At Dinner

She stood there, in her tattered splendor, staring into the many eyes of those gathered at the many tables. It was not a large room, nor was it very bright. Several candelabras were suspended from the ceiling by means of heavy iron chains. She could feel their tiny fires as the flames flickered pitifully, consuming the poor tallow. She felt a certain draught racing about her bare ankles, and tried not to shiver. How bare and foreboding this place was!
"Everyone, may I introduce to you the newest of the refugees," Euclid Tollers intoned into the almost accusatory silence. Ealin hated that word, refugee. "Ealin mac an Eilir, Snowlander. I shall expect everyone to show her the utmost respect, and to remember the faraway days when they were the newest." He placed an aging hand on her elbow for strength and led her through the middle aisle, past several tables of different sizes, their occupants as different from one another as the chairs upon which they sat. Most of the owners of the staring eyes were her age. She could recognize several younger, some just barely out of toddlerhood, but most were obviously well on into puberty. Tollers halted at a small, square table near the far end of the room from where they had entered. There was one empty seat, the one she was expected to fill. She did so, and attempted to fade into invisibility, avoiding like a hornet the eyes of her five tablemates.
Tollers continued to the end of the aisle, and took a seat with a number of older people. With his seating, the original conversational din of the dining hall began anew. With little warning, a bowl of warm, dark soup was slammed down before her. Turning with a squawk, she met the very large smile of a very tall, very dark man. He wore nothing save for a sort of loincloth and balanced five more steaming bowls along his outstretched arms. He winked at Ealin, and the girl found that she could not help but grin in return.
The tablemates clapped wildly as the dark serving man began to wave his arms in a most precarious manner, causing the soup inside to lurch ominously. All laughed at Ealin's shocked gasp as the man threw his arms into the air causing the soup bowls to go soaring in every direction. With a snap of the dark man's fingers, the bowls froze, midair, where milliseconds before they had been plummeting. With a wave of his hand, the man conducted the five bowls as they scooped up any nearly spilled, still steaming broth and came to a hover directly before the five awaiting teenagers. They grabbed the bowls hurriedly by the wooden handles on either side, and set them down with soft thuds. The serving man's antics, then, were met with tumulus cheers from all. Ealin blushed heartily at the realization that all the eyes in the room were fixated in her general direction once more.
"That will be quite enough showing off around our new acquaintance, Master Radomir." A stern sounding female voice commanded from the table at the end of the aisle. Master Radomir stretched his lips back in a very warm, very toothy smile as he took a bow and receded down the aisle.
"Ah, she always ruins our fun," A male tablemate complained. Ealin looked up from her bowl into the face across the table. It was male, had very short blond hair, and green eyes. His thin lips smiled reassuringly as his eyes caught hers. It was he who had spoken. Ealin hurried to look down. She selected a wooden spoon from the pile in the middle of the relatively small table and began poking with it at her stew. No one else at her table had taken a bite, though the rest of the gathered people were noisily consuming their own. Ealin made no sudden moves and waited for someone else to take the first bite. No one did.
"Go on," cooed a melodic female voice, coming from the lips of the very tall female sitting nearest her. "We won't until you do. Inys Wenna custom." She accented her words with a quick nod of her raven black head. Ealin gulped and raised a half spoonful to her mouth. The broth was not thin and was yet not too thick. It tasted of vegetables and good, fresh meat, but from which animal she could not be sure. All in all, it was very good soup. She raised her head and smiled. The five smiled in return and attacked their bowls with hearty vigor.
"So welcome to Inys Wenna," the blond haired boy at the end of the table said, as a line of levitated breadbaskets floated by. He reached out deftly and snatched one, setting it down in the very center of the table. The selected a roll with great care, and lobbed it at the fellow sitting next to him, who threw up his hand and caught it without taking his eyes off the notebook he held in the other. The table chuckled, as if this were an old joke.
"You'll have to pardon Rhett for the time being. He's a large presentation for his tutor tomorrow. He's usually much more talkative." The raven haired girl's southern accented explanation was met with a grunt from behind the notebook.
"What's your name?" Ealin asked in a shamefully small voice.
