Something about the mattress made me want to just sink into it, before feeling the pressure on my tails which always made it impossible to enjoy the simple pleasure of lying on one''s back, like they always make it look so comfortable, the simple ability to enjoy something "so normal". So I ended up laying there, on my side, staring into the wall not really thinking anything.
With a lot of effort I barely managed to get myself to read the clock. This was a break time for me which I had chosen after not a lot of contemplation for a reason that I forgot but that didn''t mean I regretted doing so, I was enjoying my time relaxing and doing nothing productive.
Sometime while I had been lost in though Sylv had opened the door and left her sword before leaving presumably to her next class. I didn''t know how I managed to not notice her but at least she was able to tell that I didn''t really feel like being bothered as i continue to lay on the bed. It was a lot of fidgeting in finding a position I could comfortably stay in while not ruining my fur which I had brushed this morning but at some point I had decided to choose comfort over that as I gave into closing my eyes as well.
It was like sleep "lite" where I felt like I was sleeping, somewhat, hard to describe, but also completely aware and awake at the same time, probably something more natural to me because of experience or lineage. The room was quite, enough so that even my ears could barely pick out the machinery and the people talking probably several rooms away. Every so often, even though I knew it hadn''t been that long, I force myself to look at the clock which ticked at most three minute every time I checked.
The room was a bit cold to be honest but I had neither the strength or care to cover myself in the blanket I was comfortably laying on as I started to think about my past. I don''t really remember my parents that well to be honest, like I remember them but I always felt like I didn''t actually know them. They were defiantly great parents but still, it felt wrong as I didn''t feel any real personal connection with them. They claimed to be "foxes" "just like me" but they never showed any feature of well, any beast kin. They had claimed it was magic that they used because of several convoluted reasons but at the end of the day they treated me with the same love as any parent would so I had never cared much for the truth, it was only now while I had a lot of free time did I think about this stuff that any of it came to mind.
These thoughts were always uncomfortable because they truly deserved my unconditional love but something deep down prevented me, it was hard for me to accept these thoughts as I struggled with this anxiety as if these mere thoughts were enough to make me a horrible daughter even if possibly adopted. But there was always the other possibility... ''No'' I told myself, it wasn''t ever worth considering it as I quickly switched what I was thinking about, or more accurately, stopped really thinking much at all choosing to once again relax in blissful thoughtlessness.
After long enough when the clock had finally hit the time when break was over, I begrudgingly pushed myself up and just sat there for another minute watching the clock. After that minute I finally pulled myself off of the bed as I wobbled myself over to the door and pulled it open. I had half expected the hallway to have changed but it was just as empty as I had always seen it (the three times I had) with doors with neat little plaques labeling them.
It was the first time I had really bothered to observe them instead of hurrying somewhere hoping I was late. The hallway looked fancy at first glance but with further details I could tell it was lacking some stuffy but this was for the new students I rationalized and honestly it was more than fancy enough for me who had lived in relative impoverishment where my parents had told me that they and their parent''s and their parent''s parent''s had saved to send me where maybe I could make enough to send all my future children to this school as well. Honestly, it felt flimsy but as I thought about it the more the doubt of being a horrible child kept creeping into my head as I pushed any suspicion out of my head.
That reoccurring thought, the fear of being a horrible person and specifically daughter was always so oppressive in my life. Every time I fought with my parents, every time I got into an argument, although again they never specifically instilled it, their compassion for me made it inevitable that this guilt would begin to build up, where I believed I was good enough for them, that I had already failed... This time I slapped myself "awake", I needed to actually clear my mind now, something to distract me so these thoughts and doubts would go away for now.
Luckily my class was just around the... corner? I walked backwards a bit retracing my steps, ''no this is definitely where the map says...'', I walked back to the corner as a bit of embarrassment started to build up. ''It''s still just a wall, what was I thinking that something would change?'' I continued to stare blankly at the wall.
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After looking at it for a couple more moments, it was still just a wall...
"Hey any idea where... Oh..." I heard someone approach me try to begin to ask.
"What... an interesting... uh..." The short-ish boy continued trying to avoid any embarrassment.
