Loria’s spear shot out, its blunted tip bouncing harmlessly off of her opponent’s shield. Beside her, Nym stumbled backwards after a particularly vicious flurry of strikes. “Switch,” she yelled, conjuring a fireball to distract as she pivoted on her foot, dashing to the side. The two attackers of team D looked shocked at their movement, even as Nym slid past her, quarterstaff already drawn back to smash past her new opponent’s shield.

This was one of the strategies Loria had penned for their upcoming series of spars against the other colleges, and they were testing it out here. Templar Roose had informed them that all the squads they’d be fighting would match their size, four fighters each. The most important thing, when dealing with such small numbers, was quickly stacking the odds in your favor. This switch-off was one strategy to deal with that. Catch their opponents off guard, and hopefully either Loria or Nym would be successful in taking someone out. From there, with a numbers advantage, it would be a simple mop-up.

Shel, one of the team D attackers, managed to deflect Loria’s first strike, but by the panicked look in her eyes, even she wouldn’t last. The twin swords the other girl favored were great for offense, but for defense required a precision Loria wouldn’t permit. The second attack took Shel in the arm, completely shattering her guard. As Loria pulled back for a third stab, this time to the ribs, a hot flash of pain slammed into her back, sending her stumbling forward. She growled a curse, whirling around to see Cliff, eyes wide and panicked. It took her only an instant to realize what had happened, but that was enough time for Shel to recenter herself, knocking Loria to the backfoot and ruining the advantage they’d earned. She was going to tear into Cliff for that misstep once they were done.

She growled to herself, but the gutteral noise was lost under Nym’s victorious shout as she caught Barton, her opponent, across the knuckles, knocking the sword from his hand and giving them the drive needed to smash through team D’s attackers and eventually win the spar.

***

Cliff was making excuses before they were even out of the ring. “My bad, Loria – really, I thought I saw an opening, but then you slid in front of Shel, and – well, have you ever knocked something fragile off the table, and just stared in horror as it fell?” He coughed awkwardly as she glared at him. “It was something like that.”

“The plan was,” she started, “You and Thalos keep their ranged fighters busy while Nym and I use our strategy to take the upper hand in the close combat.” Her voice was icy, even to her own ears. “Why didn’t you follow the plan?”

“I-” Cliff started, his voice strained. “I guess I wanted to contribute something more than distraction, especially using my PMT. I’m sorry.” Loria blinked. She hadn’t expected such an earnest apology, not from Cliff. She frowned. He probably just didn’t want to get yelled at, she decided, her temper bubbling in her stomach. Well, if he thought that she could be cowed by some feigned embarrassment, he had another thing coming to him.

“Well, Cliff-” she started, a tirade on her lips. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Nym wince, and her temper suddenly died. She was doing it again. During the Hands-on, Cliff had called her out for being unduly harsh towards him. At first, she’d thought it was nonsense, but then, well, she’d actually thought about it. When they’d gotten their scores back, she’d been surprised to find that they’d gotten full marks on their engineering task – she’d been sure Cliff had messed up, somehow. And when they’d lost points on account of the package being damaged, she’d caught herself just before making a snarky comment about how they were lucky Cliff had actually done his job, or else they might have risked failing. At the same time, she’d immediately forgiven Thalos for any mistake he might have made. “It’s fine,” she finished, “just – try to remember the strategy next time.”

The rest of team B stared at her in shocked silence. “What?” Cliff said, “are you sure you don’t want to – I don’t know, tan my hide? I feel like I might actually deserve it this time.” He shared an incredulous look with Thalos.

“Do you want me to yell at you?” she snapped, suddenly embarrassed. Was her forgiveness really so surprising?

“No, it’s just…” Cliff trailed off. He cleared his throat. “I’ll try to remember next time.”

“Good,” Loria said, turning to stomp off, not wanting to see her team’s faces, full of unnecessary, embarrassing surprise.

