Knight of the Black Rose

by Nissa Gordon

  "Yeah, this is the library...just a smaller one than school of course," Lewis told them. "Then the nurse and their quarters. The long building that it's joined to is for us and Disa...well that one and the one behind it. This one is our arena and club rooms, then it's the joint food halls and lounges."

  "The joint food halls do get used...but be warned some of the Disa lot don't get along with us...it's just the way things are," Ca'von told them.

  "They think they're better than everyone else," Lewis added, then quickly went on. "So as you've probably worked out, this building on your left is the food halls for Punga and Cadell, if you didn't want to share with Disa. It's easier for mornings to be honest, when you need to get to school without all the long walks in-between."

  They walked on a little longer in silence making their way onto the path that led towards the food halls, and then they saw the next lot of dorms; they were led around them, from the front to the very back in the corner.

  "As you've gathered this is the Cadell dorm area, yours is here," Lewis told them standing in front of the two buildings with the bridge over head. "These will be your dorms until you leave now."

  "Boys on the left and girls on the right," Ca'von told them. "When you go in, they'll be two rooms on the ground floor then stairs no lift working at this time of night and then three rooms, again more stairs to the lounge and the bridge. The roof can also be accessed not just for lessons."

  Lewis stepped out ready to walk away. "So yeah, we'll see you around them,"

  "How are we supposed to know which room is ours?" Jessica whispered.

  "The names are on the doors," Lewis said over his shoulder as he walked away with Ca'von following closely.

  They all stared after them and then at each other as if wondering what they were supposed to be doing, it took them a couple of minutes before they finally split into two groups and went into the buildings that they were told were for them.

  Will pushed the door open and went in first with Troy and Alex right behind him after a little struggle, which he had lost; there was a small open area with two rooms before them and then stairs on their immediate right leading up.

  Will went over to the doors and read aloud the names that were listed. "Ethan, Methos, Duncan and Jasper,"

  "That's us then," Eddie said as he and Methos stepped around the others. "See you tomorrow,"

  "See ya," Alex said as Will went onto the next room.

  "Patrick, Callis, Jacob and Ashley," Will read aloud again, and again their names weren't here which meant that their rooms were upstairs. "See ya,"

  Troy led the way this time up the stairs with the other six following them.

  "You know, I've just realised we're an odd number...which means that someone will end up sitting next to a girl in class," Alex told them.

  "Lucy's fine," Troy said off handily.

  "She has other friends here though," Will reminded him.

  "Whatever...we'll work something out,” Troy told him as he scanned the names of the first room. "Err...Glen...weird...err, Aaron and Connor,"

  "Why's my name weird?" the boy Glen asked.

  "It's my dads name," Will told him.

  "Oh..." Glen said, the look on his face saying everything.

  "Here it is," Alex said as their door opened for him. "The three of us sharing,"

  "See the rest of ya tomorrow," Troy said as he followed Will and Alex into their room.

  The door closed behind him and the three of them just stood there and stared at the lounge before them, there were two sofa's facing each other with a coffee table in-between, in the corner just behind them was a large table with study lamps on and then there were four doors, one on the left and right and two facing them.

  "This is massive," Alex said.

  "The building didn't seem this big," Will said as he walked over to the door on his left. "This is my room,"

  "Hay!" Troy shouted annoyed. "You can't just claim rooms,"

  Will pointed at his door. "It has my name on the door,"

  "Fine then," Troy said as he walked around the sofa to check out the room facing while Alex ran over to the last room. "Yeap this is mine,"

  "And this mine," Alex said smiling. "We get our own rooms...now that's cool,"

  "So what's with the other door?" Troy asked as he started walking over to it.

  "Probably the bathroom," Will said dismissively as he went into his own room.

  Will was impressed again with his room, it was about the same size as his room back home; a double bed with side tables, draws and a wardrobe and on the other side of the room was a desk and chairs. His case had already arrived and was open, he went over to check why and noticed that all of his clothes had already been pulled out and so had his caldron. He turned around staring at his wardrobe, thinking that who ever had brought all of his stuff wouldn't have hung it up as well, but he still went over to check and when he opened the doors there was his clothes hung up and in the draws all folded neatly away. He didn't understood who had done this, or why, not that he was that bothered at the moment, just a little disappointed that his estate uniform hadn't arrived yet, but he was told that it would be there by morning. He undid his jacket and hung it up in his wardrobe before he went back through to check on the others, wanting to know if their rooms were like his.

