The Perfect Knight and the Illusionist (BL)

MARIUS

Remembering that Alexis and Briant were going to visit the debate club, I decided that Skylark and I should investigate the botany club first, which had a club lodge deep in the woods at the edge of the campus, north of the main building. Skylark already seemed happy as soon as we entered the forest, but it took a while for us to get to the lodge as he kept getting distracted by various plants we found along the way, which he always seemed to be able to identify.

When we finally reached the lodge, we met a small group of seniors who were tending to some pretty flowers with pink petals planted in the front yard.

"Oh, hi. Are you guys here to check out our club?" a senior lady in a dark brown dress spotted us and asked as we approached.

"Yes. We are doing a tour of different clubs to decide which one to join," I said.

Then a senior man, who was engrossed in inspecting a flower with a magnifying glass, noticed me, quickly got up, ran over to us, and said,

"Marius Valenkraft! Nice to meet you. I didn’t think you’d be interested in botany, of all things!"

I took the hand he offered and gave it a friendly shake.

"It is actually my Sky—I mean, my ’friend’ here who’s looking for a club," I said.

"Friend?" the senior asked, puzzled, and I looked to my side to see that Skylark was gone.

"Helmut, come back here!"

Someone from the group that I had seen tending to the flowers earlier shouted, and when I looked, I saw that Skylark was squatting down among the seniors, looking at the flowers carefully too.

"Excuse me for a moment," the senior named Helmut said before jogging over, so I followed him.

"Listen to this guy," one of the seniors said.

"You need to move them to different soil," Skylark said, touching the leaves of a flower that seemed a little reddish.

"What do you mean?" Helmut asked.

"Someone here told me that you guys were worried about the leaves turning red and the flowers starting to wither. These are Rosallei flowers, and they are supposed to be planted on a riverbank, or at least by a stream," Skylark said.

"Really?" the lady who had greeted us first asked.

"Yeah, ideally on a riverbank, but don’t let them get too exposed to the sun. They grow well and produce really pretty pink flowers when there’s a tree providing good shade," Skylark explained further.

"Oh wow, the seed seller at the market didn’t tell me that," Helmut said.

"How do you know this?" a guy crouching next to Skylark asked.

"It’s... common sense..."

The seniors looked at each other, both confused and impressed, and Helmut asked,

"What is your name?"

"Leo."

"Could you come and look at some trees we have behind the lodge?"

"Sure!"

With that, everyone got up and rushed toward the backyard.

When we got there, the botany club members brought Skylark to a tree that seemed to be shedding its bark, asking if he knew what was wrong with it. Skylark examined the tree in detail, found a hole, asked for a small knife to dig into it a little deeper, then found a nest of some insects that nobody recognized.

"Yup, Barkmagos. They lay eggs inside a tree and make it get infected. You can’t really fix it."

"Oh no," one of the seniors sighed.

We spent some time at the club like that, with all the botany club members captivated by Skylark’s knowledge, and by the time we were leaving, they were almost begging Skylark to sign up for the club there and then, to which I said, "We will think about it."

"So what do you think?" I asked Skylark once we were far enough away from the club lodge.

"I guess the botany club is fun," he said.

"Would you consider joining them?"

"Not really... there was nothing new there that I hadn’t seen before..." Skylark said pensively.

"That’s fine. Let’s check out another club then," I suggested, and we headed back to the main building, this time to visit the music club, which was different from the choir, as they focused more on learning and playing instruments.

As we approached, we could hear the sound of some horn instruments, and that seemed to excite Skylark. He ran ahead of me to the music room, so I had to rush to catch up with him.

Once I entered the music room, though, I saw Skylark just standing near the door, not quite knowing how to introduce himself to the club, as everyone was busy practicing their instruments. This was the time for me to help.

"Ahem," I cleared my throat, just loud enough for the people nearby to hear.

A lady who was playing her flute turned her head and saw us. She seemed a little surprised, whispered something to the man sitting next to her—who was also playing a flute—and the man got up and walked over to greet us.

"Marius Valenkraft, thank you for visiting the music club," he said.

"I hope we are not interrupting anything," I said.

"Oh, it’s fine. No problem at all. We are happy that you are showing interest in our club," he said with a hint of surprise and excitement in his voice.

"Actually, it’s for my... friend here," I said, turning to look at Skylark.

"Hi..." Skylark said, sounding somewhat shy.

"Ah, I see. My name is Ludwig. Do you play any instruments?" he asked.

"I’m Leo. And no... I don’t play any instruments, but... I like music!"

"You certainly sound enthusiastic about it! And that’s good enough, haha," Ludwig said.

"Do you provide personalized lessons for beginners? Is a new member allowed to pick any instrument he wishes?" I asked on Skylark’s behalf.

"It depends. Anyone’s free to choose any instrument they want to play, but as a group, we also want to think about the balance so that we can perform well as an ensemble," Ludwig answered.

"What kind of instrumentalist do you need at the moment?" I asked again.

"We would be happy to have a percussionist. It’s also easy and fun to learn for beginners."

I looked at Skylark and realized he was getting a little lost.

"He means playing things like drums, triangles, tambourines, and such," I explained.

"Oh, I see!" Skylark exclaimed, his face lighting up.

"Why don’t we have a quick play to see how we get on?" Ludwig suggested, and in no time, we were sitting with a group of five members, consisting of two flutists, one tuba player, one trombone player, and one clarinetist. Skylark was given a tambourine, which he shook a few times and seemed to like the sound of.

"Have you played the tambourine before?" one of the members asked, and Skylark answered confidently.

"Of course. We use this a lot during festivals when we have music and dancing."

"Then let us begin. Just try to feel the rhythm and play as you see fit," the flutist lady suggested, and then they began playing a rather cheerful, up-tempo piece of music.

Skylark listened for a while, nodding and tapping his foot on the floor to feel the beat, then began to shake and clap his tambourine. It all sounded pretty good to my ears.

Then we were allowed to try out a few more instruments: drums, triangles, and even the xylophone, which Skylark couldn’t play well but seemed to enjoy greatly.

After a few songs, I figured it was time for us to leave and check out some other clubs as well, and we left the music room with a warm invitation: "You are welcome to come back and join us any time."

Once we were out of the room and had closed the door, I asked Skylark,

"So, what do you think?"

"It was super fun!"

"I’m glad to hear that. Would you consider joining the music club, then?"

Skylark, though, to my surprise, shook his head immediately and said,

"No."

"I thought you enjoyed it, though?"

"Well, it was fun, but... it’s not quite the same as the festival music and dancing we have back in Erdville. Just sitting and playing music feels a bit... strange."

I was about to try to convince him that not all music had to be for parties and dances, but then stopped myself, thinking that today, I would bring Skylark to as many places as possible and let him experience every club activity the Academy had to offer.

"Fine, then. Shall we go and check out the next club?" I suggested.

"Yeah."

I figured Alexis and Briant would have already visited and left the debate club, and I really did think it would improve Skylark’s confidence if he practiced giving public speeches, so I began to lead the way to the debate club.

But then, suddenly, Skylark pulled on my sleeve. I stopped and turned to face him, wondering what he had to say.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I just wanted to say..." Skylark began, fidgeted a little, and finally said,

"Thank you, Marius. Although we haven’t found a club yet, I’m having a lot of fun, hehe."

After thanking me all of a sudden, he skipped past me and took the lead, although he didn’t know where we were supposed to go next.

It didn’t matter now, though.

The mission was to find something fun for Skylark, and by all metrics, the mission was already succeeding.