French class was, well, French. First of all Mx De L’Arbre collected all of our homework, including the one from Emma who gave me a foul lookwhile handing hers in.

“Are you really going to stay angry at me for that, Em?” I whispered to her.

“Yes, whatcha gonna do about it?” She stuck out her tongue.

“By any chance, you aren’t fishing for sweets are you?”

She smirked. “Now, we’re talking.”

“Fiiiine.” I sighed. “Milk chocolate right?”

“Mhmm.” She nodded. “From that store next to the church of Saint Barbara!”

“Alright. I’ll go and get you some....”

“See, that’s an offer I can’t refuse.”

“Ahum. Ladies.” Mx. De L’Arbre coughed. “Can we move on with the lesson now?”

“Yes, Mix!”

Mx. De L’Arbre continued the lesson with a round of vocabulary followed by a series of exercises that included some pretty annoying French grammar rules. In my opinion grammar was always the most annoying part of learning a language, except for maybe gendered articles. I hated those with a passion.

“No, that’s not right Miss Beaumont, it’s ‘la progression’ not ‘le progression.’”

“Ugh. Why does this language need to be so gendered,” I moaned.

“You don’t need to tell me that.” Mx. De L’Arbre sighed as well. “But that’s sadly how most languages work. But just a little trick, generally all words ending with -ion are feminine. Not all the time though. Because...”

I filled in the rest of their sentence myself. “Because it wouldn’t be French if it didn’t have exceptions.”

“Exactement.”

Apart from the very theoretical grammar and vocabulary Mx. De L’Arbre did try to mix in a lot of culture too, just to keep us interested in their lessons. And to be fair, having to read Les Misérables wasn’t really a punishment because I actually quite liked it. But apart from Claire and Karin who loved the book as well, the majority of the class greatly disliked it. Although I think Claire liked it mostly because it also had a musical.

“I’d way rather read Le Compte de Monte-Cristo, or even Les Trois Mousquetaires, but not this.” My sportsy best friend lamented next to me with her head on her desk.

“I think you can choose what book to read next semester.” I heard Ria-chan whisper to Emma.

“I know Corelia, I know. Doesn’t change the fact that I have to read this now.”

I saw Mx. De L’Arbre turned their attention to my two best buddies so I quickly poked Emma in her side.

“Eep! What was that for?” Emma quietly yelped and turned her head to me.

I inconspicuously pointed to the front of the class where Mx. De L’Arbre was standing with their arms crossed.

Emma swiftly realized after following where my finger was pointing and glued her lips together.

“En avant. Continuons.” The teacher continued. -Crisis avoided. Ten points to Aurora Beaumont.-

Before the lesson truly ended we got handed yet another task to complete by the lesson on Thursday and a test-date got set for the day after. A test on the first lesson of the day was always a bit painful, but at least the pain would be short. Rather than having to stress about it for the entire day. -At least I can study for it together with Ria-chan.-

During our short afternoon break Ria came back to me for her routine hugs. Emma had taken Claire away to the bathroom so we had plenty of space to do so.

“Why did Emma take her sports bag with her?” Ria asked while I squeezed her tightly against myself.

“Hmm, Claire had a bruise on her neck and Emma mentioned something about make-up, so she might help her cover it up with some concealer or something like that.”

“Oh? Did she hurt herself?” She looked up to me with concern in her eyes.

“I don’t know, she said she was fine.” I shrugged.

“Maybe it has something to do with fencing.”

“Oh right! That’s probably it.” I smiled at her. “Such a smart girl.”

Ria-chan immediately lightened up and nuzzled her face in my neck. “Hehe” she giggled.

I hugged her even closer and rested my chin on her head while closing my eyes. Ria was just too soft and warm, so how could I not indulge in this? She didn’t mind either, after all. The stormy weather outside had somewhat calmed down but it was still raining quite heavily. A gust of wind blew a hose of rain against the windows of our classroom right when Emma and Claire returned.

“Managed to cover up your bruise Claire?” Ria asked, still being mercilessly cuddled by me.

