The
Academy
Part
6: A Wish
"Well, that was weird," Cassie said as the group
headed toward the exit of the gym. "Why give us such a cryptic
answer?"
"Indeed," Emily agreed. "Why say 'what you're looking
for' like it's an object, and then give a description that
sounds rather like a person?"
"I think she knows the
whole story, but didn't want to spare the time to tell it,"
Astra said. "Trust me—I've got an instinct for when someone's
annoyed."
"Well, she was still helpful!" the wolf-girl said.
"Once we go to the library, we can sort this whole thing out."
They exited the doors of the gym, and then everyone, simultaneously,
paused as if uncertain which direction to go. It was normal for
Emily to not know where to go, but now all three of the girls
who'd been leading her from one place to another had stopped, too.
"I assume..at least one of you knows which way the
library is?" she asked. Back at her home school, the library had
been built back when books were the only way to get most
important information, so it was gigantic, and placed very centrally
in the campus, to the point that directions to a lot of other
buildings tended to use it as a reference. Beyond the obvious
bookshelves, and check-out counters it had lots of study rooms, a
couple of big rooms for presentations, a computer and/or printing lab
for students to use, and various other related services and resources
had also wound up being located inside. However, it seemed that The
Academy's history was a bit different.
"No clue~," Astra answered first.
"Uhhmm..heheh..?" Halley seemed to really be thinking about
it, but she clearly had no idea either.
"I could swear I was given a tour of every
building on campus after my interview," Cassie said, crossing
her arms and folding her ears back as she tried to think.
"Well, then—there must be a campus map somewhere?
Posted on a sign, or online?" Emily suggested, getting her own
phone out. It was still a little strange to find herself so
instinctively reaching for her purse instead of a pocket.
"The cleaning club's never been asked to clean the
library up? Dust the shelves or something?" Astra asked the
catgirl.
"Nnnot that I can think of. Or—I haven't at least,
which, it'd be a pretty big coincidence for it to be just me
for so many years."
"Guess we better be ready for a pretty dusty place, then,"
Halley said.
"Hmm..." The campus map Emily was able to find...didn't
list a library. It had the cafeteria, the gym, the dorms, and plenty
of other buildings. She'd referred to this very map in preparation
for the trip to the conference, and now recognized the dorms, the
cafeteria, the gym, and the building where most of the talks were to
be held. There was a "study building" which was also listed
as having computer labs and other functions that she would usually
associate with a library, but...
"Nothing that says 'library' on this map at all. But..."
Turning the phone where the others could see it, she pointed at one
small building sitting in an out-of-the-way corner of campus. "This
building isn't labeled as anything. Ordinarily I would think that was
for some sort of maintenance purpose, but then Cassie would know
about it."
"Aand I've never been there," the catgirl agreed.
"Aha! Great work, Emily!" Halley said excitedly. "That
must be it! Or, at least, a new place to explore anyhow!"
"Worth
a shot," Cassie said, shrugging.
"Well,
lookit that," Halley said, pointing at the sign above the
building's door. "Says 'library', plain as day. Wonder why it
don't say that on the map."
"Never mind that,
let's go inside!" Cassie said, hurrying toward the door. "I've
still got work to do before supper, and this little curiosity trip
has taken far longer
than it should've already!" The wolf-girl was about to say
something, and—seeming to sense it—the catgirl whirled to point
at her with a severe glare on her face. "Don't you dare!"
"Pffheheh..." Guessing at their simultaneous thought
regarding curiosity and cat(girl)s, Emily giggled quietly before
following Astra inside.
"Welp..this
is a library alright," Astra commented, looking around. "Nobody
at the front desk—guess borrowing books is on the 'honor system'?"
"There's
a sign-in," Emily pointed out. "Anyway, I suppose a place
like this could enforce returning books by magic if it wanted."
"Maybe
I'll test that out later~," the Kitsune commented.
"Astra,
focus!" Cassie said.
"We're looking for a person
here, right? Or at least something that can be short and
brown-haired."