"Right! I'm Meta, from Inys Adlam." Ealin remembered the slender island below the Continent from countless geography lessons with her brothers. Meta continued with the introductions. "The blond haired showoff there," she stated, flicking a finger at the boy, who had grown a ball of softly blurred, bluish green light in his palm. "Is named Illuminus. Much too great a name for such a foolish boy." She shared a private smile with Ealin. "To his right is Eurus," she continued, meaning a very tall, very strong looking boy, who was really quite obviously a man. He appeared to be around eighteen or maybe even twenty years old. His open face and flyaway brown hair gave him an almost roguish appearance. "We call him Russ. Ah, see, that's all he answers to." Russ smiled as he lifted his head at the sound of his name. Ealin decided immediately that she could definitely love this mannish boy. "Don't get too many ideas," Meta cautioned, reading Ealin's thoughts so perfectly that she was left to wonder if this was the girl's talent. "He and Lumy are a thing. Much to the dismay of all Wenna's females." She and the other female, whom Ealin had not yet noticed, sighed in unison.
"I'm Haddy, by the way," the unnoticed female said, picking up where Meta left off. "I'm from Paolo, coastal side. I caused one too many tidal waves in my hometown to stay hidden. If t'weren't for Tollers, I'd've been burnt on a funeral pyre years ago." Ealin shuddered at the mention of such barbaric treatments the magically endowed community was sometimes forced to face.
"And this here," Meta continued, flicking a balled up piece of the very good brown bread at the boy sitting next to Ealin. The boy looked up from his notebook, opened his mouth, and caught the bread ball squarely between his front teeth. "..is Master Marcellus."
"Mars," he said, offering a large, squareish hand for the shaking. Ealin was startled by the boy's eyes. Brown, shaggy hair had hidden them as he had been immersed in the scribblings on his notebook, but as he greeted her, his deep brown, almost maroon eyes captured a heartbeat. She'd never seen eyes as those. He held her gaze for only a moment, then smiled sheepishly behind his papers.
"Mars is the most serious of us all," Meta was murmuring. "He plans to save the world one day." Ealin noted the odd change in Meta's voice. The girl had a remarkable propensity for the sultry tone. Mars did not show notice of her effort.
Introductions over, the dinner continued at a rather slow pace. The floating bread baskets were replaced with platters of fresh fruit. The five sharers of Ealin's table resumed conversation, seemingly as they would have during any other meal. Just as the meal was beginning to drag and Ealin was playing with the candle flames in the nearby wall sconces, all members of the front table stood. This was a cue. All the students stood as well, eyes trained on the twelve adults at the end of the room.
"Let us thank Maker for the life he has given," the austere looking woman stated, the melodic note of prayer mixed with her otherwise nagging voice. Her wording struck Ealin as odd. A male Maker? Did these people know something that she did not? Her fingers tripped to the belt at her waist. She felt the smooth, thin links through the cloth of her dress and felt it tingle in response. She would have much to learn here.
"Praises to Maker, giver of life. Praises to Him of the daylight," the room chanted after her. This was obviously a well exercised ritual. Ealin remained silent, observing. But this mention of the Maker as a male piqued her.
"Thanks be to mother of deepest moonlight," the leading woman sang.
"Praises to Mother, giver of love." The prayer continued in a call and response fashion.
"Thanks be to Axl."
"Praises to reason."
"Thanks be to Aislinn."
"Praises to dreaming."
And all together, student and teacher, "Glory to Those in the Highest, ave, ave!"
Ealin, watching the front table closely, had not noticed the disappearance of the tables, but as she looked around after the ending of the prayer, all twenty of the tables that had previously been in the room with her had vanished, leaving only the benches and chairs. All of the groups that had previously been sharing tables drew into tighter knots. Marcellus put firm fingers around Ealin's thin wrist and drew her in as well. He did not release her, but Meta took her other hand. The girls locked fingers.
"Ave, ave, ave, ave," the five chanted. Ealin joined the two syllabled chant a bit hesitantly at first, feeling foolish. As she gave into the flow of the ritual, however, and forgot the word she was repeating endlessly, she felt undeniably the rush of power that the words were summoning. Her mind filled with thoughts and memories of flame, of candle wax and softly scented herbs. She felt as though a fire were flickering through her veins.
