26/01/2024
“Come in,” said Professor Silver. You straightened your uniform, stuffed as much shame into your shoulders as you could, and walked inside. “Sit,” her voice was mellifluous but compelling- almost unnervingly so. You knew why you were there, you had no excuse, and the optics of making Damian Dorian’s underwear shrink during his Spirit Class speech was far from good. You had intended to just make them go down a couple sizes, but you messed up the spell and it took a surgery team 3 hours to cut his white from his pale inner thighs- and they still haven’t found his other testicle. So much blood and so many threw up. Luckily, he would be fine, the healers here were talented, and truth be told it was an even comeuppance for the years of ridicule. “Tell me why I shouldn’t expel you,” you open your mouth, ready to poor out drivel about how mean Damian has been, but she cut you off - “I know. I know more than you know. You believe in revenge, and it feeds you. You have Equalizer blood.” “My mother,” you said softly. Professor Silver smiled, a snarl of some kind. “The spell was perfect, you were not.” Her white paw landed on top of an envelope and she slid it over to you melodramatically- grinding on the ripples in the old wooden desk, “You’re being transferred…. Or you can be expelled.” Trapped, you feel the fear rising “where am I going?” “Somewhere… useful.” That night, by the light of a wisp candle, you opened the envelope. The writing inside was scrawled, haphazard, terrifying - it just said “The Bridge.” When you looked up you were already there. The warmth of your room replaced by cold steal, wind, and flurries of snow. You would spend the foreseeable future shoring metal for the Bridge Keeper. Making rivets. Clearing imperfections. Watching trains. Trying not to fall- you look down. The rushing waters of the river far below, grinding away at the rock bed. A good job for an Equalizer with temper.
