by Jillian Keep
“We just met. I mean… we went to school together but didn’t talk until the competition. What about you and Bran?”
The elf simply shrugged then immediately turned her attention to Mae’lin, who still wore much the same thing he had on the day before, Firia noticed. “Hey you, trying to eat without us? That’s not very nice,” she said.
Mae’lin looked up with surprise, the lanky elf seemingly lost in thought as he ate. “Oh hey! I mean, morning!” he managed. “Take a seat or–” he looked, noticing they didn’t have food. “Oh, you get your breakfast down there, if you didn’t know,” he remarked helpfully, pointing to where some of the students filtered to and fro.
“Watch my bag?” Firia asked the elf, surprising herself with a level of actual trust.
It was her chance to make changes, after all, and she really didn’t want to be a social pariah. Again.
“Of course!” he said as the two of them went off to get their meal.
As Firia approached the twin doors that marked the coming and going of so many, she saw that there were the occasional familiars – similar to her own, but not quite – taking the place of some students, carrying trays all the way back to their masters at their tables.
“Well that’s convenient,” muttered Ala’nase a bit enviously.
“And lazy,” Firia retorted. “I suppose everyone’s trying to show off today. Make sure people know how great they are.”
Her new friend laughed. “Maybe,” she said as they made their way into the serving room. “Though if my parents were anything to judge by, magicians just tend to use their magic in place of everything after a while. Becomes a real pain to watch when you can’t do the same, let me tell you.”
The line moved quickly, and within mere moments, Firia found herself looking at an assortment of appealing breakfast dishes, all looking meticulously prepared and quite rich. Though, they were all behind glass and all single servings.
A glance ahead showed her how it was done, when she saw one of the senior students simply take a tray, hold it up and make a hand gesture at what he wished with it then forming upon his tray.
Firia had a passion for magic, for learning new spells, but the fact that it literally seemed that everything was done magically was jarring. She was so used to having to do everything herself that it was quite a culture shock.
She elbowed Ala’nase gently, motioning towards the older students.
Together they made their selections and ventured back to the table with Mae’lin. It was only her second day – her first day, really – at the academy, and already Firia had better accommodations, far better food, and more friends than she’d ever had. The realization dawned on her as she looked at the steaming food on her plate and the smiles of her two new elvish friends.
“How’d you two sleep?” asked Mae’lin, nearly finished with his own food already.
“I don’t think I really did,” Firia admitted sheepishly.
Ala’nase answered in a surly manner, “Not enough of it.”
Mae’lin looked between them as he finished off his last wafer. “I got so excited practicing spells I made myself exhausted and passed out… I think.”
Ala’nase looked over at Firia, then broke into soft laughter.
She grinned in return, looking down at her food before beginning to devour it with relish. Though still, years of eating small made her full far before she was finished. Her thoughts again returned to Varuj, and she wondered if she was starving him again.
She didn’t know what was happening to him, or why he couldn’t connect with her, but still. She pulled her sac close to her and carefully wrapped up her leftovers, placing them inside.
Mae’lin noticed the maneuver and looked to her. “That’s a good idea,” he said. “Pocket some for later.” He stood up. “I’ll be right back. Gonna get more.” Despite his own lankiness, he seemed to have no shortage of an appetite.
As Firia watched the elf leave she spotted, off in the distance, the sight of Bran watching her from across the hall. Though shortly after their gazes met he lowered his eyes and focussed on his own food.
“I think I might have offended him last night,” Firia murmured to Ala’nase. “Bran, I mean. Not Mae’lin.”
Ala’nase looked around with some confusion before following Firia’s gaze to the young man. “Really?” she questioned. “What makes you think that?” she asked in a bit of a conspiratorial tone.
Firia shrugged, a bit bashful. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s nothing.” Just that she thought that, being two of the few humans around, they might stick together a bit. Until she had to open her big mouth and embarrass him.
Ala’nase, however, didn’t let it go so easily. She squinted her ovaline eyes at the man, studying him intently, as if the mystery would be solved through deep staring. “He probably just has a crush on you,” she conjectured after long hard “research”, followed by a return to her meal.
“You’re just saying that because we’re both humans,” Firia scoffed, but her face turned bright red and she tried to hide it from her new friend. “And why did you have to stare? Now he knows we were talking about him.”
It was hard to refute that, for Bran had lifted his head and noted at least one of them staring at him. Ala’nase averted her eyes, but was far too late for cover-up.
“It’s not just because you’re both humans,” she whispered to her with some urgency, just before Mae’lin returned. “Mae’lin’s probably no different either,” she said without the slightest hint of hiding it.
Firia’s brows furrowed and suddenly she felt like the same shy girl she was all through school. She’d been doing so good to suppress that side of herself! But her throat was dry and she just wanted to run away once more. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Mae’lin looked between the two women. “What’s going on? Did I miss something?” His eyes were wide with curiosity. Or was it confusion?
