The Mating School

Chapter 7

"Is that all you brought?" said Anne, nodding towards my bag.

"It's all I have," I said, suddenly feeling nervous about clothing since all I had were my sleeping clothes and the uniform I was wearing. The problem with the light clothes of lower ranking is that they're easy to get dirty.

"They'll have clothes there," said Anne, seeming to read my mind.

I nodded, feeling some relief. 'there,' I found myself thinking. There... at the school. No turning back now. The train had been moving for hours with a smooth rhythmic movement. Outside of my trepidation about the new life I was moving towards; I felt oddly euphoric. I'd never been on a train before. It seemed to fly through the landscape. It was much faster than a car, which I've been in on occasion. 

I watched as the scenery changed from a forest to a valley dotted with houses to the view now of a massive field with an outline of mountains in the distance. 

Euphoric. That was the word alright. Terror too. sure, but probably better not to focus on that one too much right now. Anne seemed to be feeling the same. We talked about many things as morning stretching into afternoon. She told me about her brother and his parents. She talked about how it was impossibly hard to part ways with them. Especially not knowing if she'd ever see them again.

The sun was low when the conversation finally returned to the prophecy she'd mentioned.

"Oh, that," she said. "I don't know much about it. As you can imagine, those kinds of things are kept secret. But I know it has something to do with the Lycan."

"What about him?"

"Well, that's the thing, I don't know," she said. "But there haven't been any Lycans born for in over two centuries. The fact that one's born now..." she paused in thought, "Well it would be significant even if there wasn't a prophecy."

"You have a theory about what it's about though?" I nudged.

"Well, sure," she said with a giggle.

"Well come on!" I said, "Now you're just holding out on me."

"Well..." she said again with a rather elated smile. "Well. I think it's prophesied that he's to become the ruler. The next king."

Lily wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, but it wasn't that. "But there hasn't been a  monarch for at least 200 years."

"That's right," said Anne. "Not since the Lycans disappeared."

It was night by the time they arrived at the school. Lunch had been served on the train, but it was so late now that the ache of hunger was intense.

They got off the train on a stone landing area. The mountains towered around them casting intimidating shadows against the star-strewn sky. 

Picking up her bag Anne glanced at Lily before following the rest of the students who were moving deeper into the mountain landscape along a stone pathway that was lit on both sides by small twinkling lights.

Lily was puzzled because many of the females here weren't dressed in light-colored clothing. She thought about what the other girls had said on the drive to the train... about the lowest females being sent, and yet...

"Maybe the higher ranks wear the light clothes in other packs or something," said Anne when Lily mentioned this.

"Maybe," said Lily. "Maybe anything though."

"True," said Anne. "Maybe the new law that was instituted requires a certain number of higher-ranking females this year?"

"That might improve the odds of finding mating pairs," said Lily. "Don't stronger males get matched more often to higher females?"

"I think so," said Anne. "But not always."

It wasn't long until they came to a small, airy cave. It would have been impossible to see, in the darkness, if not for the wall sconces; Under which, other students stood in a line. One by one they scanned their wristbands and walked forward before disappearing. 

Lily had never seen anything like it. 

"It's to protect the school," said Anne in a whisper. "This way, no one knows where its true location is. It protects the students also."

It wasn't long until we reached the front of the line. 

"It's going to be ok," I said, mostly to myself.

"It'll be amazing," said Anne. "Just you wait."

I couldn't help but smile. I'd only met Anne this morning, but it already felt like we'd been friends for years. What a blessing to have her here.

"It'll be amazing," I echoed. And somehow by saying that, my worry seemed to dissipate, and suddenly moving forward didn't seem like a fearful journey, but instead an exciting event full of new sensations and opportunities. 

I stepped forward and lifted my wristband to the scanner mounted on the rock wall. The wall in front of me, adjacent to the scanner, seemed to ripple naturally for a moment before a moving image of a grand room with polished golden accents appeared. I reached my hand out in curiosity. It looked so real. When the tips of my fingers brushed what should have been solid rock, instead the was only warmth. It was incredible.

The warmth soaked through my fingers and then up my arm until my whole body was bathed in the warmth of it. It was like the feeling of sinking into the warm bathtub last night. Was that only last night? It seemed a world away now. 

I took a deep breath. I felt so alive. I blinked only to see that the rock wall before me now showed an image of the mouth of the cave with a line of waiting students. I turned to look behind me as if to ask Anne what was wrong.. but Anne wasn't behind me. Instead, it was the room from the image. It was warm, and well-lit with hanging chandeliers. Other students walked around in many directions.

There was a buzz about the space. Excitement maybe. I looked back again at what once was a rock wall to see Anne walking forward in the cave that might be thousands of miles away now.

"No turning back now," I said to myself, lingering near a wall of windows where I could see the exterior rock-like facade of the building. The wall curved out from where I stood looking out and a castle-like tower could be seen in the distance.

Once Anne arrived, we moved forward up a marble ramp towards what looked like a check-in area. I vowed to myself then that I'd do my best here. and work to move forward in interest and anticipation rather than fear.

What would happen would happen whether I feared it or not.

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