HEIR-BORN: 4 FATES

Chapter 1 - The Day of Application (2)

They headed down and took the first right turn before turning left again. They then walked down to the end of the hallway to another pair of huge wooden doors. The doors were open, welcoming the group to a sight of two rows, four, long tables each with long benches on both sides.

"Welcome to the Great Hall," the servant bowed as she signalled them in. They strolled in, looking around the hall in awe. The humungous room was decorated with golden swirls on the walls, the roof was like the top half of a cylinder. Torches were laid evenly on both walls. The flames flickered as it chased the shadows away, even the areas of the ceiling which was so high up Leo could have another hall built above. The tables were set with a variety of foods on the tables. And at the front, was a small stage, and on that stage were four separate tables of two laid next to each other, which Leo suspected belonged to the hosts of the applicants; they were also filled with meals. The mouth-watering aroma made Leo's stomach growl loudly.

"Hey, you're hungry too!" a friendly voice sounded behind him. Startled, Leo spun around, to see a big round figure looming over him. The boy, however, had a very subtle smile.

"Err... yeah.." Leo said unsurely.

"Me too!" the boy beamed, as though being hungry was a major achievement. "I'm Grover. Let's be friends!"

Leo smiled as he chuckled, "Sure. I'm Leo."

"Oh, I know!" Grover made a thinking face, squinting his eyes at him. "I've heard of you. At one point I was walking around the city, and I heard your name everywhere I went! You were so famous at first I thought you were a relative of the royals or something!... but Merlin, your eyes look so much cooler than I heard!"

He leaned in as he stared into Leo's eyes in fascination. Leo chuckled nervously, "Heh... yeah..."

He then heard unpleasant words being muttered from Dante, who stood a small distance from the group. Leo turned his head to him, to which he immediately gave him a glare of absolute disgust. Leo raised an eyebrow when Curtis threw an arm around his shoulder, "Leo, yo... so, when are we allowed to sit down? I'm starving!"

"Hey, me too!" Grover's expression suddenly changed it almost scared the brothers. He held out a hand to Curtis, "Let's be friends! I'm Grover."

Curtis gave a small smile as he shook his hand. "Curtis."

"What's going everybody? Hey, you're Leo's brother, right?" Lucan joined in, with a timid-looking, smaller boy behind him. He nervously looked up and gave a small wave. Grover immediately headed to that boy and shook his hand, offering to befriend him, to which the timid boy replied with a small nervous, but subtle smile as he nodded.

"Yeah, Leo's talked about you." Curtis smiled as he nodded. Lucan laughed softly.

The group was seated at the front right bench. They sat at the corner of the bench closest to the front. Leo heard his stomach beg for food and clutched it, hoping to keep it down. But before he knew it, the hall was flooded with applicants and all Leo could hear was a sea of overlapped chatters. 

"I wonder what our bunks are gonna look like." Curtis whispered into Leo's ear. Leo spun his head, slightly startled by the breath that tickled his ear. He frowned at his brother, "Probably, no definitely, not as luxurious as the room Her Majesty has."

Curtis scoffed, "You really compared a room for us with the room the Queen of Colbourne City has?" 

"Ahem!" a young voice sounded. "Silence!" it demanded. The familiar voice immediately caught the brothers' attentions as they swiftly turned to face the stage. On the stage, standing straight behind the table, was Queen Adellai. There was a brief murmur within the crowd of applicants when they saw that it was their queen. The bitter look that was planted on her face seemed to scare some people. Then, as though she just flipped a switch, a welcoming smile stretched across her face as she beamed, "You all must be hungry. Eat up, folks!"