Falke der Herrscher's Story

One moment he was attempting to listen and make sense of what he was being told by their instructor, Ryou, as he spoke of the month warriors being infestations of nature, and that their spirits (but not their physical selves) would have immortality endowed on them, so as a test they were supposed to jump off the cliff into the water below to cleanse themselves and be 're-born'. The next... The noise erupting around him was rather disconcerting, enough so that he took a hesitant step backwards to assess the situation ahead. Okay, so, Ryou had jumped off himself. Check, another person he wasn't quite sure about to the unfortunately growing list once they'd arrived on Aires. One teen, a girl, was simply ecstatic and more than ready to jump off the waterfall to the pool below, and did so a moment not that much later, the only as of yet not to have someone else drag them over. Another check, oh bother. Others where rightly frightened and dubbed others that where excited about doing this as thoroughly insane, and he tended to agree with that notion, but they would jump off as asked and survive with dinner for the next day. And a few more simply stated that they couldn't swim (two where rather terrified at the prospect, one ran off and the other was dragged over the edge by another). Falke was grateful for his silence then, and his tendency to stick at the very back of any group. No one turned around and noted his often times wordless presence, or preceded to drag him by the wrist over the cliff (the last time he'd been dragged by a stranger, not Dorian's fault however, to be saved from a monster, he had ended up in this mess in the first place thank you very much). He stubbornly ignored Karma's jibes, waiting for what everyone else had decided to do and had done. Not trying to be defiant, so much as trying to give himself more time to think. And the blabbering people, rushing water pounding, etc, was certainly a distraction.

His nostrils flared as he snorted uneasily in response to Haru's short remark of only having three minutes remaining to jump off the cliff. Slowly, he edged forward, until the roar of the waterfall cascading down the cliff in front of him became an uncomfortable buzzing in his ears. He hesitantly stubbed his toe against the crumbling edge, making sure that he was indeed at the very edge. Alright. To jump off a cliff or not? Time to decide. Crows... His head said no way. He shouldn't jump off a bloody cliff after bloody insane people, period. And he had never been taught how to swim anyhow, because of his blindness. Honestly, would someone come and save him whilst he was drowning when this was an test? Probably they would, but it was still not a good idea to trust people so easily this early in the game. His stomach said yes, however. The meager bag of dried jerky and a small loaf of bread he'd bought at the towns, had got him though until now. But if he had another dinner/breakfast like that, or not one at all, he was pretty certain his stomach was going to kill him. And his heart, well, it was fluttering so fast and completely useless in trying to decide what he should do. 'Knowledge' was his /power/? Right. Sure... If he was going to regret this, well, he'd regret it. But he wasn't frightened, and well, here goes nothing. With seconds to spare on Haru's time limit, he steeled himself and leapt off the edge.

Argh! He didn't expect the fall to be so far, and that he would gather so much speed before ultimately crashing into the pool, but he did have a moment to realize why his heart had been fluttering so, it was panicking, even though his brain didn't quite pick up on that feeling until after he'd committed the jump. The cold of water as he plunged into it shocked him enough to take in a startled breath of the very water surrounding him, and not the blessed oxygen he'd been hoping for. A moment of struggle, flailing his limbs about like mad, and amazingly found the surface. He gasped laboriously a breath of fresh air, nearly sinking under again, but he kicked his legs a little more strongly. Alright, he could do this, maybe. Now where was the shore? Sightless eyes where rounder than they'd ever been, trying desperately to see what they could not. But the water humming in his ears thankfully made it possible for him to decide where the waterfall was and where the shore was, determined not to drown, he than swam (or awkward flailing in his case, more or less) in the direction he assumed shore was. And he made it, barely. He dragged himself unto the sand, dog tired and still coughing unwanted water from his lungs from the few times he'd unfortunately gone back under on the way there. Whew. Okay, then. He'd taught himself how to swim, hadn't drowned and survived without help from someone else; those were a few accomplishments, here went nothing indeed. Wearily he pulled himself up from his hands and knees to a crouch, shaking his soaking hair like a shaggy dog. Distantly he heard others talking down the beach (without being able to see where everyone else was gathering, he'd ended up farther away from them all), but didn't quite feel like getting to his feet yet and making his way over to them. Not quite sure his heart, and head had recovered yet, but his stomach was happy at least.

