22 The End?

snow has started to fall and it is winter. 

It is the end of our first school year. I really did a lot of work with Margerie during that time. I think we have now a solid scientific foundation to develop the world's economical structure into the direction, we want it to. 

Tongord is training us really hard, putting his own life on the line in the process. I admire him for his ability. I really want that cheat! It is so unfair! 

Sarda, Senda, Iris and Gabriel somehow ended up forming their own little group during combat lessons. On the other side are me, Celes, Tanja, Sven and Sandra, who is a nice girl, if you get to know her better. I don't think you could call us friends like we are with Tanja. We are more like good acquaintances. 

It's hard to build up any sort of relationship with someone, who you see just for training and who dashes off as soon as the lesson ends. 

Strangely enough the Sarda group made no trouble for us any more and laid low. Celes calls it the silence before the storm, whenever we talk about it. 

Stephen isn't pestering us about gods any more, because we decided to avoid his questions. So he is now helping his sister to put everything to practice, which I taught her. 

Strangely enough Margerie never asked where my knowledge comes from. I guess my parents shut Margerie up by dropping a few heavy words on her parents. 

Everything else follows the daily rhythm of going to school, listening to lessons and going back. 

There is only one little problem! 

We will fail this year! It is the end of us, our parents will turn around our necks and pop off our heads for sure! 

I will fail in the art class and Celes has no chance pass the test in rune magic. Her marks are just too bad! We sure broke our own legs in the beginning of the year by choosing the wrong subjects. 

There is no hope, because we are sure to fail Samarin's random question test too! If we try to talk to him about it, he won't budge. 

Right now I am sitting in the school yard and try to make sense out of this mess. There has to be a possibility. I don't like to just hope for my luck with Samarin. 

Celes ran off somewhere with Tanja. I don't care, I am not her babysitter. 

In the evening there will be the last test and everyone has to bring something of great artistic value to Mrs. Jeniva. It sucks. I have no idea. As the snowflakes dance down from the sky, I start to shape the snow in the school yard with my mind and start to build a snowman. 

It's no problem for me by now, the training with Tongord gave me the necessary experience to use my new body's mana more efficient. 

I let my mind wander and try to drown myself in memories of a better time. I think of a time long ago, when I loved a fine woman and had a big family with her. I think she was the first person, I ever really yearned for whenever we were separated. 

That was before I became a god and when we died after a long and good life, I searched for her for many lives. But how do you find someone again who doesn't remember his past life? 

An impossible task. 

"BOOM!" 

An explosion shakes me out of my dreams and I jump up. That came from the front gate? I run into the direction but I am soon stopped by a stream of screaming people, running my way. 

"The school is under attack! Everyone to the shelters until the security can solve the situation!" A teacher calls out to the students. 

The stream of people carries me away, while I try to find someone I know. Unfortunately I have no idea where the others are. 

I keep looking until I arrive at the shelter, where a few teachers and Tongord are protecting the entrance. 

"Have you seen Celes, Tanja, Margerie and Stephen?" I ask him about the very few people in this school, I have any sort of deeper relationship to. 

I don't ask about Sven. First of all, because I don't really talk to him that much – though he is a good friend of Tanja. Second, because I know that he can take care of himself by running away if he wants to. When Sven starts to run, nobody can catch him, and he has the judgement to do so. 

With the others I am not so sure, they are more the types to fight instead of using their heads and run away. 

"The Cygnus siblings are inside! The others I don't know of!" Tongord answers. 

Well crap, two people to search for. I turn around and want to run off, when Tongord grabs me by the neck. "Where do you think you are going?" 

"To search my fiancee and my friend. And if you try to stop me any longer I smear you over the entire hallway. Should give me enough time to run away." I answer Tongord with a grave expression. 

He drops me. "Come back as soon as you find them. And run if you meet an enemy. You can't survive daggers from the shadows like me." 

I nod and walk off, trying to imagine where Celes and Tanja could be. We were waiting for the last test to start. 

They couldn't have run off too far. I wander the school yard again which is now void of people. I walk very slowly, while I hear the noises of fighting from the gate. 

I hope those two wouldn't be so stupid to run into a full blown fight. The only place I can think of is the cafeteria. Maybe they wanted something to drink? While walking I pick up two fists of snow. 

