Mr. Verim finishes his speech to the class, now working his way back around to his seat to move on with the day.
"Word of warning, Ms. Melody, be careful of Mr. Rieve…"
Melody visibly reacts, her face wearing a timid shock, then falling to curious intrigue. Melody squeezes a pencil tightly. Mr. Verim's face changes none, he still sits at his desk looking down at some papers with his coffee up to his lips.
"Who do you think the other prepared student was?"
Melody looks up to Mr. Verim, seeing that he's gone on about his day. Melody looks around, shocked, and she accidentally gazes over to meet eyes with Emi.
"What are you looking at, Melon patch."
Emily is quick to mock Melody, commenting again on her developing body.
Melody quickly shoots her gaze back down at her paper.
"It takes great care to rebound off of a blinded shot, especially when your attacker doesn't understand their own strength."
Melody listens, trying to focus on his words now, wincing as his prickly tone catches the walls in her mind.
"My own strength?"
She thinks, carried by his words. Melody is slowly tuning to his power, finding a rhythm between breathing that she can ride, making it easier to hear and feel his power.
"He walked away bloodied when a lesser trained and lesser skilled fighter wouldn't have a jaw to cling onto."
Melody's eyes tear open, unaware of the consequence. She feels a stinging in her fist now, remembering the hard-hit she socked Okirk with. Melody is resolute and without regret, though she can't help feeling ashamed of her own lack of thought.
"If not for that boy's intensive training from his father, we'd be having a very different conversation right now."
This time Mr. Verim peers up from his papers to Melody, making sure to burn this message into her. His eyes flare into a gold burn and then back down to his work, long enough to leave an afterimage of his eyes in her vision. Melody cringes, hating the idea of such an abrasive first impression with Mr. Verim.
"This is your first and last warning."
Mr. Verim finishes, ending his communication with her in a cold snap, shutting out any feeling of his power or attention. He flips another page of work ahead of him, cooly moving on.
Melody's flustering intensifies. She feels attacked again, but for good reason. Melody's never had to face the reality of her power before. Mr. Verim could probably well tell this and decided now to let her get a sense of her power. A proper show of respect for her strength, and a lesson in what she could be doing greater.
Mr. Verim is pleased with his first day. Melody returns to her worksheet, and the rest of the Second-Year Blessed class pushes forward with their writing, a feeling of finality hovers in the air as the sun could be seen shifting from one side of the room to the other. Shadows are cast in different places, and even the sounds of the world are later in the day.
Hitting that perfect mid-afternoon hour, cars are less heard roaming the streets, likely that the people have found their jobs and are busy cracking away.
Bing Beng Bong
A harmonic glass hum sounds, signaling the P. A system is about to blare off.
"Good Afternoon, students! We hope your first day back here at Masquerade has been a good one! We the faculty of Masquerade just wanted to say thank you for your diligence and that we hope you'll join us in a BIG Welcome Event being held at the grounds behind the main campus!"
Melody turns her ears away from the announcements, denouncing any sort of gathering for the Blessed to crowd around and mock the Cursed. No, her good afternoon would be better spent with Mason and Sam, probably getting into a smidgeon of trouble somewhere.
"Heh, yeah right."
She hums to herself, actively choosing to avoid the Exhibition after school.
Scribing away at the worksheets handed out to them, the likewise Blessed class has to copy down lessons and answer questions about the greater world around them. Questions about Blessed and Cursed, Faiths and Blights, and the history of how everything came to be up to this day.
The workload is hefty, so thinks everyone in the class.
Melody actually struggles with some of the questions, distracted from her work with thoughts of Mr. Verim's words of warning to her. She twists her pencil in her hands, nervously listening back to his words.
"If not for that boy's intensive training from his father, we'd be having a very different conversation right now."
Mr. Verim's words hold a strange fluttering coldness, a sense of stern and cold care, almost.
"I wonder if…"
Melody looks up from her red fingers, the result of the nervous mangling of her pencil.
Her hair bounces as she looks up, catching Mr. Verim mid-thought. He seems to just be looking at some papers when he lets out a too-long sigh.
"Haaaagh."
It's quiet and almost undetectable, only really caught by Melody because she happened to be staring at him.
"Is-... Is he angry?"
Melody has to think because normally students don't go around nearly knocking someone's jaw loose and continuing on with their day with regular school activities. She pushes away her own work, frustrated at the lack of progress she's making. Of her own volition.
"Maybe I should apologize."
She thinks, raising her light fist up to her chin, pondering.
"Oh, but what he said wasn't out loud, so it'd be weird if I went up to him now."
Her nervous thoughts dance with her worried ones, spinning into an embarrassed twirl.
"Hey! Maybe I can talk to him from here!"
Melody raises her inner voice, excited. Freeing her hands from her chin, Melody now uses them as a sort of signal relay, pointing them around his direction, in a quiet and hidden posture from her desk- so as not to completely weird out everyone around her.
"Hngh!"
Her message bounces off of Mr. Verim, seemingly, seeing as he hasn't moved an inch.
He actually looks impossibly still, sitting at his desk and holding a few scrawled-on pieces of paper. Not even his chest is moving somehow. Melody slinks back in her chair, defeated.
"Hmph. Guess I'm not up to his level yet."
She begins twiddling her pencil again, making a mental note to work on her Blessed telepathy.
"Hawghh, Damn it."
That familiar Dammit she steals from her friend, Mason. Melody begrudgingly raises her hand, hating the idea of this confrontation, but hating the idea of her leaving Mr. Verim being upset with her more.
Continued in PART TWENTY-THREE…