Chapter Text
Neige’s eyelashes were clumped with tears. And his eyes felt so raw and puffy. No amount of Vil’s homemade skincare could hide this.
He slowly blinked the wetness from his eyes, adjusting to the sunlight after so long. He was lying on his bed, tucked under the covers alongside stray twigs and leaves. His friends and fellow housewardens were in the room, conversing.
Off to the side, Mina’s smirk was totally audible in his voice, teasing, “So that’s your unique magic, hm? I’ve always wondered.”
“Shut up!” Gran shrieked.
A loud thump followed, indicating that things were heating up, and that kickstarted Neige’s brain back online. He sat up straight. “Gran, please don’t use my things to fight.”
Toby jumped him immediately. “Neige!”
Neige hugged Toby, and everyone else was at his bedside in just a moment.
“How are you feeling?” Gran asked worriedly.
“Much better,” Neige told him honestly.
Mina drew a giant sigh of relief. “Thank goodness. Any longer and the headmage would find out.”
Rielle shuddered and laughed. “We certainly don’t need that!”
Neige looked around at the damage. His room was a mess — things on the floor, grass stains everywhere, footprints on the ceiling. His stomach sank. “What happened to all the Charblanche students?”
Mina waved his hand dismissively. “I’m sure they found somewhere to wait this out.”
“No,” Neige sat up resolutely. “I am their housewarden, and I am responsible for this whole disaster, so I should go bring them back.” Then, Neige slumped down, feeling his tears well again twicefold. “Oh, I showed everyone such a terribly pathetic side of myself. They’d be right to not want me as housewarden anymore.”
“No one saw anything,” Timmy reassured him. “They didn’t know it was you!”
Che’nya and Alice shared a look of absolute mischief, bright grins that almost split their faces in half, synchronising on a shared objective in a rare moment of synergy.
“Well we could go get them for you,” Alice suggested. “While you take a moment to regain your bearings and make your decisions.”
Che’nya patted Neige’s head placatingly. “We’ll point them in the right direction, don’t you worry your purr-etty little head about it.”
Alice’s shoes click-clacked as she strode out of the room, with Che’nya floating alongside her. Neige took a deep breath and manually kicked himself back into functioning mode, pulling back the blankets and resolutely getting up.
“Right. We’ll need to clean the dorm. How bad is it?”
Hop chuckled nervously. “Not destroyed?”
Rielle nodded. “I’ve seen lots of wrecks that are worse than this!”
Neige nodded seriously, pushing up his sleeves. “Right. First, we shall assess the damage. Then, we’ll divide the work. Structural damage needs magic, but cleaning and tidying doesn’t. I should also think about what I’m going to say to everyone when they come back…”
“And hey,” Rielle clasped his hands in his. “You’re not alone! If they need another housewarden to intimidate them I can do that! Well, Mina can do that. And Gran.”
Neige laughed. “Thanks Rielle. Thank you everyone. But I’m sure I can handle it, especially with you all beside me.”
So the group got to work, cataloguing and assessing all of the damage the dorm received and where they would need to restore it. Thankfully, the structural damage wasn’t major, and the biggest issues would be all of the broken windows and damaged wiring. The mess was another thing entirely, broken glass on the floor, leaves and twigs everywhere (which came with no shortage of crawling creatures) and people’s belongings were jostled and strewn about, freed from their drawers and hangers and lying on floors or beds. Not to mention how the kitchens looked. Neige had made a mental catalogue of everything that needed to be done, and he was halfway through mentally assigning tasks to his friends, who were poking leaves and kicking rocks like they had no idea where to even start.
Just then, the magical portal activated, and Neige saw what must have the been entirety of the Charblanche dorm students sigh in relief on the other side.
Che’nya floated above them. “It seems we have arrived, if this is your destination.”
Neige pitter-pattered over to them immediately. “Oh, thank goodness! Is everyone okay?”
The Charblanche students were stunned speechless at the sight. Standing in the centre of their lounge, their always-put-together housewarden asked after them with what should have been the same wide eyes of worry he gave them everyday, but they were noticeably red and puffy, and it felt so different in his faded pyjamas, and hair sticking out at odd angles. He was absolutely covered in scuffs of dirt and twigs and stray leaves, and holding a broom that made him look much smaller than he was. Simply put, Neige LeBlanche looked like a mess.
And suddenly, out of nowhere, every student in the vicinity was hit with the strong urge to protect their housewarden, lest anything bad ever happen to him and leave them in the hands of someone else. Such as Aurarym housewardens Alice and Che’nya, who toyed with food that they didn’t even intend to eat. Even just remembering the devilish past five minutes made several students shudder.
