A few days had passed since Kalmia had arrived in Schwarzhafen. Those days went by fast as she was not only with Dedrik, but also with Maria, the fox tribe beastman. Most of the time, they just sat together and talked. Sometimes, Kalmia read a novel. It wasn't a long wait for the departure day to arrive, though she prioritised spending time together with Dedrik, as she wouldn't see him for a while once she entered the school.

At breakfast, there was a strange woman standing there, which Kalmia hadn't seen before.

"Good day, my students. You may call me Miss Elana."

A lot of murmur was going around in the room.

"As I can hear, you have a lot of questions to ask, and I will answer them once we are in the academy. For now, I am here to inform you that we will depart from here before noon. Prepare yourselves, and please don't forget to bring anything important. We will meet right here in three hours. (...)"

After her small introduction and this information, Miss Elana left the room again, leaving everyone inside either slightly confused or stressed.

While Dedrik was looking rather stressed, Kalmia was just calm and hungry. She barely listened to what Miss Elana had said, except for the time of departure. When she looked at Dedrik, she saw the man who took care of her for the past almost year, looking all sentimental and kind of sad.

"Why so sad?"

"It's... It's nothing."

"Are you sure?"

"It's just... you are like a daughter to me."

Kalmia didn't really know how to answer that, but had to acknowledge that he often behaved like a father would. Looking at Dedrik again, he had tears in his eyes.

"It saddens me to let you go, but it's for the better."

Kalmia just sat there quietly, and didn't really have eating on her mind any more. It was once again this weird stomach feeling, as if right after the situation when she returned from her home village. This time was slightly different, though. It wasn't just this pure emptiness that makes one want to puke, but it was mixed with something more pleasant. The memories of the past year went through Kalmia’s mind and her eyes slowly started to tear up as well. Before she knew it herself, she was hugging Dedrik. She squeezed as hard as she could, before he tapped her shoulder, signalling he couldn't breathe any more... and probably had a few broken ribs.

"S-sorry."

"It's fine, it just hurts a little."

Now Kalmia had tears rolling down her cheek.

"You don't know your own strength, it's fine."

Dedrik took her into his arms.

"B-but I didn't want to hurt you."

Kalmia’s voice was trembling.

"It's fine."

This made Kalmia feel worse than her departure did. She didn't want to hurt him, but in the end, she did.

A few minutes later, a still sobbing Kalmia separated herself from Dedrik. By now, most people had left the room and prepared themselves for their departure. Kalmia’s food was put on the table in front of her while she was sobbing in Dedrik’s arms.

As Kalmia regained her composure, she slowly started eating. She hadn’t brought too many things with her, so she didn't need a lot of time to prepare.

She worked on eating a loaf of bread, putting some cheese onto each slice of bread. After about an hour, she was done eating and started preparing for the departure.

She went into her room, where she then folded her clothes and put them into the bag she brought for them. After that, she was essentially done with her preparations and went downstairs again, where she was one of the first sitting at one of the tables again. Over the span of the next hour, the others got there, one after another. Maria was the seventh person who returned to the dining room, where she sat down next to Kalmia.

"You are already done?"

"Yeah. Didn't bring much with me... I mean, why would I, if I don't own much."

"No? You are a dragon, that seems rather... atypical for your kind."

"And what is that supposed to mean? Does every dragon have a lot of wealth?"

"I don’t know, but I have never heard of a dragon that doesn't have a lot of material possessions."

There was an awkward silence after that conversation. While Kalmia didn't know how to respond to what Maria said, Maria didn't want to anger Kalmia.

Now that Kalmia was bored, she finally decided to take a look around at who the other students were. Many of the faces around seemed familiar to Kalmia. She thought she may have seen them at the entrance tests, but she couldn't remember well. The only thing really of note that she remembered were the two elves, of which, apparently, only one was here. There was also a young boy, probably about 13 years old, with hair as black as night. He looked rather bored and laid his head on the table while waiting for the teacher to arrive. In a corner of the room, there was also a girl about Kalmia’s age, who seemed to be a normal human. She had dark blonde hair, hazel eyes and a friendly, but distant, smile. Of course, there were also some cliques forming, as they were preparing to be classmates. There was one clique of rather sporty looking boys and one of the most frail looking girls that Kalmia had ever seen. They weren't large, but both groups seemed a bit like they were filled with nothing but snobs, really.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Once everyone was sitting somewhere in the room, it didn't take long for the teacher, Miss Elana, to arrive.