Ala’nase opened her mouth about to talk, but then glanced aside and saw Firia’s embarrassment. “Oh nothing,” she said in a very blasé manner. “I was just saying I bet you’re hot for me, like all the rest.” She gave a dramatic sigh and brushed her hair back over her shoulder. “It’s a burden I carry,” she said like a hammy actress.
To which Mae’lin stared between the two of them a while. “Uh, okay,” he remarked, returning to his own thoughtfully disinterested pose.
The playful elf giving Firia a smirk and a “told you so” look, as if the young man’s disinterest in her was somehow proof that he must be into Firia.
Firia rolled her eyes and grabbed her knapsack. “Well, I’ll leave you two to that, then. Did… you two want to meet up later, maybe? Check out the library?
“Sure,” replied the two of them almost in unison, though before another word could be said the tolling of that great bell happened again.
“Oh crap,” muttered Ala’nase, while Mae’lin made a point of grabbing his own satchel up and shoving the food in quickly.
It was time.
She was almost knocked off her feet by the excitement, the need to go experience everything. The schedule felt so stifling but at the same time, she couldn’t help but crave it.
Her next destination surprised her, however, and not all in a good way. For she appeared next before some of the powerful sorcerers that held her fate so callously in their hands naught but days ago, while standing in the middle of a great chapel-like auditorium, full of fellow students.
The raised platform, surrounded by great coloured crystal statues that towered high, were many senior-looking wizards and professors. She even noticed the aging human who had netted her a right to compete, and then her second chance.
“I can’t wait for that to end,” came a voice beside her, and Firia turned to see it was Ala’nase, with Mae’lin not far off. The three had been transported near one another, it seemed.
“Me too,” Firia whispered back. It was kind of rude, and made her feel a little more than violated. Especially whe
n dragged to a torture chamber.
“I kinda like it,” said Mae’lin. “It’s like a taste of the power to come!”
Ala’nase gave him a strange look, but before more could be said the rather severe-looking elf that had nearly cost her her place in the academy began to speak.
“Welcome students.” His voice carried out over the room to everyone, as if spoken at a normal, conversation tone, by aid of magic. “For those of you joining us for the first time, you are perhaps having a period of adjustment.”
His hawkish eyes scanned the room almost predatorily. “Note that Gaul’di-mere is famed amongst the magical academies, and it is because our students graduate as the best in their fields. And why are they the best?” He went on with little preamble, “Because we don’t coddle them. They have to figure things out for themselves, and those who don’t make the cut? Who can’t decipher the mysteries of living at the academy? They eventually go home in failure, leaving only the best to graduate.”
Firia had already assumed that much, since she couldn’t even get to the academy without solving a riddle. Still, his condescending words made the hair on the back of her neck bristle and more than anything she wanted to show him up. To make sure he knew how wrong he was to brush her off.
“All of our professors come from amongst the brightest and most ingenious of sorcerers and sorceresses in the wide world. Most of them graduated from these very walls, but all went on to do great things, and now stand ready to pass some of that on to you.
“I won’t waste a lot of time on introducing you to them now. As I said, Gaul’di-mere is an academy in which you sink or swim. And we embrace that,” he declared with a broad grin. “By the time you leave here, you shall have your class schedule for the upcoming semester. Do not lose it. Nobody shall mark your attendance, but the first time you fail an exam, you shall be removed from the academy.”
He paused for just a moment to look around at the students with a hard gaze. “Once you are removed from the academy, we recommend to the state that your magical ability is untamed, and should be restrained, for the good of all. Make no mistake, you were all brought here because you have aptitude and promise. But without proper training, those are two things which are a disaster for the wider world.”
As he spoke she felt her stomach begin to knot and twist. The idea of being… restrained. Of having her power revoked…
Firia started to feel a bit queasy and regretted bothering with breakfast. She knew it was just a scare tactic, a way to motivate everyone to do their best, but failing one exam and that was it?
She’d had more grace on her entrance competition!
“You’ll notice on your schedules that you have a great deal of empty time slots. Make use of it,” and those words sounded almost grim. “Perhaps you got here because you were tutored in magic by a very regimented instructor who kept you on task. That is not our role. We are not your parents, and we don’t need to particularly care if you succeed or fail. Your first day has been full of regimentation, as spells have zipped you about. You’ll overcome that in time if you’re a capable magic user.
“Let that be your first lesson: magical restrictions like that are for those too uneducated to overcome them. The only rules that matter are spoken or written down. Heed my words.
“Use your time wisely, visit the library, study, learn. Become better mages. Form questions and seek answers.”
On a somber note he ended, “Now head out there. We shall give you all the tools one could possibly need to succeed. Make use of them, for if you fail, you shall have no one to blame but yourselves.”
The great doors opened behind them and light flooded on in.
It was gut wrenching and terrifying and motivating all at once, and Firia’s body felt almost stiff as she digested it all. She’d been staring so intently at him that when the doors opened she had to blink away the brightness.
She wasn’t sure entirely how she felt about the school’s policies.
One thing she was certain of, though, is that she refused to fail.
