Chapter 30

[Virina POV]

A clicking noise coming from my heels against the floor reach my ears as I walk through the corridor. At the end of it is a double fancy door. I let a heavy sigh leave my lips as I stand in front of it after a few seconds of walking.

This won't be fun.

My knuckles rap against the door and a second later a 'come in' sound from the other side. The doors open by themselves and I step into the room. It's almost bare, except for the big round table in the center.

Around it are seated a few men and women, all in formal attire. I sit on a free seat near the door.

"Headmistress Virina. How are the investigations?" One of the middle-aged man ask me, his tone is calm and slow.

"Like we feared, Sir. There is indeed members of Ouroboros in the Academy." I answer without much emotions in my voice.

"Ha! Isn't your Academy the best? How come Ouroboros infiltrated it?" An other way younger man scoff.

I turn my head toward him, an eyebrow lifted. He visibly recoil before correcting himself immediately.

"What? A healer don't have any right to look at me like that." His voice is tinged with anger.

"Ouroboros 'converted' someone already in the Academy. But they haven't marked him. So our detectors couldn't notice it." I say, ignoring his outburst.

I couldn't care less how he sees me. I may be a healer and he's a very powerful mage. But it doesn't mean he would best me. Besides. Without healers, how does he intend to survive sometimes?

"Is it a member of the staff?" The first middle-aged man ask again.

"Yes, Sir. We are monitoring him." I answer as I turn to him.

"And that new race. What can you tell us about her?" It's a young woman that ask me this time. Her voice is pleasant and sweet, a gentle smile on her lips.

I hesitate a little. I promised Jane to not tell too much. I have duties though...

"She's not much different than the other beastkin. Her senses are a little stronger but that's all. Her reactions are mostly like beastkin in general, like her tail and ears."

"You don't plan on saying more than that, right?" She smiles knowingly at me.

I should tell them more. Other Headmistress or Headmasters would have given the informations. But I won't. She's a student. My student. I simply shake my head with a smile.

"No. She asked me not to. And as my student I won't betray her trust."

The young man from earlier scoffed at me.

"You have a duty Headmistress Virina. Your duty is to report to everyone here, like we all do. So you will tell us."

The moment his voice died down an enormous pressure rolled out of him. It was accompanied by a scorching heat. I silently cast a healing spell right along my clothes, making the pressure split on either of my sides.

"No. Please retract your pressure, Sir Flamelord. It's rude."

"I said-"

"Alright that's enough Flamelord. She said no, and I understand her. That's one of the reason why she has a seat here. Her loyalty to her students." The young woman cut him off with a stern tone.

She wave her hand and Flamelord's pressure vanished like it was not even here at first.

"Oh but I want to know. Is she cute?"

I look at her with a sigh. This woman loves all cute girls. Not that she will pursue them romantically. But she just can't help doting on them. So I'm not sure if I should confirm it or not...

"Well. Yes, she is extremely cute. She also already have two girlfriends." I answer, a smile unknowingly settling on my lips as I think of those three girls.

"Wonderful! I shall keep an eye on her when I can!" She clapped her hands in delight. "Now then, let's continue our agenda for the day!"

Good luck Jane, a troublesome person took an interest in you.

[Jane's POV]

After going out of the aquarium we make our way to the restaurant our classmates recommended to me. As I told them, it's an italian place with a weird design. It looks like a small tower with ring-like protrusions. But it's tilting to the side. I tilt my head the same way in curiosity, my ears flopping a little with the movement.

"Original design I guess? Where did they find an idea like that?" I ask, my voice full of curiosity.

"I don't know. But at least it's different than other restaurant. It's funny." Anna answer with a shrug next to me.

Well, whatever I guess. It's still funny.

The smell inside is incredible. A mix of spice, tomato, pasta and cheese. Everything blend together perfectly, nothing is overpowering the rest to make it uncomfortable.

Even if that restaurant is quite popular, since it's still Friday there's not many customer. So we don't need a reservation. The waitress guided us to a round table just big enough for us three. It's not a bad idea, at least it won't be weird with all three of us on one side. Because I know them, they would have done that.

As we sit, we take the menus provided by the waitress. My eyes find the prices immediately and I lift an eyebrow. It's quite affordable actually. I would have thought a restaurant like that would be more expensive. But seems like I'm wrong. Of course I would still pay, or I wouldn't have proposed to eat out and would have just cooked at our dorm.

"Hmmm. We had lasagnas not long ago so... I think I'll take some chicken parmesan." Eliza says as she looks at the various dishes presented on the menus.

