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Young Writers Society



Mentors and Heroes (working on the title) Chapter 2

by Caesar


Chapter Two

Godric woke to someone shaking him by the shoulder.

He moaned something unintelligible and shifted to the other side of the bed, the white blankets still clutching at him like a mother’s embrace.

“Godric, wake up” said a voice “It’s Monday —we have magic—you’re late”

Godric stood hurriedly and almost knocked heads with the boy, who took a step back in alarm.

“Why didn’t you wake me sooner, Isaiah?” accused Godric.

The albino shook his head ruefully.

“I just woke up myself. Get dressed, come on”

Isaiah turned as Godric threw off his pajamas and groped frantically for his clothes in the mess that was his wooden bedside wardrobe.

Once he was dressed in the usual grey and jeans, he only then realized they were the only two in the dormitory, and realized the others were down having breakfast.

As if reading Godric’s mind –which of course was his gift—Isaiah shrugged.

“Actually, they’re already training”

Godric re-doubled his pace and barreled outside, Isaiah panting to keep up.

They crossed the bare hall quickly and took the stairs three at a time, down to the eerily empty mess hall.

Then they crossed to the door that lead to the classrooms on their right, the door leading to the garden opposite them.

Here too, there was nobody. All those incapable of using magic trained in combat during the morning.

“It’s okay, though—Cassandra tells me that Mr. Difeo hasn’t arrived yet,” reassured Isaiah.

Long ago, as soon as Isaiah’s talents had manifested, he, Godric and Cassandra had set up a communication system which had spared them many a detention.

When needed, Isaiah, who – though he didn’t quite grasp the magnitude of it—was an enormously powerful psychic, would contact either of the two – his mental presence being unmistakable—and give them whichever message he had to relay.

The two hurried to the end of the hallway and walked into the classroom.

It was large, and could have easily contained more than twenty students, but there were only four in the class, sitting attentively and facing the whiteboard.

Godric sat next to Cassandra at the desk, the third to first row of seats, Isaiah just behind him.

The light that filtered in through the greasy windows was a diluted grey, so Godric figured they mustn’t be that late.

“Here, sleepyhead,” said Cassandra, and passed him a folded napkin.

Godric opened in and beheld, to his stomach’s delight, a slice of buttered toast.

“Thanks, Cass,” he said, gratefully, after wolfing down the slice.

And just in time, as Mr. Difeo, wearing his customary frayed red robe, arrived, polishing his spectacles, seemingly unaware of his students.

Only when he sat down at his desk did he look up.

“Settle down, settle down,” he said, waving a hand in the air vaguely. “Mmh… today will be a theoretical lesson… no need to get excited”

The students, whom compared to statues would have had more liveliness, sagged further.

Mr. Difeo’s stone grey eyes twinkled as he saw the reaction.

“It won’t be boring, don’t worry,” he said.

He stood up and turned to the whiteboard. Producing a marker, he drew a large circle.

“But first… mmh… to recap— what is magic?”

There was a moment of stasis, then Cassandra raised her hand tentatively.

“Sir,” she began “It’s the, um, manifestation of a person’s emotion or emotions through, um, arcane means”

“Correct,” said Mr. Difeo. “And could you tell me what is the source of magic?”

“Um… the spirit world,” she replied.

“Correct once again, Cassandra,” said the professor. “As always, you are very prepared”

Cassandra blushed slightly.

“Which brings us… mmh… to this lesson,” said the professor, snapping back to reality.

He split one half of the circle with a wavy line and colored the bottom half black.

“The spirit world: where magic comes from. Without it, we could not observe this phenomenon. The spirit world exists as both light and dark, and is a realm very much like our own”

Godric perked up at this. Professor Difeo’s lessons were usually interesting, and it would seem this one was no less.

Then, the professor drew a crude representation of… two dragons, much like, Godric realized, their own tattoos.

He and Cassandra shared a glance.

“These are the… mmh… mythical guardians of the spirit world,” said Professor Difeo.

He pointed at the white one.

“This one is the White Dragon Lily, according to folklore. Its symbol is a lotus flower”

Cassandra’s eyes widened in confusion. She was about to say something, but Godric squeezed her thigh gently.

Wait, he mouthed.

Mr. Difeo jabbed at the black dragon, curling around the white area of the circle and intertwined with the white forming a stylized heart.

“This one is the…mmh… Black Dragon Yeshua, and it’s symbol is a skull”

Now Godric looked alarmed. What could this mean? He thought. Was it somehow —and at this he shivered in dark delight—connected to them?

Professor Difeo slumped back in a chair, his eyes closing.

After an embarrassing minute, the elderly man jerked forward in alarm. He realized he still had students and tried to recompose himself.

“Where was I?” he muttered to himself.

“Um, sir, you were talking to us about the dragons,” proposed Alexandra.

She was another girl around Godric’s age, rather shy, who had the gift of healing wounds and bringing plants back to life.

“Ah yes, thank you Alexandra,” said Professor Difeo.

