Companion Song:
The Anthem by Good Charlotte
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And my high school
It felt more to me
Like a jail cell
A penitentiary
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The next two days speed by for me. I remember trying to pay attention in class and something about ancient curses in one of them. But mostly I just remember trying to figure out what I'll wear to the concert with Rex. I know that he probably won't care or even notice if I wear my pink belt instead of my usual purple one. Or if I decide to do a drop eye style of eyeliner instead of my usual cat eye. But I still have to make it perfect, just in case.
"Hello! Knock knock. Anyone home?"
I shake my head to shake myself out of my daydream. "What?"
I see Akuma pointing at a congregation of Harpy and Ketu students lined up on the field. "Are you gonna play or not?"
I realize it's the first weekend of the school year and welcome back festivities are in full swing. The annual tag tournament has begun, and third year Ketus are up against the unlucky first year Harpies. I quickly eye the new students and see them shaking in their boots looking at the large centaurs on our team who tower over them.
I put my copy of Twilight's Eclipse of the Dawn to the side and stand up while shaking the blades of grass from my clothes. The diamond-skinned humans of this actually horribly written book could wait. "Yeah, this is gonna be fun!"
Akuma runs ahead of me and gets to the Ketu edge of the field. I follow behind him in a more relaxed jog. As soon as I get to my place, one of the professors acting as referee steps into the middle of the field.
"Alrights, kids, the rules are simple. Students who can cast magic may only use slow-motion spells to slow down other players or speed spells to increase. Thropes may shift, but may not leave the ground if they are a flying type. Vampires, fauns, and centaurs may only use their superior physical abilities to run and evade.
"Each team will use the three shooters provided to them to tag the other team with their color. Any student who is tagged will be teleported by us," Professor Steen holds up her wand to indicate that she will be literally teleporting people "to the opposite team's endzone where the color will come off. Tagged players can be freed by carrying them out of the paralysis zone, but beware. Anyone who enters the endzone of the other team will immediately be paralyzed as well. You may use anything within the boundaries of the field," she turns to point at the various balls and ropes and shields strewn across the ground, "to your advantage.
"The first team to get all the opposite players into their endzone will be declared the winner. Is that clear?"
A roar erupts from both ends of the field. I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck rise. This is going to be fun.
I look next to me. Akuma has a conniving grin on his face. Next to him, Murie twitches as her auburn hair spreads over her body. Her ears grow and come to a point that's tipped in black. Her eyes turn yellow while her pupils stretch into a vertical slit. Her hands turn to sharp claws and her slightly buxom body transforms into a slinky toned beast of a body. Her eyes are wild with mischief that goes beyond anything Akuma could ever hope to achieve. She is scary, but I'm glad she's on my side.
Rex is farther down, but he decides not to shift into his thrope form for the game. He's surrounded by his centaur friends, and they roar with something that reminds me of vampiric bloodlust. Our shooters are in the hands of the amazingly accurate Teadle, the inconspicuous Mark, and the intimidating Faust.
"Harpies, are you ready?" The referee looks over at the first year students, who wave back.
"Ketus, are you ready?" She looks over at us and we wave back as well.
With a nod, she moves out of the playing field before pulling the whistle around her neck to her mouth.
FWEEEE!
And we're off, running madly to the center of the field to try and collect as many useful items before the other team can, all the while dodging the fast approaching pellets that would turn us sky blue.
The trio of faun, red vampire, and centaur shooters on our team stay behind to shoot with care. The first year Harpies send their shooters running into the fray at first chance. I dodge a pellet that flies in my direction and duck under a slowing spell before grabbing a Harpy and tossing him back into the scope of our shooters. I don't wait around to see if his hair and skin turn grey because I trust our shooters.
I run to a rope on the ground and pick it up before hurling myself to a shield to avoid another spell. I take the shield with me and regroup with Akuma and Murie who have items of their own.
Murie breaks away from us, and I watch her flip through the air while throwing balls of all sizes at the legs of our opponents. The fallen players are quickly grabbed by our centaurs and tossed into the air for our shooters to demolish. They are grey all over long before they reach the top of their arc. And before they hit the ground, the referees teleport them to our endzone.
In a matter of minutes, the first year Harpies are down to five players. They haven't even attempted to rescue anyone from our side of the field.
We close in on them slowly and they try to shoot us. I watch Rex run in with a rope to try and lasso one of them, but a pellet fires right at him. A huge mass steps in front of him to stop the blow, and I see the large body of a centaur turn sky blue. It's Notre. He turns his face and pushes Rex out of the way of another pellet before disappearing into thin air.