"I want a Florentine steak!" Anna chimed right after.

"Hmm." I answer, still pondering on my order.

Everything sounds pretty good so I'm pretty lost on what to pick. I'm not a picky eater. Except vegetables. Most cooked vegetables are a big no for me. Raw ones? I'm fine with those. Like raw carrots are perfectly fine. But cooked carrots have a weird taste. At least that's what I think.

"I think I'll order some risotto with garlic and chili. That sounds delicious." I finally decide.

It surprisingly doesn't take much time before our order comes out of the kitchen. My tail twitch in anticipation as I take in the smell coming from the dishes.

This smell way too good!

"Bon Appetit!"

The first mouthful makes my ears perks up immediately, my tail vibrate out of glee and an undignified moan of satisfaction escape my lips. Anna and Eliza freeze slightly, turning their eyes to me, and I blush out of embarrassement.

"Ahem. Don't pay attention to me please.." My voice is quiet as I busied myself in eating.

They both giggled, their eyes overflowing with love.

Please stop staring at me!

I wailed in my heart and tried to ignore them. My eyes are still darting toward their plates. Based on their expression their dishes taste pretty good too.

"Want to try ?" Eliza suddenly ask, pointing a fork with a bit of chicken on it toward me. "I saw you sneaking a peek."

I lift my head and see her smiling. I smile back and try to take her fork in my hand but she dodges the movement. Perplexed, I look at her again with one ear tilted to show my confusion.

"Nope! Say 'Aah'." A mischievous smile was on her lips.

I sighed a little, blushing, before looking around.

"Are we really doing that?... In public? Please spare me"

I try to appear as pitiful as possible, even going as far as clutching my tail in my arms with my ears flattening on my head. And for a brief second I thought it worked since Eliza put her hand on her heart, like I just hit it.

"Ugh. So cute. No. I can't fall for that trick! Come on Jane!"

I sigh a little, face still burning, and lean slightly to bite on the fork. This is good, but I don't forget to send her a resentful glare after letting go of my tail. She looks totally unrepentant and hum quietly in contentement.

Then I suddenly feel a soft finger poking my cheek. When I turn around I see Anna looking at me with sparkling eyes, her fork on the same level as my mouth.

"You too?!" I exclaim, mortified.

She nod enthusiastically, pushing her fork a little closer to me. A groan escape me but I still take the food she's offering me, not forgetting to glare at her a little. She makes a little pleased sound before looking at my food.

"What are you looking at?" I narrow my eyes at her with suspicion.

"Can I try it?"

I instantly put my arms around my plate protectively.

"Jane doesn't share food!"

They are momentarily stunned. Then starts to laugh openly. I join them a few second later. Of course I will let them get a taste. It's just a quote from a popular old show that I liked a lot early on.

So I take a bit of risotto on my fork and extend it toward her. She immediately bit down on it, her eyes lighting up. I don't forget to let Eliza try it too, it wouldn't be fair to her otherwise.

"Mh-hm! It's pretty good! So what do you want to do next Jane?" Eliza asked after giving her thoughts on the food.

I actually haven't really planned anything more. I have a bunch of locations we could go, all told by the classmates, but I didn't know where to go first. Even the aquarium was mostly a spur-in-the-moment decision. There's just one thing I want to do just before going back though. A little surprise I wanted to give them.

"I say we just wander in the city? If you are okay with that?" I say before looking down a little. "I'm sorry, I'm not really good at planning dates..."

I suddenly felt two pair of arms grabbing mine and when I look up I see them smiling fondly at me.

"It's fine! Planning a date isn't necessary at all. It's even better to just go with the flow. At least that's how I see it. We just need to have fun!" Anna said, her voice soothing.

"Right. Sometimes planning something means rushing around without enjoying the moment. Who knows? Maybe we'll find interesting things as we just walk around? Besides, Anna is right. Having fun is the primary objective." Eliza confirmed.

"Hm. It's true that it's always fun with you two around. Even if you could perhaps tone it down on the teasing no?" I say, hope in my voice.

""No!"" They answer at the same time.

I groan again, pouting slightly. Of course they won't tease me less. That must be their favorite pastime.

The rest of lunch passed by peacefully, accompanied by casual conversation and sometimes them feeding me. I swear they love seeing me flustered a bit too much. I can feel the gazes around us filled with smiles.

After eating and paying, we split the bill otherwise I knew they would scold me, we started to wander around in the city.

