Chapter Text
The phone exploded into a sharp tune, demanding she get up. Two attempts at ignoring it, and she was ready to smack it off the nightstand. In her half-asleep haze, her hand still rose threateningly before reality hit her. Her master’s thesis defense. She shot up, almost tripping on her blankets, checking the time before storming out of her room and into the bathroom. She had effectively ignored her first two alarms, and although she was still relatively on time, she wasn’t about to bet her future on traffic.
Rio arrived at her University with an hour to spare and decided to walk over to the nearest cafe, ordering a tea instead of her usual coffee in a feeble attempt at steadying her nerves. Although she hadn’t eaten anything, it was clear that the turns and twists performed inside her grumbling stomach had nothing to do with hunger.
The barista was almost as surprised by her order of chamomile tea as Rio herself. Wanda had been working at the University’s cafe since Rio had started her master’s. By then, Wanda had been in her last year of undergrad. Two years later, Rio was forty minutes away from the end of her master’s and ordering anything other than coffee for the first time since the two had met.
“You are that nervous?” the barista asked with a sympathetic smile.
“No, I’m peachy,” Rio flashed her best fake smile and a thumbs up.
“Clearly…”
Rio took the tea from the other girl’s hand, staring at it pitifully. Chamomile, such a cliché.
“Relax, you have Calderu and Lynch in your jury panel. Calderu can be tough, but she’s not heartless, and Lynch is the most laid-back teacher on campus.” Wanda’s hand came to rest on Rio’s left shoulder. “You’ll be fine.”
“I’ve had Calderu’s class before, so I’m not worried, and Lynch is a gem of a guy.” Rio paused, her stomach making a flip worthy of the Olympics. “Harkness is the third jury”.
“I know,” Wanda nodded, not giving Rio any false comforting words.
“They say that she’s ruthless in her classes and nothing less when she acts as a jury. This defense will determine if I can get into a PhD, and if she destroys me today, I have no backup plan.” Rio’s face dropped further with every word.
“You’ll be fine, love. If someone can tame that dragon, it’s you.” Wanda’s smile filled the entire room, and for a second, Rio forgot why they hadn’t worked out.
Rio took one last deep breath, cleaning her sweaty palms on her trousers, before opening the door in front of her. She wished Wanda weren’t working so that she could be part of the student groups attending her presentation; maybe focusing on the redhead’s face could ease her nerves.
Before looking at the jury panel, Rio scanned the audience still and found two familiar faces, Alex and Jude. Both girls had been her classmates during undergrad, and in the absence of Wanda, their faces would have to be enough for comfort.
They smiled at her and gave her soft hand waves before taking their seats in the auditorium. Rio was about to mimic their gesture when she finally glanced at the jury, and her body froze in place. Sitting at the edge of the jury’s table was a woman in her middle forties, with long, lush black hair cascading down her back, dressed in a dark green suit that fitted her like a second skin, its waistline leaving little to the imagination. Rio knew she was staring, but she was trapped as her eyes followed the woman’s legs ending at the bottom of her black stiletto heels. When she finally managed to snap out of it and look up, she found stormy blue eyes staring right back at her.
The woman was no longer chatting with Calderu and Lynch; instead, she was staring at Rio with a raised eyebrow and a hint of curiosity and amusement in her expression.
“Miss Rio” Calderu’s voice snapped Rio out of her mortified haze.
Lilia Calderu was the head of the History department, a woman in her early sixties who looked not one day over fifty and seemed to command attention from both genders; Rio had witnessed a few of her classmates throughout her undergrad, crushing on Calderu.
“Hi, Professor,” Rio managed to utter under the unknown woman’s piercing gaze.
“You already know Professor Lynch, so let me introduce you to Professor Agatha Harkness, our specialist on gender studies.”
Rio had heard about Agatha Harkness before; in fact, she had to read a lot of the woman’s work while writing her thesis on women as sacred symbols across modern religions. Harkness was one of the most renowned authors on women’s places in modern power structures, and Rio was definitely a fan, more so after finally seeing the face behind the words.
Despite her nerves, Rio couldn’t take her eyes off that face. There was a sharpness she couldn’t name in every line; her lips seemed painted by hand, every curve as if designed with intention. However, Rio’s downfall started in the woman’s eyes. Rio could swear she had never seen anyone with such a blue shade, light blue dancing with golden lines, a perfect storm that could draw Rio right in. It was more than its color, though; it was the intensity behind them. It was almost as if Rio wholeheartedly expected those eyes to tell her the secret of creation itself.
“Miss Rio…”
Rio snapped out of her thoughts to see that Agatha Harkness was no longer sitting, legs crossed, at the edge of the table but standing right in front of her, hand stretched out.
She rushed to reach out as well, “I’m sorry, Professor.”
The woman shook her hand, a smirk on her lips, without looking away from Rio’s eyes.
“A pleasure, Miss Rio, I’ve heard wonderful things.”
Fuck… Of course, her voice would sound like that, silk and leather combined, a duality that made Rio’s hands sweaty all over again.
“Shall we begin?” Agatha asked, softly enough that Rio wondered if the others had heard her as well.