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far too familiar with zero
a Raafi is the gandálfr
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"Pentagon of the five elemental powers, heed my summoning!"

The words echo through the mind, below conscious perception, but none-the-less understood by something deeper than thought.

"I beg to the borders of all existence for you to hear me, my strong, loving, divine familiar!"

A whirlpool of green light springs into existence, standing on edge, casting shimmering patterns on its mundane surroundings.

"Follow my fate, guard the wish of my heart, and come forth!"

The world tilts, towards the green portal. A man falls in.

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It doesn't even give him time to get a spell off, whatever it is. He falls, and tries to hold onto the half-cast teleportation to complete it on the other side of the portal.

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He tumbles through a tunnel of green light.

And then quite abruptly he is standing on healthy mowed grass, surrounded by smoke. When the smoke clears, it is a pleasantly sunny day, and he is surrounded by teenagers in uniforms, each accompanied by a strange creature.

A bald man with a staff stands nearby.

Directly in front of him is a girl with silver eyes and short purple hair. She is clutching a wand in one slack hand, staring at him in complete surprise. She has dark circles under her eyes and tears on her cheeks.

She whispers something in an odd hybrid of English and French. The bald man replies at length, watching Raafi consideringly.

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Something very strange is going on here, but he's not going to stick around to find out what. He completes his spell, intoning the last few syllables in a language unrelated to the one spoken here.

It doesn't work.

He yelps, and begins casting something else, eyes darting around the group in clear alarm.

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The bald man says something to the girl, stern and urgent.

The girl blanches, looks at Raafi, and goes red in the face. But at another barked word from the bald man, the girl steps forward and raises her wand to point it at Raafi, beginning a chant of her own.

Raafi finishes first.

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And now he is in a stone brick hallway. There is a maid right in front of him. She screams in surprise and drops a basket of laundry.

An uproar of... laughter? fills the courtyard outside.

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He apologizes, not that she'll understand more than the tone, and hurries to get more distance from the group.

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He appears to be... in a school of some sort.

There are other students in the hallways, some of whom stare in confusion at him as he passes, and classrooms visible through various doors.

The school itself appears to be a large tower surrounded by a lawn on all sides, with a thick castle wall with five segments surrounding that lawn.

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Longstrider. Fly. He swoops up into the air, pulling a vial of Mage Armor out of a belt pouch as he begins to gain altitude and downing it before he makes too much of a target of himself. What's over the walls?

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Plains. Forest. Some hills.

Down on the lawn where he first appeared, dozens of teenagers are jeering and laughing at the purple haired girl from before as she lays curled up on the spot where Raafi appeared, shaking.

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...oh, hells.

Does he have a translation necklace.... yes. Great. He swoops back over. "Is that supposed to be helping anything," he calls down, "or are you just being assholes?"

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Now that he can understand the jeers, they seem to be about mocking the purple haired girl for trying to fake her success by hiring a random commo---NOBLE MAGE??!!!?!

When they all notice that Raafi is flying, their jeers all trail off into mutters of confusion.

The bald man with the staff sighs. "Excuse me. Who might you be?" he asks Raafi.

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"Raafi, cleric of Fharlanghn. Not of this plane, if that failed spell earlier is any indication. What's going on here?"

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The bald man opens his mouth to reply, but before he can, the milling crowd of students erupts in protest. An argument breaks out between those who insist "the zero" hired an actor, and those who appear to be calling Raafi variations on "heathen" and "blasphemer".

"BE THAT AS IT MAY!" The crowd falls silent. "Welcome to Tristain Academy of Magic, Raafi. I am Professor Colbert. And unfortunately this is a somewhat unprecidented situation. I hope you'll bear with me as I explain your situation, given that," he raises his voice for the sake of the students, "you did indeed come forth from Miss Vallière's successful familiar summoning."

(The girl on the ground suddenly stops shaking.)

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He shoots several of the louder students dirty looks.

"-you can't possibly mean the same thing by that that the wizards I'm used to do. Yes, please explain."

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Colbert gestures about.

"As you can see, the other members of this class have all summoned animals or magical beasts. To summon a fellow human mage is unheard of. The Springtime Familiar Summoning is the ultimate rite, the sacred proof of a mage's existence, for all of our hallowed history. By casting the holy ritual left behind by Founder Brimir, every mage is paired with a destined exemplar of their element."

Colbert sighs.

"By all the laws of god and men, the being summoned by the holy ritual is that familiar. There are no mistakes, and no second chances. Miss Vallière's fate is, it would appear, entirely in your hands. She must complete the ritual binding you to her, or she will be expelled, not just from this school but from noble society entire, stripped of all titles and inheritances."

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"-what will that. do. to me."

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"It will mark you with a set of runes that may or may not have some beneficial effect. To be frank, it is mostly a formality, but unfortunately it is a formality that is absolutely required of Miss Vallière here."

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He relaxes a bit, though he doesn't descend any further. "I want to talk to her first."

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He can do that.

The girl sits up and blinks at him.

"You came back."

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 Now he descends, close enough to speak quietly to her, his tone much softer. "Yeah." He goes to scoop her up. "You're not afraid of heights, are you?"

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She blushes a lot when he picks her up, and holds very still in his arms.

"...a little? I can't cast Levitate."

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"I won't drop you." He starts ascending, slowly at first while he's not sure how she'll react. "And I can cast Fly on you once I have my hands free." Once he's clear of the crowd, he heads for the roof of the school.

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The school doesn't really have a roof, but it has some unoccupied balconies.

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That'll do in a pinch. He settles her gently and peeks inside to make sure they aren't being watched before settling himself on the railing. He doesn't try to talk to her immediately, but seems to be giving her a moment to relax and think first.

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"I wouldn't blame you," she finally says, after a long silence. "If you dropped me and went home. It doesn't make any sense. How can you be my destined familiar?"

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"I'm not sure yet that I'm staying - or rather I'm not sure yet that I'll come back when I leave, that's really not in question, I've been Fharlanghn's cleric since I was your age - the god of travel. But I'm not - you gave me a scare, but I don't think this is beyond what I can work with. I'm not mad about it."

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The girl seems to fold in on herself.

"Oh. Okay. I... wasn't really expecting the ritual to work for me in the first place. Nothing else does. So I wasn't really expecting to have a life after today anyway."

She manages to focus her eyes on Raafi. "They'll probably hunt you. Maybe you should murder me before you go. Might scare them enough to give you a head start. At least then... I'll be good for... something."

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"-no." There's a note of finality in it, for all that he's still speaking softly. "No, I'm not going to do that."

"You could come with me. I don't know what your wilderness is like but looking after two isn't much harder than looking after one, most places. Or we can stay here a while and figure it out." He kicks his feet, idly, thinking. "It mostly comes down to what you want to do. I can stay a month or so, at least, probably."

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The girl looks utterly horrified at the idea of living in the wilderness.

"I... have to finish the ritual. That's the only thing that really matters."

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"If it's really just some runes I don't think I'll mind. If they'll have any kind of magical effect I want to know about it, though."

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"I don't know. All other documented summons were of animals or magical beasts. Can't really ask them."

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"Mm. What kind of timeline are we on, I can cast a divination about it but I don't have the one I'd want to use prepared today. I suppose this is worth using a scroll on, if we need to."

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"Prepared? Scroll?" the girl repeats in confusion.

She shakes her head. "I.. don't think its a matter of timeline. They could probably call what's already happened a failure and kick me out tonight, just Professor Colbert is nicer than that."

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"Scrolls are a way of storing spells - I have some, but I won't have a way to get more unless I figure out how to get back. What's - how are they going to decide, do you think, whether this is good enough? What might affect that?"

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"I... think that if we leave this balcony without completing the ritual first, they expel me and... someone, the church probably, hunts you down and tries to execute you for... some religious-sounding crime."

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"Good thing I'm not much for civilization, if they're going to be like that about it. Okay, this sounds like it's worth the scroll. I'm going to need some space, here-" he slides to his feet and takes a black cloth from one of the pouches on his belt; when he spreads it on the floor, it shimmers slightly and turns into a pit leading to a rough stone room furnished with various kinds of storage and heavily cluttered with stuff, not just on the shelves and clothes rack but in baskets and bags on the ground.

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The girl stares in surprise. She's never seen one of those before. What element even is that sort of enchantment?

She peers down into it from above, not entering, but watching curiously to see what he does.

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"I'll show you around later, maybe. If this all works out all right."

He flies down into it, hovering slightly rather than picking his way through the mess, and examines one of the shelves where several long, round leather tubes are stacked. It takes a minute to find the one he's looking for, and he tucks it under his arm. "Is there anything else we might need to do in the next few hours? I don't like pulling this out when there are too many people around, I'd rather get things out now if I'm going to need them."

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"Um..."

She has to think about this, and she's not in a state to be thinking very clearly at the moment.

"After the summoning rituals are done, we're... not expected anywhere until tomorrow."

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"All right." He takes another moment to pocket some potions from another shelf - more than the pouch he's putting them in seems like it should hold, if she's watching closely enough to notice, it's not a very big pouch - and grabs a walking stick from where it's hanging on the wall, and then flies back out, landing neatly at the edge of the pit and putting it away before he does anything else. "This one takes a little longer, don't interrupt me until it's done or I might lose the spell." And he steps back a bit, takes the scroll out of its case, and begins to cast.

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She nods and tries not to fidget.

 

Raafi's divination works as well as can be hoped, and reveals to him that the runes in question will:

Amplify and reinforce any feelings of loyalty he feels toward this girl.

Imbue him with immense strength, speed, and skill should he take up a weapon in defense of her life or in pursuit of her goals. This second part is definitely not normal.

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He relays this, and: "I have to say I'm not thrilled with that."

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She wishes he would either agree or just shove her off this balcony and end it already. The waiting for him to decide is almost worse.

She simply nods.

Maybe if she were less of a failure she might be inclined to try to persuade him. But she has never been any good at speaking up in her own defense. He already has all the information he needs to make a decision.

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"Hey. I'm not going to let you die over this, all right? The mind-affecting stuff isn't great and I want to talk about it before we do anything, but that's all, okay?"

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Her gaze snaps up to meet his, a glimmer of hope on her face.

"O-okay? I'm... not sure what there is to talk about. That's more than I knew about the familiar bond, and I read. A lot. I, um, what do you want?"

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He sits crosslegged on the floor of the balcony and pats the ground beside him. "I want - to make sure you know what you're getting into, mostly. It seems like you have some ideas about how this is supposed to work, and - I'm a cleric, I have responsibilities already, I don't know that it'll work that way. We saw that already, a little - it's not just that I won't want to stay, permanently, it's that I can't, I lose my magic if I push that too hard. And that's probably not the only thing."

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"You, uh, what? That's not how magic works!"

For a moment she looks almost angry, then she drops down to sit with her legs folded outward, just going limp and dropping in place, all the fight going out of her.

"It doesn't matter anyway. I don't care that you're a heathen, that you'll probably get me excommunicated and I'll be helpless to stop you because I'm a failure in all aspects of my existence. Nothing you could ever do to me would be worse than... this."

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He puts an arm around her shoulders. "I don't think your magic is like anything I've heard of, either. We're going to have to see if we can figure out what happened, sometime. I don't have to talk about my god, anyway - I'll need something to say when people ask about my magic, but it doesn't have to be the truth if that'll get us in trouble. I think we'll be okay that way, probably."

"Tell me more about what's going on here?"

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For a long moment, she physically can't answer. His arm is around her. He's touching her. Don't react don't react don't react don't react for the love of Brimir don't react he might stop.

"...everyone is waiting," she says, squeezing inflection out of her voice. "I went last, and Professor Colbert can't dismiss the class until I either succeed or fail. The fact that you're a noble is probably the only reason the Professor feels he can justify this much leeway. I'm sorry. I don't know what you're asking."

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He doesn't stop.

"I don't think that's what I meant - maybe it is, I guess. You said nothing I can do would be worse than this, and I don't know what 'this' is. Seems like I might want to do something about it, whatever it is."

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"...this is my not knowing if I've succeeded or failed. The only thing you can do about it is let me finish the ritual or... not."

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"Ah. " He gives her a gentle squeeze. "I think that's a decision we should make together, since it has such permanent effects for both of us. Not just whether it's going to happen - I'm pretty sure it is, at this point - but how, and how things are going to work afterward. And I want to talk about it now, while I'm still in my right mind. It's not - I understand that they'll be upset. But this isn't something to rush into, even if they are. We can figure out later what to do about that part."

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She shudders uncontrollably at 'pretty sure it is'.

She gulps. "I'll... continue failing all my magic classes but also have to hide behind my family name while you travel around getting me in legal trouble?"

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"I was imagining I'd stay here for a while, first. Long enough to figure out how to avoid the legal trouble, at least."

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"That would... be good," she says meekly. "I'd... provide you with anything you asked for."

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"Don't worry about it; I don't need much. I do want to know what things will be like, though - what I'll be doing all day, what you'll be doing all day."

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"You wouldn't... I mean, I think if I tried to order you around you'd just laugh at me? So... you could just... be around. Follow me to classes. Come sit with me at dinner. Sleep-" her voice cuts off with a strangled squeak.

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"Indoors, preferably, but I'll make do if not. It's not a problem, I spend enough time on the road anyway, I'm used to it."

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"Yes. Indoors. It is customary for the familiar to sleep in the student's dorm room with them. For both the law and propriety, it doesn't matter that you're human." She is doing the crushed-inflection thing again.

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"I see. We can get a screen or something."

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"If you like."

 

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"Um. What else?"

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"On my side - I do devotions every morning, around sunrise, usually just before it. I like to do them walking but it's not strictly necessary. Takes an hour; I don't mind company but I don't expect you to join me, and certainly not every day. I don't get my magic for the day if I don't do them, though it isn't a problem other than that if I skip a day here or there. Fharlanghn expects me to help anyone who asks for it with travel; that'll lose me my clerichood entirely if I don't - I don't have to go to ridiculous lengths or anything but I can't just ignore them, I have to put an effort in if they need me to. At home people would recognize me as Fharlanghn's cleric," he pats the wooden amulet he's wearing around his neck, "and know to ask; it might not come up here at all. And I can't stay in one place too long - the rules around that are a little complicated, it has to do with my state of mind about it, but even doing everything exactly right, the limit is a year. Not that I'll want to stay anyplace nearly that long, I generally get antsy after a few months even if I'm otherwise happy. Don't - try to stop me from going, that won't end well for anyone."

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She nods solemnly. "I understand."

Well, she thinks she understood all of that. That was a lot of words and her brain is kind of runny right now.

She takes a breath. "I think the most important thing for you to understand is that, legally speaking, my familiar is me. If you commit a crime, I am the one who will be punished. And... there really is nothing I can do about that. My only recourse would be to overpower you directly, which... isn't a concern for you, since I'm a useless weakling and a failure as a mage."

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This gets her another squeeze. "I'm not in the habit of committing crimes, I think we'll be okay. They'll be able to figure out that I'm someone's familiar even if you aren't there?"

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Don't react don't react don't react.

"The r-runes," she reminds him. "You could maybe hide them? But also, my family is... well-known. And my entire class knows about you."

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"I'll want them under my shirt, if we have any choice about it at all. And - I guess I stand out a little ethnically, here, but I wouldn't expect this to be anyone's first guess about where a foreigner is from, if that's all they know about me."

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"O-okay."

She manages to meet his eyes, and tentatively picks up her wand.

"...does that mean...?"

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"I think so," he nods. "There's more that I want to know but I don't think any of it could change my mind. -I suppose it might not go without saying that it'd be rude to try to make me more loyal than whatever the runes do by themselves. I'm - sort of assuming that we'll end up with some kind of working relationship in any case, but this is already moving very quickly, it won't help us for it to go faster than it has to. But - I'll run, I think, if you try it. It's not a reason to wait."

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"We... already know that I can't actually stop you from leaving..."

She takes a deep, bracing breath.

She doesn't stand up, just shifts up onto her knees and scoots around to face Raafi where he's sitting. She hesitates.

"So, um, I just have to chant the last stanza, and then, um, kiss you."

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"All right."

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She is blushing again, big time.

She raises her wand, putting the tip to his chest. Magic stirs in the air.

"My name is Scyelen La Rafale de La Vallière. Pentagon of the five elemental powers! Bless this man and bind him as my familiar!"

And with that she lurches forward and presses her lips to his. It is only half a second later that it occurs to her that, technically, she didn't need to kiss him on the lips.

For Raafi, the kiss detonates like a lightning strike. A lightning strike that races from his lips and from his chest, down his right arm, to the back of his right hand. For a couple of seconds, it feels like a literal branding iron is pressed to his skin.

When the pain fades, a short series of angular silver lines stretch across the back of his right hand.

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He shouts, when the pain hits, and reflexively tries to teleport away, but it's too much; he can't hold the spell. He pitches over, instead, curling in on himself, breathing heavily for several seconds even after it passes and then giving a confused, disbelieving whimper.

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Scyelen yelps as well. She was not expecting that!

She panics a little, "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm the worst that wasn't supposed to hurt I'm sorry!"

But... she did it. The runes exist (where they exist gets a look of mild dismay, she couldn't even do that right) but he's her familiar. Her life isn't over. She lurches forward and hugs him.

 

On reflection, he can now speak the local language without translation magic.

Also, the loyalty effect was clearly designed for unintelligent animals and is barely affecting him.

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He tenses when she hugs him, but only for a moment, and then he shifts closer. He's slow to uncurl, moving like he expects it to hurt when he does, and trembling, gently. "It's - it's all right. I'm okay." He doesn't sound very okay but he does sound sure of himself about it. "Just - few minutes."

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"Hm, fascinating."

When did Professor Colbert get here? There he is, hovering just off the balcony.

"Congratulations, Miss Vallière." He turns to address the students below. "And that concludes this year's Springtime Familiar Summoning!"

He dismisses the class, and the crowd of impatient teenagers disperses.

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Raafi hauls himself into a sitting position, none too happy about the sudden need to.

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"M'sorry," Scyelen mumbles again.

"...Professor?"

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"I'm glad you two were able to come to an understanding. Given the unique nature of this situation, I must admit to some curiosity. Those familiar runes are quite unlike any I've seen before, I wonder if it is related to human summons in general or you in particular?" He shakes his head. "I will leave you two to get acquainted. However, I recommend that the two of you come to the Headmaster's office in the morning. I believe it prudent to have a conversation about Raafi's past."

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"I'll be there. Where am I sleeping tonight?"

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"That is up to Miss Vallière, I believe. I'll look forward to our conversation."

He turns and descends back down to the lawn.

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Scyelen stands up, and goes to the door that leads into the tower. She opens it.

"Um, my room is this way," she says shyly.

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He's really glad he grabbed that walking stick earlier, even if it wasn't quite for this; he leans heavily on it, getting to his feet, then belatedly remembers that he still has the Fly spell active and opts to hover a few inches off the ground rather than walk.

He follows her silently for a few minutes.

"Do you have the option of asking for a room for me, or would that cause a problem of some sort?"

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Drooping, Scyelen leads him inside, and down a stairwell.

"I could try? Maybe someone who wasn't a failure could get away with that, but I probably wouldn't. My room is nice, though."

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"I think you should ask. Or I should, or both of us together. I think - where I'm from - I'd expect your parents to make a fuss, when they found out. No matter what your teachers think of you. And if they didn't I'd expect the other students' parents to. Nobody wants their children going to a school where there's been a scandal."

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Scyelen wrings her hands, obviously very distressed at this idea.

"I'd... be humiliated. But I... can't stop you, if that's what you want to do." She sighs, resigned. "Probably inevitable. A familiar is supposed to be an extension of the mage's will, but you obviously have a stronger will than I do."

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"I think we don't have very many good options here - I don't think you want to be in the middle of a scandal, either. It might not be very avoidable but I think you should think about trying. And if that's a bad idea - I've been here for half an hour, I have no idea how things work here. I might just be wrong. It's okay to tell me, I just want you to explain, so I understand."

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Scyelen shakes her head, and bites her lip.

"We're already a scandal. Because, in everyone else's eyes, I as good as failed to bind you, even though you eventually let me. I got through on a technicality. At this point anything you do that is... uncharacteristic of an obedient pet, is just going to remind everyone that I should have failed."

She gives him a sad look. "I'm prepared to endure that, because it's better than being expelled, excommunicated, and disowned. If you really can't stand to share a room with me..."

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He blinks. "Sweetheart... no, that's not what I meant at all. Where I'm from, me wanting to would be a scandal. The school allowing it would be a scandal. You allowing it would be a scandal. I haven't even thought about whether I mind it for its own sake, it's just not done."

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"It isn't done here either," Scyelen admits, blushing furiously. "But that doesn't matter. I told you: Being a familiar, uh, supersedes that entirely. Even if you... even if you..." she somehow goes even redder. "I would still be, um, 'eligible for marriage'. If I ever was."

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Oh look here's a corridor at the bottom of these stairs.

It is lined with heavy oaken doors.

Here is one of those doors. It belongs to this furiously blushing teenage girl.

Inside the room, it is dark, lit by the cool blue glow of some sort of artifact on the end-table beside the very large four-poster bed. The four-poster bed fills a full quarter of the room. To the left of it, a large writing desk, unlit candles, a large wardrobe, and a small bookshelf. On the closer half of the room is a curtained off area inset to the left. Opposite, filling the right-hand corner, is a large pile of straw, suitable for an animal to sleep on.

Scyelen freezes, pales, and then starts frantically kicking the pile of hay until it is mostly under the very large bed and out of sight.

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He puts a hand on her shoulder before she gets very far. "Hey, relax. Where does that actually go?"

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Scyelen sighs. "The stables, probably? I'll have to ask a maid about it in the morning."

The room is pretty dark, and pleasantly chilly. The window is covered by thick black curtains closed tight. The artifact providing the blue glow also seems to be emanating cold. Scyelen goes over to the desk and lights a couple of candles.

"Um," she speaks up after a moment, remembering a safer topic which she's very curious about. "That thing you did, with the scroll. What element was that? I've never seen magic like that."

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"Divination school, which isn't usually elemental magic at all. You have - five of them, I think you said? We have eight schools and four elements, and most spells aren't elemental. The flight spell isn't either."

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"That really isn't how magic works!"

But she sounds fascinated, this time, instead of frustrated.

"Divinations are usually water spells, line-class at least. Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water are the gifts the Holy Founder Brimir gave to his divine lineage. The fifth element, Void, he kept for himself. All spells are composed of the four elements, combined in various ways. This is the only manner in which a human being may wield magic. This is considered a fundamental truth, a fundamental tenant of the faith."

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"Well, it's different where I come from." (Is that a smile. He has a pretty nice smile, actually.)

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It's a very nice smile. It makes her want to kneel at his feet. Which is just completely absurd what is wrong with her.

"Um. Yes. So it would seem. Um. How does it work? I mean, do you even have an element? What element are you?"

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"Different ways for different sorts of mages - it's not unheard of to have an elemental affinity but it's not common at all. The main types of mages are divine and arcane - I'm a divine caster, which means I don't make my own spells, I get them from, in my case, my god - there are lots of gods, where I come from, but they all give their clerics more or less the same spells. Arcane casters make their own; they're more versatile, but it takes more work - decades, sometimes, for something really complicated. The schools are the same for both of us, though, and I don't think anyone made them - well, Boccob, maybe, we wouldn't know if he had, he doesn't talk to mortals as a rule."

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"That, your, uh, really can't call it 'divine' is there another word we can use?" Scyelen asks, sounding a little plantive. "Um, your, that, it really sounds disturbingly similar to the unholy pacts the Elves like to make... not that I'm accusing you of anything!"

She flails a little.

"Um, so, you really don't have an element. A summoned familiar always has an element that matches the mage who summoned it. I summoned you. You don't have an element."

She collapses into her desk chair, despondent.

"I wish that didn't make perfect sense."

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"There are evil gods but Fharlanghn isn't one, for what that's worth. Tell me more about what it means to have an element?"

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Scyelen sighs.

"Right. Every mage has a First Element. Um, a mage is classified by how many Elements they can combine. It exponentiates, up to square-class, which is four Elements. This also determines how many of the elements you can use. A square-class mage can use any of the four elements, regardless of their First Element's element, even if they usually get better results from combining four of the same element. But everyone starts dot-class with just one Element, which means they also start with just one element, whichever is most in their nature."

Scyelen looks at Raafi bleakly.

"I've never been able to cast any of the dot-class spells. Not fire. Not wind. Not water. Not earth. I... really am the Zero. You confirm it: my First Element doesn't have an element. I have Zero elements..."

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"Hey." He floats down to sit on the air beside her chair and hugs her. "Magic isn't everything. And you did get me, that's not nothing."

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Being hugged is wonderful. Trying to accept a hug without spoiling it, is terrifying. Less so, now. He's her familiar, she reminds herself. He can't change his mind about that, no matter what he learns about her. Well, he could kill her. But then she wouldn't have to worry about not having a familiar, if that happened, would she.

After a long moment she finds her voice. "Magic is everything. What kind of noble can't even cast a spell? And... yeah, you. But I messed up even that. You're lucky you still have a hand, to be honest. That was the... least unsuccessful spell I've ever managed."

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"And you did manage it. - would you expect someone who actually had no magic to be able to do that? Real question, I'm not sure how your magic works."

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"My magic? Um. My magic... exists? But it doesn't work. I've studied all year, I've tried every bit of advice. It doesn't matter what element I try or how precisely I perform the evoking. Every single time, instead of the spell, I just get an explosion. A completely element-less explosion. I can't even pretend to be a really eccentric fire mage because the explosions don't even produce heat."

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"That sounds like something really strange is going on, to me. Maybe I'll see if I can find a scholar who has a guess about it, while I'm out. - have you tried Void? Would you even know how to?"

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Scyelen sputters. "You can't just... try the sacred Void! That's not... how anything works."

After a moment she startles. "Wait, what did you say about that 'arcane' magic? It can be learned, right? Do you think... I could try that?"

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"If we can get to my world, sure. That'll be a project if it's possible at all, though, for me. And not everyone has the aptitude - what kind of academics are you best at, that usually lets people guess about it."

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"I get high grades in all subjects, actually. But I spend an, above-average amount of time studying. I was hoping you could teach me something I could at least use to prove that my magic isn't broken. Guess not."

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He shakes his head. "I don't know enough about arcane magic to teach it, it's not my area. That does sound like you'd be able to learn some of it, though - maybe not more than second or third tier spells, but there's some pretty respectable ones even at that level."

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"Any spell that actually worked for me would..." Wistful sigh.

...she really isn't sure how long Raafi can float like that for the sake of hugging her, but she can't figure out how to ask while she's busy keeping a lid on her inner degeneracy.

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"Well, I can ask about getting back, too. I should anyway, people will be worried about me."

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Scyelen nods.

Her body is tense as a bowstring, but she's also leaning into the hug to a much greater extent than that level of tension might imply.

She should probably... do something. Or say something. He'd be disgusted if he knew what she was feeling.

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"You okay?"

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"...no."

Yes. She meant to lie and say yes.

aaaaaaaa

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"Anything I can do?"

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"...that is quite possibly the most loaded question I have ever been asked," Scyelen remarks, almost marveling. And she goes red again because she didn't really mean to say that out loud either.

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He gives her another little squeeze. "Not sure what you mean."

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Scyelen tries and fails to form words for several long minutes.

"I... don't think there's anything you can do," she finally says. "Unless you have a spell that fixes broken minds."

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"I suppose it depends on what you mean by that."

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"I was... there's actually a..." She sounds more scared than hopeful, actually, but not zero hopeful.

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"Clerics do healing, yeah. Bodies more than minds but I have a few tricks. I don't think that's what's wrong with your magic, though."

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"I wasn't talking about my magic," she says in a small voice.

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"Well, maybe I can help, then."

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That is utterly terrifying, but... "H-How?"

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"I'd need to know what I'm working with, first, I think - not that I can't just run through the whole collection if it turns out to be ambiguous, but some of them are expensive to cast. The spells themselves are - pretty simple? If they fix what's wrong they'll do that and if not they won't do anything."

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"...could you maybe tell me what each spell, does? I mean, what it... changes?"

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"I don't actually know all of them off the top of my head; if I need something I'm not already aware of I can ask for it and see what happens. But I have a list of the common ones, hold on -" he takes a little notebook out of his belt and pages through it.

"Okay - this one cures pain, this one temporarily suppresses fear, this one removes addictions, this one temporarily calms emotions, these will fix it if there's something making you - stupider, more or less, there's some technical terms that don't translate well - this one breaks enchantments and curses - this one handles a lot of different things but notably insanity - and it looks like that's it among the common spells."

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Suppressing fear sounds nice but it would do the opposite of help.

"None of those... sound quite right," Scyelen says, disappointed but also relieved. "What kinds of things does the last one do?"

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"The same kinds of stupidity as the other two, a few kinds of disorientation, and exhaustion. Plus some physical problems." Squeeze. "You don't have to tell me what's going on if you don't want to, but it'd help. And I bet I've heard worse, I've been a cleric for a long time."

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"I, um, I can't... I don't..."

Scyelen takes a shaky breath, and forces out some vague and hedging words.

"I'm... not afraid," this is a severe understatement, but, "of a bunch of things girls are supposed to be afraid of. And I am afraid of a bunch of things girls are supposed to want."

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"Sounds complicated, and not really the kind of thing I'd have magic for. I can say - whatever it is it's probably not going to bother me? If you want to talk about it or just - if I'm going to be around, I might find out, I expect that to be fine. It seems like people here have some pretty strict ideas about how things are supposed to be, and I don't, really. It's part of my calling not to."

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Scyelen relaxes a little, part relieved, part disappointed. He doesn't understand. If he understood he'd stop hugging her.

She should probably stop taking advantage of him like that. Any time now.

Reluctantly, she pulls away from the hug and stands up. She goes to her wardrobe, but freezes as she reaches for it. Her... night-time habits. What if he thinks... no. No. That much, that much she has to impose on his tolerance. Or she might as well announce that she has no intention of sleeping at all, and that would be entirely unproductive.

"I should get to bed. Um. I'm... going to try to behave around you in private as though I'm alone. I am absolutely going to fail, but I'm still going to try, because that is... the standard by which our bond is measured. Please, um, accommodate yourself however you like."

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He pales a little. "I'll go for a walk, how about. I'll be back in - twenty minutes?" It's not really a question; he's already headed for the door.

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Wow. She is really bad at this.

Scyelen sighs.

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While out and about in the mostly-empty moonlit corridors, Raafi runs across a pair of students. A boy with blonde hair and a foppish air appears to be flirting floridly with a short girl in a second-year uniform.

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Twenty minutes later, Scyelen is a lump under the blankets on the far side of her four-poster bed, up against the wall.

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It's closer to an hour before she hears the gentle pop of him teleporting in, followed by a soft incantation to clear the rest of the straw from the corner of the room and the rustling of him setting up his sleeping bag there.

"Goodnight."

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"You... can use the bed, if you want. I... would've got a second bed, if I'd known."

She is, in fact, taking up maybe ten percent of the available mattress space. It's a big bed and she is a petite girl.

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There is no way in any number of hells.

"I'm all right. Thank you though."

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Scyelen tries not to read into that.

Mostly fails.

Closes her eyes.

It takes her a long while to actually fall asleep.

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He's quiet, after that, and probably manages not to wake her as he leaves for his devotions an hour before dawn.

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If he did wake her, she gives no sign.

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He'll walk the grounds, then, making his way around the perimeter inside, then out, and then going to look at the nearest stand of trees and see if he recognizes any of the local wildlife.

