As the sun rose light filtered across the water, casting its rays. Sighing and packing away my tools before heading back to the dorm to store them for the day.
My roommate was an ass, he had started hating me as soon as he walked into the dorm. His brother was a Triton and they both felt I had no right to be at the school, and they didn’t have any qualms telling me this. I almost envied the Siren, having an older brother and Sister would be nice. Or even having my brothers here. If they were here they would be in the sixth and eighth year of training.
Sighing and stashing my weapons under my bed, before leaving the room. My roommate was still asleep and he looked like a slob. His stuff tossed everywhere even on my side of the room. Which annoyed me, but that was an argument for another day. Leaving the room and heading into one of the bathing areas, thankful that it was empty. Cleaning didn’t take long, and I was out of the dorm without having to talk to people. Which was a plus today, glancing at the Siren dorm, a glint of silver caught my eye.
To think the only person in this entire academy who might know how I was feeling was him. While others could sympathize they wouldn’t actually know the feeling. While out two problems were different the way we were treated would be similar. This was the first time in a long time, that someone other than my family had caught my attention like this.
Getting into the opening ceremony was easy, not many people were out yet, so that made it easier. Thankfully there had not been many issues yet. The problem with my roommate would have to be dealt with one way or another. Didn’t Silves say they had to find him a Triton roommate? If things couldn’t be fixed with my roommate I could ask for a change and offer to share with him, it might be nice to be able to talk to someone who knew how I felt.
It didn’t take long before people started showing up. While the room was large they were many students. It didn’t take long before my roommate and some of his buddies found me and started harassing me. Making me understand that there would be no fixing what he thought of me. While the group talked at me, I did my best to keep my neutral expression, fighting back would just make them feel better. That was something I wouldn’t give them.
My eyes moved over the crowd, Silves was at the back of the room. He had been looking at me, but then he had blushed and looked away. His eyes had been filled with sadness. Something must have happened to upset him. He was so nice though, why would someone upset him. Even after I slammed him into the ground he hadn’t been angry with me. He had realized it was an accident, merfolk could be cruel. Which was ironic since we were supposed to be such an advanced race. When the ceremony ended, I excused myself and walked out. I wasn’t following Silves, but I did want to make sure that he was okay.
I was moving through the crowd looking for Silves, he had to have come this way, but there was no sign of him. You would think he would be easy to spot, the only head of silver hair like that here. Hearing a commotion and heading towards it. I caught the end of what the bully was saying.
“You should just have died when your babysitter tried to kill you.” his voice was cruel.
My blood boiled in a way it hadn't' in a long time. My eyes narrowed as instead of fighting, Silves, just looked down and started to swim away. Before he could get very far the bullies grabbed him roughly and threw him to the ground.
“You need to leave and never come back to sully our academy. You should be ashamed you came here in the first place.”
I moved forward pushing my way through the crowd that had gathered. Yet none of them made a move to help, though thankfully none moved to help the bully either. Silves stayed on the ground not moving, at first I was afraid that he might have been hurt. There didn’t seem to be an injury though, so I figured he was afraid to move.
“Look at you groveling, you’re such a loser. You cannot even use your magic to protect yourself.”
“Fighting is against school rules,” Silves said, his voice soft, I had almost missed it.
“Even if you fought against me you would lose. I’m in my third year there is no way you would be able to stand up against me.”
“I didn’t ask to be a Siren, I wanted to be a Triton,” Silves said his voice so quiet the only reason I knew he spoke was I had seen his lips moved.
“It doesn't matter what you wanted who doesn't want to be a Triton. Once you found out you weren’t good enough you should have given up. No one should have to see your face, freak.”
“Hey leave him alone,” I said reaching out and pulling Silves up and behind me. There was no way I could avoid this. Even if he was a third year, even if he was right and I couldn’t beat him, I would make him regret pissing me off.
“The traitor's son comes to save the freak. You two are made for each other. You’re both losers. And should never have been accepted into the academy.” he said with a sneer.
The bully swung his fist, towards me, I was just waiting for it to hit. There were enough people here to say he started it. Which would mean I wasn’t fighting, I was defending another student after being attacked. If anything it would hopefully lessen the punishment, fighting was a major infraction of the rules. As the first moved towards me, a shield of ice appeared in front of me. As his fist connected to the ice, the ice started to move up his shoulder. My eyes widened at this turn of events. What siren stepped in to help us, was his sister here?
