School Stories

by Visiden Visidane

School Initiation

Author's Note:

A small thing made for Halloween.

"Want to join Necromancy School?"

Sleet Fall stared at his foalhood friend for a while after she uttered those nonsensical words. She stared back at him, bright blue eyes wide, all smiles and sincerity for about a few seconds before giggling. "Haha, Snow, very funny," he replied flatly. He turned his attention on the brochure he was holding yet again, reading the descriptions over and over as if they had some secret to reveal after so many passes. "I'm serious. Sass Thyme is long dead, and there is no Necromancy School."

Snow Shine plopped over to sit next to Sleet, her foreleg draping over his shoulders and her head leaning over to read along. Sleet wrinkled his nose as some of her blond curls tickled his snout. She plucked the brochure out of his grasp, to his annoyance. "You're so serious and grim about this," she said. "Just pick the school that you find interesting. They'll let you switch if you don't like it there. They'll force you, in fact, if you're terrible."

Sleet snatched the papers back. In truth, he didn't even need the damn things. He had been deciding on which school of magic to join months before the Arcanis Atheneum's entrance exams. The brochure was a beaten up mass of papers; dog-eared, water-stained, and webbed up with wrinkles. It looked ready to crumble apart at any second. Sleet was perfectly fine with that. He had committed every word in it to memory.

He stared pointedly beneath Snow's Atheneum cloak's breast pocket. There, beneath the eight pointed star of the Atheneum, was a swishing long cloth of swirling colors; the Mountebank's Cape, which symbolized Illusion School. "Is that how you picked yours?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied. "I got lucky, though. Fit like a glove."

"Well, I'm not counting on luck," Sleet said. He looked over the various schools again. The entrance exams were brutal; thousands of unicorn hopefuls from all over the Barrier Lands reduced to a hundred or so over the course of a week of written exams and practical tests. He had made it here by being absolutely serious, and his choice should reflect that. He was down to the two schools he was confident in his talents in: Evocation and Divination. Now...

"You should postpone choosing," Snow said. "You won't have to for a week."

"That doesn't mea—!"

Snow hovered a hoof close to his lips, not quite touching them. "Listen," she said. "You've got to do the initiation first, just like every new student in the Atheneum."

Sleet's eyebrows furrowed. "Nopony in the administration told me about this," he said.

"Of course not, it's a student thing," Snow said with a shrug. "I went through it just like every new student, and you have to too."

With a sigh, Sleet let his shoulder droop. "Fine," he said. "What is it?"

"You'll have to join Necromancy School."

Sleet glared and stood up, pushing Snow's foreleg away from him. "I'm done with your games, Snow. Now, excuse me while I—!"

The smile was gone from Snow's lips, though. "Listen," she said. "I know there is no Necromancy School, but what I mean is that you have to go through the process of finding it. It's a test of courage thing, and a tour of the grounds too. If you have any plans of forming groups with the student body, you have to do this. You think you can survive a single year in this place by yourself?"

Sleet ground his teeth and resigned to his fate. "Fine," he said. "What do I have to do?"

The smile crept back to Snow's face.