Ingenious

Chapter IV

In the many years that I've known Laureth, I can recall seeing her angry, really and truly so, only once in my life.

It feels like a lifetime ago. We were both ten years old. Our entire cadet class was to do outdoor exercises. It had rained the night before creating an impromptu obstacle course, so of course our superiors weren't going to let all that perfectly good mud go to waste. Unfortunately, neither were a couple of our more...unruly classmates. I stumbled upon one of them, a brutish hulk of a girl, pinning poor Laureth (or I suppose back then all she was to me was the golden haired girl who would sneak contraband snacks into the dorm room in the dead of night, crunching away at crispy treats in the darkness), to the ground and grinding her face into the dark, moist earth. It was a scene most distressing, and for a split second, I was afraid her face would actually fall off, features erased forever by the unforgiving, clammy coarseness of the wet soil.

The girl was taunting her, sitting atop Laureth's fragile back, wearing a smug, self satisfied smirk like a Medal of Honor. I could tell from the look in Laureth's eyes, flashes of burning flames in her hazel irises, the stream of fat, angry tears that flowed down her cheeks and torpedoed into the mud beneath her, the sound and cadence of her enraged shrieks, each yell voicing her desire for retaliation and revenge, her arms thrashing around like a desperate cornered animal, that whatever was being said was intensely personal.

I don't know what came over me in that moment, probably the first in a series of impulsive decisions, but something in my usually, nearly pacifist nature was stirred, and I found myself suddenly standing before the monstrous girl and officiating a union between her face and the clod of moist dirt that had magically appeared in my hand. I hardly knew my future best friend at the time; she was just another drop in the ocean of friendly faces I tried to be civil around, I didn't even know the circumstances of what was going on, for all I knew Laureth could have been the real villain there, so I had absolutely no reason to feel so compelled to intervene, especially not physically.

For a moment, neither Laureth nor her assailant knew what to make of the situation, or of me, the unexpected contender. It only took one shared look between the two of us, a quick wordless exchanging of words, for Laureth to know I was on her side, and we were going to face this threat together. Unfortunately, for the two of us, the other girl caught on as well and was none too pleased about it.

Laureth and I got beaten within an inch of our lives that day.

But my act of heroism wasn't completely for naught because from that moment on, we shared more than just an unpleasant experience. A bond formed between the two of us; acquaintances became friends, greetings morphed into inside jokes, illegal snacks were to be offered then politely declined, places in lines were to be saved, blame was to be shared and consequences laughed at. We became a package deal, a team, an inseparable force of nature that nothing could come between.

Or so I thought. Because right now Laureth is looking at me, her topaz eyes flashing as we stand in an empty corridor, with a livid rage that feels like Déjà vu. Like I'm the one that's crushing her now.

"What do you mean you're leaving?" She asks, not even bothering to lower her voice.

"Shhh. I told you it's not meant to be public knowledge. So would you mind not broadcasting it to the entire building."

I started to regret telling Laureth about the transfer, the moment the words left my mouth, but as my closest friend, I thought she had a right to know why I'd suddenly disappear from work, meal times and our general normal routine for an indefinite amount of time.

"So, you're not allowed to tell anyone?" Asks Uriel from his spot in the corner. His voice is quiet and almost subdued; it's so unlike him and it's making me even more uneasy.