Let's just jump right into it, shall we?
Chapter Eleven – Homesick
"Do you know that if you didn't have a sense of smell, apples, onions and potatoes would all taste exactly the same?" Brandon said as he and Sky slid into their seats for Javelin's class.
"What are you going on about?" Sky demanded to know.
"Apples, onions and potatoes; apparently it's just their smell which makes them taste different (1)," Brandon told his prince.
"Where did you hear that nonsense?"
"Dave was telling me, and I talked to Jacob about it and he says that cooking is really only ten percent taste. It's mostly sight and smell that determine what a food taste like (2). Jacob could serve us up medical waste and we'd probably eat it provided he made it look and smell good."
"I think I'm going to skip lunch today."
"And how else do you explain how hypnotists can make a person eat an onion when they tell 'em it's an apple? It's because all they're doing is disabling their sense of smell."
"Even if I said I no longer have any interest in what you're saying, you're still going to keep talking, aren't you?"
"Is he still going on about apples, onions and potatoes?" Timmy asked, sitting down on the other side of Sky.
"He just won't shut up sometimes," Sky noted bitterly. "He just goes on and on and on until you want to hit yourself over the head with something blunt and hard. I think he runs on watch batteries and god knows how long they're going to last."
"You do know I can hear you?" Brandon snapped.
"And yet you still don't stop talking to me about things I couldn't care less about," Sky pointed out. "Seriously, is it too much to ask for a little bit of conversation about issues that actually matter and not just the random drabble that comes out of absolutely nowhere, which seems to always happen with us?"
Slam!!
All three boys jumped violently as a heavy text book on battle tactics and strategies was dropped down onto Sky's desk with unnecessary force. Looking up with startled eyes, they discovered an irritated Riven standing in front of Sky's desk with his arms folding across his chest, glaring at the prince with blazing eyes.
"You're bloody dragon knocked my one up," Riven snarled in a tone of voice that indicated that he was placing the blame solely on Sky.
"What?" Sky asked, not following a word Riven was saying. "They got in a fight?"
"No you retard. Rouge is in foal and the stallion she mated with was Cerulean," Riven informed them all, and just by looking at his face they could all tell that their burgundy haired friend was not impressed with this new union.
"Are they sure?" Timmy asked. Since dragons were reptiles, it was often hard to determine whether or not a female was with foal. It wasn't uncommon for no one even know the mare was pregnant until halfway through an eleven months gestation period when she laid an egg
"Well the egg in her stall is a bit of a give away."
"You're kidding?" Brandon exclaimed, looking slightly amused about the whole situation.
"Shannon didn't even see it coming," Riven added, referring to Red Fountain's Stable Master who was normally very selective about his dragons breeding, so for him to miss something like this was massive.
"But Rouge's only just reached full maturity last year," Timmy noted. "Isn't that a little young for her to be breeding?"
Riven nodded curtly. "Yeah, she's a whore and Cerulean's a cradle snatcher."
"Wouldn't that be called an egg snatcher?" Brandon questioned.
"Shut up! I'm pissed off at your prince right now but that can easily be redirected at you, squire."
"Why you pissed at me?" Sky asked.
"Cerulean's you're dragon, ain't he, so I get to blame you."
"How do you figure that?"
"Well I'm not gonna take it up with Cerulean, now am I?"
"I'd pay to see that," Brandon grinned. "And strictly speaking, Cerulean's Red Fountain's dragon, not Sky's. Sky's just working with him while we're here."
"If you don't shut up, I'm going to shove this book down you're throat," Riven threatened, picking up the text book he had dropped on Sky's desk. Brandon wisely decided to shut his mouth at that point, which caused Sky to pull a sour expression.
"How come he never listens to me?" Sky asked no one in particular.
It was at that point that Javelin decided to start his lesson. Putting aside the text he had been taking notes from when his students had entered his classroom, Javelin moved to the front of the class and gave the silent command for everyone to find their seats and be silent which everyone complied to.
"Today you will all be receiving you're final assignment in Battle Tactics and Strategy. This assessment is to be done individually and it will make up forty percent of your final mark for this class, so yes, it does matter. The objective is to plan and organize a mission that would benefit society. It's all theory work, but I want it to be as practical and realistic as possible. So when you pick your enemy and the location of where you're going to stage your mission, I want to see evidence of research put into it. You get to choose whatever enemy you want, but for security reasons you are not allowed to target royalty or world leaders even if it is all hypothetical," Javelin explained evenly.