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The trees are pretty mundane. There isn't much wildlife around. But there does appear to be a small blue dragon circling overhead. With a small blue-haired girl riding on its back.

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His spells for the day come in as the sun peeks over the horizon, and he heads back; if there's any foot traffic yet he'll follow it in hopes of finding the kitchen and some fruit to bring back to the room.

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It's too early for foot traffic... unless you count this maid. She is clearly a morning person.

Also, Raafi knows her. Its the same maid he startled yesterday.

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"Oh, good morning. Sorry about yesterday, I was in a bit of a panic. Is the kitchen open yet, do you know?"

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"Oh, it was no trouble, sir. The kitchen is preparing to serve breakfast. Would you like me to show you the way?"

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"Yes, thank you."

"I'm Raafi, it seems like I'll be around for a while."

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"It is a pleasure, sir. I am Siesta. Forgive me... but is it true? You are Miss Scyelen's familiar?"

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"Mmhmm. Well, something like that, anyway. I'm still myself, after it all. But-" he shows off the runes. "The spell did work for her."

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"Why wouldn't you be yourself? Oh, but it is the talk of the school, you know. I for one am glad she has you to look after her now. That poor girl..." she shakes her head. "She's always been a skittish one, so nervous. I think she's very unhappy. But she has a very kind heart. Never takes it out on us common staff, whatever 'it' is."

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"That's good to hear. It's very different here from what I'm used to, I think my world might have been a little better for her. But I'll do what I can, of course."

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Shortly, they arrive at the kitchens, where a very large man in an apron is still in the preliminary stages of cooking for a cafeteria full of hungry students. He glares at Raafi like Raafi owes him money, and possibly insulted his mother.

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He lifts his hands in a joking display of surrender. "Peace! I'm not here to disturb your cooking, I just want some fruit. I'll get it myself if you point me in the right direction."

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The burly chef points him to the fruit without complaint, but he is definitely surly about it.

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He'll take a few pieces and head back to the room, then. Is Scyelen awake yet?

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Nope.

She is sprawled out fast asleep under the covers.

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He leaves an apple and a pear on the nightstand for her and takes out his portable hole again, climbing down for privacy to enspell himself clean and change clothes. When he comes out he's added a pair of gloves to his outfit and has paper and ink and a quill, and sits at the desk to work out an explanation to try to send to his friends back home.

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Scyelen eventually stirs.

She, it turns out, is not a morning person. She also sleeps naked.

She hasn't forgotten that Raafi is there, really. It's just that her morning routine runs almost entirely on automatic.

She crosses the room in a sleepy shamble and disappears into the alcove behind the curtained-off area. The sound of running water shortly follows.

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He's gone, paper taken with him but ink and quill left behind, when she comes out.

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Scyelen emerges, freshly scrubbed and more awake, and blinks at his disappearing act. Sighs.

She dresses in a fresh copy of her uniform and... right, they were supposed to talk to the headmaster. She heads out and goes looking for Raafi.

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He's right outside the door of her room, leaning against the wall and going over what he's written, though he tucks it away when she appears. "I left you some fruit if you want to eat before we go."

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"Oh, um, thank you."

She pokes her fingers together shyly.

"But breakfast is being served in the dining hall. Would you like to join me? It's okay if you don't, we can meet at the Headmaster's office, after, if you want."

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"Sure, we can do that."

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The dining hall is laid out like any school cafeteria, but appointed with opulent furnishings. Maids bring out fine plates loaded up with high-quality cuisine. Siesta is among them.

Of the students, most of those who were present at Raafi's summoning are present as well, doting on the various exotic beasts that accompany them. The blue dragon and blue-haired girl are over there, the girl with her nose in a book while a tall, busty red-head chatters at her while feeding an orange lizard thing that appears to be slightly on fire.

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Raafi really never thought he'd see the day when he looked more out of place than a dragon, but, well, life's full of surprises. He sticks close to Scyelen, but keeps watching their surroundings, hoping to pick up on the details of the culture here.

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(Scyelen sits in the corner, alone.)

These seem to be mostly what one would expect of teenagers of high social status in a school setting. Of note is that, though no one is going out of their way to hassle the maids, there is an air of casual disregard for them.

The food is delicious, though. This may explain why such a surly chef still has his job.

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Lawful societies, ugh. He keeps watching, though, while he eats - he wants to know who's paying attention to them, who yesterday's hecklers are friends with, what the general tone of the reaction to Scyelen's summoning has settled into overnight.

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A handful of random boys and girls are occasionally shooting Scyelen scornful glances.

A few others are giving them curious glances. The red-head next to the dragon girl is occasionally one of those.

In fact, after the first course is done, that very red-head sashays over to them. She eyes up Raafi like a piece of meat. "Well well well! I simply must inquire as to how a such distinguished gentleman as yourself is coping with our cute little class mascot?"

She pats Scyelen on the head. Scyelen appears very conflicted about receiving these particular headpats.

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He regards her levelly as she looks him over, his eyes following her hand as she pats Scyelen. "Oh, settling in," he offers, in a tone somewhat more dangerous than the words suggest.

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The danger just seems to turn her on. She continues to pet a pouting and blushing Scyelen's head.

"How wonderful to hear! Allow me to introduce myself, I am Kirche von Zerbst, the Ardent!" She proclaims, her exuberance making for much magnificent mammary motion. "And I believe you called yourself 'Raafi', hmm? What an interesting name."

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What the fuck is wrong with this place. He doesn't so much as glance down.

"Well, I'm foreign. -look, stop that." He goes to grab her hand where she's touching Scyelen.

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(Scyelen looks a little mournful at the loss of contact, but also relieved. Kirche is so confusing.)

Kirche seems quite happy to be grabbed. "Oh, how bold. I also happen to be foreign. My, we have so much in common already!"

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He drops the hand as if it were a dead rodent. "How nice. Did you need something?"

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Kirche laughs. "Just a handsome man with a passionate heart! Oh to meet such a challenge, my heart only grows fon---"

A hand, belonging to a young woman (though older than the students, if just barely) in a jacket, tie, and pencil-skirt comes out of nowhere, clapping down hard on Kirche's shoulder.

"...wh-where did you come from?" Kirche blurts.

"I heard you being foolish again, Miss Zerbst. We have discussed this. What did I tell you?"

Kirche breaks out in a sweat. "To avoid using terms of romance in euphemism?"

"Correct. And what were you just doing?"

"Flirting?" Kirche tries hopefully.

This gets a flat look in response. "It was not your heart that has spontaneously developed a fondness for Miss Vallière's familiar, Ardent."

Kirche pouts. "But that's no fun, even a Lady as sensuously generous as I ought not speak so crassly!"

The older girl's firm grip turns into a comforting pat. "If you wish to be so 'sensuously generous' without causing drama and heartbreak, you must cease to regard the describing of bodies and acts as crass. I'm sure such a passionate and intelligent girl as you could find ways to speak about your wanton fuck hole with both sufficient poetry and sufficient clarity."

(Scyelen and many other uncomfortable-looking bystanders look on in awe as the Headmaster's secretary manages to get Kirche of all people to blush.)

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The young woman turns away from Kirche to address Scyelen and Raafi:

"I apologize for her. I am Miss Vaux. I am to collect you for the Headmaster after you are finished with your meals."

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Raafi glances at Scyelen.

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Scyelen is, at this moment, staring, not eating. But she still has food on her plate.

After a moment she jolts, nods at Miss Vaux, and returns to her food.

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Miss Vaux waits politely.

She seems to have drawn the majority of the attention that was on Raafi to herself, as conversations among the various teens resume. The scene between her and Kirche was clearly far outside the bounds of what is considered normal, here, but also not new. There are mutterings of lewd rumors about the mysterious sultry secretary, both plausible and highly implausible.

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Raafi picks at his food; he's not really hungry, at this point, but it's better than sitting there awkwardly.

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Scyelen eats faster.

"Okay, I'm finished. Let's go?"

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"This way."

Miss Vaux leads the two of them out of the dining hall and up several flights of stairs.

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He follows, waiting until they have some distance from the cafeteria and some privacy before speaking. "Is that an ongoing problem?"

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"Miss Zerbst? Yes her, particular foibles, are a somewhat chronic occurrence. I've more or less taken her under my wing, so to speak, but she is a work in progress."

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"Well. Please make it known to her that I'm not interested in children."

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Miss Vaux blinks at him. "I will do so, but Miss Zerbst is hardly a child. I cannot fault your tastes, but perhaps you ought to express those tastes with at least as much respect as you might have wished to receive from Miss Zerbst while she expressed hers?"

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"It is in fact her lack of maturity I object to. Emotionally, if not physically."

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"She was mature enough to begin seeking my advice when her unchecked antics broke several hearts and several friendships earlier this year. She is not your type. That needs no qualification or justification."

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"I suppose that's better than the alternative."

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"Did Kirche really feel bad about something like that?" Scyelen speaks up. "I thought she... she's always... I can never understand why she talks to me."

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"She did."

Miss Vaux gives Scyelen a complicated look.

"If I had to guess, she is trying to comfort you. She's just very bad at it."

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Scyelen looks rather floored by this revelation. It had honestly never occurred to her that Kirche was trying to be nice.

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Shortly, they arrive at the Headmaster's office. The Headmaster himself is a very stereotypical wizened wizard, with the long white hair and beard, despite looking suspiciously smooth-skinned underneath.

Professor Colbert is also there.

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Raafi pulls himself together a bit, though it's still fairly obvious that he's in a foul mood. He'll follow Miss Vaux's lead in where he's supposed to be.

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Miss Vaux stands aside.

"Greetings, greetings," the Headmaster says. "Miss Vallière. So this is 'Raafi' is it? I am the Headmaster of this academy, called Old Osmond. Welcome."

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"Raafi, yes. It's good to meet you, circumstances aside."

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"Hmph," Osmond says, because that is the noise wizened wizards make in this situation.

"So," Professor Colbert speaks up. "We have reason to believe the summoning of a human familiar is significant for more than the obvious reasons. I can't say much about that until we're more sure of certain facts, but I've been up all night doing research," he sounds excited about this, "and I've found several leads on deciphering those runes. Or that is to say, I've ruled out every known familiar rune configuration from the post-Brimic era!"

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"You should have just asked; they say 'left hand of god'."

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Professor Colbert, who was about to continue, swallows his words in shock and starts coughing.

Old Osmond blinks. And a small white mouse falls out of his sleeve and onto the floor. For some reason.

"The, you, it's, you are sure that's what they say?" Colbert manages.

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"Sure. I have translation magic, how did you think I was speaking your language?"

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"We, er, simply assumed you knew Halkegenian," Colbert coughs. "It is a very wide-spread language."

"It seems you were correct," Osmond says, "Miss Vallière's familiar is indeed, the legendary gandalfr."

(Miss Vaux stares at Scyelen with a new intensity, but otherwise avoids reminding the men in the room that she's present.)

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"Good to know. What does it mean?"

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"Well," Colbert says, "if you are indeed the gandalfr, then there is, in fact, precedent for your summoning after all. You see, the original gandalfr was the human familiar of Founder Brimir himself."

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"Huh." He nudges Scyelen.

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"Huh?"

What is he... oh.

Oh.

"B-b-b-but you can't mean, I mean I can't be... can I?"

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"Sure sounds like it. What else do you know?" he asks Colbert.

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"Unfortunately, first hand accounts of the era of the Founder are limited to holy scripture. Are you unfamiliar with the... yes, I see that you are. The gandalfr is said to be the sword and shield who guards the Void mage. If true, this would neatly explain Miss Vallière's troubles with her practical class exercises. She must be a Void mage! The gandalfr's most notable trait was his unmatched prowess as a warrior; he is said to be able to master any weapon in an instant."

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"My divinations said something about that, too."

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"Divinations?" Colbert asks.

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"I wasn't going to let her cast something else on me without seeing what it would do, of course. There's a loyalty effect and something for weapon proficiency. I'm not convinced it's in our best interests for you to know the details of it, given your handling of the situation so far."

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"Our handling of the situation?" Colbert repeats, sounding genuinely confused.

Osmond puts forth a hand. "I believe that is a prudent policy with which to treat this information, regardless. Whatever destiny the gandalfr has been summoned to meet, discretion can only be advantageous."

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"No, I want to get this out in the open," he tells Osmond, and then returns his attention to Professor Colbert. "I was kidnapped and tortured, yesterday, not to put too fine a point on it. She should never have been casting that spell, with what you and she knew of her abilities. I don't hold her responsible; she was a scared child with a knife to her throat. I'm a little less understanding of the adults who were holding that knife there instead of finding some other way of handling the situation."

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Everyone in the room (with the possible exception of Miss Vaux) looks at Raafi like he just said something completely insane.

"The Springtime Familiar Summoning is a sacred tradition," Osmond says neutrally. "You should not speak ill of it unless you wish to bring extreme censure down upon Miss Vallière, should the wrong person hear."

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"My problem isn't with your summoning tradition. My problem is with you forcing someone to do something both you and they know is unsafe."

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At this, Osmond fidgets uncomfortably. "Hmph. I can perhaps acknowledge that we were not prepared for the possibility of a Void mage among our students, and that we should have recognized what she is long before this point. Under the circumstances, however, I assure you there is nothing else we could have done."

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"Perhaps that's true. But it looks like poor judgement to me."

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Scyelen tugs on Raafi's sleeve.

"He's right," she says meekly. "Not letting me perform the ritual would be... unspeakable. They could sooner have had me killed." She pokes her fingertips together, looking up at them hopefully. "Do you really think I'm a Void mage? I... can't really understand how that's possible. But if I am, does that mean there are spells I can learn?"

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"I will certainly keep researching," Colbert volunteers. "If we have surviving records of Void spells, I will do my best to find them."

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He pats Scyelen's arm reassuringly as they speak.

"I intend to travel, once I know enough about this world to do it safely. Perhaps I can find more information elsewhere."

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"Perhaps."

"Unless there is anything else? Miss Vaux may show you out."

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He glances at Scyelen again. "There wasn't time to bring it up last night but it seems inappropriate for me to be sleeping in her room, can something else be arranged?"

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The adults in the room (again, with the exception of Miss Vaux) all give Scyelen mildly stern glances.

"Miss Vallière," Osmond says, "do you require a second room?"

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"I, um," she stammers. She gives Raafi a betrayed, pleading look.

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Sigh. "Sweetheart, trust me on this one?"

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"It would appear that I do require a second room to house my familiar, Headmaster."

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"Hmph. In such an extraordinary situation, I believe special accomodations can be arranged this once. But I'll remind you not to expect further special treatment, Miss Vallière. We will be sending your updated tuition figures to your family's estate."

(Scyelen nods solemnly.)

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"Thank you." He puts an arm around her shoulders. "Is there anything else?"

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She shudders, but doesn't pull away from his touch.

There isn't anything else.

The Headmaster dismisses them, and Scyelen morosely leads the way out, then starts plodding back down the stairs.

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Raafi follows. "Hey. -how long do we have before your next class, I think we should talk."

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"Hm? Oh, we have the rest of the day free. We're supposed to... spend the time getting to know our familiars. So."

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"Good, we need it." He walks on a little ways. "Tell me what you think just happened back there?"

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The morning is bright and the weather is nice.

The lawn outside the tower is decorated with several open-air pavilions, picnic settings, and patio furniture. Scyelen's entire class is out and about playing with or fawning over their familiars.

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"You... spoke for me," Scyelen finally says, hedging because she doesn't want to be confrontational. "And said something... I wouldn't have."

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He nods. "I'm here to protect you and I'm going to do that, when I think it's necessary. It shouldn't be often. And - gods, this place - I don't think I'd make it a month without the room. There's too much else going on. I'm not going to stop spending time with you but I need that much to myself."

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Scyelen nods morosely.

"I'm sorry I'm so bad at this."

She stops at a set of patio chairs and plops down in one.

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He takes the one next to it, more gracefully. "I think you're in a really tough position through no fault of your own and doing the best you can with it." He reaches over to pat her arm again. "And hopefully things will get better now but that doesn't mean the tough times didn't happen, or didn't affect anything. Be patient with yourself, okay?"

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Scyelen stares at his hand on her arm for a long moment. He humiliated her in front of her headmaster and her favorite teacher. She should be upset with him. Why does that make his touch feel nicer.

She closes her eyes, a pained grimace crossing her face for half a moment, then she looks at him.

"What did you want to talk about?

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"This, partly. Your education. What we're telling your parents; I assume we should be sending them a letter, since the school is and who knows what they're going to tell them in it. Anything else you wanted to discuss."

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"The academy will inform them, of course. I've kind of stopped writing home, though. Nothing good to say. My education... apparently depends on rediscovering lost holy secrets and egregious heresy."

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"Well, you have something good to say now. You understand that this whole thing has been the academy's fault, right? They don't know how to teach someone with your magic, and when they tried anyway and it didn't work they blamed you and left you to be harassed by your classmates instead of doing anything reasonable about it."

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"You still don't really understand, do you. My very existence is a question we're not allowed to ask. Our magic was a gift from Founder Brimir, but he kept the Void for himself. So how could I possibly have it?"

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"Maybe he didn't. Maybe he did and then changed his mind, or he thought he did and it didn't work as well as he was expecting. Maybe he did, and you'll never be able to do magic but at least now you know why. Maybe something stranger is going on. In any case, whatever kind of failure you thought you were, you aren't, and we know it. I'd expect that to matter, at least."

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"I'm... never going to belong."

"But... yes, it does matter. I just... I guess I don't really believe it yet."

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Meanwhile a short distance across the lawn, that blonde boy from the other night is flirting over tea with a girl who is definitely not the girl from the other night. The maid Siesta picks something up off the ground and approaches the boy. The boy appears to get angry. Siesta flinches away.

And then the girl who was with him in the halls shows up. She and other girl get in a shouting match. Then both of them slap the blonde boy and walk away. The blonde boy rounds angrily on the maid, brandishing his wand.

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"Sometimes that happens, people not belonging. It's not the end of the world. You'll - hold on." He chants, and disappears from the chair to impose himself between the boy and the maid, walking stick held in a quarterstaff's hold. "What's going on here?"

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The boy yelps, startled. "F-Fast."

He quickly regains his stride, though. "Nothing of concern to you, my foreign friend! I merely intend to discipline the help for the terrible crime of making two lovely ladies cry!"

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"For being in the wrong place when you got caught, more like, I saw what happened." He straightens up, leaning on the walking stick. "Is that what nobles are like here? More concerned with their feelings than their people?"

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"I am quite concerned with my ladies' feelings! That is why this careless maid must be made to know her error! She has cost those lovely ladies both, the priceless affections of Guiche de Gramont! Now step aside, sir!"

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"No, I think not." He doesn't move.

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Guiche blinks in surprise, like he actually expected that line to work.

(Siesta, meanwhile, has ducked behind Raafi's back.)

"Well, I, er..."

He fumes impotently, glancing around for some way out of this predicament.

Then he fixes his gaze on Scyelen. "Of course! Obviously the Zero would sit by helplessly while her familiar misbehaves! Just look at him, interfering in a matter of honor so brazenly! Truly the Zero is useless to allow such unruly behavior in her familiar!"

This gets a chuckle from the peanut gallery, but the crowd seems less than actually on Guiche's side, here.

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Raafi steps forward while he's distracted and puts his hand on his shoulder. "Boy, what honor do you think you have, treating a defenseless servant that way."

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"Unhand me, old man! I don't know how things work in whatever backwater you preside over, but here in the heart of the Brimic lands, we take honor seriously!"

He tries to pull out of Raafi's grip.

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He lets him pull away. "You wouldn't know honor if it struck you with lightning."

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"As if a foreigner would known anything of true honor."

Guiche turns and stalks off, shooting a murderous glare Scyelen's way as he goes.

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He glances sternly around the gathered crowd before turning to Siesta. "Are you all right?"

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"Oh! Um. Yes?"

She shakes herself, and looks at him with some small amount of hero worship.

"Thank you very much for stepping in, sir. I'm sorry for the trouble."

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"It's all right, it wasn't your fault. Do you think there's a chance he'll try to bother you later?"

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"...I wouldn't expect so, sir. I would be more worried about Miss Scyelen. It looked like he might hold a grudge."

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"Mmhmm, I'll keep an eye on that, too. Let me know if he does, though, and I'll see what I can do about it."

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Siesta beams, nods, bows, and scurries off to resume her duties.

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And Raafi goes back to Scyelen. "Sorry about that. Where were we?"

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Scyelen has her face in her hands.

"It's okay. I don't blame you for wanting to stop that. Guiche can be really thoughtless sometimes."

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"Mmhmm. Hopefully he'll learn something."

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"He... flirted with me, that one time, back at the beginning of the year, before everyone started calling me Zero," Scyelen volunteers in a small voice. "I was.. and then he... and then I... and then he threw me out," Scyelen whispers. "But he never told anyone. So he... can't be all bad."

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"I suppose that does meet some kind of minimal standard of decency. Not a very good one, though."

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"He might be mad enough to... say things... about me, now. Horrible things. Maybe even true things."

Scyelen is very red, but she gets up and starts heading toward the outer wall.

"I think I'd like to go practice my aim for a while. It's the only thing my wand is good for, and it's nice to pretend like I'm accomplishing something."

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"All right. I'll see you at lunch - I have some spellcasting to do, I'll be in your room for it."

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"Okay? What're you... what spellcasting?" she inquires curiously.

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"A message spell, back to my world. Nobody will be missing me yet but I'd rather not worry them."

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"...right. That. Makes sense. Good luck?"

Maybe if she had more self-esteem she wouldn't feel so guilty about the fact that, of course he left people behind, when she summoned him, but she in fact doesn't have enough self-esteem to not feel horribly guilty about that.

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"Mmhmm. And it's all right, really. This won't be the first time I've disappeared on them. You were lucky that way."

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Scyelen has no idea how to respond to that, so she just continues on her way to go blow up random rocks.

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Meanwhile, back the other way, the secretary Miss Vaux is watching them from the shadow of the tower.

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Raafi spots her and gives an acknowledging nod, but continues toward the door.

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Miss Vaux intercepts him, and falls into step beside him.

"Raafi," she greets, with a much less formal air than she had previously.

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"Hey. Everything all right?"

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"You tell me."

"I'm new here, so I hadn't actually met Scyelen before. But now that I have... that girl carries around a cloud of shame thick enough to drown a kracken. It's obvious, if you know to look for it."

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"Mmhmm," he nods. "There's more to it than the magic issue but I haven't figured out what, yet, I'm still feeling out the shape of things. Hopefully I'll be able to do something; I'm out of my depth but only by a little bit, I think."

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"Why is the obvious answer always the last thing everyone else thinks of?" she asks in a rhetorical tone. She chuckles and gives Raafi a piercing look. "Tell me, has she forgiven you yet for the way you humiliated her back there in the headmaster's office?"

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"We talked about it, I think we have an understanding. I wouldn't've described it as her forgiving me, though. I'm - trying not to let this turn into the sort of relationship she thinks it'll be; I know she doesn't like that but... I'm not sure it's workable, to try to do it that way. For either of us, maybe, in the long run, but definitely not for me now."

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"So you weren't ignorant of what you were doing to her. I can work with that. What kind of relationship do you think she thinks it'll be?"

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"All I agreed to was letting her finish the ritual, staying around long enough to learn how things work in this world, and trying to stay out of legal trouble. But she seems to think that I ought to act like any other familiar."

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She shakes her head and chuckles. "That poor girl. No, believe me, if that's what she thought you'd have punched her in the face and fled the country by now. You have to appreciate just how much of a mindfuck you are to these people. A noble familiar? You are an irreconcilable contradiction."

She gives him another piercing look. "Or, so they think. But you're not actually noble, are you. It's nearly as obvious as Scyelen's aura of shame; its just that everyone else around here has their head so far up Brimir's ass that the idea of a human magic-user not of noble blood would break their brittle little brains. Lucky you."

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That gets a chuckle. "How'd you notice? I think I do a pretty good impression of one, at least when I'm trying."

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"I suspect everyone of everything," she admits, without admitting anything. "Let's talk about Scyelen. Do you, in fact, want to do right by her?"

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"I don't know her well enough to give a full answer to that, yet. I prefer it to not, all else equal, so far. I'm not sure which things will or won't end up being more important than that."

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"Reasonable of you."

They make a turn, climb a flight of stairs.

"But I wasn't talking about being the left hand of god. I was talking about the reason Scyelen hates herself."

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"I don't expect to end up answering those questions differently."

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"Is that a no? You don't want to know what's wrong with her?"

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"I've been curious. I don't think I'll misuse that information, if it doesn't otherwise affect me; I don't want to hurt her; if there's a problem that bad I'll just leave. I don't know if I'll use it the way she'd want me to."

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"Alright. Has she said anything to you about it, herself?"

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"A little, nothing very clear." He thinks about it for a moment, pauses as comprehension dawns on his face, glances around to make sure they have privacy - "she's kinky, isn't she."

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That gets a smile. "That would be my first guess, yes. That brand of shame is practically a signature. And it would fit with some of the anecdotes I've heard about her from Kirche."

She gives him a look. "It's probably worse than you're thinking, even. They don't really have the concept of kink in Tristainian culture, and Scyelen doesn't strike me as the kind of personality that would like being subversive even if they did."

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"She really isn't, no. Well, at home I'd pass her off to the experts, but here... I'll have to think about how to raise the subject, if you're leaving it to me. If I'm even around that long; it doesn't seem like it'd help anything for me to leave in the middle. But I'll have some useful things to say if we get it out in the open."

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"I'd help her myself if that wouldn't interfere with... stuff. But if you need advice, please do come find me. A beautiful deviancy like hers deserves to be nurtured."

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"Certainly. And I ought to explain to you how my sort of magic works, sometime. At home I think you'd have it already."

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Smirk. That is possibly a knowing smirk, except what could she possibly already know about his magic?

"I'd like that."

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He nods. "Well, I'm busy right now, but maybe this afternoon if you're free."

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"We'll see. Until then."

And with that, they part ways.

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He heads back to the room and casts his spells; it's harder to get them to go through than he'd expect with a simple planar difference, but that's not especially surprising, and he does get one off, to a fellow cleric of Fharlanghn who'll send the message the rest of the way for him.

That taken care of, he checks the angle of the sun and decides that he has time for a quick bath before lunch.

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At lunch, Scyelen arrives in the dining hall looking a little disheveled and noticeably more upbeat, though for her that isn't saying much. She's only slightly less wan and twitchy than usual.

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"Hey, sweetheart. Feeling better?"

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Small nervous smile. "I figured out how to cast Explosion. On purpose, I mean, without trying to evoke any other spell first."

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"Oh, that's excellent. Congratulations."

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She smiles a little more, and sits down to eat.

"It seems strange, if... um, that I was able to do that implies that Explosion really is the rudimentary dot-class, um, Void, spell. But... that doesn't fit, right? How are those two things related?"

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"I have no idea. What are the other dot spells like?"

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"Um, the simplest earth spells cut or fuse stone. The simplest fire and water spells just create fire or water. The simplest wind spells just make air move."

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"You're right, that doesn't sound very related. Unless an explosion is what you get when you make Void, I guess, that's not so different than getting ashes when you make a fire. Do you know much about it in general?"

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"I've studied the theory of every spell in the curriculum?"

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"Impressive. But it's not going to help if that doesn't tell you anything about your kind of magic, does it?"

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Scyelen fidgets with a sudden nervous uncertainty. "That wasn't what you were asking about?"

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"You need to learn Void, first, right? And they don't know how to teach you, but there might be something in some of the theory about it that you can use to figure things out. Or maybe not, if it's taboo, and then we're stuck guessing until we find a scholar who knows."

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"There aren't many shared evocation foundations between the elements, but there are some? That is how I figured out how to cast Explosion on purpose..."

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"That'll help too," he nods. "But it's not really what I meant. I think I'm going to need to know more about your magic in general to be much use, though."

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Scyelen nods, and nibbles at her food.

"Classes resume tomorrow. I'm not sure I'd be any good at explaining the basics, but I could try?"

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"Sounds good. It might help for me to have a look at a textbook, too. I assume it's the wrong time of year to sit in on beginner classes."

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"Um, so, the process of casting a spell. First, you key to an element, to gather up the ambient power that gives substance to a spell, then you use either an incantation or a very clear mental image to evoke your Element, and finally you expend what we call willpower to fuel the release of gathered power through your evocation."

She pauses, as if reviewing what she just said for traps.

"Um, dot-class spells can only use an element in its pure form. But the pure elements are... balances between forces. By combining two elements you can compound or cancel out aspects of one with aspects of another. Like, a line-class fire spell can produce just heat, with no flame, which is completely impossible to do with a dot-class spell?"

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"Oh, interesting."

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Lunch proceeds and Scyelen finishes eating without incident.

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Raafi does to. "Did you have any plans for the afternoon?"

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"I... didn't have any plans that... I still have."

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"What were your plans?"

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Scyelen shrugs uncomfortably. "Depended on what kind of familiar I got."

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"Ah. Well, Miss Vaux wanted to hear about how my magic works, and might come looking for me for that - you can come too if you'd like, but I don't know if you'll want to know, it's pretty heretical. If she doesn't come, maybe we can go flying?"

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"Apparently I am even more heretical than that, though."

She peers up at him, poking her fingertips together.

"I am curious," she admits, "about your magic."

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"All right." He puts an arm around her shoulders again. "I don't really want to do the whole thing twice, but if you have any questions I can answer them? Back in the room, maybe."

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Blushing fidget nod.

Scyelen mumbles something about waiting to listen to him talk to Miss Vaux and lets him steer her out of the dining hall.

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And back they go. He'll take the desk chair. "Are you sure you don't have any questions?"

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Scyelen perches on the edge of the bed, hugging her knees.

"Maybe? Um, you said you get your magic from an evil spir---um, a... a foreign god? How'd that... happen?"

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"Well, that's most of what I'm planning on explaining, but I don't mind doing that part twice. Gods where I'm from are gods of things, all of them, and you have to sort of be of the same thing yourself, or one of the same things if a god has a few, to be a cleric of one. My god is the god of travel, and I've never been able to stay in one place too long, I have to be out seeing new things and meeting new people, and I'd be like that even if I didn't know anything about him, and that's what lets me be his cleric. So if someone has that in the same way a god does, and spends some time each day paying attention to it - usually by praying but we don't actually have to, I usually don't - then after a while the god will notice, and they'll start to get magic from it, and then they're a cleric of that god."

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Scyelen shivers. "It's kind of scary to think there're... beings... that can just... notice you feeling a way about a thing."

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"It's not the sort of thing that happens by accident, you have to be trying to get their attention. At least for that - they'll notice big things that have to do with their domains - the things they're about - but not anything that just affects one or a few people unless you're trying, and usually not even then without magic for it."

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Scyelen nods, but, she wasn't really worried in a practical sense, just unnerved by the thought of an evil spirit, terrible enough to approve of who she is in her heart, being drawn to her because of that... and now she's blushing again.

 

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He'll just ignore that. "Anyway, most of them aren't evil. The most popular one is Pelor, the god of healing and community and the sun, and he's very good. Good gods are usually more popular and more powerful; it's easier to get people to do things that make them stronger if those are good things to do anyway, like working together with other people or growing food."

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"I, I didn't mean, it's just hard to... that's what the church would call them, and its how they say elves get their magics, so..."

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He nods. "Well, I'm pretty sure your church has never heard of my world before, so I don't see how they'd know anything about our gods one way or the other."

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Scyelen shrugs.

After a moment, she gets up and goes to her bookshelf. She pulls out her introductory magic theory textbook.

"Um, you wanted to take a look at this?"

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"Sure. Did you want the room to yourself while I look at it?"

