Arty ate his breakfast slowly.
Multitasking was quite tough. He had trouble eating and reading at the same time. He read the words highlighted in his book out loud, "The Use of Magic is often attributed to certain physical sensations. For one to use fire they must feel as if they are burning, to use ice they must believe they are frigid as the White Ocean." Connected to this sentence by a poorly drawn arrow was his fathers own writing. It was simply two words, Love = Healing. Arthus had learned from reading his fathers writings in the first three chapters of the book that his father specialized in healing magic. So this must mean that in order to heal people you must feel like you're in love. That was strange to Arthus. How could someone simply conjure up a feeling of love whenever they wished? Arthus continued down this line of thinking further, what does love truly feel like?
Arty shook his head and took another bite of his crepe. Arty loved Crepes, he'd never had one before that day, but after tasting them ,he thought they were the best idea anyone had ever had. They're like pancakes, but thin. Arty was simply amazed by the genius of this food, yet he was also slightly disappointed he couldn't share his opinion about crepes with anyone else. Arty was sitting alone. In fact, most of the other students were sitting alone. Orientation was today and Arty hadn't spoken with any of the other students yet. Not that they made much of an effort to talk to him, or anyone else for that matter. They seemed to be the most anti-social group of people Arthus had ever met. Then again, he had not met a lot of people, so that didn't count for much.
The cafeteria was surprisingly large. They converted the Holy Tribunal Room into a large dining space. This room was naturally left empty by the Ministry of Religion. The Blessed Disciples would convene while standing instead of sitting, just as how the Prophet Yorrin stood for one-hundred days to convince his people to follow him. So they simply drug chairs and steel tables into the large empty space to make a cafeteria. Arthus still couldn't believe that the Queen had simply abolished the Ministry of Religion. One day they determined the faith of an entire nation, the next they were thrown out on the street to make room for a bunch of sorcerers whom they probably despised.
Arty's opinions swirled in his head until he decided he simply could not remain silent anymore. He needed someone to talk to. He grabbed his book and his tray of food and stood up. He scanned the room for someone to sit by. Most of the students were sitting alone, so he had a lot of choices. His eyes locked onto a boy with his hair dyed bright blue, he's probably got one heck of a story!
Arthus walked over to the boy and put down his tray and his book before finally sitting. The Boy's choice of food seemed quite dull, no crepes, no bread, no yogurt, just a whole bunch of fruit and egg whites. The boy looked up from his own food to meet Arty's eyes. He had bright blue eyes and smooth white skin. He looked at Arty intently until Arthus finally remembered that he was supposed to speak. He smiled, "My name Is Arthus! What's yours?"
"Zaben." The boy responded dully. He didn't seem very happy to be there.
"Cool name!" Arty responded. From reading his father's book he found that Sorcerers like to name their kids with lots of Z's, X's and Y's. He guessed the end of the alphabet is just more appealing to some people. Zaben still wasn't saying anything, so Arty decided to restart the conversation, "What's your power?"
Zaben finally smiled, "I can create Ice. I'm like, super good at it."
"Whoa! That's crazy! I can use fire!" Arty was ecstatic to finally have someone to talk to, "Me and you, we're like destined to be friends. Like fire and ice, you know!"
"Yeah for sure!" Zaben was pumped, "I love magic. I think it's like the coolest thing ever. I'm so excited to go to this school. Everything I ever learned was from my parents but... they never got to finish teaching me."
Arty frowned, it was obvious what had happened to Zaben's parents. Arthus decided to take the conversation in a more positive direction, "Is there anything cool you can do with your powers?"
Zaben nodded, "What are you drinking." He pointed to the cup on Arty's tray.
"Grape Juice."
"Cool. Okay so you need to take your straw," Zaben reached over and grabbed Arty's straw. He positioned the straw so that it was in exactly the middle of the cup pointing straight up towards the ceiling, "Hold the straw like this."
Arty reached out and grabbed the straw like Zaben suggested. Zaben wrapped his hand around the face of the plastic cup. Frost started wafting off of his fingers as shards of frozen grape juice rapidly grew inwards towards the center straw. In a matter of seconds, the whole cup was frozen. Arthus finally realized the goal of his actions, Zaben had made a popsicle. Arty tried Zanzibar aAsS. Z. to pull his finger off the straw, but much to his dismay he realized that his finger was frozen to it. He tugged at it until he felt skin start peeling off, so he stopped. Instead, he allowed the fire within him to rush into his finger. As it burst into flame he felt his finger free itself from the straw.
