Footpath (OPEN)

The school was odd, yet beautiful, unlike Hogwarts. Serafina explored the grounds quite often, often enough, she found a tiny hidden footpath that seemed unused. The first time she went down the path, the area opened up into a Glacier cave. It was absolutely beautiful.

The sun hit it in many ways, causing rainbows to shine upon the ground. This must be what the Aurora Borealis looked like. This was her place, as long as she could keep it hidden. This was the place she longed to be during class, the place she did her homework and thought about life. She didn't have any friends, but that was because she was too pretty for friends. Usually, girls like her who had friends, used them or they used her and she didn't feel like dealing with that, so she stayed to herself.

As she reached the back of the cave, where a seat had formed naturally, she was eyeball high in her thoughts. She took off her winter cloak and threw it over the ice seat so her bottom wouldn't freeze.

She don't know how long she'd sat there when she heard voices. She frowned. Someone must have followed her. Maybe it was her footprints in the snow they followed. Maybe she could scare them away. She thought about roaring like a polar bear and crashing things around but figured that wouldn't work. She guessed she'd just have to tell them this place was hers, or befriend them and hoped they kept this place a secret.

Snow. Walking through it always gave Oddmund good inspiration for Norse stories. The deeper the snow, the more epic the story. Looking at mountains that were a bit far away, Oddmund was binding several plot lines of different characters together, trying to get an incredible finale, and then suddenly he noticed a figure that was walking away from Durmstrang. Their walk looked too determined for a randomly wandering student, like they walked this path many times and knew exactly where they were heading. It was definitely a spy! Or saboteur. Or some other kind of bad person.

As it was confirmed in many books and movies, explaining this story to adults would be entirely pointless, since adults rarely believed kids warning everyone about some terrible danger. Kids were often proved right afterwards, though. It seemed, this was the nature of adults: being stubborn and deaf to any reasoning. So Oddmund had to find help somewhere else, taking a spy down all by himself could be too risky, especially since Oddmund wasn't very good at any form of magic.

It didn't take him long to realize that his only good option was to ask Symona: she was smart, she probably knew some useful spells, they had some experience in working together, and, most importantly, she was his best friend. Oddmund didn't know where Symona was at the moment, but as soon as he reached the castle, he headed to the library. Because it seemed like the first place to go if you were looking for a smart girl.

Just as Oddmund expected, he found the girl reading at one of library tables. "Symona! We need to save the school!" he shouted in whisper. Oddmund didn't want to be thrown out of the library before he convinced Symona to go with him. "I spotted a spy in the grounds. He went pretty far away from the castle, so it's not likely a student. And he was short and wore a cloak, maybe it was a goblin or something, I don't know, he was pretty far away to see." He grabbed Symona's hand as gently as he could (which wasn't very gently) and tried to pull her out of the library with him, "Come on, let's go! It's very important, people's lives can be at stake here! Oh, and I think we shouldn't ask professors and staff for any help. I know how it is with adults, they never believe kids like us when it comes to ninjas and dragons and spies."

Symona had finished all of her homework. Nothing new. So now she was in the library. Because where else would she be? The outside didn't appeal to her much. Not as it did to the other people in this weird world she had met. It was nice when it was written in books she read - mostly when the description is well made! But the real thing? Not even near as amazing as it is written or even in her mind... It was just a plain view of something. And it was around everyone! Much more understandable is the fuse over old buildings and statutes - now that was different! But again, it depends. It's only interesting when you see, let's say a Greek building, after that it is the same thing. Yeah, Symona saw such the things. Logic might as well have been her second name, if she didn't already have one.

Back to the fact that she is in the library and reading. She sat down in a more shadowy corner of the library and began to read. After about fifteen minuets of calm reading, she noticed a familiar figure walking towards her. Oh great. Oddmund. The nice guy with whom she had to search all of the Durmstrang ship for her cat. Because he was foolish enough to leave the door open. But even so, he wasn't that much of an idiot. He is in Breidalikk, after all. He also liked Vitamin D. And had a book about magic pants. Which he wrote when he was 9. Interesting guy ... And although he wasn't always thinking correctly(like, pirates who control sea-monsters), he still was pretty nice to hang out with. But never would Symona admit such a thing.

Pretending to act as if she hadn't noticed him, she went on reading. Than she whispered something in her ear. "What?" she asked, adding a part of surprise in her voice as well. What the hell has happened... Did he explode an elixer or something? She listened to hid explanation. Oh my... More than half of Symona knew that he surely must have gotten confused. Another part guessed he was doing this to make her come outside. A small part wanted to tell the teachers. The rest of her was pretty interested. When he grabbed her hand not very gently, she felt slight pain but ignored it. When he began to make her come, she opened her mouth to say she was. But stopped at the part about them not telling the teachers. At first she was going to object but noticed it was actually write.

She shook her head at that and let her hand out of his one. "Oddmund, if you continue talking, we'll lose tack of this spy or whatever. Of course, it may just be a student but still, it may not. But whatever. Which part of the outside did you see the figure? We can try to go through a shorter way, so we don't lose them. If only we had a map..." she sighed. Why did she never make on? It could have been in help! Or at least search for one in the library! Surely someone would have made a map throughout the years at this school! But never mind that now. She grabbed her friend's wrist and began to walk out, being as quiet as she can be.

Symona was absolutely right, as always: they had to be quick. Not to waste any breath on talking, Oddmund just nodded to his friend as they left the library. He ran slowly towards the castle entrance (slow run was less tiring for Oddmund than fast walk), looking back from time to time to make sure Symona was still following him. It probably wasn't that difficult for her, considering the fact that Oddmund was generally slow and wore his winter clothes at the moment, which weren't designed for running.

The other thing Symona was right about was the map: they really needed one. And if no one had already drawn it, Oddmund and Symona had to do it. Not only they could use it for thousands of glorious adventures, they could also become legends, the great duo who knew everything, and who helped lost students to get to wherever they needed. "We will have a map, Symona," Oddmund assured his best friend, taking a brief break from running. "The best Durmstrang map ever."

Cursing every stair they encountered, Oddmund made his way to the door outside. As every kid, he just loved stairs, but as every overweight person, he had troubles climbing them, and his heavy clothes didn't help here at all. Clothes! Symona was dressed in her school uniform, not in something that could save her from the freezing cold outside. He probably should not have just ran towards the entrance, letting Symona say something useful instead. She was the one with a plan here, not Oddmund.

But time was crucial now, and the pair could not afford to lose any more of it. So Oddmund just took of his coat and handed it to Symona. "Here, take this, it's really cold out there," he said to his friend, taking off the hat as well and giving it to Symona. "We don't have time to go back to the dorms and dress, the spy can be far away by the time we get to him!" Now Oddmund was incredibly happy to be overweight: fat was a great protection against cold. He could even write a book about it one day.