"So: Not a book," Emily said. "Now
listen you three—even though there don't seem to be too many people
here, this is a
library. So, please,
try to keep it down?" Halley and Cassie nodded, and then the
catgirl reached up to grab and lightly tug on one of Astra's ears
until she did the same. With that, they split up to look for their
mystery person.
Peeking
through the shelves, Emily noticed some wooden stools and desks
scattered around here and there. There were also rolling ladders
attached to each of the taller bookshelves to allow access to the
upper shelves. At one point she did
stumble upon someone, a girl hunched over one of those tables with
twenty or so pieces of notebook paper with messy handwriting all over
them, some books behind the papers, currently busy scribbling even
more of that same handwriting onto another piece of paper. But she
was blond and looked to be on the tall side, so the redhead quietly
went past behind her. If this place was so hard to find, then it was
also a good place to do thinking in silence, away from both noise and
prying eyes—and she had no intentions of bothering someone who
wanted that.
Somehow, the four of them converged on the end of the very same
aisle, Emily approaching from one bookshelf while the others appeared
from behind the one on the other side. Turning to look, all of them
could see the same thing. It was a short girl in a school uniform:
White top with a red ribbon tied around the collar, short black
skirt, leggings only up to her knees. And she had gorgeous, deep
brown hair coming down to nearly the hem of that skirt. She was most
of the way up one of the shelf-ladders, carefully placing a book into
the top shelf.
The
four of them exchanged a look: This had to
be the right person...right? They came closer, but she seemed too
intently focused on reshelving a few more books near the top to
notice them. "Um, excuse us," Emily said quietly to get her
attention.
"Oh?" She turning her head to one side and
down to face them. "Hello there~, sorry I didn't notice you
earlier," she said, her voice high, cute, and friendly. She
nimbly scrambled down the ladder to floor level, hopping past the
last couple of steps so her shoes hit the floor with a light clop
sound, and turned to face them. "Not too many people visit the
library this time of day, soo, it's when I usually do the stocking.
Ah—I'm the librarian, if that's not clear 'nuff," she added
with a quick nod. Now that her feet were on the same floor, it was
easy to see that her height was about midway between Cassie's and
Halley's.
"Nice
to meet you," Emily said—even though the girl hadn't actually
introduced herself yet. "I'm Emily; I..just first came to The
Academy today."
"I imagine it was quite the shock,"
the librarian said with a friendly nod. "Always is, it seems.
And your friends?"
"We're
not—!" Cassie
started (a bit too loud), and cut off into a soft "mrowh!"
when Astra's tail curled across hers in an obviously intentional
interruption.
"I'm Astra," the fox-girl offered, "This
is Cassie and Halley. Not that that's any of our real
names, but I suppose you know all about that, miss—?"
"Ohh, dear, where are my manners?" the librarian said.
"Leah." She stepped just close enough to offer Emily a hand
to shake, so she reciprocated. The handshake was gentle and friendly,
much like everything else about the girl. Really, Emily was having a
hard time thinking of anything remarkable about her at all. She just
seemed like a nice, ordinary girl—their collective overall
circumstances notwithstanding. "Soo, to what do I owe the
visit?"
"Well—Sean
said...or at least suggested, that you might know something we were
wondering about," Emily said. "The...effect this place has,
on anyone who comes to visit. For this kind of physical
transformation, and especially the accompanying mental effects, some
powerful magic is involved. And it has an apparent sense of purpose
to it, and the rules appear to be able to change somewhat, which
suggests a conscious agent is involved. It...to be honest, it makes
me nervous to be under the thumb of a power like that and not really
know its motivations for
certain."
"The rest of us are just curious," Halley added helpfully.
"I see..." Leah nodded slowly. "Well, you're quite a
brilliant girl, aren't you, Emily?" she said with a genuine,
bright smile. "What's your main area of study, if you've got
one?"
"Err, mathematics. I, came here originally to attend a
conference starting tomorrow."
"Ahh, right," she
nodded, "I remember helping process the application forms for
that. Now let's see..I think the best way to answer your concerns is
with a story. Perhaps you'd all like to sit down first?" she
offered, gesturing to follow her as she headed toward one of the
unoccupied desks.
"Now then..." Leah softly cleared her throat. "Once
upon a time..."