With a little bit of courage I responded, "Nope, no idea, heheeehehe...heh..." if nothing else it at least saves him I tried to justify but on the inside I was burning up with embarrassment. I look back at the map they handed out to all the students, and again nothing changed, it still said that the room should be right here.
The boy walked a bit forward as if analyzing the wall, ''It''s just a wall...'' and with a sigh he leaned into the wall, like literally into the wall as with a startled yelp I heard a dull *thud* as I winced back a bit with him having disappeared from sight. With all this time my incredible genius, or lack there of, hadn''t bothered to even investigate the place, ''I''m just too tired from just waking up...'' I resigned myself to this humiliation. The class itself was "Problem Solving and Improvisation in Spellcasting", my parents had spent a lot of time trying to convince me that it was worth it and the school had labeled it "not mandatory but highly recommended" when sending out class registrations.
I personally didn''t get the importance because all the already famous and well known spells were famous and used because they were good, why would I need to learn how to improvise I thought to myself. But after a whole lot of once sided arguing of my parents I finally gave in and decided to just get it done with first year.
The entire wall was probably there to be a kind of first lesson and I had managed to completely and utterly fail it and my anxieties were now peaked imagining my other classmates or not even, just other people at the school laughing at me for being so useless. I stood there motionless until the same boy from earlier called out to me.
"Hey! What are you waiting for?" As if he himself didn''t feel much of anything after "failing" the first "test" as well. With a little hesitation I carefully and slowly walked into and through the wall after closing my eyes. I had half expecting the wall to be real despite witnessing that it wasn''t just a moment ago.
The classroom itself wasn''t anything impressive, it was just desks and rows of seats... that didn''t accommodate for my physical needs... It''s something you learn to just recognize when something isn''t going to work specifically for you and in this case it was chairs that didn''t accommodate my tail forcing me to sit on the very edge to try to not crush mine. The boy who''d I''d witness fall through the wall had just moved to a random chair and sat in it near the front and begin to immediately look at me with a... look, I couldn''t tell, probably because I was never good with facial expressions to begin with.
The teacher herself was relaxed in her chair with her eyes closed while it seemed we were the first two in the class. The other student finally seemed to give up and stopped looking in my direction before pulling out a book and flipping through it. With a bit of time I found myself at the back left corner of the class sitting very uncomfortably with my head laid across the desk taking inspiration from the teacher to close my eyes and quickly found myself daydreaming.
It was kind of hard to focus on my thoughts as I heard more and students enter the class all in their own unique ways, some had fallen through the wall like the first boy, some just walked straight through having either watched or known before hand, I wouldn''t know my eyes were still closed, while I heard some interesting noises possibly from pushing, arguing, or simply just talking from outside the room.
Not before too long the teacher had finally decided to call attendance as she started to list our names one by one as I almost ended up missing my own, which would have been embarrassing. I still hadn''t raised my head as I continued to try my best to relax before the teacher finally started her lesson, which I also didn''t pay attention to. All I heard was "syllabus" and I immediately zoned out, she hadn''t even bothered to start any introductory questions or games and just immediately started to explain rules which only made me even more disengaged and tired than I''d already been.
I had been so disengaged in fact that I didn''t notice her walk up to me and literally hit me, IN THE EAR, with a roll of paper and then she just walked back up to the front like nothing happened, she didn''t even say a word in acknowledgement. That interaction only made me despise her even more as not only was it extremely rude, to be fair I was being disrespectful too, but also it hurt like hell because my ears were sensitive. And so, I ended up spending the rest of my class aggressively doing my best to ignore every single word she said. Of course I still felt very embarrassed but my sheer anger kept me from worrying about that at the audacity for her to use THAT as my punishment, but honestly I would have preferred that over her calling me out but I wasn''t going to admit that.
In the end, I learned nothing, not what I should have done, about other people, nor anything the teacher said in class. It was the least useful, and perhaps one of the most, possibly irrational, angry moments of my life. The little test at the very beginning had given me some hope that maybe she''d be a good teacher and I had been proven wrong as I continued to pout internally while making my way to my next classroom.
It couldn''t possibly get worse than the last class I thought to myself, half hoping for myself to be wrong out of pure spite against myself.