Chapter 43: New Uniform
Godric froze and looked at the screen.
On it was Raven’s picture set as a wallpaper, her name with a bright red heart and now an ongoing call with her soft, melodic voice echoing from the speakers.
It was almost as though fate was trying to set him up.
"I was going to give you a hard time for ignoring me, but..." Her voice purred from the speaker. "Since you called... I’ll let you off the~"
"It was an accident," Godric said flatly. "I’m hanging up."
"Wait."
His finger stopped above the screen.
"What?"
"You called me."
"Yes."
"You actually called me."
"By accident."
"I waited all day to hear from you..."
Godric stared blankly at the screen.
"Well, you’re gonna have to keep waiting."
He tapped the red button, which abruptly ended the call.
Godric looked at the phone for a moment before tossing it onto the bedside cupboard.
As much as he wanted to deal with the heart and the wallpaper matter, he’d had enough phone use for the day.
In her bedroom, Raven blinked as the call suddenly ended.
She pouted, then shook her head and grabbed a brush from her bedside cupboard, which looked larger than Godric’s wardrobe. She gently brushed her hair a couple of times before grabbing her lip gloss and applying just the right amount onto her lips.
Then, she threw herself onto the dark cushions of the bed, her silver-white hair spilling everywhere and lifted the phone right above.
Puckering her glossy lips, she took a couple of pictures and, picking the best one, she opened her contacts and found the one saved as ’Lover’ and sent the best one.
On the other side of that contact, Godric stirred awake to a loud, annoyingly frustrating chime ringing from his phone.
He picked it up, resisting the urge to smash it against the wall, when he saw a message from Raven.
His finger hovered over the screen for a second, seriously debating whether to ignore it before he decided that reading it would probably save him a future headache.
When it opened, an image of Raven with her lips puckered and lying on her bed appeared, followed by a message that said: "Goodnight, Godric<3"
"This girl..." he thought as he locked the screen and put the phone down. "She might be worse than dungeon gates."
***
The morning came fast.
Fortunately, after an image of Raven puckering her lips, followed by a goodnight message, no more notifications came, so Godric managed to have a reasonable amount of uninterrupted sleep.
He dressed in his second-best clothes. His academy uniform was burned by the eternal flame inside the dungeon gate, and his best clothes were stained by blood left by the massacre on the outskirts, and so it was all he had left.
Before the streets of the inner city would have a chance to turn into their usual morning chaos, Godric was already at the academy’s gates.
He arrived earlier than usual, as he intended to get a new uniform.
The academy was strict with its rules, and as much leeway as he would get for getting his burned in a dungeon gate that opened on the academy’s grounds, his grace period would end soon, and so it was time to get a new uniform.
But instead of simply paying and getting it fitted, when he arrived, he was met by unexpected recognition.
"Ah! Godric Blackstar? I had been expecting you!" A man wearing a monocular on his right eye and a measuring tape over his neck approached him from behind the desk, looking around him as though sizing up a statue.
"You’re a bit early," he murmured as though talking to himself rather than Godric. "Yes, too early. The director said you would come in the afternoon, not right in the morning. Afternoon. But oh well. It shouldn’t take too long. Yes, not long at all."
’The director?’ Godric frowned. ’What the hell is he talking about?’
Before Godric could even ponder over the tailor’s erratic behaviour, the man pulled out a piece of pristine white fabric, one that certainly didn’t belong in the outskirts.
It was the colour of Great Houses. Only Great Houses were allowed to wear such uniforms, and as much as Godric’s family had once been a great house, he wore a normal black uniform to avoid getting any unwanted attention.
While he wanted to restore his House to its former glory, he knew that others would not be so keen to. So keeping a low profile was an important part of his plan.
"I don’t think it’s the right colour," Godric said, looking over the fabric as something he wanted but couldn’t have.
The tailor frowned, then looked at the name he had already engraved onto the inner fabric.
In large, cursive font, it said: Blackstar.
"I’m certain the director said white," the man thought for a moment, then nodded to himself. "Yes, yes, he certainly said white. It has to be white, he said."
Ignoring the puzzling way the tailor was speaking, Godric focused on the figure behind it all.
The director.
Godric never met the man and had never heard anything about him.
Throughout history, the academies’ directors, while important, weren’t much different from other government officials. Respectable, strong, and well paid, but still beneath those who truly ruled. Bending their heads toward the Great Houses, and carrying out their wills.
Something like this was definitely considered meddling in the business of those Great Houses. Things like this never go unnoticed, and they almost certainly never go unpunished.
What was the director of the most prestigious academy playing at? And why was Godric suddenly getting involved?
Of course, none of the questions in his head had any answers. Not in the middle of the academy’s tailor shop, which was apparently run by a madman.
As the tailor wrapped a pristine white uniform across his shoulders, one thing became abundantly clear.
It was time for Godric to meet the director.