Once his exam was over with, Aksaja woke in Cricket's office and sat up with a start, looking around a bit wildly. He'd . . . passed out. He failed the exam. OhJack. OooohJack, that wasn't good. The others were lying on cots around him, and they had . . . pins. They had Cricket's pin. Damn, that was. Unexpected. He didn't have one, but that made sense. He did fail after all. But he felt like he had definitely contributed so . . . Dammit, this wasn't fair. Almost everyone else he knew was moving on, and he'd be left behind. Like the useless person that he was. s**t. With a sigh, the lightning dragon dragged himself off the cot and headed back to his room, shoulders slumped in defeat.

It wasn't long, however, before someone told him that he actually did get to move on to the harder classes anyway. Apparently, the exam was just something of a formality at this point. Later on, it would be a much bigger deal, but hey. He could handle that (hopefully).

Jack. Aksaja breathed a sigh of relief that . . . even though he'd technically failed his exam, he still got to become a Knob. Life went on, the Floresctival started, and he continued making preparations to get the Host Club off the ground for real. What the teen forgot, though, was that the school would be sending a letter home to his parents to report on his progress. It was a regular sort of thing, but this time . . . they actually sent a reply, directly to him. Or rather, his father did.

The Letter
My son,

I find myself very disappointed in you yet again. Come home for a visit as soon as possible to explain yourself. Perhaps if your explanation is satisfactory, I won't simply pull you out of that school for good.

- Saar


The letter was short and very much to the point. Aksaja winced as he read the words on the page, his father's anger with him quite clear. At first, he wasn't even sure what the anger was about, until he remembered the failed exam. Oooh Jacking hell, he was in trouble now. And he couldn't even leave right away, since the return letter had come right in the middle of the Floresctival, and he wasn't about to head home while it was still going on. He'd heard that prospective students could attend, after all, and he was hoping to see Thanatos again. Something about the little fae-pup had intrigued him back at Open House, even though they hadn't gotten to talk for long. And the squee-mails they'd sent each other after that only made him want to talk to the other more in person. Dammit.

Biting at his lip just a little, he penned a reply and sent it off, letting his father know that he would be able to come home in a few weeks, trying to imply that the delay was because of classes. He would just have to hope that his father bought it. Because if not, it would just make things worse . . . and if Saar was really angry, or suspected he was lying about something, he might actually just come to fetch him in person. That would be bad, in so many ways.

Just the thought of going home again made him shiver slightly, the letter falling out of suddenly nerveless fingers to drift down to the floor of his cave-like dorm room. At which point it was promptly grabbed by several minipets and torn to shreds as they fought over it. But Aksaja didn't notice, mind replaying once again the hallucinatory events of the Island. He'd known for a long time that his father didn't approve of him, or his choices in life. After all, he'd done plenty of s**t back home that got him into trouble. There'd even been a bit of physical disciplining when he was younger. But surely . . . surely his father wouldn't truly attack him as he had in those visions. Right?

Hell. He really, really didn't want to go home. If he could have somehow gotten away with staying at school forever (or anywhere else, really), he probably would have. Eventually, though . . . it would be his duty to go back home and try to find a mate. So that he could hopefully have some eggs, further the species, all that. It was just. That life seemed so boring. Especially after everything he had been through here - both the good and the bad. Not to mention, it probably meant that he would never see any of the friends he'd made here ever again after that point. The dragons back home didn't exactly welcome visitors. They'd never ever let them through the Gates if they tried to come visit him. Jack. Duty sucked.

With a soft sigh, the lightning dragon banished such dark thoughts from his head and went to fling himself out the cave-entrance into the skies. He would just . . . fly around for a while and try not to think, then head back to the festival. Worry about going home afterwards. And hope that he didn't get banned from coming back here, or worse.