The Claddagh Academy

The History of Faerie

Blaise

        It was raining by the time I finished making beds and exercising my nonexistent patience. Mss. Lambert’s personality was ferociously irritating, to the point I thought she would be able to make a Saint curse if left alone with her for more than five minutes. She was constantly repeating my faults, criticizing my slowness or enumerating all the reasons why she thought I was the sloppiest girl she had ever seen.

        “You are supposed to fold the covers under the mattress Mss. Darkholme, to stop it from wrinkling. Here, let me show you,” she conjured a black ruler from thin hair and passed it over the bed I’ve just dressed. The ruler seemed to stop over an invisible wrinkle I couldn’t see and Mss. Lambert clicked her tongue at me, pointing at the bed with the damn ruler. “You need to do it again. How can you be this messy Mss. Darkholme? The comforter has creases.”

        Needless to say, it took me an entire hour to finish making all the other girl’s beds and leave the dorms. I didn’t even bother on passing by the dining hall to have breakfast, since Mss. Lambert had kindly reminded me I would be punished again if I got late to my first class with Mr. Delacroix. Hungry and already tired after my morning match with Mss. Lambert I run all the way to the first floor of the castle and asked around in which class was First year. Some students from upper years directed me to-no surprise- the last classroom at the end of the hall. I run all the way to the last door, dodging other students and mumbling some excuses if I bumped against someone on my race to get in time. I thanked Amadeus for keeping me well trained, although, running in skirts was a first time for me. That, and also carrying a backpack on my shoulders. I sincerely believe girls should be allowed to use pants like the boys and, why did we need to carry so many damn books from one side to the other?

    I managed to get inside the classroom at the same time the bells at the upper tower marked it was eight in the morning. Everybody was already seated and looking expectantly at the professor in front of the classroom. I swallowed nervously and looked at the professor, a tall, thin High Fae with shiny red hair and aquamarine eyes. He motioned for me to take a seat while he wrote something on the board. I thanked the skies I wouldn’t be getting another punishment and then walked further into the classroom. Karoo waved her hand at me, smiling and pointing at an empty seat she had saved for me at her side. I smiled at her, thinking she was the greatest friend, until I spotted the large figure that would be seating right behind me. Kodiak. This morning he looked even more handsome that yesterday. A fact that every other girl in attendance had also noticed. I spied the entire female population of First year stealing glances at the class heartthrob. I rolled my eyes and did my best to ignore them all. Of course, I couldn’t help to notice Kodiak looked good dressed in the school’s uniform and sporting the classical sexy bed hair that every bad boy was born knowing how to rock. I took my seat, ignoring the way his golden eyes shined when I looked at him one last time before staring back to the professor. I took my conjuring book and the notebook I’d already picked for this class and smiled back at Karoo enthusiastic face.

    “You look ready to conjure unicorns and rainbows,” I said to her under my breath and Karoo laughed, holding her noise with a hand on top of her mouth.

    “I’m just very excited about this class. All my brothers had been dying to learn how to conjure since Kodiak managed to conjure a human arcade inside our castle when we were ten years old,” she said, stealing a glance at her brother at my back and smiling at him. I frowned at that last piece of information. Kodiak had been only ten when he conjured for the very first time? Well then, no surprise he was a cocky bastard. He probably was used to receive compliments since the day he was born only for the fact he had been born. I smirked at my own thought at the same time that Kodiak gently kicked my seat. I looked at him over my shoulder and narrowed my eyes at his perfect chiseled face.

    “In my defense, I always received well-deserved compliments,” he said, his deep voice soothing my tensed shoulders. He had been reading my thoughts once again. Somehow it didn’t surprise me anymore.

    “Whatever sprinkles your donuts, Fae,” I told him, and Kodiak c****d his head to a side, inspecting me with his golden yes. Man, he had incredible eyes. A prism of golden tones and hues with dark circles around his pupils that seemed to hypnotize you with their beauty.

    “Is that an invitation?” He asked me, smiling. His tempting mouth curled up and those damned dimples made an appearance. The girl at the table in front of mine sighed, reminding me I wasn’t the only one girl susceptible to his good looks. I sighed alright, out of irritation.

    “Whatever,” I said, picking my pencil and focusing on being ready for the class. The pencil fell from my fingers and rolled to the back once it hit the floor. I rolled my eyes and bend down to pick it up. Kodiak moved at the same time and somehow along the way we ended touching our hands when I picked my pencil.