The first years find their resolve and charge at us firing twice as fast as before. They begin to regain some ground, but we outnumber them too much. It's wasted effort on their part. Murie slinks in and drags one of the shooters away to be teleported after Akuma slows him into a statue.
I watch two more players get taken down at the edge of the field. And then one more before the last one throws down her shooter and surrenders.
We win the match, and I was right. This was fun.
FWEEEE!
Another whistle blows and our win becomes official.
"We did it!" I shout while jumping for joy.
"Yeah!" Akuma almost tackles me to the floor with his hug.
"Oh please, they never had a chance, and now that last year's winning class has graduated, there's nothing stopping us from becoming champions." Murie strutted into our view and leaned into our hug with her conniving eyes.
Akuma shudders a little. "You know, you're really creepy when you go into your thrope form."
But Murie just smiles and lets out a soft purr. "I know."
Akuma pushes me out of his arms and tries to grasp Murie instead. "I love it."
Murie laughs and moves away from his grasp. "I'll see you two later. Need to finish that telerety homework."
"Do all thropes change that much with their shifts?" Akuma asks.
"No. Thropes aren't supposed to change anything but physical differences. Honestly, I think she has some split personality disorder or something," I answer.
Akuma rolls his eyes at me. "That was a rhetorical question. Just because I don't know about vampires doesn't mean I'm clueless about everything."
I shrug and smirk at him.
He sighs with a smile.
And we're ushered off the field so that the next match can be played. Because we won, we will move onto the next round of games the following weekend.
"You haven't done the telerety homework yet by any chance, have you?" I ask Akuma as we walk back towards our dormitory.
He scoffs at my naive question. "I'm not wasting my time on that crap."
I eye him, but he doesn't notice.
"I already know the best mind-reading and teleportation spells from my dad. And I really don't care about spells that will let me moves things a few feet over."
"What about the strength spells? Or the levitation spells?"
"Overrated." He pulls his arms behind his head while walking with a lean in his usual cocky way. I don't know why I expected him to grow up over summer. "Professor Cosima can suck it."
I shake my head at him as we enter the common room. He decides to jump onto the large padded stump that passes for our couch and take a nap, so I head to my room hoping to finish my schoolwork before getting ready for the concert.
I check the clock on my wall, and there's still an agonizing four hours before I can go on my date with Rex. My first, real, official date with him. Sigh. And Bad Wilbur too! I shriek with joy.
But there's too much time before then, so I distract myself with homework. Professor Cosima assigned three chapters of reading about the "core principles" of telerety: telekinesis, teleportation, and telepathy. I assume the reading will keep me busy for a while. I'm wrong, though. It only takes me an hour to read through it all.
I decide to raid my closet even though I already know what I'll be wearing. It never hurts to make sure, and I really don't know what will impress Rex the most. I try on my red skirt, but it feels like too much red with the shoes I want to wear. Then I try on my heels just in case the skirt does work better, but the concert means dancing, and I don't want my feet to hurt. So I keep the red boots.
I put on my black jeans and look in the mirror. It looks too much like my school uniform, so I change into my dark blue ones. Does Rex even like jeans? Ugh! I stomp my foot on the floor in frustration, realizing I'm overthinking this again.
I take off everything I'm wearing and go back to the outfit I picked out earlier. I take a look in the mirror and nod to myself. This was the right choice. I fix my hair into a quick side-sweep and add a little lip balm and eyeliner to my face to finish off my simple look.
Then I take a look at the clock. This concert is never going to come!
I head over to Murie's room down the hall. It's locked, so I knock.
A groggy, non-transformed Murie opens the door with a yawn. She looks at me through half open eyes and says, "Hi."
I smile, knowing that she overdid it again with her transformation earlier. "Are you okay?"
"Mungfheyah," she mumbles something I can't understand while dragging her feet to the bed.
I giggle, "I guess that's a no."
She sighs and sits on the edge of the bed before falling back with arms spread wide. I take a seat in her chair.
"I'm so tired," she says finally.
I shake my head at her. Murie tends to let her extra strength and agility get the best of her when she transforms. She always regrets it later, but I think the huge change in her abilities just pumps her up too much. Especially because of how unathletic she is normally.
"Are you coming to the concert?" I ask.
She sighs and mumbles her reply, "Yeah." She sits up and looks at me with a smile. "Why? Are you having second thoughts after asking Rex out?"
I blush and try to hide my face. "Shut up."
She yawns and stretches, but her eyes stay half closed. "Is he meeting you there or are you walking over together?"
I look up at the ceiling, lost in thought. I never really considered how this date was going to happen. All I asked Rex was if he would go with me, and then I spent the next four days avoiding him. "I don't know."
