I clasped and adjusted my skirt in Illia's desk-side mirror, flushed, sweaty, as Ainset pulled up beside me. She flipped the braid over my shoulder, and a smile lit upon her wrinkleless lips, "You ever consider eyeliner?"
"No," I said, and turned away from the girl staring back at me.
The tap of a pen came from Illia's desk; she was deep in thought, muttering under her breath. Her taste still sat on my tongue, strong, foreign.
Pursing her lips to the side, Ainset settled her back to her bar and trays, tongue rolling over a smear of my release in her mouth's corner, "You could. I know the best spot for cheap makeup, and we still have an hour before Commencement."
Haven't I done enough...I don't want to. Don't know how to; it'll look bad.
The tapping's intensity rose and then quit, followed by Illia's voice, "Good idea, fewer flaws for my peers to nitpick. You two drop by the lost and found. Serica, I'll find you later."
"Perfect!" She brought her bar to the small of my back and heaved, rushing me towards the door.
Ainset chattered on with a giddy smile on her face, suggesting various applications of blush and mascara I felt brutally unprepared to apply. In an ideal world, I could grin and bear it as she painted my face; however, Esprit hands and bodies passed through anything besides flesh and hair, which carried enough essence for them to interact with. Clothing held an odd middle ground, in many cases having absorbed enough essence through sweat or other bodily fluids for their fingers to gain purchase. My harness fit into the latter category.
Thankfully, the Esprit chose to smooth her more provocative bits in public spaces, likely at Illia's request.
The lost and found sat in the same building, a small closet set in a hall behind the auditorium's front desk. In a cruel twist of fate, it was also the busiest spot on campus today. A throng of new and returning students handling last-minute business crawled about the place as I stood outside the closet door, arms laden with Ains' best picks, mortified.
Some of the items she could hand over, the others she would have to point and plead for me to retrieve. Our 'haul', as she put it, a pile of mismatched uniform pieces with beauty essentials layered between them, stretched the length of my torso, pressing up against my chin. I now regretted my refusal to stuff each item in my pack as it came, pretending to be a dutiful assistant to the unbound Esprit.
My eyes traced the slats of the ceiling, attempting to look uninterested as my ears burned.
"I think we're done, washroom time!" Ainset set a final piece upon the stack's top, and I looked down at her, my mouth burying into the passionfruit scent of a blue cotton panty. I froze; my cock twitched.
Why!?
The fact that Ains managed to grab them made it so much worse.
"Well, come on!" she nudged my side with her shoulder. Hands full, I knew any sudden move would send this thing tumbling, and I'd have the unsavory task of reassembling the pile before me. However, I had to do something. Peeling my lips back, I clasped the smallest portion of hem between my teeth and turned my head to discard them, coming eye to eye with Cechele Bonaparte. Short, supershort black curls, and smirking like a devil, "Quite a collection you've got there."
Her leash, A black leather length akin to a riding crop, hung clasped to her hip, with a black stone near its end. These fucking nobles. Behind her were a gaggle of oncoming École de Tactique students, the girls I would spend the next four years in fierce competition against. If there was a graceful escape from that situation, I couldn't find it, and paused too long for a satisfying retort.
"Let me help you, Serica." She yanked the panties from my mouth and, in a fluid movement, furled them in the air, catching the waistband to the other side of my head, "It's a blessing Bloom makes these available to girls in need."
I will find you... I will murder you in your sleep.
She'd already resumed her patrol, the crowd proceeding quietly behind her. A giggle, a pair of pursed lips, and one muttering "Cece..." She pulled them off my head and set them back on the pile, "Sorry..." before returning to the crew.
I didn't recognize her; she wore long, honey-blonde pigtails beside arched bangs, with a pair of half-circle glasses.
"They seemed nice. Now, come on," bar to my back, my feet started to move. I turned Ainset down at three separate washrooms, refusing to enter. Too crowded. At last, we found one on the fourth floor with only a couple of girls in it. They looked like they'd just been up to something equally as scandalous, and promptly fled the scene.
"I'm not wearing panties," I blurted, dropping my pile to the floor. The logistics were terrible; there was too much meat and not enough pouch. I preferred the harness; I'd begged my parents for it. I could have given them points for that relenting, but they could have done so much sooner.
Bile fought at my throat, still livid over this whole situation, and now, finally in a private space, I spilled, "Do you not understand what happened down there?"
"Huh?" Ainset tore herself from a sink mirror.
"Those bitches humiliated me, and you moronically orchestrated the whole event!" I shoved her and she passed through the white tile wall, poking her head in a moment later.
"I-I didn't... How? Were they being mean?"
"They crowned me with a pair of fucking panties!"
Why do I have to explain this?
"It was cute."
"It was a disaster." Our voices echoed around the sanitized space.
I should bind you right here, head downstairs, and beat her senseless with whatever the hell you're capable of.
Ains' expression changed, lip snarling, "Why didn't you punch her in the throat? They can't do that to you!"
I'm about to punch you, you stupid bitch.
"Probation."
"Right... défi de fierté?"
A challenge of pride?
It was within code, a formalized duel between Esprit-wielding students, that would attract a crowd.
She has an Esprit, and I have Ains...Unbound.
The assistance of unbound Esprit wasn't unheard of; they could partially empower a leash if they so chose, but the effect was diminished substantially.
You owe it to me after that shit. Now I need to convince you of it.
I took off my pack and set it on the floor to pull out my leash, a simple length of brown doehide, a strap of my harness I'd cut upon my acceptance. A leash didn't need to be anything special; all the fine braids and precious metal lengths merely served aesthetics. Esprit made leashes special, not the material.
I put it in her face, "That'd be kind of difficult, huh?"
Somehow, she managed to catch this implication, smirking as she clasped its end between two fingers, "I'm not supposed to."
"Illia?" I asked and tugged at it, but she didn't let go.
I always liked fishing.
"I could reckon it with her..." she twisted, spun to my side, glimmering in multi-colored light from the washroom's stained glass window.
"You're playing coy, what is it you want?"
"Paaanties..." She dipped down and snatched the blue pair from the top of the pile, wiggling them in the air.