"Oh, we're looking for the kitchen so we can sneak some food, are you as well?" Knight said, either completely disregarding or not noticing the girl's harsh tone. She looked at him with a raised eyebrow, and seemed to be processing what he had just said.

"Dude, she's annoyed at you, not friendly!" hissed Sugar, poking Knight in the shoulder. But the dense boy didn't seem to take any notice, and continued prattling on...

"Well, I don't think we've met yet! And my ma always used to say to is good to introduce yourself to everyone you meet! You'll become fast friends that way," he continued talking happily, "So, my name is Knight, nice to meet you!"

"Good to meet you too..." the girl said slowly, before turning her gaze to Sugar, clearly sensing he was the more reasonable one of the two.

'Is he always like this?' she mouthed, sending a few glances in Knight's direction, and all Sugar did was nod. The girl rolled her eyes, but it appeared that Knight's bright demeanour had at least taken the edge off her voice, and she looked slightly more relaxed, now looking at him with mild amusement, as he continued to talk.

Sugar frowned. Another victim. There just seemed to be something utterly disarming about that stupid guy that made sure no one could really stay mad at him for too long.

"So... what's your name? Of course, you don't need to tell us, but it'll be nice to get to know you."

"I'm Rosa."

"Ohhhh, so like the flower? Well, Rosa is a little different from Rose, but it comes from the same word, right?"

"Yes, you could say that." Rosa said with a chuckle, he sour mood seemingly completely evaporated.

"That's lovely! I like flowers!" Knight said happily, and began excitedly talking to Rosa about different flowers he enjoyed the scent of. And miraculously, Rosa seemed happy to continue that topic of conversation with him. Beside him, Sugar began to feel very left out of the whole thing, and a little miffed that he had been dragged all the way down here just to hear Knight and this Rosa girl talk about flowers.

He slowly began to slink away. He didn't even want to be down here in the first place...

But before he could get too far, a call from Knight brought him back.

"Hey, Sugar, what's your favourite flower?"

"Don't have one." he said dryly. It was the truth. He was allergic to most of them anyway, no purpose in pretending he liked them.

"Aw, that's a shame," Knight said, a little disappointed.

"Sugar?..." the girl said, a little confused, before realising who he was.

"Oh, right, you're the High Blood Witch's son, right? I remember my brothers saying you had a really weird name... guess it is true."

"Well, I don't like the name either!" Sugar huffed, "And don't ask me why my mother insisted on naming me this way, I don't know either."

Rosa looked a little surprised at his outburst at first, but then, she laughed.

"Yep, typical Coven Firstborn behaviour." she giggled.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Sugar snapped, now getting rather annoyed at her.

"Isn't it obvious? All you Coven Firstborns walk around the school like you run the place, it's so obvious to everyone else." Rosa shrugged.

"And you would know because?"

"Older siblings... a lot of older siblings."

Then, Rosa looked up at the clock, regarding the time with a small sigh.

"Well, looks like I need to go. It's been nice talking to you, boys." she began to walk off in the direction Knight and Sugar had come, "Oh, wait, before I forget, here."

Rosa chucked a small bag at Knight, he deftly caught it, and was immediately opening it, like he could sense there was something good in there.

"It's beef jerky. My mum insisted on me taking some, and I don't have the heart to tell her I don't like it, you like it, I'm guessing?"

Knight gave the girl a thumbs-up and a huge grin, before going right back to eating the treat. Meanwhile, Sugar only looked at the girl with mild contempt.

Once he was certain Rosa was far enough away that she couldn't hear him, Sugar muttered:

"Man, I hate her. So annoying..."

"Well, I think she's lovely!" Knight interjected, "It's not nice talking about others like that."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, that's probably only because she gave you food," Sugar huffed, before turning his focus to the bag of beef jerky, "now gimmie some of that."

✧༺✦✮✦༻∞　　∞༺✦✮✦༻✧

Soon, it was time for dinner, and as the first years were lining up outside the large dining hall, prefects glided up and down the row, handing each of the students a black cloak.

"Hmm, what's this?" Knight poked Sugar, examining the cloth with curiosity in his eyes.

"A witch's robe, duh," Sugar said, already pulling the garment on, "Scarwood doesn't have a uniform, so they use one of these to distinguish the students. See that yellow trim on the bottom?"

"Yeah?"

"It used to denote your guild, but since the Headmistress changed that, I'm guessing it now means we're first years."

"Oh, makes sense..."

"And don't worry about the size. They're all enchanted to fit their wearers properly."

"Sweet!"

As Knight happily got acquainted with his cloak, Sugar noticed the surrounding students suddenly get real quiet, and their attention seemed to be drawn to something happening on the ground in the middle of the first years, and in the silence, two voices could be heard.

"What makes you think you can just walk into us and not say sorry?" said a calm, cold voice that Sugar immediately recognised as belonging to the wonderful person that was Charlie Crowstrike.

"I said excuse me! Your fault you didn't move out of the way!"

"Is that Rosa?" Knight suddenly piped up, having clued into the argument coming from behind him. He immediately began making his way through the crowd towards the voices. And Sugar followed right behind him, moving easily in the space carved out by Knight's large frame.

