The Crown Prince Thinks I'm a Guy

Class Sorting

"Line up, line up, all of you!" a portly mage that I have seen once with the tattooed woman announced in his oddly nervous and squeaky voice. "Hurry, hurry now! We haven't got all day!"

The first years and I were shuffling around the familiar, wide hall, the long tables and chairs now gone. Without the furniture, the hall looked even larger than before. Coupled with the fact that there was only a score or so number of new students around, the hall seemed quite enormous.

Joren kept jumping on the balls of his feet. I stepped on his foot in annoyance, "If you keep bouncing around, I'll have to do more than just step on you!"

"Ugh!" he murmured and then rubbed at his toe. "I-I's just nervous, Therion. And- oh! You smell kinda nice today!"

I smiled at his compliment before frowning. "What do you mean, today? Don't I always smell nice?"

He laughed. In his anxiety, his volume came out a bit too loud. Fortunately, the rest of the students were also a jumbled mess of nerves to mind us too much. Joren muttered, "You just smell like Therion."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I replied angrily, feeling a blush come up my cheeks. I wondered if I smelled. I was so sure I didn't have a bad odor, but I might have just been used to it... Did I really smell bad?

"Oh, I believe he doesn't mean anything bad by that, Eleftherion," Albert said from my other side, keeping a straight posture as he made sure he was lined up perfectly from all sides. "He just means, you know... your natural scent."

That only proved to make me even more confused. "As I've asked before... What does that even mean?!"

"Hush, now!" the portly professor shouted at us collectively, although I did have an inkling that he was specifically referring to us. "You all know about this school, the Lunar Academy for Special Mages, and you have all passed with exemplary results. You have earned your respective tokens, battled through the Forests of Elara's numerous dangers, and most of all... survived the welcoming party we have prepared last night!"

Some of the students laughed at that, although most were still quite nervous to even understand the joke.

The man continued on without missing a beat, "Now, we will be sorting you into your classes, based on your respective aptitudes. Many of you are already aware of the way classes are done in the Academy, but for the benefit of the few who don't, I will explain.

"The Lunar Academy believes that education shouldn't be limited to the years the child has lived. The Academy has always considered individual prowess and intellect as bases for the level of education granted to him. Frankly, although you are grouped in the year you have enrolled in the Academy, your classmates might not even be of the same years. You, for all purposes involved, will be named as the students of Batch Pi, Sinus Fidei of the first cycle. Not many have advanced into the inner mares by their second cycle, but I believe that this batch holds promise."

For a while, he looked at the far corner, where the Sinus Fidei Maximus stood rigidly in line, and then to me. I trembled at his twinkling gaze. Then, the man continued on, "There are 24 of you in your batch, quite a larger number than the average. I expect that some of you will still meet in many of your classes, so I hope you earn more companions as you go."

Then, he announced loudly, his voice echoing through the wide, otherwise empty hall, "Oobra-thama, Kiipayapa, Dakalaman."

Only a few said it with him, myself not included. It was wordy in my tongue, and I still haven't gotten the use to speaking it aloud. Fortunately, the portly man didn't seem to mind the mild response, and clapped his short fingers together. "Let the sorting begin!"