Calandra glared at the assembled ward crystals and the blight they surrounded. The source of her misery and unearned despair, the faunaweed. She clicked her teeth, her pearly whites grinding as her lips pulled back. Perhaps if the professor stayed behind to supervise, Calandra might have played off her actions as a simple grimace.
It wasn't though.
She bared her teeth, a mouth filled with a full frontal snarl. Trembles ran down her body, ruining her perfect stance and elegant posture. She couldn't control it. Couldn't stop pulling back her lips, making her teeth stand out even more. Who was she to be behaving like an animal? Her nails clawed into milky-white palms, drawing blood as she tightened her fists.
Unladylike and certainly immature, Calandra couldn't help but indulge in her nasty habit.
Mere words couldn't convey the ire and utter disappointment that rioted inside of her. Who was he, the professor, to make her into a fool in front of her new peers? It was a joke. It was only a joke. Capital city humor, honestly. Big-breasted buffoons like Serafina are often given -and fucked and rutted in public spaces- to sate the appetite of a captive faunaweed. Her classmates were supposed to laugh and laugh. Calandra would smile politely, now firmly established as the new leader of her peers. And Serafina would, well, be fucked.
How could she have know that these backwoods dolts wouldn't share in the light jab?
Teeth glinting in the low light, Calandra averted her gaze. Despite her strength and confidence in herself, eighteen years of proving she could be something special, her eyes had the nerve to feel glossy, wet. Like she was truly, truly upset with their coordinated dismissal. The moment she walked in, it was obvious that Serafina was the freak of their class. How they avoided her and gestured to her book-barred bust. The cattalia clinging to her textbooks to hide her unsightly mounds and that tail, tipped with dandelion fluff, wagging from under her skirt.
Calandra sucked in a breath.
There was no point in crying over lost opportunities.
She was stuck with these fools for a whole year. Certainly, there would be plenty of chances to learn how to get in their good graces.
Something hot and wet ran down her cheek anyways. Calandra refused to think of it as a tear. Something must have gotten into her eye. It was the dust in the air, this out-dated and dirty classroom hadn't been aired properly. Chalkboards were for children who weren't born into a trade or guild. Wooden desks and seats were for the idiots that couldn't weave magic or have anything better to do with their spare time. Real guild-members didn't spend their time at school. They were out in the field, hunting and fighting and gaining
real
experience.
Pinching, her face went red and she sniffled.
God, this is why she couldn't deal with people her own age. They always made her feel so-
The ward barrier sizzled and Calandra snapped to attention. A sickly-pale vine pressed against the risen blue transparent field, wiping where her eyes might have been had if she stepped closer. Calandra choked, sniffling harder. She pulled on her sleeve and fixed her face, wiping the salty liquid away. How dare this thing show her pity. It didn't have eyes. It didn't have a heart. A blight it was. A miserable and shrunken thing.
But ah, her heart hurt.
In this strange place, far, far away from the capital city she loved, Calandra felt her loneliness sharply.
Her grandmother bullied her into attending. Preaching that she needed some time with other youth. Oh spare her! Her grandmother just wanted to put a Mundis in this aging academy before it closed. Some sort of grand gesture from the Mundis Clan to the other weaker guilds and clans that sent their children to attend. And what for? So her grandmother could pretend to be a saint? Calandra tried to think of anything else than her, that wicked aging fool.
Calandra's eyes found their way to the faunaweed, troublesome pest, and she found no peace there.
In its charm-etched pot, the faunaweed wiggled, swaying in a rhythm that was all sorts of infuriating.
Detention for her. Playtime for it.
As the professor showed her, she sprinkled aldine spice over her shoulders and ambled forward. The powder smelled of rancid meat and Calandra took care to not put too much on her. The spice may mask her scent from the faunaweed but she wouldn't dare risk carrying an offensive odor back to the boarding house.
And besides, she wasn't a cattalia.
The feeble-minded weed wouldn't want a thing from her anyhow.