When they had shoved their way to the front, Sugar peeked out from a gap in the crowd, careful to make sure that Charlie wouldn't catch sight of him.

In the middle of the huddle of first years, Rosa was being dangled upside down by a large watery tendril that seemed to have sprouted from a nearby water fountain. Sugar's suspicions of who was controlling it were soon proved correct as he saw the girl who had been chucking water orbs in the dorms earlier, Salem Bones, giggle in glee at Rosa's obvious discomfort. And next to her, was a very smug Charlie Crowstrike.

Of course those two were teaming up now...

Sugar had been waiting for the moment where Charlie would finally spread his wings and gather another group of underlings to do his dirty work. His mom used to always say that the Crowstrikes, and their relatives, basically ran all of witch society, and they were certainly not known for being humble about their name.

The headmistress' talk about using family name as a weapon? Yeah, that was never going to work, not with a Crowstrike at the school. In fact, he was almost 100% certain that no one watching would dare to speak up about this incident. People can always be bought or threatened into silence...

"My fault that I didn't move out of the way? You're the one who's rushing all over the place, not looking at where you're going, I—"

"Hey, let her go!" Knight said, stepping forward. Sugar instinctively stepped back. Did this guy have a death wish? He had just told him the number one rule for surviving at this school: don't piss off the Crowstrikes, and there he was, breaking it. Was he actually stupid?

Charlie looked over at Knight, his cold blue eyes narrow and scrutinising.

Yep, just signed his death warrant, this was not going to end well for the poor boy. A part of Sugar wanted to drag back Knight, but he had already sealed his fate, and there was no way Sugar was going to become another one of Charlie's targets. All he could do now was just watch and hope not to get caught in the crossfire.

Knight's interjection seemed to have given Rosa the opportunity to stage a counter-attack as she grabbed onto the tendril holding her, letting out a violent blast of steam. Must be a fire spell. This seemed to spook Salem enough to drop Rosa, along with all the water.

Sugar managed to get splashed by some of it, letting out a small hiss.

"Why, you little..." Salem growled, trying to regenerate the water tendril from the huge puddle on the ground.

In the chaos, Sugar felt that he was the only one who could hear the sharp click of a heel.

"What is the meaning of this?" Headmistress Nightblood looked at the gathered first-years. The white cat perched on her shoulder did the same, but with ten times the judgement.

"She started it!" yelled Charlie and Salem, in sync, pointed to a frowning Rosa. The headmistress looked equally unamused.

"Miss Bones, Mr Crowstrike, tell your parents you will be getting a call from me tonight... you too, Miss Almenara. Fighting on the first day... disgraceful."

Then, she addressed everyone else.

"And the rest of you, just standing around and doing nothing to stop this, congratulations, you've all gotten yourselves a detention. I will make your teachers aware."

She slammed her staff on the floor, and the remaining water lifted itself off the ground, and poured gracefully into the water fountain. Giving everyone a final harsh glare, she walked away.

As soon as she did, the students erupted into a frenzied discussion:

Why is she punishing all of us? We didn't do anything!

I can't believe she actually scolded the Crowstrike kid. His dad is sooo going to get her fired.

"Heh. Classic Miss Nightblood." Rosa said with a laugh, standing back up, "Thanks a lot, though, Knight." she patted the larger boy on the back, while he seemed to be absolutely mortified at the concept of getting a detention on the first day.

Meanwhile, Sugar stormed through the crowd towards the two.

"Knight, are you insane? You've just gotten a huge target on your back now! You too, Rosa," he hissed, making sure that blond-haired prick was nowhere close enough to hear. And fortunately, Charlie seemed too preoccupied with complaining to his friends to care.

"It's not right to leave a friend in danger, that's what my ma used to say." Knight said quietly, "Friends stick together. That's the whole point of having friends, isn't it?"

"Not when those psychos are involved. Man, I'm going to get it if I get seen talking to you two..."

Rosa rolled her eyes at Sugar's distress, muttering something again about 'Coven Firstborn behaviour', but Knight only stared back earnestly.

"If that was you, I would've done it too."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, you're my friend, just like Rosa,"

Sugar just stared at him blankly.

"We are... right?" Knight said, a little more nervous now.

"No, no, of course we are," Sugar reassured him.

Friends, huh. Sugar never thought that when he entered Scarwood, he would have a friend like Knight, but he wasn't inclined to disagree with his assertion. Yeah, why wouldn't they be friends?

As Sugar continued to talk, he didn't notice the round glasses staring at him, or the words being whispered to a blond-haired boy.

┌─── ･ ｡ﾟ★: *.☪ .* :☆ﾟ. ───┐

𝔸𝕦𝕥𝕙𝕠𝕣'𝕤 𝕟𝕠𝕥𝕖

└─── ･ ｡ﾟ★: *.☪ .* :☆ﾟ. ───┘

Sorry for the late update, I have been very busy for the past few months ;-; Don't ask me how Charlie and Salem became friends, they just did (jk, they're actually very close family friends). 

In other news, will Sugar ever stop being a little piss baby? No, because i think he's funnier this way.

~Viva