"Damn, that's intense. Oh, heavens, our descendants will looooooove to study this part," a guy beamed overjoyed like a fucking toddler, right, behind, me.
I jumped startled, my palm pausing fulling on Marvor's sculpted abdomen as I held onto it not to fall given how my legs are fighting for their life here, and as I turned my head to see what the hell that was about, I saw a guy a head and a half taller than me, with a skin darker than master Celebrimbor's and almost as black as the scales of that damned dragon, totally off place.
He is dressed in a fancy rubi red with gold details scholar uniform, though a version made of red dragon scales to protect him from the heat, with angelic short curly black hair and big amber eyes, thick round lips, a thinner nose with high cheekbones and a sharp jaw, skinnier than the guys in here but still tall. Having a hoop gold piercing on the left nostril of his nose connected by a a little chain to the hoop gold earring on his left ear.
He must be the exchange student from Von Damme to write about the kids in the new first year, aka my class to-be soon, in order to write all that will go on with the students, focusing on the most promising ones. To be send to Arkhane as an exchange student, they need to meet some requirements: be on the top 5 of both year 1 and year 2, be a 3rd year, have prior physical training and not fear height, be familiar with dragons and have a blood relation with an Ark-Rider, be fearless. The moment they enter Arkhane as the an scribe intern, they cannot leave for 5 years.
So, he may look skinny from here, but I bet his muscles are toned.
That's an uncommon trait of scholars to be exchange students, they have to be physically prepared, they have to have this as their focus from their first year, because they will only take those who profoundly want to be here, given the danger. The majority of the scholars can't fight for shit, and disregard physical training, it's also why many of the older ones are fat, while it's hard to find body fat in the body of a rider. Riders, on the other hand, are the greatest position, they are bigger than the warriors, because while the warriors don't have dragons and are solely prepared for ground combat both hand to hand and magical, the riders have the traits of the warriors and an extra sauce.
The warriors make the huger part of the army, while the riders aren't so many, given how barely 111 riders graduate per year, most die, and there's also the fact that to be an actual Ark-Rider you gotta be chosen by a dragon, and they are very picky bastards with a God complex. Reasonable but infuriatingly annoying. It's easy to be a warrior, but you have to be chosen to have a little chance in going far enough in your survival in this open hell, to become a rider.
"Where the fuck did you came from?" Percy and Katos gasped.
Honestly, Katos gasping is quite the fear, given what he's shown so far.
"Who are you? You don't look like you belong here," Barbie groaned.
"He's the scribe exchange student from the Von Damme College," I said, eyes on him, whose lips went from joyful smile to an amused grin. "3rd year, which makes him, 22 years old going 23. Am I right?"
"Yes," he chanted. "I got luck to fall as the scribe of your year, Princess."
I blinked at how he called, "Where are you from?"
"I'm from a village in the outskirts, close to Tower 818, also north, and also an orphan, like cherry boy here said," he tilted his chin to Katos behind him. "I don't speak for my people, unfortunately, but I speak for myself and I still see and recognize the power of your family, and now, after what you said, I understand that the men who sits as the Crowned Prince was a piece of shit to you. So, I hope you don't think I'm mocking you, Princess, it just feels wrong to call you anything but what you are. The current family may impose their stole claim to the throne for now, but you emanate the aura of an Empress even without magic, its baffling!"
"Don't that makes you an untrustworthy narrator if you pick a side?" The question came from the bastard behind me, and when I realized my hand was still on his chest, I quickly took it away.
"What do you even know about loyalty?" I hissed at him, stepping away.
"Said the one who broke her family's trust and got them killed!"
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Katos yelled at him.
"Who are you to butt in?" Marvor hissed at him.
"Who are you to bark so much shit at her? Seriously, what is wrong with you? Your family destroyed hers, your brother groomed and used a 15-year-old when he was 23," he voice his voice, "and you dare to blame her? She was used for sinning in daring to love, what is her fault in that? You brother did this."
"I didn't quite catch your insignificant name," the assholes mocked him.
"I am Katos, you motherfucking piece of shit!"
Well, damn, why is he siding with me so loudly? Is it because he wants to get into our little union to be with Davalyn or something? Or does he has a personal grudge with the Velothren as well? He's an orphan, isn't he? Did they cause his family's demise too? Is he relating to me on this?
"I don't see how my problem with her concerns you, Katos."
By my peripheral vision I saw him clenching his jaw, "Of course, you do not see it, because I don't want you to. I also lost my family to your father and your brother, mate, like the Princess, and many others. Unlike her, I don't blame you as you were barely 18 then, far from here, unknown to what they had been doing here. Keep pressing the Princess and I'll feel pressured to, which will make me want to murder you with her." That explains why I felt similar to him, he lost it all, too.
"I am not your mate," Marvor hissed at him, offended as if he had hit him.
"Nice plot twist there, Katos," the exchange student beamed.
"You didn't tell me your name," I looked at him.
"Oh? That's was rude of me," he bowed his head, "Elias Grantham at your service, Princess," then looked at me again, grinning. "Call me Eli." When his gaze turned colder, he looked at the mend behind me, Marvor. "I am not an unreliable narrator, your highness," but the titled in his tongue sounded like a mockery, "I am to be true to my vow, to only the truth and the truth only, you may have gotten very used to corrupt scribed on your side, given how many of them didn't wrote what happened as they should have, but I'm not like them. I will write down everything that I catch sight off, everything I hear, nothing but the truth."
"Except nobody knows the real truth behind everything," Sage finally got to his feet, not looking as sick as before, "because the real truth is only told when you have both side of it, Elias Grantham. You are biased to Disgrace here, meaning your truth will be biased to making her the heroine and her enemies the villains. But villains are only villains when you only get their enemies' point of view."
"Scared of looking bad, are you now, Sage?" I mocked.
But for once, the jerk looked serious, and his eyes were on Elias the whole time, not even coming to me for glare. Since Sage is best friends with Davalyn and all that, does that means he could know Elias from before him? Because that glare right there glowing in their eyes, felt quite personal.
"It's simply a truth, Disgrace," he mumbled, eyes on the exchange student, "your point of view cannot be reliable if you are biased to one of the parties of a conflict such as the conflict between the Madalverel and the Velothren. Elias."
"If they doubt my point of view, they can just go and read what Cassandra Cockcroft-Welfer have written and will keep written as a scribe intern in year 3, who is clearly biased to Marvor Velothren. Each scribe writes their own book, their own points of view in history, if you doubt, you can just read everything all of us wrote and decide on what to believe, on what you find more truthful. If you insist in seeing those who were wronged as the villains, you won't like my history books, if it's opposite case, then you will like my book," Elias told him, jaw clenched.
When I looked to where Sage was, my eyes met Percy's, who was already on his feet and looking at me as if he was waiting for me to do so, I just know we shared the same thought about what was happening in front of us. They got history.
To my shock, when I looked back to where Katos was, he was staring from Sage to Elias, eyes narrowed and eyebrows crunching softly, sharing the same brain cell me and Percy were a second a go, so when he looked at me, and I had the same look on my face, he fought a chuckle. An action that definitely made him look a lot younger than me, less menacing than he want to look like.