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Scyelen just takes another book off the shelf and crawls back onto her bed with it, not answering.

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He'll read, then.

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The book she gave Raafi has three sections, going into detail about the process that Scyelen explained to him at lunch.

Keying. This is an innate ability and a basic action. It is binary. Either a mage can key to an element or they can't. Actually gathering the ambient will of the world using your keyed element is a highly subjective process described in far more flowery than technical language, but it becomes second nature with practice. It is widely agreed to be the easiest part of casting, which is only proper, since this is the essence of the Founder's Gift.

Evocation. In contrast, this step is highly technical, requiring mental focus and adequate understanding of one's own intent. A mage's Element(s) may be thought of as one of these several metaphors; like a container with a shape of ideas rather than forms.

Willpower. Once a form of ideas is embodied in a mage's Element, the mage temporarily offers up some amount of their capacity to bend reality to their cause to fuel the transubstantiation of the ambient will within their Element into physical reality.

Overall, the book was clearly written by someone reasonably intelligent and competent who had some idea what they were talking about, but had never dreamed of the scientific method.

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It's useful, scientific method or no. (Plenty of writers in Raafi's world have never heard of it, either. It's mostly a wizard thing.)

He wants in particular to know about how someone's first element is special, and how someone goes from being able to key only that one to being able to key more than one.

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According to the book, every mage is born to one of the four points on the pentagon, with the ability to key to that element. Philosophers argue about this, but the author of this book believes that this is based on bloodline affinity; you are overwhelmingly likely to share the same or the nearest adjacent element as your parents.

When a mage 'unlocks' a second Element, they also grow to encompass the nearest adjacent point on the pentagon.

(The pentagon is drawn on the cover of the book, with an annotated version in the back of the book itself. Void is always at the top, and to the right is fire, then earth, then water, then wind, before returning to void.)

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Fair enough.

Any sign of Miss Vaux? How long has it been?

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It's middling afternoon.

Miss Vaux has not dropped by.

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Well, she's probably busy. "Hey sweetheart."

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Scyelen glances up from her book. "Huh?"

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"I don't think she's coming, did you want to go for a fly?"

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He means casting his Fly spell on her and letting her fly on her own, not carrying her around in his arms. That's definitely what he means. She remembers that part of what he said.

Her first impulse is to say no, because her first impulse is usually to not do something rather than do something, especially when that something involves leaving the safety of her room. But... it's a nice day out, and maybe he wants to, but he's letting her decide?

"I, um, I guess. Okay?"

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He nods. "Do you have pants? I think I have some that'll fit you if you don't."

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"Um. No? I'm a girl," she adds unnecessarily.

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"Right, but if you're flying around above people you should wear pants anyway - they look up less often than you might think but it's still sometimes. Most pants work fine under a skirt."

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People who look up oh.

The idea that anyone would want to look up her skirt...

Squirm.

But also... "I... don't think I've ever seen other girls wearing pants when they cast Levitate?"

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"And you're sure they're not doing something else instead?"

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"I, um, I think they mostly just beat up any boys they catch looking? You hear about that once in a while, everyone acts like it's normal..."

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"That seems kind of unfair to the boys, really. Flying can be pretty eye-catching."

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Scyelen gets a wistful look on her face for a moment.

She shakes her head. "I don't really get it either. But, um, wearing pants would be weird."

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"Well, I don't think I want to beat anybody up for you today if they aren't really out of line. But we can go, and if it's a problem we'll come back, how about."

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"Okay. Please don't beat anyone up. For that. I'd rather not. Call attention to."

Blushing finger-poke. She turns and flees leads the way outside.

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When they get outside, he casts his own spell first, explaining that each one will last half an hour exactly and if his ends first that'll give her a little warning to get to a safe altitude - sixty feet, about treetop height - before hers starts to go too.

And then he casts - a few words and gestures and a glow in his hand, which he touches to hers, and then she can move around the sky just as intuitively as walking and quite a bit faster.

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Okay, this is fun.

Wheeeee.

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Wheee!

He shows off some acrobatics, including simple ones that she should be able to copy pretty well if she wants to give it a try.

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Sure, she will try those.

Feeling bolder, she actually spends more time closer to the ground, skimming the grass and dodging between rocks or trees, and manages to go whole minutes without thinking about anyone seeing up her skirt.

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About ten minutes in, that blue dragon swoops out of nowhere to join them with a happy trill.

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Raafi startles a little, flinching in the direction of interposing himself between the dragon and Scyelen, but recovers smoothly, and calls genially "hello there!"

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The dragon makes a startlingly cute "Kyuiii!" noise, its expressive eyes lidding happily. It (she?) does a barrel roll.

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Sure, he'll play - he's in the habit of talking to dragons and not especially bothering to avoid it, but he can stick to the sorts of games he might play with someone's pet dire hawk and not ask too many questions, and keep a bit of an eye on Scyelen.

All too soon, though, his spell runs out, and he calls to her to come down.

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The dragon actually seems to respond to things he says. Maybe. She definitely picks up on and plays his games with more intelligence than a dire hawk.

It's hard to tell with her dragon-y face, but when the Fly spells run out and her playmates land, it seems an awful lot like she's legitimately pouting.

A girl with blue hair and glasses, the one seen riding this dragon previously, has somehow ended up right around where Raafi and Scyelen set down. The dragon swoops down and greets the girl with a few chirpy noises and an enthusiastic nuzzle that should really have knocked the girl head-over-heels, but instead the girl merely... slides... a few feet backwards. She doesn't even drop her ever-present book.

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Raafi heads over and pats the dragon on the flank. "Hi there. This's your familiar? She's very cute, what's her name?"

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The girl peers at him for a moment.

"Sylphid."

The dragon nods at this, and the girl's expression flattens ever so slightly. She reaches up to pet Sylphid, and Sylphid trills happily, closing her eyes.

"Esoteric means," the girl says, almost as if she's commenting to herself, except she's still staring at Raafi.

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"If you say so."

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The girl just nods, turns, and is suddenly on Sylphid's back, through no visible effort.

"Tabitha," she introduces herself, and then Sylphid flaps and takes them both back into the air.

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He looks for Scyelen. "Well, that was a little strange. Anyway, did you have fun?"

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Small smile. "Yeah. Both of those."

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"Good. Anything else you wanted to do right now? I think we should ask about my room soon, make sure there's still time to get it set up for tonight if it turns out there's some kind of problem."

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Scyelen's mood takes a small dip at that, but she just nods and says, "Okay."

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"We can talk about it, if you want. Later." And he gives her a hug and heads off to find someone suitable to ask.

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Here is Siesta! She is hauling a cot and a chair down the hall outside Scyelen's dorm room, and into an unclaimed room nearby.

(Scyelen, who's trailed after Raafi this far, leaves him to it and disappears into her own room.)

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"Here, let me help with that," he takes the cot, hefting it rather more easily than she was. "Are these going to my room?"

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"I couldn't possibly oh well if you insist. Yes, this is the second room they assigned to Miss Scyelen right here, looks like you're right down the hall."

Inside the room is barren, but freshly swept and scrubbed, probably by Siesta herself. Apparently students mostly bring their own furniture and are allowed to customize their rooms significantly. Siesta sets the chair to one side and lets him place his cot where he may.

"The headmaster's new secretary donated these," she says of the cot and chair.

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"If you see her you can tell her I appreciate it, thank you."

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Siesta smiles at him, perky.

"If there's anything else you need, please let me know."

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"I will. And don't worry about keeping it spotless in here, I'm not picky."

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"Of course, sir," she says, like she's going to keep it spotless anyway.

She bows, and departs.

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He goes back to look for Scyelen, and sits on the bed with her. "Well, I'll need furniture, but it's good enough for now."

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"I guess it is," she agrees, sounding resigned. "Everyone's going to make fun of me."

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"Some of them, yeah." This seems like it calls for an arm around her shoulder again; he does that. "There are always people out there who'll take an excuse to be cruel. That doesn't mean you've done something wrong."

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Scyelen quivers a little at the hug. She doesn't blush this time, though. Maybe she's getting used to him, a little. Or maybe its how he keeps doing things that hurt her and she feels like now he owes her the hugs, a little bit, except that doesn't seem right either.

"I... don't think that's how it works," she says, focusing on his words.

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"How does it work, do you think?"

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"You can't just... give people excuses to be cruel, and say that's the same as doing nothing?"

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"Sweetheart, there are some people who'll be cruel no matter what you do - they're not trying to stop you from doing things you shouldn't, they just like being cruel. And even if they are trying to stop you from doing something they think you shouldn't, sometimes people are wrong about that, and you'll end up making mistakes if you follow their rules."

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"It's not the same," she mutters. "At all. I can't... I can't just... pretend like I'm not doing anything wrong when I am, even if it isn't my fault..."

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He scooches a little closer and gives her a squeeze. "We aren't doing anything wrong, though. We're doing something they aren't expecting, but the reasons they think that's a good idea don't matter here, and there are good reasons to do this instead. Not just your reputation - you keep your familiar forever, right? It's important that we find a way of living together that works for us. And their way doesn't work for me. If I tried to do it I'd end up so miserable I'm not sure I'd be able to ever come back. An animal wouldn't care, but I do, and it doesn't work to pretend that I don't."

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"No one cares if its a good... its not about the reasons... everyone else is... is... doing as expected of them, and I'm failing to. Again. Because I make you miserable."

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"No, you don't. Feeling like I'm hurting someone I care about makes me miserable."

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"You were supposed to care about me," Scyelen mutters. "The Spirit of the Founder chose you for me, so the task was meant to be mine, but again and again I fail to win you over..." Her voice hitches.

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"-that's what I meant, sweetheart. Sleeping in here feels like I'm hurting you. Even if you don't think it is."

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"...that doesn't even make sense," she protests, tears in her eyes. "You keep doing the things that hurt me and refusing to do the things that don't!"

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He pulls her in a little bit, not quite onto his lap. "I know. I'm sorry about that. It's - complicated. For this in particular... I think when you're looking back on it in five or ten years you'll think I did the right thing, even though it's upsetting you now. And I think that even if I'm wrong about that, it's still better to do this than to end up leaving you, because even if I'm wrong about what I should do, it still feels like it'd be hurting you if I did what you want, and that feeling still matters. And it matters to me, too, to be able to live as normally as I can here. I've been trying not to think about it too much but this really is pretty upsetting."

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Fine, if he's going to be like that, then for the moment she just doesn't care that she's despoiling him with her filthy soul. She melts into the hug and clings.

"I was, I'm prepared for... it's okay if you need to hurt me to make things tolerable for yourself," Scyelen sniffles. "That part is, f-fine. I expected to bear it. So it's... it's okay. You don't have to try to convince me it's for my own good. You don't have to convince yourself either."

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"No, sweetheart." He sighs. "Remember how I said there are people who like being cruel, and will find excuses to do that no matter what? I know you haven't met many of them, but there are people who don't want to be, too, who really do care about doing the right thing for other people. If I had to hurt you just for myself - I might do it, if it looked like leaving would hurt you worse. But it'd be important to me to find a way to stop. And this isn't that, I really do think it's best for you not to have me living in your bedroom. You deserve privacy and your own space, too. It's bad for people not to have that, especially at your age."

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"It would be really bad for me if I never had any privacy but you're supposed to count as privacy," Scyelen cries, "but, I kn-know, that's not something you c-could ever give me. Even if you wanted to! Once you-" her words choke off.

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Lots of hug.

"Once I what, sweetheart?"

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Scyelen just shakes her head against his chest, because she can't even begin to tell him what she's really like.

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He does scoop her into his lap, now, and pets her hair.

"Once I figure it out, you mean?" he asks, very gently. "The thing you think is wrong with you?"

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This is more physical contact than Scyelen has had in just about ever. She soaks it up for a long moment before finally nodding.

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"I already know, sweetheart. It doesn't change anything."

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Scyelen goes rigid.

"W-What? Noyoudon't."

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"Pretty sure." He doesn't stop petting her. "It's - a sex thing, right?"

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Scyelen makes a strangled noise, because while technically true, just calling her degeneracy a 'sex thing' makes it sound almost normal.

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Pet pet. "It's fine, sweetheart. It really doesn't change anything. There's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with you."

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"Youdon'tknowthat," Scyelen chokes out, wanting to let his very partial guess stand, but blurting out her denial before she can stop herself.

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"I'm pretty sure." Pet, pet, pet. "I know it doesn't feel that way, with everyone telling you there must be. But it's fine. You'll be okay."

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He couldn't be more wrong. He really doesn't have a clue. His reassuring words couldn't be more empty.

She buries her face in his chest and sobs. Relief, that he's blind to the truth? Disappointment, that she came so close to finally baring her heart only to have to crush it back into its cage? Both of those things, at least.

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He keeps holding her. "It's all right, sweetheart, take your time, I'm not going anywhere. We can talk about it when you're ready."

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Lies. All lies. Empty words.

It takes her a while to stop crying.

"What, is there, to talk about?" she finally mumbles.

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"What it means, what it doesn't mean. What you need and want. What I think about it, what I need and want." Squeeze. "I know that sounds scary but I think you'll like a lot of the answers. Is there anything you want to say to start?"

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Scyelen doesn't have the energy left to try to navigate his twisty word-games.

"You don't even know what 'it' is."

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"I probably don't know the whole thing; I know some of it. You like to be touched." He's still petting her, and doesn't stop. "You like to be seen, I think, not as much but there was something going on when I went to take you flying. The way you care what people think about you, you probably have something with that; I can't guess what, yet, exactly. You think about sex more than you think you should. And - I have an idea of the kinds of things people who like unusual sex things like, I won't be surprised if you like - being tied up, or something, even if I haven't noticed it yet. And that's fine, it still won't change anything."

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Scyelen is only half-listening to his vaguery until he gets to the part about 'being tied up' and she chokes in surprise.

A chill races down her spine. That has to be a wild guess but who would ever guess that?! It's far from the worst thing to be found in the dark core of her soul, but it's definitely adjacent to most of those things! He's actually right. Scyelen has no idea what to do with that but now she's hyperventilating just a little.

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He presses a kiss to the top of her head. "That one's very common, sweetheart. Among the right sort of people. Kind of mild, even, I didn't want to scare you."

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It's like a figment of her darkest imagination whispering her own thoughts at her. In the daydreams that often run through her mind, being tied up is... seasoning.

He has to be telling a bald-faced lie, though... except he's not from this land, is he.

"Where you're from people, think being tied up, is a sex---no," Scyelen shakes herself, cutting off her own halting words. "Tell me the least mild things. The absolute worst. Tell me, please." She has to know: is the most perverse thing he's ever heard of in his apparently-perverse homeland as bad as her?

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Squeeze. "It's not that simple; people like all kinds of things, and you can't really compare them. I guess... some people like to die, as a sex thing? Our magic can bring people back, so that's possible, even if it's not a very good idea. But I've heard of it."

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Scyelen blinks, and finally lifts her head to peer up at him, looking supremely vulnerable. "...die how?"

(There was another part of that sentence that was extremely surprising, but right now it doesn't register.)

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"I didn't ask, it's not something I'm interested in. Some people like pain, though, I bet it's like that sometimes." He's a little tense, now, thinking about it.

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"Oh," says, curling into herself in disappointment. "I've heard of 'rough' sex. That's... not that weird. I bet it doesn't even actually hurt, not like some girls like to say it does."

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"Oh, it does if you're trying to. I don't like to think about it much, though."

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Scyelen blinks, and takes a moment to parse this, comes up with an absurd interpretation, but actually...

"Oh, you... know girls who want to feel pain? As a sex thing?"

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"Mmhmm. It's a little more common than liking to be tied up, even. And not just girls, either."

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Scyelen has to take a moment to process this.

"Huh. So you were talking about. Getting tortured to death. Enjoying getting tortured to death."

Scyelen has a very odd expression on her face.

"That might actually be worse..." she sounds comforted by this, "or at least weirder. Or, no, it's probably simpler, actually. So I'd still be the weird one; even in the land of unspeakable perversions I still desire the wrong things..."

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"Getting tortured to death, yeah," he nods.

"There are plenty of things weirder than that. It's just that wanting to eat cake until you can't move, or have strangers draw all over you, or get swallowed by a dragon, isn't worse, it's just weirder."

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"I'm always weirder," Scyelen sighs. "Well. Maybe not the cake thing. That's just... um, well, weird. That's like... are there people who, um, 'enjoy' freezing cold baths too?"

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"Not that I know of, but probably someone somewhere does. People like all kinds of things."

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Scyelen buries her face in his chest and groans. "You're just making this up to make me feel better."

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He chuckles. "I'm really not. I'm friends with an expert - there's a goddess of this stuff, and she's a cleric of her, and part of her calling is helping people figure out how to do weird sex things safely. And we talk about our work, and I go to her parties, sometimes, and sometimes she needs help getting enough magic to make something safe and I do that. Everything I've talked about except getting tortured to death is something I've either seen myself, or helped with, or heard about her helping with. If we can figure out how to get to my world, I want to introduce you, I think you'll like her."

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"Do you think she'd like me?"

Staring. Blushing.

Wait so there actually is an evil spirit foreign god of perversions who'd be interested in Scyelen, "Eeeeeeep."

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Pat pat. "Katri'll like you, yeah. And don't worry about Lastai, she understands that most people don't want a goddess watching them."

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"That is not the alarming part of that information..."

Scyelen takes a breath.

"It's... probably a really terrible place?" She does not sound at all sure about this, more like it's something she's supposed to say. "If such deviance is common, and permitted, it must be a vile place to live..."

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"Why would you think that?"

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"Because..." Scyelen doesn't know how to finish that sentence. "What is it like? For people to just... be shameless."

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"Well, I want to clear that up, first - most people aren't into this stuff, in my world, and do think it's strange, if they know about it at all. But among the people who do know? It's really nice. Being safe that way especially."

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"...safe?"

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"Mmhmm." Squeeze. "This thing where you're so afraid of what people will do if they find out, it's much better not to have that."

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Scyelen shudders.

"That doesn't seem possible."

A blush creeps back onto her face.

"Unless they, um, force your secret desires out of you with, truth spells or something, and then, um, get really excited and praise you for what they hear..." she trails off uncertainly.

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He chuckles and pats her again. "Does your truth magic work like that? Ours doesn't. No, it's just Katri and the other clerics making it that way, there - if someone is cruel to someone else about their kinks, it's the person being cruel that's told they're wrong, and avoided, and maybe even kicked out if they're bad enough. Because having a kink doesn't hurt anyone, and being cruel about it does, and they take that seriously."

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"A... kink?" she repeats slowly.

"And no, truth magic is, um, mostly hypothetical. I was just..." she makes a vague gesture.

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"Thinking about what sounds nice? Praise kink isn't that rare. But having any kind of sex with people without their permission is bad for them, Lastai's clerics are very serious about that. Everyone who's there is there because they want to be."

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If this were an anime, you'd hear the sound of breaking glass and see the life drain out of Scyelen's eyes.

Because of course. Of course. All the perversions are allowed. Except hers.

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He notices, and gives her a little squeeze. "Some people kink on it. It's usually still very bad for them if it actually happens. There are ways of playing with it that are safe, though - you talk about it ahead of time, and -"

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Scyelen doesn't respond to him at all. She is unable to process his words beyond the snippets of phrasing that, out of context, confirm her despair. The immense tower of hope Raafi had been building under her has shattered beneath her feet, and all she can hear is a rushing in her ears as she falls.

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"Sweetheart. It's okay, there's nothing wrong with you. Not even that."

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This sure is an unresponsive Scyelen on his lap.

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Calm Emotions, how about.

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Emotions? What emotions. His spell has no noticeable effect at all.

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Well. Sending takes ten minutes to cast, he gets on that.

"Miss Vaux, I need you urgently in Scyelen's room. You can reply to this message, twenty-five word limit."

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He doesn't get a reply.

Fifteen seconds after he sends the message, the door opens and Miss Vaux calmly steps inside.

She peers at them sitting on the bed, and at Scyelen in particular for several long moments, then she shuts the door behind her.

"You broke her," she says flatly.

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"Mentioned consent, wasn't expecting the rape kink."

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"I warned you these people don't-!" She stops herself. "That by itself shouldn't send the poor girl catatonic. What, exactly, happened?"

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"We were talking about - how things work, in a community where kink is acceptable. She didn't think it could happen without people being coerced into being in the community in the first place. Suggested we might be doing that, magically - proposed a scene, really. I said our magic doesn't work that way - we have truth magic, but it doesn't make anyone talk - and that even if it did that'd be bad because of the consent issue, and that that's taken seriously. And then this."

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"I suspect you're eliding over relevant details out of ignorance of which details are relevant. Tell me exactly what you said to her."

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"-uh- 'Having sex with people without their permission is bad for them, Lastai's clerics take that seriously. Everyone is there because they want to be.' Lastai is our goddess of pleasure, her clerics host the community I'm familiar with."

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"You'd mentioned this 'Lastai' previously?" she guesses. "She was part of the conversation about how It Is Okay To Be Kinky?"

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"Not in detail. Which - is the problem, isn't it, she's filling that gap in with the local god's attitudes. Scyelen, sweetheart."

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(Scyelen still isn't responding.)

"So, in summary," Miss Vaux says, her voice achieving new levels of flatness. "You told a girl with a rape kink and acceptance issues who has no concept of what a scene is that her need to be taken without permission will never be acceptable outside of a scene. Do you see the problem here."

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Sigh. "And that's why I leave this to the experts. What do we do."

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She smirks at him, and winks.

 

"Simple. We rape her."

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Scyelen suddenly inhales sharply, her dull eyes twitching upwards. There's nothing like hope on her face, but those three words simply could not pass through her brain without catching on something.

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Now it's Raafi's turn to need some time to process.

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Scyelen starts slipping back down into the emptiness.

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Raafi is completely failing to say anything while he has the chance. They're going to lose her again.

Nope.

She kneels beside them and takes Scyelen's face in her hands.

"There is nothing wrong with fantasizing about getting raped. Lastai doesn't reject it. Raafi doesn't reject it. I don't reject it. Alright? Raafi just, apparently, was bad at explaining that safely experiencing such a fantasy necessarily involves arranging for your partners to pretend to rape you. You are a lovely girl, and I'm sure that in a community like the one Raafi told you about you'd meet lots of other nice people who'll love that you're excited by thoughts of having sex forced on you, because they are too."

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"Wh-What..?"

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She repeats herself.

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Scyelen looks up at them, tremulous. "R-Really?"

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"Yeah. It's not my thing but there are plenty of people who like it. You just have to be careful."

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"You're not... just saying that?"

She sniffles.

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He musters a smile. "I'm really not."

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Scyelen sucks in a shaky breath. "O-Okay."

Then she blinks at the other occupant of the room in confusion. "When did Miss Vaux get here?"

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"Just a minute ago. You scared me, sweetheart." Squeeze.

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"Oh. Sorry?"

She doesn't really have a clear memory of what happened. Just. She thought something crushing was true, but she was mistaken.

Then she reviews what did clearly just happen.

The big picture.

Raafi knows.

Miss Vaux (aaaaa seriously what the heck) knows.

And they're both... saying its... an acceptable way to be? They're not judging her?

Still, "You... you can't tell. Anyone," she whispers.

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"I wouldn't dare, sweetheart. Katri'd kill me."

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"You told me. Without her permission, even." She puts a lilt on the word 'permission'. (Scyelen blushes.)

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"I'm not going to tell anyone unless I think it's safe and I have a very good reason, or permission. You're practically a cleric of Lastai yourself, that's different from shouting it on a streetcorner."

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"I suspect that's a high complement. Thank you. And don't worry. I'm already keeping even more scandalous secrets than yours, Miss Vallière."

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Scyelen relaxes at this, nodding in agreement.

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"Would you be okay with her staying? I think we need to talk about how things work, and it'd be good to have here here for that, it might be a little different in this world."

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"She already knows," Scyelen agrees with a small shrug.

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"All right." Tiny squeeze. "If you aren't too busy," he says to Miss Vaux.

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"We had a pending conversation anyway, and I am very curious about this religious order you think I should belong to."

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"I think you'd want to have the option, at least," he nods.

"Did you have any questions that you'd like me to start with, sweetheart?"

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"She probably doesn't know what she doesn't know. Maybe start with the, rather Lastai's concept of, the thing that would've prevented your... misunderstanding. I'm curious to hear how the subculture you know frames the idea of the 'backstage'."

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"I think we formalize it a little less than you do," he comments, and then returns his attention to Scyelen. "So - I'd usually talk about how Lastai sees things in general, here, what she thinks is important - she's not just a sex goddess, her domain is all the kinds of pleasure that make life good. So it matters a lot to her that what happens in her temples is good and enjoyable for everyone there, even when it's things that most people wouldn't enjoy, or that come very close to being things that the people doing them wouldn't enjoy after all. And that's hard, sometimes. Different people want different things, so you can't just have everyone doing whatever they feel like and still end up with everyone happy and safe and enjoying themselves. And there's a lot of things that people can do to help with that, but one of the most important ones is talking ahead of time about what's going to happen, so that if there's something you don't want, you have a chance to notice that it might happen and say so. You don't want to say 'do whatever you want, I don't care' and then find out that someone likes torturing people to death, and even if they just like feeding people cake until they can't move, that's probably not what you meant, and you'll have a better time if you ask them to do something else instead and feed the cake to someone who wants it."

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("I don't formalize it at all, actually," Miss Vaux disagrees in passing.)

Scyelen frowns. Now that she's calm, she can see the logic. Parts of it still make her deeply uncomfortable, though.

"That sort of makes sense, I guess, but it." She takes a shaky breath. This is still hard to talk about. "I think there are things that, um, the feeling that is compelling about many of my daydreams... isn't there, if I also imagine I've asked for it?"

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"Mmhmm. There are a few ways around that, usually by telling people in a way other than talking to them directly. Putting a sign up saying what you like is popular, at home, or letting someone else know what you want and having them do the talking. Or you can just get to know people the regular way until you're pretty sure they won't do anything that will bother you too much; that's riskier, but it can work okay. Or you can let them do whatever they want and just make very sure you can tell them to stop if you don't like it, but people usually don't like that so much, it's better to be able to relax and enjoy yourself while you're in the middle of things."

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"I dunno... but... a sign?" That mental image is both mortifying and hilarious.

Shy finger-poke. "It's... different, and, um, objectively safer, obviously... but... it still seems a bit contradictory...?"

Scyelen trails off; she doesn't know if she's making sense.

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"Yeah, this one's tricky, there isn't a very good solution." He glances at Miss Vaux, checking to make sure he isn't getting too close to crossing a line. "It helps for some people to have it be part of a bigger story - they'll wait until there's a sex party being planned, and talk to the people planning it about setting up a room to let people do things to them in, and there'll be a sign but it's less their sign, that way, they and the sign are both part of the party, and that works a little better for them."

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That isn't quite what Scyelen meant to ask about, but she blushes deeply and fidgets as she envisions such a room as Raafi described. Only... the vision rapidly shifts, stripping out the part where she's there voluntarily...

She frowns, conflicted.

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Miss Vaux makes a thoughtful noise.

"I notice you haven't mentioned..."

She comes over and sits on the bed next to them.

"There's a question I like to ask, when I'm explaining this kind of thing. And it's this: Would you rather read a fictional story about a character who has your fantasy happen to them 'for real' and enjoys it unexpectedly, or a fictional story about a character who shares your fantasy and has it fulfilled in the story in a safe way that you'd actually want to do in reality?"

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"The first one?"

She says it as a question but her answer is immediate.

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Raafi nods. "There's nothing wrong with that but it does make things harder. And it's usually not so important that people aren't willing to compromise on it to be safe. If it is for you - you'd want to talk to Kat or one of her friends about it, in my world, to figure out what parts of it are important to you and how you can do what you want as safely as you can."

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"Okay."

Scyelen is maybe starting to believe, just a bit, that any of this is possible. It's making her eyes blur with tears a little and also has her suddenly very turned on.

"You'll t-take me there? S-Someday?"

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"Someday, yeah. I'll have to figure out how, first, but when my magic is a little stronger I can do it for sure."

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Lots of flushed blushing. Her body is totally ignoring the part where the implications of this promise are separated from her by a large gap of time. Also, she is still on Raafi's lap, but he isn't... at all the, counterpart, to whatever she is? Also, she kinda suspects he might prefer men.

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"Seems like you might want a little time to yourself to think about all of this." He gives her a squeeze and then scoops her back onto the bed. "My room is right down the hall if you have more questions when you're done."

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Scyelen doesn't, actually, pick up on what he's implying, but if he feels like they're done talking, she isn't going to argue.

"Okay."

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He heads to the door, holding it open for Miss Vaux. "I appreciate the furniture, by the way."

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"It was going spare, and I figured you'd need something."

She pauses in the doorway, glancing back at Scyelen for a moment with a crafty gleam in her eye, before following Raafi out.

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"It's really remarkable how they're reacting - or not - to having me here. I know it's unprecedented but you'd think they'd have some idea of what to do about it. I'll figure it out, though." And then they're at his room. He looks around at it. "-I think I'll put down a rug, at least, give me a minute?" He starts getting out his portable hole.

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"Alright, that's new."

But it feels like elven magic.

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"Storage magic, a traveler's best friend." He lays it out and climbs down. "I wasn't planning on ending up in a new world, but I like to be prepared no matter where I find myself. -ah, there it is." There are a few noises of exertion and then he tosses a rolled up rug out of the pit and climbs up after it. "This was meant to be a trade sample, but I'll take the loss." He unrolls it and sits there, leaving the chair for her.

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Sure, she can take the chair.

After a moment, she huffs in amusement. "I suspect that Scyelen missed your oblique suggestion, back there. Which is probably a good thing, actually."

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"Oh?"

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"Do you think she wouldn't be too embarrassed to pleasure herself if she realized you were deliberately leaving her alone for exactly that purpose?"

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"-ah. I'm really not used to this level of repression, I'll have to be more careful." He sighs. "Hell of a thing to be dropped into the middle of like this."

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"She could have, admittedly, been far, far less lucky," Cameron muses. "Imagine if she got, like, a judgmental mind-reader who voluntarily took a vow of celibacy."

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"Presumably they just wouldn't've stayed. Which wouldn't have been better, but at least it'd be a different problem. But you did get me and not Katri; I'm open-minded, but I'm really not an expert."

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"...you tried," she offers in an attempt to be generous.

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He nods. "I'm not too shaken up about it. I just - it's a known issue, with clerics, that we forget that our calling isn't so important to anyone else, that they aren't going to be as good as it as we are or even want to be as good at it. I want her to be okay, but this isn't actually my calling, you know?"

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"Suppose I can imagine."

She gives him a wry, curious smile.

"How do you know this 'Katri' anyway?"

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"Two reasons, one of which is a little private. But clerics of Fharlanghn are explorers, and not just in the literal sense. He encourages us to try new things, in all realms of life. Other religions, too - our gods aren't usually jealous, and Fharlanghn doesn't offer moral guidance, so we get that elsewhere. And it turns out Lastai has a pretty good philosophy, on top of the fun, so I've stuck with her as a lay follower, and Katri is my spiritual advisor."

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"Spiritual advisor, huh. I love that that isn't a euphemism, even when it is."

She shakes her head.

"I'd love to vacation there, but I think this realm needs me more. I didn't actually have to invent kink myself but sometimes it feels like I did."

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He nods. "You should definitely visit, but if this is where your path is, this is where you should be. Unfortunately Lastai's a newer goddess, and she's had some trouble getting established; I can't promise that the church will have much practical help to offer you."

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"Maybe I can help them, then," she muses idly.

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"Possibly. They're always interested in hearing new ideas."

