After the Veins had calmed down, and the tunnels had stopped collapsing on them, the pair of explorers finally took a breather.
Miran approached Arata slowly, "You saw something didn't you?"
"I don't know what I saw.." Arata hesitated as he lied.
"Good...Good" The senior soldier got up to take readings from the machines to make sure everything was fine. "Take some rest, we have a lot of tunnels to cover tomorrow."
Arata just sat where he was, completely still. He was still imagining the thing he saw coiled down in the tunnel system. Slowly he gained his senses back, and went to lay in his sleeping bag.
As he lay on the faintly warm tunnel floor, his eyes were fixed on the single vein running through the ceiling, glowing. It pulsed once, then again. And slowly it was pulsing at a similar frequency to a human's heartbeat. As he got lost in his thoughts, he fell asleep.
After that night, there was nothing major that happened. After learning his lesson, Arata had become quite good at keeping his hands to himself.
They returned to the surface two days later.
The debrief was only six words: "Field instability. Containment maintained. No casualties."
There was no mention of the accidental awakening of the Veins by either of the soldiers. Miran, one last time consoled Arata before taking his leave.
After four days the first thing he wanted to do was take a bath. The paste of red dust and sweat made him look like an alien, all he wanted was a shower. At the Dormitory he expected to find Wanuy, but instead he found the Dorm empty and quite. It was eerily quite, like something crucial from the environment was missing. Imagine getting used to having a constant presence in you life and then at one moment, it vanishes.
It was the first time since coming to the academy he didn't hear the hum of Veins. It was first time in a long time, he had felt true quiet.
After savouring the moment, he started to get ready to bathe, he took of his gloves. And there it was, the repercussion of his misadventure at the Veinworks. When Arata stripped off his gloves, he found something new on his right palm there were faint lines, glowing beneath the skin, shaped like the branching of a root or vein.
When he pressed his hand against the wall of the dormitory, the runes flickered as if recognising him as one on the veins. He had unknowingly, taken with him... a part of the veins. All of a sudden he felt quaint, as if someone had hit him on his head.
All he could do for now was stare at the growth on his right palm. He didn't tell anyone.
First he took a bath, just to clear his head. He had to cover his hand with a bandage so that Wanuy or anyone else didn't see the growth.
"Hey you are back... how was the maintenance?" Wanuy asked as he entered the common dormitory.
"Well... it was alright" Arata said as he wrapped the bandage around his palm.
"Had an accident down there?"
"What?..This!" Arata said as he pointed to the bandage, "It was gash from falling down. Somme stitches and everything was alright."
Wanuy dropped his satchel and stretched, clearly relieved to see him. "You were gone longer than the usual duration of routine maintenance."
"Tunnels collapsed" Arata replied easily. "Happens more often than the reports admit."
Wanuy grimaced. "Figures. The Magisters likes pretending everything's under control."
Arata nodded once and moved toward his bed, keeping his right side turned away. "I miss much??" Arata asked as he laid down on his bed.
Wanuy shook his head. "Same drills. Same lectures. Lyra almost vaporised a second-year for getting clever with her." He paused, then added, quieter "Flora asked about you."
"She worries a lot... What did you say?" Arata asked.
"I told everything was fine, that you were just taking a bit longer to come up to the ground." Wanuy replied. "Which technically, turned out to be true."
"Good"
Wanuy's tone suddenly changed. "In the one week you were gone, Flora has changed. She became cheerful, not the usual smiley Flora, but a weird and creepy smile Flora. Only time she stooped smiling was when she enquired about you. Lyra is worried about her."
"I should go meet her then."
"Let's go to dinner, you can talk to her there." Wanuy said as his stomach growled in agreement.
"Let's go." Arata sat up from his bed.
Both the boys exited the tower and headed to the cafeteria. On the way they bumped into Flint and Sierra.
"Hey! Wanuy" Flint shouted. "Wait up."
He jogged up the last few steps to catch them. Sierra following a pace behind, arms folded loosely as if she hadn't decided whether this interaction was an inconvenience or not.
"Why are you two always together?" Wanuy asked, trying to quench the curiosity about their relation since day one.
"Same place of birth, Childhood friends, promise to never leave each other.. yada yada" Flint said as he looked to find Arata standing behind Wanuy. "Didn't think you had survived underground duty"
"Stop talking out of your ass... " Sierra said as she caught up to the group. "Heard the Veinworks chew people up?"
"They Really tried, believe me" Arata replied.
Serra's eyes flicked to the bandage on his hand. Just for a second though. "Can we get details about the Veinworks?" she asked.
