A Return to the City

“If Jenne plays the music and Jon sings along then we’ll dance through the watch with a laugh and a song. We’ll drink and be merry for all that we’re worth, for it is the day of our good friend’s birth.”

- from “Happy Birthday”, traditional spacer song

Yan stopped reading. There was still more to the document, but it looked as though it was going to go into significant detail about past battles and operations, and she didn't have the heart to go through that at the moment. She had a pen and paper in front of her, and had been taking increasingly distressed notes through the entire time she had been reading, mainly writing down her thoughts on the information that she had been given.

All of that would have to be kept locked up in the secret room where she was sitting, curled up on the carpeted floor, having abandoned the desk chair for the ability to sprawl out at will as she pored over the document she had been trusted with. She pulled the data stick out of the tablet she had been reading it on, and stood up off the floor, stretching. She was wearing only her undershirt and pajama pants, having discarded her sweaty and dirty laundry immediately after returning to her apartment from that awful "training session" with Halen.

She was still mad about it, or still feeling something, at least. She couldn't stop thinking about the chaos of the darkened room, and what she had done inside of it. Though Kino seemed all right, or as all right as Kino had ever seemed in the short time that Yan had known her, Yan thought that getting shot should have maybe gotten a stronger reaction out of the girl.

And what did she even think about the fact that Kino had been using vena? It seemed abstractly repulsive to her. One of her much older cousins had become addicted to the stuff and eventually been told to kick the habit or leave the Iron Dreams, and he had chosen to leave. Still, though Yan found the thought of the stuff distasteful, the idea of Kino using it just felt empty? Like there were no real consequences associated with it.

If Halen, on the other hand...

But that must just be because she felt sympathy for Kino, and hatred towards Halen. Kino had the chance to be her friend, at least for the next five years, and Halen seemed determined to remain in troubled emotional territory.

Yan knew that, having decided to take this apprenticeship, there was nothing she wanted more than the approval of Sandreas, and gaining that approval would be impossible without getting in Halen's good graces, since the two seemed joined at the hip. But Halen, for every step that he had taken forward in Yan's eyes (being important to Sandreas, being competent and somewhat scary, abandoning his previous life, trying to talk to her), he had taken about seven steps back (being a pirate in the first place, thinking that he and Yan were anything alike, letting Kino get shot), and Yan hated it.

She tried to distance herself from the too many thoughts circulating in her head as she tucked the tablet into the drawer of the desk, and locked the data stick into one of the cabinets. Yan clambered out of the secret room hidden in the back of her closet and wandered back into her living room. On the coffee table her phone was blinking, so she checked her notifications.

Sylva had tried calling her just a few minutes ago, but Yan hadn't heard the ringing. Yan considered if the time gap between Sylva calling and now was short enough to allow Yan to call back without it being awkward.

It was Sylva, of course it wouldn't be awkward. Yan flopped down onto the couch and called Sylva back.

She picked up immediately.

"Yan!" Sylva sounded unreasonably excited, but that was probably due to her not having had nearly as troubling of a past few days as Yan had had.

"Hey," Yan replied, "What's up?"

"Nothing, I just wanted to talk," Sylva said. "Are you ok?"

Sylva's voice was crackling on the phone.

"I've had a pretty messed up day," Yan said. "What time is it where you are?"

"Late. Twenty-three hours," Sylva said. "What happened?"

"Hard to explain. I'm not even sure what I'm allowed to tell you," Yan said.

"You don't have to say anything that you can't. I won't pry," Sylva said. But there was still an unspoken offer for Sylva to listen to whatever Yan had to say.

"We have to do this, uh, self defense training," Yan offered, "And while we were doing it Kino, one of the other apprentices, she got shot. She's ok now, but it was pretty bad."

"That's horrible," Sylva said. "How can someone get shot on like the second day of their apprenticeship? I mean, they really should have said that in the job description, like 'Hey, you're going to be in mortal danger from day one.’"

"They kinda did," Yan said. "I had an intellectual understanding of what I was signing up for, at least. And it wasn't mortal danger, no one could have died, really."

"An intellectual understanding of 'I could get shot doing this job' and a physical understanding of 'this is what it feels like to get shot' are two completely different things," Sylva said.

"Well I still don't have that," Yan said.