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Smirk. "That too."

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"You know, if you keep dropping hints I'm going to start wondering."

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She laughs.

"I suppose I should probably stop, before that happens."

She gets up and bows.

"Good luck with everything, Raafi."

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"You too." He gets up to let her out.

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The next day, unable to meet his eyes, Scyelen stammers an offer to buy Raafi some furniture for his new room.

After that, the school gets back to business as usual.

Classes begin, covering a variety of subjects relevant to magic-wielding noble teens.

Scyelen completes the academic assignments diligently, and bows out of the practical spellcasting demonstrations, like usual. She's still withdrawn and the dark circles under her eyes remain, and she has trouble looking either Raafi or Miss Vaux in the face, but she gets through the day. Some of her classmates do, in fact, mock her viciously for not being up to the task of making Raafi behave like a 'proper' familiar. The mutterings about him being a hoax have mostly died out, thankfully.

Siesta becomes a bit of a fixture of Raafi's days, taking upon herself the task of helping him settle in and fetching whatever he needs. She just seems to be genuinely friendly and cheerful and finds him pleasant to be around and to work for.

Kirche tries to hit on him on two additional occasions before finally giving up.

For a couple of weeks, life goes on without incident.

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It's not a bad couple of weeks. Raafi takes Scyelen up on her offer of furniture, requesting a bed and a desk and a couch. He learns her class schedule and spends about half of them with her, favoring the magic classes, and mealtimes, and some of her downtime, even when she's awkward with him. He doesn't press her on it when she is, but keeps himself busy reading or taking notes or fiddling with various wood-and-metal puzzles from his collection. He spends time with Siesta, too, telling her stories about his world and asking her questions about this one, but more of it out walking, exploring the woods and taking advantage of his ability to teleport back and forth to make his way down the road outside the school, a few miles further each day.

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About ten miles down the road, he finds a town. It's nothing special, but it has the basics. A church, an inn, a tavern, shops, farmers, markets, and a small garrison of knights.

Scyelen doesn't really get less awkward, save for how she now accepts his hugs without guilt or shame.

Siesta really enjoys the stories, and in turn tells him more about her grandfather. Her own stories begin to suggest the possibility that her grandfather might just have been from Raafi's world himself, though the connection is tenuous.

And then, one day, Siesta isn't there.

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That's concerning. He has an idea of her usual haunts, by now, and checks them, and asks around among the other maids for her.

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One of the other maids reveals that Siesta's contract has been bought. She won't be working in the school anymore. She'll be working privately for a local Count named Jules de Mott.

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Her what has been what. How does that... work.

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The maid nervously explains that for a commoner to be gainfully employed by a noble institution such as this, they must sign a contract specifying a term of employment to which they are bound. The contracts may be exchanged between noble institutions at market value. And, the law is written so that technically noble households count as noble institutions.

"But this isn't supposed to happen!" the maid he is talking to finally blurts. "The school isn't supposed to sell off staff contracts! I don't understand why this would happen. Oh, I hope Siesta is okay..."

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Well, that's certainly not not making him want to light several things on fire.

"It'll be all right, sweetheart. I'll look into it."

He's been making a point of keeping Sendings prepared, for emergencies; this certainly is one. "Siesta, sweetheart, it's Raafi, are you okay? You can think a message back to me."

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?!?!?!???!?!??!??????!?!?? ?!

Raafi? I, ah, I don't think I'll be available today. Or possibly ever again. I'm terribly sorry and I wish I could've said goodbye p-

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Twenty-five words is a frustrating limit and ten minutes is a frustrating length of time. Ten minutes later, though: "It has to be a short message, sweetheart. Are you okay, or should I come find you?"

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You shouldn't come find me but I wish you would no don't but I don't want I'm in Count Mott's carriage and I think--

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Having a limited number of spells per day is the worst.

Where's Scyelen.

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Out beyond the campus wall practicing her aim again. She's getting pretty good.

Sylphid is perched on top of the wall, watching her.

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"Scyelen, sweetheart. Siesta's been taken. I need to go find her."

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Scyelen flinches at this sudden and unexpected information.

"Wha...? Siesta? Taken? What do you mean, taken?"

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He paces, too agitated to stay in one place. "They sold her contract. They're not supposed to, she didn't agree to it. Count Mott, if you know anything about him, I don't. But she doesn't want to be there."

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"Sold her...? The academy's... not supposed to do that. I think I've heard that name before too, but I'm, um, not sure? We should probably ask the headmaster? He governs the staff."

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"If you think that will help, instead of - he's kind of an idiot."

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"I, um, he's, um, but he's still the one who'd have to, um, authorize the transfer."

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"It looks like he already has."

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"Um, yes? That's what I meant. So he's obviously the person to ask about it?"

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He pauses in his pacing, staring off down the road. "-all right. It won't slow us down much even if it doesn't help. You coming?"

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Scyelen nods immediately and scampers to follow him.

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And to the headmaster's office. Hopefully Miss Vaux will be at her desk.

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Both Miss Vaux and Osmond are in his office.

Osmond is looking a bit disgruntled, while Miss Vaux seems more exasperated.

"...reputation will survive," the headmaster is saying sourly. "This isn't the first time nor do I suspect it will be oh Miss Vallière, what are you doing here?"

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If looks could kill, Osmond would be in some serious trouble right about now. "We're here about Siesta."

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Osmond blinks at the unexpected hostility. "Oh, yes, we were just discussing that maid's transfer of employment. It would seem she will no longer be with us. Hmph. What an impulsive and stubborn man, the Count is. He saw her in passing and immediately took a liking. I'm afraid there was no talking him out of it."

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Raafi inhales sharply, glances at Miss Vaux and then at Scyelen. "Where. -where are they."

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"On their way back to the Mott estate," Miss Vaux cuts in. "Apparently, the Count has a habit of collecting pretty young maids to serve him in his home. This would be the third time in as many years that he has decided to take a commoner girl home with him from this Academy without warning."

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"Be that as it may, it was all above board, and he paid handsomely," Osmond says. "Enough to hire two additional maids to replace this Siesta. I had no adequate reason to deny his request."

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"No adequate - have you heard of morality." He doesn't wait for an answer to that, but turns to Miss Vaux. "Do you have a way to get us there."

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Osmond winces, but before he can say anything in his defense, Miss Vaux cuts in again.

"It's not far. And the Mott lands are clearly marked on that map hanging in the library," she says.

"What do you intend to do?"

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"Get her out of there. Are you coming."

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"That depends. How do you plan to get her back?"

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"Don't know yet." He's pacing again. "I can take five, teleporting."

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"I strongly advise you not to take any rash action!" Osmond says, sounding worried. "And you Miss Vaux! You represent this school. I can't have you gallivanting off to make trouble for a high-ranking palatial messenger! It will be some hours before Mott's carriage arrives at his estate in any case. It would behoove you to use that time wisely."

He looks at Scyelen. "Miss Vallière, are you truly prepared to contest Count Mott on Siesta's employment?"

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Scyelen flinches, looking at each of them helplessly.

"I... I don't know. I'm still not sure I even understand what's going on... did Siesta want to go?"

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"She wasn't dragged off by force," Miss Vaux says, "but, no."

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Scyelen has several complicated feelings about the implications here, and a gnawing shroud of shame over those feelings.

But, regardless of her own feelings, Siesta shouldn't suffer. There's nothing right about that at all.

She musters herself, gathering some of the noble bearing she usually feels too worthless to bother with.

"Then... I'm prepared to pursue this matter, Headmaster." She nods firmly.

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"Good. We should go, we might need the time."

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"Ah," Osmond speaks up awkwardly. "On an unrelated matter, if a student such as yourself wished to sign out a school carriage for a day-trip, I see no reason not to allow that, so long as that student did not abuse the privilege."

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"What he means is that you've been very lucky no one has connected your magics to those of the elven spirit pacts. Teleporting long distances, or at all, is not possible with brimic spells."

(The Headmaster grumbles..)

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"We'll do that." He turns to go.

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Scyelen bows in apology for the rudeness and hurries to follow him.

"Do you remember the map? It's always been there, behind the heraldry section, but I don't have it memorized. Should we look at it again to be sure we know the way? We probably don't need to if we're taking the carriage like the headmaster suggested; the driver will probably know the way."

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"I've seen it, let's just go."

"-proud of you, I know that wasn't easy."

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Scyelen ducks her head and smiles, but there's a strain to it.

"I think the hard part is still to come," she murmurs. "The carriages are this way."

He's probably already seen where the carriages are. Scyelen finds a driver and signs a form and then they're off.

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Raafi settles in and tries, not very successfully, to calm himself down. "Do you know what you're going to do?"

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Scyelen shakes her head.

"I should be able to get an audience with the Count. Technically, Vallière outranks Mott. It'd be a breach of protocol to ignore us. After that... I don't know."

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He nods, and spends a minute in thought, cursing softly when he's done. "I don't see a better way than buying her back - not to get it done quickly. We'll need to stop him from doing it again, too, but that'll take longer, unless we get very lucky."

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"I don't think I can actually afford an entire maid contract... but even if I can, what he did is legal. Even if we get Siesta back, that won't change..."

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"I know," he says, tersely. "But if everyone knows that working for the school means this could happen to them..."

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"...then what? The school typically doesn't trade contracts, but it's not that they couldn't."

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"The girl who told me Siesta'd been taken was surprised. You were surprised. If it's known that they do sell contracts nobody will come and work for them, and if they want workers they'll have to stop."

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"I, um, I don't think that's true? Contract trading isn't rare enough for that to be true."

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He curses quietly, something about godlessness. "Okay. That'll - I'll - this isn't a good angle on it. We'll worry about the bigger picture later. If you can't buy her - I can probably overpower him, but that should be a last resort. The other option is - be sneaky, get her alone and get her out, let him think she ran off. We'll have to find a way to hide her, afterward."

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Scyelen blanches.

"That'd, they'd go after her next of kin for the contract price. Probably bankrupt them. She'd never forgive us."

Fidget.

"Overpowering him... might work but the Count would... He'd have to retaliate. We'd... start a feud between houses. A small war."

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"How sure are you that we can't buy her? How much is the contract worth?"

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"It varies by term of service and a bunch of other things. But I also don't know how much of my family's money I can get away with spending."

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"I might be able to afford her. Depends on how much she costs. And how you value what I've got - gemstones, mostly."

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"I'm not sure. He might take gemstones. If he's willing to sell in the first place. It sounded like he already overpaid for her, though. Like he wanted her more than her... equivalent monetary value."

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"And we're in a bad position for haggling. Do you know anything else about him? Or how we could find out?"

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"...probably should've asked the headmaster more questions," Scyelen points out shyly.

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"-mm. We can go back for it once we get there if we don't think of anything. The other thing I've got is - make him think she's died, possibly because she has, and I can bring her back if need be. That's expensive too, and not good for her at all, but it gets her out cleanly."

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"Except... they'd still take her contract price out of her family, if she died."

Scyelen looks down at her hands.

"Maybe we should just ask to talk to her, to say goodbye. I mean, we'll miss her if she doesn't come back, but, we don't know what Mott wants with her. Maybe he'll treat her okay."

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"-no, sweetheart. That's not - we already know better."

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Scyelen stares at him blankly.

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"I'm pretty sure he bought her for sex. That's - he doesn't know her, he just saw her and wanted her, and he's done this before, that's what that means."

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Scyelen fidgets with her hands in her lap.

"That... isn't necessarily incompatible with treating her okay."

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"It is for most people. The fact that he bought her so quickly doesn't say anything good at all, but even if he was going to be nice, it hurts most people very badly all by itself to be made to have sex they don't want."

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Scyelen frowns, feeling off-put by his answer and not in a way that has anything to do with her own deviancy.

"Maybe... it's still better sometimes, though. Maybe a girl like Siesta would rather scrub classroom floors than warm a powerful noble's bed, or maybe she wouldn't, or it might be a tie. In which case... it would be a very small hurt, from a very mild don't-want. We don't... actually know what Count Mott... enjoys, or how strongly she might or might not feel about it."

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"Sweetheart... -come here." He offers a hug.

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Scyelen complies and flops against him, pensive.

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Squeeze. "I mean it when I say that usually hurts people very badly. I can say more about it, but - there are some things it hurts people to even know, and I think this might be one of those, for you. Can you just trust me about it, that this is important to stop?"

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"I wasn't saying it wasn't," Scyelen mumbles. "I... don't actually think it's likely, that Siesta would rather stay with Mott. He's already shown himself to be an abuser of power. I can't deny that it is very possible that he'd... get what he wanted out of her... even if it did hurt her very badly. I just..."

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He gives her another little squeeze, and waits to see if she's going to complete that thought.

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It takes her a few minutes.

"You're the one who keeps telling me I'm not broken. That the way I am is... a valid way people can be. If that's true, if I just have an unusually high amount of a normal trait, then other people can have... varying... amounts of it. Less than me, but also not none."

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"Ah. Yeah, that's true. But - this kind of thing happens, and we know what happens when it happens. And usually the person it happens to isn't okay. Even you should be careful the first few times."

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"Usually."

Scyelen isn't sure if she's agreeing or disagreeing, by repeating that word.

 

"Um, what first few times?"

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"-I am assuming you're going to try it sometime."

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"I don't understand which 'it' you mean..."

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"That kind of sex."

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Scyelen makes a little frustrated noise.

"If you don't want to tell me what you were talking about, you can just say that..."

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"Where did I lose you? I was talking about... what happens when people are raped, usually."

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"Yeah, and then you said something confusing about me doing something for the first time...?"

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"-yeah. It's - if you want to try it you're allowed to. I've been assuming you will, eventually."

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Scyelen makes another not-so-little frustrated noise.

"Try. What."

She isn't even sure why she's getting so upset about this, just that it feels like Raafi is deliberately dangling something very important to her just out of reach.

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"Playing with being raped." Squeeze.

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"Oh." Finally! Why does he have to randomly torment her for no reason like that?

His touch makes her skin crawl.

She snuggles deeper into his arms with a whimper, tears in her eyes.

She's also kind of lost track of the conversation that lead up to this.

"Are you saying I should be careful the first time I have sex to make sure I play with being raped?" she finally asks. "I don't think that's going to be possible."

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"-oh, no no no no no. You should be careful the first time you play with being raped, so that if it turns out that it hurts you you don't get hurt very much. It definitely shouldn't be your first time at all."

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"Oh," Scyelen says again.

Why didn't he just say that instead of... Sigh.

"I don't... think that's actually what I want, anyway. That's why I got confused. And besides, the circumstances of my deflowering have already been decided, so it doesn't really matter."

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"Did I not mention...? I have an arranged marriage waiting for me."

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"I guess we'll have to see how that goes, then."

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"I've never met him. But he's... the sort of man a girl is supposed to want," she says, like this is ominous rather than reassuring. "I don't... have high hopes that he'll... actually like, anything about me."

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Squeeze. "I think you'll be fine, sweetheart. There's plenty of things to like about you; the school just isn't a very good place for you to let those things show."

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"I don't think... a marriage will be, either. But if I was... in Siesta's place... then I'd know he liked at least one thing about me."

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"I suppose. He'll be missing out if that's the only thing he likes about you, though."

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Scyelen just shakes her head and falls silent.

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"Sweetheart - you'll find people who like you, okay? Just - closer to your own age, all right, for that sort of thing."

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Scyelen pouts.

"You're being confusing again."

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"...do you not... okay. I guess that... uh." He takes his arm from around her shoulders, suddenly seeming uncomfortable. "Where I'm from - someone - my age - it's not done, to be - interested in, uh, someone your age. It happens and Lastai's clerics will help with it but that is taboo."

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Scyelen blinks at him, even more confused. "That's a really weird thing to scorn. It isn't even... perverse... like all the things you say are actually okay. But what are... are you assuming Count Mott is elderly and that's why it doesn't matter if he's nice to Siesta?"

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"I mean, it doesn't help anything if he is."

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Scyelen shrugs. "I don't know how old he is."

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"I wasn't talking about that, anyway, the situation is horrible no matter what the details are."

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The carriage hits a bump, cutting off Scyelen's reply. She doesn't bother to reformulate it.

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"Have you thought any more about what you want to try, when we get there?"

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Scyelen shakes her head. "I don't know. I'm not good at... scheming. Maybe Siesta will have an idea."

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He nods. "If we can get to her. And if there are other people around we can talk to them - they'll probably know more than the headmaster. I'm not very sure what we should ask, though."

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"I think... maybe we should say that we're just there to say goodbye. There's no legitimate reason to refuse us that."

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He nods.

 

"What are we going to say I am?"

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"If we're going to use my name to get an audience, I don't think we can lie about that?"

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"All right."

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The carriage trundles along for another half an hour, before pulling up to a stop. The driver knocks on the cabin and announces that they've arrived at the manor of Jules de Mott.

In response to Scyelen's request for an audience, they're let in to the opulent mansion and made to wait in a marble-floored grand hall, lit by chandeliers, and dominated by the bottom of a wide, sweeping staircase.

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Raafi takes his gloves off before leaving the carriage, and follows Scyelen in, watching their surroundings alertly; he stays near her in the hall, but somewhat less attentive, instead taking in the architecture while they wait.

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After a moderate but not impolite wait, they're taken up the stairs and into a large study, where the Count himself is seated in a chair, framed by a pair of red-curtained windows.

Jules de Mott is an imposing, finely dressed man in his late thirties, with flat oiled hair and a long, thin, curly mustache.

"Ah, the scion of Vallière! To what do I owe this surprise?"

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"Count Mott," she greets. "I'm merely here on a personal matter. I understand you recently acquired a new maid from the Academy's staff? Siesta of Tarbes is a fond acquaintance of mine, and this change in her employment was quite sudden. It gave us no opportunity for parting words."

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"I see. This is about that lovely little flower?" Count Mott says. "I apologize, but the girl is still settling in. Perhaps you could return tomorrow?"

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Raafi stays quiet, standing behind and a pace to the left of Scyelen.

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Scyelen really appreciates that he has no idea how much.

"If I know Siesta, I doubt it would take her an entire night to finish whatever settling in she is doing," Scyelen says, managing not to stumble over her words, if just barely. "I have no urgent business this day, myself. Would it be acceptable to wait until she is available?"

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"Wait, you say? Hm. Hm. I suppose that is your prerogative. Please, be welcome. I'm quite sure you're correct, and the girl won't be long."

With that, they are escorted from the Count's study and into a sitting room. They are not brought any refreshments.

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Raafi doesn't speak immediately, once they're alone. He certainly doesn't look happy about the situation, though.

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Scyelen tries not to fidget as the seconds crawl by.

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He doesn't leave her bored long. "He's got no intention of letting us see her, I'm pretty sure."

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"We don't... know that..." she says weakly.

No, he's right. "This isn't a good sign."

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"No, it's not."

"I have a spell that should lead us to her, or we can go talk to the headmaster or something."

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Scyelen is very uncomfortable with this plan but, "I distract the guard, you use the spell and sneak off to find and talk to her?"

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"That should work," he nods. "Let me get out some magic for it."

He has a cloak, for himself, that makes people's eyes slide off of him a bit when he's still and quiet, and a potion for her. "This helps with figuring out how to talk to people and get them to do what you want," he explains of it. "It only lasts for a few minutes. I have more if we need them later - not a lot, but some."

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Scyelen double-takes at the offered potion, her eyes very wide.

She takes it from him, though, staring at it and then at him. Well she did already know he had various exotic mind-healing stuff, this isn't that different, she supposes.

"Okay, I'll, um," she gestures towards her mouth with the potion. Then, after a brief pause, actually drinks the potion.

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It only takes a moment for the potion to kick in, with an odd sense of intuition - not of what the people around her are thinking, exactly, but of the ways they could think, and what she could say or do - what tone to take, how to move, how to stand - to get them to think one thing or another.

 

Raafi stands by the door, waiting for an opening to sneak out.

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This is pretty heady.

She glances at Raafi briefly, but using his own potion on him, well, that would probably be rude.

She thinks for a moment, then she takes off one of her shoes and pushes it underneath a heavy ottoman.

She steps out into the hall.

The guard outside the sitting room is bored, and kind of antsy, which makes it easy to convince him to come inside and help her retrieve her shoe. The guard's eyes flick around to find Raafi, confirming his presence the once, before ceasing to track him.

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And out he goes, back down the hall the way they came, looking for an unobtrusive spot to cast his spell.

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Unobtrusive spots are available. Count Mott has a fair few guards but his manor is very large and there are plenty of places to go unseen.

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Good. He casts: the spell he's using can't target people, but can give him the direction and rough distance to any object he's touched, for a little while; hopefully Siesta is still wearing the necklace he gave her.

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It would appear that she is. The necklace is that way, moving slightly, top floor, north wing.

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Off he goes.

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The quantity of guards increases, here.

The room Siesta is in appears to be adjacent to the study they met Mott in earlier. The doors are guarded... but this unguarded room has a balcony, and so does the room Siesta is in, right next to it.

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Why is she guarded like that, it's pretty bizarre.

He has rings for jumping and climbing skill in his belt; he puts them on and traverses the balconies.

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It turns out they're not guarding Siesta herself.

They're guarding Mott, who is in the room with her.

Siesta stands in view of the balcony, dressed in a new, noticeably more flattering maid uniform. Mott is 'inspecting' her, circling around her with a genial leer. He stops behind her to sniff her hair and grope her. Siesta herself appears flustered and put-upon, but not entirely unreceptive.

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As tempting as it is to do something that would inevitably start a war, he really shouldn't. He stays very still.

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Siesta fidgets uncomfortably while Mott takes his liberties, but he doesn't escalate much further than he already has.

Eventually, he leaves her be and returns to his study. The guards out in the hall move away with him.

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He gives her a minute, both to see how she reacts once she's alone and to make it less obvious that he saw all that, in case she'd rather he hadn't.

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Once she's alone Siesta seems a bit subdued, but calm enough.

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He taps on the balcony door to be let in.

"Hey, sweetheart." He's a little subdued, too, and obviously worried.

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Siesta spins in shock. When she sees him, her face lights up, before quickly filling with worry.

With a nervous glance in the direction of Mott's study, Siesta hurries over to let him in.

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"Hey." Hug? "Are you all right?"

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"Raafi!"

Slightly surprised hug!

"What are you doing here?"

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"It sounded like you might need a rescue. We haven't figured out what to do about your contract, though."

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If this were an anime, Siesta's eyes would be sparkling.

But, "I don't think there's anything you can do," she says sadly. "The Count is well within his rights to do as he likes with me. I'd hoped to stay with the academy, but it seems fate had other ideas."

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"Sweetheart, nobody has the right to that. It doesn't matter what they've paid. Even if there's nothing we can do about it that doesn't make this okay."

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Siesta just shakes her head and smiles at him like he's something precious.

"I wish it worked like that."

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"I know. I'll work on it." He sighs. "We'll ask around, see if we can figure out something to do, maybe there is something. And - I can check on you. Every day, if you want. And if you ask me to come and get you out, I will."

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Siesta shakes her head, even sadder now.

"I can't just run away. I still have ten months left on my contract, and, my family needs the money I send them."

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"I know. And if this is the best you can do... gods. But if you change your mind you should have a way to leave. Even if I can't do anything else I can do that."

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Before Siesta can reply, the door opens.

Mott blinks at the sight of Raafi sharing personal space with Siesta. Siesta springs away from Raafi guiltily, inadvertently putting herself between him and the balcony exit.

Mott sneers, indignant. "You dare trespass on my hospitality in my own household?! Guards!"

Four lightly armored men come in to flank Mott and hold Raafi at spear-point.

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He tries for the balcony, but - Siesta. Shouldn't teleport. Casts Fly, maybe he can get over Siesta and to the balcony anyway-

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"Halt!"

Mott brandishes his scepter.

A pair of vases framing the exit suddenly lurch sideways, spilling twin streams of water. The streams strike like snakes, catching Raafi before he can make it through the doorway and slamming him downward.

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Ow.

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The spear-men surround him, pointing their spears at him from a safe distance. They all look supremely nervous. They saw him fly. Whatever else he's doing, that makes Raafi a noble. Their current orders conflict directly with a life-time of 'knowing' that a commoner must never draw steel on a noble.

Mott himself steps forward, waving his scepter again. The water pinning Raafi down turns into ice.

"One of you fetch this miscreant's master," Mott orders. "To think, she would have the nerve to send her familiar skulking about after I was so accomodating. I think you both need a lesson in patience."

As Mott goes to raise his scepter again, Siesta throws herself in front of him and goes down on her knees, pleading. "W-Wait, please! Raafi meant no harm! Please don't hurt him! I swear, I'll serve you to the best of my ability, in, in all ways. Just please forgive this!"

Mott stops. He looks down at Siesta like he's actually considering her words.

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Raafi stands, the ice shattering and falling away as he does, and hovers just an inch or so off the floor, staring Mott down. "I'm fine, Siesta. There's no need for that."

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The spear-men stumble back a few steps, even more nervous now, while Siesta startles and looks at Raafi with trepidatious hope.

Raising his scepter warily, Mott bristles. "What business of yours is any of this?!" he demands.

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"Siesta is Scyelen's friend. She wants to see her safe and well and treated honorably, not -" he gestures vaguely- "like this. Taken by someone without even the decency to be honest."

He's disgusted by the man, and he lets it show, a bit, as a sort of confident superiority; he's been rising very slowly as he speaks, too, not enough to be very obvious but enough to intimidate a little.

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Mott scoffs. "Accusing me of dishonesty? Spare me your wild imaginings. I am well within my rights to take a commoner girl into my household, and I am well within my rights to vest those under me with whatever duties I see fit. What have I to be dishonest about? The maid will have a better life here than most others of her status could hope to attain."

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"Just like the last two, I'm sure. I think we'd rather see her take her chances back at the academy."

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Just then a guard arrives, politely escorting a nervous, shame-faced Scyelen.

Mott glances back and seems pleased with this fortunate timing. "And why ought I care what the two of you would rather see, hm? Especially after such rudeness."

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"Perhaps we can make it worth your while."

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Mott considers this, and then smirks. "You would have to make it quite worth my while..." he says leadingly.

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This guy is so gross.

"Do you have something in mind."

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Mott turns his attention on Scyelen for a moment.

"Tell me, you share classes with the Zerbst heir, do you not?"

Scyelen blinks. "Kirche? I... I do, yes."

Mott relaxes a bit, backing up so he can address them both. "There is a particular exotic artifact, an heirloom of the Zerbst family that I have long coveted. They call it the Summoned Book. If you were to acquire this item and deliver it into my hands, I would be willing to return Siesta to the academy in exchange."

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"We'll see what we can do. Assuming you're willing to leave her alone in the meantime."

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Mott gives Raafi a look of contempt. "Don't presume to tell me how to conduct myself, miscreant. I am already being generous."

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What does Siesta seem to think of this.

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Siesta is watching this conversation like they're playing catch with something priceless and fragile, but she seems surprised and hopeful about the deal offered. Raafi may or may not be able to tell from just her expression, but she would definitely prefer he not push his luck.

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Fortunately, he's pretty good at that sort of thing.

"Fine."

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"Excellent." Mott claps his hands. "I will look forward to your return. Men, escort Vallière and her familiar to their carriage. I'm sure they have no wish to dally."

The guards shoulder their spears and, er, wait for the noble(s) to start moving.

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Raafi lands, and they can go. (He's limping, just barely noticeably.)

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Scyelen shoots him worried looks as they leave.

The carriage is right where they left it, the driver staring a bit at the armed escort but not commenting.

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He gets in, and then casts something that dries his clothes and the carriage seat. "I'm all right, sweetheart. He whacked me pretty good catching me but I'd be fine even if I couldn't heal it."

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Scyelen sighs in relief.

"Okay. That's good. That went... better than expected, though?"

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"Seems like it." Hug? "I'm a little worried that this book is going to turn out to be something we don't want to give him, but we can find out."

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Hug.

"Yeah. From Kirche."

Scyelen is not as uncomfortable around Kirche as she was before Miss Vaux got involved, but it's still awkward. Actually, at this point Raafi might be more uncomfortable around Kirche than Scyelen is...

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He's handling her better than he was, since Miss Vaux explained about her, but that's pretty plausible, yes.

"Do you have an idea of how we might get it from her?"

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It's Kirche, Scyelen doesn't say. There is one thing they both already know Kirche wants, after all, but...

"Ask her?"

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"Well, yes. We'll be back by dinner, you can ask her then?"

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"Okay."

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He nods and goes to give her a little squeeze, but winces at how this presses on his bruises. "Let me heal this up, one minute."

Casting it looks similar to his other spells, and results in a brief flash of blue light. "Much better."

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Eventually the carriage makes it back to the academy. They're a little early for dinner, even.

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Raafi'd like to see if Miss Vaux is busy, if Scyelen doesn't need him for anything.

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Scyelen was kind of hoping he'd do most of the talking with Kirche, actually. She mumbles something to this effect.

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"I'll be back for dinner, sweetheart. I have a couple of questions for Miss Vaux but I think she's going to want time to think about them, anyway."

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Scyelen nods. "Okay. Should I wait for you then? Before I ask Kirche, I mean?"

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"Mmhmm. I should be back before you go, anyway, I don't think you'll be waiting."

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"I'll come with you," she decides.

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"- if you don't mind waiting outside, I suppose."

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Scyelen blinks. "Oh, uh, you wanted... a private," she still droops a little at the reminder, "conversation. With Miss Vaux. That's. Um. Okay, I'll just..."

Scyelen doesn't finish the thought just, gestures vaguely and then goes... somewhere. Away.

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He goes to find Miss Vaux.

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Miss Vaux is in the library, taking notes out of a tome of some sort. She closes the book and stretches when she notices him approach.

"Raafi. How'd it go?"

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"Adventurer nonsense - ah, we're making progress but it's not straightforward. Siesta was all right when we left, though."

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She stands, picking up her notes.

"I'm glad to hear that. I looked into the legal side of things a bit while you were gone, only found bad news though."

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"That's what Scyelen said, too. I'm not well positioned to do anything about that, but I'll see if I can call in help from my world, Fharlanghn and Pelor both should be more than willing to send diplomats."

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"Now there's a spectacle I'd like to see. After all, what's a little holy war between friends?" There is a maybe-disturbing lack of sarcasm in that second sentence.

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"If that's what it takes you could use one, frankly. Anyway, I'm not really here about that - there are a couple things I'd like to talk to you about in your capacity as - the closest thing to a cleric of Lastai we have around, if you don't mind."

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That gets a softer, more genuine smile.

"Alright."

She leads him down the hall and into an empty classroom.

"How can I help?"

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Oh, she's good at this. That gets a little smile in return.

"The first one I hope will be pretty simple - I'm wondering what the attitudes towards homosexuality are, here."

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"What's homosexuality?" she deadpans.

Miss Vaux shakes her head. "It's basically invisible. Tristainian culture doesn't recognize same-sex relationships as 'real', so it doesn't bother to persecute anyone for them like some countries do, but a public display of affection with a same-sex partner will get you just about the same kind of reactions that masturbating in public would."

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"I suppose I can work with that, all right. The other one is - more complicated, and I need to meet Scyelen for dinner, but I think you'll want time to think about it, anyway. My world has - a taboo, against relationships with significant age gaps. It's considered similar to attraction to children. You - don't seem to, here, and that - I'll leave it to Pelor and Lastai to sort out, I'm not going to assume it's more than a cultural difference until I hear otherwise. But it still - people keep assuming I might, uh - be - interested - in that way - and it - I'm not comfortable with that. And it seems to be causing problems."

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"People other than Kirche?" She almost says something else, before stopping herself, a flicker of frustration crossing her face before she composes herself.

