"Luna!" Professor Faren calls, stopping me in my tracks. He walks over to me with his wings unfolded, hiding something behind him. "Are you okay? You're on your own right now."

"Yeah," I reply, turning around. "Yeah. I'm fine."

"We do have a new student today," he lowers his wings slightly so I can see her. She must be new, I haven't seen her around before. She has light brown hair that falls in neat curls to just past her shoulders and her green eyes seem to sparkle. She smiles at me. I smile back. Professor Faren closes his wings and she walks towards me.

"Hey," she says calmly, stretching out her hand. I can feel the eyes of a few students trained on us. "My name's Maddaline."

"Luna," I say, hesitantly grasping her hand and shaking it. "Nice to meet you."

"Nice," Faren says. Maddaline lets go of my hand to look at him. "You two can pair up and practice your charms. I trust you've learnt them at your old school, Maddaline?" She nods. "Excellent. I'll leave you to it." He turns away from us and flies over to a pair of boys who are hovering in the air making a heap of noise.

Maddaline and I walk over to the corner of the room, talking about our interests. Turns out, she interested in some of the same things as me. We both like reading, dancing, certain sports              - particularly pegasus back riding -  and soul magic.

Maddaline spreads her pure, white wings and flies up towards the support beams of the reasonably high ceiling. I follow reluctantly after, knowing how other isos react to my open wings. The new student beckons me forward to start training on different charms. She charges her magic and fires a glowing blue orb towards me, giving me little time to react and draw up a shield.

I raise my hands in front of me in defence, forming a white, rounded barrier shielding my body from any impact. Maddaline's orb collides with my shield, dissolving the blue manner into just a few specs. I lower my hands and the same happens to my shield.

"Nice reflexes!" Maddaline praises me.

"Thanks," I call back. "Nice magic."

"Thanks. Your turn!"

I raise one finger on my right hand and charge a simple stun spell. My finger turns a pale green for a moment before the colour rises to an electric orb just above my nail. I close one eye to aim then throw the orb towards Maddaline. She swears quietly before conjuring a sword and deflecting the spell back towards me. I draw a star shape in the air in a transparent blue line and my stun spell lands in the middle. In one swift motion, I aim down at the ground and the spell leaves the centre of the star and starts bailing towards Twilight – a girl with curly, blue hair and a butterfly drawn on her wrist – and her partner's dummy.

"Sorry!" Maddaline and I call down at the same time.

I cannot hear their response because of the noise the rest of the class. The two of us turn back to each other and continue to fire spells at each other. Not too harmful, of course. That could go down badly.

The entire class in having fun firing at targets or shooting spells back and forth between each other. Maddaline has to duck to avoid an incoming snare spell shot by one of the boys. Professor Faren flies around the room, making sure everyone is fine and knows their spells.

After class, everyone else started to wake up and move out to breakfast. Professor Faren dismisses us and we all join the crowds of people filing into the dining hall. The dining hall is filled with many different tables with a black table cloth draped over each. Some tables sit four people, others sit as much as fifteen. There is a slightly raised platform at the opposite end of the dining hall with a table that is much larger than any of the other tables in the room. That table is reserved for teachers. By instinct, I turn a sharp right and head towards a table in the corner of the room where no one ever sits but me. Maddaline places a hand on my shoulder. I turn around to face her.

"Where do you think you're going?" she asks cheerfully. "Why don't we sit with everyone else?"

"Um," I begin politely. "Maddaline, have you seen my wings?"

"Yes, but—"

"Have you noticed what colour they are?"

"Yes. And your point is?"

"Do you know how much the isos at this school judge others?"

Maddaline is silent for a moment, her eyes dulled a bit. They seem almost vacant. Then she speaks again, returning back to reality. "Point taken."

We continue to walk towards the table in the corner. I fall into a chair close to the wall while Maddaline sits uncomfortably on another directly in front of me. She stares around the room, her eyes sparkling with curiosity. She watches as every different character walks through the large oak wooden doors and sitting with their friends, laughing and talking. I watch as she surveys the incredibly large room. The two of us are in our own worlds for a moment. I decide to break the silence.

"Uh Maddaline— "

"Oh you can just call me 'Maddi'," she interrupts.

"Well, alright," I say correcting myself. "Maddi. What class do you have next?"

"I have..." her voice fades out as she consults her timetable, "Ancient Runes."

"Oh cool! Same."

"Nice..." She looks out into the dining hall, scanning almost every iso in the room. "Hey, Luna," she says slowly, "Is it just me, or is that guy over there waving at us?"

I follow her gaze and see that there actually is an iso halfway across the room, about five feet in the air, his tanned arm raised above his head and waving frantically, as though trying to get our attention. He lowers his arm and flies closer towards us. I examine him in more detail. He is wearing a red T-shirt with dark blue trousers and shoes. He has scruffy chocolate brown hair and gleaming brown eyes. One of his wings is bent slightly and sticks out at a weird angle. It takes me a while to recognize him. It's Jay. A boy I was friends with in fourth grade, when no one gave two craps about my wing colour. Some even thought it looked cool. I open my jet-black wings and take off out of the chair to meet him in the air, my starry hair flowing freely in its loose silver tie.

"Hey Luna!" Jay greets me when I draw near, both of us slowing to a hover.

"Jay, what the jig are you doing?" I ask. "Isn't your team saving a seat for you?"

"No, they are."

"Then why are you here?"

"Two reasons. One, I saw you seemed to be getting along well with one of the new students. And two, I wanted to ask you something."

"What exactly is the thing you want to ask me?" I question Jay.

"I wanted to ask you," Jay begins. "If you wanted to be on the Starket team."

That is when I stop talking. Starket? Jay, the captain of the Starket team wants me to join the sport many isos take pride in? Okay. This must be a dream. Starket. A game where you need to try and get a star from one side of the field to another and get it into the opposing team's goal. That actually sounds kind of boring when I think of it that way.

"You know," Jay says, bringing me back to reality. "I just remember how good you were when we were kids." He shoves his hands into his pockets. "I just thought you might want to."

"Might want to?" I burst out. "Of course, I want to! I used to love kicking you butt at that game!"

A huge smile spreads across his face. "Great! I'll see you down at the field Wednesday morning then. If you're not busy."

I am about to respond when a pair of boys obviously on the Starket team fly past. One of them notice us and hastily pulls Jay away from me. The boy scowls at me but Jay pushes him away. The other boy asks Jay to stop shoving him. The people flying and sitting close to us turn to look questioningly in our direction. I try to fly backwards out of the way of the boys, but an iso with long, black hair in long braids blocks my way.

"Why are you bringing Jay into your evil-doing?!" one of the isos at a near-by table yells at me, shrinking back into her seat, but still managing to seem threatening. Everyone around me is agreeing with her. Other isos start to look in our direction, wondering what is the dilemma.

"What 'evil-doing'?" I ask.

"How are we supposed to know?" the boy who pulled Jay backwards yells at me. "You would have done everything in your power to keep it a secret!"

"Yeah!" another girl agrees, flying up to place a fair hand on Jay's shoulder. "And, if you convince Jay to be a part of it, you could have this entire school up in flames!" She taps her knee-length silver boots against each other, her face displaying an obviously practiced look of horror. Every other iso around is murmuring to each other in a horrified manner. The noise is almost too much to handle.

"Enough!!!!" a voice shouts behind me. Everyone stops whispering and turns to look at where the voice came from. I look there too. It's Maddi.

*****************

Ooooh dat sass!! Haha! I'm sorry...!

NEXT CHAPTER! GO!!