Author's notes
It has been a while since my last update but it has been a busy period. As always I thank with all my heart everyone who follows, favs and reads the story. Without further ado here is the chapter, you waited long enough for it so I'll spare you long author's notes at the top.
Disclaimer: I don't own Wizard101, only my OCs
Chapter 3- A chance
Shard woke up early, or at least he thought so. He didn't have any idea of the time, since he had never been in possession of a watch in his whole life.
At the orphanage on Greyfell, almost every room had one, as they were believed to bring good luck. Recently, he had started to question those beliefs. Magic and the supernatural were completely ignored in that world, and as far as he knew, only an old fairy tale book that he had once read mentioned the concept of magic itself. On television and in books the concept didn't exist at all, as if erased from the minds of people.
Nobody had ever seemed to wonder what it would have been like if magic existed. When Shard had tried to explain the notion to his roommates, they said that it was useless to dwell on such matters, since there was no possibility of something like that being true. The next day, they had obviously forgotten everything about Shard and magic so he had tried to test how far they would have gone for their seemingly random traditions.
He had hidden the clock and waited for their reaction. Ten minutes later, he had to give up and put it back in its place to avoid causing mass hysteria. Everyone thought that something horrible would have happened to them if they didn't find the clock and put it back in time. Shard had never been able to understand their extreme reaction at all and he was creeped out by it.
It was with reluctance that Shard emerged from the red blanket that had kept him warm during the night, sitting up on the soft bed that the dormitory provided.
"What would have I done if I hadn't read that book at the orphanage?" he said, speaking to the empty room in a whisper.
"I Would have fainted on the spot or thought I was insane, that's what." He cackled miserably. Then, lowering his gaze he asked himself, "Would I have actually understood what was happening?"
He wasn't sure he hadn't actually gone insane anyway, but expressing those thoughts out loud had a soothing effect on him. He did it naturally, speaking his thoughts aloud and tying them to the reality of words.
It was a tough thing to imagine. Magic, something that felt so foreign to Greyfell that understanding it was like trying to read a book in a different language without being able to read at all. He was sure that any person on Greyfell wouldn't have been able to understand magic even if it happened right in front of them. They wouldn't comprehend what they were seeing. Making things happen by uttering enchantments and waving staffs, utter rubbish.
He had no idea how or when he managed to understand such a concept. Everything in the past was really fuzzy when he tried to think about it. He was sure that he had always lived in an orphanage, yet he could remember being transferred at some point in time, maybe once, or twice, or even three times. He couldn't say. Maybe he was too small to remember when it happened. He couldn't recall anything about the previous orphanages and neither the people he had surely met. They were there, somewhere in his memory. Too far off to be brought back and slowly fading at the back of his mind.
"I wonder if I really read that book after all," he said, unsure whether something so alien did actually belong to such a world.
He shook his head and abandoned his mental ramblings, shifting his attention to the present.
The room looked way better during the day than it had looked the night before. It was octagonal in shape, delimited by a rather old but surprisingly solid stone wall, which made him think of an old castle. Near the bed on which he was sitting, there was a little bedside table while, on the opposite side of the room, there was only a large desk and a small chair, making the place feel barren and lonely.
The walls themselves were full of small creaks and holes, and if it hadn't been for two large windows opposite to the entrance door, they would have looked like a vertical wasteland.
When Gamma brought him there the night before, the place was illuminated by a bunch of torches emitting a soft purplish light. When he woke up, they were all extinguished, even though he remembered falling asleep without putting them out. He was scared by the weirdly colored light they gave off, perhaps they were magical too.
The simple doubt was enough of a reason to leave them be. He wasn't sure that he could touch them without risking an explosion. Shard saw no reason to check on them more closely either, since the room was illuminated by the light coming from the two windows.
Not risking it, he thought.
Slowly, Shard put his feet on the wooden floor, which creaked under his weight, and walked to the nearest window. There was a nice view outside. A crystal-clear lake could be spotted in the distance, surrounded by many houses with pitched roofs. Every roof had tiles of a completely different color than the ones beside them, creating a joyful atmosphere.
