Previously
"We are going to be ok," My face blushes as he pulls away and walks to a bedroom. I also tiredly walk to my old bedroom. When I reach my bed I immediately pass out not even realizing that I fell asleep on top of my familiar Savvy.
Currently
*Time skip to the Morning*
I wake up to a firm but soft pats on my face.
"A few more minutes...." The taps just got more aggressive from there. I open my eyes abruptly to see my familiar Savvy looking at me angrily because her tail is stuck under my arm.
"Oops sorry." Savvy, a beautiful ginger cat, only gives me an angry stare before scampering off to hide amongst my clothes. As I get up the memories of yesterday hit me and I stumble. I take a few minutes to breathe. It wasn't real. I'm ok, they're ok, HE's ok. Once I collect myself I grab a random pair of pants and an old Band T-shirt before slipping on my shoes that were discarded at the entrance to my room. I open the door, rubbing the tiredness out of my eyes. To my surprise everyone is awkwardly sitting out in the hallway, probably not knowing where to go. They hear my door close and look at me with relief in their eyes. Douxie gives me a smile.
"Morning love, you must've slept like a rock!" I start to blush instantly as Steve merely snickers. Claire soon walks over, putting a hand on my shoulder giving me a soft hug.
"Good to see you're doing alright,"
"You too," I say as we hug. I pull away and smile.
"So... Why are you all sitting in the hallway?" I say while silently laughing to myself as they all start to awkwardly shuffle.
"We didn't exactly know where to go after we got up, so..." Jim says while looking to the side before turning bright red when he realized he made eye contact with Claire.
"Well then, your saint has arrived!" I say, walking past them while leading them to a door at the end of the hallway. I tap the door three times and it opens to reveal a doorway leading to a giant dining room. Before I lead the others through the doorway a post-it note falls to the floor.
"Huh? What does it say?" Douxie asks, putting his arm around my shoulders while Archie hovers closer to get a better look.
"It says... When you're done stuffing your faces like pigs, come to my study, signed the greatest wizard alive, Cassandra." I sigh at Cassandra's note, rubbing my forehead in mild disappointment.
"How endearing" Archie says sarcastically. We walk through the doorway to see Toby, Blinkous, ARG, and Nari already stuffing their faces. Steve hurrys over to join them while Jim and Claire calmly walk over. Douxie simply snickers before joining the others in the maddness of food randomly being summoned than devoured.
"This food is crazy good! You're crazy mentor is pretty cool!" Steve says while slightly muffled from pancakes shoved in his mouth. I merely chuckle while eating a fruit salad.
"So um, Julia... How long exactly have you been with this crazy magic lady?" Toby asks while chewing on some bacon.
"Well I believe I met her at around the same time Douxie met Merlin, give or take a few years" Toby nods at the answer before going back to his bacon.
"Really? If that's the case, did you ever meet Merlin and Douxie in the past?" Claire pipes up.
"Yup! Though he never actually met Cass. We usually met up when Cassandra and Merlin would have their weird contests."Douxie and I shared a look before laughing at the crazy memories.
"We actually came to Arcadia together, we even share an apartment. With separate bedrooms of course!" I start to blush and quickly say the last part so the others don't get the wrong idea, but Claire still gives me a teasing look while Jim gets bright red. The others simply stare at Douxie with raised eyebrows or threatening glares.
"Geez you two, when's the wedding?" Toby says under his breath but I still hear him causing me to blush even more while Douxie starts to turn a light pink.
"Claire, how is your Shadow magic coming along?" I ask quickly to change the subject.
"Oh it's been pretty standard so far, mostly basic spells and a few high level incantations for the most part," I nod while biting into some French toast.
"Speaking of magic, how is your healing magic coming along Miss Julia?"
"It's coming along quite well! Though I think I might take a break from it to practice on some more defense spells. I kind of lack in that department, haha."
"I wish Merlin taught me some healing magic, it would be quite useful,"
"You could always ask Cass for some tips," I say with a smirk knowing that would be an absolute nightmare.
