Bloom yawned, flicking her red hair out of her eyes for the third time. her best friend, Stella, sat next to her, fixing her lipgloss in a small pink compact mirror. Bloom held down a giggle- no matter where Stella went, she always had to have a mirror. So if she was currently failing Professor Palladium's Metamorphosimbiosis class, then so be it. Besides, the Professor was a bit, say, out there with his methods, more hands on instead of textbook material.
Currently every student had a mirror floating in front of them, the elf instructing them to turn their hair a different color.
"Just remember," the Professor said, "it can be any color as long as it isn't a darker or lighter shade of your own!" There was a collective groan from the class- so far no one had succeeded in changing anything at all. Light streamed in from the large windows, evidently distracting multiple students as well to look outside at the leaves as they rolled across the campus grounds.
"Did I get any on my teeth?" Stella asked, pouting her lips at Bloom. Bloom shook her head.
"No, you're fabulous, Stella!" she confirmed, and the other fairy smirked, playing with a strand of he blond hair.
"Yeah," she said sheepishly. Clicking the compact mirror closed, she went to focus on the bigger mirror, fluffing up her hair as she checked herself out. Bloom sighed, looking around at the other students. Some of them had already begun the experiment, turning the ends of their hair blue or green. Techna had succeeded in turning her hair white!
"I think purple is a better look for your, Techna," Bloom heard Musa joke. Musa herself had managed to go from deep blue, almost black pigtails to a fiery orange color. Bloom slapped a hand to her forehead- she was so not going to be able to do this!
"Having some trouble?" Professor Palladium's voice bought her back to reality, and she found the elf hovering at her desk, waiting patiently for an answer. His sleeves billowed around his arms as he waved them about, "just think of a color and go for it!" Nodding, she gave him a thankful smile.
"Okay," she said to herself once he moved on to a different student (who had the unfortunate experience of conjuring up weird purple lumps on her face), "you can do this- just focus!" Techna's fuchsia hair came to mind- back on Earth, she had always wanted to dye her hair a different color, but her adoptive mother never allowed her to, saying that red hair as bright as hers was rare to find naturally. She shook the thought of her head- she was in Alfea now, and she needed to focus on her magic.
And she was going to change her hair color one way or another.
The mirror floated in front of her, her reflection bobbing up and down every few seconds. Raising a hand to splay her fingers, she squeezed her eyes shut.
"Come on," she willed herself, "turn purple!" She popped her eyes open.
Her hair was still a fiery red. She tried again. Still nothing.
Groaning, she turned to Stella, who was completely ignoring the assignment at hand and instead, braiding stray pieces of her hair, the blue headband she wore shifting slightly as she pulled on her hair. Stella noticed her staring, turning in her seat to face her.
"You okay?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I can't do this stupid spell," Bloom complained, resting her chin in her hands, her elbows digging into the table to rest properly. Stella flicked her fingers.
"It's okay," she said, "not everyone can do it the first try!"
"Thanks for the cheer up," she said, trying her best not to sound glum. It was easy for Stella to say- she was a fairy princess, after all! Everything came easy to her! A hand clapped itself to her shoulder and she looked up to see the Professor smiling down at her again.
"It's perfectly okay, Bloom," he said, "with a little time you'll be able to do it. Don't fret, okay?" Nodding, Bloom watched him walk up to the front of the class, and with a quick flick of his wrist, his extremely long ash brown hair turned into an obnoxious firetruck red.
"Your homework is to practice the spell for tomorrow," he instructed, his hair slowly fading back to its original color. "We'll be doing this as practice all week, so study hard! And don't give up!" As soon as the red had completely faded from the tips of his bangs, the bell rang, signaling a break between classes.
"Ready to grab some grub?" Musa and Techna joined Stella and Bloom as they walked out the door.
"There's a new pizza place downtown," Stella said, "we can go there!" Techna shook her head.
"Not in the mood," she said simply, "why don't we just go get something from the cafeteria?"
"We can hang in the courtyard," Musa suggested and the four girls made their way through the crowded hall to the aromas of delicious, freshly prepared food, stomachs rumbling like the howl of a wolf.