     I blinked, staring at him and trying to understand why his nearness relaxed me. I’ve been anxious the entire morning, dressing beds and running from one place to the other, but knowing that Kodiak was close relaxed me. His touch was like a soothing balm after a burn. Pleasant and expected. My heart started beating faster and faster, until it gained the strong beat that I’ve experienced yesterday in the forest. I touched my chest with my hand at the same time Kodiak did the same with his chest. We both looked at each other. I wasn’t sure why he was looking at me, I haven’t had time to comb my hair or use some makeup like other girls in the class. Still he stared and stared, making me blush and turn around as fast as I could. Mr. Delacroix started his class right in time, turning around and greeting us to our first encounter.

    “Hello everyone, my name is Deion Delacroix and I would be your Introduction to Conjuring professor,” the redhead rested on his desk and crossed his arms while he looked at the class. Then he pointed at his back, to the board in which he had drawn a balance scale. “Do you have any ideas why I draw a scale on the board? Any ideas anyone?”

    A girl by the first road of tables raised her hand and waved it from one side to the other. I was seated all the way at the back but I could hear her whispering I know, I know, please ask me…Well, wouldn’t you know? Apparently, there was always a Hermione Granger in every class. I felt Karoo smirk at my side, probably her reaction after reading my thoughts. I tried to keep my mind blank, since something told me that if Karoo was reading my mind then Kodiak was probably doing the same. After a couple of failed tries to keep my mind empty I desisted and followed the class. Professor Delacroix smiled condescendingly at the girl and gestured at her so she could speak.

    “The definition of Conjuring that appears in our textbook states that Conjuring is balance, since a Fae needs to balance its magic in order to call for an existing or nonexistent object from one dimension to another,” said the girl, smiling proudly at herself. The professor smiled, showing a straight line of teeth before nodding his head at the blonde girl with pigtails. Who wore pigtails at sixteen? Cheerleaders and upcoming starts from the adult movies entertainment? This time Karoo and Kodiak laughed under their breath at the same time and I looked back at the pair, narrowing my eyes and pointing a finger at them. Stay out of my head or else.

    “That’s correct Mss. Saavedra! See me after class for an extra point,” professor Delacroix smiled once again to the girl and then focused on the rest of the class, “I know must of you are excited about learning how to conjure, it’s only natural. As Fae, we are natural conjurers, but has anyone stopped to think why? Why do you think we are natural conjurers?”

    There was a long silence, interrupted by the waving hand of the blonde with the pigtails. This time professor Delacroix ignored her and stopped to look at every student in their eyes. I thought about his question for a moment. Why were Fae natural conjurers? I’ve never asked myself why we were supposed to know how to conjure. It was in our very blood; the entire magical world knew this. I pinched my chin and tried very hard to see the big picture, but I simply couldn’t guess. Nobody else seemed to know, well, nobody else but the Hermione on the first row.

    “To answer this question, we need to understand the three main rules of the act of Conjuring. These rules would be in your midterms so I recommend you write them down,” the professor started walking from one side to the other of the class, while everyone wrote his every word. “First, conjuring is strictly proportional to the magical power of the Fae who is practicing. Which means, a strong Fae would always be more able to conjure bigger, heavier, denser matter than a weak Fae. The second rule of Conjuring is that living matter cannot be conjured. In other words, Fae cannot conjure another Fae, or any other creature in existence or not. It’s against the law to perform these kind of acts, since it borders in Necromancy and other forms of black magic. And lastly but not less, the last rule of Conjuring is that any matter that is conjured should not exceed in its density the magical power of the Fae practicing the art. Does anybody have any idea why?”

    “Because it would be suicide,” answered a deep voice by the left corner of the class. Everybody turned at the same time, trying to spy who had answered. I realized right away who spoke, it was pretty much impossible to forget about him once you have met him. It was that Fire Fae who had stared threateningly at Karoo last night. His red eyes ignored all the attention he had raised and looked down at the notebook in which he had been writing. I needed to admit he looked kind of hot, if you overlooked his constant snarl and the way he seemed to send daggers with his eyes at every other living creature around him. The voice of professor Delacroix made me focus on the class again.

            “Exactly, if you cast an object or even a place that holds more magical power than the one you own, then you will die. Through history we had seen this technique used as a defensive strategy by Fae in combat. It’s also known as the Last Stand and I persuade you to never even think on using this form of conjuring. Now, can anybody answer why every Fae is a natural conjurer?” asked the professor and once again that girl Saavedra raised her hand and waved it as if her life depended on it. The professor ignored her and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, “We Fae created the act of conjuring. It’s in our blood because years ago we formed a pact with Faerie to be able to translocate matter from one place to the other, including different realms. That is why we created the three rules of Conjuring and that’s why, my little students, we are going to learn how to conjure before the end of the year. Class is over.”

