In the Lake, You Can Backstroke Forever

SOLVEIG

Why was Cain looking at her like that?

Today was such a beautiful day! She’d have killed for a day like this when the Demon King was around. Shows how privileged he was, really. 

The birds were chirping, the little lake they were encircling all morning was calm and so were the swans basking in it, the sun was just starting to crest the horizon… Solveig could go on and on.

Unfortunately, at Hrafen Academy, they were these freaks called the ‘early risers.’

So their private training session got very public very quickly…

"Look at Solveig. Of course a commoner would resort to such barbarity."

"How crude. How backwards!"

"I find it funny it takes her two strides to match one of Cain's…"

Okay unstable mana core deep within my soul… listen and obey… you are NOT allowed to detonate based on the remarks of children who probably have never seen fighting in their lives.

How were they here at all by the way?! They snuck off from Cain’s quarters, she swears it! You'd have to actually go looking for the two of them to know where they'd be.

A conspiracy’s afoot, must be!

But then, rather suddenly, Cain stopped his jogging, slowing to a crawl.

"I'm sorry,” he said.

"Whatcha' sorry for? You're doing great for a first timer!"

“I'm saying sorry because I'm going to stop."

H-Huh? But...

"My r-regimen..." Solveig pouted. "But Caaaaiiiinnn, it’s the first day; you’re quitting already?!”

"I went along with your methods to appease you. I've realized I don't actually have to follow my tutor's reasoning just because she's confident about it." His jaw was tight. "I'm sorry I still have enough self-respect to know when something’s a lost cause."

Wait, Cain’s saying his own tutor is a lost cause in the same token! Nyoooooooo!!!

Solveig sputtered. "Wait, Cain, please…"

The boy sighed. "It wasn’t a terrible idea, if it helps."

"I feel like... there's something else there, isn't there, Cain?"

He didn't respond for a while. "Yeah. You can say that."

"Okay. Mind telling me?"

"It's not about what you can do. It's... it's what you did."

Solveig tensed. The penny drop...

"I... I can't follow someone who claims to be someone I worship and adore. I prayed to you. It bears repeating that I prayed to someone who... who I taught my goddess would be completely against. The slaves, the overlord stuff, the villainous streak you got going on..."

Okay... there's a difference between intimidation and villainism, Cain! Villainism is like committing genocide or something.

"...But at the same time, your actions speak for themselves," he continued. "They have good outcomes, in theory... it just... it just comes from the wrong place." A beat. "I'm sorry I didn't bring this up earlier, but I can't... I don't know if I can keep..."

Cain stared at the ground darkly.

"I know all I've done so far is say that I have ideals and values. I know I need to act; I know you're pushing me, and I appreciate that. But I wonder... I wonder if there's another way." He smiled weakly. "For now, what do you say we just meet up to study later? Yeah, that'd work, won't it?"

"I had lesson plans but..." Solveig shook her head. "Sure, sure."

"...You're not a bad person. I know that, at least. It's just me and my own shit." He turned. "See you in class, Solveig."

She watched, dejected, as Cain stiffly walked away.

I’m such a failure of a teacher…

But thankfully his anger seems to be completely gone as well. 

Wonder how he did it...?

Eh, no use looking a gift horse in the mouth. Surely this won't come back to bite her. Surely.

“Bum… badum, badum… the water lily’s floating along, floating along, floating along…”

Solveig's eyes shot up. That voice…

Miriam?

Okay. Okay, what do I even do here?

"H-Hi."

For gods’ sake. Solveig. Giiiiirrrrl.

"Solveig,” Miriam acknowledged.

Miriam was giving her the cold shoulder. Wasn’t even looking at her.

Definitely still mad then.

"I, heh. Ehm… well, I just wanted to say—"

“Look.”

Solveig was very confused. “Huh?”

Miriam pointed to the distance, still whispering. “Over there.”

Solveig looked with her eagle eyes.

Hmm…

Reeds and the lake plus a calm shoreline…

But a whole bunch of nothing otherwise…

“Damn it! Lost ‘em!” Miriam hissed. “Two kids have been stalking ya ever since you started.”

"Didn't realize we had fans already," Solveig said, rolling her shoulders. “Wait, you were watching us?”

"You're basically starting a trend with that morning running of yours. I might have to found the Solveig Fan Club myself, Miss Popular."

Solveig bit her lip, looking away and into the shimmering water.

Why wasn’t she madder at me?

Miriam chuckled; must have noticed her expression. "Gods, I'm not that scary, am I?"

Solveig just stared at her for a second too long.

"I’m sorry," Solveig finally managed. "During the ceremony… I didn’t take you into consideration when I—"

"Oh, gods, haha—you're worried about that?" Miriam waved a hand.

“You’re not mad?”

“Hah! About as mad as I could be being used as a political tool. Nah, I knew you meant well. You seem to be the only non-sociopath in this damn academy.”

