Aeternitas by M Mixson (web based ebook reader txt) 📕

Eian did his little shuffle again and raised his shoulders in an up and down motion. "I don't know. I only know that I got accepted." He breathed a little sigh of relief when the two boys stopped talking but almost as soon as he'd had that though Berul turned to him and said, "You know, at this school there are boys who act as "older brothers" to younger boys. They provide them with tutoring, help and oftentimes gifts. Sometimes a rich boy will even sponsor a poor one. Does it interest you? Of course you would need to pay me something for this help as things don't always come free..."

Eian hesitated. "What kind of payment?" he asked.

"I want you to paint whatever I choose."

Eian looked at his feet. "I'll do it." he said. If I can get on this rich boys good side and get him to support me I can start to make my future.

The carriage finally arrived and the three boys boarded it. The two rich boys were excitedly talking to one another now that they'd gotten going and seemed to completely forget that Eian even existed. It was halfway through the ride when they pulled out their food to have lunch that they acknowledged Eian again.

"So Eian, what did you bring for lunch?" the younger brother asked.

Eian shifted uncomfortably on his seat. "I...didn't bring anything."

"You didn't bring anything?" the older brother asked. "Why ever not? You knew this was going to be a day long journey didn't you?"

Eian was embarrassed again. "I knew."

"So what was the problem?"

Eian muttered something and the oldest boy told him, "Speak up, we can't understand you when you mumble like that? Why must you mumble anyways?"

Eian lifted his head and murmured as quietly as possible, "I couldn't afford it."

"Couldn't afford lunch?" the youngest brother broke in again, "That's exceedingly cheap!"

Eian blushed. "I couldn't even afford mittens. The money I had went into buying this coat so I wouldn't freeze. It's not my fault I'm poor!"

Eian was starting to get agitated and he shifted restlessly on the seat. "You two may have never experienced it, but living below the lowest class? You get used to not getting things you want or having food to eat. As long as I have water I can go for three days without eating if I need to."

"Three days? Why in the world would you go three days without eating?!"

"Sometimes you have to, sometimes there's no other way to get by and survive. There are those sicker or younger or older or weaker than you that need the food more. So you give it to them and hope that when you're in a bad spot they'll help you out."

"That's absolutely horrifying," the older brother told him.

Dunui jumped in, "Did anyone you know die?"

"Of course," Eian said, "people die all the time out there and there's nothing you can do. My little sister died before she even turned one."

Berul sighed. "I'm sorry, we have a younger sister as well. I can't imagine the pain you went through when you lost her."

Eian shook his head. "I was still little then, so I don't really remember it. My parents never talked about it either, but they also never had another child aside from me. They feared the child's death. Even just having me made their living situation hard. I always hated my existence for a long time until my mother told me that she couldn’t care less if we were homeless as long as she had me."

"Really," the younger brother spoke up, "Our mother would never say anything like that. She's too professional for that. She also knows that words of affection are a detriment to boys. We need tough love and even tougher handling. I wonder if you'll even be able to handle this school at all."

Berul put an elbow into his brother's side and hissed, "Shut up," as they began to roll up to huge iron gates.

Berul then turned to Eian again and said, “This is the second leg of our journey. This is land owned by the school – but it takes a good few hours to reach the main school grounds. The areas out here are just to keep us further away from the main road.”

Dunui grinned. “Yeah, because they plan to murder us all!” he shouted gleefully and Eian shrunk back against the seat.

“Ignore him,” Berul said. “He’s a cruel type of person. Mother has had far too much influence over him.”

He patted Eian’s leg and thumped his brother on the shoulder before turning to look out the window. “Just a little longer and then we’ll arrive…”

Quiet descended in the carriage as the three boys awaited their future.

The rain sloshed down the school room windows. The air was dead and quiet, hot too despite the cool air outside. Eian sat in his seat, quiet and still. Over the past three months he had found himself warming up to this school and the people in it.

Despite all the rumor mongering the teachers were actually kind and willing to work with the students, and Eian had found an ally in one of his teachers, Professor Loge. Professor Loge was an elderly man who taught history to the "underclassmen". He always started class with an interesting fact and engaged them in discussion. After the discussion period he would lead them into what they were going to do in class.