  Chapter Eight

  An alarm sounded close by as Will pulled the covers over his head, he was so tired, he just wanted a couple more minutes after his long night; they had stayed up talking for as long as they could keep their eyes open without having anyone to tell them to go to bed, and he was starting to regret it already. The alarm got louder the longer that it was left, until finally he threw the covers back and slowly sat up on the edge of the bed, squinting around as he couldn't remember seeing an alarm last night before he went to bed.

  "Shut up already...I'm up!" Will shouted and the alarm went off, he smiled slightly as he picked up his watch to see what time it was and his face fell. "It's six o'clock in the morning..."

  Will couldn't believe how early it was, he still felt as though he could do with a couple of extra hours in bed, and then he suddenly remembered that there was a time difference here as he walked over to the door to see if the others were up yet. He walked through to the living room with the fitted ceiling lights coming on automatically, meaning that he was the first one up, which was the same as being at home with his dad getting him up so early every morning. For a moment he wondered if he should get the others up, but if they had alarms like his, then they wouldn't be far behind him, so he might as well get started and have the first wash.

  Five minutes later he had washed and redone his hair, by the time he had come out Troy and Alex were up and sitting on opposite sofa's looking through a stack of papers that had been left for them; he went over to check what they were, as he hadn't spotted them before he went into the bathroom, not that he had been looking for anything.

  "Morning..." Troy said yawning as he handed him his stack of papers sitting down next to him.

  "I can't believe how early it is," Alex complained.

  Will flicked through the papers. "What are these?"

  "Timetables, maps...way too much info for this time of the morning," Troy told him as he fell back into the sofa.

  Will had a look at his timetable wanting to know what they would be doing today, it seemed kind of alright, an easy way to get into the lessons except for the double Science and Potion class before dinner. It also told them which teacher and estate they would be having the lesson with. The maps highlighted where all of their classes were in one colour and in another important areas, like the library, the doctors wing, their head of estate office, the dinning area along with several other things. There was just so much information, and Will realised that Troy was right, it was too early to be taking all of this in; but they might as well get started because their first lesson was at eight thirty and they still had to get dressed, have something to eat and get to the school.

&
nbsp; Will got up, taking his papers with him, knowing that he would probably need them all for weeks before he remembered everything. "I'm going to get dressed...the bathrooms yours, then we can go check out the food hall,"

  "They could have let us have a late morning...you know it being our first...day," Troy said yawning again as he pushed himself up and slowly walked over to the bathroom.

  "Fine I'll go in after you," Alex said dismissively, not in any rush and was fine to just sit for a while longer.

  Will went back into his room walking over to his desk and putting the papers down, while he searched through his case for his school bag, and the books that he would be needing today from what he had read. He found the three books and put them on the table along with his bag.

  He decided that he might as well get dressed before he packed his bag with everything that he would need, he might be more awake, and in a more get going mood once he was dressed.

  He mainly wanted to get dressed because he would get to wear his estate uniform finally; he went over to his wardrobe realising for the first time that the door was kind of open, then opened it the rest of the way and there it was. The red shirt, waist coat and trousers, all in different shades but they were still reds. He quickly changed and checked himself out in the mirror, even though it was bolder than anything else he had ever worn, he still liked it. He pulled on his new black shoes and then went back over to his desk to carry on packing his bag, once all of his books and pens were in, and the timetables and maps he shouldered the bag and made to leave; but stopped at the door and looked at his wardrobe as he had forgotten his jacket or rather a blazer his dad had called it, he grabbed it and then went through to check on his friends.

  Will wasn't really that surprised to see that he was the first one back through, they weren't really morning people; he put his bag down and pulled his jacket on and then sat down to wait for them. He spent the next ten minutes reading through all the information that he had received, looking over the maps of the estate, stadium section and the school, and of course his timetable.

  Troy's door burst open and his bag swung out before he came out fully dressed. "I'm ready...we still have time for breakfast right?"

  "As long as Alex hurry's up, yeah," Will said putting the papers back in his bag and then shouldering it before he got up and walked around the sofa and knocked on his door. "Alex, we're going to miss breakfast,"

  "I'll just be a minute!" Alex shouted through the door.

  Will turned around to find Troy stood next to him looking down at himself, and he smiled; the uniforms really were going to take some getting used to.

  "Lucy said that she liked them," Troy said as he looked him.

  "She's a girl," Will reminded him.

  "She doesn't always seem like it," Troy said shrugging, as Alex finally opened his door and came out to join them. "We know...it's kind of odd...now come on...I'm starving,"

  "After everything you ate last night?" Alex asked in disbelief.

  "You do know that you ate more than us all put together?" Will told him smirking as they walked over to the door.

