Witch Hunter Academy

Chapter 1- The Island of Everlasting Cold

Arai Sinflow wasn't your ordinary kind of witch, she was weird looking, with hair blacker than a raven's wing, and eyes as clear and blue as ice crystals reflecting the sky above, with skin that was as pale as the moonlight. She was short for her age, standing at only five feet tall, while the other witches she knew were all at least five feet five inches.

Arai was born on a weird day too, the coldest day of the year, Dectember thirty-first at 11:59pm, only a minute away from being born in the new year. She could've just claimed to be born on Janutary first at twelve in the morning, but witches believed strongly in correct timing and dates, so she was stuck with being younger than everyone in her year instead of older.
At first, she was just a little weird-looking with a weird birthday, but then came her summoning ceremony, and things just got weirder from there.
It was her twelfth birthday, and it was a cold day, with a huge storm raging outside. She was standing outside, in the snow, in the middle of a circle of about twelve witches, including her mother and grandmother, who had ranted at her for almost two hours on how this was really important, and they didn't want her to screw things up, like she always did.

While most good mothers would've wished her luck and kissed her before the ceremony, her mother had told her that she'd be banished if she screwed this up. Arai didn't like the sound of that, even if her family acted like she was the worst thing that had ever happened to them.
The chanting started at eleven o'clock that night, continuing on while Arai thought about all the animals her mother would be proud of her for summoning. A tiger, a cougar, maybe an arctic lion, a lynx, an owl, even a regular housecat would be an amazing improvement of not-failing-at-everything.

Her mother would be happy with anything
that wasn't canine, because canines were the animals that Witch Hunters used to attack them, canines weren't as smart or cunning or graceful as cats, or as smart and wise as owls. They were blindly loyal and terribly clumsy, they loved without thinking, or at least, that's what her mother always told her.

Her mother's familiar was a lynx, and her grandmother's was an owl, both familiars were awfully mean and liked to torment Arai as much as her family did. Today would be the one time she couldn't possibly screw up, it was in her blood to summon a feline or bird, there was no way she'd mess this one up.

"Arai Sinflow, repeat these words," The head witch of Newland began, her familiar, a huge mountain lion regarding her with its strange predatory eyes, "O' Great Magic Source, Great Creator, Founding Witch Etheria, grant me, Arai Sinflow, the strength to summon forth a great beast, that will protect and serve me for the rest of our days."

Arai repeated those words, hardly hesitating at all, her voice came out clear and radiated a calm certainty that she didn't really feel. The magic circle surrounding Arai began to glow with a faint blue light, the snowstorm cleared, allowing the light of the moons overhead to shine directly onto her dark hair, setting the snow around her aglow with the same, creamy moonlight.

A light, resembling a star, descended from above, slowly becoming nearer and nearer, until the light stopped on the ground in front of Arai.

Taken aback with awe, Arai didn't speak, she simply watched as the light slowly faded, revealing a fluffy black tail, graceful legs and small paws, and...

A canine face.

The black fox looked up at Arai with eyes as orange as the flames that burned her ancestors, teeth sharp and blunt at the same time, and the sly face that only a fox had. This fox was the same size as Mother's lynx, and a complete dwarf compared to the head witch's cougar, and a complete and total disappointment.

The witches around her gasped in surprise, their faces twisted with an obvious dislike, muttering to each other as if Arai was deaf.

"A fox..."