"Yeah, I'll pass," He says nervously as he bites into some bread. Claire continues to stare at me teasingly as I stare at her back. We both giggle while everyone looks at us as if we have two heads. We soon finish eating our breakfast so I lead them to Cassandra's main office. I push open the two double doors and am immediately hit in the face with a book. Everyone gasps before ducking for cover from a sudden barrage of books. When we escape the sudden attack we fall witness to books and other necessities thrown across the floor. A black dog runs around frantically picking up the mess for Cass. Poor Pepper, Cass just continues to throw stuff around. When I feel blood trickle from my nose I finally snap.
"Cass!" I yell at my disorganized mentor.
"Oh you guys finally made it! Pepper shows them what I need them to do." Cassandra speaks to her loyal companion while still searching through stuff.
"Cass don't force Pepper to do your dirty work!" She merely ignores me while I quickly heal my nose and stop the bleeding. I sigh before turning to pepper as we walk to a less chaotic part of the room.
"What in the world is a Pepper?" Blinkous asks while trying to not trip over a stack of books. .
"Well that would be me." Everyone turns their head to the smallish black dog.
"Hey Pepper how've you been?" I ask while petting her head softly.
"I've been good but Lady Cassandra has been a real pain like always. I've missed you so much! Hopefully you can help lighten my burden of being alone with the Mistress." I laugh at her jab at Cass.
"OH MY GOSH IT'S A TALKING DOG!" Steve yells absolutely astonished as if he has never seen Archie before.
"Are you like me?" Archie asks, surprised to see another talking animal. While ignoring Steve's remark.
"You could say I'm like you except I'm no dragon, I can only transform into one other form." Pepper responds while wagging her tail at the attention.
"How do you know I'm a dragon?!" Archie asks, surprised.
"Julia talks' ' Pepper states simply, I look away embarrassed as Archie and Douxie look at me with both surprise and disappointment.
"When I found out I thought it was cool, ok? And I thought she would think it was interesting since... she's kinda like Arch ok?" I say in my defense. I glance at Douxie... who's trying to stifle a laugh upon hearing my defense. Ugh, why does he make me blush so much!
"What's your other form?" Toby asks while scratching Pepper behind the ears.
"Well I was planning on going into it anyway." Purple fog starts to surround Pepper before a slightly bright light engulfs her. Standing before us is now a tan girl with short black hair and a small white birthmark on her collarbone. She was wearing a cute black dress with a white apron. The only reason you could tell she was a dog was because she still had her floppy dog ears and wagging tail.
"You can turn into a human!" Jim says, absolutely stunned while looking at Archie expectantly.
"I obviously can't do that idiot!" Archie simply responds.
Pepper just continues to wag her tail at the attention. I'm glad to see her so happy, she must have been feeling lonely from being in the castle with only Cass. I know for a fact Cass doesn't like to stay in her castle for too long
.
"So what does Lady Cassandra need us to do?" Douxie asks.
"Oi what are you brats still doing here I need my thinking space!" Cassandra yells before Pepper can answer Douxies question.
"Follow me into the common room so we can talk there." she says, waving a hand for us to follow. We walk with her up several flights of stairs until we reach a very tall door.
"I didn't realize how many stairs it took to enter the common room. Last night it just seemed like it was down the hall." Claire responds looking at the doors.
"Well it was down the hall from where we originally were last night. This castle has many secret doors that lead to shortcuts." As I respond the others make themselves comfy on the long red couch.
"Ok so, Cassandra told me to tell you these few things. First of all she wants the ones who go by Blinkous, Argamont, and Nari to stay on the east side of the castle by the library and greenhouse for safety reasons.. She also wants you to do some... chores." Pepper says the last part bitterly, probably already knowing what they will be forced to do.
"Next she wants the ones named Toby and Steve to go back to Arcadia and to stay on the lookout for the Arcane Order. You can also cover up for the ones called Jim and Claire apparently." Toby and Steve salute Pepper and that makes Pepper laugh. Archie's ears rise at the sound of her laugh as he looks at her with what seems to be a small smile.
"Lastly she wants the ones called Jim, Claire, Douxie, and Lady Julia to go see her personally for your orders."
"But she just sent us away!" I say exasperatedly. Pepper merely gives me an apologetic look as the others turn pale at the idea of going down the stairs again so soon.
"And what about me, my lady?" Archie says winking at Pepper,Douxie looks at his good friend in shock while Pepper looks at Archie with her usual gleaming eyes.
