Juventas didn’t have to work too hard to find Meredith after school, which left more space for her head to swim with anxiety. The new classmate was already wearing the school uniform, presumably being inserted into a class with a student guide for a test day. Meredith leaned against the entrance to the school, waiting for the brighter girl to show up. That sharp gaze she had made Juventas stiffen up, but she pressed herself to catch glimpses of the girl’s hand more often. She focused herself to smile and wave to the new girl.

“You look supercute in the uniform,” she managed to usher out of her lips. The comment apparently gave way to something Meredith had an ability to do; lighten up.

“Thanks. Juventas, wasn’t it?” Meredith asked, tilting her head aside with a light purse on her lips. Juventas nodded quickly, to which Meredith added; “Is it cool to call you Juju?”

“Lots do already, so feel free!” She replied, feeling a bit of ease flow into her. Meredith gave off a smile and began to lead the way, an apparent haste in her walk. “Oh, you already know where to go?”

Meredith nodded with a light hum without looking back. “Yup. Went there this morning.”

“Huh…? But the cafe isn’t really open until the bell rings…”

“Some brute named Tabby pestered me because he didn’t want to brew any coffee.”

Juventas snapped a grin onto her face, laughing without even needing to try. “Omigod, Tabby, he’s gonna get fired if he does stuff like that...“

Meredith slowed her pace, matching with Juventas. “So y’know him? He said he used to go to Julien’s.”

“Yeah, he always wanted to bother Vera, but she’s no good with boys, so I had to always shoo him off,” Juventas explained, recalling the days with a huge grin. She added with a laugh, “We were joked as rivals for Vera’s hand!”

Meredith took a pause, considering the statement. Was the jinni being a little shit, or was there something else in that? Surely her stay would eventually answer that. “So you’ll know how to make him go away if he’s still on shift.”

Juventas’ grin wasn’t going anyway anytime soon, and it looked like she’d completely forgotten why she was anxious in the first place. “I can come up with a plan!”

Meredith nodded in approval, gazing upon the awning that protruded from the mentioned cafe as it came closer to them. She held a hesitant breath. “Hope I can still use my tab he started.”

“Huuuh? I wouldn’t put you through that! I’ll pay for you if you can’t, Meredith,” Juventas insisted, reaching into her satchel to check her wallet. She heard Meredith give off a husky laugh.

“You’re something else,” she replied.

“I’m human, though!” She tossed back with a grin, nodding that her card was still in its little pocket and shutting the clam-function wallet back with a gentle clip noise. “I promise I’m not a faerie. I just like making friends happy.”

“You’re going so fast, Juventas, I dunno if I’m ready for such a commitment,” Meredith muttered with a healthy lace of humor, bringing the girl beside her to sputter into a happy laugh that mixed with the bell fastened above the cafe door for new customers.

“Welcome to Tamanti’s Cafe~,” chimed that familiar young man’s voice as he descended the stairs from the rooftop, two customers already beginning to leave with love in their eyes. Worker’s gaze turned into a playful squint as he saw the plump optimist beside Meredith and widened his stance, despite still carrying a tray of cups and plates. “I thought I banished you from my territory!”

Meredith’s shoulders were grabbed to make her a human shield, Juventas stepping behind the skinny foreigner with a burst of laughter. “I have a visa! A visa! I come here peacefully!” She pleaded amid laughter, forcing Tabby to relax his stance. Meredith actually didn’t fake her laugh, sputtering at the two and their ridiculous comedic chemistry.

“Do you even know what a visa is nationally?” The secret jinni asked with a grin, placing the tray on the back counter and readying himself at the register.

“No, but I do have a card and you have rent --”

“I get it, shuddup, are we a date or just grabbing hot cocoa?”

Meredith was already heading to a table, comfortably able to cut in with a confirmation; “It’s a dine-in, Tabby,” before Juventas even opened her mouth.

“Then I will hand you the little menus with the crayons,” Tabby replied, grabbing the to-go menus since half the party was already seated. The cafe didn’t sport real menus. Meredith maybe didn’t know how cafes worked.

“There’s no crayons,” Juventas complained as the papers were placed on the table. “Where’s your manager?”

Tabby had already pivoted off to let the two decide their orders, ignoring Juventas’ attempt to continue the comedy. Meredith, too, had had enough. Juventas was coated multiple times in sugar.

