They appear in midair, visible out of a few thirtieth-floor apartments.
One starts to fall. The other catches her by the arm, flings out - wing-shapes of light - and slows her, spiraling down until they're at street level.
They appear in midair, visible out of a few thirtieth-floor apartments.
One starts to fall. The other catches her by the arm, flings out - wing-shapes of light - and slows her, spiraling down until they're at street level.
"When I told my parents why I got sent home they bought me ice cream and a new computer game," one tells her proudly.
Then they will get lots of individual attention when she teaches the class! And it happens that they all share a couple of affinities and that means they can all do the same exercises in those elements instead of having to divide up.
All the kids who skipped the morning come back and look at her disgustedly. "The least you could do," someone says, "is pay attention in your fucking special session so you don't have to stink up the room all afternoon, too, you disgusting shitrag."
That kid is shooed. "In case it's not clear, all you have to do is ignore your red classmates to be welcome to stay," she says. "If you'd rather heckle them than learn magic you don't get to do either. Who else wants to leave?"
"We want them to pick one session so other people get the chance to learn."
"Yeah."
"They can have the morning or the afternoon, just not both."
"If Tiya does something disruptive I will send her away too. She hasn't. She's allowed to come to both if she wants, just like you."
Then Tiya and everyone else who stayed get plenty of individual attention while she walks through the day's concepts again!
And then she writes to everyone's parents. Ice translates appropriately per parent for her.
Everybody gets:
[Name of child] has the following affinity scores:
(Please note that affinity scores only reflect unassisted abilities and any mage can tap elementals where necessary to perform relevant feats of magic.)
But some of them also get:
I am afraid that there have been some disciplinary issues with [name of child]. While I can't force any two children to get along, outbursts of violent fantasies or name-calling aimed at other students are not conducive to the study of magic. If I have to continue to remove [pronoun] from the class for not meeting a minimum behavior standard with respect to their classmates they will have to learn by following along with video lectures instead, which I expect to be markedly less effective. This sort of behavior problem might also make befriending elementals for long-term arrangements more difficult. I hope you can help me convince [name of child] that learning magic is a better use of time than lashing out at other students.
None of Salali's teachers have ever had disciplinary problems with her. Maybe it's you.
Errie tells me that there are red mages in the class, despite red mages being prohibited in every jurisdiction, and that one of them has a Shadow elemental companion and will be learning shadow-stepping. I think this reflects an appalling lack of judgment on the part of the magic school and I commend Errie for her refusal to participate in such nonsense.
Maybe you shouldn't put them in a classroom with reds.
That sounds like such a hard problem to fix. I'm sure you've given lots of solutions due consideration. I favor putting the garbage out.
The kid who called Tiya a disgusting shitrag is the one whose grandma has custody. She writes back:
He shouldn't have to deal with that. Maybe there could be an evening session with no reds?
Maybe. If that seems likeliest to you you can withdraw Salali and reenroll her when some of the current students are able to teach; there will be more selection available then.
A withdrawal form is attached if that is how you and Errie would like to express your protest.
You're not the first to suggest this. You can withdraw Tobarak and reenroll him when some of the current students are able to teach; there will be more selection available then.
There's only one of me. There are two sessions a day to allow review for slower students (since I can't track them in the way conventional for Amentan school systems) and I'm using my evenings to produce air artifacts and work on other developments for terraforming so I'm reluctant to add a third, especially if specific students would be expressly and individually forbidden from attending through no fault of their own.
Students are withdrawn from the magic class by their parents. Including five of the ones who haven't caused any disciplinary issues.
She continues with a smaller class size.
A few of the withdrawn kids' elemental friends fly away.
This is hard on families that were having trouble making ends meet and upsetting even for the kids who are fine. One parent writes to Maurabel asking if she encouraged that.
I don't control the elementals, nor am I at liberty to publish their emails without their permission. I did not ask them to leave but provided my account of why those students were withdrawn when asked.
My daughter is cripplingly shy and the only person she spoke to outside the family was her Shine. After she got home from class for the first two days she stayed up until well past midnight showering and crying and gagging, so I chose to withdraw her. She hasn't spoken to anyone since he left and she still spends all her time showering. I hope you're proud of yourself.
She was not asked to touch any reds, any things that reds had touched, or any other vectors of uncleanliness. I am not at liberty to disclose Shine's personal trauma without his permission.
You could have suggested he talk with her about why she stopped going to school and how she felt about it, instead of feeding him some bullshit where you're heroically standing up for the rights of reds by forcing scared isolated two-year-olds into classrooms with them. I assure you that lots of kids who desperately wanted to quit will keep going to class now, no matter how miserable they are, because the thought of losing their closest friend is even worse. Congratulations.