I’m impressed! Quite a few reviews considering the amount of Charlie Bone fics on the site. Oh, and I’m not sure of something, if someone would be kind enough to help me out; do all three departments eat in the same canteen only for dinner, or is it for all the meals? I’m pretty sure it’s for all the meals, and it will be for this chapter at least, but I’d love to get this cleared up so I know for certain. One more thing before I let you get on with reading. There are as of yet no pairings in here (and I only have one in mind, but my mind has been known to change for certain things), but if any of you have a pairing of characters from the books that you’d like me to use, or if you have an idea for somebody to get with one of the Elements, please feel free to tell me about them in a review, and I’ll see if it conflicts with any other pairings I may or may not be using. Now, finally, on with the chapter!

Chapter Two

Chaos in the King’s Room

When Charlie woke up the next morning to go to breakfast, he saw that two of the new girls were placed in the Music department; Aurelia and Seanala. The blue of the cape almost clashed with Seanala’s hair, but she didn’t seem to mind. Charlie didn’t see any of his friends until he got into the canteen, where Fidelio and Gabriel waved him down. He sat between the two, and looked at the Drama table to see if he could spot Olivia. He saw her in the middle of two other girls, both of them from the group of six who had so dramatically burst into the school the night before. Olivia turned to see Charlie looking at her, then smiled and waved at him. He waved back, and the two girls beside Olivia turned to see who she was waving to. Charlie saw that it was Lightia and Pyra who’d been placed in Drama, which left Sombra and Flora to be in Art, if Charlie remembered correctly.

The rest of the day went by without much happening, and before Charlie knew it, it was time to go into the King’s room to do his homework. On his way there, he saw Olivia. She was still walking with Pyra, but Lightia was up ahead. Olivia waved again, and Charlie went over to walk with her, even though they couldn’t talk in the hall. When they got to the King’s room, Charlie saw Emma talking with Flora, who didn’t seem to like having to write and draw on paper. As Charlie got closer, he heard a bit of their conversation.

“…I mean, why couldn’t we just stick to the old method of writing on stone or clay?” Flora was saying. “Even when people started writing on parchment, it was hurting the environment. Skinning animals just so we can write? It doesn’t seem very right to me, if you’ll excuse the small pun. I don’t know…what do you think, Emma?”

“I think…” Emma was saved from having to answer by Charlie’s arrival. “Hi, Charlie!” she said. “This is Flora,” she added.

“I know,” Charlie said, trying not to sound too rude. “I was there last night when she and her sisters came.”

“Sorry about the big entrance,” Flora said, turning her attention to Charlie. “Pyra couldn’t help herself. She can be very over dramatic at times.”

“Tell me about it,” Olivia said, coming up behind the group. “I’ve had to work with her all day long. She found out that I’m one of the endowed, and suddenly started sticking to me like glue! Nobody else really wants to be her friend, and Lightia’s already found another group of friends, not to mention the fact that she seems determined to hang out with another endowed girl.” She paused to catch her breath, as she’d said this whole thing quite quickly. “I think this is the first time I’ve actually had some difficult competition in my department,” she said as an afterthought.

“Yep,” Flora agreed. “That’s Pyra for you.”

“What about me?” Pyra said, walking up.

“Nothing,” Flora said, returning to her work. Pyra was about to say something, when all the endowed who were considered “evil” walked in. The room instantly fell silent as the children started on their homework. There wasn’t as much tension in the room, since Manfred wasn’t joining them today, but Asa was still there.

“Hey,” Pyra whispered to Charlie, who she was sitting beside. “You wanna see something awesome?”

Charlie wasn’t quite sure what he was agreeing to, but he said, “Sure.”

Pyra took a piece of paper from in front of her, and pinched it in a corner. Flames began hungrily eating up the paper, and all the endowed looked up from their work. Flora groaned, and Seanala sighed before reaching over and dousing the paper with water from her finger. Unfortunately, she was a little late, and the fire had already singed the whole sheet of paper except for a small piece that Pyra held in her fingertips.

