[center][h1]Welcome to Ersand'Enise[/h1][/center]
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[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/i5mB3ov.jpg?1[/img][/center]
The bells of Ersand’Enise were ringing. All over the city, from spires and steeples, windows and minarets, they raised a cacophony of welcome. Multicoloured flags flapped and strained in the stiff breeze and warming rays of sun peeked through the deep grey clouds. They hung low in the heavens, their bellies crackling with thunder. 
    
Penny ran through the streets, skirts swirling about her, drawing a hundred little threads of kinetic energy to let her do with competence what should've taxed her body to its limit. She’d spent a week in this place and, just when she was starting to feel as if she was learning her way around it, she'd managed to get lost. “Excusé, ma’am, Sorry, sir!” She darted and dodged through the milling crowds, nearly catching herself on a decorative iron balustrade in front of a shop. There were so many shops here - [i]ever [/i]so many - and most were completely alien to her. With the goal of remaining unrecognized, she’d put herself on a weekly stipend and counseled herself to live frugally. Still, it was rather more coin than she'd ever personally been responsible for. Still, she knew that it paled in comparison to the extravagance of some of these nobles. She’d been learning the shops that sold necessary things and the ones that sold cheaply. As the city’s entire purpose was to serve the Academy, it only made sense that near half of these vendors catered specifically to the needs of those with the Gift.

A horse and wagon clattered by and Penny hurried along in its wake, taking advantage of the temporary gap in the crowds. People walked in groups and chattered excitedly, but she had few such acquaintances. Sienna - Zeno Afraval - was friendly, like an aunt or a big sister. Penny knew that, along with all of the others, she'd be staying in a temporary dormitory for her first handful of days here, before the skill sorting placed her with a master and three other apprentices. The dorms were divided by gender and class - noble, merchant, and everyone else - and, despite being from a minor branch of the royal house of Torragon, Sienna had showed her all of the best rooms. She'd winked and said that she was looking out for a fellow royal, after all. 
    
Penny noted, with mounting unease, that it had been some time since she’d seen a Zeno. They were all gathering behind the parapets now, she knew, officially opening the school to the arriving cohort. Only the nobles received all of the benefits of the procession, and Penny could've gone as a Merchant - the role that she was playing - but she found herself very much preferring to watch. Up ahead, she noticed a couple of frilly dress girls - FDGs, in her mental shorthand - being rushed somewhere by rickshaw. The Perrenchwoman squinted up at the alternating bands of sun and threatening grey clouds and decided to follow. Mostlike, they were headed to the gate, so they could be bundled onto their horses to march through triumphantly with the rest of the highfolk. Everybody liked to pretend that they'd all arrived at the same time and camped outside of the gates, but many of them had been here as long as Penny, possibly longer.

Bustling after them, she began to feel the burn in her single leg and drew once more with the Gift, this time siphoning threads of Magnetic energy ambient in the air from the coming storm and gathering them within herself. She remembered her audience with Zeno - Arch Zeno - Harachorra earlier in the week. She focused on the exercises, taking that energy and restructuring it, reworking it into something else. Her muscles felt light and fresh, her steps felt strong and substantial, and she rushed towards the city walls once she found herself on a familiar main thoroughfare. 

Penny arrived at the base of a tower and the guard let her up the staircase with a dubious look. She managed to be only somewhat out of breath upon reaching the top. This wasn’t a plum position, but there were a handful of other non-nobles - merchants, artisans, and commons - who milled about, having chosen not to join the procession, and she found herself feeling like an impostor. Their eyes flicked over in her direction, doing that quick double take that they always did when they realized what was 'wrong' with her. Moments later, she found herself joined by another girl who she didn't know but who had the look of a student. "Did I miss it?" the stranger butted in, and Penny was able to let out a breath and shake her head.

“Non,” she sighed. “Zey are juste taking forever to get on zere stoopid ‘orses and get moving.” She pursed her lips. “All ze better for us, n'est pas? We ‘ad time to get ‘ere.”

The girl blinked and Penny found herself once again self-conscious, this time about the heavy Perrench accent she'd been told to put on as part of her cover, but she suspected that her new acquaintance's Avincian wasn't much better. The Perrench girl blinked and they both burst out in giggles. “You missed nossing,” she said, as clearly as she could, and the other girl smiled sheepishly. “Gods, my Avincian is bad.”

Penny started moving, hop-skipping towards the parapets. “Don’t worry, my friend. I am little better. Now ‘urry, zey are going to start!”

The two girls reached the edge and leaned against it, able to see for miles. Penny’s braid flicked and writhed in the brisk wind like a bronze-coloured snake, and a great rumble sounded from the heavens. Brilliant shafts of light pierced the clouds, dappling the plains where they struck and turning patches of grass into ponds of shifting, whispering gold or green.