Shard didn't stop to gaze at them. His eyes searched the surroundings impatiently until he found what he was looking for; an ivy-covered building with a green roof.
He had asked the headmaster to stay at the infirmary for the night, hoping to see Emer again. He wanted to be there when she woke up, or at the very least keep watch for crazy wizards that could harm her with weird spells. Ambrose had told him to sleep in the dormitories instead, in order to avoid getting in the way of the theurgists, which from what he had come to understand, were the equivalent of magical doctors. In the end, Shard had reluctantly agreed to sleep in the dormitories, but only when Ambrose had assured him that he could visit Emer the next morning.
Shard moved towards the desk and spotted a piece of paper on it. Picking it up and inspecting it more closely, he found out that it was a brochure. It described the different subjects which were taught at Ravenwood and other important information on how the school worked. He ignored most of the information presented on it, stuffing it in his pocket on a whim once he spotted a small map of the place on the back of it.
Afterwards, he checked out everything in the room, trying to find out anything that could help him out in any way. After a few minutes, he concluded that there wasn't anything useful, although in the process he discovered that there was another door other than the entrance one, leading to a bathroom. He was absolutely sure that it had appeared only when he started to examine the walls closely.
He washed his face thoroughly, repeating for the hundredth time in his mind that this wasn't all a dream and that he was very much awake. After that, he decided to step out of the safety of the small room.
An empty corridor stretched to both sides, full of similar looking doors. The only distinguishing feature among them were nothing more than small, golden door plaques, on which were engraved different numbers. Shard turned around and closed the door to his room, memorizing the 372 engraved on it.
He still couldn't believe how the dormitories could contain so many rooms. From the outside, it looked like a single big tower, but on the inside, it was extremely stretched horizontally. The whole place looked like it was under a spell to make the insides more spacious.
Shard walked through the hallway carefully. The wood creaked as he passed countless doors and moved to a modest-looking staircase. He descended quickly to the ground floor, opened a wooden door devoid of a plaque, and walked outside into the new world.
It didn't look dangerous. There was a very spacious plaza in front of the dormitories and six different symbols were engraved on the floor around a huge drawing of a spiral. An enormous tree was planted right in front of the plaza, covering the sky above with leafy branches. The tree itself was bordered by a road on either side which led to some buildings in the distance.
Examining the buildings to his right, Shard thought that they looked rather weird together, with one drenched in endless rain and the other covered in snow. Wizards seemed to have gone overboard with their decoration, going as far as changing the climate to accommodate whatever crazy architectural designs they had in mind.
Shaking his head, Shard decided not to investigate any further, since he had more than enough problems to worry about for the time being. He took out the brochure, consulted the small map on the back for a minute, and walked down the tunnel he had come through the night before with Gamma, heading to the place labeled as 'The Commons.'
Magic had to be left alone. Just the thought of what it could do in the wrong hands sent shivers down his spine. The vivid image of that black-robed man, his mocking smile, and his empty eyes resurfaced in his memory with each and every step he took in that magical world.
He started to walk faster, as he needed to get to Emer quickly if he wanted to leave soon. What he had said to the old man the night before had been a lie. How could he practice magic? How in the world could he let his only friend practice it, after witnessing firsthand what it could do? He wasn't going to run away alone, he was going to take her out of that madness too.
Shard navigated the Commons easily, and ten minutes later he was in front of the infirmary. He timidly opened the door, and a huge waiting room entered his field of vision. Many people were sitting on wooden chairs set against immaculate walls, and even more walked on the dazzling white marble floor, heading in all different directions and disappearing into the various corridors that departed from the sides of the hall. The place was full of a relaxing smell, similar to that of a flowery meadow.
Shard had no idea how to get to Emer, so he walked straight to the reception desk in order to ask where he could find her, although he wasn't sure if they would let him pass.
At the sight of the receptionist, Shard was taken aback. She was pretty small for working in a hospital, and pretty inhuman too.
Her size was that of a doll, her hair was combed in a chignon, and she wore a dress made of brown leaves matching the two bug-like wings that departed from her back, making a buzzing noise as they rapidly fluttered to keep her mid-air. The creature had her glistening brown eyes locked on a very small book, kept open by her tiny hands right under her nose. She was muttering to herself with overflowing emotion, hardly suppressing her giggles.
