A Quest for the Stars

Lenoria was a young teenage girl of sixteen years of age when she first enrolled in the Artificers Guild.

She was the daughter of a woman from Helix and a retired samurai from the Far West, specifically the island of Akihabara. Her homeland, named the Great Plateau, was located across the sea on a great island, which was made up of plateaus and flat plains. She was always given strange looks by the locals because of her blonde hair and green eyes, but the long-standing tradition of the people of the Plateau was to treat everyone equally, "for all bleed the same in battle." The Tsukino family didn't struggle in winning the acceptance of the noble warriors, doubly so because they provided the local warriors what they needed: Stables, horse care, and bowmaking.

The machine-operated Helix City filled Lenoria with wonder; it was nothing like back home. Metal boxes with wheels instead of horses, brick buildings instead of yurts, and men in blue uniforms instead of men in hide armor. Lenoria had read about the city in books, but they didn’t prepare her for seeing the sights in person.

Her parents were working the family stables, her older sister was already traveling abroad, and her younger siblings were too young to explore the world with her. Lenoria, however, wasn’t alone; a friend of her father had traveled with her to see to it that she was ready to live on her own.

He was a half-orc named Sage. Like most (if not all) half-orcs, he was the result of a union between human and orc, appearing more muscular than a human but less rugged than an orc. He wore a simple white karate gi with a black belt around his waist. The man always appeared jovial, and never grew tired of answering Lenoria’s questions.

“See you after school, Lenoria.”

His only job was to pick up and drop off Lenoria at the Guild. With the money she saved up by doing odd jobs back home, Lenoria paid for her tuition and a small house. 90% of the world’s schools and universities were free, but the Artificers Guild charged for entry up front due to its fame as the institution that nurtured the minds of many of the world’s geniuses of today. Even so, tuition was cheap and a student working part-time during the summer usually saved up enough to enter if they worked hard enough.

Staying in the Guild was a trial of its own.

Lenoria’s first experience with bullying occurred immediately upon arrival when she accidentally stumbled into a young Anne Steiner. Both girls were carrying their textbooks and now they were scattered on the cobbled pathway.

“I-I’ll get them! I’m so sorry!” The shy Lenoria hurriedly gathered the textbooks from the ground, but she had trouble telling any of them apart due to her dropping her glasses when she bumped into Anne.

The haughty girl did not take this lightly. She stood up and planted her foot on Lenoria’s head - who was still on the ground picking up the books - and afterward moved her foot and made sure her heel was right at the center of her back before twisting it on the poor girl.

“Listen to me, princess! Watch where you’re going next time, or it’ll be worse for you!” Anne immediately picked up her textbooks, kicked Lenoria’s glasses to the downed girl, and ran up to a group of other girls and walked with them inside. Lenoria eventually got up and made her way inside as well…with a pair of broken glasses and a chipped tooth.

In her mind, she felt like she somehow deserved it. “I better watch where I’m going…t-things will get better.”

They did not.

Over the months, Anne would play some mean-spirited pranks on Lenoria, such as replacing a bottle of perfume with skunk spray, stealing her clothes from the locker room, and making her boots itchy. As if that wasn’t enough, the students started joining in on the bullying by calling her names once word of her heritage spread around.

“Horse kisser!”

“Cat breath! Cat breath!”

After that, came the rumors.

“Hey, Lenoria! Heard you and Thomas were dating!”

“We’re not!” Lenoria was disgusted at the thought.

“Look, she’s blushing! That means it’s true!”

Coincidentally, this was around the time Thomas took notice of her. But despite everything, Lenoria took it all in stride. Whenever she felt overwhelmed, she’d remember her father’s words of wisdom.

Unyielding like the dragon, unbending as steel.

On her second year at the Guild, Lenoria was approached by a timid boy with fair skin; an aasimar, according to his peers. Anne had smacked her books out of her hands that day and the boy rushed to help pick them up. The two started talking, sharing their interests, and eventually grew closer romantically. Then finally, after one month of being together, their schedules aligned for them to go on their first date.

