The first things her eyes drifted towards were the three queen sized beds to the left side of the room, each with a good 10ft of space on either side. Then, looking to the right, there was another bed closer to the front of the room, one where her travel bags she had packed up last night were sitting atop. Why were there so many beds?
A divide existed between the two sides of the room, indicated by the indented floor, creating a lower section through the center. A table with a pearly white and red tablecloth was the only furniture in the middle section. At the far end of the room, past all the beds, was a kitchen spanning from the left, to the bathroom, which was on her side of the room.
The bathroom door suddenly shot open and three girls, all identical in appearance, except for their hair, walked out with towels wrapped around their bodies. They were shorter than Kira, but not by much, and had mesmerizing pink eyes that locked onto her. Their hair was an orangey-pink, almost like the sky during a sunrise, though each had their own style; one had short hair with little bangs covering her forehead, the one in the back had a shoulder length bob, and the last one had long hair down to her abdomen. Their naturally tanned skin glistened a little, still wet from their bath, and their thick eyebrows raised at the sight of Kira.
“Roommate!” “Roommate!” “Roommate!” They all said at once in a happy tone.
“We were wondering when you’d get here.”
“We thought maybe you got lost.”
“We took a hot bath while we were waiting for you.”
They spoke one after the other.
“Isn’t… aren’t we only supposed to have one roommate? Not that it’s a bad thing! I’m just… a little confused.” Kira said shyly, a little dazed from the sudden rush of words coming her way.
“It’s okay roomie, we can explain.”
“We’re Trinity’s, and the school allows anyone from the Trinity household to room together as one.”
“It may be a little overwhelming at first, but hopefully you’ll get used to all of us.”
Kira nodded. This was a lot more than she was ready for. One roommate she hadn’t ever met before was already stressful, now there were three of them? They seemed friendly, and very outgoing, but that didn’t stop that little weight of nervousness from sinking into her gut.
“Wait Trinity’s?” Kira had read a little about them, as she did for all the 8 wizarding households. Like Rose and Thorn, who left their mark on magic, evident by the thorn markings around her neck, the founding wizard Trinity did so as well. All descendents of hers, those born in the Trinity household, were all born as triplets. Without exception.
“Yep, Trinity’s.” The long haired one said, “Im Helina, Helina Trinity Derresa.”
“I'm Yuli Trinity Derresa.” The short haired one said.
“Vea… you know the rest.” The last Trinity said.
“Helina, Yuli, and Vea.” Kira pointed to each as she said their name, getting nods in response. “I'm Kira Funkell Thorn, um, it's nice to meet you all.”
The room went silent, the three Trinity sisters were wide eyed, staring at her with looks Kira couldn't get a read on. Then, all at once, the Trinity’s dashed forward and got up and close with Kira, looking her up and down.
Flustered, Kira took a step back. “U-um, what are guys doing?”
“Sorry sorry, it's just we didn't expect to be roommates with the new Thorn.”
“We thought we recognized Lord Thorn, but a lot of wizards look like him with that silvery beard and hair, so we weren't sure.”
“We had heard rumours about you before the school year, but we didn't know if it was true or not. What a surprise.” They rambled, though what they were saying made Kira even more perplexed than before.
“The new Thorn? Lord Thorn? Rumours?” Kira started to rub her hands in a nervous tick. “I have no clue what any of you are talking about.”
The trio blinked at her in unison— which was kind of creepy thinking about it— and paused for a second, before Helina spoke again. “I see, girls, why don't you go get changed.” Yuli and Vea understood and walked off to their own separate beds. With a flick of their wrists, curtains that were held up on the ceiling around their bed, fell down around them, giving them some privacy.
“So Kira, has your master not told you about your household, the Thorn’s?” Helina said softly, trying to ease the odd atmosphere between them.
“Well, maybe? I don't know” Kira's eyes glazed over slightly as she looked through her memories, trying to remember if Rynus had ever explained this whole Thorn shibizz that they were talking about. She knew that Thorn was responsible for someone like her thousands of years after his death; a child of Thorn as they were called. That was pretty much it, there was a faint memory from when she was younger coming to her mind, one in which Rynus might have talked about their lineage, but the details had already faded by now.
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“I assume you know about the eight households?”
“Of course, I've read about them in my books growing up. Every wizard belongs to one of the eight households, depending on who their master is.”
“Then do you know about the noble households?” Helina asked.
“A little? The books I read didn't talk about them too much, just that there were noble households that helped govern wizard society, alongside the Elder council.”
“Hmm, kind of, well your situation is a little special— are you gonna be meeting your master anytime soon?”
“Tomorrow morning I think. He said he wanted to give me some good luck brownies.”
“Then I think it's better if you got your master to explain this all to you tomorrow, or I expect there will be some big surprises for you.” Helina cut herself off. “Honestly, we don't really care about your lineage, as long as you aren't a twat, we'll get along just fine.”
A smile, just a small one, crept up on Kira’s face. “I'll try my best not to do any twatty things then.”
Helina chuckled, “Good! Just forget about the whole Thorn thing for now. You probably shouldn’t tell others you're a Thorn until you realize what it means to be you, though that's just a suggestion, you can do whatever you want really.”
Kira nodded meekly.
“How about some tea? We wanna get to know you better, we're going to be roommates for the next few years after all… though I should probably get changed as well, this is kind of awkward isn’t it?”
“Mm, maybe a little” Kira chuckled, her tension easing. She came over to her bed and began unpacking her bags; pulling out little trinkets from her home, her clothes, and some of her books. Before she could finish, Helina’s bedroom curtain lifted back up and she stepped out.