Templar Roose was standing with the rest of their class, watching from outside the sparring ring. “Well done, team B – and team D, too. Even though you lost this time, it doesn’t mean you didn’t put in a good effort. Take some time to review with your team while the others get ready for their spar.” He nodded with a smile, coming over to team B while teams A and C started to prepare.

“Loria, are you alright?” he asked.

“What?” Loria said, eyes narrowing, “yes, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be? We won.”

Roose blinked. “Well, I saw – you were hit on accident, no? I just want to make sure you’re – well, not too shaken.” His tone was delicate, like he was dealing with a problem child.

“I’m fine,” she repeated, feeling more embarrassed by the second, “Cliff has already apologized.”

“And you accepted his apology?” Roose asked.

She sucked in an angry breath. “Yes,” she replied.

“Good,” Roose said with a nod, “It was a nice tactic, catching them off guard with a switch-up there. The coordination needs a little work, but, well, that’s what the sparring is for.” He grinned, leaving them to discuss the fight as he made his way over to team D.

“Your strategy worked!” Nym said, beaming brightly, “we won!” She wove a hand under Loria’s elbow, linking arms as they huddled closer to discuss the fight.

“It mostly worked as intended, yes,” Loria said, shoving back a comment that things would have gone perfectly if not for Cliff’s mistake. She looked at Thalos and Cliff. “Good job keeping the other two occupied. Were there any issues?”

Thalos frowned. “None, but…” he sounded unsure, and Loria raised an eyebrow, questioning. “It almost felt like we were fighting two separate battles,” he said, scratching at his head.

“Right,” Cliff agreed with a nod, “we were taking potshots at each other on the outskirts while you lot duked it out in the middle. Is that normal?”

Loria slowly nodded. “It is – for now at least. One of the things your accidental fireball reminded me-”

“Again, I’m sorry about that,” Cliff said, cutting in.

“I get it!” Loria snapped.

Cliff frowned. “There’s no need to be so touchy – I’m just apologizing.”

“I know! It’s just-” She didn’t like the tone of his voice, like he was coddling a child too unstable to move past his offense. Huffing a sigh, she continued. “As I was saying – it reminded me that we really need to work on our coordination. That ‘two separate battles’ thing you mentioned is a symptom of us not being in sync.”

“Everyone’s too scared of hitting a teammate to take a shot towards the middle,” Nym said with a thoughtful frown.

“Everyone but Cliff,” Thalos muttered, earning himself a punch to the shoulder. The quieter boy glared at his roommate before looking back to Loria. “So what’s the solution?”

“Practice more,” Loria said, “with everything – your weapons, your PMT, our tactics. Once we don’t have to think about any of that, we can start to think about everything else.”

“Like how not to hit you in the back with a fireball,” Cliff said with a sheepish smile.

“Yeah,” Loria said, wondering why everything that came out of the tall, obnoxious boy’s mouth seemed to annoy her. “Like that.”

***

With a final punctuation mark, Loria pulled her pen away from the paper, scanning the page of notes with a satisfied nod. She’d always taken pride in her penmanship, and her father was strict in his insistence that proper information management was half of warfare. Needless to say, she took meticulous care in organizing her notes. She slid her desk’s drawer open, neatly filing the chapter summary into an already-labeled folder for the current week. It had been a monotonous process, preparing the materials she needed to keep everything up to her standards, but that effort paid off in spades with how easy it was now – whenever she needed to reference earlier material, it was as simple as cross-checking her schedule and locating the proper folder. Not that she often had to reference old material. One side effect of her fastidious approach to record keeping was a natural familiarity with the content of her notes, and it reflected positively on her grades. She didn’t consider herself particularly intelligent, but her discipline led her to earning high marks in almost all of her classes.

She slid the drawer shut, sighing and throwing her hands into the air to stretch some tightness out of her back. Behind her, her room was full of soft conversation punctuated by bits of laughter as Nym, Jenna, and Penny held one of their usual evening meetings.

