Chapter 5: In the Light pt.1

Early in next day’s morning we all got woken up by drums before the birds started to chirp and had to stand in ordered lines to hear today’s morning announcements. I stood next to Helen, seeing her with her quetzal and the others rubbing their eyes as they didn't adjust well to the new sleep schedule, luckily for me I was always more of a morning person. Today we're going to officially start Sun Academy’s Warrior Priest training. To do so we had to excel in Strength, Magic, Rituals, History, Strategy and first aid. After the announcement we got assigned to 4 groups of 64 for learning purposes, each group had 4 teachers made of various non-combative priests and divided the newcomers into 4 more squads so that each priest could have their own group.

After being assorted to a group and a squad, we were taken to the Academy's moss garden, my squad was sitting in a circle with the older priest as our teacher, Helen sat next to me with her quetzal playing with her hair. It was at that point I realised that just a 2 beginners to the right I could see Dark, damn I'm lucky.

The older priest, our teacher, decided to start us off with an introduction “Good morning everyone, I hope all of you got the rest you are required for. I want us to get to know each other for the few months that I will be your commander. So I'll introduce myself by stating my name, where I come from, my birthday and a fun fact and then I want each person starting from my left to say their name, origin, birthday and a fun fact. Okay?” Some of the beginners that were focused on the conversation nodded, some were still a bit sleepy from trying to socialize with everyone the night before.

“My name is Anya, daughter of Kali, I actually live a few hundred land rods from here, my birthday is on the 3rd of tōzōztōntli and I was the 7th best at weaving in my city growing up.” The teacher said and moved to the next one.

“I am Steve son of Alexander, i come from Xiulqo in the north, my birthday is in the 14th of Tepēilhuitl and i am good at ōllamalīztli”

“Hi, my name is Sigmund son of Ben, I come from Cetlxu, My birthday is on the 10th of quechōlli and I used to work as a chef” That might be useful for me if I ever grow hungry.

“Greetings, my name is Dark son of Grimwood, I come from Central City, my birthday is on the 5th of ātemoztli. A fact about myself is that I have synthesia and so-”

“What's that?” A beginner I didn't know the name of asked.

“Ah of course, I forgot the majority is not acquainted with such complex concepts” Dark said with a great powerful grin “You see, that means that a specific sense is tied to another one, in my case, as an example, I get a variety of tastes and smells simply from observing art”

“Oh shit really?” I asked, he wasn't happy I asked, was still worth it to see his angry expression.

“...Shit indeed” He replied coldly and stared away from me.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“My name is Conner son of Michael, I am from a settlement that was just made in the farthest north near Letzetchco”

“Wow, isn't that place really dangerous?” Helen asked, having the best grasp on geography.

“Yeah, my birthday is on the 7th of quechōlli and a fun fact about myself is that I'm 1/4 northern, my grandma is fully northern so i can understand their language.”

“...My name is Helen, daughter of Mika, I come from Niuxol, my birthday is on the 4th of tepēilhuitl and…” She thought of what to say about herself “I had the highest scores in highschool“ My face curved a little, looks like this semester gonna be real easy.

“My name is Jeremy” As they were talking i realised it’s going to take a while, slowly my head started looking downward, I saw a small centipede next to onenof the beginners crawling and tip-toeing next to their hand, it made my spine tingle but at the same time I did not want to call it out, especially since I realised it was Dark’s hand, I wanted him to look in shock when he looks down and suddenly sees-

“Val?”

“a-a yes?” It seems I lost focus… “Oh ah- right… My name’s Val daughter of Alice the Spark, I come from Chioxtot, my birthday is in the 16 of Teōtlehco”

“In four days? Lucky” Sigmund said.

“-and a fun fact about myself is that i got pretty strong legs so i can lift pretty much anybody that isn’t really really fat.” I said and waited for everyone’s response.

“Ohhhh, your mother’s a Spark?” One of the newcomers asked me, not my favorite question.

“Ah.. Yeah, actually both of my parents… are”

“Both of your parents? What age did it happen?” Conner asked.

“Ah…” As I was remembering, I started feeling weird in my chest “it happened at 5…” Right… the memories begin to uncomfortably flow, the day a warrior came with the village’s head to tell me and Abigail… I tried to reassure Abigail that they were lying, I was so confused why she cried so hard…

“Val”

“Huh?”

“Your eyes, are you okay?” Jeremy asked.

“Of course she isn’t okay you idiot, her parents died when she was merely five” Dark said.

“H-Hey, what the heck?” Helen replied for me, but he was right… I really wasn’t fine.

“I… need a moment-” I got up and rushed away and Helen tried to get up to follow me before getting stopped by the teacher in anger.

“Stay here, I will talk to her” The priest said “Newcomers don’t you dare follow me or wander off or i’ll have to teach you defense techniques early” She said and quickly followed me. I went to the bathrooms to try to control myself but I just couldn’t… I tried so hard to distance it… I remember I sometimes used to hold back tears just from saying my full name when I was young, now I can say it without issue, but talking about it…

“Feathers bright, a colorful sight; Watching over you, day and night. Sleep now, Val, so sweet and deep; While parrot dreams your senses keep.” That’s the only way I can remember my dad and mom’s voices… barely. I can barely remember what they sounded like anymore…The times I used to recite these songs in the darkness of my room… hoping that I can remember the voice well enough to think how they'd say other things.

“Are you there?” The demanding voice of the teacher called, making sure that I'm doing okay… I once, a few years ago, had a dream where they were alive, and I could feel their hug and my dad’s beard…

“Ah… Yeah.. I’m fine” I used the flowing water to quickly wash my face and appear fine, breathing slowly to control myself. The teacher looked at me with her eyes very focused on my sadness and deep breaths.

“I’ll make sure they don’t talk like that again, okay? Please take your time and I'll go and handle this.”

“Thank you…” I stayed in the bathrooms for a little while… Just like I would whenever I went to a friend’s house and saw the smallest bit of paternal love, unable to stand such a feeling in my throat and eyes. “Zond… please give me strength to get over this…” I muttered and waited until a short surge of courage soared through my heart, I breathed deeply and stepped out.