Bloom found herself at the entrance to a courtyard before large and heavy glass gates. Bloom couldn't even see through the thick glass, try as she might. Bloom watched as Stella walked ahead of her towards the study gates. The large glass doors opened by some will of their own.
Bloom hiked up the hanging threads of her dress and quickly followed the faerie, worried that the gates would see through her lies and deem her unworthy, leaving her be locked out with no way of getting in.
Bloom felt that familiar zapping of wards as she passed under the archway. Her eyes and nose burned as that metallic thrumming shoved its way up her nostrils. She coughed once, twice, as she passed through the entrance to the school courtyard.
Fraud. The word echoed through Blooms head as she entered into the beautiful courtyard, and not just because Bloom was impersonating someone else- a princess, no less- but because Bloom wondered if what she felt in her bones meant that she truly didn't belong there.
Bloom looked around the courtyard at the beautiful sprawling grounds with paths leading every direction. The paths all conjoined in the middle of the courtyard under an archway, where a slender brown haired woman hiked her glasses up on her beady eyes.
The dark teal fabric of her stiff dress swayed as the brown haired woman talked to a girl who looked to be around Bloom's age. The girl was shaking, as if in fear of the woman who loomed before her. The stance of the woman with beady eyes was assertive, and she pointed a finger at the girl as if in scolding. Stella followed Bloom's eyes towards the woman. "That's Griselda, head of discipline." Stella said to her softly. "She's the literal worst."
Bloom frowned. "We have to talk to her, don't we?" It wasn't really a question.
Stella nodded. "Technically, registration ended yesterday, but don't worry, I'll convince her to let us in."
Bloom snapped her head towards Stella, feeling exposed in the strange dress she wore. "Are you sure she'll let us register? I look ridiculous."
"You look royal." Stella countered. "You're welcome, by the way." Stella started walking towards Griselda and Bloom did the same. "I doubt she'll ask any questions." Stella added. "Don't slouch, hold her stare. Act like you belong here."
Bloom straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath.
The two girls approached the head of discipline, who crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes.
"Good morning Miss Griselda." Stella said sweetly, a soft smile lighting up her face.
"Well, if it isn't Princess Stella of Solaria. I never thought I'd see you here after what happened last year.." She narrowed her eyes even more, which Bloom didn't even know was possible, and said, "I'm surprised you've chosen to grace us with your presence once again."
Stella just gave a light hearted shrug, her sweet smile still gracing her features. "I don't give up that easily, you know."
Griselda sneered in response. "And who is your friend?"
Stella shifted her body to look towards Bloom. "This is Princess Veranda of Callisto. I'm sure she's on the class roster."
Griselda just looked at the red haired girl, observing her dress and jewelry. Her eyes met Bloom's, and Stella's reminder rang in her head. She did not lower her gaze. Griselda sighed, snapping her fingers. A clipboard appeared out of thin air beside her, and Bloom tried to mask her features to hide her surprise. Griselda picked up the floating clipboard and scanned the list of names, her cold gray eyes landing on Veranda Callisto's name. "You know, the deadline for check-in and registration was yesterday. We don't tolerate exceptions at Alfea, perhaps I should reach out to Veranda's parents about this."
Stella opened her mouth to say something, but Bloom spoke before she could bark some snappy retort. "Stella came to escort me to the school, and there were obligations that I had to fulfill before I could leave." Technically not a lie, Bloom reminded herself. She straightened her shoulders even more, making herself seem tall and self assured as she said, "I take full responsibility." She said, "Any questions you have should be directed to me. I would hope the king of Callisto does not need to be bothered with something as inconsequential as this." The pure command and subtle warning rolled off Bloom's tongue and left a bitter taste behind.
Griselda let out a noise that resembled a hmph. "There's an orientation in fifteen minutes in the courtyard. Don't be late." She turned on her pointy heeled boots and headed towards the main building.
Bloom let her shoulders slump as soon as Griselda departed, and let out a sigh of relief. Stella just nodded. "That was really impressive. You almost had me fooled that you were royalty."
Bloom let out a nervous laugh and shook her head. "She's scary."
Stella raised an eyebrow. "So were you."
Bloom just looked at her.
"Come on, let's go." Stella said, leading the way towards the growing crowd of students outside the beautiful building. Bloom hadn't really given herself a chance to observe the beautiful school, but she finally let her eyes trail upwards towards the looming structure before her. The school was constructed of a strange type of stone that Bloom had never seen before. The colors shifted under the angle the light, making the building look like a blend of yellows, pinks, and purples. Large teal-tinted glass windows littered every surface, clearly utilizing the natural light for the large interiors. The school was made up of three large buildings, each situated around the courtyard in a horseshoe shape. The buildings were connected by glass hallways that must have been relatively new and were built to update the school by connecting the different wings to the main building.
"So, what happened last year?" Bloom asked, her mind trailing back to what Griselda had said earlier.