Arty looked back up at Zaben, "Sorry." he said, "Sometimes I have trouble controlling my power."
Arthus looked around to see that, not only was his tray frozen but so was his entire half the table. He stared at his frozen food and whimpered, "My crepes..."
"Yeah, I'm sorry about that." he said before grabbing a grape off of Arty's tray, "But frozen grapes are the bomb!" Arty grabbed his own frozen grape and shoved into his mouth. It was crunchy and sweet, Arty couldn't resist grabbing another one. Zaben spoke as Arty enjoyed his new frozen treat, "I hope I don't get in trouble for freezing the table."
"I don't think you will." Arty responded, before popping another grape into his mouth.
Zaben reached across the table to grab the frozen grape juice. He took it over to his side of the table, and tried to pull the popsicle from its plastic mold. To his dismay, the popsicle remained firmly inside the plastic cup. No matter how hard Zaben pulled on the straw that functioned as a popsicle stick, it simply would not budge. He frowned, "It works better with a glass cup."
Arty wrapped his fingers around the plastic cup. He felt the fire inside his veins rush towards his finger but instead of releasing it, he held it back. He thought of it like how a dam holds back most of the water, except for the water that flows over the spillway. A dim weak flame burned on his hand for a few seconds before he pulled it away from the cup. Much to Zaben's delight, he grabbed at the straw and pulled the purple chunk of frozen juice right out of the cup. It was dripping at the sides but he just put his finger on the Popsicle and refroze it again.
Zaben took one long lick before turning to Arty and smiling, "Thanks."
Arty smiled. This was everything he ever wanted. He had spent his entire life terrified of who he was, terrified about if someone would find what he could do. But sitting at that cafeteria table, he could be himself in front of someone else who was just like he was. He felt more at home sitting with Zaben than he had ever felt in his own house. He didn't know Zaben before that day, yet still, he felt like family.
"You're Welcome." Arty remarked. Zaben continued to enjoy his popsicle so Arty figured he'd just continue the conversation on his own, "So, what do you think of the Headmaster?"
Zaben tried to bite the popsicle, but the rock hard grape juice resisted. He paused from his frozen treat, "He's too young. Plus what kind of a Sorcerer has a name like Marcus?"
"I like him. He seems nice, even if he's a little bit out of his element."
"Yeah, I guess he seems nice." Zaben replied. Then he looked at me, growing a bit more serious, "How do you think you did on the Entrance exam?"
After Arty's first day here the Headmaster gave him a test. At first Arty worried that the test would determine if he got into the school, but Marcus said that it was just to see what Arty knew. Either way he flopped hard. The only questions he was able to answer properly were from the things he'd read about in the book, but most of the stuff he knew nothing about. "I did really bad," Arty replied.
"Yeah I don't think I did very good either. I haven't really had anyone to talk to about magic for a while, so my memory is kind of soft on the topic."
"It's okay, we're here to learn after all."
Zaben smiled and nodded, "Right!" Then he made a tooth-shattering crunch into his popsicle.
Arty wanted to say something but then he heard a voice in the Cafeteria shout, "Orientation begins immediately, please proceed to the Entry Hall."
"But, I wasn't finished with my food." Arty said, poking his frozen crepes with his fork.
Zaben and him both stood up from their table, leaving behind their trays for somebody else to clean up. Zaben held onto his Popsicle as they walked across the dining hall with their fellow students. The large obsidian doors between the Dining Hall and the Entry Hall were held open for them by another student as they stepped through.
The Entry Hall was decorated with a large podium and easily 200 hundred metal chairs. Which was strange to Arty, by Arty's count there were only eighteen other students. "I wonder who the other seats are for?" Arty remarked as he walked towards the chairs.
"Probably the Queens Council or something," Zaben answered.
Then out of nowhere another student chimed in, "They probably expected more kids to show up to the Academy." Zaben and Arty turned to face this new student. She was a red-haired girl who's face was utterly smeared with freckles. Like most of the students at the Academy, she seemed like she'd seen a thousand battles. Beneath her cold brown eyes seemed a spirit broken by reality, she frowned and continued, "Since nobody knows how many kids escaped the cleansing, they probably just overestimated how many of us actually made it."
Zaben frowned as well, "Yeah, I guess you're right. They wouldn't have given us such a large building if they didn't expect more of us." Arty and his newly found groupies, reached the row of chairs, but since they didn't know where they were supposed to sit, they sort of just stood awkwardly.