"I'm not sure what to tell you about that. I've been to some places that had some age-related taboos, but nothing so extreme. And even I see the bright line between a youth with sexual urges and a youth too young to have developed any such urges yet. That line is... quite distinct and incomparable."

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"We see it as - there's a maturity gap, and that matters, it harms people to always be lagging behind like that in an important relationship, and for more casual things, it's predatory to approach someone less capable of looking out for themselves, or to take them up on what's likely to be a lapse in judgement. There's some flexibility, especially as the people involved get older - nobody would be very surprised to see someone my age with someone a decade younger - but it's still something we're supposed to be cautious of."

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She hums, thoughtful.

"I think I see why you've been having trouble. It is usually much less effective than you would intuit, to reject someone over a taboo they don't share. I'd suggest you avoid appealing to principle and double-down on being clear about when someone falls outside your own tastes, regardless of the origin of said tastes."

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He nods. "I've been doing that with Kirche, and it seems to work fine for situations like that. My problem is more - it's upsetting in any context. That's why I was so insistent on not sleeping in Scyelen's room, and why I froze up with you and her a few weeks ago. I'm a little worried that Mott is going to suggest I'm interested in Siesta and I'll end up attacking him over it."

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"Mott is a fairly generic product of his culture, from what I've heard, and this is not a lovely culture, so I honestly wouldn't blame you. But if you're waiting for me to validate your taboos, because that's what a cleric of Lastai would do, then, well, I may have to lose a little bit of respect for them."

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He blinks. "No, not at all - I don't know what they think about this, whether it's that they agree that those relationships are harmful or are just not pushing back on that taboo because they have higher priorities. I'll ask, when I get back, I'm sure they'll have something to say. But for now, the taboo isn't serving me well, I just don't see a way out of it."

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"Hm. What, then, is age? Maturity? No. Maturity is a function of experience, not time. Power? No. Power is a function of circumstance and will, not time, and there are far greater imbalances to worry about. Aesthetic? Perhaps, but if you are compelled to judge the morality of a relationship on aesthetic, you can simply look away. What remains?"

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"It takes time to accumulate experience and power; there is some connection."

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"Formative experiences are usually single, significant events. Usually, if you repeat the same routine for a year, you are not so different before and after that year as you are before and after a single significant experience. There is some correlation because such experiences are usually random, and more time means more chances for them to happen. But the sort of person who grows as a person, while left undisturbed to carry out their routine, is significantly rarer that the sort of person who simply doesn't. This is merely more difficult to notice in older individuals because the sickness of age ossifies the mind against even significant experiences in the much same manner as it enfeebles the body."

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"I don't think that refutes my point. Someone Kirche's age will have had less opportunity to have significant experiences than someone my age, in nearly every case, and definitely less time to think about them and learn from them. And there's something to - being allowed, to be young and foolish and do silly things with low stakes that teach you about yourself, before you try to be fully an adult."

"-I'm going to need to go to dinner soon."

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"Kirche currently has seven recurrent partners, some younger, some older, though all students. Who all believed however tenuously that she was courting them alone, before I stepped in and convinced her to be more honest. I could've done the same when she was younger, or I could've found her twenty years from now having not yet learned better."

She shakes her head and gives him an understanding look.

"Only you can decide if you want to continue to have this taboo or not. I can't help you make that decision. But maybe, while you're at dinner, think about some of the advice you've given Scyelen, and imagine receiving some of that same advice yourself."

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He considers, for a moment. "I don't think that's my problem but I'm not sure what is. But I'll think about it, thank you."

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She nods and, after a moment's consideration, she hugs him.

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-oh, wow, yeah, he did need one of those, didn't he. He leans into it a bit.

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After Raafi collects Enough Hug, he can make it to the dining hall in time for diner.

Scyelen is sitting in her usual corner. Kirche is sitting with Tabitha a few tables over.

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He usually makes something of a point of not acknowledging Kirche's existence in any way, but today he lets her see him checking for her as he heads to Scyelen's table. Most likely that'll be enough to get her attention.

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"Hi."

She really wants to ask what he talked about with Miss Vaux, but he was already clear he didn't want her to know, so she doesn't.

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"Hey, sweetheart. You all right?"

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Scyelen just nods and picks at her food, stealing glances Kirche's way.

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He pats her hand and turns his attention to his own, looking for an opportunity to catch Kirche's eye.

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Kirche gets a lot of attention, but not usually from those two.

When she notices Raafi looking at her, she seems surprised, before covering that surprise with a sultry smirk.

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He rolls his eyes in return, but - fondly, and gives her a questioning look.

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Kirche grins at him.

She picks up a roll to nibble on and gets up, slinking her way over to Scyelen's corner. Perhaps unexpectedly, Tabitha, without looking up from her book, also gets up and follows.

"Now why might you be sending such a penetrating gaze my way?" Kirche teases. "Could it be my heated charms have finally lit a fire of carnal desire?"

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"Nope," he teases right back. "But we do have a situation you might be able to help with. You know that maid I'm friends with, Siesta?"

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Kirche makes an exaggerated show of not believing him, but says, "Oh her. Yeah?"

"Transfered," Tabitha interjects without looking up.

Kirche blinks. "Hmm? She's not here anymore?"

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"Mmhmm. Her contract got bought. By this real sleaze, Count Mott. He has the right to it, but I want her back - there's a book your family has, he says he'll let her go for it."

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Kirche puts a fingertip to her lips. "Book?"

"Oh! That old thing? Hm!" She smirks at him. "It is a family heirloom, but I suppose I could be convinced to part with it."

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"For the obvious, I suppose."

(Scyelen is probably beet red right now, isn't she. He doesn't check, this is absolutely not the moment for it.)

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(If he did check, he would see that Scyelen is actually not blushing all that hard; more anxious than anything.)

Kirche pouts and puts a hand on her cheek for effect. "My, so blunt."

"We ought discuss this in a more comfortable setting," she suggests. "Come to my room in an hour."

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"I'll be there."

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As Kirche wanders off, Tabitha trailing in her wake, Scyelen watches them go like she isn't entirely sure what just happened. She pokes her fingers together pensively.

"I thought you didn't..." she makes a vague gesture Kirche's way.

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"-I mean, I don't. But I can make an exception for this."

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Scyelen looks at him suspiciously.

"Doesn't that... go against everything you were saying about why we have to rescue Siesta?"

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"It's different when you're choosing it. Not different enough that you shouldn't be careful, but I know how this goes, for me, I'll be fine."

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Scyelen is still giving him a very dubious look, but nods.

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"We can talk about it later, if you want? It sounds like I haven't explained it very well."

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Scyelen just shrugs.

Dinner proceeds.

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And an hour later he knocks on Kirche's door, freshly bathed and in a slightly fancier outfit than he usually wears.

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Kirche answers the door in something dark blue and very revealing.

"Hm, punctual," she says with a smile. "Do come in."

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He goes in and looks around.

(The outfit isn't failing to get a reaction, so to speak, though he seems to be ignoring it.)

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Her room is lowly lit by moonlight shining off silvery curtains, and a couple of candles in the corner. Her furniture is of a different make than Scyelen's, and her bed is even bigger.

She goes over to a chest that sits opposite the bed, and pulls out a red leather case, roughly book-shaped, with a locked latch and a key glued to the top. She takes it over and sits down on the bed with it on her lap.

"The Summoned Book," she says. "It's been in my family for thirty years. The stories say it contains arcane secrets for stirring men's desires, but," she smirks, "I've never felt the need to break the seal and read it myself."

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"You'd hardly need to."

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"I know right?" she says, jiggling her chest with affected arrogance. But she does actually appreciate the compliment.

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"So that's what I want. And what do I have that you want?"

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Kirche sets the Book aside and stands, moving over to him.

"That's what I'd very much like to find out," she says, running a finger down his chest. "What makes a man like you... burn..."

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He gasps at the touch and goes still. "That's... a start..." he says after a moment.

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"Oh he's shy!" Giggle. "If it was that easy I would've had you weeks ago."

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"'s complicated - I probably won't do this twice - doesn't mean you're not... lovely..."

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Kirche pouts. "Mou, so all you're really here for is that little old Book?"

"Well then. I'll just have to convince you to come back for seconds."

She moves in to kiss him and starts taking off his clothes.

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He kisses back, and cooperates at first, though he balks a little when she tries to take his shirt and vest off rather than just unbuttoning them.

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When he balks at taking his shirt off, Kirche takes the opportunity to go for his pants instead. He can't defend both at once!

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She may have a little bit of a struggle, with the pants, but he doesn't resist.

He gasps again, kissing a little deeper, and there's an unexpected smoothness of metal against her fingertips when she gets him free.

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Kirche breaks the kiss to investigate what's going on with that.

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There's a short metal bar in a piercing at the base of his cock, half-hidden in its current state.

"'s sensitive," he adds when he sees what she's looking at.

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"Ooh, how daring."

She's breathing heavier, as she takes him in her hand.

"You are just full of surprises..."

She uses her free hand to slip her panties off, then backs up, bringing Raafi with her to the bed.

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He goes willingly enough, letting his hands roam, now. When they get to the bed, he stops short of climbing on, and instead crouches between her knees - "get you started?"

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Kirche lets out a mildly scandalized laugh. "So unpredictable. I love it."

She spreads her legs with a daring grin. It is immediately obvious that she doesn't need any help 'getting started' but she wants to see what he'll do anyway.

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Is she actually not familiar with...? Well.

He's good with his mouth - very, very good.

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Oh yes.

He certainly is.

She's been eaten out before, but, by girls. Never by a man. And it's been a while.

Usually, Kirche is accustomed to being the aggressor, but if Raafi is persistent enough he can distract her from her attempts to pull him up onto the bed and reciprocate, and keep her on her back until she's spent.

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He can be very persistent, and very distracting.

When she's finally done, he climbs up beside her, arranging himself carefully to avoid reminding her of forgotten intentions as he snuggles up. "Good?"

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"N-No fair," she pants, her hand flopping toward his groin with little in the way of grace. "I was, supposed to. Mmm. No fair..."

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He doesn't scoot out of the way; he does kiss her cheek. "It's all right, sweetheart. I enjoyed myself."

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She manages to curl up against him a little and give him a few strokes. "I'll... I'll not be defeated, so, easy, mark my, words..."

She paws at him, cutely insistent, but without any real intent behind it. She's not actually so out of if that she couldn't, she just feels too sated to really put any effort into getting her way right now.

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He stays there for a minute, not moving away but not making things any easier for her or reacting very much to what she's doing, just snuggling her gently.

"All right, I'm going to get going."

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"No fa~air," Kirche whines again, but she lets him up with a contented sigh. "I'll have you writhing in ecstasy under me some day, I swear it! Now," she clumsily picks up the leather case containing the Book, "take this token of my affection and use it well, hm?"

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"I will." and he takes it and goes.

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Half an hour later, once again freshly bathed, he taps on Scyelen's door.

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Scyelen opens the door and gives him an inquisitive, hopeful look.

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"Got it." He has the Book with him and holds it up. "Did you want to talk, or are you on your way to bed?"

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Oh good, getting the Book wasn't unexpectedly complicated. They're lucky Kirche even had it with her.

"Um, are we leaving at first light tomorrow?"

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"If you're willing, I'll be up."

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"I should probably go to sleep, then."

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"All right. See you then."

And in the morning, he's at her door again, bright and early.

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And she is up and awake but not looking like she slept any better than usual.

She greets him and goes with him to check out another school carriage for the trip to Mott's manor.

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And they can be on their way.

Snuggle?

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Scyelen is always happy to snuggle any of the few people she doesn't have to feel guilty about touching.

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Snuggles are good.

"So, did you want to talk about last night? We don't have to."

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"Hm? I don't know. What did you want to talk about last night?"

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"Well, you seemed confused about why I was doing it."

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"You mean... why you were giving in to Kirche's, um, flirting, so that she'd give you the Book? No... that..." she blushes, "makes perfect sense..."

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"All right. I did want to say - a lot of the things I've been talking about - they'll sound like rules, and they are, kind of, but they're not rules the way 'don't rob a bank' is a rule, they're rules the way 'don't eat that, it'll make you sick' is a rule. That's why I keep saying that you should be careful, instead of saying that you just shouldn't do things; maybe you'll try it and find out that for you, it doesn't make you sick, or that it only gives you a little stomachache and you like it enough to do it anyway sometimes, or maybe it will make you very sick, and you won't know until you try it. I've tried enough things that I have a pretty good idea of what I should and shouldn't be doing with myself, even when that's not the same as the advice I'd give to someone who hasn't tried much of anything yet."

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"Oh."

That does put some of the things Raafi has told her into a clearer context, "but... you. Really didn't. Want to do that with Kirche? So, why is...?" Scyelen shake her head. "I don't know how to say it."

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"I really didn't. But I wanted Siesta to be okay, and I knew it wouldn't bother me very much - it really is different when it's something you're choosing to do even though you don't really want to, instead of something that's just happening to you, for most people. It's not completely safe, but it's not scary like not having a choice is."

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"...it, still kind of sounds like you're contradicting yourself..." Scyelen admits shyly.

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"How so?"

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Scyelen can only make a small inarticulate noise in response.

 

 

"It just... seems to me like... ordinary sex... is the least scary thing someone who, could do anything to m-someone, could choose to do." Blush squirm. "But you said it was... you implied that one ought trade... stopping that... for stopping every other abuse. All the time. For everyone. No matter what. Like one should be... willing to die before they'd be willing to... do what you did with Kirche."

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"-ah. Sex that they aren't choosing to have isn't ordinary sex, for most people. And it might not be the very worst thing but it's usually pretty close, even if the only difference is that they didn't have a choice about it. And it's - part of the problem is that it's not always obvious right away how badly it hurts someone? Sometimes it is, but sometimes they'll seem like they're fine but they'll have problems later that people who've never been through something like that don't usually have, like being scared or sad all the time, even when there's no reason to be."

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"I'm scared and sad all the time even when there's no reason to be," Scyelen points out in a self-conscious mumble.

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"I think you have some reasons to be, sweetheart." He sighs. "You had some good reasons to be scared the day I got here, and that wasn't a new problem, and it hasn't really gone away yet. And when it does, what you've been through will still be a reason; it takes people a while to figure out how to be okay after something like this."

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Scyelen is confused.

"After something like... what?"

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"You were expecting them to exile you, sweetheart."

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"That had nothing to do with taking away my sexual choices."

Scyelen knows how disingenuous this is as a rebuttal, but she doesn't... can't... think about what she would do if stripped of her noble status. That whole region of thought is just covered in no-entry signs.

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"No, but it hurts people in the same kind of way. The hurt comes from not being in control of something important, it doesn't matter what." Squeeze. "It's okay that that scares you, it's a scary kind of thing."

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Scyelen shakes her head, and says in a small voice, "No one's ever in control of all their important things. No one."

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He gives her a squeeze and doesn't say anything for a minute.

 

"We should see what this book is, before we get there."

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"That's... probably a good idea? Mott didn't say anything about delivering it, um, unopened, or anything."

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"Yeah. All right, I'm going to cast a magic detection spell - don't interrupt me, I'll lose it before I have a chance to see everything."

And - Detect Magic?

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Something magical was used in the curing process on the leather. Otherwise, it's just leather. The lock and key are mundane metal as well.

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"So far nothing very interesting-" he opens the case and looks inside.

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As promised, inside the case is: a book. A book that Raafi will recognize.

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Not the specific book, but the general type - gnomish make, with the characteristic detailing and obvious magical signature of a moving-picture book. It's titled The Book of Erotic Fantasy, in the common tongue of his world.

"...huh. Well, there's no problem giving it to him, at least."

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"Oh, good."

Scyelen can't read the title.

"What is it?"

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"It's - illusion magic, my world's type. The title is in one of my world's languages, too. It's pornography, most likely, I'm not going to check - it'll have moving pictures on the pages."

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Moving pictures of-

Scyelen wants dearly to ask if she can look inside, but that's way too embarrassing actually and instead she just blushes.

 

Wait, "this is from your world?"

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Yeah, if he'd been able to check it last night he might've left her alone with it, but as is, the carriage isn't that big.

"Mmhmm. I have no idea how it got here - I mean, we have magic for going between planes, but I've never heard of a second one like the material plane before, and I would expect to have if anyone knew about it at all."

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"That's... how long have the Zerbst had this? It... can't have gotten here the way you did... right?"

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"She said thirty years. I guess if someone was summoned carrying it? But I haven't heard of that, either, here or there."

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"That can't be... if there were other human familiars... that would mean there were other secret Void mages, in non-Brimic countries no less, and that would mean... I mean, that has to be impossible, right? Someone would've been discovered before..."

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"I don't even know enough to guess. What's it like where Kirche is from?"

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"Germania? I've never been there. Our families are technically in some kind of feud, actually, but Kirche... I mean, I didn't really... notice... that she'd stopped until Miss Vaux pointed it out, but when we first started at the Academy I think she was... expecting me to be her rival, or something. Now that I think back... I think she assumed she'd 'won' after, like, the first week? And after that she was just... being herself at me."

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This gets a little squeeze. "That doesn't tell me much about what kinds of magic they might be doing there. Maybe I'll have to go and check."

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That idea makes Scyelen nervous but she can't think of an actual reason not to, besides the feud she already mentioned. She just nods.

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"I'll be careful, sweetheart. It really is safe for me to do most things, if we don't mind people seeing me teleport away from them if they go bad."

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That does not actually make Scyelen any less nervous about the idea!

But she just leans on Raafi as the carriage trundles along.

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And he can tell her about the time he got lost in the mountains and stumbled onto an unusually friendly kobold mine, which he stayed at for a few days until they tried to let their dragon protector eat him, at which point he teleported out, unharmed and with a few rare trinkets and an interesting story to tell.

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Scyelen isn't sure if that story was meant to be allegorical or just entertaining, but it is entertaining so she doesn't ask.

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Shortly, the carriage arrives once more at Mott's manor.

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Raafi pauses to send a message to Siesta when they're about twenty minutes out, letting her know that they're almost there, and when they reach the manor, but before the carriage comes to a stop, he offers Scyelen the same spell that was in the potion yesterday - "it's called Eagle's Splendor, if you ever want to ask me for it, and it'll last fifteen minutes or half an hour when I cast it; half an hour, today."

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"...maybe just in case. Unless you think you'll need it for something else?"

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"I don't expect to, but I have a spare, just in case." And he casts it and offers her the glowing spell in his hand.

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She takes it.

They get out of the carriage and march up to the manor. She tells the guard on the door who they are and that they're expected.

This time they're brought directly up to Mott's study.

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Mott himself seems a little skeptical.

"Back so soon? I hope you aren't foolish enough to think my tolerance extends further than it already has..."

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"Oh, no, we've got it." He holds up the case. "How's Siesta doing?"

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Mott tries and fails to not seem too eager. "Fine she's fine let's see it!"

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He glances at Scyelen, she can pipe up anytime - "How about we get her started packing before you get too distracted with your new reading material."

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Mott starts to scowl.

"I dearly hope you are not stupid enough to set foot on my lands with intent to swindle me. The Book. Either hand it over now, or I'll know you for a liar."

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He rolls his eyes and hands it over.

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Mott's scowl vanishes as he snatches the leather case and eagerly unlocks it.

He pulls out The Book of Erotic Fantasy reverently, then flips it open. He gasps in delight, flipping through it page by page.

"Oh by the Founder's Fortune, it's exquisite!"

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"Of course. Siesta?"

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"Hm hm," he makes a dismissive noise. He snaps and gestures at one of the guards.

That guard goes over to the writing desk and pulls a roll of parchment out of a drawer, then brings it over to Scyelen.

Scyelen unrolls it where Raafi can see, and it does indeed appear to be Siesta's contract.

The guard opens a connecting door and calls out into the adjoining room, and a few moments later, Siesta herself pokes her head in, spots Scyelen and Raafi with her contract, and breaks out in a smile as she rushes over to them.

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He's not going to hug her right here in front of everybody but it should be pretty clear to her that he'd like to. "Ready to go, sweetheart?"

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Siesta also would like to hug him but is hesitating.

"Oh, I'll be just a minute." She bows deeply to both of them. "I'll get my things!"

She rushes off the way she came.

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"That seems to be everything in order, then."

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"Indeed. Guards, show them out."

Siesta meets them in the hallway on the way out of the north wing and walks with them down to the carriage.

Once they're outside she glomps onto Raafi with a beaming smile. "Thank you so much! And you too Miss Scyelen!"

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He returns the hug gladly. "You're entirely welcome."

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Siesta stows her luggage and sits across from them in the carriage.

Once they're moving, she sighs happily. "Thank you both again. To think you'd trouble yourself so for my sake, it's a little embarrassing, but it warms my heart."

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"Of course we would, sweetheart."

"Have either of you thought about what you want to do next? Unless I've misunderstood something, the contract is Scyelen's now."

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Siesta nods at this.

"Miss Scyelen," she says, injecting a little formality into her tone. "Though my contract was intended for general custodial service, as the legal holder I would be happy to place myself exclusively at your and at Raafi's complete disposal."

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Scyelen squeaks and gets a bit deer-in-the-headlights.

"You... want to be my handmaiden?"

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Siesta nods fervently.

"I would. I do."

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"That sounds all right to me."

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"Um, I, um, I accept you into my service, Siesta of Tarbes."

Shy smile.

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Hug!

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Scyelen snuggles up and enjoys the feeling of... accomplishing something they set out to do, something real... as they ride back to the academy.

As for Siesta... well, Scyelen finds herself weirdly trustful of the commoner girl. Siesta... doesn't know. But for the first time in her life, Scyelen maybe feels like they could part amicably if Siesta found out and... didn't want to serve someone so perverse anymore.

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A good result all around.

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The next day, after they return and get Siesta re-settled, the Headmaster gathers the school for an announcement.

"As you know, at the end of this week we will be holding the Familiar Exhibition, in which all of you second-years will have the chance to exhibit your familiars for your classmates! What you may not know, is that we have recently received word that our very own Princess Henrietta will be gracing us with her presence! I have received word that the Princess will be arriving on the day prior and plans to attend the event!"

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Well that's certainly awkward. He gives Scyelen a dubious look, but doesn't say anything.

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Scyelen is looking at him with just as much dubiousness and an extra full serving of anxiety.

 

Later, at lunch, Scyelen's best suggestion is, "Maybe you could... um, tell that kobold story? Without the teleporting part, I mean."

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"I have some stories with different magic in them, that sounds like it'll work. I don't have much that's showy, but I could prepare a few spells for people to see?"

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"If, um, you're sure they'd pass as Brimic spells," she whispers.

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"I have a few that should. We can plan on trying to avoid it. The princess will probably be interested in us, though, we should have a plan for if we need to show off."

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Scyelen blinks like this hasn't occurred to her.

"Oh, I guess... her highness might be."

She gets a nostalgic look on her face for a moment, before that's replaced with a distant sadness.

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This calls for a hug. "What'cha thinking about?"

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"Just... the past."

Before she can elaborate, Kirche comes over to flirt with Raafi, and then it's time for class.

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See, this is why he likes being on the road, there's so many fewer interruptions. He needs to go before too much longer - after the exhibition, maybe; he'll probably need it at that point.

He sits through Scyelen's morning classes as usual, and takes the afternoon to plan his spell preparation for the day; he doesn't want to discuss it in the dining room, so he brings the list to Scyelen's room after dinner.

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They go over the list together. There are several spells that could easily pass as Brimic, and several more that could pass with a little play-acting.

Scyelen is prevaricating over the potential of Air Walk, when the window shutter, behind Scyelen's thick black curtains, suddenly clicks and creaks open. The curtains part as a dark figure shrouded in a concealing cloak floats into the room.

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Raafi puts himself between Scyelen and the intruder, watching warily but not casting anything quite yet.

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The mysterious figure lowers her hood, revealing the face of a strikingly beautiful young woman, of an age with Scyelen and grinning like she just got away with something naughty.

Scyelen herself gasps and nearly shoves Raafi out of the way as she hurls herself down on one knee, head bowed, fist to the floor. "Y-Your Highness! Y-You honor us with, um, your presence? How may I serve."

The princess merely giggles and rests a hand on Scyelen's hair, petting her gently. "Oh Scyelen, please, there's no need for formal address. Come, stand up and let me get a look at you."

Scyelen complies, too lost to be embarrassed as the princess inspects her with a subtle expression of worry.

"You haven't been sleeping enough," the princess comments, "but in any case, it is so wonderful to see you again. I snuck away from my convoy just so I could; it's been far too long, Scyelen." She hugs the slightly smaller girl tightly.

Scyelen shudders. "You came... me...? You remember me?"

The princess pulls back a little to look at her friend, shocked. "Of course! You were my very dearest childhood friend. Why wouldn't I remember you?"

"I it just I it seemed presumptuous to imagine you ever thought of me after we parted?" Scyelen stammers.

"Of course I thought of you!" the princess exclaims. "I missed you terribly, and I feel just awful that I never wrote..."

A tearful smile begins to appear on Scyelen's face her arms start to move to return the hug, but then she freezes. "But I've changed..." is all she manages to say.

The princess is puzzled for a moment before pushing on with a teasing giggle. "Oh? Are you not still the girl who wanted to play Pirate Hunters and so convinced me to tie you to a tree and tickle you until you gave up the sEcReTs oF tHe djiNn-sPoOkY cO~ove..."

Scyelen makes a strangled noise and turns dangerously red. (Because yes, that did happen; Scyelen had just been repressing the memory until this moment, and the only reason she isn't literally dead of embarrassment and self-disgust is that none of the perversions she's since sprouted seem to include a thing about tickling in particular.)

Grinning, the princess looks over Scyelen's shoulder to address Raafi for the first time. "So! Who's your friend, Scyelen?"

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He backed down when Scyelen recognized the princess, and spent a few seconds wondering whether he should bow or something, but the princess didn't seem to want him to, so he's just been hanging back, grinning at the cuteness.

"Raafi, Your Highness. The gandalfr; I'm not sure how widely the news has spread. Scyelen's familiar."

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The princess's eyes widen.

"So it is true! Scyelen, you're a Void mage?"

(Scyelen is blushing too hard to be able to speak at the moment.)

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Raafi steps forward and puts an arm around Scyelen's shoulder. "She certainly seems to be."

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Scyelen just lets out a little whine of incoherence.

Her brain is locked up between the revelation that her childhood friend remembers her, missed her, went to considerable lengths to visit her, and the horror of someone so pure and good being contaminated by the perverse corruption of those precious memories by Scyelen's unquenchable depravity. This is THE PRINCESS!!! Tristain's beacon of hope and benevolence! Scyelen is unworthy to look at her, let alone touch her...

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Henrietta giggles at Scyelen's shyness.

"Come, sit with me and tell me about your life since we parted."

She maneuvers Scyelen over to sit hip to hip on the edge of the bed, but when she sees how nonverbal Scyelen still is, she asks Raafi instead, "How has she been?"

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He sits on the floor, leaning against Scyelen's leg a bit, and reaches up to hold her hand. "A little better the last few weeks, I think. It's been hard for her here - nobody had any idea she was a Void mage, and they still don't know how to teach her. She's figured out a few things on her own, though, now." He pats her knee fondly.

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"Really, you figured out some Void magic all by yourself?"

(Scyelen manages to squeak out a, "Yes?")

"That's incredible!" Henrietta affects a pout, even though she's still smiling. "And here I thought I'd swoop in and get to be your savior by delivering unto you the sacred knowledge! Oh well. I still have a gift to give you." She reaches into a concealed pocket in her dress and pulls out a small black book, held shut by a golden clasp with a pentagram etched into it. "This is a re-translation of the Founder's Prayer Book. Or, as I now believe it to be, the Founder's spellbook."

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"Oh, wonderful. I was expecting to have to go questing for something like that."

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Henrietta smiles at him, approving. "You still might, but this should give Scyelen a good head-start, at least. Especially if she's already figured out some things herself. From what I could ascertain, this book contains the technical descriptions of four pure Void spells of increasing class: The dot-class Explosion, the line-class Dispel, the triangle-class Transpose, and the square-class World Door."

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Scyelen is shaken out of her self-recrimination by the revelation that she was right about Explosion being an actual Void spell. She reaches over to take the spellbook carefully, awed.

She flips it open to peak inside, and gasps when she recognizes Henrietta's handwriting. "Did you... make this for me?"

(Henrietta nods happily.)

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"-World Door? Is that what it sounds like?"

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"I'm not sure what it sounds like! That section was particularly difficult to translate, but I think it creates a portal between two different places, somehow."

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"Maybe I should take a look at the original - I'm from a different world, my magic is slightly different, and I can do translation with it. And it'd be nice to be able to go back, at least to visit."

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"That certainly sounds like a useful talent."

She taps her lip thoughtfully.

"Perhaps I could arrange for you and Scyelen to view the original holy relic, if I'm clever about it. I doubt that would help, though, unless you yourself are an expert in Void magic. The difficulty was not in understanding the Founder's Tongue."

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"Not yet, then." He rests his head on his summoner's knee. "I can share that particular spell, when Scyelen's ready."

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Henrietta nods and then smiles at Raafi's gesture. "It's good to see you two are getting along so well."

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"It's not that hard to. Scyelen's a sweetheart."

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Scyelen makes another little incoherent noise.

 

"He's lying," Scyelen finally mumbles, mustering something vaguely resembling a teasing tone. "But he means well."

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"Am not. We had a bit of a rough start, that's all."

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Scyelen peeks up at Henrietta with a tiny smile, and a little roll of her eyes. Henrietta giggles and bumps their heads together, and it's hard for Scyelen to remember that she's supposed to feel guilty about this when her old friend is right there sharing this inconsequential moment with her.

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They're very cute. It's good for Scyelen to have a friend her age, too.

"I think I'll leave you two to catch up; I've got to be up early, after all. Dawn devotions," he explains to Henrietta. "Can't miss them. All right, sweetheart?"

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Scyelen nods. "Okay."

She gives Raafi a little wave as he lets himself out, before returning her attention to Henrietta.

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He heads back to his room and settles in for the night.

(They're going to have to talk about homosexuality being a thing, aren't they. At least that's a relatively easy one.)

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Meanwhile, "Scyelen, could I possibly ask of you an extremely personal favor?"

"A-Anything." Scyelen stammers.

Henrietta smiles. "It's just, I've thought of our reunion often. We were so close, once, and I miss that closeness, Scyelen. So could I possibly trouble you to spend the night here, with you?"

Scyelen turns several interesting shades of red at this question, but when it comes to Henrietta there is only one answer she can give. "Of c-course."

Henrietta makes a happy noise and hugs the other girl tight. "I'm so glad."

And then Henrietta is stripping, saying something about how she doesn't want to get her dress wrinkled. Or her underthings. And reminding Scyelen with a giggle that she always hated pajamas, so she's not surprised Scyelen doesn't have any. And before Scyelen is entirely sure how it happened, the two of them are bare to each other beneath the sheets.

For a while, they simply cuddle, Scyelen quietly terrified that Henrietta will notice... the wetness. At least, until Scyelen notices, feels, a... wetness... not her own. Her mind stutters, shock ascending over fear. Henrietta is... pressing against her, moving, rubbing.

Scyelen starts stammering, incoherent noises of shattering belief, only to be cut off as Henrietta presses a hand over Scyelen's mouth.

"Shhh, it's okay, it's just you and me; you trust me right?"

Slowly, Scyelen nods.

"This'll just be a secret between girls, okay? I've wanted to do this with you for years, now. I wanna be this close to you tonight. Is that okay?"

