Chapter Three: Those Guys
When Elodie next returned to Alfea, there was significantly less dread hanging over her. In fact, Elodie found the excitement buzzing in the air to be infectious. Starting her second year wasn't quite as big a deal as starting her first, but it was hard not to look forward to getting back to school.
Move-in day was, really, more important and hectic for first years and those who didn't live in Magix City. Students coming from far off realms would have to make sure they had everything they needed for the semester, but if Elodie discovered she forgot something, she could just catch a bus home on the weekend.
She didn't carry a suitcase this year. Two of the things she'd learnt during first year were internal expansion charms and shrinking charms. She could make a bag much larger on the inside than the outside, or shrink a suitcase to be much smaller than its actual size. This was what separated first years from older students at a glance: Suitcase versus no suitcase. It interested Elodie to look around and see which students had backpacks that likely contained expansion charms like her own, and who didn't appear to be holding anything at all, since a shrunken suitcase could easily be tucked into a pocket. Elodie felt she could learn a lot about someone based on the types of spells they preferred to use.
Leaving behind the hustle and bustle of the common areas, Elodie ducked into the dorms. While she hadn't changed her mind about Alfea, she had talked to Faragonda again before the summer ended. One of the things they'd discussed was Elodie's dorm assignment and Elodie had been happy to hear she'd be staying with her old dormmates instead of put with some first years. Having to meet a bunch of new people she might not get along with wasn't something she wanted to worry about on top of everything else that would be going on.
Elodie approached her room and, to her surprise, saw the same plaque from the previous year on the wall next to the door. It had been altered by one of her dormmates without authorization during their first few days of school and Elodie had been convinced that it would be restored to its original condition during the summer. Honestly she wasn't sure why it hadn't been changed back immediately.
Unmodified on the plaque was Elodie Sommerset of Solaria. Shadows didn't exist without light, so the lie worked well enough, even if her magic wasn't exactly typical of a Solarian. If anyone ever pointed out she didn't look much like the average Solarian and, in fact, looked like she might start to burn as soon as she went out in the sun, Elodie would just shrug, say she looked like her dad, and let people fill in the blanks with whatever made most sense to them.
She wondered, before she could stop herself, what her life would be like if she was able to walk into Alfea and see Anaïs Chapdelaine of Norroux engraved on that plaque instead. So many things would be different about her life that it was pointless to speculate, but if she was able to use her real name, if her family hadn't been killed, she wouldn't be having these problems with her magic, that's for sure. She almost certainly wouldn't have her Shadow at all; would instead have full control over her natural fire magic that the Shadow was fighting to suppress.
Pushing open the door to the dorm, Elodie was greeted by the sight of the dormmate she least wanted to see. Lily Freya was one of the only girls in their year shorter than Elodie. She had long blonde hair, big green eyes that made her look deceptively innocent, and had acquired a light tan over the summer. Her body was all lean muscle, but her height and slender frame made her seem much smaller than she was. She was lounging on their shared couch, bare feet up on the coffee table, scrolling through something on her phone. Lily Freya was a noblewoman and future Queen of her home realm due to her engagement to the crown prince. A politician born and raised, with all the cunning and charisma it would take to be successful in a royal court, when she chose to use it, which she often didn't. Her magic was related to exploration and survival.
"If it isn't the mononymous Elodie," she drawled, looking up. "I've got to say I wasn't sure I'd be seeing you back as a second year."
It was customary on her home realm to use both a person's first and middle name when referring to them. To use only a single name was a sign of either great intimacy or great disrespect. It was this custom that led Lily Freya to insisting another of their dormmates alter the plaque to contain both of her names, not just her first. Naturally, as her dormmates were neither her lovers nor her enemies at the beginning of first year, Lily Freya had asked all of them for both of their names on they day they met. Elodie had lied and said she didn't have one, and regretted it ever since.
She didn't regret not telling the truth; that Elodie, or rather Élodie, was her middle name — she needed to protect herself after all, and she wasn't sure that Anaïs Élodie had a good ring to it anyways — but she regretted not just picking something that sounded nice. Anything would have been better than mononymous Elodie.