"Yeah sure, nothing much to tell anyway." Arata said "It's tunnels lined with Veins growing on the walls of them. Red dust all around. High fucking temperatures."
Flint snorted. "Sounds miserable. We had Lyra breathing down our necks instead. Turns out 'controlled manifestation' is just her way of saying don't die in an interesting way."
"At least you guys were together when you faced her. I will have to take a lesson alone." Arata said as he thought of the beautiful yet strict professor Lyra.
They resumed walking, the cafeteria lights already visible ahead, warm and deceptively normal.
Flint leaned closer, voice dropping. "You going to see Flora?"
Arata nodded. "That obvious?"
"You are the only one who has been able to talk to her since the first trail, maybe sometime Wanuy. So yeah, very obvious" Flint said, the grin fading now, "She's been… off, since the controlled manifestation lecture. It was the first time we actually manifested our powers. Sierra hands got so hot she burned through the stone of the building."
"Wanuy told me.. that's why I came to Cafetaria."
"Why do you care about her so much?" Seirra asked him plain and simple.
"I honestly don't know... I talk to her and it feels like I am talking to someone I have known for a long time. She also strikes me as a very lonely person." Arata replied looking at the stars.
"You know there's a big fat irony in that sentence." Flint chipped in the conversation.
"What?" Wanuy asked.
"He is the biggest loner in class..." Seirra answered him.
"What?? I have friends... There's Wanuy." and the Arata couldn't think of anyone else.
"He doesn't count, he's your dorm mate." Flint said.
"Just...Shut up"
They reached the cafeteria doors. Noise spilled out, The clank of utensils against plates, the low murmur of too many people. Just another academy evening.
Flint clapped Arata on the shoulder. "If you're the reason she started smiling before, maybe you can stop it too."
Arata didn't answer. Once inside he scanned the hall for Flora. He found her at the same spot, she usually sat. Alone at one of the longer tables, with perfect posture, hands folded neatly in front of her tray.
She had an unnerving expression on her face. Just a wide Smile, a wide unmoving smile.
When her eyes met Arata's, the smile faltered.
Just for a heartbeat.
Then it softened into something real.
And that, more than anything else, made Arata uneasy.
"We will sit at the other table, call us when you are done" Wanuy said as he and the other two cadets, went away to take food.
Arata approached slowly, tray forgotten in his hands. "Mind if I sit?" he asked.
Flora looked up—and for the first time since he'd entered the cafeteria, her expression was something other than the damn smile. It was the opposite of a smile, there were tears.
"Hey, what happened?" Arata asked , his voice always turned into and endearing tone when he talked to her.
"Nothing" She said as he wiped her tears "Sit, sit" she said, patting the bench beside her."I was starting to think you'd forgotten where the cafeteria was."
"Got lost" Arata replied as he sat. "The Academy keeps rearranging itself."
She laughed. "That's not the Academy. That's just you."
They ate in silence for a few moments.
"You worried people" Flora said eventually, poking at her food. "Disappearing like that."
"It was the tunnels, took more time coming up then expected." Arata replied. "Sorry."
She hesitated, then looked at him. "I'm glad you're back."
Something in the way she said it made Arata's chest tighten. He hadn't known this girl a week before today, and now he was afraid to do anything that might upset her. He hadn't felt this way, ever since he had been born.
"How have you been?" Arata asked "People are worried about you too"
Flora tilted her head, considering the question seriously. "I feel a little strange these days." she admitted. "I feel lighter, in a way. Like something heavy stepped off me and left an imprint behind."
"That doesn't sound light" Arata said. "That sounds concerning."
She smiled again—this time sheepish. "I guess not. But it's not scary either. It's like… when you walk too close to a cliff and feel the wind. You shouldn't like it, but part of you does. It's so freeing and thrilling."
"I think the Academy wants us to be afraid all the time," Flora continued. "But I don't want to live like that. If I'm going to break someday, I want to break knowing I was courageous first."
She looked at him. Really looked.
"I have realised that real strength isn't the power of Dragon Blood, or being the emperor and having authority. I think real strength is choosing what you let touch you." she said. "It could be pain. It could be fear. It could be People."
She turned toward him again, softer now. "I am glad I let you."
"Flora" Arata said, then stopped. He wasn't sure what he was meant to say next.
She noticed.
"It's okay" she said. "You don't have to say it back. "
She stood, picking up her tray.
"Just… don't disappear again" she added lightly. "That's unfair."
He nodded. "I'll try."
"Good" she said. "I like this version of us."
And then she walked away.
Arata remained seated long after his food went cold, with the quiet, sinking certainty that something precious had just said goodbye—without knowing it was doing so.