Beyond Scarfold [discontinued]

(5) Conserving Magic

I stood in silence for another minute or so. Making up my mind, I slipped the letter into my pocket and headed outside, not caring what I looked like. I made my way down the street in a cloudy haze, heading towards the Institute.

Last month I had gone there almost daily, taking vigorous tests and practicing what seemed like pointless motions over and over. There had been a multitude of people there with me, but it was my understanding that only a small percentage of us got in.

I was one of the few.

But I wasn’t as overjoyed as I thought I would be.

I glanced up, surprised to see that I was already at the Institute. Taking a deep breath, I entered through the large front doors and into the warmer air inside. I still had my jacket on from last night, so I shrugged it off and draped it over my shoulder.

“Hello, Mailandria,” I heard a voice to my right.

“Please call me Dri,” I frowned at the woman, Larja, who was sitting at her usual post at the front desk.

She waved her hand in dismissal. “So are you excited to be having a full term at the Institute?” she smiled kindly.

“Yes, I really am. It’s going to be wonderful,” I lied for her sake.

“Oh, yes, indeed! And such a great opportunity, too.”

I nodded as cheerfully as I could.

“Well you're going to be late, dear, if you don’t hurry back there,” Larja tilted her head in a gesture towards the meeting room.

I had slept in later than I thought, hadn’t I? I offered Larja a last smile before turning away and rushing to the meeting room. The smile slipped away as soon as my back was to her.

“…and I’m sure that we will have a fantastic term this year, as l– Oh, hello, miss. Please take a seat.”

I awkwardly sat down, everyone’s eyes on me.

The man I had interrupted turned back towards the rest of the audience, continuing smoothly with his speech.

“…and it is a great honor for me to say that you few have been selected from a large amount of possible magic users. And even though those of us blessed with these amazing abilities are becoming fewer and fewer every generation, I believe we have a fairly good turnout this year,” he beamed at the ten or so people sitting in the room before him.

Everyone looked around at each other. There were about two children younger than I. One was a boy around the age of… of the girl I saw last night, and the other was a girl who looked only a year or two under me. Then there were a couple tough, beefy looking boys that looked the tiniest bit older than me, a thin boy, and a few older looking girls and boys that didn’t really stand out in particular.

 “Now,” the man started up again. “I’ll leave Mentor Redway to speak to you about your term here at the Institute.”

He stepped aside to let another man come forward. The man – Mentor Redway, I assumed – had a bright smile that lit up his aged features, his eyes crinkling in the corners slightly. He had thick brown hair with wisps of grey running through it and his dark eyes were warm and welcoming.

“Welcome,” he held out his arms, as if embracing the room. “We are very happy to have you here at the Institute. Now, I don’t like to dally too much on insignificant details, so I’ll be getting on with what we will be learning. Today we will be having our first lesson.”

A murmuring broke out from the few people sitting around me. A lesson already? Shouldn’t we at least get some sort of orientation first? Maybe I had missed it… I had come in late, after all.