Skulduggery – Crow
Anton – Bear
Ghastly – Panda
Dexter – Wolf
Saracen – Weasel
Erskine – Snake
Solomon – Raven
Chapter 78
The door to the classroom opened and they all trailed in without comment. Valkyrie glanced down the corridor before she went in, but Raven was already gone. She looked around the room as everyone else sat down and found a seat in the middle that had no person in it, the only chair free. Moving carefully around the desks, she sat down.
The classroom was designed to be somewhat spacious, so the desks were large and each had two chairs so everyone had a buddy. Valkyrie's buddy was a girl, someone she hadn't met before, and was tapping her finger on her lap irritably. She was glaring at the front of the room. Valkyrie gently put her books on the table, thankful that everyone else had the same and she hadn't messed up somehow and got out her pen from her pocket. The teacher, a very elderly man with wisps of white hair and a dark, heavy robe around his shoulders, looked over them condescendingly.
"Who has finished 'The Intimacy of Living' by Fang Swollen?" He asked in a croaking, slow voice.
The class raised their hands quickly, and Valkyrie followed suit.
"Good," he crooned. "Chapter thirty-two, page three-hundred and eighteen. 'The soul is irrelevant to the bodies ability to move'. Who here can tell me how that is correct?"
All the hands went back up, but Valkyrie's didn't. She was halfway to putting her hand up when he put his small, milky eyes on her.
"You." He asked, pointing a very wrinkled, pale finger at her. "Tell me, how is Swollen correct?"
Firstly, he has a stupid name, Valkyrie thought. "His theory is based on the idea the soul and body are separate, which is a concept not yet proven. We can't know for sure either way if he is correct because we don't know enough about the soul within the body."
He smiled meanly. "Theory? Miss Cain, Cleric Swollen is one of the most respected Necromancers in our culture."
"That doesn't make him right. He might be, but we can't be certain until we know how the soul and body are connected."
He smiled a little meaner. "Do not talk back to me, Miss Cain. No, Cleric Swollen is correct because when a person dies, they lose life. When life is lost, as is the soul. The soul has to be irrelevant to the body's ability to move because if was not, the body would not be able to do what?"
Hands went back up, and he picked another. "Miss St. Clair?"
"The body would not be able to come back as a zombie if it was not able to act without a soul, sir," Melancholia St. Clair said. Valkyrie knew her and didn't like her that much. She was fun to wind up.
"Correct. Students, without a soul, a body can still move. It can be possessed, it can grow, it can have conscious thought. But it is not alive. For instances, a zombie. It no longer has a life, so it no longer has a soul. But it can move. Another example."
Valkyrie raised her hand. He picked her. "A reflection?"
"Are you asking me, or telling me?"
"I'm asking. It was not born and never had a soul, but it can be possessed, it can turn into a vampire, it can become a zombie, and it can move all on its own. But I wonder since it never had a soul to begin with, can it be considered a human body or is it still an image?"
He looked at her for a long time, considering her more so than the question. "It is not a human, so it is not a true body."
"So if it isn't a true body, why is it moving?"
"Please do not try and poke a hole in–"
"I'm not," she said and quickly added "sir" when he glared. "I'm just curious. If it isn't a body, and is just a reflection, an object, then how come it can move?"
"It is made of magic, Miss Cain."
"So is Skulduggery Pleasant, but it is agreed that he is kept animated by the presence of his soul. Without that, he'd fall apart. He's kept together because he has a soul. But you can take his soul away and he'll fall apart and not move. Assuming that theory is, again, correct."
"Yes, assuming so," he said slowly.
"So his magic has nothing to do with his ability to move or anything else for that matter, you can take it away and he's fine, but not so with his soul. The same surely wouldn't be so for a reflection. So how come it can move if you put magic binding shackles on them? Surely it should fall to the floor if the thing making it animated, like Skulduggery's soul, is taken away?"
"If you remain after class I will explain how a reflection works, Miss Cain," he said with narrowed eyes. "However, this class is not a seminar. It is a lecture. I wish now to go back to my original question of asking for another example of how a soul does not make a human, lifeless body move?"
.*****.
Lunchtime felt like a lifetime away in Mentor Baniti's classroom, and when she finally could leave, she packed up slowly to see if he really did try to tell her how a reflection was kept animated. He left before the whole of the class had fully packed away.
