OFUDisc Chapter 14

The mood was unsettled as Class Two made their way to their first lesson the following day. The two surviving vampires, Iplis and Lucy2, travelled under what was essentially armed guard – Raen with her knife and the alarmingly stern Lindyellwen with her sharpened hoof. The conversation in the rest of the diminished group was superficially normal, but tension lurked like a shark below the surface, its ripples touching the minds of all.

All, that is, except Phoebe and Penny, who chatted away as if they hadn't a care in the world. Eventually, Liliac – who had been checking up on Tisea, making sure she'd recovered from Kai's attempt to drain her dry – joined them. 

"Doing okay, then, Penny?" Liliac asked with forced cheer. 

Penny nodded. "Pretty much all healed now," she said. "Kaitlyn thinks the vamps had some sort of coagulant on their fangs – which makes no sense, by the way, and I don't think it's canon, so it's on the list – but that's why we've healed so fast." 

Liliac frowned at her. "You're really okay?" she pressed. "No lingering psychological trauma or anything? I mean, if you're going to go Bursar on us I need to know." 

Penny glanced across at the subdued figure of Iplis and sighed softly. "It still hurts to think about, if that's what you mean," she said, one hand rising to rub her throat absently. "But Phoebe's done a good job of taking my mind off it." 

Phoebe giggled, an incongruous sound in the general gloom. "You're welcome," she said, and Penny smiled back at her. 

OFUDisc Chapter 13

That night, Phoebe lay awake in the near-darkness, listening to the sounds of the dormitory. Statistically, she knew, three (well, 2.9) of the girls in Class Two were likely to be gay. That meant that the no less than five pairs sharing beds – including, of all people, Gaia and Nenya – couldn't possibly all be sleeping together – right?

Her gaze strayed from the ceiling to the bed under the dorm's one barred window. That was Penny's bed – but she wasn't in it alone. In the faint starlight Phoebe could make out the occasional movement of the hunched shapes of two women.

A frown touched Phoebe's face. That was a very hunched figure. It looked less like – well, whatever legitimate things Penny and Iplis might be getting up to – and far more like one person kneeling by another's pillow, bending down...

OFUDisc Chapter 12

"This is ridiculous," Phoebe muttered, her foot making a sucking noise as she pulled it out of the latest puddle.

"I would have said 'disgusting'," Iplis disagreed, skirting the same puddle. "What about you, Penny?"

"Hmm? Oh." Penny shook herself. "Yes," she said vaguely, and then her brow furrowed again as she lost herself in thought.

Iplis kissed the Assassin quickly on the cheek, shooting Phoebe a 'what can you do?' look. "We have to catch up with them soon," she pointed out, gesturing at the footprints they were following. "You can see for yourself they kept stopping – and we haven't."

"Assuming they're from the OFU at all," Phoebe said, scowling. "They could be anyone's footprints."

OFUDisc Chapter 11

A subdued Liliac rejoined Class Two as they made their daily walk from Uberwald down to Ankh-Morpork. She glanced over the column as she slipped in between Phoebe and Cazzie. "Where's Lindyellwen?" she whispered to Phoebe.

Phoebe didn't look round. "With a doctor in the city," she said in a low voice. "Are you asking because she's an elf?"

Liliac blinked. "Well, yes."

"And is that why you claimed to be my friend, too?"

"... oh." Liliac shook her head slightly. "Phoebe, protecting elves is my job, but that doesn't mean I have to like them. Personally I think Lindyellwen is a vapid waste of oxygen."

OFUDisc Chapter 10

"Well, Lindy's settled in with the doctor," Cazzie said, walking into the dormitory. "He said he'd give her a hearty meal of oats and put her in the pasture overnight, but I think he was joking."

"Probably not," Penny said absently, leaning back against Iplis. "That sounds like Doughnut Jimmy. He usually treats racehorses."

"Why does it not surprise me," asked Mercuria loudly, "that this shamble of a university can't afford a real doctor?"

"Ignoramus," Raen snorted. "Everyone knows Doughnut Jimmy – Doctor James Folsom, I should say – is the best medical practitioner in Ankh."

"We're not all as obsessive-compulsive about these things as you, Assassin," Mercuria snapped back, and Raen's butter knife seemed to teleport to her hand.

"Insult me again", the PPCer said in a low voice. "I dare you."

OFUDisc Chapter 9

"Do you know," said Phoebe as they walked out of Ankh and into the Ramtops, "I think that's the first lesson we've actually finished."

"Oh, surely not," Cazzie disagreed. "We finished woodwork, right?"

"If you call that 'finished'," Phoebe retorted. "Did anyone do the actual work?"

"We did," chimed in Liliac, "didn't we, Pen- oh." Penny was deep in conversation with Iplis, and didn't even seem to notice Liliac's question. "Well, anyway," the girl with multicoloured hair went on, "we totally finished our idol – I mean, project."

"And then there was Pretty Butterfly's class," Cazzie pointed out. "Remember, she – oh, that's right, you were busy."

"Okay," Phoebe said, giving in, "I guess what I mean is, that's the first class I've finished."

"No argument there," Liliac agreed. "Shiftless layabout, that's you."

OFUDisc Chapter 8

"I can't believe you killed her!"

"I didn't kill anyone," Phoebe snapped. "She fell down a hole. I just did the cleaning up."

"But you let her fall!" Liliac insisted. Phoebe scowled and lengthened her stride.

"It's her own fault, and she'll be back soon anyway. Look, what's Mercuria to you, anyway? You barely know the girl."

Liliac shrugged uncomfortably. "She's an elf," she failed to explain. "You know how it is."

"She's not an-" Phoebe bit off the sentence. "No, I don't know. Can you be any clearer?"

"Not really," Liliac said. "Just call it a Thing, okay?"