She turned to look at them, and Jenna smiled apologetically. “Sorry, Loria, are we being too loud? We can go somewhere else, if you’d like.” Since resolving their earlier spat, Jenna had been, really, too conscious of Loria’s mood.

“No, no,” she replied, waving a hand, “I was just finishing up, anyway. Don’t worry at all.” She eyed her roommate, and a thought suddenly popped into her mind. “Say, Jenna-” she started, only to cut herself off when she realized her question was actually quite awkward. Her mouth hung open for a moment before she shut it with a click.

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“Yeah?” Jenna asked.

“It’s just – well,” Loria tried again, coughing awkwardly, “You’re quite close to Cliff, right?”

Her roommate’s eyes widened and Penny snickered. “Yeah, Jenna, you’re quite close, aren’t you?”

Jenna glared at Penny. “Oh, don’t be immature. It’s an honest question.” She turned back to Loria. “Yeah, I would say we’re pretty close. Why do you ask?”

“It’s not a question I’d expect from you, Loria,” Nym said, her lips pulled to one side, “I didn’t think you really cared about that kind of thing.”

“Ah, well – I remember at the end of the Hands-on when you-” Her eyes flicked to Penny. “That is, you – um – grabbed onto him, and…” Her voice trailed off. What had been the point of this line of questioning again?

Jenna’s expression softened. “Yes, he was very kind, but-”

Penny inhaled suddenly. “It couldn’t be – Loria, are you jealous of Jenna? Do you – I mean, you and Cliff?”

Nym’s face scrunched up, and she shook her head. “Absolutely not. No way – I mean Loria, she…” Her expression turned thoughtful. “Unless…”

“No!” Loria snapped, a little more defensive than she really ought to be. “It’s nothing like that, it’s just that recently, I’ve noticed that I am – perhaps – a little harsher than I should be with him. We disagree a lot, and we’ve never really gotten along, but after some careful reflection, maybe I take my criticism too far.” She coughed, realizing her explanation had turned into a ramble. “What I’m saying is, what, exactly, do you like about Cliff? Everything he does seems to irritate me, but maybe if I have your perspective, I’ll be able to get along with him a little better.” She paused. “For the team, of course, not because I have any particular feelings towards him.”

“Oh, that is just adorable,” Penny said with a giggle. Loria glared at the girl, but that only seemed to amuse her more.

“Cliff can be kind of an ass, yeah,” Jenna said, cutting off Penny’s teasing, “but he’s almost always just joking around – I don’t think I’ve ever seen him try to actually hurt someone’s feelings.” She smiled, and Loria thought she saw a touch of embarrassment in Jenna’s expression, thought it could have just been her own feelings leaking into her perception. “He’s easy to talk to, and really reliable.” She shrugged. “Plus, I think he’s handsome.”

“Cliff? Reliable?” Loria said, ignoring the last bit of Jenna’s answer. “I can’t see it.”

“Really?” Penny interjected, “He’s too helpful. I mean, just last night, I was coming back from training – I got distracted with this and that – you know? And by the time I was back, it was after midnight. But I have this thing where I can’t go to sleep without showering – I’ll just roll around under the covers feeling gross until the sun comes up, and the next day is ruined.” Immediately, Loria decided Penny would have to lose that habit if she ever wanted to become a Courier, but she wasn’t about to interrupt the girl’s story to say that. “So, well, you know how the showers were broken? I also hate cold showers, so in a moment of desperation, I knocked on Cliff’s door. Thalos answered, of course, and I mumbled some excuse about needing to ask Cliff something – I didn’t really realize how late it was until Cliff stumbled to the door looking half-dead. Anyway, I asked him to fix the showers for me, and, without a word of complaint, he grabbed a couple of tools and, without even putting his shirt on, went and fixed the showers for me.” Loria’s alarm bells rose at the thought of Cliff, a man, entering the women’s showers, but again, she decided she was better off not saying anything. “I tried to thank him this morning, but he brushed me off – apparently he was half asleep when he fixed it, and in his words, ‘there’s no point in thanking me for something I don’t remember.’” She finished her story with a decisive nod.

