The Villain Academy- Chapter Five: Class Has Been Cancelled
Hi, everyone!
I'm back with another chapter of "The Villain Academy." The fifth, because, y'know, yesterday I posted the fourth...so...yeah...I'm running out of things to say, to be quite honest, and I've been pondering my busy busy schedule and feeling disheartened as of late. It's already too late to shoot any scenes, really, and my game's being a bitch today and it just crashed as I was saving, and I can't remember last time I saved, and a lot's lost no matter where I last saved. So yeah.
Anyway! Happy things! Before perusing Chapter Five, "Class Has Been Cancelled," read Chapter Four first, or else you will be very lost indeed. Enjoy!
5. Class Has Been Cancelled
The next morning Tori awoke cold, sore, and with markings on her ankles from pulled-tight blankets.
Angie glanced over as Tori woke herself up, with the sun blazing bright right in her face. Tori was groggy and muttered to herself as she sat up.
“You’re tangled like Christmas lights, Lyn,” Angie laughed. “Rough night?”
Tori glared at her. “A bit,” she replied, starting to untangle herself.
Angie kept laughing and woke up the Snowflakes, and Tori’s first morning at the Academy was spent sore and the object of hilarity in her dormitory. The Snowflakes’ quiet giggles weren’t quite as cruel as Angie’s laughter, but cruel all the same.
It seemed everything the Snowflakes did was muffled or muted somehow. Their voices were soft, as were their laughs. Their gait was light and airy. The Snowflakes themselves were thin as whispers and looked very fragile. Their faces were delicate, with wide eyes and pointed noses. Tori was oddly fascinated by them. They seemed to be humans far too delicate to exist. An odd thought came to Tori as she brushed her teeth and changed in the bathroom. Perhaps the Snowflakes had the quiet, subtle power of merely keeping themselves in one piece along with their kinetic powers.
It was the first day of Tori’s classes at the Villain Academy, she realized with a start as she brushed her hair. Tori was still not used to her short, choppy haircut, and kept continuing strokes with the brush far longer than required. Tori set the brush down and sighed. She wondered what her classes would be like. She wondered where she was even going for one.
Her stomach growled. She also realized she was hungry.
Tori stepped out of the bathroom and pulled out a messenger bag from her suitcase. She threw a couple pens, several of which she knew didn’t work anymore, a notebook, a few sheets of crumpled loose leaf, and a pencil into the messenger bag and swung it over her shoulder.
She noticed the Snowflakes had vanished somewhere, so she went up to Angie and said, “So, um, what’s the schedule around here?”
Angie laughed. “Lyn, we’re villains. We really don’t follow schedules. We bend our wills to no one,” she said, as if stating the obvious.
“But…you have classes, right?” Tori asked, confused.
“Yeah. But that doesn’t mean we always show up,” Angie replied.
“But…but…it’s a school! There have to be rules! And…and in school you have to be in certain places in certain times and obey authority and…” Tori trailed off as Angie’s expression became incredulous.
“Are you serious, Lyn?” she asked. “You sound like a goody-goody.”
“Um…I…I’m just…tired.” Tori said awkwardly, her eyes darting about.
Angie rolled her eyes, swung a bag over her shoulder and left the dormitory. Thoroughly anxious and confused, Tori called after her, “Hey, wait up!”
Angie ignored her and slammed the door as she left.
Tori had no idea what to do. She knew most schools lied on their brochures a bit, but what was a school without classes? She sat down on her bed, sending up a dust cloud, and pulled her bag into her lap.
Her stomach rumbled again, more desperately this time. She was starving.
“So,” she said to herself, “first, find food.”
Tori got up and left the dormitory as well, hoping to catch a whiff of bacon or pancakes or something. She didn’t.
Tori had absolutely no idea where she was going, and the Academy was relatively easy to get lost in even when you did know where you were going. She wandered around, occasionally following people until they noticed and threw her dirty looks.
“See, this is why there’s a schedule! So people know where to go and stuff!” Tori informed no one at all after a half hour of wandering. She wished the Academy had a map like the mall back home.
