The Welcoming

        The school was humongous. As we landed in front of the black gate to the school, it slowly opened for all of us to come in. Rae caught me off guard once again and pulled me inside. I heard many footsteps behind us, knowing that every human was anticipated like I was to see the school.

We all gasped in amazement. The inside of the school was shaped like a circle. In the middle was a big, green tree that was alive and had one eye examining each and every one of us. In the middle of tree was a door that blended in. Everyone suddenly fell silent to the sound of a staff hitting the ground hard.

 “Welcome, Celestians and Humans to RavenWood, the School Of Magic! I am Professor Merlin Ambrose, the headmaster of the school.” An old man with a long gray beard, wearing a red robe and a purple wizard hat bellowed.

In reply to his welcoming, everyone cheered and some put their fist in their air, many whispered to each other how this would be much better than actual academics.

“Now, I’m sure you humans know why you’re all here. Celestians should have gave you a book that explained everything, including the evil Malistare. Malistare has destroyed Earth, and thankfully we saved you guys. Do not worry about your families, for that has been taken care of from our allies from another planet. They are safe, including you. For now, we Celestians must train you humans about magic and self-defense to defeat Malistare so he may never do anything with his dark magic again. We here at Celestia promise that we will try to make your lives here better than it was on Earth.”

“Yeah!” Everyone chanted.

“Now, follow me for a tour around the school. After the tour, you will all be sorted into your elements in the GrandFather Hall.”

As soon as Ambrose started making his way around the circle, everyone trampled over each other and quickly began to  follow him.

On the left of the big  tree with one eye, was a tall castle that had the sign beside it saying, “Girls Dorm”

I quickly assumed that on the right of the tree, was the same exact castle except the sign said boy’s dorm. Next to the Girl’s Dorm was the School Of Fire, that was a grey wide building that had a red flame on top. Following the School of Fire was Ice, which had a snowflake on top of their building. After that was Death, which had a skull as their symbol. Then there was Life, that had a unicorn. The last two were Myth and Balance, Myth having a pyramid with one eye as their symbol and Balance having a red and gray yin and yang. After touring around the whole school, Ambrose led us to the big tree.

“Incase you might want to know, this tree’s name is Barley. He is very wise, has been around for centuries. If you need to ever know anything and I’m not there to answer your question, always ask Barley.”

“That’s right.” Barley croaked, winking his one eye.

“Now follow me to the GrandFather Hall, the moment you’ve all been waiting for.”

As we stepped into the hidden brown door in the middle of Barley, everyone gasped again in amazement as we walked into the GrandFather Hall. It was huge, with six long brown wooden tables, and stone benches that connected to each other for hundreds to sit in. Each table had a flag that represented the element. Ambrose instructed us for now to sit anywhere and then move as soon as we get sorted into our element. I felt my skin prickling with anxiety as I sat down beside Rae and another Celestian. The other Celestian beside us was a lavender wolf, with long dangling violet ears that had a wavy texture. She was looking straight ahead in front of the hall, where Ambrose was preparing. I was intimidated by her, very intimidated that I couldn’t even build up the courage to say hello.

“Why are you looking at me?” She snapped.

“Oh,” I started scratching my head in embarrassment, “I didn’t mean to. Hi, I’m Grace.”

She leaned back and scrunched up her nose in a snobby manner, “You’re Grace? Grace Griffin?”

 “Yes, at least that’s what everyone is telling me,” I shrugged.

 Calling over Rae she asked, “She’s Grace?”

 Rae nodded, rubbing my head playfully.

“Well, I’m Liz. Leader of Myth. Nice to see you again.” Liz greeted unimpressed.

“Y-you too,” I stuttered, “Sorry I didn't make a good first impression.”

Liz scoffed, “Well, it’s not that. It just takes a lot for me to be enthusiastic with someone.”

