Ch 1.2: Orientation

Prisma Fireguard and Waine Ferris, the heirs to two of the most influential families in the country—no, world— and a trio of slightly lesser nobles as well if Elaina wasn’t mistaken. After introducing herself, she was whisked away by her newfound acquaintances at the sound of a bell ringing, the dinner bell. But it wasn’t dinner time just yet, not tonight. First, the Awakening.

Elaina barely had time to take in the halls of Endrin Academy as she walked through them. The walls were blue like the top of the castle, with white molding running along the floor. Littered along the walls were crystals sat atop silver candelabra, providing steady light through some sort of mechanism that she wasn’t familiar with, surrounding various paintings, all of them of some historic figure or event she didn’t recognize. All light back home came from either fire or the sky, and art was a very personal affair, usually a portrait of the family who owned it, but none of that compared to the most baffling thing in the halls: the floor.

White marble, Elaina might have expected. There were small marble statues in some of the wealthier manors back home, and she knew it was used as a building material in the cities, but the rugs were unfathomable. She was walking along the finest fabric she’d ever seen in her life, her dirty shoes stomping on material her parents could only have ever dreamed of working with. Material that she could only have ever dreamed of seeing herself, if she wasn’t Aspected.

And she knew she wasn’t supposed to be.

Maybe it shouldn’t have been such a surprise that the first classmates she met were two of the most important people in the world; they came from Aspected families. They belonged. A chill crept over her body as she walked along, oblivious to the conversations around her as her feet pounded on a fortune that she should never have been near.

“Elaina?” she heard, jerking her head to see Prisma looking at her with concern. “Are you okay?”

Elaina stared ahead as they walked. Waine was talking with the other guy in their group, and the two girls were likewise engaged. That gave her some comfort. “I’m, uhm, a bit overwhelmed. This is a lot more than I was expecting.”

Prisma held the back of her hand to her mouth, stifling a laugh, or maybe a giggle? “It’s kind of cute seeing your reaction. This is all pretty normal for most of us, but I guess you’re not used to crystal light, huh?”

“Yeah, crystal light… That’s it.” Elaina returned to staring at the floor, feeling that tinge of guilt with each step over the rug, and Prisma bounced off to talk with the rest of the group. Elaina trailed behind only a couple steps, but like everything else she’d seen since she arrived, the distance between her and the group seemed larger than it should have been.

And then they arrived. The banquet hall was every bit as grand as the entrance hall was, a room larger than any she’d ever seen, with crystal-light chandeliers floating in the air, dozens of round tables filling up the space, and a giant tapestry on the wall that spanned the entire circular perimeter, depicting Endrin Academy itself in the center, besieged on both sides by massive armies in what could only be the final battle of the Night Wars.

At least there was no carpet.

Students seemed to be taking seats wherever they could find, filling into variously sized tables wherever they thought appropriate. “This way,” Waine said, heading right towards the painted Endrin Academy on the back wall. The group moved through the crowd that had built up in front of them, that same crowd parting as Waine and Prisma led the group. Most who stepped aside stood still for a moment, watching the two heirs pierce their way through the room, and Elaina heard the beginnings of their murmurings as she trailed along at the end of the entourage.

“Pompous shits.”

“Bastards.”

“Prick.”

Once they’d made it through to the other side of the hall, Elaina finally saw their destination, one that Waine seemed to know how to get to in the first place. Right below the depiction of the castle was a curved longtable, seats only on the side that faced out towards the rest of the hall. Each of those seats was already occupied, not by uniformed students, but by adults in various different forms of gaudy dress, the Endrin faculty.

In front of the faculty were a handful of seated students, but right in front was an untouched table for six. “Good, seems they know their place,” Waine said as they approached.

Know their place. Elaina scanned her group as they walked up to the table, their table. None of the others seemed to even register the comment. “Alright, let’s get this show going, we’re here,” the other boy in the group, Ivis, said. “You think we’ll get to eat after we get ours done?”

“No,” said one of the other girls, Daly, Elaina thought her name was. “They’ll probably make us wait the whole thing out.”

The other girl, Nyla, piped in as well, “It’s whatever to me. I just want to get this whole thing over with and get to sleep.”

They sat down in front of the faculty, Nyla on one side of Elaina and Prisma on the other, with Waine flanking Prisma’s other side. Elaina was missing something. This was their Awakening of all things, but none of them seemed even remotely interested. She looked around at the surrounding tables to see if the students there were likewise disinterested, and she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Where were the nerves, the crushing anxieties, the jittering excitement? Everyone seemed to just be chatting normally, with the occasional person glaring in her direction.

