“Alright now. Get your luggage from the carts and … where is Lucy?” Hannah asked and looked around. True to her words, she wasn’t around anywhere which could only mean she got lost somewhere. “Alright, get your luggage and prepare your rooms. I’ll be back once I found her.”
There was a little bit of mumbling in the whole class, but nobody complained. All of them began to unpack their stuff right away while Hannah talked with a staff member. As everything was in order, she walked out of the compound through a gate while I waited for my chance. Quickly, I dashed after her, only to stop right away as soon as I got around the corner.
Hannah was waiting there for me, arms crossed in front of her chest.
“As your teacher, I must say I am very disappointed.” She said and shook her head in disapproval.
“I’m sorry?” I said meekly and backed off a little.
“But as the elf … I couldn’t care less.” She said and turned around to walk onwards once more.
“So … I can come with you?” I asked, still standing where I backed off to.
“I’m not going to stop you.” With a smile on my face, I quickly ran after her until I was beside her.
“Thank you … where are we searching first?” I asked with interest. Surely, if these two know each other that well, Hannah probably knew where to search Lucy already.
“The local drug dealer.” Hannah said casually and looked down the street we were on. Shortly afterwards, she looked towards me and grinned wryly.”Just kidding. You’ll know soon enough.”
“Is it because of her food?” She needed blood, that was for sure and maybe she was actually thirsty … I couldn’t even imagine what would happen if she went past her breaking point.
“That’s already at my room.” Hannah admitted casually.
“Your friend works at the hotel?” I asked with interest. Lucy’s friend could only turn out to be someone amazing like Hannah, that was for sure.
“… only part time.” Hannah said and looked away a little.
“I see … can I ask you a few questions?” I asked nicely after we crossed the street and soon found ourselves on a very steep street, going straight downhill.
“Don’t blame me if I won’t answer all of them.”
“How was she? I mean, Lucy? How was she two hundred years ago?”
“She …” Hannah repined a long time with her answer and started again quite a few times. But I didn’t interrupt her at all, mostly because I could see how difficult it was to answer. “All things considered, she didn’t change much. She is still the best person on this planet … but it feels like she has a heavier burden to carry these days.”
“What burden?” I asked confused. Lucy always seemed so cheerful, so happy that it was hard to imagine she was suffering in any way.
“Hmm … it’s a burden that cannot be shared. Not even by the strongest person on this planet.” Hannah said and sighed quietly. “I’m only telling you that because you are her best friend, alright?”
“I will keep it a secret. What is the biggest lie about her you know of?” Once again, she hesitated to answer right away and couldn’t find the right words to express herself. Or she simply didn’t know what to say. She finally got herself together as we were on the promenade and walked along it, the beautiful sandy beach to our side.
“Her … That she … She isn’t without faults.” Hannah commented, while looking along the coastline. As it was in the middle of the day, there were quite a few tourists hanging around sunbathing or swimming in the beautiful lake.
“What faults?” I asked, trying to remember when Lucy wasn’t near perfect.
“Ehh … it’s best if you find out yourself.” Hannah commented and jumped over the railing to land on the beach. Meanwhile, I wasn’t that athletic and chose to use the stairs instead.
“Hmm … what about you? Are you really fine about the fact that the church made you a symbol of peace between the elves and humans? That they removed your name so that you could become a symbol?” Probably nobody except Lucy and I knew who she was. Okay, a few people at the church knew as well, but I had my doubts they would recognise her on the street as she looked older than any painting I saw of her.
“It has been planned like that from the very beginning. In all honesty, I didn’t have that of an important role back then, so I don’t deserve any fame that I got thanks to her anyway. And besides, I wouldn’t want to live being recognised wherever I went … oh, there she is.” She said and pointed towards Lucy, sitting close to the water and digging her feet into the sand.
“Hey, Lucy!” I exclaimed and could have sworn she had a sour expression on her face until it was replaced by a gentle smile. “What are you doing here?”
“Ah … you know how it is. One moment you are close to the group and in the next second, you find yourself at a yummy food stall.” She said and laughed happily. Without further ado, she stood up from the sand and scratched the back of her head in embarrassment. “Sorry to make you worry.”
“Oh, yeah … I was worried sick about you.” Hannah said with a rather plain voice and broke out in laughter with Lucy shortly afterwards.
“So … where is the hotel?” She asked awkwardly and cleaned the back of her school uniform from all the sand.
