The Eye of Elicion: The Kinowenn Chronicles Vol 1 (22 page)

Lucy ran as fast as she could back towards her room. She felt awful. She felt terrible that she has slapped Justin, and she felt terrible for how he had made her feel. She was back in seventh grade all over again. Her lab partner had been nice to her for four days in a row. She didn’t understand why, but she enjoyed it, especially because she had kind of had a crush on him. Then she overheard some people talking and found out he had only been nice to her because another guy had bet him he couldn’t do it. She had let herself be fooled again. She felt humiliated.

She threw open the door to her room, slammed it with her mind, flopped onto her bed, and cried with abandon. Lucy sobbed until all her anger and frustration lay in tears on her pillow. She was missing class, but she didn’t care. Finally, she fell asleep.

When she woke up, she felt groggy, and her eyes were still sore from crying. She washed her face and sat back down on her bed, trying to figure out what to do next. She wondered what the protocol was for skipping class. It was then that she observed the note on her door. It was from Eric, requesting her presence in his room. Lucy sighed. She was not sure she wanted to talk to Eric. Besides which, he probably knew about her yelling at Justin earlier. He would also know she skipped class, which couldn’t be a good thing. She didn’t know how he would know, but she got the impression that not much happened at school that Eric didn’t know about. Determined to at least get some answers, she took a deep breath, opened her door, and started down the hallway to meet Eric.

Lucy’s feet dragged as she walked to Eric’s room. She knocked on the door when she reached it and entered.

“Good afternoon,” Eric greeted her somewhat formally.

“Good afternoon,” Lucy replied stiffly.

“Sit,” Eric motioned towards a chair, and Lucy sat. “You skipped class.”

“Yes.”

“Care to explain why?”

“Not particularly,” she replied hating the way she sounded childish, but she didn’t feel that her emotional upheaval was a valid excuse for skipping class nor worth getting into with someone in a position of power.

“Ok, since this is the first class you have intentionally skipped, I’ll let that go, but impress upon you the importance of attending class. Should you skip class again, there will be consequences.”

Lucy nodded. She did not intend to make of habit of skipping classes.

“Good. Now, let’s talk about Justin.”

“Must we?” Lucy asked with a pained expression on her face.

“We must. Your anger is misplaced. Justin was keeping a few things quiet because I asked him to. He wasn’t sure how much he could explain to you. That is not his fault. Perhaps we should have gone about things differently.”

“Perhaps,” Lucy agreed. “It’s always difficult to make that call. I assume you have answers for me then.”

“I have some. Quinn and I talked a few things over and decided we would like a group of students with compatible and varied skills to be able to send out on certain assignments. I know that sounds interesting and you’d like more information, but I’m not going to give that to you. We started with Justin for a variety of reasons, which you may learn later. He has been involved in creating a group. Also, there is a tendency of people who are very good at things to gravitate towards others who are good at things for a challenge if nothing else. We watch for people who might work well with other people. Not everyone works well with others. We’d like the group to be ready as soon as possible, and you seemed the ideal to throw into the mix.”

“Why me?”

“First of all, you are powerful and have a lot of potential. We do some research on all applicants. You show a tendency to learn quickly and become bored if you are not challenged. You tend to work alone not so much from preference but in an attempt to avoid the gross stupidity of your average peer group. Arranging the correct peer group could do you and the group a lot of good. So, yes, we asked Justin to meet you and to feel out if you might work well with them.”

“So they are using me,” said Lucy, not sure if she should be flattered or angry.

