Sade but imagine silver hair ^

—————

"So you gonna tell me what went down last night or what?"

Mikyla shrugs as she plants her face against the window, the intermittent vibrations of the glass on the bus dulling her senses even more than her blank stare sweeping over the all too familiar barren landscape.

"Hellooo..." The voice trails on again. "Earth to Mika? Anyone there? The least you could do is give me an answer after helping you out last night, you know. Pluto even helped find the bucket you lost. God knows you would be in trouble if you lost that."

Wincing at the loudness of the voice, Mikyla stifled a yawn into a groan. She hated conversation in the morning and her best friend, Sade, knew that all too well. The thing is, she was right, as she was about most things, unfortunately. Stretching, Mikyla did finally let out a yawn. No matter how many times she had to perform the strenuous ritual of waking up three hours before school started, she never failed to feel tired in the morning.

"Yeah, yeah," Mikyla says wearily, the grogginess apparent in her voice. "Just let me mope for a bit, kay?"

Sade throws back her head and grumbles. She always was a drama queen if there ever was one. "Come on Mika! It's only cleaning duty, it's better than getting flogged at least!"

Rolling her eyes, Mikyla can't really disagree on the latter but the former is a whole different matter. Sure. Cleaning isn't the end of the world but when you have to wake up three hours before school starts to literally scrub the whole building spotless it starts to pluck at your nerves, especially when those who use up the smallest amount of facilities have to clean up after everybody else.

It wasn't always like that though. The school used to hire cleaners but when they decided to cut the budget to create a transport system, the school got a lot messier, a lot quicker than expected. Other than the mess, the initial budget cut received massive support as it meant Drows like Mikyla who lived on the outskirts of society didn't have to trek for miles to school every day. The downside? Well, let's just say everything has a fair price or an unfair one in this case. What appeared to be a step towards equality between the Drows and the 'nobles' was just a false gift wrapped in the pretence of even cheaper manual labour - in other words; a cheap bus ride in exchange for cleaning out the whole school.

"If you aren't going to spill then let me guess..." Sade says just as Mikyla's blood was about to boil over.

Mikyla sighs before slumping down against the rattling window once again, the excess coconut oil in her hair creating smear against the clear pane. "Be my guest."

"Alright, umm..." Sade chews her bottom lip. "You were pretty far away from home and I only found you, well Pluto did, by following your scent so something big must be up."

"Yeah." Mikyla mumbles, hardly audible.

"Did the last slice of pizza get eaten?"

"That's one of your problems, not mine." Mikyla snorts but with a slight twitch of her upper lip.

"Then is it a red river?"

As if on cue, a wave of red washes over Mikyla's cheeks before she stutters a flustered 'no'.

"Is it the Ver-"

Before she knew it herself, Mikyla jabbed Sade in the arm with a stern expression on her face. "Don't. Say. It."

"Ok, jheez." Sade rubbed her arm. "It's just-"

"Just what?" Mikyla's stony expression hadn't shifted, her words dripping like icy venom as if seeping out of the plastered frown twitching on her upper forehead.

"It's just that you know if you ever need to talk about it, I'm always here for you..." Sade purses her lips meekly and Mikyla's face softens slightly almost into a contortion of guilt.

"Yeah, I know. I'm sorry I snapped at you."

Sade shrugs. "Meh. I'm used to your morning mood swings but they do seem to be a bit more volatile today. Are you sure the river hasn't started flowing red?"

Once again Mikyla's cheeks adopted a deeper tinge of pink. Despite the darkness of her skin, the glow on her cheeks was just as noticeable to her that if she were a Noble - one of the similarities she would be more than glad to forfeit. On that note, the Nobles and Drows aren't very different, that is if you only consider the similarities appearance-wise. Once you overlook the same fair skin, albeit as stark as a colour difference as day and night, as well as the graceful fluidity that envelopes each elf like a thin cobwebbed aura, it is not difficult to realise that the castes similarities were only skin deep. Deep enough to deceive one's eyes yet too shallow to have an effect on the so-called 'noble bloodline' or 'lineage' as they like to call it. Both have relatively pointed ears even though they have rounded since both races were introduced to the blood elf genome.

"N-no!" Mikyla's eyes flit between Sade and oblivion as she stammers a weak retort. Although it's the truth, Mikyla can barely maintain eye contact and is thankful when the bus whines into a sudden jolt; the precursor to there destination.

