Mass release: 16/25
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["It'ssssss been four daysssss ssssssince you got here, witchling. Why don't you sssssstart on your quessssst to exploring the tunnelsssss? I want my gold, I'm hungry!"] Peridot hissed when she came out of her new fancy bathroom.
She's been taking a long bath every noon using a her magical Cold Care bath oil, which is a mix of eucalyptus oil, lavender oil, peppermint oil, and sweet almond oil, that helps with her body straying healthier, her skin replenished, and turned her skin from dry to healthy, soft, and smooth. "I feel so much better, even breathing feels purer now. These bathing oils are really something else," she chuckled, after staying more than 2 hours inside it, doing skincare, hair care, and just relaxing for once in her life.
["Our gold, Em,"] Jade cried.
"Jade, it'll be too fucking suspicious if the first thing I do after I leave this room is head down to the fucking tunnels. And I'm one hundred percent sure those… monitors are actually monitoring my dorm to see when I go or not out. Especially after I pissed them. I mean, I don't regret it, but had Saoirse warned me, I wouldn't have been so fucking reckless," damn it.
["They are indeed monitoring you,"] Peridot said, annoyed.
["Not only them, we can feel lotsssss of eyessss turned here!"]
"Great, how comfortable," she scowled, then grabbed the hairdryer that was already in the room when she got here, and began to dry her long black locks that fell to her hips. "Let them watch me, I don't care. They may be curious and annoyed for now, but as soon as I grasp some control over my magic, they will fear me. If they fear me, they won't be reckless near me, and that's what I need right now, to survive for now, and for the next three years in this hell," taking a deep breath, she began to pass her special oil for her hair, it's magical scent igniting courage in her.
It was a random small recipe she found in Dior's grimoires, it was one of her first experiments and it worked majestically. Cocoa, cardamom, and rosemary based, giving to her, her favorite scent. Cocoa aka chocolate.
"Seven House masters, seven leaders, a monitor, co-vice-monitors, year presidents, professors, professor assistants, professor direct protégées, fourteen wardens, two factions, vice-headmaster, headmaster, and steward. Aside from Bhat who's the steward, there's too much people to watch out for, too many people that present me danger. Dior, that bitch," she hissed, clenching her jaw, doing her best to control her anger, "she should have told me more before throwing me here. And the fact that Bhat warned me that everything in possible in here, there ain't many rules restricting the students, that all they care about it power, points, and ranks, and that kids die in here every year?" She gasped. "They will target me!"
["You already know why sssssshe did that, Em,"] Jade purred.
She sighed, "As long as I'm the target, Saoirse won't be as targeted as me this year. I don't blame her, she is her daughter after all, and she's been suffering in here, for something Dior did," Emerald swallowed. "And I feel sad that she's hurt, because again, my side of our relationship has been honest from day one. Though it pisses me off that she's being bullied in here, I can't even judge the Circle kids, because had I been in their place… fuck, Saoirse would be seven feet deep in the ground and so would Dior. And it also angers me that Dior killed their moms, killed aunt Gwyneth."
["You ssssssshouldn't get involved, Em,"] Peridot sighed. ["It will only bring you more problemssssss, and your handssssss are full. The redhead ain't a sssssssaint, nor issssss ssssshe innocent, and you know it. You heard the way sssssshe talked. Sssssshe may sssssseem better than the maniac of a mother sssssshe hassssss, but the redhead isssss bound to be even worssssssse than Dior. We warned you, witchling."]
["There isssssss evil in her heart, Em,"] Jade hissed. ["A pure kind of evil that isssss rarely sssssseem in humansssss of any kind. Be it normiesssss or witchlingsssss. Ssssshe isssss ssssssstill ussssssing you, becausssssse sssssshe knowsssssss you ssssssstill care. We tried to warn you many timessss but your ssssstubbornessssss got in the way."]
"You say that because you don't like her," she scoffed. "She isn't evil, she was hurt. She grew up without a dad, or grandparents, or a coven because of the Phoenixes, and she has probably being heavily bullied in here by the Circle and many others ever since that maniac killed their moms. Dior influenced her to think this way as her mother and only family, she ain't evil like that, she's hurt. Hurt people hurt other people."
["No, Em. Not in her casssssse. The redhead really is evil, and we mean, there'ssssssss nothing to be sssssssaved in here. Ssssssshe wasssssss not made thissssss way asssss you are ssssssaying, ssssshe wassssss born like that,"] Jade insisted.
"No one is born evil," she snapped annoyed.
["There isssss a type of human that isssss,"] Peridot countered.
Her eyes widened and she glared at him, "She's not a psychopath! No. Don't even start with me, I don't want to talk about this fucking shit. You never liked her from the beginning. She may not be the purest-hearted, but she has feelings, she has emotions. Psychopaths don't. Aaron is that kind of person, not her, not Saoirse," this is going to far.
["Em,"] they tried.
"Stop. Shut up," she clenched her jaw. "You know what? I'm not going to listen to you," standing up, she walked to where she had left the air pods on her bed, then she grabbed her new phone.
Saoirse had added the playlist she made for her back when she gave her the iPod in her Spotify under the name '🐍111🐍', but instead of going for one of the songs she already knows by heart, she put the one Bhat said was his favorite in the moment, a Brazilian song, Lilith by Bea Duarte. As she set it to play on repeat, she put the pods on, and ignore her familiars, singing it since she learned the lyrics after listening once.