"Good! Quit while you're ahead, then!" Sylva said, with much more force than Yan had expected.

"You want me to quit my apprenticeship?" Yan asked.

"I take back everything I said about you making a boring old Academy master, you should have gone into safe academics. Nobody ever tries to shoot anybody there!" Sylva said.

"It's a little late for that now, I guess." Yan got up off the couch and started to pace around her apartment. The sun was going down outside the window. "I'm going to make the best of this."

"This is day two of five years, Yan," Sylva said. "That's... I don't want to have to be scared for you."

"It's day two of the rest of my life," Yan admitted. "One of us three, either me or Sid or Kino, we're going to take Sandreas's job someday." She said this in a flat tone, but Sylva responded as if it were a death sentence, which maybe it was.

"If this is what it's like then you're never going to be safe again. How can you live like that?"

"I'm good at things. You don't have to worry about me, really. I promise," Yan said. "How is your apprenticeship going?" She tried to change the subject.

"I might not have to worry about you, but God knows that I will," Sylva said. "My apprenticeship is ok. I have to learn a new language, though, before I can really get into doing the work—I'm on a team that's checking theological texts coming out of Ampola, so I'm in these intensive language classes to get me up to speed."

"Sounds exciting," Yan said. "How long is that going to take?"

"No idea," Sylva said. "A while. It's not like you can just instantly make somebody learn a language, even if you have another sensitive feeding you knowledge. Kinda. My brain feels like melted cheese at the end of the day. Apparently there’s a bunch of different ways to go about it, but I asked my mentor for the one that involved the least, uh, meditation."

"You're getting the language through shared meditation?" Yan asked.

"Partially?" Sylva said. "That's part of the goal, anyway, but I'm so bad at meditation, so it really has to be supplemented with other lessons. It would be, anyway, but I think I get more out of the lessons than I do out of the groupthink, you know?"

"I always liked meditation," Yan said.

"Yeah, I know, you showoff," Sylva laughed. "It's ok, I don't mind, and maybe I'll get better at it with a lot of intense practice. It just sucks to still be like, even at work where there’s only my mentor and me, to still know that I’m the least good at all the power stuff." Sylva’s lack of confidence in her own skills in the power was well trod ground between them, and Yan didn’t want to dig into that can of worms any more than Sylva already had.

"Is the goal to be able to get you to think in the language?" Yan asked. "Would the putting it in with meditation make that happen?"

"I think only practice and constant, daily use makes you think in a language." Sylva said. "But since we're going to be focusing on theological texts, I don't know if I'm going to get really, like, the daily language stuff that would let me think in it day in and out. Or even get to be a fluent speaker. Maybe every time I need to say a prayer then Ampolon will pop out, I don't know."

"Sounds intense," Yan said. "I remember when I had to get fluent in New Imperial, that wasn't the easiest."

"When you came to the Academy? At least you were in good company with pretty much everyone else," Sylva said.

"You were lucky since you grew up on Emerri you didn't have to go through that," Yan said.

"Yeah, but that just means my life has always been incredibly boring. Not all of us have always lived lives of danger and excitement," Sylva said. "I feel like Emerri is the most boring planet in the Empire if you're not a politician."

"Probably it is," Yan said. "But it's the only planet I've ever lived on."

"Heh, yeah. I guess for that it's not so bad. At least I'm not from an outer colony where it feels like everyone a farmer."

"Don't knock farming," Yan said, "It's a valuable profession."

"Valuable is one thing, interesting is another," Sylva said.

"Well then I have interest in no short supply, and you have no right to be mad at me about it," Yan said.

"I'm not mad. I just... Sorry if I sounded mad," Sylva said. "You're allowed to stay in your apprenticeship if you want."

"Allowed?" Yan asked.

"You know what I mean," Sylva said. "I couldn't stop you if I tried, but I'm not going to really try."

"Maybe you could stop me," Yan said.

"Besides, what would you do if you dropped out of the apprenticeship? You wouldn't be able to get a new one, I don't think," Sylva said.

"I'd just go work on the Iron Dreams," Yan said. "My family would be mad but they'd take me back. I think."

"And if they didn't, you could always just go sell your genetic material on the black market," Sylva said. Yan laughed.

"I could do that," Yan said. "I'd make a fortune and hardly have to do any work."