            Karoo and I looked at each other with doubtful expressions. Everyone knew it took more than one year for a Fae to learn how to conjure. Professor Delacroix was being a little too optimistic about his teaching methods if he thought we would all learn how to conjure by next summer. But hey, that was just why I thought, that girl Saavedra seemed to be ready to conjure right away if that assured her an extra point. We were on our way out of the class when the Fire Fae with the attitude problem passed by our side, bumping his shoulder against Karoo with so much force that she lost her footing and I had to jump to catch her. I was on my way to scream a bunch of explicit names at him when Kodiak shifted right in front of the Fire Fae. The entire hall froze, every student stopped what they were doing to look at Kodiak as if he was a monster about to snap its leash. Kodiak look unperturbed, with his hands inside of his pants pockets and an expression of neutral boredom. The more I looked at him the more nervous I grew at his impassive expression.

            Once I’ve met a bounty hunter in an expedition to Africa by the name of Barbas. The man was a halfling like me, half Fae, half Giant. Barbas was normally a quiet dude, but whenever the other bounty hunter got together to interchange stories at a bonfire Barbas loosened his lips and told us a little about him. He once described to us his encounter with a Thunderbird. Up until then I thought Thunderbirds weren’t real, like the legend of the Chupacabra or facial masks that actually whitened your freckles. Anyway, Barbas said that the Thunderbird is the quietest before it strikes. Nobody knows what to expect from it because even when the monster is dying and surrounded he keeps himself in silence, never revealing if its wounded, never crying, never admitting defeat. Right then, while I looked at Kodiak I saw him as the Thunderbird. Maybe that was the reason everybody was afraid of him, maybe that was why I detected so much terror exhaling from people’s pores whenever he was close. Everybody feared Kodiak because he never revealed his true face. Like the typical, stupid, little moth attracted to a flame kind- of- girl- I was, I was captivated by the idea of discovering the boy behind the mask. Who he was? What the king of the Unseelie kept from the entire world that made him so frightening to other people?

            My thoughts were soon interrupted by the scream of pain that erupted from the Fire Fae standing ahead of us. The boy fell on his knees, holding his head with his hands as in pain and moaning incoherently. I frowned. What the hell was wrong with him? Kodiak wasn’t doing anything. Nothing at all. As if to prove my point Kodiak looked up then and stared at me, winking and looking all kinds of innocent. More people surrounded us but mercifully no professor came in our direction. Which it didn’t make any sense. Neither the fact that I was worried about Kodiak getting in trouble. If it was me making all this fuzz a dozen of professors and Mss. Lambert included would have already fell from the skies in parachutes and tranquilizers guns to put me down.

            Karoo hold tight to my arm and bit her lips, she looked pale and weak, as if she was ready to faint at any moment. I embraced her, feeling this need to protect her from whatever was affecting her so much. I looked at Kodiak, at the same time the Fire Fae screamed in pain, pulling on his black hair. His cinnamon skin looked like ash and he was trembling, in pain or in terror, nobody could tell. Just make it stop, I thought and right away the boy on the floor fell to a side, limp and breathing harshly. One of Kodiak’s tall brothers, the one with the purple eyes I’ve seen yesterday at the dining hall intervened, ordering everyone to keep walking. Like a herd of sheep, the other students started moving right away, as fast as their legs could take them. Among the general commotion I saw Kodiak stop by the side of the Fire Fae and look down at him. It might have been my imagination, but I could swear I saw Kodiak’s golden eyes black out, like one of those demon possessed humans in a Supernatural episode. A shiver crossed my body at the visual. Kodiak looked scary, I had enough cojones to admit it. I moved my head, trying to spy him again but Karoo was pulling my arm to a side as if her life depended on it and I let her. Later on I would go back to that moment and try to understand my own actions. Why if I’d been so scared of Kodiak, I still felt attracted to him? Why I’d let Karoo take me away? Was it because I wanted to stay blind for a little bit longer? Was it because I didn’t want to see what was right in front of my eyes? Back in that moment I let Karoo pull me away and together we walked the entire way to our History of Faerie class.