Thankfully, we weren’t that far from our hotel, so we didn’t take long to get back and even managed to carry our things to our room swiftly. Amazingly enough we had a room only for us which Lucy and I were really happy about. At the academy, each student got a room on their own, which stopped us from sharing a room at all. But during our first trip with the school, we could finally return back to share a bed, which we promptly prepared by pushing our beds together.
“That’s such a nice view.” Lucy said and pointed out of the window. True to her words we had some amazing view, thanks to being given one of the upper floors on the right side. We could directly look towards the lake and the surrounding hills which was just an awesome view.
“It truly is … hey, let’s check out the rest of the hotel after unpacking everything. Are you alright with taking the left side?” Lucy nodded and directly started to unpack all her luggage into her shelve and wardrobe. She didn’t concern herself much with her used clothing and merely put them into a corner for the time being.
“First!” I said and watched how Lucy stored the last few things away. Shortly afterwards, we were out of our room once more, going through the hotel and everything it had to offer. There was a laundry room, a bath, a restaurant, a smoking area and a bar as well. All in all, everything was neat and tidy and currently, everything was completely booked to house a few of all the classes of the first year. It was obvious for anyone that this must have cost the academy a lot of money, even though half the staff wasn’t even around to run the bar for example.
“That’s so cool!” I heard one of our classmates in the foyer, taking towards someone of another class and couldn’t agree more to be honest. Everything about this was simply amazing, except that we weren’t allowed outside without supervision. It was the school apparently a tad too dangerous to let us go roam around freely.
Well, that would be a problem if we didn’t have such an amazing homeroom teacher.
The tour wasn’t the only plan we had on the very first day. We as a class were naturally intrigued by the local fauna, especially its marine life which was nearly unchanged since two hundred years ago unlike in the oceans of rivers leading to the oceans. And we were obviously very interested in exploring them first hand which was why we were all quite enthusiastic about finishing our lunch as fast as possible.
The other classes had other plans of course. One even went to a small theatre … which made them very envious of us. But anyway, their envy wasn’t of our concern as we went back into our rooms to change our clothing.
Lucy changed into a completely black bikini, a mantle to cover herself on the way and back from the beach and her normal satin gloves while I had a rather modest one piece swimsuit and a jacket if I got cold. Sadly, Lucy wasn’t feeling to well since lunch, but she let herself drag out of our room into the foyer where a bunch of our classmates already waited. Most of the boys were simply in swimming shorts while the girls still wore other stuff. A few minutes later Hannah arrived in the foyer as well, wearing a long mantle covering her green bikini up. I had my doubts her attire was appropriate, but once again, she was the teacher and a famous elf in one person.
As everyone finally got there, we walked to to the beach as fast as we could without running after Hannah admonished us for doing so.
But finally, the dream of class one B was finally fulfilled as we were at the promenade and descended the stairs towards the beach.
“Leave your things here, I’ll keep watch of them. And remember some of your classmates cannot swim … which may be a serious problem considering we are trying to observe marine life here …. but oh well, just make sure that nobody drowns.” Some of the students who didn’t know how to swim had their mood dampened somewhat, but that didn’t stop them from dumping their excess clothing near a few empty sun loungers.
“Let’s go!” One of the boys of our class shouted out and suddenly, everyone ran towards the lake, including me. I was so happy at this once in a lifetime moment as water splashed all around me as we as a class ran with full speed into the lake. We got a lot slower immediately, but the water didn’t rise over my hip until we were already a hundred metre in, splashing each other with water at every opportunity.
It was around this mark as the first few students stopped coming with us as they couldn’t swim and were ordered not to go any further. Nobody wanted to get locked up in their room on their first day after all. But I could swim. And so I did. With around ten others, we went further than five hundred metres until I felt no sand underneath my feet even if I let myself sink downwards.
“Marine life exploration is the best!” One boy shouted loudly and made everyone laugh in happiness. It was all thanks to Hannah to be honest. Without her, we wouldn’t even be allowed to do such amazing things on our own. She directly broke the rule that we had to be supervised by claiming she could technically see us from afar.
“Hey Lucy, your sis is ama… Lucy?” She was nowhere around. My first thought was that she got lost on the way to the beach again, but that wouldn’t happen twice in a row, would it? And I could still remember her very clearly as she stood beside me and laid her mantle onto the sand.
“Maybe she can’t swim?” Ellie proposed right away.
“Hmm … stay safe out here! I’m going to look for her.” She had a lot of friends in the class and it was honestly rare for anyone to dislike her. She wasn’t alone, that was for sure, but I still wanted to check if everything was alright.
And so, I left my laughing classmates behind who started shooting off magic into the air and swam back to those at the one hundred metre mark.