The boy would have preferred to speak to someone human. He had absolutely no idea on how to address the creature and the wild idea of bowing or showing respect in weird ways briefly crossed his mind. Could she curse him with some powerful magic if he did the wrong thing?
Mustering all of his courage, he said, "Good morning!"
It came out louder than he had expected, and the creature looked startled. She dropped the book on the floor and without looking at him, she started a continuous flood of apologies. "Sorrysorrysorrysorry! I didn't mean to get distracted but I had to know if Morgan would finally kiss Elisabeth! SorrysorryIamsosorry!"
Shard made a step back. The sprite had put her hands on her eyes in order to cover her tears, while she flitted all around like a crazy fly. Shard was unable to say anything to calm her down, failing miserably to grasp the situation. Many people around the hall turned around to investigate the source of the noise, but most of them just looked the other way, shaking their heads, or continued watching in amusement.
She eventually calmed down by herself and looked at Shard quizzically. "Who are you? How did you manage to appear as silently as her? You aren't Marianne!"
Shard stood there dumbfounded, unsure of how to react as the sprite puffed her cheeks in annoyance and pointed her accusing finger towards him. She seemed to be expecting a reply, because, after a few seconds of silence, she shook her head.
"Did I go through this act for nothing?! Leave me be... child. I have to know how the story ends!" she said, with exaggerated gestures of intolerance, as if she was acting on stage. "Where did it fall?" she mumbled after seemingly concluding that Shard wasn't a menace to her anymore, plunging to the floor and desperately looking for her book.
"Good morning, Daisy! Are you looking for this?" A tall woman dressed in a bright green robe had appeared out of nowhere beside the shocked boy. Her bright red lips were tensed as in an attempt to keep control, and her nostrils were dilated in unspoken anger as her breath came out slow and threatening, as if she was going to erupt fire. She was waving the small book in front of the creature with a dangerously dissatisfied look in her brown eyes.
"Yes, yes, thank you! You've saved my life! And… now you'll probably kill me, right?" said the sprite, enthusiastic upon first seeing the book, and trembling in fear after noticing who was holding it.
"Oh, no. I'll do worse! You are going to work here overtime tonight, for your despicable conduct!" thundered the lady with an authoritarian attitude.
Daisy fell to her knees on the desk and begged for mercy. "Please kill me, Marianne! I don't want to do this boring work for the rest of my life!"
Marianne mercilessly replied, "Don't make such a fuss about it. You should have thought of that before animating that statue in unicorn way."
The sprite puffed her cheeks in anger and shrieked back, "As I have already told you and the Lady, I just wanted to sensitize everyone to the beauty of unicorns! And my plan was a complete success! Even you have to admit that everyone admired it and screamed in joy, as it galloped down the road!"
Marianne replied coldly, "Those screams were from the injuries and life-long traumas that your devastation has caused!"
The sprite seemed struck down by the statement, but Shard could swear to have heard her mutter under her breath, "It was worth it… Unicorns rule!"
"Well, you'll stay here tomorrow night, and all the nights after, too. That is until you understand what you have done. I can't let you spend your time on your destructive hobbies, and don't get me started on your cringy obsession over unicorns," concluded the woman, who seemed to have developed a fine sense of hearing.
Daisy shrieked in anger, but obeyed the orders of her superior. She turned around and walked straight towards a voluminous, black notebook, way bigger than herself. Taking out a very small quill, she started to write names, notes, and numbers on it, in what looked like to be some sort of management duty. At least, that was what it would have seemed if the sprite hadn't been writing all of it with exaggerated movements of her hand and an evil smirk printed on her face as if any person who was written down was bound to die. Every so often she would pause to mumble something in irritation, making it look like she was speaking to invisible people inside her head.
Marianne shook her head and started to walk away, not before having scolded Daisy once more for the little respect she demonstrated for her working materials, reminding her that she was recording info about patients, not stabbing them to death.
"Excuse me, I need your help!" exclaimed Shard, hoping with all his heart that the lady wouldn't sentence him to work there too just for asking a question.
