Rose's stomach growled the moment she stepped outside the Blue classroom. As soon as Yūei dismissed the class, Rose shoved everything back into her bag and left. Keinan and Chester followed behind, both boys walking on either side of her. Once they were a few steps away from the classroom, to her surprise, Rose heard their stomachs growl next.
The boys shared sheepish looks. With a small smile on his face, Keinan said, "It's good we can eat now. I didn't want to have to eat either of you."
Chester snorted, smirking. "I'm too rich, you'd get a stomachache halfway through… and I don't think dragons would taste very good."
"Scaly things typically don't," Keinan agreed, looking off into the distance with a vaguely perturbed look on his face.
Rose blinked. "Fish are scaly and they taste good."
The look cleared and his smile returned. "You make a good case."
Chester's nose crinkled. "Don't encourage him to try. He will bite you."
Rose then moved to walk on the other side of Chester, causing both boys to laugh. Their friendly demeanors put a chipper spring in Rose's steps, and she found she enjoyed their company on the way to the cafeteria. It was nice to have people to walk and talk with.
"Are these all we take? Magic classes?" Rose asked. "At human school, we usually take math and other stuff."
"Of course, we'll take those, too," Chester exclaimed, his eyebrows raised. "However, for the first year, it's imperative we learn basic control over our magic. If not, our magic could go haywire and we'd turn feral. Turning feral is a fate worse than death, I hear."
"Professor Nigel said that magic could turn on us," Rose murmured, recalling her first conversation with Nigel. "And we prevent that by learning about it?"
"Learning to control it," Keinan corrected her. "The Community says that if we master our magic, it won't turn on us."
Rose blinked, thinking back to how her magic knew exactly what it needed to do. If it knew enough, then maybe it was conscious? If it was conscious, then it would stand to reason it may not want to always do what Rose tells it to do.
These questions were hanging on 'if's, though.
Maybe it was because of her human upbringing, but something didn't sit right with her about magic revolting. She couldn't imagine something so wonderful—something a part of her—turning against her. It would be like thinking her right hand one day decided to try and strangle her, Rose thought. It didn't make any sense.
Then again, she'd once heard about some people becoming allergic to their own bodies. Can someone be allergic to magic?
It was a scary enough thought that Rose promised she'd investigate it when she got the chance. Once more, Rose found her lack of knowledge in this place to be truly frustrating.
As they entered the brightly lit cafeteria and grabbed a table, Chester asked Rose, "So are you like all humans? You were raised as a human, so you must act like most humans, right?"
More students filed into the large room, gentle banter and laughter slowly filling it up. They came in groups of two or three, no one ever walking in alone. Oddly enough, Rose could feel more than a few looks and glances tossed her way. She wondered if it was because they were all new students? Given how small the student populace seemed to be, new students likely caused a stir of interest every year.
That's how it was at the orphanage when someone new came, at least. All the attention would be diverted to them for a while until the interest died down and they faded into the background like everyone else.
"I think I do," Rose told him, ignoring the odd stares. "I still kind of think of myself as a human most of the time."
"That'll pass," Keinan told her off-handedly as he ordered his food.
Chester nodded in agreement with his friend. "Yeah, don't worry about that. So you'd say you're the average human? I've never met a human, so I'm sorry if my question bothers you."
Rose scratched her cheek, shifting her weight on the cool stone bench below her. "Um, kind of, I guess? I didn't spend a lot of time with people my age, though, so I can't tell you if I'm average or not."
"How come?" Keinan asked her. "Were you the only child in your cluster?"
"No, definitely not," Rose said. "I only went to one year in public school before Mother Mara took us all out to be homeschooled. Then she started teaching me separate from everyone else because I got stuff quicker. Reading-wise, at least. So, when the other kids were playing, I was usually getting my lessons from Mother Mara, or sometimes Sister Eliza. Then while they were learning, I played with Mr. Whiskers."
"Mr. Whiskers?"
"He—he was my cat." Rose felt a pang in her chest at being reminded of her kitty.
"Your… familiar?" Keinan tilted his head, his brow furrowed. His face was contorted in confusion, almost like he was trying to solve a particularly difficult puzzle. "How do you already have a familiar?"
Rose quickly shook her head. She remembered from movies and books that familiars were supposed to be magical beings bound to a witch or something. There wasn't anything magical about Mr. Whiskers except for how fast he scrambled out of water.
