The Last Defender (FINISHED)

Chapter 4: The Mystery

The next period was Algebra.

Somehow, I seriously have no idea how, Dino, the new kid, ended up sitting next to me. He didn't seem very pleased about it.

Now, I'm not bad at algebra. I was faster than the average student in my class. What took most 15 minutes, took me about 10 minutes. What took me 10 minutes, I noticed soon enough, took Dino 5. He muttered something under his breath as he was working. I couldn't clearly hear what he had said through the buzz of people talking while 'working together', aka catching up on the latest gossip etc., but I could've sworn...
'Excuse me?' I asked him, hoping he'd confirm my thoughts.
'I said that it was easy,' he said simply. 'Didn't you..' I started, but he cut me off.
'No, I didn't. I said that it was easy. That's all.' He sounded suspiciously defensive to me.
'A-alright,' I said softly. I knew he was hiding something. I could sense it.

My suspicion was confirmed during the break. Kim walked up to me. 'Bathroom,' she ordered. Without saying a word, I followed.
'You heard him mutter under his breath, didn't you?' She asked, once I caught up with her.
I nodded. I knew her well enough to know she was talking about Dino. She had well functioning ears, and she was smart enough to not say any times, places, or names, to avoid any unwanted listeners to understand what we were talking about.
'Did you hear what he was saying?' She continued. I hesitated a moment before answering. 'Yes, I think so,' I said, slowly nodding.
'Stephanie, tell me, how could he have known?'
I shrugged. 'I have absolutely no idea. I only told you guys about my dream. I don't even know who or what Solaris is. The way he said "by Solaris," it sounds like some kind of god or something.. maybe that's why I dreamed about it?'
Kim nodded slowly, considering what I had said. 'I thought,' she had said, 'that, indeed, you could only dream about things you saw or heard before.'
I nodded again, I was the one who had told her that in the first place. 'Well,' I said, coming to a decision, 'I now really want to know who or what this Solaris person is. The way I saw it in my dream, he seemed to be some sort of leader, of that planet... What was it called?'
'Ionica,' Kim said helpfully. She always remembered little things like that.
'Right,' I said, remembering what the elf, Eliouna had said. Ellarian will take you to Solaris, on Ionica. 'But of course,' I continued, 'that could just be something my mind made up. Then again, Ionica should be something to research, too. And Eliouna, and Ellarian... I don't know, it just seemed a bit... Too real.'
'To be a dream, you mean?'
'Exactly.'
'Well, we could go to the library this afternoon.'
'No, I think we should use the internet. For that matter, Dino could just be a huge nerd who uses fictional gods et cetera as if they were real.'
Kim grinned at me, and I smiled innocently. I had had a phase where I did that, too. I had been a bit obsessed with the Greek and Roman gods, and used phrases as "for Olympus' sake!" and "by the gods!". Yeah, I was a nerd.

We stopped, because we had literally been wandering through the corridors of the school. We turned back to go back to the rest of our friends.
'So,' I said, dropping the matter of Solaris. 'What do you think of Dino so far?'
'Well,' she said, 'he seems to have been held back several times. He's like, what, 17?'
I nodded. 'But he does seem crazily good at algebra. He finished the problems in half the time it took me.'
'Seriously?' Kim said, surprise evident in her voice.
'You didn't notice?'
She shook her head. 'But what did he do when he was finished?'
'He continued with the stuff he had missed in the rest of the year. He seemed to enjoy it, too. I wonder what caused him to be held back.'
'We should keep an eye on him,' she said. She loved to play detective whenever she had the chance. I smiled. 'We will. Especially if information about this Solaris character is nowhere to be found. I figure you heard, but he acted kind of defensive when I tried to ask him what he had said. We-' I had been interrupted by the buzzer that indicated the start of the next period. 'We will continue this conversation later,' I said. That was what I was going to say anyway, but Kim didn't know that. She laughed. 'Okay,' she said. And with that, the conversation was over.