The Bane of Light

News

∞

I sat tapping my pointed nails on the table of the history lab, sighing out of my nose as our professor droned on in monotone. Professor Meier was archaic, and had seemingly lost his ability to maintain an engaging conversation as the years passed. At this point, he was basically lulling me to sleep, as his nasally voice read aloud the contents of our textbook. He was here to teach, not recite the book as if we couldn't read it ourselves. Grey hair poked out from his ears, though it was lacking from the top of his bald head, and his nose reminded me of a fat goose beak.

The twins were snickering besides me, despite not having uttered a single word out loud. I ignored them as they stared down one of our classmates in a sinister manner. They always did make their time in classes...educational, in more manners than the conventional way. The preoccupation of the student's mind with class always made digging up secrets much easier for them. After all, it was easier to get into a distracted mind than a focused one.  

'Hey, Lulu...' One of the twins drawled in my mind. I refrained from jolting upright at the intrusion, but tightened my grip on my fountain pen. My jaw ticked, and the beautiful image of me throttling both of them popped into my mind. They payed no mind to the fantasy, swiping it away with a nonchalant phantom hand. It dissolved like a cloud of smoke, their swipe interrupting the image

'What'd you say to knowing how Meier spends his afternoons?' one of them drawled, and my eyes bulged. They. Did. Not.

'Oh yes we did' snickered Cesarie, the lilt in the voice changing from the original tone. It was always particularly hard to differentiate the twins when speaking telepathically. Their epicene voices sounded nearly identical in the mental realm.

'Get out of my head, you fiends' I hissed at them mentally, keeping my eyes trained on Professor Meier.

'Oh come on...' one began, while the other finished, 'you might want to know... top class information, very secretive. We had to basically pry it out of his senile mind; he was holding onto it for dear life, so it must be very important'

I narrowed my eyes into slits. It was obvious to any one who could read context clues -which were surprisingly few at this school- that the twins were my spies. They had the abilities to see and hear things that nobody else in this school could. There was only one other golden-eyed drakaeri in school, and that was their younger cousin- Matthieu, so I had won the golden ticket in my choice of company. But the fact that they were baiting me for information right now, knowing that I valued secrets just as much as them, if not more, was outright sinister.

'Fine' I snapped, my curiosity overcoming the annoyance I felt towards both of the fiends. We made it a rule that teachers and superiors were off  limits, unless they were certain they could get away with it. Meier was prehistoric, but anyone with eyes could tell that age had not dulled his senses. He had recently turned  one-hundred and seventy-eight, and had shaking hands that clinked the alchemy potions together, but he was sharp as nails and would not take kind to students fondling his mind. If he caught them, the repercussions would be...less than pleasant.

An image began flashing in my mind, with a suddenness that I had to clamp my mouth shut to muffle a gasp. I jerked forward in my seat as the foreign memory violated my mind: 

A man labored down the dark hallway of one of the abandoned corridors of the school. He was hooded and broad shouldered, his face masked by a drooping black hood. The man was cloaked head to toe in onyx, and an intricate bone dagger was sheathed at his side. Runes and tiny details were carved into it's body, protective sigils  and other symbols littering it. It was powerful; I could feel the aura from all the way over here. Before I could observe it closer, the man of which the memory belonged to, turned towards his companion who had spoken out. Rowena's voice sounded from beside me, greeting the man with a grim note in her tone. Under the faint moonlight, the entire scene was perfectly ominous, making my heart thrill in anticipation.