Each day for the week, as Israfel made his way in the gray resplendent corridors of the Dark Arts tower to study at the library, he would stop before the archway looping into Magdalena's Hall, and lift his eyes up to the suede maroon emblem. The insignia of the Corynthian Academy for Witches. A black crow with gilded eyes, and a mystic scroll in its talon, clutching like a branch.
And after the emblem, the pompous banner of the Spring Games.
In the evening light, the decorated splash hung down in jewled colors and filigrees.
For five minutes repetitively, he would stand like this and gaze up at the dusk sun weather through the tinted windows and make the images of the bikini clad girls in the banner glow with life. Erika had used real life models for this shit. He could stare at Raziah and Keziah Fairfield's warm titties all evening. But then he'd remember he had to study. And lowering his head, he would walk away.
Only to pass by the very next day, stop, and do the exact same thing all over again. Rafel maintained this throughout the test week.
And on Frys day, before even the closing bell could sound, the entire school was buzzing with party energy. Imagine teenagers in classrooms counting the seconds to be let out to go gay and merry; cuz the weekend was going to spiral out into one long rager. Posters and flyers were on every tree bark in the witching academy; rained from the pregnant sky like glittering scales of a mermaid.
Rafel was in his final class of the day: a very epic demonstration of monster taming by a visiting Duke alumni—in which case the monster was a fierce rock puma—when he listened in on the conversation of skyling fae girl and her willowy shemale reptilian shifter friend. The fae talked in a cheesy voice.
"Can you believe that bitch Erika? She uses only the fucking Gyaru from her own Arc as the models for the damned Spring Games banner. Some student president she is. If the games aren't already rigged in favor of the Griffins, I don't know what is. Fucking cunt. No wonder no boy would date her.
She probably humps her pillow all night."
The fae shared a chortle with her friend. They hid out their faces by joining their foreheads and tried to stifle the sounds against the baritone of the speaker in the dark lecture hall, and the compliant wildcat at his polished charcoal shoed feet.
The long-haired shemale whispered back to her friend. "You know I auditioned for one of the poses. Only to get there and find it swarming with fucking Golds. They were like bumblebees—everywhere, their blonde heads like three fucking generations of inbreds. We may need to speak to Headmistress Shetty about this.
Even the male models were Griffin Golds. She couldn't even be bothered to take on those from other Arcs. And don't even get me started on the way I was stared at when I asked to feature on the magazine spread for the FEMALE games commercial? Girl, she looked at me like I was a fucking flea bugging her flimsy blonde head!"
"You know what: fuck Miss Upitty bitch! Nothing's gonna stop us from enjoying ourselves at the games. Nothing!" The fae girl bobbed her head, as if to convince herself too.
They continued talking, but Rafel zoned out. The visiting Duke was now in his speech about when he too was in the very same seats as them. Rafel zoned out of that too. He reflected on the dialogue of the skyling and her androgynous friend.
Yes: he had seen the banner for the games, and that the models in portrait were all of the Gold faction. Blonde as the scales of the mighty sunfyre dragons. But he didn't think Erika as a person who would hold bias to species, Arc, gender, and even the likes of the shemale—whose pronouns were 'they' and 'them'.
The truth was that all positions for a feature in the splash of the Spring Games had already being booked. Every girl wanted to be in the spotlight. And in a school full of heiresses and royals rich out their fucking ass, you had sons of bitches pulling on every blackmail technique in the book. To get in a zine for spring fest was almost as hard as to get in the elite school in the first place.
Erika Burgess probably steered faraway from the politics involving glitz and high fashion. Or didn't. Rafel didn't give a fuck.
Raziah and Keziah Fairfield: the hot topics on the page—and out of it, had their sophisticated glittery bodies on every wall and hall probably because they had the most pull. The student president was their bestie. If anything, the sheer competition of the games prepared the magical underlings for the rigors to come when facing the world outside [C.A.W].
Realms of great scandal, high society politics, and those that would murder to keep these things.
[Participants in the Great Hunt: the 1st entry of the Spring Games, three from each of the four witch Arcs of the Academy are outlined below!]
[Of Griffin Arc, the GOLD FACTION:]
[Percival Van Imperia]. [Brunhilda Penderghast]. [Erika Burgess].
[Of Raven Arc, the SHADOW FACTION:]
[Rosamunde Spears]. [Casperus Pickens]. [Ravenna de Vríes].
[Of Pegasus Arc, the BLUE FACTION:]
[Bolta Olympian]. [Mikhail Romanov]. [Aya Naamah].
[Of Phoenix Arc, the BLOOD FACTION:]
[Israfel Bludthïrste]. [Olivar D'shenko]. [Gretchen Manderley].
"Oh shit." Rafel stared long at the list in that empty hall. Outside, the excited din of the super abled students hit the streets. Music blared in faraway Sigma House. Jock bros knocking beers at the prospect of witnessing a bikini slip—or two. Or ten! Especially at the mud wrestling.
"Fuck. All my friends are in it."
Rafel waved the glinting screen away. Not only was he going up to win the most points against his favorite people on the earth, he had to do so by teaming up with Olivar D'shenko, the red Belter he had put in the infirmary. . .and Gretchen Manderley?
Who the fuck was that?
She was probably not a First Year.
And Bolta was in it too?
"Fuck."
Israfel had faced off the grimiest, most perverse villains of the Underworld, but somehow, the Great Hunt of Athena served him a pile. His combatants were equally skilled. He thought of Bolta and Rosamunde in one team: two of the fiercest women he'd ever met. If fucking was any insight to how hard they fought, Rafel doubted his winning position.
Garlands of spring flowers were hanging from coed dorm room doors as he trudged for his. The party spirit made him smile. But he entered his room and fell on the bed.
Test week was over. The Great Hunt was tomorrow.