"Ready to investigate our newest collection of specimens?" Gaspar queried.
"Oh, is it a new quarter already?" Daniel grinned. "I can't wait to see what we get this time!"
"You guys have been doing this every day for the past ten years," Jericho rolled his eyes. "Don't you ever get sick of it?"
"Nope, and neither do you," Gaspar replied.
"Touche," Jericho grinned.
They all turned to Gairovald who was currently fixated on reading a lengthy looking book at an unnervingly rapid pace. He would likely finish the stack beside him before the midday meal.
"I'm paying attention," Gairovald said before any of them could ask. He was always paying attention.
"Good," Gaspar nodded and moved to the banister of the balcony that overlooked the grand foyer where a few of the professors waited. "The new contracts should be arriving any moment now."
"Technically, new contracts can arrive at any time," Daniel pointed out.
"I'm well aware," Gaspar shot him a glare, "but you know as well as I do that the beginning of the quarter is when the largest influx occurs.
As if on cue, the doors opened to reveal a group of people stepping through, led by none other than their great and illustrious dean… or so the man would have everyone believe. As far as Gairovald was concerned, the man was nothing but a cowardly weasel parading himself around as a pompous ass.
"Let's see, let's see," Danial made a show of drumming his fingers together as he inspected each of the new students. "Not a very interesting group this year."
"Looks like mostly elf beast men mixes," Gaspar said in disappointment.
"The fifth one that walked in might be of draconic decent," Daniel suggested hopfully.
"Lizardman," Gairovald replied without looking up. "Not a single dragon mix in the bunch."
"You aren't supposed to say that yet!" Daniel protested. "And I didn't ask you!"
"Yeah, yeah," Gairovald waved a hand at him. "Don't get your hopes too high though."
Though disappointed, the group went into deep analytical discussion about each and every new face as the dean fed them some spiel about the prestige of the tower, their roles as students, and what not. To their boredom, the final verdicts on each and every one of the new faces were unanimous and—even worse—correct.
"Well today was a wash," Daniel sighed. "Usually there's at least one interesting person in the group. All of these ones are boringly predictable."
"Careful Daniel, you're using big words again," Jericho teased. "Wouldn't want you hurting yourself."
"You guys suck," Daniel frowned as all of them, even Gairovald chuckled at the comment.
"You know it," Jericho said with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows.
"You aren't supposed to be proud of it," Daniel frowned. "And what's with the weird look?"
"Daniel," Bobo, Daniel's sprite, piped up and gave him the same suggestive eyebrow wiggle. "cupcake."
Gairovald stifled a smile as Daniel became even more confused at his sprite's words. Only Daniel knew what Bobo had to say… or at least that's the way it was supposed to be. As a general rule, the only person who could see a sprite was the person contracted to them. A few could reveal themselves to anyone, but it took immense power for them to do so. Only the top administrative sprites could do, and it was rare that they did so. Gairovald was an odd exception, and most of the sprites we're oblivious to the fact he could observe them freely regardless if they wanted him to or not, one of many closely guarded secrets.
"Look sharp, we have late comers," Gairovald announced without pulling his eyes from his book.
"What late comers?" Daniel questioned. Just as he asked the doors flew open to reveal two more new comers. Based on the bright faces and gasping, it seemed they had done a fair amount of running.
"You know, it's really creepy when you do that," Jericho cast a sideways glance at Gairovald.
"I do what I can," Gairovald smirked.
They returned their attention to the foyer where the dean was giving them what looked like a stern talking to. Gairovald actually stopped reading to look up, recognizing a certain sprite at one of the young Ladies' side. He debated weather he should mention it to his friends. Not even Jericho knew all of his secrets, and it was best Gairovald kept it that way.
"More beastmen combos," Daniel pouted.
"There is beastmen blood present, certainly, but what has you so down?" Gaspar's eyes were shining with excitement. "These are our most interesting subjects yet!"
"One is a harpy, and the other is some sort of horned bat orc," Daniel shrugged. "Though the orc thing is kinda cool. we don't see many of those around."
"That harpy is too brightly colored to be a regular harpy, and based on the vibrant hues of gold, orange, and red plumage, I would be willing to bet she was part phoenix!" Gaspar grasped his chin in excitement. "I wonder how she does with water..."
"There's no way that girl is part phoenix!" Daniel denied. "Do you know how many varieties of birds there are among the beastmen? Or how many mutations in color pallets have occurred over the years? Coloration isn't evidence of anything!"
"Careful Daniel, don't hurt yourself," Jericho cautioned.
"How would I hurt myself?" Daniel wondered.
"What's your final verdict then?" Gaspar dragged focus back to the Phoenix discussion, not interested in witnessing yet another repeat of the conversation they'd had only a little while ago.
"I'm going with she's just a harpy with a unique color variation," Daniel announced.
"I'm still sticking with the Harpy Phoenix mix," Gaspar replied.
"For the sake of being different, and just because I would laugh if I was right, I'm going to go out on a limb and say she's actually part rock."
"How the heck would she be part rock?" Daniel asked in apparent confusion.
