Memories of bloodied thorns

From the ashes

The night air was strangely warm for the cold season in the town of Eldershire. A quick scan of the mid sized village and you would spot the local collage being caught alright, it's flames painting the night sky an ombrey of lightest orange to a deep muddied red.

The town was quick to start rumors the next morning, a crowd had massed around the border of the school boundary. Once the fire was completely quelled, only one body was recovered, blackened and unidentifiable. The village had gone into uproar when the news arrived that it was headmaster Astra, a strong man with firm beliefs and in great physical condition. This man alone was responsible for the future of the students in his care, yet he discards it. No one believed it at first, it wasn't until his missing poster appeared on lights posts did the village finally come to terms with what had happened.

The students and teachers were at a loss, there were on other means to attend or work as they once had. The students seemed to favor the lack of pressure, until the first month passed by. The teachers had kept in contact with one another, trying their best to salvage what leadership they could to a point a new headmaster. After more then one hung vote after another, the headmaster was cast. A kindly old man who had been involved with this school ever since he was young.

With all the commotion of the fire dying down, an offer arrived to the newly appointed headmaster. The offer was for the use of an old mansion in the forested mountains. It was a fair distance from the village, well hidden within the large forest. With little else left for the collage, the headmaster brought forward this information and voted on wether or not the travel time and resources were worth the effort to move into the decaying mansion or not.

The decision was unanimous, the teachers set about emailing the students. Three months after the fire and a semi completed reconstruction of the mansion, the students began their journey to the mansion. The loaded buss traveled along the winding roads, the scenery passed by the windows, a blurred painting of brown, green and the occasional spot of colour from the local flowers.

The bus came to a halt before a pair of gates, they were recently replaced, seeing as they had not a spec of dust or rust on them. Their silver colour sparkled from what sun light peeked through the canopy. The bus came alive with awestruck students, some choosing to poke themselves out of the windows to gain a better view. The driver of the bus left his seat and leafed through a collection of keys attatched to his belt. He left the bus once he had the key he was looking for in his hand, aproched the newly installed gates and unlocked them allowing the bus to pass by the cold glares of the gargoyles perched on top of the brick columns either side of the gates, in fact they garded the whole perimeter every two meters or so.

The bus came to life as the driver took his seat, the gates now wide open for us to pass. The path to the large building was long and speckled with leaves, the trees on the inner parameter formed an arch over the path, high over the bus passing underneath it. The archway soon gave way to the stoic building standing before the aproching students. It was a beautiful building, even as some of it seemed to be encompassed by crawling vines from the ground all the way up to the tiled roof. It's face was white, the tiles on the roof a cool gray, the crawling vines a pop of earthy green.

Waiting at the foot of the stairs leading to the large black double doors of the entrance was a group of uniformed staff. All were varied, some short, some tall, all unified by the same uniform. Both men and women were clad in black suits, green bows or ties tied to their necks.

The bus pulled to a stop in front of the finely dressed group, the students seemed in awe of the building before them, the driver once again leaves his seat after shutting off the engine.

"All right, everybody off." The driver called, the doors of the bus wide open towards the group. Students began to pile out, row by row they left to collect their things from the side of the bus. The last to leave was the school staff, at least five teachers had tagged along. The younger of them was a lovely young woman, golden hair wrapped up in a bun, green eyes searching the building before her.