Then next morning Jace was wrapping up getting ready when a tone sounded at his door. Confused, he went over to the door and opened it. Sara stood outside, her face flushed apparently from running, though she held herself quite properly. She was outfitted in the School uniform. And he couldn't quite tell if the clothes fit her perfectly or she fit the clothes perfectly. Either way, despite the militaristic outfit, she looked stunning as always.
She grinned at him, her mischievous attitude blowing away the formality she had been wearing like a cape. "Sup, Jace?' She asked, shoving past him into his room. Her push sent him into the wall, where he grimaced from the sting, but she didn't notice. She looked around his room. "Wow," she said, looking around. "Bland room."
His grimace turned into a grin, "I thought you merchant types were supposed to have a silver tongue." she gave him a look that said "haha, very funny." then stuck her tongue out at him. "Look thilver to you?" she asked, speaking around it, garbling her words.
"Is this the boy you were talking about? Really? Him?"
Turning to look in the direction of the new voice, Jace realized Sara hadn't come alone. There was another girl there. The new visitor was tall. Not drastically tall, but taller than both him and Sara. She had long hair that went down to the middle of her back. On first impression, it looked black, but then he realized it was in reality a very dark purple. Her chin was raised slightly as if she couldn't be bothered to meet your eyes, and she very obviously was looking everywhere but at Jace. At the moment her gaze was on Sara. She carried herself much like Madam Sheev had if you lost the haughty attitude. Jace supposed this was one of Sara's Crisp friends. Sara glanced over at her then walked over and put her arm around Jace's shoulder.
"Yes!" She said happily. "This is Jace, my best friend!" She turned to Jace and indicated the other woman. "This is Iris, she's been a friend of mine since we were super young. We're rooming together!" Jace heard a coughing sound from Iris's direction. He turned and saw that she had choked on the air in surprise. Once her coughing fit was over, she looked up at Sara. "best friend?! You can't be best friends with a Ro-" she cut herself off and glanced at Jace. "With someone of his standing like that! Not at your station!" She paused to take a breath and Sara jumped in before she could continue. "Why not? I can have whoever I want as friends. Doesn't matter their standing, they're a person, and that's good enough for me."
Iris's face turned a slight hue of red in her frustration, but she didn't say any more. Instead, she turned away from the two of them in a huff. Sara dropped her arm from her shoulder and turned back to Jace. "Sorry about that, some of my friends have their own ideas about society."
Jace shrugged, "eh, I'm used to it. 'Preciate you for standing up for me though."
"Ahem." a fourth voice, one that Jace recognized, came from behind them further in the room. Martin was standing there, his eyes on the ground, his face red. Jace thought he was angry until Sara approached him and extended her hand. Martin took a small step back, and his face turned even redder. Jace suddenly realized what was going on and grinned.
"Martin, are you afraid of girls?"
Martin immediately straightened and looked at Jace, very obviously avoiding looking at Sara and Iris. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said, a slight tremor in his voice and his face still bright red.
Sara looked from Martin to Jace and back to Martin, then she let out a low laugh and jumped on Martin, putting her arm around him like she had Jace. Martin turned rigid and his face, if it was possible, turned brighter still.
"Come on, no need to fear me! I don't bite!" she said with a laugh in her voice.
"I-I-I'm not scared of you." he stuttered.
Jace thought it was hilarious that the formerly cool and collected Martin could be changed so much by the mere presence of a girl, but he figured they had tortured him enough. He reached out, grabbed Martin's wrist, and pulled him out from underneath Sara's arm.
"Come on Sara, don't tease him so much. He'll burst a blood vessel. Did you just come to see the room? As you so eloquently noticed, there's not much to see."
Sara, whose eyes had been on Martin with a mischievous look to them, turned back to Jace. "What? Oh, no. I want to go exploring!" She pulled out her Panel and tapped on it a couple of times, then showed it to Jace. on it was a map with many places of interest plastered on them.
"This is a map of the local area. I wanted to go see what we could see!" She pulled her Panel back and tapped on it a few more times. "This'll show us where to go and how to get there."
Jace's face split with a grin. "That'd be fun! I wanna see where I'll be spending my life for the next little while." He stepped toward the door. "Let's get started right away!"
He turned to look at Martin, "You wanna come?"
Martin adjusted his spectacles. "I have homework that needs doing."
Jace gave him a knowing look and stepped out into the hallway, followed by Sara. Just as the door was closing, he heard the other boy let out a sigh of relief. He suppressed a smile, knowing it would only push Sara to tease him more.
As he turned to walk down the hallway, he noticed a familiar face walking towards them. He froze in his tracks. Shoot! I was supposed to take a tour with Tryst today! He thought as the black-haired girl walked toward them. Their eyes met, he saw her look towards Sara and Iris, then back at him. Her brow lowered and her pace picked up.
When she was close enough that she didn't have to shout to be heard, she glared at Jace then turned to Sara. "Sorry to take him away from you, ma'am, but Jace will be coming with me."
Sara looked past her at Jace. "Who's this?" She asked.
Jace sheepishly scratched his head. "That's Tryst, She's supposed to be giving me a tour of the school today."
"Oh! Well, that's perfect!" Sara exclaimed as she turned back to Tryst. "We were just about to go exploring! This will be even better! Why don't you show us around? Then we won't get lost!" She beamed at Tryst.
Tryst glared back, then poked her finger at Sara. "Don't be going friendly with me. I know y'all are only nice when you want something. I don't mix with you Crisp's."
Jace was about to get angry when he noticed her words had no effect on Sara. or none that he could see anyway. She simply looked at Tryst calmly until she was done. Then she looked at Tryst solidly. Jace realized that she was angry, but it was more of a cold, controlled, anger than the heated anger that he'd about to erupt into. Her eyes were ice that froze Tryst to the spot.
"I'm sorry. I don't know who you are or what your relationship with Jace is, but I will not allow my peers to treat me in such a way. Since I don't know you, it stands to reason that you don't know me. Not as a person at least, So I will ask that you do not attach labels to me without any attempt to see if you're right or wrong. If you continue with this behavior I will ask you to leave."
Jace was shocked. He'd never seen Sara be this forward before. Of course, he'd never seen her trash talked before either, so he hadn't had an opportunity to see this side of her. He was intimidated for sure, but he also felt their bond strengthening as she spoke. He liked her.
Tryst was also completely flattened by her words, and just stood there, rigid. Jace could see the inner conflict between her pride and her shame at her behavior. Eventually, she just grunted. "Whatever." and stormed off.
When she turned the corner, Sara let out a sigh of relief and relaxed, but she had a disappointing look on her face. "I'd hoped she'd be able to join us." She said, before turning opposite the direction Tryst had gone.
"Honestly, Sarantani," Iris said, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "That's why you shouldn't interact with peo-"
"Iris." Sara interrupted her, looking away. "What I said to her could just as easily apply to you."
Iris turned bright red, then looked away. "Whatever," she said, unthinkingly mimicking the other girls' departing words.
"Remind me to never get you mad," Jace said, looking after Tryst. "You're a scary woman."
Sara turned to him, her previous anger gone from her face and replaced with her beautiful smile. "Knowing you, it's bound to happen."
They both laughed, then they turned back to where they had been heading and set off.