After she turned her attention back at Ambrose, I felt unfulfilled. For some reason, it bothered me how Liz had an attitude towards me. I thought she was going to be friendlier. Before I could overthink more, Ambrose tapped hardly on a wine glass calling everyone to his attention.

“You must listen very carefully to what I say. Being sorted into your elements is not random. Chances are you will not be with your best friend. You are sorted into your elements by your personality. As you saw during the tour, there are six elements. Fire, Balance, Ice, Life, Death, and Myth. The leaders will proceed to tell you what kind of person you have to be in order to be sorted into their element. Now remember, no element is the best or number one, each one is equal and everyone helps each other. This is no competition. Leaders, come forward!”Ambrose shouted, applauding.

I stood up and walked with Rae and Liz, looking around the room to see the other leaders. I couldn’t believe I was a leader of one the elements, not in a million years did I ever think I would be someone with leadership. As we arrived to the front of the room facing everyone, we all stood in front of the specific table that had the flag of our element. I stood nervously in front of Balance, Rae stood bravely at Death, and Liz stood proudly in Myth. As I leaned forward to look at the others standing, I saw a Celestian who looked exactly like Liz. Except her fur was cream colored, and she looked far much nicer and approachable. She stood in front of Life. Beside the Life leader,  was a Celestian who looked like Rae and I. However, she had a fury orange fur color and her ears were high and pointy. She had a fluffy tail, and looked like a fox. She stood in front of Fire. Lastly, there was Ice. The Ice Leader was a feline like Rae and I again. Her fur was baby blue, and her ears were folded.

“Welcome, Celestians and Humans!” The Life Leader announced.

In reply to her, everyone hooted, cheered, and whistled.

“My name is Clarity, but I go by Chi. I am the leader of the Life Element. To be in this element, you must be kind, helpful, encouraging, and humble. I’m very excited to see which humans will be sorted into my element, I promise you won’t regret it.” As Chi spoke to everyone, her voice sounded like a melody and her eyes sparkled. Everyone could tell she really meant what she was saying, and that she was truly the leader of Life.

After she finished, Liz stood up and cleared her throat.

“Good morning to all of you. I’m Elizabeth, but call me Liz. I lead the Myth Element. To be in this element, you must be independent, brave, intelligent, and most importantly determined. You must be willing to sacrifice, and know that nothing worthwhile comes easy. If you are chosen to be in this element, remember that I take no excuses or anything from anyone. I hope that you all will be true to yourself.” After Liz finished talking, the hall fell silent. She was incredibly serious in her speech.

After Myth was Fire, the leader's name was Fiona however she went by Fireball. To be in Fire, you must also be independent and hard-working most of all. Followed by Fire was Ice, in which the leader's name was Indiana who went by Infinity. The characteristics of Ice were cooperative and a perfectionist.

Suddenly, it was my turn to speak for Balance. As I felt everyone's eyes on me, my mouth went dry. I had no idea what to say.

"Oh, my apologies!" Ambrose scurried beside me.

"This is Grace Griffin. We lost her thirteen years ago to an evil curse Malistare cast. She was turned into a human baby, sent off to Earth in front of a family's doorsteps and her memories of Celestia were erased. She is the leader of Balance." Ambrose turned to look at me and gave me a warm smile.

"To be in this Element is a gift. Balance students are a mix of all the characteristics in the other elements. Not that they are the best, however very few students are sorted into Balance. These students would have to be incredibly brilliant. To be in the element of Balance, is an honor. The element is called Balance, for the reason being the students in here are good at about almost everything balancing their talents everywhere." Just like when Liz finished speaking, when Ambrose finished talking for me the whole hall fell silent again in amazement.

Even I had my mouth wide open. I couldn't believe what Ambrose had just said. And to think, I was the leader of this incredible element. For my whole human life, I had always doubted myself and never thought I could be someone in the Balance Element. I wasn't paying attention to anything else that was happening after the last Element, Balance was explained. All I could think about was contemplating whether I was really meant to be a leader.