"No, he was only a cat that I took care of."
If either boy noted her glum tone, they didn't comment. The trio ordered food and ate quick enough. They chatted for a bit more about casual things, such as their favorite memories and books. When it was time to head off to their afternoon class, they gathered their things and went together.
The Green Magic classroom was outside, much to Rose's joy. There was a beautiful garden at the back of the castle and eight greenhouses lined up behind it. The garden stretched low and wide, filled with vibrantly colored flowers that Rose had never seen before. Each of them was multicolored, and some poured out shiny dust like fountains. Some of the flowers were tall and stretched above the others around them—there were even a few that waved their long leaves in greeting towards the approaching students.
There were a handful of shaded patios scattered about the garden with tables and benches on them, and they were all heavily covered by vine-like flowers. The white stone path to the greenhouse wove past each of them, twisting and turning like a snake.
The greenhouses were large, but Rose couldn't see very well inside them because the windows were tinted. They looked like nice greenhouses as far as greenhouses went, though…
Not that Rose was well-versed in what a good greenhouse looked like to make an accurate comparison, but they seemed nice. There were no cracks, bumps, or any damage to be seen. Everything gleamed like it was recently polished, and Rose could barely make out some sort of drawings engraved on the wooden panels that lined the bottoms of the greenhouses.
Then the wind blew, and Rose caught all the lovely smells of the garden, delight filling the dragon child. There was no way to accurately describe the smells because Rose had never smelled anything like it. There was a clear flowery touch to it, but it was unlike anything she ever smelled, it played like a melody on her senses, teasing tastes on her tongue. She could almost imagine what the smells tasted like, they were so vivid and invigorating, breathing life into her like never before.
Rose approached a very short, dark-skinned man—Dwarf?—with the rest of her classmates. The man was covered in dirt, grime, and to Rose—after a few sniffs— noted he smelled of rocks and fertilizer. He had a large, bushy beard that had twigs sticking out of it, and the greenest eyes Rose had ever seen. He was shifting his weight back and forth as he seemed in wait of the rest of the students. He hands were folded in front of him, and his eyes moved around wildly, never settling on any one spot.
Then the rest of the students arrived, and the man grinned widely—What a large mouth! It stretches over half his face!—and said, "Good, good! Good, good! Very good. Hello, I'm Professor Mamta, hello, hello."
"Hullo," the students echoed back to him.
The dwarf bounced in place. "Yes, yes, hello, hello. Let's get started then, yes, yes? Come on, come on. First year greenhouse is in the back. Keep up with me! Keep up with me!"
Professor Mamta moved quickly, turning on his heel and hurrying down the stone path. The class followed behind him and he talked rapidly while they walked. "This is the garden, you see, you see? Every student contributes to it once. End of year, yes, yes, you will each plant your own seed. When you come back, come back, next year it will be ready-ready to grow. You will feed it, nurture it, and care for it all your school life here, yes, yes."
The professor turned back to glance at the students, his grin returning. "When you're done here, say your goodbye from here, if you did well then it will stay forever. If you did poorly, the others will eat it up! Yes, yes, good fertilizer it will make at least!"
Professor Mamta stopped short of one of the greenhouses and opened up the double doors at its front. He gestured for the students to come inside. "Go in, go in! Lots to do, yes, lots to do."
Everyone filed in, and the smell of dirt filled Rose's nose. There were several rows of empty pots on wooden tables, and shelves filled with fertilizer, seeds, tools, and other typical gardening items. Rose headed towards one of the tables, noticing how the pots were grouped in five. They all had a different colored dot on them: there were five red-dotted pots, five blue, five green, five pink, and so on. Rose's pots sported pink dots.
"No magic today, no magic," Professor Mamta said. "You need to know what to do before you can tell your magic what to do! Everyone ready? Ready? Good, good. Very good. Green Magic is the magic of life! It is not exclusive to plant-based magic, but plants are the nicest to work with. Older, when you're older we can learn how to self-heal, and heal others, but that's not for everyone, no, no. That's okay, though, everyone can do plants. Plants are very nice to work with. We have lots of good starting plants to choose from, too. School is very generous.
