A ruckus could be heard on the other side of the wall that divided one of the sparring fields from the walkway next to it. Many footsteps echoed over, with each step being accompanied by the crunch and spray of gravel, whoever was in the sparring field was in a hurry. As the noise neared ever closer to the wall, Liliana slowed down her walk to a stop, readying herself to deal with anything that might come over the wall.
It was good practice to always be ready for a surprise spritz of magic when in the Combat School, especially considering that students enrolled here to learn to control their abilities, not because they already could do so.
Still, as one of the top students of the first years, she shouldn’t have to worry too much about the fragments of attacks that made it past the wall, as any student not fully in control of their magic would more than likely be weaker than herself.
As she expected might happen, part of the top of the wall blew apart, sending dust through the air above her, blocking her vision. Liliana was not helpless to these circumstances, however, as she quickly prepared a small gust of wind in her hands to blow the dust away. Before she had the opportunity to loosen the spell she’d prepared, a shout climbed over the wall, “Clear the way, I’m gonna jump the wall!”
Before the words had processed in her mind, she saw a dark-haired figure blur past overhead. The figure kept their momentum as they landed on the opposite side of the walkway in a sort of dive roll. And, without stopping their movement, let off a quiet, bashful yell, “Sorry about that Miss, no time to stop, see you around!” Then, in a complete tonal shift, screamed with anger, “Whichever shithead shot that rock at me needs to work on their aim!”
With only those two remarks, the figure, who she could now ascertain was a boy somewhere around her age, ran off through the wooded area that was opposite of the wall.
Baffled, and wanting to know more, Liliana chanted a spell to lighten her body, before hopping on top of the wall to find out who the aforementioned ‘shithead’ was. On the other side of the wall was not just one ‘shithead,’ like she’d been expecting, but instead many potential ‘shitheads.’ Sitting down on top of the wall, she looked over at the small group that was now moving to gather themselves below her. She quickly noticed the badges on the group’s uniform that informed her that they were second years, not to mention they were also each sporting the armband that signified the schools disciplinary committee. Provided that those armbands weren’t fake, the five men who stood below her could be considered as rather high up on the social latter of the school.
While it was impressive that the boy managed to escape from the five, a feat that she figured even some of the higher ranked amongst the third years would find difficult, it was also a stupid decision on his part. The boy, whatever his crime may or may not have been, would likely end up in trouble for having resisted capture, and the impressiveness of the feat would not grant him any extra leniency for that crime.
The second years did not seem too surprised about her arrival on top of the wall and were almost too calm about having lost the boy. They took a moment to converse with one another, before one of them was nudged forward by the rest.
The one who stepped forward surprisingly spoke in the coarse accent of the Southern common folk, “Hey, I see you’re a first year, yeah? My name’s Kyle, I’m the one that runt was calling a shithead, the one with the bad aim. We’re part of the disciplinary committee, although unlike a certain runt who just ran away, I’m sure you are aware of that. You look fine, but just to make sure, we didn’t hit you with any of the debris from the wall, right? If you’re hurt, you don’t need to hide it, Peter knows some healing magic so he can fix you right up, free of charge, of course.”
Despite his coarse language and lack of formality, Kyle’s intentions were, at their core, polite. And they were supposed to keep their status out of mind when in the Combat School, so Liliana would ignore the breach of etiquette, not that she cared much about it anyways.
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Figuring it would be better to match the second year’s tone, she casually responded, “No injuries here, I heard you all coming from a mile away, so I was prepared. Although my curiosity is burning, what’s the deal with that guy from just now? You were also somewhat implying that he’s here in the school, and doesn’t know about the disciplinary committee? What’s up with that?”
Not content with just relying on the goodwill of her senior to answer her question, she also added a smile as she asked her question, hoping that maybe her charm could help ease things along.
Whether or not her charm helped her case was up to debate, but to her credit, Kyle did open his mouth to answer her, although he looked almost embarrassed to do so. It soon became apparent why, as his four friends behind him began to burst out into laughter at his plight, instantly drowning out whatever words he had planned to say, as he whipped around to stare them down in anger.
After an uncomfortably long amount of laughter, one of the four managed to calm himself enough to squeak out, “Go on, tell her, it’s not like its info that needs to stay hidden,” between more peals of laughter. With barely disguised anger, Kyle turned from his friends back to her, already calming himself as he began to speak, struggling somewhat to talk over the chuckling of his friends.
“From what we know, it’s a long story, lots of nuance and all that, and we aren’t really even sure whether or not he is at fault, or partially at fault yet, because we have yet to question him. For some reason, he somehow made it to the Combat School without anyone explaining to him who the disciplinary committee are.”
“So, big surprise, every time we try to get him to sit down with us to talk to him, he immediately bolts, it’s like the kid has a built-in sensor for when we will show up. Honestly, this is like the third time I’ve managed to spot him, every other time he’s just gone. We’ve tried going to his dorm room, but he jumped out of the window the first time and got away. The second time we tried the dorm, this time with people below his window, he climbed the side of the building and scurried off to who knows where. And as far as we know, he hasn’t been back to the dorm since, so he’s just been camping out somewhere within the walls.”
This was already proving to be far more interesting than she’d thought, causing her to sit up in anticipation. Implication after implication was hidden within Kyle’s words, some of which implied the boy possessed some sort of sixth sense, and very importantly, that he was a first year.
A boy like that would be a valuable target to recruit for scouting purposes, as he clearly had a talent for detecting and fleeing from trouble. Kyle’s words were also, still not over, so perhaps there was even more to this already interesting figure.
Not to mention, this second year that was in charge of capturing the boy was beginning to sound more and more confused by the boy as he spoke. Her father always said that often times the greatest talents were hidden under a veil of mystery, could this boy possibly an example of that idea in action?
“In any case, he’s been at odds with a trio of first years from Rusfaya, it seems like the four of them grew up there, and there is some sort of feud from their youth. That’d be fine and all, as long as they kept it private, but they’ve been involved in several fights in public areas. The issue is, is that according to the reports we’ve been hearing, he has started the majority of these fights.”
“Personally, I don’t get it, I’d rather not fight three people by myself, but the grudge clearly runs deep. There clearly would be a lot of issues if we let this go on into the semester, so we’d been trying to get a handle on it ahead of time. That doesn’t seem to be in the books, however, so we’re probably just going to pull him out of one of his classes tomorrow to talk to him. Although now that I think about it, we can only hope that he actually shows up to those.”
The story was far more interesting than she had been expecting, and it also gave her plenty of information to work with to track the boy down. She’d wanted to remain out of politics and the labors associated with her status as much as possible while at the school, but passing up on a talent like this, especially one she could easily make in debt to her, was just not how Liliana rolled.
Her father had always encouraged her to act first and ask questions later. Not to mention that her subordinates could always back her up by thinking through things for her while she moved.
“Well, you’re not hurt. And I probably shared more than I should have, so let’s call it even for us troubling you. We have to be on our way to do some other things. Hope the semester treats you well, first year.”
And with those last remarks, Kyle, and his friends, who were still snickering amongst themselves, even after all this time, crossed back through the dueling field, eventually leaving her sight. Now sitting alone atop the fractured wall, Liliana had already begun to plot how she would approach the boy who avoided trouble.