"Well there goes my idea," Riven commented when his plan of targeting Stella just for the fun of it went out the window.
"As if I'd let you target my girlfriend anyway," Brandon snapped, reading Riven's mind.
"Just pick something else that annoys you," Sky suggested before realising that that might not be an easy thing for his moody friend to do.
"What? Like the hosts on that morning show on Channel 7, Sunrise? I can't stand them (3)."
"I dare you to do your assignment on Sunrise," Brandon challenged with a laugh. "I dare ya."
"Gentlemen, that's enough," Javelin ordered and silence suddenly resumed itself again. "There are several topics you are going to have to include in your mission briefing and they're all explained on this assessment notification I'm handing out now. You can use this lesson to start work on it now but after that you'll be expected to complete it in your own time. Now get to work."
Brandon loved it whenever they allowed in class time to work on assessments. Not because it gave him a chance to work on his assignments without cutting into his social life, but because it meant that he had a whole period of not having to take any notes. He'd scribble a few things down regarding the work he was supposed to be focusing on, but once he had done that he was free to just waste the period away by talking to his classmates. Timmy and Sky – always the ideal students – never missed an opportunity to improve their assignments and Riven really wasn't much of a conversationalist, so Brandon moved off to chat with some of the other boys in his class.
"So anyway, you know that guy Jamie in the grade above us that you were supposed to face off against during the unveiling of the new campus?" Sally said, his work spread out in front of him utterly forgotten.
"The one who turns into a total sap when he gets a girlfriend and who had a massive hissy fit when his girlfriend left him for another guy two years ago?" Brandon asked.
"Yes. Well, he's got himself another girlfriend that he spoils revoltingly, but she has been seen meeting up with his roommate, Danny, in Magix on Thursdays when Jamie had his extension battle history class."
"No way."
"Yes way, and Danny's always on the phone with someone but he won't answer it when Jamie's around," Sally went on. "And then, like a fortnight ago, Jamie went home for the weekend and his girlfriend came over here and she and Danny spent the whole day in Jamie and Danny's room."
"Doing what?"
"No one knows exactly but as you can guess there's speculation."
"Does Jamie know?"
"Who knows?"
"How do you find out about this stuff?"
"It's a gift," Sally shrugged before glancing over at the boy sitting next to him. "And if Jared would just embrace it, we'd have a much better student newspaper."
"I've been through this before; I can't publish what you tell me" Jared told Sally again who simply rolled his eyes. "It's not real journalism."
"It's what the people want."
"It's slander."
"Whatever."
"What are you up too?" Brandon asked Jared, looking over at all the papers that littered the golden eyed boy's desk. Half of the papers related to the current assignment that he was supposed to be working on while the rest were articles for the upcoming edition of the school newspaper, the Red Fountain Sentry, that needed to be proof read, and Jared was trying to deal with both at the same time.
"Multitasking," Jared sighed tragically, scratching the back of his head.
"I thought only women could do that."
"I think they might be right," Jared confessed when he realized that he had jotted down a note on possible surveillance techniques for his assignment on the piece of paper that Jacob had given him with next weeks lunch menu on it. "I'm just a bit frazzled at the moment."
"Editor getting to be too much?" Brandon asked. Jared had been writing for the Sentry ever since their freshmen year and had recently taken over the role of editor after the last editor graduated. It took up a lot of Jared's time, but he was usually pretty good at time management and he was getting a ton of extra curricular credit out of it.
"No. I just went home last weekend when I really should have stayed here to get some work done is all. I just need to put a few hours in and get on top of things. It's just a matter of getting it all done by my deadline. I guess all I gotta do is proof read these articles, work the lay out, write my own article and get all my homework done. That's not that much really, although I still have no idea what I'm going to write about for my article. I'm gonna be the first editor in the history of a paper to give myself a demerit on extra curricular activities for not handing in my article on time. Maybe there's a story in that."
"Yeah, but as soon as you write it and hand it in, it won't be a story any more," Brandon pointed out.
"Oh yeah."
"You can always write about how Danny's stabbing his roommate in the back," Sally offered.
"No," Jared responded firmly.
"Just write about what the guys wonna read about; girls, girls, girl," Brandon suggested.
"And how do I do that without Saladin censoring everything out of it?"