"Rock as in massive cliff dwelling predatorial bird, not 'rock' as in lump of stone," Gaspar explained.
"oh." Daniel blushed. All eyes turned to Gairovald.
"She is a harpy Phoenix mix," Gairovald stated.
"Now the other one..." Jericho eyed her critically. "I'm not sure where to begin."
"That's easy," Daniel replied. "Like I said, she's a horned bat orc. I mean, look at the tusks, they're obvious givaways for orcish blood, and the wings look like bat wings. I'm not sure what to think about the horn though... I would say unicorn, but its really short and stubby, and on top of that it's off center and cockeyed. So I'm going to guess there's some kind of ram or goat in there."
"That's as good a bad guess as any I suppose," Gaspar commented mildly, "but orcs have green skin Daniel, or have you forgotten? And if she were a bat, her arms would be her wings, there wouldn't be a set of both!"
"It's a perfectly good guess!" Daniel objected. "Her bat blood might have altered the coloration!"
"Sure, if you have no clue what you're talking about," Gaspar replied, "which based on that last statement... you don't."
"Fine then mr. Smarty pants, what's your guess?" Daniel snapped.
"I'm so glad you asked," Gaspar smirked, then cracked his knuckles and made a show of examining the girl intently. "Initially looking at her feet and wings, I would guess dragon, but taking those features in conjunction with the tusks and other orc-like-"
"See! You just admitted it, she looks like an orc," Daniel crowed triumphantly.
"I wasn't finished!" Gaspar glowered, then continued. "As I was saying, her orc-LIKE features suggest that she's actually of gargoyle descent."
"Gargoyle?" Daniel scoffed. "Gargoyles can't do magic! And you call my guess bad!"
"Whether they can traditionally cast magic or not, gargoyles are innately magical creatures," Jericho pointed out. "It's nearly impossible to kill one by any conventional means, and their parts are often highly coveted by poition makers."
"Whatever," Daniel rolled his eyes. "I still say you're wrong."
"Do you have a final verdict?" Gairovald interrupted. The circular arguements could go on for hours, and he had better things to do than people watch. It was an interesting enough passtime, and it was fun from time to time, but he was itching to get back to his work and this was becoming an impedement.
"I'm going with an orc, fawn, bat mix," Daniel proclaimed. Gairovald was half tempted to remind Daniel that female fawns couldn't grow horns, nor did any of his other guesses, but decided against it. The poor boy was so far off the mark and unwilling to hear otherwise, no ammount of favoratism would help him.
"I'm confident she's part gargoyle mixed with one of the sylvain races, perhaps fairy." Gaspar thought aloud. "She's too short to be a full blooded gargoyle, and besides that most gargoyles who develop horns grow them in sets of two. The fairy gene would account for her stature, as well as the plausible horn mutation, but the gargoyle gene would be more dominate, ergo the wings and grey coloration."
"I don't know," Jericho shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to guess a Gargoyle, Unicorn mix guys. Undoubtedly, those two are mixed with at least a third set of genes, but I couldn't tell you what."
"Unicorn?" Gaspar raised a brow. "With a horn like that? It's far too broad at the base for a unicorn horn, which are traditionally much longer and more narrow, not to mention it's off centered and skewed ."
"I could say the same thing about your cock, but it doesn't change the fact you're male," Jericho pointed out. Gairovald choked on his own saliva, he started laughing so hard. This earned him a glare from Gaspar.
"Cupcake?" Bobo extended a cupcake to Gaspar, though the surly faye, squirrel beastman mix was oblivious to the offering. Daniel noticed however, and offered it in his place.
"Just tell us the verdict," Gaspar spat as he chomped on his cupcake with a surly glare.
"Tell us how far off the mark we were," Jericho agreed with a hardy laugh.
"You guys were all wrong." Gairovald chuckled, then paused momentarily for dramatic effect. "Jericho was the closest with his guess, though Daniel's fawn aspect wasn't far off the mark. Our final newcomer is a gargoyle, unicorn, satyr mix."
"No way," Daniel shook his head vehemently. "There's no way she's part satyr! Satyrs are only male!"
"She's not hairy enough to be part satyr," Gaspar frowned, also in denial though reluctant to disagree with Gairovald directly.
"It would account for how well endowed she is," Jericho remarked thoughtfully.
"You can't seriously mean to tell me you think he's right?!" Daniel exclaimed. "I mean, it's not possible! Unicorns are too snobbish to mate with anything other than other unicorns, let alone creatures as rowdy as FAWNs and gargoyles!"
"I dare you to walk up to her and call her a fawn," Gairovald chuckled.
"I will," Daniel decided, "and I'll prove you wrong."
"I wouldn't," Gaspar cautioned. "You'll end up flying halfway across the room... It's a well known fact that-"
"That's it, I've made up my mind!" Dainel interrupted his well meant advise and marched off toward the staircase. "I'm going to ask her, and prove you guys wrong!"
Gairovald noticed with interest that Bobo decided to remain behind, making himself comfortable on the newly formed stack of books he'd finished reading beside the stack of those he still needed to read. He was a simple soul, there was no denying that, but clearly Bobo wasn't stupid.