The Middens.

It was an unceremonious exit as June was roughly launched from her teleportation spell into a stone wall. The impact was harsh, but not worthy of breaking bones, the shock however sent he wand careening down the tunnel she found herself in. The first thing she noticed was the pain of the impact against the rough stone tiles, the second thing she noticed was the cold refuse filled water she fell into.

June stood up waste deep in cold lumpy water coughing to free her lungs of the foulness. The tunnel was completely dark and the smell was at best formidable. She wretched, gagged and threw up, in what order she could not remember. What followed was panic, she swept the water around her with her fingers, her ironwood wand was nowhere to be found, an expensive gift, hand crafted, lacquered and blood bonded to her, was gone. After her scrape of the surface muck was done she reached under the water, and when she still couldn’t find it she started to dive. Quick exploratory dives under the muck and excrement to try and find her wand, her father would kill her if she lost it.

After ten minutes her hope faded, after twenty she slumped against the wall and cried. She cried for her lost wand, she cried for being stuck in a sewer and she cried for a boy she didn’t even like but was good in bed which she saw eaten by a beast which had no place in the school.

Twenty-two minutes is what it took, twenty-two minutes before she stopped. June had a will of iron, under some circumstances iron could be bent, under others iron could be broken. But these were the conditions for tempering her iron will and so twenty-two minutes in she wiped her face with her dirty hand, steeled herself and placed her hand against the wall to guide her forward.

In the pitch black she had no idea which way to go, but then again, even in the light she would not know which way was north and so she walked, her hand on the wall, stumbling blind steps waist deep in the stinking refuse of the school’s waste, she walked. As she walked she could not help but evaluate her life, threats have that effect on people, had she made the right decisions, Don was certainly a no, a momentary distraction of a bored mind, but what about her study? Her major was ‘The social impact of the magical protection act upon societal advancement.” A fancy way of asking if protecting magical creatures and environments was morally right.

She questioned her choice of schools, should she have gone into law rather than magic, certainly magic was more exciting, but she now questioned if she would even survive.

It felt like a decade that she questioned these things, but in reality it was only ten minutes, one minute for each year of thought, before her hands graced a ladder.

She grabbed hold of the ladder in a firm grasp and as she did felt movement at her feet.