There comes a time in every college student’s career where they regret their major. Just a little bit. Everyone does it. Lawyer, doctor, businessman, nurse, everyone. Maybe it’s five seconds, maybe it’s an entire month. Maybe it’s a year.

It’s been the year for Anastasia Costa, a pre-law criminal justice major at one of the top schools in the entire world.

And it looks like she’s starting on a second one, as her sophomore year has been so shit and so stressful she's seriously considering liberal arts. To start it off, her advisor is racist and also a moron. Maybe she couldn’t necessarily prove that first one, but she has proof for the second point. 

Why is an advanced math class “crucial” for a pre-law major to take? A criminal justice major at that, not even one of the rarer majors. Why are there even advanced classes in college??

Apologies.

“Upper Level.”

Maybe it might not be so bad if it isn’t Mathematics 305, differential equations. Anastasia had been deeply disappointed, already, to get to college and find out that equations don't stop at the already fairly advanced formulaic polynomials she’d learned in high school. No, no, in fact, there are more formulas! So many more!

All of her careful planning to avoid STEM majors had been for shit, it seems! All because some moron in a tweed jacket with leather elbow pads (not a hunter, for the record!!!!!) decided that a pre-law major just has to take advanced math.

And then he submitted her schedule without her approval.

Anastasia could chew glass.

Maybe it might not be so bad if she actually liked mathematics. Perhaps it wouldn't even be that awful if she is decent at mathematics. But the truth is that Anastasia is god awful at math. Well, college math. She could do regular math just fine and could even multiply double digit numbers in her head. But formulaic math? Look, the moment it is physically put in front of her, it is over.

However, maybe she’d even be willing to struggle. Oh, does it piss her off that she's going to have to put in so much extra credit to make up for the inevitably barely passing grade she's going to manage to end with? More than she's sure she even has the capability to verbalize, as she already has more credit hours than she reasonably should be taking.

And she couldn’t drop the class! For some reason, at her university of Cordonne, advanced classes being dropped meant some kind of “lean” against her year’s GPA that will just be completely irrecoverable unless she immediately fills the class slot with another advanced class or a GPA booster.

Anastasia isn’t willing to degrade herself to the mind numbing god awful GPA booster classes like Universal Measurements or History of Metal Applications. Oh god, or Universal Occupational Application of Strategic Strategy.

Honest to the Mother, Dina, that’s what it’s called. Why not like… Universal Strategy Applications? She couldn’t even remember what it is fucking cods as, but she's pretty sure it uss it’s own made up bullshit.

But Anastasia doesn't even have a choice to do that, either, as every single class that will fit into this time slot is full.

And currently she’s staring at assigned seating. Indeed, on the projector screen at the front of the class in question (the uh… the math class) displays an excel grid of their four-seats lab tables. These tables are also split into two, as they are technically two smaller lab tables pushed up against each other, and there are two seats at the back of the table that will face the front of the classroom, and then two sides that are perpendicular to that and face each other.

Thankfully, Anastasia is firmly at the back of the class and facing the front. This is good, because the desks sits in a slight V formation, so she has complete access to the board at the front, though it won’t help her. It does, however, let her see clearly that one Lucia De’La Castilles sits next to her and, for some reason, their professor Dr Michelle Conrad believes Lucia to be the pizza to her ranch dressing.

Anastasia is going to hate this year. First off, her math professor likes ranch with pizza. Anastasia, herself, isn’t the biggest fan of ranch, preferring tzatziki though she doesn't think they are really comparable. Regardless, they are usually an alternative to each other at most restaurants in her city, but no fucking way is she putting that on pizza. However, the De’La Castilles are some of the worst fucking people on the planet. 

Probably beyond it, but she's too afraid of being wrong to explore further. 

They’re older than the fucking gods, their family is older than the fucking Republic. Their bloodline is long, varied, and carries many types of historical figures, all the way from Bishop to Druid to King to Assassin to Dictator. Branches of the De’La Castille family spread so wide and varied that two of them are so distantly related they’d very recently begun to marry each other. Still incestuous, in her mind, but who fucking cares when you probably basically own an eighth of the fucking world. Their fucking last name literally meant Of Castles.

And for a long history of this time, they’d only birth men. Women had to be married into the family, until somewhere like 15 years ago, when the last male across any of the bloodlines was born. But, 37 years previously, a woman had been born that had silently marked the beginning of every single Castilles line transitioning to only conceive and give birth to females. Several of these women go to the university and Lucia is one of them. As such, the entire school is obsessed with them, though granted not just them. The top universities are full of similar such celebrities and social figures. 

Castilles daughters are what they’re called, just off the absurdity of the phrase, alone.

