"Wake up, Sunshine!" I hear a voice cheerfully yell, and open the curtains to the windows. Since when did those windows have curtains?

I groan. "I'm not 'sunshine,' if anything, I'm the sun setting, it's kinda in my name, Evening."

I hear Vixen chuckle, "Come on, it's Wednesday!"

I open one eye. "What's on Wednesday?"

"You mean besides school?" he asks. "Your official first day of school!"

"And that's exciting because ..."

He takes the blanket and covers wrapped around me, off of me, leaving me shivering in the what-seems-like chilly morning air. "The week is half over? I don't know, I just wanted to wake you up like the good partner I am."

I groan again and reach out to smack him, but miss him - by a lot - since my vision isn't good when I just wake up in the morning. I am not a morning person, and only wake up early when I have weird dreams. I wake up early, I get a little cranky.

Vixen takes my pillows from me too, and starts smacking me with them, like we're in a pillow fight, only he's the only one with a pillow and I'm too tired to move.

"Alright! Alright!" I give in, barely able to hold my tired arms up to defend myself. "I'll get up in two minutes and get ready."

"If you're not ready in ten minutes, I'm eating what's left of the pancakes."

My eyes open wide, I jump out of bed and straight into the shower. He is NOT going to have the last of the pancakes. I could hear him chuckling as I turn the water on and get undressed.

After taking a quick shower, I get out, get dressed and brush my teeth with the same toothbrush as I did yesterday. Turns out, it was mine after all, I was so relieved when Vixen told me that last night as I was getting ready for bed. I brush my hair up in a neat - or as neat as my crazy curly red hair can be - ponytail and walk out of the bathroom.

The table was ready with a plate of strawberry pancakes and baby carrots with a cup of milk. The baby carrots formed a face on the pancakes, one with the tongue sticking out of the smile. I smiled at that.

"Hey, no no," Vixen tells me, and I look up at him.

"What?"

"You can't wear that," he says and motions to my clothes.

I look down and see my usual black jeans, and oversized black hoodie. "What's wrong with this?"

"It's not the uniform," he explains and I groan for the millionth time this morning.

"I wore it yesterday, why not today?"

"Because, yesterday was your first day in Mystical, today, however, is not," he says, and points to the bathroom. "Go change in your uniform and I might not consider eating your breakfast."

"You wouldn't dare."

He picks up a carrot and eats it. "I would, and you can't stop me. You have to respect your elders."

"You're only older than me by three years!"

"Actually, two years and three quarters."

"You do realize that that's not helping your case here, right?"

He thinks about it, then rolls his eyes. "Go change into the proper clothes."

I groan, but do no further protesting and grab one of the uniforms from my dresser and go to the bathroom to change. A couple minutes, a come out, scratching my arms and legs with the grey leggings with black swirls imprinted on them and the grey long sleeved shirt with the royal seal over the heart.

"This is itchy, and uncomfortable."

Vixen tries to hide his laugh. "That's the point. When we're guardians, we can't expect to be comfortable all the time, so they're preparing us."

"Well, with these clothes, we won't be comfortable - ever." I take my seat and find that the smiley face of carrots just looks like a smirk with one eye. "You're eating my carrots!"

Vixen swallows something - probably one of my carrots - and says, "Maybe, maybe not."

I glare at him, and notice something in my peripheral vision. It was a crystal vase in the center of the table, half-filled with water, with a single rose in it - the rose that Queen Violet gave me a couple days ago. When I turn my head towards it, I can see some purple - or violet, I guess? - dust or mist falling from it in sparkles and evaporating when it meets the table surface.

Vixen notices where I'm looking. "I put it in a vase so that it wouldn't die. It's a serious offense if you let a gift from the queen die or get lost."

I look at him. "Seriously?"

He chuckles, "No, not really. But Violet gave it to you to keep, right? So I guess seeing if you can take care of the rose is kind of like a test for her."

