(Resumed) Solstice

[Emmett]

"That's it?!" "What are you, a child?" "Get out of here! You don't belong!" "Thanks for the laughs!" "Boo!" "Wow, really skilled~ NOT!" "Maybe he was lusting after women as a way to compensate!"

The uproar of the crowd, the emotion, returned, in full swing.

"Is... is that it?" Headmaster Clarent asked. "I would like to remind you that joke submissions are frowned upon here."

"It wasn't a joke, Headmaster," I muttered.

"I... I see." He shook his head. "Then, it should come as no surprise that you have failed. Return to your post and you will be sent out when Stage Three begins."

"Of course, Ser." I turned around and heckling and gossip among the crowd assaulted my vision. I took some steps forward, and quite a few of them held out hands and staves, as if to keep me at bay.

"Let the ex-candidate sit," Lienne commanded, "You can do what you want with him after exams are over, but right now he is still under our care and I take that responsibility seriously!"

Thank you, Ser Lienne. I stop a few paces short of where I was, turned back around, and sat down, holding both hands up while I did to signal I wasn't a threat.

"What do you have to say for yourself, Emmy?" Patrick's tired voice pierced through the crowd. "You fucking laughingstock, traitor, clown and pervert."

"I said I would fail, and I did," I replied. "I don't know what your problem even is anymore."

"My problem is you just endangered our home by making our prime defender have to handle the food by her-"

"Please be quiet during the examination," Headmaster Clarent interrupted. "Now that Mr. Emmett is done disappointing us all, would anyone like a chance to do better?"

Several hands twisted up, and I gazed upon them with a smile. My job was complete. With Abraham's display of a Spell Circle, no one wanted to step forward and try, and of course they wouldn't; Spell Circles were hard. The only times I had ever seen them were on seasoned adults, and Jacqueline herself never used one. She did mention they were difficult to make, and that much study was required before you could get one of your own. So when the last candidate was some child prodigy who busted one out from out of nowhere, nobody wanted to be compared to that.

But everyone wanted to be compared to the failure, the flunkie. Hence, I raised my hand. I said I was going to fail, and I did. And I knew that I was either going to die in the wilderness, or be brought in under remedial classes and die from bullying (Patrick already tried to kill me twice now), or fail the test again and rot in prison. I did what I could, and it was up to Ser Linn now to hold up his end of the bargain. Or leave me to die. Whichever.

Ser Clarent went to selecting volunteer candidates, and a tan-skinned woman named Dawn Solaire stepped forward and demonstrated quite a bit of artwork with her magick. No Element, but she made a wireframe sphere, and even spun it around for a bit.

"Hey," I heard a whisper and turned to find Ansel who had scooted surprisingly close to me without me noticing, "Why did you do that?"

"Do what?" I whispered back.

"Throw your exam like that? You know there are no retries."

"Honestly, I'm not cut out for this place. I came here to run away from home, and when Abraham showed off a spell circle, I didn't want anyone else to choke."

Ansel smiled and patted my shoulder. "You're a good man, Emmett."

"T-thank you." I took his compliment with a smile, but something about it felt... kinda off. Like, I didn't know what it was, but I got this feeling of unease whenever anyone compliments me as a man. It felt... shallow, empty. Like they were trying to lower my guard so I'd commit some faux pas they could sadistically punish me for.

My thoughts were cut short by a striking sound and I looked up to find Dawn's foot firmly planted against the obelisk. She bowed, and took her place. The next contender was another light-skinned man named Christopher Jacobson, and he projected a spectral longbow of Æther and shot an arrow of magick against the obelisk. Another candidate, Selene Doyle, enveloped herself in a cloak of azure flame, sustaining it for a while before seeming throwing all of it at the obelisk at once, kinda like what I tried but better. She ended up passing, though some streams of fire did have to be employed by the staff to make sure students weren't mistakenly hit. She also collapsed unconscious afterward, apparently having overheated her Ætheric vessel, though this time Clarent used the word "overdrawn" instead of "overheated".

There was one man though, Romeo Jules, who was all poetic and pretentious with his introduction, and he even performed some elaborate ballroom dance by himself, while animating a small bundle of stones to serve as his "partner". It was a well-executed dance, and the telekinesis was smoothly executed, but what broke the audience in laughter was the Headmaster's reply:

"I told Mr. Sinclair that joke submissions were frowned upon. Scion Jules, you very much know better, and as such I will fail you here and now."

