subtly_artistic | in which bella dearly wishes to be less interesting

Bella successfully manages to stay in all weekend except for when she joins packs of students headed for the dining hall. If the elves are still stalking her, she doesn't notice them. On Monday, the subtle artist elf is present in their shared course, and looks at her, but doesn't bother her - Bella leaves with another classmate anyway.

Traveling in packs is quite effective, she decides.

Except she doesn't do it in her own dorm.

It's pouring rain outside Tuesday afternoon and Bella doesn't want to go to the dining hall. She has some stuff in her room - not serious groceries, but enough that she can heat up some broth and noodles, liven it up with a handful of miscellaneous dried herbs, and call it soup. She is hanging out in the kitchen doing this when Brad from down the hall, the same fellow who attempted to interrupt Celo at his baking, chooses to bother her.

"Hey, Isabella."

"It's Bella."

"But your full name's so pretty," says Brad. "You should go by that instead. So Isabella, let's go out tomorrow, I'll show you a good time in town, we'll have some fun."

"No," says Bella, "thank you, and it's still Bella."

"Isabella's prettier. Like you, you're pretty. It's not like I asked you to make like a nymph or something, I just want to take you out," says Brad. "Is it the money, I bet it's that, I can cover it, we can go someplace nice and you can get whatever you want."

"It's still no. It's still Bella."

"Don't be such a bitch, you never have plans," snaps Brad, "what are you going to do, eat at the dining hall and re-read your textbooks, you can come out with me."

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"The last time I talked to my mom, I was still with that guy," he says. "I asked her to do something about it. She said one of these days I'd learn to get comfy with my purpose in life. I told her to go fuck herself. End of conversation."

Bella winces.

He shrugs. "And, you know, I'm still alive, so whatever."

"If," Bella starts, and then she stops and shakes her head and picks up his bowl to wash that too.

"Mm?"

"Nothing. Or nothing I'd feel safe saying, anyway, I have - hubristic tendencies, I try to keep them under control."

"Okay," shrugs Celo.

"When I was eight my mother caught me doing experiments, with the TV. I didn't actually break anything but I could easily have done. And she got me this enormous book that said The Rise and Inevitable Fall of Those Who Sought Science."

Edited 2013-05-10 22:12 (UTC)

Celo laughs. "That's cute."

"It kind of scared the crap out of me, actually, but now I guess I have the appropriate flinch response whenever I start expecting reality to work like fantasies where everything's orderly and well-behaved even when it's important."

"It's cute that you tried it, though," he says with a smile.

"Maybe. I'm just glad I got caught before I tried something disastrous."

He shrugs. "Well, yeah."

"And there's no record of anyone getting smitten for having fun with lucid dreaming."

"...Fun with lucid dreaming?" he inquires.

"Yeah, I get my ridiculous heroic power fantasies out of my system in my sleep in between mind-maintenance and memory review."

Celo giggles. "Awesome."

"It's pretty cool, yeah. Some non subtle artists can learn to lucid dream but it's harder and you can't do as much with it."

"I don't sleep much anyway," shrugs Celo. "And I'd probably use it for different things."

Bella can guess. "Do you not need much sleep or are you just an irresponsible partying college kid?"

"Do I have to pick just one?" he asks, grinning. "Nah, it's the first one. I like my classes."

"What all are you in besides the one with the psycho murder teacher?"

"Two with the murder teacher," he corrects. "Plus a bunch of Domestic Arts stuff."

"I didn't even look at that section of the catalog, I have no idea what the Domestic Arts courses are like."

"Cooking and sewing and stuff," he shrugs. "It's fun, I love it."

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