Amelia didn't sleep well.
She wasn't even sure it counted as sleep.
Her body had gone still, her eyes had closed, and time had passed, but her mind kept drifting back to the same places like it was stuck on a track that wouldn't change no matter how many times she tried to force it off.
Soren's voice.
That casual, warm tone he used when he was talking to those close to him, the one that sounded easy even when his eyes looked tired.
The way his scent lingered in her head after he walked away, as if her instincts decided his presence was supposed to be constant and refused to accept anything else.
Amelia lay on her back in her dorm bed and stared at the ceiling until the grey of early morning began to seep through the curtains.
Her tail flicked once against the blanket, sharp and irritated, mostly at herself for being awake and still thinking about things that weren't worth thinking about.
She rolled out of bed and got dressed without ceremony.
She brushed her hair roughly, not because she cared how it looked, but because leaving it tangled would annoy her later, and she didn't need more things to be annoyed about.
Her ears flicked once to clear the last bit of lingering grogginess, a small involuntary motion that usually helped her shake herself awake.
It didn't.
The ache behind her ribs was still there, quieter than it had been a week ago, but stubborn, as if it had decided it was part of her now and wasn't interested in leaving.
It didn't throb like an injury, nor did it flare like strain.
It simply sat there, wrong, a constant reminder that something in her wasn't behaving.
Amelia left her dorm before she could talk herself into wasting time.
The air outside was cool and clean, the kind that made your lungs feel sharper.
The academy was awake in the slow way it always was on weekends, fewer students moving with purpose, more drifting half-dressed and half-asleep, like the world didn't expect much from them today.
Amelia expected too much from herself anyway.
She reached the training area behind the main hall early again.
Of course Brynja was already there.
The tiger beastkin sat on the edge of the stone platform with elbows on her knees, chewing something and looking like she owned the place.
Her striped tail swayed lazily behind her, and she glanced up the moment Amelia stepped into view, eyes bright with that fighter's awareness that never seemed to turn off.
"I'm here," she said, flat.
Brynja snorted.
"Yeah. I noticed."
Amelia walked onto the older stone and rolled her shoulders once.
Her chest still felt wrong, but she refused to give it the satisfaction of making her hesitate.
She started moving before Brynja could say anything else, footwork and strikes, pivots and shifts, letting her body fall into the patterns she trusted.
Harder than yesterday.
Faster.
Like speed could drown out thought.
Her body moved cleanly, but her mind didn't follow, still snagging on the same images and words, still looping as if repetition might eventually turn into understanding.
After a few minutes, Brynja stood and stretched with an unapologetic yawn that sounded like an insult to anyone who believed training had to be formal.
"Alright," she said, stepping closer. "Let's spar."
Amelia didn't stop moving.
"No."
Brynja grinned.
"Yes."
Amelia's eyes narrowed.
"I said no."
"And I said I don't care," Brynja replied, like she was explaining something obvious to a child.
She lifted her hands into that grounded stance again, open palms, ready to grip, weight settled as if she had been born on stone floors.
"Hit me."
Amelia exhaled sharply through her nose.
Her tail lifted, bristling, more from irritation than readiness, and she hated that Brynja could pull that reaction out of her so easily.
Then she stepped forward anyway.
They went at it in quick, dense bursts.
Amelia drove in with straight pressure, fast hands and heavier shoulders, trying to force Brynja to give ground.
Brynja absorbed it without flinching, not by tanking strikes, but by stealing angles, catching wrists, checking elbows, hooking forearms and dragging Amelia into uncomfortable contact before punishing her every time she tried to disengage.
It was annoying.
It was also familiar in a clean way.
When Brynja crowded her space, Amelia's chest didn't ache.
When Brynja's hands latched onto her, there was no invisible resistance, no wrong tightness behind her ribs, only pressure she understood and could answer with technique.
It was just fighting.
Just a contest of strength.
That clarity made the other thing stand out even more.
Amelia hated that.
She pushed harder, turning irritation into something useful because irritation at least had a direction.
Brynja met her, laughing under her breath, enjoying it in a way that made it obvious she wasn't here to be gentle.
After several minutes, Brynja stepped back and lifted a hand.
"Thats enough, I don't wanna end up explainin' to a healer why I got my ribs broke by a princess."
Amelia stopped, breath steadying.
Sweat cooled on her skin as the air moved around them, and her tail stayed raised, not wagging, but alive.
Brynja walked over to her bag and tossed Amelia a strip of dried meat again.
Amelia caught it and bit down without comment.
They stood in a silence that wasn't awkward.
It was the kind that existed between people who didn't need to fill the air to prove anything, the kind that happened after two fighters tested each other and decided neither of them was soft.