After everyone got sorted into their elements, Liz snapped me out of my thoughts and flicked me on the side of my forehead. As I realized that everyone was already sitting down in their tables, I clumsily dashed to mine sitting on the very edge of the bench.

Ambrose proceeded to instruct us more, explaining the rules of RavenWood and our dorms. After many questions and interruptions as Ambrose was speaking, it was finally time to go to our dorms. I sighed in relief that I was finally going to have some rest. I rubbed my eyes as I stood up from the bench, yawning and stretching my arms.

"Tired already?" Rae asked, popping out from behind me.

I nodded slowly, looking down at the floor. I felt so tired, I even thought about sleeping on the stone floor of the GrandFather Hall.

"Let's get going to our dorms. We're roomies!" Rae exclaimed, taking the lead.

I followed behind her, anxious to flop onto a bed and rest.

As we made our way out of Barley, there were more than a thousand humans and Celestians crowding the campus and their loud chatter was hurting my head. Many were trying to find their way to their dorm, others were exploring the school, and some were asking the Celestians questions about how magic school worked. For now, my only questions  were how we would defeat Malistare, when we would fight him, and more importantly who is he really?

When Rae and I finally arrived at our dorm, I saw a ton of more Celestians and human girls lining up in front of the registration desk for their rooms. I spotted Liz talking with her students, Chi helping girls out with their rooms, and lastly Fireball and Infinity helping out at the desk.

   "Aren't you gonna help some of your students?" I asked Rae curiously as we climbed up the spiral stairs to our room.   

   " Nope, I need to help you." She smirked.

    "It's nice that you got our room first, I would hate having to wait in that line." I blurted, trying to start a conversation.

    "Same here." Rae replied, turning the doorknob as she opened the door.

As we stepped into our dorm, it had more space than I thought it would have. There were two separate beds on each end of the room, with a small desk beside it and a white lamp. The middle of the room had a lot of space, with a huge maroon rug in the middle that complimented the brown wooden floor. There were bookshelves beside our beds, and empty potion bottles standing on what I assumed to be a huge desk beside our bookshelves that was used for practicing your magic.

I slowly laid down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling thinking about how sudden my life had just changed. In the middle of my thoughts, I suddenly remembered my curiosity about Malistare.

   "Rae," I sat up from my bed, positioning my pillow on my headboard so that it was standing up for me to lay back on it, "Tell me more about Malistare."

Rae jumped onto her bed and began explaining him more in depth.

   "As you already know, Malistare was once the leader of Death. After he rebelled, I became the leader. I was his best student, that's why. Malistare is very powerful as of now. When we overheard he was going to take over Earth, we used this opportunity to save you and your human friends. We did this so we could bring you back, and train the rest of the humans our skills of magic. Once we build them up and you, our army will be twice as powerful as Malistare's. Malistare must be destroyed for various of reasons. The most important is that he can not cause any more harm than he already has." Rae took a deep breath before continuing. I beamed directly at her, listening to every word that flowed out of her mouth about Malistare.

"The problem here is really about defeating Malistare. We here at Celestia hope that our army will be stronger with the humans and you now. Strong enough to defeat Malistare. The only thing that can defeat him is love, and that is because he loathes it. It'll make him explode, if our love is strong enough. And not that romantic love, love as in sacrifice and friendship. Love as in teamwork and a kingdom. Something that Malistare refuses to do, which is love."  Rae closed her eyes and sighed.

My hands were sweating and my heart began to race. I never knew one day, I would actually be here, somewhere where I was a complete opposite of who I really was in Earth. I felt anxious at the thought of defeating Malistare, also hoping that we could defeat him.

  I cleared my throat, "I promise that I'll do my best."

  Rae opened her eyes and chuckled softly, "I know you will. Everyone does. I bet the humans will too, I'm sure we'll defeat him."