COBALT: The Sovereign's Stratagem (Book Two)

Chapter 5: Cursimian Roulette (Part 1/5)

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I finished this eight hours ago and didn't click the post button. 

Sorry about any spelling errors, enjoy the song, school is killing me.

But I'll get this plot rolling faster.

Ttyl - and sorry for the late post <3

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          Káel laughed as Puff nipped at the ribbon hanging from his tail, scattering blobs of dirt and dried twigs as he ran loops in front of him to catch it. He was worried that Sora's idea would be more of a cruel trick than a toy for his guardian, but the smile stretching Puff's cheeks let him know he knew exactly what was going on, and loved it.

          Puff finally snagged the blue fabric in his mouth, slipping the loose knot off his tail to let it flutter onto his forehead. 

          She stopped behind him, snagging the ribbon to retie it with a complimentary scratch behind the ears. After giving the bow a tight tug she gave the trees a smile, raising her elbows to the sky as she savoured a deep breath of air. "This is just like walking home from school, huh?"

          Káel snorted. "I tried to walk to Alta Staar, this is nothing like it." 

          "Your school on Earth, smartass." Sora mused, the smile on her face jumping onto Káel's as he chuckled. "I would kill to play video games all weekend, Earth homework was like one, two, three - done!" Her smile dropped with her voice. "And then here, Mr. Mudelin gives you a research project for a literal phys-ed class."

          "Yeah, pretty sure I'm failing out of at least two classes." Káel sighed, finally remembering why he had so much free time today. He didn't. And he'd barely started researching the battle of Toor's Peak. "I guess I don't need to care about marks if I've already got a job lined up."

          "Your uncle's not handing the crown to a combat school drop-out. He's got plenty of distant relatives that can't wait to sink their claws into the crown of Fairez Stella."

          Instead of clinging to the scare Sora was trying for, Káel perked with intrigue. He was at a point of reading history books for a slice of gossip on who his family could be. It was the worst kind of torture for the hope of a groundbreaking revelation, especially if Sora had stories on tap about them. 

          She caught the look in his eyes. "Anyways, I don't recall seeing you at your first game against the Green House." 

          "I asked Sev if I could watch the first one." Káel quickly replied, a gnaw of regret coming from more places than missing his chance on grilling Sora. He'd benched himself by sitting as far away from Sev as he could and avoiding eye contact. "Some of the rules were a bit confusing, so I wanted to see it for real."

          Sora smirked. "Unicorn Boy's got some stage fright."

          "What? No." Káel chuckled, pretending to check out a bush as disbelief quickly took her face. "Did you make the team?"

          "Me? Gods no. I hit out more yellow house players than anybody else. We'll see how my tournament tryout goes though." Sora crossed her fingers and shook them for a little extra luck. "You already had yours, didn't you?"

          Káel slowly nodded, remembering the fumbling disaster of trying to pin a random student down the way Lightwood had taught him to. It took three tries to remember to cover their mouth so they didn't slip a spell on him, but he'd somehow scraped by victorious in the match that was more awkward wrestling than any sort of spellwork.