A/N: This one-shot originally started out as an idea in one of my many, many wonderful conversations with frostonthewindow. We came up with the idea while we were talking about AU fics if I'm not mistaken... We thought up two premises for a Jelsa one-shot: real-life with magic elements and this one, Jelsa in a universe where they attend a magic academy.
Anyway, what happened is that um... *blushes* I promised her I'd do this one-shot as her birthday present. And the other premise for a Christmas Special. At any rate, I wrote this up and she likes it. Which is just...YAAAAAAAYYYYYYY!
So yeah. With her permission, I'm posting this up for everyone to have a lookie look at. Hope you guys like it! (Oh and yes the very on-the-nose-reference was intentional. Very much so.)
First lesson of the day and already Jack was fed up with Transmogrification. How anyone else in the classroom thought Professor Grunsil was lecturing about anything of interest was beyond him. He sighed lightly and tilted his head ever so slightly over to the window. The first snowfall of the year was starting outside; white snowflakes, shimmering like the miracles that they were, drifted merrily towards the cotton-encrusted ground. As if he needed more reason to want out of Matter Manipulation 101. With that, Jack decided it was about time he made things a little more…. stimulating.
'Here's hoping Grunsil won't notice,' he thought to himself as he edged his pinkie closer and closer to the windowpane. He was seated in the perfect position for what he had planned. Far back enough in the classroom to hang just on the edge of the teacher's peripheral vision, (thank the stars it wasn't Madame Lewinsky's class; she had eyes that were literally in the back of her head due to an unfortunate mishap back in '96) but close enough to the front of the class to be inconspicuous to the teacher as well. (Teachers always look to the students in the back when something goes wrong)
He nearly kicked himself in glee when felt his little finger getting past the wards shielding the windows. (The school had them set up to curb vandalism in the school since its inception.) The ring he had rented off of Benji wasn't a dud after all! Jack made a note then to treat his friend to an extra helping of bacon ravioli in the cafeteria later. He steeled his mind and smirked to himself as he felt the finger make contact with the glass. (Another reason why the windows were warded: fingerprints).
'Past the point of no return…here we go, Jack. All or nothing.' He felt for his magic, sending off a ping down into his reserves. It was there. Filled to the brim. Jack had to rest his head on the heel of his hand to hide the malicious grin that had sprouted on his face. He drew on the magic, willing it to make what it loved most: frost.
'Frost on the window. Hmm…..nice name for a song…maybe even a band if it played its cards right.'
He let the frost creep along the glass, let it take on the form of whatever occupied his mind at the present moment. At first, it seemed as if tiny music notes from a piece of sheet music were fading into existence but they changed form into snowflakes, then woodland creatures.
Some of the class had begun to take notice now. A snicker here and a snicker there could be heard. Or at least, they would be if Grunsil had not spelled the whole class silent before he began his lecture. Hush little babies was a favoured spell among the educators of Duxore. They just never realized that the students could pass notes around and hex at each other a lot easier when spelled into absolute silence.
Jack decided to step it up a notch and made the frost recreate scenes from pop culture. His classmates gawped and laughed behind hands as he did King Kong, pointed and guffawed at the Lion King and some practically fell out of their seats when he recreated the 'King of the World' bit from Titanic, complete with fine details on the ship as well as the dress of Rose DeWitt.
He was now smiling dauntlessly at Grunsil who had his back turned and was scribbling on one side of the board…while a levitated marker scribbled on the other. Grunsil's handwriting never did get any better after the incident last summer when a Cesswasp had attacked the school and his hand had gotten caught in the crossfire.
That was the precise moment when a girl soared straight through the window Jack was seated at and collided into him, sending him sprawling onto the floor. Unfortunately for everyone, when the windows shattered, so did Professor Grunsil's spell of silence. Without a hint of surprise in his voice, he turned and said, "Conjuring girls again are we, Mr Overland? Detention, after school. Don't be late."
I've never made it a habit to plow into a boy, I swear. I've only ever done so four times. …Alright five if we're willing to get technical but does a male crystallized humanoid really count as a boy? But, of course, I am getting ahead of myself here.
