Submission (#2037) Approved

It was dark and quiet in Elenion, the moon was high in the sky casting its brilliant glow over the bright pink-flowered trees in the city, which in turn reflected the light back as best they could. The Great Eldertree of Faerindell towered above the city like a wise old protector watching over the inhabitants of the entire region. Pink petals fell gently from the tree in the calm nighttime breeze.

Nearly all of the residents of Elenion were sound asleep in their town homes, snoozing in the cool night air, cozy in their beds- but there was one light flickering from the window of one of the local school boarding houses, indicating that someone was awake.

Bustling around inside of the dorm room was a small kittom, no older than 10 years with fluffy brown hair, dark blue eyes, and a striking teal-green lagoon tail. She hurriedly rushed about the room, using the candlelight around her to find what she needed, and piled many of her belongings onto her cot near the middle of the room. Her twin brother, a more gray-like kittom with green eyes and wispy featherlight hair, groaned in his own cot with his blanket pulled over his head.

He rolled over and popped his head out from under the covers, squinting at his sister with a disheveled appearance, “Bard… school doesn’t start for hours now, can’t you put those lights out and go back to bed like a normal elnin? Everyone else is asleep…” Sylvan wasn’t a late riser himself, he was astute and was in this school for reasons dear to himself- but why miss out on hours of sleep if you don’t have to?

Bard didn’t stop moving as she snatched several large books off of the bookcase next to her bed and plopped them down next to her backpack, “Sylvan, you know I have to get ready early! It’s the first day of school! I didn’t study and practice for months to get into this school just to fail on the first day!” She put her forepaw on her chin and stood over her bed.

“I’ll pack this too, just in case...” The she-nin said as she reached over to a pile of empty notebooks, grabbing one and placing it into her backpack next to two others she had already packed away.

Seeing that Bard was no longer listening to him, Sylvan groaned again and flopped back over to face away from the candlelight and bury himself into his blankets. It took far too much energy to argue with Bard when she was hooked on something; energy he did not have before the sun was up.

The two siblings had signed up for school together, having moved to Faerindell from Palu’au Islands just to pursue Bard’s dream of becoming a Pathfinder. She knew this was what she wanted, and the fastest and most effective way to get there was to study in every corner of Eyre that she could get herself into. This school was the first of many that Bard planned to attend and she was taking it very seriously.

Her classes for the day would consist of Botany, Regional Dialects, and Mathematics- yet Bard had stuffed her backpack full of texts for subjects ranging from Ancient Runes to Architectural Planning- all of which she had already read- just on the off chance that she would need bits of info from those books to bring into her classes.

Bard began taking the organized items off of her bed and placing them into her backpack, keeping everything sorted and easy to access in her bag, until she came across a small handheld notebook.

This one wasn’t empty, it was clear from the cover which was worn, and the frayed edges of paper sticking out of the ends of the book.

The brown and cream kittom slide down onto the floor, leaning against the foot of her bed, and opened up the small notebook to reveal pages and pages of handwritten notes. It was all in her own handwriting- notes and sketches about Daevra and the Miasma, bits and pieces of info on every page about different musical notes and how to play certain instruments, as well as spells and drawings of plants with magical properties. Bard would keep this notebook close to her heart, tucked away in her shirt’s chest-pocket so she could grab it anytime. She liked to study the notes in that book, memorizing every detail over and over again so that when she became skilled enough and learned to play some instruments, she could test herself and practice the contents of the notebook itself.

She took a deep breath and stood back up, much more still now than she was bustling around the room a few minutes before. Placing the notebook in her shirt pocket, Bard took on a look of determination and focus- finding her drive steeled her resolve and helped her to settle down. She sealed up her backpack with the drawstrings on the top and turned her back to it, kneeling down to put her arms in the straps and pull the backpack onto herself.

Lifting herself back up to stand up straight, Bard turned away from her bed while doing so and ‘WHAM’- fell straight backwards as her center of gravity shifted from the weight of the contents of her bag.

Sylvan shot up in bed, sitting up now and rubbing his eyes before staring at his sister struggling on the floor, “You have got to be kidding me…” He smirked and snorted before stifling a laugh at the sight, “Sis you might need to lighten that load a little! No need to take the whole bedroom with you, I don’t think it’s really that serious.” Stepping out of bed, Sylvan walked over to his sister to help her up- joking all the while.

Bard stopped flopping around on her backpack for a moment and lay limp there on top of it before catching her breath, and started cackling. As her twin helped her up, the thought crossed her mind that maybe today would be fine, perhaps it would go smoothly and she needn’t worry so much- but most importantly, she felt like everything would be okay and that she would succeed- and the thought made her smile.