163Chapter 2. Introductions and Barfing and Old Friends
"Whoa!" I gape in blatant awe, my mouth falling open as I stare around the dining hall. "This is like something out of a Harry Potter book!"
"Please," Taranis scoffs as she leads me to a table. "Harry Potter over-dramatised everything."
I follow her, looking around the dining hall. The sheer size of the place makes me smaller than I already feel, surrounded by so many good-looking people. Seriously, it isn't helping my ego sending me here, Mom and Dad! There are so many little, round tables and so many gorgeous people pouring into the dining hall as the dinner bell resonates through the entire campus. The tables are already set with cutlery and little napkins. I wonder how the food is going to appear. Do they have a kitchen underneath where elves place food on the tables and they magically appear? I look down at the worn flagstone floor.
"We do not serve food, thank you very much!" a voice suddenly snaps in my ear, jarring me from my thoughts.
I jump, my eyes wide as I look up at the girl standing in front of me, with her arms on her hips. She is willowy with long red hair and angry green eyes. I blink, puzzled. Taranis hurry over.
"What's the matter, Caitrin?" she asks, her tone sharp and unfriendly.
"Oh, Taranis," she says with a toss of her hair. "So this is the troll princess, huh? Not much of a looker."
I roll my eyes. Oh, for crying out loud. I get it, you're drop-dead gorgeous. Can we stop tripping over your ego and get on with it already? Then I have a sneaking feeling that she can read minds too, like that Cat-shit guy.
"I'm an elf, of course I can read minds!" she snaps, rolling her eyes dramatically. "So get your facts straight, Princess. Elves don't serve trolls."
I blink then I turn to Taranis, saying, "I have a sneaking feeling she's trying to insult me, dear Taranis."
She laughs, her laughter tinkling delightfully. "I think she is, sweet Perri."
Then both of us turn towards us, chiming in to say, "But failing oh-so badly." She bristles, her jaw clenching as she straightens, glancing at her friends, who have gathered behind her. She has obviously asked for back-up.
"Since when are werewolves and trolls so close anyway?" one of them sneers. "Don't you know you're supposed to be enemies?"
"Oh yes, of course!" I say in a tone of sheer wonderment. "We're supposed to be beating each other's brains out, aren't we, Taranis?"
"We shouldn't," Taranis sighs sadly. "I mean, then we'll end up like this bunch of losers over here. Stupid. Even though they can read minds too!"
I laugh and we smack each other a high-five happily. Seriously, even though I have known Taranis for only three hours thus far, I feel as if I've known her forever and that we are like twins separated at birth or something. It is great how she seems to be thinking along the same line as I am all the time, especially when it comes to insults. The elves seem to have worked themselves up in a greater fury. I cock my head, wondering what they will do if they are really pissed.
"Oh, you won't want to know, honey," Caitrin hisses. "You won't want to know."
"Tara!" a loud voice booms as somebody grabs Taranis from behind. "You're not causing trouble again, are you?"
Taranis squeals in protest as a guy built like a house lifts her off the ground. "Adair! Put me down! Can't you see I'm in the middle of something?"
"Sorry, Caitrin," the big guy apologises with an infectious grin. "I just can't seem to keep her out of trouble."
Caitrin flushes and she looks away. I blink, exceedingly surprised. She sure does not strike me as the shy-blushing-give-in-to-a-hot-guy type, since there are plenty of hot guys around her. Then I notice that the other elves, male and female, are all also looking chastised. Wow, what kind of power does this guy have? I look at him closer. He is not anything particularly special, I mean other the obvious fact that he is good-looking and very well-built. Then he looks at me and I am overcome with a sort of warmth... a feeling of ingratiation towards this guy. He has such friendly, eager-to-please eyes and a nice, warm smile. I cannot help but smile back.
"It's okay," Caitrin mumbles. "Just keep her and her away from me."
Then she and her coterie disperses into the rest of the crowd. I notice that the bell has stopped by now and most of the people has settled down at tables.
"Who are you?" Adair asks curiously as he begins to lug Taranis behind him, her protesting loudly all the while.
"Perri," I introduce. "I'm Taranis's new room-mate."
