The mass of new students wore hoods. Identical. Black for females, brown for males. It was tradition so they couldn't be judged before they were grouped up. Of course, they were anyway. Their body shape, height, the way they walked, socialized or didn't. They were teenagers. Not everyone here was a warrior trained not to ever underestimate an opponent. Actually, no one here should be that. They were still too young to officially join any army. The Tella twins weren't an exception to that, despite their mother's ranking.

That annoyed the living daylights out of the general.

"Who do you think will be in our group?" Danique asked her mirrored sister.

"Shush, Danique."

Right. General Tella has told them not to speak. If they were going to leave an impression, it had to be one of silence and power. Danique didn't know why. Shouldn't they care about the people that looked up to the family like they were some kind of gods? Zaria did secretly, but Danique doubted their mother gave half a damn.

And who's to say their silence left the wanted impression? 

Respect shouldn't come from fear.

A brown-hooded male strode to the twins hiding - no, they weren't hiding - observing the mass of bodies in front of them. He was just as tall as the twins, and he met Dani's shadowed stare with grey eyes. Such an unusual eye color. The calm seeming to radiate from anyone with that eye color had the opposite affect and unsettled her. 

Zaria stiffened imperceptibly to any other eye when he spoke, "You're not going to socialize? Any of us could be in your group."

"We do not-" Zaria grunted, slapping away the elbow in her stomach.

"We prefer not socialize with people we might not spend any more time around. Personal policy," the less stoic of the two said. 

A lie. 

That was their mother's excuse for them.

He quirked a brow, trying to see more under their hoods to see their faces, "Ok."

The grey-eyed male turned and walked away. Zaria elbowed Danique back, and Dani knew her sister was annoyed she didn't even flinch at the sensation of bone digging into muscle. 

"Nerve damage."

"Yeah. I know."

"Not my fault."

"You could have saved yourself."

"She wasn't in her right mind."

This was a familiar argument. It never got anywhere. Zaria and Danique were both far too stubborn for their own good. And Zaria respected Danique's wish not to speak about the experience. So they sat for years on the verge of the scarred twin winning, her sister (older only by a few minutes) still refusing to admit to defeat.

"Students!" a voice called from the front of the room, "We will now begin putting you into your groups that you will live, train, and fight with for the next five years. Maybe even longer if you go to the same station." The assembled crowd had silenced almost immediately, and were now giving the teacher their undivided attention. 

"When I call your name, followed by either north, south, east, or west, go to the side of the room facing that direction. That will be your group. You will stay in that group for the rest of your time at this school. Once I call the last name and give the order, take your hood off to reveal your face to your group."

She began calling names then, and was forced to point the direction to go for some of the first few students. Apparently, they couldn't tell direction; that didn't surprise the twins. It still disappointed them. 

In the end, there were eight people in the twin's group, three males and five females, seven in two of the others, and ten in the last. It wasn't the largest class in history, but also not the smallest.

"Now," the teacher on the stage in the corner of the room said, getting everyone's attention once again, "Take your hoods of. Get to know each other as well as you can before you're separated into your dorms."

The students did, creating voices of the fabric as hoods whipped, were gently pulled, and flipped back to reveal their faces, and as the baggy things were dropped to the ground. 

Eyes widened as the group took in the image the Tella twins cut.

Tan skin, showing obvious tribal lineage, sheets of raven black hair, the eyes, two different colors. That was all expected of the twins. They resembled their mother. The tattoos weren't. The black ink wove its way around their arms, their throats, and more that couldn't be seen on their back and legs. Everyone knew what tribe those tattoos belonged to.

"They weren't wiped out, then?"

They. Their father's tribe had no name, but it was known for the many lines of powerful magic weilders that originated from it.

"Their numbers are smaller now," Zaria confirmed, "But they are slowly beginning to thrive again."

No one asked about the scars. The only visible reminder of the fire that had almost killed Danique.

"Well..." someone started, "Names and powers?"

Shrugs and nods of agreement met the suggestion.

"Ok, my name is Alannah. I'm an illusionary and wind weaver," the tall girl continued, her red eyes never slowed in their scanning of the room.

"Hoku," one of the males went next, "Fire and metal." Taller than the twins, barely paler, dark brown hair just long enough to tie back in a tail, and powerful biceps. Yes, he looked like a living forge, if it had existed before then.

"Aurora. Empath, ice, and a unique ability to..." she paused, nose wrinkling, "search through thoughts and memories with a touch." The girl to the left of Aurora took a small step away, but Alannah to the right didn't. Aurora was the shortest in the group, and the palest. Her eyes were such a piercing blue Danique knew she would feel as if her soul were being searched with eye contact. Her white-blonde hair was a short style that looked like a hasty cut.

"Sora. Air, plants, animal empath," the girl that stepped away from Aurora said, the slightest hint of nerves in her voice.

"Callum," the tall, powerfully built male beside Danique said, "Unique ability to control weather and created miniature examples."

"Luca," the grey eyed boy from earlier said, his voice smooth and quiet, "Water, earth, healing." The healing would come in handy. His eyes, watching her, still unnerved Danique.

"I don't think the twins need an introduction. They're obviously the Tella twins. How do you tell which is which?"