The bus door squeaks open filling the interior with the cool morning mist. Nonetheless, even through the haze, the spectacle that is Bourbons Academy for All Elves is as overpowering as ever; the exterior an illusion to the false society ostracised within. It's turrets and battlements scatter across the horizon like ornamental shells bestowed upon a seashore and its looming portcullis gleams with sharpened teeth as if ready to behead any individual unlucky enough to be within the range of its rusty jaws. Arrowslits neatly line the keep like a trailing serpent, its notches like demonic eyes staring into the depths of your soul. Although the castle had since been reformed since The War, constant weathering and erosion have embalmed the malevolent aura, an inescapable testimony to the message the school is trying to preach. A nagging reminder of what could be once again.

Despite the perturbing past, the strange beauty of the structure cannot be ignored. Thankfully, only the interior has to be cleaned but even with the snaking vines seeping through the cracks and cobwebs clinging to mortar joints, the castle looks as if its been plucked from a fantasy novel itself. Due to it's striking resemblance to another school, Bourbons has earned itself the nickname 'Boar Bunions' and coincidentally, following the same theme, it wasn't long before another nickname aroused. An insult filthier than the mud galvanized within a sewer.

Dregbloods.

Just the sound of it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth the same way or worse than as if biting down on a misdirected fly. Even that may be an understatement but so far there has been no better way to put it.

At first, the majority of the community, The Drows, believed the word would be abolished but, like many of their hopes, that was far from the case. It started off as a derogatory insult created by a few noble students but soon even the teachers were using it to address pupils. The term stuck somehow and before long it had gotten out of hand. The word Dregblood replaced the word Drow as the identification of the Dark Elves and it was only when the assistant principal prohibited the word on school grounds that the usage eventually peaked off but the damage was already done.

Within a few short weeks, the term became coined all over the country and you can't step foot anywhere within The Capital without hearing the slander being thrown around like salt on popcorn. Then again, the same almost applies to school. With the assistant principal being the only Drow in faculty, more out of an equality technicality than anything, the rule is rarely enforced, if at all, and nowadays it's more common to hear the prejudice soaked smear whispered throughout the hallways than civil greetings or even scandalous rumours.

When the term first became popular, the Drow elders wanted to boycott the whole institution. The boycott, however, was swiftly vetoed against by the nobles as it was many times before. The elders tried to boycott the institution right when it was reformed as they argued the motive of creating a society for all elves was just an act of eugenic assimilation, nonetheless, it is the only way for Drows to actually receive an education, even if it has more patched up holes than a colander. The game of cat and mouse generally ended up that way. The Drows would complain and try to reject whatever proposal the Nobles made but each time it was purely rhetorical, after all, a fly only gets into a sticker mess the more it tries to struggle in its trap.

That's what's so confusing. Whenever the Nobles do something they always get something out of it, however, Boarbunions was the first movement towards supposed equality that didn't or rather didn't succeed with a hidden ulterior motive. Sure, being trapped in a building with concentrated discrimination isn't ideal but it'll be a long time before that stops and even longer before Nobles and Drows alike get over the idea of how putrid a eugenic assimilation even is. They say Boarbunions is the most socially advanced school in the country but with everything that stays hidden within the walls, Mikyla finds that hard to believe. Actually, on second thought, it isn't. With everything that goes on outside of the walls, it isn't. It really, really isn't.

"The Spire?" Sade groans rhetorically bringing Mikyla back into focus. She had been so absorbed in, whatever she was thinking about, she didn't even realise she had made it into school. "Out of all the greenhouses and chambers of secrets, it just had to be The Spire!"

Squinting at the roster, Mikyla scans the many names that adorn more than half the atrium. With the hundreds upon hundreds of names listed jam-packed together next to the locations to be cleaned, it's easy to mistake the specified location but from a habit that everyone had quickly picked up, Mikyla soon found their names and hoped that she too was mistaken. She didn't have a chance to double check though before she was shoved aside by a swarm of other Drows who had just arrived and with a sulk, she trudged along to the cleaning station to pick up their supplies.

"You're right," Mikyla mutters the saying she wished wasn't so frequent, "We're going to The Spire."

Sade grumbles something incoherent under her breath but Mikyla didn't need to understand to share the sentiment. It wouldn't be so bad if The Spire wasn't at the other end of the school but, then again, even if it wasn't, it's still the worst place to clean in the school. As Sade lets out another whine, Mikyla is also struck with the desire to wallow in self-pity but as the towering staircase spirals into infinity above her she gulps. After all, she'll need every breath she can get.

----------

Word Count for Chapter 3: 1881
Total Word Count: 5219

Authors note:

Hope you liked the UNEDITED chapter 3! Don't forget to press on those magical stars to light up Mikyla's future path and leave a comment telling me what you like so far or what you don't like. Thanks for reading so far.

Happy reading
~ Dracollavenore