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She can remember the exact hallways to take. Vertin eyes the doors, recalling memories of classes inside the once-imposing wood, her hours in them cut short by leaving through hidden exits she knew like the back of her hand, or outsmarting her instructors and classmates through little tricks. She can name the rooms to which class; the one with the scratch next to the doorknob was where she took her mathematics, the one nearest to the sports field exit was for literature, and the one that had a corkboard posted beside it was for potions classes. She can perfectly remember the room that leads to the arcane history class and the massive hourglass set beside the door. Her feet take her away from lingering to stare, but phantom lurching aches across the sinew of her legs, from the muscle memory of countless timeouts balancing atop the hourglass.
They... change the student's schedule every few years, Vertin thinks. She can hear the murmurs of instructors and students behind certain doors, and in the ones utterly silent, she can assume that the classes were the ones she had seen across the sports field earlier, in the midst of their physical education subject.
Her footsteps tap imperceptibly on the checked tiles. A student passes by her, the side of his cheek stained odd neon pink. He completely ignores her, rushing off in the direction of the bathrooms.
The student disappears at the turn of the corner, and once again, Vertin is alone in the hallway.
No matter, she keeps moving.
There is no one to come across during school hours. If Vertin truly wanted to be unseen, she still had the map of SPDM's shortcuts and best places to hide inside her mind. Though, she wonders if she could still fit inside the small nooks and crannies behind school furniture that she once used to hide from being caught. For example, there was a small marble pillar with the bust of one of SPDM's founders meets her at the corner turn. Staying behind it had hid her from anyone looking back then, but now, even if she crouched down and curled up as tight as she could, the top of her head would still be seen peeking out behind the bust's figure.
Looks like she can't hide there anymore.
To anyone who recognizes the Timekeeper walking through the halls of her alma mater, there would likely be one question in their minds.
What was she doing here?
Vertin doesn't quite know how to answer that. The next meeting of the SPDM teaching committee dedicated to some of the arcanists of her team won't start until two hours, and after waiting all this time in the teacher's lounge (Despite her now-position as the Timekeeper and being out of this place for the past four years, there was still a lingering sense of dread that settled on the base of her spine in the simple action of waiting there— for her, those scant few years ago, the sight of the lounge meant nothing good for her— she always had been called here for all sorts of trouble.) had made her... bored.
In a fit of wanderlust, maybe a nostalgia for a place she's lived in for basically every day of her life, Vertin had left the moment the receptionist of the teacher's lounge had turned away her head.
And where will she go, you may ask?
Vertin will remain her stand; she has no definitive decision. She leads to where her subconscious leads her. Back then, walking these halls during class hours has labeled her things; truant, troublemaker. Now, she walks as Timekeeper. Was she still the same thing?
She gazes out of the windows. She looks down.
Hmph, she lets herself smile. They never fixed the locks after all this time.
A younger Vertin would have easily leaped out of the opened window and roamed into the woods. Vertin of today does the same motions. To the outside looking in, the comparison between the two was that Vertin had diverged little, her now long and lanky limbs still able to fit through and jump down with the grace of a gymnast. Her feet land on the outside of SPDM's walls, and she makes sure to pat away the dust and dirt that stains her coat, then the same as before, continues to sate her wanderings.
There is a part of the grounds where the grass is neatly trimmed, devoid of foliage, littered with the rare stray small boulder, but once you walked far enough, closer to the treeline, there was where the school gardeners and groundkeepers ultimately stopped their upkeep. Vertin pries apart a bush, walking further into the forest. She remembers picking off blackberries from the brambles in the height of summer, she remembers the light scolding Tooth Fairy gave her as she cleans the deeper scratches the thorns leave on her skin from trying to get the berries hidden deep in the bushes. The Ring was mildly allergic to the blackberries, but despite that, he still found a way to take advantage of it, keeping a pocketful of them to eat so he could send himself to the clinic to hang out with her. Tooth Fairy had always let out a bone-deep sigh whenever he walked into the clinic covered in rashes, with the exasperation of a woman never able to stop him from doing it over and over. Sometimes, Isabella stole his blackberries in fits of cheekiness— in opposition to him, she adored blackberries.
But it was several weeks into autumn now, so there were no more of the berries. A shame.
Vertin outstretches her hand to brush her fingers through the foliage. She raps her knuckles against the gnarled bark of the oaks.
She won't go looking for George the Oak, she knew that she was on the opposite side of the school to find it anywhere here.
Besides, she thinks, as she catches sight of a pair of carbuncles rolling away, startled at the sight of an intruder, she... doesn't think she can face George the Oak. For all her reminiscing; to see the tree towering over her, to stare into that little hollow she and every one of her friends used to spend evenings hidden into, it would bring back all of her deep-set nostalgia, and—
and the guilt.
They all should be here. If Vertin listened, if she were not a rebel, if she was never that curious of the outside world... they should have been still alive. They would have graduated, not at this age, no (the Foundation sped up her education to be out in the field as fast as they could), but they would have walked up the podium, shaken hands with the principal, passed all those years of learning (maybe not with flying colors) and went out to work as members of the Foundation.