Finally convinced everything was intact, Falke wearily stood fully upright. His head throbbed from a couple repeated episodes of lack of oxygen for a few moments at a time, and was quite certain that he was a fool or insane like the rest them (but he ignored those thoughts more or less, for now). His heart pumped in time like it should, and stopped it's useless panic fluttering nonsense. His stomach growled softly, hungry but satisfied it would be fed something hopefully presently. He shook his entire body again fiercely, his hair comically flapping like a shaggy dog through the the air and on his forehead, flinging water off but not making much headway on the extra twenty pounds that must have soaked into his black turtle-neck sweater. 'You alright there?' He kept himself from letting out a squeak that wouldn't have been labeled particular boyish sounding, let alone manly, thankfully, but his whole body twitched in a surprised reaction to the other guardian, the mentor that was supposed to teach them the whole being month warriors thing, Ryou, came over to check on him where he had washed ashore away from the others. He bobbed his head in the general direction the voice had issued forth from, softly voicing, "Yes, I'm fine." Well he was fine, shaken but fine, until a suffocating mass was suddenly tossed onto him, and wrapped around his head, startled he gasped indignantly, hands flashing up to rip off this offending object off. Oh. Just a towel. Even over the waterfall roaring across the pool away, he heard Ryou's hardly soft chuckling, and mentioning that it was time to head back to the Academy, come on, hurry up, and follow. Falke wasn't one to grumble, but he certainly growled some unsaid things in his mother tongue in his head. Busily he rubbed the towel through his hair and dried the miniature rivers running down his sharp facial plane, and deemed at this point it was a useless attempt to dry his sweater anytime soon so he shrugged it off with a mild struggle and carried it in his arms along with the towel. Ignoring the uncomfortable stickiness and coolness of the blue dress-shirt he'd worn underneath his outer layer, reluctantly picking up his feet and followed as told, the rest of the group, back up to the Academy.

The walk back had dried his shirt more or less, the dampness in the material still clung slightly to his lean frame, making it obvious to the fact that he hadn't quite hit that last growth spurt he needed before filling out like he should fully and his broad shoulders seemed rather awkward currently. He rested the towel and sweater in his lap, as he seated himself at the end of the table, whichever side, next to whoever, he'd bumped into firstly with his foot. Dinner was meek. But it was better than nothing. He grabbed a single bread roll for himself, eating it quickly enough, and once finished rose and walked out the door of the dining hall. He had no qualms about the people themselves, or well, he didn't particularly want to listen to others blabber on or be forced into talking to not be a conversation loner (or loser, take your pick). Gingerly, he moved unsteadily forward, tired (It had been a long day. Monsters, taken from home, powers, jumping off a waterfall for the first test, and learning how to swim; yes, that qualified as being a day that wore him thin, and too bad it wasn't going to get much better from here out because of 'Destiny') and unsure of his surroundings. Trying to find his way around this new environment, was like trying to find a needle in a hay-stack. But he managed to make it to where he heard the tinkling of the fountain, and from there made his way to the dorm, but finding which one was his room? Right... He managed to haul on the breaks, and avoid crashing into the gentlemanly stranger from the park the day before, Dorian was the fellow's name he believed, who was lingering the hallway and not in his room. Hadn't he left the dining hall even before he himself? Huh. He raised a eyebrow, head tilted slightly, curiously, but he remained quiet so far. It wasn't his place or in his character to question another, thank you very much, and he wasn't going to now. Although, perhaps Dorian knew which room Falke had claimed earlier by blundering into first? Maybe...

