Chapter Text
Headmaster Ambrose ascended the stairs with little difficulty, despite his age, and also with little hesitation. He did not seem frightened; he seemed only barely concerned and more curious. Gamma caught up with him, and perched on Ambrose’s shoulder. Finally, he reached the top of the stairs, and Helia was just behind him.
“Who’s there?” he called into the room, and then his breath caught in his throat.
Helia’s did too. Before her was the most peculiar and yet unsettling man she’d ever seen. He had long, dark hair in braids down his back, but his skin was pale to the point where Helia wondered if he was actually a ghost. Like some kind of wraith, he dressed all in black and he was tall - much taller than any man should be, Helia thought. His long face and huge, hooked nose made him look like a vulture. He also carried a long, black staff with a red crystal settled on the top. On top of the crystal was an elaborate dragon statuette carved from bronze whose tail wrapped around the staff itself. He’d broken through part of the stone wall of the tower, a gaping hole, looking out into the night. Ambrose’s expression hardened when he saw this man, confirming for Helia that he was most certainly not a friend.
“Malistaire,” he gasped.
The intruder sneered. “Ambrose.”
“You’re no longer welcome here,” the headmaster declared. “Why have you returned?”
“Unfinished business.”
“Your business has done enough harm to this school, and I cannot — I will not — let it continue.”
The stranger, Malistaire, looked behind Ambrose then, right at Helia. She felt her breath catch in her throat. His eyes were all-consuming with their black irises that blended right into the pupils; they were like voids and Helia could feel herself getting sucked into them.
“Is this your newest student?”
“Leave this place before I am forced to banish you from it!”
“No, I think I’ll begin her first lesson.”
Malistaire, in one fluid motion, swirled his staff over his head and from the red crystal launched a crackling bolt of black energy directly at Helia. Run, duck, move! Do something! Helia thought, trying desperately to make a decision, but feeling caught still in Malistaire’s gaze like a mouse in a trap. With the flick of his wrist, Ambrose withdrew a card from a small case that hung from his belt and sent it flying between Helia and the blast. In front of her was a shield made of magic, crystalline ice. It absorbed the brunt of the strike, but the rest seeped through the cracks of the ice and as the shield shattered, the bolt struck her.
All the air flew from her lungs in one sudden gasp, and her body ran terribly cold. Her vision blurred, but Helia managed to stay standing. She’d been knocked back, she realized, against the wall in the stairwell, and that wall was the only reason she’d managed to remain on her feet.
Ambrose was shouting, but Helia could not hear his words. Gamma had flown onto her shoulder, but his talons did not hurt. They were warm, and as sound came back to her, she realized that the owl was healing her.
“... and I have what I came for!” Malistaire declared.
When Helia’s vision cleared, she saw Ambrose using his own staff, slamming the base into the floor. An aura pulsed out from him, coming for Malistaire. In response, the dark mage turned himself into a cloud of smoke, and flew out of the open wall in the tower… but not before he shot one last look at Helia.
It settled into her soul as a dark promise, and somehow she knew she would see him again. Everything went quiet in the tower. In the distance, Helia heard thunder rumbling.
“Is she alright?” Ambrose asked, returning to them.
“She will be,” Gamma assured him.
Helia nodded. “I-I’m okay.” She looked back to the hole in the wall. “Who was that?”
Ambrose frowned. “Malistaire Drake. He is, erm, was one of the professors at our school.”
Helia scoffed. “Oh, he seems like a great teacher. Does he blast all new students on their first day?”
“I did say that he was a professor. He was recently let go, but that’s a long story. He’s gone for now.”
For now , Helia noted, but she just nodded.
“Perhaps we should continue our conversation another day,” the headmaster said. “Gamma will show you to your dorm room, and you will see me tomorrow.”
Helia opened her mouth to argue at first, but a wave of exhaustion washed over her suddenly. If it was from the magic Malistaire had cast on her or from the magic that brought her here, she wasn’t sure, but she knew one thing: magic was certainly real. She’d just seen it performed; it had just been used to hurt and heal her. Instead, she allowed herself to be escorted downstairs and out of the tower.
It was nighttime out here, and a bit hard to see. Gamma flapped his wings though and little orbs of light floated around them to guide them forward. They walked and flew towards a tunnel that had a great big plaque over it that read “THE COMMONS.”
Through the tunnel, on the other side, the first thing that Helia saw was the small castle at the base of the hill that she was on top of. Several other, smaller buildings lined the cobblestone street that rolled down the hill and stopped at a small, round plaza in front of a clear pond that sparkled in the starlight. To her right was a brightly colored but currently quiet fairgrounds area. Gamma did not fly very far at all, stopping on the edge of the roof of one building near the top of the hill.