There was an old archaeologist. Retired, in fact. He had made all
sorts of important discoveries, and while archaeology wasn't a
glamorous field like physics or computer science that could make
people celebrities, he was well-known and respected among his peers.
He'd been a professor for quite some time, seeing many generations of
students, and was now an emeritus. While he wasn't so involved in
active research anymore, he continued to watch the progress of his
field—and of other fields—with a keen interest.
Something
that had embittered the man back when he was first starting out was a
sense of elitism that pervaded his field. The old, established
archaeologists were always in charge, telling everyone else what to
do. They were not just the mentors, but the gatekeepers
for anyone else who wanted to make new discoveries or theories.
Certainly, to some extent, it had to be this way—the people who
knew what they were doing had not merely a right, but a
responsibility to
guide the next generation toward doing things the correct way. But
the sense of power, authority, and entitlement that some of the man's
superiors had clearly developed disgusted him. He even witnessed the
outright abuse of that
power, to terrible ends. People got hurt, and
the field of study suffered as a whole! And so, he paid his dues,
sucking up to the ones in charge, only so that he could later shoot
down their most ridiculous theories, and in some cases expose their
most heinous abuses, once he himself was
well-respected. And that was just what he had done.
Now
that he was retired, and had a curious ear to the ground on a number
of other subjects...even though he didn't understand much of the
material in those
subjects, he quickly learned that the elitism that plagued his field
was far from unique to it. Those in charge, with not necessarily
knowledge but primarily the reputation
of having knowledge, were often all too happy to lord it over the
next generation. Promising young talent that could've greatly
advanced the field would vanish away because of such behavior; he'd
seen it happening himself, even when he was doing his best to stop
it. This would have just been one of the things he rattled on about
to his younger peers and those who had replaced him, one subject of
conversation among many that the old archaeologist could bring up at
the occasional formal dinners, if not for what happened near the
end...or rather, what otherwise would
have been the end of his life.
While he still had the mobility to do so, the old man occasionally
volunteered to properly clean, prepare, and catalog new objects. Not
the big, important things that might get press or be presented at
museums, but a few droplets of the sea of miscellanea that, despite
their historical importance, nobody had the time quite yet to look
into in great detail. It was in this capacity that the old man
happened upon a small, ancient oil lamp—not functional according
the notes it came with—and, as usual, set to carefully cleaning it
off with a cloth.
Anyone
who's read enough fantastical stories might be able to guess what
happened next. One moment he was running cloth carefully across the
lamp with a gloved hand, the next smoke was pouring out of its
opening as though it were lit—no, far more
smoke than that! And the smoke didn't disseminate through the air
like it should have, didn't set off the building's smoke alarm—no,
instead it insisted on illogically forming itself into the shape of a
tall, handsome young man with a dark complexion, dressed in
ancient-Arabian-styled garb. And the strange smoke-made man looked
positively elated to
be impossibly standing there in front of the old man.
"Mortal!"
He spread his arms out wide. "Congratulations, you have freed
me! The great
Artoszatsar, from my long imprisonment!"
The retired archaeologist was still a little too deep in shock to
respond. Actually, he was thinking that his latest set of medications
might be interacting in a way that made him hallucinate, and so he
was trying to keep his breath steady and hoping he wasn't about to
have a heart attack before this episode was over.
The strange man dropped his arms to the side. "Well—your
surprise is only understandable! How could such a great being as I be
trapped in a humble lamp like that? How is it that I'm speaking the
same language as you, despite the fact that I was stuck in there
several centuries before it was even invented? Never mind that—the
powers of a Djinn are as mysterious as they are incredible!"
"Arto..szatsar,
was it?" the old man said after a long pause. "You're
real?"
"Heh-hey, as real as you are!" he said, very
gently punching his emancipator's shoulder. Since the old man could
feel that, he at least
ruled out this being a purely visual/auditory hallucination. "Now,
I'm sure you're aware of the legends. Djinn such as myself are
well-known for granting wishes, and I'm no exception! My overflowing
gratitude at your freeing me requires
that I do so, in fact! But we are no less well
known for ensuring the results of granted wishes are interesting!"
