William walked through the gate of the boarding school. The sign on the gate said: Riverain. It meant riverside in French, William knew. This would be his school from now on until he would get kicked out from it. He had made no promises to his parents about breaking rules, but he decided to give a chance to this place. Maybe he would like it here, he mused.

A man came to him.
"Ah, you must be William Dunbar," he said.
"I am," William answered.
"I am Vincent Leblanc, the student counselor here. Follow me, I'll show you your room," Vincent told.
"Okay, thanks," William said. He followed Vincent to the dorms and they found his room quickly.
"Here's the key to your room. The students must not be in their rooms during the course of the school day, but they may fetch anything they might have forgotten there during the breaks. The breakfast is at 7.00 and the dinner is at 19.30. I assume you have received the rules before you came here," Vincent told.
"Yes, I got them." William said and walked further into his room. It was rather small, but he knew that he would fit into it. At least at first, he thought with a small grin.
"You have your schedule, right?" Vincent asked. William turned to him and nodded.
"Good. You'll join your class after the lunch break," Vincent told.
"Understood," William said.
"I'll leave you to arrange your things. If there ever is something you need to talk about, you can come and talk with me. My office is downstairs," Vincent told and left. William closed the door of his room, put his travelling bag to the bed and sat down. On the first glimpse of it, Riverain seemed to be all right. Vincent was friendly and the structure of the whole place was quite systematic. It would be easy to learn how to get around. But he did not know anyone on his class, year 8. Yet.

After sorting the most important things out from his bag, he took his shoulder bag and left outside. He checked out his schedule and decided to already go to look for the classroom he would have the next lesson, chemistry, in. But before he entered the school building, his attention was drawn to a lonely girl sitting on a bench, reading something. The girl had mint green hair which reached to her neck. William decided to give it a try and went to talk with her.
"Hi! Who are you?" he asked. The girl looked up from the book and looked at him with her bright blue eyes. Her gaze pierced into his eyes in a rather leery way.
"You're new here," she noted.
"Yeah. I'm William," William introduced himself.
"We won't be friends," the girl said coldly, put her book – which seemed to be about swords, as William briefly saw it – to her bag and left without saying anything else. William felt offended by her behavior, unable to see why the girl had behaved like that towards him. The school bell rang and returned him back the reality: he had to find the chemistry classroom. William adjusted his shoulder bag on his shoulder and joined the student crowd which accumulated on the corridors.

It did take some time, but William managed to find the right classroom after asking a passerby the direction.
"Ah, there you are. Did it take some time to find it here?" asked the chemistry teacher, miss Kirou.
"Yeah," William answered.
"Okay class, so this is your new class mate, William Dunbar. Mathieu, you're the class representative in your class, so you're in charge of showing William the places," miss Kirou said.
"Sure. William, you can come here and sit with me," said a boy with short brown hair. William nodded and started to walk to the desk the boy had pointed at and then he suddenly saw a familiar face.

It was the girl from the bench. In her expressionless her face showed a little bit of disbelief. But that disbelief turned into a clearer expression which took over the girl's eyes: distaste.

William turned his gaze to the class representative, Mathieu. The boy seemed nice and trusty. It seemed to be no miracle that he had been chosen to his position.
"So, do you like video games?" was the first thing Mathieu asked William immediately after he had sat down. William was about to answer but miss Kirou said, "Mathieu, may I remind you that we're on a chemistry class, not on a break. Save chit-chat for breaks." Mathieu shrugged and turned to look at William with a big grin.

Miss Kirou finished the class before the bell rang and most of the students of the class gathered near William and they had a big group which chatted a lot. William was asked many questions and while it was a little bit awkward, William did not mind answering them. He was starting to think that he would get friends here without trying to be one of the "popular rebels". That had not turned out well and he had just gotten expelled from school. But then William noticed that there was one student who did not join the conversation. It was still the same mint-green-haired girl. She just sat at a bench all alone and read a book about swords. Particularly Zweihänder swords, William noticed. He lacked knowledge about swords, but he reminisced that some characters in the video games he had played used some sort of Zweihänder-like swords. Or that's what some people had been talking...

The bell then rang and students took their bags and left the classroom. William hanged out with Mathieu and his friends, most of them from their class.
"So why did you get kicked out from your last school?" asked a blonde boy, named Allen.
"I broke minor rules a lot," William answered.
"Why?" asked someone else. William shrugged; he did not really want to tell the reason to them. It would make him look a wuss, so he was thinking.
"It was fun," he then noted. Many students exchanged amused glances.
"Don't do that here. This place ain't so horrible that it would be worth of getting kicked out of here," said a tall boy. He was bald and looked like he was on year 9 or maybe even 10.

