In the Land of Fae 2: Return to Ice ♔ (gxg)

4. nightmare

The Fae school had not the most impressive vessel for education.

While it was certainly no dingy cottage, it was not the huge multiple-level building it used to be. Instead, it was a little square building made of stone just a little ways off from where the residential Fae cottages were. There were only two levels to the school. The lower level was for classrooms dedicated to general education, and on the upper level were classrooms dedicated to ability instruction and a dining room for lunchtime.

The Earthlings were not used to the responsibility of school and they somehow found it more dreadful than hiding for their lives in the forest. The older three, being born only shortly before the invasion, found it especially difficult to get out of bed so early everyday and make the trek down the cobblestone road to the school.

Luckily, they had company to distract them. Flannery, Erlin, Myrsky, Nuit, and Cielo all accompanied them on their walk to school. Flora and Fauna skipped ahead of the group, more eager than the rest to stuff their brains with knowledge. Terra was generally neutral on the matter while Dion, who may have been a nerd, preferred learning on his own time. As for Cashel, the poor lad looked like he was in physical pain and distraught with every step that they neared the school.

Flannery and Erlin were a bit ahead from the Earthlings and the three air fae.

"So you can just shift, on demand, at any time you want?" Erlin questioned the older girl who seemed to be the age of the older fae behind him. Erlin, himself, had grown a bit taller and lost a little weight with all the work that Abitha was putting him up to in the gardens. He did more work than the Earthlings did, and he wasn't even an earth fae.

Flannery shyly nodded, her curly red hair bouncing at the end of her back. The morning sun shone over the trees and cast upon the light brown freckles littering her pale face. She was a rather timid creature, given that she had spent most of her life in the dungeons.

"I'm best at shifting into snakes," she told the boy, and as soon as the words left her mouth, her short figure became even shorter, and with a swooshing sound she was suddenly slithering on the cobblestone next to Erlin's feet in the form of a thick orange constrictor.

Erlin's eyes widened as he watched the girl slither and hiss playfully. Her scales were orange like the color of her hair, and her reptilian eyes were brown like her Fae ones. Brown patterns on her body were akin to the pattern of her wings. Before Erlin could gape in amazement even longer, Flannery was up again walking beside him.

"Woah!" the preteen exclaimed, his ears twitching in excitement before drooping slightly. "I—I've only shifted once."

"In your whole life?" the girl questioned in shock.

Erlin nodded, turning his head of spiky hair downwards. "Into a dragon."

"And it took the whole lot of us to get him back to his Fae form," Cashel jutted in from behind the two. "He still breathes fire when he sneezes." The teens laughed around him, and Erlin huffed and turned back around.

"Don't be so cruel," Terra told her brother through her suppressed laughter, slapping him on the shoulder.

"You did amazing, Erlin," Dion assured the boy, walking beside his sister with his hands stuffed into his pockets. His cloudy puffs of brunette hair bounced as he walked.

Dion's comment recovered Erlin's ego slightly, and Flannery smiled at him in approval. "Shifters usually have a form they go to most of the time innately. A dragon is a very impressive feat."

Myrsky, a tall and tan air fae, jogged to catch up with the three, coming up next to Cashel. His silver eyes and wings looked glittery compared to his dark hair. "Anyone know where Ilmari is?"