A New Dawn for Miss Mannerly

Eda was lead in chains down a dark corridor. How many weeks ago had it been since she'd arrived here? All the strange nuns in their alabaster, sheeny cowls seemed to practically extrude a presence of power while holding her prisoner. She was sure the bracelets around her ankles sealed and contained her magic. She'd heard the same cries and accusations as she'd heard back on the Boiling Isles. Untamed magic, feral magic, magic without a Hex or proper usage. Dark Magic in the kingdom was strictly forbidden, and she'd been branded some kind of pariah ever since she got here. "Easy ladies, put those lances away." She said, pushed forward by the squeaky nuns and their cross-tipped spears. Soon she was lead in front of the archaic court, six judges and 36 jurors divided into in a hexagon-shaped block sat all around her. "Identify yourself." A Lion-headed man demanded.
"The gal that's gonna kick all your butts if you don't behave and let me go! Now quit your fancy larpin."
They slammed a gavel over their desk, a cold drafty breeze blowing through.
"Edalyn Clawthorne. Foreigner to the Societee Celes. You've been accused of the crime of using dark magic. Your plea?"
"Guilty.. of being fresh! In prison it's hard to shop and look this good, but I do work." She smirked.
"Guilty. Sentence accepted." They slammed their gavel again and Eda was soon carried away into a carriage, for how long she couldn't say. They had no idea how long it took to get here, and a carriage ride would be long in a land without so much as any basic amenities like roads or trains. She saw the sun's rays shiver the window, the carriage seemed to float through the landscape, the wheels made no noise on the dirt they rolled over. The sight of steam and smokestacks was visible on the horizon next to marble towers and an array of identical pearly buildings. Eventually the carriage released her into a very large facility, the lizard women in nun garbs pushing her along. Through dreary hallways she was lead until Eda was taken to the center of a large chamber, a steel slate placed by her backside to keep her upright.
"If you're gonna make me take the big sleep, atleast get me a coconut and a straw for the show."
She smiled and spoke without a trace of fear, though a shiver ran down Eda's spine as they strapped her to the slate.
More nuns arrived. All were women, the same uniform robes they'd seen all throughout the trip.
One of them was wearing numerous metals, and their cowl had ginger locks in a massive mane in back. She held a golden staff with a crescent shape on the end.
"What am I in for, and who are you?" Eda asked while still trying to keep her balance on the platform.
"I'm Missy Rufa, the president of the Hex Conformatorium, I am your executioner, and you are here to answer for your crime. If you would be so kind to identify the magic you used to achieve this state, and if you were born a witch."
"Uh.. I call it freestyle magic. I'll never be a member of any coven, chief."
They fixed their glasses.
"I ask you again. Were you born a witch?"
"Well, I wasn't born a giraffe." Eda sassed.
"Born a what? Nevermind." She filled out a clip chart. "Your sentencing will start, and you'll perform your duties for no less than 2 centuries before your next re-evaluation period."
"Oohohooo, a little community service huh? Gonna let me go?"
"Look, I ain't tryin' to hurt you." She told her, "You can either cooperate and talk with me, or you can go with your own sentence. I really don't have a decision to make on your behalf."
"I don't have much more than time to kill here. Sentence me baby."
"Patience. I'm an executioner. The rules for magical activity are clear. If I let you go, I'll be breaking the Hex Conformatorium's own decree."
Missy Rufa finished filling out and held the chart to a scanner, which read her signature and then dimmed the lights.

"Phase of Thunder, begin."

"Your service starts now. Look fierce." She walked out of the room, her heels clacking with a faint echo. From above, a spindling series of metallic arms slowly reached towards Eda. Lasers went up and down her body, quickly cutting down the prisoner's uniform. When her flesh was made bare, a metallic slate was brought towards her, red lasers scanning her body up and down, a grid pattern analyzing every contour of her body.  She had to take a deep breath, and the red lasers left her body. The magical hexagon of light above started to rotate, calculating the information before it ejected a series of blue beams into the metal slate.