“Has anyone seen Lucy?” I asked into the round and was promptly met with confused gazes.
“I thought she was with you guys … but I had seen her at the beach before we went into the water, so she isn’t lost again.” Most of them laughed about Olivia’s comment, even though I personally didn’t think it was that funny.
Left without any other choice, I waded back towards the beach and walked towards our stuff where Hannah and Lucy laid in sun loungers, happily slurping a fruity drink.
“Hey!” I exclaimed a bit confused and walked beside her. It was definitely not the nicest move to stay behind without saying anything. “Why aren’t you with us?”
“Eh? I thought it was obvious I would stay behind and catalogue all your findings.” She said while looking over her sunglasses into my eyes.
“We … findings? What are you talking about?” I asked confused. Maybe some of my classmates had some secret mission? But no … she would probably tell me about that.
“Hmm? We were supposed to look for marine life, weren’t we?” She said, smiling from ear to ear.
“But that’s … that’s just a pretext.” Her smile died down and was quickly replaced by a more thoughtful expression.
“Oh … well then … it’s kind of nice here though. My skin really needs a bit of sunlight, so this is basically perfect for me.” She said and looked at her arms which were still as pale as ever before. I honestly doubted there was any possibility her skin would get any less pale, so her reasoning was kind of weird.
“But …” I said, thinking about different reasons why she couldn’t come with us. Maybe there was some saintly action going to happen at the beach while we were away?
“Luna … it’s fine like this, trust me.” Lucy said to me while smiling a little.
“But we are having so much fun and I –“ I said. I didn’t want her to work while we had fun, that was for sure. I would even stay behind, just to try to share the burden Hannah talked about.
“Luna. Don’t argue. Just go and have fun.” Hannah interjected and raised her eyebrows. It was obvious at this point that both of them wanted me to have fun in the lake for whatever reason. And I honestly didn’t feel like arguing at all. They were far older than me and probably knew better what was right. And thus, I bit on my lower lip and resolved myself.
“I’m going back there.” I said and pointed towards the lake. “And I’m going to have double the fun, so that I can give you half of it later.” The gentle smile reappeared on Lucy’s lips, proving that in the end, there was nothing to worry about. Quickly, I ran back into the water towards my other friends to have my longed for day at the beach.
“Alright now. Get your luggage from the carts and … where is Lucy?” Hannah asked and looked around. True to her words, she wasn’t around anywhere which could only mean she got lost somewhere. “Alright, get your luggage and prepare your rooms. I’ll be back once I found her.”
There was a little bit of mumbling in the whole class, but nobody complained. All of them began to unpack their stuff right away while Hannah talked with a staff member. As everything was in order, she walked out of the compound through a gate while I waited for my chance. Quickly, I dashed after her, only to stop right away as soon as I got around the corner.
Hannah was waiting there for me, arms crossed in front of her chest.
“As your teacher, I must say I am very disappointed.” She said and shook her head in disapproval.
“I’m sorry?” I said meekly and backed off a little.
“But as the elf … I couldn’t care less.” She said and turned around to walk onwards once more.
“So … I can come with you?” I asked, still standing where I backed off to.
“I’m not going to stop you.” With a smile on my face, I quickly ran after her until I was beside her.
“Thank you … where are we searching first?” I asked with interest. Surely, if these two know each other that well, Hannah probably knew where to search Lucy already.
“The local drug dealer.” Hannah said casually and looked down the street we were on. Shortly afterwards, she looked towards me and grinned wryly.”Just kidding. You’ll know soon enough.”
“Is it because of her food?” She needed blood, that was for sure and maybe she was actually thirsty … I couldn’t even imagine what would happen if she went past her breaking point.
“That’s already at my room.” Hannah admitted casually.
“Your friend works at the hotel?” I asked with interest. Lucy’s friend could only turn out to be someone amazing like Hannah, that was for sure.
“… only part time.” Hannah said and looked away a little.
“I see … can I ask you a few questions?” I asked nicely after we crossed the street and soon found ourselves on a very steep street, going straight downhill.
“Don’t blame me if I won’t answer all of them.”
“How was she? I mean, Lucy? How was she two hundred years ago?”
“She …” Hannah repined a long time with her answer and started again quite a few times. But I didn’t interrupt her at all, mostly because I could see how difficult it was to answer. “All things considered, she didn’t change much. She is still the best person on this planet … but it feels like she has a heavier burden to carry these days.”
“What burden?” I asked confused. Lucy always seemed so cheerful, so happy that it was hard to imagine she was suffering in any way.
