Using the bucket of water, she quickly magicked it to get herself clean. She had been covered in cold sweat from the pain, so cleaning off felt heavenly. She quickly got dressed, plaiting her hair into a side braid that had been dubbed the Katniss braid by most of her generation. Opening the door, she saw a noticeably relieved Jessica. She smiled warily and began, “Thanks for your help. I’m good now though; I just overdid it.”
Jessica shook her head, saying softly, “You almost died.”
Jade sighed. “Yeah, but it was just a stupid mistake on my part. It won’t happen again.”
Jessica pursed her lips. “See that it doesn’t! You were so pale, and you were barely breathing. It was worse than when you first arrived!” Jade winced. Okay, so that was pretty bad. Jessica was hovering over her like a mother hen as she walked down the stairs, only for her to stop dead when she saw a full common room. There seemed to be two separated groups. One consisted of curious students who’d stuck around for the drama and whom she’d never spoken to.
Disliking that she’d become a public spectacle, she stared at that half of the room and asked sardonically, one brow raised, “What? You people don’t have somewhere better to be right now? Shoo. I’m not your entertainment.” Okay, so she probably could have phrased that more politely, but she didn’t like being on display and she’d just almost died. They took one look at her menacing smirk, flashed over to the other half of the room, who were displaying some glares upon realizing that they were there out of curiosity and not concern, and then they hastily started beating a quick retreat. There were only about ten of them, and they quickly dispersed.
Which of course, left her with the other half of the room. Now that the others were gone, she was faced with the full wrath of friends who’d been worried for her. The full group included Raphael, Kaylee, Will; to her surprise, Jackson, Adam, and Evan were there as well, with a conspicuously missing Britney. She at least understood why they were there. They probably hadn’t left for the day yet when Kaylee found her. What she couldn’t explain was why Camille, Tisha, Eric, Stephen, Lucas, and even Damian were there. All she was missing were Sharon, Tina, Elisa, and Jarom. Otherwise, most of the people she’d spent any amount of time with for her first three days here were gathered in one room.
And yet, they all had one other thing in common right now: they were glaring bloody murder at the girl who’d almost died. She smiled lightly, and trying to break the tense silence, shrugged and chirped as she held her hands out placatingly, “Surprise! I’m alive!”
Unsurprisingly, the first one who broke her indignant glare was Tisha, who bounced over and threw her arms around Jade. “Oh my gosh, I’ll kill you if you ever do that to us again!”
Jade laughed, hugging her back as she quipped, “Doesn’t killing me defeat the purpose?”
“Don’t you sass me!” Tisha pouted back.
Camille pulled Tisha off of Jade before she could smother her with affection and was observing Jade judiciously. Finally, she nodded in satisfaction and proclaimed, “Good, you do look better. Now sit down and tell us what actually happened.” She squeezed Jade’s arm, a surprised spark flitting across her face when she felt a little toned muscle. It wasn’t much, but she had finally normalized, and was even making her way towards slim, but fit. Her bust had also grown another size, much to her satisfaction.
Camille literally stood over her until she sat down, at which point Kaylee brought her MORE food. Well, she supplied everyone else with some as they sat down around her as well, but still. Jade absently played with the food in front of her, trying to figure out the best way to try and explain. She glanced around at those who were supporting her, but her eyes lingered on Jackson, Adam, and Evan.
Jackson noticed her gaze, and he stopped Adam and Evan from sitting down. He walked over, patting Jade lightly on the shoulder as he remarked, “I’m glad you’re doing better, but we have a few things to take care of, so we’ll just be heading out. We’ll see you later?”
She nodded and smiled gratefully. “Thank you. Have a wonderful rest of your day!” Jackson nodded and smiled, then led the baffled duo out with him. Everyone seemed to have realized that what she was about to say was something she didn’t want shared around, and seemed a little gratified that they’d been included. She felt a little bad chasing Jackson off now, but that could always be remedied later.
Eventually, she spoke softly. “You all know I’m a traveler, and I’ve been given the gift called accelerated growth. What you don’t know is that I have some control over it. I can choose to accelerate certain skills I’ve come into contact with. The process, as you might have guessed, is somewhat painful and requires a lot of energy, so I’ve been choosing to do it at night so that when I pass out from pain, it’s in my own bed.”
She paused, scanning those around her and trying to gauge their reactions, but no one said anything. Finally, she smiled and shrugged. “Last night, I sort of bit off more than I could chew because it gave me a bunch of new options to learn. So I kinda chose to learn all of them.” She stared guiltily at her plate, and then realizing that she had room in her stomach and began to eat, since that was the extent of what she was planning to explain.
Kaylee marveled in awe, “Good heavens, I put it in front of you because I didn’t want to leave you out, but I never actually thought you could fit anything more in you…”
Jade smiled ruefully at her. “As you saw this morning, it’s the side effect of my learning. I have an insanely high metabolism because my body is burning through energy in order to change and grow. Basically, I tried to learn too much and didn’t have the energy to support it, but my body was still trying to change and thus was draining me without really having anything left to drain.”
She heard Stephen mutter darkly, “I was right, you do need a keeper.” Jade winced and glared at him.
“I do not need a keeper. I just...didn’t know my limits yet. I do now, and therefore won’t make the same mistake. I’m FINE. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!” She held up her now slightly-muscled arm. “Besides. Look, I’m better than fine, I’ve got muscles!”
Almost everyone laughed at this. It was Eric who asked curiously, “So what exactly did you learn that overloaded you so much?”
She pondered for a moment, then started ticking them off on her fingers. “Dark, earth, fire, illusion, life, lightning, nature, and metal magic. Plus glasscraft, herbology, and tailoring.” She decided to lump dark and metal magic in there, even though she’d learned them the day before. It made it seem more dramatic, plus they’d never seen her use it yet, so hey. Less suspicion on her? Maybe? Judging by their incredulous stares, maybe not.
Eric was one of the few people who seemed to keep his cool, having been surprised by her several days in a row now. “So you’re telling us you learned how to do eight magics and three professions...in a single night.”
Jade smiled. “Technically, yes. But it’s not like I’ve had the chance to try any of them, and I’m not quite sure how all of them work. It’s more like once I figure out how they do work, it’s much, much easier for me because it’s already on my list. Does that make sense?”