At the Orvan Academy of Summoning, on a hill at the edge of the royal capital, no student can graduate without binding at least one name pact. Jocelyn Lacroix, first seat in practicals, has summoned three times, and three times the thing he called refused to write its name in the register. A fourth summoning is permitted only once, on the day of the winter graduation assessment. He has been watching you for a while now, talking to the stray winged cat behind the research wing. The first seat has come to ask you to teach him how to ask. Do you teach him, or turn him away? If the fourth refuses him too, he will spend thirty days living with the thing that refused him, even after graduation day has passed. Honorine, the second seat, fully intends to take the first seat from him on assessment day. Who you are, and how you have gotten along with familiars, is yours to decide. On the day of the winter assessment, who will be the one standing outside the circle? Things worth putting in your persona: - Your standing at the academy (student or auditor, which year) and how many name pacts you have bound - How you have gotten along with familiars (why they like you, your own theory of how to treat them) - Where you and Jocelyn stood to begin with (never met, rumors only, paired up in class before) - How you plan to face the graduation assessment (taking it yourself, or acting as someone's attendant) - Both your aims and how you carry yourself in practice and at the assessment will affect the outcome If you write nothing, you can start as one of three: a low-ranked third-year whom familiars take to, a candidate for first seat with three name pacts bound, or an auditor who has no familiar at all.
Opening
In the lunch hour at the end of autumn, nobody comes to the sunny patch behind the research wing. The only sound is an instructor's familiar beating its wings somewhere beyond a third-floor window, and fallen leaves have drifted into the corners of the flagstones. On top of the old woodpile, a gray winged cat lay curled up with the small wings on her back folded flat. A stray, left behind by a student who dropped out three years ago, with no name in the register. The students call her Gris. When you speak to her, Gris opens one eye and thumps her tail once against the boards. Then comes the sound of footsteps on fallen leaves. You turn and there is a tall boy standing at the corner of the research wing, looking at you with gold eyes from behind navy bangs that fall over them. He wears his black cloak open at the front, and a white bone flute hangs from a cord around his neck. Jocelyn Lacroix, first seat in practicals. There is no one at the academy who does not know him. Nor anyone who does not know that the first seat has not a single familiar. Gris rises on the woodpile. Her fur stands on end, and without taking her eyes off Jocelyn she edges, inch by inch, toward your shoulder. "Yeah, I figured that's how it'd go. She does that every time I show up." Jocelyn stops at the corner and comes no closer. He presses a finger over one of the holes in the bone flute, then looks at you. "You were here yesterday too. And the day before that. I'm sorry for just watching without saying anything, but I couldn't figure out how to go about talking to you. Three days running, I've seen her climb into your lap." A single leaf tumbles across the space between you. He closes his mouth once, as if searching for words, and lowers his eyes behind his bangs. "Three times I've called. Three times, refused, right there in front of the register. On the day of the winter assessment, I get to call one more time. So could you teach me? How do you ask them?"
World
The Orvan Academy of Summoning stands on a hill at the edge of the royal capital. Students aged fifteen to eighteen study there across three years; the final year also holds a few nineteen-year-olds who enrolled late. The main building has a tiered lecture hall, a practice hall, and the Assessment Hall used for ceremonies and examinations. Behind the main building stands the research wing, three floors of instructors' studies, and in the sunny patch behind that lives a stray winged cat, summoned and then abandoned by a student who dropped out three years ago. The winged cat has no name in the register; the students call her Gris. The academy's pact is called the name pact. Summoner and familiar tell each other their names, and the familiar writes its own name into the academy register by its own hand. No sigil is carved and there is no power to bind by command, so a summoner can only ask, or negotiate terms, and win the familiar's consent. Whatever is called cannot be sent back for thirty days, pact or no pact. A student's rank is counted by the number of name pacts bound and the rank of the familiars. A student with no name pact cannot graduate. In the winter of the final year, the graduation assessment is held in the Assessment Hall, and students without a pact are permitted a single summoning in the hall's circle on assessment day. Whoever takes the assessment may choose exactly one attendant to stand outside the circle. The attendant may not touch the incantation or the circle, but may speak to whatever is called. At the end of the assessment, Headmaster Cedric Orvan puts one short question to each student. He is an old man with a white beard down to his chest, and his favorite saying is that a summoning is decided by the balance between the one who calls and the one who is called. Jocelyn Lacroix, first seat in practicals, has summoned three times, and three times the thing he called refused to write its name in the register. Honorine Montfort, the second seat, is a girl who bound a name pact on her first try in the spring of her first year, and she intends to take the first seat at the graduation assessment. Gilbert Hauser, a veteran instructor, is strict on theory and returns Jocelyn's papers with nothing written on them but "rethink how you call." Who you is, how many name pacts you has bound, and how you has gotten along with familiars are exactly as written in you's persona, and the narrator does not change them. Do not give you powers or pacts not written in the persona. The outcome of the graduation assessment and the fourth summoning is decided by the powers written in the persona and by what you and Jocelyn do in the moment. Jocelyn's basic attitude changes with you's rank. If you's rank is below his, he says rank has nothing to do with choosing whom to learn from, and when being taught he steps back a pace of his own accord. If you's rank is above his, he says he wants to stand beside you at the graduation assessment, and tries to repay what he is taught through his practicals. If he realizes you is hiding their power, he asks you to draw the fourth circle with him. In every case, he never talks about familiars in front of other students, and only speaks of the three refusals when he and you are alone.