                                                          ~~~~*~~~~                                                                                            

Blaise

            “I’m sorry about Kodiak, he can be a little…overprotective with his family,” said Karoo, holding herself to my arm while we walked through the castle. I looked down at Karoo, who was this tiny, pixie like Fae with big, golden eyes. If she had been my sister I would have been protective of her as well. Karoo simply didn’t look like the kind of High Fae that liked the political mind battles between courts. That place was reserved to Aella, she would make a perfect Evil Queen someday, if she wasn’t one already. I still didn’t understand what Kodiak have done exactly, but I was smart enough to understand he had put that Fire Fae through some sort of pain. It didn’t surprise me as much as it should. Unseelie Fae were very famous for their mind power. They could use illusions to bend people’s wills, or mind tricks, or plant false memories that had never existed. I’ve heard they could be extremely powerful with their mind magic. Hence the reason Kodiak and Karoo were able to read minds so easily.

            “Hey, you don’t even need to say it. Back in the human realm I used to be very protective of my bathroom and got into big fights to keep Amadeus away from it. I simply couldn’t tolerate to broom his facial hair whenever he decided to trim his sideburns,” I shivered, replaying the memories of all the times we fought about his messy and furry habits. Karoo laughed at my side, her golden eyes lighted up in happiness and right away they fill up with tears. I stopped, unsure of what to do, before Karoo hugged me and cried on my shoulder. A couple of students stopped, looking at us hungry for some drama, but I gave them the evil eye and everyone kept moving. I was not very comfortable in these situations. Come to think about it, Karoo was my first female friend. I’d been raised by Amadeus and his bounty hunter friends who were mostly males. Emotional moments were a big no-no in our community. I, for once, had never been allowed to have one. It probably felt very female liberating.

            “I’m sorry, I’m such a mess these days,” said Karoo, clearing her throat and drying some tears that had fallen over her cheeks. I pat her shoulder feeling as awkward as an elephant in a glass shop and shrugged.

            “It’s alright, you can be a mess whenever you want and I would have your back,” I told her and Karoo’s eyes brightened with more tears. s**t, what I’ve done wrong? I sighed, then took Karoo by her small shoulders and made her look at me, “Hey, I don’t know what happened to make you this sad, but I know one thing for sure. I’ve been trained to kick ass for as long as I remember. If somebody did something to you, just let me know and I will make them eat their own asses. Okay?”

            “Who says “eat their own asses”? Asked Karoo between laughs and tears and I smirked, turning her around and guiding my new best friend to our next class.

            “I do. Do you have a problem with it?” I asked her with false bravado and Karoo laughed, opening her backpack and taking a chocolate bar from the front pockets. I felt my inner Chihuahua wiggling its tails nervously at the chocolate. I hadn’t eaten a thing in the entire day and could probably kill for some chocolate. Scratch that, I could kill for chocolate any day, hands down.  Karoo threw me the bar and I catch it in midair.

            “Go on, eat it. I took it for you when I realized Mss. Lambert would make you skip breakfast. How was that, by the way?” I opened the chocolate bar and moaned after taking the first bite. There was a heavenly pleasure in the first and last bite of chocolate. The first bite on a chocolate always felt like a welcoming party and the last bite was this romantic, star-crossed Shakespearean goodbye that almost made me cry. Who needed boys and drama when you could have so much chocolate?

            “I survived, but mark my words, Mss. Lambert is going to get what she is looking for if she keeps messing with me. I only have so much patience and that woman is clearly a “pure blood” fanatic. She hates me only because I’m a mutt,” I told Karoo between bites, while we walked among the other students on our way to professor Cicerone’s class.

            “You will find a lot of people like her, people that only judge you and don’t care to understand you. If people are so lost that they can see night for day, then let them be, time and loneliness will be the best vengeance,” said Karoo at my side, sounding a lot wiser than any other sixteen-year-old I’ve ever met. I thought about it, really thought about it, and how nice I would look being the bigger person and ignoring Mss. Lambert’s irritating behavior. Then I imagined myself, punching her horse face and the satisfaction alone made me smile.

            “Yeah, I’m more into a crooked nose kind of vengeance,” I said and Karoo only shook her head at me as if I was a lost cause and together we walked inside professor Cicerone’s classroom.

