chapter 1 .ೃ࿐
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Afrina Munni
"Devil's shit," Lis laughed. "You're still here." Ivy had been stuck cleaning the same shelves at the chemistry lab for the past few minutes. Both Afrina and Lis had moved on to other parts of the lab. Lis had decided that it would be funny to walk by Ivy and tease her over her speed.
Ivy rolled her eyes, "I wouldn't be slow if you would help me with these high shelves that I cannot reach," she replied while her hands gestured at the shelves dramatically.
"Nobody said you couldn't ask for help," Lis replied, walking around Ivy with his hands behind his back and laughing.
Ivy took in a huge breath before putting on her best smile, but it still showed signs of her annoyance towards Lis, "Kind soul right there, would you mind helping me?"
"Nope," he replied, grinning. Ivy had a look of pure regret after hearing his response and turned away from the boy, returning back to her job.
Afrina rolled her eyes at the two Argents having a small bickering session. The both of them were in the same school orchestra and had been bickering ever since. Ivy was relatively quiet and barely ever talked to anyone she didn't have a close relationship with. Lis, also known as Arian to his close friends, was quiet in class as well. Like Ivy, he can be quite loud with his friends. The two had an interesting friendship, mainly from the fact that their sections in the school orchestra were known to compete against each other. The violin section for Ivy and the keyboard section for Lis. The both of them hadn't known peace since meeting each other.
The three of them were punished for being late to school on their first day which meant that they had to clean the entire school since they were now the oldest in the school and 'had to be good role models'. Ivy was the slowest at cleaning which prompted Lis' teasing.
At Daewon, or every other school in Yeosya, it was the rule to have specific hairstyles for both boys and girls, one that would represent their ethnicity. However, during everyone's final year, nobody bothered to care, neither did the teachers. It had been a pattern that kept occurring with every graduating batch, they all rebelled and did whatever they liked, but if the younger ones tried, they would get sent to detention. So much for being good role models. There was no uniform in Daewon, there were students of different cultures and hence, nobody in Daewon wore a hanbok as uniform, they had a rather westernised uniform. However, in Maeun, a Mystic school in Yeosya that only allowed Yeosyan students, a hanbok was the uniform for all.
Lis had layered shoulder length black hair that was always halfway tied up. He was one of the tallest in their batch too, standing at 185 centimeters. After all, he was the captain of the basketball team and even played the drum, piano, guitar and he could even sing, rumour has it that Lis had a perfect pitch. Many girls viewed him as one of the most handsome guys around but Afrina did not share their opinion, mainly because her type weren't overly tall boys. Afrina has no interest in dating trees. She preferred people around the height of 165 to 180.
Ivy on the other hand, was the princess of Yeosya and her sister, Lee Rina, was going to be the Empress despite being a woman. Ivy had straight, waist long black hair and bangs that were touching her cheeks, she hadn't cut them in weeks. Ivy was one of the shortest girls, standing at 154 centimeters. Nobody would believe that Ivy was related to Lee Rina because her older sister was 175 centimeters tall and they looked different too, Ivy looked more like their mother while Rina looked more like their father. It was clear that Ivy didn't get the height gene and she was always complaining about it. Ivy was the leader for the school orchestra and she leads the strings section, specifically the violin. Lis was basically under her command in the school orchestra. Quite a number of boys tried to get with Ivy but even getting a word out of her was close to impossible as she mostly sticks to herself and her friends, which included Afrina herself. Ivy could not interact with strangers to save her life. Outside of school, she did not have a friendship with Lis and thus never saw him as a friend. Ivy never viewed anyone she did not talk to outside of school as a friend, thus bringing the amount of friends she had to single digits.
Lis on the other hand, was quite easy to talk to despite being quiet and shy. He had a few girlfriends here and there while Ivy only dated two boys and one girl. Ivy's first relationship had ended because she wasn't in the right headspace and treated him horribly when all he did was to give it his all. She ended it. She did realise her mistakes and finally apologised a year later and the two hadn't talked since, even though she was close friends with his sister. Her other two relationships went rather well, a few troubles but well, though she still ended it.