"Oh Please Good Ser, Mercy upon me! 'Twould be a stain upon my honor, to be yoked home empty 'fore my father."

"Sit down and shut up." Seeing another candidate fail stirred up a concoction within me. I felt elated, relieved, but also somber. I heard his plea. He was going to go home, and probably die. In another life, that could easily have been me. It could still be me: I wasn't out of the frying pan yet. In order to guarantee my survival, Ser Linn would have to actually stand up for me like he said he would, and presumably, Clarent would have to allow it.

I closed my eyes. Witnessing another failure awakened something in me, and I wasn't sure I liked it. I had heard of meditation from Jacqueline, where you sit, close your eyes, and think about things, and I tried it once or twice, but it really didn't do much for me. I just ended up getting sad and angry and overthinking Aegis' raid on Charade Gin. Naturally, I threw it aside; I had no need for something that was going to make my emotions worse when it promised improvements.

But this felt different. I had been angry, lashed out, felt betrayed. I had absolutely despised when I was lured away from home, enticed to betray Jacqueline, and then told I had no chance of actually making it as a student and that I might have one month to somehow actually develop magick if Linn were to stick up for me and IF the staff approved. Oh and if I failed I would be thrown into debtor's prison to rot for the rest of my days. 

I had seethed and raged internally against the heavens. But seeing it happen to someone else washed my heart with cloying sorrows. Made me feel, a little empty inside. A feeling I had not felt for quite some time: about five years, give or take. And well, now was as good a time as any to give meditation another go.

I had stopped paying attention to who was being called up or what they were doing. I was focusing in on that feeling of sadness for another person. I let it permeate from my heart, and wrap around my being. I thought on it, I recalled it. I thought back to when I was having fun at the fountain with Patrick and Bryce before our north gate guards, Pierce and Jamal, flew into the village square with their chest burst open, entrails and intestines spilled in the open, putrid death hanging in the air, the aroma of rot invading our lungs...

How many of my neighbors and associates tried to run... how they were torn asunder by invisible magick... the families who were devastated by their early demises... the emptiness that had rung... the knells that tolled their deaths.... The children and grandchildren that would never come to be because their parents no longer existed.

And now, this Romeo guy, possibly facing a similar end. I wondered what his life was like, to end up in a similar situation to mine, having to pose for a do-or-die test, and being relegated to the "die" category. I couldn't say I was proud of him, yet I couldn't say I hated him. Or even pitied. I felt for him, a complete stranger, in that moment, and it confused me. All of these emotions. I wasn't supposed to feel these. Men like me were supposed to maybe give a single nod of pity then move on with their lives. And yet here I was, contemplating what a random person's life must have been like.

"And now, our final candidate," Clarent said, "Would you please step forward."

A pale-skinned woman, wearing a delicate-looking dress, holding a rather long fabric sack, a bit more than half her own height, tip-toes over to the Spot Of Testing, and curtsies before the obelisk. "Greetings. My name is Freya Stahl."

"Well met, Scion Stahl. You may proceed when ready."

Freya nodded, set her bag down, opened the sack, and returned to standing before a heavy-pointed javelin leapt out of the container, and slammed very firmly against the obelisk in about the time it took to blink once, maybe twice. The crowd gasped, and stepped back once or twice, myself included.

"Needless to say Scion Stahl, you have passed. This concludes our Stage One and Stage Two Examinations. Emmett Sinclair and Romeo Jules, the two of you have failed and will see yourselves out of my seminary. The remainder of the candidates will proceed into the inner gates, and we will convene in the College of Water to begin Stage Three."

Patrick stood up and looked to me while the crowd funneled into the now-forbidden garden I would never be able to touch. "For your sake, I hope you get picked up by a roving bandit gang as entertainment, you may want to try to make yourself prettier when you do though."

"Fuck you too and goodbye." I stood there, motionless, the doors eventually closing before me.

Romeo walked up to me, hand outstretched. "Thou findest thyself forsaken, thine opportune they have taken. I am called Romeo, and I hope, thy friend neo."

"You know, you can just talk normally." I took his hand and gave him a fair shake. "I am Emmett. I'd like to stay here a while longer before I figure out what to do with my life."

"So I see, you share plight with me." Romeo dusted off his own elaborately-tailored shirt, and turned to face the exit.

"What will you do?" I asked.

"I cannot return home, so I scribe my own tome." Romeo started walking around me in circles for some reason. "I am a noble magus of Jules, with a father so strict with rules. I was to join the school, but fates to me be cruel. Now that I have been sent north, I do not in their eyes bear worth. My honour to them is a lie, so I should lay low and die."

