Faded Rose

Chapter 2

I run to my dorm, and as soon as I close the door I sink down. My mask of cold anger slips off and I cry, I cry. Warm wings slip around me after about a minute. After five minutes my fear, anger, and sadness slip away enough for me to realize that they aren't my sister Holly's wings.

The wings are light pink in collour with a hint of gray, and attached to them is a sweet looking girl, with two braids in her hair. Soon as I am done crying I say, "Thank you."

"No problem, do you want to talk about it?" She asks, but her gaze is kind and not forceful. "My name is Peony, by the way." She smiles, a gentle smile, but behind it, she is healing. I suddenly trust her, more than anyone else I have ever known, I trust her.

"I guess I should start from the beginning." And at that I spill out how my first day at the academy started. 

Again, she embraces me. Gently, she holds me, and I feel a tear slip down her face onto my shoulder. Gently, I wipe off the tears rolling down her face. "It hurts." She murmurs against me, softly.

I say nothing, just embrace her as she embraced me. I don't know what to say. Instead, I scoop her up and take her to the bed on the side of the dorm that has been slightly decorated, with a drawing of her on the nightstand. Carefully, gently, I set her on the bed. I take the fluffy blanket from the end of the bed and wrap her in it. Then, I pull a small, carved, heart shaped piece of wood out of my satchel. I take her hands, and place it in them.

"What is this?" She asks, peering softly at the heart.

"Something I carved for myself after Deceit left. To remind me I still have a heart, like any other person." I say as I sit next to her. "It is a comfort object. I think you need it more than I do."

"Thank you." She murmurs in a soft, gentle, voice and the sweet smile returns. This makes me smile, softly.

"I think it's about time for dinner. Are you hungry?" I ask her with a smile.

She looks at me, "Yes, I'm hungry. But dinner isn't for another fifteen minutes."

"Darn it, well I guess we will just have to wait." I sigh, but then have an idea. "What if we go explore the school, or maybe go outside and find things to decorate our room?"

"Sure!" She smiles and hops up. "I saw a flower field about 3 minutes from here! And the school has an art and crafts room, so we can encase them in resin! Ooo, could we make coasters?"

She's cute when she gets excited. "Yeah, that sounds fun. Maybe we just scout out the flowers before dinner and after dinner we go pick some to use in the resin. Since I don't think we will have enough time before dinner to do both the flowers and the resin." I recommend, smiling.

"Oh, yeah. I guess there won't be time." Peony hops over and grabs her satchel from the hook by the door. "Come on! We only have ten minutes now!"

"I'm coming!" I giggle, and we set out the door. 

We were going so fast we almost ran into a girl about a year older than us. Her reaction is, "Yoww! Watch out, if I had been an old grump I would have yelled at you! Good thing I'm not, though. Oh, and if you are going anywhere be back in five minutes, that's when the dinner bell rings." She gives us a smile and waves as she heads wherever she is going.

"Well, if it's five minutes, then I guess we'd better just stay here." I say, looking after her. "We wouldn't have time anyways."

"True." Peony sighs, "But now we get to have dinner! Oooo, I wander what kinds of food they have!" 

"Where is the dining hall anyways?" I pull the map out of my satchel and hold it out for us to look at. "Hmm, let's see. It's around the center of the school, so if we go that way-" I point to one of the several corridors leading out of the hall. "It should lead us right to the dining hall."

"Well, let's-" A loud bell sounded right in the middle of her sentence, flustering both of us. "I think that was the dinner bell, let's go!" She takes my hand and leads us down the corridor I had pointed at just a few seconds ago. "Don't want get a bad seat!"

As we make our way towards the dining hall, the corridors fill with people, many of them students, but among them are teachers. Soon enough we are at the dining hall, and there seem to be no sections for different ages, so Peony leads us to a smaller table near one of the outer walls. Nobody seems to be going to get any food, so we sit down and set our stuff by our feet.

"So, what do we do?" I ask, knowing what the answer will be.

"Sit and wait, I guess." She scans the room, and her gaze locks on a tall girl with red wings resembling Rose who is coming towards our table. "Is that your sister, Holly?"

"Yep." I watch as she comes over, her gaze anguished. She still does her hair up in a messy bun, tied up with a strip of old fabric.

"I'm sorry about River, earlier." Holly says, as she sits down, her shoulders sagging. "He mixes up his nightmares with reality, so he isn't the most mentally stable. Who's your friend?"

"I'm Peony, Rose's roommate." She perks up, eager to meet Rose's older sister.

"Also my best friend." I state, edging closer to Peony. "How long has he been having nightmares?" I ask.

"Since I first showed up, apparently it dislodged many awful memories." Holly shrugs. "One really awful one his mind turned you into a bad guy. That was about two years back, but it made quite the imprint on him." Suddenly she jumps to another subject, like she doesn't even care. She must get that trait from Mother. "Here come the food distributers! They bring the food here from the kitchen."