Afrina however, never dated anyone, she didn't even have her first kiss. She was South Aserian after all, not many people pay attention to her ethnicity. Besides, the Academy of Magics, Daewon, was in Yeosya, so people naturally were going to pay more attention to the Yeosyan people instead. Afrina did look at boys in her class and found some of them attractive but it never led anywhere, she never tried talking to them. She always looked at herself in the mirror and examined her pretty features. Like her nose, it was pretty distinctive, it had a high and narrow nose bridge which Afrina herself was in love with. It looked pretty to her but apparently not for others. Others preferred small noses. She was too dark for others apparently, but she didn't care however. Why should she let other's unwanted, mindless opinions affect her? She was still Afrina, the one and only Afrina Munni around.
"Afrina! Help me!" Ivy called out as she was having some troubles reaching a high surface. Afrina gave it a look, it looked to be around 170 centimeters tall and she was about 173 centimeters so it would be a piece of cake for her to reach it. "Coming!" Afrina replied as she made her way towards Ivy and cleaned the top surface of a cardboard used to keep some of the chemistry projects by former students.
"Short," laughed Afrina. "You should try and grow taller, at least by a little." Laughing at Ivy's height had been something that was going on for years in their friendship. Though Afrina liked how short Ivy was, it was as short-tempered as her. It suited her innocent looking face as well, even though her eyes sometimes looked like they had nothing but murder behind them. Her height was cute on her but Afrina would never tell Ivy that, for fear that she might be on the sharp ends of one of Ivy's crafted blades.
"I am almost 18, I don't think there's a chance for me to grow," Ivy replied.
"Aren't you a Terrane? Can't you just water yourself?" Lis asked with a teasing grin smeared onto his face.
Afrina laughed while Ivy had an annoyed expression that looked funny to Afrina, resulting in her laughter exploding into new heights. She always found it amusing how Ivy and Lis would often bicker like they were an old couple, ever since they met in the school band. She had made a bet with Ashvina, a girl who was tall, around 180 centimeters, pretty, had extremely long and straight hair, and a small nose from her mother, who's Cainese and had ears that were always covered with her hair, that Ivy and Lis could be a couple. Ivy caught wind of it and almost used her Terrane powers to summon vines to tie the both of them up until they called the bet off. The bet was still on, Afrina blackmailed Ivy out of her plan. Ashvina was arguably the only normal one out of the three of them, but how normal does one get while being friends with two insanely abnormal people?
"You three! Stop talking!" Headmistress, Madam Ha Suji, an Avian and Glazer. "Especially you princess." She had walked by and heard chatter coming from the lab. She hated everything related to happiness, not once had she left laughing students alone.
Madam Ha has been quite hard on Ivy because of her royal status and often spoke ill about the royal family. Afrina used to think that Madam Ha just doesn't like the royal family until she heard rumours saying that apparently, Ivy's father had rejected Madam Ha during their school days and that ruined her dreams of ever becoming a Queen. It was a rumour confirmed by Ivy herself, she never liked that woman and always called her all sorts of names in the book, often in every language she knew.
"Sure Madam," Lis replied as Ivy rolled her eyes, everyone knew that Ivy hated Madam Ha. She just so happens to teach Mathematics, Ivy's worst and least favourite subject too. Madam Ha Suji was also Ivy's worst nightmare, there was a pattern.
"She can suck a dick and shove a metal rod up her ass for all I care!" Ivy cursed.
"I didn't know you're into that kind of stuff," Lis replied, clearly joking. He seemed satisfied too, Ivy on the other hand...
Afrina chuckled as Ivy blinked twice while processing what Lis had just said. Lis looked satisfied with what he had just said and continued cleaning up the tables as usual, like he didn't say anything. Lis and Ivy didn't say a single thing to each other after that as they cleaned up the school and got out of school as quickly as they possibly could. Ivy had a personal carriage and she made her driver drive Afrina home which Afrina happily accepted. Who wouldn't want a free ride? Lis simply stayed over at his dormitory for the weekends. Every student at Daewon had the opportunity to return to their family during the weekend of the first week of school but Lis had chosen not to.