Scyelen starts nodding, and Henrietta starts to remove her hand... but Scyelen moves on sheer instinct, pressing her face into Henrietta's palm... and by some miracle, Henrietta understands, and tightens her grip with a giggle instead.

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In the morning, when Raafi gets up to do his devotions, Siesta is just outside Scyelen's room, holding in a poorly-contained squee. "So cute so cute so cute!"

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"They are, aren't they."

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Siesta beams at him.

"Good morning, Raafi! Oh, you should've seen it. Well, no, that would be inappropriate- Only maybe not, because familiar?" Siesta sounds uncertain on this point. "Anyway, the princess and Miss Scyelen are saying their goodbyes."

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"Aww. I've got to go to devotions, but I bet they're adorable."

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The door to Scyelen's room picks that moment to go thunk thunk.

"We're, um, done now, you can come back in, Siesta," Scyelen's voice calls softly through the wood.

Siesta gives Raafi another smile before slipping away into the room.

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And he goes off to commune with Fharlanghn.

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By the time breakfast is ready to be served, the princess has presumably sneaked back out to rejoin her caravan, and Scyelen turns up freshly scrubbed in her uniform (Siesta seems to have added a ribbon to Scyelen's hair) looking far more relaxed and mellow than Raafi has ever seen her.

She has a kind of distant, abstracted expression on her face, like she's questioning some of her fundamental assumptions about the world.

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Raafi gives her a knowing grin and a hug around the shoulders. "Congratulations."

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"Congratuwha? What are you congratulating me about?"

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"I mean, maybe I'm wrong about what you got up to last night." Squeeze. "But I don't think so."

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Scyelen isn't even sure herself what exactly she got up to last night and she was there, but it definitely wasn't the sort of thing one gets congratulated for!

"You're doing that thing again where you assume I know what you mean when I really don't."

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He leans in close. "You slept with the princess, didn't you."

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"Umm, obviously? She was. Here this morning. So she could hardly have slept anywhere else."

She's blushing, now, and not looking at him.

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"Mmhmm." He chuckles, and gives her one last squeeze, and starts on his breakfast.

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Scyelen blinks at him, sighs, and decides she doesn't want to know.

The itch of not knowing thoroughly ruins her good mood, though, especially since the only guess her brain is willing to generate is obviously wrong. She plops down to eat and nibbles mechanically at her food.

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"-sweetheart." He hugs her again. "We can talk after breakfast, okay? This isn't really the place."

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Scyelen ignores him, trying re-capture some of her good mood. Henrietta still wants to be, still is, her friend, and is at least twenty percent as perverse as Scyelen herself. Maybe thirty percent. To share pleasure with Scyelen that... earnestly... without hesitation...

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Unfortunately for Raafi's conversation plans, immediately after breakfast, the headmaster calls everyone out onto the lawn to receive the royal convoy. The procession enters the grounds. It isn't especially large and grand, and only takes about a minute to get all the way through the outer wall, but the princess does give the assembled student body a very short and equally generic speech.

And then the headmaster dismisses the assembly so they can all get to classes.

The first chance Raafi has to get Scyelen alone isn't until after lunch.

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Inconvenient. What kind of mood is Scyelen in, by then?

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Wistful, but still way more relaxed and not-twitchy than usual.

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Good.

"C'mere, sweetheart."

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Hug? Inquisitive noise?

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Definitely hug. "I wanted to talk to you about this morning."

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Scyelen repeats her inquisitive noise.

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"When I said you slept with the princess I didn't just mean that she spent the night in your room."

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Shy finger-poke. "What, um, did you mean, then?"

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Squeeze. "You had sex with her, I'm pretty sure? You've been mellow all day, that's usually a pretty good sign. It's just not something I'd usually talk about like this, it's not my business."

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Scyelen starts to protest that it obviously wasn't sex, because they're both girls, but even before she opens her mouth she knows she's being pedantic, and that Raafi is probably just trying to be nice. She stops and just blushes really hard instead.

"You didn't want my... private things... to be your business," Scyelen mumbles, mortified. "And saying it like that doesn't actually help," she can't help herself from pointing out.

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"I'm not sure what you mean - saying it how?"

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"Calling it sex so it sounds less embarrassing."

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"Ah. Where I grew up we don't think of it as different when it's two women or two men, sweetheart, or at least not like that. I'm calling it sex because I think it is."

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"That.... that's... that's weirder than the cake thing. How does anyone ever know what anyone else is talking about if... if 'sex' can mean anything?"

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"It doesn't, it just means more things than you're used to. The things two women or two men do together aren't usually that different from the things a man and a woman do together. We don't think of it as strange, either - one of my nephews is married to a man and nobody in his town thinks that's strange at all."

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"What about the things a person does alone, those too?" Scyelen asks, because it's not like this can get more embarrassing. "And ...isn't the entire point of marriage to ensure patrilineality?"

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"Things people do alone aren't usually counted as sex, but different places have different ideas about it sometimes. And - people who get married usually only sleep with the person they're married to, even when it's two men or two women, at least where I'm from, and when they don't it's still polite to assume they are, same as any other marriage. That's part of why it's not thought of as strange, they aren't usually doing anything else unusual."

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"Still seems weird and pointless," Scyelen mumbles.

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Little squeeze. "Well, some people aren't interested in getting married to someone of the other gender. Or wouldn't mind it, but they fall in love with someone the same one. What do you think they should do?"

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"Nothing? Getting married is... for having children. If you can't have children why would getting married even... enter into it? It sounds like in your world if two girls or two boys want to openly admit they're doing lewd things together and call that a relationship, that's the same as if a boy and a girl do the same thing? No one will argue it isn't or say they're obscene for speaking brazenly of such private matters? So... it seems like... falling in love... and, interest in getting married, should have much less correlation, in your world. Not more."

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"You have it backwards, actually. Getting married is usually for love, where I'm from - different places do it differently, but that's common. And gay couples - two men or two women - raise children pretty often; they'll either adopt, or get someone to help just with that, or get magical help with it, and the children count as theirs legally just the same as if they were conceived normally."

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"That... sounds pretty horrible, actually. I... think... no, I'm... I'm sure you have it backwards, this time," Scyelen shyly insists. "The... the fewer reasons you have to get married, the better, and it sounds like, like instead your society is just... making up as many additional reasons as it possibly can, on purpose. That's just... bad."

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"What sounds bad about it?"

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"...I don't know how to explain that any better than I just did. Marriage being for more things instead of less things, is bad."

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"Hm. Bad like it sounds icky, or bad like you think it'd make something bad happen, or bad like it's happening instead of something better, or something else?"

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"Um. All of those?"

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"Okay. What do you think it makes happen that's bad?"

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Scyelen makes an inarticulate noise. It's just self-evident, what kind of answer does he even want...

 

"Having to worry about it even if you never want children? No, that's not, not..."

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Pet pet pet. "People don't usually have to get married, in my world. They're supposed to before they have children, it's good for children to have parents who've settled down some, but if someone doesn't want to do any of that they can just do something else instead. That's what I did."

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"You're still... getting the institution of marriage all over all that other stuff where it isn't necessary, even if it isn't... mandatory?" She's slightly unsure of her word choice. "I think our way actually is better. 'rietta and I. We never could've... shared in our base desires like we did, if those desires were ever the sort of thing... marriage might be for."

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"Ah, I think I see what you're getting at. This way there's some kind of - thing I'd call sex - that you can have, that doesn't matter to getting married, and that's important to you. We have that too, a little bit, we just don't do it with gender."

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Scyelen lets herself deflate against him with a little sigh, now that she's gotten her point across, even if he went and rephrased it in an awkward way. "Yeah."

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"I think gay people end up happier, our way. It makes people pretty miserable to get married to someone they aren't ever going to want to sleep with, usually, especially if they feel like they have to anyway. And I don't think your exception works as well as you think, either, most people aren't interested in people of the same gender."

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Scyelen sighs. That didn't last long.

"No, um, it's your way that insists more people get married. Which is bad, for the reasons you just said. Our way means people only have to marry to have children; two people who fall in love can just be together without... anything else intruding on that."

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"Why do you think that's bad?"

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"You just said why it's bad. It makes people miserable."

Or, wait, is... Scyelen may be losing the thread of her argument, but she isn't sure. Arguing with Raafi is exhausting.

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"Mm." Squeeze. "Sweetheart, I think what's going on here is that you shouldn't get married, and you know it's going to make you miserable, and you're assuming it's just like that, for everyone. Most people want to get married, when they're in love."

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"Um, well, you're correct that I'd probably be really terrible at raising a child, that much is true, but. That's... a separate issue."

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"It's not what I meant, yeah. I'm not sure what marriage means to you, though, so I can't really guess what parts would be bad for you, I just know what it looks like when someone has that sort of problem."

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"It... doesn't mean anything? It's... a set of rules; a set of legal obligations. The part that would be bad for me is the part where I'd be really bad at raising a child. Um, maybe also the part, where because I'm betrothed I'm not allowed to... with a boy..."

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"So it means that there's things you can't do, because of the rules, that you want to. I think that's pretty important. And it's not surprising that it's making you miserable. But not everyone does marriage like that - the rules aren't part of the world, like the sun or the sky, they're something that people made up, and people in different places make up different ones."

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Scyelen shudders in existential dread.

"Maybe I shouldn't go to your world after all."

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"Oh?"

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"I... don't think I can handle... a whole new set of weird scary rules. I think I'd break under the strain."

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He shifts to hold her more protectively. "People wouldn't expect you to, mostly. Not with me right there, anyway, everyone knows clerics of Fharlanghn guide foreigners sometimes, and not with Kat, either, she's good at that sort of thing."

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Scyelen curls in on herself apologetically, but, "I don't think I can trust you to be right about that."

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"Well, you don't have to come. I bet Kat'll come here to meet you, if you want, but we don't have to do that, either."

 

"Kat doesn't like any rules, just about, that's why I'm sure she's safe. She might complain about the rules here but she won't try to make you follow any extra ones, unless you ask her for the kind of help where that's the best sollution."

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"Okay," Scyelen says, noncommittal.

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Hug. "I can say more about all of that, sometime, if you want me to. Lots of places are very different from this one, not just in what rules they have but in how they think about rules at all."

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Scyelen shakes her head. She doesn't know how to make him understand.

The gnawing pain of the unbridgeable distance between them twists in her gut. For all the good her words do, she may as well just grunt. She may as well just cry on him since making her want to cry seems to be what he's best at.

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He'll just hold her, then.

(She needs to be out of here so badly, out to see just how big the world is and how many choices she has if only she chooses to take them, how many ways to live and thrive, and he has no good way to make it happen at all, not if she thinks she can't, not stuck in a world he's barely explored at all to even know where they could try to go.)

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Eventually, dinnertime rolls around.

Scyelen is mostly back to her usual self.

Between courses, Kirche saunters over, not merely to flirt with Raafi but also to actually ask/tease him about his plans for the upcoming Exhibition in a flirty manner, and to brag about the fire tricks she's been teaching Flame.

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The flirting gets the same 'not interested, Kirche' that it's been getting for the last two weeks, if maybe in a slightly less dismissive tone. 'We'll see,' he says of his plans for the exhibition; he doesn't seem to mind letting her talk about her familiar.

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After the last course, Miss Vaux shows up, shoos Kirche away, and says, "Miss Vallière, Princess Henrietta will be touring the academy and has requested that you accompany her."

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Scyelen's head jerks up. She hastily puts her fork down and stands, nearly tripping over her chair in the process.

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Raafi'll stand too, then, more gracefully. He gives her a moment to say something, not really expecting her to, and when it doesn't happen - "We'll be there."

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She raises an eyebrow, then smiles at little at Scyelen's awkward enthusiasm for the princess.

"Alright. This way. The headmaster has decided to begin with the Hall of Alumni."

Miss Vaux leads them across the ground floor of the main tower to a gallery of small statues, where the princess and her entourage are listening to Old Osmond blather on about the schools' prestigious history in a rehearsed manner.

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Raafi shadows Scyelen again, a pace behind and a pace to the left. He gives the princess a little grin when they meet up with her.

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The princess winks at them.

They are led around the school, from the ground floor, to the classrooms, work rooms, library, and the instructors' private workshops. As per the excuse for having her there, Scyelen is prompted for tidbits about how various things are relevant to student life, and she does her best to stammer out something informative for the princess.

Prominent on the tour is the Vault.

The Vault takes up an entire floor of the tower, between the second terrace and the third. The door is a massive thing of oak and steel, set into a solid wall of stone. Osmond brags about the two-of-a-kind (the other belonging to the Church of the Founder) Structural Enforcement Field, a state-of-the-art persistent enchantment that makes the walls of the Vault unbreakable. While priceless relics of religious significance are kept in the church's sister-Vault, this Vault contains relics of academic and military importance.

The tour ends back at the dining hall, where a special meal has been prepared for the royal delegation now that the students have cleared out.

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A military vault is an odd sort of thing to have at a school, but okay. He stays with Scyelen through the tour, and stays quiet.

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The princess manages to fast-talk an excuse for Scyelen to eat with her, even if their cuteness has to be nigh-completely curbed by propriety under the circumstances. Siesta appears as though conjured to pull out Scyelen's chair and to deliver Scyelen's meal. Scyelen, though rigid and clinging to formality in the face of their audience, seems touched by Henrietta's gesture.

Osmond and Miss Vaux depart, leaving Raafi to his own devices.

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He'll stay with Scyelen and make small talk with the princess's entourage.

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The entourage doesn't seem to know quite what to make of him! But they allow this.

One of them is keen to share this rumor they heard: apparently the legendary thief, Fouquet the Weeping River, raided the estates of the Grandple family and got away clean with exactly half of their entire treasury!

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"Doesn't know what to make of him" may be the best reaction he can ask for, honestly, it's pretty weird how everyone else just assumes a person can fall neatly into a role meant for animals.

He listens politely and makes the expected comments about hoping they find the thief.

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Apparently this Fouquet is infamous for only targeting nobles. Some think she is in it for the challenge, others think its a foreign plot. Someone wonders why she's called the 'weeping river', and the rumor-sharer says that the stories claim this thief can control the weather and that she leads an army of mist spirits. One of the royal guards chimes in that he heard a rumor that when Fouquet attacks, it's with an army of sirens. This starts a friendly argument.

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Mist spirits? Sirens? He listens carefully; this is interesting, if not for the reason they're expecting.

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Unfortunately, neither of them seem to actually know much of anything about mist spirits or sirens, or have anything like coherent reasoning backing their insistence that Fouquet uses one or the other.

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Oh well. The food's delicious, at least.

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That it is!

Dinner concludes with everyone satisfied.

Later, Siesta drops by Raafi's room after seeing Scyelen to bed.

And in the morning, it's pretty obvious from Scyelen's quiet smile that Henrietta sneaked into Scyelen's room again.

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Good for them. Maybe he can finagle a trip to the palace sometime, so he can offer to teleport them back and forth sometimes. He doesn't comment, though, just gives her a smile and a hug.

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Hug.

 

"So, um. The exhibition. Have you decided what you want to do?"

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"I'd like to try to get by on telling stories from my world, I think I have enough that won't upset anyone, and if they want a magic show anyway I have plenty. And I did prepare a big version of that summoning spell I talked about, but I won't use it unless there's an emergency."

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Scyelen shivers. "That one. Definitely too impressive..."

"Stories are good."

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"Yeah." Hug. "None of my eighth-tier spells are any good for showing off, really. Stories will be fine. Do you think it matters whether I wear my gloves?"

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"Um, I think everyone important already knows? You don't have to, probably."

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"Will it look strange if I do?"

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Scyelen shakes her head. "Shouldn't matter."

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"All right. I'll see how I feel about it when I get there, then. Anything else?"

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Not that Scyelen can think of.

After breakfast, the entire second-year class brings their familiars out into the east courtyard. The instructors have set up a large stage and rows of seating for attendees from the other classes. The princess gets a shaded pavilion of her own, where she and a few members of her entourage sit on fancier chairs to watch the spectacle.

They must be going in reverse alphabetical order or something, because Kirche is up first. Her salamander, Flame, prances around while breathing fire in complicated helical shapes, and finishes off by jumping through his own fiery hoop. That proves to be a hard act to follow for the perfectly ordinary corgi and the sleepy parrot who go next.

The giant floating eyeball makes more of a splash with the crowd, even though it doesn't actually do much.

Before long, it's Raafi's turn.

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Well, he's no bard, but he can get by. He goes up, introduces himself, explains that he is in fact Scyelen's familiar - takes the relevant glove off for a moment to show the tattoo - and that he's from another world, where he was a sort of traveling adventurer, one of a few occupations that are common for people with magic there; he segues neatly from that into a story about a time he was asked to find someone to heal a prince's pet chimera of a mysterious ailment, and the quest he went on to find someone with the right sort of skills and convince her to leave the unicorn herd she lived with and go help.

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Raafi gets a few hecklers, but his audience mostly finds his tale of adventure quite captivating and applauds when he's done.

He's followed by a couple more mundane pet animals, a suspiciously clever frog, and... oh look it's Guiche. His entire performance seems to involve posing on a bed of rose petals with his badgermole.

And then Sylphid hops up on stage and completely steals the show. Because, y'know, dragon. Tabitha takes her on a short flight of very impressive acrobatics.

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Sylphid's always good. (He goes flying with her every few days; she seems to enjoy the company.)

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A shadow passes in front of the sun. A cloud? No. It's still getting darker, and darker. Fog begins to obscure the sky, even as an unnatural mist begins to rise from the grass under their feet. It's as dark as twilight, the academy wrapped in a writhing gray void. Sound becomes weirdly muffled.

The confused muttering and murmuring of the crowd is just beginning to shift into concern, when the singing starts.

"Is this part of the show?" someone asks nervously.

The singing is eerie, alien, more like resonating glass than an actual voice, and yet it almost, almost has recognizable words. (The royal guard from the argument the previous night is deathly pale, shaking his head in fearful denial.)

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Bad? Probably bad. "Stay with me, sweetheart," he tells Scyelen. "If we need to get out I'll take you, don't run." (Does the rest of the princess's guard look like they're going to be any use, if something happens.)

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One of them is shouting something about formations in a tense voice, the rest gathering in a defensive perimeter around the princess's pavilion, sword-wands pointed outwards into the fog.

The fog is still getting thicker, visibility diminishing.

But there's something out there. Figures in the mist, movement in the corner of the eye. The singing gets louder.

The crowd is starting to get panicky, but there's a strange note to it. There's a heat in the air, the fog failing to be chilly. Clothing begins to stick uncomfortably to skin. A surge of unnatural carnal need descends on everyone like a heavy weight. Someone on the edge of the crowd screams in fright that something just touched him.

And then a burst of wind comes from Tabitha's raised staff, ripping a hole in the fog, a bubble of clear air.

Revealing a dark cloaked figure standing right behind the princess.

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Oh he doesn't like any of that.

He grabs Scyelen's hand, and the cloaked figure has about four seconds before he's also right behind the princess, summoner in tow if she accepts the teleport.

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Four seconds? Four seconds is an eternity.

Under the hood of the cloak, under the cloak itself, is a feminine body wrapped tightly in seafoam-green gauze, almost mummified. Beyond her figure, no distinguishing traits are visible, and the heavy cloak conceals a lot of even that.

It takes one second for the startled stares of the wider crowd to clue in the royal guards that something is wrong. It takes another second for someone to scream, "It's Fouquet!!!" and for Henrietta to spin around and recoil in shock.

By the end of the third tick of the second-hand, streamers of water have already slithered out of her cloak and struck each of the royal guards with enough force to crumple their armor and send them tumbling away.

For the final second, Fouquet merely waits, watching while Raafi completes his spell.

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He's unarmed; there's a knife in his belt but he has no time to take it out, and his staff is back in his room, left behind because he worried that it would give the wrong impression. (Not that that particular one would be much good, here; it's got a defensive spell, but it's not weighted for fighting with.)

He tackles her, instead.

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His fingertips brush her cloak, no more. It doesn't even look like she put effort into dodging that.

And then something hard and heavier than a person crashes into his side, yanking him off course and flipping him end over end as it tumbles with him off the side of the royal pavilion. One of the mist figures, half seen... but this is no mist spirit. This is no siren. This is an animated glass statue, a golem, in the form of a nude woman without a face. It wraps itself around him and tries to pin him down. The golem's whole body is vibrating, producing the sound that, up close, is much more difficult to mistake for singing.

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Scyelen yelps, but is surprisingly on the ball. She grabs Henrietta and starts dragging her toward the center of the crowd where the instructors, along side Tabitha and Kirche, are forming a defensive ring in the shrinking bubble of clear air.

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Ow.

He doesn't waste time struggling, though an attempted kick as he casts isn't wasted time especially; he teleports free, back to where he started, orients, and starts casting something else.

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This puts him back inside the defensive perimeter.

Fouquet is nowhere to be seen.

Most of the student body is collapsed, clutching at their groins. The blonde girl who slapped Guiche just a couple weeks ago is on top of him under a chair over there, frantically pulling at his clothes.

Colbert is still standing, sending waves of flame out to burn off the mist that Tabitha is struggling to hold back. The small blue-haired girl has fallen to her knees, flushed and panting, but her staff is still steady in her hands. Kirche, in contrast, stands strong, backing up Colbert's waves with lances of heat.

The glass golems are dragging collapsed students out into the fog. Kirche is shooting them down, reducing them to molten slag, but there seems to be no end to them.

Scyelen is supporting the princess, seemingly unaffected by the miasma as she tries (very reluctantly) to fend off a moaning Henrietta's wandering hands.

There is a deep, thunderous crashing sound coming from the tower, like the ocean on a rocky shore during a storm. It starts to rain.

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He's not unaffected by the miasma, precisely, but he has plenty of practice at ignoring this particular distraction. His spell completes, and the air shudders as three vaguely humanoid shapes coalesce out of the air, each sixteen feet tall. He speaks to them, brief words in a bizarre language of moans and whistles, and they turn into even taller whirlwinds that spiral out around the area, dispersing the fog and sucking glass golems up two and three at a time.

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The appearance of the air elementals stuns everyone who's still aware of their surroundings, a moment of paralyzed terror that costs them dearly. The naked glass statues take brutal advantage of their distraction, and the remaining defenders, including Colbert and a half-dozen royal guards, fall under their combined weight. Kirche and Tabitha are saved by Sylphid, who smashes through the advancing golems, snatches them in a claw each, and then lunges into the air, flapping hard for altitude.

Raafi, Scyelen, and Princess Henrietta are the only ones still standing, given a momentary respite by the unlikely coincidence of Fouquet seeming to be exactly three golems short of a full sweep.

The crashing waves sound stops.

Something streaks out of the fog and slices into one of the air elementals, detonating with the force of a bomb and the hiss of steam.

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It disperses. Raafi calls to the other two, and they head for the source, and he heads for Scyelen and Henrietta.

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Scyelen is blushing as she holds onto Henrietta's wrists.

And then the ground under their feet buckles. Grass and dirt liquefy, and the two girls plunge downward with a yelp.

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He dives for them.

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He misses. They're swallowed beneath the surface and he ends up plowing into smooth but shallow mud.

Meanwhile, the cloaked, seafoam-wrapped figure of Fouquet is revealed by the air elementals as they blow away more of the fog. She's hovering in the air, just above the elementals, back to the tower, arms spread in a taunt.

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Oh no oh no oh no. He casts again while the elementals close with Fouquet and try to bludgeon her out of the air.

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She flickers aside, leaving a contrail of mist to blow apart under the elemental's strike, which continues on to slam into the stone of the tower... and bounce off as an unnatural ripple passes through the stone, leaving it unaffected.

Fouquet glances back at the wall, and then lures the elementals to beat on it some more. The stone continues to ripple without being affected.

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The air elementals don't seem to notice that they're being manipulated into attacking the tower; they do move around, trying to hit their target, making it not quite trivial to aim them at it, but it's not impossible.

Meanwhile an earth elemental appears, a similarly vaguely humanoid shape made of crumbling stone, and burrows into the ground at Raafi's command to try to dig the girls out.

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The earth elemental encounters no surprises, digging around. It also doesn't encounter any girls.

Fouquet seems to have concluded that the air elementals aren't going to reveal any additional ability to do damage. She kills one by flinging herself straight through it, her body echoed by an after-image of water that freezes the elemental into an ice-cloud, before shattering. Then the ice melts down into a torrent which batters the second elemental down into the ground before exploding into steam with a bone-shaking ka-boom.

Sylphid picks that moment to dive-bomb Fouquet, Tabitha and Kirche on her back, both unleashing a cataclysmic storm of fire and ice straight down on Fouquet's head.

Fouquet doesn't dodge this time. She raises one hand, a thick curtain of water forming above her. Kirche and Tabitha's attacks slam into it with enough force to kill an army, but Fouquet doesn't even budge.

(Below Fouquet, on the ground, revealed by the air elemental's destruction, is a spherical cage of water containing Scyelen and Henrietta.)

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He teleports into the cage, leaving himself vulnerable for a few seconds while he grabs the girls and begins casting again. (The earth elemental continues its search, unreachable underground.)

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It's a very tight fit. Scyelen and Henrietta both gasp in pain as Raafi's weight squishes them against the inside of the water cage. This isn't helped by how, the moment he appears, the cage lurches and soars upward.

Before he can get his second spell off, a hand plunges into the cage and rips Raafi through the water, tossing him back out into the air.

Fouquet hovers beside the cage, not even looking at him. Streamers of water bolt out at Sylphid forcing her to veer away.

Scyelen's wand is in her hand, she shoves it through the water, just barely, but before she can cast, Fouquet grabs her wrist and pulls her out of the cage too. She flings Scyelen away easily, like so much trash. Scyelen gasps and flails, tumbling as she falls.

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He loses the spell.

He hits the ground with an unpleasant crunch. A second later, though, there's a blue glow, and he's fine. Another glow, brighter, marks Scyelen's landing.

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The ground rushes at her, and Raafi's magic saves her, but... for just a moment there.

Her Element split.

And her fall slowed.

Scyelen scrambles to her feet. Henrietta is trapped. Henrietta is alone.

No.

Her Element split.

Fouquet is still looking up, tracking Sylphid. Distracted?

Scyelen closes her eyes, and goes deep. Drawing on her magic like she never has before.

And between one second and the next, Scyelen becomes a line-class mage.

She raises her wand, and starts to chant. The same two words, over and over. She read the spell in Henrietta's gift. She knows the theory. All she has to do is feel out how to combine her two Elements in the required way.

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(Raafi is quickly running out of options. Scyelen is trying something, though, maybe whatever it is will be more effective than what he's managed so far. He pulls himself to his feet and heads over, getting out the entirely inadequate-seeming knife as he does.)

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The moment Raafi's hand closes around the hilt, the runes on his hand light up, and power rushes into his body, suffusing every muscle, sharpening every reflex, making him superhumanly fast and strong. The knife in his hand is a part of him like his own flesh, and he can do anything with it (that can theoretically be done with a knife, anyway).

As for what he should do...

"Catch her!" Scyelen yells. "Néant! Annuler! DISPEL!"

Stillness.

Silence.

Emptyness.

A wave of power blasts out from Scyelen's wand. It washes over Fouquet, shredding her water-echo, her attack streamers. It obliterates the fog, the mist. It erases the water cage holding Henrietta.

And then it hits the side of the tower behind the princess, ripping into the stone in a violent shower of magical sparks.

Henrietta falls.

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Fouquet turns away. She pokes the wall of the tower, and it instantly dissolves into sand, pouring out a massive hole. She floats inside, among a series of display cases. On the far wall is the backside of that massive oak and steel door Raafi saw during the princess's tour.

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He's not looking at the tower; he's got a princess to catch. He runs.

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The power of the gandalfr is mighty. It's easy, very easy, to reach her in time, and to catch her gently. Henrietta lands softly in his arms and clings to him.

Fouquet, meanwhile, picks up a specific case, lacquered blue, metal frame, with the academy's coat of arms on the front in gold. She tucks it under her arm, floats back out of the hole she made, and sketches an ironic bow down at Scyelen. Then she flies away, easily out-racing Sylphid.

 

The fog melts away, the sun returns, and the glass golems all fall apart into sand. The students that were 'dragged off' are revealed to be simply asleep, laying on the grass a ways away.

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"You're all right, I've got you, I've got you," he comforts, already scanning the field - in time to see Fouquet take the case and go.

There's really nothing he can do about that, is there.

He brings the princess to Scyelen, setting her gently on her feet and looking around for her guards and for Colbert.

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The royal guards are either groaning from being buried under former naked glass statues, or trying to check on the incapacitated students without causing undue awkwardness, but a few are rushing over to check on her.

Scyelen watches Fouquet go, breathless with absolute dread at what she accidentally did, but, she also saved Henrietta. She goes 'oof' as Henrietta releases Raafi and glomps Scyelen instead.

Sylphid comes in for a landing, depositing Kirche and Tabitha.

Composing herself, Henrietta assures her guards that she's unharmed, and orders them to coordinate with the academy staff. One peels off to inform the rest while the remaining three fall in around her.

Scyelen shakes with the fading adrenaline, caught between the three different really important things that just happened.

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Raafi steps over to put an arm around her shoulder, subtly encouraging her to lean on him. "Good job, sweetheart."

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"W-Was it though?" Scyelen says, slightly hysterical.

The image of the Vault wall shedding its magical protection plays through her head again and again.

She saved Henrietta. She even attained her second Element! She cast a line-class spell perfectly and it did exactly what it was supposed to!

But, "this, Fouquet... she wanted? Ayhrkgl."

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Squeeze. "The princess was more important. I don't think you did anything wrong."

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Oh founder what if they blame the princess she hadn't even thought of that.

Wait, no, that's obviously ridiculous.

"R-Right. Yes. Okay."

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"I am of course relieved that you're both well," Kirche says to Raafi and Scyelen. "But WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!"

(Tabitha is staring at Scyelen intently. "Void," she interjects.)

"Wha? Void? No way!" Kirche says excitedly.

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"Yeah. Not really the time, Kirche."

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"Hm." Smirk. "Yes, it certainly appears that we have more urgent matters to address."

She skips over and presses her body up against Raafi.

"Tabitha and I found clean air to breath up above the fog, but you all must've been drowning in it this whole time. Oh Raafi, you must let me help."

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He pales a little and takes a step back. "No."

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Kirche pouts as cutely as she can, letting him move but keeping her hands on him.

"Ra~aafi. Please don't be shy. Come, let my flesh be the relief that quenches your mighty heat! My hot, wet, silken embrace is all ready and waiting for yo~ou."

(Clearly, she is taking Miss Vaux's lessons to heart. She didn't allude to love even once!)

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This seems to somehow be unconvincing. He ignores her entirely and turns to Scyelen. "Sweetheart, let's go see what Professor Colbert is doing."

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Scyelen looks torn between Raafi and Henrietta for a moment... before something occurs to her.

With a little smile of realization that she's capable of things now... Scyelen points her wand at Kirche. "Vortex."

A light little whirlwind springs up around Kirche, making her stumble as it sucks her into its middle with just enough force to break her grip on Raafi.

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Kirche sputters, wobbling as whirlwind knocks her off balance.

"Aw, Tabitha why must you spoil my fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh?"

She sees Tabitha's raised eyebrow, and Scyelen with her wand raised, maintaining the spell. Her jaw drops and for the moment she forgets about Raafi entirely.

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Oh, gosh. What's she going to do with that.

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Not much, since the spell gets interrupted by Henrietta glomping on to Scyelen again with a cry of delight. "Scyelen! You did it! You discovered your second element! Oh, I'm so happy for you!"