"Just say that you're writing an article on what it's like to be at student at Alfea, and if maps to the girls' showers somehow magically find their way into your report, so be it."
"Actually, that's not such a bad idea" Jared mused, before quickly adding, "The story I mean, not the maps. We've done reports on Alfea before but that was always when something big happened like when Stella blew up the potion lab. We've never actually done a basic, 'a day in the life of an Alfea student' story. It's not exactly front page material, but it's something. Thanks Brandon."
"Anytime. Hey, Stella's coming around after classes this afternoon to hang out. You could talk to her then about maybe arranging a possible interview."
"That'd be great," Jared said with a somewhat relieved grin. He quickly returned to his work when a shadow fell across his desk and Brandon looked up to see Javelin standing in front of them.
"Are you boys doing any work?" Javelin asked them, his clam, quiet voice laced with the slightest trace of steel that the students knew wasn't to be tested.
"We're getting work done," Brandon assured him and that was true to a degree.
"Does it relate to this class?"
"It relates to the people in this class."
"Brandon."
"Sir?"
"Go sit back in your own seat and do your work."
"Yes sir."
Jared found Stella before Brandon did that afternoon and the squire had to search Red Fountain for an hour before he found his girlfriend and the journalist sitting in the mess hall talking about something that had Stella almost crying in laughter. Brandon grinned widely just at the sound of the princesses giggles and her eyes shone brightly as he approached the pair.
"Oh, Brandon," Stella gasped with a wide smile, clutching her sides which were aching from her laughter. "Have you heard the story about Lex getting trashed and falling asleep in his wardrobe?"
"Yeah, I've seen the photos too," Brandon smirked. "Riven woke up the next morning next to the can machine. Neither of them have any idea what happened that night. They still have no clue how they got home."
"I have a feeling Dominique had something to do with it, but she doesn't remember it," Jared told them. "I think she got just as drunk as they did."
"And that's why I don't party with witches. Sometimes you never know what happens with them," Stella grinned before sighing deeply. "I've forgotten how much fun you are Jared. After my Snookums and his friends who I know pretty well, you're probably my favourite hero at Red Fountain."
"Well, thanks," Jared flushed bashfully, making Brandon chuckle at his classmates embarrassment.
"I mean, you're smart, your brave and you're so not a goon like most of the meat heads here. Do you have a girlfriend?" Stella asked suddenly.
"Why? Are you thinking of asking him out on a date?" Brandon grinned. He knew Jared was no risk to him, so he felt fine about joking about something like this, especially since it made Jared get even more flustered.
"Maybe I would if only I didn't have such a handsome boyfriend," Stella winked at Brandon. "But perhaps I could set him up with one of my friends?"
"What?" Brandon blinked. Who could she possibly think she could set Jared up with? The only member of the Winx Club who wasn't involved with someone – or almost involved with someone – was Layla, and Brandon would be afraid of the aquatic fairy snapping the aspiring journalist in half if Stella ever dared to set them up on a date. Jared was a pretty good hero, but there was no denying that he sometimes lacked the boldness and drive that was the difference between a pretty good hero and an exceptional hero.
"Yeah. He's cute, funny, smart, talented," Stella checked off, ignoring the boys to some degree. "Let's face it Jared, you'd be a real catch to any girl, which you'd need to be to be worthy of my friends. After all, I can't set a Winx Club member up with just anyone."
"But I thought most of your friends already had boyfriends," Jared cut through Stella's musing.
"No. Strictly speaking only Bloom and I are spoken for," Stella informed him with a proud flick of her hair.
"Nah-uh," Brandon disagreed.
"Yah-huh. Neither Tecna, Musa or Flora have been asked out on a single date let alone made it exclusive with anyone, so technically they're still on the market."
"They're not a piece of meat, Stell," Brandon felt he should remind her.
"I know, now shush," Stella ordered with a casual dismissive wave of her hand that Brandon found to be rather insulting. "Where were we? Ah yes, my friends. You know my friends, don't you Jared?"
"Only by reputation," Jared replied. Everyone in Magix at least knew the names of the member of the Winx Club after what happened with the Trix last year. Plus Jared had written a bit of a recount of the Great Witch Invasion that ended up being published in his local paper over the summer, so naturally he had done his research on all the key players in the battle.
"Well, we'll have to fix that, now won't we," Stella grinned with a glint in her eyes that she usually only got when someone agreed to a makeover.
