Scales And Feathers [HIATUS]

CHAPTER 16: RYU PART VIII

My three months were up.

The three months "grace" period that I've been given was at an end, and the day that I proved my worth to the Xandros house was approaching...

No one was happy about it.

Over these past three months I've had to go through the horrible and soon to be regular ordeal of being poisoned with venom two more times.

It was no less excruciating than the first time. I couldn't see how I was supposed to adapt to this kind of torture, so imagine my surprise when I was informed that all the boys present beside myself are dosed with the venom almost every other day. I, on the other hand, turn into a screaming mess even though my dosage is far less at two times a month. The realization wasn't good for my pride, so I was just gonna have to grin and beat it.

Easier said than done.

I'm still slapped around by Aidan on a daily basis though I can sort of fight back now. Notice I said "fight back" and not "win". Far from it, as  a matter of fact. He is still much more faster, stroner and agile than me, hence it always ends in my loss,  but at least I don't lose as badly as I did in the beginning.

In the beginning I never thought I'd say this but... I kind of liked sword fighting. I got the hang of it pretty quickly though I'm still nowhere near a match for Aidan or Andreas or any of the older boys for that matter.

I learned a few more things. Like the fact that Demetrios was mute. This I learned the hard way after making an utter ass of myself by pestering him to answer a question I'd asked him one day.

I also learned why no one likes to bathe at the same time as Markus. I learned this the hard way as well when Markus stepped into the bathing room and all the other boys vacated the calosal bathing pool like ants before a rainstorm leaving me all by my lonesome with the platinum blonde boy who have me the slightest of smirks before stepping into the now empty pool all the way on the other end from me.

The moment his deathly pale skin made contact with the steaming pool, the welcoming warmth of the water disappeared only to be replaced by a blast of cold that was so frigid it ripped a very unmanly scream from my throat. I shot out of the water faster than an arrow from a bow.

When I ran blue lipped, frost bitten and teeth chattering into the changing room where I got knowing and pitiful looks from the others. Needless to say that I learned my lesson from that incident and vacate the pool whenever that pasty devil shows his face in the baths.

I've learned more morbid things as well, like where the bodies of those dead boys go. On that same day that Andreas handed me my ass, he took me along a pitch dark passage underneath the castle that lead to a cliff face behind the castle and a large outcropping of land. Here pale grass swayed in the cold wind, and about a couple dozen swords were standing upright in the ground at evenly spaced intervals. I'd seen something similar to this before so I needn't ask to know that it was a graveyard,  simple and cruder than the one on the island. No blood red flowers adorned these ones,  just the lonely howl of the wind.

"Do try your best not to end up here," he said to me before turning back and walking right back into the passage, seemingly not wanting to spend a minute longer than necessary there.

My lessons on the creatures of Otherworld continued as I learned of some very odd races like Vampires. It boggled my mind at the time to think that there existed creatures that feared sunlight and drank blood. The most unbelievable thing I heard so far though was the fact that I as well as everyone else in the castle was expected to turn into something just like or similar to that vicious creature inside the 'Tome of The Basilisk' at our coming off age. I was skeptical of this point.