However, despite her dread, she does allow herself to ponder just exactly which Castilles that Lucia is. She knew from Blurtle, a social media site she should have deleted off her phone years ago for high schoolers and college students, that there is a freshman joining that year named Gemma. She's very pretty, too, from what Anastasia has seen. Tanned skin with obsidian black hair and green eyes. 

Granted, the entire family looks like that. Including a distinct genetic birth mark that looks like a white heart around their left or right eye. What could even cause that, Anastasia has no idea. She very much doubts it has to be medical, though she isn’t sure she believes the whole curse by Dina thing. 

Regardless, Anastasia does her best not to immediately roll her eyes as she hears the students who’d found their seats around her start to murmur to themselves in hushed tones as they find Lucia’s name and then her own. Of course, it is right as a woman is smoothly sliding into the seat to her right, the seat on the side of the table, Lucia’s seat, that she begins to remember her own reputation at the school. 

Rather, she’s reminded.

“Oh, a prayer for the ability to mind one’s own business unscathed, I cannot believe Dr Conrad would pair up Anastasia Costa and Lucia De’La Castilles.”

“Do you think she did it on purpose?”

“But they’re not even in the same grade??”

“This isn’t fucking fair, I only take this class because I heard Lucia is going to be in it and she gets partnered up with Anastasia.”

“Fuck you, Lucia De’La Castilles doesn’t need to be paired up with the top student out of our entire grade… I do…”

Anastasia prays Lucia has no such hopes, turning to greet the woman who’d taken her spot and internally sighing at a distinct rough edge heart shaped birth mark around her left eye. White compares to her darker rosy skin. Anastasia certainly understands why the family is considered inhumanly beautiful, especially this particular member.

Lucia, herself, is digging around in her bag and setting a tall boy can of Cherry Bomb soda on the table, an energy drink that is flavors like a pepperola, or a soda made from sweet cornpepper and mulled bitter cherries, though other berries could be used. Anastasia prefers the real deal, as she doesn't like the way caffeine makes her chest feel, preferring a blackberry version from the same brand, Cherry Sparks. They had invented the soda some like 300 years before. 

Then, Lucia leans back in her seat, oddly able to stretch out despite the black leather jacket she wore with crimson hearts, in the style of a card suit, on the cuffs and the collar. Rather, the buttons to snap the collar and sleeves are a heart shape. Under this jacket, she wears just a black tube top and then ripped burgundy jeans. Of course, she's perfectly accessorized, too, with leather bracelets, gold chain jewelry, and a simple red velvet choker with a gold crown on it. Anastasia recognizes that as the sigil of the family, every member wore it somewhere.

Anastasia is unsure she’d ever seen it worn as a collar, before.

“So, I guess you’re my partner.” Lucia now turns to look at Anastasia, half grinning at her and gesturing even as she threw her elbow over the back of the chair. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.” Anastasia does her best to be polite, put off by Lucia’s demeanor. “I see that you appear to be the pizza to my ranch. I would have thought we’d leave assigned seating and partner work to learning how to color the rainbow, but I suppose the Childhood Preservation Act seems to have catastrophic effects.”

Lucia pauses, appearing to almost startle, and then she's laughing, softly, and her arm slid off the back of the chair, returning the woman to sitting up. “Yeah, Dr Conrad is just… like that. She thinks she’s important to us developing networking skills or… something.”

“It’s a math class.” Anastasia couldn’t help her bewilderment. “This isn’t fucking sociology or god forbid a humanities. This is math! Mathematics! Arithmetics? What does that have to do with my ability to network? I can network just fine, I’m pre-law.”

“Hey, you’re telling me, I’m a finance major.” Lucia laughs further and then she hums for a moment, shrugging. Around them, though, the class starts to silence and move into their seats as the professor begins to start class. 

Anastasia groans softly, watching a stack of syllabus packets pass to Lucia, who takes two and then reaches over Anastasia to drop them in front of the other two people, Mark Lamel and Siera Moore. She made a face, but Lucia don't seem to acknowledge it, and their table partners just gives her a glance before shrugging and pushing on. 

Regardless, she don't have time for this, sighing and picking up the syllabus, holding it away from her like it is disease for a moment before reluctantly smoothing it out in front of herself, her irritation with this class raising as she first notices it is thick as cardboard and then further sees YOUR PARTNER AFFECTS 15% OF YOUR GRADE at the top of the Partner Projects schedule.

