Magistaire Elaine Maulwurf blinked in disbelief at the application to the Inns of Law sitting on her work table. Surely, one of school's law students had prepared a great and elaborate prank to waste her valuable time. As far as gags went, the current attempt before her was a piece of work.

The application was from someone named Fuzzy Cougar, who was apparently female. The weird name was the first off-note in the application. The next oddity was the response to the question of whether the applicant had had a previous occupation. Fuzzy Cougar wrote that she was a mage.

Magistaire Maulwurf snorted in annoyance. Real mages in Nordvek were rare and their services were highly valued. Any competent mage made several times what even the most prestigious Tammerhof lawyer earned. The best mages were also well-known figures and Maulwurf had never heard of any mage with the improbable name of Fuzzy Cougar. Did the prankster want her to think the application might be from the Crown Prince's cougar-like spirit beast?

It got worse. The applicant's mailing address was the Palace of the Bishop of Tammerhof, which was another improbability. The Bishop's Palace was not only the home of His Emminence, the Diocesan Bishop Gerosh de Welk, it was also the temporary home of the royal family. The King and his three children were staying with the Bishop while the royal palace was being rebuilt after the explosion and fire.

Certainly, no one with the ridiculous name of Fuzzy Cougar would be living there, not even the fabled spirit beast that followed the Crown Prince everywhere. What sort of crass idiot would use a name like Fuzzy for a divine creature sent by the Mother Goddess to protect the fragile Crown Prince. No, not even a lowly acolyte or sub-verger would have such a nonsensical name.

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The current essay question for applicants was to state how the concept of negligence had evolved in the practice of torts of nonfeasance. The essay submitted by Fuzzy Cougar was not the work of a legal amateur. In fact, it was so good, and so nuanced, and so complete, that only a senior student or journeyman lawyer could have written it. The mismatch between the essay and the goofy application questions confirmed that this was a prank. The only matter that remained was the determination of which student had wasted her time by crafting this thing. She wanted to both reprimand the childish behavior and request that the author submit the essay to the Foskan Journal of Law Commentary.

Looking over the questions the applicant had answered, the Magistraire picked two as her basis to reject the application.

"The Inns of Law can not accept any student," Maulwurf wrote, "whose physical disability with writing requires the aid of another to write for them. This can not be permitted since it would be impossible to determine if the writings of the applicant were their own or the work of the person hired to write for them. In addition, the Inns of Law can only accept students who have legally come of age. The application indicates that the applicant is eight years old. The Inns of Law can not accept students who are minors."

Magistraire Maulwurf wondered how annoyed the Bishop would be if she sent the rejected application to the fake return address at the Bishop's Palace. She opened a drawer and dropped the dead application inside, opting to avoid the old Bishop's wrath.