"Nice to see you too, Lily Freya," Elodie replied dryly. "Yeah, you'll be stuck with me for another year."
"Good." Lily Freya nodded approvingly. "I would hate to have to get used to a new dormmate and it would probably suck for you to get stuck with three to five first years." She paused to quickly type something on her phone. "Are you going to be in second year classes with us too or nah?" Lily Freya was the only one of Elodie's dormmates who had completely grasped her struggles the previous year, and also the only one willing to talk about it so directly. Elodie tried her best not to let it get to her, but it would take her some time to once again get used to just how blunt Lily Freya was.
"I'll be in the theory classes, but have to redo the first year simulations and training."
"Yikes. Good luck dealing with the first years," Lily Freya said with a grimace. "And try not to hurt anyone this year."
"Thanks," Elodie said, bristling and struggling to keep her expression neutral. That had gotten to her.
Elodie left Lily Freya to her texting and made a beeline for her own room. The door was slightly ajar, and inside was her roommate, Corina, already unpacking. She knelt on the floor next to her suitcase, rummaging around in it one handed, wearing jeans more likely ripped by wear than by design and a tank top that clearly showed off her left arm which ended just above the elbow. Like Elodie, her magic was darker than the average Alfea student's, but she was determined to make it as a fairy. It was related to the human body, with a special emphasis on bones. Elodie wasn't sure if it was natural or cultivated. Cori intended to swing that into a career as a doctor.
Elodie knocked on the open door to let her roommate know she was there. "Hey, Cori," she said.
"Elodie!" Cori jumped up and crossed the distance between them in a few quick strides. She held out her arms and Elodie hugged her. "I missed you this summer!"
"I missed you too!" They'd kept in contact through text, so it didn't really feel like they'd been apart, but there was nothing like seeing someone after a long time away. They broke their hug and Elodie looked up at Cori's face. There were dark circles under her eyes, her brown skin tinged purple, and her cornrows were grown out more than she had ever let them get during their first year. "Why do you look so tired? Isn't summer supposed to be for relaxing?" she joked. Elodie already knew that Cori had spent her break shadowing her mom, the chief cardiac surgeon at her home realm's largest teaching hospital, but she also knew that Cori would want nothing more than to talk about it again. As Elodie suspected she might, Cori broke into a wide grin.
"If I relax, then when am I going to learn?" Cori placed her hand on her hip and led Elodie into their room. "Alfea is great, but I'll never get to see actual surgery here."
"How many more summers before your mom lets you perform the surgery?" Elodie asked, only half joking.
Cori laughed. "She'd love it if I asked, but I still don't want to. It's cool to see and I'm glad I get the chance to learn about these things, but standing in a corner and touching absolutely nothing is the closest I ever want to get to someone's beating heart."
Elodie nodded in understanding. "I totally get that." And she really did. Once upon a time, when she was too young to know what it really entailed, Elodie had wanted to be a surgeon. She'd thought that any health problem could be fixed by cutting someone open and rearranging things. Her dad had had to sit her down and tell her that no, it didn't work like that, and she absolutely could not cut open her brother to try. He'd also explained — in a way that was both silly and appropriately gruesome — what it would be like to cut someone open and it had really put her off the idea. Elodie thought after that she could be a doctor, though as she got older, she realized she wasn't really suited for medicine.
"I will say it wasn't quite as gross as I expected it to be though." Cori said, kneeling back by her suitcase to continue unpacking.
"Really?" Elodie asked, genuinely curious. She shrugged her backpack off onto her bed.
"Really," Cori replied. The wall on Cori's side of the room was already covered in posters and art prints, and her favourite starry blanket was already on her bed, but Elodie knew she still had quite a bit to unpack. Cori did not choose between an internal expansion charm or a shrinking charm; she used both.
"Do you want me to help you finish unpacking while you tell me about it?"
"Sure!" Cori said, drawing a glass bottle filled with tiny bones — rat bones? That was Elodie's best guess based on the skull — from her suitcase and holding it out to Elodie who placed it on one of the shelves that lined the wall.
