Unnoticed by either of them, two boys stood off in the courtyard next to the front door. One was tall with golden bronze hair, and the other was hunched and wringing his hands. “Did you, or did you not, talk to her?,” The blond growled.
“Well yes, but it couldn`t be helped,” the boy stammered. He yelped when he was caught up by the collar and pulled up. “Really! She was just asking the librarian for a book yesterday, and he said they didn`t have it, so I offered to let her borrow my copy, so it really wasn`t that big a deal,” he stammered. The tall one`s face was perfectly blank and unchanged, but his other hand came to twist his victim`s arm up behind his back.
“Are you sure that`s all you did, hmm? How did you manage that when she’s only started at the school today? Awfully interesting that you’ve managed to have a connection of any sort already.” He smiled, seeming to be very cheerful. The other boy became completely white. “Really, she said she didn`t want it that much so I didn’t end up lending it to her anyways, I didn`t kiss her or touch her or anything!” he answered desperately.
“Strike three,” his tormentor smiled more broadly. “I saw you steal a kiss, though I did warn you so strongly against such behavior before she got here. I even gave you three chances to tell the truth.”
The other boy looked around desperately, pulling at the hands that were holding him. The tall boy smiled, letting go of his victims captured arm. The dark haired one slumped in relief, then let out a short scream when he saw his tormentor`s fist flying towards his face. But it was stopped, abruptly, by Aeron stepping forward to intervene.
The boys shook off the altercation and continued talking as if nothing had happened. “This boy has already explained that the kiss was the direct result of falling down, correct?” Aeron icily asked. The boy in question was passed out on the ground, having fainting when the blonde`s punch was coming for him.
“It doesn`t matter. He shouldn`t have spoken to her in the first place, especially after being warned against it so strongly. He has ignored my authority in this.”
“Your authority?” Aeron scoffed. He gave his opponent the once over. “I see. You are one of their lackeys, aren`t you?” The blond just stared at him sullenly. “You realize that I am above your superiors, yes?”
“Not for long,” he muttered.
Aeron hmmd. “I see. So that is your aim, or your group`s? Yet another people backing my brother and agitating to depose me. I guess you wouldn`t really know all the details, though, as even I can tell you are on the bottom rung in the organization.” He sneered, “I would bet you haven`t even been granted a single position yet, Darien.” His opponent blanched. “Humph. I thought I got that correct. I can read you without having even bothered to send one of my people to dig through your past because it’s obvious you are a small fry of no threat to me or my rule.”
“Your rule clearly deserves the threat if you are ignoring all the little people who together could easily overpower you. Your kingdom is at risk with such a negligent leader. Unlike you your brother takes an upset populace seriously. Richard is obviously a better ruler than the famous idiot bastard of the brood,” he sneered.
Now Aeron punched him in the stomach, leaving him hunched over on the ground. “Don`t antagonize your seniors so much, or you might get hurt, little Freshie,” Aeron said.
In the girl`s bathroom, Alyss was desperately smoothing her sleek ponytail and scrabbling through her bag. She was muttering distractedly about lipstick, rifling through all the compartments. A tube of the stuff was pushed in front of her nose. She looked up, to see that Jackie was holding it out to her. “I figured after talking to those fussy people in the office you’d notice that there’s kind of an unwritten fashion rule around here to dress up a certain amount, so I got one of mine from my locker that I haven’t used yet,” she smiled.
“What kind of things have you been wasting your time on at school that you`d have stuff like that on hand?” Alyss grumbled, blushingly accepting the bottle.
“Ah, well, sometimes I don’t look so polished too. The key is to always have the basic products you need to look fancy in five minutes on hand here because all of us have days where we look a little more public school than private school preppy. Because you know,” she whispered, “we wouldn`t want anyone else to know you aren`t really perfect all the time.” They looked at each other for a second.
“Well,” Alyss chuckled, abashedly rubbing her head, “I guess you really do get me, and so quickly too!”? They smiled. A flash of movement in the window caught her eye. “Why do they have a window in a bathroom anyways?”
Jackie laughed, moving so that they were standing side by side. “Well, it`s the second floor and pretty far from the other buildings, and this is the antechamber anyways so he stalls are out of view, so it should be decent.” But Alyss wasn`t listening. She turned pale, looking out the window. Jackie leaned in close to see her expression better, then gasped as she looked outside as well. “That`s Aeron, right?”
“Yes. And he just punched my brother! The pig.” Alyss turned around, running out of the room.
“We don`t know what really happened down there! Let`s talk this through. Wait for meee!” her new friend wailed as she ran down the stairs.
“Aeron, you jerk,” Alyss exclaimed.
He looked at her blankly. “You punched my brother,” she screeched, pummeling him. Each hit of her fist made only the faintest of a