"Uh..yes, of course."
"So,
as another result of my overflowing gratitude, I will do you a favor,
my friend! Rather than having you wonder what the catch is, I will
tell you up front! In fact, I intend to grant two
of your wishes. However!"
He put up an index finger dramatically. "You must tell them both
to me first! For I will grant both wishes with the very same
magical act! Said act will grant
the spirit of your wishes, but I will also
be looking for a way to make it as entertaining for me
as possible! Is that clear enough?"
"Er...yes, certainly."
"Then, I will grant you a
moment without distraction to consider your wishes carefully!"
he announced, and then crossed his arms and stayed silent until the
old man's response.
Assuming
that this was real—even as he accepted that he might very well just
be dreaming right now—the old man thought about what he might wish
for for a long moment before reaching a conclusion. Perhaps this
genie would even find these wishes entertaining without too
much modification.
"All right then, since there's two wishes—I'll make one for
myself, and one for the rest of the world," he said.
"I
like the sound of this already!" Artoszatsar said encouragingly.
"For myself—I'd like to be young and healthy again, full of
pep, able to learn and think and move around like I used
to."
"Understandable! Mortal life looks like such a
pain!" the genie said. "But I admit that would be
tragically boring to me all by itself!"
The archaeologist nodded. "For the world, I wish for...a place,
a peaceful place of learning, freed from the restrictions of
authority, status, and power. A place where everyone is
equal—everyone is a teacher, and everyone is a student—and
learning from others, the free and open exchange of ideas, is
paramount. That's my earnest wish. I hope it's not too complicated,
but I suppose there's plenty of room for interpretation in just how
you accomplish that."
"Indeed
there is—indeed! Now that's an
entertaining wish! A real challenge,
even! Hmm..."
Putting
his hand under his chin, Artoszatsar considered the two wishes for a
long moment. "To be young again...peaceful...and, everyone is a
student..." He lifted the hand off his chin a moment later,
declaring: "Aha, I've got it! You'll positively love
this, I guarantee it!" Then the Djinn reached that hand forward
and snapped, the sound of it seeming to audibly echo and visibly
ripple out from the point where his thumb and middle finger had slid
across each other. This rippling appeared to warp the space around
them, changing the pair's surroundings into the interior of an
unfamiliar library. It would later become clear that this was the two
of them changing locations, not the genie altering their original
location in any way besides the two's removal.
"Here we are, your 'place'!" Artoszatsar announced
dramatically. "This is but one of many buildings in this
'place', which I invite you to explore! And you'll find your eternal
youth coming along shortly! So—enjoy!" With that, the Djinn
erupted into the smoke that seemed to have originally formed him, and
it flew away in all directions, making its way out to the doors and
windows of the building and seemingly going straight out through
them, irrespective of how open or closed they happened to be.
With
the strange supernatural entity gone, he felt as though he was
standing in an ordinary, if deserted, library. The sense of unreality
from the presence of a literal genie was
in one sense gone, but the fact that he was in this place
rather than the one he'd been a moment earlier still stood as proof
that it had really happened. While trying to process this, it also
occurred to him that Artoszatsar had said 'eternal youth', which was
seemingly more generous than what he'd asked for; he'd wished to be
young just once more,
not indefinitely. But then, being young again would be
somewhat soured when he eventually aged back to how old he was now,
so perhaps the intent was to fully grant 'the spirit' of the wish.
A
strange feeling brought the old archaeologist out of this train of
thought. It was a very faint tingling, an almost electric feeling
racing around across his skin that made him shudder just slightly.
This sensation made him feel slightly...excited; he could feel his
heartrate picking up slightly from it. He felt awfully stiff all of a
sudden, and found himself reaching his arms up and stretching,
arching his back slightly. There were a few pops, and a warmth spread
through him as the aches and soreness of age vanished away. Next, he
felt the hair atop his head shifting around slightly, and when he
reached a hand up to brush through it, he found it noticeably softer
and thicker than a moment before, the thinning toward baldness that
it had done in recent years completely undone. The excitement he was
feeling picked up a little more as understood: He really was
getting younger!