The girl continued down her depressing string of logic, "They were really thorough where I lived; I was the only one who made it out in my entire town. If they worked as well in other places, I wouldn't be surprised if we were really the only Magic Users left in all of Zytria."
Zaben's frown grew more pronounced, "I was the only one who made it out of my town too," He stuck out his wrist and Arty's eyes widened as he saw the serial number AZ-168907 tattooed into his arm, "By the time they reached Colony 15 they knew how to chase us down."
Arty recognized Colony 15 from the radio, it was a colony in northern Lanthro. Arty grew more and more distressed by how Zaben and this girl seemed to be dragging each other deeper into despair. Desperate to stop this descent into depression, Arthus turned to Zaben and interjected, "What was it like living in Lanthro? Crazy weather I hear."
Neither Zaben nor the girl seemed interested in anything less than continuing there discussion. The girl frowned again, "How did you make it out?"
"They took us up to the Rehabilitation Camp in Alzca after they found us. There was a Revolt in the Camp. Me and my sister both got out. She had stolen a gun from one of the guards and while we were trying to escape, a plane chased us down. So my sister took the gun and started shooting back. She distracted the plane long enough for me to get into a local town." He lightly ran his fingers along his wrist, "once you get into the regular population, long sleeves are usually enough to hide who you really are."
The Girl rolled up her sleeve exposing her own Serial Number, VM-189704 "A guard smuggled me out of the camp because he thought I could use my powers to bring back his wife." she frowned, "By the time he realized I couldn't do it, I'd already taken the box cutter from his office," her hand scrunched into a fist, "at that point, it was either him or me."
Arty's eyes widened in horror. He was shocked by everything his fellow students had to go through just to survive. They're training us to be soldiers he thought, but how many of us are already killers?
Zaben turned to Arty and spoke with a cold depressed voice, "How did you survive?"
Arty froze. He didn't have any sad stories like they did. Arty had always believed that his life was hard because of who he was and what he could do, he thought the fact that he had to hide who he was from the people closest to him made him a victim, but he didn't realize until then just how lucky he had it. He had gotten it easy, his life was a dream compared to the rest of them. Arty frowned to himself and spoke simply, "I was born on a farm, so they didn't know I even existed when they came for my father."
They just stared at him blankly, until, in a moment of relief, Marcus interrupted over the Intercom, "Uh, you guys can just take a seat up front." He gestured down to the seats closest to the podium.
Arty, Zaben and the Girl walked up to the front row. Arty noticing that they hadn't gotten the girl's name leaned across Zaben and asked, "Hey, what's your name?"
She spoke dully, "My name's Salmy, but my parents just called me Sam."
"Well my name is Arthus, but most people just call me Arty."
Zaben interjected as well, "My name is Zaben, there's really no way to shorten it." Arty laughed in response, but Salmy just sat silently.
All the other students started sitting in the front row. Most of them were a bit older than Arty, but they were still around his age. One student, in particular, stood out as being obviously the oldest in the group. He was tall and lanky with a surprisingly impressive handlebar mustache. He looked about seventeen, yet he had a sort of clumsy out of place look to him, like he thought he didn't belong there. Arty wondered why there were so few older students, were younger magic users just more likely to survive the Cleansing?
Eventually, all the students were situated and Marcus stepped up to the podium. He fiddled awkwardly with the mike for a few seconds, "Greeting uh," he paused and then shuffled some papers on his podium.
"Well this is a good start," Zaben remarked slyly.
"Greetings Students," His voice was incredibly monotone as he read what was clearly a pre-written script, "I'd like to thank both you and the faculty," He turned to face a series of empty chairs that sat next to the podium. Arty guessed that they were supposed to be the faculty. "For being present today." he paused and cleared his throat. His forehead was sweating bullets and he seemed like he'd literally rather be anywhere else, "Today marks the beginning of a new era for magic in Zytria." He paused and frowned, shuffling the papers before shaking his head.
Salmy spoke with disappointment, "I thought we'd be learning from a real Sorcerer, not a buffoon."
Zaben ignored Salmy. He smiled and handed Arty his popsicle, "We should share." Arty nodded in agreement as he took the frozen treat from Zaben's hands. It was thawing from the heat of the Entrance hall, so Arty was able to take a bite of it. He grinned as he wiped frozen grape juice dribble from his chin.