"Honestly, why don't I do that, then I won't have to do any of this tedious meditating, and language learning, and translating, and all that garbage." Sylva yawned loudly over the phone. "I just woke up from a nap and now I'm tired again. Why am I cursed like this?"

"It is pretty late where you are. Probably you only woke up from your 'nap' because you're hungry or have to pee or something," Yan said pragmatically.

"You are so right. I'm eating an instant pizza right now," Sylva said.

"Healthy diet choices, I see."

"You see nothing," Sylva said with a laugh. "And anyway, who are you to judge, miss 'I've never grocery shopped in my life?'"

"I can judge all I like, safe in the knowledge that I only eat the choicest of delivery pizza, rather than instant microwave meals," Yan said, putting a false haughty tone in her voice. Joking with Sylva was actually managing to lift her mood, which was a great blessing. Now that they were talking, Yan realized just how hungry she was. She hadn't had lunch, and since the sun was going down, it meant she hadn't eaten in about eleven hours. The whole day had been so full of things that it hadn't really entered fully into her consciousness that she needed to have a meal.

"Tomorrow's Sixday, do you get that off?" Yan asked, somewhat abruptly.

"No, I get Foursday and Sevensday off, and I have a half day on Twosday," Sylva said. "But other than that I'm full time. I feel so legitimate."

"You've become a regular old adult, how boring," Yan joked.

"I know, it's so, so sad," Sylva said. "What about you?"

"My schedule is really random, I think. It's more of a 'whenever I'm needed' type basis. Since we're basically following around First Sandreas it's a real mystery. A lot of important political stuff seems to happen at dinners, so we only get nights off sometimes."

"I guess that makes sense. Let me know if you are going to get a vacation, though, so you can come visit meeee," Sylva said.

"I just started the job two days ago, I don't think I can start planning any vacations yet."

"Well, I know, I'm just saying. I miss you."

"I miss you, too." Yan said. "I promise I'll come visit when I do get a week off. Four days, even."

"Good." There was relative silence over the phone for a second as Yan heard Sylva take a bite of her pizza. "I'll do the same thing."

"You should probably go back to bed," Yan said. "If you're as tired as you say you are."

"Let me finish my pizza first," Sylva said. "I'm thinking you're trying to get rid of me or something."

"No!" Yan said. "Well, I do have to go find some dinner for myself. But that can wait until we're done talking."

"Is this going to be a good time for us to talk in the future?" Sylva asked. "I can try to be slightly more awake if we want to make this our time."

Yan thought for a minute. "Uh, maybe? I'm probably going to be busy a lot of nights, but on nights that I'm not busy then probably. It's pretty inconvenient to not have a real schedule. I can try to call earlier."

"Well that's fine, just let me know," Sylva said. "What are you going to get for dinner?"

"Dunno. I'll see if Sid and Kino want to go out and get anything, or if they're busy with their own stuff."

"Do you like them? Kino and Sid?" Sylva asked, an odd tone in her voice.

"They're ok, I guess. They'll definitely take some getting used to. Sandreas managed to pick some pretty weird people to be his apprentices."

"Are you the most normal one of the bunch?" Sylva asked. Yan laughed.

"Maybe? I don't know. Like I just don't know enough about Kino and Sid to tell. Maybe I'm less surface level odd than they are, but we're probably the same level of weird deep down."

"You're the most normal person I know," Sylva said.

"That's a funny joke," Yan said. "I only do my best to pretend to be normal." Despite the light tone that Yan put on those words, she was unfortunately telling the complete truth, which Sylva knew.

"Fake it till you make it," Sylva said.

"Shake it till you break it," Yan responded.

"Now you're just saying nonsense," Sylva grumbled.

"A service I am only too happy to provide," Yan said.

"I'm going back to bed."

"Goodnight," Sylva said. "Let me know when you can talk again."

"I'll be busy tomorrow, but maybe Sevensday?" Yan said.

"Sure. Love you," Sylva said, yawning again.

"Love you right back," Yan said. "Have a good time at work tomorrow."

"You too. Stay safe," Sylva said.

"I will. Bye, Sylva." Yan said. They were stretching out the end of the conversation, both reluctant to hang up on the other.

"Byeeeeeeeee," Sylva said. Sylva was the one who eventually decided to end the call, stretching out her last word until she hit the hang up button, and Yan was left with just silence on the line.