Looking
down, picking at his clothes and twisting his body around, he could
see most every sign of age disappearing from his form. He rubbed a
hand across his face where he was used to finding uneven wrinkles,
and they were only briefly, faintly present, then gone and replaced
by fresh, young skin the next time his hand brushed across.
"H-hahah..this is real?
Unbelievable!" he said. No, he had
to be dreaming—but then why did everything seem so largely
coherent? And why could he physically feel it?
While he had his hand up near his face, he even tried pinching his
cheek pretty hard—"Ow!"—and it hurt, but it didn't wake
him. By now, he felt physically like he had in his early twenties, if
not even better—more full of energy than was certain he'd ever
been before! "Th-this is amazing!
How..?"
The
now-young man's question was interrupted by a sudden, second
wave of tingling. This one was
noticeably stronger than before, but no less electric, causing him to
shudder somewhat violently for a second. He worried: Was it not over?
Was he—going to be younger than this? He hadn't exactly specified
that he still wanted to be an adult, and it would
be characteristically mean for the wish to result in him being
permanently stuck at the age of ten. But the genie had said he'd
'enjoy' this, and surely understood the intent of the wish...
The
tingling seemed to fade all but his scalp for a moment, growing a bit
stronger there, and suddenly he felt the just-thickened hair growing
rapidly longer and longer. There were bangs spreading out along his
forehead, several locks playing their way down past his ears to his
cheeks, and he felt even longer tresses landing across his shoulder,
then his upper back, then his lower back. Twisting around, he could
see the cape of voluminous, deep brown hair spreading out behind him,
and even caught it in the act of gaining some three or four more
inches of length! "Huh, this...? My hair..?" he mumbled
confusedly, reaching a hand up to brush and twirl some of it between
his fingers. It was curious; the soft locks felt rather nice between
his fingers, and he felt strangely..proud of how it looked? Even
though, of course, it had
to look strange—besides the fact that he hadn't made it look that
way in the first place.
Seemingly done with his scalp, the tingling now raced directly down
his spine, making him shudder once more. This was followed
immediately by a different sensation spreading out from there to
encompass his entire body, a sort of inward pressure that started out
weak but quickly grew stronger. "Aa~aah..?" His perspective
noticeably sank as the books and shelves all around seemed to rise up
around him. "Wh, whaa~at's..?" His voice began to
sound..smaller, somehow, as its pitch rose with each utterance it
made.
Somehow, he didn't feel like he was really getting younger—and yet
he was definitely shrinking! He looked down as he felt his shirt
slipping across his shoulder, and found himself slimmer than before,
his frame visibly narrowing inward. "Mm~mmngh..?" His
shoulders, his waist, his arms and legs were all getting thinner and
smaller; reaching a hand up toward his face, he could see it
shrinking too, the fingers becoming shorter, smaller, and more
delicate.
"I-I'm,
mm~mmnhh..?" His voice sounded like a young boy's by this point.
The tingling he'd thought gone before seemed to have reappeared down
between his legs, and his just-youthened manhood seemed
rather..stimulated by this sensation, making his heartbeat pick up
once again and his face heat up with a blush. "Mnn~nh, aah,
aa~ah..!" Even as the pressure shrinking the rest of him eased
off, he found the tingling giving way to a strange tugging, slipping
sensation down there—and now that
was what was shrinking.
His
shirt's collar now showed off most of his left shoulder, and its hem
was down to his thighs, which was perhaps just as well since his
pants and underwear had both abandoned him, each one slipping off in
turn during the rapid shrinking a moment ago. The legs down there,
now that he was looking, seemed so very slender and soft, every last
trace of body hair gone from them; the neckline his oversized shirt's
collar showed off was no different. It was like..it was just
like a young girl trying to wear a much taller man's clothing.
Because...!
"Aah, aa~aah..!" The stimulation between his
legs seemed to only intensify as the thing that felt it became even
smaller. His voice lilted up into a high, cute soprano tone—a
girl's voice for
certain—and he felt he understood at least a little bit of the
genie's way of making this wish of his interesting. "Aah,
mmmMMMMNNn~nnh..!" It was tugging away; he didn't have much
longer to be male. But—he found that he really didn't mind that so
much. After all, he'd lived a pretty full life as a man; why not
see what the other side had to offer? Especially when..he was going
to wind up so very cute!
