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.
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.
Parent writes Shine letting him know that whatever Maurabel said their daughter didn't ask to be withdrawn from the class and has no anti-red prejudice, she just couldn't stop gagging and it was very alarming. And they thought it might get better if she withdraw and went back home but instead she hasn't spoken a word since Shine left and is still showering for eight hours at a time so they'll reenroll her if under those circumstances he'd choose to come back, it can hardly be /worse/.
Thank you.
Students whose parents haven't withdrawn them continue to optimistically skip the morning section if the reds are there but then attend with minor grumbling if they're still there in the afternoons. Some of them have apparently been told that they lose this nice house and the opportunity for mommy and daddy not to work all day if they get in trouble at school, so they should do whatever they're told if they like having three meals a day and their parents home in the evenings. An enterprising green manages to convince the other greens that greens attend all day because they love learning, and an enterprising yellow similarly to convince the yellows that yellows take advantage of extra practice time so that they can get unusually careful and precise. The blue girl asks her elementals which session they'd like to attend.
Her elementals don't really care.
Maurabel does feel bad about the ones who are under financial pressure but if the reds look an iota less protected they will likely be outright murdered.
Some of the elementals come back, including that Shine.
Then she'll attend afternoons. She has tutors in the mornings. One of her tutors is concerned for the other childrens' non-magical education and asks Maurabel if she has suggestions on that.
"Not especially. I'm already spread pretty thin between artifact development and teaching and I don't have any special advantages at nonmagically educating them. Ice, does their visitation visa cover -"
"- yeah, I think residence-to-study allows them to go to Anitami schools."
In that case once schools are found that can work around magic class scheduling the greens will cut down to one session to spend the rest of their time on a proper green education and the yellows likewise and the oranges and greys and purples can be enrolled in local appropriate schools also.
Good for them.
Tiya still goes to both sessions every day. She usually looks like she hasn't slept much. She always keeps up by the end of the second session.
When her Shine comes back Isa stops with the excessive showering, though she still isn't as talkative as before magic school.
"Thought Maurabel said I was a bad person and we shouldn't be friends and you weren't coming back."
"Maurabel said a bunch of students dropped out because they couldn't stand to be around reds and she linked me to a couple of red websites to read. It reminded me of some stuff that happened to me back in the other world. I needed to go be by myself for a while."