“The White Dragon is said to symbolize purity and essential goodness—balance, light, and so on… mmh… the Black Dragon, instead, is its exact opposite—chaos, darkness, death”

Godric and Cassandra subconsciously shared another, more meaningful, look.

“What is curious,” continued the professor “is that both dragons together are perfection—and one cannot live without the other. Both dragons have committed acts of equal good and evil in the legends. The… mmh… ambiguity... is what surprises me. And now, if you’d open your books at page sixty-six and finish the paragraph”

The class, if so it could be defined, reached under their desks and produced a heavy book and a pen.

The next hour passed this way, Godric half-dozing along the way.

He was surprised when the bell rang, signaling the fifteen-minute break they had before yet another class.

“Go on… mmh… go on. Close the door behind you,” said Professor Difeo, blearily.

The four filed out politely and went out into the garden, mingling with the other sixteen orphans, sweaty and tired from the exertion.

Godric and Cassandra walked a short distance further into the garden and reached a hedge, the unkempt leaves growing in crazy angles at waist-height. They could see the tree behind it, shedding white flowers.

If you knew where to look, there was an opening in the seemingly impassable green wall.

Godric and Cassandra, having done this countless times, knew where it was by heart.

They twisted and wriggled their way to their secret reunion area, knees scraping on the ground, now stone.

Godric stood and gazed at the sole trace that this had once been a part of the orphanage: a grey stone statue, crumbled and moss-covered, that had once been imposingly tall.

Above them, the trees served as a shelter, sunlight dappling the trunk shades of brown. Behind them the orphanage loomed—all this gave the setting a very surreal feel.

“What did you make of that?” asked Godric, spread on the ground, his back leaning on the statue. The moss softened the brutal stone, so it was actually rather comfortable.

Cassandra paced nervously, toying with a strand of her blond hair.

“I don’t know,” she finally said. “It was strange”

“Coincidence?” said Godric, snorting. “I think not. This has got to do with our tattoos in some way”

“So now we’re the incarnation of the guardians of the spirit world or something?” demanded Cassandra. “This is so improbable” she was frustrated—she had just yesterday given Godric a speech on how magic was wrong, and now it seemed she was the most powerful magician in the world, according to legend. It seemed unfair to her-- a burden she couldn’t cope with.

“Improbable, but cool,” said Godric. This was, evidently, the wrong thing to say.

Cassandra turned on him, angry.

“Cool? Cool! How is this cool?!”

Godric flinched. He hadn’t seen Cassandra this heated in a long while.

“I’m just saying, it sounds like a cool idea,” he said, further dooming himself.

“Because of the power,” finished Cassandra. “You’re after power again. Why are you so ambitious all of the sudden? It’s not like you—what good can power do to you? All the heroes in the legends die horribly”

Godric’s eyes narrowed.

“What good can power do,” he repeated, coldly. “It can set things right, that’s what. End all conflicts, bring justice to those that can’t do it themselves”

“That’s ridiculous,” countered Cassandra, harshly. “You want to be all high and mighty, but then you can’t really achieve anything”

“For those too weak to take power, of course it would seem ridiculous” shot back Godric, fiercely.

Cassandra contemplated him for one long moment.

“I don’t recognize you anymore,” she repeated.

Then turned on her heels and left back the way she came.


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187 Reviews


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Sat Sep 01, 2012 4:47 am
ChocoCookie wrote a review...



This would be good, if you could just bring in the spaces between the lines, because sometimes confusing and you just find yourself reading the same line over and over again. Sure, there are lots of punctuation mistakes but that's okay. It was great! (:

Keep Writing! ~

Cookie <3'




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Fri Apr 20, 2012 1:51 pm
shadowlee wrote a review...



its fantastic!




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144 Reviews


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Fri Apr 13, 2012 4:31 am
GoldenQuill wrote a review...



Hay kiddo!
What has taken Zly so long? She needs to get on this kind of stuff!

By the way, I reread your edits and they were such a big improvement, good job!

Now on to chapter two!

So, uhm, I'm a little speechless when first finishing this chapter. I actually sort of loved it. Like, loved loved it. A lot. Your speech was good, I liked your mystery, and good description, as always!

A couple of things I noticed:

I. You're still messing up your grammar occasionally. Which is going to happen, whether you're writing in your own language or a foreign one. Go back to my original post and look at what I said for quotation mark punctuation rules!

II.Your ending is still weak. Much better than last chapter's, and too be honest, not too awful of an ending, but still, try to incorporate it more with mystery.

Oh, and

This was, evidently, the wrong this to say.

I think you meant 'thing' rather than 'this' after the word wrong.

Other than that, I can't really find anything. Remember to check your grammar, make endings as interesting as possible, and keep on building with your characters! Awesome job! :}

Keep calm and write on!

Love & Blessings,
Aushy






Aushy, your reviews have always been helpful and constructive. Thanks very much indeed.




To be a master of metaphor is the greatest thing by far. It is the one thing that cannot be learnt from others, and it is also a sign of genius.
— Aristotle, Poetics