novelzi Ch 1.5: Courage
Ch 1.5: Courage
Ch 1.5: Courage
The first thing Elaina did when she opened her eyes was look over to the empty, neatly made bed across the room. She’s gotta be the quietest person I’ve ever met, ever not met. Elaina wasn’t sure what time it was, but knew it was after breakfast at least, as she vaguely remembered ignoring the morning bell. There was only one bell for each meal at Endrin, with an additional bell at their designated midnight curfew, and she didn’t think she’d slept through the noon bell too, so she decided she could take her time getting up.
Elaina looked down at herself, seeing she’d pulled up all of her covers to her neck in an effort to stay warm. At least she’d managed to keep her modesty in the daylight. She struggled out of bed and over to her luggage, taking out each article of her casual wear and her spare uniform. She blushed as she took out the pajamas she’d packed, knowing full well that she should be wearing them right now. She glanced over at the door while she stored them away as well.
A quick unpacking left Elaina with only underwear left to put away, and to pick out for the day. It’s not like anyone’s going to see it, so it doesn’t really matter. Even as she thought that she picked out one of her nicer sets, a black lace set she’d actually made herself since there was no way her mother would have made it for her. It was still mostly modest, covering all of the important things in front, but the back was more of a sheer affair. Elaina wasn’t quite as endowed in the back as she was in her chest, but she thought she had a nice shape and liked the idea of showing it off a little, if she ever got around to getting that far with anyone.
Prisma. She had an ass to be proud of, Elaina had noticed, even through the quite chaste uniform skirt she’d seen her in. I wonder if I’ll ever talk to her again... She lingered on thoughts of Prisma’s smile for a moment more, then heard the lunch bell.
Going outside was almost the last thing she wanted to do right now, but going another minute without eating was the absolute last thing she wanted to do, so Elaina threw on the uniform skirt and jacket she’d worn the day prior over a new shirt. She had two sets of the jacket and skirt, but she wouldn’t be able to keep up with changing them every day. With a deep breath she exited her sanctuary and walked out into world.
The common room was empty as she made her way down, the students likely already heading towards the dining hall, and the halls were sparse as well. Elaina had braced for far more attention as she walked down the halls, but was surprised to find only a few of the students she walked with noticed her at all. Right, some of these aren’t first-years. She’d have at least a day or two before everyone knew about last night. Well, that was optimistic, but at least a day or two before they all found out exactly what she looked like, and by then she’d actually be Aspected. One more day.
The hall itself was almost completely different. The walls and floor were of course the same, and the faculty dining area was still there, not nearly as full as the night before, but the individual small group tables were gone, replaced by rows of long tables circling the room, closing in on the center where there was a serving station manned by what looked to be metal people— no, metal skeletons with eyes and no ribcage? She’d seen these same creatures last night too, but had been in too much of a stupor to pay them much attention, but now as she did she noticed how alien they really appeared with their not quite human proportions, being made of bluish-purple metal that she’d never seen before. Whatever they looked like, Elaina knew what they were: Endrin’s famous automatons, and like most other people she knew little more than that about them.
She grabbed a plate of food from the serving creatures and skittered over to an empty seat. She glanced around to see if she knew anyone, if any of the people she knew were nearby, but couldn’t find any, not even Headmaster Alonse, who was absent from his seat at the head of the staff table.
People recognized her though. While scanning the crowd, Elaina couldn’t help but notice the whispering and pointing coming at her from nearly every direction. She bowed her head down as she finished eating, doing her best to ignore the attention. She noticed that everyone else had just been leaving plates on the table, and that those same plates were shortly picked up by automatons to be taken off into a side exit. Elaina did the same and started off before someone grabbed her sleeve, “Excuse me?”
Elaina turned, and her heart froze. Prisma was standing there, alone, looking at Elaina with a flushed face. “Sorry, can we talk a moment?”
“Oh, sure,” Elaina stammered out, looking down at Prisma’s hand. Prisma pulled her off to the edge of the room and out the door, leading into a large antechamber just outside the dining room where a good number of other students were chatting.
“I, uhmm...” Prisma bit her lip and looked away, a display of cuteness that was matched only by the cutest of kittens Elaina had ever seen. “I wanted to apologize for yesterday. For, uhm, everything I guess.” Prisma turned to the ground, obviously in turmoil. “We, uh, Waine wants to apologize too.”
“No, I embarrassed all of you-”
“He just wants to apologize, okay?” Prisma nearly shouted the words, her composure breaking even further, Elaina taken aback as the crowd of students around them turned. Prisma noticed the crowd as well and lowered her voice again. “Look, I don’t even...” She took a deep breath, then continued, “There’s an event tonight called a test of courage, an initiation thing for the incoming class that the upperclassmen do. We walk out into the forest in groups, and they try to scare us and stuff.”
Prisma looked down again, glancing up at Elaina, but not quite making eye contact. “Waine wants you with us for it. He says he wants to apologize, that he didn’t mean to say that last night.”
“We don’t need to follow them. There’ll be plenty of action this way.”
The group did only veer off a little, so Elaina followed, their group’s formation not changing, but the conversation dying down as they entered. They were surrounded by trees far taller than any she’d ever seen, having been born in a farming town with more plains than forest, but the canopy wasn’t thick enough to shut out all light, so the full moon still shone through a little, giving them enough light to navigate.
“So, what should we expect?” Elaina asked.
Ivis was the one to answer, “There were a bunch of upperclassmen hiding behind trees and stuff, using their aspects to come out and scare us freshers,” he said.
“Wait, have you already been in?” Elaina asked.
“Nah,” Waine said, turning back and glaring at Ivis. “We heard students talking about it as they came back.”
“How long has it been going on?”
“Since sunset,” Prisma said, the first words she’d spoken since Elaina arrived. “We’re one of the last groups to go in.”
“Oh,” Elaina said, thinking back to their conversation earlier. “Is there like, prestige in going later?”
“Something like that,” Waine said.
As they made their trek, they heard more and more screams. Eventually the sounds grew to a head, but as Elaina continued on with the group they became less frequent again, the volume dying out as the moved forward.
They eventually came to a small clearing in the woods, a place where their entire group could stand in undisturbed moonlight. “This is far enough, right?” Prisma said, stopping.
Waine looked around the clearing and then back towards the sounds of the other students, almost inaudible at this point. “Ya, it is.”
“But we haven’t even seen anyone else yet,” Elaina said.
Waine smiled. Not the warm smile from earlier today, the wicked, vicious smile she’d seen on him when they’d first met. “No need to worry. Prisma here is going to give you the initiation you deserve.”