Gift Of Justice #NaNoWriMo2k18

Chapter 2

Sunlight filtered through his curtains a he slowly opened his eyes. The bedsheets were on the floor in a small bundle, and he slowly sat up, rubbing his eyes.

He glanced across the room at the dove, still asleep. Its head was tucked on its chest, and it was so still save for the flutter of ice white feather he would've mistaken it for a statue. He stared at the green swirl that marked the bird as an Arcanus, a magic user. Then he slipped off his bed, his bare feet landing with a slap on the wooden floor, and pulled out his clothes for the day.

He pushed open the door and ran over to the table. The door was already unlocked and the dishes washed and cleanly stacked to dry. A plate with one piece of slightly stale bread stood in the centre of the table. He reached over, grabbed the bread, swallowed it in a few gulps, pulled his bag out from under, locked the house after leaving and dashed down the street, eager to arrive at school before the masses appeared in the main city.

Niel took a deep breath as he entered the yawning school doors. The corridors were empty, his footsteps reverberating on the marble floor. He approached the exit and entered into the main school yard, turning around to look for his classroom.

He quickly ducked into the completely deserted room before the other students arrived. The tables were all jammed towards the back, squeezed together as tightly as possible to allow for as much room at the front as possible. He had just sat down in his corner of the classroom when the teacher entered, hugging a stack of books close to her chest with a cage in other hand, stopping in surprise when she saw him.

"Oh, you're really early today. Why's that?"

He shrugged vaguely. His teacher just set her books on the table, sat at the desk and glanced out the window at the wide expanse of buildings, stretching all the way to the very outskirts of the Vassus. Niel put his head down and pretended to sleep until he heard the stool beside him pull out, grating against the stone floor.

"What are you doing?"

He shifted his shoulders, rolling his head over to look up at Diana's frowning face.

"Dying."

"Sounds wonderful."

She squeezed through and sat down beside him, pulling her bag onto the desk, and he watched as she pulled out her ink pens and parchment. The other students were filing in as well now, slowly filling up the empty spaces. The teacher snapped back to attention and quickly stood up, leafing through the top book as the last student sprinted in, huffing, face flushed red. The teacher took no notice as she strolled over to the front of the room, clapping her hands to silence everyone. 

"Hello class! Welcome to Arcanology. I didn't really have anything in store planned for today, so I suppose we'll do a bit of hands on instead."

A few students leaned forwards in anticipation as she opened the cage, and her Earth Arcanus dragon leapt out and immediately scurried over to jump on the table, posing grandly. Niel could see the jagged Earth Facet symbol on its neck even from from the back of the room, and it was glowing brightly.

"Can anyone name the four facets?"

A hand shot up barely after she finished the sentence. "Wind, Earth, Fire, Water. Miss, this is elementary knowledge. We don't need to be tested on this."

"I know, I know. It's quite difficult to teach this class, since although Arktos is quite friendly with strangers, it won't be the same as having your own one. Which I'm afraid is still not possible at this stage."

"Can you just go into the forest or something and catch some so we can meet them and stuff?" A child stupidly asked.

 Arktos hissed a little, whilst she quickly added, "Er, it doesn't really work like that. We let Arcani come to us, not us going to them."