Flipping the cover of the last book shut, running a finger down the spine in satisfaction, the magic mirror held this book in his hand a moment and really took a moment to feel the weight of it. A new book, the students would find this one both fascinating and entertaining. Turning to lightly push some magic into the polished surface of the table, Orin peered into the opened space before bringing the book through the opened space and carefully setting it onto the right shelf. As Li returned from the study room with the book in hand, more students came over from the entrance…

Letting the mirror space close up on it's own, and listening patiently to the trio’s complaint, Orin nodded every other beat, though he already knew what they had come back to the library about. Waiting for the last words spoken, before he himself spoke, “You three are looking exceptionally tricky today…though ‘fricken’ was not in my phrase at the time, yes, I did say that the book was special. Without having read and understood the theory, a strong curse cannot be made to last, and a new curse cannot be developed. It also takes a special kind of person to finish this all in two sitting, have you done just that?”

Genie flickers out of existence, like a candle going out. A small lamp drops in his place.

Mulan opens the door, "hello?" She scans the room and sees Juliette by herself. "Oh, I apologize for intruding. I think this was Kiara and Kovu's room at some point. I was hoping I could speak to Kiara..."

She looks around for a moment. "Are you new to the school? I notice you're unpacking your bags.

XXX

Shenzi bites her lip. "We skimmed through it. Looked for the spells. Didn't find any."

"Useless." Her friend Banzai added.

"Yeah, what he said." Ed reiterated.

Li shook his head. "Ugh," he muttered.

Shenzi shoots a glare at the boy, "you got something to say, b-otch?"

A part of Li wanted tell her off. You can't use magic and be stupid at the same time. It's something that needs to be learned and understood. He chose to keep his mouth shut. "Nope." Li answered, almost sarcastically.

Shenzi's gang turns their attention back at Ozin.

"Listen up geezer. I'm looking for spell books. I need the words to do them, and the ingredients to cast them. I don't give a damn about that equivalent exchange bull crap. I just need to impress my teachers so that I can pass my class."

Li facepalms himself, Shenzi's friends didn't seem to notice.

Blinking slowly after a moment, the golden mirror’s eyes went over to Li, as if to ask the student if he was hearing the same thing he was. Breath out through his nose, though he hadn’t moved from behind the desk, “Impress your teacher? As I think about it, yes, I foresee a curse working to impress your teacher. Using a curse spell in class, which are currently listed under restricted, that is an impressive display of audacity…or stupidity.”

Nodding to himself, the man reached over to the unpolished surface, picking up the chains off table. They rattled in his hands as he turned his full attention to Li, holding his other hand out expectantly, “How was ‘Sniffers’? Unpleasant and drawn out, I assume?”

"My name is Mulan." She gives a respectful bow to her. "I am also vice president of the disciplinary committee. Its my job report rule breakers in the school."

Mulan looks around the room. "Kiara, Kovu's girlfriend, used to live here. She went missing a few days ago. We're not sure whether she's simply skipping class or..."

She doesn't finish the sentence. Instead she scans Juliette suspiciously. "May I ask a few questions about you?"

XXX

"Well... The book felt like a bad piece of fiction. I skimmed across the pages, looked for the names of places. I found two, but the paragraphs surrounding that explicate explained that sniffers left those cities. Like an exodus. If the story is true, sniffers shouldn't be extinct. There's just no way to find them..."

The introduction pages explained the nature of them. Sniffers don't use magic, its some sort of genetic defect that makes them part animal. Nothing separates sniffers from any other magic user. They can blend in among any group of mages and remain undetected with their astonishing ability.

The school bell rings. Class is about to start.

"Screw this." Shenzi announces, "if magicka screws me over for this, I'll make you pay." She storms off, the other two boys follow her, hissing and laughing.

Mulun points to the ceiling. "Bell just rang, time for class." Maybe she seemed a bit hostile to Juliette, but she was getting pretty desperate for a lead. "Long story short, Kovu went missing. He might've been murdered, kidnapped or worst. I'm questioning everyone, not just you, on what might've happened."

Mulun heads out the door. "We can talk another time. Also, if you see a guy called Tarzan around, tell him the disciplinary committee needs to talk to him."