Suddenly Tori realized she had wandered back to the library from last night. It was familiar and she was glad for that. Maybe that was where everyone else had gone, and maybe there she could find a familiar face. She swung open the door.
Unfortunately the library seemed to be deserted as well. Tori groaned and collapsed into a chair. She put her face in her arms and rested on the table. She was hungry, lost, confused, and really had to start acting like a villain.
“Well, it looks like someone’s had a bad morning,” said a faraway voice matter-of-factly.
Tori sat up immediately and looked around. By the wide window of the library, so far away from everything else in the room, sat Rune with a little table, a notebook, and a pen, looking at her and looking like he was trying his hardest not to laugh.
Tori ignored that, knowing it was probably funny to everyone else, and said, “That’s about the understatement of the century.”
She got up and walked over to him, with the storm brewing behind the glass of the window framing the two of them. As she approached Rune inched away, looking wary.
“So, people’s thoughts are that bad?” Tori guessed.
He shuddered. “Yes. Good observation.”
Is everyone here snarky to all hell? Tori wondered crossly. While she herself was bitingly sarcastic, she didn’t appreciate the trait in others.
In turn she replied, “I’m a good observer. Can you tell me where I can find food? I’m starving.”
Rune snorted. “How long have you been wandering?”
Tori glanced away. “Like an hour,” she admitted.
He laughed. “Shut up,” Tori said.
“Why didn’t you follow Angie? She eats like crazy, she practically lives in the dining room,” Rune said.
“Well, I tried asking her about the schedule, like when to go to classes and stuff--“
“You know nothing about the Academy, do you?” Rune interrupted.
“Not really.”
“Well, I hope you know villains rarely follow rules,” Rune started, still a good distance out of Tori’s reach. “The Academy tries to encourage that, because really, what sort of self-respecting villain follows rules or class schedules? So you only show up to class when you want to, because villains do what they want, when they want, as long as it’s not good.”
“So no one ever goes to class?” Tori asked, in disbelief.
“Not necessarily. Sometimes we get bored,” Rune said. Tori wasn’t sure if he was joking or not. But she was leaning towards the “not.”
A few minutes of silence passed. Rune returned to scribbling in his notebook. Tori glanced over as subtly as she could, but couldn’t make out a word; Rune’s handwriting was truly atrocious, like chicken scratch. She wondered if this was on purpose or if Rune was just born with awful handwriting skills.
Tori was curious about him. He seemed like he could be good, deep inside. All he really wanted was to please his parents, which seemed like good. But apparently his parents would only be pleased if Rune became a villain. It seemed a conundrum. If Tori’s parents encouraged her to be evil she would fight back, being good herself. But they never would; as far as Tori knew her parents never did anything truly wrong. Sure, they lied and had flaws like everyone else, but they had never done any huge wrong.
“What’s your family like?” Tori asked, as several more silent minutes slipped by.
Rune sighed, stopped writing, but didn’t look up. “Expectant, aloof, and unaccepting. I thought you were hungry.”
“Oh. Yeah. Where do I go?” Tori asked. The mood of the room had become quite awkward.
Rune tore out a page from his notebook, quickly drew a map, and handed it to her. As she took it from him her hand brushed his.
“Augh!” he cried, leaping back. “I’m sorry!” Tori gasped, taking the paper and recoiling herself. “Did I hurt you?”
He sighed. “No. I was just surprised. It wasn’t your fault.”
Tori thought of Rune’s parents, who apparently had shunned him from birth. “It’s not yours either,” she said softly.
“What?” he asked, glancing up.
“Nothing,” Tori replied quickly.
“I don’t need to read your mind to know you’re lying,” he said with a glare.
Tori began to leave, but Rune got up and grabbed her arm. “Angie said you shunned all human contact,” Tori said, surprised at his willingness to make contact.
“Angie says a lot of things,” Rune replied, letting go. “And your parents are different than my parents.”
Tori had thought it wasn’t Rune’s fault he was born a dhampyr, and that his parents should be more accepting. And with just one touch, he knew she’d been thinking exactly that. He regarded her with one last look, turned away, and returned to his table by the window. Tori left the library and, with some difficulty, followed the map Rune had given her to the dining room.
