"Violet?" A voice came from behind me, it was the principal. "Could you show a new student around? He is in all your classes."
"Sure, is he here yet?" It was still early.
"Hi, I'm Nick." A somewhat tall, blond boy came around a corner. He walked swiftly, and definitely had some strength. As a matter of fact, there was something familiar about the way he held himself, but I couldn't tell who it looked like. And there was one more thing that I noticed, to my great surprise, he was kinda cute, trust me, I never think of guys as hot, cute, et cetera. That usually leads to trouble in the end.
"Hi Nick, I'm Violet." I nodded my greeting, thanking god, again, that I never blushed.
"Well, I must go. Good luck." The principal said as he left, leaving us to get through the day.
"There is still about half an hour before class starts, have you found your locker?" I asked, he moved forward a bit.
"Yeah." He was really close now, I instinctively moved backward, only to find my back against a wall.
"Uh, I'll give you a brief tour then. The library is this way." I said hurriedly, ducking around him and starting down the hall. He kept up with my quick pass easily.
It took a while to show him where the library, cafeteria, restrooms, nurse's office, English and Speech area, counselor's offices, Math area, Science and Social Studies area, and also the variety of other classes. In the end we were rushed to our first class, geometry.
We got there with a minute to spare, I introduced Nick to the teacher and then found my seat in between Caleb and Nick, who exchanged a greeting as well. The rest of the day went fine, he followed me throughout the day and met several of my siblings and friends. Though the alarms telling me to be wary of him never left. Actually it increased when I walked into my last class, the only class I had with Kayla. I came in, introduced Nick to the teacher, and sat down in my usual spot by where Kayla sat, Nick on my other side.
Kayla came in, in a rather good mood. Until she saw Nick, that is. Her eyes flashed with a flood of emotions. I only caught the sadness, remembrance, and anger before it was gone, ending with a glare that lasted the rest of class. I acted as if nothing was happening, though it's hard to ignore the glares going around me between them.
"I'm assuming you two know each other?" I asked her after class. Nick laughed as he walked past, but was some how gone when I turned to ask what was so funny.
"Yeah, we did. No one knows me better than he does." She said, her tone was strange, it had so many emotions mixed together. I couldn't pick them all out. Sadness, anger, happiness, and something else stood out, but what was it? "Well, I have a lot of homework, I'll meet you back at home." And she started off, that is what made everything click.
"No, I want to talk to you." I said, blocking her path. "Now," I added when she started to argue.
"What?" She asked irritably once we were sitting in the library, talking too quietly for others to hear us, we appeared to be studying.
"What do you mean 'what'?" I replied calmly, "What other 'what' could I be talking about? Explain about you and Nick."
She studied me for a second before replying, "What do you know?"
"I don't know anything more than a few observations I made. I could only pick up on a couple emotions that appear all at once when Nick comes up; joy, sadness, anger, and remembrance. There was one other thing that I couldn't figure out, that one is love, isn't it?" I paused, but continue when she didn't reply. "Also, the way you two hold yourselves, it's almost identical, you both show strength and agility. But he shows more strength and you show more agility. And you two clearly know each other. Now please tell me what's going on!"
"Fine, how much do you know about my past?"
I paused to think, "Uh, I don't really know anything more than you know Nick." I admitted, surprised at myself for not knowing more.
"Okay, then I'll start at the beginning," she sighed. "I am not from your planet, either of them. I come from a planet with fighters, not many stay there, usually just the teachers. No one is usually born their either, most are just sent there to learn. I moved there with my family when I was very young, so I pretty much grew up there. My parents weren't fighters, they helped the large numbers of people move in and out. They signed me up for school at age five, which included everything from math, to history, to science, to music, and, of course, fighting.
"We learned our 'book smarts' first, by age seven I knew everything about math, history, and science that I was expected to know. It was suggested that we continue our musical study because it was easy to carry weapons hidden in the case, the instrument, and even the music, you can use the instrument or it's case as a weapon. I entered the basic martial arts classes. After two years of these I knew quite a bit about many of the styles on your two planets, we chose classes depending on where we wanted to go next. My classes taught techniques that used our flexibilities and agility to there fullest. The training often involved strengthening ourselves, but we mostly used strategies that would win without strength.
"Nick showed up on my tenth birthday. His parents just dropped him off at the place where people register their entry and then they just left. My parents took him in. I came home from school that day and found
him reading my diary!" Her voice had steadily raised toward the end.
"Yeah, and she showed me just how strong she was that day. The red, hand-shaped mark on the side of my face took hours to heal." Nick said, sitting down at our table. Kayla quietly gathered all her stuff in one sweep and left without another word.
"So, she's mad at you for reading her diary?" I asked, turning my attention to Nick.
"No, she forgave me after she slapped me." He replied as he got up to leave, he then paused and added, "I did something much worse, something I should not be forgiven for. Just know this, I did what I did and now I travel alone. There is only one person who can trust me and she is the only one who never will." And then he left, leaving me with my thoughts. I sighed and finished my homework.
