Mother of Learning. Arc 3 Incomplete

Zorian scowled. How does ‘refuse to bring a date’ become ‘couldn’t find a date’? It seemed that Ilsa, like his mother, had a tendency to ‘translate’ his words into whatever was most convenient to her purposes. The two of them would get along quite well, Zorian suspected.

«Anyway, get dressed so we can go already,» she said, suddenly regaining her confidence. «You might be alright with cutting things close, but I’m not.»

Zorian stared at her for a full second, trying to decide what to do. He was half-tempted to slam the door in her face and refuse to participate in this farce, but he supposed it wasn’t Akoja’s fault that she got roped into this. In all likelihood she had more pleasant plans for the evening than accompanying a surly boy who loathed the experience. He shooed her into the room and went into the bathroom to get dressed.

He really had to marvel at Ilsa’s manipulation skills, though — if it was just him going to this thing, he would have come dressed in casual clothes, spent the absolute minimum of time there before leaving, and avoided people like a plague throughout the entire evening. Now? He didn’t want to ruin Akoja’s evening, which meant he would have to make at least a token effort. Yes, Ilsa and his mother would get along like two peas in a pod…

The walk to the dance hall was a quiet one. Zorian refused to strike up a conversation, despite sensing that Akoja found the silence awkward. The silence suited him just fine, and he knew he would be comfortable with very few things this evening. He would enjoy the peace while it lasted.

Which wasn’t long — the hall that the academy set aside for this event was about 10 minutes away from his residence building. The moment they approached it they were greeted with the sight of a large gathering in front of the entrance, full of excited students engaged in animated discussions.

Zorian paled a little at the sight of the dense throng — he was getting a headache just by looking at them.

Sadly, no matter how much he pleaded with Akoja, she refused to let them wait on the outskirts of the gathering until the start of the dance. As revenge, Zorian ‘accidentally’ managed to get separated from Akoja when they were ushered inside and got himself lost in the crowd. He chuckled to himself, wondering how long it would take her to find him again. He’d be shocked if it was less than half an hour, since he was quite adept at avoiding the notice of a particular person at a party without drawing attention from the other party goers.

For a supposedly simple school dance, the entire event was surprisingly lavish. The tables were overflowing with food, much of it so exotic that Zorian couldn’t identify it, and the hall was decorated with high-quality paintings and animated carvings that moved in a pre-programmed manner. Hell, even the tablecloths were full of complicated lace and so soft they had to have been made of something monstrously expensive. Many of his fellow students were openly gaping at their surroundings and even Zorian, who had been at these kinds of events many times before, was a little shocked. Then he shrugged and did his best to blend into the crowd so Akoja couldn’t find him.

He meandered through the tables overflowing with food, occasionally sampling one of the dishes when he saw something interesting, observing the other people and painstakingly avoiding notice from anyone who might be inclined to strike up a conversation with him. He could see why Ilsa was so determined to make everything about the dance run smoothly — the sheer expense of the thing aside, it wasn’t just the students that were present. There were also representatives from various guilds, Houses, societies, and organizations. And not just from the Alliance, but also from abroad, even other continents — he could see at least one man in the distinctive light blue Abnasia military uniform, a small delegation from Hsan, and a dark-skinned woman in a garb so colorful Zorian doubted anyone failed to notice her by now. He idly wondered what this dance was really about, since these people wouldn’t be here for a simple school dance, before deciding he didn’t really care. People like this lived in their own world, and had different standards of ‘important’ from mere mortals like him.

An hour later the first dance was about to start and Zorian made his way to Akoja. She was fuming, and didn’t appear to believe him when he claimed he had honestly gotten lost and couldn’t find her until now, but she managed to restrain herself from blowing up at him. He led her to the dance floor and didn’t retaliate when she ‘accidentally’ stepped on his toes a couple of times.

«People were asking for you,» she said finally, having tired of abusing his toes for the moment.

«Well I was around,» Zorian said with a small smirk. «All they had to do was look for me.»

«No reason why you can’t seek them out now, though,» Akoja remarked.