Pyra looked at the paper with a slight pout on her face, then glared at Seanala. “You couldn’t have let it burn itself out, could you? You just had to do something about it, didn’t you?”

Seanala shrugged. “If I don’t do something, who will? Aurelia?”

At the mention of her name, Aurelia looked up. “What about me?”

Pyra looked between her two sisters, and a small smirk began on her face; she could tell when there was an opportunity for chaos. “Oh, Seanala here was just saying that you’re too weak to be able to stop me from burning anything, and that she’s the only one who can do anything about me.”

This not only got Aurelia’s attention, but Flora’s as well. “That’s not true!” Aurelia exclaimed. “How am I weak?! Look – Pyra, set something on fire.”

Pyra grinned. “Gladly.” She looked around for something to burn, and a few seconds later, the table went up in flames.

“Seanala, don’t do anything,” Aurelia commanded. She put her hands in front of the blaze, taking care not to get burnt, and a strong gust of wind issued from her palms. Unfortunately, the wind just fuelled the fire more, and it got bigger. By now, most of the endowed had pushed their chairs away from the table in order to not get burnt.

Seanala raised a blue eyebrow. “You sure you can handle this?” she asked Aurelia. Aurelia glared at her.

“Fine, you’re right, I can’t do anything. I’m just a failure.”

“Oh, that’s not true,” Pyra said, the only one who hadn’t pushed her chair away from the blaze. “You helped to feed my flames. I’d say that’s something.”

Seanala rolled her eyes and put out the fire, this time using the palms of both her hands. The table was scorched, as was all the homework. Everyone groaned.

“Don’t worry,” Flora said, “I’ll make a new table.” Before anyone could tell her that it wasn’t the table they were upset about, the ground started shaking. A crack appeared in the floor, and a giant tree grew up from it. Flora stopped it before it hit the ceiling, and then it shuddered. A whole bunch of wood popped out of it and started forming into a round table, looking exactly like the one before. Of course, she couldn’t replace their homework.

Lightia looked all around her, the only one who hadn’t been doing her work on the table, and said, “Is it just me, or is it a bit dark in here?”

Everybody in the room stopped what they were doing (mostly complaining) and stared at the blonde. “What?” she said innocently. “I don’t like working in the dark.” She looked up at the light and snapped her fingers. Instantly, the room got brighter. Sombra shut her eyes tightly and put her hands overtop her eyelids.

“I hate light,” she muttered, and the room instantly grew dark. It went so dark, in fact, that nobody could see a thing. “That’s better,” she said.

Lightia screamed in frustration, and everyone heard her footsteps pound on the floor as she left the room. Something flickered, and at once all the endowed children looked towards a sudden light source. Pyra was holding some fire in the palm of one of her hands.

“What now?” the fire girl asked nobody in particular.

“What is there to do?” Tancred said. “Our homework is ashes, the lights are pretty much permanently off, and we’ve still got-“ here he paused to look at his watch, which had a built in light. “An hour left to sit in here and do nothing!”

“Well then,” Pyra responded. In the light of her conjured fire, Charlie could see her lean back in her chair. “Let’s make the most of this, shall we?” With that, she closed her eyes. The fire went out.

“I wonder if our teachers will buy all this,” Emma muttered to Charlie.

“We’re endowed; they probably won’t be too surprised that something crazy like this happened. Besides,” Charlie added as an afterthought, “if all of us use the same ‘excuse’, I think at least one of the teachers will suspect that we’re telling the truth.” He hoped dearly that he was right.

See? What did I tell you? Longer chapter! I just realized that the pairing I had in mind (a certain person paired with one of the Elements) can totally work out, cuz they’re in the same department! Yay me! But, yeah, don’t hesitate to tell me if you have a pairing that you’d like me to put in here, since I don’t really want to go through the entire story without at least hinting towards more than one pairing. Review!!