“Take your time, I’ll start brewing some tea.”
Kira didn’t have much, but she was still glad her bedroom area came with a large dresser next to an empty bookshelf, and a desk on the other side of her bed to hold her things. Once her clothes were tucked away, and her books were shelved, she shuffled over to the kitchen table where Yuli and Vea were chatting, waiting for Helina to finish making tea.
Joining the two sisters at the table, she watched silently as they were happily discussing the tour earlier today. What Helina had said earlier still swirled around her mind. Was Rynus not telling her things? She hadn’t even realized they were talking to her until they had to repeat her name, “Kira?”
“Hm!? Sorry, I was in my own head.”
“That’s okay, we were just asking what your favourite part of the tour was? I thought the Common Square was really nice, like a little village in the middle of campus.” Yule said.
“I thought the herbology area was the coolest. Did you see all those plants? I wanna see what kind of potions they can make with those things.” Vea exclaimed.
“I think my favourite spot was the Great Hall, though maybe that’s a little basic of an answer.” Kira spoke softly.
“That’s a fair choice, my favourite part of the tour was the Great Hall as well, the sheer size of the place was breathtaking.” Helena chimed in, passing around freshly brewed cups of tea. “I used whatever they had, it’s nothing special, but it should taste okay.”
Kira watched the three sisters take sips from their tea and did the same. She had never had tea before, this was a brand new experience for her. Rynus made tea for customers lots of times, but he would always make coffee or juice for himself, saying ‘I’m not proper enough for tea. It’s also not that tasty’. That sentinement passed down onto her, why drink something not tasty when there was sweet juice she could chug? But as the tea flowed into her mouth, coating her taste buds, she experienced a light floral flavour, not sharp like juice, but mellow and calming.
“Woah, this isn’t so bad.” Kira said aloud. It wasn’t as good as juice, she didn’t think any liquid could top freshly squeezed orange juice, but it was better than she had imagined.
The sisters giggled. “Your expressions are like an open book, we think it’s very cute.”
“Wait until we buy some better quality tea, it will blow you away.”
“Have you had tea before? We’re tea lovers.”
Kira shook her head. “My master never really enjoyed it, so he never made it for us— sorry, um, this is kind of out of nowhere, but can I ask you guys a weird question?”
“Shoot away.” Helena winked at her.
“You switch between saying ‘we’ and ‘I’ a lot, is that just like a Trinity thing?”
The three sisters chuckled at once, “That's not a weird question at all, we get asked that a lot.”
“We, and all those of the Trinity household, are deeply connected to our siblings.”
“Some would even say we are one person if it weren't for the fact our innate magic isn't the same, and our interests and hobbies also differ.”
“So sometimes we know we are speaking as a whole, and sometimes as an individual.”
That’s… so cool! How fascinating magic could be was always a shock to Kira. It’s like her whole world was now being filled with more magic. And she wouldn’t ask for anything less.
Their conversation continued, until their tea was long gone and a natural lull came about. Tired from the long day, they decided to relax until whatever Principal Jemina had planned for them later that night came around. Kira decided to take a shower to clean up from all the sweating caused by the campus tour, something the Trinity’s recommended. She picked some clothes from her recently stuffed dresser, and hopped into the bathroom.
Her mouth unconsciously opened, witnessing the bathroom for the first time. It was larger than her bedroom back home: it had a large porcelain tub that looked like it could easily fit 3, an open shower space wide enough she might be able to do a cartwheel inside it, obviously there was a toilet, and there were two sinks on a long countertop with a large gold rimmed mirror to look into. The Trinity’s had all their toiletries already on the countertop or in the cupboards underneath, but they had kindly left the right side of the countertop empty for whoever their roommate would be. There was a clean pink towel with her name embroidered onto it hanging on a rack.
Oh, I get my own towel, sweet! That was a nice touch, she was glad they didn’t have to worry over whose towel was whose. Though, she wasn’t sure if this was the standard size of dorms everyone else got. Maybe it was bigger because there were four girls instead of two? She wasn’t complaining, no siree, just making an observation.
Well, I might as well take advantage of this place. Kira stripped down and hopped into the massive shower, not even having to wait for the water to heat up, it simply came out hot. She stretched her arms out wide, letting the water fall over her, the day's exhaustion slowly washing away. She rubbed beautifully scented shampoo and soap, so nice she spent a few seconds sniffing it, over her sweaty body. Time seemed to zip by, she didn’t even know how long had passed, but knocking at the door stirred her attention.
“Did you need to get inside? Sorry I’ve been in for too long.” Kira apologized and turned off the shower.
“We’re… downstairs… Jemina…”
“What? I can’t hear you, hold on!” She shouted so they’d hear her from behind the door. She scampered over to the closed door and asked, “Can you repeat that?”
“We’re being called downstairs by Principal Jemina, she says everyone has ten minutes before they need to be ready to go!”
“Ah, okay, I'll be ready in just a minute.”
“No rush, you got ten minutes, we’ll wait for you.”
Whew, she was glad they didn’t just take off without her, it’s nice to have people that waited for her. Quickly drying off and changing into her clean clothes, she burst out of the bathroom.
“Throw on your robes, then let's go down. Most of the girls are on the first floor already.” Helina said, the three sisters already donning their wizards robes.
Kira’s hair was still slightly damp, but she had no time to properly dry it off fully. She threw on her robes and left downstairs with her new roommates to see what Principal Jemina had in store for them.