Marcus stared silently at the papers on the podium for a few seconds before looking back up to the small crowd of students before him. His attitude shifted from one of nervousness to one of disappointment. He spoke with a matter of fact tone, "Clearly, the Faculty isn't here. That's fine, because neither are most of the students I expected would be attending. So I was going to talk about all the different classes you take, but from now on you nineteen students will be learning directly from me. On Sundays, you will ship out to the North Point Naval Academy for basic training, Saturdays are your days off, but the other five days a week will be dedicated to honing your skill and understanding of magic."
"Basic training?" Arty spoke to himself with a sense dread. Arty was a bit chubby, he was strong from years working on the farm, but he knew that cardio was not his strong suit. They're going to make me run! He thought.
Marcus looked out into the crowd intently. An awkward silence filled the room as he scanned each of the students. It was a while before Arty realized that his eyes were focusing on the student's wrists. He's looking at their serial numbers.
Marcus brought his gaze back to eye level with the students, "Your entrance evaluations were less than stellar..." he paused again, his face seemed almost pained before he finally spoke again, "Hey, uh, could you guys just... Just raise your hand if the first time you met someone who could use magic was in the last four days."
Nine hands went up.
Marcus seemed disappointed, but he continued, "How many of you have been forced to use your magic to defend yourself?"
Eleven hands.
He shook his head, "How many of you would have nowhere else to live if you weren't at the school?"
Twelve hands.
At this point you could tell Marcus was trying to hold back his emotion. An ocean of anger and despair lied behind his brown eyes as he asked bluntly, "How many of you still have both of your parents?"
No hands. Not a single person raised their hand. For the first time Arty felt a sadness of his own. He wished that he'd known his father, he wish that he could have raised his hand.
Marcus finally asked the real question, a question that seemed to burn the air as he spoke it, "How many of you have been forced to kill another person?"
To Arty's relief, no hands went up. He was happy to see that things weren't as bad as he thought they were. Then Arty noticed a faint tapping sound. He looked down at Zaben's fingers as he saw them violently start tapping against the top of his thigh. He was almost shaking with fear, Arty could see the anxiety in just the way he breathed.
Salmy raised her hand into the air slowly. Then another student. Then Another. Then Another, and another and another and before he knew it there were fourteen hands in the sky. Zaben was the last one to raise his hand, his arm shook as he did it. It was clear to Arty that Zaben was ashamed of what he'd done.
Fifteen hands total. Fifteen children forced to take a life.
A girl in the front row just broke down crying, then another girl did the same, then a boy. The despair was as real as gravity in that moment. Arty could feel the sorrow. He questioned how he, or any of them, could ever be soldiers when they couldn't even defeat their own demons. A terrifying history of fear and terror held them back. They couldn't even save their own families, how could they possibly save a Kingdom?
Marcus shook his head as he stared back down onto the papers on his podium then back up to the students. "We're going for a walk," he said calmly.
"What?" One of the students remarked out loud.
Marcus stepped away from the podium and towards the stairs that led off the stage, "We're going for a walk." he repeated, "There's something I have to show you guys." He stepped down off the stage but Arty and the other students were still frozen in their seats. Marcus Signaled with his arm for the students to come along.
All the other students stood up and started catching up to Markus as he walked across the Entrance hall. Arty got up to avoid being left behind himself, before he noticed that Zaben was still sitting. His hands were shaking. There were no tears on his face, not so much as frown betrayed the sadness within. Nothing but the cold dead stare of two blue eyes showed the true despair within Arty's friend.
"Zaben, we need to get going."
Zaben said nothing. He just sat there and murmured the words, "It should have been me."
"Zaben, please."
Zaben suddenly snapped out of it and stood up. He said, "Let's get going!" A false cheery attitude shining through his pale blue eyes.
Arty was stumped on how to help his new friend. He didn't really understand what he was going through, and he couldn't relate much. All he could do was try to be positive and hope that would rub off on his friend, "Yeah, let's go!"
They ran to catch up to their fellow students and were surprised to see Marcus and the other seventeen students staring at a marble wall. Arty was confused and apparently so were the other students.
"Is this what you wanted to show us?" One student questioned.
"No." Marcus replied, "Is everybody here?" He turned around to do a quick headcount before going pressing his hands against the brick wall which, to the students surprise, started creaking. Soon a seam became visible and then the wall, now revealed to be a secret door, was shoved open exposing a small tunnel hidden behind it. A series of oohs and ahhs filled the entrance hall as the students bore witness to this new discovery.