Afrina stayed close by so it didn't take long for Ivy's driver to arrive at her doorstep. "You're still coming tomorrow right?" Ivy asked, they had planned a sleepover at Ivy's with Ashvina. They planned to have a sleepover before heading back to their dorms in school. The trio often spent their time at Ivy's home when possible, it was like Afrina's other home, she could be blindfolded and still able to find her way around. It wasn't every day that one gets to be friends with a princess and gets invited to a palace on every day that was available.
"Of course it's still on! Do you not like me and don't want me there or something?" Afrina replied in an accusing tone and a facial expression which looked like she had been wronged horribly.
"So it's a yes. Good night and good bye!" Ivy replied as her driver started the car and drove the princess home.
Afrina went back home and showered, feeling the lukewarm water flowing down against her skin and avoiding the mirror in order to not see how flat her wavy hair had become against the water flowing down, covering her body. It didn't take long for her to finish showering and put on her pajamas once she wiped herself dry. She threw her royal blue school uniform with golden outline, and the logo of the school, which were fairies, both light and dark, representing the Luminas and Dusks, holding a silver shield with bronze outline and divided into six parts to represent the different Mystics powers available, the shield itself represented the Argents, Afrina also threw the school skirt of the same colouring without the logo, into the basin full of other dirty clothes, her mother was in charge of washing the clothes. The school uniform was pretty and the skirt was up to their knees. It was pretty uniform. It was one that Afrina loved with all of her being.
Afrina had decided that she was bored after her warm shower and used her Flarion powers to summon her mystical bird. For centuries, Mystics have been able to communicate with each other by making these kinds of birds and sending them to each other. They would have to know each other's location in order to send their mystical bird to each other. Communication goes both ways it seems.
Afrina had planned to send a message to one of her friends until she heard her mother's footsteps heading towards her room. It could only mean one thing. Food. Dinner. Afrina was hungry too.
"How was school?" Afrina's mother knocked on her room and asked. She had the most motherly smile a mother could have. The best mother anyone could ever ask for.
"I was late," Afrina explained. "The headmistress made me clean the school."
Her mother laughed, "No wonder you arrived home so late. Try to leave the house earlier next time. Also, you missed dinner and I saved some for you." Her mother handed over a plate of Biryani, Afrina's favourite. Afrina was right, her mother indeed brought dinner. Her mother carefully placed them on Afrina's table before leaving her room and telling Afrina to not let it get cold. Afrina would eat it with her right hand as that was how people in her country ate but she decided to use a spoon instead as she was planning to rush some homework that she hadn't finished from the holidays and she did not want any stains on her work. Among her trio of Ivy, Ashvina and Afrina herself, she was the more hard-working one, with Ashvina being the most hard-working and Ivy was the laziest and the most forgetful one. She used to try hard in school but she just couldn't cope so she gave up, her talents were in music so she simply focused on that instead. Ashvina was rather average in her grades but she was a rather good singer as she was in the school choir. Afrina loved volleyball and biology and those were the things that she excelled in. Afrina herself used to be in the choir and was one of the best before she left for volleyball. She still had a passion for all things music related however.
She knew that both Ivy and Ashvina hadn't done half of their work and lessons officially start next week, they already know all of their new subject teachers, which had both the teachers they wanted and the ones they dreaded. They were going to find out their new sitting arrangement too, Ivy was afraid that she would get some idiot as a seat mate, Ashvina didn't care about who she would get as long as it was someone she could tolerate, Afrina just wished she wouldn't get anyone that was too loud or annoying for her liking. It would be best if she managed to get all of her friends in the same row as her.
