Chapter 50 - Lunch!

 Maeve, bloodied but unbowed, was brought low by chalice and curse.
They forced potions down her throat -
Elixirs to twist will, to cloud the mind, to sow false warmth in a heart scorched with grief.
The witches say such brews can carve love from fear and pain,
And if not love, then at least devotion deep enough to look like it.

The Saga of Bjorn, Verse 26

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Felix fumed on his way to the dining hall. Professor Mistvale was so unfair! He was studying! He was paying attention! What, did everyone else have laser focus on the class? Was Sora somehow more focused than he was!?

Okay, in the girl’s defense, he’d never seen her more focused than in mind magic.

Speaking of Sora, she hadn’t waited for him at all, and Felix’s walk to the dining hall was mostly alone. Sure, the hallways were filled with students chatting and moving onto their next class, but that wasn’t quite the same time.

He was about to step into the dining hall when Erik ambushed him.

“Hey! Felix!” The heir gestured.

“What’s going on?” Felix asked, spotting Alex, Sora, and Vivian with Erik.

“Hazel. She’s a huge loner, and I’d like all of us to sit with her.” Erik said. “Maybe she’s truly as anti-social as she looks, but for a bunch of reasons I’m not getting into, I don’t think so. Let’s all sit with her, make a friend.”

“Sure, why not?” Felix said. It wasn’t like he had any plans besides eating as much as he could.

“Great. Let’s all grab our trays. Hazel’s sitting over there. Let me go first, and follow shortly after, I think she likes me.”

At Alex’s sharp glare, Erik rapidly corrected himself.

“Willing to tolerate me, while she might not like the rest of you as much.”

“I still say we’re coming on too strong, the poor girl.” Vivian fretted. “One, maybe two, but all five of us?”

Erik’s eyes were calculating as he looked at Vivian.

“It’s a calculated risk.” He slowly agreed. “But like, if she’s not comfortable with us and doesn’t want to be with us, then it makes the coven decision fairly easy, yeah?”

“Yeah!” Sora agreed with a suspicious amount of enthusiasm.

“Okay, okay, but if we’re going to do it like this…” Vivian immediately started fussing over everyone. She straightened Alex’s robes, dodging a swat heading her way. She artfully mussed Erik’s hair up, then handed Sora a comb. Felix was highly entertained by all of that until she approached him, licking her thumb.

“And… THERE!” She triumphantly shouted, smearing her thumb across Felix’s cheek.

“Oi!” He protested.

“You had ink on your face. Ink. How on Arcadia you managed to do that…” Vivian clucked her tongue as she retrieved her mirror from her bag, then started to fuss over her own look. Sora was still clutching the comb, having been caught up in hurricane Vivian.

“You know, for your hair?” Felix snarked as he mimed brushing it. Sora threw the comb at him, and it managed to nail him between the eyes.

“Children.” Alexandria hissed. “Behave.”

“I’m older than you, and you know it.” Vivian tossed her hair over one shoulder and made a few pointed looks.

“Right, instead of spending the entire lunch hour fighting each other, let’s go get food.” Erik said, and the five of them funneled into the room. Enticed by some strong smells, Felix drifted over to one of the unicorn-themed buffet tables that was filled with Indian food. Some of them were labeled with dragons, and he figured that was a spice indicator. Three dragons looked to be about right. Neither Britain nor France were particularly known for their spicy food. In fact, if Felix remembered correctly, traditionally they didn’t like spicy food. He had no idea about Ireland, but since Logres was from the three countries frankensteined together… three dragons was probably safe.

“Brave man.” One of the older Dragon students told Felix as he heaped his tray. He shrugged.

“I’m from California, we know spice over there.”

The Dragon shook his head.

“Better you than me, mate. Tell me how it goes.”

With a firm clasp on Felix’s shoulder, the older adept went to join his friends. The first year was the last of the group, and everyone else was already sitting around Hazel. Felix dropped in.

“... and you know Felix! He’s the last member of the coven we’re hoping to form this year. We’re all in the same classes, we’ve all got the same homework assignments. What do you say?”

Hazel was shrinking in on herself, playing with something in one of her pockets. Alex was waving her wand over her food with an intense look on her face.

“I, ah…” She looked around nervously, and Erik snapped his fingers.

“I’ve got it!” He said too cheerfully, and Vivian rolled her eyes. “I know what you want, and we can help you with it.” He said.

“Oh yeah, what do I want?” Hazel challenged with narrowed eyes.

Erik’s initial answer was disrupted by Alexandria’s bread flying off her plate and splattering against the ceiling.

“If that lands on me, so help me, I will bury you.” Vivian hissed to her friend, putting a hand protectively over her teacup. Alex shrugged.

“Then maybe step out of the way?” Alex hissed.

“No, this is my spot. Make your mess over there.” Vivian shoved Alex.

“No.” The green-eyed girl glared back.

 Erik’s grin was beaming, and he stage-whispered his answer like it was some great conspiracy.

“You want to be left alone.” He whispered to Hazel. “You know the teachers won’t let you be a loner. They’ll bug you in the most well-meaning of ways. They’ll get other students to try and make friends with you. Students that don’t get you. They’ll-”

Erik’s passionate speech was interrupted by Felix taking a bite of the eye-watering curry.

“HOT!” He squeaked, then chugged a bunch of water. He knew water wasn’t good for spice, but everything burned so badly he had to do something. Tears ran down his face and snot freely flowed from his nose. Felix whimpered as the fire in his mouth increased in intensity. Sora laughed at him, soon followed by the rest of the group.

“... and our best feature of all, we’ve got the class clown, Felix, in our coven!” Erik said. “What do you say? We’ll keep the professors off your back, other students won’t bug you when they see you with us, and we’ll be completely understanding when you vanish, don’t want to do work with us, or dare I say it on the first day - skive off class.”