Now into the drawn circle and beyond the protection of the ward crystals, she regarded her new charge. The faunaweed they caught was in dire straights. She never seen one look so pitiful before. Most of its vines were limb and idle, their skin bleaching into a bone-like color. The ones that were spared that horrid shade were only a hint darker, a lilac tan, if she had to be clever on the spot. Harvested of its fauna, it seemed to be dying very slowly.
The weak thing didn't even attempt to court Serafina when she was near, choosing instead to wave and wiggle as the professor prodded it.
Taking the cutting shears, she snipped and snapped the grayed leaves and cracked buds from the vines. A few vines attempted to evade her shears. Dipping and diving up and around each other like headless chicken. Three heads taller than her, the faunaweed was actually becoming a bother when she ran out of low-hanging vines.
Catching one slippery fellow, she held it down with both of her hands. Pressed against the plant's curious skin, Calandra's palm kept the shears in her grip. The faunaweed limbs were oddly skittish around the blade but they frolicked to her empty hand, rubbing up against it before they gave her the chase again.
With the one wiggling, but not trying to escape, in her grasp, Calandra had an idea. Before snipping some more, she used her hand to pet it. Slowly, her soft palm ran down the sizable length of the vine. All at once, it stiffened. Obediently staying in place. Warmth met her hand and the feel of the vine was, frankly, comforting. Like a smoothed piece of wood but much more flexible, her fingers cupped and wandered down the tensing expanse.
Touching the vine like this, her small hands dwarfed by the size and girth of its impressive length- Calandra found herself enjoying the gentle caress she gave it.
Small in stature, she found herself always having to look up at tall people. Fascinated and attracted and despairing. Being petite, she couldn't pretend that she didn't gain a complex over the years as other girls matured and shot up to great heights. And, well, she didn't. This faunaweed took the trouble of having dealing them out of the picture. It wouldn't make remarks about her size. That certainly made it appealing-
Calandra blushed. What was she thinking? This was a plant and she was cleaning it. Nothing more.
She certainly didn't trust it not to bolt once she stopped rubbing. So she brought her legs closer and guided it between them. Letting it pass through her lanky legs made her shiver, the warmth welcomed to press against her lower thighs. So big it was, making her knees fan out as she brought it closer.
Calandra expected a fight. Perhaps to be knocked backwards once she trapped the vine between her slender legs but none came. The vine dutifully stayed in place. Its snake-like tip envining around her legs to make circles in the back of her thighs. The sensation was- Calandra couldn't really find a word for it. Soothing. Simple. As the faunaweed continued to massage her knees, she found herself falling into a little rhythm. Stroke. Snip. Sigh. She went to work, cleaning the vine of its dead things and found her work growing slower and slower. It was the vine, the heat it emanated increasing to cozy fire-place levels.
Distracted, she hardly noticed that her sighs were growing longer. Less filled with the dread of busy work and more content. And the moment she realized that, Calandra couldn't stop the next sigh, a extremely inappropriate not-sigh, from leaving her mouth.
A stuttering half-moan escaped her lips and her eyes fell shut as she squeezed her legs harder. Spirits, why did it feel so-
The shears fell from her hand, hitting the floor with a solemn thump. Instinctively, Calandra went to pick them up. Awkwardly bending over as she was of the mind to not let the vine go. And the vine went further and further up. It hit the seat of her blue cotton panties, brushing up against her lower lips and sparked another stutter.
Calandra fell forward, her body braced on the vine. The intoxicating heat was everywhere. It swept into her clothes like she was nude, her body alight in warmth and comfort. It felt so, so good. Calandra rubbed her face into it, delighted that there was something holding and cradling her. She hated when tall people did it. Tricked herself that she didn't wanted to babied or thought of as weak but no- Being held like this was great. Wonderful. Calandra could fall asleep here, perfect like this.
Her eyes closed, cheek squishing against the vine's ever-loving embrace.
No.
No!
What if someone came in and
saw
her? Legs spread over the faunaweed.
She couldn't recover from that scandal!