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Sunlight penetrates the room and onto the redhead’s eye, waking her from slumber, she lifts her body from the bunk bed to see her roommates getting ready for the morning classes.
“Ughhh”
The bed pulls her body back into the sheets, her arm falls on her eyes blocking the light. The bed won, she was trapped, and there was nothing that could be done.
Constanze automatically reaches inside a drawer, pulling an airhorn from the pile of random components.
“OK, OK, I’M UP, I'm up” Amanda shots from the bed
Constanze places the unfired horn back into the “nuclear option” drawer.
“What class do we have now again?”
Constanze annoyedly pouts, pointing to the spreadsheet glued to the wall
“Right, we have that, hey if they want me to remember the days we don't have Nelson they should make their classes not boring”
“Come on Amanda, if you get detention today you can't go to our picnic” Jasminka enthusiastically reminds the sleepy girl, throwing her uniform on the top of the bunk bed.
“Fiiiiine”
First class of the day, with sleepiness still swimming in her mind, there is no way Amanda is listening to anything Badcock has to say. Her green eyes travel around the room to avoid closing completely, she gazes through the window wishing she could at least enjoy the morning sun.
As she scans the boring walls of Luna Nova, she notices something strange. A few rows beneath her, Diana Cavendish folds a small piece of paper and flicks it off the table.
“Huh, never thought I'd see Diana littering, guess I did learn something in class today”
As she finishes that thought, she realizes where the paper went, being written on Akko’s table before being flung back to Diana who then opens to read the contents.
“Ohh... I see” The redhead relishes, finally something to break her boredom.
Without wasting time, she rips a page of a notebook, making her own note, and throws it to Diana, hitting her head before landing on the table.
Amanda could barely contain her celebration of that sick three pointer.
The blonde looks back with the corner of her icy sharp eyes to see the big grin in the perpetrator.
The paper reads, “Medieval sexting in class is craaaazy, get a mailbox you pervs”
Amanda expected Diana to just throw away the note, not give her the satisfaction of reading, but she could see a universe where she opens and reads it out of curiosity or some weird form of Diana being “polite”.
What shook Amanda to her very core was not only seeing Diana write something and toss it back, but reading “Haha, nice joke :)" on that paper.
The now frightened girl spent the rest of the class looking blankly at that piece of paper, at that cursed smiley face.
It would make total sense were not for that smile, Diana could totally be petty enough to send the note back just to show her disdain with a sarcastic “Haha, nice joke” with an implied “idiot” at the end.
“But why the hell did she draw a smiley face?” The redhead kept wondering.
She could just ask her at the end of class, but she was not getting close to the demon that possibly possessed Diana that day.
After class the team went to get breakfast, they sat at a larger table expecting Red team to accompany them.
Amanda played with her scrambled eggs, still thinking about that damn smiley face. As she wonders if there are any other shared classes with Diana, something strikes her mind.
“Oh shit, is today when we have two classes with Finnelan back-to-back?”
Constanze gives a thumbs up, nodding her head apologetically.
“Ughhhhh, c’mooon” The redhead leans back on her chair in frustration, facing the roof.
She opens her eyes to see Diana holding a tray behind her, almost falling off the chair. She snaps back to turn around properly and be sure she's not seeing ghosts.
“Diana?!”
“Good morning, Green team, may I sit along with you three?”
Amanda takes a moment to form an answer, mostly because she was looking around to see if all other tables caught on fire, but before she could say anything.
“Of course!” Jasminka exclaims enthusiastically
“Thank you” Diana lets out a breath as she takes seat beside Amanda
A silence fills the table as they all continue to eat, all except for the stunned redhead, unsure what to do in that situation.
It's not like Amanda hates Diana, after all they stopped a missile together, can’t really go back to how things were, right? But they didn’t become friends, and even though Akko became more than friends with the highness, that doesn’t really change anything, because why would they be friends? What would they even talk about?
“Man, this sucks”, the redhead focuses back to her eggs, she doesn't want to kick her out but it’s too awkward to just keep conversating like she's not even there either.
“So...”, Diana breaks the silence, “Have you guys been doing anything fun lately?”
“What” Amanda thinks out loud.
“I meant like... any extracurricular hobbies?”
“Uhh... Why you ask?”
“Well... I am just...”
“Hey guys!” Akko greets along with Sucy and Lotte, “How you all doing?”
