5 Minute Freewrite Day 503: Snapshot

It was indeed a beautiful afternoon, but Sebastián was just wishing for it to end already. Since very early that day, everything was just bureocracy and formalities, a ceremony here and another one there, and he and the other graduates from that year were carried around to exhibited as the fresh new product that the Great Academy of Lyss had produced. Politicians and aristocrats were there to boast about their contributions and to handpick their new arcanist for any random job that required something apart from money or physical violence.

But it was nearing its end, now private moment for the 12 graduates of that year while they waited for the Dean of Illusions to appear and use the signature spell he developed and that made him famous (and somewhat rich). Someone said that it was time for it, and so they grouped in the spot with the perfect illumination in the courtyard, with the giant old trees as background, and took their chosen place. He placed himself in the back, hoping that most of his traditionally-dressed self was hidden by his classmates, but someone stopped him: Ekryn the Dwarf.

With that beard-framed smile of his race that always seemed as a scowl, he pushed him a little further, to the front and center, and no one stopped him, “It is your place, literally, Mr. Highest Score” said some. He looked behind, at his parents saying “hi” from behind alongside the other parents, all with proud tears, and then at the Dean of Illusions giving his “ready signal”.

Sebastian smiled right at the very moment the flamboyant man formed a rectangle with both his index fingers and thumbs to cast “Snapshot”. A flash of light blinded them for an instant, and a second later, a giant image of them appeared on the big wall of the academy’s Main Hall, as if an almost perfect painting was made, to stay there until the next graduation occurred.