Hazel was looking more and more intrigued by the idea. 

“Tell me if he’s coming on too strongly, and we’ll leave.” Vivian huffed, looking nervously up at the ceiling. Sora scooted her tray over. Felix was a little distracted by his mouth burning, but was starting to get it under control.

“I… okay.” Hazel said. “I think I’d like that.”

Felix looked at his plate of food with teary eyes, then grabbed his fork. He would not waste food.

“No way.” Alex breathed in horror as she watched Felix with sick admiration.

“He’s going for another round!” Sora cried out. Hazel started to bite her nails, but he didn’t think she was being dramatic. They were quite worn down.

Felix flipped them all off and gamely took another bite. It was, somehow, worse than the first bite, and Hazel giggled at the look on his face.

“Owe.” Felix moaned out after a minute of pain.

“An aureli says he finishes the whole thing.” Erik stage whispered to Alexandria. She narrowed her eyes.

“I’ll take that bet.” She said.

Felix continued to painfully eat while the others enjoyed their meal. Soon, the world blurred around him and he couldn’t see anything anymore.

 A couple of upper years wandered over.

“Hey, tadpoles! We’re recruiting for the caterwauling choir! Sing us a song?”

Felix swallowed, and whatever note he tried to sing came out like a strangled cat breathing fire.

“Please… please don’t join.” One of them begged. Felix’s middle finger continued to get a workout, and he went back to his food. One by one, the rest of his friends were cajoled into singing a few bars, and got some lukewarm reception.

Then it was Hazel’s turn.

“One song? You never know what talent you might have!” One of them said.

“Or just one note.”

Felix could not interpret all of the faces and body language going on, mostly on account of his entire face being pure fire and pain. Some soft talking and pleading later, and Hazel sang out a single note.

Felix dropped his fork and food fell out of his mouth.

It was the single most beautiful thing he’d ever heard. He’d heard the expression ‘the voice of an angel’ before, but now he knew such a thing was real. Hazel’s note was otherworldly. It was magical. It brought a single tear to his eye, washed away in all of the spice-related ones. It briefly lifted the pain he was in.

It was, possibly literally, divine.

The note echoed through the dining hall, bringing the usual noise and bustle to a complete halt.

“And this is the part where we help Hazel vanish.” Erik stood up, along with Sora and Vivian. The four of them made a runner, with the members of the choir in hot pursuit. The last thing Felix heard was Erik telling them they promised they’d leave them alone, then the choir members literally begging Hazel to join.

Alex looked at the abandoned trays and sighed.

“Boys.” She complained.

“There were more girls leaving their stuff behind than boys.” Felix loyally retorted. Alex rolled her eyes.

“At least some of us know what’s important in life.” She said, successfully levitating a slice of toast to her mouth. Watching her try to nibble it while keeping her wand steady was hilarious, and she eventually gave up and just held the entire thing in her mouth.

“To food!” Felix mock-toasted, then dug back into the overly spicy meal. It wasn’t quite so bad anymore. Perhaps he’d burnt off most of his taste buds.

“She’s got a strong noble core.” Alexandria muttered around her toast.

“Mmm?” Felix asked. Alternatively, maybe it wasn’t so bad because he’d run out of tears. The damage couldn’t be that permanent, right? They had magic to fix that sort of thing?

“Noblecore, commoncore, a lot of it is bullshit.” Alex whispered. “There’s one aspect that basically everyone agrees on. Noblecores are the ones that can strongly influence people, and give them powerful innate traits. Hazel’s voice? That’s got to be a noblecore. Maybe a siren, or a bird like a phoenix. Nymphs, selkies, harpies, and banshees can also use their voice to sing, but that’s got to be a particularly true ability.” Felix thought Alex sounded bitter, and wasn’t going to mention his so-called luck power. Sounded like the sort of thing a noblecore would have.

Wasn’t Chris a cat? Then again, hadn’t he mentioned a specific type of cat? Maybe that was a noblecore thing. 

“Anything else I should know about them?” He asked.

“Yeah… whatever your core is, it’s not related to spicy food.” Alexandria whispered. 

Felix briefly considered making a comment about her core not being immune to fire, but reigned the terrible impulse in. That was going way too far. One final finger flip was perfect, although Alex chuckling at it made it feel pointless.

“Good job in charms today.” He said instead, stalling on the next burning bite but needing to finish his food. Maybe he’d steal some of the other's lunch, it didn’t look like they were coming back.

“Thanks.” Alexandria whispered, and a cracked smile gave away just how happy she was over it. “I’d read it all before, but the professor really made it click.”

Felix and Alex talked about magic while he gamely plowed his way through his extra-large, extra-spicy portion. Every bite carved the words ‘don’t eat the triple dragon spice’ into his psyche, but Felix absolutely refused to let the food go to waste.

At last, there was the last bite. The last swallow. A bright, youthful cheer from next to him made him jump.

“You did it!” The shining spirit of Camelot was on the bench next to him. “You ate it all! Woooo! Ten bajillion points to you!”

“Bajillion isn’t a number.” Alex whispered with a smile.

“Fine! 10! That’s a real number. Woooo!”

She threw her tiny hands up in the air, then hopped off the bench and ran around cheering for a minute before vanishing in a sparkle of lights. Felix blinked and wiped the snot off with a napkin - he couldn’t get his uniform dirty this early, otherwise he’d just wash it down to threads in no time.

“Okay. That just happened. Do you think she can actually assign points?”

“She is the castle, the points are part of her magic.” Alexandria whispered.

“Good point. Uhhh… well, let’s get to class.”