Uh Oh! Pt. 2

SOLVEIG

H—

How did she—

HOW?!?!?!

The Duke told no one of this. Solveig sure as hell didn't. Cain seemed too honorable for that nonsense!

Penelope, maybe?! Nyo...!

The Great Mother Bear, the Great Animals in general actually, were sacred to the Illustrians. That much Solveig knew.

But she may as well have killed a child, judging by some of the class' reaction.

"Mister Harold. You value our heritage, don't you?" Isolde said slyly.

No. She'd found his bias and she was aiming it like a spear.

"Under what charge," he said gravely, "do you accuse her?"

"Not an accusation, Mister Harold. Evidence."

Plop.

Ah. Shit.

A clump of brown fur landed on the table, matted with dried blood, torn such that it could only come from something hitting it with explosive force.

HER explosive force.

Because the mana streaks were white, and hers were white; and everyone in this classroom knows it was white since that's what's come out of her magic use during Arena Combat practice and...

"Oh gods, I thought that bear thing was just a rumor!"

"Is that why she was recruited in the first place? Because she killed it?"

"If that's true, I don't want a psycho like her anywhere near this school."

No, no, no, no—

Solveig's reputation...

Weeks of careful building, sleepless nights of it, gone in the time it took Isolde to open her hand.

"Indeed," Isolde said, holding the fur up for the room to see. "Today, I stand here accusing Solveig of deliberately hunting and killing a Great Bear."

The hall burst into a frenzy.

Her mind burst into frays, her thoughts mere single-minded variants and repetitions of panic and rot. Panic! Rot! Everything and everywhere closing down upon her like dominos in freefall!

I knew it. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it—

Solveig's past always caught up, somehow. It always did!

Harold's face had gone stony, unreadable in a way that felt worse than anger. Miriam and Bobby were looking at her like she was someone they'd never met.

"It— it attacked first."

"Sorry?"

Solveig spoke up. "I said it attacked me first."

Isolde laughed, nay, barked at her. "Why should we believe anything you say? How do we know you're not just—"

"A murderer," someone finished for her.

Solveig turned her head, slowly, to her left.

"Solveig'd be a murderer."

Bobby said that. Those words came out of Bobby. Sweet, pure Bobby.

"B-Bobby..."

"Great Mother Bears are peaceful, y'know. All Great animals are. When I met one in the forest when I was young, it gave me a flowers. Flowers, plucked and then carried and then gifted... why would a Great animal attack you...?"

He stepped back. Solveig... in his reflective and watery eyes... all he saw was a stranger.

"I don't know... if I can..." he trembled.

"Bobby..." 

"You can't be my Master... Villains have a cause. But killing a being like this, one which posed no threat or cause for anyone..."

Bobby swallowed.

"You're just... bad."

Bobby swallowed, and she thought of it then, stupidly, uselessly: the weekend he'd been planning for weeks, the one where she'd finally meet his family, where he'd made her promise three separate times not to embarrass him in front of his sisters, where he'd gotten so excited telling her about it that his voice had cracked halfway through. 

That weekend didn't exist anymore.

He turned before she could say anything back.

"Solveig...?"

A new voice. One to her right.

No. Nononono...

It was Miriam. 

Miriam, forgiving and graceful Miriam...

She looked at Solveig differently too. Like how you would a sickly mutt.

"What the hells, Solveig? This... this can't be right. Though I oughta not be surprised anymore... this... this is too far. How can ya...?"

There had been a name for what they'd been planning too, hadn't there? Miriam had promised, last week, Solveig would be able to meet Miriam's 'bumpkin' friends for a weekend. Told Solveig in her face rather sincerely this is what having friends really meant. Solveig had replied it'd be her first time...!  

That future was gone now though. Same as Bobby's.

There it was.

Two of her three friends in-lieu, relationships burst into flames. Like how hers did with her parents. Like how hers did with Uncle Hrafen.

Solveig'd be alone forever. But this wasn't mere fate. That'd be too stupid.

Solveig did this to herself.

That was the one equation tying things together, wasn't it?

Maybe Solveig wasn't just misunderstood. Maybe she really was the thing they were saying. 

She could have talked the Great Bear down. Backed away. Let it lumber off into the trees like it probably wanted to.

"I… I can't—" Solveig choked. "Please... you gotta believe me..."

Yet the words wouldn't come. Whatever she'd meant to say caught somewhere behind her teeth and stayed there, and into that silence the chant from those around her began.

"Monster."

One voice, then three, then the whole hall finding the rhythm together.

"MONSTER."

"MONSTER."

“VILLAIN!”

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMOOOONSSSTTERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Ding!

Huh?

Her skin prickled, then lit, a warmth spreading out from somewhere under her ribs.

"Why's she glowing?" someone near the front said.

Solveig looked up, and the light climbing off her skin caught in her eyes.

In recognition of this fact, Solveig said but one thing, very quietly.

“Uh oh.”