"The princess herself couldn't fight better!" laughed Darien as his friend made a poor thrust with his sword.
"You know, she might be offended by your remark there," his friend, Randal, joked back. After a few more failed attempts at sword-fighting, they prepared to go down to dinner.
They were quiet, as was expected in the halls, on the way down to dinner, although, strangely, no one else appeared in their path. It had never seemed creepy in these halls until only now. There was something there, something chillingly cold in there.
Once they opened the doors to the dining hall and found themselves staring, like the rest of the room, at a short small boy who appeared to be sixteen talking quietly to the headmaster. The usual chatter in the hall was replaced with gossipy murmurs and whispers.
The two sat down next to some of their other friends, but before either of them could get a word of question out, their friend, Jack blurted out quietly "He just came here, new and everything and no one's ever even heard of the new kids' name!"
"Hmm… he looks a little measly, doesn't he?" Randal asked half-serious half-joking.
"I swear, he could be my younger sister, if only I knew she had a twin…" Darien said playfully.
"Or better yet, she's dressed up as a guy!" They both burst out laughing at this comment.
"And leave her exaggeratedly-decorative clothes on the doorstep for the maid to wear as she goes off to some sword fighting school! Ha, I laugh at the day she does that!" Darien soon cracked up at the overly-amusing mental images he had given himself.
She nervously readjusted her tunic as she talked to the headmaster and explained why she hadn't been able to come at the beginning of the year like everybody else in the school. Even when her explanation was all a lie, he still believed her.
She inwardly rolled her eyes at that. It was pretty sad, she was a girl dressing up as a guy and he was barely a foot away from her and still couldn't tell. And, to think, this was a school full of boys, you'd think he could tell the difference between a boy and a girl. 'What an idiot.'
She slowly treaded down the raised steps that led to the headmaster's and professors' dining table and walked along the tables in the dining hall, looking for an empty seat, conscious that everyone's eyes stayed glued on her and not the dinner.
The many eyes did not bother her as she'd had much practice with being stared at in her past experiences at home.
Two boys seemed to strike out at her at once, and she was in a place next to them before she had even thought of it. The first boy, Randal, looked distinctly familiar to her and seemed like she had seen him somewhere before, although, Darien looked very good-looking and held no recognizable memory in her mind.
They both stared at her as if she were some type of odd monster. Thinking of breaking the ice, she said "Okay, so I'm short, small, and ugly. Get over it."
"Well, it's more like short, small, and feminine," answered Randal with a cheeky grin.
She could tell they were all going to be very good friends…