“Oh, what the fuck, this is just a math class-” She curses, flipping through the syllabus with raising horror as she realizes that she's now responsible for an entire 15 percent of Lucia De’La Castilles math grade. “How do we even partner up for this! We have to do every assignment together, this is bullshit!” She manages to avoid actually yelling, dropping her voice to somewhat of a whisper, and glaring deeply up at Dr Conrad as she starts to explain this very partner system.

“This is not a democracy! This is a dictatorship. So I don’t personally feel it necessary to explain every decision I make. I’ve been teaching mathematics for too fucking long.” Evidently, as only tenured professors are “allowed” to cuss, though more like just not able to be restricted. “Now, I wouldn’t feel it necessary to force you kids to network, but some of you think you have degrees that don’t require it and that’s not true. And unfortunately this seems to be a skill that less and less professors feel like teaching.”

“She just contradicts herself.” Anastasia furrows her brows. “Or maybe she just felt it necessary to explain that one?” She asks, glancing at Lucia first and then startling when she and the rest of the table snickers softly. 

Her face burns and she grasps at the edge of her skirt, resisting the urge to inspect it to make sure it is still white in order to hide her embarrassment. What had she said? 

Maybe she just shouldn't have spoken.

“I like this table.” Sierra hums, tapping her ring finger on the table while her hand forms a claw on it, showing off long black manicured nails. “I hate Dr Conrad.”

“You hate everyone.” Anastasia does her best to be polite and look in the direction of the other person at the table, startled to find that Mark is actually another woman, though her voice is low. Her pale skin almost seems to shimmer in the light, a characteristic of Talud, one that Sierra seems to share despite her rosy sun kissed skin and her strawberry auburn hair.

Anastasia almost finds herself asking Sierra which of the islands she's from, curious to know how close it would be to her own native island. However, Lucia speaks before Anastasia could, tapping the table and stealing her attention again. “Be nice to her, Mark, please?”

Mark and Sierra both seem to find this notion very funny and then Dr Conrad raises her voice. “And while I know many of you won't take this class very seriously-”

Anastasia tries very hard not to roll her eyes, instead looking at Lucia, who just shrugged and gestured. “It's just a syllabus, but okay-” she flicks her hands at it, half mouthing the words, half murmuring them. Sierra and Mark snicker and, admittedly, Anastasia resists her own laughter. 

From there, Dr Conrad really only prattles on by reading the rest of the front page of the syllabus and leaving them to figure out how to read it with their desk partners. Anastasia turns to Lucia, deciding to at least… make an effort. Her best friend, Opal, will hopefully help her or Bluebell, her other close friend and dormmate, will tutor her for this assignment at least.

“This isn't enough time to do the first assignment together!” Sierra immediately complains to Mark, who seems to sigh in agreement. “Lucky us, we're in the same frat. What will Lucia and Anastasia do?” She pouts, dropping her chin into her palm. 

Anastasia's stomach drops and she quickly turns to Lucia, suddenly realizing just which Castilles this one really has to be. She swears she sees Lucia smooth out a rather intense glare at Sierra, her jaw clenching for a moment and then she just gestures. “Figure something out like normal people.”

It's then that she catches that one of Lucia's bracelet charms have the shape of a lioness mid roar and her heart aches with the edge of the metaphor as she hopes that Sierra and Mark may just belong to one of those odd coed fraternities, taking a moment to adjust her skirt and glance at their wrists and sighing as she makes out similarly shaped lioness heads. Maybe all three just love gold jewelry but she doesn't take risks like that. Anastasia knows she’s prey, she could accept that. 

She just isn't interested in being eaten. No grudge against those that are, she just isn't interested in the experience she'd heard come from female, male, between, and otherwise. 

“Let's just meet up at Miaki’s?” Anastasia decides to offer before any dorm or frat house or similar could be offered. “Or the library, though I think I'm opposed to private rooms.”

“Thanks a lot, Sierra.” Lucia takes a deep breath and then she gives Anastasia a rather strained smile. “Miaki’s is more than fine. When are you free? My schedule is rather empty.”

Fuck.

“That might be a problem.” Anastasia winces and she mentally runs through her schedule. “I have an hour every Saturday at nine?”

Lucia tsks her tongue for a moment and sighs. “Unfortunately…” she seems genuinely regretful, stalling for a bit by clicking a pen over and over, “parties for our frat are… mandatory. And they generally last until the- well, the morning. Is there… any other time?”

Anastasia frowns and she considers it, tilting her head as Lucia again focuses a small glare on Sierra and adjusts her jacket, quickly sitting up again. “Look, I can… try to stay up past the parties and sober up, but I just don't think you're going to like me very much.”

“Well noted.” Anastasia nods and she considers her other time slots. And her other classes, as well as her extracurriculars and then, particularly, her friends. Her classes are obviously unable to budge and her extracurriculars are too important to lose.