"Oh, and where did you come from?" she asked in surprise, noticing Shard for the first time. Shard didn't bother to answer the question, since he was quite used to people not noticing him even when he stood right in front of them.
"I came here to visit a friend of mine. Her name is Emer."
Daisy answered merrily, as if she was remembering a particularly interesting show "Oh! Isn't she the one who almost had her soul separated from her body?"
"What do you mean by that?" asked Shard in panic.
Marianne sent an imposing glare in direction of her subordinate, and then shifted her attention once again towards Shard. "What's your name?"
"Shard… but what did she mean with...?"
Marianne turned towards Daisy and asked authoritatively, "Daisy! Is Shard on the list for visits to Emer?"
Daisy obediently turned the pages of her notebook, until she found what she had been asked about. "Yes, he is!"
Marianne seemed to be in deep thought and then looked at Shard who stared at her with a terror.
"I suppose you want to know what happened to her. We would like to have clarifications from Ambrose too, since he didn't tell us anything about the incident," she said, as if blaming Shard himself for it.
She then seemed to decide what to say and added in a whisper, as to not be heard from the other people in the hall, "I can tell you what the consequences of the incident were. She was brought here in critical condition, and at first, we thought that she had consumed all her mana…"
"I hate those reckless wizards, they summon a spell that exceeds their capacities and end up unconscious or dead. They should be more careful! I'm overworked without them adding extras," Daisy interrupted loudly, enjoying every bit of annoyance written on Marianne's face.
Marianne glanced at her angrily, and went on with her explanation, "Upon further inspection, we realized that she wasn't regaining her mana, and that the real problem lied elsewhere. The child seems to have sustained damage to her soul itself. I have no idea how things would have turned out if Professor Wu hadn't been here to help out yesterday night."
Shard didn't understand most of that nonsense, and asked, "…But she is okay now, right?"
Marianne stopped with her explanation, and, as if remembering the age of her interlocutor and how traumatized he must have been, she softened up into a reassuring smile. "Yes, she will recover completely in a few days, don't worry. To find her room go to the third floor, it is the first room to the right"
The boy thanked the strange pair and found his way to Emer's room as fast as he could without looking back.
The door creaked open as he pushed it with impatience. Light shone into the room from an open window. A gentle breeze came in, and the white curtains at the side of the window danced slowly alongside it. There was a single bed and Emer was lying on it, resting her weight on a pile of pillows behind her.
Shard walked in silence towards her and she turned to look back at him, with a deadly serious look in her green eyes.
"I am sorry," were her first words, pronounced in a dead voice. Shard stopped in his tracks, he had never seen Emer like that before.
"I… am sorry…" she repeated, lowering her gaze. "I really wanted to tell you about where I was going, but then… I was afraid of hurting you. Why couldn't you come here too? You could see those things too, right? You must have been able to come, too…"
Shard shook his head and told her, "Here? In this crazy place? I don't want to stay, magic is dangerous… we should think about a way to escape."
Emer smiled weakly. "That is so much like you… Always ready to give up on a new adventure, right?"
"What are you talking about? Do you even know how crazy all of this is? A wizard tried to kill us both while you were unconscious!"
"I know about it. The headmaster filled me in after I woke up. As I see it, this is a great opportunity for us."
"You can't be serious" Shard muttered, taking a step back.
"I am serious. Greyfell isn't my home. There were huge forests there, and lakes, and magic! I am even able to remember what it feels like to have a family if I try hard enough! Magic isn't something that you should be afraid of," she confessed, raising her voice as memories took hold of her mind and her eyes started to become watery.
Shard was speechless. She had been suffering the whole time on Greyfell. He had noticed a few times before, at the orphanage, but had no idea what to do to help her. She wanted to go somewhere else and be accepted. Even if he would have managed to understand, he wouldn't have been able to do anything about it.
It had finally gotten through to him; Emer remembered her family. It must have been harder for her to lose everything. He would have shattered to pieces if he had been in her shoes. She was special indeed, she managed to stay optimistic against all odds.
His will of bringing her back to Greyfell crumbled to dust. He wouldn't take this opportunity away from her. She was able to survive in this world filled with magic, he was sure of it.
