlet and gave it a look. It was splattered with images of a man wrestling a bull - an invite to the tournament held annually in Cartania. Vedessans stoutly ignored that tournament, not out of love for bulls, but out of hatred for Cartania. Those were unsaid things in Idgard, it had had a long history of bloody clashes and even the kids now knew whom to support and whom not to. 'So two of us will have to go thrice at the combat and the rest can go twice.' Watson continued, as she crumpled the paper up and tossed it across the mess. Unfortunately, it hit Blaise Quill - and a terrified Alexandra had to dive under the table to hide her face. 'I'll tell you when the coast is clear,' Watson told her, bending down and winking. Then he straightened up. 'Who will go thrice?'

'Why thrice? Let's send Mabel four times,' Suggested Owen - everybody laughed, even some surrounding first years feebly joined in. Alexandra knew she had been a first year someday, but they now seemed so tiny and insignificant. And someday, even they would be Spies. She wondered what it would be like to have juniors working under her. But it was bound to be fun. 'But where is she?' He then asked.

'In hiding. She erroneously threw a certain pamphlet on Mr. Quill.' Watson informed, 'You can come out, he's gone.' He added to her. 

'Why don't you people send me all the sixteen times?' She demanded, sliding into her chair, exhaling and tucking her hair behind in a bandanna.

'That's a good idea,' Watson agreed. 'But they'll all run away from you, Captain.'

'Run away?' She asked, narrowing her eyes.

'He's, for once, right. You do look fiercely regal. And ready to bite anybody's head off.' Fannel agreed, putting a hand on her shoulder from behind.

'Good morning, brother.' Alexandra grinned, 'And do I take that as a compliment?'