She is desperate to lead the debate team the next year, and she couldn't give up any of her tutoring hours because of her scholarship. Plus… she really just doesn't want to cut into any of her time past seven in the evening since she usually spends that with her friends or doing her assignments or trying not to succumb to stress.

However, she considers a few options and then sighs. Maybe her friends will forgive a slight dip in time for gossip about Lucia De’La Cruz…

Something Anastasia certainly wouldn't participate in otherwise. But, Opal is a single mother and Bluebell loves to hear any drama about the Castilles. God, she could already imagine her excitement at hearing they aren't just in the same class but partners…

“Your schedule must be really full.” Lucia laughs, though it is a bit awkward and fell flat. Even Sierra and Mark wince before deciding to attempt to make awkward conversation between themselves. Anastasia, however, don't seem to notice and merely blinks twice.

“Oh.” She smiled. “Sorry, I am going over my schedule. I'll admit… it's rather tight for me.” She knows better than to let her know she even has time she isn't willing to negotiate, so she just goes straight with the option she wants first. “Then I have thirty at 11 on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

Lucia gives her a regretful smile. “I have an economics class.”

“Damn.” Anastasia sighs, tsking her tongue. “Well that leaves me with thirty minutes at six on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Beyond that, we might have to consider a chat with Dr Conrad.” She won't lie that she maybe slightly hopes that is the option Lucia chooses.

However, Lucia is quick to shake her head, sitting up even further and putting her hands on the table. “No, no,” she flutters her eyes and furrows her brows, “six is just fine. However, I hardly think thirty minutes is going to be enough time to compare answers.”

“Why do we have to compare answers?” Anastasia tries not to show the way her nerves flinch ever so slightly at the idea of having to humiliate herself that way. “We’re splitting them up, is that not enough?”

“Maybe for you, but some of the questions have multiple parts to them and will need to be split up weirdly.” Lucia returns, shaking her head. “i think we should at least look over those together.”

Ugh, she supposes it is fair. But thirty minutes should be more than enough. She sits up, touching the syllabus to glance over the assignments. “I doubt many of those questions will take more than five minutes to compare and there can't be more than four.”

Lucia pauses and looks at her for a moment before an easy sort of smile appears on her lips and she seems to shrug, moving her arm to now rest on the back of the chair again. “And practice ends at 5:45, so I might need more time to get there and set up. I assume you'll likely want a drink, so let's give some time for that, too. That gives 10 minutes into six that both of us have to agree to have as a buffer for this to logically work.” 

Anastasia smiles, flattered she rose to the challenge and, since it really won't be cutting into her time with her friends, she decides to be nice and offer her just a small inch. “Alright, then forty five minutes is just fine.”

“Actually,” Lucia clenches her jaw for a moment and then she shakes her head. “No. My math grade is important to me, I would like more time than that. An hour and a half?”

“Are you out of your fucking mind??” Anastasia whispers, leaning closer to convey her indignance. Perhaps she could have remained in debate mode, but she isn’t in a debate and a whole hour and a half seems excessive to even ask for. “Your math grade is that important to you??”

“I'm a finance major, numbers are important to my future career.” Lucia grins at her, doing a little shoulder shake, and Anastasia narrows her eyes. “Fine. 75 minutes.”

“That is hardly an improvement.” Anastasia tcks and then she shook her head. “The best I can give is an hour. I have things I can't budge on after 7 and tutoring until 6. So unfortunately, my schedule is locked.”

“An hour is perfect!” Lucia claps her hands together and rests them back on the table again, her expression slightly smug. “Nice try, pre-law. Welcome to negotiations."

“Oh you-” Anastasia’s eyes widen as she understands exactly how she just got played. Like an arcade game and Anastasia isn't sure she minded losing. That is… impressive. She'd been in debate, but Lucia much more correctly negotiated for more time. “Well played,” she gestures her hand, “I concede. But understand that I have picked that up and I'm liable to send it back at you.”

“I can't wait.” Lucia leans forward, grinning again. It made Anastasia suddenly aware of the deep red color staining the inner parts of her lips. Like pomegranate juice that blurs out as it reaches the edge of her lips. Anastasia is quick to look away, pretending to focus on her syllabus again. “You know, speaking of parties-”

“Um, that was an entire negotiation ago?” 

‧⭒‧⭒‧˙⭒.‧🟄‧◦‧☽✦☾‧◦‧🟄‧.⭒˙‧⭒‧⭒‧

Hi! This is a brief writing excerpt from my new original story! This story is going to likely be available on story platforms in August while I set up my patreon and some kind of base for worldbuilding knowledge!

