The Land of Fire

Chapter 2 (2021 Rewrite)

Mom and Dad hug us proudly and wish us luck before we leave. It's a short walk to the high school, but it feels like we've been walking forever. Each step grows heavier as the high school comes into view, but with Blaze it's the complete opposite. I mean he's practically floating as we reach the entrance.

There's a small welcoming group greeting people at the doors, and a line of students extends from the lobby to just outside the building and we get in line.

"How many people do you think are ahead of us?" Blaze fiddles with his belt buckle nervously.

"Probably a couple thousand," I joke, but the blood drains from his face and I quickly correct myself, "well more like a few hundred, but you know half of the weenies in our age group won't pass the Weakness Test. Actually, I'll be surprised if more than half our class show up."

"Yeah, that's true. I have nothing to be worried about! I'm a little nervous but once I get started I'm sure I'll be fine. How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay, I guess I'm a little nervous. I mean, I don't really want to do this, but I don't want to fail either. If I pass, at least I'll have the option to go when the next school year starts," I shrug.

"Oh, so you are actually interested?" He reaches to poke me but I slap his hand away.

"No, I'm just saying that if nothing interesting pops up then I'll go."

"Sooooo you're going?" Blaze looks at me as if I just said the dumbest thing. I open my mouth to protest but Blaze shakes his head and says, "Ember, get over yourself. You know there's no way anything interesting would come up, you're just going to work for the Council, whatever they assign you based on your graduation exam. You know Mom and Dad hate the idea of us being stuck here so why do you favour it so much?"

"I don't favour it. It's just the way things are; I'm not going to argue with you about this again. Why are you trying to change things that are already set in stone?"

I roll my eyes and ignoring his question we follow the line inside as someone in a staff shirt calls in the next wave of people. We hand over our IDs and they lead us to one of the gymnasiums for the written test. I sit down in the brightly lit room filled with desks and other students and flip through the booklet. The timer starts, leaving me with only an hour to answer six pages of questions and I hesitantly pick up the provided pencil and get to work. The questions are pretty simple, just some basic Elementus and Fire Land history, some science, and a few questions about myself. I quickly fill out the questions and leave the room, the timer stops with 15 minutes left and I silently thank my Dad for answering all my history questions when I was 13 and wanted to be a historian after falling in love with the host on Facts and Fire, a TV show that Blaze and I would watch when we were eight.

I'm quickly escorted to the next room for the element test, where three people are at a desk facing the empty room. As soon as the door closes behind me, they each introduce themselves as professors at MEA and tell me that they'll be judging my performance.

"Performance?" I ask. No one told me about a performance.

"It's nothing spectacular, nothing you should be prepared for. Just show us what you got, express yourself through your abilities and don't be nervous," the lady in the middle, Professor Jain, gives me a warm smile.

"Okay. Um, just do whatever then?" I begin to tie up my long red hair once they give me a supportive nod. Mom taught me to dance when I was younger, we spent weeks learning the ancient traditional dance of Fire Land. Not many people know it anymore, I'm not even sure how Mom knows, but it seems like a good fit for now.