"Are you alright now?" Barbara asked me as she tried to cover me up.
"Yes, I'm fine. I should probably put my clothes on." I replied as I grabbed my clothes off her.
Barbara waved her hand, and a mist surrounded us both so that nobody could see me getting changed. Once I was finished the fog started fading away, and Coyle stood patiently waiting.
"You seem alright now miss Carter. Do you want to take a breather or are you fine to walk?" Coyle asked as he checked to see if I was ok.
"I think I'm well enough to walk. Why, where are we going?"
"We are looking for a house for you. Wylde village is reserved for the students and staff members, so all the students are provided with free housing. I heard it's part of hybrid culture, so they can learn to be independent both leaving education."
"I really get a house for free?"
"Yes, the council have allotted you three houses to choose from. It's mine and Barbara's job to help you choose and help you buy furniture. Normally hybrids would do this with their parents, but since you are a half-breed under the half-breed protection act we will be helping you. Now let's get going the first house is only a small walk from here."
After Coyle finished explaining we started to walk through the town. As we walked through the town I saw all kinds of mystical sights. People with wings instead of arms and horses with a human body attached.
'I guess this is where most myths and legends came from.' I thought as we walked through the town.
We arrived at the first house which was one of the houses built into a tree. The bottom two floors were part of the tree, and then at the top of the tree, it had another floor. The tree was massive, it was taller and wider than any tree I had seen.
"How does a tree get this big?" I asked Barbara who was also looking up at the tree.
"I think they use fairies to manipulate how the tree grows, but that would be a question for someone else."
"Hurry up you two we can't spend all day admiring a tree." Coyle yelled at us as he unlocked the door.
The first room that we entered was what seemed to be a dining room. There was no furniture, and the room was mostly empty, but the kitchen was the room next to it. The kitchen had tile flooring instead of wood flooring unlike the other room, and there were a few counters left along with a fridge and an oven. Both rooms had electrical outlets, and the fridge and oven seemed to be working.
The second floor had a bedroom and a bathroom. The bedroom had carpet instead of wood like the other rooms, and there was still the frame of a bed. The bathroom had a toilet, sink and shower which you would think would be everything you need in a bathroom, but I always preferred baths over a shower.
The third and final floor was mostly open space, and half of it was outside. The balcony of the house was quite large, and you could easily have a whole room sit on it. It made me think that this was probably made for bird hybrids. There were a lot of leaves on the balcony, and I could only imagine how much of a hassle it would be to deal with them in autumn.
After looking at all the rooms I began to create a list of pros and cons in my head
Pros:
-It looks nice
-It has enough rooms
-It isn't too big and isn't too small
Cons:
-A lot of fire hazards
-Wood floor = scratch marks
-No bath
-Leaves
I was going over the list in my head until my thoughts were interrupted. "So what do you think?" Barbara asked.
"I don't know yet. I would probably get a better idea after seeing the other houses."
"Well, let's set off for the next one then."
The next house was built into the side of a hill. From the outside, it looked almost as if you put doors and windows on an animal burrow. The most noticeable thing on the outside was the stone chimney at the top.
We headed inside to check the rooms and the interior, and the first thing I noticed was the ceiling was considerably closer to the ground than in the last house. I was tall for my age, so when I walked around my ears scrapped across the ceiling. Although it wasn't painful or even that uncomfortable it still annoyed me that I would be feeling everything on the ceiling.
There were only two floors in this house, but there was more room per floor than in the tree house.
The first floor had a kitchen, a dining room and a living room. The kitchen was larger than the one in the tree house and there were cabinets, not just counters. The dining room had a table but no chairs and it was the most well-lighted room having one of the two only windows. The living room was the room that had the fireplace, and there was an armchair facing it.
The second floor had a bedroom, bathroom and a library. The bedroom was quite large, but there was no bed in it. The bathroom was similar to the one in the tree house and also didn't have a bath. The library was filled with bookshelves, and there were still some books left, but I had no interest in books outside of novels, so the library didn't excite me.
I also made a pros and cons list for this house
Pros:
-Very spacious
-Has fireplace
-Very private
Cons:
-Low ceilings
-Hot because of little ventilation
I spent the next few minutes wondering if I had to pick between the tree house and the hill house which one would I pick. I liked them both for different reasons and also hated them both for different reasons.
As I was thinking about my choices and we walked to the final house. I began to pay more attention to the architecture and layout of the town this time. Some of the houses were similar to the ones we had looked at, and others looked a lot bigger and more grandiose like mansions.
"How come some of the houses are bigger than others?" I asked Coyle as we walked down the path to the next house.
"Some of the more prestigious families choose to build their own houses for their children, instead of buying one." Coyle answered.
"What about when they move out?"
"In those cases, the council either buys the house them or the house is passed down through the generations of the family. It's usually the latter."
With my questions answered, we arrived at the final house. Unlike the last two houses, this one was surprisingly normal, it was a cottage. It was smaller than the last two houses, but this one had a garden.
The house only had two floors similar to the hill house, but this time the second floor was above ground and was a part of the roof.
The first floor had the dining room and the kitchen as well as a small room filled with gardening equipment. The dining room was standard, and a small table that would only fit 2 to 3 people, in the corner of the room. The rest of the room was open space and it had beautiful wood flooring. The kitchen was smaller than the last two, but it had everything you needed to make most meals.
The second floor had a bedroom and bathroom. The room had more in it than the previous ones did, there was a desk and chair next to the frame of a single bed. One of my favourite parts of the room was that the window looked out into the garden. The bathroom was a godsend because it was the only house that had a bath. The bath could double up as a shower because it had a shower head up at the top which was always nice.
After we had finished looking around the house there was no need to make a pros and cons list. The only real fault the room has is its size, but that wasn't something I was bothered about in the first place.
"So are you any closer to making a decision, miss Wolf?" Barbara asked me.
I took one last look at the beautiful garden through the window and smiled at her. "I don't think I could live in the other two houses knowing this one exists."
Coyle let out a sigh of relief. "That's great. Tomorrow we can have any furniture and appliances you need to be delivered here. It has gotten late, and there isn't anywhere for us to sleep or eat here. What should we do?"
"Oh I know, my cousin said there is an inn here called 'the blue cow' he said it was really good, so why don't we stay there?" Barbara suggested gleefully.
Coyle had a doubtful expression, and I could tell he was trying to decide Barbara or not, but he realised they had little choice and decided to agree to it.