Chapter 9
"I'm just here to say hi and officially welcome the new wolf cub, even if he is a completely useless git with no powers," Krill said with a malicious grin. The dining hall went deathly quiet, they were all trying to listen. Krill was not speaking very softly.
The sound of breaking plates and screaming drew everyone's attention to the front of the hall. Derick Connors was holding Thrin's face against the table.
"I see you gave yourself a trim, midget. It seems you missed a spot, probably all the late hours in the dark messing up your eyes, let me help you." Derick said. He grabbed Thrin by the back of his hair and kicked a bowl off the chafing dish to get to the flame at the bottom. Silvi growled at Derick, but Derick pulled a dagger out of a sheath strapped to his back. "Black iron, I hear dragons aren't overly fond of it. This will only take a second." He grinned viciously.
Alleric didn't even get up, he just casually continued eating.
Derick pulled Thrin's face towards the open flame, "This will teach you to listen next time we tell you what to do." He said as he pushed Thrin's face into the fire. We all expected to hear Thrin scream but was met by Derick's confused grunt as Thrin elbowed him in the groin. Thrin then proceeded to pull Derick's hand into the fire, the dead skin went up like rice paper.
Derick went running, his screams echoed through the deadly silent hall as he drenched his hand in a large bowl of water. Thrin held up his arms, showing off his arm guards. "Here's to Fae magic kicking the dead in the face, you bunch of pasty-faced pricks!" he yelled.
Krill ran to his brother. Derick was still holding his hand staring daggers at Thrin. A few dwarves went up to Thrin to congratulate him. For some reason, the fact that he mentioned Fae magic and his new arm guards had sent a spark through the entire hall. Thrin got his food and rejoined us at the table. Alleric greeted him with a pleased smile.
After breakfast, I went to miss Oaks' office for our meeting "Ahh Alexander, I see you have received a new wardrobe. Fae by the looks of it, it must be a great honour." She greeted me as I sat down. "You look a bit bewildered; I take it you don't understand the significance of your wardrobe? No, well you see Fae are known for many things but mostly, their sense of candour, Fae cannot lie, it is quite literally not possible for them. Fae is also a great judge of character. For a Fae to present someone with a gift, any kind of gift is a sign that they find you acceptable.
A gift of such fine quality means you have made a friend for life." We chatted for a bit and got down to the schedule. Apparently, Charles calling the place a school was a habit they had all tried to break, with no success. Ancients were a safe place for supernatural creatures, it had places to work, earn money, live, relax and train. Everyone was free to leave as they pleased with several having lives outside of Ancients.
The training Ancients offered was basic things, from wild survival classes to training sessions on how to control your abilities, mainly for werewolves as none could control their powers. They also offered several magical items to hide the more visible abilities. "Ma'am I mean no disrespect and I do love it here, but everyone keeps saying that I belong here. I'm sorry but I am a regular human, I have no special abilities." I said downcast, expecting her to ask me to leave immediately.
"Alexander doesn't worry about that dear child. There is definitely supernatural blood in you, our island is magically warded to keep humans from finding us. If you weren't supernatural, you would never have been able to enter the island.
We concluded our meeting and I headed toward Silvi and my house. It was agreed upon that it would be best suited for us to meet there as outsiders were frowned upon by Fae and dwarves alike.
I walked into the door and immediately smelled apples. Merida. She was sitting on the couch drinking water while chatting with Silvi. Alleric and Thrin were busy discussing the technique of one of Silvi's paintings. By the sound of their conversation, both were avid art enthusiasts too; they both spoke like they had known the artist personally. It took everyone a while to notice me standing at the door.
Thrin and Alleric greeted me, and calmly went on with their discussion whether Monet could be viewed as the father or the inspiration of Impressionistic art. Silvi invited me to join her and Merida. Merida wanted to give me a proper welcome, one that didn't end with a pole in my face. She also overheard Derick swear that he would never go anywhere near Thrin again. Apparently getting your hand burned off had that effect on people.
Merida properly introduced herself to me and we started talking about her life and life at Ancients. She told us about herself. Her childhood was rather normal compared to ours. She had grown up in a family of werewolves, so she had control over her abilities or more control than most werewolves.
Her family had been on the island for generations. There were rumours that her family had helped build Ancients. Alleric and Thrin joined us somewhere while Merida was talking. As she finished, we started telling her about ourselves. She was a very good listener. We became fast friends. The five of us.
We started spending more and more time together. Alleric quickly surprised Merida with new clothes as well. He made her a forest-green Victorian style shirt that had a golden pattern embroidered along the sides curling around her back, the gold formed the shape of a corset around her waist.
She was wearing pants, which was a slight shade darker than her shirt. The gold on her pants were curled branches and blooming flowers downsides. She was also sporting new shoes, ankle-high boots, with what looked to be actual gold laces.
I tried buying myself more clothes, but Alleric just dropped off more parcels for Silvi and me. He stated that he would not be seen with us if we did not dress properly. Soon I was wearing well-tailored suits almost every day. Alleric did not stop there, he taught Merida, Silvi and me how to properly hold a sword and fight with it. There were very few days I didn't go to bed with bruises. Thrin refused sword training, hefting the hammers by his side every time Alleric offered.
Everyone was surprised when Alleric tried teaching us dance, and I already knew how. I explained that Mrs Norrington had sent me for lessons when I was younger, and I was quite proficient. Days passed into weeks and weeks into months. We grew ever closer. Until Thrin started going missing.