The dining room was of a good size, with tables that had mismatched chairs clustered around them. The dining room had tall but small windows that barely let in any light, and seeing as the storm was blowing in outside the room was quite dark.
Tori stumbled around, her eyes still adjusting to the darkness, and sat down at a table. “I wonder where the food is,” she murmured to herself as her stomach gave another colossal rumble. She looked around and her eyes caught the buffet table and widened happily.
A few minutes later Tori was back at her table with a plate full of buttered toast, bacon, pancakes (she was surprised to learn that villains liked pancakes like most other people), and a cup of orange juice.
As she was eating the Snowflakes joined her. But they sat so quietly and were totally silent, so she didn’t even notice they were there until they spoke up.
One began, “Your manner of eating…”
“Is quite like Angana’s…”
“And rather repulsive…”
“And yet fascinating.”
Tori looked up, startled, with a strip of bacon hanging out of her mouth. She swallowed quickly, embarrassed.
“Um, I’m just really, really hungry. I got lost,” she explained.
“We would have shown you around,” one Snowflake began, “but we are early risers, and you would not have been pleased,” the other finished.
“Oh, okay. I’m not a morning person at all,” Tori said.
“You looked quite uncomfortable,” one Snowflake commented. “When you were asleep, that is,” the other added.
“You…watched me?” Tori asked, staring.
“For a moment,” they replied. “How did you find your way here in the end?”
“I ran into Rune in the library, and he drew me a map,” Tori said.
“It did not merely confuse you further?” one Snowflake asked, wide eyes even wider. “Rune is no artist, or calligrapher, for that matter,” the other finished, also looking incredulous.
“It was a bit hard to follow, but I made it,” Tori said, taking a bite of toast. After a moment she asked, “Does Rune spend all his time in the library? It seems he’s always there.”
The Snowflakes nodded. “Rune is the solitary sort,” one began. “He prefers books, particularly his notebook, to people.” the other said.
“He has proved himself to be quite intelligent…”
“But anti-social almost to an extreme.”
“Due to his powers, of course,” they concluded together. Having a conversation with the Snowflakes was like watching a tennis match. Back and forth, back and forth, as each twin spoke her piece. It seemed like they rehearsed every possible conversation in advance, figuring out who would say what.
One Snowflake continued, “We do not think Rune hates his powers…”
“But they do overwhelm him…”
“So he rarely touches others, and keeps to himself.”
“Being able to read thoughts is clearly not the most enjoyable power to possess.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to read thoughts,” Tori replied thoughtfully. At first it might be cool, but after awhile it would probably get extremely uncomfortable. People tended to have minds that one would not always take pleasure in reading.
“What do you know about his parents? I tried asking him earlier, but he just said his parents were different than mine and didn’t elaborate.”
The Snowflakes shared a glance and one began, “Rune does not often speak of his parents…”
“We do know they are full-blooded vampires…”
“Or claim to be,” they chorused.
Tori nodded. Vampires were aloof and often vain, and very few true, pure-blooded vampires were still around. Odds were Rune’s family had a non-vampire the family trees kept hidden, which would explain why he was a dhampyr. If both his parents had non-vampire relatives, their children would have good chances of not being as true-blooded as they were.
“Rune’s parents are ashamed of him and his tainted blood…”
“So all he desires is to win their affections…”
“And like all of us, he is here to learn how to be a great villain…”
“Which would make any parent proud.” they finished together.
Tori nodded, but inside she believed otherwise. Poor Rune. He could have been good, Tori thought. But his parents…his parents are different than mine.
Conversation stopped after that, and Tori finished her breakfast as the Snowflakes silently stared at her. It was extremely awkward. Most people eat quite messily, especially when they’re really hungry, and Tori knew she did not look her best.
“Could you not stare?” she finally said after awhile.
“Sorry,” one Snowflakes said, “force of habit,” the other finished.
“Usually we eat with Angana…”
“But she went off somewhere…”
“And she doesn’t mind if we observe her…”
“Half the time she doesn’t even notice us.”