"It was nothing." Stella shrugged. "Griselda loves to traumatize the new students."
The two girls stopped on the edge of the crowd, and Bloom let herself take in all of the girls around her. People wore a variety of clothes and hairstyles, some that would fit in on Earth and some that definitely would not. Bloom was surprisingly not too overdressed, as people wore such a wide variety of clothing styles. She wondered what category she would fit into if people from earth could see her right now. Her eyes trailed down to the golden macrame dress that adorned her body. She would probably look so strange to her family and friends.
Griselda approached the crowd of first year students. "This school will be your home for the next five years, but this home can cease to be yours at any moment. The rule of this institution are based on discipline. Disregard any of the college policies and I will personally escort you to the front gate.
"You may not use your powers in the hallways or other common areas. They are only to be practiced under the supervision of your professors and instructors." Griselda pivoted and glared at the golden eyed faerie that stood next to Bloom. "Is that clear, Princess Stella?"
Stella just gave her a grin and silent thumbs up as Griselda continued, "Thanks to you and your antics, the potion laboratory will not be accessible until next month at the earliest. now I think you know what not to do if you would like to stay."
Griselda turned away and continued her little preach to the students. Bloom tapped Stella on the shoulder and leaned in with a whisper. "You really destroyed an entire lab?"
"So what? My father paid for all of the damages." Stella snapped back.
A woman with graying hair pulled into a classic bun approached the students, trailed by four other adults of varying ages. The one on her left was a tall and slender man, with an emerald green velvet doublet and long auburn hair pulled back into a tight braid. Bloom found herself focusing on his pointed ears and angular cheekbones. There was also a shorter man, with kind eyes and dark hair. He was wearing a brown suit, the type people might wear to the office on Earth. Another man stood back a bit in a white suit that didn't look modern, but didn't quite look like an old style either. It was a style that Bloom wasn't familiar with. He had black hair pulled into a low pony tail, and though his eyes weren't kind, they weren't unkind either. He looked bored. A woman with no hair and a black blazer approached the graying haired woman. She whispered something in her ear, before taking a step back and standing beside the man in white. She was beautiful, with dark lashes and tanned skin.
The woman in front's kind eyes smiled as she said, "Sorry I'm late, I hope miss Griselda hasn't frightened you too much." She clasped her hands together over her lavender knee-length tweed dress. "Welcome to Alfea, the best faerie school in the dimension. I am headmistress Faragonda." She turns towards the middle building, and led the group up the grand staircase towards the grand glass double doors. "Follow me girls, it's time for the orientation session."
Once to the top of the exterior twin staircases, Faragonda held her hands in front of her, and the doors to the main hall opened for the group to pass through. Bloom's jaw dropped as she beheld the beautiful hall. Another grand staircase led up to a balcony that surrounded the great space and led to hallways on either side. The floors seemed to gleam in the natural light from the stained glass windows that sprawled against the back wall.
Farragonda led the group up the sprawling staircase to the second level, before leading them to the hallway on the right. Bloom trailed behind them, but found herself entranced as she beheld the wall of stained glass before her.
Bloom's eyes traced the artwork within the beautiful glass windows. The faeries weren't depicted as she would have expected them to be. She followed the story that was etched into the glass. The first part of the large window showed what looked almost like a universe, with different lands blending together.
As she worked her way over, she saw a group of five faeries, with different sized wings protruding from each of their backs. They all had their heads bowed, the pointer and middle fingers on their right hands extended on the center of each of their foreheads.
As she continued down the stained glass, she saw faeries in a battle against an unspecified force of magic. The faeries were clad with weapons both man-made and of magic. They were depicted in action, flying through the air and swinging their weapons on the ground with cries of pain and fury etched into their faces. Bloom had always assumed that faeries were delicate, feminine, and breakable, as they had always been shown in books and movies on earth. She had never seen a faerie represented as they were in this artwork: strong, calculated, driven... powerful.
The artwork continued, with a circle of faeries, their wings drooping as they kneeled on the ground. It was as if they were mourning. Even their clothes, which had been shining and vibrant in the earlier parts of the artwork, were duller.
She wandered over to the final installation of the work. It represented a court, with people seated in a circle around a burning flame. Some of them had wings, some didn't. A red dragon snaked around them, as if signifying their unity. She trailed the body of the dragon, looking for the end of it's massive tail.
Bloom snapped her head back to the earlier pieces of the story, and realized that the dragon had been integrated into the entire work. It hadn't been obvious at first- the tail of the dragon had morphed into different components of the story... The earth that the bowing faeries stood atop, the darkness that the warriors fought, the ashes that the kneeling faeries mourned upon, the orange flame that the peacekeepers beheld.
"This is one of the earliest depictions of faerie history." Bloom jumped as a voice spoke behind her, and turned to see Griselda, her face relaxed with her hands casually resting behind her back. It was the first time Bloom had seen Griselda not look like she was ready to snap someone's head off. "Even Headmistress Faragonda doesn't know when the artwork was created."
