The class I was getting ready for that morning was my remedial class. It’s a class witches would get sent to if they still needed a little bit of help with magic after finishing grade school. Where our high school would teach us regular curriculum stuff along with magic and the history of magic, this schools sole purpose is to focus on magic proficiency.

And though the class had been known to help witches greatly improve their magic abilities, I wasn’t really expecting much. Lets just say I didn’t really have any confidence in my ability to learn magic. It was my first day of class after all and I had no idea what to expect.

“You ready to go?” I asked Dog, and he barked in response while positioning himself for me to pick up “Oh I have an idea! How about you walk until maybe halfway there today?” He barked again then sat, indicating that he would not do that.

It was stupid to even ask. I already knew what the answer was going to be, but I felt it was worth a try. So I picked him up with my right arm and rested his body on my hip. I locked the door behind us, and the two of us got on our way.

The walk to the other side of town was always a bit of a pain. Especially when your house is halfway to both bridges that lead to the other side of the lake. But the weather was nice, so there wasn’t too much to complain about that day.

On colder days, people would always huddle around the Fire witches. You would see groups of kids walking to school with one Fire witch in the middle with a small flame in their hand. And on warmer days, you would see that same group of kids huddled up with a Wind witch who could make a cool breeze or give them some cloud coverage.

This of course meant that I always walked to school alone. No one wants to be friends with a witch that can only produce the bare minimum of magic. Sometimes it felt like I didn’t even have any secondary characteristics. A few people had even told me that my body heat is pretty low for being a Fire witch. But that’s why I was assigned to this class. To maybe help fix myself.

Whenever I would cross the bridge, I would look over the edge and watch all of the Water familiars playing in the waters. There’s really no rules for what the Water spirits can present themselves as, so there’s usually quite the array of creatures in our lake. Largest of which being a polar bear, who belongs to our towns strongest Water Witch, Anna. He really is quite the spectacle to see.

After crossing the bridge and arriving on the towns main-street, I could see it was as lively as it always was. Our town can get quite busy with tourists of both human and monster. The humans come here at a lesser frequency, as they always forget the town after they leave. The monsters on the other had usually come here to shop for enchanted items that will help them blend into society or to just relax in a place they knew they were safe to be themselves in.

Unfortunately for me, I didn’t get to enjoy myself that day, as I had a class to get to.

My remedial class was held in a small school house that was kept separate from all of the other school buildings. That was done on purpose, as they felt the high school students could tease the people who had to attend this class. Though there hadn’t really been any cases of that.

Walking into the classroom, I see they had only prepared four desks. Which the room being as small as it was didn’t look too out of the ordinary. The walls were mostly empty besides a few posters with basic magic information on them. Just a boring looking room overall.

The two desks in the front were already occupied with the other students I would be sharing class with. Their names were Sierra and Amy. Both were Plant witches that I recognized from being in the same grade throughout school. Their familiars were also sitting with them, a gofer and a squirrel. Though were weren’t really that well acquainted, so I didn’t say anything other than hello to them and went to one of the desks in the back.

After I sat down, I put Dog in the familiar seat that was next to each desk and waited for class to begin. Though the conversation of the two in front of me was a bit distracting.

“Did you hear that a 12 year old summoned their familiar this weekend?” Sierra asked Amy.

“Yeah, I heard! Has that ever even happened before?” Amy responded.

“Not that I heard of. She’s probably going to be extremely powerful when she’s older! Maybe even give the Mayor a run for her money!”

I turned to Dog who was already looking at me with his head tilted to the side. I gave him a little smile since I knew he acted cute whenever he wanted to cheer me up. Which distracted me enough to not notice the last student walking into class and sitting next to me.

The sound of someone plopping down in the seat next to me made me jump. When I turned to look at the person, it was a girl I hadn’t recognized who was leaning back in her chair and breathing heavily. Her black, shoulder length hair didn’t have any other color to indicate what type of witch she was. Which would make sense for this class.

She sensed I was looking at her and turned to look at me “Didn’t think I would make it!” she said through a bright smile.

With her looking at me straight on, I was able to see the other side of her hair. And it surprised me to see that the left half of it was entirely blue. Of course magic can cause the hair color to grow in many interesting patterns, which wasn’t what I was surprised about. I was surprised there was any color at all. The class was suppose to be for weaker magic users, and the other two students just barely had a green hue to their hair. So seeing a student with this solid of a hair color wasn’t expected.

“You’re Evelyn right? I think I remember you from high school. You were in Mr. Adams class?”

After she began speaking, and I had a bit more time to look at her, I did begin to remember her from school “Yeah that’s me, and I think you were in Mrs. Harrison’s class right? Your name is uh… sorry, but I don’t know your name.”

There was an excited response from her “I was! And I didn’t expect you to know my name, we never talked after all! My name is Lydia!”

“It’s nice to…” I didn’t get to finish my response as I got interrupted by her familiar suddenly springing up between us.

Since the class is for witches that need help with magic, their familiars always tend to be on the smaller side. But Lydia’s familiar was a river otter. Much larger than the desks are prepared for. And she was on the edge of the small familiar perch with her face right in mine.

“Oh sorry about Cordelia, she gets a little excited at times.”

My mouth was slightly open and I was staring at her a bit puzzled “Sorry if this is out of line, but you look to be a pretty strong witch, so what are you doing in this class?”

She found my response amusing “Well I was a late bloomer! My magic ability only really came in a few months ago. That’s why Cordelia is so excited. She hasn’t been summoned for very long!” she then noticed Dog leaning around me and looking over at her “Your familiar is so cute! You’re a Fire witch right? Maybe our familiars can be friends! There both spirits after all!”

Me and Dog shared a look, then I broke the news to Lydia “I’m sorry… but my magic is so weak that he can’t speak to me or other spirits. They can be friends, but there wont be any talking.”

That was the first time I saw Lydia loose her smile “Oh I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

I found that a bit strange since everyone in town seemed to know about how much of a disappointment I was “You don’t need to apologize… I’m used to it now. I just wasn’t lucky enough to inherit my mom’s strong blood magic.”

She wasn’t sure how to respond other than saying “S-sorry about that.” again.

With the mood in the room becoming a bit awkward, the conversation pretty much ended at that. But the teacher ended up walking in not long after, so we would have been interrupted anyways.