Wherever the lasers hit, they imprinted pressure into it, denting and shaping its volume until they were carving out the same parameters scanned prior. Eda's flesh was pressed and pocked into a hexagon-shaped frame. The whole thing fell apart in the girl's lap, a new device that looked exactly like the slate, except this one was silver and completely silver. She could see the other slate finished carving up, leaving a mold imprint in her height, but clearly not her shape. From a fuchsia tube, pasty white sludge began to fall into the mold, filling it slowly. The gooey metal quickly hardened as the first layer was added. Her body was still pressed and shaped by the lasers as a second layer of metal formed. The mold began to shrink, and as the metal slate hardened again it shrank in on itself. The entire mold was now solid, and she had no choice but to wait for the next step while a wide yellow yellow laser shot out, melting it until it was soft, warm and drippy, wavering from a metallic mold into a silken white weave of stretchy rubber. Devices and instruments worked on the weave carefully, reshaping and sheering it until it was finally sewn into practically a suit.


"Phase of Earth, begin."

Eda was immobilized by the hexagon-frame, struggling to move. "Kay, I think I'll take lethal injection now!" The suit was pulled into place and started to stretch closer towards her per the tentacles. "Nowwww! Nonono no Titan no!" Finally the carefully crafted rubber weeve was latched over her face, then down her chest and over her shoulders. Tentacles pulled her arms through it right down to the fingertips and further pulled her waist and hips forward until only the leggings were left. Every place the suit was pulled past, sewn strands of light were pricked in back, melding the opening until it smelted and became seamless. Her toes made the last wriggle before her feet were encased, her entire body rubbery and reflective, a face of a matured woman not too unlike Missy Rufa. A common model, that of an instructor.


"Phase of Fire, begin."

The Hexagonal rune above changed color again, and started to spin down over her. As it passed her body, it created a monotone, chrome uniform of a brassier and undergarments, then went back up to create a victorian blouse and pencil skirt, both made of smooth alabaster-shaded latex, and then a corset over her. Lasers continued to sculpt her face, her eyes laced with thinner brows cocked with disdain and perkier lips locked into a scowl, accentuating her cheekbones and chin into sharper angles than before. Her face now no longer matched Missy Rufa's, and her eyes were different, they were a deep cobalt, a color that would be called a shade of royal. Heated red beams began shooting all over her, sealing in the changes. She felt the heat scorch her with only the thin yet stretchy, skintight layer of latex protecting her from their horrid fiery touch. Everywhere, she was made more malleable. Metallic pincers squeezed her waist, thinning it out and easily squeezing her to the cusp of waspy petite form, beams inflating her rear and hips at the same time, the heat of her breasts coming with their sizeable change.

"Phase of Water, begin."

She was now taken by two nuns down a long corridor that led to a small open square room, lit with a flickering light inside. Eda was pushed in, and the locked door was shut. She heard a familiar voice, "Good girl." Missy was gone, leaving only the sound of dripping fluid in the corner. A machine connected a tube to a gasmask and shoved it into her mouth. As oily chemicals and drugs started to flow through the tube down her float, making her light-headed and delirious. A silvery fluid was drenched over her, lubricating her sheeny form and cooling the molten layering from before until it was soft and icy. The flickering light changed between 6 hues.
The room started to move again with Eda inside of it, and the door opened, the nuns arrived with a carted long table in the middle of the room. It was filled with all kinds of bottles. They were all labeled in an incomprehensible language. The sisters began to prepare the machine with what looked like beakers and beakers of clear liquids. They began to pour into a beaker inside the machine, which was then tubed into Eda's ultra-tight suit. Eda felt herself being pumped full of something warm and goopy, a liquid that made her heavy and dizzy. She felt it, then she couldn't feel it, she felt herself slipping.

The thin latex around her body had finally melded and merged fully, leaving her gleaming and cold to the touch.

"Phase of Light, affirm." The room went still. The words resonated and bounced off the walls in a steady, heavy beat. The air was silent, as if waiting for something to happen.