"Test for what?"

He sighs, unsure of how to answer. "To see what you can do."

I start cutting up my pancakes, and raise an eyebrow at him. "So me taking care of a plant is going to show Queen Violet what I can do?"

"Something like that."

I start eating my breakfast as Vixen explains the piece of paper he gives me.

Schedule for Eva Mystica:

Monday, Wednesday

Latin: 08:00 AM - 09:00 AM

History: 09:05 AM - 10:05 AM

Phys. Ed: 10:15 AM - 11:20 AM

Lunch: 11:25 AM - 12:05 PM

Ability-Telorb: 12:10 PM - 01:10 PM

Study Hall: 01:15 PM - 02:00 PM

Tuesday, Thursday

Latin: 08:00 AM - 09:05 AM

Phys. Ed.: 09:10 AM - 10:15 AM

Study Hall: 10:20 AM - 11:05 AM

Lunch: 11:10 AM - 11:40 AM

History: 11:45 AM - 12:50 PM

Ability-Telep: 12:55 PM - 02:00 PM

Friday

Latin: 08:00 AM - 08:50 AM

History: 08:55 AM - 09:45 AM

Latin: 09:50 AM - 10:40 AM

Study Hall: 10:45 AM - 11:30 AM

Lunch: 11:35 AM - 12:05 PM

Break: 12:10 PM - 12:30 PM

Training: 12:35 PM - 01:40 PM

If you want a change, request it, otherwise this will not be changed unless I feel it needs to be.
-Queen Violet

On Mondays and Wednesdays, I follow one schedule, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I follow another similar one, just practicing a different ability. Since on Fridays, that's when we have "training," it's more different where we have all three sessions and study hall in the morning, Lunch, a break, then what I've been dreading, training.

"Why are Mondays and Wednesdays different from Tuesdays and Thursdays?" I ask Vixen, not getting the point.

"So that it doesn't feel like we're repeating the same thing everyday, you know, switch it up."

"Right," I respond with a hint of sarcasm. "How come we have a break after lunch on Fridays?"

"Because, we're going to be training. The reason we have Phys. Ed. before lunch is so that we don't throw up our food while playing games. The same thing applies here, we get a twenty minute break after lunch, rest and let our food settle and then go off and learn hand-to-hand combat."

"Oh," I say. "That's considerate of the Administration."

Vixen nods. "It's been like this for the past several hundred years."

I look at the schedule more carefully. School starts at eight a.m., and it's seven-forty-eight right now. "When do we leave?"

"When the fast bell rings, signaling five minutes till session begins. Then, when the slow bell rings, it signals the start - and end - of session."

"Makes sense."

"Did you think Mystical Academy would be confusing?" This time, it's him asking the question instead of me for a change.

"There are some strange things about it," I voice my thoughts. "But it's not as bad and terrifying as I thought it would be."

"Mystical isn't terrifying," he assures me. "At least, not the academy."

"So if the academy ends up being really scary and awful, then I will blame you for never wanting to leave this dorm."

He laughs. "Then I'll make you leave."

"And how are you going to manage to do that?"

He's about to respond when the sound of loud bells ringing repeatedly through the dorm interrupts him. The loud and unexpected noise made me clamp my hands around my ears.

He chuckles at my reaction as I say, "That sounds like a home fire-alarm except a million times louder."

"Be grateful they decided to get rid of the hour-bell to wake up apprentices that weren't already awake."

"That would've given me a heart-attack more than anything."

He laughs. "But at least you would wake up, right?"

I shrug. "True, but I didn't wake up to it yesterday."

"You were pretty tired." He holds out his hand. "Come on, you're going to be late for your first official day."

"I love being late!"

He laughs and gives me a grey bag with the royal symbol on it. "Well, our mentors won't appreciate it."

👑💓👑💓👑💓👑💓👑

As soon as we sat down in the back, a loud, low bell sounded, a "ding" about every two seconds, instead of the rapid, high-pitched tempo it was five minutes ago.