Alfea provided standing shelving units to all students in their dorms. Most, like Elodie, filled them with books and trinkets and maybe a plant or two. Cori filled hers with her collection of bones and her books always found their way onto Elodie's shelves, somehow. She had a number of full and partial skeletons of all sorts of magical and nonmagical creatures. When Elodie had first seen them, Cori had been quick to explain that they came from various sources, all of which were perfectly legal, none of which involved killing an animal just for its bones. Some were in bottles, floating in viscous liquids or in magic, while others were strung together to resemble what the creature had looked like in life. It had taken Elodie some time to get used to waking up and seeing the shadows of skeletons across the room, but eventually she had.
Working together, the two of them made quick work of displaying and organizing the collection. Then, when they were done with all the creatures, Cori pulled out what Elodie had a year ago thought was an instrument case and stashed it under her bed. The star of her collection remained hidden away, safe and in pristine condition. It was the full set of bones from a human left arm, from someone roughly Cori's height. Cori had been even quicker to explain that this one was obtained legally. The bones came from someone who had donated their body to science. The whole body had been dissected at the teaching hospital where her mother worked and afterwards, anything undamaged during the dissection had been removed and sent out for medical research. Most of the parts had ended up with potion brewers, but Cori's mother had gotten her those bones, immaculately and mercifully cleaned, for her own personal project.
Cori had been born missing her left arm above the elbow and she'd spent the better part of their first year, with Elodie's assistance, trying to create a bony substitute. She had no real interest in replacing her arm for day-to-day use — she could have gotten one of the many advanced prosthetics biomedical researchers on Zenith had developed if she did — but pushing the limits of her own magic to create a functioning arm was the kind of challenge Cori thrived on. She'd managed to get a few limbs to hold together while she was transformed and had gotten full function out of a dragon bone arm, imbued with enough of its own natural magic to do half the job for her, while untransformed, but a human arm with full dexterity was still beyond her. For now.
"Do you need any help unpacking?" Cori asked when they were finished with the bones.
"Sure," Elodie said. It wouldn't take long either way.
She had significantly less to unpack than Cori did. After she lost her family and watched her childhood home go up in flames, home had always felt like a temporary thing. She didn't like to collect things she wasn't sure she'd be able to keep with her. Maybe one day that would change, but ever since her conversation with Faragonda and Griffin, when she had been slapped with the knowledge of how easy it would be for the right person to discover her, Elodie had had an awful sinking feeling that her home at Alfea, in Magix City, was more temporary than ever.
A few stuffed animals, a blanket much nicer than the Alfea-provided standard, some books, and a table cauldron for potion making all came out of her backpack. Professor Palladium probably wouldn't be happy if he knew Elodie was brewing without his permission outside the classroom, but he didn't need to know. They also took a few minutes to rearrange some of Cori's posters to cover the entire room instead of clustering around her bed. There were some, like an old Thornes band poster and art from some of their shared favourite horror movies, that Elodie was more than happy to put on her side.
"I think it looks good," Cori said, standing back to admire their handiwork.
"Me too," Elodie agreed. She straightened one last book on her shelf and nodded in approval.
"I can't wait for next week when we decide we hate it and need to rearrange everything."
Elodie laughed. "You'll be on your own for that." She really did like the little space they'd created for themselves.
Cori grinned and stretched. "Do you think Val and Lily Freya are here yet?"
"Lily Freya was lounging on the couch when I got here, but I don't know about Val," Elodie said.
Cori bounced her hand against her thigh. "Then let's go see if she's arrived for us to bother," she said.
"Sounds good," Elodie said with a grin.
The pair headed out of their room and into the common space. Lily Freya was gone and Elodie couldn't help but be a bit relieved. It wasn't that she disliked Lily Freya; it's that she was a lot, and after a summer away, Elodie wasn't used to her anymore. She also worried that Lily Freya wasn't used to any of them anymore. The door to the other bedroom was open, and Elodie could see their final dormmate inside putting the finishing touches on her living space.
