Lucky Rabbit

Pandy was far too distracted by her own thoughts to focus on Thaniel’s classes the next day. In fact, for the first time, she actually wished she could stay behind when he left. She had a lot to think about, and it was difficult to do that with a classroom of children around her, tapping their fingers, smacking their lips, or scraping their chairs over the floor. Mr. Rowe’s exercise-obsession was more annoying than amusing, and she only remembered that she was supposed to ‘supervise’ at lunch when Thaniel said he would miss her.

The only private place she could find to switch into Ms. Wellington was under a table in the classroom wing, which resulted in her being late to lunch and arriving with the contents of a vase of flowers on her head. The woman whose pansy she’d eaten was seated next to her again – and, she realized, probably would be for the rest of the school year – so Pandy was forced to pretend like the flowers were a palate cleanser and nibble on them throughout the meal, even though the System helpfully informed her that several were at least mildly poisonous.

Augustus was there, too, but maintained Pandy’s cover by ignoring her except for a brief moment when she first arrived, when he had to pause to take in the extremely healthy clump of hydrangeas stuck in her messy bun. That was fine, though, because Pandy had more important things to do than try not to make a fool of herself while talking to him. Things like wondering how many more ways she could possibly mess up the wonderful world of Gacha Love. Though removing an evil Demon was probably good, wasn’t it? Unless that Demon was still around, but now completely unpredictable.

After lunch, Pandy was able to hop off alone while Thaniel was distracted by weapons, horses, and governmental planning. She tried to use the time to continue brooding, but the fact was that she simply wasn’t a languishing sort of person, and eventually she was distracted by the realization that she was an elemental, which, in theory, was a pretty amazing thing to be, even if she had to be a Dark one. Then she spent the next half an hour or so trying to do Dark things, like compel shadows to form, or make a dead weevil Rise Up, but failed miserably. Which was probably for the best, actually, though she still found the whole thing a bit disappointing.

It was only when the time came for Small Groups that Pandy really snapped out of it, though she was even less certain now about the ‘lesson’ she had planned for today. She’d thought it through a hundred times, imagining all the ways it could go wrong – at least ten of which could be avoided simply by making sure there were no bananas available – but just couldn’t come up with a better idea.

For once, Pandy reached the room ahead of her students, and took a moment to check for rogue fruit of all kinds, just in case. Thaniel was close behind her, however, and took advantage of the private moment to give her an enormous hug before launching into an account of all the ways in which his pony, Buttercup, was turning out to be better than every other steed in the world.

He was still talking when Eleanor, Lord Winston, Geraldine, and Miss Cupcakes arrived, both of the girls proudly carrying their bags, where the little toys still hung. More than one child had asked the girls about their new accessories, and Pandy suspected she’d be seeing copycat adornments, probably as soon as tomorrow. She only hoped it didn’t get as out-of-hand as it had in her school, where some students had more charms than bag, and could barely open their backpacks with all of the weight dangling from the zipper pull.

Isidor slipped through the door after them, and for the first time since Pandy had taken him to the third floor, he didn’t dismiss her as soon as he saw her. He didn’t smile, either, but he did nod his head in acknowledgement, and he didn’t hang as far back from the group as he had been, either. She was rather desperately glad to see that, because for all that he was eight years older than the rest of the children, Pandy thought Isidor needed them, and it had been hard to see him distance himself from them while he tried to avoid her.

Abbington came last, and not only wasn’t he limping, but he actually smiled when he saw Pandy. Usually, he dropped his head, pushing his glasses up his nose as an excuse to avoid her gaze, but this time he looked straight at her, and both corners of his mouth turned up. No teeth were exposed, but this was as great an improvement as Isidor’s, and Pandy felt a bit of her tension melt away. Maybe this would work out after all.

Once everyone was in the room, Pandy closed the door and turned the lock as quietly as she could. When she turned around, the four younger children were still greeting each other after their separation of an entire hour, but Isidor was watching her with narrowed eyes. She tried giving him a reassuring smile, then tilted her head toward the half-open windows, inviting him to join her in closing them as well. He did so, but she was sure he was already planning half a dozen ways to incapacitate her, just in case Pandy chose this moment to turn homicidal.

By the time the windows were tightly shut, Thaniel, Geraldine, Eleanor, and Abbington had all figured out that something was up, too. They had mixed reactions, but no one broke and ran, so that was good enough. Pandy walked to the center of the room and sat down, right there on the bare wooden floor.

Thaniel, bless him, sat beside her, and Pandy wrapped her arm around his shoulders, snuggling him as the others sat down as well. When they were all seated, she drew in a deep breath, and said, “I have something to tell you.” They all stared back at her, as if she’d stated the obvious, which, she supposed, she had. Swallowing hard, she went on.

“I lied to you,” she told them, and their eyes widened. “I was really scared that if I told the truth, you wouldn’t believe me, or maybe you would believe me, but you would be scared of me, or not like me any more.”

Thaniel, who had leaned against her, pulled back a bit and said, “I’ll always like you! There’s nothin’ you could do that’d make me afraid of you, either.” He hugged her tight, burying his face in her side, and mumbled, “I love you.”

Tears sprang to Pandy’s eyes, and she pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “I love you, too,” she told him softly, just between the two of them. Then, looking up at the others, she said, “I’m not really from the future. Ismara didn’t send me, either. I’m…from another world. Like this one, but without magic. I-”

She stopped, her arm tightening around Thaniel. “I died. And a god – not Ismara, but a great big god, with lots of muscles – said I could come live here instead of going back to my world. And, you see, I had read a book, kind of like you’ve read Wayward Pirate Pete, and the god said I could go to live in the world that book was about, so of course I said yes.”

