Prefect Bascus doesn’t sound mad. She never does--only annoyed. Inconvenienced. When Taryn says nothing, Bascus just sighs.
The prefect pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Taryn.”
Taryn, still, says nothing; her eyes trained are downwards, her face is obscured by a mop of pale blonde hair.
“Look at me, for Scions’ sake.”
Slowly, Taryn looks up, fixing her bright magenta eyes on Prefect Bascus.
Linsia Bascus is a highborn woman in her forties who dresses as if she were half her age--and who always wears the same nauseatingly strong perfume, which Taryn is convinced is supposed to be toxic.
Right now, Bascus looks tired. No, disinterested. This is an inconvenience to the prefect--she’d definitely rather be doing something else than disciplining yet another esper brat for acting out. Taryn waits in silence for Bascus to speak again.
“ ... why did you do it, Taryn? I only want to know why. That’s all. Really, I hate this stupid ‘silent game’ you always play,” Prefect Bascus sighs again, tapping her pointy nails on the cold marble of her desk. Taryn loathes the sound.
“I already told you,” Taryn says, in a small voice. She inhales, making an effort to speak louder, more forcefully. “Six times. It’s because Aydin deserves it!”
“Aydin Tartaros. The seventh-year boy--he isn’t even in your class, Taryn, why did you bloody his nose?” Bascus frowns. Still tapping. It’s incessant. She does it on purpose.
“He’s been making me sick! He does something to my food!” Now Taryn raises her voice, putting as much indignant nine-year-old energy as she can into her words. “Whenever we take meals mine always makes me sick and nobody else’s makes them sick!”
Prefect Bascus groans. “Really, Taryn? How many times have you tried to push this nonsense? Even if the young lordling Tartaros would do such a thing, there is no way he possibly could.” The shrewish prefect pinches the bridge of her nose. “If you keep doing this then I’m going to have to explain to his House who keeps hurting their precious heir--”
“I’m not lying! I know he’s doing it!”
“Have you seen him tampering with your food, Taryn?”
The girl stops. Bascus watches her, exasperated.
Taryn sullenly shakes her head ‘no’.
“Then I’m afraid I can’t do anything for you,” Bascus drawls, her voice dripping with false sweetness. “Stop trying to get that boy in trouble, Taryn. You make so much work for me, and it isn’t my fault you ended up here.” Taryn winces, but says nothing else. The prefect looks at her indifferently. “Okay, Taryn?”
“ ... could you please just tell somebody for me?”
There’s a long pause, and a longer sigh, but Bascus nods. “Fine. I’ll try alerting the board, If it will keep you out of my office for the next week.”
The students of Meditora sleep in dormitories on the far west side of the academy grounds, right next to the taiga. They are separated by year. Taryn’s room is among the third-years.
Two days following her last visit to the Prefect’s office, Taryn lies in bed in the middle of the night, caught in that liminal space between ‘not quite awake’ and ‘not quite asleep’.
She has almost managed to completely drift off when something seizes her by the arm, and pulls her harshly from her bed.
Taryn lets out a sharp cry which is cut off by a hand wrapped around her mouth, and as she tries to wrest free she is inexplicably constricted with invisible force. Immediately Taryn knows this must be Cevia and if it’s Cevia then that means Aydin must have told Cevia to come after her--
The girl’s thoughts are cut off by being dropped to the floor and then dragged by this telekinetic chain holding her captive. Cevia Vaelar, a fifth-year and one of Aydin’s lackeys, has Taryn effectively bound and gagged--she can’t say anything because air just won’t go into her lungs and she can’t even turn her head to see where she’s being taken--
Cold, hard tile turns into cold, hard ground as Taryn feels herself hit snow. They have left the dormitory building. Cevia is taking her into the woods. If she could just move, breathe, anything--
Then the invisible chains release her and Taryn tumbles across the freezing ground, coughing and gasping. The girl starts to shakily get to her feet, only now able to look around and get a look at her assailant.
Cevia--a girl no older than twelve, long dark hair, chilly eyes--steps back, raising her gloved hands as if she is about to flatten Taryn into the snow again.
“Let her stand,” a boy interjects. Aydin Tartaros steps into view from behind an ice-cloaked tree; with him is another fifth-year--Vexus. The entire trio is here. Taryn can feel herself shivering, and not from the cold. She loathes it--loathes how they know she’s afraid.
She stands up, staring at the other children, too frightened to move or speak.
Aydin folds his arms, making himself look about as imperious as a thirteen-year-old can look. “You really went to the prefect, Teventi? She doesn’t even like you. She’s sick of you. You make everyone sick of you. It’s only fair you should get sick sometimes, too.”
That gets her. Taryn finally speaks, and her voice cracks as she tries to sound strong: “I knew it, I knew you’ve been doing it, you--”
She’s cut off by an unseen battering ram, sending her stringy self hurtling backwards. Taryn catches just a glimpse of Cevia’s hands lighting up with flame before she hits the snow again, and she scrambles to get up, turn around, and run away.
As soon as Taryn takes a step in the opposite direction, she is dragged by her foot back towards the other students, scrabbling pitifully at the snow as she goes. Her heart is racing. If only someone saw, or heard, if only anyone--
Just as she feels the heat, just as the invisible bonds pin her to the snow again--
There is a yell of shock followed by panicked wailing.
The telekinetic chains disappear and there is no one looming over her. Taryn rolls over, unsteadily getting to her feet, to behold the scene.
A ghastly, vaguely-lupine creature has Aydin Tartaros pinned, viciously tearing at the boy’s chest with ethereal teeth while he cries out.
As soon as Taryn realizes what she’s done, the creature freezes, and Aydin lies there, not moving. The snow is spattered with red.
Cevia and Vexus both stare for a few moments before they turn and run.
Taryn is left alone in the woods with the spectre, sinking slowly to her knees, shaking like a leaf.
The girl’s creature pads over to her, pushing its snout into her hair.
Taryn does not look at Bascus.
The prefect may well be staring holes into her head.
“What do you have to say?”
Taryn remains silent for a minute or so. Finally, she speaks, her voice a croak. “... did I kill him?”
Bascus frowns. “No.” She pushes her glasses up her nose. “Were you hoping that you had?”
The girl shakes her head.
“ .... well,” Bascus sighs, “I can tell Lord and Lady Tartaros that, but I do not believe they will be any less angry.” The woman falls silent again.
“I thought they were going to kill me.”
“Perhaps, but there’s barely a scratch on you and yet Aydin is hospitalized.”
The prefect studies Taryn for a few moments, then shakes her head. “... perhaps he did deserve it. But, Scions’ sake, girl... if you are going to get even, then be more subtle about it.”