"Flowers are not very nice sometimes, though," Professor Mamta warned, his big round eyes narrowing with frustration. "They are very arrogant! Think the best of themselves and if you ignore them they get very passive-aggressive, yes, yes. They never tell you what they want right away either, mm-mm. No flowers this semester for us, no, no. Too mean. Vegetables are the best! Yes they are. Good to eat, good to grow. They like warm pots, so today we're going to prepare our own vegetables to grow. This semester we will grow them without magic, and next semester we will grow them with magic.
"All you need to do is to keep it alive, yes, keep it alive without magic this semester. That is your first big project, yes indeedy! How exciting, yes? We will learn about different kinds of vegetables, and we will learn about what grows wild: poisons, herbs, mushrooms! Read up, read up, and keep a notebook. Notebook! Yes, can't forget to tell you this year. Keep a notebook on all the plants we learn, because fourth year we go camping! You will have to grow everything to eat and find rare plants in the Fae Kingdom. Fun, yes? You can only take your notebook! So, keep up on it, yes, keep up on it!
"Okay, okay, enough talking. Let's make homes for our vegetables, then we will talk about what kind of vegetables we should grow this semester, and what you need to do to keep them alive. Be sure to visit them and talk with them outside of class, because they may not be flowers, but they do get sad if ignored. Sad vegetables do not taste good. No, no. Very bad. Yucky."
Professor Mamta gave them that wide, wide smile again, his eyes never fixing on a single student. He kept shifting his posture and fiddling with his fingers as he talked. ��Watch me, then you do. Watch me, then you do."
Rose watched as the professor put together five pots to house his seeds. He continued to talk about how nice plants were, and when he was done potting everything, he continued to talk for another ten minutes about which vegetables were the nicest. His lecture—if one could even call it that—was mildly interesting, but Rose didn't see much relevance for it.
At long last, the eye-twitchy professor said they could fill up their pots themselves and start the fertilization process. He told them that in the next class they would plant whichever vegetable they chose, but for the rest of the class, he would talk about the different kinds of vegetables they could choose.
He talked about the medicinal properties of some, and the magical benefits they contributed when added to potions, which Rose found the most interesting throughout the entire class. Then he ended the lecture abruptly and instructed the class to spend the rest of the hour and a half reading from their texts and enjoying the garden.
Rose enjoyed that part the most. She went to the edge of the garden—where it overlooked the vast sky all around them—and sat down on the grass. The sun was perfect and delightfully warm above her, and she could no longer feel the perpetual discomfort of her classmates' gazes that even throughout the Green class lesson, hadn't relented.
She flipped open her textbook—it was the largest one compared to all the other classes, history included—and was unsurprised to find the first chapter talked about vegetables. Chapter two was fruits, then chapter three was mushrooms…
Wow, there are a lot more vegetables than I thought. Not exactly a happy thought since the girl detested vegetables with a quiet passion. Mortem plopped down beside her, laying back in the grass. Rose barely spared him a glance as she tried to read one of the weirder named plants.
Chrysanthemum? Summer purslane? What the heck is a Shepherd's purse? Who comes up with these names? Rose mouthed 'Chrysanthemum' a couple times before attempting to pronounce it. "Kr—Kreh—Cries? Cries-anth-ee-um? No, wait. Kris-anth—EE—mum? Ugh, that doesn't sound right either."
"Chrysanthemum?" Mortem asked, pronouncing the odd word correctly.
Rose repeated after him. "Is that it?"
"Is what it?" Chester asked, as he and Keinan took a seat on the other side of Rose. Rose held up her book to him, pointing at the word. "Chrysanthemum? Wait, are they really defining that as a vegetable? Have you seen one before, Rose?"
"The only vegetables I know about are carrots, spinach, and lettuce," Rose told him. "What's a Shepherd's purse?"
"More of a weed than a traditional vegetable, and chrysanthemums are more like a flower… I wonder how they're defining a vegetable, then. Is it literally anything you can eat that's not a fruit or mushroom?" Chester flipped through his own book, muttering quietly to himself. "Looks like the first chapter only covers stuff from the Surface Realm—that's Earth, Rose—and that humans see. Guess he really meant no magic, yet."
"Green Magic is the most dangerous if it goes wrong," Mortem said quietly. "If you can't guide your magic to encourage proper growth, it'll mutate and turn cancerous, or worse. It's not as flashy as Red or Blue, but it's the most likely to backfire on the user, and undoing Green-fueled cancer is difficult and painful."
