[We-ell, the costume I made up sorta fits the third picture of the black mage from the link Lillie gave, except mine's all black and doesn't include those long socks, nor the hat O.o I suppose I couldn't just add socks and a hat to my outfit and keep it like that?
]
Menai turned around to find a pointed black hat sitting on her bed, next to her white mage sphere. She picked up her white mage sphere. Uh-oh. No pockets. She sighed, and opened her suitcase. She dumped in the white mage sphere, the black mage's hat, and pulled out a piece of paper and a pen. Then she sat down at her desk, and wrote,
Dear Mother
She paused, and sighed, closing her eyes. What would her family care if she had been chosen for the squad anyway? Her mother would, as always, declare that Menai was a disgrace to the family. But then, her mother had never seen how important intelligence and talent was. She only cared about appearance, and hated the way Menai resented makeup.
Menai felt a deep misery welling up inside her.
Why can't they care? she thought,
why can't I have a normal family?
She imagined her father. If she had told him. He would be so proud of his daughter! He was decent, and Menai had loved him. Only he had left the world. Menai suddenly found herself furious with everybody and everything for being so unfair. Why did her father have to leave her alone to endure everything? And right now, after she had been selected to defend her world, when she most needed him to praise her and say that she'd succeed with the other members... he wasn't there.
That was when she remembered she was writing a letter. She stared at the piece of paper, and sighed. No use thinking of her dad now. She pulled herself together, and began to write.
I've just been selected for the squad, along with eleven others. There's only one person from each category. We all got a second job sphere. I chose black mage. I like the outfit. I've packed everything. I'm not sure when I'll see you and my siblings again. We're leaving tomorrow morning. I just thought you should know.
Your daughter,
Menai
There. That would do. She didn't want to write some amazingly long letter - her family wasn't very dear to her, and anyway, her mother would just be bored with reading. Menai got out an envelope, folded the letter neatly, sealed it, and wrote out the address with meticulous handwriting.
It then occured to Menai that she should were a belt that she could tuck things into. She pulled out a belt from her suitcase and snapped it around her waist. She couldn't put the envelope in, of course, so she left it on her now-empty desk, and went out of the dormitory. She first looked around, wondering if Iyani was in sight for her to taunt - but Iyani had gone, probably steaming with so much jealousy that she was doing unusually badly during her lessons.
Why not get used to this job? Menai thought. She hurried along to the Training Hall, which wasn't very far away. As she entered, she saw that some of the other selected squad members already there. She saw a large swirl of blackness in the middle of the room. She squinted, and could just see the silhouette of a person dancing in the middle of all the darkness.
Iaran or Karmina? she wondered.
[Er, yeah, semi-long post XD]