Heroes of Dreamland Rewritten, Book 2: Stars in Far Places

Chapter 23

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"Truecure, do we really have to have this fight now? Can't it wait until after the festival?"

"No, Honesty; it can't. We've been having this argument for over ten years, now. The application closes this weekend; if we register Curador now, he could go to a good boarding school in Cathair Cathrach and actually be prepared for going to the Academy in a few years. He's already a year behind other kids his age, since we held him back before kindergarten, but instead of putting him into a real school, he's always been out there with the Halfling, playing knights and dragons with pointy sticks. He'll probably end up having to be held back another year and end up going to the Academy late, if he can even get in at all."

Hugging my gloves and wings around myself, I sit with my back against a set of cabinets in the kitchen, staring at the floor and listening to my parents yell. You'd think I'd get used to this, eventually; used to my father hating Blossom, used to my mother trying to stand up for her, used to Father acting like I'm some sort of idiot just because I haven't been to a 'normal' school since I was six. I took the standardized tests last spring that all students are supposed to take the semester before they start high school, and while yes, I'm technically still listed as an incoming freshman, the tests placed me at an eleventh or twelfth grade level in all subjects. Even in my worst subject, math, I still did better than 93% of other kids my age who took the test this year.

But Father doesn't care about that. Father doesn't care that my grades are perfect, that I'm getting to learn about subjects so much more in-depth than I would in a 'normal' school. I learn from a library; I can learn as much as I want about any given subject, practically. In a 'normal' school, it would all be based off a curriculum. I'd just learn what the teacher wanted me to learn. And another thing; he acts like Blossom is just teaching me whatever she feels like out there. She's had Mother bring her a list from the school every year based on what the kids in my grade level would be learning, and making sure that I learn all that and then some. If the library is short on books on a subject, she sends me to the school's library instead, or has me ask the teachers there for a list of textbooks they use that my parents can order for me (though the only subject we've ever really had to do that with is math).

Honestly, the only place where you might be able to claim that I've fallen behind the others is that instead of studying the Chivalry Clan language, I've been studying the Heritage Clan language, the Language of the Ancients, due partially to Blossom's own interest in it. And I've grown up speaking the Knowledge Clan language around the house on a regular basis, so I'm already bilingual and thereby a step ahead of the other kids at my grade level around here, anyway.

But Father doesn't care about any of that, because in the end, Father doesn't actually care about whether I am succeeding or failing as a student. All Father cares about is that I turn out exactly like he wants me to, a perfect clone of himself. His parents sent him away for boarding school in the ninth grade, so that's what he wants for me, too. His parents had him go to the Academy and later the Academy's medical school, just like his father did, so that's the future he has planned for me, too. It's the future he's had planned for me ever since the moment I was born.

I'm not allowed to be anything else, as far as he's concerned. The fact that I've 'wasted' my entire childhood (since as far as he's concerned, all fifteen-year-olds should clearly be practically responsible adults; apparently he never looks at the other kids my age around here) 'playing knights and dragons with pointy sticks' with a Halfling already makes him so angry he almost never speaks to me anymore. As far as he's concerned, I'm already a failure. Throwing me at a boarding school so he doesn't have to be around me anymore is essentially my only shot at redemption in his eyes.

And unfortunately, since Mother can only keep arguing in favor of keeping me with Blossom for so long, he's probably going to get his way this time. I'll only be in River Village for Christmases and summers after next month, more than likely. I'll almost never get to see Blossom or Forest, my best friend and my brother. They'll still have each other, but I'll just be the weird nerdy kid plunked down in a strange environment all over again. You know how many Knowledge Clan kids go to boarding school in Cathair Cathrach? Very, very few. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if I was the first registered-as-other-Clan kid to go to this school.