That made Rose a bit hesitant in trying Green Magic. Anything that caused something like cancer ought to be avoided, but it was magic. Mortem said difficult and painful, not terminal. So maybe it was dangerous like driving a car was dangerous? If you were careful about it, you would be okay? Maybe. Hopefully.
Rose would be careful. She promised herself to treat Green Magic with extra care.
Wanting to change the subject to something not as dreary, Rose commented, "It's a very pretty garden. So, all the flowers here were put by past students?"
A gentle breeze passed through, ruffling Rose's hair and carrying the many pleasant smells of the garden. It made Rose's toes curl and a smile graced her lips.
Chester nodded. "Yeah. My brother's year group is over there. We'll probably have ours over by the fountain."
Rose looked over further down to the right where there was a decently-sized stone fountain. At the top of the fountain were two statues embracing, one of them was some kind of big warrior, and the other, a smaller soldier. They looked oddly familiar, and Rose asked, "Who are they? At the top?"
"Elder Wyrd and Elder Sylvania," Mortem answered her.
"Oh, I see."
The four of them fell into an odd kind of silence, it was neither awkward nor companionable. Mortem and Keinan were both lying back in the grass, seemingly dozing, while Chester and Rose flipped through the textbook. There were a few more odd things to pop up that Rose couldn't pronounce, but Chester always seemed to know how.
About half an hour in, Rose heard soft snoring from Keinan. It made her pause in her work and she looked over at the small boy with unabashed curiosity. She would have never been brave enough to fall asleep during a class, even if it was such a peaceful and relaxing experience. Class was class.
Chester didn't even pause in his reading, his brow furrowed as he intently studied the text. Rose looked over at Mortem, wondering if he was asleep, too… then she recalled how he shocked her repeatedly.
A wicked thought popped into her head. It took a surprising amount of self-control not to cackle out loud. Trying to move as discreetly and quietly as she could, Rose fished inside her backpack for a marker. Finding one, she then gently placed her textbook on the ground and slowly turned to the seemingly sleeping Chasm kingmate.
There was no purple light glowing in the dark underneath his hood, so Rose thought he must have had his eye closed. She reached toward his hood, a wide grin stretching over her face as she did so.
Just as her fingers brushed the hood, she felt a jarring shock go through, and while it didn't hurt her in the slightest bit, it surprised her so terribly that she yelped and lurched backwards, tumbling into Chester who then fell onto Keinan.
Keinan let out an 'oof' as Chester's elbow dug into his diaphragm and Chester gave a startled shout. Rose immediately pulled herself back up, her face burning hotter than the sun.
"S-sorry!" Mortem's taunting chuckles made Rose turn back around to glare at him. "You should apologize, too."
"You were going to draw on my face. I was merely defending myself," Mortem retorted, still chortling. "Ah, the look on your face, though."
Rose flushed hotly and abruptly turned away from him. Remembering how she fell, she turned towards Chester and Keinan and asked, "Are you guys okay? I really am sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you."
"I've woken up in worse ways," Keinan said, rubbing his eyes and giving her a smile.
"I was only a little surprised. Don't worry about it," Chester informed her.
With their reassurances, Rose relaxed a bit more and tried to resume studying. She decided against trying to prank Mortem soon, though. At the very least, she had to make sure there weren't innocent bystanders around to get caught in the crossfire.
Rose's mind wandered a few times while she read. She did her best to remain focused on her book, but sometimes when the wind blew strongly and she caught all sorts of odd smells, it pulled her mind away.
She wondered what created such a symphony of smells. She knew it was the garden, certainly, but in her experience, so many scents ought to have clashed in one way or another. They usually fought for a dominant scent, and the effect was a place that smelled like some kind of heavy perfume. It would normally give Rose a headache being surrounded by so many floral and heavy smells, but not in Gardenia. It was odd, and it tugged at the back of Rose's mind.
Was it simply due to magic? Or was there something else going on?
Focus, Rose told herself, trying to avoid going off on a tangent. She had work to do. She forced herself to stare back down at her textbook, rereading the paragraph she had reread five times already while her mind wandered.
Then the wind blew again, and Rose caught a new scent.
She couldn't resist looking back up and glancing around the utterly gorgeous garden. While she did so, she noticed a petite girl sitting some little ways from them and staring intently at their group. She was a pretty, albeit unremarkable, girl with pale blonde hair, pale skin, and pale purple eyes. She was like washed out lavender. Rose could see she was a Hero kingmate from her uniform, but that was about as much as she knew about the girl.
