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Chapter 6 - Chapter 6: Life at Arcanis Academy

Life at Arcanis Academy was like trying to read a spellbook in a windstorm—chaotic, confusing, and occasionally leaving Elyas with a headache. The academy was impossibly vast, the kind of place where you could get lost for days and accidentally wander into a forbidden magical duel without even realizing it. Everywhere he turned, there were students practicing magic far beyond his comprehension. One girl had conjured a pet griffin that obediently carried her books, while another casually created a miniature thunderstorm above her head to water a floating garden of plants.

Elyas quickly came to a sobering realization: he was in way over his head.

When he wasn't narrowly avoiding magical disasters, Elyas was getting to know his roommates. On paper, they seemed like an odd trio, and in reality... well, they were even odder. Marlowe and Kellen, as it turned out, were not just roommates—they were walking opposites, like fire and ice, day and night, dramatic serenades and... well, awkward science experiments.

Marlowe was a bard. Not just any bard, though—a flamboyant, overly dramatic, life-is-a-musical bard who seemed to be fueled entirely by emotion and a questionable amount of caffeine. The moment Elyas walked through the door, Marlowe greeted him as if they were long-lost lovers being reunited after a tragic, magical separation.

"Ah, Elyas! The muse I never knew I needed!" Marlowe declared, throwing himself across the room in what could only be described as a graceful, exaggerated swoon. "Your eyes, like twin stars, inspire the deepest ballads in my heart!"

Elyas, who was still in the process of processing the fact that his pillow had been enchanted to dance on its own, blinked. "Uh... thanks?"

But Marlowe was undeterred. From that day forward, Elyas became the focus of Marlowe's dramatic attentions. Every morning, he would wake to the sound of Marlowe plucking a lute (which he carried everywhere) and serenading him with songs that often included lines like "Oh, Elyas, whose magic does spark, like a candle in the dark" and "Thy disheveled hair, like windswept meadows rare." Elyas, who had no idea how to respond to this constant barrage of bardic affection, mostly tried to avoid eye contact and awkwardly shuffle out of the room.

To make matters worse, Marlowe had apparently decided that Elyas's bed needed to be decorated with daily offerings of flowers. Not just any flowers, mind you—enchanted flowers that sang. At first, Elyas thought they were charming, but after the fifteenth chorus of "Oh Elyas, we adore thee!" at three in the morning, he was starting to reconsider his appreciation for flora.

"How long does this usually last?" Elyas whispered to Kellen one evening as they sat in the common room, watching Marlowe compose yet another epic ballad, presumably dedicated to Elyas's unmatched beauty.

Kellen was the polar opposite of Marlowe. A quiet, methodical alchemist, Kellen spoke only when absolutely necessary, and usually about potions or the exact chemical composition of toadstools. He had a permanent look on his face that said, "I have no time for this nonsense," but every now and then, if you looked closely, you could see a smirk creep across his face when Marlowe got particularly dramatic.

Kellen didn't even look up from his book of obscure alchemical formulas. "I'd sleep outside if I were you," he said dryly. "Marlowe's got a lot of stamina."

Elyas considered this for a moment. "Outside? Like… the courtyard?"

Kellen finally glanced at Elyas, his smirk growing. "Unless you enjoy being serenaded under the moonlight with metaphors about your 'soulful gaze' and 'unruly locks,' yes. The courtyard's probably your best bet."

Elyas sighed. That night, he did indeed move his pillow and blanket out to the courtyard, desperate for a few hours of peace and quiet. Of course, the universe had other plans.

As Elyas lay under the stars, trying to relax, he heard a soft rustling nearby. For a brief moment, he thought it might be Marlowe, tracking him down to deliver yet another sonnet about his "melancholic aura." But as he opened his eyes, Elyas found himself face to face with a very large, very curious raccoon.

"Uh… hello?" Elyas whispered.

The raccoon did not respond in words, but in actions, as it promptly made off with his blanket. Elyas scrambled to his feet, chasing after it through the courtyard. "Wait, no! Come back! That's not food!"

It turned out that chasing a raccoon in the middle of the night while barefoot was not exactly Elyas's strong suit. After a solid ten minutes of sprinting after the creature, dodging various enchanted statues and garden gnomes (who seemed entirely unbothered by the chaos), Elyas finally gave up and slumped down on a bench, defeated.

"Should've stayed in the room with the singing flowers," he muttered to himself.

The next morning, Elyas stumbled back into the dormitory, looking as though he'd spent the night wrestling a small tornado (which, technically, wasn't entirely wrong, given the events with the raccoon). Marlowe was already awake, perched on Elyas's bed, strumming his lute and gazing out the window with a wistful expression.

"Oh, Elyas, you've returned!" Marlowe exclaimed. "I was about to compose a ballad about your absence. 'The Lament of the Lonely Pillow,' I was going to call it. But now, you've returned to inspire me once more!"

Kellen, sitting at his desk meticulously measuring out strange glowing powders, glanced over. "Lose something important, did you?" he asked, not even attempting to hide his amusement at Elyas's bedraggled appearance.

"Only my blanket and my dignity," Elyas grumbled.

Marlowe's eyes lit up. "Oh, that would make a wonderful refrain for a ballad! 'He lost his blanket, he lost his pride, but his beauty will not be denied!'" He punctuated this with an enthusiastic strum of his lute.

Elyas sighed deeply and slumped onto his now-flower-free bed. "This is my life now, isn't it?"

Kellen, with a slight shrug, offered some words of wisdom in his typical, deadpan manner. "It could be worse. You could've been serenaded by a raccoon last night instead of robbed by one."

Elyas stared at him, eyes narrowed. "That's… that's not helpful, Kellen."

Kellen smirked again, turning back to his alchemy. "Just trying to put things in perspective."

Life at Arcanis Academy, it turned out, was not just about magic and learning. It was about surviving the constant chaos, unexpected serenades, and bizarre encounters that came with living in a place where nearly everyone had some kind of magical ability. Between Marlowe's ceaseless affection, Kellen's strange potions (some of which smelled highly suspicious), and his own tendency to accidentally set things on fire, Elyas was beginning to wonder if he'd ever get the hang of this whole "magic school" thing.

Then again, at least no one here had turned into a teapot. Yet.

As he lay in bed that night, listening to Marlowe softly hum a tune about "the magic of fleeting glances" (whatever that meant), Elyas found himself smiling, just a little. Sure, his life was a mess—a magical, chaotic, often embarrassing mess—but at least it wasn't boring.

Maybe, just maybe, Arcanis Academy was exactly where he was meant to be.