When Miieie awoke, her silver-haired roommate had yet to return from her “observations”.

Her encounter with her had been strange to say the least, but Miieie tried to not think too much about it. Did she recognize that she had caused some awkwardness? Sure, but accidents happened. Still, though, Kalo’s words from the ceremony had hung with her, about expulsions and strict standards.

Back on Skilma, strictness always had conditions. Conditions she could dodge, but here she wasn’t so sure. Maybe Kalo had been throwing a pebble in her stream, but she didn’t want to bet on that. Between Endra, the Headmaster, and Kalo she was pretty sure only the super-serious got into this school; and Miieie had always struggled with taking things seriously. But now she had to. At least a little bit.

With her arms slunked behind her neck, she walked through the campus grounds, deciding to take a note out of her roommate’s book and get familiar with the campus. That was a serious thing, right?

The campus itself was split up into five major sections, all inter-linked by a campus park.

The first was the main building, where normal classes took place. Barring weekends and opening day they were attended throughout the year, starting in the fourth month following year’s end.

The second was the dormitories, where students lived together in pairs of four. The school was co-ed, though rooms were decidedly not. It was indecent to suggest someone should be in the opposite gender’s room, so much so that the headmaster had two separate buildings to drive that point home.

The third was the auditorium, where ceremonies and theater were performed. This included magical duels and several of the combat oriented clubs.

The fourth was the student union, where students could attend study hall, investigate the academic library, or lounge in the general cafeteria.

The fifth and final pillar was the gymnasium, where students could venture into a variety of physical conditioning and activity clubs.

Despite the reputation of Minerva’s being a combat school, even Miieie knew it went well beyond that. It purported to be an institution of higher learning, a place that had a little more versatility than being a place to hone your skills with weapons and arts. Still, from what she could tell, the “school of combat” schtick was probably the more important part. Had it not been, Miieie wouldn’t have given it the time of day. Not even with that little nugget her grandfather fed her a few years ago.

As she walked down the path that’s when Miieie felt it.

A rumble.

Turns out, not being able to hold down food for a few days and only having some cake in your stomach was bad for you. It was still pretty early on account of the sun still being out, so Miieie did what any other girl would do in that situation. Go see what kind of food the cafeteria was serving. Being that it was a fancy school with fancy money and fancy people, Miieie was absolutely certain it would be fancy food.

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**

Glop!

Miieie looked at the food in front of her with a sense of disgust. It was like some combination of pudding and fish. If she didn’t know any better she thought someone packaged what left her body on the ark and decided that it’d do better being fed to teenagers. She wasn’t sure what unsettled her more–the gray, colorless color or the fact it wasn’t solid or liquid. It reminded her of a certain dish on Skilma that they fed to the llamas.

“Um… what’s this?” She asked, hoping that there was some kind of mix up.

There was not.

“You’re a commoner rank student. This is commoner rank porridge.”

Miieie frowned. It was certainly rank.

“Oh… okay. Thanks.”

She sighed. With the rial in her pockets, she could’ve bought a much better meal in the city; but then again she knew she would be broke if she spent her rial like that every time she wanted to avoid the cafeteria. So, as if to placate herself and her appetite she plopped down at the nearest table without even realizing anybody was sitting at it. Her eyes were too fixated on the food, tapping the gelatinous substance with her spoon. Was this just a fried slime monster? Her stomach turned at the thought.

“I wouldn’t eat that if I were you.” A dry, monotone voice commented from across the table.

“Huh?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s poison.”

Miieie looked up from her plate and was met with a dead-eyed girl with blue hair and thick-rimmed glasses. Her hair was twisted into a pair of twintails and she couldn’t help but feel a little taken back.

“That, or dead students.” She added without pause.

Miieie continued to be confused as the girl continued to comment on the only food she had a chance to eat since her quick snack after the voyage to Rosenfel had ended.

“D-dead students?” She asked as she looked down at the food.

Was it possible? If you got expelled was this what happened? Miieie wondered about such a thing. She had never met anybody who had flunked out of the academy nor had she ever heard of anybody who hadn’t graduated. Even the people she knew had graduate and Instructor Ienna had never mentioned what would happen if she got in and failed. She bit her lip, concerned about the idea entirely.

“Why don’t you try a taste. Tell me if you can taste the failure.”

What was up with this girl?

Then it hit her.

She looked back up at the girl, “Are ya messing with me?”

A slight smile formed on Miieie’s face. She hadn’t heard a joke told in such a way before, so it had caught her off guard!

“Darn. You got me.” She looked down, not letting out a single satisfied laugh as she scribbled some things in a notebook of some kind.

“It is terrible though.” She mused, “But it's all they’ll give us, unless you have a noble friend.”

It was a weird thing to consider, but it was an uppity school for uppity people. Prestige mattered and Miieie supposed that was one of the things she was going to have to get used to while attending the academy for the next three years. She’d find a way around it and the strange blue-haired girl did strike her an idea.

“I do! I have a roommate who is one of those noble types!”

“Hoo-ray.”

“You said I needed a noble friend to get good food. So, that’s what I’m gonna do. Endra will help me for sure!”

“Okay.”

Miieie smiled wide, “So, what’s your name? I’m Miieie!”

The girl looked up at her, unamused. “Miieie?”

“Yep! Miieie Presson.”

“That’s a stupid name.”

“...uh?”

The girl sighed, “Fine. Iris. Iris Ofashe.”

“Cool! Nice to meet’cha, Iris! So what’s your story?”