Amanda takes the opportunity to leave that awkward moment, “Hey, I'm chill, but you seem pumped, whats up?”
“Oh you have no idea!” Akko exclaims while plopping on the chair by Diana’s side.
“We just heard Finnelan is sick and can’t teach today” Lotte explains
“Oh, fuck yeah!”, the redhead screams, already preparing a zinger for when the highness calls for language.
But there was nothing? Diana really just let her say “fuck” in the middle of the cafeteria? There was definitely something wrong, and there was no way Amanda wouldn't snoop around to find out.
“Hm, that could be a good time to finish Professor Lukić’s project” Diana turns to Akko.
“Ok, that's something Diana would say, but let me try something”, Amanda intervenes, “Hey why don’t we do something fun? Let's sneak in Nelson’s class and grab some brooms!”
Normally Diana would be against that, not only is it an irresponsible use of time, but it’s also dangerous to steal brooms and use them to fly around without the staff knowing.
“Yeah! We could just fly around and talk, that’d be fun... right Diana?” Akko turns to Diana, who looks visibly pissed off.
“Sure.” she spits out, “Let's do that”
“We could have our picnic earlier!” Lotte exclaimed, trying to steer the group away from trouble as usual.
“Oh yeah almost forgot that. Sorry Amanda, let’s do that another time”
“Oh c’mon! We’re gonna have plenty of time, unless you’re afraid of losing against me again, are you Akko?”
“Shut up! You know I still have trouble keeping speed! If I get a little better, I'm gonna make you eat my dust!”
“Maybe in your dreams buddy”
“I can race you”
All heads snapped to Diana.
“I can race you, if you want”
“You really don't have to indulge her Diana” Jasminka intervenes worryingly.
“Nuh huh!” Amanda raises a finger to her, “No take-backsies now, It’s on!”
They walk out of the main building, each with some of the preparations in hands, heading to a grass field near the academy. Amanda and Akko lead the way, bickering of who would win the race, Lotte and Jasminka discussing the layout right behind them, with Sucy and Constanze taunting each other about the game they will play, while Diana follows further back.
With the blanket spread out, each take a seat around the basket of food as they take portions out of it.
“Do we have tea? Diana doesn't like soda”
“Sorry, but I think we might have some juice” Jasminka says apologetically.
“It’s fine Akko, I'll just-”
“She’ll just try some soda like the cool kids, right Diana?” Amanda extends a soda can to the blonde, wearing a shit eating grin.
Diana looks to her with pleading eyes, she turns to Akko who shakes her head and whispers “You don't have to do this”
The highness accepts the can, taking a small sip, with crunching eyes.
Her face contorts with the gas assaulting her mouth and not stopping on the way down.
“T-thank you, Amanda”
“No probs!”
Akko quickly takes the can away from Diana.
The redhead lies down on the grass, with only her head on the blanket, occasionally taking some chips as Jasminka offers.
She has finally pieced the mystery together. The reason Diana is acting strange is in fact a demon who possessed her, but not any demon, the demon called love. It’s clear Akko wanted her to be part of the group, and of course Diana wouldn't say no to those puppy eyes, so that's why she's being super nice and interested, why she didn’t chastise when they borrowed those brooms without permission, and of course why she is putting up with Amanda's bullshit, she's a simp!
Amanda doesn't have a problem with that, but there’s no way she's not taking the opportunity to mess with her.
The redhead shoots up from the ground, pointing to the aforementioned girl.
“Alright Diana, lets race!”
“But we just sat down” She protested.
“Well, if you wanna throw up all your food trying to keep up with me, it's your problem” Amanda retorts with her nose up.
With a sigh, Diana agrees, they walk a good distance from the picnic to mark the start of the track.
“To the moon tower and back?” Diana takes her wand, preparing a spell to create the finish line.
“Gotta go around it though” Amanda takes her own wand, completing the spell and the finish line along it.
“Needless say”
With the finished line ready to count the winner behind them, they sit on each broom.
“Tia Freyre!” The witches cast in union.
Akko walks in a few meters in front of them, holding her hat while standing between their trajectories.
“All right, I wanna see a fair race out there, ok? No touching each other, no spells, you hear me, Amanda?”
“You really don't trust my integrity as an athlete?” She bashes her eyelashes, with a hand on her chest.
Akko then raises her hat to the sky, “Three! Two! One! Go!”