Keinan looked up at that moment, catching Rose's curious gaze and looking over at the girl. He grinned and nudged Chester. The moment Chester looked up, the girl turned ten shades of red and abruptly looked back down.
Keinan snorted out a quiet laugh, laying back down and wheezing. Chester glared sharply at his friend. "It's not funny."
"Yes, it is," Keinan chuckled.
"What's not funny?" Rose asked.
"Nothing," Chester stressed, swatting his best friend on the chest. "Ignore this moron, Rose."
Rose looked back over towards the girl—Viola, she remembered Professor Yūei calling her in class—before shrugging and trying to focus on her textbook again.
What's a dragon supposed to smell like? Rose wondered. Ah! Stop it! Read, you stupid girl. Read! Bad girls don't do their homework.
A shiver ran down Rose's spine.
Bad girls don't get supper. Bad girls sleep outside. Her fingers tightened around the book. And I'm a good girl. Good girls do their work when they're told.
Rose nodded to herself, determined to do her classwork. Soon enough, class was dismissed, and the quartet went off to their final class for the day.
...🌹...
The Red Magic classroom had no desks.
There were only big seats grouped together on one side of the room, and the rest of the room was nothing but expansive open space. There were a few cushions scattered about the open space, but other than that, the whole room was nothing but a slab of black marble. There weren't any pictures or posters like the other professors had, and if it weren't for the other students around her, Rose would have thought she was in the wrong classroom.
There were floating candles scattered about, each blue with a white flame, and there was a package of unlit candles sitting on a small desk at the front. After a moment's hesitation, Rose sat down in one of the large hanging seats. She tucked her bag in her lap, uncertain of where else to put it. The other students looked equally hesitant—except Mortem, who laid back in his chair with an ease that made Rose envious—and quietly talked to one another until class started.
Again, Rose found that a few of the students kept looking her way. She noticed most of them were from the same kingdom with gold and silver colors, the Hero Kingdom. She wanted to approach the students and directly ask, but every time she looked at them, they abruptly turned away with pale faces.
It almost seems like they're afraid of me, Rose thought to herself. Why, though? I don't think I've done anything to warrant that. Chester, Keinan, and Mortem aren't afraid of me.
No, they couldn't be scared of her. It must be her imagination. She was the only member of the Warrior Kingdom, so maybe that's why they were looking at her? Maybe the gold and silver Hero kingdom was a rival to her own?
Professor Nigel didn't mention rivalries, but that didn't mean there weren't any. All kids liked to compete, after all.
Two minutes before class began, a tiny man stomped into the classroom. He looked no older than fifteen and couldn't be more than a few inches taller than Rose, but he had an air of undeniable authority about him that Rose immediately identified him as a professor.
He glanced at each of the students sitting before his nose crinkled and all the seats shot up to the ceiling. Rose let out a squeak of surprise as her feet now dangled in the air.
"Red Magic is not something to be messing about in," the boy—for his voice was like a child's—growled. "During demonstrations, you will sit above the barrier."
The professor pointed towards the floating candles. "Those sealing candles will keep any magic performed down here down here. Do not touch the candles. Do not be a smart-alec and try to blow them out. And do not perform any magic while above the barrier without my permission.
"Red Magic is the evocation of energy. Specifically, it is the transformation of raw magic into something new. Unlike Blue Magic that changes what is already present in the physical realm, we draw upon our magic and change our magic. It's one of the most dangerous kinds of magic both to the caster and those around, so I will have no horseplay in my classroom. Any sign of it will warrant an immediate detention," the professor snarled. "There will be no note-taking, no homework, no written tests. You will not be allowed such things in the real world, so there's no place for it here. You will remember what I teach, or you will join me in remedial classes for the summer."
Well that doesn't seem like fun, Rose thought. The little man seemed particularly angry, and Rose wondered if maybe he was naturally a ball of rage, or if Red Magic was that dangerous that it warranted a very strict teacher.
Probably both, Rose decided. The professor's nose crinkled again, and the seats lowered to the floor. Spheres came out of the black bag he carried over his shoulder and floated to each student. The professor said, "Practice drawing out your Red Magic. Whoever can draw it out by ten minutes will continue on with the lesson. Those that cannot will keep practicing until they can. Go."
Rose's sphere lit up immediately with a bright, vivid red. A bit of her was happy she was finally in a class that her magic apparently specialized in.