"Ah, the troll princess!" he exclaims as he stops at a table where a girl and boy are already sitting at. "The one kept away in the human world."
"Adair, stop interrupting me every time I'm trying to pick on someone," Taranis scowls as she plonks herself down next to the boy. "Come on, Perri. Sit!"
I sit next to her, looking around the table at the other boy and girl. They are also looking at me inquisitively. The girl has prettily light brown hair and chocolate-brown eyes surrounded by long, graceful lashes. She looks away bashfully when I meet her eyes. I smile in amusement. She is certainly a shy one. I wonder what kind of a creature she is. I will guess her to be a faerie. The boy is as slender and frail-looking as Adair is strong and tough-looking. He can easily have passed off for a girl if he wears a wig and a dress, with his blonde hair, blue eyes and deathly pale skin. He has to be a vampire, or I'm eating my chair.
"Perri, this is Eydis and this is Deihan," Taranis introduces lackadaisically, waving her hand casually. "Try and guess what creature they are."
"He's a vampire," I say promptly as Adair eases himself into the chair next to me, which creaks in protest. "And she's a faerie."
"What kind of faerie?" he asks, with a twinkle in his eye.
"There are different kinds?" I stare at him blankly.
He laughs, shaking his head.
"I'm a pixie," she says softly and I look at her. "Faerie is just a general term. Elves are faeries too, so are nymphs and elementals."
"What's the difference?" I ask.
"Well," she begins to say when Taranis interrupts.
"Oh, come on. I'm not here for a Biology lesson," she says, sitting up. "And you're right, Perri. Deihan here is a vampire."
"Before you start asking me questions based on your human assumptions," he says with a good-natured smile. "Yes, I do drink blood. No, we can't make humans into vampires. We're born as vampires. No, the sun doesn't kill us. We're just really sensitive to UV rays; we burn very easily. Yes, we do have super strength and super speed, but so do most of the creatures around here, compared to humans."
"So I can't become a vampire?" I ask, disappointed.
"No," he shakes his head.
"Damn. It has always been a childhood dream of mine," I sigh.
"Your childhood dream is to be a vampire?" Adair says incredulously.
"Hey, my childhood dream was to be a ballerina, remember?" Taranis says.
"Wanting to be a vampire is called original," I say, nodding. "Besides, I just read way too much vampire teen romance trash. They're everywhere on the Internet, you know."
"Well-" Adair is about to say something when a sudden hush just falls over the whole dining hall.
Everybody, and I mean everybody, falls silent and turns to face the front of the dining hall, where these is a long table with high-backed, grand chairs before a fantastic, awe-inspiring stained-glass window. I look around curiously. It is as if everybody has this inherent sense and simply turns to the front. I look as well. The long table is now occupied by a bunch of grown-ups, who are not only beautiful, but carry themselves with an air of authority which instantly tells you that they are the teachers. The fact that Lilith is there too helps. In particular, the man standing before the whole dining hall, hands behind his back, is especially authoritative. He has sharp, kindly grey eyes that tell you that if he punishes you, he is going to be just and fair. He looks young, merely in his thirties, but he also exudes a wisdom that can only come with age. After all, with all these magical creatures, you cannot exactly know how old they truly are. Of course, he is also devastatingly good-looking. Okay, I'm getting really sick of saying how good-looking everybody is. They all are, period.
"Good evening, fellow teachers and students," his rich baritone can be heard clearly. "I do not mean to interrupt your dinners, but I have something to share with all of you. Everyone, the princess of the trolls and the granddaughter of the Coven Queen of the witches, Periwinkle Titania Aine Greenhaer, daughter of Eberhard Cathaldus Gerard Jaelan Greenhaer the Fifth, has joined us! Please rise, Your Highness."
My mouth falls open. Oh. My. God. This cannot be happening to be. Did he just call me Your Highness?! And what the hell is a Coven Queen? What. The. Fucking. Fuck. I look at Taranis desperately, but she is hiding a smirk, obviously enjoying my humiliation. Ooh, the little sadist! I look at Adair, hoping against all odds he can save me from this horrible situation. He grins at me. I want so badly to crawl into a tiny little crack in the ground and never, ever come out again.