“Hmm … it’s a burden that cannot be shared. Not even by the strongest person on this planet.” Hannah said and sighed quietly. “I’m only telling you that because you are her best friend, alright?”
“I will keep it a secret. What is the biggest lie about her you know of?” Once again, she hesitated to answer right away and couldn’t find the right words to express herself. Or she simply didn’t know what to say. She finally got herself together as we were on the promenade and walked along it, the beautiful sandy beach to our side.
“Her … That she … She isn’t without faults.” Hannah commented, while looking along the coastline. As it was in the middle of the day, there were quite a few tourists hanging around sunbathing or swimming in the beautiful lake.
“What faults?” I asked, trying to remember when Lucy wasn’t near perfect.
“Ehh … it’s best if you find out yourself.” Hannah commented and jumped over the railing to land on the beach. Meanwhile, I wasn’t that athletic and chose to use the stairs instead.
“Hmm … what about you? Are you really fine about the fact that the church made you a symbol of peace between the elves and humans? That they removed your name so that you could become a symbol?” Probably nobody except Lucy and I knew who she was. Okay, a few people at the church knew as well, but I had my doubts they would recognise her on the street as she looked older than any painting I saw of her.
“It has been planned like that from the very beginning. In all honesty, I didn’t have that of an important role back then, so I don’t deserve any fame that I got thanks to her anyway. And besides, I wouldn’t want to live being recognised wherever I went … oh, there she is.” She said and pointed towards Lucy, sitting close to the water and digging her feet into the sand.
“Hey, Lucy!” I exclaimed and could have sworn she had a sour expression on her face until it was replaced by a gentle smile. “What are you doing here?”
“Ah … you know how it is. One moment you are close to the group and in the next second, you find yourself at a yummy food stall.” She said and laughed happily. Without further ado, she stood up from the sand and scratched the back of her head in embarrassment. “Sorry to make you worry.”
“Oh, yeah … I was worried sick about you.” Hannah said with a rather plain voice and broke out in laughter with Lucy shortly afterwards.
“So … where is the hotel?” She asked awkwardly and cleaned the back of her school uniform from all the sand.
Thankfully, we weren’t that far from our hotel, so we didn’t take long to get back and even managed to carry our things to our room swiftly. Amazingly enough we had a room only for us which Lucy and I were really happy about. At the academy, each student got a room on their own, which stopped us from sharing a room at all. But during our first trip with the school, we could finally return back to share a bed, which we promptly prepared by pushing our beds together.
“That’s such a nice view.” Lucy said and pointed out of the window. True to her words we had some amazing view, thanks to being given one of the upper floors on the right side. We could directly look towards the lake and the surrounding hills which was just an awesome view.
“It truly is … hey, let’s check out the rest of the hotel after unpacking everything. Are you alright with taking the left side?” Lucy nodded and directly started to unpack all her luggage into her shelve and wardrobe. She didn’t concern herself much with her used clothing and merely put them into a corner for the time being.
“First!” I said and watched how Lucy stored the last few things away. Shortly afterwards, we were out of our room once more, going through the hotel and everything it had to offer. There was a laundry room, a bath, a restaurant, a smoking area and a bar as well. All in all, everything was neat and tidy and currently, everything was completely booked to house a few of all the classes of the first year. It was obvious for anyone that this must have cost the academy a lot of money, even though half the staff wasn’t even around to run the bar for example.
“That’s so cool!” I heard one of our classmates in the foyer, taking towards someone of another class and couldn’t agree more to be honest. Everything about this was simply amazing, except that we weren’t allowed outside without supervision. It was the school apparently a tad too dangerous to let us go roam around freely.
Well, that would be a problem if we didn’t have such an amazing homeroom teacher.
The tour wasn’t the only plan we had on the very first day. We as a class were naturally intrigued by the local fauna, especially its marine life which was nearly unchanged since two hundred years ago unlike in the oceans of rivers leading to the oceans. And we were obviously very interested in exploring them first hand which was why we were all quite enthusiastic about finishing our lunch as fast as possible.
The other classes had other plans of course. One even went to a small theatre … which made them very envious of us. But anyway, their envy wasn’t of our concern as we went back into our rooms to change our clothing.
Lucy changed into a completely black bikini, a mantle to cover herself on the way and back from the beach and her normal satin gloves while I had a rather modest one piece swimsuit and a jacket if I got cold. Sadly, Lucy wasn’t feeling to well since lunch, but she let herself drag out of our room into the foyer where a bunch of our classmates already waited. Most of the boys were simply in swimming shorts while the girls still wore other stuff. A few minutes later Hannah arrived in the foyer as well, wearing a long mantle covering her green bikini up. I had my doubts her attire was appropriate, but once again, she was the teacher and a famous elf in one person.