Miriam drew more aggressively on the ground.

"I just needed some air after that damn circus. Isolde’s a shrewd politician, if you wanna take anything away from that.” Miriam chuckled. “Anyway, if you needed to hear it from me, then fine; you can consider our misgivings with each other settled."

In the past, her life was a series of certainties.

There were no second chances; those were for wishful thinkers.

It’s making adjusting to this new one quite… terrifying. How do you tell when you get do-overs and when you don’t?

“Say…” Miriam said suddenly. “Where did you learn to move like that? Around those guards.”

Solveig froze.

“It’s one thing to learn it, but it's another to execute your moves so damn well. You must have had experience.”

After a while of not saying anything, Miriam scratched her head sheepishly.

“Look, if you can’t tell me, I understand. You’re probably from some top secret sect of combat monks up in the Ysolde Ranges.”

“It’s not that… I just… I’m not sure you’re ready for that side of me yet. The why.”

“...Sure sounded like you made mistakes that you ain’t gonna wanna repeat for a while.”

“Yeah. Understatement of the century.”

Miriam tilted her head. “You’re my age, right? What’s the worst you could have done?”

Flashes of exactly what it took to get the Demon King to bow down raced through her mind.

Even the most understanding person in the world would balk.

Still, Solveig should have said something, anything—because right now she was being plain rude.

Miriam stood, abandoning the stick she'd been dragging through the dirt. “Fine, keep your secrets.”

The commoner girl stood up.

“Got some secrets of my own, least ways.”

“Really?”

“But I ain’t comfortable sharing though.”

“Oh, hahaha!” Solveig rubbed the back of her head. “I see what you did…”

"Alright, meditation time is over. Let’s go.”

Solveig raised an eyebrow. “Medidating for what?”

“First period. The most important period of them all.”

“Ah.”

Solveig totally didn’t just forget why she was so anxious for today.

“First impressions, right?” Miriam said.

A redundant way to put it. But yes.

Students want to know where to sit, who to align themselves with, how they want to appear… again, half the battle in front of her was not just tutoring Cain but was to make him succeed—which is inseparable from the politics.

She can no longer use brute force to solve a problem—not like what she did in the Ceremony.

Gods… this was gonna be a massive headache.

Miriam stood up. “Hey, Solveig…”

Solveig started.

Wow… Miriam's muscles are much more intimidating from this perspective. She was also much taller than me…

“You… you have a goal, right? Being here?” the girl in front of her said.

What kind of question was that?

“Of course. To assist the Duke’s son in his studies and put those pesky Houses that wish him ruin down!”

“That’s not what I meant. As in… what drives you specifically. Other than your job.”

“Oh, that’s easy enough! I… uhm…”

Wow, this was harder than I thought!

In fact, Solveig hadn’t really sat down to think about it, really.

Kinda was just… going with the flow… ever since she came to this new age, really.

“Look, you look the same age as the rest of us. Not every teenager’s got their life figured out, so higher chance than not, you probably ain’t got none either. So I’m not expecting you to have a goal that drives you figured out yet. But I wanna be clear… if we’re gonna be friends… I just don’t want you to be married to your job. Alright? Because being with someone who got nothin’ going on in their life is crazy depressing.”

Solveig nodded along.

“Because more often than not… people don’t got nothin’ going on other than grades and status tend to be the ones that fall. And they fall hard.”

I… but that doesn’t make sense!

You are only as valuable as your accomplishments and deeds!

…Right?

“Come on, Solvy. Let’s get it!”

Solveig sucked in a breath of air.

A… a nickname…?

I…

I…!

Miriam sweat-dropped. “Whoa, whoa, girl. You’re comin’ apart!”

“I-I’ve just… I never had a nickname before!”

“...Wow. Let’s just head on over to class…”

\\

???

“Seems like little ol’ Cain’s dissenting from that bumpkin’s girls crazy theories…”

“Indeed! And look at the way she runs too… not a speck of femininity in sight! The horror…”

“Tee-hee…”

“Ohohoho~”

The figure wordlessly stared at them as they walked on by.

That girl…

This ‘Solveig’ character was the model Quadrantinien. Everything the doctrine talked about in theory, standing there in the flesh, and nobody in this entire backwater academy seemed to have the faintest idea what they were looking at.

One the Prophets talked about since the dawn of age would come. She fit the description of a trickster goddess almost to a tee. She’d have awoken merely days ago: and here she was, seemingly in the flesh.

And you're telling me she's stuck serving some hapless royal?

If ‘Solveig’ could just be brought into the fold, they would be unstoppable.

Solveig needed someone to show her how to spend it. And she just needed to realize that the people who would truly appreciate her are actually on the other side of the gate.

If the right hands could lure her away into the grateful keeping of the rightful rulers of the Winstead Continent...

The figure in the cloak smiled, walking away from their vantage point.

Today was a good day.