The timid boy, named Carter, sent a courier to Lenoria’s house to deliver a letter. Tipping the delivery man, the girl closed the door behind her and read the letter.

The Far West has blessed us with beauty

Overwhelming like a thousand cuts

Meet me tonight under the stars

Meet up with me, a man with guts

Lenoria tossed the letter reflexively. She picked it back up and read it again and again, slowly the first time then normally all subsequent times. Her face beet red, she set the letter on her nightstand. She finished her preparations and made a last-minute checkup, replaced her casual clothes with a yellow dress from her closet, and picked up the letter one last time.

The bottom of the letter had a simple drawing of the two of them together under a tree. “He wants us to meet at the hilltop.” She set the letter back down and left the house to meet Carter at the park.

Once she arrived, she made the short climb to the hilltop where the man of the hour awaited her. Elated, the man greeted her with a hug. “Len! So, you got my letter!”

Lenoria returned the hug. “You did send it to my address, silly.”

“I know, but how did you know I’d be here?”

“This is the place you made your confession. When I saw a picture of the tree, it was easy to narrow down.”

Carter chuckled. “It’s a special occasion, after all. We rarely had time for each other, so I wanted to clear as many milestones as I could on our first date. W-with your consent, of course.”

Milestones? “Hold on. You mean to tell me you’ve never kissed a girl before?”

Carter shook his head. “This is my first time out with a girl. I wanted our first date, our first meal, and our first kiss to be under this tree.”

Lenoria pulled away; all of her nerves suddenly stricken at once. “K-kiss?”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” the boy reassured her. “Sorry if it sounds like I’m too eager or something! I-I know girls hate that, but I just wanted to see you.”

Lenoria didn’t mind the attention and Carter had gone out of his way to make the night special for her. Truth be told, she wanted this, more out of curiosity how a kiss felt like and if it was like anything she pictured in the romance novels she’s read so far. And who better to do it with than someone she’s grown to trust? “D-do you mind if we get the kiss out of the way, then?” She was afraid to vomit on Carter with a full stomach, and she thought getting it out of the way might ease her nerves.

“Really?” Carter gently lifted the girl’s chin so she could make eye contact with him. “Are you sure?”

The girl timidly nodded and closed her eyes. She puckered her lips when she felt Carter’s breath get closer. Despite the bullying she constantly faced from the Guild, she believed the power of love would carry her when she was too overwhelmed to continue.

Sadly, what some call love, others call blind idiocy.

Lenoria had failed to notice the rope that had been hanging behind Carter. “Show time,” he whispered as he took a step back and pulled the rope. A pink object bludgeoned Lenoria from above and it was big and heavy enough to make her collapse on the ground. Both it and her rolled down the small hilltop and when she stopped and came to her senses, Lenoria found herself atop something squishy.

A pig’s corpse both knocked her down and broke her fall. The pig’s guts had spilled on the way down and it had gotten on both her dress and her face. The girl gagged from the overwhelming rotten smell and vomited on it and her dress shoes. “W-what is this?!”

Carter laughed on his way down from the hilltop. “Shit, that was too funny! I didn’t know how much longer I could hold that in!”

“Carter, w-why?”

“I was kinda curious if you’d actually fall for this kind of crap.” Carter tossed a book which landed by Lenoria’s feet, titled ‘My First Love Story.’

Lenoria picked up the book. It was one of her favorites and had even left a review for it at the local bookstore. “You knew I liked this one. How could you do this to me?”

“Hey, I’m actually the good guy here. Thomas paid good money so I could ruin your big day.”

Rage mixed with Lenoria’s tears. “Thomas put you up for this?!”

“Yeah, he wanted you to be so sad that you’d cry in his arms when he found you and he’d win you over by being there for you. If you don’t believe me, just take a right when you leave the park. You’ll see him ‘casually’ taking a stroll when you turn the next corner.”

“Then why would you tell me this? Why would you do any of this?! Why?!”

“Because it’s funny. The headmaster was right, you’re an easy target.” He flipped a gold coin at Lenoria. “Here, clean yourself up. Thanks for making my night, treat yourself to something nice, too.”

