[X] "Not quite." Be honest with her about your plan (such as it is) and hope she's willing to go along with it.
"It hurt, when I saw you that way, and I spent a long time thinking about it, because I didn't like seeing you hurt."
You have a feeling that Julienne knew where you've been going ever since you started to talk. You're aware that you're babbling occasionally, breaking down a little bit under the pressure the other girl is exerting, but it's babble or shut up, and you'd rather share too much than too little. The other girl watches you with a frown, showing only the faintest hints of changes in expression as you talk. A sharpness here, a faint twitch there, all the while until you finally fall silent.
You feel like a criminal before a judge, confessing her crime and ready to be sentenced, and if I wasn't already blushing something about that mental image… You force the thought down and meet her eyes, refusing to bow, though it's a near thing.
"All of us?" It's a rhetorical question, you nod anyways, and then regret it as something ugly and painful twists her lips. Julienne shoves her chair back, a single sharp motion that shows more open emotion than anything you've ever seen from her. A singular moment of helpless rage and despair, encapsulated as she steps to her feet.
"You are a very selfish girl, Dupont." The smooth mask is back in place, but her words are cold as ice, freezing you in place. "I wish you all the best in your endeavor, but I cannot join you." The mask slips as she swallows, and her voice nearly cracks on the next words. "Do not ask me again."
Then she surges past you before you can reply, and though she does not run in your earshot, the long strides that you can hear carrying her away from you are as fast as dignity and nobility will allow.
You let out a shuddering breath and collapse into the recently vacated chair, feeling more exhausted than you have since the end of that very first week of boot camp. You suppose that this is a victory of sorts, having her word not to move against you, yet it feels hollow when you know that somehow you've hurt her even more in doing so. Worse, you haven't the faintest idea of how.
You feel as though you should take responsibility… Somehow…
-[X] Clear the air with Raoul, or at least try to keep him from making some crazy assumption that you hate him for whatever reason...
Wednesday – Academics Blocks 1 and 2
Tactics class usually involves war games and questions from the instructors. Mostly done at the squadron level with the occasional paired exercise or large-scale battle scenario to mix things up.
While it's normally a fun class, today it's just awkward with Julienne and Elizabeth sitting on your side of the table, the former clipped and precise in every motion to the point that even the latter seems to have noticed something off. Casting worried glances towards her partner every few minutes as the four of you try to work together while Raoul, for his part, seems slightly nervous about the whole situation.
The result is three hours of tension from your side of the table that leaves you in no mood to banter despite Grace' best attempts to draw you into conversation. "Really glad the ice queen's on our side, I'd hate to try to fight her for real." You resist the urge to point out that sparring is where Julienne's scores are weakest and instead nod along with a noncommittal hum. "Any idea what's wrong with her?"
You keep your expression smooth and cast Grace a curious tilt of the head. To which the Anglian girl shrugs, "Just curious, I'll ask Liz later."
Wednesday – Free Time
"Raoul, may I have a moment?"
You don't like how the whole room seems to go a little quieter and know that if you look up, you'll see at least three or four looks pointed in your direction. Everyone but Julienne and Elizabeth are in the room, either poring over letters home or reading. Raoul, apparently as oblivious as ever, looks up from his desk. "Jacqui-eline… Can I help you?" You do not wince at the familiar tone but it is a very near thing.
"Saturday's exercise, I wanted to talk about some things I figured out." Suitably vague, but pointed enough that he should be able to figure out what you're talking about. Of course, if he could actually manage that you expect neither of you would be in this situation to begin with.
"I was hoping to finish this letter…" He looks from you, to the clock, then back. "Will it take long?"
I will not drag him out by the ear. I will not drag him out by the ear. The cluelessness is adorable but the notion of punishing him is very attractive at the moment. "It might take a little while. I thought we could grab a classroom so we don't bore everyone else." You wish fervently that protocol and etiquette weren't your concern, but you were cursed in that regard. Growing up in a family just important enough to need such things while being fully aware that not everyone had to care as much about such things.