Still too hesitant to give her whole consciousness to the trance that lapped at her mind, Ealin eyed the rest of the circle. She was oddly not surprised to see that each body, connected hand to hand, was glowing, pulsing, with colored light. This chant, it seemed, drew out the visual representation of the power in people. Mars', at her left, glowed without the slightest flicker. The deep, steady crimson light seemed to flow from every pore in his body. Meta pulsed violet on Ealin's right side, her grip tightening on Ealin's hand as she gave into the flow of power and the trance it offered. Haddy, on Meta's right, was muttering some completely different chant, and her aura light was flickering rapidly, touching all shades between deepest blue and sharpest green. Illuminus, directly across from Ealin, had the brightest, widest aura light. His was the brightest white light that Ealin had ever seen, and she could not stand to look at it long. She looked to his left at Eurus, aware that her eyes were streaming and that brown black spots floated about her vision because of Illuminus' glare. Eurus, whom the other had referred to as Russ, appeared to have no aura at all. He had no blinding shield of light, or even a softly glowing one like Meta's. Instead, it seemed as though the air around him had been shot through with energy. Looking closely, she found that there were glitterings in the air, and it flowed visibly around him in what appeared to be heat waves.
And looking down, Ealin could see her own aura, soft dark green and pitifully thin. She sighed audibly, jealous of Illuminus' bright, throbbing aura. All five experienced students ceased chanting and thrust their hands apart. Haddy keened, doubling over and clutching at her temples. Blinking, dazed, Meta bent to her friend's level. Ealin gulped, knowing that it was who had caused the disturbance. Illuminus settled her with a murderous glare, but kept silent as Russ placed a hand on his wrist. Mars almost seemed not to have noticed any change. His eyes were still closed and his lips still moved in silent muttering, though the crimson aura had vanished and he had thrust her and Russ' hands away with the disturbance.
"What did I do?" she asked quietly, cheeks burning. No one answered for a moment.
"You disrupted our Circle with ignorant, pointless thoughts," Illuminus quipped, his bright eyes flashing malice when not so long ago they had shone with friendliness.
"Lumy, it's not her fault." It was Haddy, seated on the nearest dinner bench, still holding her aching head. "I bet you did the same thing in your first Circle."
Illuminus snorted. "Never."
"Haddy, I'm sor sorry," Ealin whimpered, moving closer as if to pet her. Haddy started, moving away.
"It's fine, kid," she answered, sitting again, warily. "Just don't touch me now. It won't help." Ealin slumped down into her seat dejectedly. A wonderful first impression on the people she could end up spending the rest of her life with, to be sure. A red haired, squat old lady came waddling down the aisle, clicking like a disturbed hen.
"What is this?" she whispered, a harsh though endearing tone to her voice. Ealin realized that the rest of the room was still consumed in meditation. She lowered her head to her knees, hugging them close. Meta took up the explanations.
"It was the new girl's first Circle, Madam," she stated, eyeing the miserable looking, gold headed girl. "She didn't know what she was doing. It's really our fault," she said clearly, obviously meaning the words for Illuminus' red tipped, angry ears. "We didn't mention it to her beforehand."
"Is this true?" the large lady asked, her question meant for Ealin. The girl moaned her miserable assent. "Very well, then, no harm done, dear. Isn't that so, Miss Hadria?" The hen lady patted Ealin stiffly on the back, and the girl lifted her head in time to see Haddy's nodded agreement. Her eyes were bloodshot and her face was burning. The hen lady waddled to Haddy's side, placing a palm on the back of the girl's neck.
"How far along were you, dear?" she asked, stroking the girl's deep auburn hair with her free hand.
"The third gate," she replied glumly. The hen lady crooned.
"A new personal record, I believe." And the girl nodded. "And that'd be why it pains you so. It seems as though the Lady Ealin gave your power a bit of a boost." And to Ealin's great surprise, all five heads went nodding. Russ caught her eye and smiled.
"It is true, Clovis," he stated in a calming voice. He had stepped behind Illuminus, wrapping his arms around the hot headed boy and securing his balled fists in his own palms. Illuminus would not look at her.
"Very well and good, then," the hen like lady named Clovis clucked. She rested her free palm on Haddy's forehead and whispered some unfamiliar terms to a rhythm. Haddy's eyes clenched shut, but her face visibly paled to the color it had been at the start of dinner. "Now get you to bed," Clovis demanded. "All of you. Meta, dear, will you show our new Lady Ealin to her rooms?" And without waiting for an answer, the woman turned and went strutting away. Ealin sighed again.