She sighed in her head and got her stuff together, pocketing that pen before she lost it, and followed the quiet group to the Dining Hall which she had been in before but only in the high ranking tables as Raven's apprentice since he was a Cleric and so allowed all those high table privileges. Now she was a mere, boring student and had to sit on the student table, right in the middle as her class was a middle-ageing compared to the other classes. The elder students were further to the right, the younger ones to the left. A seat had been left between each class, and Valkyrie escaped being left out of the table altogether by being fast enough to sit down.
She had sat at the very right of the class, which continued to ignore her in union, and looked over at the elder class. A red headed girl was already smiling at her over the chair between them.
"Hey," she said quietly, getting glared at by her classmates. She didn't seem to care. "You're Valkyrie Cain, right?"
"I am," she nodded. "It's nice to meet you."
She laughed softly. "And yourself. My name's Militsa Gnosis. I've seen you sitting way over there a few times."
She was pointing to Raven's spot on the high table, only a few seats from the middle where the High Priest and his three High Clerics would usually sit. They weren't there that day. They usually only ate breakfast with everyone, Raven had told her, and would have meals brought to them at other times. "Yes, I have," Valkyrie said. "I'm good friends with Solomon now. I don't think the other Clerics like it when I sit there."
"Why not? Other apprentices do," Militsa questioned.
"It's because I don't stop talking, I think," Valkyrie smiled.
Militsa laughed. "Oh, I'm exactly the same. I've gotten kicked out of the library so many times for talking too much. You'll have to tell me if I start annoying you because if I think I am I'm not going to be able to stop talking, it's like a downward spiral of words for me."
"Don't worry, I can handle it. Say, you don't know if there's a pact saying no one should talk to me, do you?"
She hesitated. "Why'd you say that?"
"Because no one but you has spoken to me and I thought they'd all be telling me to leave by now."
Militsa shook her head. "I wouldn't know. They have the same pact for me if they do though. I came here eight years ago and almost no one talks to me still."
"Did you come from Scotland by any chance?"
"Yes. I have a patriotic voice," Militsa grinned. "Oh, it's your turn to get food."
Valkyrie turned and noticed all the food coming her way on bowls. It was being passed down the table quickly, and Valkyrie was quick to grab herself two sandwiches before they were shoved by the girl in front of her down the table, the same happening for Militsa. Both of them came away with just their meagre sandwiches which everyone else had rather high plates of fruits, vegetables and sandwiches that definitely weren't bread and butter like her and Militsa had.
"See?" Militsa said. "They have the same pact against us."
The mood for the day had been set after that, and although she seemed to have found an ally in Militsa, who she saw in the halls between class and sat a table away from in free study period, as well as during dinner, no one else spoke to her and the other teachers didn't so much as let her answer a question. Valkyrie blamed her first teacher of the day for spreading rumours. She'd genuinely had questions!
But, she could put her hand up for everything and pretend she understood like everyone else and it didn't matter if she didn't. No one even looked at her.
By the time it got to the very end of dinner and they had no more classes, she was worn down. She hadn't dared try to talk to someone or show it on the outside, but it was frustrating. At least if they were telling her to leave she'd be able to shout at them. As it was, she was just being left to stew. They were too good at it.
She spent most of the evening going over a book she found in the library. Books weren't her thing, usually, but she knew she wanted to get into being a Necromancer student for a month, so she had taken one out. The others had taken two or more. She barely got more than a few chapters in before she slammed it closed and rubbed her eyes in frustration.
It was only day one, she comforted herself. She didn't have to pass anything but her exams, which she could do. All she had to do was prove she wasn't stupid and she'd be allowed to stay.
She went to sleep with that comfort.
What at utterly boring day. I am assuming you've all read the two most recent books, but in case you haven't, Landy is putting in very obvious hints about Valkyrie and a certain person. I honestly ship it so hard which is why we're here.
And for TheBelowAverageAuthor: I really like the name James for a boy, but I can't see Ghastly liking those girl names. I imagine Tanith liking them though, so they may yet make an appearance ;) Thank you for your suggestions, I will keep them in consideration going forwards, and it's not pretentious, I like having people's opinions. I have some ideas in mind for both, which is in the distant future, unfortunately, but we'll make it work! Thank you very much :)