As everyone finally got there, we walked to to the beach as fast as we could without running after Hannah admonished us for doing so.
But finally, the dream of class one B was finally fulfilled as we were at the promenade and descended the stairs towards the beach.
“Leave your things here, I’ll keep watch of them. And remember some of your classmates cannot swim … which may be a serious problem considering we are trying to observe marine life here …. but oh well, just make sure that nobody drowns.” Some of the students who didn’t know how to swim had their mood dampened somewhat, but that didn’t stop them from dumping their excess clothing near a few empty sun loungers.
“Let’s go!” One of the boys of our class shouted out and suddenly, everyone ran towards the lake, including me. I was so happy at this once in a lifetime moment as water splashed all around me as we as a class ran with full speed into the lake. We got a lot slower immediately, but the water didn’t rise over my hip until we were already a hundred metre in, splashing each other with water at every opportunity.
It was around this mark as the first few students stopped coming with us as they couldn’t swim and were ordered not to go any further. Nobody wanted to get locked up in their room on their first day after all. But I could swim. And so I did. With around ten others, we went further than five hundred metres until I felt no sand underneath my feet even if I let myself sink downwards.
“Marine life exploration is the best!” One boy shouted loudly and made everyone laugh in happiness. It was all thanks to Hannah to be honest. Without her, we wouldn’t even be allowed to do such amazing things on our own. She directly broke the rule that we had to be supervised by claiming she could technically see us from afar.
“Hey Lucy, your sis is ama… Lucy?” She was nowhere around. My first thought was that she got lost on the way to the beach again, but that wouldn’t happen twice in a row, would it? And I could still remember her very clearly as she stood beside me and laid her mantle onto the sand.
“Maybe she can’t swim?” Ellie proposed right away.
“Hmm … stay safe out here! I’m going to look for her.” She had a lot of friends in the class and it was honestly rare for anyone to dislike her. She wasn’t alone, that was for sure, but I still wanted to check if everything was alright.
And so, I left my laughing classmates behind who started shooting off magic into the air and swam back to those at the one hundred metre mark.
“Has anyone seen Lucy?” I asked into the round and was promptly met with confused gazes.
“I thought she was with you guys … but I had seen her at the beach before we went into the water, so she isn’t lost again.” Most of them laughed about Olivia’s comment, even though I personally didn’t think it was that funny.
Left without any other choice, I waded back towards the beach and walked towards our stuff where Hannah and Lucy laid in sun loungers, happily slurping a fruity drink.
“Hey!” I exclaimed a bit confused and walked beside her. It was definitely not the nicest move to stay behind without saying anything. “Why aren’t you with us?”
“Eh? I thought it was obvious I would stay behind and catalogue all your findings.” She said while looking over her sunglasses into my eyes.
“We … findings? What are you talking about?” I asked confused. Maybe some of my classmates had some secret mission? But no … she would probably tell me about that.
“Hmm? We were supposed to look for marine life, weren’t we?” She said, smiling from ear to ear.
“But that’s … that’s just a pretext.” Her smile died down and was quickly replaced by a more thoughtful expression.
“Oh … well then … it’s kind of nice here though. My skin really needs a bit of sunlight, so this is basically perfect for me.” She said and looked at her arms which were still as pale as ever before. I honestly doubted there was any possibility her skin would get any less pale, so her reasoning was kind of weird.
“But …” I said, thinking about different reasons why she couldn’t come with us. Maybe there was some saintly action going to happen at the beach while we were away?
“Luna … it’s fine like this, trust me.” Lucy said to me while smiling a little.
“But we are having so much fun and I –“ I said. I didn’t want her to work while we had fun, that was for sure. I would even stay behind, just to try to share the burden Hannah talked about.
“Luna. Don’t argue. Just go and have fun.” Hannah interjected and raised her eyebrows. It was obvious at this point that both of them wanted me to have fun in the lake for whatever reason. And I honestly didn’t feel like arguing at all. They were far older than me and probably knew better what was right. And thus, I bit on my lower lip and resolved myself.
“I’m going back there.” I said and pointed towards the lake. “And I’m going to have double the fun, so that I can give you half of it later.” The gentle smile reappeared on Lucy’s lips, proving that in the end, there was nothing to worry about. Quickly, I ran back into the water towards my other friends to have my longed for day at the beach.