"What?" One student remarked with curious concern.
Marcus was more than happy to elaborate, "Secret door. This place is filled with them, especially as you get into the lower levels of the building." He stepped through the door and out into the passageway before opening a second door at the far end. As the door swung open rays of sunlight washed into the darkened passageway, "Luckily this one leads outside, and it's more convenient than the main entrance, what with the protestors and all." Arty nodded in agreement. Going out front was not an option. Soon after Arty had arrived, so did hundreds of protestors. Some were just people who thought that magic users were inferior, others were upset that the Queen had abolished the Ministry of Religion, either way they were angry and Arty agreed that it was probably best to avoid them. Marcus continued "Let's get going. Remember there's a war on, and time is the most valuable weapon we have."
The students all rushed forward through the narrow secret entrance, bumping shoulders as they went. Arty was the last one to go through, he almost dropped Zaben's popsicle in all the jostling. After the small stampede of students had appeared to have made it through the door, Marcus inquired, "Everybody through?" He placed his hand on the door, preparing to close it.
Arty looked back through the small passageway to see another student still standing at the start of the passageway scribbling down notes in his Journal.
"I think there's another student back there," Arty pointed out.
"Oh," Marcus said, "Well..." He paused for thought, "You just wait here and hold the door," Marcus stepped up and looked through the passageway to see the boy taking notes. He had a look of shock and pride as he turned back to Arty, "when he gets through you can close the door and catch up with the rest of us." he turned to face the other students, "This way!" They began marching off. Zaben gave Arty the I pitty you look before rushing off with the rest of the group.
Arty was not at all happy with the idea of being abandoned, Marcus was right that there was a war going on, and it's true that in war men get left behind. Arty just didn't like the idea that he was getting left behind, even if it was for something as stupid as a glorified field trip. Arty turned back to face the tunnel, he stared resentfully at the other student as he continued to scribble down notes in his journal. The boy kept writing for what felt like an eternity, his hazel eyes darting back and forth from his journal and up towards the secret passage. Arty normally wouldn't have thought much of it, he figured it was probably smart of the student to soak up as much knowledge as he could, but in this particular instance time was of the essence and this boy was holding Arty back. "Hey!" Arty shouted through the Tunnel, "They're leaving us behind!"
The boy stared up from his notebook, looking like an antelope in headlights. He froze for a few seconds before putting his journal to his side and walking forward, "Right, yeah... Just got distracted, that's all."
"It's fine, let's just get going." The secret door opened up out into a back alley behind the Ministry of Religion building, but Arty couldn't see the other students anywhere. Arty grew frustrated, he was mad that he got left behind because this stupid kid was taking notes. Desperate to find the rest of the group Arty slammed the secret door shut and ran down the Alley with the other student until he came to a T shaped break in his path.
"Do you think they went left or right?" The other boy asked.
"I don't know!" Arty shouted angrily. The boy frowned, but he seemed more nervous than remorseful. It didn't matter to Arty though, he wasn't in the mood for forgiveness. Arty decided to go left and started walking down the cobblestone alleyway. Arty was angry. I came to this stupid school to learn about magic and now I'm lost in a foreign city with no idea where my teacher is. It became very apparent to Arty that he had no idea where he was or where the other students were. Arty turned to the boy and vented his anger, "This is your fault you know!"
"I-" The boy looked down at the cobblestone road beneath his feet, desperately trying to dodge Arty's glare.
"If you weren't so slow than we wouldn't be lost!" The boy still said nothing. Arty's anger grew more pronounced as he stepped closer to the boy, "You know... Why the heck were you taking notes anyways!"
The boy went stiff, he finally raised his head to meet Arty's gaze, "I uh... I uh... I thought the door was really cool, and I just wanted to write about it in my notebook. It's nothing... I just..." The boy didn't even have the courage to continue speaking. He was shaking in fear.
It was at this point that Arty looked down at his hands and realized they were burning. Startled by his lack of control, Arty quickly backed up from the boy and tried to will the flames to dissipate from his hands. Arty looked up at the boy shaking in fear and felt guilty. This is exactly what Arty didn't want to be. He didn't want to be a monster, he didn't want to inspire fear among people who were supposed to be his friends, especially not in someone else like him.
