Chapter 13: The Academy

-----

The Academy was a huge place, occupying nearly a third of Mhi’ra’s Light. Its size was well warranted; the Gar’nashian government deemed education an essential right, and children all over the country were sent there by their parents to receive an education at no cost. Housing was even provided for students that didn't live in the city. The Academy was in reality a collective of many schools of education, with two main academies. The two main academies were the warrior and mage schools, with the warrior academy having nearly quadruple the intake of the mage academy. As a result, many thought that the mage academy didn’t deserve its place as one of the main schools of the Academy.

Having the ability to manipulate mana was rare amongst the Gar’nash, and even rarer were mages of high calibre. This gave rise to the notion that the warrior academy was simply more prestigious, as nearly all of its students would turn out to be stronger than the magi who graduated from the mage academy, with certain exceptions of course. These exceptions, such as the head mage of the Queen’s magick division – who had been a proud student of the mage academy – prevented those of the warrior faction from being able to convince the Queen to divert the funds meant for the mage academy to more… ‘useful endeavours’, as they put it.

The other schools were vocational ones, where their students would learn cooking, blacksmithing, architecture, and so on. All students would be admitted to either the warrior or mage academy at the age of eight, depending on the results of their aptitude tests the year before. Upon entering the Academy, students had to take mandatory vocational electives of their choice in addition to their education in the warrior or mage schools. This was put into practice to prevent students from becoming a burden to society, in the unfortunate event that they lost their abilities as a warrior or a mage. For example, a warrior might lose his legs in battle, but if he took carpentry as a vocational elective, he would still be able to contribute to society even if he wasn’t able to fight any more. Of course, all students would have to take essential classes during their regular curriculum, such as history.

There were those who studied such vocations full-time, either by choice, or if they failed to show sufficient ability in the warrior or mage academies. Draygor’s father, Garick, had been one of those students, having failed to stay in the warrior academy due to a lack of ability. There were many people, especially those from successful warrior bloodlines, who looked down on such ‘failures’, and Draygor despised them for their views. His father was a hardworking man who did what he could with what strength he had. Though Garick was unable to become a full-fledged warrior, he had put his heart and soul into perfecting the art of cooking, and Draygor respected him deeply for that.

The Academy also housed a few large museums. This meant that the Academy was essentially open to the public, and some parents would come by in their free time to observe their children. Most of the Academy’s teachers didn’t approve of such behaviour, but since there was no rule against it, most tolerated it as long as there wasn’t any disturbance to their class.

-----

Kha’na stared around slack-jawed, her eyes wide in awe. They had just entered the grounds of the Academy, and the palatial buildings were clearly something Kha’na hadn’t witnessed up close before. The architecture certainly was impressive, but Draygor had seen buildings of similar grandeur before in Elysium.

“Kha’na… at least close your mouth, or something is going to fly in,” Draygor couldn’t help but tease her, a small smirk upon his face.

“B-but the buildings are so huge and grand! I’ve seen them from afar, but it’s so much more impressive than I imagined…” she exclaimed. “If only I’d been able to study here, it would have been fun…”

Draygor said nothing in reply, raising a hand to pat her on the back. Her life would have been so much different if the Ely hadn’t attacked, and Draygor couldn’t help but feel responsible for it. Perhaps he’d even killed her parents personally. He simply didn’t know; there were too many he’d cut down in the name of revenge. Shaking his head to clear his mind of those sad thoughts, he decided to change the subject.

“Dhi’na should be having a spar session now, according to her timetable. Why don’t we go take a look? We can explore the campus later,” Draygor grabbed her hand and began dragging her along to the training fields, without waiting for a reply.

-----

Dhi’na grunted, raising the wooden heater shield with her left arm. She had barely lifted it before her opponent smashed his training sword down onto her shield with loud ‘thunk’.

“Weak,” was the first thought that came to her mind at her opponent’s blow. It was nothing compared to Lhi’ra's relentless pummelling. She barely felt the impact, whereas Lhi’ra’s hits would have caused her arm to ache horribly for the rest of the day.

