16. Two Girls in a Bedroom

Agatha was too good of a person, and she wanted to defenestrate herself for it. Defenestrate, heh. What a funny word. Comedy was the only thing that saved her in this grueling moment where she had to move TENS of suitcases.

She had barely a bag to her name, whereas her new roommate was packing ten times that but in a bigger, more voluminous container. The worst part was that Christie – that was the name of her roommate – couldn't even help her move the suitcases as she was packing them up.

And I doubt she would be able to move them as swiftly as I with her looks. Agatha's eyes lingered for a moment too long on the red-haired girl's body before she snatched another suitcase out of her hands. She really looks like a doll with that cute dress, that pale skin, that hairstyle, and that cute dress. Have I mentioned the cute dress?

Agatha was wearing the academy's uniform, and while somewhat cute with its many frills, it paled in comparison to the redhead's cherry dress. Or maybe it's crimson? Regardless of the actual shade of the dress's coloration, it was such a beauty. To such an extent that it freed her seamstress side. I just want to dress her like a doll! Agatha shrieked at her insides so as not to do it in reality. Both the screeching and the dressing part. It was surprisingly hard to contain herself. She had never had real dolls – the felt ones she had made herself didn't count – but if someone told her that Christie was what porcelain dolls looked like, she would believe them.

After half an hour of grueling work and almost a puddle of beads of sweat, Agatha was finally done as she carried the last suitcase alongside Christie.

"Maaaaan, I'm dead," she collapsed on the bed as she wailed like a… wailing soul.

"There is no man here, is there?" Christie had started to undo her suitcases, but stopped doing so as she looked at her.

Agatha squinted at the girl before she realized she was asking an honest question. "…It's an idiom, Christie."

"Oh!" Her eyes widened in realization before her emotions were substituted by embarrassment as she avoided Agatha's gaze. "I had never heard such an idiom before…"

"Well, the world's big, that's for certain. So it makes sense that there are idioms you haven't 'eard." The blond girl stood up and sat on the bed to kick her moccasins off. She also wanted to crisscross her legs, but the long skirt of the uniform impeded her from doing so. Maybe that's why they have a long skirt for women…

"You also have quite the… floral language," Christie added.

It was Agatha's turn to blush as she realized that not only had she been using informal language, but also her accent had escaped her.

"Wait," she frowned. "How is it that we do not have the same accent if we lived in the same barony?"

"Well…" Christie said softly as she stored more dresses than Agatha had in her life in the wardrobe. "I have led quite a protected life, so there are not many accents I could have been exposed to. Only my coachman used informal language and had a but a hint of an accent."

"Coachman, huh?" I can't even imagine having a ride, let alone someone to drive for me.

Agatha stood up and trotted around the room as she realized how far apart the worlds she and Christie lived on were. I guess we now live on the same one, though. As the redhead had left many of the suitcases open as she organized her belongings, the 'commoner' – as that hideous roc of a woman had called her – spied on the contents. A certain plush called for her attention as it felt familiar, somehow.

"What is this?" She said the same moment she grabbed it.

"What is what?" The porcelain girl mussed before she took her head out of the wardrobe. "Mock turtle!" Then she leapt in a mixture of panic and glee.

"Mock turtle?" Agatha lifted an eyebrow.

Christie took the plush out of her hands and she cradled it. Considering how much momentum she was embracing the plush with, Agatha doubted she had snatched it out of rage or jealousy, but rather starvation.

"Uhm…" The redhead blushed as brightly as her hair after she noticed what she had done. She cleared her throat before talking. "It is a recreation of my mount, François, a stoneshell. That is why I call it a mock turtle."

"Oh, so it is a stoneshell. It looked like it, yes." It embarrassed Agatha that she hadn't seen it until now. Especially considering how obvious it was.

The blond girl's eyes lingered on the mock turtle for a moment before they were distracted again by Christie's doll-like appeal. Perhaps she wasn't the cutest girl out there as she was rather thin and tall – almost a full head taller than Agatha – but that didn't stop the seamstress-in-training from evaluating the girl's doll potential from the viewpoint of beauty rather than cuteness. Though instead of buttons on her face, she had…

"Agates…" Agatha whispered as she lost herself in that pair of green and red agates the doll had for eyes.

Yet at that moment, her doll lost all its cuteness as she went from a blush to a stern gaze.

"Oh, sorry," Agatha apologized and took a step backward. "I suppose you hear that a lot."

"I actually do not," she said snidely. "Or so I would like to say. I went from never hearing it in my life to hearing it every single day since I arrived at the academy."

"Well…" the seamstress-in-training smacked her lips, "they do look like agates."

"Yes, people have made that painfully clear," Christie sighed. "I did not go joking about how your name is Agatha, did I?"

"Sorry…" Agatha apologized again, but now in a crestfallen manner.

"Oh, no, no!" The redhead waved her hands worriedly. "I am not mad, just a bit tired. There is no need to…"

"Overreact?" She said with a hint of a smile on her lips.

"Did you do this on purpose?" Christie added with a hint of a pout.

"No? I mean, I am actually sorry for… pressing the matter. But your overreaction is still funny."

