Ash left from goblin classes with an idea, a vague idea that needed honing. When she met the overly pierced goblin, Vots, in class and heard his big ideas to win the representative election, she was reminded of Mayra and C's conversation. The criteria for the goblin to win the election was not just voting, it was money. Ash considered donating the money or buying everything but that would make her a target for every goblin. She needed a way for Vots to earn enough money on his own. And she had an idea how. All she needed was to talk to B.
And so, after class, she headed for the other side of the campus. Starting from the chancellor's mansion and wrapping around the east and north was one line of buildings, all of them dedicated to studies of supernatural. Almost all the buildings were dedicated to a race and build accordingly. That was the old campus all first years were required to take one subject in the first years. Then there was the west where rows and rows of buildings extended, dedicated to branches of study like science, medicine, technology, art, politics and so on. Every architecture was made with huge doors and tall ceilings to accommodate all kinds of races. Bree was a management student which was three rows down, the second building from the back. On her way, she passed the bustling crowds.
There were all kinds of races, centaurs banded together in groups to twos and threes, werecats and were coyotes, nixies, sirens, and so many of them. Most of them, did not mingle with the other, passing polite head nods or ignorant glances as they stood apart talking among themselves.
Among them, her eyes pulled to a rare few groups that stood together in mixed population. Dwera Rockwish talking to a nixie and a cyclopes. As she walked past Dwera saw her and bowed a little. Ash bowed back in courtesy and walked on.
She sensed some eyes turn to her and his nixie friend ask, "since when do you know human princesses?"
"Since they started treating our race with respect."
Ash felt like she could walk a little straighter after that. However, her head immedeatly ducked as she walked past the building to the back, marked- Management. B was standing together with Vance. The two of them were talking casually. Ash paused and waited far away. A small part of her wanted him to turn a little, to look at him, to chance upon a single look. And the thought shocked her. She shouldn't bethinking like this.
Unable to stand there, she turned around and walked away, feeling her heart beat faster and faster. This was not normal. It was definetly not normal for her to feel this anxious about a single person. Something was wrong here. She had been determined not to see him. She strengthened that thought feeding herself why she shouldn't, but the fluttering speed with witch her heart took off did not subside.
Ash did not stop walking. She went straight to her dorm and asked the warden to let her know when Bree might come back.
"Ash will not be coming to the club for a few days. She is helping out the chancellor to take care of someone. She is also handling some of his paperwork that has been piling over from last year. If he can hire an assistant, she might help out with that too."
"When Ash came she was accompanied by five people. The high priestess has been going up to the chancellor's residence a lot more than usual. It might be because of Ash's acquaintance."
Sven said, "I saw Ash and her scary siren friend go to the chancellor's place after classes yesterday as well."
"She came to our side of the building yesterday. Maybe she was there to find you that's why she went to look for you in the dorm."
Drew snickered, "she always drops by the vampires' dorm room for Queen B. Clingy, if you ask me."
Vance had a feeling as if everyone had crossed paths with Ash but him. He had not seen her for two days now. Even if it was some acquaintance's ill health keeping her busy, should she, as his mate, feel the need to see him like she felt the need to see her?
Or was he thinking too far ahead? Vance looked down into his papers and sulked at the lack of work. The council was swamped in work last year to the point they had to get volunteers to join for any extra schedules and events. Now they barely had paperwork and were understaffed to the point of needing volunteers even for paperwork. That's how Arabella joined them, as a volunteer at the end of the year, after B and kelpie's news had spread university wide and continued to come to the council this year.
Drew slipped a paper under him and asked, "why don't you design the poster? We really need volunteers. Election or not, we have the welcoming party to organize too."
"I wonder when the dwarf representative will join us." Sven said. Vance asked him, "was he joining?"
Sven nodded. "Ash presented their case to the chancellor and the chancellor had the approved file dropped here this morning. I came in early and the fairy was already here, dropping the file. It is a long term plan too. If the dwarf wants to watch over their project fly, they will stick with us long term."
Drew looked to B, "wasn't she also talking about the goblins. Something about selling and all."
"A charity auction. every year the goblins decide their representative with an auction. This year, as part of the class, she is supporting a represntative. Since she has nothing to offer in terms of invention or items, she has other plans."
"Plans to get the goblin representative to join, I bet." Sven clapped and looked at Karlene who, though beside him today, ignored him completely.
"Favors after favors. Didn't we clear it with her that this is not how we want to get more representatives to join the club?" Drew groaned, "humans are so stupid."
Annoyance shot through Vance. Then and now, he had no idea why Drew was against Ash. It's been a week and Drew always had something to say when Ash was mentioned. If Ash were here, she'd brush it off but Vance could not. Apart from Ash, he also wanted Drew to grow into a woman that could lead as a representative. Looking down on a race, even humans, was not to her merit.
Vance spoke up. "Drew. She is part of the council now and doing her best. A difference of opinion doesn't warrant slander."
Drew eyes crossed between him and B. B said, "thank you. And Drew, we never said, she couldn't bring in people with favors. It should be us, who know and understand other supernatural creatures, who bring people in but instead she is the one doing it. She made it extremely clear at the very beginning that she had political tactics up her sleeves and that is how she works. If you were not okay with that, you should have said something then."
"This moderator skills are working their magic." Akiye tried to diffuse the tension. But Drew wasn't listening anymore. She pushed her chair and stood up.
