NOVEL WEB The Principal
Ginger wished the withering, hunched old lady taking center stage hadn't placed such an emphasis on them. By the looks of it, he wasn't alone in feeling so.
Several of the First Years he sat with also seemed very much offended by the word 'adorable' being used to describe them. Sadly, there was no room for protest, and worse yet, there was nothing to look at other than the thousands of eyes pinning on and appraising them all furiously.
Ginger hung his head, and kept a straight posture, sticking to his fragile resolve that pushed him to assert himself and own the fact that he was a smuggled good.
How long would this last for, really?
Thankfully, the piercing gazes he received – him more than anyone else at least – were drawn away when the old dragon continued to speak.
"Oo, so sweet. Allow me to introduce myself, dearest children. My name is Katherina Agathe, and I am the School Warden. As long as you are in the Frost Mount's Tooth, or any other structure within the school, you will see me quite frequently. You can confide in me if you have problems that need solving," the old dragon let out a laugh that seemed more like a croak as she spoke.
With her last sentence, there were hushed murmurs of protest from all the other tables except the first, and Ginger wondered why. A few of the Professors even snickered silently. It seemed the Warden wasn't popular.
"I've never heard such a hypocritical sentence in my life."
"The irony. Do we really have to put up with this every year?"
"Agathe. Hmph! You'd think some alumni would have petitioned to have her name changed by now."
Ginger heard a few of the older students speak.
Apparently, Katherina, or rather Madam Agathe as she preferred to be called, wasn't quite as nice as she seemed, which was strange because her second name was supposed to mean 'kind-natured.'
Well, then again, Katherina sometimes meant torture.
The old dragon didn't seem to acknowledge the protests, or perhaps she just tuned them out.
She merely smiled, with her dark eyes squinting, and continued.
"Ahem. The people you see in front of you, are the staff that will be teaching and taking care of you. They deserve your respect and attention when they speak. As good little dragons, I expect that you will heed their teachings and give them an easier time during your stay. Rest assured, we do not bite unless tempted."
Madam Agathe then went on to explain in excruciating detail several rules from her own personal cache. She emphasized the issue, especially to boys, about visiting floors they weren't meant to, which instantly spurned Ginger's brain to Fotini's warning.
Whatever happened to that affable fellow, was likely tied to this 'kind-natured' old dragon.
The Warden also emphasized the fact that First Years were not allowed on any floors but the ones designated to their dormitories after hours. She turned stern when she mentioned it, and no one had the voice nor gut to sneer at her remark then.
"I do not take kindly to loitering. The sentence for that will be brutal this year. Trust me, Second and Third Years. Your little affairs will turn sour should I find you," she had chillingly said.
Ginger found himself shivering, much like all the other students.
"All that said, allow me to call upon our Principal to give us her word for this portion of the year."
Madam Agathe led the applause that followed as she relinquished her authority as speaker to the figure that was seated in the distinguished sat.
Afterward, a silence so great that it would have convinced anyone outside the Hall that the interior was empty – if they couldn't see the hundreds populating it – ensued.
The Principal stood from her seat and gave a smile so sweet it temporarily brushed Ginger's problems away.
She had long, silky burgundy hair marred with strips of white close to her face. It strode down her unusually long, bare neck which freely exposed beautiful vermillion scales, to perch over her shoulders where a strange necklace made of large beads showed.
Her hazel eyes narrowed slightly as she spoke with almost the exact same divine voice Ginger had imagined her to have.
"It is good to see you all again for a new year of learning. The 303rd Tally of the Vermillion Dragon has blessed us greatly, and I see the giving of its grace in the old faces, and the new," the woman said, and her eyes fell once more, on the First Years' table.
Everyone avoided her gaze.
"For those who do not know, my name is Antia Propyrgio Draggard-Phoenix, the Principal of this Institute. As Madam Agathe has already kindly mentioned, education, protection, hygiene, construction, feeding... The faces you see before you, are responsible for these. For you. I expect the utmost respect towards them this year as well..."
The emphasis on this aspect made Ginger feel nervous.
'Are all schools this intense?' he wondered. He could have sworn his second heart was beating more furiously than his first right now.
Principal Phoenix, as many dubbed her, had the habit of repeating this very same segment on respect to the staff every year, every Tally really, and no one took it lightly. Among the most serious offenses in the school, disrespecting a staff member was among the top three.
"To our newcomers, I am very glad to have you. Your backgrounds are of no concern to me, and neither are the casts of your scales. The only thing I care about is the betterment of Dragonkind by teaching you how to be a proper dragon. Proper Qin Asha. That is why I feel that this trend of scarves fails to represent that fact, but unfortunately, your staff isn't quite exemplary in that regard."
There was a bit of guilty shifting and coughing from the staff table.
Principal Phoenix loathed the idea of hiding the color of one's scales, which was often termed as a cast. All around the school, her efforts of ridding the firm habit could be seen, but dragons were well known for their stubbornness, and this wasn't something she could force anyone into.
The fact that more than half of the dragons at the staff table were covering their scales, reinforced the fact that this wasn't a problem rooted in the school alone, but society itself.
Principal Phoenix continued as her fiery, gleaming eyes scrolled over the students.
"I am sure loving parents and guardians have already given all the well wishes you could ever need. Learning is a gift. As dragons, we groom each other, and this year holds no exceptions for that experience for our new students, and those that are in their final year," she declared before turning to the last table on her left.
"Fifth Years. Whether as a Pride or a Squire, I hope you will enjoy your last year and fine-tune all that you can before you join the broader world. The horizons are vast, and while as dragons we rule a part of them, our continued standing depends on how you express what you have learned in these five years of study."
Ginger, along with all other students had turned to the fifth table. It was full of older children with auras of confidence about them, and similar draconian features to their humanoid forms as some of the teachers.
Oddly though, some weren't dressed in the same pewter grey uniforms but had different ones instead. Ginger automatically pinned that difference to the words he kept hearing.
Pride, and Squire.
When Professor Mara had led him to his first Burning, he had heard one older student say that he had the potential to be a Squire.
'That didn't sound like a good thing though,' Ginger thought darkly.
Principal Phoenix continued, her general gaze falling on everyone.
"I will say this, as I say every year. This school encourages practicality for a reason. While our Fifth Years are about to learn how beneficial all that experience has been outside, everyone else should learn to appreciate that right now. Life is not theory. Life, even for us who live to see the world switch color and season for hundreds of Tallies and thousands of years, does not take to our wishes."
"Things change, forcing even us to adapt. That is why we have you practicing all we can teach while standing upright, instead of emphasizing what has worked for us since the Ancient Dragons more, and with you sitting down, pen in hand. I desire our legacies to not end in name only. If the word immortality has ever meant something to me, it is your faces, and those of your grand-grand children and theirs in turn existing freely thousands of Tallies in the future."
There was a great silence. Though Ginger was a little slow on understanding the dragon tongue, he somewhat understood what Principal Phoenix was trying to say. Besides that, there was a certain tone of emotion in her voice that appealed to him.
She spoke as though she saw a distant disaster that no one else did.
The older students seemed to have been hit by the message very hard. They all solemnly nodded with dark faces.
Ginger got the impression that the fact that he didn't know much about Ravi, limited his understanding.
Swiftly, however, Principal Phoenix wore a radiant smile and switched the tone of the entire Hall with her last remarks.
"Enjoy the first term of the year my little dragonlings, and be as good as you can be. I expect great things from you."