Isabella had mentioned she'd follow after either of them. The Ring liked the sound of being a field investigator— going out into the world enticed him, and in all honestly, Vertin had thought the same.
Perhaps she would have still been the Timekeeper. At least— at least if they did not go out on the Storm, her friends would have worked with her. Became members of her department, joined hands, and braved missions together. They could have discovered together that the suitcase shelter arcanists from the Storm. They could have met the people she keeps under the shelter of the suitcase; Regulus, Druvis, Sonetto, and so many others.
So many what-ifs.
And before she knows it, she has walked away from the forest. Vertin looks upwards, to the open sky not shrouded by the treetops, bright and blue.
The sky that night in the Storm was dark and dreary. Vertin remembers hues of blue amongst the upset of gray.
Or maybe she had thought of blue skies awaiting them once the Storm was over. Who knew. She... can't remember much of it anymore, outside of the sight of everyone running freely into the unknown, and the mishappened shapes that the Storm reduced them all to. Madam Z was... there, she remembers the umbrella that hid her from the rain.
She steps over something. It crunches softly as her shoe presses it into the grass, and once she raises her foot, on the verdant green she sees a rust-colored circle. Leaning down, she picks it up.
It must have been shiny back then. It was an old metal band, maybe an odd arm band, or a circlet for a small child. That was an odd thought. Vertin turns it over her hand, her thumbs staining with rust. The Ring wore...
Vertin frowns. Surely not.
Yet despite the grime of abandonment and the thick rust coating her fingers, Vertin pockets it. She'll clean the stain off her coat pockets later. She creases her brows and checks her watch. The meeting was still an hour off. Vertin won't be early, but still, she'll be punctual. Surely, there was a way back inside close by?
She turns in the direction of SPDM. Here she realizes that something tall towers over her, shadowing her entire form. She realizes that she's walked far enough to stand in the shadow of the school's watchtowers, tall and imposing and—
the exact same one they exited all those years ago.
Her eyes widen.
Vertin takes a step back, and another, and another. A little frantic, she takes stock of the area. She remembers this one, closest to the sports field. She snaps her neck to the sight of the doorway of the watchtower, but here, metal gates meet her, instead of a simple, quaint wooden door.
Vertin shoves a hand into her pockets and takes out the metal band. The rings... the rings he used had nothing that showed his name, but when it came to ownership...
She feels around the band. Rough rust scraped the pad of her fingers, but surely enough, there were two grooves on the inside of the ring.
It slips away from her hands. Vertin dives after it; her heart, always calm and collected, starting to ramp up in pace. She catches the band before it hits the grass, and she lands on a knee, cradling the item with a gentleness like it was something precious and deeply cherished.
Because, because it was.
But why? Did the Foundation not care to collect what was left of her friends?
Vertin looks out into the fields. She stands, upwards, slipping the rusted bangle into her wrist. With a certain desperation— of a girl chasing after the ashes of the dead— she stumbles into the grass, hands parting the collected blades, eyes darting over— here, there, left, right, up, down, she combs through every square inch of the field.
She loses track of time. Her slacks have become thoroughly grass-stained, and her hands are covered in dirt, grit caking under her fingernails. Sweat drips down her brow, and her cheeks are flushed pink by the heat. She looks like a farmer who had toiled away in the sun, if a farmer was a girl in a suit kneeling all over each square inch of soil, searching for bangles and children's medals instead of weeds.
In her left wrist, is The Ring's metal bangle, a line of orange rust stark against the dark fabric of her cuffs. A scrunchie is next to it, and if not for how dirty it was, you would see a familiar checkered pattern of the old hair tie. Her pockets are lined with other sorts of items— the bronzed medals of the SPDM's school uniform, several of them, worn and weathered keepsakes, once belonging to children under the care of the shadow of the school that loomed over Vertin.
She's collected all of them.
They are with her, now. Vertin doesn't know if she should let the caustic burn in her chest rise, from the fact that the Foundation left all their remains to lie out here, four years left behind to be claimed by the elements; or if she should extinguish and swallow it down, thank a concept like a higher being or luck that after all these years, she gets to keep a part of them she thought was swept away by the Storm.hese years, she got to keep a part of them that she thought was swept away by the Storm.
She doesn't move from her place, god knows how long. Something like apathy turns her legs into lead. Meeting with the SPDM committee to discuss the education of the younger arcanists? That was miles away from the forefront of her mind.
Vertin loses track of time. What was time? Why should she see the SPDM? Did she want to look them all in the eye when the weight of her friends was in her pockets and around her wrists?
Yet, yet. She could not fail the people in the suitcase. She had failed her classmates and her friends already, she would not fail the residents of the suitcase this time, from the Storm and from others. She can't lose anyone again.
So, Vertin looks to the direction of SPDM and makes her way back.