The Princess of Light

Chapter 5.23 (The lesson on Thestrals)

Usually on Sundays, the students at Rosewood attented the church next to them, with the boring, monotone Father Vanden. But today their Headmistress was away on one of her travels and the sweet Meg took them to a church a little farther away under the pretence that a change of scenery could be good for the entitled Rosewood students. But it was probably mostly because she was just as bored of Father Vanden as they were.

Aurora hadn't really noticed it before but the uniform she wore, did seem to mean something to the Londoners. They always stopped their conversations and stared as the group of girls aged 7 to 17 passed them in the streets.

"Rosewood!" One boy called out, and nudged one of his friends. Aurora noticed he was wearing a grey tunic similar to that of the boy she had met a few days ago.

"Like you'd stand a chance, Billy," Scoffed a girl, also wearing the Sack as Aurora had decided to call it.

"Stand a chance with what?" The boy replied.

"Bagging one of 'em Rosewoods,"

"What does that mean?"

The girl seemed annoyed now. The other children were laughing. It seemed as though this interaction was a regular occurence. The girl just stared at him with a 'duh' look, probably afraid to go into more detail in front of a church. The boy, who had to have been at least sixteen, gave her a dumb look. 

"Don't worry. That's just his natural face." A voice whispered in Aurora's ear and she turned her head around so quickly, it almost snapped.

Immediately a beam appeared on her face, unable to keep it off. "It's you!"

"I suppose faith wasn't done with us yet." He said, with a smile. "You know, I realised, we never actually introduced ourselves,"

"I realised that too, but then I was rather glad,"

"Why? Is your name weird?" He said with a smile. "No, let me guess, are you named after some American city?"

She chuckled. "No," she said with a smile, "I was glad we didn't introduce ourselves because isn't a meeting with some mysterious stranger who you don't even know the name of, much more interesting."

"'Oh, yes, mother, I met this handsome, charming boy during the bombings. Saved my life, he did.' And then your mother going 'Oh, how splendid, how can we ever repay him? What's his name, I'll go by and give him a sack of gold.' And then you, 'I actually have no idea but I spent hours in his company'." He said with a smile, doing seperate voices for the mother and the daughter.

Aurora just shook her head in amusement. "My name's Aurora,"

This caused him to pause for a moment as he linked her name with her face, "Like the dawn?"

"Yes," she nodded, "very exotic, I know."

"It's not quite Agathe or Mary, no," he agreed, nodding. "My name's...Caspian."

"You sure about that?" She laughed, "You seem to doubt your own words."

"I'm sure," he said, smiling shyly for a moment. "It's just not the name people usually call me."

"I think Caspian fits you," Aurora said, with a curt nod, "it's exactly the type of sound I had expected to belong to you."

"I'm glad," he said with a weird look on his face and Aurora realised that was indeed quite an odd thing to say.

"See you in church!" She chirped, quickly going in.

She could hear his booming laughter all the way to her seat.