I'm Elsa, daughter of Giselle and William Carlisle. I'm currently studying at the Duxore Institute of Magicks. And just to reiterate, I do not enjoy being flung headlong into anything of the male gender. The very notion disturbs me, I assure you. That aside, I have top grades in all of my classes, particularly Advanced Matter Manipulation and Construction (known to Mundanes as Architecture) which I indulge in very much.
However, the one subject I perform atrociously in is Elemental Magicks. Blighters know why, but despite the fact that I have generations Ice Magick blood running through my veins, I am absolutely horrid with wielding it. The thing is that the elemental side of my magic doesn't like to be constrained. It doesn't like to follow the rules or do anything it's told to. It's infuriating!
I cannot cast any basic Ice Magick without enveloping an entire compound in snow and ice and slippery slush. Once when we were told to make Ice Elementals (not to be confused with the Elements themselves; Elementals are creatures made out of an Element) and I ended up creating three giant aggressive Snow Golems in Pinkerton Hall. My classmates made quick work of incapacitating the golems but afterwards I was stuck cleaning up the snow and slush without any magic with Travis the Janitor.
It's not that the work was demeaning or that anyone was mean to me about it. And I didn't mind that Travis extended an offer to show me his moss collection in the broom closet to which I politely declined (not because I was plainly disgusted by him but because I had a sneaking suspicion that he meant to show me something else while we were in there together, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt). It's just that…. I'd like to not be known as a freak storm waiting to happen. Or worse yet, an anomaly to be put under a microscope for everyone's viewing pleasure.
So now that it's been established that I am a disaster where my Elemental Magick is concerned, that I am nothing short of a disgrace to my lineage and that I do not regularly, readily toss myself at anything remotely male, I would like to ask you: "Why am I sitting in this chair, waiting to be brought into the Principal's office? And why does this white-haired boy, whom I regretfully slammed into as a result of failing to master yet another one of my Magicks, have to be seated in the chair next to me?"
Elsa made sure to keep her gaze steady and firmly affixed on the stationery holders on the immaculate receptionist's desk while Jack stared at her with those eyes of his. Eyes that were so striking they were almost inhuman; the colour of cobalt blue. "Jackson Overland," called out a stern voice from seemingly nowhere, causing Elsa to jump.
Jack laughed a warm, infectious laugh that made her smile. Just a little bit. "Oh so she does smile. Thank heavens. I was beginning to think I'd have to spell you to get one out of you." That made her frown. "Don't you have somewhere to be, Overland?" Elsa asked, sighing and jabbing her thumb at the door to the Principal's office.
"Oh right," Jack said, as if he had all but forgotten about the trouble he was in. "Yes. Well, off you go," she prompted. He stood up and made for the door but stopped halfway there. He turned back around and smiled at Elsa. "I'd like to see you again, um….."
"Carlisle. Elsa to my friends," she answered testily. "Very well then, Elsa. Why the…. frostiness? If you'll excuse my crassness." "Well," Elsa said, crossing her arms and looking at him pointedly, "If you hadn't broken the wards on that window simply for the reason of frosting it, I wouldn't have been able to break it and we wouldn't be in this mess. There would be no 'frostiness' as you had so eloquently put it. And since when were you and I friends? We've only just met."
"Well...if I hadn't broken through those wards, you would have shattered your cheekbones on the window, gotten electrocuted or quite possibly incinerated. So the way I see it, you're being frosty with me when you really should be thanking me. Also, you're wrong. We became friends when you crashed into me," Jack replied, tilting his head and grinning cockily.
"I'm going to forget that you just said that. Oh and I should thank you, should I? I should thank you for the shards of crystallized glass jammed in various parts of my uniform," Elsa huffed, "I should thank you for the dozen cuts all over my person. I should thank you for getting the both of us stuck in the Principal's office, waiting for our parents to be called in and for all the Underlands to break loose. I have you to thank for all of that?" she finished, glaring piercingly at him.
"Yes. You should thank me for all that," he said, still smiling his infuriatingly assured smile, "But what you should also thank me for is creating a window of opportunity."
That caught her off guard. What could he possibly mean?
"A 'window of opportunity'?" Elsa asked, now thoroughly confused. "Mhm," Jack stepped closer, his smile softening, "A window of opportunity...for meeting you."