A tug pulled me back and ice formed around the two of us. Realization dawned on me, he created the shield. I wasn’t the only one to receive training before coming to school. The question now was how long could he hold the shield before it broke.
“A pitiful novice Ice shield. I’ll break it in one hit.” I could head each hit the bully landed on the shield, and with each hit, bruises would form on Silves’s body. My eyes widened as I realized what he was doing, by not breaking the connection he was able to reinforce the shield with more magic, but he took damage every time the shield was attacked.
After a little bit, I watched as he held his hands out in front of himself and a ball of ice started to form in it. Every couple of seconds it would condense in on itself, then it would grow back. The cycle repeated for a couple minutes. My eyes widened, how much magic reserve did he have. Even though I was impressed by what I was seeing, I could tell he was starting to strain to keep them both going. I was afraid to talk and distract him, bad things could happen when you lost control of a spell.
I watched as the ice ball stopped its cycles of growth and shrinking, then the shield around us shattered. They bully saw the ice ball and jumped back, but instead of throwing it at the bully, Silves launched it into the air. A cracking sound so loud I wanted to cover my ears ripped through the campus, as well as massive amounts of cold water.
“I’m not a good fighter, and this might hurt, I’m sorry you got dragged into this,” Silves said taking my arm.
The bully started to attack us knowing that we were defenseless now. Though every time he attacked me, the bruises seemed to disappear almost as soon as they appeared. Looking at Silves, it was easy to see that he was getting tired really quickly. It surprised me that he knew how to heal. Healers were prised because they were rare. Anyone could learn to heal, but that was different than having it as a specialty. To be able to heal like this before even entering training was amazing. I would love to meet the Siren that taught him.
It was easy to notice when Silves ran out of magic, my body didn’t heal anymore, Now I used my body to try and shield him. He still had not released me so I couldn't fight back. Closing my eyes, after a few seconds, the hitting stopped. I waited for another hit to land but it didn’t. Opening my eyes to see, Silves’s brother holding the bullies hand. His sister was closing in from the distance with quite a few sirens following her. She looked scary.
“What do you think you are doing? Attacking first years before they have even started class.”
“But they started it, they attacked me first.”
“I highly doubt the Siren started it, and I’m sure The Triton didn’t either. No first year would pick a fight against a third year.” his sister said as she approached us.
"How would you know, the Triton is the son of a traitor, he is here to upset the balance. And a male Siren, what a disgrace to the school.”
“That Siren is my Brother,” the brother said, his voice dark, “And he has never attacked anyone in his life. He doesn’t even know any attack spells. Though that ice ball spell could pack a punch if it hit you.”
“We both know you're the one at fault, Zeco.” a woman's voice said. She swam down from above us holding a trident.
“Saous, You can’t be protecting them.”
“I am the only female Triton here, I understand what he is going through. It took a long time before I got the respect that everyone deserves. You started it by bullying them, figuring they wouldn’t be able to protect themselves. But that Siren did an excellent job holding you off. And if he hadn't been holding the Triton back I'm sure he would have done an amazing job as well. I watched him train last night while everyone else was sleeping. I would have stepped in sooner but I was curious about Silves, and he seemed to hold his own perfectly. He’s even learned a healing spell. He has a lot of promise for such a young age.”
Silves blushed at her comment and looked down, then seemed to realize he was still holding my arm and released it. Swimming back a little bit. I watched as his sister and some other Sirens start healing Silves. He had taken the worst of our fight. I glared at the bully, fighting on school grounds was forbidden, but he better hope I didn’t run into him out in the ocean. I watched as Saous reprimanded the boy, and once they were done with Silves, his sister came over and healed my wounds.
“Thank you for standing up for him. I saw that you wanted to attack him as much as I did, but you didn’t because Silves was holding you and it would end up hurting him more,” she said as her energy started to heal me.
“I’m sorry he has to deal with this.”
“I’m sorry you had to deal with it, not about my brother, but what he said about you. You cannot control what your parent does and shouldn’t be held accountable. Who knows maybe I feel that way because of what has happened to Silves,” she said quietly, her eyes with a faraway look as she looked at the bully.
“I don’t know how yet, but I’ll get him back for this, tenfold.” her voice was quiet, and I was probably the only one who heard her, but it caused me to shiver.
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