[Confirmed hiatus, I guess??] The Fall Into Darkness - HermitCraft fanfic

Chapter 6 - Learning

POV: Xelqua

Location: Watcher Academy

I looked up at Instructor Zerothke, my hand wrapped around my quill. I was sat in my desk in his classroom and was listening to what he was saying.

The past few weeks of training had gone well. We had begun to learn Galactic and were picking it up. I had learned that the Watcher who had instructed us to send our magic at the crystal during Initiation had actually spoken in Galactic. As well as that, we all learned that we had to go by our last names, but only if they were individualized enough. Apparently, the last name of "Xelqua" was odd enough to be used as a Watcher name.

I was snapped out of my thoughts by the Instructor slamming a textbook down on his desk.

"Does anyone know why magic can be different colors?" he said in Galactic.

After a few moments of silence, I hesitantly raised my hand.

"Yes, Xelqua?" I felt many gazes turn to me, causing me to get uncomfortable at the attention

"The color of your magic shows how much power you have. White is simple magic, purple is more intermediate magic, and gold is advanced magic. There are other colors in between those but those are the most important," I said in Galactic, making some other Initiates jealous at my ability to speak the language so well.

Zerothke nodded. "Correct," he said, a look of pride becoming evident in his eyes.

"Do you know why your generation's crystal shard at the beginning of the year had different colors?" he asked, still addressing me.

I nodded before answering, "It was because of the different levels of raw power in the room. You can learn how to improve your magic but some start out with stronger abilities for magic."

He nodded in approval before seemingly moving on with the class. "People with purple and red magic at the beginning are stronger in power and are more likely to reach gold level magic," he said, his gaze looking at me and then at the black-haired teen with red magic.

We both felt uncomfortable under his gaze. I knew this because we had ended up as roommates and even sat near each other in our classes.

I listened and took a few notes as Zerothke finished the class. Finally, we were allowed to leave. Since it was the last class of the day, I headed straight to my dorm, my gaze occasionally glancing back at my roommate as he trailed behind me.

Soon, we both arrived.

I let out a sigh as I plopped down on my bed, running a hand through my blonde hair. My roommate sat down on his bed, lifting a hand to pull a piece in front of his eyes.

I narrowed my eyes as I saw the behavior. He looked as if it was odd for his hair to be black but I didn't question it.

"How are you, Verix?" I asked in Galactic.

"I've been better," he replied, his semi-deep voice coming out quietly.

"What's wrong?" I asked, straightening my back.

He let out a sigh.

"I feel like something is missing. I'm supposed to remember something from before I was here but there isn't anything. It's as if..." he trailed off for a few moments. "It's as if the server I was at before held the most importance to me," he finished, his black gaze focusing on me.

I nodded. "I don't know what happened before Evo," I revealed. "I know I was somewhere but... I don't know where."

Verix didn't respond to this and instead looked away, fixing his initiatory cloak so that it didn't show his clothes underneath.

I glanced down at my cloak, thinking about the rules of the Academy. By now, you couldn't speak English at all and you had to wear the cloak at all times. It wasn't required to wear the masks but everyone knew we'd have to eventually.

I sighed, hanging my head.

"I guess we'll never find out what we lost," Verix said, his face hidden by his black hair.

I sighed and nodded. "Yeah."

We fell into silence. Verix started working on some work to help him improve his magic while I pulled out a book about Watcher magic. It was written in Galactic but I had no trouble reading it.

I had no idea that my past held so much significance.

(733 words)

(A/N I'm going to mostly gloss over Grian/Xelqua's time at the Academy. I may write more of what happened in a different story but not in this one. Most of my ideas come later on after he finishes training c:)