"You can go with whatever group you want or you can help me clean up after showing the first group to the east side of the castle!." Pepper responds. Pepper then motions for Argamont and Blinkous to follow her.
"I think I'm going to stay here with the little pup." Archie says before following Pepper. Douxie laughs and rolls his eyes at his lovesick partner.
"Whatever you say Archie." Douxie says to his old friend.
"Alright, Jim, Claire, Douxie follow me," I say walking towards a bookcase. I put my hand on the bookcase letting my magic open the door. Light green, blue and slight yellow hues appear from my hand as it reveals a long dark hallway.
"What the heck is that!?" Jim says not fully trusting the weird passage ways this castle holds.
"Don't worry, it's just a quick shortcut to Cass's office." I start walking down the hallway with Douxie as Jim and Claire hesitantly follow.
"What a creepy hallway," Claire says while sticking to my side.
"Yeah, I used to hate going down this hall, the dark used to freak me out and I would sprint down the walkway and end up crashing into the door at the end," I say giggling at the memory as I quickly light a fire with my magic so we don't have to walk in total darkness.
"I would have loved to see that," Douxie says laughing along with my story. I blush while also laughing. We soon reach the end of the walkway and enter Cass's office.
"Cass?" I half yell into the room, before I spot her on top of a bunch of stacked items so she can reach a certain book.
"Cass? Cass!" I yell causing her to fall, face first into a pile of parchment.
"What did you do that for!" she yelled back.
"Sorry, I was worried you would fall. Also couldn't you have just used magic to reach what you were looking for?"
"Oh, that would have been a good idea. Also why are you here again?" I face palm at her idiocy.
"You're the one who told Pepper to send us over." Cassandra scrunches up her face as if in deep thought.
"Oh, that's right I did ask Pepper to send you over. Sorry." She motions for us to come closer.
I groan at her, Douxie puts a hand on my shoulder reassuring me. I hold his hand still very annoyed with my wack mentor.
"At least she apologized, Darling." He said to me, I'm still mad and embarrassed by her behavior but I let Douxie cheer me up a bit.
"Ok so, I need you four to go on a special mission for me." A mission? She usually sends Pepper. I wonder why she would have us do it.
"So there's this ancient library that's guarded by a celestial spirit thingy. The library holds all the information and the secrets of the world I guess, but the guardian of the library is such a stickler and has one rule that can't be broken. You mustn't take anything out of the library. Which is absolute bull crap" Cassandra says before going back to looking for books.
"What I need you to do is go there and find the information on the Arcane order. The book should have a bunch of stones on it to represent the Arcane order. This book was created long ago just in case something was to happen. Smart people they were."
"Wait, you said we can't take any of the info out of the library, what will we do with this book?" Clarie asks.
"You're going to steal it obviously." Cassandra responds. Oh no, of course she would want us to steal it.
"Steal it!? If it hates having it's information stolen won't it end up trying to kill us? And it's kinda suspicious that you know so much about this entity. It's also pretty suspicious you aren't getting this book yourself, you never usually let other people do your missions."
"I can't because the guardian already knows who I am, and lets just say we aren't on good terms." She says before walking up to Douxie and handing him a scroll.
"When you arrive, give this to the guardian. There is an entrance fee to get in the library and this should suffice."
"To get to the time period/world thingy of the library you will have to take the seventh passage. I wish you good luck." She starts to walk away before pausing and turning around once more.
" Wait! Before you go I need to talk to Douxie," Douxie shrugs before going over and talking to her.
"Wonder what she wants to know." Jim says while subconsciously holding Claire's hand.
"She's probably trying to gather enough info so she can blow something up with magic" I say quite not caring about what crazy thing she will create this time around. I learned not to look too deep into what she's up to since the last creation. I still sometimes cough up glitter. Douxie soon walks back looking a little confused. The others look at my teacher with mixed emotions.
"Claire, don't worry she won't try to take over the world. She won't try to hurt Jim or anyone. Ok? I trust her" I say sincerely, her expression calms.
"Ok, follow me," I say walking out into the dark hall. I turn to face one of the walls and summon a door in front of me. Jim and Claire don't look in shock this time now used to random doors being opened by magic.I open the door and the others just follow.
Author note
This was a ton of fun to write!
-Myla
The amont of spelling errors I've had to fix from my writing was immense.
-Jean