The boy on the floor heard two claps from above, and the children lined up from the shortest to the tallest in silence. The boy looked up and was shocked to see an elderly woman counting the rank and file. The voice under her breath was the same that chuckled while carrying him.
"This is the last of you. Starting tomorrow you all will begin training and your education." The eyes of the woman tarried on the boy on the ground for a moment as she said to him, "Go now and find your place amongst the others."
The black haired boy slowly raised himself off the floor before comparing his height to the height of the others. He continued down the line until the fourth from last where a boy of equal height stood straight like it could make him taller. Both boys looked at each other, staring like they were brain dead before the boy with blonde hair relented. It was really too bad because the black haired boy relented at the same time.
Both looking down, or closing their eyes in defeat didn't realize that this happened until they both head butted each other. The children immediately around them stifled laughter as the two boys of opposing hair color held their heads in pain.
"Wadlen," the woman crowed, "pay attention, and Lancrael fall behind Wadlen." So the boys fell in line clutching their foreheads, but still at attention. "Good, get finished with getting to know one another and rest while you can because rest will come very rarely from now on."
With that the woman turned on her heel and left up the stairs that were soon drowned in fog. The children remained at attention not daring to move an inch for some time until Lancrael bent forward to look at the line. He found all of this quite odd and was trying to figure out why they weren't moving. One of the girls in the middle seeing him sighed and left the line to be on her own. The rest followed suit.
Wadlen remained next to Lancrael unmoving until the tallest kid in the room came over to them. The tall red haired boy had a soft yet flat voice uncharacteristic for his stature saying, "Are you alright Wadlen?"
"For now, yes, yes I am alright." The blonde hair boy replied before turning to the black haired boy. "What about you new guy?"
Lancrael was baffled briefly unsure how to answer such a question. The question had until this point never been asked of him because everyone around him and he himself was always miserable, and they knew that already. "Unusually... fine I guess..." The boy replied without much thought put into his words.
The red haired boy then bent down a little bit to extend his hand towards Lancrael while saying, "If we have that out of the way, hello. I'm Bobenetous, what's your name again?" Black haired boy stared at the hand for a moment before removing the covering a small bump on head to exchange the hand shake.
"Mhu, my name is Lancrael." The black haired boy replied before looking the red haired boy in the eyes. The Red head nodded before continuing.
"We all have long names, so if we need to get the attention of each other it would be inconvenient. So then, how about we shorten our names a bit." The black haired boy turned his head in thought before nodding in agreement.
Wadlen spoke up with enthusiasm, "I'll be Wade, your Bob," he said pointing to the tall red head, " and you're Lance." The red head blinked once or twice before sighing in resignation, "It was my idea so I guess I'll deal with it..."
"What did you want to be called then?" Hearing this the black haired boy inched back slowly to avoid the conversation, but the red head seeing all things in the room grabbed his shoulder before he could escape.
"Your opinion is just as important as ours in this matter." Lancreal flailed in Bobenetous' grip hollering, "I don't care what you call me just let me go!" The red head lifted Lancrael by the scruff of his shirt as he asked, "And what if I don't?"
Lancrael proceeded to fall through his tunic like he had done this before. As soon as he hit the floor he ran. The red head blinked in confusion before briskly stepping over and in moments caught up to him before stopping him."I didn't mean to upset you. Here's your tunic."
Lancrael scanned his surroundings before putting it on then scanned again as if going through the tunic brought him to a whole new world. Wadlen was the only difference as he was closer and continued moving closer until they were together again.