"Professor, you haven't introduced yourself yet," Mortem called out.
The professor's cheeks turned bright red. "Oh. Right. I'm Professor Luck. Do not call me Lucky or you will find yourself cleaning Doctor Basileus's cauldrons for the next month."
Rose looked down at her glowing red sphere, a pleased smile on her face. Mortem's was next to turn red, merely a second after her. She looked around at the others, watching each of them concentrate on the sphere in front of them.
Unfortunately, no one else was able to turn their sphere red.
"Right, then. Ten minutes is up, show me your work." Professor Luck's piercing red eyes roamed over each sphere. "Two this year, twice as much as last year, then."
His nose wiggled, and Mortem and Rose's chairs lowered to the floor. Professor Luck looked back up at the students above and said, "Practice for now. I'll be with you shortly."
Rose's cheeks turned a faint red as she felt the stares of the students above her. She fiddled with the sphere in her hand until Professor Luck snapped at her and said, "Stand up, both of you. We'll start with drawing out raw power."
The spheres flew out of their hands and Rose immediately leapt up from her seat. She brushed down her skirt and rolled her sleeves up a bit more. She tried for a smile at the professor, wanting to ease the discomfort she felt from the attention she received overhead.
Professor Luck held out his hand, palm facing up. "Red Magic is powerful and intoxicating. If you ever feel you are about to lose control of the spell: immediately stop. If you ever feel unsafe or uncomfortable performing a spell, tell me and do not try to perform it."
A flame flickered in the palm of Professor Luck's hand. "Draw out your magic. Let me see what your magic naturally wants to do with Red."
Rose turned her palm up and a large, dark red—almost black—fire bloomed to life in her palm. Her eyes widened in disbelief as the fire gently curled around her hand, pulsating in tune with her heart. She watched, transfixed, as the flame stretched high and bowed, like a tree dancing in the wind.
"W-wow," Rose breathed.
"Mn. Unsurprising," Professor Luck muttered, placing his hand over the flame.
The flame wrapped around his own hand and Rose felt a small tug from within her. Professor Luck pulled the flame off her hand and held it in his palm for a minute, examining it with narrowed eyes. He tossed it aside and it faded away into smoke. "Scarlet fire. You have an elemental affinity with Red Magic, then."
"E-elemental?" Rose repeated.
"Correct. Red Magic covers a broad spectrum of abilities and spells. Elemental is one of those categories. You will be working closely with elemental for your first year, as that will be easiest for you."
Rose blinked as she thought over his words. She smiled brightly, excitement igniting inside of her. "So, I get to work with fire like a—like a proper dragon?"
Professor Luck's lips twitched, a brief look of amusement flickering across his face. "Yes. Now, Mortem, your turn."
Mortem's palm lit up with a black flame.
"Elemental, too." Professor Luck repeated with unhidden shock. "Your kind have always had more of an affinity for dark. What a surprise."
"Dark?" Rose inquired, scratching her right cheek.
"Like shadow manipulation," Mortem answered, glancing over at her briefly. "I suppose I'll be working with Miss Rose, then."
Luck made a 'hmm' sound at that, his eyes narrowing as he looked back and forth at each student. Then he shrugged and said, "Conjure your flames, both of you. Practice shaping the flames into circles. When you feel you have enough control over your fires, let me know."
"Okay," Rose said, looking at her palm and surprised to find the flame there again.
Professor Luck then wiggled his nose and floated up above the candles to the students who were still practicing. She stared intently at the flame, trying to make it form the shape of a circle.
Of course, it didn't. Rose still wasn't sure how she got the flame started. Her magic acted on its own, she couldn't even feel the magic inside her until it came out on its own.
The young dragon stared intently at her flames. They gently waved back and forth like a red flower in a breeze.
Rose took a deep breath, the flames in her hand flickering towards her as she did so. As she exhaled, she could suddenly feel the magic in her hands. For the briefest moment, Rose could manipulate her magic freely in the palm of her hands, molding it like warm, solid, clay. It was such a marvel to the girl that she immediately became engrossed in making the fire dance like a ballerina in the palm of her hands.
She had never been able to tangibly feel her magic before in such a way and make it do what she wanted. She couldn't resist grinning widely, looking up at Mortem with plain excitement in her eyes. "It's really doing what I want!"