A procession wound its way, dual file, down the Godsroad, flanked on either side by lines of heraldry stretching into the distance. At its head was a young man, probably no older than Penny, dressed in a costume renowned far and wide. He pulled back on the reins of his horse – a beautiful, ivory-white plains charger – and came to a halt. Behind him, two-by-two, everyone else did the same. The boy shielded his eyes against the diffuse glare, and peered up at the top of the city’s gate.
    
A dozen or so people stood atop the pristine white battlements, dressed in the flowing robes that only Zenos and Arch-Zenos of the Academy of Thaumaturgy were allowed to wear. From this group emerged a small, dark-skinned woman of about sixty: Zenith Upta. Her grey, tightly-curled hair was drawn back into a simple bun, but her clothes sparkled with gold inlay and shimmered with dancing magic. She leaned over the battlements, a gust of wind pulling some of her hair loose. 

“Who be you?” she shouted, the hint of a smirk lightening her lips.
    
The boy at the head of the procession bowed low in his saddle with what Penny thought of as a performer's practiced flair. “I am Leon, called le Solaire. These who I am blessed to ride at the head of are the sons and daughters of houses great and small: the first to appear at your gates in five years and the first of those born during the double ascendance of Ahn-Shune-Zept. We are come to Ersand’Enise, humbly asking to be made Biro, to be trained in the Gift.”
    
The woman raised her hand. “A moment to convene.” She turned around and the group atop the parapets gathered loosely and spoke for a moment. By their easy nature and the shortness of their deliberation it became clear that this was mere ceremony. 

Then, the Zenith turned back to face the prospective students and raised both arms in a welcoming gesture. “Travellers, daughters and sons of houses great and small, eager learners, we have decided to receive you. From the moment that you pass through these gates, you will no longer be Torma - the uninitiated - but Biro: students of the magical arts. Over the next five years, we will be ever at your side, helping you to grow and learn, to become women and men worthy of the names and reputations that you bear. We expect that most of you will return to your homes and your duties enriched in knowledge, ability, and spirit, but it is our hope that some of you will remain here and join the ranks of the Zenos. Whatever the future may hold for you, let us entrust it to the will of the Pentad. Now, without further delay, I welcome you, on behalf of every member of the Academy of Thaumaturgy, to Ersand’Enise.”

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[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/sQioZwp.jpg?1[/img][/center]

Of course, there [i]was[/i] further delay. Penny knew that the procession would take all day. Sienna - Zeno Afraval - had told her as much. As soon as Zenith Upta raised her hands, the massive, cast-iron gate started to clank open. When it reached the top, Leon took the ceremonial first step across the threshold on his white horse. Penny’s family had horses like that. Absently, she wondered if it might share a bloodline with one of theirs. Then, the trumpets that had been waiting, dull gold beneath the threatening sky, blared a welcome. The Zenos made a show of dispersing the storm. Penny shot her unknown acquaintance a knowing look. One might think that they had conjured it in the first place for the purpose of demonstrating their power.
 
And with that, [url=https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kb4T1-EqjWP3dqfKBp5MMenPv8k72gEZ/view?usp=sharing]the city fairly exploded in colour and sound[/url]. Bells rang and people cheered. Flutes, lutes, and drums raised a further cacophony of welcome. Penny stood there, wide-eyed like a child, unable to absorb the whole of it, unable to compare it to anything else that she had ever known. It took her a few moments to pull herself out of her rapture and peer down at the New Gate.
 
Her sister had met Leon Solaire once, at a private recital in the palace gardens with some of her ladies in waiting, and she had said that he was spellbinding - more than a mere bard. A dramatic shock of dark hair framed a keen, tanned face. He was lighter than your average Torragonese: sandy soil more than tanned leather. He smiled and waved as flower petals rained down from surrounding buildings. And then, the most delightful spectacle as the sunlight hit him and he seemed almost to glow in it.

“So,” said Penny's acquaintance, arching an eyebrow.

“So, [i]indeed[/i],” agreed Penny. She watched Leon a bit longer. “But let’s be realistic here.”

“Pfft,” snorted her fellow admirer. “Dreams are what make life interesting.”

Leon made his way down the street, towards the grand plaza where everyone would gather this evening, and it occurred to Penny that she should find a new place to watch the rest of the procession before everybody else did. “Dreams are good,” she agreed, pushing off from the stone and straightening. Then, a cramp hit her. Her body had given her all that it could for the day and it was finished. Not so for the others, including the girl she had shared a brief conversation with. With a friendly wave, she fluttered away.

Yet, the bells kept ringing. The petals keep falling. Penny wondered just how many flowers had died for this ceremony. All of the people with important families had to be announced. They could not be denied their chance at the spotlight. People who were not as important ran along in front of them carrying brightly-coloured flags and extolling the virtues of the children who sat on the horses. Yet, she could not begrudge them their moment. She had no idea what they were thinking or feeling, but they - like she - had begun their journey at Ersand'Enise and she imagined that it could only be the purest of joys...
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