Chronicles of Mystery

The sanctuary

Soon, the two young girls arrived in front of the dormitories. Long three-storey buildings with a dozen windows and topped with a slate roof that sparkled in the sun's rays. The walls were crisp white, almost dazzling in the light. The windows had reflective panes like mirrors, which reflected the clear blue of the sky. Golden embellishments were decorating the walls and emblems were hung on each building wing. The balconies and window frames were decorated as well. Golden tips seemed to want to play the needles and sew white clouds in the sky, fixed as they were on the gutters. At each window, leaning on the white iron balconies, were planters overflowing with plants of life-giving greenness and admirable vigor, strewn with blooms colored in profusion and which tumbled as if it was the hair of a young lady.

Everything in this place seemed to breathe life and joy. People were crossing, perky, the courtyard around which the dormitories were gathered, forming a u. Laughter could be heard escaping from the wide-open windows to let in the cool breeze from outside.

The buildings were listed in a certain order: first, the various brigades of hunters in ascending order, then, in the second building, the priests and those who worked in the sanctuary as well as the orphan children taken in, and finally, in the last building, the most indented, lived the members of the three squads. This building was often the saddest. Even when all its inhabitants were present, it was not completely filled. Barely half were occupied, despite the efforts of some squads to spread out as much as possible. In addition, the squads were rarely present all together. Unlike the fighter brigades, they were less numerous and were therefore constantly sent to the four corners of the world to accomplish missions. They were always needed and they had little time to rest.

Already, Aiko knew that her stay in the sanctuary would be short. It would probably be a week or two before they left again for an indefinite time. It almost made her sad to know that she wouldn't be able to relax for very long and that soon she would have to leave the four islands and Thalie again. Things had been like this since she joined the brigades at the age of sixteen. For three years, she had been living like this, traveling and traveling, almost never resting twice in the same place, never being able to stay very long at home. She was almost nostalgic for her life before, between her eleven and sixteen years. And yet, she remembered very clearly that, at the time, she wanted nothing more than to join the squadrons. She was counting the days until she was old enough.

She let out a long sigh. One only realized the value of the things one had when one lost them.

However, she was far from unhappy. She still had the opportunity to see Thalie regularly and the distance only allowed her to cherish the moments she spent with her even more. In addition, she always had around her the members of her squad, members who were like her family for her. Even if at times she had murderous impulses towards some of them that she would not name but whose names began with an L, and ended with am.

For the moment, even if she was not yet part of it, Thalie lived with them in the dormitory reserved for the members of the squads, since she had powers - according to the statements of the high priest, a fact which could not be completely proven, given her lack of control over her abilities - just like them and because the priests had thought that living with the squads would help her fit in more easily among them. A decision mainly put forward by the high priest, whom no one had dared to contradict, despite the terrible aspect of favoritism that this choice had.

Aiko had no idea who other than her squad members were in the dorm right now. The Sigmas hadn't been home for almost a year, as for the Ellipses, she had heard that they had stopped there a few weeks earlier before leaving very quickly, to the delight of the priests, who had trouble enduring for too long the pure chaos that this group brought with them. It was therefore unlikely that they would cross anyone, the Sigma being professionals for the longest times without returning to Sanctuary. One would be almost led to believe that they could not bear to be in the presence of novices like them. Pretentious, thought Aiko. Simply because they were older than them, more efficient, better ordered, more hardworking and in a few words one of the best squads the order had ever known, they thought themselves superior.