smol bell in urtho's tower
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"Some people are stupid and mean. Those people in particular, even."

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"Mmm. But - why?" Illa seems genuinely baffled and disconcerted about this claim. 

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"I dunno. Maybe somebody should ask them." Poor Illa.

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Illa nods. She picks herself up off the bed, tugs her uniform into place, squares her shoulders. "Let's go talk to Adept Liora, then, I guess." 

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Follow follow.

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Illa takes her up a floor and down a hall, stops in front of a door, and - freezes, blinking and turning red again. Apparently having the gall to knock on a teacher's office door is not coming easily to her. 

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Aza can knock for her. Knock knock!

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"Mmhmm, coming." There are footsteps and then a robed woman with iron-grey hair in a bun answers. "Illa?" she says. "And - I'm sorry, I don't think I remember you - what is it?" 

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"I'm not in your class, but Ma'ar's in the hospital and can't speak for himself. It's about the incident the other day - I believe you weren't present, but your TA was, right?"

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Adept Liora's expression tightens. "Yes. Ma'ar isn't the only one in the hospital over that little incident, you know. There's a reason fighting with magic is against the rules." 

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"He's the one who had me listed as his emergency contact, and I don't feel like it would help anything for me to visit the other boys, since two of them participated in attacking me several months ago."

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The teacher blinks. "Oh. Goodness. Well, you two had better come in and have a seat and tell me what this is about, all right?" She ushers them in and uses magic to pull out some chairs in front of her desk, which she resumes her seat at. 

Illa sits and twists her hands together in her lap and stares at the floor some more. 

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"I don't have a particular opinion on whether you should reinstate Ma'ar in your class," she says. "If you decide that being that flinchy and aggressive when spooked is a dealbreaker, then that would be entirely reasonable of you. I do think you should know all the details, including the other boys' track record, what they did to Illa, and maybe reconsider how the practice sessions are supervised. What Ma'ar told me is that he noticed Illa's spell was going to go dangerously wrong due to her notes having been sabotaged - he suspects Conn of pulling off the actual alteration to her paper but isn't sure - and he shielded her, and then confronted the other boys, who denied it and became threatening. Conn looked like he was about to throw a levinbolt, you know, like this," she does the sparky fingers thing, hand pointed safely away - "and Ma'ar struck first, which does leave it open to interpretation whether Conn would've actually instigated an all-out brawl, but."

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"I - see. I had gotten the part about the spell going wrong and the shield, which is - good on Ma'ar, I suppose, whatever else happened. Journeyman Levitt said that Illa thought it'd been an accident, though. Illa?" 

     Fidget fidget fidget. "I - thought I was being careful and doing it right, but I'm not that good." 

"- I disagree, actually." Adept Liora's voice softens. "I've seen your grades, girl. You're not sloppy." 

     Illa turns even redder. "Oh." 

"I know it can be hard to believe that people will cause trouble on purpose, when you and I wouldn't dream of it, but - it's unfortunate, sometimes others don't see things our way." 

     "...Oh." 

Adept Liora turns back to Azabel. "So we don't have a conclusive witness for the, er, sabotage, and it sounds like the boys are denying it. I'll go question them myself, of course, but - I'm not really sure where to go if it's just Ma'ar's word against theirs plus another teacher's personal impression that Illa is a careful student." 

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"And their track record. Not all of which may have made it to the school authorities, and even if it has you apparently didn't hear about their disciplinary run-in over me before your class started, so that might be worth looking into." And maybe there's a way to just straight up detect lies with Mindhealing-Sight? She'll ask Lionwind.

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"Oh. It may well be in their student files, I teach too many classes to make a habit of reading those all the way through before a new session, but for this of course I'd better go look it up." Sigh. "Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Do - you happen to know why Ma'ar is flinchy like that? Obviously it's very rude to - be threatening that way, but it's not against the rules - boys will be boys, we couldn't possibly enforce no goofing off like that - and everyone present including Illa and Ma'ar himself agreed he was the first to throw magic around. But he's a good student, I don't want him kicked out of my class - if there are somehow extenuating circumstances..." 

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"That's a very personal question and I don't know what he'd want me to say. You could ask him though."

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Adept Liora nods. "Noted. Illa - listen, I'm very sorry this happened, I know it was frightening, and - it wasn't your fault? Even if it does somehow turn out to be just a mistake, that isn't your fault either. I'm proud to have you in my class."

     ...Illa does not know like she has any idea how to respond to this and just turns somehow even brighter red and bobs her head. 

Adept Liora rubs her hands together, briskly, and stands up. "Well, let's get going on sorting this mess out, then." 

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"I'm going to go ask my Mindhealing teacher if there's a way to detect lies, if that would be useful?" says Aza, rising from her chair.

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"Goodness, you're a Mindhealer too? I'd appreciate that - I never heard about that being possible, but it's not like I know much about Mindhealing, there aren't many of you."

Adept Liora nods to her and sweeps them all out of her office, locking the door behind her before forging off down the hall at a fast walk. 

Illa hovers, looking uncertain. "...I guess I just - go back to my room... Um, thank you. For - doing that." She bites her lip. "Ma'ar's going to - get better from his injuries, right?" 

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"Probably."

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Illa nods, chews her lip some more, and then turns and marches off back toward her room. 

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Aza goes to Lionwind's office.

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He's on his lunch break; as usual he's taking it in his office, eating while he finishes patient notes. "Aza! Welcome back- Something's wrong. What is it?" 

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"Ma'ar got in trouble in one of his classes for fighting. He did throw magic first but first he may've saved somebody's life because the other end of the fight sabotaged her notes. Can Mindhealers detect lies?"

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