“You could see it that way,” Eric allowed. “However, if you look at it that way, you could also say that you are using them. By training with the best we have, even though they are not in your daily classes you challenge yourself, learn more, and advance beyond your peer group. Without Gavin, your battle skills would not be nearly as good. Maya and Justin helped you study for your potions exam, a class you would still be taking if we hadn’t made allowances for you. Not to mention, we’ve had to call in special tutors just for Maya as she acquires languages. No one could be a better tutor for you as you start to learn languages. As I said before, you have power and learn quicker than most. If you hadn’t had someone to help you control it and challenge you, you might have become bored and done who knows what to whom at this point. Not every student shoots fire out of their hands when they get scared,” he smiled. “Justin provided that help. We were afraid you would become a hermit, intent on study. We chose to try to give you a group to study with. Also, you all seemed to get along. Another thing to point out is that it was and still is your choice to spend time with them. We require our students to go to class, but you can spend your free time with whomever you choose. You could have spent more time with your other classmates. You choose to spend time with these people, seek them out, and challenge yourself.”

“Why not tell me all this to begin with?”

“A valid question, but one with inherent flaws. We needed to see how you did. We could guess, but we could not know how fast you would learn or if you would be as good as we thought. You seemed pleasant enough when I met you, but that did not mean you would get along with Justin, Maya, and Gavin. Not to mention, our brief research into your history implied you deplored group assignments, especially ones where the teachers picked who you had to work with. You would have rebelled if I had made you do it. Justin has a certain charm about him. We thought you might respond better to that.”

“I guess I shouldn’t be mad at him then.”

“No.”

“Why this group competition then? You had to know that I would wonder what was going on.”

“Justin implied that same thing, minutes after the message was sent,” Eric mused. “No, I did not think you would get as angry as you did. Another professor suggested the team competition. They thought it might be fun. Quinn and I thought it would be a good chance to see how well groups could work together and how well our somewhat selected group compared and was progressing. Your group is the trial run. We have not done this before. Generally we do not do a lot of group work, and we thought the competition might be fun. There are single competitions for students to enter such as the archery challenge once a year or Orin’s day of physical endurance. No one is forced to participate in this competition, and it should be fun to watch.”

“Wow, I kind of feel like an idiot now.”

“Don’t worry about it. Justin and I are the only ones who know about your outburst. Which brings up another item we need to discuss.”

“I slapped Justin?”

“You slapped Justin.”

“I suppose there is a consequence?”

“We generally frown on our students physically abusing each other outside of training.”

“Understandable,” Lucy couldn’t disagree. She could have stuck to verbal arguments. She deserved to be punished.

“Under the circumstances, I’ll let it go, but it will not be accepted again.”

“Let it go?”

“Passions and feelings, can give us strength, but they can wreck havoc if they are not controlled. You need to learn when it is unacceptable to let your passions get the better of you. Also, we need to work on your reflexes.”

“My reflexes?”

“All this training, and you slapped him?” Eric quirked an eyebrow. “I’m not sure if I would have felt better or worse if you had tried to incinerate him with a bolt of lightning.”

“I did less harm this way,” said Lucy, glad she had not tried to incinerate him.

“True, but in my experience, women generally tend to slap when they feel personally betrayed. Had a random student slapped your derrière, you would probably have decked him over the head with the nearest chair. Your reaction was not impersonal.”

“We are friends,” said Lucy defensively.

“Precisely, but if the argument had been with Maya, you most likely would not have slapped her.”

“I guess not.”

“I don’t think you would have slapped Gavin either. Foolishly challenged him to a battle at dawn maybe, but not slapped him.”

“Partially true, but I might have an advantage with the early challenge, I’m not sure Gavin believe that dawn exists.”

They both smiled at the thought of Gavin getting up to fight at dawn.

“My point is, like him, don’t like him, sleep with him if you want to, I don’t care, but try to always be able to work with him. You seem to do well together, and I’d rather not have to replace either one of you nor have the school torn apart if you start launching boulders at each other.”

Lucy blushed but nodded. “I owe him an apology.”

“Yes. Now, I know you’d like to ask more questions, but for now know that there is a purpose, more answers will be coming, and we are impressed with your progress. Now, go eat lunch and make it to your next class.”

“Thank you.” Lucy got up and moved to the door.

“One more thing,” he added, and Lucy turned. “Good luck in the team competition. I expect your team to win by a fair margin,” he smiled.

Lucy smiled back and left.