"I will do a roll call now. When I say your name, say 'here' and hold your hand in the air"

"Maria?"

Maria held her hand up.

"Here."

"Bernard von Oslaun?"

One of the boys in the boys clique held his hand up.

"Here."

"Kassandra de Fleur?"

This time it was a girl of the other clique.

"Here."

"Luis Albrecht?"

The boy with the dark hair held his hand up.

"Here."

"Lana?"

The girl in the corner lifted her hand slightly.

"Here."

This went on for a few minutes, until the roll call was done. There was not a single person missing.

"Now, search for a partner, with whom you will walk next to on our way to the harbour."

Maria and Kalmia looked at each other and nodded.

A few moments later, Miss Elana had started to marsh ahead and said.

"Now then, follow me!".

Everyone behind her quickly assembled in two-person groups, but there were also some clique members, which walked in three- or four-person groups

As they walked towards the harbour, they didn't pass any of the poor areas of the city. Some of the areas that they passed, Kalmia thought, looked even richer than Luminor. There were not just statues of stone, but also of bronze or copper.

The facades of the houses were decorated heavily by extruding stone bricks in forms that accentuate the form of the roof.

The front walls of the houses also reached higher than the start of the roofs, which seemed like a saddle on the house.

After a while, they also passed a huge theatre building. They appeared to be currently holding some event in that building. Kalmia was interested in what was going on there, but she didn't really have the time to check in because otherwise she would fall behind the group.

Many luxurious carriages had passed them as they walked. They seemed to have corners decorated with gold. And not just the corners, there were also beautiful designs of flowers or waves drawn onto the walls of those carriages. The horses pulling those carriages through the streets, as far as Kalmia had seen, were usually either as white as snow, black as the night or a beautiful brown with white accents around the hooves and face.

Once, one of Kalmia’s classmates almost got trampled by a horse, but he just managed to evade it. He was furious and wanted to shout at the carriage, but they didn't even realise what had happened and were gone before that classmate got to the point of shouting.

Miss Elana just continued walking, no matter what was going on. Was this how school was going to be? Just advancing, although some fell behind or got distracted by something else?

Was it just blindly following the teachers until they deemed you fit enough?

Kalmia froze on the spot for a second before continuing to walk.

"Why did you stop just now?"

"Eh, it's nothing. I was just thinking about the future."

"What did you think about?"

"Nothing important. Just the next few years of school life."

"Don't want to talk about it?"

"No, not really."

"Fine then."

An hour later they arrived at the harbour. It was a lot smaller than that of Luminor, but there were still a lot of ships docked at the piers. One ship after another were docked there, unloading off or loading goods onto the ship. Some were mostly boxes, others carried kegs onto the mainland.

A lot of the men at the docks seemed quite drunk. Kalmia guessed they were seamen which took it upon themselves to enjoy their time on the mainland before departing onto the rough seas again. A few minutes later Miss Elana walked onto a pier at which a huge, luxurious, ship was docked. It had a massive stern, pure white sails and a beautiful mermaid as a figurehead.

There were some stairs that connected the deck of the ship to the mainland. It was made out of wood and had handrails on each side of it. Miss Elana went right onto the stairs up onto the deck, so everyone followed her. The stairs were pretty sturdy. They didn't even make a sound when the students, one after another, walked up them.

Once everyone arrived at the deck, Miss Elana told the students to line up again.

"I will now do a roll call again to check whether everyone has managed to follow."

Once again, she went through every name to make sure all the students were there.

After making sure everyone was there, she started talking again.

"Welcome to your home for the next week. On this ship you will have all amenities that you will need. Daily fresh food, water, and even your own private rooms. Beware though, you won't be able to get hot water. Another thing: There is a strict restriction on fires. If one of you gets caught using a fire or making a fire, you will be expelled instantly. Understood?"

The students answered strangely in unison.

"Yes, Ma'am."

Kalmia had the feeling the next week was sure to be an interesting one.

**CHAPTER 14: END**