Eagles and Swans

Chapter 24: The Hangover

Bracing herself, Ruthenia crossed the bridge for breakfast the next morning. As she stepped through the door, Tanio called her name from his armchair, and gestured her over.

“Ruthenia, you have a world of explaining to do,” he said, holding a tabloid open to the third page.

It was with a mounting dread that she snatched the rags and glanced down the columns. A smattering of black-and-white photos peppered the pages, the largest of all being that of a familiar scene: an euphoric Anio and Cathia mid-kiss on the stage.

But among the mosaic of text and pictures beneath, she soon found a photograph of herself in full-body, her skirt billowing around her, its red lost in the dark grey grain. She was holding Aleigh's hand mid-step, on the verge of a leap, with an expression of such buoyant joy that she immediately felt a red-hot flush surge over her.

“No, they didn't,” she breathed, but she could not avert her eyes from the article beneath.

Beneath the article lay a photograph of the exact moment when the wine had met Aligon's face, imprisoned and preserved indefinitely in ink.

She flung the papers back at her boss, who lunged to catch them. “Damn it!” she growled. “How will I show my face in school, now?”

“Well, at least they picked flattering photos.” The man glanced down at the crumpled pages. “I reckon we could make something of this. You really didn't have to go to these lengths for me, but I'm touched, Ruth, I really am.”

She could not bring herself to meet his eye. “Yeah. I really didn't have to. And I shouldn't have.”

“Well, I do say all publicity is good publicity. For the Aperture, anyway. As for the personal repercussions…” He pointed his index finger at her. “Just don't feed the rumours and you'll be fine.”

With a sigh, Ruthenia marched off into the kitchen, plucked a roll from the tabletop, and shoved it into her mouth so that she did not have to dignify him with an answer.

*

Perhaps she should have given school a miss that day, or—at the very least—given herself a long pause before entering the classroom. But all of this regretting was too late, now that she had appeared at the grey doorway of the 2-I classroom, and had been skewered by twenty stares.

Ms. Kelde lowered her textbook to squint at her. “Miss Cendina, sit, please.” Her voice was confused, missing the usual reprimand for her lateness. Ruthenia felt her throat go dry.

She completed the walk of shame down the aisle, in front of a perfectly silent classroom. "Here she comes, woman of the hour!" whispered Alacero, scrambling to make way for her to pass. She dropped into her seat, bag thudding to the ground.

“Was that really you in the news?” asked Calan.

“Yes?”

He chuckled. “You're so good at starting drama that you just had to demonstrate in the palace, huh. Talk about a step up from yelling at teachers.”

“My Ma doesn't believe that I sit next to you in class!” Alacero piped up. “And honestly, I'm just confused. How am I meant to feel about this?”

While their voices circled her like flies, Ruthenia laid her head on her desk and breathed a long, deflating sigh. “Ugh, please, I'm still the same person.” But neither seemed to hear her, and she buried her head under her bag.

It barely took until the start of tea break for Iurita to weigh in. “Miss Cendina, what a surprise.” Ruthenia froze at the door, as a thin hand gripped her shoulder, that voice with its perfect curling syllables murmuring in her ear. “You made quite a stir last night. I must applaud your cosmetic efforts, I almost didn't recognise you!”

“Do you want something?” Ruthenia muttered.

“Oh, I have some friendly advice, is all,” she said, grasping Ruthenia's elbow to pull her along on a stroll. “Watch your step.”

For the first time, Ruthenia saw it—a nervousness behind the biting words. Iurita felt threatened.

“I don't know how you’ve made the Arcane Prince accessory to your plots, and perhaps our classmates don't recognise the gravity of what you did last night,” she continued, “but you, I think, are more than just a nuisance. You're a danger.”

Ruthenia shrugged her arm off, brow furrowing. A thousand retorts writhed in her throat. But then she remembered the Arcane King. It's all one big game. And she wanted no part in it. So she kept her mouth shut.

She was saved when the elevator doors creaked open, pouring a flock of first year students into the hall. The boisterous crowd jostled the two apart, and Ruthenia took the chance to disappear, ducking into the crowd to scramble back to the classroom.

*

At the very least, throughout the quiet ordeal of being stared at through class after class, one social connection needed no tending.

Right on the closing bell, Hollia found Ruthenia at the door, and at first, there were several seconds of mutual, open-mouthed staring as they traded a thousand emotions through their gazes. Then Hollia squealed, and leapt into a hug. “I still don't know what to say,” she breathed, voice shaking. “You got up to so much last night, and I can't decide if I should be proud or worried, frankly, but—one thing's for sure, you did knock them off their feet!”

As they walked out in the corridor, Ruthenia made a sound between a laugh and a sigh. “Yeah, tell me about it. I was just helping out my boss. And now I'm in every tabloid.”

“So, how was it? Was the food good? How was the dancing? Did you meet the bride and groom?”

Even hearing the cascade of questions, Ruthenia had to catch her breath. “The food? To die for. The dancing? Could have been much worse, and thank you for teaching me, it saved my life. The bride and groom? I just met the bride, but she was wonderful. Did you know she's from the New Town?”

“Yes! They met in the New Town too. It's such a dreamy tale!” She clutched her cheeks. “I can't believe you actually got to see them get married!”