"If you truly think that this is the right thing to do, I won't stop you. I don't belong here, though," Shard replied, his voice shattering at the realization that he would be going back alone.
Emer shook her head and said, "You belong here as much as I do. No, even more than me."
"Why?" he asked, with his mind fighting with his heart on whether to stay or to leave.
Emer clutched the blanket and explained "I don't really deserve it. I am a horrible person…"
"Yeah right, and I like horror movies very much," Shard said, rolling his eyes.
"No, you don't understand... I was prepared to come here alone. I thought that, maybe, I could tell the headmaster all about you, and convince him to bring you here too. I couldn't tell you I was leaving Greyfell because if I failed, you would be upset. I lied to you since that owl came to tell me all about Ravenwood. I would have left you alone in that world... people might have started to forget you all over again!"
The girl started to tremble, but went on. "I wanted to chase my memories, leaving you behind. Now I understand. I won't let my selfishness get in the way anymore. We don't have anything back on Greyfell, we can start anew here. There is hope here… And we made a promise, right?"
Shard listened dumbfounded to his friend, who was adamant about starting a new life in this dangerous world. A life he didn't want, but that seemed better than what they left behind. Why was he so scared of magic? The more he thought about it, the less he understood.
It had been used with evil intent by that black-robed wizard, yet Emer defended it strenuously. What did she remember? What kind of magic did she see back where she came from? He had no idea. There were only two things that he knew for sure; Emer's judgment was better than his own, and they had made a promise.
The boy sighed, his will to argue back completely extinguished. "You know, You can't be considered selfish even if you try hard to put it in that way. I don't trust magic one bit, but I trust you. I'll give this place a chance."
He remembered the promise. They made it the very first day in which they had met each other. She had bumped into him while he was looking at a weird sphere floating just outside of the orphanage. When he discovered that she was able to see it too, they instantly formed a bond. That day, they promised each other to find out what those things were, and why they were the only ones able to see them. They had talked about them for days, without being able to solve the mystery.
"Don't worry. Even if we aren't able to solve it today, there will always be tomorrow," she had said with a mischievous smirk, offering her hand to him. He would have given up that day, accepting the fact that he wouldn't have been able to understand the things that kept him from fitting in.
"We'll stick together until then," she had said encouragingly. That was the first time that Shard had felt truly happy. It was the first time he had felt he was part of something.
The situation was weird, he was scared of magic in a place that was overflowing with it, but as he listened to Emer's worries about him not being able to come with her, he started to look at the whole ordeal from a different perspective.
This place held the answers to their questions. Yes, it worked on a completely different logic than Greyfell, but it was a whole new world so that should have been understandable. He had been too quick to judge. They could start a new life. He felt that with Emer things would be alright since she always managed to make the best out of every misfortune.
"We'll stick together until we'll discover the answer," he said with a weak smile.
"But we'll be friends long after that, you know?" she added with a smile, recovering her usual self and offering her hand once again.
Shard took it, as he had done the last time. His trust in her words was stronger than his fear of magic. If she said that he could eventually fit in, it was probably true. He would definitely give that world a chance.
Aaaand the story will continue next time. I hope you are enjoying it so far, we are still in the very beginning and there are so many things that will happen eventually, so don't worry if it seems slow at first.
I know that you won't believe me, but the legend says that if you inspect the wall of the dormitory very closely you'll eventually find a bathroom! What?! You are sure that is not the case? D: Did you stare at it for an hour with nothing happening? Yeah I was joking don't worry. I wanted it there on a whim, wizards still need to use it don't they?
I also felt the necessity of having an infirmary, since I'm sure the life school would have been extremely crowded if it was the only place to get healed.
I warn you that I'll randomly add new places other than the cannon ones for technical, important or stupid reasons, so please bear with me also in these instances.
Other than that I am really happy of writing it: Wizard City has many mysteries yet to uncover, and there are many questions lingering around Shard and Emer. Everything will be answered in the end, even if it will take a while I'll keep on writing the story.
If you want, tell me what you think so far, I would be happy to read your feedback while working on the next chapter.
