It was early morning, Nuri stood at attention, waiting for the older woman who runs the dorm room to come barging in. Her palms were sweaty and her knees were threatening to give out on her as she watched her other roommate, Elara, struggle with her uniform. She wanted to help, desperately but if Esther came in to find both of them out of sorts, they would both be punished for her incompetence. Elara was smart, kind but incapable of getting dressed on time during the morning. Normally, Nuri would have woken up early to help her get ready but she only had enough time to sleep and get herself ready. She silently urged Elara, watching her fumble with her buttons when the door slammed open.
A shrill loud voice shouted into the room, "Dorm 349, present!" Esther shouted, she was a tall, skinny woman. She had black hair with gray streaks and deep set green eyes. She had been the Dorm leader for twenty years, and she had hated every moment of it. She hated that she was the one who had to deal with the lower class students, blaming it on a feud she had with the headmaster when she was younger. She surveyed the room, eyes going from student to student until her eyes landed on Elara. A flame appeared in her eyes, "Elara," She cooed out in a sickly sweet voice, "Why aren't you ready?"
Elara paused in her struggle, her shaking hands falling to her sides in defeat and acceptance, "I-" She stuttered, "I couldn't get my buttons to fit into the holes." Esther smiled, a full tooth smile that sent shivers down Nuri's spine. Nuri had never met another human who had taken such great pleasure out of punishing others, until she met Esther.
"How many times is that this week?" Esther growled, her smile faltering.
Elara took in a shaky breath, pushing back a stray strand of her blonde hair, "Three." She whispered, struggling to meet Esther's eyes. Without another moment's hesitation, Esther grabbed Elara by her hair, pulling her towards the door while shouting out what the dorm was going to do today after regular classes. Elara sobbed and screamed but didn't kick or fight, her fate had been sealed. They would see Elara in the third class of the day, her bruises covered by the uniform but the limp unmistakable.
As the door slammed shut Nuri let out a choked sob as her other roommates sat down on their beds, head in hands. Dorian Academy was not as it seemed and it only got worse the further you probed under its surface. Nuri took in deep breaths, trying to steady herself and squash the anxiety that filled her bones to the brim. She couldn't look shaken up, as if she was affected by what she witnessed here. If you did, the academy students would swallow you whole, leaving nothing but a shell of yourself at the end of it all.
Nuri looked at her roommates, who struggled with the act they witnessed. No one, Nuri suspected, could never truly be unphased by acts like that. Before classes started, Nuri ran to the bathroom. The scrap of paper in her pocket she had scribbled on sat heavy in her pocket as she walked the halls, it felt like she was committing a crime. I suppose I am by Dorian Academy rules, Nuri mused to herself. Opening and shutting the door to the corridors, Nuri pressed her body against it for a second. "Thirty seconds." She whispered to herself, a habit she had formed her first year at Dorian.
Time was used as a tool, every minute of your life at Dorian was planned and straying from the path for too long will raise hell among the adults. Nuri counted every second that she was off or how long she had until something planned. Walking over the mirror against the brick wall, she felt for the gap she had discovered three months ago. Smiling to herself when she felt it, slipping the scrap of paper out of her pocket. She glanced at it, reading it one more time before she shoved into the gap. Folding it in two, she shoved it between the brick and mirror. "Ten seconds." She wetted her hands, haphazardly drying them before stepping out of the room. In the corner of her eye, she saw a hall walker. Averting her gaze from their eyes, she made her way back to her tactics class.
Her fingers twitched, pressing each finger against her thumb once until she reached her pinky and then restarting to soothe herself. Much like her mother, Nuri had always struggled with keeping still. Unlike her mother, she struggled with hobbies, only exercise seemed to calm the storm that worked in her mind constantly. Recently, she had become more thankful for this storm, it allowed her to think on her feet. The teacher pointed at another student, about her weight class, and mentioned him to come into the spar ring. The boy looked nervous, seeing Nuri's resting face staring back at him. He watched her fingers movements before they stopped and clenched into a fist.
The teacher raised his fist into the air, "Stances," both of them prepared stances. Positioning her feet, raising her arms and keeping her torso facing him, she went down her checklist. "Spar!" His fist slammed through the air. The boy jumped into action, going onto the offensive. Nuri took in a deep breath of air before going defensive. He was aggressive, strikes attempting to either break her defenses or go around it. He was trying to immobilize her, he had seen her fight before. She would let him wear himself out on his attacks or she would get fed up and finish the sparring match. He had been watching her for months, she was terrifying in the ring. Sure, she had lost her fair amount of matches but each time she returned she was better, a prodigy from the lower class.
He watched her eyes widened by just a centimeter before he felt the wind knocked out of him. She stood still, her fist in the position she had punched him, her breathing was hard and sweat struck to her brow but he was on the ground. He coughed and groaned a little, the punch had been as expected, hard. She trained for putting down enemies, and when you stepped into the ring with her, you were an enemy.
The day continued on, and no one commented on Elara's sudden appearance back in class. No one dared to comment about it. Everyone was pouring over their textbooks after being told that an exam for tactics was coming up. Panic silently filled the students in the library as each one wrote down notes, knowing that they wouldn't be allowed for the test.
"You can't have notes on the battlefield, you must memorize." Their teacher said when someone asked, "Ask me again, and I'll make you remember." No one asked again. So Nuri sat at a desk, oil lamp burning at the end to provide enough light to study. Her eyes burned with fatigue and her muscles ached from all the exercises but she needed to remember this. At some point, she had tried to figure out what happened to the lower class students who never graduated due to being unable to keep up with schooling.
It was then that she realized that no matter what, if she failed or if she succeeded, she would disappear. And she much preferred the option to succeed, at least with the ones that succeeded at the academy were possible to find. Not one spot of evidence came from the ones that failed and Nuri worried they had been killed or sold to another, more barbaric country.
So she studied until she couldn't keep her head up any more, and with a lack of a nail, longer hair and some rope she had no other option but to sleep. Like every night, she sent a prayer that Elowen, when she arrived, would find what she had hidden for her.