This was the very last thing he thought as a man—how cute he was
about to be—and then with one final tug, she found her sex fully
and completely changed. Immediately she was assaulted with a sharp,
intense wave of feminine pleasure, and the girliest sounds possible
emerged from her mouth: "Aah—AAH—aAA~AAAA~AAAHHH~HNNNnnnh...!"
Her little legs wriggled together as her thighs gently puffed out,
growing thick and shapely. Then her hips pushed their way out to
spread the top of her legs apart, her bottom growing ever so slightly
rounder to grant her a nice, girlish figure.
"Haa~Aahh, hff, mnn~ngh..!" She continued to squirm as the
fuzzy feeling between her legs intensified again, a second wave
hitting her just as her chest tingled sharply, then pushed itself
forward, quickly budding into a pair of small, girly breasts. She
gasped, then let out another helpless "Aaa~AAHHnnn..!" as
those small breasts bloomed forward, growing into a respectable pair
of globes—not especially huge, but big enough to match her shrunken
size and make her a fully-grown, adult woman.
"Hh, hff...mmmn~nnh.." The new girl panted and let out a
soft sound, thoroughly enjoying the afterglow of that sudden burst of
pleasure. She could feel her shirt shuffling around across her body,
the underwear and pants that had abandoned her suddenly pulling
themselves up her legs again only to shift and shuffle around once
they got there. In no time at all, she found herself dressed in a
girl's school uniform: White shirt tucked into a short dark skirt, a
bra and a pair of panties beneath them. And she felt strangely
certain..that her name was Leah.
While
it certainly hadn't
been her name before, she thought: It's cute!
It definitely had a nice ring to it. She...couldn't quite remember
what her name used to be, actually, now that she thought of it; but
as an understanding of where she was began to fill her mind, she
already decided that she didn't really need that old name anyway. It
was time for a fresh start!
"...Standing
there in the library, the old man found himself becoming young again.
At first, he found himself very much like he'd been in his early
twenties, but that only lasted a brief moment. Then he suddenly found
himself shrinking and changing, and before he knew it he'd become a
young girl instead—a
cute girl, with long brown hair, dressed in a school uniform. She'd
become the first student of The Academy."
"And...I suppose that'd be you?" Emily asked.
"Mm-hm,"
Leah nodded. "Although...if any of you convey this story to
other curious students, I'd appreciate if you left out those last
few, identifying details."
"So, basically," Cassie said, "the reason for this
whole Academy and everything is just, 'a genie did it'!?"
"Easy there~," Astra said, reaching across to gently rub
the catgirl's ears. Over her softly meowing, the fox-girl continued:
"There are plenty of things you could explain as 'a Kitsune did
it', but knowing the intent helps still helps put things into
context. Or, in this case, what wishes were being granted."
"Indeed," Leah nodded. "I've since come to understand
a little more about the mechanisms which the Djinn set in place here
to grant those wishes. Basically, The Academy is what some who study
magic call an 'enchanted land', a nexus of self-sustaining magic kept
up by both the natural energy of the trees and such encircling it,
plus a certain amount of magical energy 'donated' by each resident.
And there are a set of rules determining the magic's effects on the
land, the buildings, and anyone entering or leaving the place."
"From the way you talk, I guess you don't have much say in those
rules?" Halley asked.
The librarian gently shook her head. "It would defeat the
purpose for me to have any real power. I do have a slightly
deeper connection to The Academy due to it being 'my wish' that it
grants, but nothing that I could leverage for authority over others.
That said, there are essentially two categories of rules here—the
immalleable, and the malleable."
Cassie headtilted, one of her ears pointing sideways.
"Mally-what?"
"Ah, sorry—that is, some rules can be changed, and others
cannot. Certain..'requests' can be made of the magic itself,
including changing the former. That is why, for example, pictures and
video from here can now be shared with the outside world without
interference. It had become a popular request on The Academy's
website among attending students, and with the dropping of the Veil,
that rule hardly seemed necessary—so I gathered signatures and
submitted a form requesting that they be allowed."