"Hello witch!" Screeched Afsari, Afrina's 17 years old sister, she loved addressing her older sister as a witch due to her having magical abilities. Afsari Munni had the same face shape as Afrina, a square-like face shape that they got from their father. Both of them also had big brown eyes that seemed adorable on them, many had said that their eyes sparkled with an unbelievable amount of joy. The difference in their appearance were their nose and mouth, Afsari had a small, narrow nose while Afrina didn't. Afsari had heart shaped lips while Afrina had bow-shaped lips.
Afsari ran into Afrina's room and laid down on her bed, limbs stretched like she was the owner of the room. "How was school? Did you learn any new witchcraft?"
Afrina laughed, "no, not yet."
"School is stressing me out," Afsari whined. Afrina was the only Mystic in the family and the school system for the Mystics was different compared to Nogictians.
For Nogictians, they can choose to go to kindergarten between the age of 4 to 6. Once they hit 7, they would enter elementary school until the age of 15. They had to take an exam to see if they would graduate to get into high school. Once they graduate from high school at age 18, another test appears to see if college or university admission would be possible for their higher education and they would have to choose a course to take. After all of that, graduation would be possible and everyone would enter the hectic working life that was so heavily dreaded by all of the students.
For Mystics, it was pretty much the same until the age of 9. The test to see if you're a Mystic starts in the middle November of the year when children turned 9. Once they were positive to be one, it would be compulsory for all Mystics to be sent into a school specialised for Mystics. All of the schools excluding higher education would be combined into one magic school, so there would be no need to change schools but they would still need to take the test to see if they were able to move up and graduate into high school. All Mystics would graduate from a magic school and go to university with Nogictians. There were different buildings for elementary and high school students. Magic would be useless in the working world with the exception of certain jobs. All people, Mystics or Nogictians, would be treated equally in the school they chose to have their higher education in, magic would be useless in higher education as there would be no Mystic classes.
"Have you decided on which course you want for college or university?" Afrina asked. Afsari shook her head, "I have no idea, technology is what I want but I don't think I am smart enough for that." Afsari was the type to plan ahead, hating to leave out any possible loopholes and having little time to solve them. She hated it when things go wrong and having to rush to solve it, it stressed her out to no end and she hated that kind of feeling. In those situations, a rushed solution only led to more problems.
"You know that our brother has an engineer friend right? Maybe you could call him for help," said Afrina, referring to their elder brother, Arzo Munni's Filiocan friend, Alvino Sawyer Rillo Vega. He, too, was just a normal human being.
"Yeah maybe I could," Afsari replied. "I need to do some last minute work, my new teachers just gave my class some extra work too, before even starting on any topics."
"What? Who gives work on the first day of school?!" Afrina replied, she was utterly surprised. What sort of psychopathic person does that?
"Exactly!" Afsari replied. "I need to finish it before she comes after me."
"Alright shoo!" Afrina laughed as her little sister left her room. Afsari attended Raven Hill High, a school that their elder brother, Arzo attended. It was a school in Eupara, their mother had sent them there as it was known to be a prestigious school, like Daewon. She worked day and night to make ends meet and tried her best to give Afrina and her siblings the best she could. Arzo managed to get a job as a chef in a restaurant back in Basharana so he moved back in with their maternal grandparents. Afrina and Afsari knew how well their brother could cook and knew that being a chef was the perfect career path for him. Their mother agreed too. Arzo only wished their father lived long enough to see him being successful.
Afsari had to wake up early the very next day so that she would be able to make it to the domestic dragons before a queue was there. She was never late to school either. Her dorm was on the lowest floor and closest to the exit, ensuring that she could take as much time as she needed.
Basharana doesn't have the greatest environment so their father had made the decision to move the Munni family to Yeosya after Afrina had turned out to be a Mystic. It proved to be an improvement. It took a while but eventually, the family were able to settle in the environment. Though Afrina did feel homesick from time to time.
Afrina used her mystical bird to send a message to Ivy to see if she had finished any of the homework. She wasn't surprised when Ivy responded that she hadn't even touched the math one. Ivy couldn't do math no matter what, numbers were fine but when letters were introduced, Ivy started failing.