There comes a time in every college student’s career where they regret their major. Just a little bit. Everyone does it. Lawyer, doctor, businessman, nurse, everyone. Maybe it’s five seconds, maybe it’s an entire month. Maybe it’s a year.

It’s been the year for Anastasia Costa, a pre-law criminal justice major at one of the top schools in the entire world.

And it looks like she’s starting on a second one, as her sophomore year has been so shit and so stressful she's seriously considering liberal arts. To start it off, her advisor is racist and also a moron. Maybe she couldn’t necessarily prove that first one, but she has proof for the second point. 

Why is an advanced math class “crucial” for a pre-law major to take? A criminal justice major at that, not even one of the rarer majors. Why are there even advanced classes in college??

Apologies.

“Upper Level.”

Maybe it might not be so bad if it isn’t Mathematics 305, differential equations. Anastasia had been deeply disappointed, already, to get to college and find out that equations don't stop at the already fairly advanced formulaic polynomials she’d learned in high school. No, no, in fact, there are more formulas! So many more!

All of her careful planning to avoid STEM majors had been for shit, it seems! All because some moron in a tweed jacket with leather elbow pads (not a hunter, for the record!!!!!) decided that a pre-law major just has to take advanced math.

And then he submitted her schedule without her approval.

Anastasia could chew glass.

Maybe it might not be so bad if she actually liked mathematics. Perhaps it wouldn't even be that awful if she is decent at mathematics. But the truth is that Anastasia is god awful at math. Well, college math. She could do regular math just fine and could even multiply double digit numbers in her head. But formulaic math? Look, the moment it is physically put in front of her, it is over.

However, maybe she’d even be willing to struggle. Oh, does it piss her off that she's going to have to put in so much extra credit to make up for the inevitably barely passing grade she's going to manage to end with? More than she's sure she even has the capability to verbalize, as she already has more credit hours than she reasonably should be taking.

And she couldn’t drop the class! For some reason, at her university of Cordonne, advanced classes being dropped meant some kind of “lean” against her year’s GPA that will just be completely irrecoverable unless she immediately fills the class slot with another advanced class or a GPA booster.

Anastasia isn’t willing to degrade herself to the mind numbing god awful GPA booster classes like Universal Measurements or History of Metal Applications. Oh god, or Universal Occupational Application of Strategic Strategy.

Honest to the Mother, Dina, that’s what it’s called. Why not like… Universal Strategy Applications? She couldn’t even remember what it is fucking cods as, but she's pretty sure it uss it’s own made up bullshit.

But Anastasia doesn't even have a choice to do that, either, as every single class that will fit into this time slot is full.

And currently she’s staring at assigned seating. Indeed, on the projector screen at the front of the class in question (the uh… the math class) displays an excel grid of their four-seats lab tables. These tables are also split into two, as they are technically two smaller lab tables pushed up against each other, and there are two seats at the back of the table that will face the front of the classroom, and then two sides that are perpendicular to that and face each other.

Thankfully, Anastasia is firmly at the back of the class and facing the front. This is good, because the desks sits in a slight V formation, so she has complete access to the board at the front, though it won’t help her. It does, however, let her see clearly that one Lucia De’La Castilles sits next to her and, for some reason, their professor Dr Michelle Conrad believes Lucia to be the pizza to her ranch dressing.

Anastasia is going to hate this year. First off, her math professor likes ranch with pizza. Anastasia, herself, isn’t the biggest fan of ranch, preferring tzatziki though she doesn't think they are really comparable. Regardless, they are usually an alternative to each other at most restaurants in her city, but no fucking way is she putting that on pizza. However, the De’La Castilles are some of the worst fucking people on the planet. 

Probably beyond it, but she's too afraid of being wrong to explore further. 

They’re older than the fucking gods, their family is older than the fucking Republic. Their bloodline is long, varied, and carries many types of historical figures, all the way from Bishop to Druid to King to Assassin to Dictator. Branches of the De’La Castille family spread so wide and varied that two of them are so distantly related they’d very recently begun to marry each other. Still incestuous, in her mind, but who fucking cares when you probably basically own an eighth of the fucking world. Their fucking last name literally meant Of Castles.

And for a long history of this time, they’d only birth men. Women had to be married into the family, until somewhere like 15 years ago, when the last male across any of the bloodlines was born. But, 37 years previously, a woman had been born that had silently marked the beginning of every single Castilles line transitioning to only conceive and give birth to females. Several of these women go to the university and Lucia is one of them. As such, the entire school is obsessed with them, though granted not just them. The top universities are full of similar such celebrities and social figures. 

Castilles daughters are what they’re called, just off the absurdity of the phrase, alone.