Dorian couldn't decide if he was surprised or not when Falke entered the first floor of the dorm. On one had, he had been gone for a while and Falke didn't seem the type of idly chatter for forever, especially with the odd-ball group that made up the month warriors, but he hadn't expected to see anyone back just yet. Well, at least it was one of the teammates he could stand.
"Hey," He said in greeting, rubbing his eyes tiredly. The events of the day were just hitting him, between not sleeping well last night, arriving at the Academy, dealing with his teammates, and literally jumping off of a waterfall, he was ready to go to bed, uncomfortable rooms or not.
"I'm going to go to bed," Dorian said in an attempt to not just walk off. Then, after another thought, added, "Your room's to your left. The door's open." And with that he retreated to his own room, hoping to get some rest before the next day. Who knows what Ryou had in store for them?

The next six days were nothing short of pure torture for the unskilled, untrained month warriors. Ryou had definitely not been lying when he said he wouldn't be giving them special treatment. From sunup to sundown, the new month warriors were put through a series of physically demanding exercises, running up and down the Academy's mountain, climbing steep rock walls, sparring(and always, always losing) with higher-ranked Academy members. The activities were occasionally modified for different month warriors- mostly by making things a little easier for Maris since she was so small- but not by much. There were group activities as well that collapsed within the first ten minutes because none of them managed to work together.
Ryou was not impressed. He didn't give up on them, didn't berate them, but he was clearly not pleased with what he had to work with. They were flabby, weak, and spoiled Earthlings in comparison to the hard-working students already attending the Academy. Even Dorian, who did have some fighting abilities and was one of the more physically fit of the group, could barely finish most of the exercises, so it was impossible to imagine any of the others doing much better. Some people collapsed on the mountain runs, some refused to climb or do the exercises, they refused to work together and, when they did, it dissolved into petty squabbles and people refusing to listen to each other.
At the end of the week, no one had improved much if at all. Really, half of them refused to do what they were told, so there was no surprise there.

Dorian was exhausted. Not only that, but he was sore, his very bones seeming to ache after the physically demanding week, and he was almost completely fed up with not only this training but most of his so-called team. There wasn't much time for bonding since, after the first day when that had dissolved into an argument and then an awkward silence Ryou had called it off for the week, and they were all generally too tired at the end of the day to do much more than finish dinner(where they were given some sympathetic looks by students since they'd all been where the month warriors were) and go to bed. There were a few people he kind of liked. Tallyho, Nia, Autumn, Falke, maybe one or two others... But, on the whole, he hadn't really gotten very close to anyone. On another note, he hadn't seen the man from the armory since that night.
On the morning of the seventh day, Dorian pulled himself slowly to his feet, body aching, and made his way to the court yard where Ryou was standing. Ryou, surprisingly, seemed more relaxed today than he had been since the first day of training.

Falke greeted Dorian in turn with a simple, "Hello." Stifling a yawn himself by biting his lip, feeling just plain wrung out by the events of the day. As the other mentioned heading off to bed, he dipped his head slightly with an acknowledging nod and a simple, if non-verbal way of bidding the other boy goodnight. The words following the last statement, surprised him enough that he blinked blearily stunned. Okay. That was... He felt his shoulders drop suddenly, relieved. Even though he particularly disliked his disability if only being slightly noted verbally most of the time, he wasn't one to throw a fuss and truthfully he was thankful that Dorian helping out. "Thank you, and... Good night." He hummed softly, politely. Turning to the left, walking through the open door and gently shut it behind him. Before flopping down on the uncomfortable floor, hoping for some rest before the 'morrow came, and the 'real training' began....