Afrina could remember Ivy going ballistic over it. Ranting on how stupid adding letters was, Afrina agreed with Ivy. But Afrina and Ashvina were able to handle algebra, unlike Ivy. Ivy couldn't handle any math formulas. She could barely remember important dates like any of her friends' birthdays.
Whenever there was a math test, everyone knew for sure Ivy was failing it. Afrina would always borderline pass while Ashvina gets a high B which was 65% to 69%. Ivy was never the lowest in class for math though, she wasn't that dumb, but dumb enough to think that X × X was 2X instead of X². Needless to say, Afrina, Ashvina and Rina had a good laugh from that. They never let Ivy forget how bad she was at math.
Lee Rina was also one of the most amazing people that Afrina has ever met. She has the cold demeanour of an evil sorceress and her eyes could be one of the angriest and scariest a person could ever see. Rina knows how to make people afraid of her and yet at the same time, she is one of the softest and sweetest people around. However, it's a whole new story if she doesn't like a person at all. Her insults were brutal. She also wasn't one for heavy affection, a little would be nice but she hated public affection to her core, like Ivy. Rina holds high standards in the men she viewed as ideal type and Afrina didn't blame her, she has the looks of an angel, she had big brown eyes and charcoal black wavy hair, her skin appeared smooth, she had round wide eyes and her pupils were of an extreme brown. She had a few small moles on her face, one beside her left eye and another one on her right cheek below her right eye, even so, she still looked graceful and delicate. Lee Rina was the dream of every straight man in Yeosya but her dream man wasn't amongst them, she wanted someone to be as attractive as her, if not, slightly less attractive. She didn't want to be seen with an atrocious looking person, let alone kiss one. If men were allowed to hold women to an unrealistic standard and expect them to look good every second of their lives, so should women. Lee Rina embodied that. She hated losing to men.
Afrina could see why she was the dream woman. If she was a straight man, she'd go after Lee Rina too, who wouldn't? Even her own brother, Arzo Munni, admitted that Rina was one of the most beautiful girls that he has ever seen. Her beauty was known world wide and had awarded her the nickname of ice cold princess, though it was mainly due to her personality.
As the hours ticked by, Afrina's uncompleted homework slowly reduced until she was left with her Aqualis homework. She had to write down famous and most notable Aqualis and what they did and also special facts about Aqualis. She scratched her head for those, it was a rather basic homework but she couldn't remember any of the basics. She does know that Aqualis are able to generate air bubbles when they are under water, Non-Aqualis just needs to hold on to an Aqualis' hand in order for the air bubble to expand and swallow them in.
Afrina very much preferred her Flarion homework if there were any. Her Flarion teacher, Mr Lin Junhan (林俊函), was rather lenient with the class but he always made sure the class learned something. He always taught the class some Flarion tricks that he learned himself to the class. He was quite funny too. Definitely one of Afrina's favourite teachers. Mr Lin didn't even bother giving any homework for the Flarions to do during the holidays, Afrina thought that he knew deep down that barely anyone would do it. He wasn't wrong of course, Afrina would do it during the last few days of holiday but she knew a large chunk of her classmates wouldn't, in fact, they would burn it, making ample use of their Flarion powers. She wondered if Mr Lin would be proud of them for it, he seemed like the type to be, since he loved not marking students' work and seeing them fail as a result of not paying attention in his lessons.
It took at least an hour for Afrina to finish all her work and by then, it was already midnight and she was beyond tired but she still had to pack her items into her luggage to put inside her dormitory. It was going to be a busy night wasn't it?
She already placed half of her things inside her new dorm. It's on the sixth level, the first two levels were reserved for the younger children, ranging from age 10 to 15, those two levels had a total of 400 rooms, holding 800 people. Children aged 13 and onwards would get the chance to stay in the dorms for the rest of their years in school while children aged 10 to 12 could only stay in the dorms for two days before returning to their family, unless they wanted to stay for longer. Level three to level seven had 150 rooms each. Every year, she shared it with her roommate, a Gumi-ho, named Han Yuri. She often changed into her nine-tails fox form to scare Afrina. A Gumi-ho has their own kind of magical powers, like seducing their human prey with their voices, superspeed, and night vision. Han Yuri was getting transferred into another school in Eupara so Afrina is getting a new roommate and she had no idea who she was. She knew she was gonna miss Han Yuri, she was a fun roommate, full of chaos too. She was already missing their friendship, how Yuri was so stupidly funny and an absolute joy to be around.