"Your Highness?" the man calls again.
Swearing that I am so going to make my parents pay, I rise slowly and extremely reluctantly. I think I am going to barf again and if I do, I am going to barf all over Taranis, the quivering mass of giggles right in front of me. To make matters worse, even though I am thinking, How much worse can things get?, and oh yeah, they can get a lot worse because next thing I know, hundreds of people are standing and they are applauding me most thunderously. They are all the jock types I saw bowing to me earlier. I. Want. To. Die. Now. I stare at the man, who is obviously the principal of some sort, desperately praying for him to make them stop. Taranis is practically falling off her seat, laughing her skinny little ass off. Then I see a familiarly breath-taking, amused face looking at me. Great, just fantastic. Bloody fantastic! Cat-shit is laughing at me as well. I wish I could scratch his idiotically good-looking face off. He seems to have read my thoughts because his smirk widens.
"Alright," the man at the front calls for order and the trolls settle down. "May I formally introduce myself as Zerachiel Mehela, the Headmaster of Hell High, at your service?"
I blink. Am I suppose to do something other than wanting to die?
"You may sit, Your Highness," he says with a smile.
"Please stop calling me that," I say and am not at all delighted to hear my voice carry all the way across the hall. "And um, for the record, don't ever call me Periwinkle. It's just Perri."
Then I drop heavily into my seat and bury my face into my hands, hoping everybody will just go away as Taranis shakes the whole table with her boisterous, barely-constrained laughter. Adair is not fairly too well either. Some friends they are. After a moment of awful, awkward silence, Headmaster Zerachiel clears his throat and declares dinner ready. Then the noise returns to the place. Taranis promptly bursts into loud, honking laughter. I lift my face and glare.
"You're a bitch," I snarl.
"But you were so funny!" she sputters. "Right, Adair?"
He nods, chuckling. I look around at the others. Eydis is laughing softly behind her hand and Deihan is smirking at me. My scowl deepens.
"You guys suck!" I declare, straightening. "I'm hungry. Where's my food?"
"Patience, Periwinkle," Adair teases.
I narrow my eyes. "Do not call me that. I don't even know I have that many names! I thought my last name is Green!"
"Poor little Periwinkle," Taranis pats me on the head as the man who had earlier brought from the main gates and into the school comes up behind her, bearing a steaming platter of food.
I start in surprise as another man who looks exactly like him comes up between Adair and me with more food. In fact, I discover as I look around frantically, hundreds of men looking completely identical are serving food to chattering kids who do not even seem to notice.
"Thanks, Marshall," Adair smiles at the one closest to him as they place the platters on the table and pull back.
Neither of them seems to have registered the gratitude and simply begin to ponderously walk away, filing out of the dining hall through little doors I did not notice earlier with the rest of the men who look no different from each other.
"Um, don't you guys notice they all look the same?" I cannot help but ask.
"That's just Marshall," Taranis shrugs dismissively.
"What is he?" I ask, watching as they grab portions of the awfully raw steak from one of the platters and an enormous egg-like thing from the other. "And what the hell is that?!"
I wince as I see them tear into the steak like savages, forgoing their forks, even Eydis. They do not seem to mind the blood because the steak is so raw, blood is oozing out of it.
"It's an egg," Taranis says, deadpan, as if it cannot be more obvious.
"Eggs are not that big!" I retort.
"They are," she rolls her eyes, grinning at me with blood dripping from her lips on purpose. "You'd better grab yours quick, Perri, because Adair isn't going to wait."
She points at Adair who is chomping away on his steak non-stop. He seems oblivious to everything else. I swallow as I take the egg. Carefully, I crack open the shell to see an actual bird foetus floating it in a clear liquid. I can barely suppress my scream as I drop my fork and the egg and push back from the table.
"What's the matter?" Taranis asks, cocking her head. "Is the eyrie already dead? Too bad. They taste best live."
"I think I'm going to puke," I say in a weird, distant voice.
"Oh yeah, you're not used to this. You've always been eating human food," she remembers.