Talking to Sylva had been good, but it was only a temporary cure for the massive confusion Yan was feeling. It actually left her feeling even more empty, as though she had temporarily been filled up with brightness, and then all of it had poured out again as the conversation ended.

And she was still hungry. Yan texted Sid and Kino.

> want to get dinner?

Sid's reply was immediate.

< sure

> k let me get dressed

Yan wandered into her room and fished through her closet to find a clean uniform to wear. She changed into the pants and wiggled the cassock down over her head, tossing her discarded pajama pants on her bed. With some reluctance, Yan unbuttoned the middle of her cassock to put on the gun and her holster that she was supposed to keep on at all times. Now looking reasonably presentable, Yan headed out of her apartment.

She saw Sid standing in the hallway and she waved at him in greeting. He gave her one of his trademark grins. Yan walked towards Kino's door and knocked on it. A muffled sound of something heavy dropping to the floor issued from inside the apartment, and a few seconds later an extremely disheveled looking Kino appeared at the door.

"Hi," Kino said. Her usually neatly braided hair was coming apart, the strands escaping the fraying braids to stand up on end. Kino's face was shiny with sweat.

"You okay?" Yan asked, looking Kino up and down. She was wearing only her undershirt and a pair of shorts.

"Yeah. Just restless," Kino said, as if that explained everything.

"We were going to go get dinner, do you want to come?" Yan asked, gesturing at Sid who was leaning against one of the walls of the hallway.

"Okay, give me half a minute," Kino said, disappearing back into her apartment.

Yan turned back to Sid.

"What have you been doing?" She signed. "Read the book we got?"

Sid shook his head no. "Working on a personal project," he signed back. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a slim black case, which he tossed to Yan. She opened it.

Inside the case was a pair of glasses, quite similar to the ones that Sid himself was wearing, but these ones had a strong sense of the power about them. She picked up the glasses and put them on. Nothing seemed to happen.

"What do they do?" Yan signed.

"Look," Sid signed back. Then she saw it. When she looked at Sid and saw him sign something, after a fractional delay, text appeared on the bottom edge of the glasses, just as they did in Sid's regular pair, but this time they were watching for Imperial Sign. Yan laughed and took the glasses off, putting them back in the case and tossing them to Sid. It was a fairly odd experience; sign didn’t translate directly into text, it was its own language with specific grammar, so the text the glasses provided only a literal translation of all the signs, and it would still require effort on the wearer’s part to interpret facial expressions and context to ‘translate’ the words into something meaningful.

"You did all that in half a day?" Yan asked, raising her eyebrows to indicate how impressed she was.

"No, it was something I played with years ago. Resurrected an old project. It took a bit to just remember how I put it together," Sid explained. "Never had a use for it before now."

Kino chose that moment to make her reappearance, now fully clothed and looking a little neater.

"What are you talking about?" Kino asked, shutting her apartment door behind her.

"Think fast," Sid said aloud and tossed the glasses case at Kino. She snatched it out of the air as it whizzed past her head. Kino opened the case.

"I don't need a prescription," Kino said. "My eyes are fine."

"Put them on," Yan said. Kino complied and slid the glasses onto her face. Seeing her and Sid wearing such similar glasses was fairly comical. With the glasses off the two looked nothing alike, but with the glasses on, one could have almost thought that Kino and Sid were half related. Though Kino had a darker skin tone and generally different features, the glasses gave them both an owlish look. Sid was the trickster bird from fairy tales and Kino was the wise nightbird.

"I feel left out from the eye party," Yan signed.

"Hey, that's cool," Kino said. "Thanks."

"Now we all can understand each other equally badly," Sid signed. "And maybe someday you'll learn sign."

"Do I have to be looking at you for it to work?" Kino asked. Sid nodded.

"What do you want for dinner?" Yan signed. "I'm pretty hungry."

"Sandwiches and ice cream," Kino replied immediately. Yan gave her a look.

"At the same time?" Yan asked.

"We'd have to get sandwiches first. But you were asking for suggestions, and that's my suggestion," Kino said.

"I don't have any better ideas," Sid signed. "Do you know a good place to get sandwiches?"

"Banco's Deli, on fifteenth street," Kino said. "I used to go there a lot, when we were at the Academy."