  "Whatever...that was then and this is now, and now I need more food...and lunch isn't until a quarter to one, so yeah I need to eat now," Tory told them as they went out into the empty corridor.

  "Do you think that the others have already gone over?" Alex asked.

  "Only one way to find out," Will said as he carried on walking and went downstairs, where again there was no sign of life, but they weren't going to let that put them off.

  They walked out of the small lobby area and into the cold morning air, all of them glad that they had at least put jackets on as they pulled them closer and followed the path around the building in front to the food hall; they knew it wasn't far. The path led them around the side of the dorm and then it spilt into two depending which side of the building that you wanted to go in through; they decided for today they would stick to this side considering that it was closer to the transport hanger that they were told about the night before, which they could now see was all opened up ready for the students to use.

  "At least we know where that is," Troy said as they hurried inside.

  There was a small empty lobby, straight ahead were open doors into a food hall that already sounded as though there were people inside, and then to their right were two lifts and stairs going up.

  "The map said there were two food halls," Will told them as he went first, they could always check the whole building out later when they had more time.

  The three of them walked into the food hall, it was almost as large as the hall they were in last night, but it was still smaller and there were pillars every couple of tables. There were at least a hundred tables of all different sizes scattered around the room, with at least a dozen of them already taken by other students, some from Cadell and some from Punga in their own estate uniforms so that you could tell everyone apart.

  "Wow...look at the size of this place," Alex said.

  Troy looked around, wondering where they got the food as he could see others already eating; then he saw to his right and left that there was a kind of buffet set out along the walls, and he walked straight over grabbing a plat and started to check out what they had. He wasn't at all disappointed, seeing as they had just as much of a selection as they did the night before.

  "Well they know how to put on food," Alex said impressed as he filled up his own plate with Will and then they went to get a table.

  Troy sat down at a rather large table on one side and they sat facing him. "In case Lucy comes over,"

  Will and Alex smiled at him.

  "We don't want her mad at us this early in the morning for ignoring her," Alex teased.

  A couple of minutes later a plate was put down beside Troy and they all looked up, sure enough it was Lucy, she had found them like she normally did.

  "Aren't these cool...?" Lucy said as she twirled, showing off her new uniform; as she turned again her ankle went and she fell into Troy making them all snigger at her. "Hay!"

  "Come on seriously...that was funny!" Alex told her, as she straightens herself and sat down beside Troy and her friends followed suit.

  "I can't believe you just did that," Troy said smirking at her.

  "You don't have to laugh," Lucy told them annoyed.

  "Are you alright?" Libby asked concern leaning forward from the other end of the table as they had all sat on the same side, not wanting to sit next to boys.

  "She's fine, she does it all the time," Troy told her off handily.

  Lucy took a bite of her toast. "What if I wasn’t?"

  "You're so not going to see the doctor on the first day," Troy told her.

  "You're eating Lu, there can't really be anything that bad wrong," Will told her.

  "That isn't the point," Lucy told them. "You laughed at me,"

  "We always laugh at you when you fall," Alex reminded her.

  "And you're friends with them?" Selena asked frowning.

  "That's so cruel...I wouldn't be friends with them, if they laughed at me when I fell," Libby said.

  "We only do it to tease her, we're not being serious," Troy told them not liking the fact that they were being ganged up upon, especially when they didn’t understand.

  "We've got her back if she needs it," Alex told them; he couldn't believe how serious they were taking all of this.

  Lucy stuck her fork in a piece of meat on Troy's plate and took it. "I'm having this...I didn't see them over there,"

  "Seriously...taking food right from my mouth," Troy said smirking. "You know if I was a werewolf, I'd kill you for doing that,"

  "Of course you wouldn't, because they would never see their women go without anything that they wanted," Lucy told him matter-of-factly.

  "Err...I was wondering...werewolves...are they real?" Libby asked nervously as she quickly looked around to see if anyone was looking in their direction.

  "Of course," Selena answered. "And to your next question, the
whole alien thing that we mentioned is also true,"

  "I bet there's Lycanthropes at this school...that'll be so cool to see," Alex said before he finished off his juice.

  "Why would they?" Libby asked.

  Lucy leant forward so that she could be seen. "They're people as well, and have as much right to be here as the..."

  Troy pulled her back into her seat. "Relax okay...it's too early for all of that,"

  Lucy slumped in her seat, she knew he was right and that she shouldn't be drawing attention to herself like that, but she just didn't like how close minded some people were; she knew that she had to get used to it considering that some of them have only just been introduced to all of this, knowing nothing about their real world.