Elioen
A big bouquet of flowers had lain next to him on a bench. The flowers were wilting, red plants of roses were not as beautiful as three hours earlier. He looked at them wondering how he had waited for so much time here. It was a fact he had brought a book with him and read it heating up in the warmth of the summer sun. But every now and then he took his eyes off the novel and looked around. Among the strange people, who had decided to spend their Saturday’s afternoon in park, he was looking for familiar silhouette. For three hours he stopped reading to look at the people and then he came back to story and forgot about the whole world over and over again. Only when the sun started to set down slowly, he realized how late it was.
He had been so happy when he bought the flowers but now they seemed to be disgusting. Not only because they were wilting but because they lay next to him, dying. Once again he looked around the park, he did not know why, then threw the roses to the bin placed next to the bench. For some time, he sat with his eyes closed, savouring the fresh air.
She had not come. He was surprised he accepted it so normally. This morning he had been sure that if she had not come, his heart would have broken, he would has come back to home and closed himself up in the comfort of his room. But now he listened to birds singing, children laughing. Somewhere nearby, little elves had their little castle and on occasion, he could hear a faint rustle of their tiny wings. He was looking for a sign of sadness, nostalgia, a feeling of loss within himself: he found nothing. As if he had never waited for her, she had never existed. Maybe some kind of a good spirit had hidden every memory about her from him. But he remembered her, anyway – her sweet smile, happy eyes. He remembered a smell of her hair, a touch of her skin, a taste of her lips. He remembered her anger, her happiness, and her sadness. He remembered everything, but nothing made an impression on him anymore. He felt like he had watched some kind of film that had ended and left behind nothing to think about.
He hid the book inside the bag that he hung on his shoulder and set off towards the metro. In the distance, he saw a strong silhouette of the stone Megoel’s Tower complete with a backdrop of glassing-buildings, which reflected the cloudless sky. He liked this contrast very much. A simple, clear dark shape and sleek, barely visible lines of the glass.
He knew this holiday would pass so fast and soon he will go there to study for the second year. He will meet his friends, laugh with them and sneak out from the Island at night and then they would have to explain why in front of the professors if they were caught. But in this year everything will be a little bit different.
He went underground and waited for a metro. He feasted his eyes on the hypnotic weaving water railway. Yes, it will be different. At first: there will be no her. That was her last year, and she had left for the holidays as she had gone on an internship. However, today she should have come back and this is how it had ended. For him that was no loss, for his friends it will be a gigantic change. Especially seeing as he did not think that he would tell them anything. After some time they will be asking him: why, when, what happened? That was the problem: nothing happened. Literally. She did not come, there will be no other chance for her. And the boys should respect that.
The water weaved and soon the metro sailed into the station at breakneck speed. An enchantment shielded the passengers from splashes. Elioen thought what would be happen if there was no magic. Everything around would be wet. Or there would be no metro at all. So how people would travel inside the city? Horses?
He stepped onto the train.
The second: Netheid. All the time he was worried about her. In some way she had survived her education so far but attending to Academy of Magic Strengths was something different. There was be no maths, biology, nor languages. There was a fight with yourself, many exertion and pain; people who were thinking that they were the best and would sneer at others.
She did not even match there! She was tiny, and delicate, and she would come to the most demanding school of magic on the Earth. As her older brother, he had advised her against doing this, but she had insisted. ‘Where you are, I am too, Gerald’, she was saying with faint smile and applied this bloody application for admission. He had honest hope she would not get in. Not because he had no faith in her – his little sis had a big magic talent – but he was afraid after one week she would have problems with her psyche. Teenage magical beings could find everyone’s weak point, drive the greatest tough guy cry. Elioen knew them, he had gone through it and he was trying not to imagine how Netheid would go through. At first they will have targeted her hair, next her fringe, which covered up her eyes and then they would slowly kill her sense of value of her own. Without any friends, she would not manage and her only one friend was he, her brother. It would be not possible to be next to her all the time.
Soon he will find out if she got in. What he knew was that the first letters would come, in the middle of July to humans. They humans start the school year a month earlier to find the Energy in themselves and expand their magical skills that other magical beings was born with. A whole two weeks for learn something what others have known since birth!
Now, at the end of July came the answers to applications. One hundred and twenty magical beings will be happy because of admission to AMS. One hundred and twenty magical beings will be stand on the Square of Agreement, waiting for Allocation. One hundred and twenty magical beings will be living on the Island, under the highest tower in the whole of Poland.
He got off at the end station in WesoĊa and the rest of way he went on foot. Their house was placed on a secluded estate, hidden amongst trees. At least they lived in quiet and at peace, what was best for their mother’s life. He liked this neighborhood. Forests, nature, the end of the city, but within Warsaw anyway. For the three of them there was nothing that was too far from anything else.
He stopped in a salon. After all Netheid will be asking how the meeting was. His little sis accustomed to her. He hoped that the news he had, would not break her heart.
He hear a roar so loud that it left a ringing in his ears. After a while, barefoot Netheid ran down the stairs. In her hand she clutched a violin, in the other one, a bow. She squealed with happiness when she saw him. He was still wondering by what miracle she could see anything from under her long fringe.
‘Gerald! Come on!’, she shouted and ran outside without her shoes. He came out behind her and they looked at the sky.
Right above their head flew the Greatest Antakalnian Dragon.
