Art Of Magic: Refoare Academy

Prologue: Jason Nightshade

Jason was a pale, slightly short kid with a black zip-up hoodie he never seemed to take off. His eyes were a deep shade of blue that bordered on grey with a beautiful star-pattern inside the iris, and his brown hair had seen so little sun lately it could've been mistaken for as black.

Jason sat at his lunch table, pecking at his food when his best and only real friend sat next to him.

Cal was a tall, attractive and tan teen. He wore a red long-sleeve shirt and jeans, his dirty blonde hair swept to one side in a semi-messy manner, and beautiful green eyes to top it all off.

"Hey Jason! How are you today?" Cal asked as he sat down.

"Oh, hey… I'm… Hanging in there." Jason made a motion behind his neck like he was pulling on a noose.

Cal playfully hit Jason's shoulder. "Hilarious… Hey, you gonna go ask Lyric out yet?"

Jason's face turned red. "W-what? Are you crazy? She'd deck me like everyone else that's asked her out…" Jason sighed. "Rich family, high magical prowess, go figure she'd become the popular girl in middle-school…" He mumbled, recalling a time when they were all good friends.

"Hey, Jason, do you want to hear something my mom told me? Something's that helped me a lot?" Cal asked.

Jason rolled his eyes, expecting some sort of corny joke. "Sure, Cal, let's hear it."

"My mom told me that if I was going to do something, to do it with confidence. People will almost always go along with what you say or do if it's done with the aire or pure confidence." Cal said, picking up his sandwich and taking a bite.

"That… That's so dumb…" Jason replied, furrowing his brow.

"Maybe, but it works. How do you think I got popular?" Cal took another bite of his sandwich, before he had even swallowed the previous one.

Jason sighed. "I… Yeah… That's fair…" He sighed.

"So, are you going to go ask her out?" Cal looked over at Jason with a smirk.

Jason sighed and shook his head. "You know what, fine, but if I get hurt, you're paying for it."

"Wouldn't have it any other way, Jason!"

Jason got up and composed himself as much as he could, doing his best to feign confidence, even if on the inside he was panicking worse than he had ever before. He looked out the window as snow was falling. At least if I get hurt, I have Christmas break to recover properly… And, it'll be nice to get away from school. He took a deep breath and approached Lyric, who was standing on the other end of the cafeteria surrounded by three of her friends.

"Hey, Lyric…" he said, still holding desperately onto the facade of confidence he was trying to put up.

"Hmm? Oh, hello Jason. How are you doing today?" Lyric said this in the bluntest tone possible and looked Jason straight in the eye.

This put a damper on his confidence, but he pushed on nonetheless. It wasn't often Cal was wrong, so he revelled in this rare opportunity, even if it would crush him, both literally and figuratively. "Oh, you know, hangin' in there. You?"

"I'm alright, thank you for asking. What brings you over here?" She gestured to the area she and her clique hung around, consisting of two tables and Lyric standing between.

Jason's heart leapt to his throat. "Well, Lyric, I was wondering… if.. I was wondering if you'd like to go see a movie with me on Friday?"

The confidence in Jason’s voice caught her off guard, as did the question. She never expected Jason of all people to ask her out. She found herself unable to reply for a few seconds. “I’ll be honest, that caught me off guard.” She walked to Jason “The confidence it must have taken you of all people to ask me out is impressive, and for that…"