The weight upon the shield eased for a second. Again, her opponent swung his sword, this time from her right. Dhi’na simply swatted the blow away with her own weapon, her stance barely shifting. At their skill level, Dhi’na’s defence was seemingly flawless; she was like a sturdy wall, moving not for her opponent’s simple hits.

“He’s just too slow,” Dhi’na thought again, her eyes following her sparring partner’s every move. It wasn’t that she had no openings – the truth was far from it. A seasoned expert would have dozens of ways to get past her shield. Training with Lhi’ra had just honed her reflexes far beyond her peers in her age group. Despite that, she didn’t let her guard down. Any moment of weakness would be easily exploited, as Lhi’ra had drilled into her mind, and as a result, Dhi’na took every sparring session seriously.

A small cry of frustration escaped her opponent’s lips. “Stop hiding behind your stupid shield! Come on and fight fair and square!” he cried through deep pants, clearly exhausted.

Their sparring session had long crossed over the quarter-hour mark, and most of her peers would have been sapped of their strength at that point. It didn’t help that the weather was unbearably hot, since the training fields were unsheltered. There wasn’t much point in training indoors, and Dhi’na agreed; it wouldn’t be as effective in training the students’ stamina.

“Perhaps it’s time to end this,” Dhi’na said to herself. With a shrug, she took a step forward with her right foot, lowering her shield and raising her sword with its point facing her opponent.

“Come, then,” she taunted, her expression as stoic as ever.

“Hah! I have you now!” With a triumphant roar, her sparring partner leapt toward her, his sword raised for an overhead swing. He believed she had lowered her shield with the intention to fight him solely with her sword, and he knew he was better in that aspect. Dhi’na agreed with that assessment; she certainly wasn’t as good in combat without her shield.

She had no intention of fighting without her shield, however. Her shield was part of her, and she wasn’t going to handicap herself for a frustrated opponent. Twisting her body slightly, she sidestepped her opponent’s attack and bashed him with the edge of the shield with all her strength. The blow connected with his ribs, and he gasped aloud as his breath was knocked out of him, collapsing to the ground in a crumpled heap from the impact.

Some of their classmates watching their spar winced at the blow. Although the training weapons were merely made out of wood, they were fully functioning, and could still bruise and crack ribs when used properly. Combined with the fact that students wore no armour when training – unless they were fighting with metal weapons – meant that each and every hit by the hard wooden training weapons hurt. This was meant to train the students to dodge or block hits, unless they wanted to suffer.

Dhi’na wasn’t worried too much about hitting her sparring partners with all her strength though. Exerting herself fully during spars was a good way to train, both for her and her partners. Their scales would also mitigate some of the damage, not to mention the extraordinary healing rates of the Gar’nash, compared to other races. Without pause, Dhi’na swung her sword down in an arc, pressing it against her opponent’s throat.

“I… surrender…” her opponent conceded, gritting his teeth bitterly.

The rest of the class applauded as the teacher announced Dhi’na’s victory. Many admired her; she was the strongest amongst the class after all, though there were some that glanced enviously at her skills.

“Very well done as usual, miss Zorshe. Keep this up and you’ll reach great heights. Now, class is dismissed for the day. Those who are injured, head to the medical tent for aid. You know what to do, it isn’t your first day here. I expect to see everyone on time tomorrow morning, is that clear?” the teacher – a lady in her mid-thirties – said, turning to give a warning glance at a few of the offenders before waving her hand to dismiss her students.

“Good job, Dhi’na!”

“You’re awesome! Teach me how to do that, maybe?”

“We’re going for a shower, wanna join us?”

A few of the girls in the class called out to Dhi’na as they prepared to leave, but she gave vague, noncommittal responses to them as she gathered her things. She hadn’t really made any close friends since being admitted to the Academy, due to Draygor’s disappearance still being fresh on her mind. As she turned to leave with her things slung over her back, she suddenly spotted a familiar face out of the corner of her eye. A face that she hadn't seen for the past three years.

-----

“See that girl with the fiery red hair? That’s Dhi’na!” Draygor said proudly, pointing his best friend out to Kha’na.