"it's been here all this time?" Bloom questioned, turning back to look at the glass.
"It's spelled to protect against decay." As Griselda said that, Bloom suddenly noticed the metallic energy pulsing from the glass. She hadn't registered it- the entire school hummed with magic. "The wards are ancient," Griselda continued, "spoken in a language that was lost long ago. We couldn't remove them even if we tried."
Bloom nodded, and turned to face the hallway the other students had walked down.
"How much history do they teach on Callisto?" Griselda asked, causing Bloom to pause. Her calculating eyes rested on Bloom's face, as if searching for something. Bloom just shrugged.
"Just the basics." Bloom lied, leaving a bitter taste behind. She walked away towards the other students to prevent further questioning.
She wandered around the school, unable to locate where the students had gone, until she stumbled upon a hallway lined with matching doors. Each door had a board with different names on them, allowing Bloom to identify the space as the residential wing. She wandered down the hallway, unable to find a room with Veranda Castillos name on it. She ascended the staircase at the end of the hallway to the second floor, where she saw Stella leaning against a door down the hallway.
Bloom gave her a small wave and hurried over to her. "Sorry, got lost."
Stella just nodded. "We're in the same suite, come on." Stella opened the opaque green glass doors to reveal a common space with a couch, table, and chairs. Bloom saw her suitcases and backpack leaning against the wall. Stella pointed to a pair of double doors, matching the ones that led into the apartment. "That's my room. I had the same one last year."
Bloom rolled her eyes. "I'm not surprised that you landed a room all to yourself." Bloom turned to another set of green double doors with her name on them. "Looks like I have a roommate." She picked up one of her suitcases and her backpack, and walked into the room assigned to her.
Bloom threw her hands up to shield her ears as she heard a screech from beside her, dropping her backpack in the process. " She turned to find a strange plant on a table next to the door. Her eyes trailed down to the vines that littered the floor, and immediately removed her foot from the vine she had stepped on. "I am so sorry." She said, though she wasn't really sure who she was apologizing to.
"No, excuse me! I just got here, and well..." Flora clasped her hands together as she beheld the red haired girl before her with a gentle smile. Bloom's eyes snapped up to see a girl with soft tan skin and sandy brown hair walk over. "I left my things all over the floor." The brown haired girl explained. "This is a talking plant, one of my creations..."
Flora absentmindedly smoothed her pink skirt as she looked towards her temperamental plant. She turned towards Bloom, her large golden hoops swaying as she moved her head. "My name is Flora. Your dress is beautiful."
Bloom raised her hand and scratched the back of her neck awkwardly. Stella strolled into the room, her blonde hair swaying behind her. "I'm Bloo-" Stella coughed obviously, and Bloom felt her cheeks heat up. "I'm Veranda." Bloom corrected. She absentmindedly took a step back as she said "Veranda of Callisto."
Bloom felt herself bump into something, or someone rather, because a voice behind her said, "Callisto, fourth world of the realms upper ring? Wow, that's quite a ways away." Bloom pivoted to be met face to face with another girl. Her starburst-pink hair hung around her face haphazardly, as if she couldn't bother to style it. Her large gray eyes twinkled with excitement as she said, "I'm Xenia." Bloom took in her purple jumper as the pale girl casually rested her hand on her hip.
The girls shifted out of the doorway mindlessly as Stella and Flora walked out. "I'm Stella. Of Solaria" She added as she jutted out a hip and crossed her arms casually.
"Hey, I've heard about you." Xenia said with a smirk. She casually pointed her finger in Stella's vague direction, and opened her mouth to continue.
"Me too!" All four girls whipped their heads towards the front door, where a dark haired girl stood, clad in jeans and a red crop top. Her backpack was slung across one of her shoulders and a pair of headphones rested around her neck. Musa's deep almond eyes beheld the four girls before her as she smiled mischievously. "Before you blow up your room, give us time to duck and cover, okay?"
Bloom let out a loud laugh that she didn't bother to hide and the other two girls chuckled.
Stella glared at all of them. "It wasn't intentional If you really want to know."
"An accident that got you expelled." Xenia said, her eyebrow raising. "How'd you even get let back in, anyways?"
"The truth is," Stella said, a cold smile lacing her features, "They just couldn't do without someone as gorgeous as me." She gave the girls a wink before flipping her long hair over her shoulder and sauntering past them towards her room.
She paused and turned to look at them from behind her shoulders. "What do you say we eat out today?"
"Great idea! It'll give us an opportunity to get to know one another!" Flora said, her rosy cheeks bloomed as a grin made its way across her lips. Bloom liked Flora already.
"Anyone for pizza?" Bloom blurted out.
Everyone looked at her, their eyes wide and unblinking. "What's that?" Musa said, speaking on behalf of the group.
Bloom smiled and stuck her pointer fingers together to make a triangle shape. "It's the national dish of Callisto.. more or less."