To put it lightly, Aru was a horrible student. It wasn’t that he didn’t try, he did. He knew every past King of the Kingdoms; he could tell you all the ingredients in nectan. He’d hand drawn, line by line every detail in Amon’s “Bardner’s Tale”.
No, he wasn’t a bad student because of his studies. If school was just studies Aru wouldn’t just fantasise about Skyfall Academy, he’d be getting ready to join.
Aru was a bad student because, in every fight he had ever had ever, he’d lost. This was harder than it sounded: Even though he was fourteen, coming to that nascent young man strength, he’d been swept off his feet by girls as young eleven who’d yet to even build their locus.
This wasn’t one or two fights either. Most people at the Risingleaf school had thirty fights per annum, one in every weekly logi lesson. But Aru’s talent, or lack thereof, attracted too much attention for so few brawls.
“Pictures of churches and guards can’t save you from little girls.”
Aru was in the library drawing the knights of Hanoi, the last of the King’s guards to have never known logi, when a squad of boys all roughly his age approached him, jeering their usual taunts. It wasn’t just any squad though. At their centre, slightly taller than everyone else, was Vorn. Vorn was the strongest student in the whole of Risingleaf school, and sadly also the biggest bully. There was no one in the school Aru hated more than Vorn. Aru’s body began to tighten up like it was already trying to mitigate the pain to come.
Yes, Vorn was the reason Aru had seen so many ‘fights’, one hundred and two to be exact – Aru kept count. Vorn and his gang would call it community service, or compensation for Aru being such an eye sore on the campus. But they’d always search him out and then blame him for getting in the way.
“I guess all that paper is dangerous for someone so weak, too much of it and you become just as flimsy.” one of the boys jabbed the words at Aru, earning laughs from the others and an approving smirk from Vorn.
In Aru’s one hundred and two fights, at least two thirds of those were because of Vorn and his friends.
Aru knew they’d spend less time bullying him if he just let them call him names. If he said nothing, he may even get away with just a shove or two. Vorn was strongest in the entire school, and he just had to make sure everybody acknowledged it.
But Aru couldn’t bring himself to ignore Vorn’s taunts. Vorn wasn’t anything special. He was only strong because of the expensive logi plants his parents got for him every year. His locus was the largest anyone at Risingleaf had ever had because of them. It meant that he could already power his punches enough to overwhelm three other boys in logi lessons.
Yet every move he made he’d leak most of his power, a show of lack of training. A tell-tale sign of a locus gained spending logi gems. He was an inept wanderer and everyone knew it. But they still let him act as though he had talent. As if he actually gained his strength and it wasn’t just given to him. As though he’d deserve his place at whatever prestigious academy he’d get into.
“I’d rather hang around paper than follow someone just for their money.” Aru spat bitterly back, the words leaving his mouth before he could think to stop them.
Aru would usually deny their taunts and hold his ground, taking in whatever beating they had for him until they got bored of his whimpering defiance, but he was growing sicker and sicker of the taunts. Soon they’d all take their final logi and academics examinations and he would never have to see these idiots again.
But his words were unwise, he would still have to deal with them until then.
“Your locus may not have grown but I guess your mouth has, maybe some swelling could help both along their way.” As soon as Vorn finished speaking all the other boys laughed as though on cue. Vorn’s eyes brimmed with excitement, he was ready to show off how strong he was. How weak, Aru. How much wealth and power mattered.
Aru’s locus was the poorest in the entire school. He as usual had no chance against Vorn. Everyone in the school knew girls as young as eleven years had joined Risingleaf, yet to even begin training as wanderers, yet to build there logi, and they had still been able to pin Aru.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t use logi, he could. And with it anybody who hadn’t even built a locus should be unable to even touch him, let alone hurt him. But whenever he did use his logi, he couldn’t make it do what he wanted. Everyone else could concentrate their locus to power their arms and legs; they could speed up and strengthen their punches and kicks, their limbs flying with white and blue auras surrounding them. They could form shields and quicken weapons. But whenever Aru tried all of his moves would start the same disappointing deep blue, and end up working against him rather than helping.
All locus attacks would start with a dazzling white aura and then as the attacker’s locus waned, it would ill towards a deeper and deeper blue. But all of Aru’s moves were deep blue. The shift to deep blue meant your locus had less power and there was less energy available, they would be weak and hollow, like a phantom copy of what you wanted, not even strong enough to resist the wind. To make things worse he would be drained of all strength after every attempt.
This was how the story of him losing to fledgling Risingleaf intakes spread. The logi teacher had been so sick of how useless Aru was, even though he had been at the school for three years, that he made him take a walk of shame, to leave his class, and go train with the new intakes at the start of annum. His whole class watched him stalk away as the teacher moaned about him and his ‘poor fundamentals’. When he found his new class, they were doing rankings to assess the latent talent of all of the intakes. Aru was placed against one of the more promising girls of the intake. During their fight, he’d lost sight of her, and in fear tried to shield himself with his locus. Aru couldn’t deny he was hoping the move would dazzle or frighten a few of the students too. Maybe earn him some respect for once. He had formed a shield, a fairly skilled move even for a final’s student at Risingleaf. She was at first wary, but like all of Aru’s logi, it was a deep blue and she knew it was weak. It couldn’t hold for long and she managed to break its makeshift aura and his arm in one simple kick.
