They should have known, even just from how the subject first came up, that school would be a trial. Even if they'd stopped to think about it, they would have realized. As it was, Sentio was too excited about the prospect of starting up classes again to worry, and Cacopheny simply didn't know what he was up against.

When Sentio and Kenjista came back from their day outside and their light dinner, Cacopheny was just finishing his own meal. Sentio was tired and quite ready for some quiet relaxation before the big day the next day; he just hoped Kenjista would be ready for quiet, as well. But as he opened the door and padded back in, the little daemon on his back again, he realized that he hadn't even told Cacopheny about school. The way the half-demon glanced at him told him that he knew that something was going on, but not what it was.

So, Sentio tried to tell him. Before Cacopheny even understood a fraction of what "school" meant, though, Kenjista interrupted by saying it was simply boring and she would have nothing to do with it. The argument that ensued was long and, on Kenjista's side, rather heated. Sentio privately thought that she hadn't really expected him to ever defy her or deny her something she wanted, so when he said she would either come to school with him-- and behave herself while there!-- or she would stay locked in Cacopheny's room where she couldn't get into trouble, she was so torn between shock and rage that she was momentarily speechless. That didn't last long. Cacopheny spent the bulk of the fight huddled against the wall in silence, ignoring them both, or at least attempting to.

By the time they'd finally wound down and Kenjista had agreed to at least stay quiet while she came to class with Sentio and Cacopheny, Sentio was just ready for bed, so he could only give Cacopheny a few brief suggestions about the next morning. If he had the presence of mind left after fighting so hard to keep Kenjista in line to think about it, he would have known exactly what would happen, but he didn't, and, of course, it turned out that what he had managed to impart by way of warning and explanation was hardly enough.

Morning came very early with the sound of someone knocking on the door. It was Sentio who got up to answer it, bleary-eyed and nowhere near ready to be awake and polite, to find a very perky-looking Aloia standing there beaming at him. It was far too early for anyone to look that perky. After a bright good morning, a pat on the head for the bemused Kenjista, and handing off a plate of breakfast for all three of them, she wished them a good first day of school and whisked off to leave them to wake themselves up the rest of the way and get ready. They were almost late because Cacopheny lost track of time in the shower, and then when Kenjista made a snide remark about it, they were nearly late because Sentio had to scold her while he waited until Cacopheny was sure he had his temper under control before they went out to face the rest of the complex.

An auspicious start, indeed.

The dragonets were divided up into three groups for the morning classes, presumably to make them more managable and to teach more to the appropriate group. One group was comprised of the youngest kits, anyone about Sentio's age and younger, and another of the older kits, anyone older than Sentio. The third group was a group of bonded kits and, if they cared to come, their bonds. Obviously, Sentio and Cacopheny were to be part of that group. Their teachers rotated to teach each subject, while the kits stayed in their rooms. For the afternoon they would rotate the kits, instead, through rooms more appropriate for whatever subjects they chose.

Three lecture classes in the morning, two applied classes in the afternoon. That couldn't be too hard to get through, could it? Not for Sentio, of course; he loved the classes here at Sanctuary. Kenjista, well, she could keep herself quiet that long, he knew she could, especially when she had both her bonds in the same room, sitting on either side of her on the same step in the tiered classroom. Cacopheny was used to being still and quiet most of the time, surely he wouldn't have any problems. So Sentio wasn't worried; he was excited and anxious to get started again.

The first class of the morning was history, with an old Light dragon who passed out books and gave Cacopheny a very hard look as he passed him, dropping the heavy, barely human-sized volumes onto the short table in front of them. The first hitch in the actual school day came when Sentio realized that, though Cacopheny had opened the book like everyone else, he wasn't turning pages, and he was looking alternately from the writing on it to the teacher, who was pointing to places on maps at the front of the classroom and talking about the founding of this or that city. His expression was totally blank and uncomprehending.

::Cacopheny? Are you okay?::

::I... yes. Fine.::

::You don't look fine.::

::I just. I don't know. What is this?:: His eyes fixed back down on the book and the words on it.

::It's... a book. You've seen me reading them.::

::Reading? Reading what? Do these. Do these. Do these marks mean something?::

And, like he had done on the very first night they'd bonded, he quite forgot to keep his reply private, he was so surprised at the realization that his bond simply couldn't read. "What?!" he exclaimed, staring at Cacopheny in surprise. Then silence fell, and everyone else stared at the both of them. Sentio flushed under his fur and Cacopheny looked like he wanted to shrink into nothing or go invisible.

"Is there something you wish to share with the rest of us?" the Light asked sharply, annoyed at being interrupted and glaring, not at Sentio who had actually said something, but rather at Cacopheny.

"No," Sentio mumbled, anyway, "Sorry." Cacopheny said nothing, eyes glued submissively to the book he couldn't read.

