Seth followed behind his brothers in slow, easy steps. The pain in his side never let up and each step was a strained limp, not too pronounced, but obvious enough to know he hurt in more places than just his knee. The trip was not long but it was considerable. They moved through a simple path of clean dirt cleared between patches of grass.
Moving quietly, he reassessed the buildings around him. What he had once seen in an unlit morning wasn’t so different in a darkening evening. The buildings still bore the same dark visage as though carved from a great black stone and never painted. They passed the occasional group of older boys sparring with real swords with sharpened edges even now. They seemed at odd ease with the weapons. And even in passing, he spotted the occasional injuries here and there. He found himself nigh repulsed at the barbaric sense of training. But this was to be his life now. He knew that as much as he knew the buildings were black.
Another addition to the ambience of the seminary were the trees. Each one was a structure of solid growth, some small and others larger than life. Most of the larger ones stood alone, single sovereigns in their own spot of small fields with dark barks and green leaves. The littler ones often shared a space, standing side by side with an odd audacity—as if they had merely sprouted there of their own accord, never planted by anyone, looming, waiting for their turn to become larger than life.
Dinner was held in a dining hall long enough to hold over five hundred people. And it did. It was a long and wide building of black upholding the monotony of the seminary buildings. It had two entrances Seth noted easily. They were large enough to be designed for double-doors but no doors were attached to them. From the way they were fashioned, it seemed there had never been an intention for doors in the first place. Their windows followed the exact same pattern; rectangular holes in the wall with neither louvre nor pane—nothing to keep the air out.
The tables, long as a man placed thrice upon himself from head to feet, were filled with dishes of different kinds that made Seth’s meals in confinement naught but the satisfaction of the poor. There was more meat than anything else and he had to fight himself to keep from drooling. Each of these tables were occupied by roughly ten children, their ages varying significantly, and numbers dwindling the farther away from the door the tables went. It took Seth only a moment to realize he and his eleven companions were not the only new children in the seminary.
“They bring us from all over the world,” someone said, as if knowing his thoughts.
Seth turned to the voice, looking away from the hall and mountains of food that adorned all the tables—theirs included—and found the boy with hair the color of wheat and a hipless sway. His mind bickered between each other, whispering about catalogues he knew nothing about. In the end one of them demanded his attention.
Nope, it thought. We have no idea what his name is and are certain we’ve never heard it.
Seth caught himself before he could reply them. What had led them to think he had wanted the boy’s name? What had led them to think he wanted to be social?
Because they are to be our brothers? Another mind hazarded a guess.
Seth shook his head. Whatever the seminary wanted him to believe, it did not change the fact that he had only three brothers, one of which he could never bring himself to like even before he had done what he had done with Natalie.
He kissed our friend, a mind mumbled sardonically. Get over it.
A mild annoyance boiled within Seth but he gave it no power. He would get over it one day, but that day was not today.
“I don’t think he cares, Barnabas,” someone else offered.
Seth turned his attention to the new boy and found a ginger with skin that almost seemed reddened. He cocked his head to the side as he observed the boy.
The boy was seated now which made guessing at his height difficult. What he did note was that the boy was probably a few kilograms heavier than he was. Most likely the boy had been the lightest person in the group before his arrival. From the distance between them, he couldn’t make out the color of the boy’s eyes but he was fairly certain it was something dark. He wondered what they would become when he absorbed his first soul fragment.
“Don’t mind Forlorn over there,” Barnabas said. “He’s just always in a bad mood on account of being the smallest here.”
Forlorn pointed a table spoon at Seth but addressed Barnabas. “Al Jabari over there’s the small one now, mind you.” Then he turned his gaze to Seth. “What are you, anyway? Twelve, eleven? I thought I heard the seminary doesn’t take children so young, or was that a lie?”
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Barnabas chuckled before nudging Seth with his shoulder. “Told you, didn’t I? He’s always in a bad mood.”
We take it it’s cause of his name, one of Seth’s minds laughed. We can only imagine why his parents would do such a thing to him.
“Why don’t you have a seat, Jabari,” Barnabas offered, taking one of his own. “My dad always said if there’s food in front of you, then you best eat, because you don’t know when you’ll see the next one.”
“That,” Forlorn said with a smirk, ripping a leg from the massive roasted turkey at the center of the table, “is the thinking of the poor. Were you poor, Barnabas?”
Seth was watching Barnabas from the edge of his vision and knew the boy had bristled at the question. He was not the only one that noticed because Forlorn laughed, his voice almost lost in the cacophony of conversations ever effervescent in the dining hall.
“Poor people are always glad to be a part of the seminary on account of nothing else being out there for them,” Forlorn continued, then sighed a moment after, before taking another bite of his turkey leg. “No matter. Maybe I can convince my people to take you with me when they come for me. All you have to do is serve properly.”
