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“You’re staring again,” muttered Hawthorne at Morrigan’s shoulder.
She whirled around, “At what?”
“Uh, Cadence. You’ve been staring at Cadence all day. I’m surprised she hasn’t got a restraining order on you yet.”
“Have I? Huh. Didn’t realise. Why are you giving me that look?” She frowned at him, but he did his best to look innocent. He wasn’t very good at pretending to be innocent though. Shame, it would help him avoid at least some of the trouble he got himself and Morrigan into. “I’m not giving you a look, why do you think I’m giving you a look?”
“Because you have your Look on.” He did. It was when he scrunched up his eyebrows and did a weird thing with his mouth where his upper lip was curled in and the lower one was curled out.
“I don’t have a look! Wait. Stop changing the subject, that's not what this is about.” Damnit. That very nearly worked.
“It’s not?” Morrigan started shovelling her soup into her mouth and the conversation ended.”
What was he talking about with Cadence anyway? She looked at her the normal amount! For a friend! Because they were friends! Was Hawthorne jealous? Maybe she needed to have spent more time with him lately. He might have been feeling left out and that’s why he decided she’d been looking at Cadence an apparently abnormal amount of times.
“Mog, Moggie, Moggest.” Jupiter rubbed his hands together anxiously. “How about we go and have a chat in my office.”
“Is this about Wundersmith stuff?” She asked hopefully.
“Ah, no. This is something else. But it’s private so we can’t do it here. In the lobby.” Morrigan felt the eyes of the Deucalion burn her. “Soooo, chop chop let’s go.”
He hopped and skipped up the walls his way there. Morrigan was no Witness but he seemed more tense than usual. When they got to his office, he sat her right down and started pouring cups of tea.
“So. Morrigan. You’re growing up.”
“That’s how it generally works, I think.”
“Yes.” He clasped his hands in front of him. “And when you start to grow up, … some… things change for you.”
“Martha explained periods to me three years ago.” That had been an awful and horrible conversation but she’d braved through it. This seemed as if it was going to be equally terrible, if not worse. She mildly wondered if starting a fire would get her out of it and looked around to see anything flammable but not valuable in Jupiter’s study, and came up empty. That was disappointing. She’d just have to endure then.
“No, not that bit. Nothing physical. More… mental, really.”
“Huh?”
“Crushes. You have a crush.”
“What’s a crush?”
“What’s a- Divine Thing I’ve failed you as a guardian. Urgh, this is going to be a while. More tea?”
“So a crush is when you like someone romantically. As in, wanting to date them.” Morrigan didn’t understand why he felt the need to tell her this now , at this particular moment in time. It was weird. All of this was so weird.
“Yes.”
“And you think I have one?”
“Yes.”
“On whom?”
Jupiter gave her a look that almost made her burst out laughing, it was so morose. “You really don’t know?”
“No,” she shrugged.
“You haven’t spent a lot of time staring at someone? Anyone in particular? No one you think about a lot?” His eyes narrowed.
She pursed her lips. “No, don’t think so.”
He looked like someone had slapped him with a wet cheese. “Right. Well. Come talk to me anytime but I think this is something you should figure out yourself.”
“Okay. I’m going to go now.” She said slowly and left without giving him a chance to respond. She was so confused.
“Morningtide’s child is merry and mild, Eveningtide’s child is wicked and wild.” She began to sing, summoning wunder to her fingers.
“Hello, Miss Crow,” hummed Squall.
She jumped slightly but did her best to hide it. “You know it’s not polite to sneak up on people like that.”
He ignored her. “You’ve come on, I suppose, in your classes-”
“Thank you?”
“-Particularly in Weaving, recently. But you’re distracted. You cannot afford distractions.”
“I’m not distracted,” she protested.
“You keep zoning out. It’s quite irritating, you know. I don’t care to know what it is, just resolve it so we can continue classes normally.”
He disappeared and Morrigan deflated like a sad balloon. “This again?”
“You like Cadence.” Thaddea said when she explained the problem to her. Everyone else had danced around the subject or said stuff she didn’t understand but she trusted her to tell her what the issue was.
“Of course, I like Cadence, she’s my friend!”
Thaddea was excellent at withering looks. “That’s not what I mean and you know it. Have you ever thought about kissing her?”
“Yes? Hasn’t everyone? She’s so pretty and- oh.”
“Oh My Divine Thing. I think you might be stupid.”
She was still focused on the Cadence thing so she didn’t bother getting offended about that. Morrigan turned to Thaddea, suddenly desperate. “What do I do about it?”
“Well,” she considered. “You could always tell her or just sit around and wait for it to go away.”
How had she been so stupid. Jupiter and Hawthorne should’ve been enough for her to put two and two together. She wanted to kiss Cadence and she didn’t even realise? How?”
“I’m going to just… let you process this alone.” Thaddea patted her shoulder twice and left her by herself. Unfortunately Thaddea was incapable of patting at a normal strength and she was likely going to have bruises tomorrow.
“Oh, no. This is so bad. I like her. I like Cadence Blackburn.” Saying it out loud made it easier. It made it real. Something she was sure of. Finally, she knew what had been distracting her.
It was a pretty good distraction though.
“Sorry, what did you just say?” Cadence came through the doorway, “I thought I heard you say my name?”
Morrigan cursed. Thaddea was right. She was definitely stupid.