With the hat going down, they shoot forward, gaining speed by the millisecond.
Amanda takes the lead, already feeling confident the victory was in the bag.
She peeps her adversary a few times to measure the gap, which kept widening as the race continued, but about halfway to the tower she notices the gap did not grow in only one axis. Diana wasn’t lacking speed, she was flying with an angle.
“She is widening the curve! That way she sacrifices the lead now to not lose speed going around the tower! Should've expected something like that from her”
The redhead keeps her direct path to the tower.
“Don’t worry Diana, I still got a trick up my sleeve!”
With the tower fast approaching, Amanda begins to turn her broom, pulling the front towards her and the back to the direction she's heading in a maneuver that can be called the equivalent of “drifting” on a broom.
Diana quickly catches to her as they exit the curve at almost the same speed.
Before Amanda could celebrate her successful trick, Diana burst forward like a bullet.
“I knew it! You were saving up for the final stretch! No tricks, no bullshit, just the fundamentals done to perfection. That's Diana Cavendish for ya!”
The blonde’s lead grows.
“Got give to ya Cavendish, didn’t think racing you would be so exhilarating! You are a pretty good flyer... But I'm not giving up!”
Amanda puts all her strength on this sprint, hoping to get the lead just before the finish line.
Their gap begins to shorten as they approach the end, Amanda keeps pumping her offensive, getting close.
Close enough to see.
Diana peeping the redhead with the corner of her eye.
Suddenly, the small gap disappeared. Before Amanda could react to the overtake, she had already won the race.
“She... slowed down?”
As soon as Amanda managed to stop her broom, she stomped towards her adversary.
“Hey! What was-”
Before she could finish Akko jumped between them, “Wow! What a race! You guys are amazing! I was at the edge of my seat the whole time!”
“I don't know about that-”
Amanda was interrupted again for what she could only guess was Diana pathetically attempting to playfully punch her in the shoulder.
“Nice flying out there... sport”
Amanda stares blankly at the blonde.
An awkward silence fills the space.
She looks over to Akko, who’s staring at nothing with her cheeks puffed.
“Let me return the brooms for you” Diana breaks the silence, leaving as soon as she took the broom from the redhead’s hand.
“Akko, what the hell is going on?”
The brunette, with tears in her eyes, almost exploding could only muster, “Sorry man, can’t tell, gotta go” before running away, shortly after, something between a scream and a laugh could be heard in the distance.
Eventually they were all back to the picnic, Amanda grabbed a sandwich and sat quietly to eat.
“So, who won?” Sucy asked without breaking her concentration on the game.
“Me of course” The redhead responded, still with food in her mouth.
“Really? Dammit” She quickly passes a few bucks to Constanze, “Thought you would be acting cockier after beating Diana”
“Well,” she side-eyes the blonde, “Guess it was too easy”
Amanda was pissed off, how dare Diana treat her like a child, as if Amanda was so immature that losing would hurt too much of her ego to be friends with someone.
But that's not what hurts, Amanda is used to people thinking less of her, she doesn’t care, what really hurts is the fact she genuinely got interested in that aristrocrat.
Not because of all the pandering, like pretending to like her jokes or letting her break rules. During that race Amanda didn’t see a stuck-up teacher pet, she didn’t see the heir of a powerful family of witches, neither was she seeing the girlfriend of one of her best friends.
At that race Amanda saw someone she’d like to be friends with.
The picnic went on, they talked about many things, Diana was especially talkative, asking many questions about the food to Jasminka, who was happy to answer, she also tried to talk to Constanze, but the engineer was too busy gaming. All in all, they had fun, Amanda was not gonna let that ruin her mood either, she guessed at some point Diana would give up, or Akko would let her off the hook, and although awkward, the blonde wasn’t unbearable.
As the school bell rang, the group packed up and bid farewell to each other, after all they still had classes to go, Amanda for example had classes the others weren't signer up for, so she headed out alone after helping Jasminka and Constanze take their things back.
For once the redhead was paying attention to class, not much interested in the subject, but to keep her mind occupied, after all she wasn’t one to ruminate about these things.
Noon was becoming night, turns out the last few classes were much more bearable when you don't have a Finnelan sucking your life force in the morning.
Amanda was leaving her last class, she even managed to learn a thing or two there, after all she didn’t struggle with most subjects, just not interested most of the time.
