i want everything to change and stay the same Who: Ari and Quen What: coffee & catching up Where: The Roast in the Commoner's District When: This afternoon, 2pm Rating: PG Status: Complete~
Thursday was a day of ups and downs in a week that had been filled with more of the same. Training that morning had gone about as well as could be expected: she was beginning to learn Thunder, and while her first attempts could hardly be termed successful, they were nothing like the disastrous results of her scholar days. At lunch time, she’d stopped home to make lunch for Lav, whom she was quite worried about, knowing what she did about what this day signified to him. He hadn’t answered the door, which had done nothing to alleviate her concern. In the afternoon she’d spent some uneventful time studying her lecture notes from the convention, hoping to come across something that would help move her toward mastery of Poison.
She’d intended to put away her work at half past one, but when she remembered to check the time on her network device, it was already twenty minutes to two. She packed up quickly, hurried out of the library, and rushed to The Roast, where she’d agreed to meet Ari. She burst through the front door of the cafe just as the clock on her network device beeped the hour.
Panting, she went up to the counter. “Excuse me,” she said to the barista working there. “I’m supposed to be meeting someone. Has any young woman mentioned she’s waiting for another?”
The barista looked around before confirming that no one matching Ari’s description appeared to be in the shop, and then offered to help Quen find somewhere to sit. Quen accepted gratefully, and then sat in the proffered seat to await her friend.
After all that, she thought with no little amusement once her heartbeat had slowed and her body temperature had cooled, I’m the first to arrive!
Ari breezed into the coffee shop nearly ten minutes past the hour, and, spotting Quen at a corner table, she made her way over and slid into the chair across from her. “Sorry,” she said, “you wouldn’t believe the line for the Theatre District crystal this afternoon -- and by the time I realized, it was far too late to try walking.” She smiled, then reached out to squeeze Quen’s hand in greeting. “I hope you didn’t wait for me too long.”
When a member of the waitstaff came to the table, she told the mage, “Order anything you want, since you’re the lady of the hour. As for me, the caramel macchiato -- generous on the caramel -- and a half dozen of those raspberry macaroons I spotted in the bakery case. We seem to be in luck with pink food today,” she added, turning back to Quen.
“I will have a caramel chai latte with whipped cream,” Quen told the waitress. She’d had a few minutes to think about her order, after all, so she knew exactly what she wanted. She wasn’t much for coffee—too bitter; but she did enjoy a good coffee shop precisely for the spicy-sweet flavors of a chai latte and the abundance of baked goods.
Turning her attention back to Ari, she gave the other girl a bright smile. “I didn’t wait long at all,” she promised. “I walked through the doors not ten minutes ago, and it gave me a moment to catch my breath.” She didn’t mention that she’d rushed, for fear of being late herself. “Are you in a new show?” she asked.
“Not yet,” Ari replied once the waiter had departed. “There are auditions for Faram’s Mass oratorios and concerts happening, so I’ve been to a few, and will probably attend a few more in the coming weeks.” Mostly those which required the minimum possible involvement from selected soloists; she did not need to cloister herself in a rehearsal room for another four months. “Mostly, I’ve been enjoying myself since Fedoro, a few one-night engagements notwithstanding.
“You though,” she said, “seem to be having a much more interesting time of things. Why don’t you tell me about it? Making class is very exciting.” She had celebrated quite vigorously when she had succeeded; though it was ten years ago now, she remembered it vividly. “I do hope your friends have all been buying you food and drink and allowing you to brag. It is the one time when such is very nearly expected, after all -- I hope you haven’t let it go to waste!”
Quen laughed. “For a second there, I thought you were talking about something else,” she confessed, and then said, “I don’t think I’ve been bragging enough.” Bragging felt wrong. It wasn’t humble, especially when she’d passed by the grace of Faram. “I have been letting people buy me things and give me hugs. All week has been an endless stream of tea and cupcakes and meals. And I’ve still got dinner with Jak this evening and lunch with Storm tomorrow.” No one had taken her up on her request of a kiss, but she was an optimist. It could still happen.
“I can think of worse things than tea, cupcakes, and meals,” Ari said as the waiter returned. “Hopefully, you have not been so stuffed with sweets that you cannot enjoy these -- they are, as I recall, quite good. At least, the pistachio ones are, but you asked for pink, not green. Thank you,” she told the waiter, who set their drinks and dessert before them before departing.
