"Arcadia is the hip modern college and college town. They take any witch. Flexible schedules, heaps of electives, slightly party school but they do still have a great library and everything. The faction magic is about lucid dreaming and bringing fictional stuff to life, called Digicasting. Hawthorne is the ancient strict formal school - admission has a requirement that you be able to hit at least rank three, and they do slightly kinky-looking-to-outsiders disciplinary practices, they think this makes people learn more and they do have very good alumni in all fields. Faction magic of lots of little utility spells cast with a wand, guess what it's called, it's Wands. The Faewilds are where I live when I'm at home - I did go to Arcadia for a while but my girlfriend is from an old Faewild family. Summer court and winter court just like you'd expect if you read the right fantasy books, the one fancy and centralized and the other scattered and shifty. Absolutely gorgeous scenery full of toothy monsters to swat. Faction magic is Covenants, enforcing magic contracts. The moon has Lunabella on it. They have an elaborate nested patronage system not totally unlike slavery except in how nice it usually is, even the king considers himself beholden to the constitution like that. Very luxurious and cosmopolitan. Edgy cults vary, they work in small cells - range from 'I sacrifice hamsters to piss off my mum' to 'I assassinate and/or mind control world leaders to appease my dark master', the fate twist would have you wind up in a relatively suitable one but I cannot predict what kind that would be."

Sort, sort, sort. "I don't want to be in any cult that I'm not the dark master of. I certainly don't want to be the slave of a slave. Faewilds are fine but unexciting. Hawthorne and Arcadia... I'm leaning Hawthorne, strongly, but why don't you pitch me on both."

"If you are leaning Hawthorne perhaps it is right for you! It is more intense. Big spacefucky cavern under the Greenland ice sheet, school uniforms, sort of an everything not mandatory is forbidden approach to class scheduling. If you fall behind you will get tutoring, they don't let you fail out. If you excel you will get privileges. If you misbehave they will make - well, they will make most people regret it, you are going to be a curious sort of pain addict and might be fine, though they do have capital punishment if you really cross lines versus their totalitarian overseers. This means they can attract teachers who are not super into teaching if they are good enough at their specialties. It is a research university and the teachers can say things like 'in my class the rule is that you do not talk and direct all questions to my grad student' and then they will let you listen in while they ramble about their experiments with turning pocket dimensions inside out or watch them turn fossilized extinct trees into Ents or whatever is cutting edge these days. It is always kind of dim there, not hard to see because there is always a full fake moon up but not sunshiney, some people find this too gloomy. Half the buildings hang from the ceiling which I think is terrific fun myself.

"Arcadia is newer - not new, but newer - and more relaxed. Has classes that aren't just about magic and being functional enough to learn more magic and you can self-pace. Attracts teachers who don't like being so somber and strict, who do like teaching novices and designing curricula and things. It is in a pocket dimension, the landscape changes every few months by popular demand, goes from hot springs to zombie theme to mountains full of caves outside the stable areas so you can do different activities in your copious spare time. Lots of clubs and extracurriculars, easy to make friends, lots of field trips and hands-on learning. They do exchange programs with Hawthorne on occasion."

"Capital punishment?! Fuck, that'll keep me on my toes. Arcadia sounds great for people, but I'm me. Hawthorne, rah rah."

"I think it is very rare and mostly applies to trying to bring Cthuloid horrors home as pets or whatever but yes capital punishment. Wands! Takes tremendous explaining because of being so grab bag. Recharge wanding ability with rest, limited uses per day by rank. Rank one! Light, illusion, force bursts, force shoves, force stabs, magic marker, cheat at the high jump, counterspell. Rank two! Flashbang, except separate flash and bang. Fuck with oxygen levels to euthanize mice or summit Everest breathing easy. Zippo lighter. Taser. Garden hose. Weird sticky gum projectile. Pain spell. Rank three! Levitate shit. Silence. Force slicey-slice. Stop folks in the name of the you. Discount earthmoving. Sunburst light spell. Sleep spell. Telekinetic hand supplementations. Rank four! Big old swat of force. Shatter everything in a space like a cartoon opera singer. Fancier illusion. Zero gravity. Make a couple beings each other's voodoo dolls like the weirdest get along shirt. Spiderman gravityfuckery. Rank five! Permanencify stuff. Contingency triggers for stuff. Force swarm of razor blades slicing up all the everything in an area. Great big dollop of water or fire or electricity like your wand is doing the dragonbreath thing. Make stuff bigger on the inside a la the TARDIS."

"...I think that's the second-most-versatile magic I've heard, and it's the most immediately useful for making sure I don't get killed before I can learn the rest. How much of it can I get with what I've got left?"

"Uh. Negative one, since you bought that pearl with power points."

"...oh, hell, you got carried away too. Hmm. We should be alright if I just..."

Tom surveys his choices. What can he cut - well, he said already Suggestion was low priority. If he needs help making people do what he wants, he's not trying hard enough. That's two points.

He drops it, and grabs what he can of Wands. Which is a decent amount, for one point.

"There you go. Apologies for not being too budget conscious. Any other questions or tweaks or shall we move to the final step?"

"...no, I got enough of a look figuring what to cut... it's a pity I don't have more points to throw at augmenting my specializations, but the first while of training's going to have high returns, I can build them up."

"Mmhm! And quests keep being fast forever, and Hawthorne will set you a demanding schedule. Final step is to design your true form. Can look a lot like you now since you are part neutral, but blend in bits of the species you picked, tweak anything you don't care for while you are at it."

His body can be toned, a swimmer's build instead of the niche-appeal gauntness of someone who doesn't like eating. His eyes can be deeper, clearer, bluer; his hair, less mahogany and more inky-black, with a bloody red underneath if it must be lit just so. Teeth, white and shining and neat like an American movie star, but just a bit too sharp. He doesn't need hair below the eyebrows - sculpt those a bit, while he's at it - though he'll maintain an exactingly neat pubic triangle, just because it looks a bit less plastic. As for what nestles within that triangle, well, he's not going to be ridiculous, but he's not going to be pious about it either. (He adds a freckle, for eye-catching asymmetry.)

His skin will take nicely to the soft shimmer of Nymph scales, and the Erinyes' "runny mascara" tears can be manipulated, just so, until they're more of a long, fading cat's-eye with a deeper shadow in the socket. (Perhaps he was lying down, when he wept those tears.) And the wings, of course, glossy and magnificent. The Nymph fins stymie him for a moment, until he realizes he can draw the webbing back like so and stretch the spines thus, and then they're more horn than membrane, and nestle into his hair for a bit of devilish appeal.

Wipe away the scars. Leave a few, the trophies of victory or defeat - the jagged line along his forearm, the round burns clustered on his shoulder like freckles, the divot in his eyebrow. (Admittedly, that last is less for the memories and more because he likes the visual effect.)

He looks himself over, a vainglorious Michelangelo. After some thought, makes his fingernails black and shining; after some more, makes them just barely nacreous; after still more, changes them back.

"I've done what I can to improve on perfection," he says solemnly.

"Marvelous. Ready to forget you ever met me till something horrible happens to you?"

"I think so. You've been lovely."

"Leave me a nice review in six months or forty years or whenever it happens!"

"Perhaps I'll remember just enough to get myself properly fucked up sooner than later. Hope springs eternal."

"Maybe I will be a fading dream. Have a lovely witchy life."

There is a discontinuity and he is on the street, missing a couple of hours. There is no peculiar shop.

When you expect nothing, you're never disappointed.