The Nurse led us down the now familiar hallway towards her office, halting us at the door. “Come in when I call you. I just want to make sure they’re 100% ready” she opens the door just enough to allow her to slip through and then closes it behind her.

 

“Who is it?” Erina asks, with her hand on my shoulder. It was reassuring that she was here with me, always was.

“I don’t know, but I did see something earlier which I never told you. There was someone watching us earlier. I didn’t catch a glimpse of who they were but they can’t be bad right? Not if the Nurse is brokering the meeting right?”

 

Erina scoffs a mini-sausage roll that she pulled from somewhere. “You’re-mmm-right. I’m worrying over nothing” The door in front of us opens and Nurse Jousset sticks her head out, her long elfin ears scraping on the doorframe and dishevelling part of her hair.

“Come on in you two, she’s ready”

“She?” Erina mutters behind me. The Nurse steps back and I push through the door to see a small figure setting on a chair at an angle facing towards the door. It had been a while since I’d seen this person, last time I had fainted. “Oh, you..” Erina has a more than understandable scowl on her face, after what they had attempted to do to me.

 

“Hello Cadence. Its good to see you” One look at the rather sad looking figure before me gave me enough to know they weren’t here to harm me.

 

“S-Sylvie….Erina...I’m…” she stutters and stalls, I remain quiet. It might be selfish but I think she has to do this herself. Erina puts a protective hand around my waist, I could tell she was on edge.

 

“I’m so so sorry” she cries in that dirty, splintered and distinctly human way. “I ca-ca-can’t even hope to...get your forgiveness. I don’t-don’t deserve anything like it” Nurse Jousset ducks out of the room, but from the way the door doesn’t fully close I know she’s leaning on the other side. I move forwards to crouch in front of her.

 

“Its...alright. You mentioned something to me, I think I remember it before I fainted. Something about your father? Something must have been troubling you seriously for you to go as far as you did. I have trauma too, I understand” I place my green-tinged hand on her knee and look up at her face, her eyes red because of the tears.

 

“My...father. He died when I was younger, about 9 or 10 years old. He worked in the Town Hall where he had a desk job, like everyone else. There was a...incident. An ex-employee came back and…” she chokes on the words, this was all news to me. “He was a fire elemental and…”

 

“I think we get the picture, Cadence. Don’t worry about it” The story had softened Erina up a bit clearly, sympathy in her eyes.

 

“Thats why. I was jealous and bitter that you got to come back. I didn’t see why it was you and not my father. I was so wrong to think that…”

 

“Trust me, Its something I have pondered and thought about myself too. But I found my reason, and my passion since then. I’m sorry, I’m a one-off and an accident. My existence is illegal. I hopefully won’t ever be repeated.”

 

“Don’t speak like that, the both of you have been through a lot. Cadence I want you to come with us to the party upstairs. I’ll help you clean up a bit if you want?” says Erina, who squeezes my cheek as punishment for speaking badly of myself and offers Cadence her other free hand.

 

“We’ll forget the festival, that wasn’t you. Not the proper you. Come on, lets start over?” I offer my free hand as well. Cadence looks up at us and bursts into tears again.

 

“Thank you...b-both. So much..I can’t ever repay you for your kindness” 

 

“You don’t have to” I’d gotten over my near escape a while ago, I’d compartmentalised it. Same with my actual death. I’d always been good at that, I had tried to do it with my parents but they had torn apart all the boxes I’d put those memories in. My mother was never very good at staying away from my things, and I suppose that included those.

 

“Now come on, let me help you get cleaned up. Sylvie you go on up to the party, we’ll see you there shortly” Erina gives me a thumbs up and pulls Cadence onto her feet. I nod and stand up, opening the door of the Nurse’s office to see her leaning on the wall opposite.

 

“Nice job Sylvie. She was trying to approach you before coming to me”

 

“Any progress on catching the guy who brought me to life again?” She shrugs nonchalantly.

 

“The last message I got from the Principal, which had been passed to him by the Mayoress, was that they suspect he had skipped the county, probably up north. The cameras tracked his car that way but lost him part way along, I believe” This was slightly disappointing, if it wasn’t for his fuckup I’d have been his.... Ugh...its barely worth thinking of.

 

“Sorry to ask so many questions but do you have any progress on my voice? Those lozenges stopped the constant coughing and spluttering, but I still can’t speak, yet alone sing. You know that means a lot to me” 

 

She nods. “I know that, I’m waiting on some of my contacts to get back to me. I’m sorry” she holds her hands up apologetically “You’re a unique case and these things will take time, and unfortunately, a level of experimentation. We don’t do anything that you don’t consent to allowing us to do”

 

“Yeah I understand, thanks. I’m gonna go back up now” I fiddle with the trim of the dress, making sure it was nice and neat.

 

“Go ahead, have some fun. I’ll be up to make sure everyone goes to their room at an appropriate time”

“Ok, see you”  I let out a sigh and begin to make my way to the party, I was happy to see Cadence finally take the steps to recovering. I wish mine were as easy. I shake my head to try and dislodge those thoughts. Time to go have some fun.

***

 

The party hadn’t waned in terms of people, if anything there were more there. Leona had found Maeve and Annette, or more specifically, I found Leona the rabbit perched on the sofa between them. The little fluffy creatures head immediately swivelled in my direction and hopped onto the table, absolutely squashing an open packet of crisps someone had left there.

 

“Hey!” 

 

Leona bounded across the room before skidding to a half in front of me and switching back to human form, enveloping me in a big hug. 

 

“Sylvie!” she exclaims “I only saw you for a moment. Its good to talk to you properly”

 

“You too! You’re very energetic now. You’re moving in I hear?”

 

“Yeah, we got the green light from my parents, and the Nurse has been super helpful in helping me figure myself out a bit, and I now have full range of the College’s woods to roam legally now” She dances around excitedly. This was a huge change from the Leona I knew.

 

“Calm down a little bit, you’ll trip if you carry on like that”

 

“Nope! Years of escaping home and learning the ropes in the wild means I’m actually pretty stable as a human too, although I was so miserable I never really understood that I had this talent. I’m going to join the gymnastics club soon” Maeve and Annette had slowly picked their way through the room and joined us.

 

“You should see her go properly Sylvie, she was cartwheeling nearly the entire way down the balcony” Maeve says, chuckling. Annette nods in agreement.

 

“I may have to, but later. I want to chill a bit first” 

 

“No problem, lets go sit and listen to the music. We’re all taking turns with the song choice, we’ve got a raffle going on and your name is in there already” Annette says, her ears flicking back in the direction of the sofa as she and Leona take off ahead of me and Maeve in it’s direction.

 

“Where's Erina by the way?” Maeve asks as we pick our way over sprawled legs towards it.

 

“She’ll be along-” I pause typing to not accidentally step on someone “-shortly. She offered to help the Nurse a bit longer”

 

“Ah, what was it about?”

 

“You’ll see” I wink as we reach the sofa where Annette and Leona are already sitting down. The current song begins to wind down and a guy at the counter plunges a arm into a bowl of folded paper.

 

“The next choice goes toooooooooo Annette Silver” He exclaims.

 

“Ooh good. I’m going to surprise you lot” she scoops up the remote and begins tapping away at it. “Anyone up for party rocking?”