"Of course. You have an affinity for Red," Mortem said. "That means you're much more sensitive to it, which makes it easier to feel and control."
Rose made the fire in her hands shape itself into a flower. Giddy glee bubbled inside the pit of her stomach, lifting her demeanor, the young dragon was elated at being able to properly perform magic.
"Miss Rose, circles only for now," Professor Luck called out from above, glaring down at her. "And try to calm yourself. If you get too excited, your fire may spiral out of control."
"O-oh!" Rose blushed, the fire in her hands dying down to a small circle. "S-sorry, Professor."
"Just do as you're told," Professor Luck said gruffly. "I'll eat a beehive first before I have to send any of my students to that smug snake this year."
Mortem choked, and Rose looked over at him curiously, but he waved her off. If she didn't know any better, she would have sworn he was grinning under that hood of his.
After class—which flew by much faster than Rose was expecting—Rose followed her fellow students to the cafeteria. Some of them broke off, deciding to eat later, she guessed. Rose was starving, though, and was anxious to try another one of Gardenia's meals. Chester and Keinan both walked beside her, their pace matching hers. Rose wondered if they could be called friends at that point, since they had willingly spent the whole day with Rose (and Mortem, but he always disappeared at the end of class, only to reappear at the beginning of the next one).
Then Rose remembered how Chester said his brother wanted him to look out for her. It was why he approached her on her first day at Gardenia, after all.
Is that why he was sitting with me? Rose thought to herself.
It made her chest tighten painfully, but not enough to warrant verbalizing how she felt. She didn't want to be a bother, though, since he and Keinan were nice enough to walk and talk with her for the whole day. If they're doing it out of obligation, I'll give them a polite way out.
She looked over at Chester and casually said, "You don't have to keep watching out for me. I think I'm getting the hang of this."
Chester glanced over at her, raising an eyebrow. "Yeah, I know."
Rose smiled at that, the tightness in her chest slowly easing. She hoped that meant they wanted to be friends. "Oh, okay."
Keinan looked up at the skylight, adjusting his backpack as he walked. "Do you think they'll have galbi today?"
"Probably not, Keinan. Maybe this Friday when it's international cuisine day."
"What's galbi?" Rose asked curiously.
"Meat," Keinan replied.
"Like steak?"
���Korean BBQ," Chester said. "Do you like Korean BBQ?"
"I don't know. I've never had it. I like meat, so probably."
Keinan placed a hand on her shoulder, nodding and giving her look of approval. "If I wasn't already your lifelong friend, I would be now."
"You both are gross," Chester said with a sniff, his nose scrunching up as if he had bit into something sour.
"Shut up, leaf-eater," Keinan retorted. "While you're munching on your rabbit food, Rose and I will be living it up BBQ style."
"And clogging your arteries."
"Entirely worth it," Keinan insisted. "Right, Rose?"
Rose nodded firmly. "If I'm taken down by a burger, then so be it."
Chester's face scrunched up with distaste even as Keinan and Rose grinned at him. The trio of first year students finally reached the cafeteria, took their seats, and ordered food. Keinan lamented on the lack of galbi on the menu, so Rose gave him a sympathetic pat on the back, while Chester remarked that it was for the best.
The look of betrayal on Keinan's face was funny for a moment, but Rose thought it would be best to change the subject. She remembered some of the boys in Sherry could easily start fighting one another at the drop of the hat. One of them even body tackled his friend through a wall!
Granted, the wall was already falling apart from deterioration, but that had to have hurt. Mother Mara said that boys would always fight like that, and Rose didn't want her new friends to do that.
"So, camping trip in our fourth year… that sounds like fun," Rose commented, thinking back to their Green class.
Chester's face twitched briefly, a dark look crossing it. "It won't be."
"Not everyone has traumatic experiences like yours," Keinan soothed his friend, instantly perking up over the lack of galbi upon seeing Chester's expression.
"Traumatic experiences?" Rose repeated, her eyebrows raised in surprise. Curious, she asked, "What happened?"
A haunted haze settled over Chester's face as he stared into the distance, his gaze no longer seeing what was around him. "My brother took me camping in the Netherlands. I made the mistake of exploring on my own. I…" he took a shaky breath, "I found a cave and went in. About halfway through, I fell down a hole into…"
He shuddered.
Keinan patted his back then smiled gleefully at Rose. "He fell into a pile of guano. It was so deep, he sank right in. Woke up a lot of little bugs when he fell in, and they started crawling on him."