“Yeah, Rune said Angie eats like a beast,” Tori said, taking a swing of orange juice.
“Her manners are quite animal-like,” the Snowflakes commented.
Tori nodded. The Snowflakes seemed quite polite, for villains. I would never believe they were villains, Tori thought. Then again, just last night they were plotting mass chaos and hysteria just to find their sister. Just for revenge. She gave an involuntary shudder. “Uh, cold in here…” she said quietly, hoping they didn’t notice.
Suddenly she realized she had seen everyone from her class today except Altair. “So where’s Altair?” she asked the Snowflakes.
They shrugged in time with each other. “Probably off flying somewhere,” they guessed.
“The grounds are spacious enough for Altair to fly…”
“Well-sheltered, so he wouldn’t be noticed…”
“But most of the time he flies over the little village a while away…”
“He likes to frighten people…”
“Make them think they’re hallucinating…”
“Or crazy…”
“Start urban legends about himself…”
“He’s got an ego, that one,” they finished in unison.
Tori had gotten the same feeling when she’d talked to Altair the previous night. Flying was a common but still well-respected power, merely because it was just plain cool. Tori had read somewhere that everyone had some deep-seated desire to be able to fly like a bird. Altair could, and everyone who couldn’t wanted to. Naturally he must have gotten attention from someone, if not his parents.
That got Tori thinking. Perhaps Altair’s parents, who he had accused of being negligent in paying attention to him, had paid him all the attention they could. But due to their busy schedules, they just never found time to discover his ability, and so while others commented on his power and he got attention for it, his parents didn’t pay him the sort of attention he craved.
“Thinking about something?” the Snowflakes asked.
Tori snapped out of her reverie with a start. “Yeah. Sorry, I guess I just…” she stared out the sliver of a window, imagining Altair flying by. “…got my head stuck in the clouds.” she finished.
You like? You all seem to, which makes me feel awesome. Makes me believe that despite bad math tests I can make it somewhere in this world, even though my mother doesn't seem to think so...
Quote of the Day: "Ooh, cookies!"
~June
I'm back with another chapter of "The Villain Academy." The fifth, because, y'know, yesterday I posted the fourth...so...yeah...I'm running out of things to say, to be quite honest, and I've been pondering my busy busy schedule and feeling disheartened as of late. It's already too late to shoot any scenes, really, and my game's being a bitch today and it just crashed as I was saving, and I can't remember last time I saved, and a lot's lost no matter where I last saved. So yeah.
Anyway! Happy things! Before perusing Chapter Five, "Class Has Been Cancelled," read Chapter Four first, or else you will be very lost indeed. Enjoy!
5. Class Has Been Cancelled
The next morning Tori awoke cold, sore, and with markings on her ankles from pulled-tight blankets.
Angie glanced over as Tori woke herself up, with the sun blazing bright right in her face. Tori was groggy and muttered to herself as she sat up.
“You’re tangled like Christmas lights, Lyn,” Angie laughed. “Rough night?”
Tori glared at her. “A bit,” she replied, starting to untangle herself.
Angie kept laughing and woke up the Snowflakes, and Tori’s first morning at the Academy was spent sore and the object of hilarity in her dormitory. The Snowflakes’ quiet giggles weren’t quite as cruel as Angie’s laughter, but cruel all the same.
It seemed everything the Snowflakes did was muffled or muted somehow. Their voices were soft, as were their laughs. Their gait was light and airy. The Snowflakes themselves were thin as whispers and looked very fragile. Their faces were delicate, with wide eyes and pointed noses. Tori was oddly fascinated by them. They seemed to be humans far too delicate to exist. An odd thought came to Tori as she brushed her teeth and changed in the bathroom. Perhaps the Snowflakes had the quiet, subtle power of merely keeping themselves in one piece along with their kinetic powers.
It was the first day of Tori’s classes at the Villain Academy, she realized with a start as she brushed her hair. Tori was still not used to her short, choppy haircut, and kept continuing strokes with the brush far longer than required. Tori set the brush down and sighed. She wondered what her classes would be like. She wondered where she was even going for one.
