Sour Candy Kisses

The Red-Rose Tyrant 7-8

Cater eased and moved back, trey moved backwards aswell “ha! Sorry! I can get a little extra sometimes. What were we talking about… the dorms, yeah?” cater clapped his hands together “ah, what fun to new students! Go ahead, A-M-A.” 

“As cater mentioned earlier, the dorms of this school are themed after the great seven. We have our dorm, Heartslabyul, modeled after the strictness of the queen of hearts. To run down the rest of them for you, we have… savanaclaw, based on the persistent spirit of the king of beasts. Octavinelle, based on the benevolent heart of the sea witch. Scarabia, based on the mindful personality of the sorcerer of the sands. Pomefiore, based on the tenacity of the fairest queen. Ignihyde, based on the diligence of the king of the underworld. And finally Diasomnia, based on the noble spirit of the thorn fairy.” trey informed, I huffed “that’s a lot to take in.” grim nodded “all those names are way too long! How’s anyone supposed to remember ‘em?” 

“Ah ha ha! Well, you get the idea. Want to or not, you’ll learn them soon enough.” cater shrugged us off “at orientation, the dark mirror picks a dorm for you based on the essence of your being. As a result, each dorm ends up with a distinct sort of…flavor, we’ll call it.” trey slightly trailed off

“That is sooo true. I totes see it” cater smiled, deuce hummed “flavor,’ huh…?” trey looked around “for example, look at that guy.” he pointed at a wolf beastman, he has tan skin and whitish gray hair, he was large and musciluar “muscly dog man, sure why not.” I laughed trey tapped on my arm with a smirk “that rough-and-tumble vibe he’s got had savanaclaw house written all over it”

Cater nodded “no doubt. That dorm is full of scrappy guys who are into, like, working out and fighting. How should I describe the vibe…? Macho dudes? Gruff big brothers? Something along those lines. The black and gold armband is anothe giveaway.” 

Grim jumped up into my lap “huh. All right, so what about that guy with the grey and purple cord wrapped around his arm?” grim pointed at a boy with silver hair, pale skin, a mole on his face and glasses wait isn’t that Azul, the prefect of- “he’s gotta be from octavinelle” trey stated before pointing at another table this time at two different students one has white hair and tan skin the other had tan skin and long brown hair with braids and beads “and the student sitting at the table in front of him had red and gold armband—scarabia colors.” cater nodded “those dorms are for smart students. They’re always neck-and-neck in the academic rankings. Ah, but the current housewarden of scarabia doesn’t seem to be all that great of a student…” 

Ace let out a loud groan “and here cater goes off on some tangent.” Trey laughed, “Ha. you learn fast. Let’s get back on topic. You see the flashy one with the purple and red armband? Those are pomefiore colors.” I looked towards where Trey was pointed and I saw two boys, one had a fedora with a feather on it, he had a blonde bob and the other had short pinkish purple hair “whoa! The girl with the potion books, I really like her!” grim stated proudly “what’s she doing in a boys’ school?!” Ace groaned “you two are such morons. Therea aren’t girls officially enrolled here.there aren’t girls officially enrolled here.” 

“WHAAAT?!” grim and deuce yelled I snapped my head back towards the pomefiore and saw the feminine boy looking back at us with a confused look and I mouthed ‘i’m sorry’ his face scrunched with confusion before mouthing back ‘its okay’ and looking back at the blonde boy and shrugged “speaking of girls, there’s a portrait in the west hall who’s a real beauty. Named rosaria. If you’d like to meet her, I'd be happy to introduce you. Maybe we can set something up?”

Ace stiffened “a painting? Hard pass! I don’t care how cute she is if she’s two-dimensional!” cater sighed “come on, man. Who cares how many dimensions she’s got! Anyway, they take vanity pretty seriously at pomefiore. It’s basically a dorm full of models. Their housewarden has five million followers of magicam.” cater informed me. 

“Hey now, they’re not all just pretty faces. Students at pomefiore are among the best at potions and casting curses.” trey informed “heh heh. True dat. Next, we have ignihyde… their armbands are blue and black, but I don’t see any around here. They tend not to be the most outgoing of students. Even I don’t have a single friend from that dorm. They’re kind of polar opposite of us sunny, fun-loving heartslabyul.” cater stated.

Grim tought for a second before “so they’re gloomy and miserable?” I burst into laughter, trey put a hand on my shoulder causing me to stop “hey, no need to put it like that! They just have a reputation for being quiet and serious, is all. That dorm tends to attract magical-energy engineers and students who are good with tech." Deuce paused before speaking “and that just leaves… Diahonyalara, was it?” 

“Deuce no-” I went into a giggle fit “you were off to a good start, and then you rammed right into the guardrails. It’s ‘diasomnia.’” ace informed deuce “I know that! I just misspoke, all right?” 

“Diasomnia house is, hm… ah, look over there. Those guys in the special seating area. You can tell from the neon green and black armbands. They’re basically campus celebrities. The vibe they give off makes it real hard for regular schmucks like us to even approach them. And their housewarden is that times a thousand.” I looked at where cater was pointing, there sat a shorter man with black and pink hair and red eyes, a boy with mint green hair and furious eyebrows and finally a boy with loose silver hair, he looked tired. 

“There’s a little kid in that group!” ace stated, a kid? Where? “Ah, we do get some child prodigies here. But that guy there is no kid. He’s a junior like us. Name’s–” 

“Lilia. Lilia vanrouge.” The man with black and pink hair had appeared behind Ace, floating upside down, causing Ace, Trey, Deuce, Cater and Grim to scream, I jumped almost causing me to fall out of my seat. “H-he just teleported!” grim hid in my arms “I understand my apparent age interest you? As this bespecatcled fellow accurately noted despide my fresh-faced, boyish good looks, it would be inaccurate to call me a ‘child’” he snickered. 

“Fresh-faced.’ he says…” trey muttered “you need not gawk at us from afar. You may feel free to speak with us directly. We are schoolmates, are we not? All of us at diasomnia house welcome you without reservation.” Lilla had appeared behind me and put a hand on my shoulder “and yet, those guys over there aren’t exactly rolling out the red carpet in terms of apprachability..” deuce stated with worry 

I heard lilia sigh, his head near mine, I knew if I turned to look at him, our faces would touch, it was smarter not to look at him, lilia chuckled “forgive me for appearing above you during your meal. I do hope we can speak again.” lilia then disappeared and reappeared at the diasomnia table 

“Their table had to be over twenty yards away from ours. And they overheard our conversation? That’s WAY creepy!” Ace whispered, Trey hummed “well… diasomnia house does have a bit of a reputation for having lots of special students. Some of them are extremely talented at magic. Their housewarden, malleus draconia, is considered to be one of the five best mages in the world.” 

“Malleus is reeeeeal bad news. Though I suppose the same could be said of our dear housewarden.” cater added “no kidding! He collared me for eating one slice of tart! All his rule obsession is outta control!” behind ace, riddle stood I hadn’t noticed him at first “my ‘rule obsession’ is ‘outta control,’ is it?”

“You bet it is. Riddle’s just a petty tyrant who leans into the whole ‘rules’ schtick as a pretext to keep everyone under his puny thumb” I hit the table, tried to point at riddle, tried to mouth at ace, but he didn’t realize “ace shut the fuck up~” I spoke between my teeth “ace! Behind you!” deuce whisper yelled. Ace finally looked behind him “Bwah?! Housewarden!” I groaned