Winter break to do list:
Get back inside
- Catch up with everyone
- Check out Mermaid’s Tale
The knot in Mistake’s stomach grew the closer she got to the dilapidated building where she’d find her friends. The building had no roof and holey curtains covered where two walls had collapsed, but the firepit in the center kept it warm enough on winter days like today.
She’d just returned to Redfell, a feat no other tiefling had accomplished in ages, and kept hidden to avoid notice for now. It’d only been a few months, but she felt like a different person. She’d gained weight and muscle. Her skin was smoother and hair shinier.
And then there were other changes. She’d fought for her life, nearly died from owlbears, faced down the captain of the school, saved a professor’s life, become
friends with
humans… Lords, she’d even started liking the fluffy beds!
It was as if Strixhaven Mistake was a different person from Redfell Mistake. Could she be both at once, or would she have to choose? What if her friends didn’t like who she’d become?
Laughter came from ahead. Shadows moved across the curtains, lit by a fiery glow. She remembered the vision she had at orientation, of stepping through the threshold and seeing people missing.
She had to face this sooner or later, and it might as well be sooner. With a deep breath, she unwrapped her tail from her ankle and stepped forward.
Winter break to do list:
Get back inside
Catch up with everyone
- Check out Mermaid’s Tale
- Pay everyone back, plus interest
- Ask about the weapons
Mistake continued her story: “So then Gary, the cook, waves his spatula at the carpet and this undulating black mass–”
“Undo-what?” Cess interrupted to ask.
“Like wiggling.” She waved her hands in front of her to mimic the movement of the chaos bolt. “Anyway, it flies through the air and splatters across the carpet, sizzling like acid. Then Griff grabs it, flames erupt from both hands, and he tears the carpet apart. The two halves turn to ash as he throws them to the ground. The F Squad is victorious.”
Some of her friends applauded her retelling, but Sekori sat with a confused look on his face. “But it was still just… a rug,” he said.
“Yes, that’s why it was so confusing,” Mistake answered. “Maybe it got tired of being stepped on?”
“And where were you during all this?” Cess asked.
“Hiding behind an overturned table, of course. Rezzy would be far more helpful against rogue furniture and you know I’ve never learned a thing from him.” She didn’t know when she decided to remove herself from these stories, but it made them far easier to tell.
“Is that what the F stands for in F Squad, then?” Indy asked. “Furniture?”
“Four First-year Friends Fighting Furniture, to be exact. It was Koss’ idea and nobody had a better one.”
They laughed, and spent the night on and off coming up with group names. For themselves, for the F Squad, for other things the F could stand for. The only skepticism was whether the events happened at all.
That’s all it took to find a compromise between the two versions of herself. A few tiny lies they’d never know about. Unless they went to Strixhaven, of course, but that would never happen.
Winter break to do list:
Pay everyone back, plus interest
- Ask about the weapons
Get hair advice from Dream
- Gala
Mistake watched Sekori watch Dream keeping score for King and Indy’s slingshot contest.
“You should really just talk to her,” Mistake said.
Sekori flinched violently enough to fall off the stool he sat on. He, in true Sekori fashion, quickly posed like he meant to do that all along. He leaned forward as if stretching and didn’t answer until his charade was complete.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said.
“Every tiefling in Redfell knows you have a crush on Dream. Including Dream.”
He retook his seat and avoided looking at Mistake. “Please, crushes are for children.”
“So is being embarrassed about how you feel.”
Sekori pretended he didn’t hear that and lapsed into silence. The contest went into another round. King was winning, but by a lower margin than usual. Indy had been practicing.
“I had a question for you,” Mistake asked after a few minutes. “Do you still work with Rezzy sometimes?”
“If he needs the extra hands, yeah. Why?”
“Has he or Joy been acting... Different? Lately?”
In their recent conversation, Joy had nearly been supportive in a way she never had in Mistake’s twenty years of life. She recited the words and phrases like an actor reciting their lines. Since then, Mistake had wondered if “Joy” might be someone else in a disguise.
“I haven’t noticed anything,” Sekori said. “Haven’t heard anyone say anything, either. Most of the rumors have been about… well.” He gestured toward Mistake. Right, the ones about the school. She decided to change the subject.
“And of course the rumors about your undying devotion toward a certain lady you’re too scared to talk to,” she said.
“I’m not too scared for anything! Besides, if she already knows there’s no need to talk to her about it.”
Mistake waited for him to recognize his own admission.
“I mean! If any of what you said is right! Which it isn’t!” He shifted his expression from panic to feigned boredom. “Don’t you have some event to get ready for?”
“Seki, if she had a problem with what she knows, she’d have said so already. She’s just waiting for you to take the first step. Maybe you should stop… dreaming…?” She grinned.
He responded to the pun with a glare and a friendly push. Neither said anything more about it, but he continued watching Dream until Mistake left to prepare for the gala.
Winter break to do list:
Pay everyone back, plus interest
- Ask about the weapons - summer break, maybe?
Get hair advice from Dream
Gala Didn’t even get to dance!
Meet with the Unseen
Convince others to apply (oh no)
Mistake dangled her feet off the wall Rezzy warned everyone to stay away from. Like many that enclosed the tiefling slums, the wall was falling apart. Yet it was the best vantage point where they didn’t risk being arrested.
So she sat and watched the sun set and the city begin to sleep. Alone, until King joined her.
“You’re heading back to the land of ferocious furniture soon, right?” he asked as he sat beside her.
“Tomorrow, yeah,” she answered. “I haven’t had to run from an angry dustpan in a while, so I’m sure I’m due for a mishap.”
Though his jaw had fully healed, his smile was still more lopsided than it used to be. “What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing in particular, just enjoying the night.” She pulled her cloak tighter - the one Joy got for her. Not even its warmth could entirely keep out the winter chill.
“You only come here when something’s bothering you,” King said, “so are you going to tell me or do we need to play twenty questions?”
She laughed, but he was right. Going back to Strixhaven meant she had to care about big things again, like conspiracies and professors trapped in books. Things she couldn’t tell her friends about and had to climb to the top of a clocktower to feel bigger than.
Beyond that, being home these last few weeks reminded her of what she had to leave behind.
“The university has few tieflings,” she said, “and nobody else knows anything about us. Most question my name or pity me for it. Some touch my horns without asking and get offended when I tell them off. They’re ‘just curious’ and I ‘should be flattered’.”
The cloud of her breath coiled around the stars as words slipped from her mouth. It was almost soothing to watch them disappear into the night, as if her worries could disappear with them.
“Ignorance is better than hatred,” she continued, “and I’m grateful for the friends I’ve made, but I look around and see no one who looks like me. I miss coming home to people who understand.”
King put an arm around her shoulder. “You’ll always have a home to come back to here.”
Unless the humans destroy it. Or the Oriq. She couldn’t let either happen. “I have to go there to make it better here,” she said.
You could come with me, she thought. Then she also thought:
and find out I’ve been lying to you.
“Let’s say you make it better here…” King interrupted her ruminations.
“Not alone I won’t.”
“Okay,
we make it better here. What will Cess do? He considers himself a master thief. Do you think he’ll stop just because he doesn’t have to steal anymore?”
After some consideration, Mistake asked: “Have I told you about these books I’m reading, about Rival?”
Comments