"Stella, I'm really quite flattered but I'm not sure I feel comfortable – " Jared started but Stella quickly cut him off.
"Oh don't worry about it. I'm like a pro at this. I was the one who set Bloom and Sky up and look how happy they are now."
"Um, actually, you just invited me and my friends to come and try and convince her to go to Alfea. There was no intention for a set up," Brandon pointed out and Stella shot him a filthy look.
"Yeah, but if the witches weren't after my Ring of Solaria, then Knut never would have come after me and he would have never brought along a hunter troll for Sky to take down and look all heroic in front of Bloom, thus making her totally smitten."
"Wasn't it Timmy who ended up taking down the hunter troll?"
"Brandon, shush," Stella told him sharply, causing Brandon's hackle to rise up. Only his mother talked to him that way, and even then he didn't like it.
"Look guys, I'm gonna have to get going," Jared told them, getting to his feet with a loud scrap of the chair leg on the floor tiles. "I gotta try and get some headway on that assignment Javelin gave us before I can start to think about this article."
"I'll call you later about the interview and maybe something more," Stella called after him.
"Stella, you can't just go messing around with people lives like that," Brandon told his girlfriend as soon as Jared was out of sight. "People don't appreciate it as much as you might think."
"Oh of course they appreciate it, Brandon. I'm like an expert on all the rules and etiquette when it comes to dating so I know what to look for in a guy. And Jared's a sweet, understanding guy who any girl would be lucky to have as a boyfriend, so why can't I arrange it so that that lucky girl happens to be one of my friends?"
"Because people should be able to make they own decisions on who they want to date, not just have it set up by someone. It didn't work for Sky and Diaspro and I'm pretty sure it's not going to work for Jared and any of your friends."
"But how do you know that until you try? Sky probably would have gone on and married Diaspro if we hadn't introduced him to Bloom, and you can't deny that he's so much happier because of it. Jared could be a Bloom for all we know. All we have to do is figure out who he's best suited with."
"Stella, I don't think you're listening to what I'm saying."
"Now I like Helia so I don't want to try and bust any chances for him and Flora, and Layla's reckons she's not looking for a man which I don't believe by the way. If the right guy happened to come along I think she'd change her tune real quick," Stella ranted before her honey gold eyes widened. "Oh my god, I've got it. Musa! They'd be so perfect for one another!"
"Musa?" Brandon repeated sceptically.
"Totally. I think they'd make a good couple."
"Yeah, they can be one of those cute couples who look like brother and sister (4)," Brandon spat back sarcastically and Stella's expression turned hard.
"You know what, I should probably get going. I got a paper for Wizgiz due in by the end of the week and I haven't spent much time on if," Stella said with a slightly forced smile. Leaning over, she gave Brandon a quick peck on the cheek before getting to her feet. "I'll call you later?"
"Stell," Brandon tried to stop her but she was already gone, and Brandon started to seethe. There was no paper for Wizgiz, or if there was Stella wouldn't mind ignoring it. When he had arranged for her to come around that afternoon she had assured him that her schedule was completely free and she was up for anything, and now she was dogging him for homework? Nah-uh. She just didn't want to listen to him any more. She never listened to him. "Dammit!"
Riven may be training to be a hero, but he would always be a thief first.
At the age of six he had be forced to survive by picking pockets of unsuspecting individuals and once he had gotten that well mastered, he naturally moved on to other forms of crime, namely breaking and entering. It had started as the typical smash and grab kind of jobs, but then he met a man who had turned his thieving from a random pilfering job to something that was more thought out and professional. Riven was sure that his friends weren't aware of how extensive his career in the world of crime actually was, but the truth of the matter was that Riven had been a part of several large scale operations.
As part of his conditions of his enrolment at Red Fountain, Riven had swore that he would no longer take part in anything illegal, but every now and then, his hands started to itch.
"Dammit!" Riven hissed, throwing the clothes he had in his hands to the ground. He had officially trashed his side of the room he shared with Kane and Bourne, but it had done nothing to relieve the tension that was building up in his body. He had ways to keep his hands busy – biting his nails, fiddling with coins and pens etc. – and right now he was looking for the one thing that always work for him in the past; a typical, ordinary padlock which Riven would challenge his lock picking skills on.
The only trouble was he couldn't find it.