As soon as she left the door, genie pops out from the lamp. "Well, she was certainly interesting..." He looks up at Juliette, "you better get to class soon. Being late with the wrong teacher is not something you want from this school."

Shenzi, Benzai, and Ed walk into Magicka's classroom. "Shit, I can't believe we're early!"

Across the other side of the classroom, Elsa sat quietly in the corner desk. She looked different then she did a few weeks ago.



"Oiy, since when the hell did you start Curse magic?" There was a tang of venom in Shenzi's voice. Elsa had always been a star student in the school. She gave off a vibe that seemed like she was above the use of curse and dark magics.

Elsa rolled her eyes. "If you must know, I'm only here to meet with Magicka. I have a few questions I need for her to answer." She turns her out the window, trying to ignore the other students.

"What happened to your hair?" Benzai asked, "because black looks fucked up on you."

With a wave of her hand, she engulfs Benzai's entire body in black ice. Ed threw his head back laughing. Shenzi wasn't impressed, "what the hell? That kind of shit can get you expelled!"

"I've done worst." Elsa cut in. "He'll thaw out once class is over. Now if you don't mind, I'd like to wait for Magicka in silence."

XXX

Mulan shivered. She could quickly tell that Magicka was one of the... Strict teachers. "Ma...Ma'm." Mulan gives a quick bow of respect. "I meant no harm in the bumping into you. I apologize for my behavior." She kept her eyes on the ground, worried that Magicka might take eye contact as a sign of disobedience. "I am..."

"She's part of the disciplinary committee." Li comes in from around the corner. "We're hall monitors, just trying to make sure everyone makes it to class on time safely." He bows to Magicka, gently and confidently. "I'm sorry if we caused you any harm."

Elsa un-thaws the dimwitted student. He fell back gasping for breath. "Insult me again, and I'll leave you in that ice forever."

Benzai, heavily breathing, returns to his desk with help Shenzei. Shenzei shoots a glare at Elsa. "You'll pay for this," She murmured.

Elsa rolls her eyes. After picking up her Grimore, she couldn't help but feel insulted by the form in which it took. Reaching for it, the book had white snowflakes decorated around it. As though ready to be adopted with Elsa's ice compatibility. Upon touching it, the snow flakes turned black, some with dark smiles on them as though laughing at it's new owner. "Damn curse," Elsa thought to herself.

By the time the students collected their Grimor's and returned to their desks, Dean Hades entered the classroom. "A-hem" he said, somewhat rudely. "I'm looking for a Magicka deSpell, somewhere in this wing." After looking over the students, he turned his eyes to the teacher. "Ah! There you are, just as lovely as they said you would."

"The name's Hades, at your service." He takes her hand and pecks a kiss to introduce himself,"the principal asked me to observe your class today. She's interested in knowing what your teaching methods are." He points to the door, "may we speak outside in private? It'll only take a moment."

The magic mirror wrapped the chain around the book, nodding at Li’s succinct summation of the book as he reached to pull a desk drawer open, before carefully sticking the book in. Some things were better left relatively untouched. Briefly, Orin wondered if the evil queen may have known of a sniffer or two, kept them recorded in some leather bound notebook somewhere. Possible, but it had been too long.

Giving the dutiful student a curt nod, “Come again, with as many members of the disciplinary committee, the nice strict rule keeping sort…so long as you have the bring the right permits for the right books.” With that, there was a polite wave, before a hand was reached over to check his cloth and tin of polish, gaze just flickering up to the other students leaving.

There was a vague note kept in the back of his mind, that they had taken the book with them…he hadn’t lied, the mirror couldn’t. If understanding of theory had been raised to even a near prodigious level…words, symbols, reagents…they were not entirely necessary anymore. Tapping the reflection twice with the barest hint of magic, and leaning on an arm, he paused to consider who in the past...peering down at the blurry reflection upon the desk,

"Mirror mirror, may I see...?"

The reflection started to become much less distorted, but the person on the other side...they just about caught sight of him before he quickly raked his nails over it, the image distorted before disappearing altogether, and all that was left as the scratched surface of this wooden desk. Bringing a hand up, examining it close to his eyes, some of the brownish wax had gotten under his nails. Reaching over to the polishing cloth, he got to work cleaning it up, and then...to polishing the scratches out.