The last six days where absolute terror, and nothing short of it. His lack of gracefulness, coordination, and knowing exactly where he was going by sight, played a part in sometimes not being able to finish the tasks they'd been given at times or mostly just finishing them barely (after running into things, or tripping and falling a great many names, or...). But despite the near constantly throbbing and aching of bones and muscles, he believed himself to be doing a little better each day, or at least had to believe that to keep his sanity this far into the game (completely ignoring the fact so far that their so called 'team', wasn't able to function as one, or any time soon at that it seemed). On the seventh day, Falke awoke early just like he did every other morning, no matter how late it had been or how much stressful work they'd gone through he just woke up right on dot. He slowly got dressed, struggling on a shirt and stuffing on a pair of leather boots he'd bought in the town a week ago exactly, as he waited quietly in his little room for others to start moving and start heading out before he himself followed to the fountain they met at every morning before going out to complete the brutal training once again for the seventh day in a row. However he was surprised, if feeling mildly relieved, when they where told that they weren't doing a training lesson today. Okay, fine. The catch? Ah. A history lesson didn't sound too bad, and well, he was all for getting to know Aires a little better, and keeping out of those 'troublesome situations' that could pop up with the natives, all the better for keeping alive certainly.

Falke sat in the first seat he ran into upon coming through the door. Yes. Literally. It wasn't that he was trying to be defiant and not sit up closer to the front, or at the very least besides some of the more tolerable of the group's members, and/or wanted to sit in the back being a loner, it was... It was just easier that way. Simple as that. As he eased down into his seat, he tilted his head listening as the door re-opened and a person with a soft, elegant tread strode in and up to the front, stood their for a moment (likely, he assumed, sizing up the lot of them), before speaking. He listened quietly, politely, and most of all - respectfully. It was nice to have a break from the grueling days of work, but he was keen on still learning this history lesson, and quite possibly using it to save his neck later on.

Ji Na was rather pleased. Though she had heard the worst of the group from the other students and Ryou himself, it was nice to see that they weren’t a complete disaster. At least yet.
“I suppose that the first things I should go over are the continents of Aires. Well there are eight to be exact.”
She took a wide scroll from the desk, and casually held one end, letting the other end drop to the floor. On the withered paper was a crus map of Aires drawn with ink with thick lines for the edges of the continents and idle waves for the oceans.
“I will start with the rose kingdom,” she said as she pointed to a continent that was tucked on the top left corner of the map. “The rose kingdom has a very grassy, smooth terrain. And while there aren’t really mountains, there are plenty of hills. As for the gender roles, women tend to have moderate power. But in politics and general custom, men are considered superior. The people there usually have very white skin, with birdish noses. They tend to have lighter hair colors, like blonde and red, and their eye colors can range from blue to green. Politically, the R.K is a strict monarchy, and economically the continent is one of the most well off, being every wealthy. Next there is Constance,” she pointed to a smaller piece of land immediately superior to the rose kingdom. “Constance is extremely wet. There are multiple small bodies of water, and swampy grasslands. An interesting note on the gender dynamic in Constance is that women tend to have a larger significance than men. When people trace their ancestry, they follow their mother’s line rather than their father’s. The people there also tend to be people of mixed ancestry between the R.K and solace. With tan to olive skin, and multiple hair colors including dark ones. However unlike the R.K, officials are chosen through election. Economically, Constance has a moderate standing.”