Standing before his torn apart bed with his belongs strewn all around him, Riven crewed on an already painfully short fingernail as he tried to figure out what he was going to do next. He knew what he wanted and finally he gave into it. Pulling open his bottom draw, Riven push a spare pair of jeans aside and found a small, cardboard box that held his addiction in physical form.
With the small box and a lighter shoved in his pocket, Riven left his trashed room and headed for a seclude part of the school that every hero with a smoking habit knew about but the teachers hadn't seemed to have found yet.
Apparently there were habits other than thieving that still made Riven itch.
"Are you feeling okay, man?" Sky asked that night as he watched the squire got through his nightly training routine. Ever since freshmen year, Brandon would throw an extra training session on top of the regular exercise Red Fountain put them through during class in an attempt to give his body a slight advantage. As a result, his side of the room tended to look like a gym instead of a bedroom, and even though his roommates found his extra exercises rather annoy at times – mainly when they were trying to sleep – they also found it to a reliable source to gage what kind of a mood Brandon was in.
"Yeah," Brandon answered swiftly. He then twisted his body and threw his right leg upwards into a high kick in the air. As soon as both his feet were back on the ground, he swung around to face the other direction in order to punch at an invisible enemy. "Why?"
"Oh nothing. You just seem a bit on edge tonight," Sky commented as his best friend continued to throw himself around the room in what looked like a strange combination of martial arts and ballet.
"I'm fine," Brandon assured his, swinging one of his legs around again. This time, however, he misjudged his distance between him and his bedside table and managed to knock all his belongs that were sitting on it to the floor. "Dammit!"
"Calm down. I'm sure everything's fine," Sky said, joining Brandon's efforts to clean up the mess. "After all, I've seen you knock your alarm clock to the ground countless times and it still works."
Brandon didn't say anything as he continued to pick up his belongings including a holographic picture of him and Stella. The picture had retracted itself back into its frame and even when Brandon shook it a few times, he couldn't get it to come out again. Losing patience with it, the squire threw it in the direction of their dorm bin, but only succeeded in hitting the wall next to the bin. "The hologram chip's busted."
Timmy looked away from his computer screen to glance between the squire and the broken holographic photo frame that now lay on the floor next to their bin. "Hologram chips can be easily replaced, you know?"
"Are you sure you're okay?" Sky asked, examining his friend closely.
"Yes, now stop asking me that!" Brandon ordered sharply and after years of knowing the squire, Sky could recognize that this was going to be one of those times when Brandon was going to be moody until he was ready to talk about it, and trying to pressure him into opening up before then would result in an even worse mood.
"Well, if you're sure about that, I'm gonna go have a shower."
"Go ahead. I'm not stopping you," Brandon said, starting his bizarre fitness routine again. Silence filled the room as Sky left and Brandon continued to jump around. Timmy returned his attention back to his computer screen, but when he noticed something irregular, he had to comment on it.
"That's weird. Tecna's blocking my IM," Timmy noted out loud before leaning back in his chair. "She must be studying really hard."
"That or she's just being a girl, Timmy," Brandon told his friend. "Shaking things up. Acting like she's too busy for ya. All just to keep the upper hand and make you give chase."
Timmy suddenly was pretty sure he knew why the Eraklyain was in such a foul mood. "Tecna and I don't play mind games like that. That's not that kind of relationship we have."
"Right, and just out of curiosity, what is your relationship with Tecna exactly?" Brandon asked, stopping his training session to give his friend his full attention.
"We're friends, I guess," Timmy said bashfully, a little embarrassed at how Brandon had just put him on the spot like that. "I mean, we never really slapped a label on it."
"That's my point Timster. You might want to take it to the next level, man. Crank it up," Brandon suggested. After all, if Timmy didn't make a move soon, Stella might arrange to set Tecna up with someone else like she wanted to do with Musa.
Timmy knew that he'd like to take it to the next level with Tecna, but what he didn't know was how to go about doing that. "How does one crank it up exactly?"
"Start by surprising her with a little gift or something," Brandon advised, since the universe was full of material girls. Leaning forward, Brandon proceeded to whisper in Timmy's ear as if he was sharing a big secret. "I hear girls like flowers."
"Flowers?" Timmy repeated as Brandon moved off to try and find the water bottle he had thrown under his bed that afternoon.
"They grow in fields."
"I know what they are," Timmy said sharply. He wasn't an idiot, after all, but he still filed away Brandon's suggestion to use on a later date. Right now, however, Timmy had to focus on another bit of information he had picked up on during the conversation, and this had nothing to do with how to court a girl. "So, what's Stella done to put you in this mood?"
