After a simple breakfast, that hadn't managed to fulfill Prince Arian's expectations, and a boring annual speech, where teacher Javis officially welcomed all students to the Academy, Arian found himself at the end of a dirty and foul-smelling classroom.
Originally, there should have also been a tour of the school for all the new students, but because of the incident, there was no time for this anymore. Instead, some teachers had personally escorted the students to the classroom, where their first-ever lesson would be held.
Arian and his party had followed all the students and positioned themselves at the very end of the classroom. His guards were leaning against the wall since all the chairs in the classroom were taken.
Actually, when Arian mustered these chairs, he realized how rancid they looked. No, he wouldn't want to sit on one of those.
So he came to the conclusion his guards preferred to stand.
For the first time, Arian was happy about sitting in a wheelchair. For once, he thought his state was comfortable.
It made him happy, even though it was just a small feeling.
In front of him, forty-two students sat, all awaiting the beginning of the subject "Introduction- Understanding mystical beasts".
It was one of the introduction classes, Arian was reluctant to attend. Only the promise of a different philosophy towards beast taming could persuade him to visit this class.
And after today, he would decide, if these classes were truly worthy of his time.
Luckily the wait was a short one. Just as every student had found a seat, a teacher entered.
He introduced himself as teacher Braxton before he too welcomed the students to the academy.
Arian didn't pay much attention to his words, as he focused his gaze on the girl in front of him instead.
She was so beautiful, that she had caught the prince's attention on the first day of her arrival.
And even now, Arian was blinded by her beauty. It was hard for him to take his eyes off of her.
At the same time, he tried to learn more about her. During breakfast as well as on the way to the classroom, he had tried eavesdropping on various discussions about her, yet he hadn't gained much information. All he knew was that she was very popular. Especially the male students couldn't stop talking about her.
Apparently, her name was Shivani, and she shared her room with three other girls.
One of which sat next to Shivani in the classroom. Arian only spared her a glance.
While Shivani carried herself with confidence and grace, this girl seemed shy and uncomfortable in her own skin. And while Shivani was absolutely gorgeous, the girl next to her was absolutely plain-looking. Arian would even go as far as to call her ugly. After all, her nose was too large for her face and visibly crooked, her skin was too dark for his taste and her brown eyes were dull.
It also seemed like she never heard something of correct posture, since Arian got back pain just from seeing how bent her back was when she was sitting on her chair.
With a disapproving tisk, he looked away, his gaze focusing on Shivani again. She looked like the woman of his dreams, even his wife, a woman of noble birth, could not compare with her beauty.
But ever since he talked with Marie about the possibility of having a child, he had lost all interest in her whatsoever. It is best to not get acquainted with any women for the time being, he told himself.
So instead of admiring Shivani, he decided to listen to what teacher Braxton had to say.
She is of common birth after all. Alone the fact that she attends this school shows how low her standing is. She is beneath you in every way. Not worthy of your attention, Prince Arian, he told himself as he tried to focus on the lecture.
Right now, teacher Braxton was explaining something Arian had known since he was little and considered common knowledge, the categorization of beasts:
"There are two categories we use to identify a beast. One is their demesne, and the other one is their rank."
Teacher Braxton wrote the phrases onto the old blackboard infront of the class, creating two columns by doing so. In the first one, under the word demesne, he wrote eight other words.
Then he asked an unexpected question: "Who of you knows how to write and read?"
Only two hands rose. One was Shivani and the other one was the ugly girl next to her.
Arian was surprised that even two knew how to read. From what teacher Javis had told him he expected all of them to be illiterate.
Teacher Braxton looked down at the table. Probably there, in front of him, lay a list with all the names of the different students. He seemed to have found the right name and pointed at the ugly girl: "Satori, please read the words on the blackboard and then explain what they could mean. Remember it doesn't have to be perfect and you don't have to be right. After all, this is school. You are all here to learn."
Clearly, he wanted to give her the courage to speak infront of the class, but it seemed like Satori didn't need it. As soon as she spoke, all her awkwardness was gone.