"It is pretty convenient that we basically didn't have to move," Yan signed. "Well, I have no problems with that. Lead the way."

They paused their conversation as Kino led them out of the apartment building and down the straight streets of the city. The sun going down had removed some of the heat from the air, and a light breeze ruffled the hems of their cassocks as they walked.

The sandwich shop was a cute little place, taking up part of the bottom floor of a well maintained looking building a good distance away from their apartment. It had been a bit of a walk, but Yan was grateful for the exercise, as it gave her a chance to stretch out. Wandering the city streets took her mind off the chaos of the day. The deli was brightly lit and cast its radiance out onto the darkening street, an extra pool of light in between the streetlights further down the road. There were tables set up outside, and after ordering their sandwiches from the counter, the three sat out there. They unwrapped their food and got settled in to eat it. Yan said a silent prayer before she began to eat.

Yan ate her sandwich in silence for the most part, tilting back her chair to occasionally glance up at the sky and the light gray clouds scuttling across the large moon. Kino was eating her sandwich with one hand and rhythmically hitting her knee with the other. Sid spent the meal staring off into space. It wasn't as though they had nothing to talk about, it was just that eating was consuming all of Yan's brainpower at the moment, which may have been for the best.

When she finished her sandwich, she sipped her soda contemplatively.

"Today has been strange," Yan finally signed.

"Yeah," Kino said, but didn't offer anything else.

"You okay?" Yan asked Kino out loud.

"I'm fine, I think," Kino said. She was still hitting her leg with her hand. "My arm is okay, if that's what you're asking."

"I just meant in general," Yan said. "Like Halen taking away your... stuff." Yan thought that it would be best if she didn't discuss highly illegal drugs right out in public.

"I can live without it," Kino said. "It just helps me calm down."

"If you say so," Sid signed with a shrug. "That is a lot to risk for just calming down."

Kino didn't respond to that. If it was meant to be provocation on Sid's part then Kino remained unprovoked.

"Are you going to be twitchier without it?" Yan asked. "No offense but you are the most fidgety person I've ever met."

"No, maybe. I've always been doing this. I just have a lot of bad dreams and bad thoughts, it kept those down."

"Oh," Yan said. She remembered what Kino had told her about her past, and though the details had been few, it wasn't as though Yan's imagination couldn't fill in what Kino meant by bad dreams and bad thoughts. "I'm sorry."

Kino shrugged.

"You read the documents we were given, right?" Sid asked Yan and Kino.

Yan nodded. "Most of it, I didn't get through the whole thing," she signed.

Kino just nodded.

"Was there anything interesting in there?" Sid asked.

Yan frowned and pointedly looked around at the street and the diner. Sid just grinned back, his usual response.

"You could be less lazy and read them yourself," Yan signed.

"I have better things to be doing with my time," Sid replied.

"No, you don't," Kino said. Her totally flat tone of voice made Yan laugh. "What?"

"Oh, you're just right," Yan said aloud.

"I know, I will read it, I just didn't want to," Sid said. "I'm preserving my... for as long as possible." He made a sign that Yan didn't know.

"Sorry, keeping your what?" She probably should have guessed from context what the double entendre was, as the sign that Sid repeated looked rather rude.

"I-n-n-o-c-e-n-c-e," he fingerspelled.

Kino laughed and Yan rolled her eyes.

"I don’t think you have any of that left," Yan signed back. Privately, she thought that if Sid had wanted to remain innocent then he picked the wrong career. She had probably picked the wrong career as well, as she was coming to understand.

"You think the boys find this irresistible?" Sid pointed at his own bald head. Yan rolled her eyes.

"I think you should hurry and get those tattoos if you don't want to spend the rest of your life looking like an egg," Yan signed.

"I'm working on it, I'm working on it," Sid signed. "I'll tell you about my idea for it: I want to put in little pieces of ... that I can move with the power, so I can change what it looks like every day." Yan didn’t know what Sid intended to tattoo on his head, but she forgot to ask as Kino interrupted.

"Coward," Kino said abruptly. "The point of a tattoo is that it's permanent."

"Hard words from Kino's corner," Sid signed. "But maybe you're right. Doesn’t matter. It's what I want."

"How long have you wanted that for?" Yan asked.