Up at the front table, as Clovis reached her vacated seat, Tollers stood and clapped his hands together three times. He found Ealin's troubled eyes in the crowd and offered a reassuring grin. These things happen, that grin seemed to mean. You are hardly alone. He repeated the rhythmic clapping a second time, and on the third, Mars and Meta joined him.
"It helps the deeper meditators to find their way back if they've got someone calling them," Mars explained. Soon Illuminus, Haddy, and Russ had joined in as well, along with all the other awakened students. Ealin took extreme care to notice every instance of the fairly simple pattern before joining herself, lest she make two follies of herself in one meal. She watched different groups around the room as the auras of certain members of the circles shrank and disappeared. It looked like the light was sinking back down into the bodies. After a time, everyone had returned. Once they were all in their bodies once more, Tollers stopped clapping. So too did everyone else.
"To bed with you," Tollers declared. "And a sweet night of dreaming for you all." Everyone began to file out of the great Hall through the two large sets of double doors that Ealin was led through earlier. She did not say much as she followed, exiting the Hall and then the building that housed it. The large flock of students did not need to be directed towards their lodgings. Ealin followed Meta, who made only a few fleeting attempts at idle chatter before resuming more serious conversations with Haddy. This hardly bothered Ealin. Instead, she spent the walk studying the way the island was mapped out.
From every point in their walk, she could smell the sharp bite of sea water, and thus decided that the island was not very large at all. They had left what appeared to be the main building. It housed the Hall, which Ealin correctly assumed was the place of all large indoor gatherings, and it above the soaring, cathedral style windows of the great Hall was a string of much smaller, much more utilitarian windows, those to be found in regular housing. These, she was to find, were the windows to the rooms in which the elder magic users stayed. The flock of people was swarming through a giant square now, which had soft looking grass corralled by crushed, white seashell paths, which led in myriad directions, all paths leading to a central point. At this point rested the largest water fountain that Ealin had ever seen. Surely a work of sorcery, its bottom basin alone stretched wide enough for two Ealins to lie comfortably toe to head across its diameter. There were two smaller basins built on top of the bottom, from which water spilled with a powerful bass rushing noise. Pipes ranging in sizes to the width of Ealin's smallest finger to the width of her forearm added a variety of wonderfully clear, melodic tones as water spitted from each to a defined rhythm. She could spend the rest of the night staring at that fountain, and would spend many hours there within the coming days, but the flock was moving relentlessly, uninterestedly forward, and so she followed.
They were now walking on a wide crushed seashell path, wide enough for four to walk with arms linked. It appeared to be their central avenue. Ealin could see other paths, similar to the one they had joined when exiting the Hall, stretching off of this main one. There were many buildings lining these roads. Ealin could hear the distinct hum and clatter of a weaving loom and the loud clangs of metal meeting metal, and decided that she had found the workman's district. It was not very large. Only five buildings, two storied with windows lining the top story similar to those in the Hall.
They passed too quickly for Ealin to pay much attention to any details. They passed many other buildings, some marked over doorways with glowing white signs that read 'Storehouse Two' or 'Tool Cabinet Three,' and had to be satisfied with these as definition for the time being.
The wide avenue eventually split into three thinner paths. Here the flock split in two. One, obviously the younger students of mixed genders, took the left fork. This path lead to a long, short building of communal sleeping rooms, classrooms and playrooms. The second half of the group, which included Ealin, took the right fork. This lead them towards a building that contrasted largely with the younger students' lodgings. It was at least five stories tall, but was not very long or deep. Most of the wide windows wore draperies, and all had the glow of warm candle light behind them. It looked like an exceedingly comfortable place to live.
Haddy broke off her conversation with Meta and turned to Ealin. "You'll be in the rooms near ours," she stated with a friendly smile. "Follow me.
And so she did. Meta, who had really been placed in charge of the new girl's introductions, remained silent. This was fine with Ealin. The short, curly headed Haddy seemed much more friendly. She linked arms with Ealin, who giggled appreciatively. A friend indeed. The two walked through the wide doorway into a foyer of sorts. Immediately across from the doorway was a wide stairway carpeted with thin, plush red carpet. Stretching like yawning arms right and left were hallways, each with several doorways, all covered with a thick tapestry drape. Several students were siphoned off into these hallways. Haddy steered Ealin towards the stairs.
