ROSES HAVE THORNS-Chapter 78 - The Weight Of A Single Snowflake
"What are you doing here, Austin?" Diana folded her arms which pushed up her slightly revealing chest. "Aren’t you supposed to be at the dorms assisting the dorm mother?"
"I-I.. Err.. I w-was.. I-I erhm..."
"Eyes up here." She lifted his chin up with her finger.
When he looked up at her, he saw that there was not a hint of gentleness in her eyes.
’F-Fuck. What’s her problem? It’s not my fault that she dresses the way she does.’
"And so?" She let go of his chin and folded her arms under her chest again. "I asked you a question. Why are you here and not at the dorms?"
*Gulp* "Because.. erhm.. t-the..."
"Principal Valentine, good afternoon. To you as well, Secretary Mia." Gary, coming in for the save, jumped in front of Austin and stood before what looked like two lions ready to chew him up.
"The dorm mother told Austin that he could take a little break since he was working so hard. So we decided to hang out at the park where President Amber announced that she and the Dorothy twins would be holding an event."
"Working hard you say? Funny, because last time I was at the dorms, you weren’t there." Diana raised her eyebrow in suspicion as she looked behind Gary and at Austin.
"W-Well that’s... because... I was... busy? Eheheh... Silly me. We all make mistakes, right? It’s only human..."
"..."
’Shit! She’s not buying it at all! Lord above! Goddess Bula! Somebody save me!’
"... What a gosh darn waste of my afternoon!"
"... Hey, at least we got our coins back, didn’t we?"
"... I really wanted to see what would happen to that criminal."
"... We all know THE Emelie Herst is going to clean house anyway, hahaha!"
"Emelie’s here? She told me that she was going back to the dorms to pack up and leave for her family’s estate." Mia spoke up.
"That does explain the crowd." Diana looked away from Austin and asked Gary, "Is the event over?"
"Oh! Y-Yes ma’am."
"I see. Where’s Emelie then? Is she still inside?"
"Yes ma’am. Along with President Amber and Princess Kiana. I don’t really understand why but we’ve been told to evacuate the park. Apparently, there was some kind of an emergency..."
"Emergency? Has something gone wrong with the event? I think I also heard someone say something about a criminal–"
"MOVE! MOVE OUT THE WAY EVERYONE!" Three prefects were shouting as they ran through the crowd of people and past their way into the entrance gate.
"Principal Valentine! I’m so glad you’re here!" A girl in white uniform noticed Diana while she was running with the prefects and broke away from them.
"Hm? You’re Amy, right? What’s happening? Gary told me that there’s an emergency going on."
"Y-Yes!" Amy stuttered and blushed at Diana remembering who she was. "The people don’t know this, but President Amber told me that the cause of the evacuation is because of Princess Kiana. She’s lost control of her magic and Emelie is the only one who’s keeping her from causing any more collateral damage."
"What? How did she lose control?"
"I-I don’t know. I’m sorry. I was in charge of the entrance fee here up front."
"Gary. Austin." She turned to them, expecting answers.
"I don’t know either." Austin looked down, trying not to draw any more suspicion onto himself.
"It was too foggy because of whatever spell the princess casted." Gary told the partial truth. "We just heard the announcer and President Amber give the call for us to evacuate."
"Could all this be the fault of the criminal which people are talking about?" Mia thought out loud.
"No!" Amy stepped forward and nervously spoke up. "P-Please don’t believe what the people are saying! Kurt is not a criminal! Trust me, he’s–"
"Kurt?" Diana grabbed Amy by her shoulders and bent down to look her in the eyes. "Did you just say Kurt? As in, Kurt Rossana?"
"Y-Yes, that’s the one. He’s actual Emelie’s partner–"
"Partner for what? Come to think of it, Amber never said what this event was going to be about. Just that she was helping the twins out with something trivial."
"Trivial?" Amy’s voice was soft. To her, this ’event’ was anything but trivial. Seeing as this was actually meant to be a punishment to Kurt, where if he loses, the consequences could be dire since Kiana was the one calling the shots.
"Amy. Give me the short version of what’s going on." Diana demanded.
"Y-Yes ma’am!" She then recounted to her all the main points of what led up to this event taking place. From the accusations of Kurt knocking out Prince Maxwell, Jr., to the fights and bettings that were happening.
