S a l e t é I I

XXII - Cerveau - Cinq

The unknowable hours went by, as they always would. 

After her time with Taya, Monet did eventually make her way upstairs in order to secure some solitude for herself, Cassia watching as she headed up to the walkway above. She would have liked to pay her a visit, only her fear of intruding was ever present, especially after she had been keeping the younger girl company for a fair while before she'd retreated. 

Instead, Cassie ended up staying with the usual suspects for the majority of the day, and presumably the night as well - not that she was complaining.

Games that they played to pass that time began with another round of the old one-legged race, Klavdiya rising from her inactivity to perform a single lap of the ground floor, setting a new time for Uliana and Cassia to try and beat on only one leg, the girl's stick providing their only assistance along the way. Zisel had served as the judge, calling out when it was time for the contestants to begin, and they had to tap her shoulder at the end of their lap in order to qualify as having finished. On top of these things, she also counted up their time, stating each second as it came and went.

Of course, her shoulder went untapped for a while. 

Uliana always ended up fumbling once she was about halfway through, her approach simply being to go as fast as possible, the strategy always leading her directly into an obstacle at some point or another. Cassia tried to be more careful, deciding that it was better to exercise a steady pace, which ended up shooting her in the foot - by trying to be cautious, she started overthinking various steps, which only caused her to stumble too.

Uliana ended up winning eventually, beating Cassia's best time by eight seconds, and she had - of course - gotten started on gloating, even though she hadn't actually beaten Klavdiya's time.

"Cassie's getting faster, she'll beat you next time." She told her boasting friend, not doing much to interrupt her small victory jig.

They'd managed to convince Taya to lend them one of her crayons - the white one, which hadn't seen as quite much use as the others - meaning that their second game could be given the go ahead. Cassia oversaw the first round of hangman, drawing out the letters and the gallows on the clear ground near the fire, the other girls moving their chairs to get a good view. Zisel had no trouble joining in a bit more directly this time, her suggestions often amongst the best.

Uliana's first turn, following Cassie's with the word "Princess" as she'd recalled her favourite television series, had been a good source of laughs for the group.

"You're spelling it wrong!" Klavdiya had protested during the round, tapping her stick on the ground to declare her challenge, Zisel and Cassia already trying to contain snickering.

"What? No, I'm not."

"You are! The answer is skyscraper, isn't it?"

"Y-yeah, but - "

"Skyscraper only has one Y in it!"

Uliana stared at her handiwork, the final write up coming to "Skyscrayper". Of all the things she'd ended up defensive about, seeing her embarrassed over something as meagre as a spelling error was almost surreal, and Cassia really had tried not to laugh, Zisel's inability to stop her own giggling making such an endeavour simply impossible - which had only made Uliana look more embarrassed, which had gotten Klavdiya giggling as well, and...

Television had been all well and good, but this was pretty fun too.

For the first time in what must have been days - perhaps even for the first time since she'd arrived in the underground - biding time until the next trip hadn't felt like a drag. Time hadn't dug its heels in, and Cassia hadn't found herself lost with her more troubling thoughts at any point, the company of the other girls managing to keep her entirely within the present.