Contrary to my expectations, the school I was assigned wasn’t a prestigious and pompous one. It was… well, a school. My fault for thinking highly of myself and my affinity.
The neighborhood, or district to be more accurate, school was an educational institution for children. There weren’t any campuses or fancy laboratories, just plain classrooms and teachers.
I sat next to Marissa at the welcoming presentation for new students. There weren’t a lot of us, around sixty. That would be around two to three classes of new students… hmmm… Now, I didn’t know to judge if it was a lot or not. I had no external references to make an opinion, and my forgotten memories didn’t tell me anything.
A tall male ellari presented before us, at a towering two-seventy centimeters. Ellari were tall by definition, but he truly was something else. He wore a tunic that looked like the biggest blanket I had seen, ever. Plain white, almost touching the ground even when considering the man’s height.
“Welcome, children!” The man spoke before an atrium. “I want to salute you all, as your school days begins today. Here, in the Thal’mer District School, we want to teach you and shape you into a better self. For the next fifteen years-”
Thal’mer district? Wasn’t that the name of the park? Oh, now it made sense. I was distracted by the name that I forgot commenting the fact that this man was using such language to children. It wasn’t advanced language or anything, but you could tone it down a bit.
I observed the tense faces of other adults standing by the left wall, who were probably teachers, and they seemed to be of the same opinion. Or so I thought. Those solemn faces weren’t showing much expression to begin with.
The headmaster continued speaking while I was distracted. To be honest, a quick glance to the other children told me that they weren’t paying much attention either. I tilted my head to the right. Yep. Marissa was asleep with the eyes open. She could even be cute by being so quiet and immobile, not shouting in general. A bit creepy the open-eyed part, though.
“I do not wish to distract you any further.” He was about to finish his speech, so I gave Marissa a gentle elbow bump. She blinked once again. Yey. “To resume. I want you to study hard, but also have a great time here.”
One of the seated teachers stood up and began clapping, which started an ellari wave of children standing up and clapping. I did the same, but Marissa needed another bump before rebooting.
“Ouch.” She grunted.
I may have used excessive force there, but it was justified.
“You will now be assigned to your classroom’s groups.” The headmaster stepped down the stage.
The process was fast, teachers were accustomed to this after so many years. Ellari lifespan was greater than my previous incarnation, or at least that was my impression. How much time did they spend doing this?
In the surprisingly low time of two minutes, we were already assembled into groups. Talk about ruthless efficiency. This wasn’t even enough time to be at half-point of a Mana Pond spellcast.
Marissa and I were placed in the same group, obviously. I would’ve talked to the teachers if that wasn’t the case. Nah, probably Marissa would have pulled a tantrum before that. Our teacher directed us to our classroom.
Ellari architecture always had a strange feeling to me. It was unfamiliar, but not exactly alien. Like I’ve seen it before, but not in person. Corridors with windows in the shape of arches, which worked like decoration and structural support.
A beautiful serpent tiling made of intertwined blue and pink vines. It reminded me of flowing mana, two of the main colors used to represent mana. There were strands of silk hanging from ceiling, nearby the windows as to also work as curtains.
The overly decorated hallway creeped me out. My mind, for forgotten reasons, painted the image of a school as a plain, dull sight.
The lady guided us to our classroom with an open hand, offering us to enter. It was a seamless transition. The walls and the ground maintained their same structure and pattern made of arches and tilling, as the corridor's essence had leaked into the classroom. My opinion? I found this type of monochrome and repetitive decoration boring. Beautiful indeed, yet also overused.
Instead of standard individual desk, the class was distributed in half-circular tables with three chairs each. Ohh… This was one of the ‘work in group’ schools… I felt my soul leaving me. It made sense, we were children and we had to be taught about teamwork and everything, but still.
“Come on, children.” Our teacher said. “Sit were you please.”
I was going to sit on first row, I came here to learn. And the best place for that was in front. Marissa was faster than me and she sat in the second row. Acceptable, but frustrating. I followed her.
The tables were composed of three chairs, but we were twenty students. Not good maths I’m afraid, miss teacher. I instantly shut up my smug mouth as I noticed I was unable to count, and we were twenty-one children.
Sometimes I was such a moron. I could hear a little Marissa in my head whispering: without the sometimes. Because of course not.
Once everyone was sat, the teacher referred to the class. “Good morning everyone, I’m Miss Salore, and I will be your teacher for the next five years.”
Say what? Five years wasn’t a lot, but we were around ten here at the moment. You are literally telling us to spend around half our current lives with you. Not the best introduction to a group of restless children, I’m afraid. The children didn’t mind, and it was just me and my delusions.
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“Now, I want everyone to introduce themselves in turns.” Miss Salore spoke with a welcoming smile. “Let’s start with this first table here.” She pointed to the first-row table. “Introduce yourself, sweety.”
“Umm, hi.” The one who had picked the short straw was a girl that looked younger than Marissa, rather ten than twelve. Though there wasn’t much difference to begin with.
What I could tell was that she was the nervous and fidgety kind with one look. Miss Salore was incompetent or a sadist to make this girl the first one to present herself.
“Emmm…” Her lips and ears trembled at low yet ferocious intervals.
The girl was in trouble.
The fidgety girl was becoming redder and redder. At this point this wasn’t nerves, but a full-blown panic attack. Oh, who would save the lady in distress from the evil claws of the teacher. A figure stood up in the class, shining knight ready to save the weak!
“My name’s Marissa Farlon!” The knight pompously presented herself.
What? Did you think I was going to help that girl? I had known Marissa for almost ten years now and she would’ve jumped before me, no matter what I did. I just avoided a ridicule scene where the both of us presented at the same time.