They climbed up three flights of stairs to the floor right before the very top of the building. By this time, there were only a handful of students still climbing. Ealin offered a gallant grin to Haddy as the girl guided her down the left of the two hallways on the fourth floor. They stopped before entering.
"The left, that's the female side," she explained. "Over there to the right is the male side. But there's no real rule about who goes where. This isn't a real school, Ealin. It's important to remember that. This here is a home. A really big one with lots of family members. That's its purpose. Be sure to make yourself feel at home."
And with that, Haddy lead her down the left hallway. They walked to the end of the hallway and stopped before the very last doorway. It had a beautifully woven tapestry covering.
"Home sweet home," she sang, sweeping the curtain aside for Ealin's entrance. Ealin stepped through, but Haddy did not follow. "I'll let you get acquainted with your space. I'm two doors down on the opposite side of the hall. You're lucky, end of the hallway gets two windows." She nodded, let the drape fall back into place, and skipped back down the hall to her own rooms.
Alone at last after the longest day of her life, Ealin let out a tremendous sigh. She turned in a lazy circle, reviewing these new chambers of hers. There were two rooms to her suite, a study in which she now stood and a sleeping room behind it, connected by way of another doorway with a slightly lighter curtain. The study held a plush looking, short sofa, in the style that Ealin had heard called a 'love seat' at her father's court, though the name sounded silly, really. It was of a soft velvet cloth, burgundy pinstriped with gold. Near the window was a desk, small and functional, already outfitted with a full arrange of writing supplies. It appeared that someone had brought the things she had salvaged from Yisha's cottage. Her three books, a journal of Yisha's lessons and two novels she'd purchased at court, were already standing proud on the desk's overhead bookshelf.
Ealin walked slowly around the room, inspecting everything. A large candelabra was placed on a small table beside the love seat, its two branches of four tallow candles spitting excitedly. Their light filled the room quite nicely.
Her bedroom was small and very functional. It had one window, in the same wall that held the window in the study. Along this wall was a small, cozy looking bed with two thick blankets and a soft cotton sheet. There was a chest of drawers along the other wall, in which all of the clothing she had saved rested. The only other thing in the room was a large, rather frumpy looking flowering shrub. She wasn't sure which kind it was, though she was certain that Yisha could tell her in an instant. Another smaller candelabra, this one holding three tallow candles, sat proudly on the chest of drawers. It too was enough to light the small room.
Ealin was exhausted. She had been through a great deal since her last good sleep. Wearily, she exchanged her day clothing for a soft night shift and was just climbing into her new bed when she heard a ruckus coming from outside. Curious, she peered out her window to see a large group of boys playing some sort of a game with sticks and a ball. The girls, most of those from the Hall, it seemed, stood around them and watched or mulled around in groups. Fascinated though exhausted, she watched as the boys did something with the sticks and the ball that included a lot of running about toward one end of the courtyard or the other. After a bit of cheering after what Ealin decided was a successful.. Something.. The girls jumped up and down a bit and replaced all of the boys. It was a very quick game. After two or three rounds with the boys switching out the girls and so on, everyone seemed to give up the pretense of segregation. More sticks were procured from somewhere, and everyone joined in to play one very large game of this ball and sticks.
Ealin watched, softly smiling. The sun had set hours ago. Torches were lit and stuck at intervals in the ground. Their light was apparently enough to see by, but Ealin got the feeling that this exercise was performed so often that each participant could play out their role in complete darkness. Try as she might, Ealin could not convince herself that she was not lonely. She sighed. How lovely it would be, she thought, her mind almost slipping into dreaming, to feel so sure of my place.
She turned away from the window and walked to the candelabras, discussing with each flame the fact that she really did need to get to sleep and she couldn't on her conscience trust them to behave while she wasn't paying attention. She convinced the little sparks to extinguish themselves and to find fun elsewhere where they wouldn't get into trouble. They were happy to oblige, of course. Candle flames always seemed to be. And once they were all gone, Ealin slid deep between the covers of her soft new bed. The people outside were not quiet, but she soon learned to consider their laughter a lullaby, and with that, she was lulled to sleep.