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Aru questioned if he had made the right decision as the bullies closed in on him. He questioned as all his poor attempts at blocking loci with his locus were overwhelmed. But something irked him throughout. Was he the weak one throughout this? What strong wanderer would gang up on someone who could barely defend themselves?
“You’re nothing more than a glorified pig Vorn,” Aru shouted, not sure if his face was red with anger or the beatings, but it felt satisfying letting all his frustration for the last out for once, “Your idiot dogs protecting you from embarrassing yourself with your lack of actual skill and your parents fattening you and your logi up.”
Vorn was fat by no means, but he did have a few extra pounds. But for a wanderer to be overweight meant extremely wealthy overindulgence or laziness. A major taboo for someone who could afford to do both like Vorn.
Vorn and his men had stopped pounding at Aru to laugh at what he said, expecting pleading and begging. But they went silent after instead. Vorn turned a mean mean red, not saying a word. Finally, Vorn’s right hand crashed into Aru’s neck, clamping it tightly enough to squeeze air out, and carrying him off the ground. Like this Vorn carried Aru out of the library.
***
Aru questioned his choices as perfect Belle- the only girl his fourteen years of seeing had deemed worth sneaking extra looks at- walked by him while he hung upside down, suspended from the library by a rope. No shirt no trouser, with more bruises on show, stark against his pale skin, than hairs in his black hair.
He questioned and questioned, hoping to distract himself from embarrassment, for the two hours it took him to lose himself free of the rope. That was enough time for at least half the thousand students of Risingleaf to have rushed to the library to laugh at him.
Aru noted how the shades of his bruises painted a battleground with similar stationing to Cirna’s War- he kept note to try and sketch that later. He couldn’t help but lighten at that. Yes, even this he could draw away. He would hide back in his room and let the gossip rise and fall.
Days past and Aru made no effort to go to his lessons. This wasn’t unusual for him, in fact he stayed weeks ahead of lessons just for moments like this and with two weeks until the end of classes Aru was already done with all the course content anyway. He obviously still had to attend his weekly logi lesson but that was at the end of the week, enough time for everything to blow over and for any rumours to go. Aru swore thanks to the knowings of Obo and Yamu for being switched classes, hating the teacher that moved him a bit less. It meant he was now away from Vorn.
No one had come to laugh at him in his room this time. It probably wasn’t as bad as he thought it was, even if Vorn did get a little more creative this time.
Friday came, and Aru kept his head low as he trudged to logi class. His nerves built more and more counting every time he heard his name mentioned next to underwear in conversation. It was obvious the gossip wasn’t over.
“Yeah, my dad didn’t even laugh, he was too angry that people as pitiful as that Aru were allowed to learn logi, ‘weak body, weak mind’ he said. The kid could end up wasting a logi plant or two.”
Slurs from parents were something new to Aru but it wasn’t much different in material to what Vorn and the other students said. He’d be fine, he thought.
“I heard Janvier told the story to one of his family’s silent-sworn guards. Hah, Janvier swore he heard him laugh,”
Janvier of Banor? So, the rumour was popular amongst the more affluent and gifted students. But Janvier’s family lived two hundred miles away, they were closer to The City of Skyfall than the town of Risingleaf. News had spread that far?
With the speed of airsailing gossip could make it to the City of Skyfall in hours. But only the richer students would have any business visiting there. Rich like Vorn…
What would people from there say if they heard? There were great artists there, great scholars and great fighters. They spent all the time they weren’t pursuing their disciplines ingratiating themselves to the benefit of one another’s power. To people like that gossip was everything. Spreading it made anyone interesting, it gave anyone power.
And everything was stories, slander and reputation. It was why people like Vorn tried to dominate so loudly, they needed a name. They needed to matter. And all talk was good talk even the bullying kind. In a society where the strong preyed on the weak, it was too be expected, almost encouraged.
No one at Skyfall Academy would have ever been embarrassed like he had been, Aru thought.
This could ruin him. All it would take was the story to carry with a name and his small chance at Skyfall would turn to exactly no chance at all.
Skyfall students would never struggle with something like this. Aru knew it was his weakness that made it so that he got bullied. But what could he do? This was the shape of things. The strong exploit the weak. That was the first thing they would tell you on your path as a wanderer.
Skyfall had the smartest philosophers, physikists and shaman. Maybe one of them could fix his logi? And not to mention all of the mysterious famous art that was rumoured to come from there. It was the perfect city.
The queasiness in Aru’s stomach settled and his mind came to ease. Yes, Vorn had finally gone too far. No, no potential student of Skyfall would let something like this happen.
Names, beatings, bullying, they were one thing. People ended up looking down on you, but whenever he tried a spell they’d still watch, whenever he spoke, maybe with scorn, but they would still listen.
With this he’d have no voice in the face of the strong. Aru knew this was different. A loss like this could ruin his life, following him. It would haunt him in the town and if he ever made it out of it, if he could ever afford to airsail to Skyfall, it would follow him there too.
Aru tucked his head deeper into his jacket, and took quicker, more definite steps. A small smile took him from his wallowing, though it was kept hidden from the world.
He’d settled that he was going to push back. Beat the bully, and make the story carry a name. Aru knew it would be his first win.