Eda felt something change, her skin now felt as solid as ever, her clothing, only latex, and her eyes were still locked with the flickering lights but her hair, her lips, the whole of her was a smooth and perfect shape to her very core. She began to get dizzy, and as the lights continued their flickering pattern, the feeling of time changing from a flowing stream to an mindshaking avalanche started to take over her. She started to feel like she was weightless, but at the same time she was spinning, spinning faster and faster.  She didn't think the room would stop. Her head wanted to split.
Everytime her eyes fell shut, she saw the same patterns of flashing lights, in a pattern that looked like some kind of a mathematical shape. Eda's head began to pound, new ideas poisoning her consciousness into coherent instructions. Every flicker warranted a new want for order and structure, the commands making it harder to focus on anything but the textured movements of the lights siring one signifier after the next into her brain. The chains of these ideas formed a rich tapestry of authoritarian desire. New orders, strict etiquette, proper protocols pushed forward in Eda's brain and came out the other end with her craving obedience. The lights sped up. She was trapped in the psychic perks and possibilities interwoven into her head. She had a history of witchcraft, the reprogramming using that to shift things until she was a completely different character. Thoughts of instilling discipline in students filled her, followed by an obedience to the Society and Celes. Knowledge of potions, a disdain for her betters, snooty trivia and monologues about taxation of the elven separatists flooded her. Such nonsense ordered into a new desire that. She wasn't sure how much time was passed, but she no longer felt trapped, rather freed.

"Phase of Void, begin."

A digitalized voice rang out.
"Repeat after me. Elijah elicits envy of Elizabeth on June's jagged junction of a jubilant Journey."
"Elijah... elicits.. envy of Elizabeth?" Her tone of voice sounded oddly nascent of an english-accented instructor.
"Repeat, with confidence and splendor. Elijah elicits envy of Elizabeth on June's jagged junction of a jubilant Journey."
She repeated the line, and after the 6th time seemingly the lines were satisfactory.

"Now, speak how you'd discipline your students, as if reprimanding them."
With a face like a rubber angel, the porcelain woman cleared her throat. "Jennimar, your performance is subpar. We cannot have such inelegant spellcraft in our Hex, you shall learn the rites and mind your betters or I will report you to the disciplinary ward. Is that understood?"
"Satisfactory. Mind your formality."
"May the hex bless you." Eda.. no, miss mannerly said, the words burning into her psyche and erasing all else in white light.
"Resume."
"May the hex bless you. Remember the rules. No potions without permission. A witch shall never use potions to harm. A Hex is the essential arithmagic structure of all harmony and cooperation."
The Hex-conformatorium normally made all witches be identical to Missy Rufa, all be on her level, all have the same face. Miss Mannerly, seemingly had been recognized by unseen forces for her potential. She was back to being a witch again, but a witch under the Hex-conformatorium. Her captors outside the room admired her reeducation, they all knew she'd make a White Warden in no time.

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Miss Mannerly sat behind a mahogany desk, reading from a book to six figures in the room.
"Now, who can tell me where the Evergrove of the Blessed hails from?" She stood in front of these young girls, every minor observation of their poise and aptitudes was under constant display and observation by the instructor. Mannerly serves solely to mold them into prestigious wardens of the Societee Celes, and she'd never failed to reform a single one of her students into exemplary, respectful and resourceful ladies.

"Um.. the dirt?" One of them, Laikra said while scrolling on her Magiphone.

"Humoring my patience are thou? But wrong, absolutely incorrect. A regrettable display of ignorance."

