an unkindness of ravens

vingt-six

— vingt-six ; twenty six —

THE EDGAR ALLAN RAVENS versus the Cincinnati Lions match was being hosted at Castle Evermore, and the campus went all out trying to vamp up school spirit for the start of the Exy season.

Despite how depressive the colours could be, red and black was all over the place. Streamers were drawn up between lampposts and tangled in the branches of trees and giant red banners with black print declaring GO RAVENS! and CHEER FOR EXY hung from every building. Henri felt sorry for the people stuck hanging those things up overnight. The marching band were decked out in their black and red uniform as they did rounds around campus, rallying students with the haunting Edgar Allan fight song. Someone had dyed the pond by the English building with streaks of red.

The Ravenettes, the Edgar Allan cheerleaders, were everywhere shaking fluffy pom-poms and flaunting their school spirit with as much gusto as possible. Henri could hear them from about ten miles away because of their loud exclamations and the air horns that someone had made the terrible decision of giving to them. Somehow, they got even more excited every time they spotted one of the Ravens set to play today and ran over to spread the spirit to their players. Kit in particular loved this, revelling in the attention from pretty girls, but Henri was not a fan. With the Ravenettes came even more attention from students around them, as if being forced to wear his Exy Jersey wasn't bad enough.

"I'm taking it off," Henri muttered, as he walked to the lunch with the Solberg cousins. He was beyond grateful that they weren't required to attend lectures in the afternoon — even though first serve was only at six, traffic around Castle Evermore would be backed up from noon onwards and the Master wanted them within the walls with plenty of time. "I swear to god, I'm taking it off."

Loren smiled. "I don't think you can take it off."

"You're not taking it off," Soren said.

"Yeah? Watch me."

Soren shot him a withering look. "Stop being an idiot. Wearing the jersey on game day is tradition and if you take it off, you'll just draw even more attention to yourself."

"Is that even possible?" Henri grumbled under his breath, and was rewarded with a flick to the forehead from Soren. "Did you just flick me?"

"You're a Raven now. Attention is something you need to get used to."

"That doesn't mean I have to — hey!" Henri scowled at him and rubbed his forehead when Soren flicked him, again. "Stop fucking flicking me!"

"Then stop whinging and shut your mouth."

As if the stares following them weren't bad enough, three cheerleaders rounded the corner and spotted them before Henri would dive behind a tree. That's when Henri realised he recognised one of them. She looked different, her dark curly hair braided back with  silky red ribbons and decked out in a cheerleader uniform, but recognition dawned on her face when she saw Henri.

"Zena?" he said in disbelief.

"Hey," she said, giving a half hearted wave of her pom-poms. "Spread the cheer spirit and all that."

One of the other Ravenettes snickered. "Convincing."

"Since when were you a cheerleader?" Henri asked.

"Since...two days ago? My roommate Orla dragged me into this," she sighed, jabbing a thumb at the Ravenette who had laughed. She waved in greeting. "I needed to sign up for an extracurricular, and it was this or book club. Last time I read a book was for high school so..."