After a moment he continued writing. I harrumphed quietly in annoyance, struggling against my binds.
“You really make the most distracting of noises,” Valentine told me quietly, staring down at me.
He was kneeling next to me. His blue eyes were slowly taking in my form. The midnight blazer denoting him as a professor wasn’t on him, his button-up shirt underneath black. His sleeves were folded part-way up his forearms, ink stains on his fingers.
I was breathing heavily, sweat glazing my skin. How long had I been struggling?
I needed… I…
I needed to think.
“Mmn,” I responded, eyes unfocusing as I tried thinking with everything I had.
What was 3.14 times 2?
The light green distracted me, only to flicker out. I whimpered, head slumping to the ground as I writhed.
“I suppose releasing you will do no harm, seeing as we have to redo our soulmancy session regardless,” Valentine sighed out. His magic released me, and I sat up.
“What… what is… 3.14 times 2?” I asked.
I set myself in Valentine’s arms, entire brain nonfunctional. Valentine shifted, collapsing at the imbalance I created. I used the opportunity to further crawl into his lap, arms wrapped around him. My head rested on his chest. One of my arms pulled back, hand reaching out to play with his hair. It was very silky and fine.
“What are you doing?” Valentine asked, tone sounding weird.
“I really can’t think of it,” I complained quietly, staring sadly at the strands of hair I was running my fingers through, “What’s 3.14 plus 3.14? It’s, like…”
…
Shit. What was it?
“A-ah, you are still under the effects of your pet vampire’s allure,” Valentine realized.
Soon a green circle appeared, not my own, and I stared at it. It twirled.
“Whoa. Have I ever mentioned how beautiful your magic is? And how beautiful you are? You’re like… really great,” I said, looking up, “I almost really love you, I think. You’re amazing, and nice, and affectionate, and generally cool to be around. It really sucks you’re not okay with being just friends. With benefits, though, because you’re really fucking hot, dude.”
Valentine’s face was pink, and he stared at me for a long moment. The magical circle faded, nothing having been cast.
“If you think so, why do you seem so intent on leaving me?” Valentine asked.
I hummed sadly, nuzzling into his chest. I hugged him, releasing his hair to do so.
“It isn’t like I want to,” I disagreed, voice dejected, “But I’m always alone, and I always will be. Giving people false pretenses is just mean, because I know what kind of person I am, and I know what kind of life I live. I’m content loving people I know I’ll leave one day, but it’s too cruel to, to do that to others.”
Valentine scoffed quietly, “Yet you were so distraught over Kairos no longer being around that you almost died.”
I hummed quietly in protest, looking up at Valentine with my eyebrows scrunched together. His expression was bitter.
“It’s not like that!” I protested.
Valentine’s eyes hardened. He seemed foreign to me, his tone cold and his attitude as frosty as the character I’d read about in Curse of Perfection. Not at all like the crazy—and crazy hot—friend I knew and adored.
“Then what is it like?” He demanded, tone short.
“I was just a bit sad! It was, it was unexpected,” I insisted, frowning up at him, “I thought I had more time with him, so when I found out I didn’t, I got really hurt. Because again, I’m always alone, but he’d been there since I got to this world! I don’t know why I suddenly started throwing up blood and stuff, but stuff like that always happens to me so I shouldn’t have! My body just overreacted!”
Why was I trying so hard to convince this man? What was I even trying to convince him of?
I huffed, shaking my head. I set my head back against his chest, speaking mostly to myself, “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. I don’t even know what happened, but it won’t happen again.”
…
What was I doing again?
Right.
“Three…” I held out my fingers, staring at them blankly. How many was that?
Before I could figure it out, Valentine’s magic flared up. I blinked.
Clarity returned, shame slapping me in the face with as much vigor as I’d punched Aph and the king in the face with.
Scrambling off of Valentine, I cursed, entire face red.
“Fucking vampires,” I hissed, hands coming up to cover my face, “Uh, um, I’ll just—“ I turned, avoiding Valentine’s gaze as I strode toward the door, “Anyway.”
The door shook, not opening. I stood there for a long moment, wishing the ground would open up and swallow me whole. The effect of the “allure”, as Valentine had so nicely put it, wasn’t like getting drunk.
It was more like… weed. Everything felt hazy and great, but no thoughts were allowed into that space. I think it also made me more suggestible.
Maybe similar to really strong painkillers?
I tried the door again, making sure I twisted the knob and everything. My entire body felt like it was burning with the heat of my embarrassment.
Why wasn’t the door opening?
“Unfortunately for you,” Valentine called, walking over, “I need to continue the soulmancy session. You distracted me from taking my notes, so I had lost a lot of the observations and distinctions I had made.”
I crawled into his lap to talk to him. Because I thought it was comfortable. Not only was I a loser, but I was an idiot.
The noise of the door shaking violently matched well with my voice.
“You’ve never redone a soulmancy spell on someone before,” I refused.
My shoulders were tense as the sound of his footsteps grew closer.
This was uncool this was embarrassing this was unfair and I personally think I’d make a very tasty snack for the ground—
My rambling and unbreathing thoughts were cut off as Valentine reached out. The warmth of his hand contrasted the cold of the door. I looked down to evade his gaze, then to the side when I noticed a tent in his pants. As the silence stretched I melted further back against the door, shame only increasing.
