I Am the Walrus

SOLVEIG

Earlier…

Being Solveig was so much suffering...

“What do you mean I’m being shown off in front of thousands of rich guys?!”

“Nobles. They’re called nobles. I am a noble.”

“That's not the point! I thought I was just gonna be there to support you! Not be the focal of attention!”

“You’re my tutor. You have to be shown, otherwise people will start circulating rumors.”

“Nyoooo!!! How do I say no more enthusiastically? Ultra nyo?!”

“I thought you wanted to be shown off.”

“But nyot like this! They’re gonna take one look and realize I’m mediocre! Why can’t I just tutor you in private?!”

“First of all, horrendous optics. You’d be made a target. The unknown element poisoning Sir Cain the Second and living proof of the Cunningham’s family’s weakness. I can see it now.”

“I’m nyot a weakness!!!”

“Then stop acting like one. You get to show off your new dress; talk about your life story; how you faced a Great Mother… wait, leave that one out.”

“They’re nyot gonna believe a word from someone this bad at normal magic beat the Demon King!”

“You talked to my father. You signed the contract. That was the deal. Room, board—all of it. And to meet him halfway you need to be there, on the stage.”

“...I never said I was good at making decisions.”

“Just get to your room and wash up, okay?”

“But… but I don’t work well when I’m hungry.”

“...”

\\

MIRIAM

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Urghh!!!

There was a prevailing sense of doom hanging in the air as Miriam walked onward.

She'd gone and left her acceptance letter back in her old room like the fool she was, which meant she'd have to knock on some new tenant's door and beg, please and thank you kindly, ma'am, to let a stranger dig through their things.

The type of noble who got handed a room like that would sooner set the letter on fire than hand it back.

But that wasn't even the worst of it. The worst of it was crossing the Grand Courtyard to get to her old dorm.

She sighed as she carried on with her country boots. Time for my daily dose of misery and pain…

"Did you hear what happened at the front gates?"

Her ears, much to her horror, decided to hone in on the gaggle of girls having a picnic on the grass.

"Oh, what on earth was Cain thinking, letting everyone see her in public like that?"

"Looks like Lord Cain's soft-launching a new girlfriend~"

"And the absolute masterclass in scheming, that new girl! Hustling a poor, vulnerable boy right out of his coin purse—"

"She got him to buy her a custom academy dress! I swear, I need to know her secrets…"

"Teeheehee~" "Teeheehee!"

The noble girls giggled behind their lace fans, knees lounging in nicely on grass like a flock of very smug swans.

So that’s how it was, huh? Everything Miriam had lost, her room, her whole reason for being here—all of it, because the Duke's son needed a new pet project to parade around?

A little lapdog who gave him whatever he wanted... 

Cain the Second had to compensate for his own uselessness somehow, even if it meant grinding actual students, students who'd earned their spot, into the dirt to do it.

But Miriam couldn't get angry. Not yet. This new girl deserved a warning, at least—deserved to know what Cain had in store for her, since the scholarship wing didn't exactly have a shortage of targets for bullying.

So Miriam ducked her chin and kept walking, praying her plain grey ‘dress’ would do what it always did in this place: make her invincible.

Apparently not today.

"Is that Miriam? It is! Yoohoo~!"

She didn't turn around.

"Ooh, giving us the cold shoulder now? How very unbecoming."

She turned around at that challenge. 

Couldn't help it. Old habits, obey when addressed, died hard.

The gaggle looked positively delighted to have her attention.

"How's it feel," the tallest one drawled, twirling her fan shut, "after all that effort, all that cheating and lying... it meant nothing anyway."

"I didn't cheat." The words came out rougher than she meant, vowels she'd spent two years trying to file down creeping back in the second her guard dropped.

"You only got in as the diversity pick. Only won that entrance exam because of your Moonshine Concoctions. Poetic, really, that it'd end like this." A ripple of laughter behind gloved hands.

"Reckon your friend lost fair and square in that exam, is what I reckon.”

"Reckon," one of them repeated. "Oh, that's precious. Say it again?"

Heat crawled up Miriam's neck. 

She turned to go, moving fast enough that the hem of her borrowed uniform skirt, a size too long, hitched under her heel, and she pitched forward, catching herself against a courtyard pillar with a graceless slap of both palms.

The laughter behind her doubled.

"Watch your step, little barn owl! Deep down, you must know without your little experiments crutch potions of yours, you are nothing! Ohohohoho~"

"Ohohoohohoho~!"

"Oooohohohoho~!"

Miriam gathered herself up and walked away faster.

Indeed...

There was a reason why she needed access to a dorm within the campus itself beyond having a place to stay.

Some nobles thought she didn't belong.

People often derided Miriam's potion craftsmanship for bush quackery, but it was her main method of staying in the game.

You know, to compensate for her current medical condition... and weak commoner blood.

When Miriam found this new girl, whoever she was, she was going to have a word.

