fearlessly | (no subject)

(no subject)

[ it's raining, but alisaie does not mind. she likes the rain. it brings to mind peaceful, private moments, times during her childhood when she would be left alone and unbothered. it reminds her of calm, and tranquility, and safety. it's also an excellent time to read a book, one of her favorite activities. the steady fall of rain beats down on the roof and against the window on which she is leaning back, comfortable on her bed, shoes off and legs tucked up beneath her.

alisaie, unsurprisingly, has been here for a few days already, having arrived early to give herself time to unpack, decompress, and adjust to the space. she'll have a roommate this year, something she is not at all excited about, but it is what it is. given her family's influence, she could have gotten a single room, but that would've made her stand out even more and so instead she has chosen to attend normally, and bring no more attention to herself than necessary. even if it means having to share her space. with any luck, she'll land herself a social, popular roommate who is never in their room unless absolutely necessary, and she won't have to worry too much about feeling cramped.

while the space looks lived in, there's still a few boxes on her desk left to unpack, her suitcase half-full and leaning against the closet, but her books already sit in her shelves, filling every possible space without spilling onto her would-be roommate's side, though fitting them all has certainly been.. a challenge. her desk, too, is piled with notebooks, binders, textbooks, alchemy supplies, mining samples.. look, she's taking a lot of classes?? like, every class. notably, too, her rapier and crystal focus lean against the wall beside her bed, well polished and sharpened, cared for, and a cup of tea sits cooling on her bedside table, atop, you guessed it, more books. it's a theme.

when you are deep into a book, however, time tends to slip away from you, and alisaie has not noticed how much time has passed until suddenly the doorknob is turning. her breath catches in surprise, and she sits up straight in bed - gods, is it already late afternoon?? she didn't leave herself any time to mentally prepare to live with a stranger!! ]

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[ To be fair, Prompta left herself plenty of time to prepare to live with a stranger — it's partly why she got here so late — and she still isn't ready, either. She isn't ready for any of this, being away from home at a school that she definitely feels underqualified to attend, but it's as exciting as it is anxiety-inducing. There's so much promise here, but so much to be afraid of, too. If she hadn't already thrown up in the bathroom on the airship ride here, she would now.

With any luck, her roommate will turn out to be the worst of her worries. If she can make a good first impression and not make a total fool out of herself, she'll consider it a grand success. It won't be that bad! It's only the person she's going to be sleeping in the same room as for the next year...

Deep breaths. She's got this.

Pushing open the door and pulling her trunk of belonging behind her, Prompta steps into the room, speaking before she even has the chance to think better of it. ]

Uh, h-hey! Sorry, I got held up at, uh, the airship landing, before...

[ But she trails off as she spots Alisaie cross the room on her bed, meeting her gaze, her brows snapping up in surprise. No...no way. It can't be...

Can it? ]

...Alisaie? Is that...you?

[ Gods, it's gonna be super awkward if it's not! ]

[ The first few months of Prompta's time at the Studium is definitely eventful, to say the least. Her coursework is far more intense and demanding then she could have ever guessed, but really, that shouldn't be surprising. She has never exactly been an overachiever as far as grades are concerned, and even if she's trying her absolute hardest here, it's...a lot. Overwhelming. There's a lot of ups and downs, times when things click and times when she is close to tears trying to learn everything she needs to, but she doesn't give up. She can't. What would she do if she flunked out? Go back to Insomnia and work in a coffee shop for the rest of her life? (heheh)

So she keeps at it, much as it might exhaust her, much as it might cut into her social life more than she'd like. She's still pretty sure, but her friends are here, too, and Alisaie is her roommate. She would much rather be spending time shooting the shit with them instead of hunched over books until her eyes glaze over every night, but she's surviving. It'll get easier eventually, right? Once she gets more focused on her field of study instead of having to take a bunch of general required courses.

Even if working with machines isn't exactly a work in the park...yeah, she may be a little in over her head.

Which is why she can't turn down the offer to be tutored by Alisaie when she gives it. Prompta doesn't know how she does it. Alisaie has like double or triple the workload, yet still finds time to tutor her, and patiently, too. She's a saint, and while normal Prompta might have tried to refuse so as to not be a burden on her friend, in this case, she can't really afford to pass her up. Gods, she feels terribly guilty about it, because she'll surely never be able to offering Alisaie something in return for her efforts, but she can at least be as model of a tutee as she can.