“I didn’t realize you knew Jak,” she added. “What a funny coincidence -- I’ve known him since he was shorter than me. Which, as you may guess, has not been the case in quite some time now.” She laughed as she plucked a macaroon from the plate set between them. “So, aside from meals with devastatingly handsome dancers, what are your plans?”
“Oh yes, I’ve known Jak a long time,” Quen said, finding her drink and bowing her head low over the mug to take a careful sip. “He grew up in the Commoner’s District, and he has five sisters. I played with them from time to time growing up, and then when we got older they’d come to the shop to ogle my brother.” The latte having met her satisfaction, she reached for a cookie. She took a small bite, and found it delightfully crisp and flaky on the outside and chewy on the inside with some sort of filling, sweet and tart all at once. “Oh, these are really good,” she said around a mouthful.
“Anyway, I kind of lost touch with him, but I ran into him—somewhat literally, in fact—in the Theater District earlier this week, and he danced with me.” Her face grew a bit warm at the memory. “He spun me around and lifted me into the air and there were people watching and they clapped when we were done.” She raised her hands, one of which still held a half-eaten cookie, to her cheeks. “It was embarrassing and wonderful all at once.”
“Jak is quite a skilled dance partner,” Ari agreed. “I ask him to indulge me whenever I can.” She wondered if she ought to point out that Quen was -- unfortunately -- not quite the boy’s type, but… no. Perhaps it was only the dancing that had her flushing, and if not, she’d discover it soon enough anyway. “Which is to say, your plans include more dancing, I expect,” she said, raising her cup to her lips and taking a sip of her coffee. “And otherwise? Or do you intend to wallow in freedom from study for some time before you think about work? No one could blame you.” Considering she recalled the entrance exam for scholars being something like a dozen pages, she didn’t doubt the class exam had been a beast.
“Well, I’ve already started up again with my training,” Quen admitted after a small sip of her drink. “I have a new mentor, and he’s kind of intense. We’ve started working on Thunder, so I’ve been studying the theory of that spell. I’ve almost got Poison down. Then there are also the lectures from the Mages Convention which I recorded, and I’ve been reviewing the memstones for those in the evenings as well.” She’d taken the week in between the test and receiving her results off, but the life of a mage allowed for few breaks from studying. Nor would Quen really want to take very many of those in the first place. If she planned to be a great mage someday, she had more than enough work to put in now.
“I have plans to see other friends too, though,” she said after a brief pause. “I’m having lunch with my friend Storm tomorrow and I’m seeing Pyr on Sunday after church.” She didn’t bother to clarify who exactly Pyr was. He’d mentioned he knew Ari.
“Ah, Pyr,” Ari said with a giggle. “Tell him I say hello. They’re giving him Sundays off from his punishment, I take it? Almost worth going to church, that.” Probably better than anything Divina Marcos could dream up. Aspel, too; Ari had a notion the other woman, jovial as she was, could be a harsh disciplinarian.
“If you’re enjoying your studies, then that’s all that matters, I suppose, intense mentor or not.” Her own Thunder was exactly good enough to charge a lightstone and good for very little else, and she preferred it that way. Still, to each her own. “Not everyone gets to do what they love -- we’re lucky, aren’t we?”
"Yes, I suppose we are," Quen agreed, smiling in her friend’s direction as she ate the last of her macaroon. “And even though I said my mentor is intense, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. He doesn’t baby me or make me feel like I shouldn’t try new things. He just expects me to do them. And really, I think he’s a softie deep down. Everyone is.”
She reached for another cookie before adding, “Have you heard any interesting news lately?” Ari was the most well-connected person Quen knew. If there was something worth talking about, surely Ari knew it.
“I am to gift you with gossip along with macaroons, I take it?” Ari asked, amused. “Well, all right then, I am certain I have a few stories for you, and they do not even concern my supposed exodus from Emillion. Nothing dreary from the Outlands, either. Let’s see… do you know the baker at Baker’s Dozen, René? I doubt it is true, but you would not believe what they say he’s been up to recently…”
True or not, she did love telling stories, especially to an eager audience.