However, despite her dread, she does allow herself to ponder just exactly which Castilles that Lucia is. She knew from Blurtle, a social media site she should have deleted off her phone years ago for high schoolers and college students, that there is a freshman joining that year named Gemma. She's very pretty, too, from what Anastasia has seen. Tanned skin with obsidian black hair and green eyes. 

Granted, the entire family looks like that. Including a distinct genetic birth mark that looks like a white heart around their left or right eye. What could even cause that, Anastasia has no idea. She very much doubts it has to be medical, though she isn’t sure she believes the whole curse by Dina thing. 

Regardless, Anastasia does her best not to immediately roll her eyes as she hears the students who’d found their seats around her start to murmur to themselves in hushed tones as they find Lucia’s name and then her own. Of course, it is right as a woman is smoothly sliding into the seat to her right, the seat on the side of the table, Lucia’s seat, that she begins to remember her own reputation at the school. 

Rather, she’s reminded.

“Oh, a prayer for the ability to mind one’s own business unscathed, I cannot believe Dr Conrad would pair up Anastasia Costa and Lucia De’La Castilles.”

“Do you think she did it on purpose?”

“But they’re not even in the same grade??”

“This isn’t fucking fair, I only take this class because I heard Lucia is going to be in it and she gets partnered up with Anastasia.”

“Fuck you, Lucia De’La Castilles doesn’t need to be paired up with the top student out of our entire grade… I do…”

Anastasia prays Lucia has no such hopes, turning to greet the woman who’d taken her spot and internally sighing at a distinct rough edge heart shaped birth mark around her left eye. White compares to her darker rosy skin. Anastasia certainly understands why the family is considered inhumanly beautiful, especially this particular member.

Lucia, herself, is digging around in her bag and setting a tall boy can of Cherry Bomb soda on the table, an energy drink that is flavors like a pepperola, or a soda made from sweet cornpepper and mulled bitter cherries, though other berries could be used. Anastasia prefers the real deal, as she doesn't like the way caffeine makes her chest feel, preferring a blackberry version from the same brand, Cherry Sparks. They had invented the soda some like 300 years before. 

Then, Lucia leans back in her seat, oddly able to stretch out despite the black leather jacket she wore with crimson hearts, in the style of a card suit, on the cuffs and the collar. Rather, the buttons to snap the collar and sleeves are a heart shape. Under this jacket, she wears just a black tube top and then ripped burgundy jeans. Of course, she's perfectly accessorized, too, with leather bracelets, gold chain jewelry, and a simple red velvet choker with a gold crown on it. Anastasia recognizes that as the sigil of the family, every member wore it somewhere.

Anastasia is unsure she’d ever seen it worn as a collar, before.

“So, I guess you’re my partner.” Lucia now turns to look at Anastasia, half grinning at her and gesturing even as she threw her elbow over the back of the chair. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.” Anastasia does her best to be polite, put off by Lucia’s demeanor. “I see that you appear to be the pizza to my ranch. I would have thought we’d leave assigned seating and partner work to learning how to color the rainbow, but I suppose the Childhood Preservation Act seems to have catastrophic effects.”

Lucia pauses, appearing to almost startle, and then she's laughing, softly, and her arm slid off the back of the chair, returning the woman to sitting up. “Yeah, Dr Conrad is just… like that. She thinks she’s important to us developing networking skills or… something.”

“It’s a math class.” Anastasia couldn’t help her bewilderment. “This isn’t fucking sociology or god forbid a humanities. This is math! Mathematics! Arithmetics? What does that have to do with my ability to network? I can network just fine, I’m pre-law.”

“Hey, you’re telling me, I’m a finance major.” Lucia laughs further and then she hums for a moment, shrugging. Around them, though, the class starts to silence and move into their seats as the professor begins to start class. 

Anastasia groans softly, watching a stack of syllabus packets pass to Lucia, who takes two and then reaches over Anastasia to drop them in front of the other two people, Mark Lamel and Siera Moore. She made a face, but Lucia don't seem to acknowledge it, and their table partners just gives her a glance before shrugging and pushing on. 

Regardless, she don't have time for this, sighing and picking up the syllabus, holding it away from her like it is disease for a moment before reluctantly smoothing it out in front of herself, her irritation with this class raising as she first notices it is thick as cardboard and then further sees YOUR PARTNER AFFECTS 15% OF YOUR GRADE at the top of the Partner Projects schedule.

