04. How I went to a boarding school

I had found a picture of my mother in her youth.

She looked rather happy in her colourful school uniform.

I looked up where it was from and realised it was from Norway’s royal academy? Perhaps my mother had been Norwegian. I didn't even know that. And she had enrolled in that school for people with some aptitudes toward magic?

I looked up a little more about that school and it minted my resolve. I was reaching the right age and this was a different country.

I might have found a way out, for both of us.

I forced the hands of Quinn and Gwynifar, to inform my father about how I wanted to meet him. Rapidly.

He eventually complied.

It had been years. I wanted to berate him for how lonely I had been all these years, but I held my tongue. I needed to prove him I was quite able to handle myself on my own already.

S - Hello father. Thank you for this moment of your time.

P - What do you want? You don't realise how dangerous it can be for us to see each other.

S - Sadly I do realise it. Fully. And I wanted to make you an offer.

P - Silvia... What do you have in mind?

S - The Royal boarding school of Norway accepts foreign students, so long they have some aptitudes for magic. They won't ask much about my past so I will be hidden in plain sight, and I will be safe under the protection of this country we have no ties with.

And more importantly, I would leave this place and have at last a real chance to make friends. Real friends, normally!

I will see a little more of the world at long last. And people of every kind and species hopefully!

And it would be easier for my poor second father to hide me, I had concluded at the time.

He sighed. Of course the prospect of hiding me in another country wasn't enchanting to him. It would be even harder for him to hear news or see me, never mind the patriotic shame of doing so.

I embraced him. I was thankful, even if I had all too rarely seen him.

He had been trying his best to keep the nobility’s pride and dangers away from me.

P - So you want to go study magic with other adventurers...

S - I will blend in so not to attract attention. I may not look like much but I'm pretty confident in my magic, so it will be fine! And I really want to make new friends... And-

He rested his wide hand over my head. I felt strangely emotional feeling it there.

P - You... If you grow up like your mother, you will be fine.

I had a little hiccup.

He was not playing fair...

But I was able to make a brighter smile, even if my hands were shaking a little.

And to thank him for both of my dads. I hoped this would make up a little for leaving my previous one too early.

S - I'm grateful, for all you have done for me all this time...

A little moment lost in time.

And rapidly after, preparing for that next step.

~

Hence I soon boarded for the academy.

My father Count Petrus Opgaendsol of Blekinge arranged everything from the backstage.

My head was full of dreamy expectations. I’ll make friends, eh eh eh.

My suitcase was made by my teary eyed maid Gwynifar.

And my butler Quinn accompanied me outside with a bittersweet smile as well. They acted like my surrogate parents for a dozen years or so, and I was grateful to them as well.

I gave them both plenty of pecks to say goodbye. They were both flustered.

They both knew the realities of this world, and I wasn’t looking at all ready to face them. I was a cute and rich sheltered girl finally stepping outside. My hair was long with gentle curls, and still that surreal pink gleam to it. I had a fair smile.

I looked like a harmless young bunny.

But I was confident in all the nanites could do for me, and with my own spirit to lead me!

I could pick up a stone, and quietly ask the nanites to help me. They would fuzzily alter the physics of my body in gradients, until I could crush it like a meringue between my fingers, painlessly.

That was the last test, before going out for good. I dusted

I hoped into a bus with a fake identity my father somehow had managed to make for me.

I wanted to ask how, but I learnt in a previous life not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Even if I had never been gifted a horse.

The train and buses still occasionally rolled.

Like the rest of Europe, going alone outside the main cities controlled by the government was dangerous. Furthermore for a lone child with rich clothes on me.

S - Hey nanites, everything alright on your end?

N - Why yes. And our extended group is very happy to travel.

S - Alright, good, I suppose...

Swarm machines can be happy? Can a society of bugs be happy? Could that risk having them becoming partial toward me?

I don't know how emotions can be reflected at a social scale. But I daydream over the idea. I felt the fuzzy sensations of a larger swarm of nanites following me out of curiosity.

They had understood how much their existence would no longer be boring if they could tag along with me. As much as their programming or higher social pressure allowed.

I daydreamed about the kingdoms of Europe and the European Union Empire, all at odds with each other.

If eusocial structures can feel, then I wanted these ones to relax and make a good handshake. And if they kissed, that would have been a bonus for all people to appreciate as well.

I chuckled to myself along the travel. Other passengers looked at me as if I was acting a little weird. That made me smile. I then smiled a little more, because I'm sure deep down, most of them would enjoy sharing my dream.

