Denouement

TWO

(a/n: this is what Aurelia looks like btw)

Aurelia's day continued in reserved routine. Advanced English discussing old world literature, gym running laps, her independent study. All until last period when her lab partner in physics, Soren Englerth, approached her with that stupid, friendly smile he always seemed to have on his face.

He eyed Aurelia, waiting for her to speak, or make some kind of jab at him, but it didn't come. He took his place on the lab bench and began setting up his part of the experiment, as Aurelia had already done so. "Afternoon, Aurelia" he greeted her with a smile. Aurelia sighed and mumbled "afternoon" to Soren.

The lesson began and the teacher, an older man with peppered hair, drew vectors on the board for the class to solve. It took Soren two minutes to wait before trying to make conversation with Aurelia. "I'm really grateful this is last period," he said casually. She didn't so much as look up from her furious scribbling of the problems in her notebook. Soren continued, "I mean I'd hate to have physics first thing in the morning, or like before lunch because no ever focuses before lunch, right? I mean, I can't speak for everyone, but I know I'm always hungry in calculus before lunch."

Aurelia's scribbling pen stopped abruptly. Her gaze shifted from the paper to Soren's endless pools of green. He blinked in surprise. "I'm working on this hypothetical problem, and need someone else's opinion on it. It's all hypothetical." She said as he nodded. He was just eager that she was actually engaging with him. "Hypothetically, if a physical being could change their body density to say, that of smoke or a gas, could the anthropic principle be applied to rewire the 'just right' anatomy of their body in this existence as opposed to somewhere else?" Soren looked dumbfound. Aurelia shook her head, trying to think of a better way to reword it. "Okay. Think of it this way, would it be possible, given the right conditions for microscopic particles, to move further than fifteen feet, like thousands of miles?"

Soren thought it out, and she swore she could see the gears turning in his head. "I guess so," he said and leaned over Aurelia's notebook to try a get a closer look at her scribbling that filled the pages. She shut it quickly before he saw too much. He leaned back in his chair, a bit hurt. "Why this hypothetical of essentially, teleporting?"

"Just a personal project I'm working on," she said quickly. He narrowed his eyes, questioning the validity of her lie. "My uncle works at Luminae Lab and I'm interested in going into physics after high school." He nodded, buying her statement.

In truth, she was trying to see if she could teleport further than twenty feet. It could be very useful to travel thousands of miles in an instant, she could save a fortune on plane tickets. Not only that, but it would up the ante of her power. Tonight she would practice with the right conditions; high friction and high velocity would be the right recipe, but how she would do that was beyond her.

But that would be Shade's problem, not Aurelia's.

💫💫💫

After school, Aurelia took the subway home with Grayson and Kam, to Grayson's apartment to study for a calculus test they all had in a few days. They had initially made an honest effort to study, but the conversation wandered to their social lives, and Aurelia inevitably being persecuted for her lack of one.

"Re, you need to get out more, I mean Jesus Christ it's your senior year and you barely show up to anything we do as a group anymore," Kam nagged her.

"Yeah, I hate to team up on you, but you know it's true, Re. Anything you want to talk about?" Grayson said coaxingly.

Aurelia decided to throw her two best friends a bone so they would stop poking their noses where they didn't belong. "I don't know, it's just that Grant has been riding my ass about college applications and my lack of them. And I'm kind of starting to feel the pressure and what if I don't get into my dream school..." she sighed.