Rose blinked at that. She'd fallen asleep in her forest on numerous occasions and woke up with all sorts of things crawling on her. They never hurt her, though, so she didn't put much thought into it. Now that she thought about it, though, she realized she'd never been bitten by a bug before. Not even a mosquito.
Do dragons not taste good to bugs?
"I was stuck there for almost an hour," Chester whispered hoarsely, bowing his head. "I kept smelling it for months…"
"That was because your brother kept putting little bits of guano in your things," Keinan pointed out.
"I vowed to never go camping again as long as I lived," Chester finished, looking up abruptly with burning eyes. "Never."
"O-okay." Rose reached forward and patted Chester's other shoulder. "I'm sorry you went through that."
"I hate nature," he muttered mutinously.
"But nature loves you," Keinan said sweetly, a big smile on his face.
"Is that a butterfly on your shoulder?" Chester returned with a big fake smile, his tone laced with obviously forced cheer.
Keinan jumped, swatting at his shoulder immediately, his eyes widened with horror. Rose watched the reaction with no hidden amount of incredulity.
"Butterfly?"
"He's scared of them after the—"
"We don't talk about the butterfly incident," Keinan hissed out, seething at Chester. Chester smirked, turning his nose up. Keinan's eyes narrowed and he glared at his childhood friend.
Sensing an argument coming, Rose cleared her throat. "So, do you guys have any siblings?"
They both turned towards her, Keinan still looking like a ruffled angry kitten, and Chester radiating an aura of smugness. Chester answered her first, "Only got an older brother. He's the headmaster."
"I have a few younger sisters and a little brother," Keinan said, "but I have a lot of cousins. You… grew up alone?"
"I lived in an orphanage," Rose confirmed. "I was the only one that stayed there for more than a year, though. Everyone else kind of… comes and goes."
"Any friends back home?" Chester asked.
Rose scratched her cheek, shifting her posture as she thought about his question. The children around town didn't really like to play with her, and after enough failed attempts, she simply stopped trying. Since no one else stayed at the orphanage for very long, Rose never had a chance to form any proper friendships. It didn't help that a good chunk of the children that passed through were bad boys or girls and Mother Mara kept them separated from Rose.
It also didn't help she learned at a different pace too, so even the good boys and girls didn't interact with her much outside of meals or Church.
Most of the adults around the town were nice to Rose, though. Some of the men would tell Rose about their hunting trips and offer to bring her along when she was older. There were some elderly people that invited Rose over for cookies or pies, and in exchange, she helped take care of their lawn. Sometimes they only wanted her over for the company because they missed their own grandchildren.
While they were nice, and Rose liked everyone well enough, she wasn't sure she would call them her friends. Really, the only person she would call her friend would be Mr. Whiskers.
Mr. Whiskers never called her a bad girl or made her sit in the tiny closet when she misbehaved. He didn't take away any of her meals or make her watch the bad boys and girls get punished.
He always listened to her and played with her. He didn't make her do anything she didn't want to do.
"Only Mr. Whiskers," Rose finally answered, once again missing her kitty.
"Well, you've more than doubled your friend count now," Chester said with a grin, nudging her arm.
The thought made Rose smile brightly. Keinan nodded in agreement with Chester and said, "Let's meet at this table tomorrow for breakfast, then."
"That sounds absolutely perfect," Rose responded sincerely, her eyes bright with joy.
Their dinners arrived, and the three enjoyed yet another pleasant meal together before bidding each other goodnight and heading their separate ways.
Rose made it back to her dorm by herself using Professor Nigel's orb. When she entered, the lounge was empty, prompting Rose to go straight to her room. Rose was feeling surprisingly tired after her first day of school, and she crawled into her bed with great relief. She couldn't bring herself to go to sleep so early, but she wanted to relax for a bit by herself. If she were back at the orphanage, she would have snuck off to the forest to read in peace or would have tried to find Mr. Whiskers.
She missed her kitty an awful lot, she wished he could have come with her. Professor Nigel said he would take care of him, though, so Rose took solace in that. She hated to think about her dear pet starving or being left alone. Professor Nigel seemed like a good person, and Rose felt like she could trust him when he said he would make sure Mr. Whiskers was taken care of.
She still made a mental side note to talk to Professor Nigel about Mr. Whiskers the next time she saw him.