“Oh, what the fuck, this is just a math class-” She curses, flipping through the syllabus with raising horror as she realizes that she's now responsible for an entire 15 percent of Lucia De’La Castilles math grade. “How do we even partner up for this! We have to do every assignment together, this is bullshit!” She manages to avoid actually yelling, dropping her voice to somewhat of a whisper, and glaring deeply up at Dr Conrad as she starts to explain this very partner system.

“This is not a democracy! This is a dictatorship. So I don’t personally feel it necessary to explain every decision I make. I’ve been teaching mathematics for too fucking long.” Evidently, as only tenured professors are “allowed” to cuss, though more like just not able to be restricted. “Now, I wouldn’t feel it necessary to force you kids to network, but some of you think you have degrees that don’t require it and that’s not true. And unfortunately this seems to be a skill that less and less professors feel like teaching.”

“She just contradicts herself.” Anastasia furrows her brows. “Or maybe she just felt it necessary to explain that one?” She asks, glancing at Lucia first and then startling when she and the rest of the table snickers softly. 

Her face burns and she grasps at the edge of her skirt, resisting the urge to inspect it to make sure it is still white in order to hide her embarrassment. What had she said? 

Maybe she just shouldn't have spoken.

“I like this table.” Sierra hums, tapping her ring finger on the table while her hand forms a claw on it, showing off long black manicured nails. “I hate Dr Conrad.”

“You hate everyone.” Anastasia does her best to be polite and look in the direction of the other person at the table, startled to find that Mark is actually another woman, though her voice is low. Her pale skin almost seems to shimmer in the light, a characteristic of Talud, one that Sierra seems to share despite her rosy sun kissed skin and her strawberry auburn hair.

Anastasia almost finds herself asking Sierra which of the islands she's from, curious to know how close it would be to her own native island. However, Lucia speaks before Anastasia could, tapping the table and stealing her attention again. “Be nice to her, Mark, please?”

Mark and Sierra both seem to find this notion very funny and then Dr Conrad raises her voice. “And while I know many of you won't take this class very seriously-”

Anastasia tries very hard not to roll her eyes, instead looking at Lucia, who just shrugged and gestured. “It's just a syllabus, but okay-” she flicks her hands at it, half mouthing the words, half murmuring them. Sierra and Mark snicker and, admittedly, Anastasia resists her own laughter. 

From there, Dr Conrad really only prattles on by reading the rest of the front page of the syllabus and leaving them to figure out how to read it with their desk partners. Anastasia turns to Lucia, deciding to at least… make an effort. Her best friend, Opal, will hopefully help her or Bluebell, her other close friend and dormmate, will tutor her for this assignment at least.

“This isn't enough time to do the first assignment together!” Sierra immediately complains to Mark, who seems to sigh in agreement. “Lucky us, we're in the same frat. What will Lucia and Anastasia do?” She pouts, dropping her chin into her palm. 

Anastasia's stomach drops and she quickly turns to Lucia, suddenly realizing just which Castilles this one really has to be. She swears she sees Lucia smooth out a rather intense glare at Sierra, her jaw clenching for a moment and then she just gestures. “Figure something out like normal people.”

It's then that she catches that one of Lucia's bracelet charms have the shape of a lioness mid roar and her heart aches with the edge of the metaphor as she hopes that Sierra and Mark may just belong to one of those odd coed fraternities, taking a moment to adjust her skirt and glance at their wrists and sighing as she makes out similarly shaped lioness heads. Maybe all three just love gold jewelry but she doesn't take risks like that. Anastasia knows she’s prey, she could accept that. 

She just isn't interested in being eaten. No grudge against those that are, she just isn't interested in the experience she'd heard come from female, male, between, and otherwise. 

“Let's just meet up at Miaki’s?” Anastasia decides to offer before any dorm or frat house or similar could be offered. “Or the library, though I think I'm opposed to private rooms.”

“Thanks a lot, Sierra.” Lucia takes a deep breath and then she gives Anastasia a rather strained smile. “Miaki’s is more than fine. When are you free? My schedule is rather empty.”

Fuck.

“That might be a problem.” Anastasia winces and she mentally runs through her schedule. “I have an hour every Saturday at nine?”

Lucia tsks her tongue for a moment and sighs. “Unfortunately…” she seems genuinely regretful, stalling for a bit by clicking a pen over and over, “parties for our frat are… mandatory. And they generally last until the- well, the morning. Is there… any other time?”

Anastasia frowns and she considers it, tilting her head as Lucia again focuses a small glare on Sierra and adjusts her jacket, quickly sitting up again. “Look, I can… try to stay up past the parties and sober up, but I just don't think you're going to like me very much.”

“Well noted.” Anastasia nods and she considers her other time slots. And her other classes, as well as her extracurriculars and then, particularly, her friends. Her classes are obviously unable to budge and her extracurriculars are too important to lose.