Val stood by her bookshelf, reordering some books she had already placed. She was wearing a pale purple sun dress and had spelled a gradient of orange into the tips of her hair over the summer which highlighted the warmth in her brown skin. She was a fairy of metals and the daughter of two successful jewellers who expected her to take over the family business, much to her chagrin. It's not that Val was incapable of the fine detail work making jewellery would require — when she'd modified their dorm plaque to fix Lily Freya's name, she'd also taken the liberty of adding a few artistic flourishes to the design, and quickly informed her dormmates that she was not taking critique at that time — it's that she simply didn't enjoy doing it unless it was on her own terms. As they approached, Val turned to face them.
"It's nice to see you two again," she said.
"It's only been a couple of months, but it feels so much longer," Cori said. "I didn't realize how much I missed being here with you guys."
"Me too," Elodie said, smiling at Cori. "Do you need any help unpacking, Val?"
"I'm actually finished," Val said."Just doing some reorganizing."
Elodie peeked around the door and into the room. Val's half was just as meticulous and ordered as Elodie remembered it. The bookshelf was filled to the brim with neatly arranged books and she'd added an organizer to her desk. The walls lacked the posters that Elodie and Cori liked, but instead she'd set up floating shelves and filled them with plants — succulents and cacti, mostly. A vibrant green counterpart to the bone wall in the other room. Lily Freya's half of the room was still bare with only a closed backpack leaning against the wall by her bed, and Elodie wondered what she'd been up to earlier if not unpacking.
Val followed Elodie's gaze to Lily Freya's empty shelf. "Last year it took her almost two weeks to finish unpacking," Val said. She leaned back against her bookshelf and crossed her arms. "I'm not sure if it's going to take her more or less time this year. On one hand, she already knows where she wants to put everything, but on the other, she probably cares less."
Cori snickered.
"Do you know where she went?" Elodie asked.
Val shrugged. "She was already gone by the time I got here."
"I'm sure she'll be back soon," Cori said. She walked out of the room and plopped down on the couch in their common area. Elodie followed and sat down next to her while Val stayed standing, leaning against the wall by her door even though there was room for a third on the couch.
"Probably," Val agreed. "She can only spend so long messing with first years."
"What's she planning?" Elodie asked with a sigh. Being Lily Freya's dormmates had largely spared them her shenanigans the previous year, but they had seen the aftermath of many pranks and broken rules.
Val just shrugged. "I never know."
"Well, enough about Lily Freya," Cori said, waving her hand dismissively. "What electives did you guys sign up for? I'm taking healing and herbology."
"I'm in healing too," Elodie said with excitement in her voice. Even though she'd given up her childhood dream of being a surgeon, Elodie still had an interest in healing, and having Cori in class with her would make it that much better. Cori held her hand up and Elodie high fived her, despite Val snickering in the background. "I'm also taking advanced potion making and astronomy."
"Astronomy?" Cori asked, raising an eyebrow. "You don't strike me as the stargazing type."
Elodie shrugged. "I am Solarian." Truthfully, she had been interested in the stars ever since she was a child; ever since she found out that Norroux's sun was much weaker than most of the stars in the sky.
"Three electives?" Val asked. "Are you going to have time for that?"
"Definitely," Elodie said. She saw the confusion on Val's face. "Oh, right, sorry, I forgot that I haven't told you yet. I'm redoing the the first year applied courses."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Val said with a grimace. "I knew you were having trouble controlling your magic, but I didn't think it was that bad."
"I blew up the simulation chamber."
"You caused significant internal damage to the simulation chamber," Cori corrected. "It was still structurally sound afterwards. Blowing it up would have been much more exciting and probably gotten us out of class for longer."
Val snickered and Elodie smiled despite the embarrassment that tickled the back of her mind.
"Anyways," Elodie said. "First years have less applied classes than second years, so I have more space for electives."
"And you're using that elective space to stare at the sun instead of taking herbology with me?" Cori put her hand to her chest in mock offense.
