And in our silences we hide the loudest of words
Lucrari South Intermediate Scire, Thairo City, Southern Ardeneon
March 22
Change is a very mischievous concept, it can either make or break a person, and if that wasn't scary River didn't know what was. The instance of something, someone or a certain way of life being altered, different or interrupted for an uncertain period of time bothers him deeply.
That being said, regardless of his displeasure towards the inevitable concept, he knew that he had to master adjustment, because if he stopped and waited, life would still go on.
It had been two days since they started attending Lucrari South Intermediate Scire...and today would be the start of spring break if they had been back home on earth...a fact that hung heavily in all their minds, especially Rivers.
Both he and Emily are in serum making/potion brewing class, they don't sit together because the seating chart is by name.
Instead, River was sat at the back of the class with a girl named Ridea. They both sit in silence doing their work, which River was grateful for...well Ridea was doing her work, River on the other hand couldn't care less.
He didn't see the class being beneficial to him in any way, the only classes he had decided to take an interest in were Skill cultivation, Skill testing and history. Assuming skill cultivation might teach him a thing or two about survival, skill testing will help him figure out if he has any skills at all, he figured if he does then maybe they would be useful in helping them go home and history would help him learn more about the place which would give him some sort of leverage, 'It's better than being an empty box' He thought.
"You're doing it wrong" Ridea chirps at him.
'Oh, so she speaks' He thinks.
"Oh, I'm aware" he tells her nonchalantly.
"That's the yellow viper's venom: she points to a small bottle filled with black liquid. "And that's rabbit fur" she points at what he could now clearly see as rabbit fur. "You weren't supposed to add salty kelp, and lizard scales to the serum" she smiles at him.
"I wish I gave a crap" he mutters under his breath.
"Huh?" she turns to look at him, tucking her red hair behind her ear as if to hear him better.
"Nothing" he shakes his head.
"The names are literally written on the bottles, it's really not that hard" she tells him.
"Okay" he responds uninterested.
"I can help you" she pauses "...so you don't end up failing this class"
"I don't really ca-" he cuts himself off realizing that she might know a few things that could help them. "Sure, I'm grateful" he tells her with little to no emotion in his voice.
She assists him in mixing the serum and then it was time to test it. It was a hair growth serum, the professor told them that it would only last a couple minutes because of the frog saliva, which is present in it, they were to test it on themselves.
River was not a party to this, but he had no choice, everyone else was doing it.
He put a drop of it onto his tongue trying not to gag, he swallowed it, almost immediately his hair began to grow, it grew all the way down to his waist and then it stopped.
After a few minutes, his hair turned back to normal.
"Thank you" he thanks Ridea after the serum had worn off.
"You know, creating the wrong serums could have dangerous effects on you. Additionally, Mr. Rodly hates that, that's why we're our own test subjects, you suffer the consequences and so does your grade." She informs him and he shrugs, it's not like he cared, to him he'd be out of there in a couple weeks anyways.
"You seem to not like this class" she surmises assessing his behavior intently.
"It's not helpful" he answers bluntly waiting for the alarm to go off so he can leave the class, all he could think about was food and doing a deep dive in the library after he ate, books always have answers and food always makes you happier.
"Serum making and potion brewing is actually really fun once you understand it" she pauses "You just need to practice, you can create a serum or potion for almost everything, if that isn't amazing, I don't know what is." 'She doesn't stop talking does she?' He groans internally and then a thought comes to him.
"Anything?" He asks, giving her his full attention.
"Well not anything, but whatever you could need it for" she answers, and a small smile makes its way onto his face.
The buzz goes off just as she was about to open her mouth again. "God did." River mutters
Immediately, he jumps to his feet and makes his way out of the class. Stopping beside the wall which had a few bricks out of the way to create the passage, he leans on the wall waiting for Emily to walk out.
"Hey!" Ridea chirps beside him.
"Great!" he responds. Note the sarcasm.
Instead of paying her zero mind like he intended to do, he chooses not to ignore her seeing as that would probably be rude since she was of immense help to him today.
"Yes?" he asks seriously this time.