“You’ll be staying in here with a few other students. I’d imagine that by now they’re all asleep, but we can still settle you in. Just touch the doorknob, and it’ll open for you but be locked for anyone who doesn’t live here.”
Helia grabbed the knob, and sure enough, it turned easily under her hand. The inside was dark for now, but she could tell that the furniture in this living room was all pastel greens on dark wood. Off this living room were four doors. Three of them were decorated with small signs and various art pieces. One was not decorated at all. Gamma flew down to her shoulder and gestured at the empty door with his wing.
“That one is yours. It’ll open for your hand, and you’ll find all your amenities inside.”
“Thank you,” Helia said quietly, too tired now to argue. At least she knew she’d sleep well tonight. “Do the other people living here know that I’m… joining them?”
“They do. Of course they don’t know who you are yet, so be sure to introduce yourself. Someone will be here tomorrow morning to take you to the Headmaster so we may begin your enrollment. Sleep well, Miss Willow-Grove.”
With that, Gamma flew back to the front door, and when he left, the door shut behind him.
Helia walked to the empty door and opened it. Inside was a bed, wardrobe, desk, large trunk, and a doorway that led to a private lavatory. Folded on the bed were beige pajamas: very comfortable-looking, not too heavy or too light. There was also one window with white curtains hanging from it. Helia moved to get dressed, and that was when she realized that she was still holding the citrine. That whole time, it’d never left her hand. She placed it on the nightstand, and couldn’t help but smile.
Everything was still very strange, but that gem felt right.
~~~~~
Helia woke up to the sound of ringing bells outside. There was a small part of her that wondered if everything she remembered from last night was just a dream, but then she realized that she was still, well, Helia. Helia Willow-Grove. That was all she knew about herself. As her vision cleared, she also realized that she was in the same room she’d been in last night. Sunlight peeked in from behind the white curtains. She sat up, and the sconces on the walls of the room slowly lit up with little orange flames, lighting up the rest of the bare room. Helia took a moment to think about what else she knew.
Magic was real; she’d seen it with her own eyes.
This place was a magic school, and she was supposed to be enrolled in… Her eyes shifted to the citrine on her nightstand… The Balance School? She thought that seemed right.
Malistaire was not a man that she ever wanted to see again, but had a feeling she would.
Helia nodded, resolute in these few emotions. They were all she had at the moment. She climbed out of bed, remembering that the headmaster had promised to see her today.
The wardrobe had clothes in it: various long robes, all in different styles but colored in the same neutral tones: black, gray, brown, beige, cream, and white. The brown tones and cream seemed like they were the most common colors. Helia picked a set she thought would be comfortable and dressed. She had no idea what was next for her, but if she was anything, it was certainly curious. As frightened as she was about not knowing anything about herself, this place and its general… “being,” she’d call it… were not alarming to her. While Malistaire had been, this place was not. So, for now, she was willing to see what was in store for her.
A sound on the other side of her door caught her attention: a smack! on wood and then whispered voices arguing.
Helia chuckled to herself. Right. She had roommates.
She approached the door and opened it cautiously to find two other girls around her age standing outside it, straightening their backs quickly. One girl wore bright, sky blue robes and the other dressed in deep red with gold accents. Helia guessed they may have been trying to listen.
The girl in red smiled brightly, and her golden eyes lit up. “Hi, welcome!”
“Hi… nice to meet you?” Helia said, not sure what else to say.
She studied this girl for a moment and realized that the only word she could use to describe her was “glamorous.” She was wearing makeup, and had quite a dramatic look centered around the color yellow that stood out beautifully in contrast to her dark skin and that matched her eyes. Her curly black hair (up in two very cute buns) also had faint streaks of red in it, and Helia was amazed at her ability to look almost exactly like her outfit, as if everything was coordinated perfectly .
“Nice to meet you too!” she replied. “We’re so happy to have you here; the registrar told us that we’d probably be getting a new student living with us.”
Helia nodded. “A new student for sure. I’m Helia Willow-Grove.”
“I’m Eliza Fire-Spitter,” the girl in red declared with a smile. “Everyone calls me Liz though. And um, this is Melinda.”
She gestured to her partner in crime: the girl in blue, who was clearly more demure than her friend. Her brown hair was extraordinarily long, past her waist, but a little darker in color than Helia’s. It was cut to give her bangs across her forehead. She had mismatched eyes, Helia realized: her left eye was hazel and her right eye was a stark blue, like her robes. Her skin was darker than Helia’s but not quite as dark as Liz’s, and she wore no makeup, but did have a pointed hat on her head that matched her robes.