Oh no, grabbing onto Scyelen was maybe not the best idea at the moment; the other girl's body feels utterly alluring, held in Henrietta's arms... The urge to do things to her cute friend is overwhelming, but she somehow resists.

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"Come on, you two. Let's go let everyone know you're okay."

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Interested parties have mostly already noticed that, but it works as an excuse to get Kirche to stop coming on to him. Scyelen is busy having too many other Feelings to be embarrassed that the horny princess remains attached to her as they return to Henrietta's pavilion.

Colbert is nowhere to be seen oh wait no there he is over there looking disheveled but composed next to Miss Vaux. They confer for a few moments, before:

"Attention!" Colbert calls. "The results of the familiar exhibition will be postponed until tomorrow! Afternoon classes are canceled, and you are all free for the rest of the day while the staff investigates this incident! Be aware that the infirmary will be open and staffed by a double-shift continuously for the next twenty-four hours! Thank you. Dismissed."

A few awkwardly blushing couples make a beeline for the tower as soon as Colbert finishes speaking.

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And nobody seems too inclined to come demand an accounting from Scyelen, good. "Do you want to go back to your room, sweetheart?"

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Scyelen shakes her head. "I... don't think I should?"

Henrietta very much wants to go back to Scyelen's room with her, but can't right now. "You're a key witness," is how Henrietta decides to frame Scyelen's involvement in the larger incident. "All of us who are, ought reconstruct the sequence of events to the best of our ability, and we ought do so promptly. I will need to report whatever conclusion we reach back to the palace as soon as Our scouts decide it is safe to travel."

She addresses Kirche and Tabitha also, "You as well. And the professor who was on the field."

Henrietta points to one of her guards. "You, please inform the Headmaster that we will be meeting in his office to compile our observations."

As the guard hurries off to do that, Miss Vaux intercepts him and goes with him. Henrietta leads their group over to collect Colbert and leads the lot of them into the tower and up to the headmaster's office. The headmaster himself is the last to arrive, standing awkwardly by when he realizes Henrietta has claimed his usual seat behind the big desk.

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Miss Vaux sits at the secretary desk with plenty of blank paper and a fresh pen.

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"I've just come from examining the Vault," Osmond says. "Our famed Structural Enforcement Field is entirely destroyed. There is no trace of it left upon the stone."

(Scyelen shrinks into herself.)

"What did that thief take?" Colbert wants to know.

"The only artifact missing from the Vault is one that we have dubbed the Flagon of Hydromancy," Osmond reveals.

"What does this Flagon do?" Henrietta inquires.

"That has always been inconclusive, unfortunately. But I once witnessed it used. It appeared to allow a common man to cast what had to be at least a line-class water spell."

"Power, then?" Colbert speculates. "This Fouquet wishes to become even more powerful? But she must already be square-class, at least."

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"That question seems best answered by whoever's already investigating her, they'll know more than we do. Do we know how she got so close to the princess without anyone seeing her?"

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"We may never know, but I can only assume that she came from below or from above. In any case, let us begin at the beginning and recount our observations in order."

Henrietta takes a breath.

"Upon becoming aware of her presence, already in our midst, Fouquet immediately incapacitated all of my bodyguards with simple, dot-class water magic. She was precise. None of those struck have lasting injuries despite being taken out of the fight. Fouquet had ample opportunity between dealing with my guards and Raafi's arrival to do as she liked to me. She allowed Raafi and Scyelen to get me away from her, at the beginning."

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Raafi nods. "She was watching me finish casting, at the end. I don't think she can have known what I was casting; she was sure enough that she'd be able to handle whatever I was going to throw at her that she waited to see. And I'm not sure she was wrong about that."

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"Those naked glass golems were spooky, singing like that. That was when they started grabbing everyone and dragging them off? What was the point of that, though?"

"Psychological tactics," Tabitha opines.

"What, you think that whole battle was just a distraction?" Kirche asks. She taps her lip, thoughtful. "Did anyone see what Fouquet was doing while we were busy fighting her spooky erotic statuary?"

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"I didn't see it, but it sounded like she was attacking the tower."

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Tabitha glances at him.

"High impact. Caused the rain. Testing defenses?"

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"I think so. It sounded like she was trying to get my elementals to batter it open, too."

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The room is dead silent for an awkwardly long time, everyone staring at Raafi.

 

"Right. I was. Um. My attention was elsewhere." Blush. "At the time, but. Yes. The next thing to happen was the sudden appearance of three wind elementals."

"Distracted everyone," Tabitha adds. "Let the lewd golems break our line."

"Those were yours?" Colbert asks Raafi intently, baffled, and ever-so-slightly accusatory.

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"Mhm. I wasn't expecting them to be that alarming."

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"I don't know if I should be impressed or just terrified!" Kirche says, sounding far more the former than the latter, and also turned on. Then she sobers somewhat. "...which really puts things in perspective, how easily Fouquet slaughtered them. F- Dear me."

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"They aren't dangerous; they'll follow directions. But yes, that was -" he shakes his head. "We were badly outclassed."

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"Aren't dang---" Colbert sputters. "They're elementals. They're the most dangerous beings in this world, capricious and unpredictable, indifferent to human life and powerful enough to destroy cities on a whim! We're lucky to be alive!"

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"I wouldn't've summoned them if they wouldn't have been under control. I don't know if your magic allows for that but mine does."

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"..it, its true," Scyelen speaks up. "Raafi has told me about a lot of his abilities, and, um, this was one of them. It's... reliable?"

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Colbert gives Scyelen a kindly look. "I'm afraid you've been misinformed Miss Vallière. Elementals are simply too dangerous to be 'used' in any manner, reliably. Attempts to bargain with them require significant expertise and no small amount of luck, and have only ever succeeded on their terms. Every mage who has ever attempted to bind an elemental to serve them has only achieved a disastrous tragedy of one sort or another. Your familiar is extremely lucky to be alive."

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Raafi just rolls his eyes.

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"It is increasingly obvious that Fouquet was playing with us, yes," Henrietta says, getting them back on topic. "After destroying one of the elementals, Fouquet dropped Scyelen and I into a concealed water cage which she had formed underground, and I obviously didn't see anything that happened between that and Raafi's rescue attempt."

Henrietta shoots Scyelen a look. "I'm very impressed with how well you kept your wits about you, by the way. Thank you for being there for me, Scyelen."

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As Scyelen blushes and smiles, squirming under the princess's gaze, Kirche interjects with a slightly tangential question of her own.

"Yeah, about that. How did such a shy and chaste girl as you endure whatever that potion in the fog was?"

Scyelen gapes at her. (Shy? Okay. Chaste?! Is that really how Kirche sees her? It should even be a compliment: affirmation that she's hidden her deviancy well. So why does she want to scream that Kirche couldn't be more wrong about her?)

"I, of course, am well learned in the art of channeling my carnal passions to productive ends!" If this were an anime, all the adults in the room would have a sweat-drop on their heads. "But out of everyone, you were the only other person there who kept control of yourself to the same degree. Were you mysteriously immune for some reason?"

"Um, no?" Scyelen replies in a tiny, confused voice. "I wasn't immune."

"Then I am definitely impressed and confused! Even Tabitha said she felt like her brains would try to melt out of her loins if her womanly charms didn't get some immediate attention. You've met Tabitha!"

(Tabitha herself conspicuously doesn't react to this, which sort of proves Kirche's point.)

"But I always feel that w-" Scyelen locks up as she realizes what just came out of her mouth. She dives behind Raafi and buries her face in Raafi's back, trying to vanish.

Kirche, of course, is absolutely delighted by Scyelen's slip.

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"Kirche, that was cruel." He half-turns to put an arm around Scyelen's shoulders.

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Kirche flails her hands in a negating gesture. "No no! I'm not. I meant it. I'm impressed."

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"I think we should keep this discussion on point," Henrietta cuts in, blushing herself. "Please leave delicate matters to a more appropriate venue."

"Anyway. Who saw what happened next? What was Fouquet doing while I was trapped in her underground water cage?"

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"That's when she was baiting the elementals into attacking the tower - I'd told them to go for her after she destroyed the first one, they wouldn't've done anything else, but they aren't very smart and I didn't tell them to avoid it."

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"Began attack run with Sylphid. Fouquet noticed prior to visual contact. Killed elementals. Shielded instead of dodged."

Glance.

"Princess in line of fire."

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"Mmhmm. You know this part - I saw that she'd moved the cage and tried to teleport in to get you, and she pulled us into the air and threw me and Scyelen out of it."

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"Yes, thank you for the attempt," Henrietta says to Raafi. "Even if that cage certainly wasn't big enough for three."

She frowns. "Fouquet threw Scyelen out as well. Forgive me for speculating, but... Fouquet's target was obviously not any of us. Her ultimate objective was the Flagon. She tried several methods of breaching the Vault, but none were effective. She only succeeded in her objective because Scyelen is a loyal friend to me and as of that very moment, a line-class Void mage."

Henrietta waits for the surprise on that point to die down.

"Her second element is Wind!" Kirche chimes in helpfully.

"Indeed. So. Scyelen's ability must have been accounted for in Fouquet's plans."

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"Mmhmm. Who knew about her?"

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"Scyelen, was that truly the first time you cast a line-class spell?" Henrietta asks.

(Scyelen nods.)

"No one knew, then. Not even Scyelen. As for the people who knew she's a Void mage at all, I believe they're all in this room right now?"

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"Hm."

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"...Raafi's familiar runes worked," Scyelen says, because that is the next thing that happened.

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"Mmhmm. We'll want to talk tactics sometime. Privately, if someone here is passing information to Fouquet."

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Osmond speaks up to say, "Hmph, I sincerely doubt that. What reason would any of us have to collude with a notorious thief?"

(A certain secretary doesn't react to this, but is smirking so hard on the inside.)

Colbert, on the other hand, really wants to know, "What was it like? The legends are grandiose but not at all specific."

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He ignores Colbert. "Do you have any other ideas for how she might have known?"

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Osmond doesn't. And neither does anyone else.

 

Henrietta wraps things up. "So. Scyelen dispelled the water cage, freeing me, but Fouquet used that to defeat the protections on the Vault. Raafi caught me, and then Fouquet fled with her prize."

"We tried to chase her," Kirche adds. "She was so fast, though! That was not an ordinary levitation spell. It wasn't even whatever Raafi does to play with Sylphid."

Henrietta nods. "Does anyone else have anything to add?"

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Raafi doesn't.

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"Very well."

Henrietta gives Osmond his chair back. She goes to give Scyelen a firm hug, collects a written copy of their recounting from Miss Vaux, and then gives Scyelen another firm hug.

"My scouts should be returning by now. I will need to report this to the palace in person, as soon as possible. I thank you deeply for your hospitality," she says to the room at at large, and, "I hope I'll be able to visit again soon," to Scyelen in particular.

The princess departs.

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"Hmph. We shall have to continue to investigate ourselves as well, of course. This is a matter of institutional honor. Miss Vaux, please alert all of the instructors that we shall be holding a council immediately."

He turns to Kirche, Tabitha, Scyelen and Raafi. "Thank you for your time, students, you may run along now."

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Raafi accompanies Scyelen out and back toward their rooms. "I'll see you in - half an hour sound good?"

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Scyelen is a little lost in thoughts about Henrietta. She just nods. "There shouldn't be anything else we have to deal with today... I hope."

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"That was more than enough excitement," he nods, and gives her a hug and disappears into his room, giving her a little more than half an hour before he taps on her door again.

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Scyelen fully intends to spend that half hour doing something besides pacing a groove in her floor with nervous energy, but she ends up spending the entire half-hour indecisively pacing a groove in her floor.

She lets Raafi in with a small, "Hi."

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"Hey. How're you doing?"

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Scyelen doesn't know how to answer that question and just sighs.

"I dunno."

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He goes in and sits on her bed. "Want to talk about it?"

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"I dunno that either," Scyelen says, plopping down next to him and fidgeting. "A... lot. Happened today. Things... that should be good or bad but aren't because of other things that should be bad or good but aren't."

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Hug. "That happens sometimes, yeah."

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Scyelen holds out her hand, forming a little swirl of air over her palm.

"Is it wrong to still be glad about this?"

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Squeeze. "I don't think so. This afternoon wasn't great, but everyone else gets to have magic and not worry about it."

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Small, brief smile.

He seems... relaxed. Her mind automatically conjures up all manner of lewd explanations for that, which she immediately discards with the ease of long practice.

She groans, the muscles in her legs tightening. "It's not fair. I finally have... normal magic. Like I was always supposed to. But it. How can I not hate myself for being happy, after everything? It was... Henrietta was covering for me, you heard her, right?"

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"I'm pretty sure she was just happy for you, sweetheart."

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Scyelen doesn't believe him at all, but it's a nice thought, so she lets herself indulge in it a little.

She leans on him and falls quiet.

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Hug.

"Sweetheart, you're sixteen, and still in school, and you didn't ask for any of this to happen. I've known professional adventurers who wouldn't have done any better in this sort of situation. It's not your fault that you were stuck with no good options."

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"I'd feel better if I'd done it on purpose," Scyelen mumbles.

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"Yeah. It'll probably help to go over what you want to do if something like this happens again - it's not the same but it's close enough, in a lot of ways, and it might come in handy, too."

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"I. I mean, I obviously would've sacrificed the Vault to save Henrietta?"

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"Mmhmm." Squeeze. "But it's good to think about, like - when would you have given up on getting both? What could you have tried instead, what do you want to learn or have for next time?"

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"I don't know how to think about that," Scyelen admits.

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"It does take some practice, yeah. You can start with just what actually happened, as if you'd known everything ahead of time - if you'd known she was going to use the princess like that, would you have done anything different?"

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"...no."

"Fouquet wanted me to break open the Vault. She. I already said I would save Henrietta first. I couldn't have done anything differently because Fouquet would've just forced me to Dispel the Vault anyway."

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He nods. "If I'd known everything that I know now, I would have tried throwing a knife at her before that first teleport. I'm not sure it would have worked, and I don't know if it would have helped even if it did, but it might have. And even if I'm not sure it would have worked, I think it was a better move to try it."

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Scyelen perks up a little, looking up at him.

"That's right. Your runes. You used them, and they worked. Maybe you could've hit her with a knife."

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"Maybe! I wasn't expecting them to do that much but it feels like they're really good."

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Scyelen nods.

"I guess you haven't really needed to fight for me before now. Do you think you could get them to work again, for, like, practice? They're also supposed to let us see through each other's eyes, but that's true of most familiar bonds, actually..."

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"I have no idea, but we should try it. With the knife and with a couple of my walking sticks, too, I have some that are meant for fighting with."

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Scyelen nods in agreement. Fidgets.

"The, um, it's supposed to be 'any weapon', right?"

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"Mmhmm. Why?"

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Scyelen blinks at this sudden swerve in the conversation. "Why what?"

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"Why do you ask, I mean."

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"Ask? I was... You were talking about trying weapons."

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"And you asked if any weapon would work, I wanted to know if you had something in mind." Squeeze. "It's fine, I have a few. I'm already pretty good with a staff, I wonder if that'll make a difference."

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"It's supposed to work with any weapon," she amends. "As far as we know? So, it. You have... It doesn't matter what you use as long as it's a weapon? But we don't know exactly what counts as a weapon..."

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"Well, I can try it with one of my sticks that isn't meant to be a staff, that seems like it'd tell us something. If it works outside of an emergency at all, I mean, we don't know that, either."

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"Do you still have the, um, divination? From... the day we met. Or you could, um, just try."

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"I do, but it won't work unless trying will too, and I'm going to want to see. We don't have to do it in front of everyone; it might even just work here." He reaches into his belt for the knife he had earlier, to check that.

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Scyelen gives him a confused stare. "If you still have it, why can't we just read it again?"

Just holding the knife doesn't seem to do anything.

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"Oh, the - I didn't write it down, I don't think." He gets out a notebook to check, setting the knife down beside him to do so. "No, I didn't. It wasn't very specific, anyway. It did say something about defending your life or pursuing your goals, but it looks like wanting to test it out for you isn't enough, I didn't get anything from holding the knife this time."

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"Oh."

Scyelen looks at the knife thoughtfully.

"You're not... defending my life right now. But the other part, pursuing my goals? Um... Maybe the problem is that I don't really have any goals right now?"

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"Mmhmm. It did seem like you wanted to know, but maybe it wants more than that."

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Scyelen tries to think of something immediate she wants that she can actually have. She fails.

"Um, maybe I can, like..."

She slips out of Raafi's arms and goes to pick a book off her shelf. She turns around and crouches down, then she pushes the book under the bed until she can't reach it anymore.

"So, um, now I can't reach it, can you help me get it back?"

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He picks up the knife with the intention of going and doing that.

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The moment he forms the intention to act on Scyelen's behalf (in a way that doesn't recurse on the runes themselves) strength and prowess floods into him, more than enough to lift Scyelen's massive bed up on one side effortlessly.

And there's something else, too. Something laying dormant, like a closed door in his mind. Scyelen feels the same door appear in her own mind, subtle, but present.

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"That did it. And something else, too, it might be the sense-sharing, do you want me to see if I can figure out how it works?"

(He crouches to check out the book situation, and pauses; does the power stay if he's not actively pursuing her goal but intends to after this distraction?)

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It does! It seems to be the intention that matters: it is Raafi's internal mental state that the runes seem to be triggered by, rather than anything objective.

Scyelen gives him a nod, shyly excited at their success. "Yeah. Um..."

She pokes the mental door herself, but that alone doesn't seem to be enough to 'open' it.

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He pokes at his door, too.

"The other thing we'll want to test is what makes it end - last time it ended when I put the knife away but there might be other things that do it, and that'd be bad to be surprised by."

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"Yeah. Um..."

They proceed to experiment further.

They learn that the threshold for keeping the runes active is much lower than for activating them in the first place. As long as he is touching the weapon at all, he can keep the runes active even while doing nothing at all. The only things that seem to take the runes' power from him before he lets it go on purpose are: ceasing completely to touch a weapon (there is a few seconds' grace period if he throws a weapon at a target), and physically acting on the intent to defy or subvert Scyelen's goals.

When Raafi tries less weapon-ish objects, it becomes more difficult to activate the runes, but not unduly so. Intending to use an object in its capacity as a weapon is enough.

They discover that the trick to the mental door is that it opens for individual senses, not everything at once. They figure out how to look through each other's eyes, but it takes concentration that would make it impractical in many circumstances. Sight seems to be easier than the other senses, even hearing.

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Overall, very cool. He winds up sprawled on her bed, looking at the ceiling - "I'm not coming up with anything else, I think that's all the important stuff."

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Scyelen flops opposite him.

"Me too?"

She fidgets into a more comfortable position.

"...do you think the headmaster was right, back when he said, um, that we're... destined for some big conflict?"

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...y'know what, yeah. Snuggle.

"I guess it wouldn't surprise me."

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Snuggle squirm shiver.

"...yeah."

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"It won't necessarily be soon. - I don't know if you've been worrying about my age, but clerics my tier live to be very old, usually."

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"Oh. That's, good. I haven't really thought about that. But I... I can actually graduate from the academy, now. My mother's a Wind mage, no one will even look twice."

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"Mmhmm. Have you thought about what you want to do after you graduate at all?"

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"I have no idea," Scyelen admits. "I guess I was hoping my betrothed would, um, decide to do something okay with me? I don't know."

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He nods. "Well, I'm still going to want to travel, maybe you can come with me sometimes."

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"That seems... daunting? But. I don't, um, have any better ideas."

She shifts around a little.

"...I might be kind of... spoiled? Not having a soft bed in a private room with running water and, and gourmet food served to me as a matter of course..." Shudder. "I know most people have less comfortable lives, I just... I think most of my, um, peers justify the disparity with arrogance, but. Even they're probably less afraid."

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He nods. "That would be scary to give up, if you've never done anything else. You could start slow, though - my teleportation makes that easy, you don't actually have to spend the night away from home if you don't want to, I can just bring you back and forth. It's more fun not to, to see what it's really like to live in a new place, I think, but you can try that when you're ready for it."

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Scyelen nods, hesitant.

 

"Life would be a lot easier if there was a way to just... skip over your first time doing something. Skip straight to the second time, or something. That doesn't even make sense..."

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Squeeze. "No, I get it. You know how it goes, the second time."

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Scyelen nods, but doesn't have anything more to say.

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Raafi will just hold her for a minute, then.

"That was sweet how you saved me from Kirche, earlier, by the way."

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That gets a tiny little slightly-confused giggle.

"I just... she was the first one to call me, 'Zero', you know? She, um, she stopped, when it started to catch on. I don't think she intended... but I just had to, because I could."

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He huffs out a little laugh of his own. "Good."

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Lunch was canceled on account of Fouquet, but dinnertime arrives before long.

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He unsnuggles a while before that, taking his leave to go talk to Miss Vaux again.

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Miss Vaux does not appear to be anywhere in the tower.

If Raafi asks around, some of the instructors will tell him that they have heard that Miss Vaux was sent into town by the Headmaster to search for rumors about Fouquet's activities.

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Is that so. Well, he wasn't actually under the impression that the headmaster had half a copper's worth of sense.

He'll poke around a little, in case anyone else is up to anything very interesting. And he can spare a Fly to get into the vault, if not, and have a look around, assuming the hole is still there.

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Funnily enough, an unusually high proportion of the school's population is ensconced in some manner of private activity or another.

The hole in the Vault is still there. And the remaining contents are under heavy guard by the academy's security garrison. They recognize Raafi and don't object to him peeking in, but warn him sternly not to touch anything.

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"Just looking," he assures them.

Anything catch his eye, in there?

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There exist within the Vault a number of artifacts of historical or magical value which could possibly be interesting to Raafi for various reasons but which the author assures you are not relevant to this story and so will not be pictured here.

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Neat.

He'll just sort of hang around until dinnertime, then, give Scyelen some space.

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At dinnertime, Scyelen is noticeably more relaxed, though subdued.

Everyone else is gossiping madly about the incident, and it looks like Kirche has at least five new suitors vying for her attention and is far too busy to bother Raafi. Scyelen pauses briefly to take in the spectacle.

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Raafi watches, too. (Maybe they'll manage to distract her permanently, wouldn't that be nice.)

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(Such hopes are not immediately dashed, anyway.)

Dinner has an extra course to make up for missed lunch.

When the next round of practical magic classes roll around, Scyelen shocks her peers by suddenly being able to cast Wind spells. She knows the theory of every spell in the curriculum by heart, and usually gets them right on her first try. It causes a bit of a commotion that makes Scyelen want to hide behind Raafi, but afterward she's smiling.

Miss Vaux returns three days later.

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Seeing Scyelen come into her own magically is pretty great.

He'll see if he can catch Miss Vaux for a private conversation.

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She makes herself catchable, when she spots him on her way in. The headmaster can wait a bit.

"Raafi," she greets. "How're things?"

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"Pretty good here, Scyelen's doing great. You?"

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"I'll let you know when I find out. But, regardless, I have a lead on Fouquet. Osmond will be happy."

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"That's good. Is this a good time to talk? I've had some time to think about our last conversation - there's a spell I'd like to do first, though, if you don't mind; it checks your - sort of general moral attitude, and I'm curious."

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"The lead'll keep. General moral attitude?"

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"Mmhmm." He heads inside. "There's actually two different parts I can check, but the one I'm sure enough about already - law and chaos, we call that one, it's about whether you feel that people should fit themselves to their societies or whether societies should be flexible to their peoples' needs; you're chaotic for the same reason Lastai is, I expect. The other one is good and evil, whether you feel inclined to try to help people or hurt them - I suspect you're good but it's possible to be neutral, too, and that wouldn't surprise me very much."

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"Interesting. I have just enough of an idea how complicated a piece of magic that must be to be very impressed with whoever developed it, even if the granularity of the result is so low. Sure. I'm kinda curious how it'll read me too."

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He nods, and casts Detect Good.

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'Miss Vaux' does, in fact, read to his spell as Good. He's probably also right about her being Chaotic Good.

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He takes the additional few seconds to confirm that she's pretty powerful - not that this is strong evidence of anything, but it's good to know.

"Yep, good. I register as neutral on both, if you're curious; I lean chaotic and good but not strongly enough to count as either."

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"Neat."

She steers them into a different empty classroom than last time, and shuts the door.

"So, what has come of your time to think?"

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"Well, you seemed to think that I was holding onto my taboo out of stubbornness, last time, and I wanted some time to think about it and make sure I wasn't, and I'm surer now. I care about not hurting people, especially people I'm sleeping with, and I'm not actually sure that relationships with age gaps aren't harmful - we might have that taboo for a good reason. If it's fine, I want to be convinced of that, but only if it is fine."

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"I was reserving judgement, actually." Smile. "I did say it is your decision if this taboo is a part of who you are, or not."

"Usually when someone decides a taboo is no longer part of them, its because they've already lost it, and I just help them realize that. You are doing something considerably more difficult, and something I have less experience helping with. But, as one 'chaotic' person to another, I think the best place to start is: why draw any lines at all? Why ask 'will this hurt them because they're in this taboo category'? Why not simply stop at 'will this hurt them'?"

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"Well, because figuring it out for each person takes longer than I usually have, for one thing. And longer than is usually practical even for people who aren't professional travelers; we'd all be paralyzed if we had to stop and figure that out for every single case. And, also, because it's easy to miss that some things hurt people, if you don't have the rule there to tell you to check. This is why I'm not actually chaotic; I do think society's rules are useful, a lot of the time, even if following them blindly is a bad idea."

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"I have a lot to say on why the first of your two premises is a fallacy, but for the sake of argument let's pretend I've already convinced you that to interact as more than passing acquaintances you end up having to figure out each individual anyway and working from a place of categorical bias actually slows you down, rather than saving you time, and move on to your second point, which is more than a mere question of fact."

She goes over and perches on the edge of the instructor's desk.

"You're worried about the possibility of hurting someone in ignorance, which is entirely valid. But are your rules actually about correcting ignorance? Does the presence of such a rule merely remind you to check if a thing will cause harm, or to assume it will cause harm and resist evidence to the contrary? Or, by reciprocal implication, does the absence of such a rule merely deprive you of a reminder to check if a specific thing will cause harm, or does it lead you to assume it will NOT cause harm?"

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"Of course no set of rules is going to catch everything. The cases they do catch - it's safer to assume the rule is right, most of the time, if I don't have a reason to think that the rule itself is bad. I might pass up an opportunity, but I generally have plenty of those - less now, but I'm working on that - and it's worth passing some up if it lets me sleep well at night."

He grins. "I don't think you're going to talk me around to that approach in full generality. I've seen too many things that seemed like a good idea at the time and really weren't."

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She looks at him with mild disappointment.

"It seems safer. Because you're more likely to notice, when not following your rules hurts someone, than you are when following your rules hurts someone. If you care most about 'sleeping well' then moving the harm out of your sight is a fine strategy, and I mean that sincerely, no one can care about everyone; but make no mistake, moving the harm elsewhere is what you're doing."

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"Do you have an example in mind?"

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"I do."

Her expression softens a little.

"I think it would hurt you to hear, though. I think you're observant enough to have noticed, if you let yourself. I wonder if you can guess."

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"-if you mean Scyelen, I... no? For lots of reasons?"

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She gives him a flat, mildly exasperated look.

"I was not implying that you should be fucking her. That isn't even in the category of: things you are already doing that you haven't noticed are hurting her, because you lack rules about them."

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"Okay."

"I know she's frustrated, a lot. I know she's not doing well, though things do seem to be improving. I don't know how much of that is me. Most of the time I'm not sure what I could be doing differently at all. Trying to talk to her doesn't help - she doesn't know either. I am - trying to be very sure I can still come back; I'm not sure you understand how hard that's going to be, it's not in my nature at all. If there's something else I seem to be missing I'd appreciate you telling me."

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"All I know is what I see when you're together. I don't know what you're missing."

She sighs.

"I suspect that you're feeding into one of her kinks, in a very unhealthy way. Has she ever asked you to stop, to go away, to leave her be, or anything like that? Has she ever stood up for herself, with you?"

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"Not well. Not - directly, at all, I don't think."

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She nods, like she expected that, and it's bad news.

"Alright. And how many times have you---how many times has she gotten inexplicably upset when you were alone together?"

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"Regularly enough that I couldn't tell you. Daily, easily."

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"Daily?"

That gives her pause. Enough to slide off the instructor's desk and stand up.

"Alright, that might be more serious than I'd thought. What can you tell me about how you two act around each other in private?"

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"It's very - she's stuck? Trapped outright, even. I can't - it's not just that she can't leave the school or her arranged marriage. She can't even think about it, it terrifies her to. Her magic terrifies her, too, being a void mage. Not the magic itself, but what people will think. And - she wants to talk about them - she's hoping I'll make it better for her, I think - but I don't understand the problem, I keep blundering into whatever it is. I want to get her away from here, but that's - there's good reasons not to, when someone is scared of leaving, it doesn't work if they're not ready."

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She mulls that over for a moment, breaking it down into its component claims. It's kind of telling by itself, that she asked for his observations and he gave her a set of assumed conclusions, including the major one that she has a suspicion is just him projecting. After all, if his assumptions about what Scyelen's behavior meant were correct, they wouldn't be having this conversation.

"When she tries to confide in you, and it backfires, what does that look like? Walk me through it."

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"It's -" he pauses to consider, and then takes out a notebook to refer to.

"All right. She slept with the princess while she was here - they're very cute together - and I noticed and congratulated her, didn't particularly mean anything by it, I just wanted her to know I didn't disapprove. It confused her, which she hates, and we couldn't talk about it right then, but I brought it up later; I'm not sure it's the best idea to do that rather than letting her figure things out on her own, but I think it'll give us a better working relationship in the long run even if it isn't perfect for her. It - took some effort, to get her to understand what I was talking about, and then she was unhappy that I'd called it sex at all, and tried to convince me that it didn't make sense to categorize it that way. We talked about that; I mentioned my nephew who's married to a man and how gay relationships aren't usually different from straight ones - there was something about having children but we didn't really get into it, I pointed out that gay couples can adopt or use surrogates and she dropped it, but I assume that'll eventually come up more squarely later, it seems important to her. We got into - I'd forgotten how, by the time I wrote this down, but we ended up talking about how in my world people usually marry for love? And that bothered her; she said it was bad for people to have more reasons to get married than just to have children. I think I'm missing part of how she's thinking about that, but she did say that - marriage being so narrow means things like her relationship with the princess are allowed, because they're separate enough? Which makes sense as far as it goes, here, but it's still - obviously hard, trying to wedge what someone really wants into the margin that leaves, and I pointed that out, and that other ways work better, letting people get married to who they want to and not demanding they do at all.

"She seemed kind of unsettled at that point - we'd been doing okay up to then, more or less, she was frustrated at being asked to explain what she was thinking but nothing worse than that especially - and repeated that it's bad to have more reasons to get married, that it'd make people miserable to have marriage intrude on a relationship they like. And I stopped there and pointed out that that sounded like the idea of marriage made her miserable, but not everyone feels that way. And we talked about marriage being a set of rules, and the way marriage is here those rules don't work for her, and in different places the rules are different - not in any detail at all, just the idea that it is different in different places - and then suddenly she said she doesn't want to come to my world after all, that she doesn't think she can handle being in a place with different rules." He sighs. "I tried to salvage it, tell her that people would understand that she's foreign and doesn't do things the same way, but it didn't work at all, she just shut me down and cried on me."

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That's a lot to unpack, but...

"Well, first of all, I did warn you that this culture doesn't acknowledge homosexuality. On top of that, I think the thing you tripped over is that this culture also doesn't really do love marriages. If I put myself in Scyelen's shoes, it's easy to imagine seeing marriage as mutually exclusive with having anything that you might call a 'relationship'. To her it's more like... medical quarantine."

