Brothers at Arms

Erm, I've never been good at introductions, but, uhh... Hi, I'm new here... My name is M or you could call me Greyson. Your choice. So this is something I've been playing with. Tell me what you think.

“Lunees?” I heard the teacher stumble over my name. The first day of classes always sucked.

I sighed, raised my hand, and called, “It’s pronounced Lunays.” Mr. Wilson made a note on his attendance sheet and proceeded to write on the black board in big block letters, DEFENSE 101.

I sank my teeth savagely into my lower lip. You better pass this year, I thought cursing my attitude of carelessness last year. It had landed me back in square one with an extra year of torture after I had served my required time. This sure was going to suck.

Half an hour later found me assigned to a back row seat, thanks to my last name, West, blood slowly dripping into my mouth where my teeth still clenched my lip, and throwing wads of paper at to the back of the red-head seated in front of me. I wasn’t paying attention to Mr. Wilson’s beginning-of-school-freshman tirade. I’d heard it all before. Don’t drink and drive, stay away from the parties, stick to the common areas with other gender friends, don’t practice with unbuttoned swords, and try not to lose to much blood. He was half way through his rant, teaching the students weapon safety, when another student walked through the door interrupting the class.

“Alex Axed., sir. They just switched me into this class. We had some err… errors to correct.”

“Axed?” Mr. Wilson asked, eyeing the piece of paper that Alex had handed him. “Why’s it spelled E-A-X-T?”

“It’s an ancient spelling of ’East’ I think.”

“Well East have a seat next to West in the back there.”

I raised my head up and sucked the blood into the back of my throat. So he had failed too. Alex made his way to the back slowly. Then I caught his eye. His eyebrows rose and he grinned in disbelief.

When he sat down he nodded in my direction. “Steele,” he greeted me politely.

“Dragon,” I said blood spilling from my mouth.

“So it’s true what they say about you,” he said watching me wipe the blood off my chin. “You’re really as ruthless as they say.” I swallowed and stuck my bottom lip out pouting, but also revealing fresh bite marks. I watched Dragon’s eyes trace the contours of my lips. They paused on the bite marks, a slightly awed expression crossing his features.

“Ruthless on the mats and off.”

“So why you back here again? I mean you’re one of the best fighters in the school.”

“ Oh, my strong suit is more physical then written.” He laughed. “So what about you?”

“I was… distracted last year. I didn‘t care I guess.” He glanced at the ground as if ashamed.

“And what was distracting you?” I asked, purposely trying to pry.

“I was a whom. Her name was Angelina Lopez.” He smiled devilishly. “Sadly she’s moved away. She decided she didn’t want this life.”

“Huh.” Angelina wouldn’t be the first to decide she didn’t want to be a Guide. They lived brutal and bloody lives and not many made it past their twenty-fifth birthday, I glanced around me. Which of these scrawny freshman would make to the battle hardened Elite? “Sucks, huh?” I asked him.

“I guess. She was more a fuck-up buddy then anything.” I gave him a startled look. Hot as he was I couldn’t give myself to him, not at only fifteen. He smiled, as if reading my mind. “I know the things I’ve done in the past were wrong but I’m here to correct my mistakes.” I grinned. This year might not be a waste after all.

The day wasn’t as much of a drag as I thought it be not with Dragon there. He was fun to be around and such a joker. He was in most of my classes. In fact all of them except my women’s fitness class, but that was to be expected. Not many people got a second chance at being a Guide. We also had the same track-record. We failed every class except Battle Practice. So that was the only class where we got to see people from our grade. It was the last class of the day and it was brutal practice. Only because Dragon was such a good fighter. We were tied seven to seven by the end of the period.

Finally it was over. The fights with Dragon had left me tired and sweaty. I headed for the locker rooms. I needed to find Amy and I knew that’s where she would be. I’d been avoiding her all day and I knew she’d be pissed when I finally told her the reason why we only had one class together was because I had failed out last year.

I sighed, resigned to my fate and started jogging. Before I entered the room Dragon called out. “Steele!” I stopped and turned to face him. He was standing at the door to the men’s locker room.

“What?” I responded a slight smile on my lips. But he didn’t answer just winked and disappeared into the locker room. My smile grew and color burned up my cheeks. I giggled and drifted not knowing where I was walking. I walked into Amy.

“Hey Lunays. When were you intending on telling me you were dating Dragon?”

“I’m not,” I spat at her, shoving my way past into the showers.

“Or how about telling your best friend that you failed Freshman year?” Her voice was deadly icy. I flinched.

“How’d you find out?” I asked looking away from her as her eyes bored into my back.

“I think I got it when you didn’t show up in any of my classes until the end of the day which I know was your best class last year.”

“I’m sorry. I… didn’t care,” I said trying to plead with her. “I thought it was so stupid. I didn’t want to do the work. But I swear I’ll pass this year.” I looked up at her expecting her to be fuming her face beet red. But she was smiling.

“You better,” she murmured pulling me into a hug. “I missed you Luny. Now come on I bet the rest of the campus did too.”