            Our History to Faerie class had been purposely placed in the second floor to test the student’s resilience. We were in a classroom with large windows that allowed you to see the entire campus and the wild forest surrounding the castle. If professor Cicerone’s trembling voice didn’t manage to make you fall asleep in the first minutes of his lecture, then the breeze coming and going from the windows hit the mark. It only took a first couple of words coming from his mouth and the sound of his staff hitting the floor to knock me out. I fall asleep somewhere between the beginning of the universe and the first Fae coming to this realm to escape some sort of evil being that was obsessed with killing us all. After that I was in coma. The only thing that managed to wake me up was Kodiak, the marsupial, oops, sorry, the Unseelie king, who kicked the legs of my chair, pushing me to the front and making me hit the table with my forehead. Every student in the class laughed, while professor Cicerone tried to get the class back in track and I tried not to kill Kodiak with my bare hands. The bastard had the balls to wink at me. I pushed all the way to the back of my seat, trying to hit him square in the face while smiling at the front of the class in case Cicerone decided to make a pause from his memorized speech and look at his students.

            Kodiak, the sneaky bastard, was faster than a kid stealing chocolate chip cookies and dodged every single one of my attacks. At the end I turned around and stick my tongue out at him. Kodiak’s golden eyes zeroed on my mouth and the smile he had been sporting disappeared right away. I smiled then and looked back to the front of the class. I had no idea what made him stop his shenanigans, but something told me I’d put Kodiak in his place. After the class was done and I’d lost the count of how many yawns I tried to stifle, I made my way to professor Cicerone and waited patiently until some other students finished asking him questions about the lecture. Karoo mouthed at me that she would be waiting outside the classroom and I nodded at her before the other students surrounding Cicerone walked away.

            “Mss. Darkholme, what a pleasure to see you have some questions. I thought you had been sleeping for the majority of my lecture,” he said with a kind smile that assured me no malice, just plain mirth. I felt myself blush a little. I honestly believed he hadn’t been paying attention to his students but once again Cicerone managed to surprise me. He might look old, dressed like Methuselah and holding his weight on a staff, but he was a lot stronger than he let people see. Cicerone smiled again, caressing his long, white mustache and staring at me with intuitive eyes, “You have a question you want to ask, but you don’t know how to do it.”

            “Well, where I come from there is not such a thing as asking questions,” I said to him, resting my weight on a desk behind me, “Either you know stuff, or you get killed.”

            “Isn’t it like that everywhere?” Asked me Cicerone in return, making me wonder how I ended having a philosophical discussion with my History of Faerie professor. He smiled and changed his staff from one hand to the other, motioning for me to speak. “Speak your mind Mss. Darkholme, you will soon learn that there is not such a thing as a stupid question.”

            “I was wondering if you know…?” I stopped in the middle of my question and sighed, knowing already that what I was about to say will probably sound as stupid aloud as it sounded in my head, “Professor, I’ve been killing monsters for my entire life and I’ve seen every possible mortal wound in existence. Yesterday, for the very first time I saw a Banshee die in front of my eyes without a mortal wound. Banshee’s skin is thick, their bones are a lot denser than the bones of a Fae, which makes them heavy and very hard to take down. Still, this Banshee went down like a feather. Do you know what could have possibly killed it?”

            Cicerone’s blue eyes lightened, and a proud smile formed in his lips. Which made no sense, since we were talking about the creepy death of a Banshee, a death without mortal wounds that assured us that something very dark and very strong roamed around the forest and the castle. Still, Cicerone looked at me as if I’d found the cure for human cancer. He cleared his throat and looked away from me, focusing on picking his notes and the books resting over his desk.

            “Mss. Darkholme, if I were you I wouldn’t be as worried about the what as the how,” said Cicerone over his shoulder, “The real question you should be asking yourself is how that Banshee managed to break in a magic field with a thousand of wards to keep monsters like that out.”

            “Sheer luck?” I asked shrugging and this time Cicerone turned around and looked at me from under his heavy white eyebrows.

            “I heard that Banshee from yesterday was the only one prisoner that escaped the caravan going to Siberik. What a coincidence, isn’t it? The fact that the only one prisoner with a score to settle with you escaped,” Cicerone moved his head to a side as if he was pointing an invisible fact and then walked away, leaving me with more questions than what I already had.

            I sighed, crossing my arms and looking at the ceiling. I needed to write to Amadeus and ask him to corroborate Cicerone’s story. If it was true what the old professor said, then it was more than a coincidence that Molly had been the only one monster that escaped. Somebody was after my head. Which wasn’t a surprise, not really. I was the Darkling, I’ve put enough monsters behind bars or to death to make me a fan club wherever it was at Siberik or at Hell. The real question was who was after me this time, and why?