"Seems like it wouldn't be all that hard to figure out who
certain people are with that, though," Astra said.
"Actually—Cassie and I know exactly who each other are
whether we're on campus or not."
"You must have left
together, or entered together, right?" Leah asked. "That's
how things are meant to work. Those rules are mainly there to
encourage everyone to think of each other as equal. I believe
this was the right decision—not only would enforcing overly
stringent identity-obscuring rules be too much of a strain on The
Academy's magic itself, it would just lead to people looking for
loopholes, which might lead to them breaking everything. As it
stands, it's enough for everyone to understand the purpose of
those rules and try to work within their spirit. It does help
that this place also weights people's minds slightly to encourage
thinking of ourselves as female students, and to prefer collaborative
efforts slightly more than otherwise."
"So, this magic..it does alter people's minds,"
Emily said apprehensively.
"Well—as I said, it's a slight
weighting factor; it's nothing one couldn't resist, and it pulls back
rather than pushing harder if it's resisted for a long while. There's
occasionally a very strong-willed student who mostly thinks of
herself as a boy throughout her stay here. But—more to the
point—the effect leaves folks' personalities and motivations fully
intact, and disappears entirely as soon as one leaves."
"So—hangon—back up a sec," the wolf-girl interrupted.
"You said you submitted a form? As in, to this place's magic?"
"Right," she nodded. "There are a number of forms
available to handle various standard requests, for example, hiring
someone to a new position," she said, gesturing lightly Cassie's
way. "Plus a 'non-standard request' form. Anyone who wants to
ask The Academy for something just puts one of those forms in the
'administration' mailbox. I have some intrinsic knowledge of how best
to fill them out—again, because this place came from 'my wish'—and
I don't mind using said knowledge to help out, but anyone can."
"Could you..is there a way to ask if I can keep this body
everywhere? Without havin' to go on field trips or anything?"
Halley asked.
"Yes, although you have to permanently give up your entire
previous identity for that—name, appearance and all," Leah
replied. "The Academy then adds a new last name to your 'student
name', and makes your student form also your default one. Sean was
actually the first person to want something like that; after the
request to permanently keep her new look went through, the 'last name
request form' appeared as a new standard one."
"Well, that's no trouble for me," the wolf-girl said, "I
was dying of cancer before coming here, and faked my death so no one
would come looking besides. Sooo...would ya mind helping me out with
that?"
"Not at all~," Leah said with a friendly smile.
"First, however, do any of you have any other questions I can
help you with?"
"Oh! Where's the money I get paid for
doing my job come from?" Cassie asked.
"Well, The
Academy has a mailing address and a bank account out in the 'real
world', and some 'alumni' started donating to it a couple of decades
ago," Leah shrugged. "There's no way to directly access
that money, but a short while after the money started coming in, some
new forms appeared for requesting contract work, applying for
long-term employment, creating new job positions, etcetera. I put in
one myself not long after they appeared, since I was already working
as a librarian and thought getting a little pocket change for it
wouldn't hurt."
"I think that is everything," Emily said. "The thought
that an individual being can have the power to just..make a
place like this with the snap of a finger still disturbs me somewhat,
but at least I understand The Academy itself well enough to stay
here...somewhat comfortably for the duration of the
conference."
"Glad to hear it," Leah said. "Hope
you enjoy your stay~!"
And there we have it: An explanation for The Academy's existence, as silly as it is. The main "conflict" of the story is resolved at this point, but we're not quite through. I have one more part to finish things off with a proper denouement. After that, this story will be fully complete! Now, I'm not sure whether or not I'll revisit The Academy as a setting in the future; it's certainly an established location in the same universe most of my captions take place in, so it wouldn't be out of the question for a caption to take place there, or another story to mention it off to the side. Regardless, I'm satisfied with the story I've written, and happy to have something I can call fully complete at the same time as it comes out, despite its length. The total size of this story (in the document editor that I typically use) comes out to exactly 45 pages, which is an appreciable length for a seven-part short story, I guess?
