Ptar: Ceilus and the revolution

19. Yellow Rose

Rose bit into her toast. Looking around she couldn't help noticing how the little group that sat on that table had grown quite a bit during the past week; Uster sat next to her, making snarky remarks of his food. "I told you that you shouldn't have picked the omelet; they always find a way to make it terrible," She said. Roven and Connor were in front of her, talking about some random subject, Lily bit into an apple as she turned another page of her book, paying no attention to Arlen, who sat in front of her, engaging in a monolog and Ceilus, Ceilus, on the other end of the table, seemed frail, pale and tired, like if at any moment his face would fall into the bowl of cereal he slowly consumed, playing with it with his spoon, before taking it to his mouth; his head held up by his left hand.

"What's the deal with him?" Rose asked Roven, pointing at the seemingly dying boy.

"Ceilus? I'm not sure. Yesterday at night he just fell into bed right when he got to our room. When I asked what was up, he just said he was tired. I'm not sure about what, seeing as he hadn't gone to athletics and blacked out before I could ask," Roven answered as best he could.

Lily's head rose, her interest piqued by the conversation. "Do you know anything, Lily?" Rose asked, noticing her movement.

"Not much," Lily confessed.

"Still, more than us?" Rose asked. "What do you know?"

"I know where he went yesterday," she admitted, turning her eyes to him. Ceilus seemed unaware of anything happening around him.

"Well..." Rose urged Lily to go on.

"Hard to explain," Lily said, probably trying to dismiss herself from the conversation. She turned her eyes back to her book.

Rose's brow twitched. How inconsiderate could her roommate be? "Easy to explain, hard to explain, it doesn't matter, just explain!" Rose exclaimed in annoyance, before catching her rage and subduing it. "Don't be so rash," she whispered to herself, taking a deep breath in; "there is no reason to be so upset," she kept going until she was calm.

"You are being a bit mean," Uster told Lily with his mouth full, gesturing with his fork. He swallowed. "You could tell us"

Everyone was now staring at Lily and, thereby, pressuring her to tell them what she knew, save for Ceilus, of course, who struggled to keep his eyes open, so, after a sigh, Lily proceeded to explain who Barbara was and the relationship she, Ceilus and Lily had.

"Oh, so she just overworked him," Connor concluded. "That's kinda' terrible; he was still injured..."

"I don't know about that... the way Lily described her, she seems like a really cool person," Arlen objected.

"Do you have any other explanation?" Rose asked, finishing her toast. The Mess hall was starting to clear. Their conversation had drawn out for a while and it was almost time for their first classes.

"Not really," Arlen confessed.

"Why don't we just ask him?" Uster asked in exasperation. He had a good point.

"Ask that zombie?" Lily said sarcastically, pointing at Ceilus with her thumb. "You'd have better luck getting an answer out of his satchel." She finished her apple, closed her book and got up.

Everyone looked at Ceilus, who now had his eyes closed and his head resting on his hand. He fell asleep and his hand, now loose, fell, taking his head along with it and into his bowl of cereal. In shock, he lifted his head of it with his eyes now fully open and looked around. He noticed everyone was staring at him. "Sorry, sorry, I must confess that I'm still a bit sleepy," he said cleaning his face with a napkin. He then looked around some more, away from their table. "Is it already time to go?" He sighed, covering his mouth with his left hand. "Shall we go?" He got up and lost his footing, tripping on his chair and stopping himself from falling to the ground by pushing down on the table.