"That is not fair for the two of you to gang up on me every time I say something. I have been with the two of you for a long time and I am the same age as Vance, why then is Vance considered more reliable than me. You always take my opinion for less but I never say anything. I know you are trying to teach me but this isn't it anymore. When that new girl came in- a human girl. A moderator who is neither here nor there, you hold her opinions in such high value from day one. What kind of magic has she done on all of you?"
"It's not magic. It's work attitude and skills she brings. She has been trained from a young age. If you took your training seriously, you wouldn't be struggling this much." Karn told her.
"And who gave the bastard pup the right to speak to a knight's daughter like this?" Drew shot back with a laugh.
Vance saw red and Karlene growled. "Drew. Enough."
B and Vance were besides her in an instant. The each caught an arm and hauled her out of there before Karlene could go breserk.
Over the weekend, things calmed down. Vance thought he'd see Ash in the meeting room. But no. Bree and Akiye, both saw her. The girls took her out to show the town and buy some clothes and school supplies. Drew kept her mouth shut about the event. Vance listened as Akiye and B laughed at Ash's explorer spirit. She went into every store within a mile radius. She had money and penchant for buying things.
After the constant explore to Ash's feelings for the first week, the sudden lack of them made him feel lost. On Monday, he felt a little more relaxed. If he felt nothing, meant she was calm. Which was a good thing. In the meeting room, he took to the furniture by the wall and lay down.
"What's up with you?" B asked him.
"I don't have class after this. So..."
"Alright. While you are in your thinking mode, please give us an answer about the election thing by tomorrow."
Once the room was empty, Vance thoughts went to Ash. Where was she? What was she doing? And the reason behind her sudden disappearance. When he dug hard enough into his heart, he felt nothing but calm and sometime a sense of delight. Over the weekend, he had taken the time to step away from representative duties and assignments to look into any books he could find on mates. None of those books talked about the beginning of the connection. Surely there were no books about how to break that connection or overcome it.
Having a weekend to clear his thoughts without Ash's emotional presence helped him think clearly. It was a fantasy to want to be together with her, fueled by her constant onslaught of emotions around him. And the connection was one way. He had never seen her affected the same way he was. If anything, she had the great ability to keep her expression neutral in contrast to what she felt and act according to the situation. Even when he had seen her bitten by the golem there had been fear sitting in the pit of his gut and a look determination on her face. The image of her holding her knife burned brightly in his mind. A woman that powerful, inside a room and out on the field was a rare gem. Perhaps it was his parents that set expectation too high for him. Now the moon goddess couldn't find anyone for him but a moderator.
"Vincent of the Sanguine Knight. The high priestess called upon you for a grave matter of discussion in her office."
Vance gave the messenger fairy a small nod of acknowledgement and tried to scrub away the image of Ash. When he rushed to the high priestess' office, the slight tug of delight intensified. Outside the building, he paused. Ash was here. He looked about but couldn't find her. Maybe she was inside. He walked slowly, checking at every step if the delight intensified, waned or waxed. It was dark outside and inside. The corridor was unusually dark too. apart from the front lights, none of the lights in the corridor worked.
As a vampire, Vance never had any trouble looking in the darkness. But now, he didn't see anything. He couldn't see the doors of the offices that lined the corridor nor the backdoor at the end of the corridor, leading out back into the grass field. A silver of fear snaked into his body. For the first time in a long time, he removed his glasses. The surroundings became clear instantly. The darkness of the corridor was nothing but the absence of lamps that had all gone out. Perhaps the high priestess was performing some magic that was interfering with the lights.
A slight quiver of curiosity excited him and the darkness all wrapped up, being pulled back. the lights in the coriddor came back one by one. Vance put on his glasses and noticed the darkness lingered, moving slowly. It was almost a physical form to his eyes. A kind of magic that his naked eye saw right through. He put the glasses back on and kept moving slowly, letting the darkness wrap up as he followed. He had never seen darkness manifested a physical form. Seconds passed into minutes he was already waiting a while before he knocked on the high priestess' door.
The door opened and Ash looked up at him with delighted smile. Surprise cut through her heart and a surge of complex emotions, both happiness and irritation colliding. As quickly as it had come, it was gone. Ash composed herself and gave him a perfectory bow before hoisting her bag up and walking past him.
If it was B, or Akiye, or even Sven or Karlene, they could have chatted for a bit. But not them. Ash avoided him intensely, refusing to make any more eye contact and walked away.
Vance told himself that he was overthinking this. He was not on friendship or class sharing, or dorm sharing terms with Ash, which meant they were acquainted enough. However, when he had seen her once and felt the delicious happiness ozzing from her, he couldn't have enough.
It was clear that he couldn't be with her but he could still enjoy the savor of emotions leaking through their bond. So the next time he accompanied Karn, Karlene and Sven to their class, chatting about their opinions on the matter of elections. Karn was on Ash's side, come hell or high water. Sven was easily persuaded and Karlene was against it. As he neared the building, he saw the sight of Ash, going to class.
Sven called her and waved. Ash looked back, smiled a little. Suddenly, her smile dropped and a tightness settled on his chest. She bowed to him quickly, turned around and left.
Karlene took out her phone, "are we late? Nah. Plenty of time. What happened to her?"
Vance had the distinct feeling he happened. She was avoiding him. She was definetly going out of her way to avoid him. Still, he told himself not to overthink it. Their mate bond was a one way channel. There was no reason for Ash to avoid him.