Avia Academy

🌊Chapter Six: Choreography and Chaos

Claire hated school.

Well, no, that's not quite fair. Claire loved being at school. She loved wearing Avia's pretty white pleated skirt and short sleeved blazer with its blue silk edges. She loved wandering the halls, carrying her books, watching brown and black banded students bow out of her way as she passed.

She loved daily lunch and dinner meet-ups with Kayah and Orpheus and Alison, the later of which started to grow on her, and the first of which was finally being kind. She loved weekends when she got the dorm all to herself because that redhead would drag Sylva back to Helion.

Claire did not, however, love the actual classes. That's the problem with Elemei who can't reliably control their element... they fail tests. Frequently and spectacularly. It wasn't her fault, of course. It was the teachers for being terrible at their jobs. They expected far too much of their first years, never mind that everyone else in Intro To Water Manipulation had no trouble at all leading water droplets through a maze or wading across the pool in full uniform and emerging completely dry. By the second week, Claire started bringing a change of clothes to class.

In one breath she cursed the Gods for making her look a fool, in the next she praised them for at the very least having the mercy to make Avia's academic courses a breeze. Before Avia, Claire was homeschooled by Amma. Her mother had been a ferociously strict teacher, but it paid off. While Claire spent her mornings failing to so much as cause a ripple in the pool, she spent her afternoons being praised for her remarkable test scores in arithmetic, grammar, and religion.

"Want me to dry you hair?" Sylva, infuriatingly perky as ever, offered when Claire entered their dorm room one afternoon almost three months into the school year.

"N...fine," Claire grumbled. There was something about Sylva that made her hard to be short with. Maybe it was the softness in her silvery lavender eyes, or the goofy sweatshirts she wore whenever she was out of uniform- printed with big eyed baby animals (not unlike Sylva herself) and stupid phrases like "stay pawsitive!"

Claire sat on Sylva's bed with her socked feet tucked close to her body while Sylva sat beside her and summoned a warm breeze from their balcony to swirl around Claire's drenched hair.

"I'm sure you'll get the hang of it soon enough, we're only a quarter of the way through the school year." Sylva said, her face all twisted up in concentration. She was weak, but her control was still more consistent than Claire.

Sylva's words of encouragement only reminded Claire how quickly time was moving. A little spike of fear shot though her. In just a few months, she'd have to go home for midterm break and face Amma.

You will do more than your best. You will be perfect.

Claire buried her face in her hands and exhaled with a groan.

"Don't be so dramatic. One day you'll be great and you'll look back on this and laugh." Sylva smiled. "You'll see."

Claire glanced at her and raised and incredulous eyebrow. "How can you be so nice to me? Aren't you Trousta's best friend, isn't this a total betrayal?"

"I figured if I keep being nice to you, you'll eventually get tired of being mean. And then all three of us can be friends!"

"Good joke." Claire tittered. "What would we talk about, where to buy illegal cigarettes? Fun ways to offend the Gods?"

"Well maybe not." Sylva shrugged and hopped off her bed. "At least it got you to stop moping."

With her hair dry and books gathered, Claire left for arithmetic. Hadyn was standing in the hall across from Claire's bedroom door, no doubt waiting for Claire to leave so she could hang out with Sylva.