Three Houses

“Aim for the center of the face,” her low voice purred in my left ear. I swallowed, nudging my bow just a little higher on my shoulder. The nocked arrow smiled at my target.

Zwip. Another miss. My arrow now stuck out of the straw dummy’s arm, hardly a fatal shot. I could feel my ears droop in disappointment.

“For goodness sake, Lena, are you not practicing during off hours?” Mistress growled. I turned to meet her eyes.

“I’ll practice more…”

Her long orange tail betrayed her annoyance. If I looked up a bit more, I’d probably see those tiger ears flattened tight against her head. The head of the Tiger House could be… intimidating. With her wild orange hair- always braided to her waist- and tall, muscular stature, unless you were in the Tiger House you took care to avoid her. She was like the embodiment of fire. Everything a tiger should be.

I had no doubt she hated seeing me in her house. Your hair, she would growl, is so light, even blind prey can see you in the forest. Your arms and legs are so slim, you wouldn't stand a chance against a cripple in a fight.

Tiger House is the house for killers, not for cowardly girls like you.

One decade on, I could still remember my eighth birthday, the day your animal alignment would emerge. The day I was Sorted. The surprise on Mistress’s face had been so obvious after my tiger ears were revealed that I felt embarrassed introducing myself to her, so embarrassed it overrode my panic at being expected to kill after that day.

“Do you need Darius by your side in order to practice?” Mistress demanded now, referring to her top student at the house. She pinched my arm, hard.

Good for me, I bit my tongue and resisted yelping. Mistress hated when we cried out in pain.

“You will replace Cecilia tonight if you do not make a better effort,” She warned. Cecilia, the Tiger House's sweet scullery maid, practically had no job at all at the rate Mistress loved to dole out her position as punishment.

I didn’t want to spend my night scrubbing pots and pans so I hastily nocked another arrow and took aim. That stupid straw dummy stared back at me, its arms straight like a scarecrow, legs fused together in a yellow mess on the bottom. This was the easiest of the easy. If I couldn't hit a still target, how would I ever shoot down little scampering prey for the village's food supply?

Thwock.

“Oh-!”

Perfect bullseye.

Mistress's hand connected solidly with my back in a congratulatory pat. Or shove.

“That’s more like it. Clean up, your lesson is over."

The sun had set by the time I brushed aside the cloth-door to my room and slumped down on my bed. One of our other maids had been through recently- my sheets had been made perfectly and the fur-comb was set out ready for me to use.

I was about to get up and reach for the comb when the cloth rustled, signaling somebody else had entered.

“Mistress was glowing when I passed her in the hall,” A familiar voice remarked.

“Still?” I groaned, tilting my head back until I could see the figure upside down standing at the foot of the bed. "I didn't think my single bullseye could make her that happy."

Eira snorted, "You know she's more relieved than anything."

My dearest friend since we entered Tiger House on our eighth birthdays, Eira was my rock, my pillar that kept me sane against all the skepticism that was leveled against me by the other Tiger House students.

Night and day, the village folk had coined for us. Where my long blonde locks, so light it looked white, had made me an instant target of disdain in Mistress's eyes, Eira's short black hair meant she had won our mentor's favor easily. Even without her automatic advantage during nighttime games of hide-and-seek, Eira excelled in her training, possessing the natural ability to strike and kill that all other Tiger House students had.

I sat up, the abrupt motion sending little yellow stars whizzing across my vision. Ugh. "Could you hand me my comb?"

As I began fussing with my hair, Eira sat down across from me, cross-legged. "Give that comb a break," she joked. "This has got to be the fifth time you've picked it up today."

"My hair always gets tangled, what do you want me to do?" I defended.

My friend tossed her head back dramatically, making her bob fly up before settling back down in a slightly more scruffy way. I stifled a laugh- it made her look like a prepubescent boy. "Cut it," she said a matter-of-factly.

Just the mere thought of cutting my midriff-length hair made me shiver. With it, I felt a part of my beauty intact. I could still remember sitting underneath a tree after trainings years ago, letting other Tiger House students braid my hair into two long ropes. Afterward, they would gather nearby flowers to adorn my head, with their favorite place being tucked neatly against my white tiger ears. My hair seemed to be a barrier, or a diffuser of some sort, turning their ridicule against me into a childish concentration to see who could make the best braid.

That was years ago, but I hadn't forgotten, no matter how many of my classmates have.

"You know I can't," I said softly.