"I…" The girl's bicolored eyes lingered on the ceiling for a moment as if prying it for answers, but words didn't seem to come to her. "You know, I am rather tired at the moment for tomfoolery."

"Hey!" Agatha snapped at her. "I am the one who had to carry the suitcases. And I have also, if you have not noticed, the one that has arrived at the academy building today during a monsoon."

"Uhm… sorry?" Agatha almost laughed at Christie's apology. Not because it was disingenuous, but the exact opposite. It was too sincere. Not only were her cheeks burning red, but also her ears. Between her red eyes, red cheeks, red ears, red hair, and red dress, she looked like a…

"Tomato," the word blurred out of Agatha's mind.

"What?" Christie squinted and tilted her head in confusion.

"Nothing!" Agatha took a step backward nervously. "Nothing at all!" And she began prancing around the room.

Whilst it was way bigger than any other room in her house, their shared bedroom wasn't egregiously big. Though it had quite an unusual disposition. The dormitory was formed by three – four if one counted the small balcony – different rooms. The main one where the better bed lay alongside a shared desk and two wardrobes, an outhouse – Well, I guess it's a latrine rather than an outhouse – and a smaller room that hosted a smaller bed and a nightstand. That was the worse bed that the lousy noble had been placed on, and Agatha now kind of understood her frustration. It was a rather claustrophobic quarter. She still was a bitch about it, though.

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"Who designed these rooms?" Agatha protested as she peered into the closeted bedroom from the main one. "A drunkard?"

"Actually, it was royal architects." Christie's voice was rather muted as she had her face inside the wardrobe, and there was a wall between them.

"The royals should look for better architects then," she chuckled.

"Well, to defend their honor, this had not always been an academy, but a castle."

"It still strikes me as an odd design."

"Not really," the lithe girl corrected her as she leaned her head from the corner of the wall. "Whilst not something seen in recent times, it was common before for hosted nobles or other important guests to lodge themselves with their handmaidens or close confidants, but because sleeping in the same room would have been improper, they…"

"Shoved their rooms into a corner," Agatha finished the sentence.

"…Yes," Christie admitted taciturnly. "But at least they are well-furnished, and it's not like there is much use to a bed besides sleeping at night."

"You can also sleep during the day!"

"I… doubt we have the pleasure of taking such rests," her roommate admitted nervously.

"How come?" Agatha closed the door to the small bedroom and stepped toward Christie.

"The Skyscraper Academy has a reputation for… testing their students. I doubt they will do anything too egregious as many students are either nobles or sons and daughters of very important people, but… it is still a military institution."

"So we are going to be trained like soldiers? Oh, whoa," Agatha didn't hide her snide.

"It would seem you are not… affected by such revelations."

"I mean, if I were not summoned to this academy, my other options were vernacular schools… That is the right epithet, right?" Agatha asked Christie for confirmation, and she nodded. "Not even academies, simply schools. My score was not the best. If I wanted to make a name for myself, the military has always been my real option. Only that now I have gotten to the fancy military instead of the rugged one."

"I got the impression that you… were highlightable during the statal examination," Christie said with a hint of a blush. Blushing seemed like the only thing that the girl knew to do. That and weird pauses mid-speech. Though Agatha couldn't say she was free of sin.

"I mean, the Agatecraft part of the examination is what got me here through a special summon, but the rest of the exams were not as highlightable, as you have put it. Sure, I was quite solid during the physical exam, even fighting toe-to-toe with some boys, but the written one… I would rather not talk about it." Agatha sluggishly walked back to her bed and dropped on top of it again. That was a sore spot for her.

"How amusing, it was quite the opposite for me. Downright laughable during the physical one, and perfect during the written one."

Silence lingered for a moment after that.

"And the Agatecraft one?" Agatha broke the silence.

"I am… not confident in my Agatecraft skills," Christie added sheepishly. Then she took her shirt off.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" The dissonance between tone and actions shook Agatha so much that she tumbled off the bed.

"Are you okay, Agatha?" The redhead blurred with worry.

"Completely unscathed!" She jumped from the ground on her two feet with a bit of dramatics in the way. Then she remembered why she had fallen in the first place. "S-so, what are you doing?"

"Changing into my nightgown," Christie stated as a matter of fact as she undid the buttons of her shirt.

"I see, I see…" Agatha could feel her cheeks heat up. "I cannot say I have seen anyone… change." Not even her mother. Esmeralda was more clothed than a mountaineer and she seldom showed skin, not even to her daughter.

"I have… been seen for as long as I remember, so I guess I… partially forgot about this type of modesty. I had always been dressed by others, even if I wanted to do it myself. It does not help that I had the big room until now and that Shayla had not said anything against it."

"Shayla?" She inquired to continue the conversation, but the blond girl felt the heat reach up to her ears as she did so.

"My former roommate. The Intaksolfani you saw in the corridor."

"Oh," Agatha mouthed, though she wasn't completely sure if it was out of realization or out of shame. Either way, she turned her head away from the redhead girl. "Maybe they have different thoughts about… nakedness on Intak Solfan."

