Chauffeured to school

Melissa gathered her things together and rang for her chauffeur. A short time later, a brief honk from the front of the house told her the car was ready and waiting for her to leave. She stepped out of the house onto the horseshoe shaped cobblestone drive. The black limousine waited for her, idling silently as the chauffeur sat behind the wheel, a few stray blonde locks peeking beneath the back of her hat.

This car had actually belonged to her grandparents and was an antique, by every sense of the word, but with her familys long tradition of enchantment, it was kept not just in working order, but easily on par with the vehicles of the day. While it might have only had a top speed of 30 miles an hour when they first bought it, it had been kept current but transmuting the metals of the engine, shaping it, forming new parts and technology into it, so that now it could hit 180 if Melissa instructed the driver to. It was long or imposing, just an elegant and classic sedan with seating for for behind the drivers station. Suede seats dyed a dark red and silver accents and white gauze curtains for the windows made the interior refined and comfortable.

Melissa entered into the limousine and arranged her bundle of books on the seat next to her as the butler closed the door for her. "Head on to the school." she told the driver and the limousine started forward with a alert nod of the chauffeur's head. The estates neighboring her own were every bit as statly although more mundane. This town had a history of trade, but it was that trade history that had attracted some of the forefathers of enchantment and artifice to create a school of magic that had grown into the college that Melissa now attended. Many of the estates reflected the trade history closer, with large houses that reminded her of nothing so much as elegant warehouses, box shaped but with columns along the front, and several drives, for guests and households and deliveries. Others expressed thier trade history through gardens and groundskeeping from far away lands, and architecture to match, round doorways, onion shaped turrets or exotic lattices.

The school grounds were marked by a stone wall topped with iron spears. Beaten from raw iron, and inscribed with minute runic scawlings, they were more than just a decrotive enclosure, but a potent ward against evil. The grounds were lush and extensive, although not apparently so. As the limousine turned onto the drive, the perspective of the grounds shifted from what appeared to be a space as big as three house lots, to reveal acres of land, with trees and several small ponds spilling into a small lake.

The limousine came to a stop and the driver came around to open her door. "I'll have you drive me home as well. Return once classes are over." Melissa said as she exited.

The driver gave her a curt nod of her head and replied "Very good Ma'am." before closing the door and driving off. Melissa climbed the steps to the school past the other students milling about in small groups to enter the stone school.

As she headed to class, she saw one of her classmates hurrying down the hall from the classroom with tears in her eyes. It was Cynthia, her red hair loose behind her and her books clasped to her chest as she ran into the girls restroom across the hall from Melissa.