A Forgotten Mess: A Hawdence Story

The Monday After

"So, how was your morning?" Hawthorne asked through his mouthful of chocolate muffin.

"It be very suk." Cadence replied unenthusiastically. (Or – "Eh, it was okay I guess.")

"What happened?"

"Oh, just the normal, some idiot git kicked out of class."

The two were seated under a tree just outside Proudfoot House. They only had a few lessons to go until hometrain but both were still exhausted. That was one of the few downsides from Frank's party on Saturday – a terrible sleep schedule. Well, the new couple's exhaustion wasn't exactly going to sleep at one o'clock as they had said they had, but rather from them staying up till sunrise on Saturday after walking to Mahogany Park for an 'evening' stroll. Or supposedly, a brief nap until sunrise. After they woke up, Hawthorne walked Cadence home before heading home himself.

Once he had finished his muffin, Hawthorne stood up and offered his hand to Cadence, pulling her up but not letting go of her hand. He began to lead her away from the tree and down the path leading around Proudfoot. The couple walked in a comfortable silence for quite some time until Cadence broke it, asking, "Doing anything interesting these holidays?"

Hawthorne looked at her, "Holidays? The ones in three weeks?"

"No, stupid, last year's Summer holidays."

"... sarcasm?"

"Yes."

"So the ones in three weeks then?"

"No, the ones next week dummy. What week do you think it is?"

"..three weeks till the term ends?"

"..."

"We seriously only have a week left?"

Cadence giggled, "Yes, but you still didn't answer my question."

"Umm, not that I can think of? Got dragon-riding training, probably will go to the Deucalion at some point. What about you?"

"Just the usual – staying in my room, cause a bit of mischief and hopefully not get into any trouble."

Hawthorne chuckled, "You know, you should. Come. Over to my house at some point, my family would love to meet you! And... I would like to see you in the holidays too. Oh! Maybe we could do like a day thing where you could meet my family in the morning then we could go out for the rest of the day or something?"

Cadence beamed up at her boyfriend, "I'd love to!"

The two continued walking back round to the front of Proudfoot House, grinning like two lovestruck fools who had just planned their first date (which, to be fair, they were). As they reached the entrance steps to the House, they shared a brief kiss and promised to meet up for hometrain before parting ways for their final classes of the day.

Although the rest of the day's classes seemed to stretch on way beyond their usual times, they still managed to pass rather quickly for Cadence - before she knew it, she was walking from her last lesson to her Unit's Hoimetrain with Lam. The two Arcane scholars were talking about Saturday evening and how Lam knew that Cadence and Hawthorne would get together as well as Morrigan and Jack.

Cadence huffed, "Well, at least I know why you were more bubbly than usual... and occasionally looking over at the four of us... you know, I never thought about what it'd be like to have an Oracle as a friend.. for that matter, I never thought I would have any friends..."

Lambeth smiled warmly, stopping a few metres away from their hometrain to take hold of Cadence's hands, "We're an unusual Unit, from knacks to personalities and even backgrounds, but we all get on just fine. Don't forget, we're your family - brothers and sisters loyal for life..."

"Tethered for always, true as a knife," Cadence murmured as Lam slipped away, slowly letting go of her hands with a knowing smile.

"Something about nine above others and blood being together through fire and..... flood? Then something about.... being faithful and true... ever together, the special and few. I swear I memorised it... for about a week then forgot it."

Cadence laughed and turned around to face her recently proclaimed boyfriend, who opened up his arms for a hug.

"Hey, how were your last lessons?" he murmured in her ear, head resting upon hers.

"It was fine I guess... the annoying kid was away. What about yours?" she asked, taking his hand as the two walked the final three meters to their hometrain and then entered the carriage.

"One of the younger students in my class nearly got blown up. Don't worry, he's okay now, but I had to miss out on the rest of the lesson to take him to the Medical Room," Hawthorne fake pouted as he said he had to miss the lesson, but Cadence knew he liked helping out when he could.

"Sounds eventful."

Laughing, the two flopped down in a beanbag, watching their fellow members of Unit 919 join them on the train. Arch handed out the cookies as Miss Cheery ushered an angry-looking Thaddea aboard the carriage. Looking around, Cadence felt content – Arch putting back the cookie jar and sitting down with Mahir and Lam, Anah cautiously approaching Thaddea who was still fuming, Francis and Morrigan having an argument about who-knows-what and Hawthorne, who's arms she was enveloped in. Lam and Hawthorne were right, this was her family. The one she felt happy with. Feeling his arms tighten around her, Cadence looked up to meet the gaze of Hawthorne who was smiling.

"You feeling okay? You sorta zoned out a bit."

"Yeah, I'm... I'm just fine," she replied earnestly, smiling back.

She rested her head against his chest and closed her eyes, she could get used to this.

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Okay, first things first, so sorry this took a bit longer than expected! I didn't really like the original after rereading so I rewrote it. The original had been sitting here since before The Soon-To-Be Annual Ball Part 2 was written. Also, I liked where this chapter ended so this'll be the official ending but I'm still going to post my original ending in the next few days alongside some of my other original chapters and a few one-shots. And, btw, the first 4 lines were written by one of my friends in class (on my laptop, with my supervision) and I didn't have the heart to change them. Oh and also!  A big thanks to my friend xDarkHeart for proof reading these stories... and all of my other stories, but also thanks for the support, some of the ideas and motivation! Thank you for sticking around for this book and I hope you stay around for the one-shots! Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed! See you in the first one-shot! 😉