Goldborne Academy: Children of light and darkness (Discontinued sorry)

Chapter 11 | Astrea

The dining hall was surprisingly not too hard to find as all Astrea had to do was follow the flock of people all heading towards the same direction.

The two large doors she had passed by when she was lost were wide open and she was met by a cacophony of noise; she could hear people laughing, joking and chattering. There were long rows of tables stretching all the way to the end of the room. On the left, there were tables painted in gold where adults who seemed to be teachers were sitting at. The younger ones stayed near the left; probably so no one picked on them, and the older ones tended to sit as far away from the golden table as possible. She couldn't spot anyone she recognised in the crowd. She stared as she saw two boys trade swords, by throwing them to each other, as if they weren't dangerous weapons that could kill someone if they so much as miscalculated their throw by a centimetre.

Suddenly, she saw Dorin on the other side of the room. He was laughing as Carrots jumped onto some boy. Dorin seemed to have fit right in, she had only noticed him because of Carrots. In fact she had hardly even noticed Carrots, there were so many other animals wandering around as well. She could see dogs, owls, small and some big cats, and some other animals that she thought only had existed in storybooks.

She tried to make her way over to Dorin but as she was walking past what seemed to be a buffet, she crashed straight into a tall, muscular girl, who was scooping some boiled spinach onto her plate.

"I'm so sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going, I'm sorry.." Astrea's fingers were fumbling as she tried to pick up the plate and put the spinach back on it.

The girl started shouting at her in a language she didn't understand. Astrea stood there as the girl made a lot of hand gestures, noises flowing out of her mouth like a river.

"Calm down Agrafina, I'm sure she didn't mean to!" said a voice from behind her. She turned around. It was a boy who was probably not much older than she was, with a messy head of hair that seemed to have been dyed green at the tips. His eyes were a brilliant blue and they were twinkling with amusement.

He turned around. "Is that boy you were heading to your brother?" he asked.

"What? Oh yes, that's Dorin." Astrea mumbled, wiping the spinach off her hands. "Well the boy that he's with is my brother, Cassius, I'm Axton" he smiled and held out his hand, which she shook, while staring at the boy across the room. Axton and Cassius would have been a splitting image of each other if it were not for the age difference and the green hair.

"Come on then," Axton waved, making her realise she had gotten lost in her own thoughts again.

They walked over to Dorin who jumped up as soon as he saw them. Axton didn't sit next to his brother, but instead went towards the large group of people further down the table. He wasn't paying attention to them as he kept looking over to where his brother sat.

"Rea! This is Cassius! This place is so cool! Carrots missed you! Is your room as nice as mine? Am I really an animal speaker? What's for dinner?" Dorin stopped, out of breath.

"Hello Dorin, hello Cassius, hi Carrots ;What's an animal speaker?" Astrea replied, her mind whizzing from all of Dorin's questions.

Sam decided to make an appearance at that moment and sat down next to Astrea, putting an arm around her shoulder and stealing some of Dorin's crisps.

"What are you guys talking about?" He said with a full mouth while Dorin looked confused at his now empty packet of crisps. Dorin decided to fill him in on everything that happened in the last five minutes; which wasn't a lot.

"To answer one of your questions, Dorin, we can't be sure yet if you are an animal speaker until you do the test. But if you think you are one, you will probably end up being an animal speaker," Sam explained carefully to the listening Dorin.

"And to answer Astrea's question, an animal speaker is someone who can, well, speak to animals. You see, everyone at this academy has some sort of magic, some are common magics but a few people have very rare magics.You will see when you have your first World of Magic Lesson, watch out for these teachers though."

He handed her a scrap of paper with names scribbled all over it. Some names had a warning sign next to it and an annotation saying all sorts of stuff such as 'hand in homework on time or you get a week's worth of detention or 'don't be late.' She looked at him gratefully and he gave her a quick nod.

Sadira was not sitting with them; instead she was sitting on the table the furthest away from the teachers in the last row. People kept approaching her and sitting down near her but she didn't spare them even a smile. She didn't say much, while the people around her couldn't stop opening their mouths. Astrea debated whether she should wave her over to sit with them. Not that she would want to sit with some measly kids when she could be sitting with all those people.

Astrea turned back and focused on the food that had just appeared on the table. She smiled when she saw Dorin chatting away with his new friends and Sam with his. She was happy for them but she felt like she didn't belong. She didn't belong in this fancy academy where everyone seems to be able to use their magic except her. She just didn't belong. Everyone seems to know what to do whereas she was there, confused and alone. She tried to give herself hope that she will eventually find her voice. Reluctantly she smiled through the sadness and kept eating; she didn't want... need anyone's pity friendship or be the girl who didn't have any real friends. It hadn't even been a day and everyone seemed to regard her and Dorin as old friends, but she hardly knew them at all.

Axton was still looking at them and his friends had just stopped including him in their conversations as he wouldn't answer them no matter how much they shook his shoulder. Astrea looked at him and smiled. Dorin followed his sister's gaze and stood up. He walked up to Axton and whispered something with a grin in his ear and then looked at Astrea. Whatever he must have said made Axton let out a smile and walk over with Dorin, hand in hand. Dorin usually had that effect on people.

Axton smiled and sat with them hesitantly, looking back at his friends. Old friends, Astrea hoped. They were not real friends. If they were, they would have noticed he was gone and at least looked in his direction. Axton sat opposite of Astrea, next to Dorin. Sam grinned at Axton, "Hey Ax why don't you show these guys your power?" Axton smiled again and turned his arm upwards Astrea watched in amazement as a flower emerged from the veins on his wrist, a rose bud blossomed and he pulled it out. Golden dust emerged out from his fingers and coaxed the flower open. He looked at it surprised as if he hadn't known which plant would emerge. Sam grabbed it from his hands. "Why thank you Axton" and he winked. Axton laughed.

Suddenly she heard glasses clinking. The dinner plates had disappeared and dessert plates appeared. But no dessert on them. Everyone looked at the raised platform where the Master sat. He was droning on about something to do with the coming weeks and Astrea zoned out.

"And to welcome our newest students, Astrea and Dorin. Please stand up," that woke Astrea up. "They will be tested for their powers tomorrow but I have a good idea on what they could be."Astrea looked towards Sam in confusion, but he just shrugged.

Astrea tried again to clear her head from all the thoughts running  around her mind.She was still confused just the other day she had been trying to find enough money for her and Dorin to survive the week and now she was in some giant school. Everyone was acting like they had known her for years. Even Dorin was fitting in. She stood up and her ears turned red. He thankfully sat them down and by then dessert had arrived.

"Continue," said the HeadMaster.