"Since about when Halen told us that we were allowed to use the power on our own bodies," Sid waved his hand to indicate that this lack of time passing between realizing what he truly wanted was no concern.

"Are you really so," Yan tried to think of the word, "Changeable?"

"Oh I'm flexible in all senses of the word," Sid signed, and Kino choked on her drink briefly.

"You're going to kill Kino with your rudeness," Yan said.

"What do you mean? I'm killing Kino with kindness," Sid said.

"Thank you for the glasses," Kino said, after she recovered from her choking. "They do make talking much easier."

"Easier than trying to teach you," Sid admitted aloud. "But you still should try to learn sign."

"I'll try," Kino said, and she sounded earnest. "It might take a long time."

Sid shrugged. "At least we're on even ground while you try."

"What you said before, I don't know, is Halen 'allowing' us to use the power on our own selves, or is he..." Yan couldn't think of the contrasting word to finish the thought.

"Encouraging?" Kino supplied.

"Could be. But... we always had the ability, he wants to get rid of the rules," Yan had trouble putting that thought into signs for some reason. There was a very distinct feeling that she was getting that she wanted to express, but she had no idea how to communicate it. She hoped that the other two were getting it.

Yan tried to abandon the thought as she gathered up all their trash from the table and put it into the bag that they had received their sandwiches in.

"Do you still want to get ice cream?" Sid asked. "It's a beautiful night."

Kino nodded. "There's a place I like not too far away."

"This place is pretty far from our apartment," Yan said aloud. "So I hope you mean it's close going towards that direction."

"These places are nearer to the Academy," Kino explained. It was true, the looming hill of the Academy was close, and Yan knew that there was a shuttle stop that carried students from the Academy into the city not far from here.

"It's weird to be close to the Academy and not go back," Sid signed, giving expression the the feeling that Yan had been holding since she and Sylva had parted ways at the airport.

"Do you miss your Academy friends?" Yan asked.

Sid nodded. "I wasn't really close with anyone, but I do miss people. You?"

"Yeah. My girlfriend, and my friends. They were my life for a long time. Hard to think of not seeing them anymore," Yan signed.

"They're not dead," Kino said flatly, which Yan tried to interpret as Kino trying to be comforting rather than deliberate rudeness.

"No, just far away. Don't know when I'll see them again." Yan looked up at the sky briefly, sighing slightly. She really did miss Sylva. And Genna, and Harbin, and Anni, and really the whole life she had left behind. It was like a piece of herself that she had known forever had been cut off, and everyone just expected that to happen as part of life. Like losing baby teeth, the feeling of wrongness and the pervasive sense of loss haunted her.

Maybe baby teeth was too strong of a comparison, considering... Yan shook her head to clear her thoughts. As Kino had said: they weren't dead.

"Do you miss anyone from the Academy, Kino?" Yan asked aloud, focusing her attention back onto the other people at the table.

"Yeah," Kino said. "I had a few good friends."

"Want to go?" Sid asked after the conversation stalled out for a few seconds.

"Ok," Yan signed, standing up. She gathered all their garbage and tossed it into a nearby trash can. "Lead the way to dessert, Kino," Yan said aloud.

Kino did lead the way, and Sid and Yan followed her down the wide and straight streets of the city, heading further away from the looming hill of the Academy and into a section of the city where a rather subdued version of nightlife existed. It was subdued mainly because of the conspicuous police presence on what felt like every street, but there had to be a place in a city for people to go out at night and drink and dance.

In Yan’s life, it seemed as though everywhere she went there was a different idea of what was acceptable fun. On the Iron Dreams, and most ships, people held parties for any conceivable occasion, just to break up the monotony of space travel. It was a community activity, and therefore usually fairly tame. At the Academy, partying was generally looked down upon by the masters, especially considering the trouble that Academy students had the ability to get into. That never stopped Yan’s classmates from doing it anyway. She didn’t have a good idea of how much, well, normal people liked to party.

The ice cream shop was busy and well lit, serving people from a window counter. It was next to a dance hall where gaudily dressed people waited in line for the chance to enter; much of the ice cream place's foot traffic came from those people who got an ice cream before they entered the line. Yan, Kino, and Sid stood out like sore thumbs, dressed in their long apprentice coats and short red capes. This didn't deter them, however, and they got in line and ordered ice cream, then sat on a nearby bench to eat, watching the party goers stream past and half hearing, half feeling the throb of the music coming out of the nearby building. It was as close to a party as Yan had ever really gotten. Her friends hadn't been much of party people when she was at the Academy.

