Dear Diary,

So no bath last night, but Saffron and I comforted each other in this, our time of deprivation. Actually, that might be a concern after graduation; we'd both be working Heroes, and I had no idea how often Heroes worked in pairs, or had time off for personal lives. Yes, I am capable of thinking about the future. Mine had just sucked so bad back in Camden that I'd gotten out of the habit.

As I watched her dress, she said, "Grandma is bringing Isnomi tonight, so I'll be staying in my own room. I've been spending my Tuesday and Friday afternoons with you, so I really need to spend more time with her, even if we spend most of it sleeping."

I shrugged, trying to hide my disappointment and tension. I'd only had one bad nightmare last night, and barely remembered waking up in Saffron's arms as she murmured sleepy comforting noises at me. The boring nightmare took up most of the night and left me in that weird state it always did, but frankly I'd been getting used to that. I'm still gonna blame my next suggestion on it though. "Hey, I know it's a break from routine, but I could maybe stay with you two tonight?"

That got her to stop with one hand on each shirt lace, holding the shirt open while she pondered. Whether she said yes or no, that image definitely went directly into the bean-flicking bank for later nights on my own. After maybe thirty seconds of pausing and posing, she replied, "I'm not entirely copacetic with you maybe waking Isnomi in the middle of the night, but," she sighed, shaking her head, "I'm going to regret this, but okay, let's try it."

I leapt out of bed, scooped her up in my arms, the left one of course shattering both with my leap and my scoop, and kissed her thoroughly. When I let go of her, she dropped to her feet and something yanked me toward her from behind. I stumbled into her, grabbed her up again, and managed to direct our mutual topple onto the bed. It took me longer than I'd like to admit to realize she'd tied her shirt laces behind my back. I blame the continued canoodling. Very continued. We wound up getting to breakfast way late.

Today in Heroic Skills Doc Roberts had us working on different kinds of Wards. Doc had me put up my own Mana Ward for Saffron and me to practice in. As usual, I fucked it up in a way they hadn't seen before. I figured more power is better when it comes to keeping everyone else safe, so I just dumped as much as I could into it. It came up opaque and glowing dimly.

"Cadet Diaz, are you in there?"

"Yeah, Doc. Oops?"

"Check the Mana counter."

I hadn't looked at the thing since it pretty much never registered anything, with the exception of a few ticks when I got sloppy with my Mana Blade, but it never got out of the 'Safe' zone, even then. Now it's needle hovered right in the middle of the 'Safe' zone. "Uh, safe. Some residue, but firmly in the Safe zone."

They sighed, "That's acceptable, then, especially since the excess is likely contained within the Ward. Cadet Aetos, are you feeling well?"

"I am, Doctor Roberts. Should we drop the Ward and recreate it?"

"No, it's quite all right. Just don't get up to anything inappropriate just because we can't see you two."

"Who, us?" That got a laugh out of the rest of the class. I think I even heard Rosen laughing.

Of course I had to pull Saffron onto my lap after that, but other than that I kept my hands to myself. She spent the entire morning practicing the Wards Doc showed us last week. Mana Ward pretty much kept Mana from passing from one side to the other. Apparently with enough power behind it, that included the Mana in living things. Alarm Ward did exactly what it said on the tin; set off an alarm if anything crossed it. With enough control it could be set to allow small things to come through, which meant it wouldn't go off from, like, bugs and shit. Filtration Ward was probably the most complex ward we'd learned, and Doc taught us that while we worked to fix the Filtration Wards on the Dormitories. It could be set to filter anything the person Shaping it wanted. I hadn't tried it, because I just saw myself setting it to filter air and suffocating in my own little air pocket.

By the afternoon Saffron had Alarm Ward and Filtration Ward Skilled up, because she was absolutely willing to abuse the hell out of the entire 'I have stupid amounts of Mana to supply her, and practicing gets me very little other than tired' thing. I mean yeah, I've gotten pretty fast with the things I know, but I've already hit a point where I'm not noticing myself getting faster. I figure once the damn Status screen lets me accumulate Skills I'll just powerlevel the shit out of the things I know.

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At any rate, she spent the afternoon tinkering with Filtration Ward, trying to see how small she could get it, if she could vary the shape, seeing if she could get it to move. She had the most success with making it smaller; by the time Doc told the class to start wrapping things up, she'd managed to get it down to the size of a marble. A small one, not the big shooter marble size. She had, like, zero success with making a movable Ward, but in terms of shape she managed a passable oblong. Of course whenever Doc asked, we told him we were practicing our Warding. Just to be sure we'd have evidence of being Good Girls and Not Shagging In The Classroom, I popped off an Inspect.

"You unbelievable bitch," I said, barely able to get that phrase out through my laughter.

Of course Saffron had seen me doing my Inspect, so she whipped her hands through the motions for Status. When she scrolled down far enough, she started laughing too. "Complaints, Goof?"

Ignoring the inquisitive sounds from outside our opaque Mana Ward, I pulled her in for a kiss. When she pulled away, I said, "Not a damn one."

NAME

Saffron Aetos

RACE

Hybrid

HYBRID

Bag (12.5%) / Human (87.5%)

AGE

Young Adult

ATTRIBUTES

STRENGTH

2

AGILITY

3

ENDURANCE

3

REASON

3

MEMORY

5

PERSONALITY

2

AFFINITIES

Air (6.25%) / Earth (9.375%)

PATRON

Artemis

SKILLS

STATUS

1 (++)

MANA SHAPING

1 (+++)

INSPECT

1 (+)

ASSESS HEALTH

1

MANA WARD

1 (+)

MANA BLADE

1 (+)

CANOODLING

1 (+)

ALARM WARD

1

FILTRATION WARD

1(+)

RACIAL SKILLS

None