Then he smiles at you, and you know before he opens his mouth that he's going to refuse. It's that apologetic little smile that he always makes when he thinks he's letting someone down. "Would tomorrow work? I can finish this letter now and we'd have the whole period…"
Dieu benisse… Did he just-? "The whole free time? That would be perfect." There's a shuffling from the other girls around you, which you continue to ignore, and he smiles a little more earnestly.
"I'll see you then."
You don't miss that the smile is still touched by an edge of sadness, but you hope you'll be able to explain that away.
…Now you just need to find somewhere you can meet that the rest of the squad can't follow you to. Most of them are restrained enough to know better, but girls will be girls, especially nosy Anglian girls with entirely too much energy.
Plus this gives you some time to figure out just what to say to him…
Thursday – Before Lunch
There's a tension in the air and for a change from yesterday it's not coming from a probably-irate Julienne as you make your way out of the Academic wing towards the mess. While she's still avoiding contact with you as much as possible she's not as icy as she was yesterday, and while you don't imagine that the issue is by any means solved, you're glad to see her bouncing back, even if only a little.
No, today's tension comes from everyone else casting sidelong glances at you, all wondering and at the same knowing it would be improper to ask just what you'll be talking to Raoul about later this afternoon.
Even the man himself appears to have realized that something is up, though you suspect he's as clueless as ever as to why everyone keeps sneaking glances at you. Even Petra's steadfast work ethic proving insufficient to the task of ignoring this minor distraction.
I'm not planning to confess to him idiots!
For the first time, you curse the arrangements that seat trainees by squad, wishing that you could talk to the girls alone without confusing the issue further for the poor boy.
Well… The girls minus Julienne at least, you're positive she wouldn't take it well at the moment.
Thursday – Training Block Debriefing
"Espece d'un bete comme j'nai jamais vu-!"
You stand at attention as the Major shouts at you. Today's exercise was an obstacle course, a series of objectives with rough terrain between them, not anywhere near the limits of what the Vouivre were capable of, but much more difficult than the flat training fields and light hills you'd faced before. The only goal was to reach all of the objectives in the right order in the least amount of time, with the promise of extra free time to the first team back and the punishment that anyone who took too long would find their tardiness cutting into their free time in turn.
Thus, you had set out to come in first place, piloting the agile Mecha across the landscape while Raoul navigated for you. Initially you hadn't managed to do more than keep pace with the others, right up until you had the opportunity to take a shortcut through a forest and across a dell in the middle of it. Technically navigable terrain according to the Vouivre's specifications, though the sort that only desperate soldiers or trained stuntwomen would normally try to cross.
While on paper the Mecha was light and powerful enough to be capable of jumping small gaps, in practice it was nightmarishly difficult to manage the balance in mid-air such that you would avoid bouncing off an edge or toppling over on landing.
As the mud up and down your Mecha's front can attest, you avoided the former at the cost of accomplishing the latter.
As the Major is telling you at high volume with a liberal garnish of insults to your intelligence and parentage, you are very lucky to have avoided killing yourself in the process.
And finally, as Emilie and Petra's Mecha already parked by now with Julienne and Elizabeth's just making their way into the yard show, you did this crazy stunt to no benefit.
The major keeps you until Grace and Linette are making their way into the yard in last place before dismissing you. A scant five minutes of extra free time and no head start.
-------
"So… Ah…"
Raoul leans nervously against one of the desks as you settle into a chair with a heavy sigh, casting a wary glance in the direction of the door before closing your eyes and speaking up.
"I wanted to talk about what happened just after we finished Saturday's exercise."
He hangs his head, smile becoming melancholy, "I was afraid of that." You narrow your eyes.
"Afraid of what, exactly?"
"Well, it was very nice-" and don't you feel a little bit offended at hearing your kissing merely described as 'very nice "-but you've realized that you shouldn't settle for me just because I'm the only boy in our-."