"I'm Ridea" she introduces "Your desk partner in serum making/ potion brewing or as we like to call it smpb!"
"I'm aware" he gives her a tight-lipped smile and look behind her for Emily. "You're not forgettable"
"Looking for someone?" she asks.
He looks behind her again. A bad feeling growing in his gut, but then again he gets bad feelings a lot about a lot of things.
Inside the class two girls had cornered Emily at her table.
Emily was packing her things and preparing to leave, when these two girls came up to her.
"Edelay is it?" The blonde one asked and all Emily could think about is how stunning the girls are.
"Emily" she corrects her looking down, she wasn't really good at making friends, or talking to strangers, it made her anxious.
"Not the point" she lifts her chin up "You look at me when I'm talking to you"
Emily begins to fidget with her fingers nervously, trying to keep eye contact with her, she didn't want to let them see how anxious she really is. "Who are you?" she gives them a small smile.
"That's not for you to know you dumblebee" the brunette huffs, 'dumblebee... is that supposed to be an insult? What type of fifth grade bullying is this?' Emily thinks
"So how can I help you" Emily smiles at them regardless, but she really wished they would get to the point.
"Look Edelay or whatever you call yourself" the blonde one chirps, 'she literally just heard my name, now she's just being rude.' Emily eyes her up and down this time with a scowl but she doesn't say anything.
"Stay away from our boyfriends or else" the blonde girl caresses Emily's cheek tucking her hair behind her ear causing Emily to jump away in confusion "you and I are going to have serious problems" she added.
Emily lets out a sigh trying her best to be confident "I don't even know your boyfriends; I think you've got the wrong person"
The blonde girl cocks her head at the brunette "Shut her up"
Emily was about to comment on how she would appreciate it if they could let leave, but she couldn't speak.
"You're going to get everything you deserve for trying to steal him from me" she gives Emily an innocent smile and pats her cheeks and suddenly pain bolted through her body, it seethes through every vein. It felt as if her limbs were being torn apart but she couldn't scream she couldn't shout, she couldn't move. She felt herself growing dizzy, everything getting blurry.
River looks at his watch irritatedly waiting for Emily to come outside "Still looking for someone?" Ridea moves in River's way to stop him from looking into the classroom.
"Yes, could you please excuse me?" River tries to walk around her, but she stops him with a glint in her eyes.
"What's going on?" he asks her, confusion flooding through him.
"I really tried to be nice" she sighs. "Look, you can't go in there or they'll attack me too"
"What?" he asks confused.
"They'll hurt me too, if you go in there, that's the princess of Izar and her best friend they could kill me." she pushes, her hold on River tightening, River stood there still confused wondering what she is going on about and more importantly what exactly it had to do with him.
"I'm yet to see what this has to do with me." he pushes her off of him walking back into the class.
"What's going on? Emily, we'll be late to our next class." He calls out to her from the back of the class.
"What are you doing here?" One of the girls asks him and he looks at her confused, thinking about how that question was as invalid as trading a tesla for a pretzel, it's not like she was the head of year or professor, so he couldn't tell why what he did with his legs had to do with her.
"I have freedom of movement, you?" lifting a brow at her he makes his way towards them. "You're not very bright for a pretty girl"
The blonde girl that spoke to him cocks her head and the other girl takes her eyes off of Emily, Emily seemed a tad bit relieved, but River could not sense that she was in pain.
They leave the room and River walks over to Emily slowly, confused—a recurring emotion at this point—as to why she hadn't gotten up and instead was quietly sitting in her chair, it was almost painful to watch.
"What was that about?" River asks his eyes trained on her.
"E-Everyt-thing hurts" she manages to choke out while shaking.
"Did they hurt you?" he asks concern lacing his voice. No response, she just looks at him pleadingly only managing to let out a whimper. "Let's go to the infirmary" he sighs.
"Come on, let's go, I'll take you there before my next class" he offers.
She tries to get up, but he sees her clearly struggling.
He catches her before she falls and begins to assist her in walking, two steps in and her legs were practically melting. He pauses turning to face her.
