The Three Clans 14! Wolf and the All Island Magic Tournament!

by Esther (AlgebraAddict) in Immortal Island, in the fire clan, in room 429, doing homework with Flame, Summer, Flick, and Aurie. :D

There’s always a moment in a life when you feel very awkward and out of place.  I rarely felt this way, but I was in a crowd of people applying for All Island Magic Tournament who were all thirty years older than I. 

“Wolf Fur?” a robotic voice blurted out, calling my name.  I marched forward to the front.  An elf in glasses that were gigantism itself and a long white beard asked, “Name?”

“Wolf Fur.”

I answered politely and with the unseen air of decorous respect that was all due to an elf probably a hundred years older than I.  However, I thought with some amusement that he had just heard that same name called by the-mysterious-person-who-calls-names.  His pen scratched on the parchment.  If it had been a peer, maybe Flick, I would have told her to turn her wand into a pen and not be stupid and waste expensive ink.  However, I kept my mouth shut. 

“Gender?”

I glanced at him to see if he was merely reading off the parchment with the naivety that is often due to fairies or elves whose lives have been spent reading off questions and hearing the questions.  He was not.  He was actually gazing at me with the kind of polite perplexity shown by a mother who asks what dress you would like.  I had long brown braids down my back, and I resisted grabbing one and waving it in the air in a more than suggestive manner. 

“Female.”

My genteelly toned answer went through my lips bowdlerized of all sarcasm or suggestiveness, though I was very much amused.  My thoughts went to Flame, who would have asked hot-temperedly if she looked very much like a male to him.  I was content with being amused inside; savoring feelings of mirth inside my body without an inclination to pour them into word, spit them out, and watch with horror as they came out twisted and simplified, from an emotion complex to something as horrible as a physical reaction from the one who hears it. 

“Clan?”

“Water.”

Either he had forgotten my name, having forgotten it once before, or else he had lacked the ingenuity to deduce that I was in the water clan because of the mention of an animal in my name.  Neither would surprise me. 

“Age?”

“Fifteen,” I said loudly enough, spitting the word into the air, letting my feelings of awkwardness and haughtiness and confusion that spun around each other like a vortex become swallowed into the simple reaction of surprise.  A murmur wriggled through the crowd like a fish, and like a fish it was gone, leaving a silence. 

“Pardon?”

“Fifteen,” I said again, but the emotion had already left.  It was that fish, and it had gone into a cave in the sea wall, and now it stared at me. 

“Oh!  I’m afraid you’re not allowed!”

He flipped through a large book. 

“On the other hand,” he grumbled a bit, “There doesn’t seem to be a rule…”

“Will that be all?” I asked, keeping my sweet and polite tone rest calmly, though a few tremors remained in my voice from the first “fifteen”. 

“Yes, yes.  The Palace of Power will be your next destination.  Next!”

As I turned on my heel, someone in the back yelled, “You can’t let a fifteen-year-old into the Palace of Power!”

That was when I started to get angry.  I had been a still water, but they had blown into me, and now my anger rose as a bubble to the surface, ready to explode.

Out of habit, my hand went to my wand.  I pressed my lips together, and silently, the spell that I wished to use formed inside of me. 

A spell is a thought.  All words make an impression, and always an image will pass through your head at the first hearing of a word.  We fairies and elves have managed to exaggerate that, making the vision so real that it becomes real, sometimes in a very different way.  Our minds become an open sanctuary for the vision when we focus all of it onto saying the words.  That is why silence is so hard; the words do not form.  The only way to say a silent spell is to skip straight to the vision.  I knew the vision for this; I knew how to reverse the order of the mechanics of spell casting.  

Silver sparks flew into the air.  They shot up like bullets from a gun, and they twisted round each other, hundreds of them.  They formed a pillar of silver fire, and from it emerged a shape.  Unmistakably, the fire licked itself into a real object, and what had been a single spark was the tip of a flame, and what was the tip of a flame was a feather on the owl, silver and strong.  It descended, flying with wings spread, and it swooped towards my shoulder.  Claws of sparks grasped my shoulder.  It hooted. 