When Barnabas bristled again, there was no one that didn’t notice it.
“Forlorn,” the boy named Fin said from his place at the edge of the table, drawing attention to himself, the blood from the injury on his head was now dry. “Pitifully sad and abandoned or lonely.”
“Alternate meaning,” the boy who’d practiced beside the fat boy with an unyielding grace added, without looking up from his civilized meal setting. “An aim or endeavor unlikely to succeed or be fulfilled.”
Forlorn gnashed his teeth behind closed lips. “Is this how it’s going to be at all times, Jason?” he snarled at the second boy. “Taking sides and ostracizing the little guy? Tell me now so I know who I have to gut.”
The boy, Jason, apparently, merely shook his head.
“There are eleven of us here, Forlorn,” another child, this one sporting a military cut of black hair with a dot of a scar beneath his left eye said. “You do not want to be making threats at any of us if you can’t beat us all.”
Forlorn tensed at the boy’s words and his hold on his spoon tightened. “Come on then, I’ll take you all on.”
Barnabas scoffed, stacking his plate with a variety of food. “Fat chance. New guy over here stopped one of Reverend Igor’s strikes on his first day while we’ve been failing for six. He’ll probably break you with that stance of his.”
“He was just lucky,” Forlorn mumbled.
Seth almost smirked at the lack of confidence in the words. The boy was like Jeremiah in a way, boastful and arrogant with nothing but his family’s authority to back it all up, spoiled to literal rot. It made him curious of what family he came from. How important they were.
The other boy that had spoken with a scar beneath his eye came to memory and he remembered the boy had fallen to only one of Igor’s strike. Salem, Igor had called him.
“Leave it, Forlorn,” Fin said, silencing the boy.
All this Seth watched quietly as he took a seat somewhere away from Barnabas till his minds drew his attention to the boy to his side.
He turned his head and found the fat boy staring at him without pretense.
Now that he was this close, he noticed the boy well. He was actually nothing unique. The only thing that made him different was the color of his skin which was a light brown. He had brown eyes much like what he'd had in the past: muddy and mundane. He had no scars to mark his face, only a mild infestation of acne that didn’t truly dent his chubby cheeks. But he wasn’t cute, not as chubby children tend to be. If anything, he was just plain.
“Did you know,” the boy whispered to him now that he had his attention, as if trying to ensure the others didn’t hear him, “that rumor has it you’ve actually been in the seminary for more than…” he frowned, paused in confusion. “What’s destitute mean?” he asked abruptly.
Something’s not right with this kid, one of Seth’s minds thought.
That’s rich coming from us, another replied.
“Destitute,” Seth replied, ignoring them, “means someone poor and unable to take care of himself.”
“Oh,” the boy mumbled in realization. “Rumor says you were poor and unable to take care of yourself since you’ve been in the seminary for the past four days.” He leaned in closer, voice dropping lower. “Is it true?”
Seth watched the boy curiously, wondering if he was serious. It seemed that somehow word of him had gotten out without the priests knowing. Or perhaps they didn’t even care. Though he doubted the latter.
Though it took him only a moment to realize the fat boy held no mean intent. He could see the innocent naiveté in the boy’s eyes and knew the child would believe anything he said at this moment, so he gave the boy an answer.
“I had everything I needed,” he whispered back, conspiratorial. “So I wasn’t destitute.”
“Not this bullshit again,” someone spat from across the table.
“Stop bothering the new kid with your nonsense, Timehi… Timileya…” the new interruption made a guttural sound of annoyance before snorting in disgust. “Fucking African names and their difficulty. Just shut it, Tim.”
“Not Tim,” the fat boy mumbled timidly, almost to himself.
Seth turned his attention to the new gap toothed kid at the same time one of his minds thought: His name is Borriovani. We’ve decided we don’t like him so we’re sticking with new kid over here.
Seth frowned at that. “And how do you know his name?” he asked it in a mumble.
They’ve been talking since we sat down.
“I haven’t been listening, though.”
Well we have, even if we don’t notice.
“What’s that?” Borriovani asked. “I didn’t hear you.”
Seth waved the boy away with an apology. “Sorry, was just trying to tell him something.”
“Well, don’t waste your time on him. All he does is spread rumors.”
Yes, Seth’s mind thought.
But if the rumors the boy tended to spread were anything like this one, it made the boy a special kind of dangerous.
He didn’t answer Borriovani though, instead, turning back to the fat boy, he asked: “What’s your name, exactly?”
The boy mumbled something he didn’t quite catch and he was forced to ask again while Borriovani continued to glare.
“Timilehin Adio,” the boy repeated.
That was definitely an odd name.