We are back with Garrett today for a look at life with the Stellarian faction.
Avalon Academy of the Arcane is a Magical Slice-of-Life short story series that follows the daily lives of various students and staff at a magic school housed on the wandering island of Avalon.
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“Alright cadets, your assignment, due to me next week, is to partner up with a fellow cadet and pick one of the ruins here on Avalon to investigate and learn more about. Put together a report of your findings, and have it on my desk by the start of class Monday,” said Captain Capulet, a petite woman old enough to be Garrett’s grandmother, who had to stand on a stool for her face and massive mop of wiry grey hair to be seen over the lectern at the front of the class. “Now remember, I really want you to dig deep. There’s two of you working together, that means you can do twice the work. I really want to see some intriguing findings. Understood?”
The third year cadets said in near unison. “Yes, Captain”
“Very well, figure out who you are going to partner up with. Class is adjourned.” At that she hit a small steel hammer on the lectern, and started to walk out of the lecture hall.
The various cadets broke into small packs, figuring out whom they would pair up with. Some of the Third Years were much more popular than others, so there was a bit of a fight over who would get the privilege of working with them. Garrett glanced over to where Tabitha sat at the other corner of the classroom, but he couldn’t see her. She’d probably already been snatched up by one of her friends. He sighed. What else did he expect?
Garrett stayed in his seat, and looked over a map of the island. Captain Capulet had said the First Voyagers had described the island as “vaguely triangular,” which he could see what they meant. While the edges of the island organically carved a shoreline of cliffs, and what had once been beaches, the general shape of the land was that of an equilateral triangle. The marking of ancient ruin sites, a rough arch-shaped symbol, sat at each of the points, marking the outer reaches of the island. Garrett had read about them before, they were called the Three Sisters, or the Three Towers. Something about seeing them on the map piqued his interest. The number three was incredibly important in Avalon. There were the Three Goddesses, the three kinds of magic, three lakes, though two were much less prominent than the other two, but when it came to the buildings, they were rarely built in threes. So, usually, when there was, it was something rather important.
“Alright, Gary, don’t worry, I’ll be your partner,” said Lucas in a consoling tone as he came to sit beside him. He turned to look at Lucas. “Who else will want to—”
“Actually, if it’s alright, could I be your partner, Garrett?” came the unmistakable, sweet, melodic voice of Tabitha. His heart started pounding in his chest at the sound. He whipped his head around, and there she stood, wearing the crisp grey uniform of the Stellarians, with a magenta baldric and half cape.
Garrett’s jaw dropped. From beside him he heard Lucas say, “Jesus Christ…” Garrett looked over and saw a look of utter bewilderment on Lucas’s face, probably for the first time since the two had met. His own expression was probably much the same.
It took him a moment, but Garrett finally managed “I-it would be my honor.”
She smiled one of those bright, almost blinding smiles. “Great! Why don’t we go to the Archives, and figure out what we want to do our report on?” Tabitha nodded to the door out of the fine wooden lecture hall.
Garrett scrambled to pick up his bag, to which Tabitha giggled as she walked to the door. Her long platinum blonde hair was bound up in a tasteful bun to keep it from touching her uniform’s collar per regulation. He got up to follow her. As Garrett closed the door of the lecture hall behind him, he heard Lucas breathe “Holy smokes, what the heck just happened?”
Tabitha waited for him in the hallway, grinning as he came through the door. “I think we gave your friend quite the shock.”
“I’d say so,” Garrett said, laughing nervously. “M-me too, if I’m honest.”
“Really?” she giggled. “and here I was thinking after our chat last night we’d at least be friends.”
Garrett coughed. “Oh, w-we are!”
Tabitha giggled again, covering her mouth with one of her slender hands. “Three keep me, but you are too easy to tease.”
“Oh, s-sorry,” he said, casting his eyes to his boots.
She bumped him playfully, making him jump in surprise. “Relax, it’s a good thing. Now, why don’t we get going? The Archives aren’t going to read themselves!”
They started walking down the hallway. A few other pairs had already set out for the same destination, or were discussing things in the hallway. Garrett hardly paid them any mind. He was laser focused on keeping a respectful distance from Tabitha. Too close, and he might seem over eager, or disrespectful of her personal space, but too far and he might seem… well he didn’t want to be far from her at all.
Tabitha looked over to him as they stepped through the door to the outside. He, of course, had scrambled to open the door for her. She smirked. “Such a gentleman.” And as she passed by him, she hooked an arm through his, and yanked him next to her.
Garrett panicked, his heart pounding in his chest. Somehow he was still walking in time with her, not a bundle of nerves on the ground. He looked down to her head, which only just came up to his chin, and she turned her head to look at him with one of those magnificent smiles. She asked, “So, did you have any ruins in mind?
“Ruins?” he started. His thinking brain was miles away. Any chance of sounding intelligent had fled with it. She was so close, literally touching him.
