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Hilarious.

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So hilarious. Here, have lessons on social things not related to justice systems.

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Well, it'll probably all be useful eventually.

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One night, about three weeks before Sairu's seventeenth birthday, there is a loud explosion from the upper floors of the tower. Anyone quick enough to get to a window in time and lucky enough to be on the correct side of the tower can watch chunks of stone and flaming timber rain down onto the surrounding landscape.

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That is a non-zero number of people! It's all anyone's talking about at breakfast.

By lunch there is more information. Kaseo, Nokavalu and Minfaara are all dead, and Savaross has started interrogating people who were unusually close to any of them.

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...that sure does sound like Kaseo just kind of blew herself up for no damn reason! Kaseo what the fuck.

(It could have been one of the others, but... Kaseo. It was pretty obviously Kaseo.)

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At some point during the afternoon he is informed that Savaross would like to see him in his office, please.

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He shows up.

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Savaross would dearly love any information he might have about what just happened that he might have acquired at any point in time.

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"I had no idea it was coming, but from what I've heard since, it sounds like Kaseo got bored and blew herself up somehow and maybe killed a couple other people in the process. Unless one of the other two was even more the kind of person who would do that, I wouldn't know."

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He would like to be very sure that Tassairen did not know about any of this in advance but he is eventually satisfied.

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He really didn't know about any of it in advance, and it's kind of frustrating not to be believed the first time. Or the fifth. Seriously.

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Well, warlockry can't do lie detection, so.

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With an absolutely heroic effort, he manages to avoid critiquing Savaross's interrogation techniques.

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Yeah that's probably for the best for everyone.

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Yep.


He misses Kaseo. Why do all the people he likes end up dead.

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If Anaseverina were here she'd probably say it's because all the people he likes--all the people he knows, for that matter--live in a horrible cesspit.

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Well. That's... true.

 

He's distracted from his studies for a little while, and he no longer has anyone he can just grab and torture whenever he feels like it for stress relief. Maybe he should've tried harder to hold onto Telana.

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He turns seventeen. This makes the second birthday without her.

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He holds the lovely bracelet that his Anaseverina gave him when he turned fifteen, and he thinks about how she'll never get him another present again.

...he is in a really bad mood that day, and to a lesser extent for the entire following week.

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It is about a month after that that he brings in another girl.

This one isn't like the other two.

"This is Ikera," he says. "She's older than I usually take apprentices, but she has clear potential; as one of my more talented students yourself I'm placing her in your care to help her get caught up.

She is your fellow apprentice, so I don't want a repeat of what happened to the last one, but otherwise when I don't need her for lessons I leave her to your discretion."

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Ikera is already badly bruised, and her cheeks are puffed from tears, but the look in her eyes is not that of someone who reacts to pain with cowering.

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He looks at her. He looks at Savaross.

He nods. "Understood."

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"Excellent." He shoves her forward. "Her first lesson is tomorrow after lunch."

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She stumbles forwards. Her fists clench a little tighter but she doesn't otherwise react.

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