Her stomach growled. She also realized she was hungry.
Tori stepped out of the bathroom and pulled out a messenger bag from her suitcase. She threw a couple pens, several of which she knew didn’t work anymore, a notebook, a few sheets of crumpled loose leaf, and a pencil into the messenger bag and swung it over her shoulder.
She noticed the Snowflakes had vanished somewhere, so she went up to Angie and said, “So, um, what’s the schedule around here?”
Angie laughed. “Lyn, we’re villains. We really don’t follow schedules. We bend our wills to no one,” she said, as if stating the obvious.
“But…you have classes, right?” Tori asked, confused.
“Yeah. But that doesn’t mean we always show up,” Angie replied.
“But…but…it’s a school! There have to be rules! And…and in school you have to be in certain places in certain times and obey authority and…” Tori trailed off as Angie’s expression became incredulous.
“Are you serious, Lyn?” she asked. “You sound like a goody-goody.”
“Um…I…I’m just…tired.” Tori said awkwardly, her eyes darting about.
Angie rolled her eyes, swung a bag over her shoulder and left the dormitory. Thoroughly anxious and confused, Tori called after her, “Hey, wait up!”
Angie ignored her and slammed the door as she left.
Tori had no idea what to do. She knew most schools lied on their brochures a bit, but what was a school without classes? She sat down on her bed, sending up a dust cloud, and pulled her bag into her lap.
Her stomach rumbled again, more desperately this time. She was starving.
“So,” she said to herself, “first, find food.”
Tori got up and left the dormitory as well, hoping to catch a whiff of bacon or pancakes or something. She didn’t.
Tori had absolutely no idea where she was going, and the Academy was relatively easy to get lost in even when you did know where you were going. She wandered around, occasionally following people until they noticed and threw her dirty looks.
“See, this is why there’s a schedule! So people know where to go and stuff!” Tori informed no one at all after a half hour of wandering. She wished the Academy had a map like the mall back home.
Suddenly Tori realized she had wandered back to the library from last night. It was familiar and she was glad for that. Maybe that was where everyone else had gone, and maybe there she could find a familiar face. She swung open the door.
Unfortunately the library seemed to be deserted as well. Tori groaned and collapsed into a chair. She put her face in her arms and rested on the table. She was hungry, lost, confused, and really had to start acting like a villain.
“Well, it looks like someone’s had a bad morning,” said a faraway voice matter-of-factly.
Tori sat up immediately and looked around. By the wide window of the library, so far away from everything else in the room, sat Rune with a little table, a notebook, and a pen, looking at her and looking like he was trying his hardest not to laugh.
Tori ignored that, knowing it was probably funny to everyone else, and said, “That’s about the understatement of the century.”
She got up and walked over to him, with the storm brewing behind the glass of the window framing the two of them. As she approached Rune inched away, looking wary.
“So, people’s thoughts are that bad?” Tori guessed.
He shuddered. “Yes. Good observation.”
Is everyone here snarky to all hell? Tori wondered crossly. While she herself was bitingly sarcastic, she didn’t appreciate the trait in others.
In turn she replied, “I’m a good observer. Can you tell me where I can find food? I’m starving.”
Rune snorted. “How long have you been wandering?”
Tori glanced away. “Like an hour,” she admitted.
He laughed. “Shut up,” Tori said.
“Why didn’t you follow Angie? She eats like crazy, she practically lives in the dining room,” Rune said.
“Well, I tried asking her about the schedule, like when to go to classes and stuff--“
“You know nothing about the Academy, do you?” Rune interrupted.
“Not really.”
“Well, I hope you know villains rarely follow rules,” Rune started, still a good distance out of Tori’s reach. “The Academy tries to encourage that, because really, what sort of self-respecting villain follows rules or class schedules? So you only show up to class when you want to, because villains do what they want, when they want, as long as it’s not good.”
“So no one ever goes to class?” Tori asked, in disbelief.
“Not necessarily. Sometimes we get bored,” Rune said. Tori wasn’t sure if he was joking or not. But she was leaning towards the “not.”
