Figment of Dreams
Dornatill is always trouble, and so is Ash

‘What about the other football team. Why is everyone so scared of them?’ I popped another orange grape in my mouth. All the fruits of earth were here but somehow they all had wrong colors. They also had way more flavor. Olive and Skylark exchanged tense glances. I knew something was up considering all the talk of the last weeks had been about the game. Sebastian wasn’t really a big football fan, but even he was talking about the ‘bastards’ from the other college.

‘What?’ I said. They were clearly hiding something and I didn’t like it. ‘You two sure know how to build the tension…’ I popped another one in. Skylark sipped from her lemon juice and stared at the forest before answering. The three of us had a free period between our late afternoon classes and were sitting on the Terrace of the Cafeteria. The day was sunny and bright, life was good right now.

‘There was this… incident when they played last year… it wasn’t all that pretty.’

‘Really? What happened?’

‘A fight had broken out and… somebody was hurt so badly he is still in a coma to this day…’

I nearly choked on my grape.

‘What?’ I yelped. ‘Who fought?’

’The Dornatill team instigated it… but… their linebacker got injured pretty badly.’

I felt like there was some other piece of information they were hiding from me.

‘By whom? Somebody I know?’

Skylark glanced threateningly at Olive, who was oddly silent throughout all of this.

‘Who?’ I asked again.

Olive sighed. ‘Your boyfriend.’

‘Sebastian?’ I screeched. Oh my god, I always knew he had a screw loose but this was beyond anything I thought he was capable of.

‘No…not Sebastian.’ Olive got a harsh look from Skylark again. ‘Ash.’

This made me do a double take. ‘What? No way….’

‘My brother was provoked.’ Said Sky solemnly. ‘He had not ill intent, he is just a very strong guy.’

‘Who teaches defense class. The attorneys said he would be trialed worse because of his skill in fighting. They believe it was his duty to know the impact of his punches. They are considered lethal weapons.’

Olive and Sky were definitely not agreeing and I was on Sky’s side. Yes, Ash was a big old grunt sometimes and could be verbally aggressive. But I don’t see him hurting anyone beyond what they deserved. ‘He is still on trial? Why didn’t I know that?’

As we left the table to go to our Fae studies class I realized that Olive had just referred to Ash as my boyfriend.

It was the night of the game and I would be repping the Bertram brothers together with Sebastian. We were already dressed in their jersey’s. I was wearing the five, which was Nexxar and Sebastian was wearing the seventeen of Dexar. Olive was representing her boyfriend Bron and Skylar was wearing Len’s number eleven. The four of us were seating in the middle of the right side of the large stadium. This campus was really something. It was about to start but I had to make a quick bathroom break. Sky asked if she should join but considering the huge crowd I did not see a problem.

I was making my way back to the bleachers when two big guys, around thirty years old, stopped me in my tracks. This was a no ticket type of thing so I had no idea what they were halting me for. ‘Lux Elmrose right?’ One of them said. He had this huge gut and was a bear of a man, towering over me at

six foot seven easily. The guy next to him had a shaggy beard and was less burly.

‘Yeah… that’s me. Why do you ask?’ and how do you know? I thought.

‘Tell Ash we said hi. Rupert and Bobby Miller. Good friends of his.’ They stared me down. I felt claustrophobic and Otto flashbacks came back to the front because they were crowding me in. ‘S-sure…’

‘Have a good night, Lux Elmrose.’ And they were on their way again.