"Hold on" He helps her sit on a chair and grabs her cloak which was on her desk, he puts it over her and squats in front of her on the floor "get on" he looks at her over his shoulder. She took her time getting on, he wasn't complaining though, he was more worried than anything.
"Did you fall and break anything?" he asks, and she groans as he stood up.
He decides not to ask any question thinking again that she could just be sick, or a girl thing like really bad cramps.
"What were those girls telling you?" he asks, and she groans, he decides to refrain from asking any questions at all "I guess we'll talk when you're better" he sighs as they make it into the infirmary—which was a long journey seeing as it is in a completely different building.
"Hello" He greets the nurse as they walk in, and she rushes over to them alertly. "What happened?" she asks River helping him get Emily off his back and carefully leading her to a bed.
"I don't know she's just been groveling in pain for the past couple minutes" he informs her
"Alright" she sighs in disbelief mixing something together "you get along to class, she should be fine when she wakes up from this" she smiles at him shaking the mixture in the bottle, he nods walking away.
'That's odd, Emily doesn't fall sick easily, maybe it's just her body reacting to the new environment.' He thinks while making a mental note to check the library for books on serums and potions later, standing on the conclusion that it might actually be proven useful, maybe he can somehow speed up the process.
Rushing to history class, which he was already 15 minutes late to, he knocks on the door gently and hears a soft 'come in'
"Tardy" The Professor shakes her head, he apologizes and quickly sits on an empty seat in the back of the class, next to Dexter.
"Why are you late?" Dexter asks him.
"Emily is sick" he whispers.
"She seemed fine this morning" Dexter whispers back.
"Well now she seems to be in pain" River sighs.
The professor taught about the feud between the chorlings, and the sprites, Dexter and River took notes following intently holding on to the thought that anything and everything taught in this class will be helpful, especially as they know nothing about this place.
After class, River has free period, but Dexter had caregiving—still brings them both to wonder what exactly they need caregiving for, some sort of basic decency class?
"You should go check on Emily, Skai and Elijah are probably already in class" Dexter told River and sprinted off.
"Okay" River yells out hoping Emily would be better now so they could go to the library and find some stuff about potions or serums, something used for transportation maybe.
River walks into the infirmary the second time that day, this time without someone holding on to him for dear life.
"Is she fine?" he asks the nurse.
"Oh, she's excellent, just resting, she should be up in a couple minutes" she smiles at him.
"So, what was the issue" he asks.
"From what I could see, she's a victim of a Marinator" She sighs, and River lifts a brow at her having zero knowledge of what that meant.
"Someone caused internal pain on her, it was long enough to leave aftereffects" She explains.
Then it clicks for River, they're in a school of students with magical powers of course something like this could happen, he was convinced it was those girls. 'But what would they possibly have against Emily, she just got here.'
Emily's eyes flutter open, she blinks repeatedly in confusion slowly sitting up on the bed trying to keep her eyes focused.
"Emily you're up" River exclaims relief washing through every fiber of his being from the chair besides Emily's bed. "You good? What did those girls do to you?"
"River" she breathes out tiredly and he hums in response "My brain isn't working right now"
"Oh sorry" he apologizes sheepishly before the memories of what happened come flooding back to her. She tells River what happened.
"Don't tell Elijah about this" she tells him firmly and he nods without asking any questions.
"I won't, but Dexter has probably ran that tap he calls a mouth" He shrugs and Emily groans in response.
"Your mouth isn't any better, you told Dex" Emily blames him.
"I was worried okay?" he raises his hands up in defense "I had to say something so I could breathe."
Emily really didn't want Elijah on this matter, she knew he'd just overthink, and she didn't want him to worry, their focus needed to be on going home.
"Come on, I'm going to assume your legs are working now, we need to get to the library before this period comes to an end." River hurries Emily.
"Why?" she asks.
"Because Y has two branches and a stick" he rolls his eyes sarcastically before giving her a real answer "We came here for information, didn't we?"
"Oh yeah"
They arrive at the library and River does most of the talking to the librarian. He told her that they were in their free period and wanted to study, well that was mostly the truth.