“I think what Penny’s trying to say is he’s helpful,” Jenna said, “he’s never said no to a favor, no matter how often I ask him.” She shrugged. “He’s an older brother, you know? It’s charming.”

“I don’t think Loria’s ever seen that side of him,” Nym interjected, “seeing as she never really needs to ask for help.” Penny and Jenna made noises of understanding, and Loria felt suddenly flushed with embarrassment.

“Oh, come on, that’s not true,” Loria said, “I mean, I try to do most things on my own, but it’s not like I hate it when people help me.”

“Really?” Jenna said dryly, “coming from the girl who nearly bit my head off for standing up for her in front of a bully?” Loria didn’t really have a good response for that.

“It’s simple, then,” Penny said with a nod, “Just ask Cliff to help you with something, maybe you’ll see his good side – just don’t see too much of it, or your roommate here might start to get jealous.”

Loria frowned, incredulous. “I don’t think Cliff would be willing to help me – I mean, he hates me.” She pointedly ignored Penny’s attempt at stirring up juvenile drama.

Jenna shook her head. “He doesn’t hate you.”

“And how would you know that?”

“We’ve talked about you,” Jenna said bluntly. Loria’s eyes widened and Jenna frowned. “What? So I’m allowed to talk to you about him, but not him about you? Come on, that’s not fair.”

Loria worked her jaw, searching for something to protest about before she nodded. “Fine, but if he doesn’t hate me, then why-”

“He thinks you’re prissy and controlling,” Jenna said before adding, “his words, not mine. But he definitely respects your abilities. More than that I think he likes arguing with you – he’s pretty competitive.”

“There you go, then,” Nym said, “it should be fine for you to ask him a favor.” She added in a much lower voice, “Maybe then we won’t have to walk on eggshells whenever we have team meetings.”

“Maybe,” Loria said, but she still wasn’t convinced.

***

“When the very first Magetools were presented at the World Fair in the Holy City, responses varied considerably. Within the church, two factions quickly developed – one calling the research heretical and against the will of Gaeon; the other heralding Magetools as a powerful instrument to uplift the disenfranchised. Countries’ militaries quickly latched onto the new technology as an avenue to modernize and standardize the use of magic in warfare. The Courier alliance was notably lukewarm on the technology, and their representatives cautioned against the rapid spread of Magetools and encouraged a measured, regulated approach to research in this novel technology. Their caution presents one of the great counterfactuals in modern history – what would have happened if the spread of Magetools was better controlled? Could the Godhand wars have been avoided? Would the technology have developed at the same rate? It’s impossible to know.”

Loria listened with rapt attention as Sister Aster lectured from the front of the hall. The priestess was perhaps her favorite teacher – she consistently gave clear, simple summaries of the textbook readings while supplementing with interesting discussion topics. Loria had heard murmurs that she was considered to be a rather boring lecturer by many of the students, most of whom saw the history classes as the dull counterpart to their more interesting practical lessons. Loria, on the other hand, had always been interested in history, especially the social aspects of history that her father’s tutors liked to skip over. For her, the aftermath of a battle was just as interesting as the battle itself, if not moreso.

“Break into your discussion groups and talk on why each of the three major powers responded in the way they did,” the professor continued, “try to imagine what they might have seen with the advent of this revolutionary new technology, what fears and considerations might they have had? How accurate did those fears turn out to be? You have ten minutes.”

There was a shuffle of paper and chairs as people turned to their neighbors. ‘Discussion groups’ was code for many to simply chat. Loria – along with everyone else actually interested in the material – sat near the front, and their discussions were usually fairly productive.