"You come here a lot?" Yan asked Kino.

Kino nodded. "My dealer used to meet me in that club," she pointed at the dance hall.

"Wow," Yan said shortly. She didn't really want to think too hard on Kino's drug habit, but that was about as blunt of an answer to an innocuous question as Kino could have given.

"I'm not much of a dancer," Kino continued.

"Neither am I," Yan said. "The ice cream is good, though." She spooned it out of the cup slowly, savoring the fruit flavor she had chosen.

"Ready for tomorrow's party?" Sid asked, balancing his ice cream on his knees.

"No," Yan signed. "Anything but."

"You don't live for the drama? The excitement?" Sid asked aloud.

"Drama and excitement are too much, thanks," Yan replied.

"The intrigue? The danger? The thrill?" Sid continued his list of words.

"The machinations, the schemes, the crowd..." Kino muttered.

"Not you, too," Yan said with a sigh. "No, I'm not happy or excited about it. Halen trying to prepare us makes me feel less prepared than ever before."

"He said nothing bad ever happened, you don't need to worry," Sid signed, looking more serious this time. "And if you are worried, you were the best in training, you would be the most likely to come out on top." Sid paused for a second, then smiled cheerfully. "Of the three of us."

"I don't want to be the only one left," Yan signed.

"It will be fine," Kino said. "I'm not worried."

Yan leaned back on the bench and kicked her long legs out in front of her. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back. The light from a streetlamp directly overhead filtered down through her eyelids, making yellow spots on her vision. Maybe it was rude to not keep her eyes on the conversation, if Sid wanted to talk, but she really didn't want to think of the upcoming day.

"I need to get a haircut," Yan said abruptly. "I usually just got my hair cut at the Academy barber, but I'm not a student, so where should I go?"

Sid poked her arm, and Yan reluctantly pulled her head back and opened her eyes.

"Pick a place. But your hair looks ok anyway," Sid signed.

"It's longer than I like to keep it," Yan said. Sid shrugged in response.

"Are you done with your ice cream?" He asked. Yan looked at the remnants of fruity mush in her cup, and stirred it around with her spoon until it was smooth. She scooped the last bits of it and ate it.

"Now I am," Yan signed when she had finished.

"Did no one tell you not to play with your food like that? No ice cream soup," Sid signed.

"Actually, no," Yan signed with a shrug.

"If you're done..." Sid took the now empty container, as well as his garbage and some crumpled napkins that Kino had been slowly destroying and threw it all away.

It was well and truly night, and the pulsing music of the club next door was sounding uncomfortably in Yan's ears. As Sid threw away their garbage, Yan briefly wondered what it would be like to be one of the dancers in the club. Everyone moving in tandem to the beat, the words melting away, just to be one in a crush of bodies swirling around together: to lose oneself in the crowd, in a way that was completely different to the group mind one would join in worship. She had heard some of what happened at forbidden, or perhaps just secret, parties that were held by Academy students that took place in rented rooms in the city, far enough from Academy grounds...

She had received an invitation to one party, once, but had decided not to go. Still, Yan wondered what they were like. Her imagination was overactive.

"I just don't want to think about tomorrow right now," Yan finally signed when Sid returned. "There's too much going on."

"Isn't it irresponsible to not think about things?" Sid asked.

"It would be if I could actually avoid thinking about them," Yan signed. "I'm thinking too much, forever."

Sid put his hand on Yan's shoulder and gave her a little shake. She looked at his face and he smiled just as broadly as ever.

"If you don't want to think I can give you my dealer's number," Kino said flatly. Yan laughed loudly in response.

"Thanks for the offer, Kino, but if Halen doesn't want you doing that then I'm sure he wouldn't want me doing it either," Yan said.

"He probably thinks you're more responsible than I am," Kino said.

"I still think that's really funny," Yan said. "Halen is a mystery."

Kino shrugged. "He's pretty predictable."

"If you say so," Yan said. "Let's get going back, I want to get some rest before tomorrow starts."

They walked home together, underneath the glowing streetlights.