“Yeah, and the Arcane Viz kept giving me dumplings, and I got to chat with the Ordinary King like any old acquaintance…it was just so much.”

Hollia stopped to tap both feet in excitement.

“Oh, Ruth, I'm so, so, so, so happy for you!” They had stopped outside the menagerie gate. “Remember last week when you didn't think you had it in you? Well, you did it!”

“And I soiled the Arcane King's precious uniform thing.”

“And? His mother gave you food! That's like, the sweetest thing someone's parent could do for you.”

“Oh, there was more to it than that. We have some, let's call it, history.”

Hollia grabbed Ruthenia's wrists. “Oh, look at you. Having history with the Arcane Viz. You never had anything to worry about.” She giggled, then let go to point at the menagerie gate. “I have to go collect Phore, you have a safe flight home.”

Ruthenia nodded, preparing her umbrella in hand. “Thank you, Hollia, you have no idea how much you helped.”

Hollia beamed back. “What else are friends for?”

---

In such a manner, Ruthenia's social life was swept up in a chaotic furor for all of three days. But by Thursday, the jokes and stares had begun to overstay their welcome, and the subject of Ruthenia Cendina was—to her relief—becoming passe. Perhaps everyone had realised that Ruthenia the person had not changed one speck, and the novelty had steadily and surely worn off.

A few things, however, had changed for good, it seemed.

As the tea bell rang, she sat trading jabs with her two seatmates, warm with the relief that their days of furtive silence were past. That was until Calan looked past her and fell silent, tapping her shoulder. “Ruth, I think, er, someone wants to talk to you.”

“Huh?” Her eyes followed his over her shoulder, and she found Aleigh standing in the aisle beside their row, waiting for an opening in the conversation. “Hey, how can I help you?”

With all three pairs of eyes watching him, he stepped backward, arms wrapping around his book. “I meant to ask,” he said haltingly, closing his eyes with an inhale, “if you'd like to join me at tea.”

“Oh! Yeah, why not? If you want.” She leapt to her feet, and Alacero eagerly leaned to let her pass, both boys crying oh! at each other as she lunged to grab her lunch bag.

As they strolled out of the classroom, Ruthenia elbowed him with a laugh and said, “I thought you didn't like company.”

“I thought you didn't like me,” Aleigh replied.

“I was wrong about you.”

“And I was wrong about not liking company.”

“Aw, that's the sweetest thing you've ever said.” She grinned. “Is the offer standing?”

“If you'd like it to be, then certainly,” he answered stiltedly.

As they entered the lift lobby, Ruthenia was only just aware of some chatter stirring on the opposite side—it was Telis and Lora, Hollia's friends, and they were laughing politely between themselves. “Oh look, the eagle and the swan,” the latter whispered. “Who ever thought that it would work?”

Ruthenia folded her arms and looked the other way.

They found Aleigh's favourite table in the corner of the mezzanine. While he settled into the seat and began flipping through his new novel, one called Heaven's Gaps, Ruthenia dropped her lunch bag onto the table with an unseemly plop.

“How long will all these jokes go on?” she asked, watching the sun brighten over the fields in the window. He did not respond, so she craned her neck to read over his arm, glimpsing but a few words before he hastily closed the book.

“A week at the very most,” he said. “They will get bored once the story has left the news cycle.” The afternoon was buzzing with crickets, the clatter of utensils accompanying them. Instead of returning to his novel, he turned to her. “How are you feeling about it?”

“A lot more at peace now that things are going back to normal,” she replied. “You?”

He laid his book on the table. “The truth is, I'm exhausted. My brother will not say it aloud, but he has been quite enraged by your stunt.”

Ruthenia laughed. “Well, at least one good thing came of that,” she said.

“No, I mean, the press has been hounding him about this supposed miraculous invention that he was hoping would get no attention at all. He is blaming me for bringing you.” He shook his head. “You've brought the machine to the public eye, and now he cannot pretend it doesn't exist. A prescient strategy, truly.”

For a minute, Ruthenia stared, taking in the fact that the impossible had happened: that her visit had yielded precisely the result she had hoped for. “You and I both know I'm no strategist,” she replied. “But, say, let's pretend it was my intent all along. Just towards your brother. I think he could use some of that fear.”

Aleigh nodded slowly. She waited for a reply—but by now, he was busy riffling through the paperback in his hand. Shaking her head, she said, “What’s Heaven's Gaps?”

“It’s one of my favourite books,” he answered absently.

“What kind?”

Fingers going still, he peered down at the page he’d caught. “A classical novel about a deity and a mortal. It has been translated twelve separate times from Cin-fa. I own every translation, but this one is my favourite.”

She leaned over to read it, and this time he did not shut it. Her eyes landed on a paragraph that described the gates and ponds of a pristine compound, before launching into descriptions of amorous gestures exchanged by the lead characters.

“Oh, is it some sort of tragic star-crossed love thing?” she murmured.

“Yes, and what about it?” He frowned, attention split between her and the book.

“What do you like about it?”

“The pathos of a futile struggle against a preordained fate,” he replied.

“That sounds so…sad.”

“Well, perhaps I like sad stories.”

Ruthenia shrugged and let him return to his beloved novel, while she confronted her beloathed pie.

---