"That's unfortunate."

"Indeed, so what pray tell do you face, and dost thou carry thine own ace?"

"Well, I ran away, basically."

"Oh? Ooh la, do tell~"

"Okay will you quit? And well, I lived in a village that got burned to the ground by the Emissaries five years ago."

"The village of spirits and facades?"

I had described to him how I had been selected, how Jacqueline threatened me not to go, and how I did anyway, and how I was tricked by the staff.

"So you mock me from on high, for your fate remains not yet nigh?!"

I staggered back, and "That's really not it at all! I really do feel bad-"

Romeo slammed his fist into my gut, driving me off my feet. I fell onto the ground, and my skull slammed into stone. Pain blinded my vision, but I started rolling, hearing the hard stomp of a foot against where I once was.

"You have made a great mistake! Count your blessings; that was to be your final take!"

"What the fuck!" I kicked and crawled back to put distance between myself and my new assailant. "Seriously, why?! I reveal one thing that made you jealous and this is what happens?!"

"When next your little school squad departs, be prepared to end your lives in parts!" Romeo turned around, and strode toward the exit gate. "And, so you know, I had a backup plan. I will receive an education one way or another. Several powerful forces would want a member of House Jules as their apprentice!"

"You... think too highly of yourself," I muttered. Soon after, I heard the iron doors open once more. Ser Linn, Ser Lienne and Ser Clarent stepped out, and I turned around to face them.

"I'm surprised you stuck around," Ser Lienne said, "You realize you were dismissed, and we can kill you in defense of territory?"

"I'm not a threat," I said blankly.

"I take it Scion Jules left?" Ser Linn asked, "Do you know where he left?"

"I told him about what happened on the airship ride up, and he got really angry and mentioned something about finding an apprenticeship easily as a member of House Jules or something."

"Ah yes, Adams, Jules, and Stahl, a triumvirate of families," said Ser Lienne. "Well, can't be helped I suppose. Even those three develop some bad apples now and again. As for why we're here."

Headmaster Clarent cleared his throat. "Well, I came out to invite Scion Jules for remedial courses, but he seems to have declined. As for you, Mr. Emmett, Ser Linn spoke up on your behalf and petitioned for you to be enrolled in remedial courses. I refused, as you clearly have neither respect nor discipline. However, Ser Lienne spoke on your behalf, contingent on... something she didn't deign to reveal to me."

"A condition which I will invoke now." Lienne stepped forward, and placed her hand on my shoulder. "You mentioned lying about seeing invisible magick. I was curious about that."

"Okay?" I drew out the first syllable, my mind racing to figure out what was going on.

"I want you to tell me what you saw during the attack."

"I already said, I lied about seeing invisible magick-"

"No," Lienne said, "Don't say what you think we want to hear. Don't rationalize, don't explain. I want to know the memory of your heart. When I ask you what you saw, I don't give a single damn what anyone else thinks, I want your raw, unbridled, unfiltered, answer. You are in the presence of both the Headmaster and a Provost. We know a hell more about magick than you. We are trained in taking in unreliable information and making something useful out of it anyway. I ask this question once more. Tell me what you actually saw."

I shivered. If I did, well... I'd really be unrepentant, wouldn't I?

I took a slow breath. I shivered. I moved my hands up and down as a mantra to help calm myself down.

"Your answer?" Lienne said, surprisingly gently.

"I... I saw colorless, transparent constructs. They acted like any other spell, but they were invisible except for an outline. That's... what I remember seeing, though, amidst the constant flowing of Æther all around."

"Interesting," Ser Linn remarked, "If that is your memory. Such a traumatic event for a young child could cause it to suppress reality and replace it with a delusion where it was not completely helpless. In any event I'm glad you were able to realize what actually happened and that you didn't see anything."

"The fourth pillar of the Arcane Colleges: character," Lienne said, "We don't advertise it at first, because it would prompt people to lie, and we wish for them to show their true selves. You answered my question and you admitted your fear. I agree with Ser Linn and motion to afford you one month of remedial studies. Do you accept?"

Like I was going to decline. "Yes."

"Best prove me wrong, Mr. Emmett," said Clarent, "Your freedom depends on it."

Lienne took her hand off my shoulder and stepped back. "Excellent. Let us show you to your dormitory, and sign off on final paperwork. Oh, and I plan to file a motion to deny Mr. Peterson admittance, though I expect that to go nowhere."