"They actually do," she heard Christie's skirt fall to the ground. "Whilst they cover their women – their men too, but even more so their women – their private culture is more… open than ours. Especially the bathing culture. That certainly is… open. Quite the contrast, you could say! It is not called the country of turquoise waters for nothing!" The lithe – and probably naked – girl let out a manic giggle. "But it is not like it really matters. From what I have seen, Shayla is more Crochetan than some of the other girls here. Yet also a product of two cultures."

"I have met some people from Intak Solfan myself in my way here, and they were quite welcoming," Agatha's eyes lingered on the balcony before she realized the reflection on the glass door and promptly glued her eyes to her little sapphire. "The caravan made me realize how big this world is, and how little I know of it."

"Caravan?" Christie's voice was accompanied by the rustle of clothes coming from the wardrobe.

"Yes, that is how I made it here."

"It must have been a slow journey considering you just reached today."

"Not exactly, I mean, I had been walking for two weeks straight but…"

"Two weeks straight?" Christie shouted with a high pitch, so much so that Agatha thought for a moment that the girl would faint. "Did you not ride the carts of the caravan?"

"I did, only that… later. I did not have the money to hitchhike one, and they only allowed me on after I provided services to the caravan. The latter weeks of the journey were more pleasant, I must say."

"Still… that was a long journey to have made it just in time for the first day of classes. Was everyone walking and stopping during the night?"

"Quakes and faults, no!" She almost laughed. "They let us sleep on the carts during the night to keep the caravan moving. It is just that we took the northern route because the caravan, well, was doing caravan things and prices are always better in regions where resources are scarce. Maybe if I had taken the coastal route I could have taken half the time… Wait, I spent half the journey already walking! Why did I not take the coastal route? Everything would have been simpler!"

She knew the reason, though. Not a single caravan passed in a timely manner to lead her to Knight's Ascent, and doing the journey alone was a no-go.

"I wanted to see the ocean too! Who knows what monsters the water might hide? What do you…" A hand was placed on her shoulder, and Agatha jumped out of the bed. She knew it was Christie's, but it wasn't until she saw that the redhead was dressed and had changed into a silky nightgown that she relaxed. "W-what do you want?"

"Are you not going to change into your nightgown?" Christie asked, oblivious to Agatha's internal conflict. Though at the same time, the seamstress-in-training was partially oblivious herself as her thoughts were a mismatched handful of grunts.

"I do not have a nightgown, Christie," she stated plainly.

"Oh," the girl muttered as if her whole reality had turned upside down, completely incapable of comprehending how a girl might not have a nightgown. "So… how do you sleep?"

"Blankets have been more than enough for me," Agatha shrugged, though mostly to hide the fact that she couldn't afford such clothes.

Her mother had a single linen chemise for herself, but it was in a sorry state, too. Her family always prioritized having their belly full before any other commodity, and it was that frugal mindset that had allowed her to pass through her fifteen winters without going hungry. At least not too hungry.

"That will not do!" Christie protested with surprising might and indignation that seemed out of her character. But at the same time, Agatha had known her barely for a couple of hours, so she wasn't the best judge of what her character might be. The redhead rummaged in her wardrobe and took another nightgown. "Here have one of mine's."

"Are you… sure?" Agatha trembled as she grabbed the silky fabric. This was the most expensive gift she had ever had and, honestly, it made her nauseous. Like it was too much for her.

"Completely!" The redhead puffed out her chest in confidence. "What are you waiting for?" She added after a silence lingered between the two.

"Uh…" The azure-eyed girl blushed. "Could you turn? I am not… used to being watched."

"Ah! Of course!" The many-colored-eyed girl blushed herself too before turning.

Agatha did a far quicker job than Christie, perhaps because she was used to changing herself, or maybe because she unceremoniously dropped the uniform on her bed instead of storing it in the wardrobe, but it only took her a single minute to change. Maybe a couple.

"Done!" Agatha announced.

"It suits you quite well!" Christie complimented her as she clasped her hands together. "White is not a color that fancies me much, but that is certainly not the case with you!"

"Yeah, the nightgown is quite cute," she did half a twirl and the skirt pompously lagged behind. Maybe a bit too much. "But I feel that it is a bit too big." She first thought about the length of the gown as Christie was taller than her, but as she grasped a feeling of the whole fabric, she realized that it wasn't only the length that was too big for her. Agatha's eyes darted to Christie's chest. "You do everything big, huh?"

"What exactly?" Christie tilted her head downwards in confusion.

Oh, depths, I have said that aloud! The depths were exactly where Agatha wanted to be right now, as deep as possible at that. Earth swallow me! "Well, you know…" she chuckled nervously. "You were quite big with your demonstration on the statal examination. Your… ehm, you know, agates are quite big."

"Rather than big… they are plentiful," the redhead rubbed her upper arm nervously. Then she let out a yawn. "Oh, look how late it is! We should make haste to our beds, tomorrow is the first day of class, after all!"

"Yeah, of course!" Agatha chuckled again as she did her best to hide her embarrassment. "G-goodnight, Christie."

The girl nodded. "Goodnight, Agatha," and she departed for her closeted bed.