My owl elicited a general gasp from the crowd; and then an angry murmur.  The old fairy who had remarked that I couldn’t be allowed in the Palace of Power looked furious.  Feeling that there was not much else to be said or done, the owl evaporated, and I turned my back and walked away. 

The Palace of Power itself was made of white marble, and it was taller than the highest skyscraper.  I knew very well that the fairy had had good reason to protest my going in, and I rebuked myself for losing my temper—but there was nothing to do about it.  For now, I  just took a deep breath, stood up tall, and slid my spectacles down my nose as to peer in a suitable manner at all who dared question me.  Then I rapped with my cold, hard knuckles and waited for the door to open for me.

“Who goes there?”

An old elf with sleek white hair in a ponytail dared try to peer at me through his spectacles.  I topped him, however, and he recoiled.

“I am Wolf Fur, a fairy of the Wolverine family, currently taking classes in the water clan!  I wish to enter the All Island Magic Tournament.”

I was proud that my voice remained cool and even.  I decided not to mention I was in my first year.

“You’re taking classes in the water clan?”

Apparently, I thought, he had been prejudiced against me since I had dared top that dignified peer of his; a gleam flickered in his eyes as if he would very much like to catch me breaking the rules in my attempt to enter.

“Yes.”

My eyebrows were raised just above the normal, my mouth was in a sweet but dignified smile, and I peered the most arrogant peer imaginable.  I judicially decided not to mention the superfluous verity of it being my first year. 

“You couldn’t wait until you graduated, eh?”

I raised my eyebrows in the appropriate manner for when you would like to acknowledge that your mind has processed the remark—with little effort on my part, thank you very much!—but that you don’t see it necessary to dissipate your knowledgeable mind on such trivial matters.  He accepted it with grudging good grace.  I think the peer helped. 

He opened the door aversely, as though he considered it a very ill-advised action to take. 

A wide marble room greeted me frostily.  Four desks, side by side, stood awkwardly in the center of the room, all with short, weary-looking fairies and elves in them.  To the smallest of these the elf took me, courteously ushering me.  I really do think he was resisting the desire to take me up by the collar of my shirt like a little street urchin. 

My long-fingered hand slipped into the pocket of my tunic and pulled out a small scrap of folded paper which unfolded as I grasped it.  My fingers ran over it and the creases were gone—an advanced bit of magic, especially with that type of paper. 

As we approached the desk, I looked at the back of the fairy who was applying in front of me.  With a jolt of contempt, I realized it was Robin Tail.  I, by the way, still refused to call her by Feather, as she claimed that her friends called her that and as I did not wish to join that category.  I hissed her name.  She turned, her eyes sparkling with… hatred?  No, I must have imagined that.  She was looking at me still with a very nice, sweet look.  I peered at her.  She hastily gave her paper to the lady and moved along, like a shadow. 

“Hello, who are you?”

I handed in my paper.  The fairy looked at me with a very curious expression on her face. 

“You are as young as the fairy back there, are you not?  Do you know her?”

“Yes.  But I do not take many classes with her.  She is not a good pupil, as I am.”

 “If she’s no good, she won’t pass the test, and I have my own doubts about her.  You look, perhaps—more capable.”

“I am.”

“Fourth door on the right, dear.  Good luck.  Don’t expect too much; you’re much too young for that.”

I lifted my pointed chin and walked haughtily down the hall, peering at all who challenged me.  I had no doubts!  I had studied every fairy or elf who had won A.I.M.T., and I had studied their magic!  I was their level. 

So far, I was one of the youngest fairies to get a staffbird, one of the youngest to enter A.I.M.T., and also generally the more brilliant pupil of all my age in the water clan.  Life was good!