Veridis Quo

Chapter 49 - A Walk in the Yard

There was this effect where you form a snow ball in your hands, roll it from the top of a hill and watch as it grows in size by the radiant. Every full roll adds mass to the rounding wheel, its radius increasing exponentially. If a hill was quite high and rich with snow, you could end up with a child-sized snow wheel at the bottom.

Perhaps it was also a method to create snowmen with less effort, though this theory could not be tested until next year.

The snow was gone, retired till next time.

I was going to miss it a little... just a little.

Although it happened only once, I was a victim of the blue ice underneath. Juno was present when it happened, grabbed me before I could hit the ground. To me, she saved my sorry ass from a bruise. To her, it was more material to tease me with.

I sighed, dreamily fixing the piano's strings. Some were loose, so a tuning was in order.

A lot has changed in my life. Too much, I dare say. And, for once, this change was welcomed with the open arms of a girl rushing her beloved after he returned from an overseas war that resulted in absolutely nothing.

The cult was old news. Pah! Who were those guys, anyway? Fellow students in the academy.

...

That was very true and frightening.

While some of the cultists were from other schools or legal adults out there, others were my fellow students. A neighboring class, a senior year, freshmen out of the pond; they did not simply disappear because their little caravan of freaks was disbanded by the landlord.

I was not going to acknowledge or discuss the means Juno used to achieve it.

So, the horny teens were still in the school. I remembered some of the present species but I still had a difficulty distinguishing the finest of details between individual animals. I could tell if a lion's mane was styled differently, a person's posture, the general facial proportions. But zebras, for example, were a tough nut to crack.

Hehehe... nut...

The stripes were a headache. I supposed it was a survival trait of their ancestors, no point in blaming their evolution.

Leaving them as is didn't sit well with me. After dodging a nuclear missile, the homing system was not disabled, it'd take a full orbit of the planet to return. Loose ends were a classic mistake in the books, movies, and real life.

Fortunately, after sharing my worries with Juno and kissing each other passionately, she assured me they weren't going to cause any more trouble.

I did not agree with the means. It was easy to look back and say that, but I understood the ends. Juno wasn't one to break a promise when she really, really, really meant it. And besides the surprise tool in her possession, she personally knew every member of the gathering that happened to be enrolled in Cherryton.

They had a lot more to lose than gain if the wrong word got out about that night in the library. The librarian was none the wiser too; who would check the dusty tax guides of the last century?

It seemed as though-

I suppressed a laughing outburst, lowering my head to hide the closed smile.

Now, that was a funny one.

Could it be that... popping my cherry, fixed everything?

...

Of course not! It was idiotic to even think of that!

Problems weren't solved by the power of friendship! It was the plot armor that did it.

In all seriousness, it felt like a... cold snap. Well, hot snap as winter's influence was shared with its sibling.