[Sept. 1/11] The Dining Hall, Early Evening

[silentsorrow]

Supper at Thrones Academy was always quieter at the end of the year.

At the very beginning of the year, it was different. Older students found their tables—some claimed in years past, others rearranging themselves to suit how friendships had changed over the course of the two month long holiday all returning students had endured—while the newest class, the ninth graders, congregated at the tables set up for them. In the weeks that followed they would realize that they were allowed to move to other tables. And they would realize that no one wished them to do so.

For now, they were thoroughly engrossed in talking to those of their year and the rest of the grades were varying degrees of relieved about it. The new kids did not notice the way that the Headmistress, Lenore Aubrey, did not at them even once for all that their tables were closest to her.

The older students knew why.

Comments

[truly_courageous]

"Even if we're both long graduated by then." Alexis sighed, though her smile didn't waver. "We'll crack it. We'll figure it out. I can't imagine the magic wants to lose that many, either... right?"

It just... wouldn't make sense. Not if it wanted to be stronger. Would it?

[oath_keeper]

Cassidy thought about that and had to shrug lightly. "Who knows?" she said. "The magic works in ways that we can't understand. Perhaps it does."

And wasn't that a horribly depressing thought?

[truly_courageous]

It was. And it made Alexis kind of want to start punching rocks in the mouth.

Could anyone blame her?

"Well, I guess we'll find out, one way or another."

[oath_keeper]

"I hope, for everyone's sake, that it's a better answer than that."

Cassidy meant that. She really did.