Elodie nodded solemnly. "That's right." She had actually tried to enrol in herbology as well, but Griselda had denied the request. Just because she had the space in her schedule to take more classes didn't mean it would be a good idea. One extra was as much as Elodie had been able to negotiate and herbology just hadn't made the cut.
"Sad," Cori said. She dramatically flopped sideways on the couch. "Are you abandoning me too, Val?"
"Yes," Val confirmed. She pushed herself off from the wall and started to stretch. "I'm taking runes and I got special permission to do a weapon smithing class at Red Fountain."
"That sounds super cool," Cori said, sitting up and peeking over the back of the couch to look at Val. "I forgive you for abandoning me."
"Don't Red Fountain students use those weird light weapons?" Elodie asked. "How do you smith those?"
"Phantoweapons," Val supplied. "And I have no idea. We'll be smithing real weapons, much stronger and more dangerous than those."
"Guns?" Cori asked.
Val sighed deeply and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Actual bladed weapons made out of metal and then enchanted," Val said. "Personally, I think it's the optimal use for my magic."
"I guess I can't argue with that," Elodie said, although she very much would like to argue that making weapons wasn't the ideal use for anything.
"But enough about school. Did you two do anything fun this summer?" Val asked.
Cori's eyes lit up again and Elodie marvelled at how her enthusiasm had not waned at all despite this being the second time she was explaining her summer in less than an hour. Val showed much less interest in the medical aspects than Elodie had, but handled the gory details better. When it was her turn, Val explained the summer she had spent travelling to other realms. Her parents had branded it a research trip — exploring the fashions of foreign worlds and finding new suppliers for exotic precious stones — but had spent more time on the beach with Val and her brother than doing any actual work.
Elodie was still trying to think of a way to make her summer of watching TV and eating macarons sound impressive when the door to their dorm opened. Lily Freya walked in, letting the door slam shut behind her, and grinned when she saw her three dormmates all together.
"Valeria Dawn, Corina Lynn, it's been a while," Lily Freya said. She walked over and sat down on the couch between Elodie and Cori. Elodie shuffled towards the edge to make room for her. "What did I miss?"
"We just finished talking about our summers," Val said.
"Well me and you were. Elodie hadn't gone yet," Cori corrected.
"Oh, I uh didn't actually do much," Elodie admitted sheepishly.
"Same," Lily Freya said. Elodie suspected her own definition of not doing much was very different from a future queen's, but didn't say anything. "Too bad I missed it, but you guys don't need to repeat yourselves for me. We can talk about something else."
Cori opened her mouth and Elodie was sure she was about to protest and say she would love to explain her summer for a third time actually, but Val spoke before she had the chance.
"Would you rather talk about school?" Val asked.
"Ugh, no," Lily Freya said, shaking her head in mock disgust.
"What about Charmix?" Cori asked.
Lily Freya considered it for a moment before nodding. "Yeah, that's less boring than regular classes. We can talk about that."
"It is pretty exciting to think about getting a power boost," Val agreed.
"Are you going to be working on yours this year, mononymous Elodie?" Lily Freya asked, glancing over at her.
Elodie's knee jerk reaction was annoyance. There was no need for Lily Freya to rub it in that she wasn't a full fledged second year. But then she realized she actually wasn't sure. Earning her Charmix wasn't something she had discussed with Faragonda during their meetings.
"I don't know," Elodie answered honestly.
"Could anybody stop you if you tried?" Cori asked.
"Probably not," Elodie said.
"Honestly it kind of seems like your entire year is perfectly set up to earn your Charmix," Val said. Elodie raised an eyebrow and Val took that as her cue to elaborate. "I mean you earn it by overcoming some sort of great personal difficulty, right? That is specifically what the headmistress is asking you to do this year."
"I guess," Elodie said, unconvinced.
"I thought you got it by overcoming like a big fear of yours or admitting to your flaws and promising your magic you'll work on them," Cori said.
Val shrugged. "I haven't looked into it too much since we'll be covering it in class. Could be any or all of those."
