Breakfast || Variable eleven

The next day, Yew was still lying in bed with his eyes closed, when he heard knocking followed by the sound of a conversation. Someone hurriedly entered the bedroom. Then some force dragged him out of his bed, and threw him across the room at the wardrobe. He hit its doors, then slid to the floor. His eyes sprang wide open.

Linden towered over him with his hands crossed on his chest.

"Don’t sleep in, when you promised to meet with someone, idiot!" he shouted, before he stomped out of the bedroom.

A moment later, a different person walked in.

Eyes wide with astonishment, Spruce looked down at Yew, who looked back with his mouth slightly ajar. He was still confused at what had just happened, and how he suddenly went from sleeping in his bed to sitting on the floor.

Shortly thereafter, they heard a loud bang of the exterior door as Linden left the cottage.

"When I knocked on the door, he was already wearing outdoor shoes," Spruce said. "I think he was planning to go out anyway, so it’s not… our fault," he briefly paused in a futile quest for a better way to phrase it.

Yew slowly came to understand what had happened, and stood up.

Spruce looked at Yew's bed, and said exactly what Yew had assumed, "I think he used magic on you."

Unlike Yew, Linden grew up with a magic-talented mother. So it shouldn't have surprised him, if his roommate knew the spell to throw someone out of bed. He imagined Sorrel Cave using that spell on her son, and instantly his mood got better.

"Are you fine?" Spruce asked, feeling worried about Yew. Watching from the doorway, he had seen Yew fly at a great velocity, before he hit the wardrobe with the force of a cannon ball hitting a fortified wall. "It must have hurt," he added.

"No. I’m okay," Yew responded to both utterances, and he wasn’t lying. He didn’t feel any pain other than mild tingling from yesterday’s punch.

However, it wasn’t manly to cry over spilled milk, so he decided to forget all about it for now. However, in his heart he resolved to secretly learn magic, and return the favor next time, when Linden would use a spell on him.

He walked up to his bed, took out his clothes from the drawers underneath, and changed out of his pajamas.

Spruce suspected that Yew was afraid to admit his wounds to someone, whom he had just met, and thus suppressed his pain. He himself would definitely do so, if he was in Yew's position. However, once he saw how swiftly Yew changed clothes, he finally believed that his schoolmate definitely wasn't hurting.

Only once Yew got fully dressed, he regained clarity of his mind. Linden's arbitrary actions were something, which he started considering normal, but he didn't know what to think of Spruce yet. He looked at his visitor, as if he had been caught talking about him behind his back.

Spruce felt awkward at the stare, so he explained his presence, "I thought we could go around the schoolground today." He was holding the school’s guidebook in his hands, as if it was his most precious possession.

Even though Yew had treated him so coldly the day prior, Spruce had come to his cottage with sparkling eyes and ready for an adventure. Did he fail to understand that Yew didn’t want to be friends? Or was he desperate to make friends?

Spruce looked too optimistic to be desperate, but Yew wouldn't dare to judge anyone by his or her appearance. He himself wouldn't show others what he really felt, and the idea of having no friends poked at his conscience, as he recalled his own experience.

While folding his bedsheets with a precision, which could rival a cat folding freshly laundered clothes, he considered his response. Supposing that it wouldn't hurt to befriend one fellow schoolmate, he agreed, "sure, why not."

With growing joy and anticipation, Spruce asked, "ready to go?"

Yew grabbed his backpack, before he answered, "yeah."

When they were passing by the kitchen, Yew recalled the spaghetti from yesterday, which made him consider his breakfast plans.

"There’s a cafeteria on the schoolground, right?" he asked, even though he already knew the answer. It was one of those things, which he had read about in the introduction pamphlet.

Spruce opened the second page in his guidebook, and unfolded it to reveal a map. All the buildings had names printed on them in a very tiny font - barely readable without a magnifying glass.

He pointed at the building labelled «cafeteria» near the center of the map. "We can go right now," he said eagerly. "I also didn’t eat breakfast yet."

"Let’s go then," Yew affirmed their plans.

They put on their outdoor shoes in the entry room, and left the cottage without locking the door. Spruce, who had already read some of the infos in the guidebook, explained to Yew, that all cottages in Hecate had a charm on them, which kept the doors locked for anyone uninvited. Whereas those, who were allowed to enter, could go in and out anytime.

Naturally, the two residing students were always allowed the access. In addition, the chairman, the vice-chairman, and the most tenured teachers could also enter any cottage. Moreover, if the two students agreed among themselves, they could grant the access to other students of Hecate by writing down their names on the list of guests.

