This choice: Quanta Loft, with its bright enthusiasts! Phineas had always wanted to be here. • Go Back... Phineas’ typical dour attitude turned towards the positive once he read the postings for the dormitory rotation at the gatehouse. There in the ‘F’s was his name listed as a move to Quanata Loft.
This was the best news he could have heard! Phineas had always wanted to board in the lofty attic where witches and wizards of great intellect, witticism and whimsy had lived before. His more scholarly interests were in the dry, language and mathematical avenues of magical theory, subjects that seemed a shoe-in to the dormitory catered to the sharpest and brightest. When he spent his younger school years in Kunok Quarters, however, Phineas considered he didn’t possess the other key characteristics seen in many residents of Quanata Loft.
He didn’t consider himself creative or artistic by any means. It was enough to write an essay, rather than poetry or fiction, nor did he fancy the visual or musical arts, unlike the collective subset of Quanata Loft geniuses. He could appreciate art but any deeper emotions meant to be conveyed by the art were lost on him. This drive to innovate made the ‘think tank’ of Quanata Loft a source of the most inventive, ambitious minds of the next generation seeking to push the boundaries of magic.
There was an individualist mindset in Quanata Loft, like a paradoxical pack of lone wolves, as many tended to be more outgoing than Phineas was. The true loaners of that dorm became eccentric in other ways, rumored to be mad and contrary to a fault. It boiled down to the lofty minded of the student body often had outlandish personalities, more personality than what Phineas had.
Still, Phineas hoped to find more of a niche for himself at Quanata Loft, compared to how he just blended into the background at Kunok Quarters. With this new optimism for his penultimate year of magical study, Phineas made his way to his transfer accommodations after his luggage was directed to the same destination.
Phineas had only passed by the dorm briefly in his past years at the Citadel, although he paused to fully take in the entrance to his new residence. The steps up to the entrance were old polished oak with brass railings. There was a faint rumble of the grinding clocktower gears, as Quanta Loft was adjacent to the Citadel’s great pentagonal-clock. Welcome banners had been put up along the twinned helix steps to the dorm’s main door, each appeared to be hand made by current residents. A variety of colors and patterns could be seen. Gathering his courage, Phineas crossed the threshold into the dormitory he felt he might have excelled at.
It was far more open than Phineas had expected. In the way that most halls of the Citadel were made as a regiment of stone rooms, blocked off by their walls, there was no further exterior wall within the high vaulted roof of the loft. Phineas could make out the highest reaches of the dorm’s commons at their dizzying height, as each level was made on a ‘skeletal’ support structure of more wood and brass. A few beams of sunlight shown down from broken patches of shingles from the roof, adding to the glow of numerous candles, solar crystals and windows. The eclectically structured loft was dotted with bookshelves of thick tomes, display cases of strange gleaming contraptions, along with artistic decor in the form of murals, statues, and kinetic banners. Each balcony of the loft already had students milling about, catching up, although most were on the lower levels gathered to organize new students and greet each other.
Once Phineas could puzzle out the chaotic structure of Quanata Loft, he realized that no bathrooms or bedrooms could be seen, indicating that the more private rooms were along the interior of the elaborate loft’s supports, thus out of sight. So he would have a quiet place to sleep, although some students could be seen hanging up hammocks along the public walkways. The outer tiers of the loft were arranged so that there would be at least two ways to look out towards other platforms of the loft. It sorta reminded Phineas of a treehouse, only if the ‘treehouse’ had been built within the entirety of a steep, spiralling Citadel roof.
There was too much to take in at once, with the echoes of other student conversation and the myriad of structures and colors. Once he got his bearings, Phineas could see some other faces he had seen from his years of schooling. Including some he considered attractive.
There was Cassandra Betteridge, a plump blonde with glasses and several quills and wands stuck in her hair. Witches of the Betteridge estate valued wit over vanity, so Cassandra cared little for her disheveled appearance compared to getting top marks. Another blonde, bubbly overachiever was Bella Lovejoy, chubby and wide hipped. She had a kind heart as sweet as the treats others got for her to thank her for her tutoring efforts, Phineas had gotten her help when they had shared a class last year and was smitten when she had eaten the entire blueberry pie he got for her in one sitting. In a crowd of people Phineas could make out the pasty white Misty Lune. A witch with albinism, a sharp intellect and flirtatious sense of humor, making jokes with a posse of friends, she was dressed in blues and lavender, enhancing her substantial chest on an otherwise thin frame. Another weighty chest was seen on May Tresfleur, one of the practicing druid Tresfleur sisters, whose clothing was woven from leaves and petals, a somewhat unusual sight for the attic dormitory but no more stand out than the rest of the colorful cast.
Catching sight of these beauties, Phineas smiled. Living in Quanata Loft this year was definitely going to be the best year of his life. He might actually strike up the nerve to get to know one of them better, rather than just watch from afar. Perhaps he would make his own worthwhile mark on the dorm, as the trappings of Quanata Loft spoke to the variety of witches, wizards and warlocks that had called this space home. However, there were more practical matters to attend to first. He had to settle into his new quarters, ready his schedule, and ease back into life at the Citadel. His fat admiration would have to take a back seat to schooling, as always.
Well, that would be an ‘average’ year at the prestigious preparatory magical academy. It turned out that Phineas would find his chubby chasing tendencies on the upswing shortly after setting foot into his new dorm…  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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