The chats they had were vanilla, regarding witchy things and various things Meredith did and didn’t like about Julien’s so far. Juventas hadn’t noted how much time had passed, but she was able to note how much hot chocolate would make her want to go to the bathroom.

“I’m gonna be right back, Mere’, I gotta use the bathroom.”

“Stalls? I need to as well.”

“Yeah, there’s two stalls. Tabby, don’t let anyone steal my pastry, okay?”

“Making plans to eat it now, have a good potty break, ladies,” Tabby replied, wiping down a table nearby.

Juventas lead the way to the bathroom for Meredith, allowing her to enter first. Meredith took to looking in the mirror, apparently only taking an appearance check in the bathroom with Juventas went about her business. The moment was quiet, only a smidge awkward -- an attribute at which Juventas fought to stay in the background. Normal girl stuff, peein’ on toilets and checking their hair. She only felt a little weird!

“Hey, Juju?”

She was fixing her skirt when the other witch spoke. “Y-yeah?”

“Are you really this happy all the time?”

The question kind of seemed earnest enough. “Well…” But it was too deep to reply to fully on the first day of friendship, right? She shimmied her hips to ensure she didn’t have a toilet-paper tail caught on her skirt and moved from the stall to the sink, washing her hands. She gave a glance to Meredith’s hand -- but they were both pressed to her stomach in a sort of formal wait for her reply. She really wanted to know, huh… “Well, no, I… guess it’s just a front, you know? Everyone wants to make good first impressions. I can get sad too.”

“Is that really so, though? You’re so impossibly happy, you know?” Meredith took a step closer to Juventas. Was she just curious, like getting closer would make her see something new? Well, actually, the closeness did make her move her hands up a bit to her chest consciously. Her eyes went back to scary and critical looking again.

“Mer… Meredith, um, that’s a bit close… Dunno if I’m ready for this kinda commitment, hahaaa…” Juventas murmured nervously, her eyes trailing off to the side to avoid looking at those scary eyes.

Meredith showed no emotion. Her hands snaked past Juventas’ own guard, taking grip of her collar lapels. With a quick gesture, she was ripping the shirt open with enough force to throw Juventas’ hands back and pop a few already stressed buttons. Juventas wheezed in a desire to scream, her brain suddenly filled with enough shock to make all possible responses cancel eachother out. Her eyes brimmed with tears, muscles stiff, teeth grit. The normal feeling of assault had already washed over her, making her legs tremble and her mind agonize over the pain of such betrayal. The new reaction she wasn’t calculating for was for this new crystal growth on her chest to be suddenly revealed with such brutal calculation. The poor girl tried to move to cover herself up and cry like she wanted to, but no matter how much she strained to cover herself now, she could not move. Meredith’s eyes were directly on her, studying her coldly. Juventas gave out a pitiful yelp for mercy. She didn’t understand what was happening, but she’d just had her shirt ripped apart, and her stomach was even showing some and she hated her stomach, but also she didn’t know how to explain the crystal on her chest and wasn’t anywhere nearly prepared to. Also, that shirt-ripping thing really hurt her feelings.

Who was she kidding? She was FUCKING HORRIFIED right now.

“Sorry for not pinning you, that’d be more normal,” Meredith replied, moving in a bit to wipe off the girl’s tears. She reached down and flicked the gem on Juventas’ chest. “Y’know what this is?” Juventas only hiccupped, gritting her teeth in continuous horror. She could only whimper. “I figured you didn’t normally button your shirt up so high with a bust like that. I guess it’s about twenty-four hours fresh there.”

“What’re you -- Meredith, why did you --” Juventas couldn’t settle on one of the multiple questions she had. She wanted to scream. That was remedied, though, because Meredith wasn’t about to waste time answering all of her questions and letting her scream. A free hand cupped over her mouth, muffling anything further from her. The other traced a finger along the gem, which was reverberating the beat of her heart in small vibrations.

“Teal. It’s teal,” She noted. Juventas looked down in confusion that mixed bitterly with her prior horror; that it was. But she first saw it as purple. She let off a muffled shriek and tried to struggle against whatever magic Meredith was using against her. Meredith noted that struggle and shook her head. “It’s blood magic, you’re only gonna hurt yourself. Sorry I made this so scary.” She didn’t look sorry. Just concentrated. “Here. Look. You can calm down probably when I do this.”