"Alright, let me just level with you." Hades takes a piece of paper from his pocket. "The vice principal had this little speech ready for me to give to you. Call it an initiation, or whatever. The details are... ugh." He burns the paper from his finger tips. "I don't need it, and to be honest, neither do you."

Hades rubs his chin for a minute, contemplating how to put into words the request he has. "Long story short, I need you to kill that Elsa girl. Technically, she's already dead. Dying. Diseased? A ticking time bomb waiting to happen? That black hair she has is proof of that." He points to his own head, and changes his hair flame color black just to make a point. The flame turns back to blue after the black flame forms out a quick skeleton shape. "The principal wants to see where... Your standing is. She wants to know if you have what it takes to go through with the hard decisions...."

He rolls his eyes. "Ugh, that's just the mumbo jumbo story they want you to believe. I didn't expect you to buy it, you seem like a smart lady!" He points a finger and flashes a wink at her. "Truth is, she's not diseased, she's just a loose end. The school doesn't like being humiliated like it did a few weeks ago. I presume you've heard about. She's a reminder of that. A person that was there in the thick of things when the staff failed. And we don't like failures, and we REALLY don't like being reminded of those failures..."

He nods his head, "do you see where I'm going with this? Elsa needs to die. So that the school doesn't lose its reputation any further, and as a bonus, the other kids will get to learn not to get too comfortable around dangerous situations." He hands Magicka a black vile. "When you start teaching them about curses... Drop of drop this on her desk. Tell the students to practice their own curse glyphs on their desks. Elsa's desk will go...." He chuckles for a bit. "You don't need to know."

He points back to the classroom door. "Now, I'm supposed to observe to make sure you go through with this. Make sure things go off without a hitch. But there is another alternative to this, to killing Elsa that is. A guy I know, let's just call him... Pitch. He thinks he can experiment on the girl. He thinks that if he cuts her apart, he can extract something useful from her. So if you think that's better on your conscious, drop this on her desk instead." He hands her a blue vile. "It'll, ironically, freeze her instead, but make her look dead. I can report her dead to the staff, and Pitch and I get a new guinea pig! Win-win. Of course, that's up to you. And if you do choose to kill her, forget I said anything..."

Alice walked between the library shelves. Needs to calm down, need to get away. She walks\ed eloquently and gracefully through the library. In her mind she imagined that the bookshelves were mazes, leading her into a directional path towards paradise. Loser, only losers go to the library. Alice shook her head. Shut up Micheal! She picked out a book labeled, Hypnotic Love.

"Walk off a ledge and die." One of her voices told her. But Alice knew better by now, she'd lived with this her whole life. She knew better than to take them for truth. You should either whore yourself or kill yourself. She continued reading the book description. "Or both!" A new voice said.

She opened the book. Isolation was an unusual thing to her. Sometimes she liked being in crowds of people, the voices in her head mixed well with the voices of people around her. Whenever she was alone the voices shouted the loudest to her. Or was that just a psychological factor? In silence, even the smallest voices sound loudest.

Was that her own though or the voices? It didn't matter at this point. She had to learn to live with it. There were several times in her life where her voices had saved her, but living with them was certainly a nightmare. She'll often doze off in class and debate with them excitingly in silence. Her teachers think she's special. Maybe she is. It didn't matter to her at this point.

Nothing really mattered to her anymore. She's distanced herself from her friends and family. None of it mattered to her. Isolation is something she learned to cope with. She's an introvert by circumstance. Most people think she's shy, in reality she's lonely. Living with schizophrenia her whole life has made her compatible to only loneliness. Loneliness isn't the worst thing a person has to live through. Was that her own thought or one of the voices? It still didn't matter. She'd given up differentiating herself from the voices a long time ago. She's learned to ignore them all.

She sat down on the library floor, and began reading. She likes to imagine the characters in her books as having funny accents.

"Evening young lady!" Gaston approaches Juliette from the other side of the hall. He puts has arm over Juliette's shoulder, "and in what ways may I assist such a lovely women on this fine evening?"

(Gaston is the assistant coach, he's 20)