Timeskipping summer and the first day of school

The rest of the summer was quite busy. Maria had a lot to adapt to, from the normal experience of moving to a new city to dealing with how magic affected everyday life.

Their neighbors were quite helpful. Behind each of the other 3 doors was a family: the Sprouts, the Brin and the Garcias.

The Sprouts were actually an expecting couple. Mrs. Sprout, a nature element, had been a well known baker, but now that she was in her third trimester, her husband had to learn how to cook. Needless to say, they came to their home a lot for lunch, dad chatting with Mr. Sprout and showing him how to cook food to Mrs. Sprout's amusement.

The Brin had a little boy and girl, a rambunctious bunch that loved to play with the chickens when they were grazing in the yard or steal the towels or clothes from the clothes line and pretend to be some princess or noble prince, dirtying up the freshly cleaned clothes. The parents were quite stressed, but were a joyful bunch. Mr. Brin, an earth element, was a woodworker, always bringing little wooden toys for Nila and Adam and he had shown Maria how he had enchanted the wooden canary that flied and chirped in their home. It had escaped quite a few times due to the mischievous children, but thankfully, it was children-proofed and always returned back inside.

The Garcias had an older boy, but still 2 years younger than Maria and also quite jealous that she'd get to join the Academy before him. Milo was mostly out on the streets with his ragtag bunch of friends, probably causing chaos. Milo's parents weren't too much at home either, but when they were, they were both covered head to toe in soot and sweat. They worked hard at the local forge because both of them were fire elements. They were decent people, working very hard to keep their family afloat.

Milo didn't like Maria very much, or if he did, he had a funny way of showing it. Whenever he was here, he picked on her. "You don't know a drop of magic, Earthen scum!" He hollered. "You're a little prissy princess who's so stupid she can't even fight two mean words!" He shouted as Maria went back inside. Her dad told her to just ignore him, that he was just seeking attention and would leave her alone when he saw that he couldn't get from her what he wanted. But that didn't help Maria too much.

So, the first chance she got when they returned home, she told mom. She was furious. For the first time since Maria and her dad had moved, her mom stepped through the portal with them and came home to look for the ginger-haired troublemaker. She didn't find him, but she found his mother, tired and, as always, covered in soot. She had a surprisingly civil discussion with her, Mrs. Garcia apologising multiple times and, since then, Milo was a lot more quiet. Would still pull some pranks from time to time and still called Maria a "prissy princess", but it had become much easier to deal with now.

Speaking of mum, Maria often went home when she had a free day from elemental training. She usually spent it playing video games, since there were was no electricity in Elementum, or talking to some of her old friends from high school. Her friends knew she was going to a fancy private school in some other country and they were dying to know where, but she couldn't tell them the truth, so she just picked a random country and told them all that's where she was moving. Hopefully none of them would have the crazy idea of trying to visit her. Their relationship grew distant, even if it hadn't been too warm to begin with. But it was alright, she had Yuna and Rachel.

Her mum always packed something good for the way back so that they could, as she put it, "have a taste of home".

Ms. Clouds' lessons got longer and tougher by the day. It went from seeing the magic of the Moonlake without any distractions, to feeling it with her eyes open, to being able to sense water that wasn't enchanted, like the Moonlake water was, to understanding how her strong emotions influenced the water in the air all around her and finally, to being able to not influence the water around her whenever I got too upset. In the end, as a cherry on top, Ms. Cloud showed Maria how to control the water willingly in a natural manner and she ended up learning how to make waves and learning how to freeze dew. Small things for the time being and, even though she tried to jump the train and learn to do something more exciting, Ms. Cloud was as immovable as a rock. She told her "These are important stepping stones for the path forward. Sometimes, you must learn to do basic things in order to achieve greatness."

Unfortunately for Maria, because of her special circumstances, she'd go to the Academy one year late. But Ms. Cloud assured her there were also some "late-bloomers" that would also join a year late, like her, so she wouldn't be alone. She also told Maria there were a few other earthens who were enrolled, which felt nice. At least she wasn't going to be alone.

Finally, she got to spend more time with Yuna and Rachel. They were amazing friends, they pretty much taught her all the street smarts that she'd need to brave Aetheria. Yuna, having already been for a year at the Academy, gave her all the advice she could think of, with some dry humored interjections from Rachel, of course. They also had a nice sleepover, took some selfies, to the girls' delight. Phones aren't a thing here, although there are some nifty magical communicators around and they can be anything from an enchanted fireplace or mirror to a sort of walkie talkie golden pocket-watch.