Eric had given her a lot to think about. She was hungry, having skipped breakfast, but she wasn’t sure she could get through the rest of the day without apologizing to Justin, and she didn’t want to do that in a crowded Dining Hall with Maya and Gavin listening in.

“
Justin?”
she called tentatively.

“
Yes?”
he replied just as tentatively.

“
Could you meet me at the practice ground again? I promise not to get violent.”

“
I’ll be right there.”

Lucy didn’t sound angry, but he still had no idea what to expect from a confrontation. Nor did he have any idea what Eric may or may not have told her, which put him at a distinct disadvantage. She was sitting on the wooden fence surrounding the practice yard facing away from him. He climbed over and sat beside her, holding out a bulging napkin.

“What’s this?” she asked curiously.

“Food. You didn’t eat breakfast and you might not have time for lunch so I brought you some bread, cheese, and an apple. Not much, but enough to make it to dinner.”

“Thank you,” Lucy replied taking the package without looking at him. She didn’t want to see the mark she may have left on his face, although he had probably healed it by now. She took a bit of the bread and chewed.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Don’t worry about it,” he waved it off, slightly uncomfortable, but trying to appear nonchalant.

“Are we ok then?” she asked.

“That’s hard to say, considering you won’t even look at me,” Justin said lightly.

Lucy looked at him, her blue eyes full of confusion, embarrassment, and hurt. She tried a half smile. Justin didn’t want things to be like this so he did the only thing he could think of. He pushed her off the fence. Lucy gasped as she tumbled to the ground, landing in the dust.

“Thanks a lot,” she intoned, making a motion with her hand that bucked him off the fence to land beside her.

“See, your reflexes are getting better already,” he teased, and she laughed.

“So good that you’ll still allow me to be the fourth person on your team?”

“Of course. We’ll all have to practice to be ready, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“I suppose Gavin is excited,” said Lucy.

“You have no idea. Maya kept teasing him that he would not have time to eat enough to make it to the next meal if he didn’t stop talking.”

“Did it work?” asked Lucy, laughing.

“Not really. It only encouraged him to talk with his mouth full.” Lucy laughed even harder. “He’s already talking strategy and extra weapons practice.”

“As long as there is not a group archery part, I think we’ll do fine,” said Lucy.

“So, I can write the four of us up and submit us?” asked Justin getting up.

“Yes,” Lucy replied, still on the ground.

“Good, because I already did,” he said with a smile that quickly turned into a grunt as Lucy swept his legs out from under him and he landed in the dust again.

“Of course you did.”

“I was counting on your reflexes getting better,” he teased, and they both laughed.

“Let’s get to class,” said Lucy getting up and holding out her hand to help him up.

Classes went well, and at dinner, Lucy got to witness Gavin’s excitement. They spent the evening thinking up what the challenges might be and what kinds of things they should work on to be ready for them. They wondered if there would be restrictions on magic or consequences. Maya was going to check the library to see if there had ever been an event like this before and what that had entailed. Gavin was insisting on extra weapons practice. Justin was researching group spells. Maya was insisting they work on their potions skills. If she woke up one morning poisoned, they couldn’t expect her to walk them through how to save her. Justin thought they should all work on healing skills for the same reason. He was also trying to think up any possible injury that could occur to see if he imagined up anything he didn’t know how to heal. Lucy’s only input was to agree to learn anything they wanted her to. All in all, an enjoyable evening with Maya and Gavin none the wiser of her and Justin’s earlier debacle.

Justin walked her to her room as they practiced magically juggling balls of water. If nothing else, it helped hand eye coordination. He wished her goodnight and left for his own bedroom. Lucy closed her door and found the second announcement of the day lying on her bed.

The team competition will culminate in a formal dinner and dance. You are required to wear the dress and follow the formalities of your chosen world and will be judged on such. If you do not have a world, choose one for the evening and dress accordingly, or choose a dress style you like and learn enough about the world to get by. You are not required to attend the function as a group. If you wish you may attend with another student as your date, however you must still dress according to your chosen world of study. We hope you will enjoy this event.