Maybe the stereotype of the lowborn girl with no manners would turn out true today after all.

\\

MIRIAM

For a wolf-girl servant, Miriam's steps must have been the most telegraphed footsteps in the world.

So it was no surprise that the servant was ready to greet her as she approached her former dorm room.

"Ah, a new face—OH!" The wolf-girl's tail went stiff and low, ears flattening back against her skull. "I, huh. W-Well... first off, I'd like to apologize on behalf of the entire ducal, but if you're here for revenge, for your own safety... and mine... please don't—"

"Ma'am, I’m not looking for revenge. You don't have to apologize to me, neither. The powers that be made that choice, not you." Miriam kept her eyes fixed somewhere over Penelope's shoulder, anywhere but the doorframe itself. "Just... needed my letter, is all."

"Oh—like… the acceptance letter to get into ceremony? Oh no! You forgot?"

"Yup. Didn’t even give it a thought as I was packin’ up and leaving. It’s a damn disaster."

"Absolutely then, if my fair mistress allows it. Let me just—"

"Who's dat?"

A new voice rang out from behind the door, and before Miriam could so much as answer, the door swung open and its owner was simply there.

A girl, Miriam realized. Her face was wrapped in bandages too, thick gauze crossing one cheek and disappearing under her hairline.

The girl looked Miriam up and down a beat too long.

"And who might you be..? I’m kind of in the middle of preparing for the most important moment of my life over here!"

Yep, just as I feared, Miriam sighed internally. That tone says it all…

"I’m... the previous tenant of this room," came Miriam's hesitant reply.

Could you be any more unnatural with your choice of wording, Miriam?!

"There was a previous... tenant?" the girl asked.

"You didn't know?” Ugh, knew it, dangnabit. “Cain the Second probably didn’t tell you, then.”

“...He doesn’t tell me a lot of things. Tell me what specifically?”

Wew.

“Alright, word to the wise: I don’t know what Cain told you to lure you here, but please don't trust Cain, or whatever he told you he'd give you in exchange for being here. He's just using you."

"Using me for what?"

"'Favors.'"

The girl’s face went through several things very quickly.

"...Favors? Like what, fetching his slippers?"

"The dirty kind," Miriam repeated, flatter this time.

"...Excuse me?!"

"Yeah. I'm just saying what everyone's already saying about him."

"They think I'm his— his—?!" Solveig couldn't even finish it. The girl's hands balled into fists at her sides before raising it up to the heavens! “Nyooooo!!!”

“I’m sorry you had to learn it this way.”

“I don’t wanna do his laundry, that’s the maid’s job—not mine!"

Miriam took a second to process this bullshitery.

"I'm not about to clean his room either, he can do that on his own!"

“...Alrighty,” Miriam eventually settled with.

“Oh, by the way, I'm Solveig—nice to meet you!” The girl shot an outstretched hand.

“As in… the Illustrian goddess?”

“I mean if people see me that way, I won’t complain…? But I’m just a normal girl from the boonies, I swear.”

“...Right.” If circumstances were different, Miriam would howl. This girl’s a riot. “Well, nice to meet you, Solveig. Mine’s Miriam.”

“That’s a pretty name.”

“Thank you kindly.” Miriam coughed into a fist once. “So… anyway... you must be thinking why’s a girl like me here in the first place?”

"To welcome a new neighbor?"

"Not quite. I'm here to get my entrance letter for the ceremony. Can’t get in without it—you know, double standards not being noble and all."

“Oh my gods. You know what that means…?”

“No, actually, I don’t.”

“That means we’re friends.”

“W-What?”

“You are commonfolk. I am commonfolk. That means we are girl-friends! Isn’t that how it works?”

“By the—” Miriam breathed out a heavy sigh. “You know what? Sure.”

“Yay! Yesyesyes!” Solveig hopped around like a little bunny. “Well, what can I do you for, friend?!”

Did this girl have a memory of a goldfish? “I lost my letter of acceptance and I think it’s in my—sorry, your room.”

Before Miriam could even brace herself, Solveig had already grabbed her wrist and hauled her over the threshold. 

“Don’t have to say it twice. Come on in, friend! What was your name again?”

“...It's Miriam."

"Alright Miriam—my room is real messy so apologies in advance!"

How bad can it be—

OH MY GOODNESS!

Plates here.

Plates there.

Plates everywhere.

So many plates, stacked and scattered and abandoned mid-meal: roast pheasant with a single bite gone, a wheel of cheese carved into and left to sweat, three different desserts in various states of half-eaten ruin, the list grew and grew with so much of a passing twitch from Miriam's corneas.

"Sorry about the mess," Solveig said, kicking a plate out of the way without looking down. "I was really hungry before. But Cain came in clutch, as per usual! Anyway, may the searching commence, girl-friend!”

“You…”

Solveig's eyes shone like stars. “Me?”

“You godsdamnable wasteful lout!”