Despair washed over the girl when Carter walked past her uncaringly. Her knees hit the stained soil, her hands clasping her dirty face. It was so sudden, so outlandish that it left her speechless.

“By the way, he’s going to be carrying a pitcher of water tampered with sleeping serum. I wouldn’t drink from it if I were you.”

Lenoria slammed both of her fists on the ground. “And now you’ve grown a conscience? If Thomas put you up for this, why are you helping me now? This is all a big joke to you, isn’t it?”

“And you didn’t find it weird that someone in the Guild suddenly wanted to get close to you? You’re an idiot for trusting me. As for Thomas,” Carter made his way to the exit, “I just wanted to scam him.”

Lenoria waited until he left before she stood up and made her way out herself. She knew Thomas was a weirdo, but she needed to confirm what Carter had told her. She made a right turn and, surely enough, Thomas casually strolled around the corner just as she reached it.

“Lenoria, what happened to you?!” He offered a pitcher of water. “H-here! You look awful, so wash yourself with this!”

She had no words for him. Instead, she snatched his pitcher of water and splashed it on him. After a moment, his eyes drowsily squinted before he collapsed and fell asleep on the concrete sidewalk.

***

The next day, Lenoria reported the incident to Headmaster Starflower and demanded for Thomas and Carter to receive punishment. His response?

“What my students do off campus is none of my concern.” With a cold gaze, he then added, “Even if it is true, you must have done something to deserve it. Wouldn’t you say, you little half and half?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Heh. Do you truly expect me to believe the words of a foreigner?”

Lenoria was taken aback from hearing the headmaster himself repeat what some of the students had been calling her. “Sir, how could you say something like that?”

“Me? What about you? You bring forth accusations against my top students without proof. If I act too hastily, I could ruin their lives for no reason. And where does that take us? Nowhere.”

"Proof?" Lenoria questioned the headmaster angrily. "So, what? Should I have brought the pig carcass or let that pervert put a baby in me and wait nine months before you did anything?"

The headmaster raised a hand to stop Lenoria. "It doesn't need to go that far. But if there was no attempt, then there's no proof."

“I don’t believe it.” Lenoria stared at the ground. “You’re doing nothing about this. You’re the one encouraging this sort of behavior, aren’t you?”

“You can't prove anything.”

“Only people with a guilty conscience say that. Carter said you called me an easy target.”

“Hmph, shifting the blame for his little prank, isn’t he?”

“So, you admit he pranked me?”

“Don’t put words in my mouth, young lady.”

“Then you put both of them up for this!”

“I am done with this conversation. You’re obviously crazy and hysterical.” The headmaster calmly made his way to the other side of the room. “Leave my office, now.”

Lenoria turned around to leave. “Fine. Then I guess I’ll just contact the Scholastic Guild about this.”

“By yourself? The entire school hates you and no one will come forward on your behalf if by some miracle my bosses decided to pay a visit. That I can guarantee.”

The headmaster didn’t even hide his audacity at this point. He twirled a thin strand of his long silver hair as much as he could and smiled to see that Lenoria had no response to that.

That is, until she reached the door and turned the doorknob. “I’ll find a way.” The girl opened the door, left the office, and slammed the door behind her.

At first, Lenoria expected to find a way to get back at the headmaster overnight. According to her small collection of action books, the hero often found a way to pay back his enemies by the climax of the story. A single night then turned into a week, then a month, and before she knew it, Lenoria reached the end of her second year at the Guild and was given a three-month vacation.

The longer she thought about it, the more she started to believe she was being childish. How can a single person take down the most powerful man of the Artificers Guild? How could she accomplish this if no one was going to take her side? Things don't always turn out the way they do in stories, and that was a painful lesson for her to accept.

***

Lenoria’s thoughts about her life were interrupted when she woke up to the sound of footsteps. The sky was overcast, and she still felt the wounds the eagle had inflicted on her. Her legs were moving but her hands were immobile. Has the day of her judgment come?