I was the one who sat in the middle of the table, yet the guy we had on the left jumped out of surprise when Marissa introduced. I feel sorry for the boy that had to support Marissa’s character. Oh, no. I’m not. Let the boy suffer a bit.
“That’s great, Miss Farlon, but I talked to her.” Miss Salore spoke.
“But I introduced myself.” Marissa said as if it was the most logical thing in the world.
“That’s not the question.” The teacher said with a stern look.
Oh, I knew where this was going. Right now, I had two brick-headed ladies, an unstoppable childish force against an inmovable adult object. I mentally sighed. I already foresaw no end to this discussion unless I stepped myself in.
I stood up. “The name’s Edrie Nightfallen.” I said with a bow.
The surname was technically ‘nightfall’ but in ellari both words were equal. And Nightfallen sounded a lot cooler, so in my mind it was always nightfallen. It had a better ring even if it made no difference to my fellow ellari.
My evil schemes, the malevolent machinations, the plans of subterfuge were successful as the boy at my left stood up and presented himself.
“I’m Kurt Sal!” He said with a hint of nervousness in his voice. We practically forced him into action with my deliberate actions, and Marissa’s not so deliberate planning.
After our trio presentation, the classes followed, giving their names without giving Miss Salore an opportunity to refute. Huh, that came surprisingly well. I expected more mayhem and bloodshed. Well, metaphorically speaking of course. But the situation resolved itself less chaoticly than I had foreseen.
Every student, except the girl who was firstly asked, stood up at the moment. Out of sheer pressure, she stood up. I now noticed that this was even more violent than before. Instead of being at knife point, she was surrounded by an assault force.
The girl didn’t take this badly, as her trembles reduced from before. Instead of being scared, we gave her enough courage to continue.
“I am… Elsa Galore.” She finally introduced herself.
Her name was really cool, unbefitting of her character. Well, she was still a kid, you shouldn’t expect nothing of someone so young because of their name or you may end up atrophying their growth.
“Perfect!” Miss Salore said with a bountiful smile. That witch. She acted viciously when Marissa talked but now that everyone’s against her she’s suddenly a saint. “We have introduced ourselves now. It’s time for your first classes.”
While I hated Miss Salore for her nefarious engagement, she knew how to teach. It was a simple counting to ten, naming fruits and colors. A basic exercise. Too basic, even. Then I noticed that some of the students here didn’t know how to read.
A revelation struck me. Sure, Marissa and I were clearly advanced for our age. We were two three-star spellcasters around the age of ten. But ellari senses had distorted my time perception greatly. The children here were even younger than they looked like. But that wasn’t the end of the explanation. The most important factor: wealth.
I had forgotten this fact, but we were in one of the lowest sectors of Ferilyn. Probably not the poorest, grandmother Sheel seemed to have plentiful reserves, but we weren’t exuberantly rich.
How do we explain then the extremely decorated outdoors, the streets, the market, the park, even the school, then? This was nothing more than a theory, but the answer was time. Though lowest didn’t exactly mean inferior, not in the ellari language, at least. I may need to further research into that claim. If only I was in a place where I could learn such knowledge… I’m kidding, surely they will explain this in the future.
Ellari lived for a long time (yet to know the exact expectancy) and in Ferilyn there was no extreme weather or temperatures. Maybe once in a while in Frost we were at below zero, but that was a rare occasion. Rain didn’t go beyond a simple drizzle. The sunlight was soothing, never scorching even in the hottest days of Scorch. To resume, there was little to no structural damage to the city.
What happens when you never have to repair your stone house, yet you live for centuries? You want to spice things up, you decorate. No matter your income, you slowly build up a home that is intrinsically designed to the smallest details.
I know that I have created a wild theory from small chunks of information, but it honestly made sense. The Thal’mer district may look incredibly wealthy, but a lot of children couldn’t afford education. Anyways I was speculating and rambling on to myself because the class was so simple it was boring
“Could you tell us the main colors we assign to mana, Master Nightfallen?” The teacher’s question broke me out my train of thought.
“Violet, blue, white, and pink, Miss Salore.” I responded without hesitation. You can also add purple in the mix, but if you think about it, it’s just a shade of violet. Or vice versa.
Honestly, it would make more sense if ellari were pink-colored instead of violet or purple, there was more distinction to different colors, and it still matched the mana spectrum.
Look at me, trying to change the natural pigmentation of a whole species at the age of eleven.
“Why’s that?” She asked again trying to make me look like a fool as she found out I was actually paying minimal attention to her class.
The answer was pretty obvious. We correlated those colors to mana because mana had them. But something told me she wouldn’t like that response.
“Violet and blue are colors that mana naturally manifests as. Blue being neutral mana, and violet a more arcane charged type, prone to leylines.” I explained. “While white and pink are rare manifestations of mana, they are normally correlated to the colors of mana because mana-absorbing objects tend to show those two colors.”
Not only did the whole class look at me dumbfounded, but even the teacher. Even Marissa. I noticed my error. While the message was simple, I used to many complicated words, only seen in advanced books like my old thousand-page long compendium.
“Emm…” Miss Salore struggled. “That’s correct Master Nightfallen.”
Even so, I may have used advanced vocabulary, but you don’t need to leave your mouth open. Some kids did it because they were kids and they actually forgot sometimes about closing it, or they didn’t understand some of the words used and were plainly dumbfounded. The latter was more likely.
“Well, it’s time for a playground break, don’t you think?” Miss Salore later said, and while the timing was right, it was clear she was running away from her embarrassment.
The students stomped out to the playground, while I followed an overly excited Marissa to the outside.