Skylands Historia - Duality

Chapter 5 - The Spider Caught in the Flies Web

Kaos rapped his quill against the page of his textbook, rhythmic patterns distracting him from the lesson at hand. Rat tat tat. History, something on the dragon realm. Tat tat tat. Having taught himself about that very topic late last summer, paying attention was the least of his worries. Tat tat tat. That seemed to be a habit for Kaos, even back in the day; while the others were trying to master writing simple words like 'house' and their names, Kaos was busy reading up on the history of Skylands (and marking up the books with his barely legible handwriting). Despite excelling past his fellow students faster than the teachers had ever seen a child of his age learn, his failure to actually apply his skills landed him in the 'gifted' student classes; later resulting in him being held back an entire year. It probably didn't help that he had been homeschooled the first few years of his life, either; having found it nearly impossible to get along with the other inferior students he found himself surrounded by. Rat tat tap. Kaos sighed, mindlessly tracing one of the illustrations of the fabled purple dragon, not noticing the lull in conversation.

"Ah-hem".

Kaos looked up from his textbook, pausing his hand mid trace. The quill hovered just above the page. The sound of the teacher's blunt tone wrenched him from his thoughts like a pair of icy cold hands wrapped around his neck.

"...What." Kaos asked.

A few of the other students stifled a giggle. Kaos swung his legs back and forth in lieu of stopping the other motion, the tips of his shoes barely brushing the tiled floor. The teacher loomed over him, leaning against the edge of the desk. With a drawn out sigh, he pinched the bridge of his nose, then motioned with long fingers and a turn of his head towards the chalkboard.

"Kaos. If you'll give us the pleasure of actually joining us," He began, his voice low and gravelly.

"All right, all right." Kaos waved him off, looking back down at the page, "Could you repeat the question... please."

The teacher muttered something under his breath as he scuttled back to the chalkboard. From the torso up, he was a tall, burly man in a wrinkled collared shirt. His features were strong set; with a set of six black eyes and pincers protruding from the corners of his mouth. He had his slick black hair combed over in an attempt to hide the fact that he was already balding. From the hips down, though, was another story. Where his legs should have been was instead the thorax of a spider. Eight long, spindly legs carried him across the floor. Mr. Webster was, by far, the scariest teacher Kaos had ever had. Which was saying something, when he had had to spend an entire semester in 'Ms. Alyvia's' 9th grade botany class. Even after he had cultivated a batch of snapping ivy (after countless failed attempts) which proceeded to take over the entire greenhouse. And possibly ate one of his classmates. But that was never proven.

And he had had it coming anyway, that beakheaded birdbrain.

"What a surprise. You're actually on the right page for once." Mr. Webster drawled as he scratched something down on the chalkboard, "Kaos. Just because you're a year older than the rest of the class doesn't mean you can slack off."

"What's. The question. Webster." Kaos repeated, clenching his fists.

Mr. Webster didn't bother turning around, simply circling a scrawl of text before returning to what he had been doing. Kaos hunched his shoulders with a growl before he leaned forward, squinting. The words seemed to swim together, twirling in an invisible dance. Kaos felt something prickle on the back of his neck, eyes trained on him once again. When he realized he had just been sitting there in silence, mouth hanging open, he righted himself with a shake of his head. When he looked back to the board, the words were in their place, albeit looking like someone had smudged the chalk they were written in. Which dragons do we know originally hailed from the dragon realms. Kaos took no time to think about his answer, like a tape recorder had been switched on within his mind, the information tumbling out of his mouth.