Then I bend over and promptly puke my guts out, like my stomach has been threatening to do all afternoon.
=[]=
"She's just needs some time to adjust to all these changes in her life," the school nurse, a pretty blonde witch who looks twenty even though she says she is actually seventy, says to Headmaster Zerachiel, who by the way is part of the reason why I puked.
She looks at me sympathetically from where I am sitting on a really comfortable chair beside her desk. "Everything is possibly a bit too much for her to handle at the moment."
"I demand human food," I say, crossing my arms as I glare at the Headmaster. "And you know, making me stand up in front of everybody... that didn't really help either."
He looks apologetic. "It's customary for us to introduce students who are royalty like that. I should have realised that you're not used to the attention of being a princess."
"Ya think?" I raise my eyebrows.
"I will make suitable arrangements, Your- Perri," he says.
"Thanks," I say grudgingly and turn to look at the nurse. "Can I go now? I have somebody I need to beat up."
She looks startled. "Certainly."
"Thanks," I stand and hesitate before leaving, looking at the Headmaster and wondering if there is something I should do before leaving.
Despite the petulant tone I had used with him earlier, he is certainly a personage of great power and he commands respect from all. He looks amused when he notes my pause.
"You may leave," he says with a slight chuckle. "Contrary to what you may think, Perri, I'm really not that big of a deal."
I just raise my eyebrows at him again before leaving the nurse's office. Taranis, Adair, Eydis and Deihan are all waiting outside in the hallway... along with what seems like the whole troll population. I groan aloud. It is also very hard to miss the animosity between Taranis and the trolls, if her murderous glare and the crackling air of red sparks around her are any indications. The trolls instantly rush up to me when I emerged.
"Princess! Are you alright?" a girl asks, her brows creased in worry. "I'm really sorry! I should be-"
"Princess! Is this werewolf the cause of your sickness?" a guy asks, glaring over his shoulder at Taranis.
"We'll take care of her, if you like?" another offers, already cracking his knuckles in a highly threatening manner.
"Bring it on, Pretty Boy!" she calls, an amused sneer on her face.
I clench my fists. There is only so much I can take after all. Hello, people? I have just puked my breakfast and lunch out in front of... oh, just about everybody after a long day of discovering that my daddy's a troll and my mother's half-witch and now I have to attend a high school for other magical creatures, aptly named Hell High. Oh, yes. I mean, all I need now is to have a whole horde of trolls and my new room-mate erupt into a huge, magical fight. Yay.
"Everybody," I scream, "SHUT UP!"
They all stare at me abruptly, almost offended as if I have intruded on some sort of ancient ritual. I roll my eyes in exasperation.
"I vomited, okay? I don't need you people tearing yourself apart in front of me," I snarl. "So I just want to go back to my room, crawl into my bed and go to sleep."
After a moment's silence, the trolls look down sheepishly and say, "Yes, Princess." I feel too tired to correct them and merely toss my hair over my shoulders before grabbing Taranis's hand and lugging her physically behind me as I stride down the hallway and out of the administration building onto the open lawn which is in the middle of all the other buildings. I am halfway across the lawn when I realise that I have no idea how I am supposed to get to my dorm. I stop.
"You don't know how to get back, do you?" Taranis's wry voice asks behind me.
I turn, crossing my arms grumpily. "So? Sue me."
She exchanges a look of amusement with Deihan.
"You know that was really cool how you handled the trolls back there," Adair says, draping his arm around my shoulders, causing my knees to buckle slightly because of the weight of his arm.
"Did you see the way they were like, Yes, Princess?" Taranis crows, draping her arm around my shoulders as well, over Adair's. "Princess Power rule!"
"Taranis, you weren't any help at all," I scowl, ducking out from under their arms. "Sheesh."
"Well, werewolves and trolls always are enemies," Deihan says matter-of-factly. "Until you two came along. Who ever heard of their princesses getting along? Seriously."
"'Cos we're special like that," Taranis and I chime.
Eydis is laughing and shaking her head. "You two are really two of a kind."
"Perri!" a male voice calls and we turn to see a troll running towards us from the dining hall.
