Suddenly, all the food that was left dissipated into mist.

"Thank you." The words echoed through the hall. "Please, now go to your studies! Lunch is at 12 sharp, come late and you won't be let in!"

Laughter overcame the room, and apprentices started leaving through two great oaken doors at the Wizard's and Witch's side of the table. Loren flashed a quick smile at Jay and Ruby, before slipping into the crowd.

"Well. Off we go to the Hall of Familiars then!" Jay grinned at Ruby, then started walking, expecting Ruby to follow him.

Ruby looked around baffled and watched him, nodding softly before following after him slowly, her head down.

Jay led Ruby to a large hall, in which a wizard stood, a dog by his feet. Agnes appeared suddenly, alighting on Jay's shoulder.

The wizard welcomed them: "Hello, I am Damien. I assume it is you, Ruby Haze, who has come for a familiar?"

Ruby looked up at the rather large older man a little nervously and nodded timidly. "Yes sir..." She said quietly, looking around in awe of all the different animals that were there.

Damien nodded, smiling. "There are a lot of animals here, from mere mice to large dragons." He pointed to a shadowed, hulking figure next to a pile of chains. "Such as that. That is a shadow dragon. But I don't think you came for that?" The old wizard shook his head. "Jay, Ruby, come with me."

Damien led them down the room, then stopped at a two-story cage, in which there seemed to be... nothing. Nothing at all. There was a nametag attached to the bars of the cage, saying: Raven.

"Raven, come here," Damien summoned. The air shimmered behind the bars, and a green-eyed, large black puma faded into view. "This is Raven. I believe this was the kind you wanted?"

Ruby's eyes widened and she let out a breath. "Wow...." She looked at the large, beautiful cat admiring it's shiny, sleek, black fur, it's shining bright green eyes. "Is this... really a panther?"

Damien nodded. "Yes, it is. Meet Raven, the disappearing, healing puma."

Ruby's eyes widened and she waved softly to the puma. "H-Hello..."

Raven mewed softly; he could not communicate with his potential witch, not until they were joined.

"Do you think he will be suitable for you, Ruby?" Damien questioned. "Or do you want somebody else?"

Ruby didn't know, she needed time to get to know animals before she chose them as her own, but when she looked into this puma's eyes... "I think he's good."

Damien nodded, smiling. "Very well." He waved his hand, and bars in front of them disappeared.

Raven looked at the old wizard, who gave him a small, reassuring nod. The large cat went up to Ruby and rubbed his head against her hand, purring.

Jay smiled, remembering that time when he had met Agnes for the first time ever. Agnes nibbled his ear fondly.

"You and Raven will need to be joined, but not here. The Joining Room is the place for such occurrences." Damien looked at Raven, then Ruby. "Are you two ready?"

Ruby had looked a little nervous when the large cat approached her but upon it's purring and rubbing against her hand she giggled happily and stroked it's soft fur. She looked up at Damien then back down at Raven. "I'm ready are you?"

"Alright then." Nodding, Damien led them into a smaller room with a blue crystal ball hovering in air in the center. "Come here." Damien gestured to a space in front of him. "Bow your heads."

Raven obediently walked up and bowed his head.

Ruby nodded softly and walked up next to Raven, glancing at him before bowing her head as well.

Jay and Agnes stood back, watching awkwardly.

Damien placed a hand on each of them, then muttered something unheard by anyone-- a joining spell. A thread of white light meandered out of Ruby's and Raven's heads, and went into the other's. Suddenly, they both could have heard eachother's thoughts, understood eachother perfectly.

(You can rp Raven now.)

Ruby gasped as she felt something in her head shift and her eyes snapped open.

"Calm down... It will all be ok..." Raven's deep voice that was soft as a purr sounded in her head.

Jay and Agnes both burst into happy grins.

Damien smiled gently at the two, then glared at Jay and his bird. "Jay, take Ruby and Raven to the training grounds, where I want you to teach the PRELIMINARY magic, NOT how-to-explode-stuff magic. I will be meeting you all before dinner to review what you may have learned and will soon learn." Then, with a swirl of his cloak, Damien and his Irish setter disappeared into thin air.

Jay laughed easily. "Ah, yes, Damien likes to show off his teleporting skills sometimes." He sighed. "Yeah, he said the truth, sometimes I do get out of hand and teach people how to make spontaneous explosions, just for larks."

Ruby looked over at him and giggled. "Alright, I'll remind you." Raven snorted at Jay and looked at Ruby. We should get going, you'll have a lot of work to do. Ruby smiled and nodded. "Ok."

Agnes nipped Jay's ear gently. "Come on," she whispered.

"Alright, we're off, already!" Jay lead them down another, longer series of halls and passageways, then out into the open air, in a small meadow surrounded by conifer trees.

"Okay, so here is where we start off beginners. Everybody has inside magic," said Jay, tapping his head, "in here. To start using that magic, however, one needs to extract just a little of it, to get going." Jay smiled. "To do that, you and Raven will roll around on the ground and do all sorts of physical activities that I tell you to do, and I will watch you, one to make sure you do all of them, and two to tell if you use any magic." So Jay wove the air into a reclining chair, sat back, and looked at Ruby and her cat. "Do 42 push-ups. No more, no less."

It would take at least 30 push-ups for Ruby to start getting riled and using magic, Jay reckoned. Agnes agreed.

Ruby stared at him like he was crazy. "I can't even do TEN push-ups without my arms giving out. In case you didn't know I have no upper body strength."

Raven nodded his agreement. "And how exactly is a cat supposed to do push-ups?"

Jay looked at Ruby, and remarked cockily, "Well, we all have to try, don't we?"

Agnes whistled at Raven, secretly laughing. "You sit, then lie down, then sit, then lie down, and so on. For me, I had to hover over one exact spot, which is VERY hard, as you don't know!"

Jay smiled, then, twirling his fingers, made a pair of sunglasses, resting on the tip of his nose. "Go on, then."

Ruby and Raven narrowed their eyes at them and sighed, Ruby got into position and started doing the push-ups and Raven started sitting and lying down.

At about fifteen push-ups in Ruby collapsed, Raven kept going.

Jay pointed at Ruby, who had collapsed. "Nuh-uh, get up and do about 25 more! I'm ordered to force you to keep on doing them, if you are reluctant. Come on!"

Agnes whispered in his ear: "Don't push her too much, though."

Jay grumbled. "I really dislike this. But I have to do it."

Ruby looked up at him, panting and groaned, getting up and doing very shaky push-ups.

"Faster!" Jay barked, trying his best to make his voice sound strong and threatening. Agnes rubbed her chin along his neck to comfort him.