Ji Na pointed to a large body of land that had a tornado-like shape, “Solace has flat land and high, dry grass, with a few mountain ranges. This is where we are now. In Solace men and women tend to be equal because this is an agricultural place. The people here are either immigrants from the rose kingdom, natives from here with tan skin and long, black hair, or ancestors of both of those heritages. The government and the church go hand in hand, as the head of the church is also the head of the military. The economy here is also quite moderate.”
Ji Na then pointed to a small continent right beside Solace and Constance, “This is Hales. It is pretty cold, and it snows often. It also has a drastic change in landscape because there are both high mountains and very flat land. Men and women tend to be equal here also. People here tend to have pale skin, sunken eyes, dark eyes and hair, and long noses. Hales is also a monarchy, and the economy is moderate.
Next the young woman pointed to the smallest continent—a small cluster of islands located most centrally on the map. “This continent it the called the Trading Islands because it has the best geographic location for all peoples around the world to come and exchange goods. The area is basically a series of extremely small sand islands with manmade docks expanding them. Because of the high pirate activity, men and women have the right to do just about anything, making them equal, and also makes their government totally free. The native people there tend to have deep brown to very light skin. However most have fine black hair and tend to be rather petit. Because merchants from other continents circulate currency and goods to other merchants from other places, and the Trading Island does not have a government to implement taxes, the economical standard there is well under average.”
Ji Na pointed to the long continent towards the top right of the map. “This is Noman’sland. Nomans’land is heavily populated by thick, tropical rain forests. The weather is often hot, and humid. Men are particularly dominant as they rule the tribes, but women still have respected roles as medicine women and village elders. The people tend to have dark skin, with full features. Their hair is black usually though sometimes people may have brown hair, and in almost all cases their hair is extremely curly. The western part of Noman’sland has been “civilized” by the Rose kingdom. So the people there follow the laws of the Rose kingdom and follow the monarchy under the supervision of ambassadors sent there. The eastern part of Noman’sland still follows its true customs and uses the setup of tribes, with their own alliances and wars, and whatnot. On the eastern side there is no metal currency, as the tribes only utilize trade. “
Ji Na then pointed to the far east, “Then there is Eastern Isle. I’m not sure if you’ve met Mr. Vo, but of us are from this are from this area. Eastern Isle is collectively mountainous, and riddled with jungles. As for gender roles, the women are generally submissive, while the men are dominant. The people there have skin tones that range from tan to very light, and most, if not all of them have thick black hair. While Eastern Isle does have an emperor, he is a figurehead, as the continent is actually run by the military. Economically, the continent is very wealthy; however that is mostly in the north. In the south, the people are mostly laborers and in poverty.”
Ji Na sighed. She finally pointed to the last continent with was in between Hales and the Eastern Isle. “Finally we have Ira. Ira is very dry, with plenty of deserts. Men are aggressively dominant there. The people there tend to have brownish skin, long ears, and dark eyes. The people are all rather tall. Ira actually has a total of three different monarchies which causes internal strife. However collectively, the continent tends to remain rather wealthy.”
Ji Na looked over the group, hoping that they didn’t fall asleep.
“Any questions?”