Neige’s angelic smile might be dampened by puffy red eyes and exhaustion, but the pure sunshine still fuelled them into knowing everything would be okay in his world. They would much rather throw their lot into his happily ever after.
“Housewarden Neige!” Charblanche student A cried. “You’re back!”
“Thank goodness you’re all right!” Charblanche student B sighed. “We were so worried when you didn’t evacuate the dorm with us.”
“Wow, this place is a mess,” Charblanche student C commented. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”
Neige was momentarily stunned, but he let their enthusiasm wash over him and rewarded his students with a beaming smile, soft enough to melt everyone’s hearts with its pure warmth. “Well then, shall we all get to work? You guys fix all the windows,” he said, pointing to a group of stronger magic users, “And you four handle the kitchen. You all tidy the rooms, and the rest of you get some brooms!”
The dorm was now lively with everyone pitching in, and Neige put on a song on the speakers that always helped him feel more happy when he was cleaning.
Whistling along to the song and sweeping to the beat, Neige floated through the dorm checking on everyone. “Wrong end, Rielle, you’ve been on land for too long to convince me you don’t know the ends of a broom.”
Rielle, who had been drawing forks in the dust with the wooden end, flipped the broom around with a sheepish grin and started sweeping properly, though he still held it like an awkward vacuum cleaner. Rielle gasped. “This is so much better!” Neige sighed fondly.
Neige spotted Che’nya slowly appearing behind some of his dorm students, sneaking behind them and twisting out of sight whenever they tried to look over their shoulders, keeping them on edge and himself terribly amused. Neige huffed. “Che’nya, stop scaring my dorm students!”
The Charblanche students looked at Neige with watery, eternally grateful eyes, regarding him as their ultimate saviour, while Che’nya just giggled and disappeared again, to somewhere else entirely.
“Oh Alice, don’t pout,” Neige chided. “The work goes by much faster if you treat it well. And Mina, we don’t sweep the dust under the rug.”
With Neige at the helm, and everyone working together, the Charblanche dorm was looking almost as good as new. Sure there were some things that couldn’t be fixed or replaced, and the dorm students would likely continue to discover lost items tucked away behind the couch, but with everyone’s hard work the dorm was now back to being their home.
Neige told everyone that tomorrow, he’d personally pay for everyone to get takeout, as compensation for the unpleasant night they had. The dorm wasn’t informed that it was Neige’s fault that the enchanted forest attacked, so this was his way of alleviating some of his guilt and making up for his mistakes.
“All because I made such a silly wish,” Neige whispered to himself.
“It’s not silly!” Rielle said. “Especially since you didn’t know that was gonna happen. You just wanted to feel less afraid.”
Neige shook the thoughts out of his head. Scanning over his schedule, he said aloud, “I’ll leave ordering the food to Dominic. I just remembered I’m going to an awards show tomorrow with Vii-kun.”
“Vii-kun?” Mina asked. “Who?”
Rielle gasped dramatically. “Oh, oh you mean Vil Schoenheit??? The one who played in that surface film about surface highschool life?”
“Wow,” Mina drawled. “Very specific, Rielle.”
Neige smiled at him. “Mhm! The film that me and Vii-kun starred in is getting an award! Vii-kun hasn’t been taking on any new roles to focus on school, so this film premiere is my first time seeing him in a while.”
“He’s in school in real life too?” Rielle asked excitedly. “Which one?”
“Oh, Vii-kun goes to Night Raven College.”
Several Charblanche students turned around. “Night Raven College?!” “Did someone say Night Raven College?!”
Alice raised an eyebrow. “Huh. What is this ‘Night Raven College’?”
Che’nya rested his upside-down head on Alice’s with a giant, fond grin, “It’s full of funnest little rascals. Much like yourself, just more uptight about it.”
Mina shook his head fondly. “It’s times like this that it’s obvious you’re not from Twisted Wonderland, Alice. Royal Sword Academy and Night Raven College are the top two magic academies in the world. You could say we’re rivals, in a way.”
Rielle nodded enthusiastically. “At the end of the year we have a competition going up against them! Mina played Magift last year!”
“And Alice,” Neige said brightly, “If you break our 99-year win streak I swear to the radiant seven—”
Someone, in Book 8: “Yeah, they say that wish pieces are super rare, but we’re coming up to six of them in the last year alone. The only housewarden that hasn’t completely wasted a wish piece on us is Rosaurora’s! Yeah, RSA’s keeping it under tight wraps. It’ll be so embarrassing for us if NRC found out.”