A few minutes of silence passed. Rune returned to scribbling in his notebook. Tori glanced over as subtly as she could, but couldn’t make out a word; Rune’s handwriting was truly atrocious, like chicken scratch. She wondered if this was on purpose or if Rune was just born with awful handwriting skills.
Tori was curious about him. He seemed like he could be good, deep inside. All he really wanted was to please his parents, which seemed like good. But apparently his parents would only be pleased if Rune became a villain. It seemed a conundrum. If Tori’s parents encouraged her to be evil she would fight back, being good herself. But they never would; as far as Tori knew her parents never did anything truly wrong. Sure, they lied and had flaws like everyone else, but they had never done any huge wrong.
“What’s your family like?” Tori asked, as several more silent minutes slipped by.
Rune sighed, stopped writing, but didn’t look up. “Expectant, aloof, and unaccepting. I thought you were hungry.”
“Oh. Yeah. Where do I go?” Tori asked. The mood of the room had become quite awkward.
Rune tore out a page from his notebook, quickly drew a map, and handed it to her. As she took it from him her hand brushed his.
“Augh!” he cried, leaping back. “I’m sorry!” Tori gasped, taking the paper and recoiling herself. “Did I hurt you?”
He sighed. “No. I was just surprised. It wasn’t your fault.”
Tori thought of Rune’s parents, who apparently had shunned him from birth. “It’s not yours either,” she said softly.
“What?” he asked, glancing up.
“Nothing,” Tori replied quickly.
“I don’t need to read your mind to know you’re lying,” he said with a glare.
Tori began to leave, but Rune got up and grabbed her arm. “Angie said you shunned all human contact,” Tori said, surprised at his willingness to make contact.
“Angie says a lot of things,” Rune replied, letting go. “And your parents are different than my parents.”
Tori had thought it wasn’t Rune’s fault he was born a dhampyr, and that his parents should be more accepting. And with just one touch, he knew she’d been thinking exactly that. He regarded her with one last look, turned away, and returned to his table by the window. Tori left the library and, with some difficulty, followed the map Rune had given her to the dining room.
The dining room was of a good size, with tables that had mismatched chairs clustered around them. The dining room had tall but small windows that barely let in any light, and seeing as the storm was blowing in outside the room was quite dark.
Tori stumbled around, her eyes still adjusting to the darkness, and sat down at a table. “I wonder where the food is,” she murmured to herself as her stomach gave another colossal rumble. She looked around and her eyes caught the buffet table and widened happily.
A few minutes later Tori was back at her table with a plate full of buttered toast, bacon, pancakes (she was surprised to learn that villains liked pancakes like most other people), and a cup of orange juice.
As she was eating the Snowflakes joined her. But they sat so quietly and were totally silent, so she didn’t even notice they were there until they spoke up.
One began, “Your manner of eating…”
“Is quite like Angana’s…”
“And rather repulsive…”
“And yet fascinating.”
Tori looked up, startled, with a strip of bacon hanging out of her mouth. She swallowed quickly, embarrassed.
“Um, I’m just really, really hungry. I got lost,” she explained.
“We would have shown you around,” one Snowflake began, “but we are early risers, and you would not have been pleased,” the other finished.
“Oh, okay. I’m not a morning person at all,” Tori said.
“You looked quite uncomfortable,” one Snowflake commented. “When you were asleep, that is,” the other added.
“You…watched me?” Tori asked, staring.
“For a moment,” they replied. “How did you find your way here in the end?”
“I ran into Rune in the library, and he drew me a map,” Tori said.
“It did not merely confuse you further?” one Snowflake asked, wide eyes even wider. “Rune is no artist, or calligrapher, for that matter,” the other finished, also looking incredulous.
“It was a bit hard to follow, but I made it,” Tori said, taking a bite of toast. After a moment she asked, “Does Rune spend all his time in the library? It seems he’s always there.”
The Snowflakes nodded. “Rune is the solitary sort,” one began. “He prefers books, particularly his notebook, to people.” the other said.
“He has proved himself to be quite intelligent…”
“But anti-social almost to an extreme.”