With a little concentration I melt the snow and freeze it again, forming about twelve icicles. 

I walk into the direction, when I come across a black robed guy, carrying an unconscious student. The guy drops the student at my sight and reaches for something under his robe. 

But it did cost him too much time in any case. I didn't hesitate and send one of my icicles on it's way. It embedded itself into the robed persons left eye, driving all the way to the brain. 

For a second the guy just stands there, until his body registers the loss of control. And then the person just slides down without a sound. 

I walk up to the robed guy and confirm his death. Too often I died, because I thought my enemy was a goner. Check always the enemy first and the ally second! That's an iron rule. Never violate it. 

Then I check on the student. What I find amazes me. An unconscious Iris, but she is not wounded!? Strange, I would have thought the attackers would belong to her faction? So there is another party playing here? 

So what to do? The battle noises from the school gate are dying down. So some side is loosing. Haaah. I hope I wont regret this. 

So I pick up Iris and carry her over the shoulder, while I hold my icicles in front of me with telekinesis. Then I walk into the direction of the cafeteria again. 

Thanks to my bloodline, its not a great bother to carry a person, who is lighter than me, around. 

When I arrive at the correct hallway, I look around the corner and see five persons at the entrance. Two are casting firespells into the cafeteria, while another two are backing them up with shield spells. 

The fifth guy is shooting with something like a musket from time to time. 

Suddenly one of the casters drops backwards and moves no more, a familiar hairpin standing out of his forehead. 

I use the disturbance, jump around the corner and unleash all of my projectiles on them from behind. 

Two are hit in the head and are taken out instantly. A third just takes an icicle to the knee and drops out of his cover and into the gate. Another hairpin ends his life a second later. 

The second shield-caster drops to one knee and looses concentration, because of the icicle, which penetrated his flank. Trying to pull out the icicle, I feel how his mana flow is disturbed and his magical defences evaporate. 

I reach out to his brain with telekinesis and pop some important blood vessels, a very clean and cost effective method to get rid of someone, who lost his magical protection. 

The last one drops to the ground like having his strings cut. 

I walk up to the entrance. "Is it safe in there?" I call out. I don't want to be the next one with a hairpin in his head. 

"Angrod?" I hear Celes voice. "Yes!" I answer. Then I hear how a table is kicked to the side and Celes storms with Tanja in a princess carry around the corner. 

"HEAL HER!" she screams at me with tears in her eyes. Tanja is seriously burned and breathing heavily. 

I put a hand at Tanja's forehead and concentrate, feeling how my mana flows into Tanja's body to repair the damage. I concentrate on her lungs first. Then her upper body. 

After I have depleted three quarters of my mana, I stop. Tanja is now unconscious, but I can see that she can breath easier now. I don't want to become completely defenceless. "For the moment I can't do more. But she is out of immediate danger. At the shelter we can patch her up completely." 

"Thank you." Celes eyes are red from crying. She became very good friends with Tanja, during the last year. 

"Who... Who is that." She asks me while blinking. "Iris, she is unconscious too. I picked her up on the way here." I answer. 

"You should have left her where she was!" Celes is clearly angry. "Hah, I thought that too, but obviously for other reasons than you. I don't think her party is behind this, as she was attacked too. And I don't think that we should hold a little child responsible for anything her parents did or told her to do." I answer. 

After a second Celes nods. "We need to get them away from here. For the others, there is nothing we can do." 

At that I take my first look into the cafeteria and see a few burned bodies. Attendants, students, teachers. Those guys didn't really care whom they killed. 

"Fuckers! …. Follow me. We go to the shelter where Tongord is." I start to walk the way I came back. 

"You are not hurt?", I ask while we walk. Celes shakes her head. Hm. Well that's how the world turns, is it not? 

Celes you should know better than crying for a single person. 

As we walk over the school yard, Celes suddenly holds me back. "Hide!" And we duck behind one of the bushes, which are aligned along the path. 

Eleven black robed guys run past us, into the direction of the fighting at the school gate. After Celes nods we continue on our way without further incident. 

At the shelter, Tongord receives us and takes Iris from my shoulder. As soon, as we are inside the large underground room with other students and teachers, I take another look at Tanja and start to pour my remaining Mana into healing her. 

