It all started as a normal day.
A dark haired sixteen year old boy by the name of Marvin Perlie was sitting in his room, at his grandmother Minverva’s house, preparing for his transfer to a new high school. In the middle of the year. That was just bound to be all kinds of fun.
The main problem that he faced at this moment was the fact that the weather outside was so hot that he couldn't get away with wearing long sleeved shirts and trousers. As a result of that, various of the scars on his arms and body would be exposed. While they didn't exactly hurt much, they weren't the most appealing sight. He didn't want to have them out on display for the whole world to see.
And that held even more true for his prosthetic right leg.
Although he was lucky enough to have an unnamed benefactor who paid for the operation the leg-and all of the replacements and treatments he needed-an advanced and relatively comfortable model, he still wished it wasn’t so blatant with its white colour and some of the dark metal inner workings visible.
With a sigh he realised that there wasn’t much he can do about it, and decided to go with a simple black short sleeved shirt, and combine it with dark grey shorts that reached down to his knees.
In order to finish off the look he tied his hair into a low bun, put on his watch and glasses. He looked at himself in the mirror, frowning and wondering for a brief moment, if the general dark colours of his clothes, combined with his round glasses, and dark eyes and hair made him appear too introverted or antisocial- not even to mention the visible scars on his arms and prosthetic leg-before he could further elaborate on these thoughts, or act on them, he was interrupted by a high pitched voice, one clearly belonging to a child.
“Marrin! Marrin!”excitedly shouted a little girl opening his room’s door.
It was clear she was at least in some way related to Marvin’s family-in this case through her father, who was Marvin's father's brother-as betrayed by the dark colour of her eyes and dark shoulder long hair mixed with her pale complexion. The two actually looked more like siblings than anything else.
Marvin found that he could only chuckle in response to her excitement. The girl ran towards him expectantly, prompting him to pick her up, which he did.
“Hey there little cousin. Up a bit early don’t you think?’ It’s only-” Marvin checked the clock on his wall“-seven forty five? A bit too early actually, don’t you agree?” asked Marvin holding the excitable little girl as he exited his room and headed down the long corridor.
“Surprise! It was a surprise! I wanted to tell you good luck because you’re starting your new school today!” whisper shouted the toddler, making exaggerated hand motions to match her enthusiastic tone.
“Come on Annie! how can you have so much energy so early in the morning?” halfheartedly complained Marvin, causing the girl to giggle as he dropped her off in front of her bedroom door.
“Here we go. You’ve got about an hour before grandma wakes you up and your parents come to take you back home. Your little vacation is up and you have a lot of travelling ahead. So get some sleep okay?” declared Marvin in the most responsible way he could muster.
“Okay. But I’m gonna miss you!” pouted the young girl
“Me too, but don’t worry. We’ll see each other soon enough.” winked Marvin, which caused a smile to replace the frown on Annie’s face, and then to her to giggling once more
After exchanging goodbyes with his little cousin, Marvin headed down to the ground floor of the house, grabbing his school bag that he had laid there the night before, and exiting through the front door closing it behind him. But before he could get a few steps out of the building, the voice of an elderly lady call out to him
“Think you can get away without saying goodbye, is that it then?” joked the woman- Minerva Norrinson, his grandmother-as she approached him from the patio on the side of the building.
“More like I didn’t want to cause a ruckus. I thought you knew that I’m not exactly the most outgoing and party loving person.” replied Marvin, aware that the woman was joking, but not wanting to risk upsetting the person who helped him so much during his formative years.
“You’re plenty better than when you were a child. I remember when you were young, you would sulk in the corner all day and night. You scared plenty of other kids away. You know, there were times when I actually thought you’d actually grow roots in your room and be binded there forever! I was genuinely worried about you and I mean that in the nicest way possible!” laughed the elderly woman, the tone of her voice showing a care for Marvin showing the close relationship they have with one another
“Well… I-I was quite the charmer wasn’t I?” asked Marvin, adopting lighter tone to much the one set by his grandmother.
“Oh, you really turned yourself around. Even became a big brother type of figure for little Anna. I’m sure your parents watched all of that and are very proud of you-no arguments!” declared the elderly woman, pointing a finger at the dark haired young man, both of them sobering up, his grandma also letting out a deep sigh at the mention of his parents. His father was her son, and his mother like a daughter to her. It went without saying that they missed them to this very day.
“As much as I am enjoying this talk grandma, I really have to get going. The school isn’t exactly close, and I wouldn’t to miss the train and walk all the way to there.” said Marvin who, while anxious about the upcoming event had a part of himself that understood he could only go out there and do his best. He also knew that his grandmother could keep him there all day while she was talking often telling him facts and stories he had heard a thousand times over.
“Of course Marvin. Godspeed my boy, godspeed!” she smiled at the young man, who started walking away from the woman and the building, staring at up at the rising sun, clenching his fists,all his insecurities melting away for a brief moment before returning once more, as he steels himself and begins walking quicker, a part of him thinking that this, this is only the beginning.
Walking through the town that was nearest to his grandmother’s house Marvin found that not many people were out during that time, and those that were usually just were on their way to work or school, like Marvin himself. Passing through a narrow road however, he could swear he saw what appeared to be a large and quite hairy figure on the roof of a building. One that appeared to be a man wearing sunglasses even though the sun was barely out, but in the moment that he blinked it vanished. Deciding that either his eyes were playing tricks on him, or that it simply wasn’t any of his business, Marvin decided to not tempt fate and move on.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
It was only fifteen minutes later that Marvin found himself waiting for the train station in the nearest town with only a few other people beside him. If he was lucky the sparse amount of people would translate to the train itself and there wouldn’t be many people.