William kept up with their conversation and looked around himself. Suddenly he noticed the same girl again, sitting on the same bench, reading the same book.
"Listen, Mathieu, who is that girl with mint green hair on that bench?" William asked and nodded at the girl. Mathieu looked at the direction William had nodded to.
"Oh, that's Cassandra. She's a loner," he answered.
"Is she always alone?" William asked.
"Yes, unless the teacher tells her to get a pair or go to a group at some tasks during lessons. She seems to hate it," Mathieu answered and gave an adoring look at her. "She's beautiful..."

William looked at Cassandra, not understanding how Mathieu could like the girl. He decided to let it be. Maybe he would feel just like Mathieu if he had not gotten an unfriendly treatment from her as the first impression.

Then the bell rang. William checked the schedule; his class would have Italian now. He moved along the group and tried to memorize the way.
"Oh dear, I hate Italian. I just hate it," Allen snorted.
"I like it. It's a romantic language," William noted.
"I prefer French on that," said another boy of their class, Manuel.
"Yeah, but if you want to get Cassandra's liking, languages is not what you should use," Mathieu noted. "Languages don't interest her at all."
"What does, then?" William asked. Mathieu gave a curious look at him before answering, "Nobody knows. She never talks about things she likes. In fact, she doesn't usually even say anything to anyone."

William started to realize what made at least Mathieu like Cassandra: the girl was elusive. It did attract some people, William knew from his own experience. Nevertheless, Cassandra's coldness had turned him away from the girl already.
"Will you hurry up, boys? We should start the class! You'll be having a test in a few weeks, so we have to hurry up with all this!" shouted the teacher, mister Léger. William started to speed up his pace.
"No worries, mister Léger just tried to get our pace faster. We'll have Italian test in four months, so no need to take fright," Mathieu told. William slowed down.
"Oh, good," he said, relieved by that fact.
"So you don't like tests, either?" Allen asked.
"Do you know someone who does?" William asked and laughed shortly.
"Someone on the internet once said that they like tests but I think they were just a troll," Allen answered and snorted. "Seeing all that stuff there can be fun, but most of the time I find it rather disappointing on the state of humanity."

They reached the classroom and the students took their places. William tried to find a place to sit at but the only one he saw was next to Cassandra. He noticed the girl look if there were any other places than the one at her desk but from the expression that came to the girl's face it seemed that there was none.
"William, you can sit next to Cassandra. Go on, she won't bite you," mister Léger told.
"You think," Manuel whispered to the girl next to him who snickered. William nodded to the teacher and walked to the desk. Cassandra took her bag from the previously free seat and put it next to her chair. The girl seemed very unsatisfied with the situation. William sat next to her and tried to ignore the silent hostility of the girl.

The chatter silenced and the teacher begun their lesson. They were supposed to have a conversation with the student sitting at the same desk in Italian. Cassandra, who had not done these conversations since no one sat next to her, seemed to be even unhappier as she crossed her arms and turned her head to William. They started to have a short and basic conversation with each other. While it went well, the girl's glare made William feel uncomfortable. What did the girl have against him, anyway?

The school bell suddenly rang in the middle of the class. Everyone looked around themselves, confused. Mister Léger checked his clock twice to see if it was malfunctioning.
"It seems that there's an issue with the bell. Let's continue. Open your books on page 10, please," he then told. William and Cassandra were both relieved to be able to shut up, turn their heads away from each other and start looking at the book.

The school bell did not ring when it should have rang, so mister Léger made sure the class ended when it was supposed to end.
"Did Cassandra bite you? I didn't see!" Mathieu asked.
"No, but I think it was close. It seems that she hates me already," William told. Mathieu snickered and put his hand on William's shoulder in a companionable way.
"Way to go with that. Have fun sitting next to her during all the Italian lessons all this year!" he said.
"Thanks. I think I'll need it," William said.
"Cool. But hey, maths is the last. Do you want to have match in Galactic Battle after it?" Mathieu asked.
"Sure, why not?" William answered.
"Great! But beware, I'll beat you harder than anyone ever has beaten you!" Mathieu said. A friendly rivalry was about to start.
"We'll see about that!" William told, giving a laugh.

The students had to go to the classes on their own since the bell did not ring. Even with the issues with Cassandra included this felt like the best school day in a long time for William.

It seemed that he had found a good school to attend.

/Code Lyoko (c) Moonscoop, Cassandra Delorien, Riverain and the rest of its original characters (c) Me/