As they walked through the hamlet, Spruce energetically talked about all the things, which he had read in the guidebook.

White pebbles shone in the sun beneath their feet, while sideway flowers and tall grasses occasionally brushed against their pants. The alley wasn't narrow, but it wasn't wide either. It was just the right size for comfortably travelling on foot with gorgeous treetops decorating the sky along the way.

Although all the cottages in the hamlet looked exactly the same, none of them were perfectly aligned. Even when they stood in a row, each cottage was facing a direction several degrees different than its neighbors.

"By the way, how old are you?" Spruce realized that he still didn’t know Yew’s age.

"I’m ten. And you?"

"Nine, so you're a year older."

"Are your parents one of those? You know, the people who want their children to grow up faster?"

"No," Spruce answered. "Actually, my father is against me attending Hecate. He wants me to study in Ares, but I don’t want to. I want to be a wizard. I was so stubborn about it, that he let me come here for one year. And if I get top scores in my class, then I can remain in Hecate until I graduate."

"I see," was all that Yew said in response.

His own circumstances were troubling him enough. He had no capacity to worry about someone else's problems, especially since he didn't understand Spruce's heart. Why would it matter, which school one attended?

"What about you?" Spruce asked. "Why did you come to Hecate?"

"I think that magic seems interesting," Yew lied smoothly, already used to repeating the same phrase. He knew that it could only bring him trouble, if he spoke about his adoption.

"Yeah, me too!" Spruce exclaimed. "There's this something in magic that just makes it so amazing, right? I tried to explain it to my father, but no matter what I said, he wouldn’t understand."

As they were about to exit the hamlet, Yew saw a boy standing on the other side of the road and waving in their direction. He didn’t recognize the boy, so he assumed that the handwave was directed at someone else. Consequently, it startled him, when Spruce reacted.

"Oh?! Aspen!!!" his schoolmate shouted as loud as he could, then ran across the road, which was busy, but not crowded, with school-aged pedestrians.

Aspen wasn’t bony like Yew, nor slender like Spruce. His face was a bit chubby, but it was hard to tell whether he was fat underneath his loose tunic and baggy pants. He had warm brown eyes, and straight hair evenly trimmed around his neck. Under direct sunlight his celeste hair appeared more white than blue.

Something about him reminded Yew of the monks, who sometimes travelled through the village of Catriddle.

While Spruce talked with Aspen, Yew leisurely approached them.

Spruce introduced the boys to each other. "This is Aspen. He’s my roommate. And this is Yew. He’s also magicless, just like me, and he’s our neighbor."

Yew bowed his head a bit, and Aspen bowed back.

"Hey, we’re going to the cafeteria right now, wanna come along?" Spruce asked his roommate.

"Sure, I’m free anyway," Aspen shrugged. He sounded like the type, who was always relaxed and kind to everyone.

"But didn’t you have something to do this morning?"

"My parents asked me to contact them as soon as I got here. I was too tired yesterday, so I did it earlier."

"And everything's fine?"

"Ah, sure," Aspen sounded uninterested, which confused Yew but Spruce didn’t seem to notice. "They’re just worrying a bit too much."

"That makes them great parents!" Spruce exclaimed.

Aspen bent his lips in an attempt to smile, but his eyes showed no joy. "You might be right," he said, but his voice didn't sound honest at all.

They headed toward the cafeteria, while talking about the school and their hamlet. It turned out that their cottages had the same floor plan and the same furnishing. After they moved on to talk about bedrooms, they started arguing over what made a good bed.

While still bickering, they arrived at their goal.

The cafeteria was huge. Yet if it had been any smaller, it wouldn't have been able to serve two thousand students. The two-story building itself was hundred by fifty five meters. It was surrounded by a large plaza-like patio, which was filled with what seemed like an infinite number of tables and chairs occupied by endless crowds of kids and teens.

The bottom one meter of the cafeteria's wall was covered with pearl-like stones. The remaining walls were made of glass, separated by columns made of the same white rock as everything else. While the glass on the first floor was transparent and plain, the glass on the second floor was stained into shapes of flying creatures, such as: phoenixes, pegasi, gryphons, wyverns, and dragons.

"So this is the cafeteria?" Spruce asked the other two, while he checked the map in his guidebook.

"It must be," Aspen replied, and advanced toward the entrance.

Spruce and Yew followed right behind him.