“Due to his powers, of course,” they concluded together. Having a conversation with the Snowflakes was like watching a tennis match. Back and forth, back and forth, as each twin spoke her piece. It seemed like they rehearsed every possible conversation in advance, figuring out who would say what.
One Snowflake continued, “We do not think Rune hates his powers…”
“But they do overwhelm him…”
“So he rarely touches others, and keeps to himself.”
“Being able to read thoughts is clearly not the most enjoyable power to possess.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to read thoughts,” Tori replied thoughtfully. At first it might be cool, but after awhile it would probably get extremely uncomfortable. People tended to have minds that one would not always take pleasure in reading.
“What do you know about his parents? I tried asking him earlier, but he just said his parents were different than mine and didn’t elaborate.”
The Snowflakes shared a glance and one began, “Rune does not often speak of his parents…”
“We do know they are full-blooded vampires…”
“Or claim to be,” they chorused.
Tori nodded. Vampires were aloof and often vain, and very few true, pure-blooded vampires were still around. Odds were Rune’s family had a non-vampire the family trees kept hidden, which would explain why he was a dhampyr. If both his parents had non-vampire relatives, their children would have good chances of not being as true-blooded as they were.
“Rune’s parents are ashamed of him and his tainted blood…”
“So all he desires is to win their affections…”
“And like all of us, he is here to learn how to be a great villain…”
“Which would make any parent proud.” they finished together.
Tori nodded, but inside she believed otherwise. Poor Rune. He could have been good, Tori thought. But his parents…his parents are different than mine.
Conversation stopped after that, and Tori finished her breakfast as the Snowflakes silently stared at her. It was extremely awkward. Most people eat quite messily, especially when they’re really hungry, and Tori knew she did not look her best.
“Could you not stare?” she finally said after awhile.
“Sorry,” one Snowflakes said, “force of habit,” the other finished.
“Usually we eat with Angana…”
“But she went off somewhere…”
“And she doesn’t mind if we observe her…”
“Half the time she doesn’t even notice us.”
“Yeah, Rune said Angie eats like a beast,” Tori said, taking a swing of orange juice.
“Her manners are quite animal-like,” the Snowflakes commented.
Tori nodded. The Snowflakes seemed quite polite, for villains. I would never believe they were villains, Tori thought. Then again, just last night they were plotting mass chaos and hysteria just to find their sister. Just for revenge. She gave an involuntary shudder. “Uh, cold in here…” she said quietly, hoping they didn’t notice.
Suddenly she realized she had seen everyone from her class today except Altair. “So where’s Altair?” she asked the Snowflakes.
They shrugged in time with each other. “Probably off flying somewhere,” they guessed.
“The grounds are spacious enough for Altair to fly…”
“Well-sheltered, so he wouldn’t be noticed…”
“But most of the time he flies over the little village a while away…”
“He likes to frighten people…”
“Make them think they’re hallucinating…”
“Or crazy…”
“Start urban legends about himself…”
“He’s got an ego, that one,” they finished in unison.
Tori had gotten the same feeling when she’d talked to Altair the previous night. Flying was a common but still well-respected power, merely because it was just plain cool. Tori had read somewhere that everyone had some deep-seated desire to be able to fly like a bird. Altair could, and everyone who couldn’t wanted to. Naturally he must have gotten attention from someone, if not his parents.
That got Tori thinking. Perhaps Altair’s parents, who he had accused of being negligent in paying attention to him, had paid him all the attention they could. But due to their busy schedules, they just never found time to discover his ability, and so while others commented on his power and he got attention for it, his parents didn’t pay him the sort of attention he craved.
“Thinking about something?” the Snowflakes asked.
Tori snapped out of her reverie with a start. “Yeah. Sorry, I guess I just…” she stared out the sliver of a window, imagining Altair flying by. “…got my head stuck in the clouds.” she finished.
You like? You all seem to, which makes me feel awesome. Makes me believe that despite bad math tests I can make it somewhere in this world, even though my mother doesn't seem to think so...
Quote of the Day: "Ooh, cookies!"
~June