Soon after this, some healers appear and take care of her from there. I sit down at a wall and just feel tired. I close my eyes, maybe I should dream of better times again? 

"Tongord said you were already at the shelter? But you still ran off to get us?" Celes suddenly asks besides me. 

"Don't get the wrong idea. I am no white knight for the maiden. I just would have felt bad if the few people I know in this world were hurt, while I was sitting around." I answer. 

"Hmp! You are still a stupid hermit." She calls out, but I don't answer. 

And so we sit in the shelter and wait. 

***

The following day, everything is like it never happened. Yesterday, the school was closed for the rest of the day, after the terrorist attack was repelled. All sixty attackers were dead and no sign of their affiliation was found. 

Neither their aim could be discerned. Apparently they just tried to kill as many people as possible, while abducting a few selected individuals. Though they never managed that, because the schools security managed to slow them down until regular forces from the city arrived. 

There were quite a few deaths, but luckily nobody we knew. It was the worst where Celes had been. Apparently a small group had used flying magic to invade from the sky. 

But the school did nothing more than to hold a short minute of silence and a few words for the dead by the director. Apparently the people here are still hardened by the war. 

Celes has already received her negative mark in rune magic. Teacher Mirgurd had no mercy with her. 

The other subjects were no problem for us. 

Right now I am waiting for my negative mark in art. I couldn't think of anything that would please Jeniva. I have to try my luck with Samarin like Celes. 

"Angrod your are positive by a hairs breath. Next time work harder!" Jenvia shoots at me. 

"HUH? But I didn't have ANYTHING!?" I scream baffled. 

"I took your work in the school yard into account." -Jeniva 

"THE SNOWMAN!?" -Me 

"I have watched you while you created that -wonderful ice sculpture- in the school yard. You may be a lost case as a painter. But as a sculptor you may have some talent. Though I think that the use of magic for this is cheating, you shouldn't be self-deprecating yourself. Your work had emotion. Something I unfortunately never felt from your other works." -Jeniva 

"Hoh, I must take a look at that Snowman." Celes grins at me, she has recovered pretty good from yesterdays shock. 

Celes own work for the art class is a nice painting of a landscape with fields and a little house of wood at a lake. It looks very peaceful. 

So after Jeniva declared the end of the class, we went for Samarin's test. 

And for everyone, who wanted to know how Samarin's test worked. After we entered the class it went like this: 

"Soooo.... I don't like tests, so I will make this fast.... Sven, how many suns are there in the sky?" 

"...One?" 

"Wrong, Failed. Margerie? What's the square root of 676?" 

"26" 

"Right, Pass. Stephen? How many times will you take my test, until you give up?" 

"Huh!?" 

"Wrong," 

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!" 

"....Failed. Angrod? Why do you know so much about science and magic?" 

"Because I am much much older than you mwhahaha!" 

"....Failed." 

"What?" 

"Celes? What is the annual income of Stricc and Tirna together?" 

"2.345.678.786 Crown Coins this year!" 

"...." 

"YOU DIDN'T EVEN KNOW, YOU JUST WANTED TO BAFFLE ME!!!!!!" 

"Pass." 

And that's how Celes and I somehow managed to pass our first school-year. After saying our goodbyes to everyone, I leave the class and walk off into the direction of the school gate. 

But Celes takes another corner. "Hey, Rose and the car are waiting!" I follow her. 

"I know! But I want to see the snowman!", before I can stop her, Celes runs off onto the school yard. 

I sigh and follow her, to take a look at the creation I made so absent mindedly. Ah. Now I remember, what I thought about, when I created it. 

On the school yard are a few people, who are gaping at a wonderful ice-sculpture of a whole family in life-size. A bearded man holds a small child up in the air. Both are laughing. A beautiful woman with an infant in her arms is smiling at them. She has long hair, which looks like it is waving in the wind.

A small girl tugs at her skirt. They look like a happy family of ordinary people, who don't have to worry about a thing in the whole world. Just being happy to be together. 

It is almost as if you could see a field and the wonderful nature around them. If you watch a little longer, you think they could start to move any second. 

Hmmm. A hopeless memory, nothing more. 

"Angrod? Who is that?" Celes asks 

"Nobody... just... a wonderful, lost dream" 

I turn around and walk into the direction of the car. 

But Celes still stands there, staring at a long forgotten memory.