Changeling: The Daughter of Fire (GxBxNB)

Changeling 16

Erika's radio-alarm woke me up in the morning with the best hit from the '90s and Kurt Cobain's mournful drone. My whole body groaned at the thought of getting up so early, but I forced myself up.

Erika took the shower first and I took the time to stretch and clear my head. I put the Qu'ran on my shelf, wiping it clean with a tissue. A little part of me nagged at me for mishandling such a beautiful piece, but I put the thought aside.

I made my bed and cleaned up my side of the room, arranging everything until it felt right. By then, Erika had come out of the shower and it was my turn to get cleaned. Today was the first day of something new and therefore I had to be extra careful not to start the year on a bad foot.

I counted the tiles in the shower, a hundred and twenty-six. I came out and dried myself up before putting on the school's uniform; a light gray tartan skirt with a white shirt and a red tie.

I came out and Erika was packing her school bag, which was artistically decorated with a billion patches and buttons. Her hair was tied into a braid.

"Excited for the first day of school?" She asked.

"A little scared, but this can't go worse than my last year, what with the whole getting expelled and having to finish during summer school."

"You got expelled?"

"I ever so slightly set fire to the school's dumpster in June."

"Oh wow, Jinni problems?"

"No, just terrible impulse control and untreated pyromania. It felt really fucking good though, just the thought of it brought flames to my hands." I closed my eyes and did some breathing exercises to cool myself down.

Erika laughed. "Well, try not to get expelled this time?"

"I'm not planning to!"

The walk to school was a quick one, all we had to do was leave the mansion and cross a big grassy area where picnic tables were arranged every so often. We came into the school's main building and were guided toward an auditorium where we sat down, it was a little smaller than my old school's having perhaps only half as many pupils.

While the school was nice, clean and modern, unlike my underfunded public school, it looked like just any other school with cinderblock walls, drop ceilings and endless locker-lined hallways.

Mr. Lucian came out and delivered an opening of the year speech, which hit just about every note I expected, although emphasizing opportunity to grow and artistic pursuits. When his speech was over, he called over the homeroom teachers and then went through the school's student alphabetically.

Among the names called, I recognized Jesse Morales, going for a Senior class, and Kieran McCall joining a Sophomore class. My name was called before Erika and I took place with Class 2 of Junior grade.

I looked around at the dozen students that made my class, a much smaller number of people than I'd been with at public school. A few people caught my eyes; a short statured latina with purple hair, a buff nearly six-foot tall girl wearing the boy's uniform, and one black girl walking with forearm crutches.

One more stood out to me, she was the epitome of the white rich girl with her artificially curled blonde hair, blue eyes, Armani handbag, and expensive shoes, she had the haughty bitch face to go with it, she looked at me, a grimace on her face.

"Erika Romano, Class 2 of eleventh grade." The headmaster called and she joined us, a big grin on her face.

"Glad to have you with me," I said.

"Ugh, not you, tranny." The prep bitch said, both her and Erika's eyes crossed and instantly her smile was gone. I froze at the slur, my eyes darted toward Erika who had gone stiff as a board. "I guess you didn't know." Bitchy McBitchface said.

"Hi, Clarissa," Erika said in the fakest jovial tone ever, "nice to see you're still a rotten bitch."

"Pfff, call me a bitch all you want, I just have enough class to stay away from Orphans, trannies, and freaks."

I clenched my hands into fists, fire erupting from them."

"Oh watch out, little miss terrorist is about to explode." She snapped, a few people looked at us worried, the teacher included.

I was about to smash her face when Erika took my hand, squeezing it tight, whispering to my ear, "she's not worth it, Nadia."

She took me to the other side of the group, a few eyes were locked on me, a knowing glint in their eyes having seen my aura.

"Who the hell is that?"

"You've just had the misfortune of meeting Clarissa Whitaker, our very own queen bitch."

"Well, maybe someone should kick her teeth in."

"Don't," Erika's tone was harder than ever. "She's the Niece to the Seelie King, you do anything to her and the whole court will be calling for your blood."

"The what now?"

She sighed, "You have so much to learn, we can talk later."

With the last people called, our teachers called for attention and guided us to our first class of the year. Erika and I's homeroom was located on the second floor. We came into the classroom and little paper strips with our names indicated our places in the seating arrangement.

Mine was by the window, midway through the classroom. Sadly, Erika was by the back and the hallway. A moment later, the purple haired Latina came and sat down next to me.

"Hi... I'm Cassiopeia," She gave a nervous wave.

"Nadia," I extended a hand and she shook it lightly.

My eyes caught a little silver pentagram hanging around her neck. "I like your necklace."

She reached for it, her pupils widening.

"Relax, are you Wiccan?"

Her shoulders relaxed down by an inch. "Something like that." She smiled timidly.

I knew enough not to jump to conclusions, Liam had always been into that kind of witchy and neopagan stuff, not that he could be open with his perfect faithful Catholic mom, plus in a conservative suburbs he was liable to be mistaken for one of those edge-lord satanist.

"Well, if it works for you, that's great."

"Do you practice too?" Her words were whispered.

"Nah, I'm sort of undecided somewhere in between Christianity and Islam thanks to my parents." I gave her a shrug. It was hard to really decide when you were raised with both, understanding that they both believed in the same God, but disagreed on the exact message and specifics of Jesus' nature, both had points I liked and disliked.

She nodded.

"Cassiopeia is a really cool name."

"Thanks," She blushed lightly, "I kind of got the Wiccan from my mom, you can call me Cassie, it's shorter."

"I guess you can call me... Nadia doesn't really lend itself to nicknames, does it?"

"It's already kind of short and sweet."

"Alright, Students!" Our teacher called. "If I could have your attention."

We all refocused on our teacher, Ms. Donovan, and she read us through the school's guideline, gave us our class schedules, and all the boring stuff a first day of class usually had.

On the plus side, we had the afternoon free.