"You wrote demesne and rank, and under demesne, you wrote: fire, earth, water, air, mind, blood, life and death. These are the eight different types of powers a magical beast can have. Of course, these are just general terms, that include many subcategories. Like for example life includes reproduction as well as healing. Oftentimes beasts can only access a specific niche of their demesne and often it's hard to actually categorize to which demesne their power belongs to. For example, powers like dreams belong to the mind category but with illusions one has to differ, if they are linked to a specific element then it's probably more likely this type of power belongs to fire, earth, air, or water rather than to mind. Oh, and sometimes the demesne differs within a breed. For example there a dragons, whose demesne are fire and some are water or even ice dragons."
"What a great and thoughtful answer, Satori, well done!", teacher Braxton beamed, clearly delighted with the girl's answer.
Arian couldn't agree less. Yes, she explained the basic concept well enough and even underlined her statements with examples but she forgot to mention some crucial information such as that the different demesnes can be divided into three categories.
The first one was the natural one. The demesnes in these categories all stemmed from nature. Fire, earth, air, and water all had their origin from nature. These were the four most common demenses. Beast most likely had their powers from these four types.
The other two categories were rare, and having tamed a beast of these categories put a lot of respect to one's name.
There were the two demesnes who belonged to the gods. The divine ones, belonging to Arian's family: mind and life.
Beasts who had divine powers were hard to find. Even his father, an exceptional beast tamer had no divine beast under his command.
But for that he has a phoenix, Arian thought, this makes up for everything else.
None of his siblings had managed to tame divine beasts, as well. Only he, Arian, had managed such a feat. It had put him in the most advantageous position for inheriting the holy throne.
Oh, how respected he had been, back then. Thinking about it made Arian reminiscent of the good old times when he was still powerful, admired and loved.
Of course, with his accident, he had lost his beast as well and thus came his fall from grace.
At last, there were also the two demesnes that belonged to the demons. The unholy ones: blood and death.
These were powers often frowned upon. Beasts with powers belonging to one of the two demesnes were seldom tamed (and if so, then only weak beasts). Most of the time beasts of these categories were completely mad and corrupted, lost from all reason.
They were the biggest enemy and posed the largest threat to humanity and thus the empire.
Arian despised these creatures with everything he had and wished them all dead.
Arian returned his attention to the lecture again. Now teacher Braxton made all the other students read the words, and then they had to spell each and every word.
No, but this... this was not what I had expected, I thought this wasn't a reading lesson.
Arian was confused, as he realized this was the main focus of the lesson: For the students to be able to correctly read the few terms written on the blackboard.
Arian looked at the big sundial above the blackboard. If this continues, we're not learning anything else than the different demesnes. Really?
This should be basic knowledge every little kid should know, and yet these students had thousand questions about it.
It took Arian a while to come to terms with this fact. How low their standing was, indeed. And how pitiful their lives are.
He couldn't help but be bored.
And just as he had suspected, instead of continuing with the different ranks of beasts, teacher Braxton distributed coarse-fibered sheets of paper and black ink.
Then the students had to take out their feathers for writing. Arian doubted these were their own. Probably the school had bestowed these to the students some time before the lesson.
The students had to write down what was written on the blackboard. Arian would have probably finished this task in less than one minute, but these students already struggled with holding their feathers the right way.
The prince looked left and right next to him, where his guards and Maloc were standing. All of them looked disinterested. Maloc had even sunken to the floor, sitting on the floor.
Arian just wanted to tell him that such behavior was not appropriate for a prince's deputy when he realized the bastard had dozed off.
He was taken aback for a moment, but then the prince realized he couldn't really blame Maloc. In his situation, after he got hit by a bowl, he would likely do the same.
Still, his deputy had a job and couldn't just doze off. I should remind him of that and give him a warning.
Just as Arian came to this conclusion, the bell rang and the lesson was over.
It really ended with the students merely learning about the demesnes of beasts.
For Arian, this meant he had learned... nothing.