She is desperate to lead the debate team the next year, and she couldn't give up any of her tutoring hours because of her scholarship. Plus… she really just doesn't want to cut into any of her time past seven in the evening since she usually spends that with her friends or doing her assignments or trying not to succumb to stress.

However, she considers a few options and then sighs. Maybe her friends will forgive a slight dip in time for gossip about Lucia De’La Cruz…

Something Anastasia certainly wouldn't participate in otherwise. But, Opal is a single mother and Bluebell loves to hear any drama about the Castilles. God, she could already imagine her excitement at hearing they aren't just in the same class but partners…

“Your schedule must be really full.” Lucia laughs, though it is a bit awkward and fell flat. Even Sierra and Mark wince before deciding to attempt to make awkward conversation between themselves. Anastasia, however, don't seem to notice and merely blinks twice.

“Oh.” She smiled. “Sorry, I am going over my schedule. I'll admit… it's rather tight for me.” She knows better than to let her know she even has time she isn't willing to negotiate, so she just goes straight with the option she wants first. “Then I have thirty at 11 on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

Lucia gives her a regretful smile. “I have an economics class.”

“Damn.” Anastasia sighs, tsking her tongue. “Well that leaves me with thirty minutes at six on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Beyond that, we might have to consider a chat with Dr Conrad.” She won't lie that she maybe slightly hopes that is the option Lucia chooses.

However, Lucia is quick to shake her head, sitting up even further and putting her hands on the table. “No, no,” she flutters her eyes and furrows her brows, “six is just fine. However, I hardly think thirty minutes is going to be enough time to compare answers.”

“Why do we have to compare answers?” Anastasia tries not to show the way her nerves flinch ever so slightly at the idea of having to humiliate herself that way. “We’re splitting them up, is that not enough?”

“Maybe for you, but some of the questions have multiple parts to them and will need to be split up weirdly.” Lucia returns, shaking her head. “i think we should at least look over those together.”

Ugh, she supposes it is fair. But thirty minutes should be more than enough. She sits up, touching the syllabus to glance over the assignments. “I doubt many of those questions will take more than five minutes to compare and there can't be more than four.”

Lucia pauses and looks at her for a moment before an easy sort of smile appears on her lips and she seems to shrug, moving her arm to now rest on the back of the chair again. “And practice ends at 5:45, so I might need more time to get there and set up. I assume you'll likely want a drink, so let's give some time for that, too. That gives 10 minutes into six that both of us have to agree to have as a buffer for this to logically work.” 

Anastasia smiles, flattered she rose to the challenge and, since it really won't be cutting into her time with her friends, she decides to be nice and offer her just a small inch. “Alright, then forty five minutes is just fine.”

“Actually,” Lucia clenches her jaw for a moment and then she shakes her head. “No. My math grade is important to me, I would like more time than that. An hour and a half?”

“Are you out of your fucking mind??” Anastasia whispers, leaning closer to convey her indignance. Perhaps she could have remained in debate mode, but she isn’t in a debate and a whole hour and a half seems excessive to even ask for. “Your math grade is that important to you??”

“I'm a finance major, numbers are important to my future career.” Lucia grins at her, doing a little shoulder shake, and Anastasia narrows her eyes. “Fine. 75 minutes.”

“That is hardly an improvement.” Anastasia tcks and then she shook her head. “The best I can give is an hour. I have things I can't budge on after 7 and tutoring until 6. So unfortunately, my schedule is locked.”

“An hour is perfect!” Lucia claps her hands together and rests them back on the table again, her expression slightly smug. “Nice try, pre-law. Welcome to negotiations."

“Oh you-” Anastasia’s eyes widen as she understands exactly how she just got played. Like an arcade game and Anastasia isn't sure she minded losing. That is… impressive. She'd been in debate, but Lucia much more correctly negotiated for more time. “Well played,” she gestures her hand, “I concede. But understand that I have picked that up and I'm liable to send it back at you.”

“I can't wait.” Lucia leans forward, grinning again. It made Anastasia suddenly aware of the deep red color staining the inner parts of her lips. Like pomegranate juice that blurs out as it reaches the edge of her lips. Anastasia is quick to look away, pretending to focus on her syllabus again. “You know, speaking of parties-”

“Um, that was an entire negotiation ago?” 

‧⭒‧⭒‧˙⭒.‧🟄‧◦‧☽✦☾‧◦‧🟄‧.⭒˙‧⭒‧⭒‧

Hi! This is a brief writing excerpt from my new original story! This story is going to likely be available on story platforms in August while I set up my patreon and some kind of base for worldbuilding knowledge!