Brynja chewed, then glanced sideways at Amelia.
"You seem better, but you've still got that look," she said.
Amelia's ears flicked.
"What look?"
"The one where you're pretendin'," Brynja replied, entirely too casual about it. "Even now, you look like you're about to bite someone."
"I'm not going to bite anyone."
"Yeah, whatever."
Amelia stared at her.
Brynja stared back like this was the most normal thing in the world.
Then Brynja spoke again, tone shifting slightly.
Not softer, exactly, but less teasing, as if she had decided to stop circling and put a hand on the problem.
"I know you didn't come here to learn grapples, it 'aint your style," Brynja said. "You came here 'cause somethin' in you won't shut up."
Amelia didn't answer.
Brynja kept talking anyway.
"Yesterday, I told you not to keep makin' choices just to get rid of the feeling, so I'll say the next part now."
Amelia's ears twitched.
Brynja jerked her chin toward Amelia, then toward the academy beyond the training hall, the stone corridors and courtyards where people lived and ate and pretended their lives were simple.
"You're actin' like you can solve it by circlin."
Amelia's jaw tightened.
"I'm not circling."
"You are," Brynja said simply, as if arguing about it was pointless. "Wolves do it. Cats do it. People do it. Everybody does it when they don't wanna step forward."
Amelia's tail went still at the word "wolves".
Brynja noticed and, for once, didn't grin.
She just continued, practical and blunt, like she didn't care how Amelia felt about the comparison.
"You got instincts, strong ones. They tell you where you're supposed to stand."
Amelia's throat tightened.
Brynja chewed another piece of meat and added, "And you're makin' yourself stand somewhere else on purpose. So of course it hurts."
Amelia's fingers curled around the strip of meat, grip tightening without her meaning to.
"It shouldn't," she said.
Brynja replied with a shrug.
"Shouldn't doesn't matter. Bodies don't care about should. They care about what's true."
Amelia stared down at the stone floor.
Her mind tried to find a way to make this about anything else.
Training.
Routine.
Exhaustion.
Pride.
Anything that sounded respectable and controllable.
But the truth kept crawling back up anyway, stubborn as her chest ache.
Soren's scent.
That pull.
That irrational wrongness when he walked away.
Amelia exhaled once, sharp.
"I don't like it," she said finally.
Brynja's brows lifted slightly.
"Yeah. No shit."
Amelia's ears flattened.
"I don't like not understanding."
Brynja snorted.
"Then stop treatin' it like a monster you can't look at."
Amelia looked up.
Brynja's gaze was sharp, and for the first time since Amelia had met her again at Stellaris, there was something almost serious in the way she held it, like she was choosing her words despite pretending she didn't.
"Here's the thing, Princess, you keep actin' like the only safe option is distance, like if you stay away, nothin' can happen."
Amelia's tail twitched, irritated and uncertain at the same time.
Brynja continued, blunt as ever.
"But distance is still a choice, and it's already doin' something to you."
Amelia didn't respond.
Her chest ached faintly, as if it agreed.
Brynja sighed, loud and dramatic, then waved a hand like she was done being patient.
"So today, you're gonna stop punchin' air and stop pretendin' you don't know where you want to be."
Amelia stared at her.
"You don't tell me what to do."
Brynja grinned.
"Then don't do it."
She leaned closer slightly, eyes bright, voice rough.
"But if you don't, you're gonna keep feelin' that ache, and it's gonna keep makin' you stupid."
Amelia's ears flicked sharply.
"I'm not stupid."
Brynja's grin widened.
"Princess, you're a genius at fightin' maybe the best genius there is, but that don't mean you're immune to bein' dumb about other stuff."
Amelia opened her mouth, then closed it again, because she didn't have a clean argument, only irritation and a truth she didn't want to hold.
Brynja straightened and tossed her empty wrapper back into the bag.
"I'm not sayin' you need some grand plan," Brynja went on. "I'm not sayin' you need words. Hell, you don't look like you got many of those when it ain't about punchin'."
Amelia's tail bristled slightly, but Brynja ignored it.
"I'm sayin' you do the simplest thing. You go stand where you actually meant to stand."
Amelia's chest tightened.
Not the sharp pain.
Not the confusion.
Something else.
A decision forming.
Her instincts shifted, like an animal turning its head toward a sound it recognised.
Brynja watched her, eyes narrowing slightly, not in judgment, but in recognition.
"Yeah," Brynja said quietly. "That."
Amelia's jaw clenched.
She didn't like that it was this simple.
She didn't like that she had spent over a week trying to outthink something that didn't care about thinking.