"So, who is our Latin mentor?" I almost silently ask Vixen, getting out my black notebook while the other six students quiet their conversations, waiting for our mentor to some in.

"Ms. Harvial," Vixen quietly answers back. "She's kind of strict, so don't get on her bad side."

I smile. "I bet you had to learned that the hard way."

Vixen grins. "Multiple times."

Just then, I hear loud clacking noises on the floor coming from the doorway. A woman with Asian facial features with black hair pulled into a tight bun and dark-rimmed glasses walked to the front desk, and wrote something on the board behind it.

Sine decore,

Manete in salutem,

Manete in regula,

Salve Regina

Stay in Beauty,
Stay in Health,
Stay in Rule,
Long Live the Queen

Everyone stood up and put their right hand over their hearts, and in unison, they repeated those words.

"Sine decore, manete in salutem, manete in regula, salve regina." Then, they said the English translation, "Stay in beauty, stay in health, stay in rule, long live the queen."

They all sat back down and said, "Bonum mane, Ms. Harvial."

She smiled. "Good morning to all of you."

Vixen leaned in closer to me and quietly whispered in my ear, "That's what we say every morning in the academy during our first session, think of it equivalent to the pledge you would do in American schools."

"I'm sure most of you have already met Eva," Ms. Harvial begins the class with. "But, we have a new apprentice. I expect you all to treat her with respect otherwise there will be consequences far worse than my own."

My face turns red. I've never been introduced like that before.

"Must be someone important," I heard someone grumble from in front of me.

"In fact she is, Mr. Cargen. We're all important, seeing how there is few of us," Ms. Harvial responds. "We will all play an important role when the day comes, to serve our purpose as guardians. Ms. Mystica is no different."

Everyone except for Ms. Harvial, Vixen and I gasped when she said my last name, and started whispering among each other.

"Mystica ... royal name ..."

"Who is she? ..."

"Could she be ..."

"Quiet down, everyone." Everyone did as they were told. "I admit, it is ... strange that Ms. Mystica has some ... odd upbringings, but that doesn't change how we treat her, with respect." With that, Ms. Harvial finally begins class.

She went on with words and sentences and how to phrase the wording to cast an enchantment, and we (the apprentices) took notes and practiced the pronunciation when she told us too.

About after thirty minutes of this, we get to the real fun.

"Alright, now get with your partners and practice moving objects on your own."

I got pretty excited and Vixen just laughed.

"It's not as fun as you think it is, you know," Vixen says.

"No, I don't know, which is why I'm excited!" I respond and he chuckles.

You know how when you watch a show or movie, and there's almost always that one character that says, "Well, what could possibly go wrong?" And then the next scene is pretty much them or another character saying, "This, this is what could go wrong." After the disaster struck? That's sorta what happened here ...

"Alright, do you remember how to conjure flowers?" Vixen asks me. We've been practicing making things appear and disappear for the few minutes.

"Um, I think I do." No, not really. I try to remember. It sounds a little like how you would say "flowers" in English, right? I take a deep breath and hope I don't accidently end up blowing up the school - especially on my first official day. "Flare."

Vixen's eyes widen and he quickly jumps from his chair to me and pushes us both aside as I hear the ear-bleeding, high-pitch sound of wood splintering.

After a couple of moments, I'm able to sit up - painfully - coughing and see what happened - sorta. The smoke was rising up from the now-shredded desk that Vixen and I were sitting at, with bits and pieces of wood littering the black classroom floor.

Other apprentices were coughing and waving off the smoke from themselves, looking at the destroyed desk.

"Is everyone alright?" I hear the voice of Ms. Harival call.

A few students mutter an "okay" in response. It was good that Vixen and I had the desk in the back, otherwise the ... explosion could've have been worse.