~

And so I headed toward Oslo. I would see it before Stockholm, funnily.

I didn't get kidnapped nor ransacked along the travel. The direct train line was interrupted at the time, but the buses were alright. We weren’t attacked by neither bandits nor monsters.

As for travelling by planes or other machines of their kind, it was not possible weirdly in our futuristic times. Planes had been banned. The nanites told me they were forbidding the flight of vehicles with such engines.

S - Why?

N - Per our programing, it's a massive and sudden cause of anthropogenic global warming we can and should prevent.

S - Damn... That must have hurt the economy, and the military... How about balloons or zeppelins then?

N - Those are okay.

S - Do countries use them again?

N - We're not allowed to answer.

S - Right, right.

They have one mission above everything else, and some rules that are a little odd sometimes. Or a little intransigent.

So industries still exist, and high technologies. But some specific industries with too high waste and too little benefit according to the system can be prohibited by it...

Some emergency flying vehicles are still allowed, but there are limits to their allowed capacities. If the fuel to weight ratio goes too high, they disable it.

It’s like we’re now living in a sandbox game with pretty harsh rules and limits here and there. The system was made able to actively deactivate things... That was a little spooky to me honestly.

Apparently that had been the cost to civilisation which seven sages had been willing to pay in the past.

These wonders made me think along the way, until the bus eventually reached its destination. I was eager to have my world history lessons.

The last bus finally reached its destination.

I jumped down, carrying my luggage behind as if it weighed nothing, because it did. And I began visiting and admiring the new sci-fi city of Oslo.

~

I was the head filled with wonders.

I would never recover anything from my past life if I were to travel to Japan at this point, it would have just felt sad.

But in this new place, under a new name, I could finally make something nice and peaceful for myself.

No pressure. Just flowing freely.

S - You will help me, right nanites?

N - To the best of our abilities!

I chuckled. I should have known better.

I bumped into a few people as I spent my time visiting the city. Most were nice.

At the end of the day, I went to an inn.

On the next day, I would head to school, register, and finally meet them.

Lovely friends to be... Eh eh eh...

I rearranged my face into a more innocent smile, and my uniform for the next day was laid ready.

As I was a little too excited, it took me far longer into the night to fall asleep, and had cute dreams. I was nicely optimistic. But I also woke up far too late because of it.

So the next morning I was running really late. And running literally, arriving at the gate being locked before me.

Noo! I dropped my bread, and steeled my resolve before the now giggling guards.

The nanites helped me quietly. The fuzzy sensation coursed through my legs and body.

I jumped over the few metres high gate and its walls, soon landing gracefully on the other side. It was a school for young people learning magic and they didn’t prepare for that?

I bowed an apology and ran away from the bewildered guards before they could catch me. I’m sorry!

I rushed into the first building to lose my pursuers, trying to make my way to the welcoming ceremony as inconspicuously as could be. I bumped into a teacher or another late student along the way. But I made it.

I found a seat in the wide auditorium where the headmaster was welcoming us. I sighed.

He was welcoming every student in English.

Then teachers spoke in Norwegian. I didn’t get much...

S - Hm... Nanites, would you mind... Translating everything for me?

N - Okay.

Someone glanced at me as I had spoken weirdly and then was holding my ears as if they hurt me a little.

And then I heard everything almost as normally...

I thanked them with amazement, quietly.

They chirped, happy of being of use to me.

No cheat tricks, right...

Not directly maybe. But I have a friendly connection with the underlying AI decentralised brain, and its countless tiny interface fingers everywhere.

And apparently we’re not many with a level of relationship as high as me. If even any at all.

S - Can you tell me whom would be friend to me?

N - Hm, surely everyone if we worked together for it?

S - Wait I don’t want a harem comedy! Just a few friends...

I was poking my fingers, mixing my embarrassment and dreams.

A few people around the room were noticing my odd behaviour and me talking to myself. I had become used to it so I didn’t realise I was bringing some attention toward me.

The entrance ceremony was concluded, and the headmaster had repeated our responsibilities as fledgling nobility, aristocracy and oligarchy. We were meant to be exemplary citizens.

Most children here were with already good blood in their veins. And a few like me were accepted because we had ticked a few other boxes along the way. Potential, and possibly corruption.

We all stood up for the final greeting and salute.

It was our cheer to a few good years of studying normally!

I was yelling my joy a bit loudly.

~