Alitia: Hellfire and Blizzard

XVII: In the Still of the Night

The feeling never faded. 

A week and a half had passed since the failed attempt to retake Sierra. In that time, the break for the Millennium Six schools had started, and many students had taken the chance to go back home for their scheduled vacation. The schools weren't in a great place, but very few students could stand to stick around and just wait for the next attack. There was no good solution to the problem at hand; the headmasters couldn't forced the students to stick around and defend the schools from attack, but no one felt like leaving was a good idea either. They were trapped in limbo, always waiting for Brynn's next move even though it felt like it was never going to come. 

That was perhaps the worst part of it all. Everyone was waiting for Brynn to finally step out of line and reveal what she had been planning all this time, but she wouldn't do anything. She remained eerily silent, not even stepping foot out of Sierra or Acadia to see what she could do to take the other schools from her enemies. Everyone had been waiting with bated breath for Brynn to make her next move, but after ten days of nothing, their paranoia was too much to bear. No one could bring themselves to fear her for any longer than they already had. It was too exhausting to stand, and even though dropping their guard was undoubtedly going to lead to disaster, it was the only thing any of them could think to do. 

Cerise hated the suspense of not knowing what was going to come next. She had thought she had learned patience over the course of her time as a member of the Alight Five, but it didn't amount too much when Brynn was constantly just a stone's throw away. Helena had been in touch with Aithne and the other fighters on Etruna to make sure everything was progressing smoothly there, and apparently, it was. The rebellion was starting to work together with the army in full, and while no one had been attacked yet, they all knew there was something brewing soon, and they had to be ready for it whether they felt prepared or not. 

Cerise wished she knew what to do about it. She had thought she would be able to handle something like this, but when push came to shove, all she could really do was sit there with her dread and hope it faded as soon as possible. Unfortunately for her, it never quite did. Cerise had taken to staying the night at Alitia more often than not, something Ann and Nebula had followed her lead on. No one wanted to leave their friends for any longer than a few minutes. They felt safer if they were on the same campus. Alitia had come to be the most popular time to hang out, and Cerise wondered if that was instinct from the war against Iago talking. Apparently, Alitia had been the place everyone stayed during that major battle too. There were students at other schools too, of course, but when the final fight rolled around, everyone was crammed into the one school waiting for the end to arrive. 

Cerise wanted something to happen to finally draw all of this to a close. She knew the reason nothing had happened, but that didn't stop her from getting increasingly agitated and angry with the situation. She wanted Brynn to finally commit to doing something instead of just letting the paranoia of it all eat everyone alive. Brynn was a coward for not taking to the battlefield, though Cerise bitterly supposed this was better than the alternative. If Brynn wasn't attacking them, then that meant everyone was safer than they would have been otherwise. That didn't change the fact that she was going to launch an attack sooner or later, but it was something. 

Cerise had taken to walking around the campus of Alitia late at night whenever her thoughts grew to be too loud for her to bear. That was happening more and more lately, and she hated it. There had to be something for her to do to make all of this easier to swallow, but she couldn't figure out what it was. No matter how many times she tried to get her thoughts out just through walking around or finding some way to talk about it, nothing ever seemed to help. She was as trapped now as she had been when she and the rest of her friends were being forced to travel the entire universe to outrun the armies of Fortunia. The Church of Starlight was even still chasing them down from that incident. So little had changed, and yet, it felt like everything had changed too.