Once Amy finished, Diana let go of her shoulders and clicked her tongue in irritation.
’And now the princess has lost so much control of herself that it warrants an evacuation of the whole park? What have you gotten yourself into this time, Rosie...’ 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂
"Mia. Give this to Amber when you see her." She reached into her purse and gave her the file that Victor requested she hand over. "I’m going in to put a stop to this nonsense."
"Pfft–!"
"Is something funny, Austin?" She looked to her side and glared at him.
"N-No ma’am! I just thought of something... funny."
"Funny? I’ll give you something to laugh about. Go back to the dorms and finish whatever work you have. I’ll be back later to give you an additional punishment for skipping out on the times you weren’t there."
"But I–!"
"Leave."
"C’mon Ausin." Gary pulled him away. "Stop trying to dig a hole for yourself and let’s bail."
"Eurgh! I told you to stop pulling me! I can walk just fine...." Their voices faded into the distance as they left the area.
"Sorry, Mia. But it looks like we’re going to have to cancel our little outing."
"It’s fine. Just make sure that the students and Kurt are okay. I’ll look for Amber and give this file to in the meantime."
"Right. Thank you." She nodded and instantly vanished.
"E-Excuse me, Secretary Mia?"
"Hm? Yes, Amy?" She smiled warmly at her like a loving mother would to her daughter.
"H-How does Principal Valentine know about Kurt?"
"Oh that? Hehehe, that depends. Can you keep a secret?"
"Y-Yes! Absolutely!" She nodded her head to the point of shaking it.
"Well in that case," Mia bent down to whisper in Amy’s ear. "You really cannot tell anybody about this, alright?"
*Gulp* "I won’t..."
"The thing is, the principal and Kurt are actually....."
"...Huh?" Amy’s face turned from innocent curiosity to a shocked and stunned expression when she learned the truth.
.
..
...
SHWOOSH
"... So, this is the fog that Gary mentioned." Diana stopped somewhere in the middle of the park as she felt the ice-cold moisture in the air.
She began walking around the lake when she noticed that it was completely frozen over. Suddenly she felt something light and cold fall atop her head. When she grabbed it, it noticed it was and single snowflake that melted almost immediately at her touch.
’This is no joke. I need to find them quickly before I freeze to death. It doesn’t look like they’re here anyway, so let’s try somewhere else.’
Diana teleported away once again, and this time arrived at the open area where most people would hold picnics.
"..old... s-so cold... h-help..m-me...J-Ju..nior..."
"That voice? Kiana! Are you there?!" Diana called to her but cannot see anything due to the mist and fog obscuring her vision.
"P-Ple..ase... I’m s-scared... J-Junior... E-Eme..lie... s-save m-me..."
Diana ran towards the sound of her voice while making extra sure not to trip or slip on the ice below.
"Oh no..." She stopped in front of a nearly completely ice-covered Kiana who had the shape of half a crown forming on her head.
"P-Prin..cipal? H-Help..me *sob*" Kiana started crying when she finally saw someone that could save her, but even her tears had instantly frozen when they left the corner of her eyes.
"Don’t worry. It’s all over now. You can rest easy." Diana held her cheeks as her face was the only place that wasn’t covered in ice.
She then concentrated and helped calm the mana flowing through the princess’s veins just like she did before with Kurt. This method stopped the ice from crawling up her face, after which the ice covering the body cracked as she fainted from over exhaustion and being entirely drained of mana.
She put Kiana’s head under her purse and stood up to look for Kurt and Emelie.
Which took little effort considering that not far from Kiana, she heard the faint sound of someone crying while their voice cracked under their throat.
"..orry... I’m..*sniff* s-sorry...too.. late...please *sob* wake up."
"Emelie?" Diana recognised that voice back and saw that she was faced away and crouching on the ice floor while appearing to be holding something.
Emelie twitched and slowly looked over her shoulder with a sorrowful face that was covered in snot, tears and pure agony.
"P-Principaaal *sob!* He’s *sniff!* he’s not h-healing! I-I don’t have the *sob!* antidote!"
"Who’s not healing?! What happened?! I’ve never seen you like this!" Diana ran around Emelie to see what she was talking about.
And the sight before her led her to fall straight to her knees.
Thud!
"R-Ro..sie?"