"Danique has the scars and her right eye is white. My left eye is," Zaria said, nodding to Alannah.

"Ah," everyone else was asking about the scars with their eyes, but Alannah didn't seem to care. 

Zaria would watch that one.

Alannah turned to smile at her as soon as she thought that, and for the first time in her life, Zaria felt a chill of fear run down her spine.

She ignored it.

"Ok, now you will be sent to your dorms. They have been furnished for your group's needs. North group, follow Mr. Darner. West, you'll follow Mrs. Amir. South group will be with Mr. Wistle. I have East. My name is Mrs. Sword."

The groups were lead out of three different doors into blinding sunlight. 

The dorms weren't connected to this building. Actually, the layout was quite odd. They had been in a small building, the only ground level entry point to the school. The size was why there appeared to be more than barely 30 people in the room. There were four doors in that single-roomed structure and only one led to the inner wall where the school was nestled. The other three lead to the area inside the middle wall. The twenty dorm building sat on floating islands and had bridges to upper levels of the school. They put as many shadows on the training grounds and archery fields below.

The outside wall was there only for extra protection. They contained nothing.

And the dorms, as if being on floating islands didn't cut a striking enough figure, were built to look like sentry towers. They were sturdy, made of stone, and seemed to shimmer in the sunlight. The shimmering was a spell to keep anyone from falling off the islands in the case of an accident.

The group made their way to the edge of one of the shadows. Mrs. Sword pulled a small knife out of a sheath and pricked her thumb, then knelt down and put her finger now welling with blood to a rock. It glowed, and the ground around them shook, then began lifting into the air. Some of the students gasped at what must have been another spell and the suddenly floating mass of earth.

"To your dorms. You will explore them yourselves. Your luggage should have been brought by the griffins. It will be here soon if it isn't yet," Mrs. Sword asserted when they leveled with their island, "They will be left at the door nearest the bridges to the school."

With that, she shooed the students off the miniature floating island, and it lowered itself to the ground.

"Now I'm imagining having a griffin drop my luggage on my head," Hoku grimaced.

Aurora scoffed. She was the first to move towards the side door they were standing in front of. Everyone but Alannah was sure to give her a wide berth. Apparently no one wanted their thoughts and memories searched through. Alannah, still smiling, walked after Aurora and the rest trickled in behind.

They trekked to the front door, Hoku sighing in relief when he saw his luggage beside it, and brought their bags and boxes to their rooms. Danique had no idea why the others packed some of their things in boxes, but she and Zaria had weapons in theirs. Swords, daggers, throwing knives, and their spelled bows. Maybe the others had weapons as well. There were three rooms with beds. A set of two, and two sets of three. One of the rooms with three beds was for the guys and one was for the girls. The room with two beds would be where the remaining two girls slept.

They were assigned rooms. Sora and Danique in one. Zaria, Aurora, and Alannah in the other. And, of course, the males would be in one room. The rooms were simple; they had no decorations. The one Sora and Danique would stay in had two twin beds with a trunk at the foot of each. It was on the third floor. A door to the left lead to a closet, and the one to the right a bathroom. More spells gave water and removed waste. 

The floor below held the other two rooms. A set of bunks and a twin bed were in those two. The bunks had cabinets instead of chests at their foot. The second floor was slightly larger than the third so the two rooms were separated by a hallway with a window at each end. The doors to the closet and bathrooms were on opposite sides of the tower. The windows were stationed in between the beds on the third floor and at the foot of the beds on opposite sides of the room on the second. 

 Though the outside was built in a round shape, the inside of the bedrooms were not. The walls were thicker in places to give a rectangular shape. The first floor was where the kitchen and possibly a place to make battle plans were. Danique wasn't sure if they would have to do anything like that. Maybe for a mock battle or tactics class. Callum had grinned at the kitchen and Danique had wondered if he liked to cook. That would be a sight. The teen would have comical comparisons to the sizes of the cooking utensils.

He had to be almost six and a half feet tall.

The windows on the first floor were behind the wood stove and one on each side of each door. There was a wall that left two uneven sides of the first floor. The larger side contained the kitchen and table. The smaller side contained another table, clearly mimicking a gathering of commanders' workplace.

The eight had just finished exploring the layout then unpacking their few belongings and had gathered in the kitchen area, watching as Callum looked through the items in the cabinets, when a small bird-like creature flew through the glass in the window and spoke.

"You all are the quietest group yet," it said in the sweet voice of a little girl, "The Headmaster would requested you make an appearance in the mess hall for lunch. There he will go over the rules and your teacher will give you schedules. You are expected in thirty minutes." 

With that, it flew through the glass again, leaving before any questions could be asked.

"That's... unnerving," Sora muttered, "I couldn't get a read on it."

Sora. The animal empath. If it was created by a spell, that would make sense. For a moment, Danique wondered how powerful the headmaster was if he was the one that had created all these spells. And how smart. Spells were such complex things. Most people refused to use them because of how easily they could backfire and go horribly wrong. In this magnitude and plethora, not many in history would attempt it all.

As they went to their rooms to change out of their traveling clothes, the raven haired girl compiled all the knowledge she had of her headmaster, hoping she'd never have to put it to use.