The next day was the official start of school for everyone. Which made me very nervous because I am still surprised at the idea of school. Magic class did not feel hard but I have no clue how good I would be at the other classes.

“Ash! You do not have to bring all of your textbooks right now! Hurry up!” Bram was yelling at me, as we were getting ready. “We only need our history book! You can get the rest after Lunch!”

“But, what if I don’t have any time to get them before the next class?” I asked as I tried to stack all my textbooks together to carry them.

Darkie started to make strange noises as I almost finished the stack. It was sitting on the edge of the dresser and it was moving in a way that looked like it was staring at my textbooks and schedule.

“You’re right! We do not even have half of those classes today! I think we would only need four textbooks today.”

I stopped in mid-motion and turned to look at him. I gave him a glare that made him try to sink into the ground.

“You mean to tell me that I was stressing out on what book to bring when you knew how many we needed?!”

“Oops.”

I had to chase him around the room until he fell laughing.

“Quit goof-balling around! We need to get to class!”

“You need to relax.”

I felt something crawl up my back and it started to massage my shoulders. I looked from the corner of my eyes and saw that it was my own shadow.

“This is so strange, but I’m starting to get used to your strangeness,” I told him as I started to lean forward from the massage.

Bram was laughing until someone started to bang on the door. The shadow returned to the ground and I missed the massage.

“Hey! You two had better get out here before we are late! I heard from Florence that he is a pretty cool teacher!”

We quickly ran out before she could threaten us with magic.

“So, who do we have first?” Bram asked as we started walking.

“It’s Professor Manx; Flo told me that his lectures are amazing!”

We walked passed the music halls and heard beautiful singing coming from one of the rooms. I looked into the passing room and saw Nova singing an old hymn. It is amazing how he can sing so beautifully with almost any song. We continued until we saw Bruce standing by our classroom door.

“Hey, Bruce!”

He jumped before turning towards us.

“Excited for class?” he asked as I saw him trying to secretly knock on the door. “This teacher may look lazy but he cares for everyone’s education. I hope that you three are not allergic to cats.”

“So Bruce, what are you doing here?” Joy was blunt with her question.

“Um… um,” he started to stutter as Flo walked out of the classroom.

“He is over here because I needed to ask Mr. Manx about some notes for this year’s classes. He came with me so we can go to class together,” she said as she started to walk away, “see you later little brother.”

We went into the classroom as people started to walk into the hallway. Professor Manx was sleeping with his head on his desk and cats all around him. We picked three seats in the middle to sit. He got up and yawned after everyone sat down.

“Welcome to History and Mythology class! Please do not talk while I am talking and please raise your hand if you have any questions or answers. One does not truly learn without asking questions.” He walked over to the board and started to write ‘Werebeast lore’ on it. “Studies have shown that all werebeasts have one core gene that has been diluted in the years. No one knows the true reasons but there are many legends behind it.”

I wrote down notes even though I knew the one answer. I originally only knew part of it until yesterday.

“Can anyone tell me what the core gene is?”

I raised my hand and gave my name.

“The core gene is Werewolf, which is why only werewolves have no animal features but they can all change.”

“Good job, Mr. Snowpelt. Werewolves have been around the longest with the purest genes. A long time ago, it is said that werewolves could turn other beings into them with a single bite but many historians are unsure. One legend is that a werewolf bit a cat, fox, bear, bird, and bat, and they bit humans, which created the start of the werebeast race. Some historians used the legend to explain the gene in non-wolf werebeasts but we are not exactly sure. One of the other myths was that werewolves could only change during the full moon in the beginning. We have found that to be false but some werebeasts do feel a love for the moon that seems to make them want to change under its light.”

After he gave us enough time to write down notes, he erased the board. I knew about the werewolf gene but I never knew that we used to have the ability to change a human.

“To start the history part, I will explain the confusing beginning of the Great War.” Many students gasped at his words. “Some of your parents tried to hide most of the facts from you but this is school, you come here to learn.” He wrote on the board ‘Vampire & Were-mage beginnings’. “There are two beginnings to the war; the first start was a human lord shooting a young werefox mage during a hunting trip. The werefox child still lives to this day. The later start was caused by a group of soldiers shooting a whole village of Vampires for hiding a just few werebears and mages in the town. If the leaders of the three Kingdoms allowed the human lord to pay for the crimes instead of saying that werebeasts have no rights, all of the years of violence could have been avoided. Next class, I will talk about the main rebel group, The Wolves of Freedom, and their three leaders that were never caught until they were pardon of all war crimes at the end of the war.”