“Uh-uh, yeah.” Claire blushed and sat down again next to me. Emma in the meantime was standing between us and her sister, looking up something on her phone.

“Whatcha looking up, Em?” I asked her.

“Eh, just a hotel room for the two of you.” She laughed.

“Really?” Ria perked up like a little doggy who got presented with a bone.

“Of course not you dumdum.” Emma tapped her finger on the top of Ria’s head, making her pout quite a bit. “I’m looking at the weather radar.”

“What does it say?” Karin asks her sister.

Emma sighed. “Looks like it’ll be keeping up for the rest of the day… at least it’s predicting a clear night sky, so if you want to use your telescope today we’d get a good view of Jupiter.”

Karin smiled and got back to her book. “Ok.”

Emma returned the smile of her sister for a second before turning back to her phone. Even though these twin sisters were so radically different from each other you could always clearly see the sisterly love between them. Of course they’d fight occasionally but that often resolved itself within the hour. -I’m really glad I met them.-

Right on time, Mister Lykaios entered the classroom and hastily made his way to the blackboard.

“Terrible, terrible, terrible weather.” He lamented as he hung his top-hat and coat on the clothing hanger next to it. His sense of fashion could be described as slightly outdated. ‘The monopoly man called, he wanted his clothes back.’ was something the students said to tease him with, which he would often laugh with as well. He was definitely a good-humoured person. -And now that I think about it, him and Viktor would probably make a terrific pair together.-

Ria-chan sadly had to go back to her own seat and Emma took her place next to me again as we prepared our course material for the last lesson of the day, diplomacy. A weird course to have on a school’s curriculum, but definitely one of the more interesting ones. The nature of St. Katherine’s Academy meant that a lot of its students would end up in some kind of political , diplomatic role or general position of power. And with this course the school board tried to play into that. For volunteers there was even some sort of model embassy, model United Nations kind of dealio where students got the opportunity to roleplay diplomats, representatives and whatnot. All moderated by a couple of the school’s teachers who used to work in similar positions, Among which was Mister Lykaios. The paycheck our school was offering must’ve been enormous for them to forgo their well-paid and prestigious jobs.

“Students, to prepare for our guest speaker, my friend, the ambassador of the United States of America, next week. Today I’m going to let you form groups of five to discuss certain theses. I’ll give you a couple of minutes to decide your groups. We have 25 students present today so there shouldn’t be anyone left out.”

“Would anyone else prefer some tea?” Pres appeared at my shoulder.

Only Karin raised her hand, and Pres quickly obliged.

“So I guess that’s our group ready and done.” I kept eyeing our sneaky president. -Maybe that tea of hers contains some kind of teleportation magic, wouldn’t be surprised by anything anymore.-

We made some space for Pres Rosehip to sit and awaited our next instructions.

“A nation should always tell everything to its diplomats.” Mister Lykaios handed us the first question after the alloted time. “True or false, why? Discuss!”

“This is obviously true.” Emma made the first statement within our group.

Claire nodded along. “Yes, of course! Otherwise the diplomat would be as lost as a ship without a compass or map on the infinite oceans of amity.”

“What does that even mean?” I looked at her in bewilderment.

“Well…”

Before Claire could continue Karin and Pres interrupted at the same time.

“I don’t…”

“I don’t…”

“You go on Pres.”

“Thank you.” She took a sip from her tea before continuing. “I don’t think that’s true. If a nation would tell it’s diplomat everything that means the diplomat would have to actively lie about sensitive information. Therefore it would be better to not have that sensitive information in the first place.”

“And so they can’t leak information accidentally.” Karin added.

“Ah right, that does make sense. More than that amity ship or whatever, anyway.”

“Hey!” Claire protested. “...But I guess you are right.”

Five minutes later Mister Lykaios went around all the groups for an answer, the last group he got to was ours.

“That’s a pretty solid answer.” He nodded in agreement. “With these questions you always need to put yourself in the position of the government. Great job.”

Both Karin and Pres both smugly sipped from their tea at the same time.

-Gosh darnit, now there’s two of ‘em.-