"Yea, yea. Maybe I should be proud that my best friend has the best hair in the village, huh?"

I snickered, "The best hair that blows in my face and constantly throws me off target?"

"It's so silky though," she cooed. "Nobody else in Tiger House can even come close to having hair as beautiful as yours."

"And thank goodness they can't, or else Mistress would be on their ass like she is on mine."

My friend made a face at me, turning her attention to my collection of candlesticks that I kept on my nightstand. Ten in total, all of herbal and flowery scents that I gathered from around the village. Truthfully, the practice of candlemaking was a pasttime of students of the Rabbit House, the house of healers. The first time anybody in the Tiger House discovered my candles, I'd been the topic of teasing for months.

Still, I refused to get rid of my collection. I had handmade them all, as evident from the random grooves and bumps that each stick bore. Each one was a reminder of my time huddled in tall grass searching for a new scent when I could've been nocking arrows and shooting targets with the rest of my classmates. It was nothing short of a miracle that Mistress decided to let the hobby slide. Either that, or she was biding her time to somehow use them against me. I wouldn't put it past her, that was for sure.

Eira began rearranging the candles from tallest to shortest.

"You're always so pouty towards Mistress," she pointed out without looking at me. "Can't you see she's as proud of you as she is her other students?"

I didn't respond, just tugged at my hair with the comb. Eira had a sweet heart, but she was practically the top student in the house after Darius. Of course she never saw the back of Mistress's hand striking her after a bad training session.

“Is your private lesson tomorrow?” I asked her, trying to change the subject.

She nodded. "Was Mistress hard on you today?" A playful nudge. "I know you can only score a bullseye if she's pressuring you..."

"At least I scored one!" I shot back. "Just wait! Tomorrow morning in my private with Darius, I'll score another!"

"That's because you liiiiiike him-"

"N-no way!"

It was then that we both heard a bell chiming in the distance.

Every night all houses reported for a meal in the Grand Hall, located at the center of the village. Dinner was supposed to increase camaraderie between the three houses- we belonged to the same village, after all. Any competition was within each house, or between villages.

Most students, and especially those in the Tiger House, took the opportunity to wear their daily best and catch the eye of a special somebody. It was no surprise, given that the rest of our days were spent in uniforms of varying dirtiness. I'd swapped out of my archery uniform earlier for a modest mauve gown, myself.

At the sound of the dinner bell Eira jumped out of her chair, nearly knocking over the meticulous line of candles. "Shit- I need to change out of my javelin uniform! Help me pick out a gown?"

"What, are we getting ready for a ball?" Still, I obediently followed my friend into her adjacent quarters. The poor girl, her head was too full of hitting bullseyes and winning obstacle courses to accommodate anything more than a pinch of fashion sense.

It was too bad, I decided as I stood staring at the stunning gowns that lined Eira's closet. The wealth that oozed from her family in the village was unlike anything I'd ever come across, so no matter how many times I saw Eira's dresses I could never get past how exquisite they looked. Each time she loaned me one I felt like I was putting on a million dollars.

“That one,” I said reflexively after she'd run more than several past me already. Eira's nose wrinkled.

"This one?" She asked, picking up a rose pink robe with embroidered white flowers.

“Yea, I think it's gorgeous."

"Isn't this one your favorite one?"

Just then the bell chimed again. Three chimes and everybody was expected to be seated in the Grand Hall. Nobody would really notice if you weren’t there after the third bell, but to walk in through the enormous double doors directly in front of everybody was noticeable as hell.

"Hurry!" I urged Eira, who made a little stressed sound and then ducked into her closet to change.

"Could you get my-"

"-perfume? On it!"

Humming, I pulled open the second drawer of her nightstand, releasing a sweet stench that seemed to emulate every which smell in the books. Her bottles, like her gowns, were numerous and ornate, so many stuffed inside that drawer that I was sure the people outside could hear glass clinking as I pawed through each one.

I knew her go-to dinner scent was marigold, so I plucked the golden bottle out of the bunch and opened the cap. A faint smell of spiciness floated out, alongside hints of musk and earth. I'd tried numerous times to describe the scents to Eira, but I knew it was no use. She never could describe her perfumes as anything more than sweet.

This particular bottle came straight from the Rabbit House; the jar had a wax seal of an R attached to the cap.

Taking a peek at Eira's closed closet door, I dabbed some of the liquid on the insides of my wrist.

"Hurry up!"

Dinner was about to start.