“Forgot about our assignment already?” He could see her fight back a laugh.
“Oh,” Garrett shook his head, as if snapping out of a trance. “Yeah, erm—well, I was looking at that map of the ruins sites that the Captain gave us. Have you ever heard of the Three Sisters?”
Tabitha smiled. “Of course I have. My mum told me about them as a kid. Most children raised on the island probably heard the same story.” They took a turn down Aquinas Street. Several groups of students of the three different uniform types at Avalon Academy went to and fro. Most of the professors had offices on this street, as it was central to the three main lecture halls.
“Oh, I guess I never realized you were native,” Garrett said.
“Born and raised.” She said softly. “My Mum and Da have a book shop over on Lakeside.”
Garrett blinked, “You mean—your parents own Curios and Tomes?”
“You know it?” Tabitha looked up to him curiously.
“Well yeah, I kind of stumbled in there when I was a first year. Couldn’t believe all of the stuff they had in there.” Garrett smiled. “It kind of became my home away from home. If I was stuck on a lesson, or needed somewhere to think, I’d go there, and would find a new book. It always seemed to snap me out of whatever funk I was in.”
She smiled back. “It does kind of have that effect, doesn’t it?”
“But… Wait, if your parents own the shop, why would you work at the Starlight Café?” Tabitha nodded and sighed. Something in her eyes told Garrett that she was reluctant to answer the question. After a moment he said nervously, “S-sorry you don—."
She shook her head and cleared her throat. They just kept walking like nothing had happened, though it seemed like her grip on his arm had loosened. Garrett couldn’t believe he had messed up something that had been going so well. His mind flooded with ways to try and fix it, but none of them seemed to make sense. He’d just make things worse, like he always did.
They came to the multi-tiered pyramid-shaped Avalon Archives building. As Captain Capulet had taught in class that day, this was not the original Archive, as the first Archives had been a cavern as old as the Cave of Founding, but it had collapsed in the Early Renaissance Period. On the original site, Master De Vona built the Archives that stood to this day out of local limestone. It took several sessions of casting, but he managed to construct the pyramid in a week. It was not a massive building, in fact, it was several stories shorter than Central Clocktower, but it reached deep underground, making it the largest structure on campus. Almost half of the campus had chambers of the Archives deep underneath the ground.
Garrett opened one of the two heavy oak doors at the front entrance, and Tabitha walked through with a smile. An elderly woman with pristine white robes stepped up to them as they entered.
“Ah, more here for Captain Capulet’s assignment, yes?”
“Y-yes, ma’am.” Garrett said.
“Very good,” she said with what looked to be a smile, but the expressions on her aged face were so slight that it was hard to tell. “You’ll want to go down to the 6th level, and take a left to the Archaeology section to start. The Historical Records on the 29th level may also be useful. Should you have any questions, you can ask one of the librarians on that floor. Anything else?”
Tabitha spoke this time “No, Lady Wainwright, thank you!”
The elderly woman nodded her head, and headed back to her desk. “Good luck, you two.”
Tabitha pulled Garrett along to the lifts just behind the desk. There were four here, though, if Garrett remembered correctly, there were more scattered throughout in other sections of the Archive. The stepped into the open lift waiting for them, and they started going down to the sixth floor. Through the brass bars of the lift, he could see a labyrinth of bookshelves, desks, and other features weave and span across the different wide open floors as they went.
He looked to Tabitha, and, before he could stop himself, he said, “I’m sorry about what I asked before…”
She shook her head. “No, it’s alright.” The tone in her voice indicated it wasn’t. “It was my choice to leave. We had an… argument back when I was a first year. I took a job at Starlight to prove a point and came to find that I really liked it there, so I stayed. That’s why I live at the dormitory too.”
“I shouldn’t have brought it up, I’m s—” Garrett started.
“Hush.” She put her left index finger on his rambling lips. A jolt shot through his spine at the intimate touch, as if he had been struck by lightning. “It is ok. It’s something we would have talked about eventually anyway.”
A single word caught his attention. “Eventually?”
Tabitha giggled, probably at some dumb look on his face. “Well, yes. Did you think this would be the last time we spoke or something?”
“Well…” Garrett scratched his head. “I mean, it’s me.”
“Exactly. It is you.” A strange, inexplicable look warmed Tabitha’s features as they stepped off the lift that sent his already pounding heart beating at a reckless pace. “And that’s why I want to.”
Garrett looked down at his booted feet on cherrywood floor. “I don’t get it”
Tabitha laughed and lifted his head with a finger to the chin. “You will.” And then kissed him on the cheek.
Garrett’s soul could have left his body in that moment, and he could have died without a regret in his heart. Somehow, he didn’t die. Somehow this moment wasn’t some freak hallucination.
He felt her grab his hand and pull him forward. “Come on, Garrett. We should get some things done before I have to go to work this evening. You’ll be there, won’t you?”
Garrett grinned. “Of course I will.”
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