She had spent the last four days with Bhat, coming every morning to her dorm and helping her out, then, after they were done with the whole organizing of her things, that left him shocked by the amount of stuff she had to sell, he suggested they watched his favorite movies. So, that's what they did in past three days and a half, and today until 5 pm, when he had to leave to deal with something for the headmaster.
They watched all the Shrek movies, both Pussy-in-Boots, all How to Train Your Dragon, Frozen 1 and 2, Tangled, all Pirates of the Caribbean, all Star Wars movies, Moana, Encanto, all Alvin and the Chipmunks, all Twilight movies (which she hated, especially because [*spoiler*] the last bloody war in the last movie was all fake in the end), all Toy Stories, all Harry Potter movies that she loved, and Iron Man 1.
He promised to watch all Marvel movies and series with her later.
They binged it all, having barely slept at all, and she now felt more connected to the world, and finally able to understand the names of all the familiars of the Circle kids.
And they did all that while eating the chocolate cookies he baked, the dark magic and the lemon heaven cakes she baked, the extra buttered salty popcorn he prepared, his special alcoholic drink that he calls Holy Water, and her special tea blend of black, chai, cinnamon, peppermint, and green tea, for a boost in energy, immunity, clarity, strength, metabolism and cold relief, all stirred clockwise to bring positivity. The said 'Holy Water' being a light blue cocktail of vodka, rum, blue Curacao, peach schnapps, lemonade, with a splash of pineapple juice.
It was her first time having alcohol, and after she drank more than the amount Bhat told her that make him drunk, and didn't even feel dizzy or dazed, they began to theorize that changelings might not get drunk at all.
That left her wandering what else she can't do because of what she is. What else can't she do? What else can't affect her? What else was she immune to just because she's a changeling? She never ponded any of that, because she never got the luxury to do so, when all her time was for hiding and running, and she avoided even thinking about the complications of what she is. But now she can't help but curious being here, after talking with him.
"I need salty food," she told herself, petting her flat sculpted belly. "I can still feel the amount of sugar I ate in my blood. I'll just dress whatever since I doubt there will be many people in the communal dinning room I saw in the map," she mumbled, going up the stairs at the left corner her dorm, where the closet is. "Hah, those individual dorms are like my own freaking penthouse, studio version, it's bizarre."
The closet is in her own indoor-balcony, giving view of the main floor of the dorm, with an emerald and dark marble island in the center, seven double doors sides of a huge wardrobe, with a side shelve in the wall proper for a lot of shoes. The island being made to keep jewels, accessories, and with a top that's insanely soft to the touch, as if they integrated a layer of velvet in it and used magic to make it invisible. She could sleep in it.
"I thought Bhat was joking when he told me that as soon as I settle in the dorm, the magic in it would mark all of my clothes with the Snake House insignia, and fuck, this will never not be bizarre," she chuckled more than slightly weirded out. "This place is really magical, ain't it?"
Matching a black leggings and a phtalo green gym top that wraps around her neck and shows her collarbones and shoulders, with a swift black panty, a crop black jacket going only above her waist, ankle high platform black leather boots with silver laces, snake silver hanging earrings in both ears, her sharp nails polished silver stardust with a soft layer of light green glitter over it, her long hair now on a high ponytail with a long streak falling at each side of her face.
Passing her blood red lipstick on her lips, she put on the eyeglasses, keeping the bracelets on, she added a left wrist silver snake-shaped watch, a obsidian with emerald ring on her left ring finger just for the sake of it, and she used the potion perfume Saoirse made for her, with a main scent note of cocoa scent.
"Dior must be filthy rich to have gotten all this stuff for me in such a short of time," she gasped, staring at herself in the mirror.
Turning around, she switched the air pods for the black headset, just to make sure people won't talk to her, since it'll be obvious she can't listen. Grabbing a black handbag with a silver chain, she put her wallet, phone, and lipstick, she added the thin leather belt on the thigh and one of her antidote daggers on her right inner upper thigh and a poisonous one in the outer side, both sheathed.
Clicking her tongue, she walked down the stairs to the main room again, and turned to Peridot and Jade, enlaced in the leather dark green couch, then she pointed to her waist, "Come!"
In a second they advanced towards her settled down as her belt.
"Hey, don't hug me that tight," she growled as she pushed down the headset phones to her neck, but both ignored her. "Okay, I deserve that for ignoring you, but don't be an ass right now!" They kept on ignoring her, and she rolled her eyes behind the eyeglasses, going to her left bedside table, where she left the iPad with the iPen. "Now," she put the headset back up again, and walked towards the locked door, "let's get out of here for a bit, before someone comes knocking on my door because I'm as antisocial as I told them I was when I walked into this hell."
Connecting her headset to her iPad this time, she changed the song to one of the new ones she added to her own playlist, which she named it '🌌Filling the Void🌌', that only just started filling up, having only 20 songs so far, so, she picked Morally Grey by April Jai.
I think this Spotify app might be my favorite, she smiled to herself.
Striding towards the door, confidently, she unlocked the door, left for the first time since she got inside it, then locked again for security and put the key in her bag, closing it after it. And as she raised her head and looked around, she found about five kids with the Snake House insignia, all staring at her, jaw slacked as if they didn't expect her to even come out.