an unkindness of ravens

trente

— trente ; thirty —

MINNESOTA STATE WAS OUTSIDE the driving limit the coach could take them, so the Ravens travelled by plane for the first time to an away game. Henri was pleased that they were missing classes for the entire day until he found out they had to leave Castle Evermore by 6AM to catch a flight at 10AM. They took the team coach to the airport, a huge black monstrosity with the silhouette of a raven printed on the side in red. Henri figured the Master just wanted to make the Ravens appear as imposing as possible and he'd certainly succeeded with their mode of transport, as if their cutthroat competitive players weren't bad enough.

Henri usually sat next to Soren on the coach, but Soren was grumpy because of the earlier than usual hour and as testy as he always got on game days, which didn't make for a good combination. Henri didn't want to deal with him while he was in a mood and left him to argue with Alixis about something trivial, slumping into the seat next to Loren, who looked far too bright eyed and awake for the early hour.

Loren smiled knowingly. "He's getting snappy again, huh?"

"Insufferable is the word you're looking for," Henri muttered sleepily. "Do you have headphones?"

"What for?"

"To drown out their voices." Henri yawned into his hand and glared down the coach, where Matthias and Benjamin had joined the pointless bickering. "It's an hour journey to the airport and I'm tired enough to try to catch up on sleep during it."

Henri only managed to doze in and out of sleep, even with Loren's music blocking out the other Ravens, because he was too wound up about the day. Not about the game — Xander must have told them he was playing today, but everyone was too sleepy and bleary-eyed to snap at him about it. He'd probably have to deal with it later in the locker room. He couldn't even think about the game or feel nervous for it because of the talkshow immediately afterwards. He was trying not to think about that, because he felt sick just at the thought of it. If he could just get through this game unscathed then he could worry about the shitshow that would be later.

The Ravenettes travelled to the airport separately but met up with the Ravens once they'd all gotten through security. A large group of cheerleaders and players wandered off to get something to drink, and Henri followed because he was in desperate need of a coffee. He hadn't managed to get much rest on the coach and needed a boost of caffeine to wake himself up. Zena was among the group, picking apart a blueberry muffin as Henri ordered his coffee.

"Interesting," she said, when he dumped two packets of sugar into his coffee. At his raised eyebrow, she added, "I always figured you were an unsweetened black coffee kind of guy."

"Really?" Henri stirred the hot drink with an amused look. "And where did you get that impression from?"

"It's just the vibe you have about you," Kit said, popping up out of nowhere with the usual opportune timing that came when Zena was involved. "If you were a drink, you'd be black coffee, Henri."

"And you'd be orange juice," Henri said.

Zena laughed, and Kit looked stricken. "Well, orange juice has lots of vitamin C," he mumbled, and Henri felt a little bad. Kit had been pining after Zena unnoticed by her for a while and Henri hadn't meant to pull the rug out from under him, even if the comment was harmless.

"Zena, don't you major in biological sciences?" Henri asked.

"Sure. Why?"

"So does Kit," he said, ignoring the startled look Kit shot him. "He missed a lecture the other day and was looking for someone who had notes he could borrow. Weren't you?"