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"I'd caught that," he nods.

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"She's not wrong. That is more accurate to the Tristanian concept of marriage than your concept. It's probably even more accurate than the truism that in a lot of cultures marriage is simply ritualized prostitution by another name."

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"Sure. But that doesn't explain why she reacted that way to the idea of things being different elsewhere."

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"Doesn't it? She sees marriage as a burden." Pause. "Let me put it this way: Involving a officiating institution of some sort in blessing one's relationship is a kink Scyelen doesn't have, and I bet, from her perspective, this culture has an 'okay, you do you' policy while you made it sound like yours has a 'we don't care if you don't have this kink we're going to impose it on you anyway' policy."

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He looks through his notes again. "I did say that we don't demand it. Repeatedly, if I remember correctly. I'm an example of that, I pointed that out to her."

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Wry smirk. "There are a lot of things that a society will say aren't demanded of you, which they'll still expect of you. And that's even assuming that what you thought you were saying was what she was actually hearing..." She shakes her head. "I think the kink analogy applies. My leading theory is that you were squicking her out."

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"All right. I'm still not sure how that generalizes but I think I can give it enough space."

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She frowns.

"How that generalizes might be the important part. You say she gets upset like that often. Can you think of any reason you might have been... pressuring her on one of her squicks... any of those other times as well?"

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"I don't have notes on most of them. Let me see -" he flips through the notebook.

"This one also touched on marriage, but differently - when we were on the way to Mott's mansion she brought up that she was jealous, a bit, that she doesn't expect her fiancee to like anything about her and at least Siesta knew Mott liked something, and I tried to reassure her that there was plenty to like about her and it didn't land well."

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"That could be a manifestation of the same disconnect between you two, but even if I'd never met Scyelen I'd have an immediate guess about what happened there. Scyelen still lacks the framework of kink that allows the compartmentalization of her fetishes from her reality, remember? She's slowly getting the idea, but that kind of process takes a lot of time even for someone good at introspection. So, it sounds like she was trying to reconcile the reality of Siesta's situation with the fact that she apparently kinks on being stolen away and kept as a sex toy."

She takes a moment to be careful about her phrasing.

"Scyelen kinks on being desired in the specific way Mott desired Siesta. She is also pessimistic enough to have realistic, non-kinky expectations of her politically-assigned breeding partner. And I know you've noticed that she lives her entire life by the fear-driven principle that she must at all times present a mask of only her most inoffensive traits to the people around her. In that light, it is easy to see why bringing up the possibility that her non-kinky politically-assigned breeding partner might get emotionally attached to her mask would be the opposite of reassuring."

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"What a mess."

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"But is it an informative mess. Can you look at those incidents and extrapolate?"

She will give Raafi a hug. He clearly needs some comforting himself, here.

"It sounds like you may need to, recalibrate some of your instincts," she adds gently. "The thing each of these incidents seem to have in common, including the congratulating her about a sex act that is not considered an accomplishment in this culture, is that: you first make an innocuous mistake or miscommunication, and Scyelen responds to that mistake in a way that... prompts you to 'reassure' her in a way that nigh-invariably has the opposite effect."

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"Mm." He leans into the hug.

 

"I'm going to eventually bring up that I can do abortions - not infertility, unfortunately, I'm the wrong sort of mage for that, but if she doesn't want children she doesn't have to have them. Do you have any advice about that?"

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She lets out a pained laugh.

"Yes. My advice is: don't. I don't even have to try to imagine how that would go. This would be a perfect example of you attempting to reassure and it backfiring horribly. Fuck, I'm glad you asked me first. If this is the level of missing the point that she has been dealing with, I'm impressed you haven't had more problems."

She lets go of him and steps back.

"Sorry. Relevant facts: We have had reliable contraceptives for nearly six-thousand years. There are four kinds in popular use. There is a spell any line-class Water mage can cast on a man; takes effect immediately and lasts between thirty and forty hours. There is another spell any line-class Water mage can cast on a woman, which takes effect after the next time she bleeds, and lasts until the time after that, which can vary from one to four months. There is an advanced triangle-class water-earth spell that I prefer, which can 'freeze' or 'lock' the fertility cycle in whatever state one wishes. And finally there is a potion, mostly popular with commoner women, that requires one drop of blood per gallon of water and a less-advanced triangle-class earth-water spell to brew, which at a dose of one swallow makes a woman bleed immediately and then shuts down her fertility cycle for approximately a year."

She gives Raafi a wry, raised eyebrow. "The implication that she might ever be pregnant not-on-purpose would be incomprehensible to any sheltered noble girl."

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"Ah."

 

"Nothing's ever simple, is it." He sighs.

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She pulls him back into a hug.

"Every thing is simple, when it's alone. But life is a never-ending journey from thing to thing; it's not getting lost along the way that's complicated."

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He thinks about that for a few seconds, very still, and pulls away, and doesn't say anything.

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She lets him, watching him intently. She didn't intend that to happen, but an opportunity is an opportunity.

"Whatever you just heard me say. It tripped you up in a way that I didn't expect. Hurt you, even. Right now, you're Scyelen, and I'm you. What happens next?"

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Scyelen isn't the only one with needs, here-

How can you possibly advise me when you don't understand-

Fharlanghn, sir, I don't want this...

"I haven't told anyone and I'm not planning to, but I know you're Fouquet. And I'd appreciate warning if you're going to do anything that affects me or mine in the future."

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For a long moment she just stares, then she closes her eyes and smiles, conceding. "Fair enough."

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And then Raafi wakes up in the academy's infirmary two days later. He is uninjured.

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That sure is a thing that's happened. He gets free of the infirmary staff and goes looking for Scyelen.

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Scyelen is not evident.

Siesta is the one who finds Raafi. She worriedly tells him that, apparently, the night after Raafi was found unconscious by one of the instructors, something destroyed the wall of the dorms leading into Scyelen's room. Scyelen has been missing for two days. Colbert, Kirche, and Tabitha have gone out searching, but haven't found anything.

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Uh-huh.

Is Tabitha around.

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"I saw her with Sylphid in the south courtyard a few minutes ago. I think they're planning to fly out to search again."

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He offers Siesta his hand before teleporting over, landing halfway across the courtyard. "Tabitha!"

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That's relief, on Tabitha's face.

Sylphid chirps and bounds over to give Raafi a nuzzle.

Once Sylphid calms down, Tabitha simply asks, "Who?"

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He lets Sylphid distract him for a moment: "I'm all right, sweetheart, sorry for scaring you."

"Fouquet," he tells Tabitha. "Don't ask for details, I can't safely tell you. Is anyone else missing?"

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Her eyes narrow.

"Secretary."

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"Not sure what that's about. Have you found out anything at all?"

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Tabitha gives him a look, but lets his lie stand.

Then she points behind him.

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"Raafi! You're awake!"

Perhaps uncharacteristically, she doesn't attempt a glomp.

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"As of about fifteen minutes ago. I hear you've been helping Tabitha look for Scyelen?"

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"We've been flying a search pattern every morning," Kirche confirms. "Professor Colbert is in town looking for rumors, but neither of us have had any luck. But with your help I'm sure we'll find her easily!" She gives him a hopeful look. "Right?"

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He shakes his head. "Fouquet has her. I could probably find her but there's no way we can get her out by ourselves, and even if we could, she wouldn't be safe here."

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"Fouquet! What does she want with Scyelen? And don't talk like that, we have to try!"

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"Oh, I'm going to, it's just going to take more work than that. Starting with getting somewhere she can't find me." He turns back to Tabitha. "I have a communication spell, lets me send a twenty-five word message and receive one in return. I'd like to keep an eye on what's happening here while I'm gone, if you'd be willing to help with that."

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Tabitha nods.

 

Tabitha points at Raafi. "Target?"

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"If I try to get Scyelen back I will be."

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"Don't worry, Raafi! I'll protect you! We'll fight side by side, joined by the heat of battle! Ooh, you know what you need? A good sword. We should go into town and get you one!"

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"No, Kirche."

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Kirche pouts at him. "I was being serious. What do you think we should do, then? If you can figure out where Scyelen is through your bond somehow, we should at least scout the area from the air."

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"I think I need to get somewhere safe, figure out what resources I have, and come up with a plan that has any chance of working. If it makes sense to call you in I'll do that. In the meantime my advantage is mobility; if I'm found I can teleport out. Anyone I need to grab before I do is a liability."

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"We want to help. You don't have to..." Kirche trails off as Tabitha tugs on her sleeve.

Tabitha shakes her head.

"What? But..." Kirche protests.

Tabitha shakes her head again.

"Fine," Kirche pouts. "I hope you aren't being silly," she says, though it is unclear if she's talking to Tabitha or to Raafi.

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"Thank you," he says to Tabitha. "I have a couple of loose ends to take care of here and then I could use a ride, if you're willing - toward the palace, I might be able to pick up some useful rumors there."

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"We will wait."

Beside her, Sylphid trills and straightens in a way that might be an attempt to stand at attention.

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"Thank you," he repeats, and backs away a few steps to where Siesta is standing. "I don't know how long this will take - I could be back tomorrow, or it could be months. Will you be okay here, or do I need to figure something out?"

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Months?

"Where Miss Scyelen goes, I go," Siesta says firmly. "Wherever that ends up being."

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"That's not really an option right now. I could bring you to visit your family, if you'd like, and come get you again when I've got her back."

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Siesta shakes her head with a smile. "I'll be waiting here for you to find her."

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"All right." He gives her a hug. "Tell Tabitha to tell me if you need anything, I can come back for a little while if it's important. I want to look at her room before I go, did you clean it up after she was taken?"

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"I moved Miss Scyelen's material possessions into your room, but as far as I know the room itself hasn't been repaired yet."

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"That makes sense. Could you tell if any of her clothes were taken?" He starts heading in.

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Siesta goes with him.

"Yes. The correct number of uniforms and other sets of clothing were all in her wardrobe where I'd placed them."

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Sigh. "Not very surprising. I could track her by those, if she had them. Was anything taken, that you could tell?"

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"Yes actually. While I was moving her textbooks, I noticed that the princess's gift was missing."

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"- that's worrying." He hurries along.

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Scyelen's room: exists.

The largest pieces of furniture are all still in place, though the bed has been stripped.

The wall that formerly had a window now has a much larger hole. There is rubble strewn about, some of it swept into the corner under the hole.The only notable features of the hole are the way the edges are melted and warped outward, as though something burst out, rather than in.

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He examines the hole and the rubble, seeming slightly relieved at what he finds there though still pretty tense overall. "Was there anything strange about the bed?"

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Siesta shakes her head. "Not at all. If you don't count it being covered in dust from the wall."

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"Good," he nods, "all right. Quick stop in my room and then I'm gone."

He doesn't have much unpacked, even now, but he grabs the walking stick from where it's leaning against the wall and packs up the writing supplies from the desk, and then looks through Scyelen's things for something small and innocuous to bring with him.

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There are plenty of options available. The Founders Prayer Book copy seems to be the only thing that was taken besides Scyelen herself.

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He takes one, and gives Siesta another hug. "I mean it, that I want you to tell Tabitha if you need me. I'll check in with you myself if I can, but I don't know if I'll have the spells to spare for it. Okay?"

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Siesta nods firmly and wishes him good luck.

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And he heads back to the courtyard. "Ready to go."

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Sylphid crouches down. Tabitha hops up onto the dragon's back and gestures for Raafi to get on behind her.

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He does, with a care that suggests some familiarity with flying mounts.

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Sylphid takes off, circling to gain altitude.

Tabitha glances back at Raafi, once they're in the air. "Destination? Or bearing."

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He points. "The palace. Stop a couple miles short of the city, maybe, I don't want to draw too much attention."

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Tabitha nods.

Sylphid straightens out and heads that way, speeding over the landscape.

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Flying is usually a treat, but he's really not in the mood, today. He spends the time mulling over his plans, instead.

When they touch down, he thanks Tabitha again, waits for them to leave, and sits under a tree, staff held loosely in his hands, and finally reaches for his gandalfr powers, letting their strength settle on him before he tries to look through Scyelen's eyes.

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Scyelen's sight is blurred with tears.

Light filters into a dim space through gaps between the wooden planks making up the ramshackle walls. Scyelen's vantage point is low, at eye level with a shelf, and she's positioned such that she can't see her own body at all. It's hard to make out the shapes on that shelf through Scyelen's tear-blurred vision, but they could easily be the artifact Fouquet stole from the school and the Founder's Prayer Book Scyelen got from Henrietta.

The cloaked figure of Fouquet peers out a window, her back to Scyelen. A moment later, she turns away, revealing the tightly mummified sea-green figure of her body. She pauses, moving her hands in a way that implies she's saying something, but even if Raafi could read lips, Scyelen can't see above Fouquet's chest. Scyelen's point of view quavers, like her head is trying to move and can't.

The figure of Fouquet reaches out. She's holding a vial of some pink liquid. She grips Scyelen's face, and the view wobbles as Fouquet seems to force Scyelen's mouth open and pour the vial in. Her hands fill Scyelen's view, tears covering everything in a smear of light, and then a shudder, presumably a swallow.

Fouquet's hands release her, retreating into the watery blur of now-indistinguishable color.

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That's a trap.

 

It might not be one he can afford not to walk into, though. Vaux might read as good, but her methods are obviously questionable; he doesn't, actually, trust her not to traumatize Scyelen, not after that mess with the aphrodisiac mist. He doesn't want to spend the next decade answering 'why didn't you come for me'.

At least he's more prepared, this time. He chants the familiar words of Moment of Prescience, the rough incantation of Stone Body, and the precise syllables of Shield of Law, takes a fighting stance, and teleports in.

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Scyelen doesn't even notice him arrive. Her screams of desperate pleasure are the first thing to hit him when he arrives. She's naked and... embedded at the waist in a narrow block of cloudy translucent white crystal rising from the ground under a hole in the floorboards.

The rest of her twitching, writhing, sweat-soaked body is tightly bound in leather belts and held in place by the man-shaped glass golem thrusting into her from behind with one glass hand fisted tightly in Scyelen's purple hair, and by the taut chain running from a collar around her neck, through a ring in the floor and then another ring in the rafters to the edge of a bubbling cauldron suspended above her.

 

The figure of Fouquet, fully covered in her sea-green wrap and her cloak, stands off to one side, by the cabin's doorway, wand in hand.

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Welp.

She's not going to accept a teleport out, not with that going on. He chants anyway, and touches her shoulder, but nothing happens.

"Fouquet?" he calls, trying to be heard over the noise. "What the hells."

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Between Scyelen's screams are much-quieter breathless gasps, her eyes rolling up in her head. She is definitely too far gone to respond to Raafi's presence.

The figure of Fouquet doesn't reply, and it's impossible to tell what expression is on her face through the covering cloth.

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He glances assessingly at the cauldron rig and, apparently deciding that it's not an immediate hazard, takes a step toward Fouquet. "I know you're fucking with me. What was this supposed to accomplish, anyway?"

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The figure of Fouquet shrugs, still not speaking.

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"Whatever it is, I'm not playing." He doesn't drop the defensive stance, but doesn't move any closer, either.

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The figure of Fouquet does an exaggerated shoulder-slump and face-palm.

Then she shrugs off her cloak, folds it neatly, and sets it aside. She... it, starts removing the seafoam-green wrapping, revealing glass rather than flesh, underneath. The decoy golem continues stripping out of the Fouquet costume, folds it up, and sets it aside. When it's done, it backs into the corner and then falls apart into sand.

The golem ravishing Scyelen freezes, not turning into sand, but becoming a motionless statue upon which Scyelen continues to mindlessly writhe.

And that's it. The real Fouquet does not reveal herself, and nothing else happens either.

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Raafi steps to the side, too, and after a few seconds.... disappears?

And yet, a few seconds later, there's chanting again, behind Scyelen - and nothing happens.

"-Scyelen, sweetheart?" It's his voice again, coming from empty air in front of her, now.

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She doesn't appear to hear him. Tremors continue to run through her body as she slowly begins to relax, her head and upper body dangling limp in the statue's fixed grip.

Her eyes don't focus, but she's not dazed, or delirious. She's peaceful. Raafi's never seen her in subspace, but he can probably recognize it.

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Yeah.

He casts again - Owl's Wisdom; it most likely won't bring her out of it but it'll help her orient to what's going on around her a little, at least. "Sweetheart, we need to go. Can you do that for me? If I teleport you?"

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Wisdom is a peculiar thing. If intelligence reveals objective truths, then wisdom reveals subjective ones. Not what is, but what ought.

Her abductor spent the last couple of days stripping her of everything she thought she ought to be, reducing her to a mere object of flesh and eroticism, exposing her utterly and taking her to a place where shame couldn't reach her: an ultimate sanctuary.

Raafi's voice, calling her 'sweetheart' as he often does, is a blade trying to pierce that sanctuary. Raafi is here. In the clarity of her temporary wisdom, and in the freedom from embarrassment granted by her sanctuary, she is able to openly acknowledge for the first time the dread that word in that voice sparks in her heart.

A part of her that was profoundly unslaked likes it when he makes her feel all twisted up and uncomfortable and then hugs her about it; likes feeling like she can't refuse him when he hugs her about it. But getting affection from Raafi is like drinking salt water. It seems like it should help, but it only makes the original thirst worse instead of better, and tastes bad besides.

She probably would've realized all of this, on her own, later; the boost in wisdom just sped things up. She is going to allow herself to be stubborn. If Raafi doesn't want to see her like this, if he wants to take her out of her sanctuary, he's going to have to drag her out by force.

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He can't read her mind, of course. When a few seconds doesn't get him more than a stubborn look as a response, he sighs and makes a closer examination of the room before getting out his portable hole, retrieving a blanket and pouch of dried fruit, which he leaves piled neatly on the floor beside her, and a cup, which he takes over to what appears to be a decanter of endless water in the stolen artifact case - odd, but he recognizes the runes, so, whatever - where he tries the most common command words until he hits on one that produces a stream of water to fill the cup.

"Can I get you to drink something, sweetheart?"

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Scyelen can't really move her head much, but if Raafi puts a cup of water to her lips, she will drink.

Her skin is flushed, red from exertion even now. Actually, she's redder than she should be, given that she is now more-or-less resting. Her skin is approaching feverish.

Her midriff is stained by a white crust, where it meets the white crystalline mineral she's stuck through, and the skin underneath feels raw. Her neck hurts, though strangely her scalp doesn't. Her butt and her loins throb, sore from the unyielding hardness of glass, but she's nowhere close to as sore as she should be, thanks to Cameron's healing spells. The physical discomfort is nothing, in her sanctuary. It's almost a comfort. Proof of her helplessness, of her lack of control, of the absence of any call to decide.

Whatever happens to her next is Raafi's decision, but she is utterly free to feel however she likes about whatever he decides that should be.

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That flush is worrying - she doesn't seem to be sweating, now that he looks more closely, and that's very concerning. He gets the decanter and starts undoing the belts, wiping her down with water as he goes, keeping up a running commentary on what he's doing. At some point the invisibility wears off.

He examines the stone when he gets to her waist, identifying it after some prodding as particularly pure rock salt. He swears, at this - "damn good thing I have healing" - and summons a group of human-sized water elementals to dissolve it.

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Scyelen doesn't really care about what he's saying.

The belts come off and the block of salt dissolves without complication. She puts her hands down to support herself, still held in position by the glass statue, frozen in a moment of intercourse. Still serenely unselfconscious.

Scyelen doesn't, actually, need any healing though! In fact, the skin around her midriff looks newly healed, under the salt crust.

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He supports her, too, while the elementals work; gets her off of the golem, scoops her up, sits, arranging her as comfortably as he can in his lap. Heals her anyway, on principle; extended exposure to that much salt is nobody's friend, and who knows what's going on internally. Keeps up the commentary - just because she isn't reacting doesn't mean it doesn't matter, he knows. "We can stay until you're ready to go, sweetheart, there's no rush at all."

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Scyelen rolls her eyes at him about being pulled off the golem, but puts up no resistance, and once arranged in his lap she proceeds to ignore him and masturbate. If that makes him uncomfortable, he's going to have to physically force her to stop.

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He's not thrilled about it, but doesn't stop her. He might, when the Stone Body spell ends and he starts having biology to speak of again, but for now, this is fine.

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With the creak of a floorboard, this person is revealed to have appeared at some point when Raafi wasn't looking.

She has the Decanter in her hands. She's in her underwear plus leather boots, with an air of casual dishevelment about her, and she's glaring at the Decanter like it owes her money.

"You know," she says in a casual tone, "if not for Scyelen, I'd be rather put out that I wasted four months of my immortal life on this useless trinket."

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Raafi shifts protectively, picking up the knife left by his side and feeling the gandalfr powers take hold again.

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With a fleeting smirk, she tosses the Decanter back into its case and quirks an expectant eyebrow at him. She doesn't look it, but she's ready for a fight. The only reason she's even still here is to give Raafi a shot at that catharsis.

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He watches her, wary, obviously ready to react if she takes a step closer.

"What did you do," he asks, eventually, when she doesn't.

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"Lots of things."

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It's not easy, keeping his temper, not rising to meet the provocation of her presence. It'll go poorly if he does, though, and likely worse for Scyelen than for him.

 

"Is there anything I need to know. About keeping her safe, for the next while."

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"I already cleared the potion from her body. As for her mind, well, I think that's already safer than its ever been."

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"Mm."

"Go away." He shouldn't put the knife through her eye, but he can't say it's not tempting.

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Skeptical eyebrow.

It isn't violent temptations that this person is usually all about providing outlets for, but this doesn't feel finished and it's not like she'll die if he stabs her.

She shifts, subtly spreading her arms in invitation.

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"Go. Away."

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She was playing the villain but still; is he actually dense enough to still believe Scyelen would feel safer with him than with her?

"Without Scyelen? No."

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Safer with him than with the unhinged asshole who kidnapped her? She'd better!

The knife goes in Fouquet's eye, and - Stone Body slows him down, but the gandalfr powers well more than make up for it - he takes advantage of the presumable distraction to get Scyelen off his lap without quite dumping her on the floor and reaches for his quarterstaff.

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She doesn't. (The blade pierces Cameron's brain, the knife's hilt hitting her skull with enough force to snap Cameron's head back and send her sailing into the wall. Wooden boards splinter and crack under the impact.)

Scyelen rolls out of Raafi's disappearing lap and takes cover under the shelf.

A part of her wants to revoke her familiar's powers and let him get stomped, he most certainly isn't acting in pursuit of Scyelen's goals right now, but, Cameron told her not to, and it wouldn't be fair anyway.

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Brain damage is disorienting, but that's why she has contingencies.

As her back hits the wall, the blade melts into bio-available forms of its component materials. She catches the falling handle, sights with her good eye, and propels it with a burst of magic directly at Raafi's thick head.

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He bats it out of the air and closes with Fouquet, striking unhesitatingly with the staff and angling to get between her and the door.

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So he wants to keep the fight inside the shack. Where Scyelen is. Of course.

Mist streams from her ruined eyesocket and water collects on her limbs as she flashes backward, dodging by a hair. Fighting on this level, her muscles are useless, she has to move herself with magic alone, at the speed of thought.

She arrests her dodge. Her water echo keeps going. It slams into the already-broken wall and said wall explodes outward behind her, scattering debris into the trees. Sunlight shines into Raafi's face.

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Sure he does. He has enough precision to keep from hitting her; if Fouquet doesn't, and doesn't want to risk hurting her, that's to his advantage. And if she turns out not to care, well, he's got healing, and it wouldn't be that hard to throw her through a wall, hopped up on magic as he is.

If that doesn't work it doesn't work, though. He stays on her, attacking again and again with the quarterstaff but not especially blocking her retreat.

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She is all about precision. But they're moving fast enough that his attacks are breaking the sound barrier, and when one of his swings hits her water echo, the splash is violent enough to chip wood. She has to go out of her way to stop it from hitting Scyelen, giving Raafi an opening, and the next blow lands, pulps several of her ribs and sends her crashing through another of the shack's walls, compromising the whole structure's integrity.

She crashes into a tree. Unable to stand with only two walls, the roof of the shack starts to crash down on Raafi and a cowering Scyelen.

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It's possible that he should have practiced fighting with these powers before trying to use them in the field.

He grabs Scyelen and follows Fouquet out of the hole, dropping her on the first patch of reasonably-soft, reasonably-safe ground he comes to without slowing down and casting something as he closes with Fouquet.

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She's hovering, upright, but her legs hang limp (broken spine?). Her wand is in her hand. Invisible power swirls around her as she chants, "L'eau! Ciel! Eaux! Tempête-"

Both spells complete in the same instant.

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His spell hits her, settling onto her mind as an odd disorientation that shifts whenever she tries to compensate for it, making it harder to concentrate long enough to do anything very complicated.

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Raafi may notice that all his hair is standing up.

Cameron swerves drunkenly and completely fails to dodge Raafi's followup. The blow sends her tumbling into the underbrush like a rag-doll.

Simultaneously...

The sky is dark. Very dark. Dark grey thunderclouds have formed in moments, blotting out the sun. Lightning arcs down charring a circle into the ground around Raafi, forming an instantaneous cage of plasma that lasts just long enough for the massive pillar of water with a dragon's head to spear down from on high.

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Raafi may not have the reflexes of someone who got to fifteenth tier by fighting, but he's been in enough fights to get the idea that when a high-tier caster is trying to pin you in place, it's not wise to stay there. He attempts to dodge through the plasma, toward Fouquet.

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Blind from the flash, deaf from the thunder, several hundred tons of water falling directly on Raafi's head still probably would've done less damage than leaping through a barrier of literal lightning bolts. Especially when the caster is no longer in a condition to control those lightning bolts and keep them deliberately non-lethal.

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Ow ow ow ow ow. He definitely owes his life to the Stone Body spell, thank you Everia.

The water's only a mild inconvenience to him, after the initial battering; he's more worried about Scyelen, perhaps too disoriented to get keep her head above it, and he doesn't especially want Fouquet to die, either.

He casts healing, and - can he see either of them?

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Fortunately, the shack was built on convex ground, and the falling water dragon consumed the entire storm-cloud, leaving them in dappled sunlight once more. An entire cloud's worth of water is enough to knock them all off their feet and send them all washing out a fair ways, but it's not enough to submerge them, as the water drains away into the surrounding forest.

Scyelen is waaaaay over there, past the cabin, clinging to a tree root and glaring in their general direction.

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Cameron is not visually evident, but there are some gross and disturbing sounds coming from this set of soggy bushes over here.

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He'll take annoyed, as long as she's safe.

He heads for the sounds, casting Dispel Water to dry the area out before he parts the bushes to look behind them.

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Laying on the ground in a pool of blood is a grotesque mass of twitching, twisted limbs and bleeding, cancerous growths. She writhes, hissing in agony as, with a cry of anguished frustration, she uses her magic to slice off the swollen sack of bone and flesh that used to be her arm, a frothing pinkish water forming a new arm from the stump.

It doesn't have cancerous growths but it materializes badly deformed.

She screams in frustration and agony and switches to one of her legs, severing the mass of twisted growth before generating a new limb.

Her mind isn't merely impaired, it keeps actively twisting, making her do the wrong thing, but she is getting better at compensating for it with every attempt, and what else can she do, not try to heal herself? She's not going to stop just because her failed attempts have her suffering torturous amounts of pain; she can't risk replacing her ruined torso until she can get a limb to come out right.

She is already surrounded by a half-dozen grisly left-overs of previous attempts, a pile of carnage that quickly grows as blood spurts out of her almost as fast as she can conjure/transmute it.

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...it is really nice that he physically can't be nauseated right now.

He heals her, first; it won't do anything about the missing limbs or - most of that - but it'll take care of the blood and pain, at least.

Then he casts again, and - well, he's never gotten a very coherent description of what it's like, being reduced to animal intelligence, but it'll let him keep her contained while he figures out what else to do.

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The deformed ruin of Cameron's body falls limp, still and quiet.

While he's doing that, footsteps on wet earth approach him from behind, as Scyelen, still naked, makes her way over to them.

"C-Cameron..." she croaks, horrified.

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"Yeah." He sounds tired, all the fight gone out of him. "I'll heal her up in the morning, there's not much more I can do right now."

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Not much more he can do? As if he hasn't done enough?!

 

 

 

In a soft, but absolutely furious hiss: "Dispel."

Raafi's magic dies, ripped apart at its most fundamental level. His spells and combat enchantments are stripped away in an instant. His magic items also die, failing utterly and leaving only their mundane shells. It rips at Raafi's soul, and for a moment his runes flicker out, burning like when he first got them, like something is trying to tear the runes out of him. He loses his grip on the power, but the runes remain, resisting the pull.

While he's reeling from all that, Scyelen hits him over the head with a rock.

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He falls, not unconscious, but in quite a lot of pain. The words of a teleportation come to him on reflex: he's barely aware enough of his surroundings to recognize that he might have fallen on Fouquet; not enough to be sure, or to hedge her out of the spell as it completes.

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Raafi vanishes; it's startling, and she's suddenly worried. She regretted it the moment she heard the crack of rock against skull, she... he didn't... he meant well. Raafi always meant well. But he was.... she has more important and more urgent things to worry about than her frustrating familiar.

She casts another Dispel, this one carefully aimed. She has to destroy Raafi's curses, and only Raafi's curses, leaving the native magic woven into Cameron's flesh intact. Cameron explained it to her, how that aspect of her immortality worked. Scyelen is exceedingly careful.

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Cameron's mind flares back into existence. It's shaky; she did a lot of damage to herself in her flailing.

But this time, when she tries to fix herself, it doesn't go wrong.

She sheds the overwhelming majority of her existing body-mass, discarding it as beyond repair. Like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, a perfectly healthy, pristine Cameron emerges from the carnage and gore.

She absently raises the earth so she's not sitting in blood, and then rinses herself off with a little conjured water.

"That sucked."

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Scyelen, weeping, throws herself into Cameron's arms and sobs into her bare chest. "I thought... I thought he killed you. I never thought... why would he... I'm sorry!"

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Cameron pets her soothingly.

"No. He wasn't trying to kill me. Neither of us could have predicted... this." She shrugs at the carnage. "He thought I'd kidnapped you, as he was meant to think. He was the one who chose not to question that assumption once he found you. He was the one who assumed he knew what you wanted, so wrongly as to drive you to violence. I'd hoped maybe I could shock him into respecting you, at least, but that failed completely. I'm sorry you two ended up hurting each other, Scyelen. But I'm proud of you."

Pet pet pet.

"That said, let's see if we can't find you a middle ground between defensive Submission and inflicting head-trauma, hm?"

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Watery giggle.

"Thank you, Cameron."

Scyelen clings to her, for a good while longer, until well after it is very, very clear that Raafi isn't coming back.

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Raafi spends a while on the bare floor of his room at the academy, collecting himself, thinking about what to do next.

He'd gone in wanting to give Scyelen the choice, stay with Fouquet or come back to the school or do something else. And - well - in the end he succeeded, even if not the way he'd meant to. She made her decision. He's done. He's done here. He can go.

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He does, eventually, when he feels like he can stand without listing. Back to the clearing near the palace, first, teleporting again, and then onto the open road. It's harder, much harder, with his storage destroyed, but he's got the path under his feet and the sky over his head and Fharlanghn, and that's all he's ever needed, really.

He checks in with Siesta after a month, after two, after three, asking if she's all right, asking if she wants to join him or go back to her family. Sends a message to Tabitha, just once, saying that he's not coming back.

He doesn't go back. He has a whole new world to explore, after all.