Thaniel was staring at her now, eyes huge, but when she said this, he nodded in vigorous agreement. “I’d go on an adventure with Pirate Pete if I could, too. But-” his face fell. “Don’t you wanna go back home? I’d miss Lian, and you, and all of my friends, even if I got to play with Pete, an’ Scrubs, and fight the bad pirates.” He looked around at the others, and they nodded back at him.

Pandy looked down at the top of his curls and said, “I didn’t have a family. Someone left me at a sort of church just after I was born, and no one ever,” her voice broke, “no one ever wanted me.” Seeing that all of them except Isidor looked shocked at the very idea, she hurried on before they could think about it too hard. “So I don’t really want to go back, because here, I have all of you, which is much, much better than back there.”

Looking around, she moved on to the important part. “So when you all asked me who I was, I was afraid that if you knew I was maybe just a little bit dead, and that I came from another world, you wouldn’t want me either. And that made me really sad, so I lied. But now… Now I know I can trust you all. You won’t hate me, and you won’t tell anyone my secret, and I don’t want to lie to you, either, because you’re my friends. The best friends I’ve ever had.”

Pandy hadn’t had a lot of experience with kids before this, but she had a feeling that this was a lot to put on a group of six-year-olds. But the fact was that these weren’t just any six-year-olds. They were strong, and smart, and if this was going to work, they needed to trust each other, and her.

Shifting away from Thaniel, she took his hand in hers and said, “I’m really sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t trust you enough.” She looked at Isidor. “I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you when I should have. And I hope… I hope you know you can talk to me. If you need to.”

Thaniel’s fingers tightened around Pandy’s, but he didn’t say anything. His eyes were fixed on a knot in the floorboard just beyond his toes, and Geraldine was opening her mouth. If anyone started asking questions, this probably wouldn’t go the way Pandy wanted, at least not right now, , but she was ready for that. You just couldn’t force this kind of thing, so she would hope that eventually-

“I think I’m a Dark mage,” Thaniel blurted before Geraldine could get a word out. She froze, her teeth clicking shut, and Thaniel went on so quickly that the words seemed to tumble out of his mouth. “I killed a plant, that day Ms. Wellington – the Mean Ms. Wellington – tried t’ get us to grow ‘em. It just-” He outlined the shape of a plant with his hands, then let his fingers fall limp.

“I tried a couple more times,” he admitted, still not looking up from the knot in the board. “I think I killed a rosebush. And then Izzy,” he darted a look at the older boy, “taught me about innate magic spells, and so I tried to make one up, but…I had an old apple, and I was tryin’ to make the seeds sprout, but the whole thing just rotted.”

Pandy was as astonished by this admission as anyone. When had all of this happened? He had to have deliberately waited until she was gone to try these little experiments. Why hadn’t he trusted her? What if something had gone wrong, and he’d drained himself to exhaustion like he had by healing her? Or worse?

“Not s’prised,” Abbington said, making them all jerk around and look at him. He shrugged, tanned cheeks turning pink at finding himself the center of attention. “Afew Darkmages innaValley. Nobodycares. Noelementals, see?”

That…was true. If none of the people in the Valley had elementals, then it wouldn’t really matter what kind of magic they had. They’d know about the dangers of overusing their magic, and they probably had dozens of spells to help with daily activities. Water mages might be a bit better at watering the fields and filling troughs, and Earth mages would probably be able to till a field more quickly, but that was it. Without the fear of powerful and deadly Dark elementals, Dark mages would just be mages like everyone else. Maybe they’d be able to preserve food to last through the winter, or summon cool shadows on a hot day?

Thaniel finally looked up, meeting Abbington’s calm gaze. “You’re not…afraid of me?”

The Valley boy shrugged again. “Thaniel, aren’tcha? Nothin’changed.”

Beside him, Geraldine nodded. Her fingers were tangled in her skirt, and her cheeks were a bit paler than usual. “I thought you were a Light mage,” she said, voice low. “But…it doesn’t matter. Bing’s right. You’re Thaniel, and nothing’s changed just because you told us. You’re still my very best friend.”

She flashed an apologetic glance at Eleanor, who didn’t even seem to notice, since she was busy examining the little toy dog dangling from her bag. The princess’s face was calm, but Lord Winston was pressed against her leg in a way that indicated the dog might be sensing some inner turmoil his girl wasn’t ready to admit to quite yet.

Isidor had noticed as well, and quickly said, “I knew.” He almost looked apologetic as he shrugged. “You were about as convincing as P…your rabbit pretending to be normal. Like Abbington said, it doesn’t matter.”

Thaniel stared at him. “But you have to sleep in the same room as me! Aren’t you scared?”

The older boy actually laughed. “Of you? No.” He gave Pandy an unreadable look, but said, “You know, some people would be afraid to be my roommate, because-,” he swept his hand down, indicating his dark coloring. “But you didn’t even blink. I guess…we all have things we don’t like to talk about, but you being a Dark mage? That’s nothing.”

Well, that wasn’t quite true. Pandy had only been in this world three or four months now – how long had it been? – but she was certain that the life of a Dark mage in West Altheric wouldn’t be easy. With friends like these, however, Thaniel would be all right. Especially now that he’d admitted it, and could begin-

“I’m a Nature mage,” Eleanor said.