Mori turned to Jackson sharply, red eyes once again narrowed in anger. Either he was generally an irritable child or Jackson just had that ability to make people angry. Probably a bit of both in this case.
"I don't know. You're just a teenager. How can you be so annoying?" He sneered, throwing Jackson's words right back at him, before disappearing in the crowd of students clamoring for their food.

After the food was passed out and everyone had eaten their fill, all of the group sat haphazardly around the crackling fire as the pale moon's light cast an eerie glow over the pond. Ryou sat closest to the fire, carefully feeding it dry branches causing sparks to fly up from the flames and into the air like a miniature fireworks display.
"Have I told the story of Ymedaca lately?" Ryou's voice was low, as if he did not wish to break the comfortable silence. There were little pockets of chuckles and murmurs answering him in the negative.
"It all began, long, long ago, in distant lands that have long since been forgotten. There was a creature called Monkey wandering the world, looking for his family...."
Ryou told the story of Monkey who had driven his family away with his gold-lust, only to realize that riches were nothing without people to share it with. So, he began to search for his family. For years and years he traveled, never giving up, until one day he stumbled upon the temple of Ymedaca, a place where you were supposed to find the answer to your heart's desire, but there was no one there, so Monkey decided to wait to see if someone would show up and help him.
Slowly, other pilgrims began to arrive; beautiful Lily came first, searching for a way to help people. Monkey, desperate for company, acted as the temple priest and offered her the idea of healing. The Lily was thrilled by the idea and decided to stay at the temple of Ymedaca and use its resources to become a healer.
The next arrivals were a wooden toy soldier looking for strength and a raven asking for power. Although Monkey was not as lonely as he had been before, he still wanted more company, so once more he played the part of the temple priest and informed them that to become strong and powerful, one must not only want to protect themselves, but also others. Like the Lily, the Toy Soldier and the Raven decided to stay and protect the temple and gain the strength and power that they desired.
Another day a rabbit came asking for a way to survive in such a dangerous world. Monkey offered him all of the temple's scrolls and said that, while Rabbit may not be powerful or strong, with intelligence, he could outsmart even the strongest opponent.
Soon, others joined the Temple of Ymedaca and, as the years wore on, Monkey felt guilty that he had tricked so many people. So, one day he approached the other pilgrims and told them the truth, saying that the temple did not really work, it had only been Monkey offering advice to help.
To his surprise, the other pilgrims disagreed. They had all gotten what they most desired from the Temple.
'But what about me?' Cried Monkey. 'I did not get my heart's desire!'
'Yes, you did,' Said the Lily.
'We're your family now,' Said the Rabbit, and everyone wholeheartedly agreed.
"So, maybe the Temple of Ymedaca had some real magic," Hummed Ryou as he pulled the story to a close. "Or maybe it was just the magic of the pilgrims themselves that made all of their strongest desires come true."
Ryou was a gifted storyteller, perhaps due in part to his flair for the dramatics, and it was nice, Dorian realized. For this entire evening, he was almost able to forget the troubles heaped upon all of them in the past week.
The fire crackled on as someone else began to tell a story, sparks fluttering high into the night air.

Dorian would like to say that he improved over the next few months. He would have liked to say that, yes, training was no problem at all. However, that would be an absolute lie. Maybe they hadn't progressed at all(it certainly felt that way), or perhaps the training had evolved with their skills. Whatever it was, Dorian did not feel as he or any of the month warrior team had made any improvement whatsoever.
He found himself around more of the other month warriors on a daily basis now. Tallyho was almost always good company, in part because she didn't try to make him talk and wasn't obnoxious. He liked Nia well enough, a good counter-point to the almost sickeningly sweet antics of some of the other month warriors. He also found himself hanging around and thereby learning more about Autumn than he probably wanted to know. He had to admit, he had been mildly disturbed the first time she'd pulled out a deck of tarot cards and attempted to tell his fortune. Now it was just sort of annoying.
There were others, of course, that he talked a bit more to- Rajani, for example, and Falke, and he only really avoided Jackson, but that was more due to the other boy's general bratty behavior.
Outside of the month warrior team, much like Tallyho's affection for Ji Na, Dorian found himself hanging around Dae and, by extension, Liam and Mori. Dae was, he learned, a very laid-back individual, happy to just go with the flow, and, even when someone was being terribly obnoxious, the knight was able to laugh it off with ease. Liam was almost as mysterious as when they'd first met- yes, he was polite and sounded terribly amused, especially when someone did something stupid, but he always had that sort of half-smile plastered on his face. Mori, for his part, was almost as childish as Jackson. Yes, he was brilliant, but he had a quick temper and a sharp tongue. When Dorian had the chance to hang around Dae, with or without Liam and Mori, they would never do much; maybe just relax by the lake, or Dorian could watch them train, which was definitely a sight to see, if the day was dragging on long enough.

Dae was the only elite from the Academy who had joined the other students on that night's excursion and seemed eager for a little fun, and, seeing some of the newer students lingering decided to step in.
"There's a fantastic tavern around here, yeah? You guys can come with if you've nothing better to do," The knight offered before making his way away from the center of the town. Dorian, who really had nothing better to do, followed along.
The tavern he led them to was filled with lights and a jovial atmosphere, music pulsating from the large, wooden building. Inside there were crowds of people either dancing, chatting, or drinking their fill around the bar.

Ryou let a satisfied sigh once Mr. Vo disappeared with a majority of his students. He loved them, he'd do anything for them, but that didn't mean he didn't appreciate a little time away from them. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right? With that thought in mind, he left the chilly court yard, retreating back towards the Academy. He slid the door open before quickly closing it behind himself, as if locking out the night's chill.