"Ferme-toi la bouche. Do you think I'm such a loose girl that I'd give any boy a kiss I don't mean?" Raoul opens his mouth before a realization crosses his expression and closes it again with an almost audible 'click' of teeth. "I like you, despite that you seem to be completely incapable of recognizing a girl's attention, I do really like you. I don't know if it's l'amour or anything like that, but I wouldn't mind if it were more than just friendship. However." You pause for a moment, and note with a faint vindictive pleasure that he waits for you to continue. "There is a problem, mostly that same inability really."
"I…" He blurts out the word only to shut his mouth again, watching you warily until you wave him on. "I don't understand, what's to recognize?"
You want to scream it out then and there but you know how that ends, he'd dismiss it as a joke or a prank. Every girl in the squad (or most of them anyways)? Ridiculous, tawdry dime-stories have more believable plots, or at least, to him…
"Well… I'm not the only one who likes you, and we've talked." He makes an interesting expression at the thought, "and we agreed that it wouldn't be fair to me to take advantage of being in the same Mecha to get ahead, so…" You fumble for words silently as you trail off, trying to figure out how to tie off this little narrative you've spun.
Before you can however, he cuts in, wary curiosity in his tone. "Is that why Julienne is angry with you?"
[ ] [Raoul] "…you know what…" Roll with it. It's probably going to make things hellishly complicated at some point down the line but it fits well enough…
[ ] [Raoul] "No that's not it at all." Deny it and make something up… Like… Julienne is the arbitrator, and she's mad at you for breaking the rules. You might give him some strange ideas about how women deal with this stuff behind the scenes, but…
[ ] [Raoul] Deny it and write in your own reason (Maximum 40 words)
A/N: As with the previous vote, non write-in options are safe in that I guarantee they won't permanently make or break a relationship. However, they are middle of the road.
-[X] Spend time with Elizabeth. The Anglian girl really is cute after all, and maybe you can work on making a proper friend of her rather than just a squadmate.
Friday – Breakfast
Sitting with Elizabeth means sitting with Grace and Linette as well, a move from the usual breakfast table dynamics that ends up putting a distracted Raoul next to a bemused Petra. Julienne, for her part, shoots you a glare, but you notice that Emilie has moved herself next to the strategist in a further disruption to the usual arrangement and appears to be gamely trying to engage her in small talk as you all dig into your meals.
"So what brings you down our way?" Grace opens the conversation around a bite of egg, though Elizabeth is clearly listening in with interest. "Little meeting went poorly yesterday?" The smile is crude but teasing, and you answer it with a light smile of your own. While the Anglian girl is a bit more belligerent than any of your countrywomen, she doesn't have the same focused presence as Julienne, and after standing up to her on Tuesday, you find yourself tested more by the way she's talking with her mouth full than by the teasing in her words.
"It was quite productive if you must know, I simply wanted to get to know you two better. I haven't been making enough of an effort to get to know everyone in this squad and I want to fix that."
"So we're your rebound?" Her eyebrows waggle but your reply is silence before it can form as Elizabeth leans over and palms the back of Grace' skull, the blonde rocking forwards with a cry more of surprise than pain.
"Would you at least try?"
"I know I know…" Grace rolls her eyes, running her fingers through her short hair in an attempt to neaten it while Elizabeth gives a sheepish smile. "Please excuse her, she still hasn't gotten over being split up."
"Because Nose doctrine is scared of actually fighting." You don't recognize the Anglish word but the way Grace is forced to deflect another cuff upside the head tells you that it was probably an insult.
"Because keeping us in the same Mecha didn't make any sense in the first place." Elizabeth replies evenly, though you detect a hint of a grumble in her voice and a look up tells you that the minor roughhousing is starting to draw eyes.
"Sergeants are looking this way." You murmur, warning the other girls. The pair quickly settling down a little. "And you're not wrong about doctrine, it's a very different philosophy." Both girls look surprised at that, while you note Linette giving you an uncertain look from the side. You smile, "I'm sure our trainees in Anglia are having the same trouble."
