Just a one-shot based on this tumblr post. tin-pan-ali . tumblr post / 91334160129
Enjoy!
"Wow!" Ethan breathed, turning on his heel as he looked up at the ceiling, taking in the rain falling above them and the floating candles. "This is so cool!"
"Yeah, but what's your school like?" one of the girls from the group of students asked.
"Nothing like this!" Ethan turned around once more before focusing on the faces of the people who would be his classmates until Easter break. "I mean, I knew it would be different when I joined the student exchange program, but I never expected a real old-timey magical castle. I mean, this is something straight out of Disney!"
A few of the students looked confused by his reference, but one of them jumped in to fill the knowledge gap. "Disney makes childrens movies."
"Well, that's overly simplified, but basically." Ethan went back to looking up at the ceiling.
"Come on!" a boy encouraged. "You haven't told us anything! What is it like where you're from?"
Ethan sat heavily on a bench and some of the others sat around him. "Less fantasy, I guess. I mean, there're ghosts and stuff, but we've got lamps instead of torches and candles. And the walls are concrete—not stone. There aren't any towers or magical forests or lakes with giant squids. Area 51 definitelydoesn't have fourteen floors plus dungeons."
"Area 51? I thought you were from Salem Academy?"
"Well, I've seen Salem and it's pretty cool, but no, I don't go there. Area 51 is cool because it's not hidden from muggles the same way a lot of magical places are. Non-magical people know all about it."
The group looked shocked and two of them gasped. "I mean, they don't know the truth about it, but they have some really cool theories about what it is. Most non-magicals think that it's full of researchers, studying aliens from other planets. There's this annual celebration," he said, his hands moving to emphasize his words as he got excited, "where we all use what we've learned in class to make UFOs. They're judged by yeargroup and as a whole on lots of different things, but mostly it's just fun to prank the paranoid muggles. We don't fly them all at once—we spread them through the year in clusters and then they're judged in June. It's pretty epic."
"Wow..." a girl echoed his reaction from earlier. "That's amazing."
"Wish I could join the exchange program," another said. "I'd love to see that. Mum won't let me though."
Ethan smiled. "So, I hear there are thirteen flights of moving and trick staircases between here and the dorms?"
"And a door that asks riddles too."
His smile became a grin as he stood up. "Awesome!"
I'd really appreciate any reviews you'd care to offer!
Thanks for reading!
-MP