Winter's Crest and Sabotage

The end of the year was coming around and people were preparing for the Winter's Crest. The fairy lights around the streets came in all kinds of delightful colors, the market place became a winter market, filled with hot cocoa, chocolate, cookies, and other sorts of goodies, trinkets, mostly magical, charmed or sparkly (or all three!). The atmosphere, despite the brazen cold, was joyous.

The teachers were becoming more relaxed as well, with one single exception. Ms. Summers was pressing them on, preparing them for their first visit under the lake, which would be close to the end of the year. Until then, they had to learn how to breathe underwater and, most importantly, how to warm up the freezing water around them so they wouldn't freeze to death. It was tedious work, but they were making fast progress. To Maria's frustration, she was still a little bit behind and always needed a bit more patience from Ms. Summers, which was getting thinner and thinner as time went on. The only thing that made that arduous training bearable was Mya's generally joyous attitude. And it wasn't the only way in which Mya was helping her.

After class, Maria always took some time to practice what she'd learnt, with Mya's gracious help. Nin also helped a lot too, and while teaching Maria, bit by bit, she opened up about her complicated past. She mostly talked about her classmates and the bullying that went on, but Maria heard a few tidbits about her parents as well. Nin had ran away from home after her adoptive family didn't want to let her go to the Academy, believing that Nin was signing up to learn witchcraft. She didn't know who her real parents were, but she suspected they lived somewhere in Aetheria and wanted to go find them. Nin had also sometimes sent letters back home, to Earth, and she had gotten some in return. Her family was missing her dearly and was willing to welcome Nin back to Earth... on the condition that she would never use what she had learnt at the Academy ever again. She didn't go into too much detail about what she wanted to do after she finished the year. Maria didn't press her either. After all, she still had her own secrets that she felt needed to be private.

Regardless, it felt good to be with her roommates. Maria didn't really feel alone anymore.

---

It was getting late, the sky was already dark and only lit by the flurry of snow outside. The snowflakes weren’t all white: they ranged from mint green, soft pink, baby blue and lavender. And, of course, the classic Earth white. It piled up outside in neat pastel dunes. Maria was quite disappointed to find out it did not taste like the ice cream back home. It was just normal frozen water with a bit of extra color added to the mix.

It was just a simple, quiet night, in which all three of them had been working hard on some different subjects: Maria and Mya on some water lessons and Nin on some charm making.

That's when the fairy light in their room vanished, leaving them in complete darkness.

"Uh... Mya? Did... did you do that?" Maria asked, worried.

Mya's arms locked tight around Maria.

"No!" She squeaked.

"There are lights in the nature dorm though..." came Nin's voice from their left, somewhere around where the windows were. The outside was lit by the shimmering snow and, sure enough, they could see the nature dorm across the path was still lit up.

"Nin, please tell me you know something that can light this place up!" Maria's voice was high pitched and breathy, as Mya was squeezing her very tight.

A small grunt escaped Nin's lips as a small bright blue drop of water materialized above her finger. It wasn't nearly enough to light up the room, though.

A knock sounded from towards the door and light shone from underneath it.

"We're evacuating the dorms and waiting outside! Are you able to summon something bright?" Shouted a voice from the other side.

"Working on it! Go on ahead!" Shouted Nin and the light faded. She scrambled around the room, looking for something.

"Found it!" Nin took a glass jar from the room and inside she poured some water, still holding her little bioluminescent drop above her finger. As soon as it was filled, she dropped the droplet inside and the water filled with the bioluminescent critters, covering the room in blue light.

"Right, now let's get out of here." She was panting slightly. The magic of summoning something alive must have drained her.

The three of them went through the dimly lit corridor, Mya's hand clasped tightly around Maria's arm. As they arrived on the foyer of the second floor, Maria's feet stepped into water. The hall was flooded, a small dribble running under the banister. Fish were flopping helplessly all over the floor. And the water elevator was completely empty. Maria could feel Mya's hand grip her tighter as they advanced towards the staircase. To her relief, Maria finally started to see other signs of life: other students were descending the stairs, their nervous voices coming both from above and from below, their lights covering the staircase in shades of blue and white. As they went down, Maria noticed something else strange: the usually active marble sea life on the banisters wasn't moving. It looked like all the magic inside the dorm had suddenly stopped working. That couldn’t be good.

As they got outside, Maria sighed with relief, her breath forming a puff of air. She now noticed that, other than the water dorm, the campus didn't seem affected.

There was quite the crowd forming outside the water dorm. Some of the students had forgotten to take their coats and were freezing in the snow, but very soon, some nature students came from the dorm and passed around some blankets and coats. The few students from the waters and natures outside who knew how to conjure fire (not a very popular pick for them, since fire and water or fire and nature didn't mix too well, making it much much harder to master), set up a few bonfires at which many students gathered to warm up. Soon enough, some fires came to help as well, chatting and making the tense atmosphere liven up. It was nice seeing all the different elements come together.