Mannerly pulled a diagram from the front of the room. "The Evergove is a Sacrosanct relic, here as part of the Celestial Society's worldscape since time immemorial. It's magical energies and vast secrets still allude and invigorate even the most fervent of scholars to this day! We Wards have a mandate to respect the contributions to our world it's made, and how studying it has advanced our knowledge a great centuries ahead. Any warden of propriety and class shall know the Evergrove's origin lies within our own grasp. Anyways, the Evergove, though it has no known origin, is a part of us witches. We are a part of it. If a witch has ever been born here, it would have left its mark within the witches' blood.
Thus, your knowledge and awareness of the Evergrove's history is lacking. Correct me if I'm wrong."
Mannerly turned to one of her most studious students. "Klaudia, right?"
"Y...yes, Mrs. Mannerly." She looked down in awe as her instructor leaned forward in her chair. She was sure Mrs. Mannerly could hear the girl breathe with anticipation of her impending correction.

"I'm sure you can Identify this figure.." She took a ruler and tapped a small figure sculpted into the wood of the Evergrove. They were wrapped into the wood, as if a bug got caught crawling around it and sealed in amber.
"T-that's, the seed of the Dusk Coryphaeus. The seeker of the void. W-we learned of the Void branch of magic from them.. Once she awakened, she feasted on much of the Tree's mast even as it towered over mountain ranges. Thanks to her presence in our history we-"
The sound of snoring interrupted the classroom. Mannerly clacked her heels to the other end of the room and smacked her ruler down on a desk.
"Julius! Report to the White Warden immediately. I will not have my students sleeping like dogs in the classroom. Everyone else, you are dismissed for today."  
They didn't even wait for her to finish, everyone got up and left to their Warden's office. Mannerly looked out the window. A new day was inbound.

One of the older girls in the class peaked from the door, and walked over to Mannerly's desk.
"Teacher.." She muttered.
"Elizabeth, do you have a question to ask?
The old girl gave a half-hearted laugh. "I'm not sure that anyone else in this class does..  But, I was curious about one thing."
"Speak up then." Mannerly put aside her papers and gave Liz her full attention.

"Is it true? The rumours about, the Evergreen and Seeker of the Void, both coming from the Tower? I just wanted to confirm, is there any truth to that?"

Eda, was silent, her voice as smooth and quiet as the polished floorboards of the classroom. It was only her, Elizabeth and Miss Mannerly, who looked so cold as to scold one just for breathing too loud.
"There is absolutely no evidence of any sort that the godtree and the Seeker hail from that, heresy of the Premier. The tree has not ever come from the Tower, and no convincing argument can be made for it being so. Do I make myself clear?"
Elizabeth raised her books as if saluting. "Y-yes Miss Mannerly."

The lie was of no importance, and there were more important things. She took a breath, closed her eyes, and whispered a chant of power to herself. A chant of obedience, of discipline, a chant of love into the child's forehead. Elizabeth came down with a faint trance for a moment, and the next felt twice as indebted and reverent towards Miss Mannerly. "Thank you teacher! I will review tonight's material Ma'am."
"Good. Run along home." Mannerly instructed, turning the page of a book.

"Miss, the class has been dismissed." She had to be told that.
"B-bye, Ma'am." The girl skipped off out of the room.
"Please, remain in my good grace, Miss Elizabeth."
"Yes, yes, Ma'am." And just like that she sped off.

Closing her book, Miss Mannerly slowly made her way out of the academy and walked through the field grounds. The white of the night met the black of the sky. Mannerly looked up at the Evergreen. The tree was covered by shade that night, and practically cloaked in the same obsidian as the night itself. A night of darkness and of light. At its peak, the evergreen held her whole world on its branches, prior to the Seeker's feast atleast. It was so tall, it almost reached the roof of the atmosphere. She found herself looking up at it, as one does the moon or stars and felt a chill in her chest. She felt the branches sway to her, countries off. She felt the leaves whisper as if it was trying to speak to her. But all it said to her in the abstract was "Sleep, sleep little warden."
"Sleep little warden, sleep." Miss Mannerly repeated. The wind blew, the evergreen swayed. For the Celestial Society, their cherished blessed tree would gift them with its dark shadow once more.

The night of the Seeker's next feast was approaching.
"Satisfactory." She whispered, as a whisper Mannerly would repeat until it was etched into her soul.