Yuri told her that her family was moving to a country in Eupara but never specified which and why. Afrina didn't pry into the matter either, if Yuri didn't want to say, she wouldn't ask.
Afrina had one fear about her new roommate though. What if they don't get along? Spending a year in the same dorm with somebody that she wouldn't get along with sounded like a nightmare and Afrina hated that. She wanted to spend her last year in Daewon happily, not miserably. She thought about the chaos she had with Yuri since they were 10 and Ashvina and Ivy's antics. It always brought a smile to her face. Maybe her new roommate would be as fun as her friends. She wondered if her new roommate would be able to present her with a whole new experience that she never had with her friends.
She hastily packed up her remaining items that she needed for school and summoned her mystical bird, hoping that it would remind herself to wake up early and meet up with Ashvina before heading towards the palace where Ivy and her family resided.
Being friends with a princess brought along many perks, being able to visit a palace as and when they pleased was one of them. Afrina would never get tired of how beautiful the palace looks, it's honestly so mesmerising. There were many times that she had gotten lost while walking about, she wondered how Ivy lived there as a child. Her sense of direction was horrible and she could not read maps to save her life.
But it definitely brought along some terrible things as well. It made sure that Afrina was no longer unknown. One of the many tabloids in Yeosya, ran by grown adult males, were definitely judgemental and ruthless when it came to certain topics. The people running it embodied every single thing a man could have that would ensure them being alone for the rest of their pathetic life. They would pick one flaw and write thousands of words on it. They once wrote about Ivy's acne and stuttering everyday for a month. They had once called Ashvina a half-breed too, due to her being mixed. They even found out about Afrina's family and wrote about it as well, in a horrible manner. They will get whatever information they could and have a field day with it. They even attacked Rina for being tall, not that she was bothered by them. Rina has no flaws, she was honestly just that pretty. A goddess in the eyes of many.
Before deciding to go to bed, Afrina decided to send Ashvina a message through her mystical bird. Afrina loved her mystical bird, it looked pretty and took the form of her favourite bird as well, an oriental magpie-robin, also known as copsychus saularis. It looked like it was made out of fire, technically, it actually was. After deciding the message mentally in her mind, she sent it over to Ashvina, hoping that she would receive it and respond in time, though knowing Ashvina, she probably would.
One of the good things about being a Mystic is that they do not have to scream out spells or messages like witches and wizards. All they had to do was to speak it in their mind and they would be good to go, it applies to the mystical birds too. Afrina and her friends always talked about how embarrassing it would be to scream out spells while fighting with someone. All of them had agreed that they would rather lose a battle and die rather than screaming spells. Hands were also important to Mystics as that was how able-bodied Mystics were able to use their magic, they needed their minds and hands. However, spells came in for those without hands.
Afrina arranged her bags for the next day and double checked them, making sure that she didn't miss out anything before ensuring that her candle light was stable and drifted off to sleep on her bed. She had to sleep with a light source ensuring that she could see well, or else she would get the worst kind of nightmares one would wish upon their enemies. She feared what lingered in the dark.
She couldn't wait to step into the palace once more. She couldn't remember when was the last time she did so, it felt like such a long time ago.
The beautiful walls of the palace, the pillars, the doors, she loved every bit of it. Whoever designed the palace had amazing and immaculate taste, that was a fact. The Jinjoo Palace was just perfection.
Afrina closed her eyes, drifting off into a peaceful sleep as she thought about many things, among those were her final year in Daewon. After years, she was finally graduating. It felt unreal. She was saying goodbye to a place that held some of her favourite memories with some of her favourite people, how could she just say goodbye?