"Huh?" Brandon feigned stupidity.
"Well, Stella came over today and now you're in a feral mood bitching about the mind games girls play. It doesn't take much to put two and two together."
"I wasn't bitching," Brandon said, folding his arms across his chest and glaring at his friend, but Timmy's calm, patience face stared right back at him and it quickly caused Brandon's façade to crumble. "She just so . . . argh, I don't know a word to describe it. I'm too irritated to think. She's always right and always knows best – even when she's wrong – which is why she thinks she has the right to dictate other peoples lives and they'll be grateful for it."
"Is this your life or someone else's that we're talking about?" Timmy asked, trying to get Brandon to talk about what was bothering him.
"It's both. I mean, more than half the stuff I use on a daily basis to keep clean is stuff she told me to use. My deodorant, my toothpaste, my shampoo and conditioner, my body wash for crying out loud! It's all stuff she brought for me! It's ridiculous! She's almost as bad as Amentia only she's not as up front about! It's all subtle manipulation and I'm sick of it! Why is it that every time a girl finds a guy she really likes she's got to go out of her way to change him? It just doesn't make sense! And now she wants to set Musa up with Jared because she doesn't think Riven's worthy of her! Isn't that just absurd?"
"Well, um, not really," Timmy said quietly. "She's only looking out for her friend and even you've said yourself that Riven was a jerk to Musa last year so I can see her point."
"See her point? The only point is that Stella's a self-centred, spoiled princess who can't tell the difference between her friends and the dolls she used to play with as a child!" Brandon spat heatedly.
Timmy's eyes widened at Brandon's outburst. "Whoa. That's a bit harsh coming from her boyfriend. You still wonna be her boyfriend, right?"
"I dunno. I guess," Brandon said with a heavy sigh. "It's just sometimes I feel as if she doesn't listen to a word I say or that she even takes me seriously. I bet she didn't treat her other boyfriends like this. You know; the ones that weren't commoners."
"Stella's not like that. She doesn't care that you a squire."
"Yeah, I know she's said that tons of time and yet she never listens to me. Oh, why does she have to be a pain all the time?"
"Because she's a woman," Timmy reminded him jestingly in an attempt to lighten the mood. "But is she seriously going to set Musa up with Jared?"
"She was thinking about it, but I don't think Musa would go for it at all, do you?"
"I don't think so," Timmy agreed. "Musa may deny it, but I'm pretty certain that she maintained her crush on Riven all last year, including the time when he was with Darcy, and if she can still like him after that I can't see why she would suddenly change her mind now when he's starting to clean up his act. And at the same time, Stella might not try anything. She knows you're not keen on the idea, so maybe she'll drop it. I mean, you're her boyfriend. She loves you."
"Yeah, I know," Brandon muttered, sinking down onto his bed. "Maybe you're right, Timmy. Maybe she won't try anything."
A few days later, Jared received a phone call from a certain Princess of Solaria who wished to discuss the possibility of arranging a date with him and one of her friends.
Helia stretched out his body until he felt his back crack and then return to his previous position of being slouched against pillar with his sketch pad propped on his legs like it would if it was on an easel. Push a strand of hair out of his eyes, Helia lowered the pencil he had gripped in his hand down to the pad and lifted his eyes to the scenery that was before him. A forest stretching as far as the eye could see, and it was all lit by the morning sunrise while the large, clear water of Lake Crysalous sparkled brightly. It was a kind of beauty that only nature could create and it made Helia's poet heart ache.
If it was one thing Ossacip School of Art in the Realm of Vallisto didn't have, it was surroundings like this.
Smiling gently to himself, Helia placed the tip of his pencil to his pad . . .
. . . and then quickly took it way again when a certain voice reached his ears. Holding his pad close to his chest, Helia pressed himself hard up against the pillar, trying to make himself as small as possible as the group of his classmates passed by.
