Ashes of the Elite

Evanora raises her hand, and the artificial lights overhead dim slightly. Shadows melt and stretch across the benches, swallowing up the anxious fidgeting and whispered nerves of four hundred first years. The tension of the room is palpable, everyone's gaze drawn toward the proctors as if they're the only source of light left in the world.

With another wave of her hand, flags unfurl around the chamber blooming out of nowhere, catching a breathless draft that seemingly came out of nowhere. For a heartbeat, I can't help but stare. The precision of it, the sheer command over the building itself...it's not just for show. Evanora's Mark must be the one that lets her shape this whole place however she wants walls, floors etc. The realization crawls down my spine, cold and electric. I can't even begin to guess at the limits of her power. I doubt anyone here, even the other proctors, really know. It's impressive. It's terrifying. I have to respect it.

The flags themselves are works of art, each one radiating a different kind energy.

The first banner is impossible to miss: a stylized silver sword, gripped by a figure with wings of fire erupting from its back. The blade points downward, braced against the earth, and behind it a rising sun blazes in a perfect gold halo. The flag's colors are a savage, regal crimson and winter white, edged with gold so bright it almost hurts to look at. The whole thing screams heroism, sacrifice, and a kind of divine violence. I can already picture the kind of people who'll end up in that House martyrs, crusaders, glory-hounds who want to save the world or burn down trying.

The second flag is more subtle, but no less striking: deep indigo and onyx black, bordered in pale silver. At its heart, a downward-pointing triangle a silver eye set into its center, unblinking, watchful, cold. Four curved lines arc from the triangle's point, forming a hood or a veil, as if the eye is peering out from behind a mask. Everything about it whispers secrecy, descent, hidden knowledge. I feel a little shiver of kinship and suspicion both. I wouldn't mind being sorted there, honestly. They seem to be like minded based off the design alone.

The third banner is rougher, almost brutal in its honesty steel gray, rust red, and charcoal black, streaked together like raw ore. Its symbol is a broken iron shackle set against the flank of a rising mountain. Sparks scatter from the snapped chains, stylized into tiny, distant sparks. The message is clear: struggle, pain, the kind of suffering you have to climb through just to survive. I know a little about that. I wonder who they put there the ones who refuse to break, or the ones who already have and are still crawling uphill.

The fourth flag is an exercise in elegance and menace. Bone white, violet, and black, with a funerary mask at its center half of it cracked, the other half smooth and cold. The mask is wreathed in thorny laurel. From the mask's eyes, tiny red dots drip downward tears of blood how creepy. The whole thing is beautiful in a sick sort of way. It makes me think of spies, secrets, and victories you have to pay for twice. What type of cold bastards do they send there?

And then there's the last flag. Of course there is. Blinding gold, no border, as simple and arrogant as a slap to the face. Its only symbol is a sun, high in the sky, rays stretching to the corners as if nothing else in the world matters but its light. I can already smell the pretentiousness rolling off it in waves. I have to fight the urge to roll my eyes thinking about the fucking insufferable pricks who will be sorted there.

The room is utterly silent, every student's attention riveted on the banners. Evanora lets the moment stretch, a little smile playing at her lips as she watches our reactions.