A week had passed since the academy's entrance exams. Of course, Eleonora was admitted into the academy after her meeting with the headmaster. There was a week of preparation for the students before their first day at the academy and their admission into the academy's dorms.
As for Eleonora, she took Cale the merchant up on his offer and went to him for a place to stay. Luckily for her, he was true to his word and provided her with a proper room to stay at for this week that was even close to the academy.
Eleonora spent the week preparing for the academy by training, and Cale provided her with some necessities for her to take on her way to the dorm.
2nd Decimatio 1329, Dawn
Today is finally the time for her to head to the academy, and as soon as the clock struck exactly 6, Eleonora opened her eyes.
She immediately got out of her bed, went to the bathroom to freshen up, and changed her clothes to a comfortable set for training provided upon her request by Cale. She then went for her daily morning jogging routine. She left her room exactly a quarter of an hour after 6, and finished her jog exactly a quarter of an hour before 7, meaning she jogged for exactly half an hour.
She finished her jog route exactly at her room, where she went and had a morning bath and changed into her uniform: a white shirt with a black blazer on top with the crest of the academy on its chest, along with a pair of black pants.
Her uniform is supposed to consist of a tie and a handkerchief in the color representing her year, which was white for first years, but she refused to wear the tie as she felt it was chokingly uncomfortable and looked horrible on her, so she didn't wear it and left her shirt unbuttoned.
As a girl, she was also supposed to wear a skirt in the same color as her tie and handkerchief, but unlike her first violation, she did get permission and got the pants instead of the skirt from the academy.
At exactly 7, Eleonora had left the room with the stuff Cale prepared for her. She headed to the academy and went to the dorm first to leave her stuff with a clerk there, and then left for the academy's lecture room as she looked at the timetable she had prepared.
"What a busy day, I can't believe it's so hard to prepare a timetable to attend all courses. Is the academy not considering the possibility of someone attending all courses at the same time? So many lectures have overlapping times" said Eleonora speaking to herself.
But even though she said that, she still managed to arrange all the lectures she needed to attend in one busy timetable that required her to attend from the first lecture at 8:30 all the way to 4:30.
Each day consisted of around 6 lectures, each an hour, with around 2 hours of free time in between that varied slightly from day to day.
Eleonora carried herself through her tiresome day as she met many professors and came to know many new things.
After the 6 lectures had finally passed, she could go back to the dorms to find her new room and rest after the tiresome day that was about to repeat for the oncoming 7 years.
She arrived at the dorms where she picked up the stuff she left earlier and received the keys for her room along with her identification card as she took the stairs up.
"The rooms are shared between two students each if I remember right. I should have checked the name of my roommate. It's not like I would have recognized her, but it would have been better to know her name. But no use bothering with that, I can just ask her" thought Eleonora as she climbed the stairs on her way to her room.
After a few steps, Eleonora stood in place as she had a quick thought before she quickly denied it.
"Nah, surely that wouldn't happen. To begin with, I'm an accommodating person; basically, anyone will do as long as they have basic human decency" thought Eleonora as she arrived at the room, put her keys into the lock, and opened the door.
In front of her was exactly the thought she had just denied: Angela unpacking her stuff and settling in the room. Upon recognizing her, Eleonora quickly shut the door back so loudly everyone in the hall stared at her. Eleonora then took in a deep breath and let it out, still holding the room's door knob as she spoke to herself.
"I will now open the door, and find I was just seeing things."
Eleonora opened the door again to find Angela still inside, who was reaching out to open the door and check on why she shut the door closed.
"Ah, it really was you, Eleonora! I was happy when I checked my roommate only to find it was you. I thought surely there wasn't another Eleonora in the same batch of students considering how unique it is" said Angela.
Eleonora's face showed obvious displeasure as she tried not to comment directly on being angry that Angela of all people was her roommate.
"So, you are my roommate. Nice to meet you again, I'm Eleonora as you already know" said Eleonora as she extended her hand for a shake while poorly hiding the displeasure on her face.
Angela stared at her hand for a few seconds before slightly bowing in apology.
"I'm really sorry for the other day, I let my curiosity get the best of me and bothered you. I wouldn't want to start our friendship on such a bad page..."
"Wait, am I already your friend?!" said Eleonora in confusion.
"AH! I rushed again! Ahh, I'm really sorry, I will make sure to be aware of your personal space and—can we be friends?"
"Wow, you are all over the place."
Angela's face flushed bright red at Eleonora's comment as she got angry.
"Now, you are the one going too far! I even apologized before anything!"
"Hahaha, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Even I was too rude, even if I was bothered earlier. As you said, let's start on a good page. Sure, let's be friends. By the way, my hand has been hanging for a good while now, friend."
Angela then rushed to shake hands with Eleonora whose hand had been hanging ever since she came in.