The flames in his hands, however, wouldn't budge. They fed off of the anger inside him like parasites as they continued to burn. Arty closed his eyes, magic feeds off emotion he thought I need to clear my head. Arty focused his mind on something other than his own anger. He thought of the farm, his mind wandered to his Mom and his bedroom back home, he was back on his couch, back in the warm embrace of his mom and the words she spoke to him, "How could I be afraid of someone as sweet and caring as you?" Eventually, his mom too faded from his mind as the farm melted away into a mist of memory, now his thoughts were completely blank, as if his consciousness had been lost in a fog.
Arty could feel something reaching out from the fog, a tugging at his very soul. Something pulling me he focused on the feeling, something pulling me... left.
Arty opened his eyes to see that his hands were no longer on fire. The boy however still looked a combination of afraid and confused. Arty smiled and triumphantly screamed, "I KNOW THE WAY!" Arty started marching briskly down the cobblestone alley as the other boy timidly walked behind him. Arty allowed the tugging on his soul to turn him left down another narrow Alley. As he walked he spoke with his new found friend, "My name is Arty what's your name?"
The boy turned to face Arty as they walked. He seemed less afraid, "Brinton, my name's Brinton."
Arty didn't skip a beat with his next question, "What's your power?"
Brinton shook his head, "It's really lame."
"I doubt that," Arty replied.
"I'm like a magnet, so I can pull stuff made out of metal and push them away."
"POLARITY!" Arty shouted, "What are you talking about, that's the coolest power I've seen yet!"
Brinton sounded disappointed, "yeah but I'm no good. I can barely lift a coin, anything heavier than that and I can't move it at all."
Arty followed the tugging and turned right at the end of this Alley. Arty smiled as he saw the familiar silhouettes of his fellow students marching down the cobblestone road ahead of him, "See, I knew we'd find them!"
Arty quickly found Zaben's blue hair in the crowd of twenty people. Abandoning Brinton, He rushed up to Zaben and said, "Thanks for leaving me behind!"
Zaben smiled, "Well you made it back alright."
Arty glared at Marcus as he strode confidently at the head of the group, "I can't believe he left me and Brinton behind."
"He probably knew you'd catch up," Zaben replied.
"How could he possibly know that!" Arty shouted angrily.
To Arthus' dismay, Marcus turned his head back to speak to Arty, "I knew that because I have faith in your abilities. Any magic user could have sensed nineteen other sorcerers walking down a road together, I trusted you would be able to do the same." He looked back towards the front, "You didn't disappoint."
Arty felt a sense of pride wash over him. No one had ever told him that his magic was something of value, no one had ever expected him to rely on it. But Marcus did expect Arty to rely on his magic, and Arty didn't disappoint.
Eventually, the alleyway opened up into a small open space. The floor of the clearing was covered in old asphalt and it was flanked on all sides by tall windowless brick buildings. Sticking out from above the concrete were rusted out metal poles, each connected at the top by a chain. Arty recognized what the place was supposed to be, an old Spike Ball court. But it clearly hadn't been used in ages.
Marcus walked through the cement clearing until finally, he reached the center of it. He stopped moving and raised his hand in a closed fist to signal the other students to do the same. Arty came to a halt with everybody else. Zaben bumped awkwardly into Arty as he came to a stop, accidentally stabbing his dark purple popsicle right into Arty's bright white shirt.
"Sorry," he said, "I'm a bit of a clutz at times."
Arty glanced at the purple stain on his shirt and smiled, "we'll be getting Uniforms at some point," he tugged at his white shirt, "Soon I won't even need this stupid shirt." Zaben looked relieved at Arty's apparent forgiveness.
All eyes turned to Marcus as a student asked, "is this what you wanted to show us?" Arty recognized the voice as coming from Salmy.
Marcus shook his head, "No." He stepped to the side and gestured his hand down towards a flower sprouting upwards from a crack in the asphalt, "This is what I wanted to show you."
The students quickly formed a circle around Marcus and his flower. The flower was a beautiful white with five petals and radiant golden rays that crisscross the petals' surface. It looked so out of place in this concrete graveyard. It was far too beautiful for a place as lonely as this.
Marcus began to speak. He seemed much more confident this time. Even without a script it's like he knew exactly what he was going to say, "I believe that you can learn a bit of something from everything." He extended his hand down towards the flower, "Take this flower for instance. This flower can teach us so much about ourselves."
"Like how to photosynthesize!" A random student remarked sarcastically.
