House of The Second Roundtable
One cup that grants eternal life has been discovered - and saved - by Nina, with the help of Fabian and the rest of the Sibuna teens. What happens when another student of Anubis House realizes they are also a Chosen One, and must find and rescue a second such cup - the Holy Grail?
Nine happy-but-exhausted-looking teens trudged back through the imposing doors of Anubis House.
"Well, I don't know about all of you, but I have to get to bed, right now," Amber, the last one in, said definitively as she closed the door behind her. "If I don't get at least 7 hours of sleep, my eyes get all puffy and dark and old-person-looking." She visibly grimaced at the very thought.
"We wouldn't want that now, would we?" Alfie smirked.
"Well, I would hope you wouldn't want it," Amber shrugged. "I would assume you'd want your girlfriend to look her very best."
"Did you….did you say…g…g…girlfriend?" Alfie stammered.
"Yes, but you're on probation," Amber smiled. "It'll take at least sixty days for me to decide for sure. Oh! I almost forgot. I haven't given you the Official Boyfriend Manual yet. You'll need to start studying that immediately, so I'll go fetch it right away," Amber rushed up the stairs, leaving a stunned Alfie at the bottom of the stairs looking at Jerome for help.
"Don't look at me, mate," Jerome said as he held up his hands. "This is what you've wanted all along, right?"
"Well, yeah, but a…a boyfriend MANUAL?" Alfie whispered.
"Heads up!" Amber's voice echoed down the stairwell as a 6-inch pink binder flew through the air and landed with a thud at Alfie's feet.
"That's Part 1," Amber waved from the top of the stairwell. "I'll give you the other three in the morning." She blew him a kiss as she turned towards her room..
Alfie grunted as he struggled to lift the heavy binder off of the floor. "There's THREE more of these?" Sighing heavily, he shuffled towards his room as the rest of the group suppressed chuckles.
"I'm off to bed too, babe," Mick yawned as he placed a gentle kiss on Mara's forehead.
"Me too," she smiled. She looked around at her remaining friends. "I'm just glad you all finally made it to the dance. Where were you guys, anyway?"
"YAWN! Does anyone know what time it actually is?" Patricia quickly changed the subject as she squinted in the direction of the clock in the hallway.
"Way past your bedtime, young miss," Jerome smirked. "Now, now, off to bed with you lot."
Patricia glared at Jerome. "Whatever, Jerome." She linked her arm through Joy's as Jerome shrugged and turned towards his and Alfie's room. "I'm so glad your dad said you could stay for the prom and spend the night here. It'll be just like old times."
Joy gave her friend a happy but tired smile as they started walking up the stairs behind Mara. "Don't know how long I'll last through a round of Twilight movie trivia, but I'll try." Joy turned to look down at Nina. "You coming, Nina?" she asked with a friendly smile.
"Sure, just a minute," Nina replied, grateful that there were no hard feelings between her and Patricia's best friend and former roommate. Between the whole Chosen-One, "being the new me", as Joy had said, and whatever went on between Joy and Fabian before Nina had gotten there, she was happy that Joy still looked at her as a potential friend.
Nina took in a deep breath. A sort of peace had finally descended on Anubis House, and after all she'd been through since the first day she had arrived, it was something that would take some getting used to.
"You look as if you're somewhere else," a soft voice said next to her.
Nina smiled as she turned to look at Fabian. "Just wondering how all of this ended up working out so perfectly, that's all. It seems almost too good to be true."
"Funny," he smiled as he leaned in to kiss her, "I was thinking the same thing, only it was about you."
While their kiss at the dance a few minutes ago had been short, and a little awkward, the kiss they shared now in the hallway was something that felt more natural (but still very exciting!), especially when they had no audience watching them. Time seemed to slide away as Fabian folded her into a long embrace.
"Winter break is going to feel like forever," Nina whispered as they pulled apart and she clasped both of Fabian's hands in hers. "I won't see you until it's a whole new year! And I won't get to celebrate your birthday with you."
"One of the many downsides of having a birthday during holiday break," Fabian shrugged. "Not to mention the whole your-birthday-is-so-close-to-Christmas-that-we'll-just-give-you-one-present thing."
"Is there any way I can help make it up to you?" Nina smiled with a twinkle in her eye.
"You already have," he smiled back as he looped his arm around her shoulder. "Come on, Cinderella. I'll walk you to your door."
I've had the same dream every night since leaving Anubis House the day after the end-of -year prom. I don't ever dream - well, that's not true, of course, everyone dreams; I just don't ever remember mine. But this one feels more real every night, even after I've already woken up.
I'm standing in front of an old, crumbling stone archway in the middle of the forest. The air seems to shimmer just beyond the archway on the other side, then I can see an old tapestry, only the figures on it are moving, as if they are alive. I see a group of three men in armor, kneeling outside of some sort of ancient looking church. As one of the three men stands up and starts to enters the church, the second man turns, seems to look at me, and passes me a needle and thread through the archway. I start to hear the wind blowing, and the tapestry starts to unravel as I hear one sentence blowing on the wind…
"Only you can complete it."
Then the thread and needle fly out of my hand as a stinging wind whips through the archway towards me, and then back in again. Then the archway collapses and I fall down into the dirt, feeling like an abysmal failure.
Who's the dreamer? Stay tuned...:)