Following their handshake, Angela got back to unpacking as Eleonora looked around assessing the room until something got her attention.
"Hey, why are you still unpacking? The magic course doesn't have that many lectures on the first day. You should have been already here at least four hours ago. Do you need any help?"
"I actually took up some more courses after seeing you. I picked all of them with the exception of the swordsmanship as I couldn't do it."
"Oh, I see," said Eleonora before reprocessing what she just heard and continued, "Wait, you didn't study or prepare for them and just took the test and passed?" "Yeah, I didn't know if I could pass but I thought it wouldn't hurt to try, and surprisingly it was manageable."
"It would hurt though; you would fail entirely if you failed two tests."
"What are you talking about? You said it yourself; surely, they wouldn't fail a light magic user" said Angela with a straight face.
Eleonora stared at Angela for a few seconds as she continued humming while taking her stuff out as Eleonora thought to herself.
"This girl... I can't really tell if she is really smart or crazily stupid. Can she be both?" "I only just noticed, but Eleonora, were you okay with your uniform looking like this?" asked Angela.
"You mean the pants? It's actually common for female swordsmanship students to request pants instead of a skirt as they are more comfortable to move in, as long as we use the male counterpart to the skirt's color, which is the handkerchief."
"Oh, I didn't know that, but honestly I was asking about, you know, the tie."
"Ah, that. I didn't like it so I didn't wear it, and nobody talked to me about it."
"I would guess the disciplinary committee was busier with more serious violations, but I'm pretty sure they won't let it go."
"You think so? Hmm, they are really bothersome though. Whatever, I will worry about it when it's time to worry about it."
Eleonora then opened her bag and started taking her stuff out before remembering to settle something.
"Actually, I wouldn't mind either, but it's probably for the best if I take the bottom bed. Since I will probably be waking up earlier for my morning routine, I would bother you if I take the top one."
"I wouldn't mind either too. I'm a heavy sleeper anyway, but since you would probably be careful either way, I'm okay with you taking the bottom one. I always wanted to try a bunk bed too; it would be meaningless to take the bottom one." "Alright then, that's one problem settled."
"Ah, in return, let me match my timetable with yours since our only difference is the swordsmanship course."
"You can have the bottom bed."
"Come on!"
Even though Eleonora was fine with Angela's apology for her behavior on their first meeting, she was still worried about spending her days with such an overly energetic ball of sunshine, though in the end, she gave up upon Angela's repeated pestering.
Eleonora also advised Angela to change into something more comfortable so that they could clean the room before unpacking. By the time they were finished and could call the room theirs, it was night as Angela yawned.
"I guess that's it for the day. Hey, Eleonora, said your lectures start at exactly the beginning of the day, right? We should head to bed now" said Angela as she yawned.
Eleonora looked at her as she seemed to think of something before answering
"You should call me Elen, also my timetable won't do as is as it has swordsmanship in the middle of the day, which will leave you with empty periods in your day."
"It's fine by me, I can waste that time anywhe– wait, really? Can I call you, Elen?"
-"Yeah, I know how long my name can be to repeatedly call"
-"Yes! I really thought you would never let me call you anything but your full name, it seemed like you loved it"
-"I do like it; it's the only thing I have of my mother"
Angela was surprised by Eleonora as stared at her for a few seconds as Eleonora continued
-"Don't ask any further, yes, I'm an orphan, end of topic"
-"Ah, I'm sorry" said Angela as she remained silent for a few seconds and then continued "But really don't worry about the timetable things and let's just rest for the day"
"No, I will stay up a bit. I'm not sleepy anyway. I will rearrange our timetable so that swordsmanship lectures are either at the beginning or the end of the day. That way you won't waste time outside."
"I'm really fine, I can even study at such gaps."
"Well, I'm not. If you can study at such gaps, you should study in the room."
"Sigh, I can't talk you out of this, but are you sure you don't want to sleep for now and worry about this next week?"
"No, it's fine. I will be staying up to study anyway."
"Study on her first day?" thought Angela to herself.
"It's never too much studying really, doesn't matter if it's the first day or not," answered Eleonora.
Angela held her mouth in surprise as she thought she had spoken her thoughts out loud.
"Don't worry, you didn't mistakenly speak your thoughts, though I would advise you to worry about how obvious your thoughts are."
"Aww, well, if you are fine then go ahead. I would also be obviously thankful if you go out of your way to adjust the timetable for me."
"Do worry about it, I will be holding on to this favor."
"Hey! But I never asked for it."
"I can always refuse to share my timetable with you entirely."
"That's playing low!"
"And playing low always wins."
"What a meanie! Good night," said Angela as she sulked.
"Good night" said Eleonora as she took a seat on the desk.
Just like that the night had ended, though it went on for quite a bit longer for Eleonora.