Fun with words

My writing buddy and Toughest Critiquer Ever (TM), Rabia Gale, and I were having a serious discussion about serious topics the other day. We talked about the difference in the legal drinking age in Aus and the US, and the impacts of problem drinking. This led to a dissection of the social pressures behind things like binge-drinking, and the role alcohol plays in our culture. When we started ranting about the way groups use excess alcohol consumption as a bonding ritual, and ‘hazing’-type rituals in particular, the topic quickly became, “what would a hazing ritual look like at a magic school?”

While we couldn’t keep up that serious discussion for more than, oh about 15mins (aren’t you glad) we did decide that it would be fun to write a ‘magic school hazing ritual’ each, and see what we came up with.

So, in the interest of turning all serious discussions into stories involving magic, mine is below. Rabia’s can be found here. We hope you enjoy this as much as we did!

Jason had the kind of grin that could put a shark to shame. Too wide, too many teeth and right below two tiny, dark eyes. “It’s all about… getting to know you. The real you.”

Jade couldn’t quite bring herself to believe him. Something about those teeth? Or maybe it was Kate getting too cozy with a unicorn in the corner behind him, and the way his mate Dave had magicked popcorn out of thin air and was stuffing his face while he watched.

“Your friend seems to be enjoying herself. I’m sure you will too.”

She looked down at the light cradled between her palms. It was strangely heavy, for something built of waves instead if particles… or was it both? Jade was never particularly good at physics, or anything real-worldly for that matter. It was just a whole new set of rules to live by, except they were a lot easier to break.

“Maybe it’s not such a good idea,” she said. Should she intervene with Kate? She didn’t really know the girl well, but it seemed like the right thing to do. “Maybe you won’t like the real me?” And maybe she wouldn’t like it either, the next morning.

“Hey, it’s up to you, hon.” Jason leaned back and lifted his hands, palms facing her. Tiny flickers of light were lodged in his lifeline — a sure sign of addiction. “Scholarship girl, too good for these games, am I right?”

Jade swallowed hard. Everyone else in the room was bright and high, but the newbies seemed to be taking it the hardest. Like Kate. Death chased one guy round a couch while seniors with glowing palms took bets on who would win. Another girl had sprouted butterfly wings and was batting her head against a lamp.

Despite the entertainment a lot of those seniors, used to doing aether, it seemed, were watching Jade. Smirking. And she knew it was stupid, knew damned well what was going on, but she couldn’t stop her face burning. This was just what she needed. Five years surrounded by idiots who didn’t like her because she was a smart arse scholarship bitch too up herself to try a single hit.

She weighed the aether again, lifted its light up and down in front of her face like she knew what she was looking and feeling for. An act, a silly and transparent act.

“It’s pure, right?” she asked, voice cracking. “I don’t see any flaws.” Stupid stupid stupid.

“Only the best for you, hon.” Jason leaned forward again, stretching that terrible grin across his face.

Come on, don’t you want to belong?

But the scholarship…

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

Jade glanced at Kate. She was half naked now, and Jason’s mate had swapped popcorn for a camera phone. The ‘corn wouldn’t show up on YouTube but Kate might. All depended on the strength of the hit she’d taken and just what her aeura was doing. It might obscure her on camera, but Jade really should intervene–

“You going to join us, or what?” Jason snapped, all those rows of teeth clicking together.

Stop worrying, and just go with the light, like the rest of them. It was only one night.

Jade nodded, rolled the aether to her left palm and dipped the thumb and forefinger of her right hand into its light. So warm and powerful, it must have come from something great. A dragon’s aeura, maybe. Jade had always wanted to see a dragon.

She pulled out a thin sliver of light like pale hair, like sunlight caught in smoke.

Jason rolled his eyes, “Better than nothing, I guess,” and took back the aether. He tore a chunk off and squished it between his palms, then sat back, closed his eyes, and let his grin stretch, and stretch, wider and wider.

Another deep breath, and Jade did the same with her small and carefully selected hit. It tickled into her lifeline, spreading up into her aeura, suffusing her whole body. She lifted am arm, turned it, stared at her skin. “I’m glowing,” she whispered.

Jason cracked open an eye. “Only a tiny bit, hon. That’s what happens when you take such a small–“ Both eyes opened, widened. “Wait. You are glowing.”

She was, her aeura as bright at the very ball of dragon-or-whatever aether. Jason had probably expected another unicorn show from her. But Jade was here on a scholarship. She’d spent all her high school years back in the real world, the world ruled by those laws of physics and chemistry — those laws she could so easily break — and populated by real-world boys. She hadn’t been a virgin for a long time.

So what would her aeura — powerful enough to earn her a free ticket to this Other world, this magic world — do with a hit of pure aether?

Her glowing body stretched, arms widening, skin hardening. She could feel fire, deep inside her lungs. Jason’s mate had turned his camera on her, and someone was helping Kate to her feet and shooing away her ‘corn, while all around her kids were screaming and running. She grinned, her mouth much bigger than Jason’s shark grin.

“It was dragon, wasn’t it,” she said. But her voice came out in a growl.

Well, they wanted a show. They’d get it. And Jade had better be one of them now. No more smirks, no more shark-smiles and creepy popcorn eating.

Or else.