He found that he truly loved history and all his designs for revenge began to fade as he grew more and more interested. At the same time he knew that painting was his passion as well. He took his history lessons and painted them how he saw them in mind's eye.

He smiled as he thought about the most recent painting he was working on. It was a dramatic piece from ancient times when the Princess was wandering the streets crying. He quite enjoyed drawing night scenes, there was always something intriguing about them. A ruler was tapped on his desk and he looked up at the math teacher who was looking down at him with disapproval.

"I'd appreciate it if you paid attention in class young man." He said sharply before moving on and continuing his lecture.

Eian didn't have a head for math, he truly didn't understand it. All he got from it was that if you added numbers and subtracted numbers you could easily figure out answers to certain questions. That was all he needed to know, he'd never use math again once he finished his schooling.

Eian carefully shifted in his seat as he scribbled a note to himself on a piece of paper. 'Remember to look up magioin'

He had first heard the word magioin from another of the boys who roomed with him. When he had asked the boy what it meant he'd been laughed at and told, "Look it up for yourself'.

So as soon as the class ended Eian intended to go to the library and look up possible meanings of the word.

When the bell for the end of class rang at last he gathered up his books quickly and dashed out of the room at a breakneck pace. He nearly knocked over a few students in the process.

He pushed open the library doors with a bang and got shushed by the only librarian on duty before she turned back to cataloguing the books that had just been returned.

Eian went up to her and asked, "Do you know where I could find a book on words?" he asked. "Particularly foreign words."

The librarian gave him a once over before nodding, "It's a small section at the back of the stacks. We don't have more than fifty books on the subject." She shrugged, "No one has ever really been interested in them, so we only keep a small selection as an 'in case of emergency' thing."

Eian blinked and shrugged, he didn't care why as long as they had what he was looking for.

"Oh," she told him as he turned to leave, "some might be high up, but there's a stool you can stand on to reach the higher shelves. There's also seats back there that you can read in. If you need paper it's there too."

The boy nodded and moved to the back shelves. He found himself staring one case of books. The librarian was right, there weren't more than fifty here. Many of them looked to be extremely old and he was intensely wary about touching them. It looked as if they might actually fall apart if he picked one up.

Carefully he bent down and peered at their spines. Some were written in a foreign language others written in the global language. He started pulling those off the shelves until he had a huge pile on the table.

He picked the first one off the top and then began to go through it. He quickly found that this research was much harder than it looked.

He flipped another page but there still wasn't anything for him to use in these books. In agitation he slammed the book shut and leaned his head on his arms. He wanted to know what the word meant, because he was sure that it was an insult, a very well hidden insult, but an insult nonetheless.

He drew a circle on his notes before sighing and pulling the last few books off the bookshelf. In the third to last book he found a mention of the word that he was looking for.

Magioin, a magic user. Also used as an insult, for someone who uses magic for bad purposes, wrong means or magic is not inherent to them. Used a few centuries ago. No longer in use. (that is known)

Interesting, Eian thought to himself, that they would use such an obscure insult against me. I'm not a magic user, I've never even known anybody who could use it, it's such a rare gift.

He paused for a moment as he read the next couple of lines, Also used in reference to women or men working in a cathouse.

So, he thought, that was probably their intention from the start, to say that I'm a whore. Lovely, he thought.

He closed the books and placed them back on the shelves before nearly running out of the library in haste. He had too much homework to do to be loitering about anymore.

As he was heading back he ran into Berul who grinned at him. "I heard you got in trouble in math today for not paying attention."

"It wasn't that bad," Eian protested. "I just had a lot of other things on my mind. Someone called me a magioin and I had to go look it up. I didn't know what it meant."

Berul's eyes flared and he snapped, "Who called you that?"

"Just some idiots who don't know any better. Leave them be Berul. You don't need to defend me every time something bad happens. You can't save me all the time."

Berul scowled. "I can try. I want to keep you around because I actually do like your paintings and it'd be a shame to loose such a talented artist so early."

Eian shook his head as he headed back