"I'm straight."

"We all have our flaws."

"I should just tell Wizard Mara that none of you deserve to be mages."

"Come on, I talked to her for two minutes and I could already tell that if you did that her interest would be immediately piqued."

...yeah, he's not wrong.

"What I hear is 'how dare you be right, Vallynn?'"

"Shut up and eat your dinner."

"Yes, sir."

"And stop flirting with me."

"Awww. Fine, I'll stop."

Pierre snickers.

(Why did she decide to sit with people, again? Ah, right, because that rogue kid made it sound like less effort to go along with his bullshit than to resist. Well, lesson learned.)

Taharqi and Vallynn pushed their beds together last night and didn't pull them apart again; they're both horny young adults and are probably going to fuck again until and unless they decide that actually that's a terrible idea. So, after they've washed up and are ready to go to sleep, they find themselves snuggled up in bed.

"So, how was your first day?"

"You make it sound like you're my upperclassman who's been here for a whole year or something."

"Fine, how was your day, regardless of whether it is the first of your days spent at this Academy?"

"Better.

"It went alright. The mages are a colourful bunch, starting with the instructor."

"Oh?"

"She makes a point of not being disturbed by prospective mages until Bjorn's vetted them. Her assistant, that is."

"Uh huh. What does vetting consist of?"

"Apparently making sure that they've been through every other training available here and killed a few dozen porings with magic, or something along those lines."

"...what if they don't know any magic? Isn't learning magic part of the point?"

"They're given books," he says, gesturing at the bookshelf where he left some of said books earlier today, "and told to figure it out."

"...the incentives."

"Hmmm?"

"Anyone who's not dead set on being a mage is definitely going to give up partway through that, anyone who's not good at teaching themselves same, you're only left with people who can motivate themselves to learn magic from boring old tomes even while they're young and spry and full of energy and ready to adventure."