It's late at night in the library as the two of them sit next to each other, Prompta's nose to a worksheet about aetherial something-or-others, her forehead in her hand, as she sets her pencil down. ]

Maaaan, I gotta say, I have a respect for people who can use aether more than I ever had before...

[ Because boy, is it complicated. ]

[ No one is more surprised than Prompta when she actually scores a date with that guy from her geomancy class. It came out of the blue, when she wasn't expecting it or even trying, which is honestly probably why he decided to ask her own. Nearly tripping over herself, Prompta managed to accept the offer before running away to go scream in a bathroom stall. It's actually, really, finally happening. She's going out on a date with a cute and awesome guy!

And...because she's going out on a date with a cute and awesome guy, that means, of course, she's fretting over ever single detail in the week leading up to it. What will she wear? How should she do her hair? What should she say? What are her best jokes? What questions should she ask him? Does he like how she smells? Is her laugh too annoying? Is her posture too slouchy? And, oh gods, is that a pimple coming in on her chin?

Of course, one of her other concerns is that lacking in any and all dating experience, she has never...kissed someone before. She doesn't want to get ahead of herself and assume that he'll try to kiss her, but on the off chance that things go that well, she won't have any idea what to do! It's not as though she can just as someone how to do it right. It's the sort of thing you just have to learn with experience.

...At least, so she thinks at first. But what if there was a way to get some experience?

An idea plants itself in her head, though at first she dismisses it. No, that's just stupid, and Alisaie would never agree to it. She's got way better things to do than to help Prompta learn how to kiss, and...that's a super weird thing to ask a friend to do for you, even as close as they are. Somehow asking Alisaie seems way less embarrassing than asking Nocta or the others, but even so, she can't commit to it.

But with each passing day, the date only gets closer and closer, and Prompta's nerves only get worse. She nearly drives herself crazy with it, until she snaps. Okay, she'll just have to ask Alisaie about it. At least if she says no, then Prompta can stop hemming and hawing over it. And the worse she'll get is probably some gentle teasing anyway. Nothing to be so stressed over.

So one night after dinner, when Prompta is fresh from the shower with her hair loose around her shoulders, she sinks down onto her bed, kicking her heels against the floor for a moment before venturing at last: ]

Hey, uh...Ali?

[ Oh gods, here she goes. ]

[ alisaie isn't one for parties. she knows how to have fun, far more than one might think a rich nerdy girl would, but she prefers that fun to be with a small, tight knit group of people, not at a loud, humid party full packed with people, the music so loud that it strains her ears. but prompta had leveled her with the puppy dog eyes that alisaie cannot hope to resist, and she supposes that she ought to get that school experience of the wild party, just to be able to say that she did it and she hated it.

so far, she's kind of hating it, yes, but it could be worse. it's not her scene at all, and she does not appreciate the noise or the press of people, but prompta is having fun, and so far nothing completely terrible has happened, so.. she's not ready to run out the door, but she's also not super eager to attend a party again.

of course, it was only a matter of time before she's dragged to some sort of kissing game, like this is some stupid movie or something, but alisaie has had a few drinks by now, so she's feeling loose and comfortable enough not to flat-out refuse immediately. but she certainly reserves the right to say no and walk away if she's expected to french some gross boy she has no interest in, especially if he seems like a creep, but prompta had been more than amenable to that.

it started simply enough with spin the bottle, which was fine, she supposes, since spin the bottle kisses tend to be little more than a quick peck, or even sometimes a kiss on the cheek, and while one of the boys who had landed on her had definitely seemed a little overeager, it's been fine. alcohol has given her brazen courage. none of these kisses, however, have been at all interesting or earthshattering, not even one from a cute brunette girl with long curly hair. her bottle never lands on prompta, for which alisaie is both.. grateful and disappointed. she still remembers their kisses, of course she remembers them, she tries and fails not to remember them every day, and she's not entirely sure her heart could take that sort of teasing again.

yet here she is, hoping anyway. alas the kisses never come, and the game begins to wind down.. at least until someone suggests seven minutes in heaven and now, two more stale beers in, alisaie does not refuse. she's no chicken, okay!! their names go into a hat, and it's prompta who reaches in first..

alisaie feels her stomach drop. gods. she hadn't really thought of how she would feel watching prompta go into the closet with someone else. they've both had quite a bit to drink, what if someone tries to hurt her in there? maybe this isn't such a great idea after all.. ]

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