“Hey,” she said to Prisma, not realizing she was interrupting her conversation with Waine. “What did you mean earlier? That we have to stick together? You said it twice.”

Waine himself was the one who answered. “Everyone here, besides us of course,” he said, gesturing to the rest of the group, save Elaina herself, “is looking to make a name for themselves. They’ll all clique up and try to go after people to make themselves look better. There’s other nobles here of course, but the six of us stand out. Even if you wouldn’t be worth bothering with without us.”

“Waine,” Prisma said, glaring at him before turning to Elaina. “He’s right though. You’re better off with us, trust me. The others almost all have their cliques already.”

“But—”

Elaina was cut off by what sounded like a thunderclap, but was actually the clap of a single set of hands. The man right in front of their table stood, a bald man with round spectacles enlarging his eyes on face that already seemed a little too small, wearing purple robes speckled with glittering stars that seemed to move across the fabric as he gestured to the crowd. “Most of you are seated, though I trust those that are not will soon find theirs. Do sit anywhere, please. Before we get started, I wanted to personally welcome you all here. My practical days are behind me with the better half of my adulthood, but I am honored to find myself here in service to you like I once served the kingdom at large.”

Alonse Stormshine, once heir to the throne himself, now the headmaster of the most prestigious school in the world, hero of the land and older brother of the king. He didn’t need to introduce himself, even to Elaina. His voice echoed across the room at an unnatural volume, louder than a yell, but spoken with the tone of a normal conversation.

“Now, some of you are likely worried about the quality of your aspect and are experiencing some degree of nervousness about it.” He winked, and a chuckle rolled across the room. Elaina laughed as if she’d actually understood the joke. “No, your star signs are strong, else you wouldn’t have been admitted to Endrin Academy in the first place. You are all destined for greatness and will find success in these halls. But still, we of course must first discover your bestowed gifts. And I am sure that none of you have gone ahead and figured them out yourselves, right?”

A louder chorus of laughter rose, and Elaina’s mouth dropped. She looked at Waine, who seemed like he would break his jaw from laughing so hard, at Prisma, who was blushing and giggling along. They all knew their aspects already?

“Without further pomp from me though, let’s get onto the ceremony.” He waved a sleeved arm, and in front of him appeared a gemstone the size of his head, shaped like a star and rotating, changing color across the rainbow as it did, all while a misty haze surged at its core. “We’ll do this quickly so you can all eat. I’ll call you up as tables. First, you all,” he said, gesturing at Elaina’s party.

Waine stood up first, followed by Prisma. Elaina ended up third in line just based off where they had sat at the table. This is fine. They know their aspects somehow, but I’m about to find out mine. I got accepted to Endrin, so it has to be strong enough…

Waine strutted up the stairs to the crystal, placing a single finger on top. The headmaster watched as the mist did nothing for a moment and then began swirling vigorously before halting in place. “Your aspect, good sir, is Control! Quite powerful indeed.” A polite applause rolled across the room as Waine turned heel and descended the stairs, smirking at the crowd as he passed Prisma.

Once Prisma reached the crystal, she reached out in the same way Waine had, touching the top and waiting for a moment of nothing, then changing the mists into another frenzy before they stopped again. “Your aspect, my dear, is Heat! Perhaps not the most impactful name, but quite versatile indeed.” Another round of applause, this time a little more energetic.

Elaina stood at the foot of the stairs leading up to the faculty table, watching Prisma stride down the steps. Once Prisma passed, Elaina turned to take a step, before freezing. The stairway was covered in carpet the shade of a ruby. She was supposed to be a weaver. She did not belong here. She couldn’t step on that rug, she—

“Young miss?” Stormshine asked, his voice not echoing now, but directed right at her. Elaina took a deep breath and lurched forward, wincing with each step. She stopped at the top, staring at the crystal in front of her. “It’s alright dear, go ahead,” the man said to her. There was a kindness in his words, a warmth that was lost when he spoke to the whole room.

She rose her hand and placed her finger at the tip of the crystal star. Time seemed to freeze in place again as she did so, her mind racing in a thousand directions, none pleasant. At first, there was nothing. The waiting was agonizing, seeming far longer than the brief pause for Waine and Prisma. The moment of nothing continued. And continued. And continued.

Nothing.

“Holy shit,” Waine’s voice said from behind her. “She really is a dud!”