Marcus laughed, "No, I'm afraid we won't be learning that. No, this flower is going to teach us about life." He paced around the flower, his eyes scanning his students intently, "When this flower was just a seed, some men bigger then it, stronger then it, smarter than it, decided to pour hot asphalt directly onto its head. It got buried in that asphalt, trapped so deep that conventional wisdom dictates it wouldn't be able to escape." His eyes eventually came to Arty, his stare was brutally serious, "But what did this flower do? When life poured asphalt on its head what did it do? Did it give up? Did it throw in the towel? Did it wait under the asphalt hoping that someday someone else would come to dig it up and take it from its tomb? Or did it break through? Did it find the strength within itself to push through that asphalt, to climb up towards a sun that it could not even see, to breakthrough to a world of light and blue skies that it wasn't even sure existed?"
He paused in his pacing and looked back down on the flower, "I think, a lot of you know what that's like, to become buried in a world that couldn't care less about you. I think a lot of you are buried under concrete right now, struggling to get to the surface, and maybe some of you have already given up on that climb. It's tough. I get it. Believe me, I do. Because the hardest part of digging yourself out isn't knowing that you can do it, it's not the climb or the pain, it's believing that somewhere above you sun does shine." He kicks a bit of loose asphalt across the ground, "Believing that somewhere up there is something worth fighting for."
He shook his head, "And I'm not going to tell you that life isn't fair because you damn well know that yourselves, I'm not going to tell you that this is going to be easy because I promise you it isn't, I'm not going to say that happiness is within your reach because I don't know that for certain. All that I can do I promise you that the sun does shine. That above your asphalt is a world that can't wait to see you thrive, a world that's been waiting to see your colors even though they never knew it, a world that needs you."
He starts pacing again, his face serious, almost angry, "And I ask you, students, Look around." Arty looked around, he didn't see anything but a desolate ruin of asphalt and steel, "do you see the men that put down this flower? Where are those who buried it in Asphalt? It seems to me that they're long gone now, and what they built, it didn't last. But this flower did last. They may have long left this place, but this flower still stands." He paused and scanned across the circle of students, Arty waited impatiently for his next words, "And look around you again. Tell me, Do you see the men who put you down? Do you see the men who took you from your homes, the men who murdered your families, the men who's hatred destroyed your lives? It seems to me they're long gone too, and the system of hate that they built, it didn't last either. They may have long left us behind, but you still stand."
Arty could feel the hope welling up within him as Marcus spoke, "So don't live your lives with anger and regret. Don't ask yourself what could have been if you had been born in a world without Asphalt, if you had been raised in a world without hatred. And don't tell yourself that there's nothing else up there, don't let yourself believe that the asphalt is all there is, because there is something up there, there is a blue sky worth fighting for. Fight because the sun is real, fight because I swear by any god you can damn well think of that it is shining up there. It's shining for you." He extended his hands outward and they began to glow a bright green, "And I know that some days it can feel like you climb towards that sun alone." Arty stepped back startled as he heard the ground beneath him start to crack. The crack began to widen and a thin green stem rose up from it, reaching desperately towards the morning sun. The stem started unraveled into five gold and white petals as it rose from the blackened cement. Arty raised his head up towards his fellow students, each of them stood above their own flower, gazing down hopefully. The glow from Marcus' hands dissipated as he brought his arms to rest by his sides, "But I promise you that from this point onwards you'll never have to fight alone. It might not be so obvious right now, but buried in the concrete with you are dozens of other seeds desperately wanting to believe the sun is real, desperately reaching for any sign of hope. You need to break through to prove to them that the sun exists. You need to show them that there's something worth fighting for up there."
Arty dropped to his knees in front of his flower. He studied its white gold petals and thin green stem. Arty realized in that moment why the flower was beautiful. It wasn't that it was simply made that way, it was beautiful because of where it was, of what it had overcome. It was beautiful because it stood out from the Asphalt like the survivor that it was. Arty stared at the flower, and within it, he saw himself.
Marcus smiled proudly as he stood in the center of a circle of nineteen flowers and nineteen children who wanted nothing more than to be just like those flowers, "On behalf of Queen Mara Torus and the Government of Zytria, I welcome you to the first ever year of enrollment at the Zytrian Academy of Magic and Sorcery!"
His fellow students started cheering loudly, and Arty raised his head from his flower and grinned pridefully. He noticed his hands were burning again, but this time he didn't care.
Finally, he thought, A place where I belong.