Melinda waved at Helia. “Melinda Sky-Heart. Ice Wizard.”
Helia had no idea what that meant, but she nodded anyway. “Hi.”
“Our other roommate, Penny, had to run out for class, but we wanted to make sure we were here to greet you!” Liz explained.
“Great, um… I’m wondering if you can help me with something.”
Liz nodded enthusiastically, and Melinda smiled sweetly - both in agreement.
“I came here very recently, and I don’t really know where I am, what I’m doing, or where to start,” Helia admitted. “I know I’m supposed to see the headmaster to start my enrollment into… this school. I know I’m a… Balance Wizard? But I don’t know what that means. I don’t really know anything about here.”
Melinda’s eyes widened. “You’re enrolled in the most prestigious academy for magical arts in The Spiral and you have no idea what you’re doing here?”
Helia tilted her head side to side. “More or less.”
Liz and Melinda shared a confused glance at each other, and then looked back to Helia.
“So you don’t know anything?” Liz asked.
“I think when I came here, I contracted some kind of amnesia,” Helia explained. “The headmaster started to explain, but then-” She stopped for a moment, unsure if she should mention Malistaire, but decided quickly against it. “-it got late, so he never really finished explaining. I don’t even really know who I am; I picked this name because I needed one.”
“Oh wow, that’s… crazy,” Liz remarked, shaking her head in disbelief. “I’m sorry to hear that.” Then she smiled. “But I mean, if there’s anywhere that I’d wanna be if I lost my memories, it’d probably be here! So there’s that!”
“Why don’t we show you where the school is?” Melinda offered, glancing at Liz. “Just so you can get a feeling for the kind of place this is.”
Liz brightened. “Yes! That’s a great idea!”
Helia smiled at them both. “Okay, let’s go.”
Liz squealed in delight, and led the other two excitedly to the door.
“Is she always like that?” Helia asked Melinda.
Melinda shrugged. “Most of the time. She’s easily excited, especially about new friends.”
They left the house and came out onto the street Helia had been on the other night, but now, in the morning, it was bright and bustling with all manner of folk. And “folk” was truly an apt descriptor. There were people, of course - humans, like the three of them. But there were also all kinds of beastfolk: animals that walked and talked like people, similar to how Gamma had, but many of these people were more humanoid than even he’d been. These were clearly the students, by their many-colored robes in similar styles to the ones the three of them wore.
Liz walked slightly ahead of Helia and Melinda, waving at people she knew along the way (and she seemed to know a great many people.) Helia expected to be led to the small castle, but that was not where they went. Instead, they veered off to the left, to another tunnel like the one at the top of the hill from last night. This one read “RAVENWOOD.”
Before they entered, Melinda stopped Helia and Liz. “Shut your eyes. This needs to be a surprise.”
Liz nodded in agreement. “Oh yeah, for sure.”
Helia chuckled, and did as Melinda said, if only to humor her. She was led a little further, through the echoing, cold tunnel until she could feel light on her skin again. This area was filled with chatter, like the last, but also with light, airy music.
“Can I open my eyes now?”
“Yes, now,” Melinda insisted.
She did.
Before her was a giant tree, bigger than anything she had ever seen. The branches were so long that they touched the stone wall, several meters high, that surrounded this small area. The sunlight that entered the courtyard was filtered through the tree’s bright green leaves and branches so it was not too harsh. And the tree had eyes! Well, one eye. Its right one was missing. Between the eye and the socket was a huge protrusion of bark that almost looked like a nose and above the eyes were bushy sections of leaves that looked almost like eyebrows. Small yellow lights fluttered down from its branches every now and then, illuminating the place further before they gradually lost their spark and faded. A piece of the trunk in front of her was hollowed out and there appeared to be another room within this great living tree that Helia could not quite see. Around this tree were several buildings and smaller trees that also had faces. Additionally, just by this entrance, Helia noticed what could only be a small class of students wearing the same color robes as her own sitting on the grass by the wall. A canine gentleman with brown fur in a very dapper suit was teaching them in front of a rolling chalkboard. On the other side of the main road, just by the entrance, before the first tree on Helia’s right was another group of students in all different colors. They were the ones playing the music that brought this whole place to life.
Helia’s eyes met the eye of the tree before her. If the tree had a mouth and could smile, Helia thought that he may have smiled at her. Something about him made Helia think that he knew what she was thinking.
This was the most beautiful place Helia had ever seen.
Melinda grinned. “Welcome to Ravenwood, Helia.”
