Rebels and Witches; arriving at the Magic School

On a map the distance appeared unimpressive, that from Bloodlust Bay to the Magic school... in reality, travelling along with an entire and ever-growing camp of rebels, the road proved to be much longer though.
Between forests, mountains, swamplands, and now snow and ice, it was no wonder that the entire camp let out a sigh of relief when they finally reached their destination.

As the area they had reached was quite unfamiliar - the only map they had of it was over a century old, and quite inaccurate - they had several scouts roaming the lands just ahead of the group. Finally one came back, an enthusiastic smile on his face, announcing he'd found it. (fortunatly, the illusion spell hiding the Magic School's presence had been lowered by Maudre, after she found out the rebels were nearing)

Now a fairly vast mass of rebels was marching towards the castle, under the light of the moon up in a clear night sky.

Despite the late hour Amy was still awake. It seemed as if the Sandman was avoiding her, that or it was the faint new awarenesses. Ever since she had soulbounded with her unicorn she had faintly sensed what he was experiencing. Most of the time that didn't bother her seeing as he was mainly relaxed and comfortable in the old stables, but now. She felt like something was coming, something big.
With a sigh she closed the book she had been trying, and failing, to read and got out of bed. She walked over to her window to see how cold it was outside before going to check up on her unicorn. And that's when she saw them. It wasn't obvious at first, but then it was clear, a large group of people marching towards the school grounds.
She inhaled sharply, anxious. She was unaware that the rebels where making their way towards the school and feared that it might be the kings men or a group of soldiers.
She stood frozen for a few moments of indecision. It was late, but someone still had to be up. If only she knew if and who was standing guard for the school. With a sharp turn her back was to the window and group of marching people and ran towards Maudre's office, having grabbed her robe to cover her up a little on the way. Hoping that she was still awake.

Fortunatly for Amy, Maudre was indeed in her office and very much awake. She was sitting behind her desk, staring at the night sky through an opened window. Moments later a small bird, a robin, flew in and landed on her extended index finger.

Maudre smiled at the creature and whispered to it in a strange tongue. The creature replied, and the ancient witch's smile grew; "excellent," she mused in a soft voice, "I suppose I should go and see them then..."

It was only moments later that a slightly out of breath Amy knocked on the door twice, before opening it without waiting for an answer. She was already a little relieved to find Maudre sitting behind her desk and clearly not planning on going to sleep anytime soon. Her expression still portraited a high doses of worry with a small amount of fear mixed into it.
"I'm sorry for bursting in like this, but there is a large group of people heading straight towards the school. I'm afraid that they might be send by the king..."

Maudre turned around, from the window to the door of her office, looking surprised at first but then just chuckling at Amy's comment.
"Don't worry dear," she said with a reassuring smile, "those aren't royal legions, it's the rebels. I already checked."
Then she stood up from her chair, still smiling; "how about we give them a warm welcome?"

Relieve was obvious on Amy's face when Maudre was told that the approaching group weren't on the king's side. Her expression became uncertain, though, when Maudre asked her to give them a warm welcome. She still was uncertain about whether or not to join the revolution. The matter of being very much not dressed for welcoming anyone didn't help either. Nor did the fact that she had parted in quite bad ways with pretty much every person that she knew and was part of the rebel group.
"I don't really know," she answered, hoping Maudre would understand.

Maudre looked at Amy for a moment, her expression a little hard to read. Then she just smiled again and replied; "you don't have to if you don't want to. I'll just go see them alone then. I just thought you might like to see them again...?"

Looking down for a moment Amy considered quickly changing into an outfit that she would be more apropriate and welcoming the rebels. It would be a good way to show that she had under gone quite a few changes since the last time they had seen each other. But the thought mainly made her uncomfortable, because she was certain that there would be quite some tension when they would see each other again. So when she looked back up she shook her head.
"I think I'll just go check on Rain, assure him that everything is fine so that we hopefully both can get some sleep, I'll save that awkwardness for tomorrow morning, or after classes depending on whether classes will continue as normal or not..."

Maudre nodded understandingly; "as you wish. Speaking of classes going on as usual... I should really go warn the staff that the group outside is friendly company- before we have a fight on our hands!"

She hessitated for a moment, and then asked; "will you be ok? Considering the awkwardness you mentioned?" She hessitated to point out that Raghnall was travelling with the rebels.