So of course when the train arrived, it was almost completely filled.
Trying to navigate his way through the crowded train in the hopes of finding a seat, preferably without having to take it from anyone, so he would be able to sit and not have to keep constantly bumping with every other person in this train. Plus Marvin was pretty sure the sheer humidity that would generate would be a problem what with his leg and scars. But he wasn’t in any place to double check that fact.
Not that he was complaining.
Thankfully for him, there was an empty seat next to a casually dressed girl that appeared to be around his age, with her blond hair in a ponytail. Well the seat had what he assumed was her bag on it and she appeared to be reading a book, but he was hoping she wouldn’t mind him sitting next to her.
“Excuse me?” called out the dark haired boy in what he liked to call his best I-am-a-person-that-can-talk-to-other-people-easily voice
“What?” curtly replied the girl allowing Marvin to see that she had dual coloured eyes. One of them was light blue, and one crimson red.
Now Marvin wasn’t exactly one to call out others on odd appearances, but he had to admit he was taken aback by the girl’s crimson eye by this case-of- a condition he apparently cannot remember the name of.
“Well?” asked the girl, and Marvin realised that in her dual coloured eyes resided an irritated look, as if talking to him was not something she was in the mood for, and he suddenly got a sense as to why no one is sitting over there.
“Well, there isn’t anyone sitting next to you so I thought I’d, you know, change that.” lamely responded Marvin whilst inwardly cringing at his social awkwardness.
Looking at him up and down as if appraising him, the girl wordlessly picked up her backpack, putting it on the floor in front of her seat and went back to her book.
Figuring that was his cue, Marvin removed his own backpack and placed it in front of himself sitting down. Given her general quietness, the silence that followed was actually not that awkward, and the atmosphere quite natural. A while later he glanced towards the girl, noticing that the book she was reading was the school history book required for class in his new high school.
And so he made the mistake of attempting to ask her about it.
“Are you also going to the Jeene High school?” asked Marvin, prompting the girl to respond with a sound that resembled a hmph, gritting her teeth
“Why else would I be reading this book I wonder?” she shot back sarcastically, and a bit loudly causing some of the people to look over momentarily.
“See I’m actually transferring there, and I think we ought to have better relations if we’re going to be schoolmates. So how about we start over? I’m Marvin. Marvin Perlie.” The truth was Marvin didn’t really care about ‘schoolmate relations’ or whatnot, but he didn’t exactly want to enter the school with a bad reputation. If nothing else he wanted to not be bothered by many people, so he had to at least attempt to be nice.
“Listen here Marvin Perlie. Are you going in for a full day of classes or just signing up and doing whatever bureaucratic nonsense?” asked the-still unnamed-blonde haired girl.
“Regular classes?” some might say that he sounds uncertain, which he isn’t, but this whole conversation has been one of the weirder ones Marvin has had-and for once he wasn’t the weird one
“Great! Would you mind keeping this for me until the end of the day then?” she asks sweetly-too sweetly-and for a moment he could swear her crimson eye actually glowed a little. She had pulled a small silver ring with engravings he could not understand on it from the pocket of her shorts showing it to him expectantly
“I literally just met you. I mean don't even know your name, or anything about you, and you expect me to do something for you? Do you think I’m stupid, naive, or both?” asked Marvin using the same sarcastic tone she had used earlier
“My name is Marly Mallory, now just hold on to this until the end of the day. Do you think you can do that?”
“Okay, okay! No need to get all intense. Just give it here!” quickly replied the boy, before Marly exploded-literally he expected-on him.
“You should know though that I have an archery club after class so I’ll probably finish at about five.” smirked Marvin, enjoying the shocked expression she gave in response
“Fine then!” she huffed, and then he noticed a small piece of paper was with the ring. Written on the paper were two strange phrases: Aspis tou Aiax and Toxon tou Apollona
“What’s this?” inquired Marvin, inwardly starting to regret his coming to sit here.
“Probably nothing. Just in case. Wouldn’t want you to get in a life or death situation without a way to escape, would you?” smirked the girl, and Marvin genuinely couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. Lovely.
“Okay...I guess? Are all the people at this school as, how do I put this, eccentric as you are?” wondered Marvin out loud, causing a look of anger to momentarily flare in the girl’s eyes, but it was just as soon replaced by a neutral one.
“I’ll be at the gate of the school at five. You better be there.” stated the girl ignoring his question.
The rest of the trip went quietly, with Marly going back to reading her book, and Marvin scrolling through his phone. Although he couldn’t help but think that no archery club-the main reason he transferred to this school was for the club after all-was going to be worth putting up with the students of the school if they were all this peculiar.
Although the chances of that are extremely low, glancing at his scarred arms, he realizes he cannot exactly count on his luck with that front.
About half an hour later the train arrived at the stop closest to the school. And it actually was a relatively short trip, considering the fact that the school itself was visible from the station, and all other trips he had to make living so out of town with his grandmother involved much more walking.
As a wave of students reached the front gates of the establishment, he saw Marly Mallory once again approach him, a fact that appeared to make a lot of people around him whisper and point. Just what Marvin needed.
His favourite thing in the entire world: High school drama!
“At the gate of the school at five sharp, Marvin Perlie. Don’t. forget.” stated the heterochromic girl before turning away from him
“Also trust me when I say I’m not like most people in this school.” she whispered this time, and the dark haired boy barely managed to hear her. An almost evil smile formed in her face, and once again her crimson light appeared to glow in the light of the rising sun, as she turned and actually walked away this time.
There would be many times in the future that Marvin would claim helping this girl was one of the biggest mistakes of his life.