Barbara slipped at the bottle of water and took a few bites of the meat and cheese tray as she filled out the personality and IQ test for this prep school the state had sent her too instead of jail. As she worked her way through it however the more, she realized that it was more of a personality test. Some of the questions where like would she rather go for a swim or take a horseback ride, there were a few IQ like questions but that was maybe 25 of them out of 250 questions. It was very odd.
She had gotten to the last page when she heard some people beginning to work on setting up the dinning hall for dinner. She heard the sounds of pots and pans hitting each other, the sounds of cutting on boards and calls to start on dish or another, normal things one heard in a kitchen. Then she heard something very odd, the clump clump sound of horse hooves.
She looked up and her mouth fell open.
Moving around the front of the hall, where multiple tables had been set up for food was a female centaur. Her top half was that of an African American woman with curly black hair covered by a hair net, her front side had a cooking apron but from the waist down and back was the body of a zebra.
Barbara’s mouth fell open as the female centaur put down a tray full of chicken and moved off like it was nothing. Then another creature this one a snake man came slithering out of the back kitchen area carrying two large bowls full of bread. He was also dressed like a chef with an apron, he lacked a hair net because he had no hair instead having a cobra hood going from the top of his head down to his shoulders.
“Shandra…. Michell!” yelled the Professor who had been watching her, as the centaur and the snake man turned and looked at him.
“What is it Professor, it is 4:55 the gates close at 5 and we can be our true selves.” Stated the Centaur woman “Who cares if we are 5 minutes early? Being a human while being a centaur is more of a pain in the ass then being a...”
“We have a new human student.” Snapped the Professor as both of them turned to see a wide eyed Barbara.
“Oh…no one told us.” Hissed the snake man
“Well I guess the cat is out of the bag.” Said a voice as Barbara looked to see Headmistress La Fey walking toward them. However, as she did, she waved her hand and her body began to change, her business suit remained but her skin began to give off a strange glow, her eyes became larger and yet they sparkled with silver energy. Her hair turned a silver color as well and began to shimmer as she stepped closer. Her ears lengthened and became pointy as she came to a stop by Barbara’s chair. “Welcome to Myrddin Boarding School for magical creatures.”
“What the fuck?” inquired Barbara as she looked around, the old man professor had changed getting somehow even shorter and growing a longer white beard with pointy but not so long ears.
“Myrddin Boarding School for Magical creatures.” said Headmistress La Fey “See from 8am to 5pm we sit in the human world, and we all appear human however we can transform ourselves into our magical selves. From 5pm to 8am we close the gates in the wall you passed through to arrive here and once closed we are transported back to our true home, our magical home where we can be ourselves.”
“Ok…did someone put something in my water?” inquired Barbara as she looked at her water.
“No.” answered La Fey with a chuckle. "But you aren't the first to say that."
“See long ago magical and humans lived side by side but you humans hunted us down to dangerous low numbers so to protect ourselves we sealed our-self away in a magical world with doors like this school here where our worlds meet.” Explained Headmistress La Fey
“Ok…so why am I here?” inquired Barbara as the doors opened and more magical creatures began to walk in, a werewolf or was it a fox, a demon woman, a man who was a spider from the waste down. A mermaid swam down a path in the floor which had become a stream of some kind to get to the food. All of them were wearing at least some of the school uniform. They were the students.
“You’re here to join the student body.” Answered the Gnome professor
“But I am human.” Said Barbara as Headmistress La Fey grabbed the stack of papers Barbara had just finished.
“You are for the moment; this will tell us what type of magical creature is best for you.” Said La Fey “And then we will begin the process of transforming you into that creature and teaching you our ways.”
“What?” stated Barbara confused even more.
“Remember when I say magical creatures where almost hunted to dangerous low numbers…well this is how we rebuild our numbers.” Said La Fey “Almost every student here was once human, I myself was once human before I became an moon elf but that was back in the 10th century, elves live a lot longer than humans.”
“My God…” said Barbara as she thought about what to do.