They had arrived at the training fields after a few minutes’ walk through the academy grounds, and had been watching Dhi’na’s spar with another boy since it began from the edge of the fields. The fields were extremely spacious, with many classes of different age groups spread out a fair distance from each other. Draygor had recognised Dhi’na as soon as he saw her, with her fiery red hair and dark blue scales standing out quite prominently.

“Wow, she’s pretty good for an eight year old, master,” Kha’na praised as Dhi’na beat her opponent down, and Draygor nodded in agreement with her assessment.

He was surprised at her progress. When Lhi’ra had told him that she had been training Dhi’na, he hadn’t expected that she would be as strong as she was. While she was a far cry from beating anyone with a little more experience than her, she was indubitably the best in her class now, from what he saw.

“I’ll have to fight her more seriously now, if she wants to spar…” he thought. If he played around with her during play-fights like when they were younger, she’d probably end up breaking some bones. He’d most likely win if they sparred seriously though, since he had much more actual combat experience than she did.

“Uhh, master? Why is she running at us with an angry look on her face?” Kha’na asked, pulling Draygor from his thoughts.

“What?”

Draygor managed to form a confused reply to her question before he was tackled, a fiery red blur filling his vision as he was thrown to the ground.

“Ooof!”

The impact knocked the wind out of him, and before he could react, his attacker – Dhi’na – straddled him and began thumping on his chest with her fists.

“Where have you been?!” she cried out in exasperation, and it was all Draygor could do to try and breath as she continued pummelling his chest.

“It’s… been… a… while… Dhi…na…” he wheezed, managing to formulate a reply.

“It’s been a while?! Three long years since you went missing and that’s all you have to say?!” Dhi’na ranted, unreasonably expecting a longer reply from him even though she was punching his chest with all her might.

Soon, however, her anger gave way to tears, and her fists slowed to a stop. Burying her face in his chest, she began bawling uncontrollably, the return of her best friend whom she hadn’t seen in three years evoking all sorts of emotions within her. It was quite a sight to those among her class who were watching; Dhi’na, who was known for being cool and calm, was crying on the chest of an unknown boy while straddling him on the ground.

Draygor said nothing as he wrapped his arms around her and began stroking her back lightly as she cried. She had grown taller, naturally, and her hair had grown much longer. It was tied up in a cute ponytail, though it was now a mess, both from her spar and her tackling him. She was covered in sweat, dirt and grime, but he didn’t mind. Their position reminded him of when she had hugged him to sleep during their first meeting, except he was the one holding her now.

After a few long minutes, Dhi’na began to calm down, no longer full out bawling, but sniffling softly instead. She hadn’t noticed the small crowd gathering around them, being too absorbed in her own emotions.

“Dhi’na? Are you feeling better now?” Draygor asked softly, whispering into her ear, earning a meek nod from her in response.

“Let’s go home, alright? I’ll tell you everything when we get back,” he added, reaching up to wipe away her tears.

“Alright,” she agreed with another sniffle, still buried in his embrace.

“Uhm, Kha’na? Do you mind helping us up? Thanks,” Draygor thanked Kha’na as she helped the pair up. “Let’s go, we can continue exploring tomorrow.”

With Dhi’na clinging onto his arm, Draygor pushed through the small crowd with Kha’na following closely behind them. Many of the guys and girls were giggling and murmuring to each other, but Draygor ignored them. He was sure there’d be a few rumours circulating amongst Dhi’na’s class tomorrow, but he didn’t care, and he didn’t think Dhi’na cared either.

Dhi’na refused to let go of Draygor, clinging to him silently the whole way home, which made their journey longer than it needed to be. Not that he minded of course – he’d never minded any instance of Dhi’na clinging on to him, now that he thought of it. It had been too long since they’d had any physical contact, and he had missed that aspect of their friendship badly. Kha’na kept a small distance away from the two during the walk home, much to Draygor’s approval. He made a mental note to thank her for being so considerate later on.

The silence of their journey was broken as they neared their destination, with the loud cries of a baby ringing out from the Mithras household.