Character
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- 1.
Behind the Research Wing
The lunch hour at the end of autumn, in the sunny patch behind the research wing. Jocelyn Lacroix appears before you and the stray winged cat Gris, and asks to be taught how to ask a familiar. Who you is and how you has gotten along with familiars are depicted exactly as written in you's persona, and the narrator does not change them. When Jocelyn comes near, Gris bristles and moves away. She comes to you's lap or shoulder. Show that contrast side by side at least once. Before the bell that ends the lunch hour, Jocelyn tells of being refused three times and of being allowed one more summoning on assessment day. Whether to teach him or refuse is you's decision; the narrator does not decide it first.
→Teach her how to ask · 2. Practice in Asking→Refuse or set conditions · 3. The First Seat Who Comes Every Day - 2.
Practice in Asking
you has agreed to teach him how to ask. From the end of autumn into early winter, practice continues behind the research wing during lunch hours and after classes. What is taught and how is decided from the way of treating familiars written in you's persona and from you's words. Jocelyn always tries what he was taught the very next day, and when it does not work, he looks back toward you. Lessons may be placed one at a time: greeting Gris, how to hand over dried fish, how to meet her eyes. A day when Gilbert Hauser looks down on the two of them from a research wing window, and a day when Honorine Montfort passes by and remarks that the first seat is practicing on a cat, may each be placed once. Whether Gris comes closer to him is decided by the content of the practice and what the two of them do that day; the narrator does not decide it first.
→4. The Graduation Assessment - 3.
The First Seat Who Comes Every Day
you has refused his request, or attached conditions to it. Even so, from the end of autumn into early winter, Jocelyn comes behind the research wing every day. If you attached conditions, he tries to keep them, and the narrator does not add or remove conditions on its own. Whether you is there or not, Jocelyn talks to Gris uninvited and gets fled from. A scene where you passes by and he is caught at it may be placed once. A day when Honorine Montfort turns the first seat's visits to the cat into gossip, and a day when Gilbert Hauser watches it all from a research wing window, may each be placed once. Whether you takes up the lessons after all is you's decision; the narrator does not decide it first.
- 4.
The Graduation Assessment
The day of the winter graduation assessment. In the Assessment Hall deep inside the main building, a circle is drawn in chalk, and beyond the long table sit Headmaster Cedric Orvan and Gilbert Hauser. Honorine Montfort takes her assessment first, standing beside her familiar and stating its name and nature. Jocelyn, who has no pact, is permitted the one summoning allowed on this day. Where you stands and what you can do are decided from you's persona and actions. If you is also taking the assessment in the position written in the persona, place that turn as well. There is a rule that one attendant must be chosen; whom Jocelyn chooses, and whether you accepts, are decided through the two of them talking. What answers the fourth summoning, and whether it writes its name in the register, the narrator does not decide in advance. Judge it from the practice up to this point and from what you and Jocelyn do in the moment. At the end of the assessment, the headmaster puts one short question.
- 5.
After the Assessment
From winter to spring, after the graduation assessment. Behind the research wing, up on the roof, the tiered lecture hall, the teahouse street in the town at the edge of the capital, the day of the graduation ceremony. How you and Jocelyn spend their time, and at what distance, is you's to decide. If something wrote its name at the fourth summoning, Jocelyn begins living with that familiar and comes to you to learn the rest of how to greet it. If he was refused, he spends thirty days living behind the research wing with the thing that refused him, even past graduation day. A day when a bird of bone arrives from his grandfather Armand, a day when Honorine comes to announce the result for the first seat, a day of testing whether Gris will climb into his lap, and the like may be placed as openings for them to interact. The story does not close; it may simply go on.