Emily didn't have a free period right now, or today at all, but she was already late to her class so what did it matter. Besides, they don't take caregiving class attendance seriously.
They searched through the library, getting to know it better and the location of each kind of book, to make it easier for them in the future. "Now that we have this place mapped out, I was thinking we could start with potions and serums" River suggests.
"Why? Thought we were focusing on history books?" Emily tilts her head at him in confusion.
"We're looking for something that can either help us find our ancestry line or teleport to them maybe even to earth" he whispers in her ear explaining his reason and she nods in understanding.
Soon enough they had a bunch of books in front of them and they were desperately reading through them hoping to find something that would help.
"Disappearing potion" Emily reads out loud "Would that help?" she looks up at River and he takes a moment to think. "I don't think so, but it wouldn't hurt to write it down" he shrugs
Emily had gone through two books by the time the buzz went off. It was moving slower than she had hoped. All she had was Disappearing potion and an invisibility potion—which are practically the same thing.
"Lunch time Riv" she whispers out to him "I don't know about you but if I don't eat, I'm going to lose my consciousness for the second time today" she feigns helplessness.
He chuckled lowly and nodded his head closing the book he was on.
"Okay okay, let's go, we should borrow some of these" he suggests and Emily nods picking four up, knowing she wouldn't be able to go through more than that this night.
River picks up about six or so books and they walk over to the librarian.
"It's so nice to see more students making use of the library books" she mumbles under her breath with a small smile as they sign for the books by getting out fingerprint scanned.
They smile at her in gratitude and make their way to the dining hall.
"You're not reading all that" Emily shakes her head at River.
"Hey, I grabbed something for everyone, wait don't tell me you grabbed those four thick books for yourself" he chuckles, and Emily looks away not wanting her inner nerd to shine through.
Dexter, Elijah and Skai had made the smart decision of not eating in the dining hall because they found it uncomfortable in there, they get a lot of weird looks.
"Let's wait by the dining hall in case they come this way" Skai suggests, and Elijah and Dexter both nod their heads.
"I'll go get some food for us" Elijah tells them before walking through the doors, the hall grew silent upon his presence, before it burst into chatters of gossip.
"Can't wait to get out of here" Skai mutters breaking the silence between her and Dexter.
"Soon" He assures her, although he wasn't so assured himself. A moment doesn't go by that his heart doesn't ache, that he doesn't think about his mom.
"I hope she's okay" Elijah sighs with two paper bags in his hands as he steps back out to join them. He was referring to Emily.
"Calm down dude, she'll be a hundred percent, if I didn't know any better, I'd think you love her more than me" Dexter feigns distress "You never acted this way when I was sick"
"You don't want me to answer that question Dexter" Elijah scratches his head.
"I'm so tired" Skai sighs leaning on Dexter, she had been awfully quiet all day.
"You good?" Dexter asks her.
"Yeah, I'm great, I just didn't get much sleep last night" She yawns, and he lets her lean on him, stabilizing her shoulder with his right hand.
Skai has what you would call 'last child's mindset', she was given more care in comparison to the other children around her, so she often felt entitled to certain things one being to be taken care of.
Being the youngest in their little friend group didn't help her entitlement issue, plus her brother was always there for her whenever she needed anything.
One could say she is spoiled but they don't think that is necessarily the case, they know Skai is a great person, she was just raised differently.
They stood there waiting for about 8 minutes in total silence before River and Emily showed up.
"Is everything okay?" Elijah was the first to ask.
"Yeah, everything is great!" Emily smiles at her boyfriend, engulfing him in a hug which made River and Dexter laugh a little.
"See Eli? I told you" Just as Dexter said that he felt Skai's weight lift off him.
"Let's go to the fifth hall yeah?" she suggests.
They all agree and make their way to the abandoned hall, only when they arrived there, did Dexter notice the books in River and Emily's arms.
"What are those?" he asks as they all sit on the floor, well they all sit except for Skai. She lays on the floor using River's legs as a pillow and Dexter's as a leg rest while Emily and Elijah were sitting opposite them.
