PROMPT : CONFIDENT
“There’s no way she’ll do it.”
“If Mark wiped out, she’ll be paste!”
“Is she stupid?”
“Ugh. This is so pointless. Everyone knows she’s going to fail.”
Octavia walked to the center of the room, clad in the finest apprentice’s robes afforded to her station.
She bowed formally to the board of high masters, hand over heart, one hand fisted behind her back, eyes level with the high table.
“Apprentice Agneil,” High Master Juniper intoned. “You may choose your trial. May the elements be with you should you have need of their endurance.”
“Yes, high master,” Octavia murmured the rote reply of every apprentice when standing before the judging court.
Her ability to correctly and legally perform the following tasks would forever dictate her position in society and serve as an example of her magical prowess to the Crown of Idealia.
A large basin of water was carried over to her by a young page. Dark water churned within the copper basin and the page’s eyes were glazed over in the signature trance of a hypnotized suggestion.
Octavia held her right sleeve back and dipped her hand into the water. There was nothing to be seen, but that was half of the trial. She had to take something that wasn’t there to perform something that was absolutely impossible.
The thin wisp of parchment materialized between her fingertips and she drew it out, dripping, from the bowl.
The page bowed carefully and backed away to safety, where the large ornamental carvings on the stone floor did not reach the corners of the trial room.
Whispers from the audience of apprentices died down when High Master Juniper stood to attention and made the motion for silence.
“Read your trial, Apprentice Agneil.”
“I am to—“ Octavia squinted. “To summon the Water Dragon of Belvere.”
A few shocked gasps went up, but a grim atmosphere settled over the room.
High Master Juniper held up a hand for silence once more. “As it has been decided,” she said, clearly. “Know that once you have accepted this challenge, none can interfere. Should you die at the hands of what you have summoned, it is your own doing. Do you still accept?”
Octavia squared her shoulders, chin lifted. “I accept,” she said, calmly. “With your permission, I proceed.”
“Permission given,” High Master Juniper said, faintly. “Proceed.”
Octavia dropped to a crouch and tugged out the blue bracelets she’d worn that morning. Stacking them one on top of the other, she sprinkled them with ashes from Atlantis and a gemstone gargoyle’s scales.
Muttering the summoning beneath her breath, she placed her hands flat on the floor and poured her energy into it. This would only work if she did it right.
But there was no reason for it to go wrong—not to her, anyway. Summoning magic had always been her forte. She was confident enough in that.
It started with the geyser and ended with a ferocious roar, where a brilliant, blue-scaled dragon erupted from the floor.
Octavia bit back a grin and shouted out the bindings she’d set before hand. The twin blue bracelets turned into identical pairs of shackles, fastening on the dragon’s forefeet, while the ashes stained the water a vivid neon blue.
“Who dares summon me?” The dragon roared. “I am no man’s creature!”
“My name is Octavia Agneil,” she cried out. “And I have summoned you!”
(c) S. Harricharan