I squint. He looks familiar somehow. Then when he comes closer, my jaw drops.
"Doni?!" I exclaim.
He grabs me into a huge bear hug when he reaches me, engulfing me in a delicious masculine scent. I feel as if I'm surrounded by the coils of an anaconda; I can barely breathe. Then he lets me go and I stare at him, hardly believing my eyes. Andoni Wersray is my best friend from my childhood. I have known him since we are babies and our fathers put us in the same play pens when we were on holiday in Italy when our mothers were out shopping. Every summer since then, until when we started high school, we have always spent them together. I guess I know now why we stop spending our summers together, because he has always been here, at Hell High. I have always known that Doni is good-looking, but this guy standing before me? He is pants-on-fire, smoking hot. He is broad-shouldered and big, like every troll is, but he seems to exude a sort of feline grace the other trolls don't have. He has long lashes surrounding pretty sapphire eyes I'd kill for and messy dark hair curling around his ears. Good Lord, he has certainly grown up quite a bit in the two years we haven't seen each other.
"Wow, Doni. Look at you," I say, obviously impressed.
"Look at you. You look great!" he says, hugging me tightly once more.
"Um, thanks," I say, very sure that he is just being his usual, nice Doni self, because really, has he seen my stomach and thighs?
"Guys, this is-" I turn to Taranis, about to say something when she interrupts.
"Yeah, we know who he is," she says with a scowl, her arms crossed over her chest in an extremely unfriendly manner. "Andoni Wersray, son of one of the top troll officials."
"He is?" I ask, dumbfounded.
"He's also the one who resorted to underhanded means to snatch the trophy from us last year," she barges on, not seeming to heard me. "Cheater. Liar. Troll, no offence, Perri."
"None taken," I reply. "What trophy?"
"We won fairly," Doni retorts fiercely.
"It's the Sports Week trophy," Adair explains to me.
"The school knows how dangerous it is to have so many werewolves and trolls in one place, so every year, we have this Sports Week, which is basically an excuse for them to let off steam in competing in sports events," Deihan continues. "The werewolves have been winning for the past five years. Andoni managed to help the trolls win last year."
"Interesting," I say. "Not. Look, Doni. It's great to see you again, but I'm really pooped. Let's talk tomorrow or something, okay?"
"Okay," he says reluctantly, grabbing me for one last lingering hug. "I don't like you rooming with this werewolf, but the Headmaster tells me that there's no other available room."
"I'm fine with it anyway. Taranis and Adair are my friends," I say, a glint in my eyes that dares him to argue. "See you then, Doni."
"Night, Perri," he says, looking at my new friends in suspicion.
"So what's Andoni to you?" Adair asks the moment we are out of earshot of Doni and walking in the right direction to the dorms.
"Childhood friend," I say.
"So he's not like your fiancé or something?" Taranis asks. "Because I heard this rumour not too long ago that the reason Wersray commands so much respect among the trolls is because he's engaged to their princess."
"You're joking," I snort. "I didn't even know I'm a princess. There's no way I'm allowing my parents to betroth me or something."
"But it's traditional for children of the leaders of the various species to be betrothed when they're still kids," Eydis says quietly.
"Yeah. I'm engaged to Adair here," Taranis says, jumping onto Adair's back and wrapping her arms around his neck. "Right, darling?"
"You're not serious, are you?" I stop and gape at them.
"Oh, get off me!" Adair grumbles, but he is smiling as he swings Taranis off his back. "Well, yeah. It's true. Taranis and I were betrothed to each other when we were like, what, six or seven?"
"We're getting married when we turn eighteen," Taranis puts in helpfully. "You have to attend it, Perri. It's going to be a wild party."
"Not if your dad can have his way," Adair points out.
"But I usually have my way, anyway," she says, tossing her hair haughtily.
"Wait, wait, wait," I say, putting my hands out. "And you guys are okay with it?"
"It's part of being royalty," Taranis shrugs. "Besides, we grew up together and we're best friends. I don't mind getting married to him."
"Do you love him?" I ask.
