Welcome to Gaia! ::

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The hallway that you've come across is one that is well lit by the sunlight streaming in from large arched windows, thickly paned with a blue tinted glass. If you stayed long after classes were over, you would notice that as dark falls outside, the tall white candles- stuck straight and sure in their expertly designed bronze holders- light up with a flame that wasn't there the last time you looked. Across from one particularly large and open window is a solid oaken door, carved with delicate images of roses at the corners. The curved handle is the same bronze as the candle holders, polished to a brilliant shine, and as you make a motion to reach for it, the latch clicks, and the door opens on its own accord.

As you enter, the small hallway like area beyond the door gives way to a much larger room, the grey brick walls stretching far to either side of you. As soon as you step into the area, you notice four long mahogany tables situated in the middle of the classroom, facing the east wall. These tables are long enough to have five to six students sitting at them at one time, and the red cushioned stools, which number five per table, confirm your suspicions that there's going to be an awful lot of elbow room for you.

Behind the tables, at the west wall, there is a small library of sorts. Three bookshelves are loaded neatly to the brim, and are evenly spaced between themselves. The west wall itself contains an open window of the same quality as the ones you saw outside, and underneath it on the cushioned window seat lies a midsized gray tabby cat, dozing in the rays of morning sunlight. As you approach him, he lifts his head up and looks at you with piercing emerald green eyes, and the look makes you want move along quickly to the next wall.

The north wall is a continuation of the library at the west wall- except for the fact that the library here is actually set into the wall and not a separate piece of furniture, although the top of the bookshelf sticks out enough as to hold various magical items that you can't identify. As is with the western library, the northern wall contains a vast collection of spellbooks, written in the Athear language, and is systematically placed among the shelves. More windows above the bookshelves let light come in, and a slight breeze lifts your hair up as you continue onto the last two walls.

The eastern side consists of a blackboard that takes up half of the wall, any traces of chalk dust nonexistant. A few feet in front of the blackboard and situated on the left side is the obvious teacher's table, stacked with one or two books that you saw missing from the libraries, and equipped with three drawers on either side of the desk. An inkwell is on the upper right corner of the table, with a raven's feather as a quill stuck inside it. Underneath the inkwell are a few pieces of parchment, and what you can see from your point of view, seem to be some important school documents. Other than a rose decorated porcelein tea cup filled with a caramel colored liquid- which you guess is coffee with cream- the table is devoid of anything else. Behind the table is a medium sized arm chair, red cushioned like the students' chairs but with a polished gold edging. On one of the arms of this chair is perched a hawk, tawny brown in color. Her large doe brown eyes flick towards you in curiosity, and in interest one could hold a staring contest with the bird, until you would shake out of your reverie and continue on to finish your assessment of the classroom.

Behind the tutor's table is another door, similar to the door you came through to get in, but smaller in size. It is apparently the teacher's own storage room, and obviously off limits to students. Next to the door on the wall is a noticeboard covered with various shaped corks- ranging from a cat's head to a rosebud to a sparkle of magic- and the papers that the corks are pinning down.

Finally, as you face the wall with the exiting door, you notice four paintings mounted on the southern wall, all of them landscape paintings. What's interesting about them is that all of the paintings seem to move on their own; the water gently flowing continuously, the leaves of the tree rustling in an unseen wind. Perhaps it is a trick of the light, but nevertheless, it is entrancing and breathtaking all the same. All of the pictures are hung in exquisitely made frames, made with gold siding and more carved roses. As you exit, you make a note on which chair- or table, rather- that you would like to sit at during the next class, and head out back to your dorm.

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The upper left hand corner of the blackboard has this written in a neat cursive:

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The Charms and Magical Spells classroom is dark, which seems odd, seeing as it is nearly time for lessons to begin. In fact, the students are already beginning the tiring journey of going up three sets of stairs to get to the room. It takes about 20 minutes to climb all of them, and already a quarter of that had passed. And still, there is no sign of a teacher going up the stairs.

Inside the classroom in question, a small gray cat stirrs at one of the window seats, lifting its head up. Its bright emerald green eyes blink slowly as blue spheres of light, glowing softly, appear and circle around the center of the room. The balls of light swirl faster and faster, until at last there is a bright flash of blue, and a feminine figure is standing there. The woman gazes around the room, and seeing the cat, smiles slightly. "Scorn, as early as ever, I see," she says in a soft lyrical voice. "Are you that eager to pester the new students?" She kneels down, her indigo skirt and forest green cape gathering around her, and holds out her hands to him. The cat leaps off of the window seat gracefully, and trots over to snuggle into her arms.

"They're so easy to tease," Scorn replies in a low baritone. Juri laughs quietly, cradling him in one arm as she waves slightly to the window curtains with the other. "Npheo." At once the curtains are pulled back by an invisible hand, the sunlight streaming in and illuminating the darkest corners of the room. She does the same hand motion with the door, and it opens outward with a creak. "There, now we have some light in the room."

The sorceress walks over to her desk, where she sets Scorn down. "Hm...where did I put my lesson plans?" She searches around the desk, murmuring to herself. "Ah, here they are." She thumbs through them, stroking her pet with one hand all the while. "I'll need some books from the library...Levatais." She pointed her index finger towards the library, and the shuffling sounds of books being moved can be heard. Three leather bound books come floating over, and as they come near, she extends her hand to catch them before putting them on her desk. "Now all that's left to do is to wait for the students," she says to Scorn, and opens the door to the storage room before entering and closing it behind her. What she is doing in there no one can say, but her students wouldn't be seeing her entering it anyways.

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