Dexter took his cloak off and placed it over her, because she's wearing a skirt, His eyes won't go there, He thought of Skai like a sister, but anything could happen, and anyone could walk by especially when she is unconscious, and they are not paying much attention to her.
"I think they might be books, but you know I'm not really sure" River answers sarcastically. "What do you think Dex?"
Emily rolls her eyes at River's antics before giving them a real answer "They're books on serums and potions."
Elijah and Dexter both shot them confused looks.
"Well, today I realized that there are serums and potions for literally anything right?" River pauses "So what if we could create something that would help us locate someone from our lineage or something" he tells them "Or even better a portal back to earth"
"Wait that's actually smart" Elijah says
"Well, I am smart" River shrugs.
"And filled with a truckload of ego" Dexter rolls his eyes playfully at him
"Yeah, you can't forget that" Emily giggles.
"You guys are just haters" River shrugs at their antics.
"I'm trying to sleep guys" Skai groans.
"Your mates are working, you're sleeping, you should be ashamed" Dexter tuts, taunting her.
"Shut up Dex" She hits his leg with her shoe causing him to groan.
"So, what have you guys found?" Dexter asks ignoring Skai.
"Nothing helpful right now, we need to meet the guy Mrs. Bolvera told us about and soon" Emily sighs taking a paper bag from Elijah.
"She's right, if not we might spend months here, and we clearly don't want that" River adds.
"We haven't had any of his classes yet" Elijah picks up his sandwich dejectedly.
"Yeah, there's not much we can do till then" Dexter shrugs.
"Let's just go through these books, I'm sure we'll find a way somehow" River snatches the sandwich from Elijah's hands.
"Hey" Elijah wails at his food being taken away from him. "You could have asked"
"Where's the fun in that?" he smirks at him before obtaining a serious demeanor.
"Ladistons" Elijah huffs under his breath before Emily and River handed him and Dexter books so they can join the search for useful potions or serums, as much as Dexter hated studying he had to do this.
As Dexter was looking through the books, something caught his eye, a folded paper. He puts the book down and slowly unfolds the paper.
Nothing.
There is nothing on it.
"What's that?" Emily asks reaching over to grab it. "It's empty" she tilts her head in confusion.
"Yes Emily, I got that" Dexter takes in back from her and River intervenes "An empty piece of paper. Can we move on?" he lifts a brow at the both of them.
"Yeah, you know we have a lot to look at" Elijah adds his eyes not leaving the book that was in his hands.
"No" Emily tucks her hair behind her ear "Think about it guys" she opens a book she had kept to the side and begins to flip through it "We're in a magical world, invisible ink must be common here don't you think?"
Realization dawns on them at what she was hinting at.
"I did see a potion that could help with that" River flips through the books by his side.
"You're hurting me" Skai whines.
"Sorry" River mumbles patting her head before going through the books slowly to avoid hurting her again.
"Exposima" River reads slowly just as Emily was reading something she saw "Revelaticus"
They look up at each other "You go first" River suggests motioning at Emily.
"Revealing potion, it reveals things that are hidden from the natural eye" She reads. "You?"
"Same thing, it exposes things that are hidden" he pauses "The only problem is" he paused.
"The ingredients" Emily sighed, and River nodded his head in agreement.
...
The day passed painfully slowly and finally they were yet again sat in the comforts of the sweet abode of Mrs. Bolvera.
Emily and River had rushed them all to the Bolvera library to look through the books they retrieved and possibly some books the Bolveras have.
Skai is still trudging her feet sleepily pulling on Dexter's shirt occasionally every time she was about to doze off, it was beginning to worry Dexter.
"You didn't sleep last night?" concerned, Dexter questions her.
"No" she tugged on his shirt again. "Why?" he asks.
"couldn't" she shrugs sitting next to him at a table in the corner of the library where the others were already sitting.
'That's odd.' Dexter thinks.
"I wonder if we could find any useful information on where we can get the ingredients in here" Elijah thinks out loud.