Amy smiled grateful that Maudre understood, or at the very least pretended to understand. She had almost already turned around too go to the stables when Maudre asked her if she was going to be okay. She bit her lower lip, not really sure herself.
"I don't know..." she answered honestly, "I'll guess we'll see..."

Maudre nodded at Amy as she left, then let out a sigh; it wasn't that she was unhappy that the rebels had arrived. Just that... well, this was going to be a whole lot of organizing.
She took out some parchment and a quill and started making a list for herself.

Let's see... warn the staff, and the students of course! Things would be a mess if they didn't know what was going on. Then find a place for the rebels to stay. O and a seperate place for the vampires of course. Oooh, the vampires... that should prove to be interesting. Speaking of trouble waiting to happen, there was Valdez to consider- although she didn't really still expect him to be a high risk factor... Then there was the food supplies to take care of. And the classes of course!
Maudre let out another sigh.
And what of the students who would want to join the rebbelion? And what of those who didn't? Admittedly, she seemed to have underestimated this situation a bit, perhaps.
Finally she decided that, for tonight, the rebels could set up camp outside still. This would give her time to prepare the school and all it's inhabitants for their new guests.

A knocking tore her from her train of thought. It was a small mob of proffesors standing at her door, all either scared or angry about the vast amount of rebels approaching. So Maudre put away her frown and brought out her smile, then went to see them.

"Oh, I do hope this doesn't turn into a disaster..."

While walking towards the stables Amy informed pretty much every scared and or confused looking student that she came across that the approaching group weren't on the king's side. Though she knew there where students that would never take her word for it at least she could say she had tried. And she wanted to help Maudre a little with keeping peace in the school.
It did made her walk to the stables a lot longer though. She let out a relieved sigh when she finally past through the door and stepped into the chilly air of the stable. Pulling her robe a little closer around her and wishing she had put on some form of footwear she walked over the freezing stone floor to Rain.
Rain was moving around in the limited space he had until Amy came to stand next to him, putting her arms around him and pressing her face against his neck. It helped both with calming Rain down as well as with keeping Amy warm whilst in the stables. A smile curled Amy's lips up as she held Rain like that, ever since the soulbinding holding Rain felt intimate and safe in a family kind of way.
"It's all okay Rain, I won't let anybody hurt you. Not as long as I can help it, I promise."

Amy didn't expect many students to heed her words, and she was pretty much right.
Though many seemed to believe her at first, their fright still got the best of them sooner or later. Within minutes the halls of the school were filled with pyjama-wearing students, talking and murmering gossips and suspicions.

In the midst of all this, no one particularly minded the White Magic club, standing in between in their white nightrobes. They all seemed troubled by their guests, though not all in the same manner. One wandered away from the rest of the group, to lean against the frame of a window looking out onto the school's grounds. She let out a deep breath as she frowned at the large group standing at the school's gates.

Is it really you?

As Rain relaxed, meaning Amy could finally fully relax as well, the Sandman knocked on their door. Amy wasn't planning on letting him in just yet though. She first wanted to make certain that when the rebels would enter the school ground they would not hurt Rain in anyway. She only knew a small part of the group and she didn't wanted to risk having one of the rebels mistake Rain for a real unicorn and try to kill him for the 'honour' of it. Especially not now that they where soulbounded. In an attempt to keep herself awake while waiting she grabbed the softest brush she had and started brushing Rain.

To Amy's relief (I'm guessing) none of the rebels came to see Rain. In fact, the stables stayed pretty quiet, as possibly the only place inside the entire school grounds. Inside there was lots of noise and commotion, voices and footsteps, and finally - after quite some time had passed and morning was almost upon them - a deafening silence.

Ironically this happened exactly at that same time in the day when everything else seems to fall silent too. Though it was still night, the sky was beginning to brighten beyond the mountains. Creatures of the night would be returning to their resting place, while the creatures of the day had not yet awoken. Everything seemed quiet, as if even Mother Nature herself was holding her breath.

At this time someone other than Amy finally entered the stables. He looked around, scanning the environment for the unicorn he knew to be there... and it's owner. He couldn't see much though, and so asked in a soft voice; "Amy?" It wasn't much louder than a whisper, but even that was enough to be heard. Still, just to be sure Raghnall added: "Amy? Are you there?"

