Undying Legacies: Amulet of Blood

What's in a name

Teagan Monicroff takes a deep, toe curling breath, holds it in for ten, and lets it out slowly through her nose. Her shoulders relax and her cerulean blue eyes flutter open.

It's real.

It's really, really real.

The beautiful building, centuries old, said to house Magical kings and Queens of ages, is utterly real and in front of her very eyes.

With its hard metal gates, and dragons carved around each looming tower, their eyes red jewels as if they really were watching over everything that takes place in their domain. The place is huge, enforced stone with ivy cording around majority of the walls and a dark black moat swishing underneath the wooden bridge with gold trims that leads into the academy's court yard.

She's finally made it - she's finally made it to the most prestigious, largest, well known magic academy known to Magicals.

RidgeMoor Academy was the must place to learn magic for any aspiring Magical with talent.

And Magicals don't come more talented than the Monicroffs. And she was just that, a talented, amazing, Monicroff. This place has seen five generations of Monicroffs, and she was the sixth - she was determined to be the best one too.

"Alright, bags, check - wand -check, extra's -check, I think - oh no - Christopher, where's the potion kit, she needs the beginners potion kit - where is - "

Teagan whirls around and snatches a worn leather case from underneath a bed roll. "Here it is Mum - don't worry, I would never forget this."

Mrs. Alice Greens-Monicroff smiles at her curly haired daughter. "Of course you wouldn't." She adjusts her white wrist length gloves and reaches for a hug, her green eyes misty.

"Oh, I can't believe you're grown up enough to go to Ridgemoor, where ever did my baby go?" She sniffs into Teagans hair and hugs her tighter.

Teagan squirms but hugs her mother back clumsily around her small frame. "No worries Mum, I'll be fine, I'll write and we have comuni-spells don't forget. I'll be fine." She says in an attempt to calm her Mothers anxiety.

"Come now Alice, don't coddle the girl, she's a Monicroff for heaven's sake."

Alice lets her daughter go and turns away to dab at her watery eyes. Teagan smiles at the tall, lean, aging man in front of her.

Her father smiles back, Christopher Monicroff was every bit as prestigious as his name implied, and he lived up to it very well - and now his daughter had to follow in his footsteps. Which he believed she would.

"Now Teagan - " He crouches on one knee in front of her, placing his hands on her shoulders, the weight almost as heavy as the name she had to bare. "What are we?"

"Monicroffs."

"And Monicroffs are?"

"Perfect."

"So you will be?"

"A perfect Monicroff."

He smiles at her warmly, his matching blue eyes crinkling at the ends. "That's right." He hesitates, as if wondering if he should hug her or not.

Teagan sighs and kisses her father on the nose. "Love you Papa." She's rarely affectionate to her father like this but - she figures she won't see him for a while. Special circumstances and all that.

"Remember Teagan - never forget who you are and everything will be fine. You'll be perfect - just like all the Monicroffs before you."

"Yes sir." Teagan resists the small spike of disappointment that she might feel at her father's lack of acknowledgment of her affections.

A loud horn stops the ruckus of the crowd of parents and future students that gathered outside the academy for their good byes. Teagan tires not to notice some of the more affectionate good byes she sees.

The bridge falls with loud clanking of chains and creaking of enforced wooden beams. It lands on the ground with a shaking boom and everything is silent. Until a large, sleek, black and purple bird whooshes out, surprising many, and drops what appears to be dust all over everyone.

Each student is peppered with the glittery stuff, including Teagan, and some share awed looks while others appear unaffected, there was someone who starts to cry because the stuff wouldn't come off when she dusted at it.

The next moment all the children started to glow and poof, Teagan laughs at the tingling sensation that fills her until she looks down.

Uniforms. They've been give their uniforms and hers looks fantastic, with the trademark colors of a first year Magical, red, black, and a gold sash for emphasis, she looks around and sees many of the young people here are also in the same colors as she is.

Some had second year colors, nobody had third year ones and she didn't see the fourth or fifth years. Maybe they get here later?.

She wonders why.

"Welcome,"

Everyone startles at the loud voice and turn to see who it was coming from.

A man, much less impressive looking than the voice he projected, in a slightly crooked top hat, arrests them, his waist coat perfectly polished and his shoes larger than his feet. He had dark side burns and a round nose that seemed a tad too red for his face, his eye brows were bushy and his dark eyes seemed to be a lot wiser than his appearance would have one think.

"Welcome, new and old, Magicals, to the greatest academy you have the honor of being accepted into."

A soft applause greets this.

He continues. "I am professor Gripes, and I will be taking you on a short tour before you are assigned to your respective houses. There are four houses, each one of you will be put into one or the other depending on what the cards say. Now, come, bid farewell and let us begin your yearly journey into the unknown and magical."

He turns away and abruptly starts trotting inside.

Good byes start up again, more rushed this time and Teagan looks towards her parents one last time, she wasn't going to cry but. . . But she will miss them.

"I'll see you soon." She says and lifts her bags hurriedly.

"We'll miss you love." Her mother calls out.

"And don't forget Teagan, the moment you get into the Heralds house, you let us know! Make the Monicroffs proud." Her father says, one last voicing of his hopes and dreams for her.

Teagan nods, smiles, and follows the moving crowd of students inside the new world they would be encased in for the next year. She hopes it will be everything she expects.