The game didn't go well. Not for the Thorbjorg team. After David's disastrous time up at bat, it all went downhill from there. In the end, the Merlins won by five points. That meant that the Thorbjorg underclassman team was out of the tournament.

"Well, it could have been worse," Sam said, as the four of them were heading off the field, following along with the rest of the crowd.

"How?" Siobhan asked. "That was brutal."

"We could have lost by six points," he said.

"This was fun, though," Cary said. She was practically hopping along with the others as they all headed through the campus. "Much better than regular baseball."

"What's regular baseball?" Siobhan asked.

"You're just thrilled that your boy fell on his butt three times," Nelgomi said. "I thought it was a rather boring game, all told. Just wait till we see the JV game next week."

"He's not my boy," Cary said, bristling at the suggestion. "He's just... he was just my friend."

Still, the mention of David spoiled Cary's mood. She looked over her shoulder back towards the team, which was still back at the field cleaning up after the game. David had managed to get on first his second time up at bat, but ended up falling into a pit when he tried to steal second. As good as he had gotten with dealing with the phantom balls in the pitch, he was terrible at running the bases with the random pits opening up in front of him.

"Wait, why aren't we going back to the buses?" Cary asked, when she noticed the crowd heading for one of the classroom buildings. Back at TPS, this was the one that had the gym in it. And as they got closer, she could just see the gym through the doors in the distance.

"The dance," Siobhan said. "Why did you think I wore such a nice dress today?" She twirled around a bit, showing off the dress, which Cary didn't think was that much nicer than her usual attire. It was a collage of fall colors that seemed to fit in with the area they were in. However, as they headed through the Merlin Prep campus, it looked more like she was supporting the local team, with their green and brown school colors.

Cary hadn't thought much about what she was wearing, but it had been a bit cold for the outfit. Fall had settled in weeks ago, and the Merlin Prep campus had a cold dampness that made it feel more like November than October. As Cary looked around at the other students heading towards the gym, she realized that quite a lot of the girls had opted for dresses, despite the weather. Most of the boys were just wearing their usual t-shirts, jackets, and jeans. Despite this, Cary suddenly felt awkward and weird to be dressed like the other boys. Not that she thought a dress would be appropriate for her to wear either.

As they approached the entrance to the gym, Cary started to hear music in the distance. The bass boomed around her, resonating in her chest long before she could hear much of anything else. Once she could hear it, the music sounded nice. Not anything she was familiar with, but she had only been allowed to listen to Christian music back home anyway. And since the lyrics spoke of magic and dancing through the air, she had a feeling it was music from the magical realm.

"Woah," Siobhan said, as the four of them headed into the gym.

The gym looked well decorated for the dance, with balloons and streamers everywhere. The room was lit up by several floating metal torches, just like the ones they had at TPS, throwing the weird sparks all over the place. One of the torches was right next to a balloon, but it didn't seem to have any effect on it. On the far side of the gym hung a banner across the wall that said "Congrats Merlins" in the greens and browns of the school. After the magic that Cary had seen in those past few weeks, she figured that the banner could have just as easily said "Congrats Thorbjorbs" in their red and white, had the game gone differently. Then again, with how one-sided the game was, she wouldn't have blamed them if they had gone with a normal, non-magical banner.

There were already several people out on the dance floor, dancing to the music. Or at least, Cary thought they were dancing. They weren't using any dance moves that she had ever seen before. She thought that it looked more like they were pretending to be robots having a stroke. It reminded her of when Father Shanahan had had a stroke in the middle of church two years earlier. Cary diverted her eyes from the dancing not wanting to be reminded of the incident.

When Cary looked to the corner towards her left, though, she saw a large group of elves clustered together. Unlike the humans that were dancing in the center of the room, they seemed to know what they were doing. Their dance moves all seemed perfectly timed to the music, flowing smoothly and naturally as the group danced together in the small space they had for themselves. There were more elves than she had seen back at TPS, though she saw a couple that she thought she recognized. It seemed like the elves from both schools had mixed together, as if they had always been one group, united together but separate from everyone else.

"Let's dance," Siobhan cried out. She grabbed Cary's hand, pulling her to the dance floor.

Cary wasn't one for dancing. At best, she knew how to sway to the music. But as Siobhan bucked and gyrated to the music playing, Cary tried to follow along to her moves as best as she could. When Siobhan noticed how hopeless Cary was, she tried to give her some instructions, leading her this way and that as they tried to get a good flow going between the two of them. In the end, Cary settled for swaying with her hands up in front of her with Siobhan dancing around her. It seemed to work for them.

"Hail the conquering heroes," someone shouted, soon after the third song. Cary looked in the direction of the shout, seeing a new influx of students coming into the gym. It took her a moment to realize that this must have been the Merlin undergrad team, as they had changed out of their uniforms. The Thorbjorg team came in right behind them, similarly changed.

