Lotus

Chapter 15

A shocked silence settled around us as we stared at Gemini. I, for one, was barely able to breathe; it was nice to actually see that there were others in my predicament as well, but knowing what he would go through because of it, I was worried.

Oriole stumbled back, drawing our attention to her. She looked almost sick, then some realization dawned on her face. "They might've found her," she whispered, almost incoherently.

"Who's 'her'?" Sienna asked.

A look of panic spread across Oriole's face. "No one. No one at all." She rushed back over to her desk, breathing hard. With shaking talons she pulled out a scroll and a jar of ink. 

"Are you okay, Oriole?" Sienna moved over to her.

"Yes, I'm fine!" Oriole snapped, causing Sienna to jump back. Oriole took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. "I'm sorry I snapped, Sienna. I'm just…" she didn't finish her sentence, instead turning back towards the scroll and ink she had just pulled out. 

"We should probably start working on our assignment," Kosan said quietly, glancing at Oriole at the front of the classroom. The rest of us nodded, moving as silently as we could back to our spots.

Several minutes passed by, then Oriole finally spoke to us again. "Um, class?" We all looked up at her. "I need to go take care of something right now, so I'm excusing you early today." She fiddled a little with the scroll she had in her talons. "Just don't bother the other classes."

At that, she turned and left without another word.

The rest of us looked at each other, with varying levels of confusion on our faces. Gemini was the first to speak, though. "I...I should probably find my sister and let her know about this." He stood up, then sat back down again, shaking his head. "She's still in class." He then resumed his staring at the scroll.

"Well," Dignity said, looking around. "I guess we can go then." She made eye contact with me, and looked as if she were about to say something to me. She replaced the look with a snarky grin, then turned and walked out of the cave.

Stormkeeper and Lamprey had already left by that point, and Sienna and Kosan turned towards the cave entrance. I started to follow them, but I felt my nerves start buzzing again, so I sat back down. Sienna then turned to me. "Are you coming?"

The buzzing intensified. "No, I think I'm going to stay here. I feel...weird...about leaving early."

"Oriole excused us, though."

"I know, but I still feel nervous about it." I hesitated, then shook my head. "It's not something I can explain easily. Besides, I want to finish my assignment now so I don't have to do it later."

Sienna nodded knowingly, then shrugged. Her eyes flicked to Gemini, then to Kosan. He shook his head. "It's probably best not to bother him." After another moment, they walked out of the cave.

I turned back towards my scroll, putting all of my focus into figuring out the next ten problems. When I had done about half of that, I glanced over at Gemini, who was still staring at his scroll.

Poor Gemini, I thought. Having to find out so suddenly. At least I was lucky enough to have known about it my entire life, instead of having it dropped on me when I least expected it.

I wanted to say something to him, to make him feel better, but I couldn't think of anything that would be able to do that. Instead, I turned back to my assignment, doing what Kosan said, and not bothering him.

.....

I'm realizing now that I probably should've put the last chapter and this one together, since they're both so short…

Oh, well. :)

Anyway, I hope all of you are enjoying this so far. If not, I hope you stick around, because it should get more interesting from here. Thanks for reading!

XLizzyMX