Chapter 20
Class let out, and Firia couldn’t help but be annoyed at the chatter between Bran and Ala’nase. The two never shut up from the moment the aged professors ended the lessons to the start of the next. Every day the same thing.
It wouldn’t have been so bad, except she was utterly lost. The first day of classes had been a complete wash for her, nearly. The professors had mostly made such sweeping assumptions of the students base knowledge on magic that it was all two or three steps ahead of where she was.
As the two chatterboxes continued on, she noticed the rather sickly look upon Mae’lin’s face. For a second she might’ve thought she was looking into an emotional mirror.
It made sense. She figured he had to have come from a background more similar to hers than the pampered upbringing of the other students. He seemed just as lost and confused as her, and didn’t have the knowledge to read those mystical words either.
It was the first time she ever had actual friends, and she didn’t know how to handle it. To try to tell them to be quiet.
To admit how utterly lost she was.
She shimmied closer to Mae’lin, leaning up to whisper in his ear. “Want to hit the library with me?”
The tall, lanky elf looked to her a bit wide-eyed and lost but nodded all the same. “Yeah, let’s go.” She knew just how powerful and talented he was; after all she’d done magical battle with him, of a sort. Together they’d wowed the academy scouts, so they deserved to be doing better.
Before she could get away though, Ala’nase caught sight of her leaving. “Where you going? We’re gonna go practice. Not coming?”
“Ah, no, not tonight.” Why did she feel so sheepish about her lack of understanding? She was used to always being bright. Promising.
Exceptional, in her own way.
Now it was sink or swim, and everyone else already had the lessons.
The library was massive. She could tell as much upon first sight, but she really had no idea just how sprawling it truly was. It seemed to dwarf even the towering facade, as if it defied reality itself to encompass so great a repository of knowledge.
Such as it was, despite how many students came to partake of the knowledge there, she never had any issue finding a quiet corner. There were many private study nooks, and Mae’lin and she were able to settle in together.
“I had no idea they would expect us to know so… much,” he said with some disbelief, as if his life were crumbling before his very eyes upon his palms.
“Me neither,” Firia lamented. “And it feels like we’re the only ones that can’t understand every other word we’re being told. How did they have the time to learn so much growing up?”
Mae’lin ran his hands over his hair, shaking out the blonde spikes, but only making it a little more erratic and wild-looking. It looked good on him, truth be told. “I don’t know. I was always working in the fields, making sure the harvest was in on time. My mother basically handed it to me completely until my brothers grew up.” He sighed a little. “Are we too far behind, Firia?” His emerald eyes looked to her hopefully.
“I’m not going to give up magic, are you?” Firia retorted, her voice taking on a hard edge.
There was a moment’s pause as what she said sunk in, then he shook his head firmly. “There’s no giving it up. If I don’t make it here, then I’m…” he blushed a little, “I’d have to go back home and be a farmer for the rest of my days. That’d be the best thing I could hope for…”
“I’d be a groundskeeper, so we’re both just going to have to suck it up and catch up, alright? If we didn’t have the skills, we wouldn’t be here, right? So we’re just going to have to, once more, struggle to get what the rich kids get for free.”
She was surprised by how determined and strong she sounded, for she felt defeated. She couldn’t even contact Varuj with all the latent magic in the air and whatever spells they’d used to bind them. She was surprise
d by how lonely and quiet she felt inside.
Mae’lin went quiet a while, the two of them nestled in their nook together. “How do we learn this stuff though? I mean… if it were that easy…” He furrowed his smooth, fair brow in thought as he stared off. “We were amazing together,” he abruptly stated, quickly blushing thereafter as he looked to her then away. “I mean… our magic was. At the competition.”
Her skin tingled with warmth and her face began to pinken but she nodded all the same. “It was one of the best things I’ve ever done. And I don’t want them to take that away from me. So I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but we’ll figure it out together, alright? We won’t sit with them tomorrow.”
Somehow that made the worry drain from his face before her very eyes. The curiously handsome face took on a pleasant demeanor as he smiled to her so warm and genuinely. With a nod he said, “I’m glad we’ve become such good friends, Firia. This place…” he took a glance aside, “It’d be too intimidating to go it alone, I think.”
“Yea, I’d probably be having scheduled panic attacks,” she agreed with a wry smirk. “I’d say since we can’t even read the word ‘read’, that that’s probably the best place to start. After all, it was our mini-entrance exam.”
Mae’lin laughed softly at her, his whole demeanor back to a more usual glow of pleasantness thanks to her. “We’ll grab us some books on translation and practice together,” he said, rising up and looking determined. “We’ll catch up to them and in no time we’ll put them all to shame,” he extended a hand out to help her up.
She took it and her eyes widened at the shock that passed between them. Her breath hitched but she quickly recovered. “Damn right, Mae’lin. They’ll chat so much that they won’t know what hit them when we’re casting circles around them. I’d say our first goal should be lifting these stupid spells.”
With a chuckle he grinned. “Already skipping past the learn-a-whole-new-language part in your head, huh? You do move fast.” He flushed a little after saying it, then realized he was still holding her hand despite pulling her up to her feet.