"Well, yeah. As a friend," she says, glancing at him in a way that tells me that there's something more going on I do not understand. "But it's better than being stuck to marry some stuck-up rich kid, right?"
"Thankfully, it's only the royalty who are stuck with the arranged marriage thingy," Deihan says with a relieved sigh. "I'm glad I'm just a normal vampire."
"Like there's anything normal about being a vampire," I mutter as we continue on our way. "Compared to the world I grew up in."
I am still reeling from the fact that Taranis is already engaged to be married to a man her parents chose for her and she has no say in the matter. More importantly, I really cannot imagine hot-tempered, sarcastic, sassy Taranis being okay with it. As I look at her and Adair joking and pushing each other with the ease close friends had, I am thinking that there has to be something going on between them they don't want us to know, because really, Taranis will not just be okay with following a marriage her parents forced her into just because she's werewolf royalty. Then when we pass the chapel, I notice him standing at the door with engraving of the golden lock arguing with a girl, who looks completely different from the other two girls I have seen before, but yet strangely identical, just how the two girls had appeared to me earlier. I cannot help but stare when we pass and he obviously sensed my stare, because he looks up distractedly. Our eyes meet and once more, there is nothing I can do about the fiery blush that springs up in my cheeks. After a split second, he looks away again, with a dismissive air and it stings. I look away quickly, clenching my jaw and furious with myself for allowing a boy to affect me like this, even a boy who takes my breath away every time I think about it. I really hate how he may even be reading my thoughts right now and feeling amused and smug about it.
"Isn't he gorgeous?" Taranis seems to have noticed my gaze and is looking at him with an almost hungry look. "He's the hottest guy on campus, I swear."
"And also very smug about it," I mutter under my breath, sneaking one last look back at him as we pass. "Is he an elf too?"
"He's half-elf, half-Amazon," Eydis says in a reverent manner.
"Amazon?" I frown. "Lilith mentioned something like that before."
"They're the women you see guarding the Gateway," Deihan nods at the chapel. "You do know that's the Gateway to Hell right?"
"I do now," I say, shrugging.
"Amazons only ever mate with humans. If the child they borne is a girl, she's an Amazon. If it's a boy, he's a human. Amazons have never mated with a magical creature before," Adair says.
"Great, so he's also super special," I sigh.
I mean, really. That is all he needs. Not only is he the most perfect guy I have ever met and the only guy I have ever wanted in such a desperate manner, he can also tell just how turned on I am by him by reading my goddamn thoughts. Oh, as if that's not enough. He is also something really special. Half-Amazon. Chee.
"Oh, but he's taken though. Sadly," Taranis sighs. "All the girls were devastated when they became official."
"By who?" I ask, feeling the words as if they are a punch to my stomach.
"Adelinda Paelr. She's an elf and a really, really gorgeous one. Not to mention the fact that she's so nice and sweet and naive, you can't hate her at all," she says with undisguised envy. "They really perfect for each other. They're also childhood friends and there are rumours going around that they're already engaged to be married. She's on an exchange programme right now, but she'll be back next month or something."
"Oh," I say in a small voice, confused as to why I feel as my intestines have just been dragged out of my body in a horrifically gruesome manner.
"I don't like him," Deihan says with a huffy growl.
"Neither do I," Adair agrees.
"You guys are just jealous," Taranis makes a face at Adair as we stop in front of Aisling, the name of our dorm. "Well, see you guys tomorrow!"
Seeing my puzzled face, Eydis explains, "There are five dorms for girls and five dorms for boys. My dorm's Brighid. The boys' dorms are further in."
"Oh," I nod in understanding. "See you tomorrow then!"
"Welcome to Hell High, Perri," she says with a shy, warm smile before the three of them walk on.
Taranis yawns widely. "Come on, Perri. Sleep time."
"Yes, it has been a long, long day," I sigh as I follow her to the dorm room and into a new beginning.
AN: Disclaimer, I don't own Harry Potter. Second chapter up. Many new friends introduced in this chapter! And one old one. (: Review please. Tell me what you think! Oh and just wondering, what's the difference between "visitor" and "hit" because I was looking at my story traffic and I can't see any difference between the two term. Enlighten me. (: