Chapter Text
"Edalyn Clawthorne. Feeding the beast keeping class's pet Skin Badger chocolate cookies, stealing a tuba from the bard track's instrument storage room and proceeding to get your head stuck inside and then writing an inappropriate poem about your potions class professor. What do you have to say for yourself?"
"Best day ever."
Eda stared up at her principal, her usual smug expressing making Faust even more annoyed with her. Not like the young witch cared what her principal thought of her.
"I want an actual answer, Edalyn."
"I don't know what you want me to say! I'm sorry? I thought you told me that lying is wrong?"
Eda stifled a laugh as she watched Faust get angrier. She then grew bored as he began to speak again and started playing with her hair.
"Edalyn, you're what, fifteen now? You need to really start thinking about being a model student."
Eda snorted, "Yeah, I'll get right on that. One question though. How?"
"I don't know. Be more like your sister? I have never had to call Lilith into my office before. I honestly have no idea how you you are so different."
Different . That stupid word again. Eda didn't care about being compared to her sister. It's not the first time Faust had pulled that card. So why should being called different hurt so much?
"Eh, well I don't know either." Eda's gaze flicked over to the window, where a small bird had perched on the windowsill for a few moments before flying off again.
"Well please try to figure it out. For your sake too, Edalyn. You said you wanted to tryout for the Emperor's Coven with Lilith, right?"
Eda rested her head on her hand,"Wow, good memory Fausty."
"If you don't change your ways now, I doubt they'd let you in. I have no doubt that Lilith feels the same way."
"I don't think the Emperor's Coven is going to say I can't get in cause I'm not exactly like Lily. Did you forget how super awesome I am at magic? That's what they care about."
"Edalyn, that it not all they care about. Do you ever see one of the scouts or guards acting like you do? What would happen if you got into the Emperor's Coven and kept acting like this, what do you think they would say?"
Eda shrugged, "I don't know. Can I go now?"
"Go. Edalyn. Just please actually listen to what I've said today." Faust hoped that Eda would finally learn something from this.
Eda grabbed her bag and ran straight to the door, smiling, "Yeah, okay. I'll do that." She called before running out.
Faust sighed, "She isn't going to listen to a single thing I said. Is she?"
***
"If Edalyn isn't out here in five minutes I'm going home." Lilith complained, taking out her scroll and flicking through a few Penstagram posts.
"We can accurately guess your coven track based on what breakfast you choose. Oh yeah because you can only be an oracle witch if you eat apples for breakfast." She added, a sarcastic tone in her voice.
"Coven specific breakfast foods? What does it say for bard?" Raine joked, looking over to where Lilith was sitting, a few steps down from them.
Lilith snorted, scrolling to the next post, "I am not taking that test. I mean, who even makes these things?"
"Do you think Eda's okay? She's been in Faust's office for a while."
"She's in his office at least once or twice a week. She'll be okay, she's used to this." Lilith responded, rolling her eyes in disgust as she scrolled onto one of Adrian's selfies.
"Eww, block."
Raine laughed, "Yeah, definitely block."
"What are you two nerds nerding about?
"Eda! There you are!" Raine exclaimed, getting up to run over and hug Eda.
Lilith turned to face her sister and smiled, "You do know that 'nerding' isn't a word, right?"
"It should be. Anyway, weekly meeting with Fausty went... eh." Eda shrugged, "He said stuff, I said stuff. Just the usual same old nonsense." Eda mentioned, talking about the meeting to Lilith and Raine.
"So what was the poem? Why was it offensive?"
"Ugh, so not offensive at all! It was one of my best works."
"Edalyn, you wrote 'Professor Mutts smells like butts' on the chalkboard in front of the whole class."
"So?"
" Brooke Moone posted it to Penstagram!" Lilith handed her scroll to her sister, the Penstagram post of one of their classmates on the screen. Eda looked at it for a moment before bursting into laughter and showing Raine.
Lilith sighed, taking her scroll back, "You better apologise to Professor Mutts, Edalyn." She sighed, placing her scroll into her bag.
"Fine. Tommorrow though. Today we're giving a special someone a tour of Bonesborough!" Eda smiled, turning to Raine and giving them a playful nudge.
"What do you say, Rainestorm? Tour of the town?"
"The whole town in half a day?" Raine questioned, trying to figure out how big Bonesborough actually is.
"Well not the whole town. Just some of its best bits! What do you say?"
"Well my moms are still working so I can stay out for a while. Sure! It sounds fun." Raine smiled, turning to collect their things, "So, where are we going first then? Where's the best place in Bonesborough?"
"Hmm, what do you think, Lilith?" Eda questioned, spinning around to face her sister and walking backwards.
"Did you come up with this tour thing five minutes ago or something?" Lilith questioned, making a spell circle to summon a few study cards,
"Uh, NO! I was thinking about it all day AND a little of yesterday too thank you!" Eda replied with a sarcastic tone. She turned and ran off ahead of the two, motioning for them to follow along quicker.
After a few more moments of discussion, and a search of the best places to visit, the trio finally decided they would begin their tour at the market in the middle of the town square. When they arrived Eda took Raine's hand and showed them around each individual stall.
"Giant Poison Berries, Misfortune Teller, Just Skulls 2: Established 1215." Raine commented, their eyes scanning the different stalls as they passed, "What happened to Just Skulls 1?" They added, taking a longer look at the stall. It seemed to be exactly what the sign was advertising, a whole table of nothing but various sizes of skulls from many different creatures.
"I don't know, ask someone from 1215." Eda joked, walking up to the stall and picking up one of the smaller skulls. It had small cracks down one side and seemed to resemble the skull of a small bird. Eda stared at it for a few more seconds before placing it back down.
The group split up for a while as they all found a different stall that got their interests. Lilith walked over to a stall of rare inks and quills, Raine found a stall that sold old albums and Eda found a small bakery stall where she bought something for herself, Raine and Lilith.
She had spent around five minutes at the stall before Lilith ran over to her, she looked excited while she showed her sister what she had just got.
"Edalyn look at this. It's premium ink made from smokewood sap! This stuff is super rare, but this bottle was only ten snails!"
"Ooh, it looks shiny. Is there glitter in it?" Eda asked, staring at the bottle and moving her head closer into it as the shimmering ink moved around inside.
"It's the leaves. They crush them to use the essence to make the ink. The essence just has a kind of natural shimmer to it. It's also used in hair products and certain healing potions." Lilith explained, carefully placing the ink bottle in her bag. "What did you get?"
"I got you that bog cake thing you like, a moonlight bite for me and I wasn't really sure what Raine would've liked so I got them the same thing as you."
"Speaking of Raine, where are they?" Lilith realised, "I saw them going to that music stall but they're not there anymore."
Eda turned her head and looked back at the music stall where Raine had been a moment before. She scanned the market for any sign of them before spotting them standing at another stall a few down from it.
The stall was decorated with thin vines growing small white flowers, Eda recognised the flowers as Glowbloom, a special type of flower that only grows in the densest forests and glows brightly in the night.
Eda motioned for Lilith to follow her and they both made their way over to where Raine was standing holding a small wooden box.
"There you are, Raine. What's that?" Eda wondered, looking at the box.
"Oh, hi Eda. I think this is some sort of musical puzzle box. I could hear music playing from it when I was at the other stall so I followed the noise and now it's stopped. I wonder how it works? I can't get it open."
"Maybe it opens with music?" Eda guessed.
"Yeah, maybe it's like a memory thing. You need to repeat the music the box plays." Lilith wondered, "Why don't you get it and find out?"
"It is quite expensive... I'm not sure." Raine replied, beginning to set it back down.
"I can get it for you if you like, I want to know what's inside it!" Eda offered, taking the box and paying for it. When she handed it back to Raine she saw them smiling.
"Thanks Eda, I can't wait to see what's in here. I wonder if it's little crystals or something? I don't hear anything rattling inside." They mentioned, slightly shaking the box. They placed the puzzle box in their bag and turned to Eda, "Where else can we go?"
"Well, I did get everyone some treats, maybe we can go somewhere where we can sit and eat them? Maybe the slayground?"
"Yeah, that sounds good!" Raine agreed, following Eda and Lilith through more of Bonesborough. After around five minutes of walking, they reached the slayground and the three of them sat down together and began to share the snacks.
When they were finished, Raine got up and wandered over to a swingset and sat for a while, slowly swinging. Eda and Lilith joined them a few moments later and the three of them talked for a while.
"So, Raine? What do you think of Hexside?" Lilith asked
Raine paused for a second before answering, "Very different from St.Epiderm. In a good way."
"How different?" Eda's ears twitched.
"The classes are actually quite easier here compared to St.Epiderm. Principal Faust actually said I could move up a grade when I transferred here, but I said no. Technically I should be in Lilith's grade but I just decided to stay where I was."
"Wait, you decided to stay at school longer? You really are weird." Eda joked, playfully messing with Raine's hair.
"Well maybe it's that, or maybe it's because I wanted to stay in the same grade as you." Raine smiled, letting out a small giggle."
"What else is different? Are there different classes?" Lilith continued questioning.
"St Epiderm has a class about the fundamentals of magic. Just like, the basic spells but how to do them even better. Other than that there's nothing different." Raine answered, "I couldn't stand that class, the professor hated me."
"Why? Was he strict?" Eda wondered.
"All my professors were, but he was just awful. He just hated me for literally no reason."
"What about your principal? What was he like?" Lilith asked.
"Believe it or not, worse than Principal Faust."
Eda's eyes widened, surely there couldn't be someone worse than Principal 'breathe too loud and I'll expel you'.
"What? How?" Lilith's eyes widened, "Edalyn never stops complaining about how strict he is. How much worse was your old principal?"
"He was bad. If I wasn't one hundred percent perfect all the time he would threaten to take away my scholarship."
"Is that even legal?" Eda gasped.
"I really doubt it. I guess he thought he could manipulate or scare me into being a good student. To be honest, I guess it worked." Raine sighed.
"He sounds like a total jerk. Good thing you'll never see him again huh?" Eda tried to comfort them.
"Yeah, I hope so." Raine smiled "This has been so fun so far, thank you for showing me around! Bonesborough is really nice." They added,
"Well we're not done yet!" Eda replied "Just don't know where to go next though, touring is hard!"
"Well, where else can we go? Maybe the library?" Raine mentioned, trying to help Eda decide on where to go next.
"Ooh the library! I forgot about that!" Eda gasped, "Ready, Lily?" She asked, standing back up and getting her things.
Lilith nodded, standing up to follow her sister. Raine followed after them, telling them both about their day. Raine talked for a while before passing a small pet shelter and immediately running over to the window.
"Eda, Lilith! Look!" They called, showing them four baby griffins playing by the window.
"Aww! Lily do you think mom would let us get one?" Eda asked half-jokingly.
" Absolutely not. They are so cute, but definitely no."
Eda playfully drooped her ears and sighed before turning to continue making their way to the library. They arrived about fifteen minutes later and headed inside.
The library was huge. Books everywhere, on shelves, on the walls and...in the air?
"Eda? Why are those books flying?" They questioned, looking up at them. They strangely resembled a flock of birds soaring overhead, making Raine giggle when they saw a book with a bird on the cover.
"Oh, they just do that." Eda answered, stretching.
She watched Raine as they wandered over to look at a small shelf of books and looked around before walking back over to Lilith and following her and Eda through to the rest of the building.
"Ooh wait, look over here." Eda turned Raine's attention to a pile of books that were being sorted onto shelves.
"Y'know, I wouldn't actually do it, but ..."
"You want to knock it over, don't you?" Raine guessed, noticing Eda's mischievous expression.
"Didn't know you joined the Oracle Coven Rainestorm." Eda joked, trying to contain her laughter.
"Come on you two, before Edalyn gets us kicked out." Lilith joked, walking over the one of the bookshelves and grabbing one, showing it to Eda.
"This is the book Professor Mutts was talking about, remember? The one his sister wrote!" She told Eda, showing her the front cover.
"Potions And Problems? What's it about?" Eda asked, looking through another bookshelf, while Raine was already sat over at a table, reading a copy of Soldier Kitties: Welcome To The Woods.
"It looks good! There's a story about how she tried to make a transformation potion to turn a frog into a butterfly and it did not go well." Lilith looked through the book as she and Eda went over to sit with Raine.
"What happened with a butterfly and a frog?" Raine looked up, "I heard about half of that."
"Well, it says the potion worked at first, but because frogs are slimy it didn't stick for long and everything the frog touched turned into a butterfly."
"Froggerfly? Butterfrog? What would you call the thing?" Eda mumbled to herself, reading the end of the story.
"I hope she managed to catch it? Or got some beast keepers to do it?" Raine wondered
"The book says that it was caught about a week later and it took about a month until she could change it back" Lilith read, looking over to Raine.
"Thank Titan. I wouldn't want to turn into a butterfly. Wait...would I? I'd get wings. That could be cool" Raine joked, turning back to read their own book. Eda moved to sit next to Lilith to read along with her.
The three of them sat together reading for about another hour then Eda took out her scroll and started scrolling through Penstagram, showing Raine a funny picture or video every so often.
"Aww look at the little puppy palisman with the bow." She smiled, showing Raine and Lilith.
"Is that the time?" Lilith asked, her eyes darting to the clock on the corner of Eda's scroll. “It's going to be getting dark soon. We should get going. I'll take the books back and meet you two outside." She added, closing her book. Eda nodded in response, putting her scroll away and grabbing her bag.
"Coming, Raine? Eda asked, waiting for them to follow, "Where do you want to go now? Ooh, we could go back to the market!"
"Wouldn't it be closed now?" Raine questioned.
"Yeah, but not the night market!"
Eda led Raine back outside to wait for Lilith. She was still talking about the night market, trying to get Raine on board with her idea.
"I think Lilith meant that it's time for us to go home. Plus my parents will be home soon. I don't want them to worry." Raine explained, turning their attention to the library doors they opened. Lilith walked over to them, yawning.
Eda told her about the night market idea, but Lilith immediately cut her off, "Absolutely not. Edalyn, mother told you so many times now you're far too young to go there."
"But not knowing what's there is killing me! Do you want to be responsible for my death?"
"I think you're being a little bit dramatic there, Edalyn. Also, I'm not getting in trouble because you don't want to listen to your mother."
"Okay then." Eda sighed, "Raine said their parents will be home soon. So we should better get them home. We can just go and see the night market another day! Right Raine?"
"Uh, to be honest, I wasn't really too comfortable with the night market plan. I've been to one before and they can get really weird. Maybe one day though. It can't be as scary now."
Eda's eyes widened. How in the world could Raine have been to one before. Was there a night market on The Knee? If there is, how different is it? How bad could it have been if it scared Raine? Eda's mind swirled with so many questions that it was so hard for her to pick just one to ask.
"How have you been to a night market before?" Eda questioned, a curious glint in her eyes.
"It's a long story." Raine began, walking back home with Eda and Lilith, "I was visiting my grandparents in Latissa and they took me to get food while my parents stayed at the house."
"Oh did you have to walk through it to get to wherever you were going?" Eda tried to guess.
"No, we ended up getting separated in a crowd. I got lost and ended up just walking into it trying to find my way back." Raine answered.
"Do you remember anything that was there?" Lilith asked.
"I remember panicking, hiding under a table and a man buying far too many teeth for one person." Raine shuddered at the thought. "Ugh, it was disgusting."
"Teeth can be used in some potions. But it is still gross. My least favourite part of potion magic." Lilith explained.
"Which would make sense, but he had a beast keeping sigil. Maybe he feeds them to the beasts?"
"Eww. Poor beasts." Eda replied, "I sure hope he's not."
The sun slowly set as Eda, Lilith and Raine made their way back from the library. Eda looked up at the sky and watched the clouds as they moved across the sky. She thought about her meeting with Principal Faust earlier. His comment calling her different still played in her mind.
She had tried to ignore it for a while, but she couldn't anymore. This wasn’t the first time that Faust had upset her, so she wasn't sure why this time it had bothered her more than any other time.
Of course I'm different! If everyone was the same it would be sooooo boring! She thought to herself, looking at Raine. They had taken the musical puzzle box that they'd gotten earlier back out of their bag and were whistling at different pitches in an attempt to try and unlock it.
Lilith walked beside them. She had a couple of flashcards in her hands and was reading them to herself. Eda wasn't sure how she managed to study every second she could. She smiled, both Lilith and Raine were different from eachother, but they didn't seem to care, so why should she?
She liked being different, so she wasn't going to change for anyone else.
She was perfect, just as she was.