Nerdy with a Streak of Pink
Chapter 1
Dragging your suitcases three weeks into the second term of an academic year in Alfea was by no means the best way to start off your very belated first year at the place, especially if you weren't into excessive attention from mid-teenagers to young-adults thirsty for gossip. You'd think they actually have enough going on in their lives with a forest infested with burned ones surrounding their school grounds from all directions and unidentified creatures breaching their protection wards and stealing valuable and dangerous objects from their headmistress's office. The second part, however, was supposedly unknown to them, so it didn't count for much.
As I made my way across the main yard, my unathletic arms burning with the weight of my belongings, I tried, and failed, to convince myself that the students weren't actually stopping in their tracks to openly stare at me, and that it was all part of my own imagination, triggered by the fact that I was a long way from a home-realm I never really left before.
I ignored the fist that was forming in my stomach at the idea that the wheels of my suitcases were loud as they dragged over the cobble-stone path, announcing my presence to everyone who hadn't yet spotted me, and continued on my way to the faeries' dormitory. Minutes before, in her own office, Headmistress Dowling had given me my schedule and room keys before sending me on my way. It was a school day, and students were already heading off to classes, which meant I was going to be late for the day's first class.
Finally, I reached the building and went inside, relief washing through me when my suitcases started dragging easily and noiselessly on the smooth floor. My relief was quickly washed away, though, when I stopped at the bottom of the stairs, and I felt like crying.
Just as I started to consider abandoning the entire process and simply leaving the damned suitcases there for whoever wanted to take them, or throw them away, a girl with long black braided hair that fell beautifully over her rich-brown skin came skipping down the stairs. Eying my suitcases with a frown, she lifted her gaze to mine and said: "That looks like it sucks."
"Tell me about it." I muttered.
"Here, I'll take one." She said, going for the biggest and heaviest of the two suitcases.
"Wait, don't you have class?" I asked, surprised.
"Yeah, so I'll just have to be quick." She said, picking it up and starting up the stairs. "Which floor?" She called behind her.
"Second." I replied, straining with effort as I grabbed the second suitcase and started climbing the stairs behind her. I watched her athletic build and couldn't help feeling envious. She was muscled but lean with wide shoulders. "You're a swimmer." I remarked.
"And you're being a creep." She replied. Heat rose to my neck, but she winked at me over her shoulder. 'I'm messing with you. And yeah, I like to take a swim whenever I get the chance to."
Once we made it to the second floor, I took the suitcase handle from her and thanked her.
"See you around." She called, running back down the stairs.
I dragged the suitcases down the hallway until I reached the room number Farah had placed me in. Unlocking the door, I walked inside and dropped on the sofa, catching my breath. As I looked around the room, a sudden realization hit me. "Wait, this is not a room."
A quarter of an hour later, my sneakers were squeaking loudly as I made my way down the hall in one of the school buildings. I left the dorm building with my schedule already memorized thanks to my photographic memory, and found myself once again in the main yard. There hadn't really been anyone there to ask for directions, unless you counted the man mowing the lawn. His expression when I'd started approaching him looked like he'd rather use his lawn mower on me than speak, and I was most certain that he gave that expression to everyone on the schoolgrounds, or at the very least, students. And so, I had backed away a few steps and turned in a circle, studying the school buildings. The three first were pretty ancient-looking, with 2 other fresher-looking ones. My schedule had read 'History at A22', and I realized that building A was certainly one of the three oldest ones. The area each building occupied clearly couldn't hold more than 8 classrooms, and thus, I narrowed down my search to the only building with 3 floors, the other two being both two floors high. Soon enough, when I had walked inside, the first classroom sign that came into view read A4, confirming my theories.
When I reached the door that read 'A22', I knocked and walked inside. The teacher, a man well over his sixties, stopped mid-explaining and looked at me over the rims of his glasses. "Yes, miss … ?"
"Tecna. Tecna Roberts, sir." When he kept regarding me, probably waiting for an explanation of why I was interrupting his lesson with less names in it, I added: "I'm the new student."
"Ah." His eyebrows lifted in recognition. "Of course. Quite late you are, though. You see, it's already the third week of the second term." Before I could speak, he continued, "Pray tell, what realm was it they said you came from again?" The classroom went quiet at his question.
"Zenith, sir." I replied.
"I see. Then it won't be a problem for you to catch up with what you've missed." At that, snickers filled the classroom, to which the teacher seemed oblivious. "Please, take a seat. So, as I was saying, the fleet crossed Eraklyon Sea, before they docked on the realm's coastline …"
Spotting an empty seat at the back of the classroom, I clutched my backpack tight and started in its direction, ignoring the curious gazes that followed me. Zenith is the realm of technology. Zenithians are known to have higher IQ levels than average people, and they pride themselves on the hard work they put that intelligence into. In my home realm, there are almost as much laboratories as homes, and even in houses, you'd find at least a room serving as a lab.
Zenithian scientists rely on both magic and technology to fabricate and design machines, enhance tools, reinforce protection wards. We also find ways to make human world inventions useful to the Otherworld. The most mundane examples of that are cellphones and social media. The Otherworld allows phones to connect through a magical network deployed by Zenithian scientists. The network also has a one-way connection to the human world's internet. Instagram, for instance, can be accessed from the Otherworld as a user interface, but all data is computed and stocked in Otherworld calculators and digital containers, the closest things to what earth has as servers and databases. The one-way connection makes it impossible for humans to access the Otherworld's network. No one would ever want a human stumbling over a Faerie's Instagram account.
My mother and father had their own lab where they conducted a research team. As I basically grew up there, I witnessed the many discoveries that were made there, as well as the few unfortunate accidents that took place. The researchers who worked under my parents, young and old, were as close as family to me. Now, it was just my father, piloting the lab from afar.
A small tap on the window caught my attention. As my eyes travelled to the tree branch that was dancing to the wind's blows, my mind instantly zoned out the teacher's words. Alfea was different from home in every single way. Zenith had much colder weather, which had proved really helpful to keep droids functioning well, and calculators and digital containers from heating up and wrecking havoc on the planet's surface. Once, when I was ten, there was a slight rise in temperature, the closest thing we'd ever got as a heatwave in decades, and 30% of the planet's calculators had exploded. There'd been injuries and a few deaths all around the planet. My father, too, had been badly injured in the incident, protecting me when shards flew in my direction. I started tracing the scar on my left arm, caused by one of the shards that had still reached me that day, when the bell rang, pulling me from my thoughts. The hour had flown like an arrow, thanks to my trip to memory lane. Great job, Tecna, consider skipping classes, next? I picked up my backpack and quickly left the classroom. I had Botany next, with Mr. Harvey. It wasn't hard to deduce that it would be held at Alfea's greenhouse.
The rest of the day's classes flew by the way history did. Something would distract me right in the beginning of class; a pencil falling to the floor, a beautifully drawn cursive letter on the board, a personal quirk on the teacher that would remind me of someone from home … once upon a time, I had no trouble with focusing on my tutors' lessons back at my parents' lab. As I grew up and got more implicated in the experiments, a single run through the instructions was enough for me to produce perfect results. By the age of thirteen, I didn't need supervision anymore to accomplish my own tasks safely and successfully.
By the end of the day's session, I was feeling a little dizzy from the loudness of students in the hallways before and after classes. Alfea was beyond anything I was ever accustomed to. My education had been held in my parents' lab, and so I'd never really known what it felt like to be in an actual school. I went back to the faeries' dormitory, and when I stopped in front of my suite's door, I heard voices coming from inside. Based on the different tones, I could tell there were four people in total. At least the ones who were talking anyway, which they seemed to be doing at the same time as each other. Judging by the suite's size from earlier, it was most probable that the voices belonged to the actual occupants of the suite, rather than some friends coming over. I started digging for my keys in my backpack, just as nervousness overcame me. When I'd taken on Farah's offer, what I had in mind when she'd mentioned the accommodation, was a room for two, meaning I'd have only one roommate to worry about. How was I supposed to live with at least four other girls was really beyond me.
My fingers finally grazed the cool metal of my keys, and I unlocked the door before walking inside. Sure enough, there were four girls sitting on the sofa and bean-bags of the main area. They hadn't spotted me yet, and I realized that they must have at least another suitemate if they weren't concerned about someone else having the keys to their room. I used the opportunity to study them a little, and I recognized the athletic girl immediately. Clearing my throat, I managed a small: "Hi."
Four heads turned in my direction, and I felt like fidgeting.
"Oh." The girl from earlier said. "It's you."
"Yeah. I was assigned to this suite. I'm Tecna Roberts."
"Hey, Tecna." The redhead of the group spoke. "I'm Bloom. This is Terra, and Musa. Clearly, you and Aisha met before."
"Yeah, she helped me with my suitcases this morning." I replied.
"Well, don't just stand there." Aisha said, adjusting the pillow beside her so there was space for me to sit. "Come sit."
Not really knowing what to do, I complied, taking the seat beside her. I only caught Musa's gaze for a second, her irises shifting to purple and her smile melting off her face completely as her powers kicked in. She got up immediately, blurting "I gotta go," before hurrying off. The suite door slammed shut behind her.
"What the heck was that?" Aisha asked. The three of them were gaping at the door, and I lowered my gaze to my hands. I started wringing them nervously.
"Uhhh," Bloom started, plastering on a smile, "tell us, what kind of faerie are you?"
"Um," I started, and my face warmed up when the three of them turned to look at me expectantly, "I'm an electricity faerie."
"Wait, electricity faeries exist?" Bloom asked, surprised, and Aisha and Terra rolled their eyes at her.
"Forgive Bloom," Aisha said, "she's kind of new to this whole faerie thing."
Bloom laughed and playfully elbowed Aisha in the ribs, and I felt a pang of envy towards them, realizing I was never comfortable enough with anyone else enough for such physical contact.
"Electricity faeries are like descendants of light and fire faeries." Terra explained to Bloom. "But they're their own type of faerie."
"So you can manipulate both light and fire?" Bloom asked, and I shook my head at her.
"What Terra means is that our powers are considered a sort of a genetic mutation of the former two. But it's more legend than fact, since no electricity faerie has been known to manipulate light or fire anyway." I explained. "We can manipulate electronic devices through their power supply. We can also generate and alter magnetic fields. Holograms are probably the closest thing in our ability to light faeries, who can create illusions using light …" I trailed off when I realized that this was the longest that I'd had spoken to anyone in over a year. And to my surprise, none of them looked bored.
"I've got to admit," Terra said with a huge grin, "that sounds super badass."
My face started hurting when I unwillingly mirrored her grin. "Well, I haven't exactly managed holograms yet, and if I try anything with magnetic fields I can cause huge disasters."
"Well, that's why were here, though, right?" Terra said, and the girls hummed in agreement.
"And what're you girls?" I asked in turn.
"I'm a fire faery." Bloom said. "And my roommate here's a water faerie." She added, gesturing to Aicha.
"I'm earth, and my roommate who just left …" She trailed off as she seemed to remember her roommate's earlier sudden behaviour.
"Is a mind faerie." I finished for her, voice quiet. And whatever she had picked up from me, she hated me for it.
"There's also Stella." Aisha said. "She's a light faerie. But she's the last person you'd want as a suitemate." She and Bloom exchanged a knowing glance. "Good thing she's got her own room."
"Wait, which room did you say you were sleeping in again?" Bloom asked, turning to me.
"I didn't. I just dropped my suitcases in the first room I found. Dowling had only given me the suite number, which I thought was a room … wait, why are you guys looking at me like that?"
"Uh," Aicha started, exchanging a worried glance with the others, "you see, there's a total of three rooms in this suite, and each room holds two beds. And we were already five girls before you arrived."
"The first two are occupied by Bloom, Aicha, Musa and I." Terra continued.
"Great, so I'm staying in the third one with whoever's already sleeping there." I said, too distracted by their worried glances to actually make the connections. "What's wrong?"
"The person staying in the third room also happens to be, well …" Aicha trailed off, offering me a sympathetic smile. When I didn't respond, she added, "Stella."
"Stella as in the last person we'd want as a suitemate?" I asked, and when I realized that Aicha hadn't exactly spoken to me when she'd said Stella but was rather acknowledging a person behind me, I quickly turned around to see a beautiful, elegant blond girl staring at me with the most murderous expression I'd ever received from anyone before.
Great, in just one single evening, I'd managed to make two of my suitemates hate my guts, one of which happened to be my roommate as well.
A.N : And that's all for chapter one. Took me a while to write it, with all the googling for both the series and the animated series' fandoms. Chapter two should be coming around soon.