As had been expected of her, Heidemyne had passed all of the paper exams on the first day of the respective classes. This threshold was arguably a bit harder to meet than during her mother's or even father's day, what with the greater proliferation of teaching materials sold by Ehrenfest and Alexandria, with the Royal Academy having to increase its own standards to not waste the higher baseline its students were achieving. Of course it could not raise those levels too high too quickly, lest students from the poorer duchies be left at too great a disadvantage, but the materials covered in even the first year course were undoubtedly more advanced than before.
Now the school term had moved onto practical classes, of which today was the making of one's high beast. And whereas previous such practical magic courses had one, maybe two professors overseeing them, for some reason it looked as if half the faculty was present. How strange.
"Lady Heidemyne, are you ready?" one of the professors called out.
"Yes," Heidemyne said, stepping up and taking out her feystone.
With practiced ease, she molded the feystone into the form of her high beast, a driveable model in the form of a shumil with a crystal embedded on its forehead.
"Oh, you did that quite quickly," the professor said. "Mayhap you have had prior practice with this?"
Heidemyne shrugged. "My mother often ferried me around in her high beast, so I was well familiar with the feel of one even before being given a stone to dye."
"Ah yes, your lady mother," the professor said, and for some reason Heidemyne found herself disliking the older woman's tone. "She certainly had a...unique high beast. It is good that you have adopted a more...conventional shape."
Dislike spiked into outright irritation, but Heidemyne kept her face composed with a serene smile, albeit one that did not reach her eyes.
"Personally I have always appreciated Lessy's features," Heidemyne responded. "If one looks closely, there are many attributes that are of very...practical utility."
The professor blinked. "Practical...utility?"
"Quite," Heidemyne said, continuing to smile. "Indeed, I would not be my mother's daughter if I did not carry on at least some of her traditions. Here, let me show you my high beast's [battle mode]."
With that, the previously gentle looking shumil head morphed into that of a [lesser panda], while its fluff of a button tail elongated into a fully bush. Gasps were already sounding, but the real consternation started when Heidemyne had her high beast open its mouth, revealing a row of sharp fangs. The professor overseeing Heidemyne's practical gaped at the high beast crouching as if it was preparing to pounce, then promptly toppled back in a dead faint.
"Urgent message for Lord Ferdinand and Lady Rozemyne from the royal academy," the scholar-official said as she hurried into the aub's office.
The archducal couple looked up from their work.
"Did something happen with Heidemyne?" Myne asked, brow furrowed in worry.
Due to being closer, the paper was handed to Ferdinand first, who after reading it over gave a snort.
"It seems Heidemyne really is your daughter," he said. "There is a complaint from the Immerdink dormitory manager that she was attacked by Heidemyne's high beast. Fortunately, the other professors present are all willing to attest that the woman only fainted due to surprise." A pointed look was cast at his wife. "I told you it was a bad idea to teach her how to make a grun transformation."
"Consider this further reason for you to hurry up with the domestication program to turn gruns into proper [lesser pandas]," was Myne's utterly unapologetic response.