I know it's the Capital. But it's a really big city. I feel like we could walk for almost five hours and still not reach the other side. Even if we tried to go in a straight line. At least there's plenty of things to see. Various shops, cafés, we even passed through a nice park. It was even quite impressive, the instant we stepped on the dirt path all the noises coming from the city seems to disappear. Like we entered another dimension or something.

We wandered almost one hour in it with how nice it felt. For some reason I had the urge to climb onto the trees and hop from branches to branches while laughing delightedly. Both girls watched me be a flying fox with fond smiles on their lips until we reached the end of the park.

Our walk lasted the entire afternoon, the sun even started to go down slowly. It was time to start my surprise.

"I forgot, I wanted to go to the greenhouse. Let's go?" I say, turning toward them with a smile.

A little surprised, they still nodded. The way to the greenhouse wasn't really long thanks to the buses. We avoided taking them after lunch, but now it's necessary.

Beautiful. That's the only word that comes to mind when I see it. The front is adorned with a lot of different flowers, all arranged like a delicate canvas that took hours upon hours to make.

I was a little worried about all the scents I would be flooded with. But it's actually quite acceptable. There must be some kind of magic used to avoid overloading beastkin's noses.

The interior is even more gorgeous. All type of plants and flowers are displayed everywhere. I even see some Jacaranda in a corner. There's even some Middlemist's Red. And those are amongst the rarest flowers in the world. Normal flowers I mean. There's not a single magical one in this greenhouse. I think it's a nice touch, it shows that our world wasn't always full of magic.

"Look girls! There's Orchids here!" Anna exclaim from one corner of the greenhouse.

All those aren't my ultimate goal actually. I've looked up online before coming, and there's a very special location here. That's what gave me the idea of that surprise.

I just need to get the authorization from an employee. Ah here.

After hearing my reasons, the employee made a quick call to their boss and gave me the okay pretty quickly.

I join the two girls again and take their hands, my tail swishing nervously and excitedly at the same time like the traitor it is.

"Come, I heard there's a really cool area here!" I say, trying to control my voice to not let anything slip.

They glance at each other for a second before letting me drag them by the hand toward the back of the greenhouse.

Less than a minute later, we reach an open area that feels like a forest clearing. But the trees aren't normal ones. It's Cherry Blossoms still blooming. I don't know how this works. It's clearly the start of September, absolutely not the period where they are in full bloom. Magic again I guess. A damn complicated one at that.

Their reaction is exactly what I hope to see. They are looking around speechlessly, their jaw slack in wonder. That's not the full surprise though.

I let go of their hands slowly so they don't notice immediately. Then I stand in the center of the clearing and take my violin out of my Space. They are still admiring their surrounding when I produce the first note. Their heads snap to me instantly and I see their eyes widen in astonishment. I send them a smile before closing my eyes to concentrate better.

This time I don't simply copy a music I know. It's my own composition. I wrote it when they weren't looking, whenever I had time alone or even just when they were distracted enough.

The notes are soft and gentle, carrying the love I feel for them. They also carry a hidden anxiety about my worth for them. Then I start to sing. My singing isn't that great, I'm not used to that. But at least since I became a girl it's way better. I still try to compensate it with my eagerness to convey my feelings. This song is also written by me. It's made to be played with that music.

When I ring the last note and finish the last word I finally open my eyes to look at them and I freeze immediately.

They are crying.

Why? Was it that bad? Shouldn't I have done that?!

"A-are you okay?! Did I do something wrong? I knew it, I shouldn't have tried to write it myself..." I ask, anxious and concerned.

I don't even have time to say anything else that they take me in their arms, embracing me with force. I'm stunned for a brief second before I squeeze them back, uncertain. My ears and tails are reflecting my anxiousness, one is flat against my head, the other is twitching and puffing up.

"You idiot. We aren't crying because we're sad. That's the best thing anyone could have done for us. Right Eliza?" Anna said while laughing through her tears.

"Yes. Those aren't tears of sadness. It's happiness. You don't understand how happy we are right now, Jane." Eliza confirm, laughing too.

My shoulders sag in relief, I didn't even notice how stiff they were until now.

Seriously...

"You... You liked it then? I mean, my singing is probably horrendous though.." I ask, my voice quiet and full of self-depreciation.

"Of course we liked it. And no, your singing isn't horrendous. It was beautiful." Anna denied without missing a beat.

"I'm glad... I was quite nervous. And it was pretty hard to practice since you made it your lifegoal to tease me each seconds."

They both giggled before pulling a little appart. Then Eliza seized the moment to kiss me deeply for a few second, leaving me breathless. Anna instantly did the same once Eliza let go of me.

They are trying to suffocate me now...