“I think the Church’s response is pretty standard for any large organization,” Ronnie said. She was one of the cadets, a frequent class participator that seemed prone to leading any discussion she was a part of. “You’re always going to have a traditional group and a progressive group – in the church that means that the older people are gonna be yelling about heresies while the younger people look towards the future.”

“It’s not that simple,” a seminarian protested. Vincent Reed was one of the top performing seminarians in their entire year. He was also in Loria’s Advanced PMT class, and she’d never seen him lose a spar. He didn’t often speak up in discussions unless it was something he was a personal expert on, usually something having to do with the church – there were rumors he had some connection to the upper echelons of the church administration. “The ones against Magetool proliferation were mostly fringe ultra-conservatives. Every Heirophant was in favor of opening a research branch within the clergy. The rumor that the Church was split on the issue is a post-war invention.”

“That makes sense, I guess,” Ronnie said with a nod. “As for the military response, that’s even more predictable – they’ll seize power wherever they can or risk being left behind. They couldn’t have foreseen the destruction the Godhand wars would bring, but I bet many in the audience had some pretty dark predictions that day.”

“I don’t know about that,” Loria said, “I mean, the first Magetools presented were really crude things, not weapons at all. Remember, the twins showed a plow at the world fair – the first PMTs weren’t even invented until five years later.” Crude, brutal things, the mark 1 PMTs had to be grafted onto the wrist. They couldn’t be taken off, and due to the relative newness of the technology, they often malfunctioned and exploded, leaving many veterans without a limb or worse.

Ronnie shook her head. “It wasn’t the tool they presented, but the idea. Top military officials from around the world were at the world fair, and they would naturally see the military implications of the tech. Sure, they probably wouldn’t have predicted the sheer progress that would come to warfare from Magetool technology, but, well, no one did.”

“Except the Couriers,” Loria pointed out. They, more than either of the other two major powers, had been hesistant to endorse the spread of tech that would ultimately lead to the deadliest wars in history.

“What?” Ronnie said, looking surprised, “Is that what you read into their response? Are you sure you’re not feeling biased towards them because you’re training to be one?”

“I mean, one of the Couriers’ explicit purposes was curbing the power of the Church,” Loria said, “is it unreasonable that they might have predicted this new, revolutionary technology might prove oppressive for the common man? Especially if it ended up centralized in the church and the governments.”

“Oppressive for the common-” Ronnie shook her head, “Isn’t it far more likely they saw the writing on the wall that Magetools would eventually render them mostly obsolete? The Church is the Church, and there would always be wars, but by giving everyone magic, the Couriers – who are mostly mages for hire – lose much of their purpose.”

“That’s rather cynical, isnt it?” Loria replied. The Couriers, of course, were not obsolete like Ronnie suggested, but that was a common opinion among people uninformed about their work, especially among the upper crust of society. “I mean, sure, the role of the Courier has shifted since the advent of Magetools, but I find it difficult to believe that they expressed hesitence for something as silly as job security.”

“People have done more for less,” Vincent pointed out.

“Yeah, individual people have,” Loria said, “but I find it hard to believe that the entire organization of the Couriers, a group founded and maintained specifically help the common man, would object to Magetool tech because they thought it would fulfill that very purpose better than they could. I think you’re projecting too much cynicism – most people, I think, are trying to do good.” It was a bit ironic coming from her, considering her judgemental streak.

“Maybe,” Ronnie said, sounding wholly unconvinced.

Loria sighed. “At the very least, you should be able to agree that their caution was somewhat founded in reality. After all, twenty years later-”

“The Godhand wars,” Vincent finished. “That’s a good point – maybe more caution was necessary than we gave towards Magetools. Then again, when you compare how life was before Magetools, maybe hesitation would have only hampered progress, and for things to really change, things like war might be inevitable.” After such heavy words he forced a laugh. “Just something to think about.”

Their discussion petered to silence as they each got caught up thinking about Vincent’s words, and, a few mintues later, Sister Ester called them back to the lecture.