COBALT: The Red Phantom (Book One)

Chapter 5: Why You Shouldn't Trust a Russian Exchange Student (Part 2/2)

          Ray and Mariel walked side by side up a long twisted stairway. A soft, royal blue carpet ran down the steps, tightly fitting into every groove with flawless accuracy. Polished stone rails lined the stairs on either side, making sure a clumsy student wouldn't end up taking a detour whilst traversing the staircase.

          After reaching the top, the duo stopped dead in front of a large set of ebony doors. Two fearsome dragons, frozen in action were carved on their metal surface, each defending their own luxurious black door knob.

          Ray gave the doors a pouting look, and approached them dejectedly, followed by Mariel who looked on at Ray like an overseer. He grabbed one of the doorknobs after a spell of hesitation, and gave it a hard tug before it decided to slide open. Beyond the parameters of the thick metal was a broad room, dimly lit by the light flowing through the wall sized windows opposite of them. Large wooden shelves heaped with dusty books and strayed cobwebs lined the other walls, barely touching the ceiling with their tremendous height.

          The faint smell of tree sap and fresh rain wafted over to Ray and Mariel as they walked in. The caramel colored wooden floor was caked with a thin layer of dust more prominent around the edges of the room, and in the center of the floor was a long rectangular fancy carpet. Upon its fuzzy surface sat a thick legged robust desk, weighed down by a mountainous pile of unorthodoxly stacked papers and letters.

          "Milady?" Mariel softly called, approaching the desk. A stack of papers hanging precariously off the edge of the desk toppled over, and the head of a woman shot out from behind the pile with surprise.

          "Ah Mariel! What brings you here this time?" The sound of chair legs scraping against the carpet sounded off as the woman left her seat to approach Mariel. Her wavy blonde hair was tied up in a sloppy bun, and her eyes sagged like dark shopping bags. She pulled up her green glasses so they were perched upon her head, and noticed Ray standing casually in the doorway. "Something good this time I hope." She smiled, giving Ray a mischievously playful grin.

          Mariel gave Ray a prompting side glance, nudging her head towards the woman.

          "Good Morning mi'lady." Ray bowed courteously. "I took the liberty of acquiring a possibly exceptional student."

          Samanthra noticed Mariel's face slowly form into a disappointed glare. "Possibly exceptional? And how, might I ask, did you acquire this student?"

          Ray stuttered a bit, forming an explanation in his head. "Well, I was going about my normally routined day, when one of my... lumience detecting devices went off in an abnormal location. So I took a short trip to this location, and found a lonely boy named Káel. The poor kid was being pursued by a group of chirops, so I rescued him, and we both went back to Lumi together."

          "Back to Lumi?" Samanthra stopped, her eyes widening in unison with Ray's. "How did you get to Earth?!"

          Ray chuckled nervously and scratched the back of his head. "Hold on, I'm still explaining... Anyways, we both arrived on Lumi, and he was eager to learn some lumience-" Ray's story was conveniently interrupted by Mariel clearing her throat. "And... So I showed him how to turn a stick invisible..."

          "Aren't you forgetting the part where you pushed him off a cliff face? Because you loved telling me that part." Mariel said, eyeing Ray with a sarcastically joyous face.

          "Er, well yes. But that part's not important." Ray replied. "Anyways, we made our way to Cobalt... And on the way I told him all about the entrance exam-" Ray was interrupted yet again by a conveniently placed Ahem. "I told him all about the entrance exam..." Ray repeated, looking at Mariel cautiously. "and he happily par-" Ahem! "He happily, participated in it!" Ray shot Mariel and innocently confused look and cleared his throat. "And after the exam, he managed to score a B with next to no lumience experience!"