"You won't" Skai lifts her head from the table
"How are you so sure?" Emily lifts a brow.
"It's all politics" Skai pauses "And history I guess" she shrugs. "Seems like the Bolveras are really high-ranking members of some sort"
"She did hint at that" Emily points out "But what are you talking about? How did you know that?" Emily was the one to ask.
"I couldn't fall asleep last night so I decided to tour the house" Skai scratches her head in thought "I ended up here, this world mostly functions through a monarchical system" she yawns. "it's all like some sort of story book" she giggles.
"What else did you find out" River asks, they all bombard her with questions, but Dexter was more curious as to what kept her up at night.
She rubs her eyes groaning, 'she is probably still tired.' Dexter thinks "We know about some of the Kingdoms already from history class" she begins "But they only taught us about the south...so far at least" she stands up walking to a shelf, far from when they were seated and came back with two books, one notably bigger than the other.
She flips through the smaller of the two, stopping at a page "here" she pauses sitting back down. "While the southerners were known to harness more resources, the northerners possessed what the former could only dream of; great power" she reads "It further goes to say that the southerners did in fact start the great council but only three out of the ten seats in the council have ever belonged to the south." she closes the book.
"If they started it, why don't they have more seats?" Emily reaches for the book Skai had closed. The cover reads 'History of the Great Council'.
"They started it in order to create balance, but the northerners are said to be stronger and better, the council has to be the best of the best, they earn it" she shrugs "Two of the south's strongest kingdoms and an individual whose intelligence exceeds all else, take up the south seats, it has always been like that"
"So, if another southern kingdom rose up, then it's monarch would replace a northern monarch in the council?" Dexter asks and she nods "That is if a northern kingdom also became less powerful"
"The remaining seven seats in the council are reserved for two appointed members by the previous members. Four of the North's most fierce yet admirable Kingdoms and a wielder of immense power" Emily reads out loud and Skai nods "But what are the kingdoms?" she mumbles to herself, curiosity written all over her face.
Skai opens the bigger book which read on the cover 'The History of Ardeneon' it is thick and huge. "We already know about the southern kingdoms; Lorath, Tenebris, Galene, Minerva, Nefeli, and Izar but Tenebris and Minerva are the important ones. They are like the top dogs" She turns the page "Ah it's here" A smile of achievement makes its way onto her face "in the north we have; Hesperia, Nieves, Shivan, Zale, Zephyr and Aelius, the last four practically control everything"
"That's cool bu-" Skai cuts River off.
"You know what's cooler? I think they all represent different elements" excitement radiates through her as she talks, Dexter smiles at that being able to tell she really enjoyed reading about this.
"What elements?" Dexter indulges her as Emily walks over to their side of the table, standing by Skai, so she could get a glimpse of what Skai was reading.
"Water, Earth, Fire and Air" she grins "But I guess the other two aren't really elements."
"Cold and..." Emily trails off looking up from the book confused "Darkness?"
"How do people even have skills that align with the cold?" Elijah questions out loud.
"Guys" River intervenes "This is interesting and all, but shouldn't we be looking for the ingredients to this potion?" he pauses "Instead of learning about a world we plan to leave soon"
Elijah nudges him, shaking his head at River's impatience "Know your enemy to beat your enemy Ladiston" he smirks "In this case Ardeneon is our enemy."
River sighs giving in, and they continue the conversation.
"It's crazy they call us earthlings, but they have an earth kingdom" Emily chuckles randomly in thought
"That's because earth is not their world, earth is the ground they walk on, their soil, the rocks, nature, to them earth is below them" Elijah explains. "But, what about the other two reserved seats" he asks.
"Well, like I said one is for a being that has immense power, a sprite that has proved to be so powerful, they possess powers like no other, a number of them, they're rare and the other is for the one with a sprite blessed with wisdom, this being has clear judgement and recognizes potential, they are also rare." She tells him.
After a lot of digging, they were able to uncover where we could get two out of five ingredients needed for the potion... by asking Mrs. Bolvera
They had to go to the town market, they hoped they didn't have to but if worst comes to worst they'd have to steal.