As the redhead walked through the hallways of Luna Nova, she was stopped by an icy voice she had forgotten of.
“O’Neill”
Amanda turned around to see the source, Diana stood there, her eyes sharp, making the unforgettably scary expression she was known for.
“May we speak in privacy?”
“What? Wanna know what shampoo I use?”
“No. I must come clean to you”
The redhead could feel some sincerity in that, she decided to give a chance, at the very least she could tease the blonde further.
Diana brought her to Blue team’s room, it had way more space than most dormitories of the academy, Hannah and Barbara were not to be found, it was a private talk after all.
The blonde offered a seat on a round small table, she then poured some tea for Amanda before taking a seat herself.
“Alright Diana, I already know what's going on”
“You do?” Her eyebrows rose.
“Yeah, you’re doing this to make Akko happy, she asked you to, and you can't say no to her”
“I am not doing this for her, although her satisfaction is very nice, I am doing this because I want to”
“I don't buy it, why would perfect little Cavendish want to hang out with the cool troublemakers”
“Perhaps if you were not so-“
“Sure, she’s kissing one, but she can't be falling off that hard”
Diana places her cup as angrily as an aristocrat can.
“I made a mistake”
“Giving up already?”
“No.”
Amanda felt the air in the room change, she decided to let the blonde speak.
“I was wrong before, when I met Akko, I thought she was lazy, disrespectful, ignorant, childish. I was wrong... Mostly”
That managed to take a chuckle out of the redhead.
“It was easy, to just believe it was her fault, that if she just put the effort and acted right, she could be just as good as me, and everything was the consequences of not following the line”
Her blue eyes looked down, her finger running on the circular figure of the cup, she continued.
“She was failed, by her mentor, by her teachers, by her colleagues, by me”
“H-hey...”
“I know.” Diana interrupted, “Fortunately, I changed, learned the truth, I could see Akko for who she really was, the way you and the rest of her friends always saw I suppose”
“Where are you going with this?”
“My apologies” She takes a deep breath, “My point is, I was too hasty to judge Akko, and I believe to have done the same with you”
“I mean, no one stole my magic, I can do it just fine thank you very much”
The redhead retorts as she smugly sips her tea
“Of course not, you are excellent”
And there it goes all the tea
“With the broom at least” Diana slides a headkerchief to Amanda.
“Holy shit!”, she cleans her mouth with her sleeve, “Akko got you in a hell of a leash to make you compliment me!”
The blonde sighs, “Are you really that dense? I am trying to-”
“Nah I get it”
Diana was surprised, instead of an annoying smug. She found a warm smile, a soft expression she had never seen from the delinquent.
“I believe you” Amanda continues, with the moment not ruined by her zinger, “Can’t say I've never thought of her like that either, but yeah, I didn’t care about doing well in school so I couldn't care less of how good at magic she was”
A smile could be noticed on the blonde.
“I have noticed the Green team to be all unorthodox students, it’s no wonder you welcomed her so fast”
“Save the fancy words, just call us weird”
“That wouldn't be fair, you are all talented in your own ways”
“Heh, thanks, I appreciate that”
It was strange to see Diana being so nice, actually nice this time, actually Diana.
“It is why I want to become acquainted to them, and to you”, her smile fades a bit, “I do realize my performance has been rather poor”
“Well, yeah you were being a weirdo”
Diana is taken back by the sudden sincerity.
“Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the effort” the redhead elaborates, “But if you wanna get to know us, and especially if you wanna get to me, it's only fair that I get to know you”
“I guess that is fair” The blonde’s face is mixed with confusion and happiness.
“Aaand I want a rematch”
“Of course, but with no stolen brooms this time”
“How is it stolen if we gave it back?”
“I will spare you this infraction, but we are not doing that again”
“Do you say that to Akko every time y’all sneak out to kiss?”
“You are making me have second thoughts about this” her cheeks turn red.
“I'm just pulling your leg” her eyes advert to nowhere, “I am happy we talked, I had a lot of fun on that race... before you blew it of course”
“That won’t happen again, you have my word”
Amanda extends her hand across the table, “Friends?”
Diana meets her halfway, shaking on it, “Friends”
The redhead pulls her hand back, taking a sip of tea.
“You know, this tea actually kicks ass”
“Never thought of you as a tea type”
“Me neither, but I guess I never tried much, if you have more, I'm willing to try”
“Of course, that would me my pleasure”