Blades of fire and hearts of ice

Life is easy

Hello. I am Nora. I live at the Berry Orphanage with my best friend - Rex. He is my dog who has stuck with me since I was 7. Now, I'm at 15 and he is still by my side. One thing I must warn you, I am complicated. I myself do not understand myself. Sometimes I am down to Earth sometimes I am mystical. Sometimes I am so quiet you forget I exist, sometimes I am so loud it is impossible to ignore me. Sometimes I feel motivated to do stuff but sometimes I am lazy as a toad at the bottom of a well. Sometimes I am that one "nice girl" and sometimes I am the savage queen.I guess it all depends on how I feel. That is why music is my life. You can find an artist who puts your feelings into words. After I discovered music, life is smooth like a criminal unercover.

Life is good. I live as normally as an orphan who lost her parents in a car crash can. I study at the study center at the Berry orphanage. Was was the study center called? The Study Center. What. A. Surprie. My teacher is Miss. Thorn. She is one of those whimsical but wise sort of people. Nobody knows her first name so don't ask. She was the one who got me into the wonderful world of books where I discovered my favourites - Harry Potter, Percy Jackson and literally every Rick Riordan book, Divergent, and many more like "The one and only Ivan" or "Amal Unbound". Yea, I get it, I'm a book nerd. So?

It was wednesday the 7th of October. No, just because I mention the date does not mean the fun stuff happens here. Infact, it was just another normal day. I walked down to Spanish lessons with Miss. Thorn with my best friend Amelia. According to her, there was a new teacher waiting down as well. We continued our useless conversation about potatoe Disney stars and got to class. 10 minutes into class and I hated the new teacher already. I hated the way she looked at me with a certain hunger and disgust in her eyes. Amelia too was jumpy. Well.. jumpier than usual.

While the new teacher, Miss. Maybel Scott, was in the middle of yelling at Craig about his uneccisary accents on the "R" sound.

'It is NOT French! Stop rolling your "R" sounds Mister"

Miss Thorn stepped out, and a few minutes later she re-entered with a new student.

Ash.

She requested Miss. Scott to pause (much to her annoyance) and saved Craig from a lecture.

"Why don't you introduce yourself Ash?" She suggested

A tall athleticly built boy with messy black hair sweat-pants and over-sized sweatshirt who was clearly chewing gum, addressed the class.

"I am Ash."

We waited... Finally Miss. Thorn asked him to elaborate

"I am Ash. I live- I lived in New York but a few weeks ago my parents..."

He hessitated. I don't blame him, it was the same with most of us. Our orphanage had many tragic stories.

"Well I am happy to be here" He annouced finally (with no enthusiasim, mind you).

Miss Thorn saw that our newest student was in no mood to go on so on his behalf she said a few things about him.

"Ash arrived here today. He is the same age as all of you - 16. And I am sure we will all treat him well." She said and raised an eye-brow at Chole the prankster who had given each of the new orphans a nightmare of rpanks for the first 3 days.

"He will need someone to show him around for the first week so.... Ah! Nora! You could show him around. You have been around the longest." Miss Thorn forced a smile which was not like her given her eased personality. I wondered what was wrong. I had been here since I was 3, around the time she had joined. I had never seen her so tense. It had been like this for the past few days, around the time time Ash's arrival would have confirmed. I let the thought go. I was probably a coincidence.

After Ash was seated next to me, the lesson continued and thankfully for Craig, it turns out Miss. Scott has terrible memory so she forgot all about how Craig was rolling her "R"s.