As David came in, he had his head hung low, obviously kicking himself for the loss. Cary knew that he would be blaming himself, even though he was only one player on the team. Normally, she would have been cheering him up, reminding him that he was new to the team and was still learning the new game. But with the divide between them, all she wanted to do was run away. And when David's eyes met hers, his pout turned into a glare pointed straight at her, as if he somehow blamed her for the loss.

"Excuse me," Cary muttered to Siobhan, before she started making her way through the crowd on the dance floor, heading away from the teams. Away from David.

When she made it to the side of the room, she spotted a refreshments table with chips and soda. There wasn't much in the way of junk food back at Thorbjorg, so she headed over there, wanting nothing more than to inhale the entire bag of chips all by herself. Halfway to the table, Cary realized that she wasn't alone. That Siobhan had followed her off the dancefloor.

"Hey," she said, once they were far enough away from the music to be heard over it. "Forget him, alright? You don't need David to be happy."

"I know," Cary said, nodding. "I just... We've been friends for forever. For as long as I can remember. And now we're in this strange world, and... Well, he reminds me of home."

"Yeah, I get it," Siobhan said, as they came up next to the refreshments table. "I had a best friend growing up. Susie Sorrano. We were inseparable at times, like you and David were when you first got here. But, then, she got into Wu Xian Prep and wouldn't shut up about it all last year. It completely spoiled the relationship. So, I just had to move on. And so do you. Come on."

Siobhan grabbed a handful of chips and a cup of Coke, passing both to Cary, before heading back onto the dance floor. This time, it was closer to the refreshments table, and far enough away from the players to keep David off Cary's mind. Cary tried to dance a little while she munched on the chips, but it was a bit awkward. By the end of the first song, she thought she had a rhythm going, moving her hands around to the beat of the song while eating and drinking with them. But in the end, she dropped three chips and almost spilled her drink twice.

"Oops," Cary said after the second time she almost spilled her drink. She couldn't help but smile at her clumsiness.

"See?" Siobhan said, as the song switched over to something more familiar for Cary. A song she swore she had heard David listening to at some point. "Who needs former best friends, right?"

"Right," Cary said, nodding.

Siobhan continued to dance there, but Cary was quickly getting tired. After a couple more songs, she excused herself, meaning to head over to one of the chairs lining the room to sit for the duration of the dance. However, as she made her way to the wall, she soon spotted David and Sam sitting in the chairs over there, along with several other boys from the team. They were all staring out at the people dancing there, none of them seeming to have any interest in joining in.

Not five chairs further down that side of the room was a group of five girls. Cary didn't recognize them, but they were all looking between the people dancing on the dance floor and the players. It was clear to Cary that the girls wanted Sam and David and the rest of the team to ask them to dance, but the boys were all too oblivious to notice them. Moreover, thankfully, David was oblivious to Cary staring over at him. After a moment, Cary headed the other way, trying to lose him in the crowd before he could spot her.

However, soon after moving away from David and Sam, she broke through to a more open space in the room. In front of her was a collection of goblins, all sulking in the corner. Unlike the elves and humans, none of them seemed interested in dancing. The moment that Cary came close to their little group, every one of them started to stare daggers at her. Before any of them could move towards her, Cary headed away from their group, deeper into the room.

Except, there wasn't much left of the room. Cary soon found herself dipping into the hallway outside of the gym. The lights were all off inside, with just the strange torchlight from the gym spilling into the area. The music was much quieter out there, just loud enough to hear, and the bass dipped to a reasonable level. At first, there didn't seem to be anyone out there, and Cary wasn't sure if she was allowed outside of the gym. Cary was just about to head back into the gym when she heard something in the distance.

She stood there for a moment, straining her ears to hear what it was over the music. When all she heard was silence, she thought that she had just been hearing things. Or perhaps it was just the ghosts from the old mansion, finally come to haunt her. But before she headed back in, she heard it again. A low whisper echoing around the hall towards her.

"Hello?" Cary called out, her voice echoing around the stone corridor. She heard some scuffling, hurried footsteps heading off, but she still couldn't see anything in the darkness. But then, suddenly, she could see something. Or more accurately, someone.

"Oh, hey, Girlie," Nelgomi said. "What are you doing out here?"

"Who... Who were you talking to?" Cary asked. She looked behind Nelgomi, trying to see into the darkness. Whoever he was talking to must have run off down the hall. She couldn't see anyone but the dwarf, as he came towards her.

"What?" Nelgomi asked. His eyes flicked around for a moment before he turned back to look behind him. When he turned back to Cary, he had nothing but smiles for her. Of course, smiles on the dwarf were far too out of place for Cary to buy it. "I wasn't talking to anyone. There's no one here."

"Right," Cary said, nodding. Still, she knew that there was someone there. That he had been talking to someone out in the hallway, and was being secretive about it. She would have dug harder, but Nelgomi was her friend and it was none of her business. "We should probably head back in to the dance," she said, pointing towards the door next to her.

"Right, right," Nelgomi said. "After you." He gestured towards the door, his smile still firmly in place.