The Whisper of the Nightingale

Chapter 30: Morning of the Exam

"Javelin!" two nearly identical voices chimed in unison outside of room 207 on the second floor of the southern student dorms at Imperial Sky Academy of Divine Arts.

"Come on, Javelin, the exam students . . ." called the slightly lighter voice.

". . . will be arriving soon," continued the the slightly darker voice, "and you, mister Hake . . ."

". . . promised to help us out!" they finished in unison.

The door swung open and a well built youth, dressed only in a pair of grey pants, appeared in the doorway. A white Spirit Stone with a red center hung around his neck.

"Don't. Do. That." Javelin pointed decidedly at his two friends waiting for him outside. "It creeps me out."

Javelin's golden hair, that was long enough to cover his ears but not long enough to reach his shoulders, was in a ruffled mess and the thin braid extending down his back had tied a knot on itself. Beneath his clear, mixed-blue eyes, his slightly tanned skin was a bit darker than elsewhere; clearly he had just woken up, and most likely he didn't have a very long nights sleep before that either.

"That's why we do it. Isn't it, Twin Lark?" Said the twin with slightly darker voice without looking away from Javelin.

"Indeed it is, Twin Martin." answered the other one immediately, also without looking away from Javelin.

"How else would we get you out of bed?" they once more spoke as one, still looking at Javelin.

Javelin shuddered.

"I'm out of bed now, so stop it!" He turned around and re-entered his room.

Inside was a mirrored world; almost everything - desks, beds, cupboards, and so on - existed in pairs, each placed at opposite sides of the room. However, only the left side showed any signs of being lived in.

Under constant, and annoyingly synchronized, remarks about hurrying it up, Javelin put on the rest of his grey school robes. He paused in front of the room's only mirror to make a swift attempt at straightening out his hair, something he quickly gave up, before he left and followed the Griffin twins down the corridor outside.

As they walked past one of the large windows, the early morning sun stung Javelin's eyes and he cringed before quickly looking away. Continuing on, he sighed heavily and used his thumb and index finger to kneed out the pressure below his brows. Today was going to be a long day and, for some reason, Javelin hadn't been able to sleep or cultivate properly the last couple of days; an ever growing notion of anticipation seemed to keep pulling him awake.

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Meanwhile, on Sky City's ground level, Raven was being pulled along by her four mercenary uncles. Raven stifled a yawn.

"Is it really necessary to go there so early? There are still a couple of hours left before the exam starts."

"True," answered Hog, "but in order to take the test you have to sign up first and that alone takes about an hour."

"That long?" the small white body of Hoatzin landed and Raven's shoulder, "It didn't even take five minutes last time. . . ."

"The noble clans most likely don't have to go through with the full procedure." Raven thought back to her brother.

At that moment the group rounded a corner and walked out on of the larger streets that headed directly towards the center of the city. Raven looked up and couldn't help but draw a deep breath. The four peaks of Sky City were even more impressive from the ground and the blue imperial palace, situated thousands of meters above them, was only barely discernible through the misty clouds that covered the top of the central peak.