Before the fireballs and explosions, Falke had enjoyed a rather pleasant day. It wasn’t without work however, Karma herself had made that very clear between attempting to decide if their bones would be broken or skulls crushed whilst thinking out loud before sending them off to do the various tasks that needed doing in preparation for the festivities of Moon Day later that evening. But at the very least it was an honest break in the sweaty, sometimes bloody, grueling training that had become a fact of life over the months they’d been stuck here because of ‘destiny’, that had grown ever tougher as each day went by. His sore muscles, screaming joints, and aching bones, rejoiced heartily. Falke had been sent with a ragtag group that went up and down the mountain, more times than he cared to count (but it was at a far more sedate pace, and on the actual road), with Mr. Vo and his wagon pulled by the team of oxen, picking up from the town any last minute supplies, decorations, and food, that the Academy needed for the Moon Day celebrations. He found it surprisingly an easy task when you got down to it, sure many hands can make lighter work, but boxes that he might have had trouble lifting and moving before hardly gave him any trouble but for a grunt of effort to pick it up off the ground and take it to the cart. Well, there seemed to be one positive thing about the training, he supposed. And there was others he could name if he thought about them of course, like; being able to run faster and farther, how to duck more effectively and quickly from branches, etc. However he wasn’t vain like some of the girls in his party seemed to be, that were ecstatic about the pounds they’d lost and how there curves fit them beautifully now. Hah, if anything in that aspect Falke had lost some of the baby fat that had given him his boyish qualities and had attained a gauntness of features that portrayed him rugged and angular at the same time, handsome in his own right but certainly not the standards women dreamed of.

Once the last load arrived, was unloaded, and delivered to whomever needed it, was Falke sent away to get ready for the festival. Like the others, his nice clothes came from the nearest village; bought with Ryou’s insistence that they would need something nice to wear eventually, and helpfully chosen by a random female member of the Academy that had been passing by the store and had seen him struggling to pick something ‘right’ without being able to see what it was. The outfit was a pair of black pants, with a dark red long-sleeved shirt that was styled to look either like something a young noble-man (or a pirate) of the Rose Kingdom might wear. It certainly wasn’t all that fancy, the fabric rough and itchy in places with a feeling to it that it’d already been worn and well used a long time before he’d acquired it, but it was the fanciness thing that he now owned and he didn’t look half bad in it either. He left his dorm room, and with extreme care managed to wiggle himself out of the crowd that would’ve dragged him into the midst of the rest of the students milling about excitedly waiting for the festivities to start. Pausing a moment to rest along the length of a wall, idly seeming to watch the many others of the Academy swirling around in the finery of their respective homelands, and quite content that he wasn’t stuck in the middle of it. Socializing would come eventually, but he enjoyed the peace he had while it lasted.

Until a muffled roar of an explosion sounded off at the far reaches of the Academy echoed over even the conversation and laughter of those gathered, everyone froze like frightened hares, talk died and eyes widened. Falke found himself, not daring to move, and like everyone else wondering what that was, and what was happening. A second explosion shortly followed the first, close enough to now see the spurt of fire reaching skywards and black smoke pouring out, and hear the coughing roar of flames raging through the wooden building the explosion had started it at. At that the crowd panicked, Falke was yet again grateful that he’d stayed against the wall, and wasn’t dragged into the running about mass that were screaming warnings or cries of disbelief and fear that were lost into mangled nonsense at the sound of yet another explosion. This one was the closest yet, he could feel the heat of the flames uncomfortably close and the smoke, black and thick, poured into the air blocking sight and clogging lungs alike, and small debris (mostly splinters and the like from the ruined building) struck hard. Falke moved then, as quickly as he could and a whole lot more cautiously, staying alongside the wall, ducking his head down lower in an attempt to get out of the just strictly smoke and sucked in what air he could (wincing as superheated air burned deep into his chest), to get away from near the site of the third explosion slowly but surely.