Ms. Harvial arrives in the back, noticing Vixen and I on the ground, covered in the rubble from the desk. She looks pointedly at me and says, "I assume you caused this."

I put up a clearly fake smile. "Now what would make you think that?"

Vixen sits up coughing. "For once, you don't think it was me!"

She just gives Vixen a stern look, but talks directly to me. "Flores, that's how you say flowers in Latin."

👑💓👑💓👑💓👑💓👑

"It wasn't that bad," Vixen tries to reassure me as we take our seats in History.

"I blew something up on my first day of school!" I remind him. "How isn't that bad?"

"To be fair, it's not technically your very first day of school."

I give him my Are-You-Kidding-Me look, and he takes the hint and shuts up. "It's my first real day of school in this new world-"

"Realm," he corrects me.

"-Realm, and I already accidently blew something up," I say. "What's next, I'm going to turn someone into a toad?"

Vixen gives me an expression that seems to say, Well, that's actually possible. I get a little annoyed and say, "Oh shut up!"

He laughs at the fact that he technically didn't say it, and I just roll my eyes.

To change the subject, I ask him, "How come the classes aren't separated by grade level? If you take school for a few years, aren't you basically relearning everything every year?"

"Not exactly," he answers. "You see, we learn what we're supposed to at our age, and if we fail the class, then we retake the class next school year, otherwise you continue learning what you're supposed to at the age you're at now. Some kids are in ... ah, how would you say it? Advanced classes, where they take higher level teachings at an earlier age."

I nod. So it's kinda like high school, where the grade levels are mixed and some kids are in AP classes while some kids are retaking classes.

"Since I'm your partner, you're in a higher class and you didn't miss much since it's only November and we're reviewing a bunch of stuff from last year, and you seem to already know a few things about Mystica's past."

"That makes sense," I whisper as Ms. Karina comes into the class and starts teaching.

"Alright apprentices, today we'll be reviewing the ancestry of the royal rulers!"

Ms. Karina reminds me of those teachers that treats their students like they're elementary schoolers and needs help with everything - despite the fact that we're teens.

"Now, we learned this a couple months ago, so it might need a little refreshing."

I can already see some people slouch.

"How did the first witches in Mystical think they were created?"

No one raises their hands, either they don't remember, or they don't care to raise their hands.

"No one?" Ms. Karina questions. No one does anything. "Alright then. Remember, the first witches believed in the Twin Angels. Love and Hate, Happiness and Sadness, Contentment and Anger, Peace and Violence, Sky and Land, and most of all, Life and Death."

Some apprentices mumble "oh yeah" in remembrance of what they learned.

Ms. Karina continues with her teachings. "The early witches believed that these angles were created from the deity lots of humans believe in today, God. Whether it's true or not, it's what the early witches thought gave them their abilities. Who was among those witches?"

I shyly raise my hand and she calls on me, surprised.

"Um .... was it the first royal queen of Mystical?"

She smiles. "Indeed it was. Does anyone remember how she came to become queen?"

Again, nobody does anything. Don't they pay attention? I ask myself.

Ms. Karina smiles, but it's a forced one, she's probably upset that no one is answering any of her questions, and that the one person that did was the new girl who was just guessing using common sense.

"She had an ability no one else had. She was a Foreseer, she had the gift of Foresight."

"What's Foresight?" I quietly ask Vixen.

"Someone who can see visions of the future and the past, each new generation of them might have a different version of the ability," he whispers back, and I wanted to ask what he meant by different versions but Ms. Karina continued on with the review.

"She was able to sense a great threat - the wrath of the angels being brought down upon them for the way the witches and elves were abusing their abilities against all other species and tearing the world apart."

I refrained from sucking in a breath. Tearing the world apart? What on Earth were they doing?

"Did she say specifically what she saw?" I blurted out as I thought it. 

*~*~*~*

Written: March 2017 (?)
Edited: 
Words: 1,637

~Nuela