But the biggest crowd wasn't gathered around the bonfires. No, they were gathered around the big boulder that served as a rune stone for the water dorm, keeping all the wards and magic of the dorm functional. Usually, the runes on the boulder glowed a nice aqua, but right now, they were all a deep, ominous red. In front of the boulder was a sleek, moustached man, which Maria recognized to be the administrator of the water dorm. His hands and arms were covered in soft glowing, colorful magical strings, each coming from a set of runes. And entangling all of the threads, in a huge magical complicated knot, was a deep indigo thread. Beyond the knot, all the strings lost their color and glow, turning a dull off-white.

"This is sabotage..." he mumbled, his brow furrowed as he tried to figure out how to untangle the knot.

The students around him were whispering, worry and fear present on their faces, from what Maria could see in the dim light. Eventually, the administrator shooed them off, needing to concentrate.

There were also a few guards coming towards the dorm, looking around the place in the hopes of finding the perpetrator, asking students different questions and calming down some of the more scared first years. One of which was Mya.

She was still in shock, the poor thing hadn't spoken a word since they had gotten outside. Maria and Nin headed with her towards a nearby bonfire, from which they could hear the tail end of some wild adventure a fire was telling.

That's when a guard touched Maria's hand.

"I'm sorry, miss? Could I ask you a few questions?" He seemed oddly chipper for the worrisome situation they were in.

Nin looked at Maria, holding Mya by the shoulders. Maria gave her a thumbs up and a sign that she should head towards the bonfire.

Then she turned towards the guard.

"Of course. But I'm afraid I don't know too much about what happened."

"That's alright, miss. Where were you when the magic was blocked?"

"Inside my room, in the dorm, along with my roommates."

"Which room would that be?"

"Room 223, sir."

"What was the first thing you noticed when the magic was gone?"

"The fairy light in the room went out."

"Alright, then. Did you see anything else that could help us find out who did this?"

"No, I'm sorry. It was too dark to see."

"Very well then, miss." The guard looked behind Maria. A faint smile appeared on his face. He took her hand and shook vigorously. "Thank you for your assistance."

----

Nothing happened.

Shadow was so sure her plan would work. Sabotage the rune stone, get all the water students to come out, single out Maria and finally get her on her side.

But as soon as she shook Maria's hand, as she could feel her magic seep into Maria's body and drag her consciousness towards her, something else came out. With the speed of light, the glow which had been sitting snuggly inside Maria had jumped from Maria to her.

And for the first time in her short life, Shadow felt what it was like to be burned. She hissed in pain as the golden light enveloped her. Her guard let go of the poisoned touch and fell to the ground, screaming. Or was she the one screaming? She couldn't tell. She severed her connection to the guard, but the pain didn’t stop. It was overwhelming. She screamed in pain and fell to the ground, the scorching light making her unable to move. She wiped her face, the hot black liquid running down her face looking nothing like tears.

After a bit of time, the pain got dimmer, the burning light moving further away from her. The light had managed to enter inside her void and had been ripping through her velvet skin, slowly turning it into soft dust. She briefly glanced at the monstrous being behind her, before hissing in pain as black blots started to cover her vision.

---

Behind Shadow floated an eerie being, made of pure light. The being looked around, confused. Shadow's touch had woken her up, from a situation not unlike Shadow's. She used to be the little curious voice, so often covered by the clamoring of the hundreds of voices that Shadow was now made of. The little voice looked at the screaming, sobbing pile in front of her and felt something. Pity? She hadn't felt that before.

Very quickly, she realized why the black girl in front of her was screaming. She was hurting her with her light! She needed to help her, but moving closer would only hurt her more, so she slowly floated away. Slowly, the screams turned into sobs and the sobs turned into hiccups. Under the black skin, the little voice could see her spinal column emerging, a crisp white among the dark skin. Oh dear, just how badly had she hurt the girl?

"How can I... help you?" She whispered in the desolating void, hoping that the other girl would hear her.

And hear her she did. One clear, hatred filled word left Shadow's mouth: "Leave!"

It was more begging than an order, but the other now knew what she had to do to help.

The light slowly dimmed as the little voice left, leaving Shadow alone in the darkness. And now only one thought was in Shadow's mind. Forget trying to be whole again.

No, she needed revenge first.

-

Edit: Anatomy is slowly killing me. I literally can’t wait for Tuesday to just go to the exam and be rid of learning it (at the very least until October rolls around). It feels like it’s just too much to learn and the more information I try to stuff in my brain, the more it oozes out my ears. I hate this subject so much! If the stress won’t kill me, the examining teachers surely will.