"Father says that the new villa is even grander than our last one," Justin was saying to his lacrosse team-mates as they walked by. Justin was the only son of a very powerful and wealthy duke, something that Justin thought instantly made him better than anyone else. There were some boys at Red Fountain that Justin respected as equals – only those with rank – but he was a complete ass to everyone else. Helia had been spared slightly from any open taunting from Justin and his goons thanks to his relation to Saladin, but he still didn't like nor feel completely accepted by Justin and his crew. Helia knew that they thought he was weak due to his love of art and his views on pacifism, and it was only a matter of time before they came right out and said so, which is why Helia avoided them whenever he could. Plus, he didn't exactly like Justin's arrogant attitude. "It was dreadfully expensive, but I think that our skiing holidays will be greatly improved with the inclusion of the extra sauna and spa. After all, I am not a fan of sharing."
"I hear you, mate," Marcus, a skinny, little, rat-faced looking teen agreed. His family wasn't as rich or as powerful as Justin's, but what he lacked in wealth he made up for with a wicked mind and a callous nature. "Which is why I think we need to hunt down that freshmen who tried sitting at our table this morning. Make an example out of him."
"I agree," Justin nodded. "I've seen that kid around. He looks up to that so called prince, Sky, and the last thing we need is another person like him walking around."
"An' I saw him takin' to that Helia guy," Rowan – a living example of the expression 'all brawn and no brains' – informed them.
"Are you kidding me?" Marcus sneered in disgust. "Man, this kid's asking for it."
"This whole school's asking for it," Justin said. "This place has really gone down hill since the days when may father used to go here. Pacifism. What a joke. I mean, who does that poof think he's fooling? He'll never be a hero."
"Yeah. Now let's go find that freshmen," Marcus suggested with a wicked grin.
It was only after the group had left that Helia released the breath he hasn't even been aware that he was holding. Unfolding himself, Helia glanced in the direction the lacrosse team had just gone and then stared out at the scenery, this time without a smile on his face.
If it was one thing Ossacip School of Art in the Realm of Vallisto didn't have, it was jerks who made you feel like crap even when they weren't aware of it like Justin.
Timmy was willing to admit that he was not the most confident person around when it came to talking with girls. Despite his close friendship with Brandon, Timmy had failed to develop any skill when it came to making casual conversation or flirting with girls. Hell, he still had trouble with stopping the palms of his hands from sweating
And this incompetence all made painfully clear to Timmy as he sat with Tecna at outdoor café in Magix.
"It quite startling just how much harder this years curriculum is compared to last year," Tecna was saying as Timmy racked his brain for some kind of link between the conversation they were having and the conversation he wanted them to be having. "And it all has to be so precise. Like if you get one syllable wrong it completely changes the spell."
"Yeah, I remember what it was last year like when I first return to Red Fountain after summer break. We had gone from basics in combat and battle tactics to advance strategy in the space of one summer. I mean, I know your subjects are different to ours and all . . . Not that I'm saying that they're not as hard. Or harder. You know, they're . . . they have their own . . . I'm rambling here," Timmy confessed, his stomach churning.
"I've noticed," Tecna said with an encouraging smile.
"Sorry."
"It's alright."
Timmy let out a deep breath and dug his hand into his pocket. "I've been er, think a lot lately Tec and er, I think your computer needs a new heat sync."
"Oh, you got me a present," Tecna noted with a somewhat forced smile. Timmy couldn't help but notice a small glint of disappointment in Tecna's turquoise eyes as she accepted his gift off of him. "Thanks."
"All the latest upgrades are installed so just pop it in and you're good to go," Timmy said in an attempt to talk up his gift, but Tenca's expression didn't change and the tone of her voice didn't put Timmy's mind at ease.
"It's really very nice Timmy."
"Wonna go hook it up?"
"This version isn't compatible with my new OS," Tecna confessed to him with the same kind of trepidation people get when they have to remove a band-aid. "I'm sorry about that."
"Oh," was all Timmy could come up with for a reply. He should have gone with Brandon's suggestion of flowers. His mind going a mile a minute, Timmy tried desperately to think of a way to salvage this conversation.
'This is ridiculous,' Timmy thought heatedly to himself. 'Just do it already.'
"Speaking of compatibility," Timmy started as soon as he had worked up the nerve and Tecna expression instantly changed. Her eyes lit up and her face brightened with undeniable eagerness.
"Yes?" Tecna asked hopefully.
In the face of all that expectation, Timmy hesitated and lost his nerve. "Guess who managed to download song files to his Portable Heroes Assistant?"
Tecna's face fell and without any prior warning she slide out of her seat and got to her feet. "Listen Timmy, sometimes I get a little tired of talking about our computers all the time. Why don't you give me a call when you feel like talking about us?"