There was a long pause before the teacher resumed his lecture, and Sentio was starting to get a sinking feeling that school wasn't going to be quite as enjoyable as he'd hoped, not if, as he was beginning to realize, his bond had absolutely no experience with something as simple as a book. He tried to get Cacopheny's attention during the brief, five-minute break they had when the history teacher left and before their magic theory and sciences teacher arrived, but the half-demon was listening intently to something Akija was saying, beyond both dragons and fidgeting daemon-dragon, and wouldn't look at him.

The second class wasn't any better. Their teacher was a cheerful enough dragoness, an Air-- or she would have been, if she hadn't kept glancing at their particular part of the room anxiously. The one time Cacopheny actually looked up to meet her eyes, she completely forgot what she was saying, gave a little squeak of fright, and, flustered, ended up reapeating the whole previous ten minutes' worth of lecture. Several of the other pairs seemed to think it quite amusing, but Cacopheny didn't look up once more the whole lesson, and Sentio felt a little sick. Out of the two teachers they'd had so far, one mistrusted his bond, and the other was afraid of him. This was just great.

And it only got worse. Their third class alternated every other day between a combination literature and figuring class, and a biological sciences class. The first day was literature and figuring, and the Light dragoness teaching that one, new as of that day as their previous teacher had been called away, had apparently decided that the first day would be taken up with assessing each and every one of her pupils' abilities before she could accurately begin to teach them. There was a lot of groaning around the room from older students, particularly the young adults from off-world, and Akija whispered something to Chario that made them both snicker, but Cacopheny was silent, expressionless, and even paler than before. Even with their link closed off, like Cacopheny usually kept it, Sentio could tell he was wondering what she would say to a half-demon who didn't even know what a book was. The only positive about the whole thing was that they weren't going to be "tested" publicly: the pairs came up to the desk at the front of the class, while everyone else chatted quietly in the background. Even so, Sentio was tempted to suggest that his bond just leave, but at the very thought, Cacopheny glanced at him, as if he'd heard-- he might have-- and glared a little.

::Sorry,:: Sentio sent, and the glare subsided.

Sentio went up with Cacopheny, since they were a bonded pair, about halfway through the group of pairs. It turned out that the Light's "testing" wasn't all that hard, at all: she had Sentio read a few sentences, spell and define a couple words, and then figure out a pretty simple couple of math problems. He, at least, had "passed" with flying colors. Cacopheny, on the other hand....

"What do you mean, you can't read?" Though she seemed to be oblivious to or ignoring the fact that she was speaking to a half-demon, her derision for someone who was illiterate was absolute.

"Vat I sait," Cacopheny said, very careful about his accent and phrasing, so that the words came slow and so well-spaced as to be almost sentences in and of themselves. Apparently it was giving the dragoness teacher the impression that he was stupid, for she was looking down her long muzzle at him with disdain. "I vass nefer taught. Nefer-- never learn't to rread."

"Well, then, I dare say we'll have our work cut out for us, won't we?" she huffed arrogantly. Cacopheny's expression darkened, but he didn't say anything as she continued. "Can hardly even speak properly, we'll have to work on that, too."

Now, that simply wasn't fair. "Ma'am, excuse me--" Sentio piped up. "You don't understand, he--"

"Speak when spoken to, young man. And I was not speaking to you."

Turning that tone on Sentio was a mistake. Cacopheny had already proven that he could take insult and injury without complaint, but when someone insulted or injured someone else, he wouldn't stand for it. Kenjista's "attack" on Akija had been enough to prove that to Sentio, at least. On top of the horrible morning he'd been having so far, it was hardly a surprise to hear the deadly calm rasp, in demon-speech no less, "Do not speak to him like that."

Any dragon who caught the sound of that, including Sentio and the teacher, gave an involuntary shudder. "What did you say?" the latter asked, sounding somewhere between nervous and offended.

"Cacopheny, it's okay," Sentio tried to say, but Cacopheny was already repeating himself in accented dragon-speech.

"I sssait, to not sspeak to him like sssat."

"Like what?" She seemed to get a little of her bluster back. "Like a teacher? Young man, I can't make exceptions to how I treat my students, and there is nothing wrong with trying to keep a little order--"

By now the class was utterly silent, everyone looking down at the spectacle of angry half-demon and indignant Light dragon. Before she could really get going, though, Cacopheny did as Sentio really should have expected, after that morning: he over-reacted. Sentio could feel a low vibration, nothing physical but still obviously there, and the lights in the room flickered, then shadow seemed to condense around Cacopheny like a menacing cloud. The dragoness stepped back in surprise and a little fear, but the next thing in her mind would be a counterspell, no matter what Cacopheny's magic did, even if it did nothing-- and that was just asking for someone to get hurt. A few of the kits were already scrambling behind bonds or farther back in the room, and nothing had even happened yet.

::Cacopheny, no, stop it, please!:: Sentio pleaded as directly as he could, butting hard against his bond's legs and driving him back, making him stagger but breaking his concentration enough that the magic dispersed into little wisps of darkness. He was still looking murderous, but he didn't resist when Sentio herded him right out of the room.

No. Classes were definitely not going well. And it was only the first day.