"Personally I have no flaws, so I'm not sure what I'll be able to do to earn my Charmix," Lily Freya said. Val snickered at that and Lily Freya grinned in response. Elodie rolled her eyes, but at least she was fairly sure Lily Freya was saying it ironically, which was more than she could say about some of her self aggrandizing talk the previous year. "I'll just have to skip straight to Enchantix."
"Really?" Val scoffed and rolled her eyes.
"It's pretty rare, but we wouldn't be the first Alfea second years to become Enchantix fairies," Lily Freya said more seriously.
"Is there even anyone from your home realm at Alfea?" Elodie asked. Among other things, earning Enchantix required the fairy to save someone from their home realm, so there needed to be someone from their home realm around to save. Third years were given more freedom to travel specifically to encourage earning their Enchantix, but a second year without those opportunities really needed to have someone already close by if they wanted to have any hope of doing it.
"No, but my future husband is starting at Red Fountain this year and I think that's close enough," Lily Freya replied with a shrug. She waved her hand dismissively. "I can always make it a vacation project anyways."
"Mine will need to be a vacation project for sure," Cori said with a sigh.
"My little brother is starting at Alfea next year, but that doesn't help me now," Val said thoughtfully. She scratched her chin as if thinking hard. "It's a good thing I'm not planning to ignore my second year goals just to focus on something I can more easily do during third year."
"You're no fun," Lily Freya said.
The three girls all glanced over at Elodie and she just shrugged. She didn't know if there were any Solarians at Alfea, but there certainly weren't any Nourraines. Her uncle might be the only other Nourraine in all of Magix and Elodie knew for a fact that in any situation, it was far more likely for him to be the one saving her. (Again.) How exactly she would earn her Enchantix was a problem for future Elodie since she definitely wasn't planning on working ahead after being held back.
"But anyways," Val said, turning back on Lily Freya. "Do you really think you're going to be that rare fairy who pulls ahead of her peers when you don't put any effort into classes you don't like?" she asked, skeptical. Of the four of them, Lily Freya had the worst average grades — in theoretical classes anyways; Elodie knew her failures in the applied courses would probably put them on similar playing fields — and the fewest fucks to give.
"Nobody's going to ask for my Alfea transcripts when I'm Queen, Valeria Dawn," Lily Freya said. "Why would I waste my time on classes that are both boring and useless when I could instead devote myself to things I actually like."
"Speaking of classes you actually like, what electives are you taking?" Cori asked, perking up again.
"Smooth," Val said.
"Is one of them herbology?" Cori asked, pointedly ignoring Val.
"Yeah, herbology and runes," Lily Freya said. "Why?"
"Neither of these two are taking it." Cori shot looks of mock offense at Elodie and Val, and Elodie couldn't stop herself from laughing. "But I'm glad I have at least one person who isn't abandoning me."
"I'd never abandon you, Corina Lynn," Lily Freya said, putting her hand over her heart. "I promise."
"Laying it on pretty thick, aren't you?" Val asked with a smirk.
Lily Freya shrugged in response. "Anyways, there's no point in us worrying about earning Charmix or Enchantix right now. Classes haven't even started yet and I want to enjoy my last day of summer."
Technically it was already the first day of the new semester, but skipping all the first day orientations was basically tradition for upper year students. If there was anything important they needed to know that was new from the previous year, they would find out pretty quickly. Elodie had considered going since was was sort of a first year, but orientation had been pretty boring the first time around and she really didn't want to sit through it again.
"Have something in mind?" Cori asked.
"I'm so glad you asked," Lily Freya said, her face lighting up. "A bunch of third years are holding a party by the lake this evening. I'm going if the rest of you want to come too."
"You can never resist crashing a good party, can you?" Val asked.
"Actually, I was invited, so no need for crashing this time."
"This time," Cori echoed.
"I'm making no promises about future parties," Lily Freya said. "So are you guys coming or not?"
Val rolled her eyes, but in the end, they all agreed to go. Elodie wasn't big on parties, but if it was just by the lake then she could leave any time. While Elodie was looking forward to getting back to her studies, an end of summer party seemed like the perfect way to have just a little bit more fun first.
A/N: This is the last of the short intro chapters, so shit will actually start happening in the next one.