Arthur was three days into a routine that had already begun to feel less like an adjustment and more like simply how his life worked now, when the courtyard outside the refectory erupted into noise that had nothing to do with anything he'd yet learned to expect from Solmere.
FNN: THAT'S NOT FAIR, THE RULES CLEARLY SAY YOU CAN'T USE YOUR ABILITY DURING A REGULATION MATCH.
A boy considerably smaller than the crowd of older students gathered around him was standing atop an overturned crate, both fists raised, his voice carrying with a volume that seemed genuinely disproportionate to his size, and Arthur, arriving with Elsie and Briar in tow, stopped to take in the scene.
BRR: That's Finn.
ART: I gathered.
BRR: He skipped ahead a year. Youngest student in our cohort by a fair margin. What he lacks in size he makes up for in volume, as you can hear.
The dispute, whatever it concerned, resolved itself the way most schoolyard disputes eventually did, with an older student conceding the point simply to end the noise, and Finn hopped down from the crate with the particular triumphant energy of someone who had never once lost an argument by attrition and did not intend to start now. He spotted their small group and crossed the courtyard at a jog.
FNN: You're the lightning one!
ART: I keep hearing that.
FNN: You should. It's genuinely the most interesting thing that's happened here in months. I heard it three different ways from three different people and none of them agreed on the details, which honestly makes it better, if you ask me. Finn Jota.
He stuck out a hand with the same enthusiasm he seemed to bring to everything, and Arthur shook it, absorbing the particular force of Finn's grip with mild surprise, considerably stronger than his slight frame suggested.
FNN: Corvane. Same as Briar, actually, though we didn't know each other before this. Small world.
BRR: Smaller than you'd think. He's been talking my ear off about it for two days.
FNN: Because it's INTERESTING, Briar. Not everyone finds mineral compositions of Corvane bedrock interesting, you know. Some of us prefer conversations that don't put people to sleep.
BRR: My conversations are educational.
FNN: Your conversations are a cure for insomnia.
They bickered with the particular easy rhythm of two people who had clearly settled into this exact dynamic within days of meeting, and Elsie, watching them with open amusement, leaned toward Arthur.
ELS: I like him already.
ART: He hasn't stopped talking since he got here.
ELS: I know. It's wonderful.
They found a spot beneath one of the courtyard's wide old trees for the midday meal, and Arthur watched the group settle into its still-forming shape, Briar unpacking a small, battered notebook he apparently carried everywhere, already scribbling something related to whatever Finn had interrupted him mid-thought about, Finn talking with his mouth half full about a dozen different topics in quick, restless succession, Elsie laughing at something Arthur had missed entirely. Mira arrived last, settling at the edge of the group with the particular careful economy of someone who had clearly debated whether to join at all.
ART: There's room here, if you want it.
He said it quietly, without making a production of the offer, and Mira looked at the space beside him for a moment before sitting, her posture still slightly turned away from the group's center, angled toward the option of leaving without needing to push past anyone.
FNN: Mira! I was JUST about to ask if anyone's seen the eastern coastline near Eskandar. My cousin says the water changes color at sunset, properly changes color, not just the light, and I want to know if that's true or if he's exaggerating again.
Mira's shoulders tightened slightly at the sudden direct address, and for a moment Arthur thought she might not answer at all, but she looked up, her pale eyes flicking briefly to Finn and then away, toward some middle distance that seemed easier to hold.
MRA: It's true. Something in the current, near the reef line. My mother used to take me to watch it.
FNN: SEE. I knew he wasn't exaggerating for once. What color does it turn?
MRA: Gold, mostly. Sometimes green, if the season's right.
She said it quietly, and Arthur noticed the particular way her hands had gone still in her lap, the careful stillness of someone monitoring exactly how much of herself she'd just offered and whether it had been too much, and Finn, apparently satisfied with the answer, moved on to his next topic without lingering, which seemed, Arthur thought, to be exactly what Mira needed, someone who asked and received and did not make her presence in the conversation feel like a spotlight she hadn't consented to. Briar glanced up from his notebook.
BRR: You're from Eskandar too, then.
MRA: Yes.
BRR: Interesting. The soil composition there's supposed to be almost entirely different from Corvane's. Something about the coastal mineral deposits.
FNN: Here we go.
BRR: It IS interesting.
FNN: It's SOIL, Briar.
BRR: Soil is the foundation of everything, Finn. Show some respect.
Mira, watching the exchange, made a small sound that might, if Arthur hadn't been listening carefully, have gone entirely unnoticed, a brief, quiet huff of amusement, quickly suppressed, and Arthur found himself smiling at the sight of it, the particular quiet reward of watching someone guarded let a small piece of genuine feeling slip through despite themselves. Across the courtyard, near the fountain, Corin Ashby sat with a small cluster of similarly well-dressed students, Talon Pryce beside him as always, and Arthur, glancing over during a lull in Finn's ongoing commentary, caught Corin's gaze resting on their table for a moment before it moved deliberately elsewhere, the particular practiced disinterest of someone who wanted it clearly understood that he had noticed something and equally clearly understood that he did not care to comment on it. Talon, beside him, held the look a moment longer. There was something in his expression that Arthur couldn't quite place, not quite curiosity and not quite judgment, something closer to simple observation, the particular attention of someone cataloging information without yet deciding what to do with it, and then he too looked away, saying something to Corin that made the other boy's mouth curve into a thin, unreadable smile.
ELS: Do you think they talk about us?
Arthur glanced at her, surprised she'd noticed the same exchange.
ART: Probably.
ELS: Do you care?
ART: Not really. Should I?
ELS: No. I just wondered.
She said it lightly, her attention already returning to Finn's latest tangent, something about whether the academy's kitchens used genuine Eskandar spice or a cheaper regional substitute, and Arthur, looking back toward Corin's table one last time before the conversation pulled him elsewhere, found that the old, familiar tightness he might once have felt under that kind of distant scrutiny simply wasn't there. He was not eight years old in a scorched schoolyard anymore. He was fifteen, sitting beneath a wide old tree with people who had, in the space of a few short days, already begun to feel less like strangers and more like something worth calling his own, and whatever Corin Ashby thought of that from across the courtyard mattered, Arthur found, considerably less than the argument currently unfolding about spice authenticity directly beside him.
FNN: I'm just saying, if they're cutting corners on the spice, what ELSE are they cutting corners on?
BRR: It's a school kitchen, Finn, not a conspiracy.
FNN: That's exactly what a conspiracy would want you to think.
Mira made the small sound again, and this time she did not entirely suppress it, and Elsie's laugh rang out clear and bright across the courtyard, and Arthur, sitting in the middle of all of it, found the ordinary noise of it settling into him like something he had been waiting a long time to have.