Murie gets up and starts changing out of her tag clothes. "Well, if he doesn't come by, then walk over with me. We have to wake up Akuma before going, too."
"I'll be back," I tell her while she undresses.
"Where are you going?" she asks.
I walk out the door and reply without looking. "I'll be back."
I want to see what Rex is up to, so I walk past the common room to the boys' rooms. I knock on his door, but he isn't home. I borrow a slip of paper from Notre next door and leave Rex a note to meet me at the concert. I'm too nervous to walk over with him alone.
On my way back to Murie, I kick Akuma to wake him up. "Aren't you going to get ready?"
He stretches and rubs his hair into a messy green porcupine before answering, "Nah." And then he backtracks, "I could take a shower, though. Come find me when you guys are ready to go."
I go back to Murie's room where she's done changing and doing her makeup. "Akuma is taking a shower. He told us to find him before we leave."
Murie rolls her eyes. "We'll just wait in the common room for him."
I follow her out, and we sit and chat about everything I might do with Rex tonight until Akuma shows up. Then, we head through the winding hallways into the courtyard, which has been transformed into a grand auditorium with a stage full of lights and instruments ready to be played. It's still half an hour before the band is supposed to play, but the seats are packed, and the lines in front of the stalls of cotton candy, kettle corn, and funnel cakes stretch on for a mile.
We still decide to get funnels cakes. The time it takes us to get the food will be perfect for the start of the concert. When we get halfway through the line, I see Rex walking over to the stand with a bag of kettle corn in his hands.
"Rex!" I shout, but he doesn't hear me.
Murie gives me a little shove and say, "Go! Forget the cake."
I don't wait to hear anything else. I skip my way to Rex with a bounce in my step. The closer I get, the more my heart beats. I feel the hairs on my neck rise, and my fingers suddenly become unsteady. Why does he make me so nervous!
I shake my head and clear my throat and do a little stomp to get myself to calm down. I lose Rex in the crowd for a second, but I see his long, beautifully flowing hair through a gap. I make my way to him and give him a tap on the shoulder. "Hi!"
He turns with a confused look at first, but it changes into a wide smile. "Hey, Ivy! How's it going? I mean, how are you?"
I smile stupidly, but I don't realize he just asked me a question.
He ignores my stupidity and asks,"Ready for the concert?"
I nod with a silly look on my face. I swear he turns me into a buffoon. "Are... are you?"
"Yeah," he says before pushing his snack towards me. "Kettle corn?"
I thank him and take a few kernels. The chewing gives me an excuse to keep quiet and gives me enough time to think about what to say.
"I like your shi-"
"Nice shoes!"
We speak over each other and giggle with embarrassment.
"Sorry," I say. And then I realize I should thank him, not apologize. I can't believe he noticed what I was wearing, and he liked it enough to say something about it. Eee! Of course, he might just have picked something random to compliment like I did, but I don't dwell on the thought. I feel the heat coming to my face, so I turn away. "Thanks, I mean."
"You too," he says quietly. "Want to go sit down somewhere?"
"Yeah," I reply and follow him through the crowd to a couple empty seats that aren't exactly the best viewpoints but not so bad that I can't see the band play.
We chat awkwardly about the game earlier in the day when the band begins to play. Immediately I jump up and shout with joy and begin to sing along. I completely forget I'm even with Rex until the song ends.
"You really love them, don't you?" he asks with a weird look on his face. It reminds me of a puppy looking up to someone that just gave it a treat for the first time.
And then it hits me again, the crippling awkwardness of being not even really complimented by the biggest crush I've ever had in my life. "Um..." I nod with my mouth open.
Snap out of it, woman!
I stomp my foot again. "Yeah, I do," I reply with a smile.
Another song starts, but this time I don't forget I'm standing next to Rex. I watch him out of the corner of my eye. He gets up next to me and jumps and dances and sings along with me and the rest of the audience. I've never seen him loosen up so much, and my heart melts all over again. The look of happiness in his eyes, on his face, showing on his gorgeous lips... I feel warmth starting to take over my body, so I stop looking at him and try to focus on the music.
And then he puts his arms on my shoulders while we jump and cheer. And I stop jumping to look at him again, but he just pulls me up to dance again. And we jump and dance together with the music that my favorite band plays surrounding us.
He turns to me with his arms in the air, and I turn to him without thinking. His hair whips back and forth every time he jumps and mine does the same. Someone behind me crashes into me and bumps me into his arms. Rex doesn't expect it so he almost falls off the railing to the side.
Actually he does fall over the railing, and he takes me with him. I see the ground ten feet below about to make contact with my face and I shut my eyes.