Trying to imagine Emilie or Julienne working with a bunch of Anglian Lancer recruits is an amusing enough image to bring a smile to your lips, and after a moment Grace seems to agree with a chuckle. You've practically grown up with Mortenaise doctrine in mind but after seeing the differences, you wonder if the tactics you've thought of as appropriately measured and methodical might not be too much so.
Someone smarter than you has probably already thought of it and that's why this exchange effort exists in the first place, but giving that little concession opens up a lively discussion that lasts all the way to the classroom doors as breakfast gives way to the first academic block of the day.
Friday – Free Time
The difficulty of trying to talk to Elizabeth is that whenever you aren't in lessons she often follows Grace, the two of them moving as their own little unit within the squad. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if Grace didn't seem to naturally take the lead in conversation, and while Elizabeth shows again and again that she's not shy to tell her countrywoman when she's being an ass, she's also content to stay as a mediating force rather than volunteer her own thoughts and opinions.
Worse, Grace tends to take exception with people trying to talk to Elizabeth directly after the bullying the more soft spoken and self-effacing girl went through in her first month here.
Perhaps it's not surprising considering that they're the only two Anglians in your squad, but the degree to which they stick together means that you'll either have to earn their trust enough that they'd leave each other alone with you, or you'll have to try and court them as a package deal, a notion that seems simultaneously enticing and frustrating.
Still, as you tap your pen against the paper which you're supposed to be writing a letter on, you do have some ideas. Joining them on their morning runs rather than your usual calisthenics would be one way to get closer. Another would be to try inviting one of them out of the base on one of your free days and hope that the other doesn't invite herself along.
And then of course there's the matter of keeping things balanced with all the other girls too. No one ever said this would be easy. In fact, no one says much about something like this at all.
Shaking your head with a sigh, you turn back towards your letter, but by the time the supper bell rings, you haven't managed more than a few lines that end up tossed in the bin rather than kept. Though you have resolved to try the morning runs at least, and inform them of such over dinner.
Saturday – Morning PT
Your lungs are burning and your workout clothes are covered in sweat as the main building of the training base comes back into sight around the bend. You hadn't thought much of the pace the little group set at first but the sheer endurance has pushed you to the limit just to keep up with them at a steady jog, and while everyone looked disheveled, you were quite certain you were by far the worst for the effort as the pace slows.
You stumble to a halt just inside the perimeter of the Mecha park and plant your hands on your knees as you try to catch your breath, only for a hand to press into the small of your back, shoving you forwards while a steadying touch on your shoulder ensures that your continued motion doesn't become a tumble. "Hah?"
"Keep moving, you'll cramp otherwise." Petra's voice is dishearteningly calm despite that you know she just ran the same distance you did and you wince at your mistake.
"Right… Slipped my mind…"
"I admit I'm impressed… I did not manage to keep up with them the first time I did this." The pale girl favors you with a small smile and between that and the praise you're grateful that the chill and the wind hide your flush.
Grace for her part looks almost disappointed that you managed to keep up, though as you all shower, Elizabeth leans over to inform you that the two of them had wagered five marks whether or not you'd make it the whole way. She'd bet for you, Grace had bet against. Though the blonde doesn't seem especially sour about it as you all get dressed and make your way towards breakfast.
You've made inroads with both Grace and Elizabeth and you've resolved to spend Saturday's free time continuing that, but as you go about the day, you find your thoughts turning to the morrow. Sunday is your one day of total freedom in the week and most trainees choose to visit the small town near the base that makes a regular trade in providing amenities for off-duty soldiers. There's a cinema, a small market, various restaurants, and other little attractions to enjoy there.
On the other hand, after a week with two very fraught discussions you are seriously contemplating the merits of simply lingering around the base for a day. Maybe even making a proper attempt at that letter home you've been putting off. What are you planning to do?
[ ] [Sunday] Invite someone (or several someones) to go into town with you. They may invite others along.
-[ ] Emilie
-[ ] Grace
-[ ] Elizabeth
-[ ] Petra
-[ ] Linette
[ ] [Sunday] Stay behind and try to write a proper letter instead, you could use the rest. (The others will likely go into town without you in their own little groups.)