Amelia swallowed once, then spoke, clipped.
"…If I go and it still hurts."
Brynja shrugged.
"Then it still hurts."
Amelia stared.
Brynja held her gaze without flinching.
"You don't die from that kinda pain," Brynja added. "You just learn somethin'."
Amelia's tail flicked once, sharp.
Brynja slung the bag over her shoulder and started walking toward the exit, as if the conversation was already finished.
"See you later, Princess" Brynja called over her shoulder. "Though, by the looks of it, I won't be seein' you here tomorrow."
Amelia didn't answer immediately.
She stood in the training hall for a long moment, sweat cooling on her skin, the air quiet around her, the ache behind her ribs still present but… pointed now, like it had finally chosen a direction.
She didn't need to name anything.
She didn't need to understand it fully.
She just needed to stop standing on the wrong side of her own instincts.
Amelia turned and left the training area.
She didn't run.
Running would make it feel like panic, and Amelia refused to let this turn into panic.
She walked at a steady pace instead, shoulders squared and expression flat, moving like she was acting as usual even though her chest felt too tight for "usual" to be real.
Her tail was the only thing that betrayed her.
It didn't wag.
But it lifted slightly, alert, and the tip twitched like it was listening, as if it was tracking something ahead of her without needing permission.
The smell of the academy shifted as she crossed the courtyards, stone warmed by morning light, faint ink from students carrying books, food from somewhere in the distance.
There were voices too, weekend voices, lazier and less urgent, laughter that came easier because no one had to pretend class mattered for a few hours.
And under it all, the familiar trace she hated that she could recognise so easily.
Soren.
Not because his scent was loud.
Because her instincts had decided it mattered.
Amelia kept walking.
Her pace didn't change, but her awareness sharpened with every step, ears flicking subtly as she took in movement around her, tail steadying behind her as if her body was preparing for a fight even though there wasn't one.
She reached the area near the clubroom building and slowed without meaning to.
The shift wasn't conscious.
It was the same instinct that made her lower her centre of gravity before an impact, the same quiet preparation her body did when something important was close.
She spotted him before she fully registered where she was.
Soren sat off to the side of the walkway on a bench, hair still slightly messy in that way that suggested he hadn't been awake long.
His posture was relaxed but not completely, shoulders sitting in that familiar half-settled way, like someone who could rest but didn't fully trust it.
The morning light hit the side of his face, and Amelia caught herself noticing small things she didn't usually pay attention to, like the way his lashes looked darker in sunlight, like the way his hands rested loosely on his thighs.
Amelia stopped.
Her chest tightened immediately.
There it was.
Not pain, exactly.
Not that strange ache that had made her avoid him.
This felt sharper, more alive, the sensation of being pulled toward something while a part of her still braced as if it expected to be punished for it.
She took a slow breath.
Her ears flicked once.
Her tail lifted.
Then she stepped forward.
Soren noticed her and paused, gaze flicking up, and his expression shifted, faintly cautious, like he didn't want to step on whatever invisible thing had been keeping her at a distance.
Amelia hated that caution.
Not because it was wrong, because it wasn't, but because it made her feel like she was the one creating the problem.
She kept walking.
Her footsteps were steady, controlled, and every step closer made his scent fill her head more clearly, that familiar warmth settling into place as if it belonged there.
Amelia stopped a short distance away, close enough that his smell properly reached her, close enough that her body finally stopped tugging at her ribs and demanding more.
Her chest tightened again.
And she didn't retreat.
That was the difference.
Amelia stared at him for a second, then spoke.
"Eat," she said, voice flat.
Soren blinked once, caught off guard, and Amelia's ears twitched in irritation at herself.
That was not how you said it.
That sounded like an order, and Amelia wasn't trying to order him, she was trying to… stand where she meant to stand.
She forced the words to come out more properly, because she could do that when she had to, even if it felt awkward.
"…I want to eat with you," she clarified, tone still blunt, honesty pressed into each word because she didn't have anything else to offer.
Then, because she didn't know how to make this softer without making it worse, she added, "If you're hungry."
Soren's expression shifted again, surprise first, then something quieter, something that made his shoulders ease by a fraction as if he had been holding his breath and hadn't realised it.
Amelia's tail twitched once, impatient.
She held his gaze anyway.
Because this was the simplest thing.
Stand where you meant to stand.
If it still hurt, she would endure it.
If it stopped hurting, she would remember that too.
Amelia didn't know what this was.
She didn't know what it meant.
But she knew, with blunt certainty, that avoiding him wasn't fixing anything, and she was tired of feeling wrong for no reason.
So she stayed.
And she waited for his answer.
————「❤︎」————