With this fractured land there were suffering. However, there was those privileged from such torment and those who where blissfully unaware: Humphrey held three book tomes in his chubby arms. He was the latter. He spilled them across his desk before battering back some locks of blonde hair. Sitting at the front of class he listened intently to the teacher whose writing feather moved with a mind of its own over the board in front. The students around him doodled on their parchment or stared out the snow-suffocated window. It was snowing heavily walking back to his room would be unpleasant. Another rubbed their temples from the headache of a lesson, finger rubbing over the block Arctic God tattoo. They belonged to the school of Arctic magic, only ice or snow magic was taught. ‘Does anyone know where magic was originally sourced?’
Humphrey put his hand high in the air. The teacher’s eyes cast about the room for a few moments more. No… no one else raised their hand. ‘Yes, Humphrey?’
‘Fae blood.’
‘No, it was from geoptic crystals. The fae were falsehoods to scare children a little younger than you all. They do not exist.’
The ink scratched across the board, drawing a diagram of the geoptic homeland.
‘Geoptics have similar crystals in their bodies, such as their eyes. Can anyone tell me how this affects them?’
Another kid spoke up ‘it gives them greater magical abilities.’
‘Correct. It is from these crystals even felden can create spells.’
Humphrey, sitting at his dorms desk, stared into one of these crystals. His homework was to make a potion. But the look of the dead insects caused his nose to crinkle. Disgusting. He slipped on the silk gloves provided, there was no chance he would one of those things with his bare hands. He was one of the few felden in the school. Geoptics would have no issue with spells. The same design for wands, wood with a core made of a gemstone rod, mimicked geoptic biology of having gemstone bones and eyes. Feeling nauseous from the look of it all he turned his chair to his window to look out at the snowy mountains. It was a school forgotten in the mountains.
People use to travel home every now and then but due to ‘circumstances’ they were no longer allowed. He wondered what it could be… certainly not the weather. The teachers were incredibly skilled with tolas (staff or wand magic) they’d clear any turbulence with ease… Not that he had anyone to go to. He was happy to hear everyone else would be trapped in the school over the holidays, it got awfully lonely when everyone left.
His eyes flickered to his own staff above beautiful, golden awards clogging the shelves where books could not. He had an icy blue crystal with near white wood. The blue of his eyes shone in the shining crystal. He looked at his own palm and whispered the word for fire: ‘fosla!’ Nothing… but not forever, just not now… One day he would not need his staff. With a new sense of drive he turned his chair back to the mess in front of him, held his nose, and took the pestle and mortar and began crushing up the puc-juice with the claws of birds…
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Annoyance gnawed at him. The spell wasn’t working! He had mixed it all correctly, he was sure!
As he walked the empty corridors to clear his head he heard a clock hand tick. It was nearing midnight- no teachers would help him at this hour. Usually he wouldn’t dare disrupt his sleep like this, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep until the problem was conquered! Fortunately, the library never had a closing time. Walking across the ornately decorated corridors it resembled a castle more than a school from the golden chandeliers and white marble floors blanketed with deep coloured carpets, the colour depending on the area of the school. Across a green rug he approached the dark wood of the library doors he heaved one a crack open and slipped in, his belly catching the corner. A dozing librarian perched at her desk so he shut the door as gently as one could. From the rows and rows of books it was more like a maze than a library, but he had been amongst its pages more so than his own room. In the comforting darkness he lit a candle, the amber flame warming the area and highlighting the spines of the books closest to him. Naturalistic magic was a simple practise as long as one could be precise. Too much venom, or chips of stone, and the entire thing could explode, implode, vanish, all of the above, or more. He found the correct section quickly and slid a book free of the rest he didn’t doubt he’d already read. Releasing the candle it remained hovering in the air as he skimmed the pages of naturalistic fire spells. But then another cover caught his eye. it read proudly of itself. Putting the other book on top of the rest he picked up the thin one. Easily to be missed from how miniscule it was… ‘The Dra-Cast, considering legend…’ he mumbled aloud before rolling his eyes. It was a fairytale book. But despite his desire to return it he didn’t, instead he kept reading…
‘Excuse me.’ Humphrey looked to see the librarian wide awake, ‘aren’t you’re classes starting?’
Humphrey looked around, finger on the final page of the fairytale, and spotted the clock! ‘Oh my!’ He had read throughout the night! Slipping the book back he grabbed the still hovering candle and hurried away.
In class he was provided the ingredients fresh in the snow. He hated the cold. He hadn’t bathed nor changed, feeling and looking unkempt he groggily tried to the spell despite not finding the solution in the storybook he read. But he wasn’t as irritated with himself as he thought it was a very good book, about the blood of God-worshippers creating stronger magic than ever before! A pipe dream. But more importantly, the protagonist whom saved the entire city from dragon fire… a Dra-Cast, with the power and soul of a dragon with the blood of a God, one could only dream of such strength… He wondered if there ever would be another… Geoptics were creatures of magic, perhaps if there was a Dra-Cast it would be a gem-eyed. Alone, they could conquer the world. He was only stopped by a Banished God. Yes, it was a fairytale and thankfully so. For one to have such power was a terrible thing. He felt his temple, the black tattoo to symbolize he was learning Arctic magic and nothing more. It would glow crimson if he began learning different spells and then killed for it. The worst crime of all.