We got up as everyone else did and started to walk out of the room.

“The homework for this class is that I want everyone to write down their favorite legend from the textbook and write the historical ties to them.”

“I like school! How come you guys never told me that it was so fun!” I told them as we walked to the main hall.

“Because other schools tried to brainwash us into wanting to kill all that do not match their version of ‘normal’. Anyone who wanted change got shamed for supporting the ‘enemy’.” Joy said to me while doing air-quotations at certain words.

“After the war was over, other children would use their pencils to try and stake me while the teacher was writing math problems on the board. But, I think this school is amazing! They care for the students and they made education their main job here.”

I opened my mouth to ask a question when my stomach growled. So, I switched my question.

“I wonder when lunch is going to be.”

They both looked at me funny.

“Ash, don’t you ever read your class schedule? We are going to eat lunch before English class.” Joy told me as Bram reached into my back pocket.

I jumped up as he pulled out my schedule. I looked at it as he handed it back to me.

Tome’s Day Classes

Five am – 745am Breakfast

Eight am – 1130am History & Mythology 101

1145am – 130pm Lunch/Study

145pm – 415pm English 101

430pm – 6 pm Dinner

615pm – 730pm Magic

8 pm – 10 pm Astronomy 101

I guess that it is time for lunch, so I started to walk faster. We walked into the dining hall and all the tables changed to small round tables that reminded me of the bars that I went into to help my aunt get my drunken uncle.

“Someone with magic must be bored every meal.” Bram pointed out as we saw Florence waving her hand from a nearby table.

We walked over to her as Bruce sat down next to her.

“How was your first class? Mine was Cooking 102 and it was delicious,” Flo said as we sat down.

She had a feral look on her face as she licked her chops. When it comes to food, my family can scary.

“You were right, Flo. Professor Manx is a great teacher!” I told her right before my stomach growled.

Everyone started to laugh as Flo stood up.

“Hey, Nova! Get your feathers over here with the food before I pull them out!”

“Bruce, how come the tables changed? Before, we had to sit with our hall, but now, we sit with anyone we want to,” Joy asked.

“Simple, it is because they know that we have friends in other halls and it helps with studying after eating lunch.”

Nova sat down with Flo on the other side while holding two full trays of food and drinks, one cup was full of a dark red liquid. I saw that he still had the claw marks on his face from me. Before we had a chance to eat, she grabbed the base of Nova’s wing.

“Apologize to my baby brother.”

“I’m sorry about yesterday, my anger got the best of me, and I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Her hand was slowly tightening with every second. I do not know if he truly feels guilty or it is just the pain from his wing, but I felt bad for him.

“I forgive you, but control your temper next time you hear the word ‘no’,” I told him with a small smile.

Flo removed her hand as Bram started hugging me.

“Get off of me and let me eat or I will bite you!”

“Talk about reversed roles, normally it is him biting you,” Alex said as he sat down with Viktor next to him.

I noticed that my cousin, Lewis was not at the table, nor Anna.

“I wonder where Anna and Lewis are, it is never good to miss a meal,” I said with food in my mouth. “It is always good to stay well-fed.”

I gave a little bit of the food to Darkie and it started purring next to my ear. I never had a pet but I think this is what it is like with Darkie.

“He is most likely in the library studying and forgetting to eat,” Bruce said.

“My dear cousin is probably trying to force-feed him and he is clueless on her crush on him,” Joy said while laughing.

“Young love, we are at the age of finding the one,” Viktor said before kissing Alex on the lips.

That earned laughter on our part and a slap on his. I saw a few female students whispering at a nearby table after the kiss.

“You always say that I’m your one, and then you go flirting with any passing girl and any guy you see,” Alex told him while glaring at him. “You are just filled with empty words that flow out of your mouth more than the air itself.”

“It speaks!” Flo said before laughing.

Alex is always so quiet and Flo loved to pick on that fact whenever she can. Even though she never acts like it, she is the oldest child by a few minutes.

I wonder if I ever find someone and if it will be like Lewis and Anna’s love, Alex and Viktor’s love, or maybe my way. But I wonder if Viktor will ever change to keep Alex happy or Alex changing to keep Viktor happy.