As time past without anything happening the knock of the Sandman could no longer be ignored. Rain sensed it as well as Amy did and he lay down in his stable. Even though Amy was still trying to fight the effects of the sleepingsands of the Sandman she did sat down next to Rain. Most of her upperbody lay across the back of Rain, his bodytemperature keeping hers even as she slowly drift into sleep.
Vaguely in the small part of her that was still aware of her surroundings while sleeping she heard someone call her name twice. It wasn't enough to wake her up though, she merely let out a soft groan and rubbed her eyes for a moment.
Rain on the other hand was more awake. His ears turned to the sound and he lifted his head to see who was calling his masters name.

Raghnall heard sounds from deeper inside the stables; it sounded like someone moving around. He looked in the direction of the sound, wondering if it was Amy. Possibly it was just the unicorn...

But when he walked over to where he'd heard the sounds. At first he was disappointed, as he only saw the unicorn there, but soon he noticed Amy was lying by the summoned creature. He tippytoed over there, passed the unicorn, and smiled down at Amy; "morning sleeping beauty," he said cheerful.

Rain's ears betrayed his uncertainty about Raghnall being so close to his master. Raghnall being a stranger to Rain. Amy just let out another groan when Raghnall talked to her again, she was waking up slightly. But she could still fall back asleep very fast if nothing else would wake her up further.
Rain on the other hand was very focussed on Raghnall, ready to defend his master if nesecarry.

Raghnall looked surprised, as well as confused; was she really that sleepy or was she just ignoring him? Also, the unicorn seeming ready to kick him in the gonads if he should get too close wasn't a nice touch either...!

"Amy?" he pressed, raising his voice from whispering-volume a little, "wake up." He leaned in to shake her awake (which he'll do unless the coned horse will interrupt).

This time Amy woke up enough to really wake up. Disorientated and stiff she groaned as she straightened her back and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. The first thing she was aware of was that she had fallen asleep in the stables with Rain again. She remembered the why behind that after that andd then after that why she was already awake even though it was still clearly not time for that yet. She turned to look at where she had heard Raghnall's voice and tilted her head a little.
"Hey... What are you doing here?" she asked, not really certain how to react to his sudden presence.
Rain relaxed a little when he noticed through Amy that Raghnall wasn't a threat to her.

Raghnall chuckled at first, at Amy's reaction. But then came that question. 'What was he doing here?!'
He looked at her a little dissatisfied; "I came to see you of course."
Then he smiled again though, and kneeled down besides her; "more of a question is what you are doing here- why are you sleeping out here in the stables?"

Amy blinked a little confused at the 'of course' part of the reason why he was here. She was still partly asleep, and not really planning on changing that considering the early hour. Her still half asleep brain processed the question a little slow causing a delayed response.
"Rain was anxious when you and the rest of the rebels where arriving so I came here to relax him. And then I stayed to make sure that if any of the rebels they wouldn't harm Rain," she said and stretched her arms over her head before continuing, "You see there came to some stupid custom of killing unicorns to regain some great 'honour'. I didn't wanted to risk it. I'm just going to go to my room now to get some more sleep."

Raghnall nodded understandingly at the first part, then frowned at the next. "They tried to killl a unicorn for honour? Why?!"

Next he was about to argue that surely none of the rebels would be after seeking honour in slaying a 'fancy horse' when she said that she'd be going to sleep, and he started looking more cross.
"Oh ok," he said in an insulted tone, "I'll just spent another four hours looking for you tomorrow again."

At the first question Amy just shrugged, she didn't really get the howl killing a unicorn for honour thing either. And was not willing to wake her brain up more to think about it. She did gave him a glare when he told her in an insulted tone that he would look for her tomorrow for four hours.
"I didn't ask you to look for me," she answered, getting up, "And I've got classes tomorrow that I need my concentration for them. And in all likelyhood there will be a huge meeting tomorrow to explain to everybody, students and professors, what the sudden invasion is about. So if you want I'll wait for you after that, but right now I need all the extra hours of sleep that I can get."

Raghnall sighed at her respons; "whatever."
And just like that he turned around and walked back towards the castle, snowflakes melting midair around him and splashing down on his shoulders in the form of rain.