"Are you okay?" I hear Rex asking.
I'm confused, but I don't want to open my eyes. I just cling onto Rex's warm body tighter. And then I feel his feathers.
And he puts his hand on my cheek and asks again, "Are you okay?"
I finally open my eyes to see his black ones looking back at me. I nod.
He smiles and I see his enchanting teeth. Yes, enchanting teeth.
I lean my face in closer to his, and he does the same.
I close my eyes, and I feel his lips on mine.
My mind goes crazy with a million thoughts, but when we pull apart, I just look down and see all the students we were next to looking up at us. We are ten feet in the air, and the only thing keeping me from falling is being in Rex's arms. "I am now." I use the excuse to pull him in tighter. I can smell his cologne and feel his heart beat. I can hear the slight whoosh of his wings that keep us afloat. I can see the smile on his face widen.
The music keeps playing and he turns so we can both watch them play. "I think the view is better from here, don't you think so?" he asks.
"Yeah," I half say and half sigh in complete and utter contentment.
We watch the rest of the concert from in between the stands with Rex carrying me in his arms. I think he might get tired at some point, but he never lets go.
After the concert is over, we decide to get in line for cotton candy. It goes much faster than the funnel cake one did earlier, and this time I actually get to enjoy the snack I waited in line for. We take a stroll around the quickly quieting courtyard pulling off tiny pieces of the cotton candy we got between us. This is a night I will never forget. Or so I think until we run into Harriet in the middle of the courtyard.
She gives me a nasty look, but smiles at Rex. "Hi, Rex!"
Rex returns her smile with a big one of his own. "Hey, Harriet! How was the concert for you?"
I scowl.
"Oh it was okay. I saw you flying for the whole thing. I'm sorry Ivy made you carry her the whole time."
WHAT? I'm pissed, but I try to keep my cool.
"Oh, it wasn't like-"
But I can't keep my cool. "I didn't force him to do anything! Stop trying to start a fight; you guys are over, so leave him alone!" Where did all this energy and anger come from? I was so happy just a minute ago.
Harriet gives me her best aghast look, but I know it's a show. She's just as angry as I am right now.
"Hey, let's just..." Rex tries to calm the situation, but we ignore him.
"You're the one that doesn't know when to keep your mouth shut!" She folds her arms and cocks her head.
I step forward and poke her in the chest. "You're the one that doesn't know when to stop!" Rex tries to intervene again, but it's useless. I'm going to teach this bitch a lesson. "He broke up with you! Now leave him alone!"
She puffs up her chest and pushes back against me. She shakes her own finger at me. "You little bitch!"
And then I snap. I grab her shoulders and push her to the ground. She pulls me down with her, and Rex shouts something I don't hear. Harriet pulls at my hair and I try to scratch her perfectly beautiful, stupid face.
But the fight ends before it can really begin.
"LADIES!" Professor Adder's gravelly voice stops us in our tracks.
I look up and see his beady eyes fuming at us. Professor Sol is next to him piercing our molecules with his fierce glare.
"Detention! Monday! Now break it up!" His barking shouts are more terrifying than even Professor Sol's cold stare. He pulls us apart and waits until we start walking away in different directions.
I'm still pissed, but I go inside the castle. I can't believe I let Harriet ruin such a good night.
Once inside, I see the professors walking away, and Rex slowly making his way to me.
"I'm so sorry. I don't know what happened with me. I just... I'm sorry." I try apologizing to him.
He just looks at me without a trace of emotion, good or bad. "It's okay." Then he shrugs and adds, "Hey, I'll see you later" before walking away.
Why do I have to be such an idiot?
* * *
The air was still, and the campus was just coming to life, but Murie had been on the fields next to the courtyard for almost an hour. Today was the beginning of one of her favorite activities at Pionscor, the annual tag tournament.
She looked up at the sky and arched her back before gritting her teeth and hunching over with a moan. When she made herself upright again, she looked different. She had the claws and fangs and ears of her lynx form.
Murie bent down to pull a clump of grass into her hands. She took a long inhale of the air around it to let the scent of the field envelop her.
And then she was off, faster than the blink of an eye. She picked up a rock and threw it into the air, ran to the boulder ten feet away, jumped onto it, flipped off, ran back, and caught the rock on her back before it could hit the ground.
She arched her body so the rock rolled straight down her back before she kicked it into the air again. This time, Murie did a cartwheel that went into a somersault that went into a flip before catching the rock in her hands high above the ground.
She landed with one foot in front and one knee inches above the ground, her free hand placed gently in front.
Murie looked up and smirked. She was ready to win this year.