"Well . . . I . . ." Timmy stuttered, but she was gone well before he could construct a sentence to try and make her stay. "Oh . . . shit!"
"So, how is it?"
Helia sighed as he contemplated the best way to answer the question that had been put to him. He was on the phone to his old roommate from Ossacip, Vincent (5). "It's different."
"You sound thrilled," Vincent noted sarcastically. "I honestly don't know why you decided to transfer there. I've heard of the reputation of the boys from Red Fountain and frankly everything I've heard describes them as being rather brutish. Honorable, but brutish."
"They are, but there are some aspects of the school that I quite enjoy," Helia said.
"Yeah? Like what?"
'Alfea,' Helia answered in his mind before he answered out loud, "The tactics and strategy classes are very interesting. I never realized just how much thought goes into the mission of theirs."
"Sounds exhilarating," Vincent said in a dead panned tone of voice. "Listen, I've gotta go, but I'll talk to you later, okay? Or you could always come to your senses and come back to Ossacip where you belong."
"Good-bye, Vincent," Helia finalized the conversation.
"Have fun playing solider," Vincent teased before hanging up the phone.
After he had hung up with Vincent, Helia tried to pass the time by tuning up a poem he had been working on for the last few days, but no matter how captivating the subject of the poem might have been to him, Helia couldn't seem to get himself to concentrate. He shifted his attention to a sketch he had started the day before, but he had even less luck at focusing on the sketch as he did with the poem. Finally, giving up on everything, Helia fell back into his last resort for whenever he felt stressed or unfocused; mediation. But even then, Helia found it impossible to slip down into the peaceful, trance-like state required during meditation due to one thought that kept going through his mind.
Helia was homesick. It had started the morning before when he had overhead Justin and his goons talking, and since then their words had repeated themselves around Helia's head until it got to the point where he could no longer deny the fact that he did not fit in here at Red Fountain. His hobbies and his beliefs just weren't as common as they were at Ossacip and because of that Helia felt alienated from the rest of the boys here, which in turn led to him feeling lonely. He had called Vincent in an effort to ward off the loneliness, but in the end it had only increased it. And what Vincent had said hadn't helped in the slightest.
Come to your senses and come back to Ossacip where you belong . . .
Once again, Helia found himself questioning why he had even come to Red Fountain in the first place.
Suddenly, Helia sensed something pass over him and he heard something stirring just outside his open window which forced him to open his eyes sharply and what he saw made his eyes widen. "Huh? Whoa."
Sitting on his windowsill in a place that had been empty a few minutes ago was a small, white plant. As Helia got to his feet and moved over to observer it close, the little plant started to grow at an unnaturally rapid pace until it reached the height of a fully grown plant. Its white flowers were rather pretty to look at, but it was their scent that caught Helia's attention. It was a soft yet enchanting smell that reminded Helia very much of the scent of jasmine, and one whiff of it was enough to put – as he had already written in the poem he had been working on – Helia's troubled mind at ease.
"Nice," Helia said, smiling to himself. There was only on fairy who could produce such a breathtaking plant, and as he looked off into the distance, he could see a tiny, pink speck disappearing towards Alfea.
(1) I can't remember when or where I heard this, but it kinda makes sense. It's just one of those random facts I've picked up somewhere in my travels
(2) This is true. A chef who I used to work with (who I based the Red Fountain chef Jacob off)told me that's food's mostly a state of mind as he showed me when he feed two girls rabbit, telling them it was chicken. They asked for seconds
(3) The Sunrise breakfast crew on Channel 7 is my personal hate. They drive me nuts with they're false cheerfulness. No one's that bubbly that early in the morning! But the most annoying thing of all is that they have the best condensed news, sport and weather every half hour so I watch it, physically cringing at the annoying, fake chatter that they always do between sport and weather. Oh how I hate them
(4) I've seen one of those couples that look like they could be brother and sister. It was one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen. I wonder if they're still together?
(5) Helia's old roommate is named after Vincent Van Gogh and the only reason he's even mention in this story is because Helia needed a link back to his old school to get homesick about. So say hello to Vincent and then say goodbye . . . possibly forever
I dunno why, but I just can't write decent Timmy-centred scenes. I just can't get in his head as well as I can the others. And it doesn't help that 4kids doesn't give him anything interesting to deal with until the third season when Tecna gets lost in the Omega Denison. I'm trying, but . . . I dunno
TBC.