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And just like that, the summer vacation was over and Maria was heading for her first real school day at the Academy. She met up with Yuna on the way, which made her feel much better, as she was a giant stress ball. They reached the gates of the campus, hundreds of students pouring in from what was probably all the corners of the continent.

And about three seconds later... Maria lost Yuna in the crowd.

"Yuna?" she shouted, but her voice was smothered by the enthusiastic crowd.

"Yuna!" she shouted again, a little louder, afraid of being left alone in such a gigantic place.

"Yun-" and she smacked into the person in front of her, who, for some reason, had stopped in the middle of the crowd.

The boy turned around with a disgruntled look. "You should watch where you're going, you know? Would save me a head in the back."

"I'm so so sorry... I was looking-"

And then he just turned around and walked away, without another explanation.

Confused, she continued going forwards, occasionally shouting for Yuna, until she finally found her strawberry blond hair up ahead. She was chatting with another girl, her dirty blond hair tied up in a neat high ponytail. Maria shouted her name again and she turned her head, smiled and started heading towards her.

"I was hoping you were going to meet up with me sooner or later. Glad you could find us, first day is always quite busy. Anyway," and she pointed towards the new girl, "Maria, this is Isabelle, she lives in a pretty far off village in western Aether, she's a nature. We're classmates! Isabelle, this is my earthen friend, Maria, she's a water. "

Isabelle looked at her up and down, her hazel-colored eyes narrowed as if to try and find some imperfection. But when they locked eyes, she looked away.

"Sorry. Never seen an earthen before." she replied.

"It's alright. Although, from what I'm told, I was born here. Just lived on Earth is all."

Maria held her hand out and Isabelle shook it, a small smile on her lips.

"Well, Maria should get signed up, it's her first day after all." said Yuna. She also caught Maria's hand and held it tight.

"And you're not going to get lost anymore." She had a crooked smile, as if she'd just told a joke. Isabelle was trying (and failing) to not chuckle.

Maria felt heat crawling up her cheeks as she quietly trailed after Yuna. Isabelle was standing by Yuna's side and they started talking again. It was quite clear to Maria that they had known each other for quite some time now. They were talking about the summer vacation and apparently they had a lot of catching up to do. Maria took her focus off the conversation and started looking around the campus at the different students. Most of them were normal average humans, with magical powers, but that was the norm here. Some were playing around with their elements. Suddenly, she saw a fireball hit someone in the head and that students' hair caught on fire! Shocked, Maria tugged at Yuna's hand, ready to ask for help, but rather than panicking, the boy, flaming head and all, ran towards the ball thrower and gave him a fist bump.

Yuna looked over her shoulder, confused, than followed Maria's gaze and let out a huff of air.

"Always, wanting to look cool, the fires. Waaay to go, boys."

Isabella snorted.

"Well, with him looking so hot, you should marry him right now, Yun. You'd be the perfect match!" she said sarcastically.

Yuna scoffed, similarly to how she did with Rachel, but a smile stayed on her lips.

"Well, if you think he's so hot, maybe You should marry him, Isa!" she replied.

Isabelle laughed.

"Yeah, you know, but I'm afraid all my sarcasm would go straight over his head. You wouldn't want my sarcasm to go up in flames, now would you?"

Yuna laughed and they continued talking.

And Maria felt a little bit... lonely. Part of a group, but not really in it. Voices raised up in volume, reminding her of other similar moments from high school. She took a deep breath, trying not to tear up. This was different. Being alone with her thoughts was dangerous, so she chose to not focus too much on that, instead continuing to look around the bustling campus.

And just as she thought she saw a student hugging a tree, Yuna tugged her hand, bringing her on the opposite side from Isabelle.

"C'mon! We don't have too far to go now."

She pointed at a row of tables, stretching a little ways off the main path, a very long queue already behind each of them. Maria groaned.

"I have to sit through that?"

"Don't worry, it moves quite fast. Now don't forget: we meet tonight, my place, have some fun before the classes actually start." She winked, then walked away with Isabelle, leaving Maria waiting in the long queue.

"Alone" the voices reminded her. "Not anymore" she replied, but they continued to pester her. She took a deep breath and rubbed her chameleonite stone. "I have good friends now!" she shouted back and they quieted down. She wished that they would just go away. She didn't know how much she'd regret this wish coming true.