Amber & Ice

Chapter 5: Let them eat cake

Ariadne was dressed in black again. This surprised Athena more than it perhaps should have. But a big part of her thought that the other girl was playing up for the first lecture and that her odd colour choices wouldn’t last into the second day of term.

But there she was, sat alone in the cafe booth, a tiny gothic dot in an abyss of pink. The second thing Athena noticed was that Ariadne was laughing, clearly chatting to someone on the feeds. So she didn’t shun everything popular then.

“Hey,” Athena said, feeling a little self conscious as she stood outside the booth.

“Oh, Ori, gotta go - my friend’s here.” A tiny yellow light in the top right of her glasses blinked off and she smiled warmly at Athena. “Hey, how’s it going?”

“Alright,” Athena replied, shivering slightly as she took the seat opposite Ariadne; it was every bit as cold as yesterday.

“Ori - my boyfriend - says that it should start to warm up in a couple of days. Spring’s still not coming any time soon, but we might all stop shivering. He’s stuck in a new law lecture at the moment, being bored to tears.”

“New law? Isn’t that a third year course?”

“Uh huh; Ori is a third year justice student. He’s kind of regretting the specialism at the moment though.” All students joined the LUP - or any of the major city universities - on the same course. In their first year, they all studied basic politics: the current voting system, the history of democracy, the pitfalls of dictatorships, international voting procedures. Voting was heavily ingrained in the social conscience of students. After this grounding in the structure of their world, students could specialise in a number of areas: Justice, Medicine, Business, Education, Foreign Affairs.

“He still has a lecture with Ajax every other week, which is the only upside to picking it. If you thought the intro lecture was good, you’d love his History of Punishment lecture.”

“So is that how you know Ajax then? Through Ori?”

“Oh no. Well, it is through Ori technically, but outside of class; as part of a social group from outside of LUP. Ajax is a real sweetie - that’s the only reason I went yesterday - he would never let me hear the end of it if I bunked his lecture. That still wasn’t enough of an incentive for some people though…” She trailed off, muttering more to herself than to Athena. “You want a drink?” she suddenly asked brightly, her blue eyes sparkling.

“Sure,” Athena replied, her attention moving to the menu behind the counter. The strawberry shaker had won the most popular drink of the month.

“I’ll try a strawberry shaker.”

Ariadne wrinkled her nose, but kept scanning the board. “Oh blueberry blitz, that’s a cool name. I think I’ll try that. Hey, you!” She waved frantically at a young waiter clearing a nearby table. He started at the attention, but walked towards the girls, drying his hands hastily on his apron. “I would like a blueberry blitz please,” Ari asked, smiling brightly. “And Athena will have a shaker, right?” She raised an eyebrow in Athena’s direction, querying the choice.

“That’s right.”

“Great pick.” The waiter smiled. “It’s our most popular drink this month.”

“Well isn’t that lovely,” Ariadne replied, her voice just a little too light and breezy. As the waiter moved back towards the counter, Ariadne continued: “So Ajax was going through his plans for next week’s lecture with me. It sounds pretty sweet - he’s going to focus on the French Revolution, well ‘tions’, I suppose.”

“I would like to say that sounds interesting - but I don’t know anything about it, so I’m going to have to take your excitement as a good sign!”

“You definitely should. They’re Ajax’s favourite subject: lots of blood, civil uprisings, oh, and a few guillotined monarchs.”

“What’s a guillotine?” Athena asked, feeling naive; she didn’t know any of this.

Ariadne’s eyes lit up as she described the ancient execution device and the demise of Marie Antoinette, rather startling the waiter when he came back with their drinks, with a loud cry of “Let them eat cake!”

“Although Ajax says that’s just folk law - she didn’t actually say that.”

“Doesn’t it make you pleased that we don’t have to worry about that any more?”

Ariadne considered this for a moment before replying, resting her head on her hand. “I don’t know - it would have been exciting to have something to rise up against, something to fight for. Ajax thinks that way too - you’ll be able to see it next week when he goes all misty-eyed over Victor Hugo in the lecture.”

Athena was about to ask who or what a Victor Hugo was, when Ariadne continued. “Then again, why wait until next week? I’m seeing him tonight at the group I mentioned earlier. It’s a little like your pop groups, but with a slightly different angle. You might find it… illuminating. Want to come?”

Athena hesitated for a moment. Ariadne was great, but a little odd. Did she really want to meet more of the other girl’s friends?

“Come on, it’s great fun and everyone there is really nice. Even Dyo when he’s not being mopey and secretive. I promise you’ll love it.”

“Okay,” Athena agreed reluctantly - she could always cancel later if she changed her mind.

“Yay! I can’t wait to introduce you to everyone. I’ll meet you outside the halls at 7, okay?”

***

A few hours later, agonising in front of her bedroom mirror, Athena wasn’t so sure that it had been a good idea to say yes to Ariadne.

For a start, what on earth was she going to wear? Ari seemed anti-pink, what if her friends didn’t wear pink either? Ajax had worn a pink sweater to their lecture, but Ari had found that amusing, so perhaps it wasn’t his usual attire.

Maybe she shouldn’t go completely in pink, but should wear something just in case? At any rate, all of her outwear was pink, so it was either wear that or freeze. Perhaps she ought to to opt for something less mainstream underneath… That way, she could keep her coat on if they were in pink, but if they were in Ariadne black, she could take it off to blend in.

That sounded safest. But it still didn’t help her to decide what to put on.

“Come on, Hoot, help me to pick.” Despite the name, Hoot was a hamster. The ‘hoot’ part came from his wheel, which made the noise whenever it started moving.

Athena moved over to his hutch, observing the hamster as he spun round and round in his wheel, oblivious to her social dilemma. Athena wasn’t usually overly concerned with how she dressed; she wasn’t as fashion conscious as Demi and Cress. It was just that she liked to avoid drawing undue attention to herself. She preferred to blend, to let people make judgements on her based on what she said and how she behaved, rather than what she wore. Tonight, when she had absolutely no idea what sort of outfit would help her to blend in, was a nightmare for her nerves. Perhaps it wasn’t too late to cancel…

 Sighing, she headed over to her wardrobe and pulled out the boxes of clothed she had packed away when pink won the colour vote. Cress had a flighty tendency of throwing everything out when a new colour was voted in and buying a new wardrobe. Athena was not so wasteful - and didn’t have the funds to be either - so she merely packaged her clothing away into colour-coded boxes, ready for when it was next in fashion, which could be anything from a few days to a few months, depending on the polls. Tonight, she was particularly pleased that she did so. Hoot slowed down his wheel and sat watching her as she pulled the first top off the pile. It would have to do. It was very nearly seven and she didn’t want to be late.