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Bella successfully manages to stay in all weekend except for when she joins packs of students headed for the dining hall. If the elves are still stalking her, she doesn't notice them. On Monday, the subtle artist elf is present in their shared course, and looks at her, but doesn't bother her - Bella leaves with another classmate anyway.
Traveling in packs is quite effective, she decides.
Except she doesn't do it in her own dorm.
It's pouring rain outside Tuesday afternoon and Bella doesn't want to go to the dining hall. She has some stuff in her room - not serious groceries, but enough that she can heat up some broth and noodles, liven it up with a handful of miscellaneous dried herbs, and call it soup. She is hanging out in the kitchen doing this when Brad from down the hall, the same fellow who attempted to interrupt Celo at his baking, chooses to bother her.
"Hey, Isabella."
"It's Bella."
"But your full name's so pretty," says Brad. "You should go by that instead. So Isabella, let's go out tomorrow, I'll show you a good time in town, we'll have some fun."
"No," says Bella, "thank you, and it's still Bella."
"Isabella's prettier. Like you, you're pretty. It's not like I asked you to make like a nymph or something, I just want to take you out," says Brad. "Is it the money, I bet it's that, I can cover it, we can go someplace nice and you can get whatever you want."
"It's still no. It's still Bella."
"Don't be such a bitch, you never have plans," snaps Brad, "what are you going to do, eat at the dining hall and re-read your textbooks, you can come out with me."
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subtly_artistic
"Good for her," he says, smiling.
subtly_artistic
Bella sighs and drinks the last of her soup. "So, Brad is a problem, apparently."
"He sure as fuck is," says Celo, with a little shiver.
subtly_artistic
"The thing about thinking about me really hard to get my attention still applies. He's not a subtle artist and I got really good at downing people who weren't shielding, in Utility Psionics the other day."
"Yeah," says Celo. "Will you be okay if he gets you alone again?"
subtly_artistic
"If he'd touched me he would've woken up alone an hour later with a headache from the part where I didn't catch him when he fell over."
Celo grins in appreciation of this image.
"Hope so," he says.
"Hope so," he says.
subtly_artistic
"I'm not sure if he'd escalate like that with me, though, he made a point of comparing me to you and indicating that he was not trying to imply I was nymphly."
He snorts. "Yeah, but did you listen to the way he said it? That is a guy who thinks the whole world revolves around his dick."
subtly_artistic
"I'm not sure," Bella repeats. "But I know what I'll do if he does."
"Okay," says Celo. "Just - it's not always that simple."
"I mean - sometimes you think you can handle something, and then it turns out you can't."
subtly_artistic
"...If he did something very distracting, very suddenly, I might not be able to pull it off, yeah."
Celo nods.
"Be careful, okay?"
"Be careful, okay?"
subtly_artistic
"I already don't go out alone. I can probably avoid being in a room with Brad, if I keep half a subtle eye on his mind when it's in range... of course, if I'm in the middle of making soup or something here that doesn't help much."
Celo shrugs. "Yeah. I don't know."
subtly_artistic
"And this is comparatively mild, so far, next to the thing with the elf girls, about which absolutely nothing was done, but I might a-mail some people anyway for the aether trail."
"Bet you they care more when it's not elves," Celo predicts.
subtly_artistic
"Maybe. There are so many possible special circumstances, I bet if they really feel like it they never have to treat any real situation as a 'standard harassment case' that they're obliged to manage by the book."
He laughs. "Yeah, there's always that."
subtly_artistic
"Of course, by the same token, I didn't get in trouble for downing that subtle artist elf once she was too distracted to screen; did you ever get in trouble?"
"Nope," he says cheerfully.
Celo finishes his soup.