Clink.

Meredith had placed her hand that wasn’t muffling her screams on the gem, resulting in an inhuman sound as the two met. Juventas had stopped her struggling in the abrupt confusion that was brought on by the noise, eyes on the hand as Meredith drew it back and held it open-palmed to show the dark-blue gem on her own person. What did that mean? Were they enemies of some new scary race war? She still felt very, very unsafe. Meredith removed her hand from Juventas’ mouth, which first yielded a singular very fat sob.

“Oh, come now,” Meredith replied, seeming exhausted with Juventas’ reasonable panic. “We’re on the same team.”

“Then why did you tear my shirt so scary…?” Juventas sobbed out, crying fully now.

“Because I’d rather be viewed as a molester than out myself to an innocent.”

Do what? The restroom was quiet aside from Juventas’ crying, the brown-haired girl apparently trying to understand what she was just told. She didn’t get it. So Meredith wasn’t about to assault her and call her a freak for the rock on her chest? She wasn’t ready to understand this whole thing. Juventas’ heart hurt so deeply from the shock. She was so happy a minute ago, feeling so calm… But now, her shirt was missing a few buttons, her chest was cold because of the air conditioning, and she couldn’t move because of blood magic. Blood magic was frowned upon, why would someone learn --

“Your stone’s purple now… That’s kind of weird. Mine’s only blue…” Meredith interrupted her thoughts, a thoughtful hand on her cheek as she thought it over. Without warning, Meredith released her magical hold on Juventas, stepping back as the girl before her collapsed to the floor with a yelp, quickly gripping her shirt for coverage. She was emotionally broken enough now for Meredith to be able to tell the girl would do nothing.

“You’re horrible…” Juventas choked, trembling on the tile floor.

“I’m not horrible. I was alone. We’re on the same team, and we both thought we were alone.”

“Horrible…” The broken girl mumbled on the floor, wanting to melt right into it and stop existing. Meredith seemed exhausted while she looked down to her, not understanding why she wasn’t relieved. She sure was, to know her intel was correct. She really didn’t want to be seen as a shady molester. With a bit of hesitation, the witch knelt to the ground level with Juventas and let off a sigh.

“I’m not the best with sympathy. I hurt you a lot just now, I get it. But the thing is,” she set her hands stiffly on Juventas’ shoulders. “I needed to make sure you were you. I came here to be here with you. Because, just… It all sounds --”

“-- Nuts, crazy, yes, just please explain what’s going on and help me fix my shirt!” Juventas blurted, too wounded to sit through a monologue.

“Okay, yeah, enough gay shit, I’m here because the God of this world put gemstones on us that give us magic shit because she wants to see what we’ll do--”

“Okayokayokay what stop--?!”

She wasn’t stopping. “--and we’re called Children Borne of Pain because she’s absolutely unoriginal--”

“How do you know this let me go--!!”

“-- and you need to believe me because I know the Jann in the north say that our God doesn’t wanna talk to us but I HEARD her--”

Juventas reeled back, shoving Meredith off her and landing a rather sturdy slap onto the girl’s face, shutting her up with a slight grunt finisher.

“What the FUCK are you saying?!” She pleaded, still trying to hold her shirt together with one hand.

Meredith sat there for a moment, trying to steady her breathing. Maybe she got out of line. No, yeah, she got out of line. “Listen, I’ve got too much to do in my life to suddenly cut all ties and travel forever to some human town to find one specific girl with a rock on her chest. There’s a reason here, and I need you to stick with me, because I’m still trying to figure out whether or not we need to listen to that reason or not. Okay?” Her voice was raw. Uncomposed. She really was genuine.

Juventas leaned against the stall she’d been slammed against, her chest heaving possible hyperventilations as she took in all that happened to her within possibly three minutes. “So, you’re saying, stick together, because we have rock growths on us and it’s not meant to be normal.”

“Yes.”

Juventas slumped over, letting out a breath of god-what-the-fuck followed by an internal grievance of ‘I didn’t ask for this.’ She let off a whimper again and leaned her head back, staring up at the iridescent lights. “Do I look like I’ve been crying?”

“You look like you’re recovering from an assault.”

“I am. Help me get cleaned up… I need you to explain more, but not in an attempt to get me to believe you, and not in a public restroom…”

“A reasonable course of action. Okay.”