Great. Cool. This wasn’t… this wasn’t at all what I had expected. This wasn’t what I planned. Sure, trauma-dumping on Herald was fine, what was he going to do with the information? But telling Valentine stuff like that would only make him misinterpret my actions and words up until that point.
Herald wasn’t the type to physically lock someone in a basement! Valentine, unfortunately, was. As could be seen by the chains and cages literally in the soulmancy room.
“You’re blushing,” Valentine pointed out, making it oh-so-much-worse.
Why did people always feel the need to point something like that out? It sucked, and it was embarrassing.
The frigid stone door was very nice on my skin. My skin happened to visit the surface of the sun, so having something to cool it down was great.
I needed to fix whatever I said. The misunderstandings I created. So… What did I say?
Well, I trauma-dumped about always being alone. My lifestyle. I kind of insinuated I loved him, which wasn’t true. … Anything else?
How was I supposed to undo what I said?
“I don’t—“ I cut myself off, trying again.
“What I said earlier insinuated—“
No, that wasn’t the right way to start it.
“I don’t—“
That was too harsh, I couldn’t just say that.
I stuttered, fumbling my way through many different ways to say what I wanted to say.
“Don’t misunderstand,” I finally got to, hands covering my face, “I was drugged up, I didn’t mean anything I said.”
Valentine hummed, “I’m certain you didn’t.”
The agreement caught me off-guard. I hesitantly looked up, almost afraid to meet his eyes.
Valentine was staring down at me, eyes and lips relaxed. His jaw didn’t seem like it was clenched. His entire face seemed relaxed, no emotions showing.
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Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t tell anything from his eyes nor his expression.
“… Right,” I agreed.
My hands dropped, hanging loosely at my sides. I relaxed my head back against the door, looking up at the man in front of me with lidded eyes.
I was tired now that the majority of my embarrassment and shame had faded.
Valentine’s hand reached out, brushing some of my hair behind my ear. When his lips met mine, I had the oddest feeling that he misunderstood me.
The kiss was really nice, but my arms came up, pushing him away.
“I—I think you misunderstood what I was saying,“ I claimed.
“Yes, maybe,” Valentine agreed.
I hesitated, staring up at him, arms relaxing where they rested on his chest, “Wait, what?”
“You making light of how you feel for Kairos makes me believe that you will not admit to loving someone unless your affections reach your soul,” Valentine explained, “And even then you made light of what happened, as if the great pain you must have been in over his disappearance meant nothing to you. So there is no point in listening to anything you say.”
I spluttered, eyebrows raising and mouth gaping, “B-h-what? That’s not—wh—h? Dude! Do you know what—do—that is—”
I was interrupted by Valentine’s lips meeting mine again. My hands weren’t able to push him away, feeling extremely weak. Eventually I just gave up, arms wrapping around his neck and pulling him closer.
Whatever. I warned him. At this point it’s his fault for not believing me.
While it was consensual this time, it felt off to me in a way that made me feel awkward the whole time.
Kairos was waiting outside the soulmancy room. I staggered out of the door. I accidentally shoved him against the opposite wall as I fell. His arms came up, wrapping around me.
“Hi,” I greeted.
“Hello, your highness,” Kairos returned, “It is getting quite late. Let us return to your room.”
“Okay,” I agreed hazily, closing my eyes.
I think I fell asleep, because next thing I knew I was staring up at a new ceiling. It was white. Huh. Sitting up, I glanced around. It was dark.
Magelight appeared next to me after a moments’ thought. I stared around, disorientated for a moment. There was a desk covered in books and stationary, a dresser, two night-stands, and… Oh.
Oh, right. I was in a dorm room. Getting up, I went to the bathroom after stripping out of my light blue dress. After a long shower, I put on a shirt and some pants. Finding a black ribbon, I knotted it then used it as a hair-tie, pulling my hair up.
I would go on a nice jog around the nearby track.
Leaving my room was easy, and I carefully and stealthily sprinted down the stairs before a servant could stop me. Making my way outside, I took a deep breath.
How refreshing.
The sun hadn’t yet risen, but I didn’t need magelight to see, just walking toward the track. By the time I got there, my eyes were mostly adjusted. To my surprise, there were a few other people milling about.
Well, whatever. Turning on the packed dirt, I started running.
“Hey, newbie!” Someone called out. I glanced over as the same person jogged up, “Nothing you do before the professor arrives counts. You should wait for him to arrive.”
“… Huh?” I wondered, “Oh, I’m not… doing whatever you guys are. I’m doing my morning exercises.”
I couldn’t see his face, but the person seemed incredulous, “What? Don’t joke around. No one comes here at this time willingly.”
“Twenty extra laps around the track today, Ethan,” A familiar deep and warm voice called out, “One hundred total for the rest of you, get going.”
Glancing over, I saw the familiar silhouette of Silas, “Oh. Wow, you make your students do that at this time? That’s cruelty, Silas. I thought you were a righteous and good person, I didn’t realize you were a sadist.”
The sound of feet slamming into the packed dirt reached my ears as Silas grew closer.
“You had only left the infirmary yesterday, are you certain you should be out here?” Silas asked.
He stopped a reasonable distance away, his silhouette cutting a stark image in the darkness.
“Huh? Dude being in the infirmary is half the reason I got so injured,” I refused, “I’m fine. I always am the next day, you know me. Anyway, have fun being a sadist to your students.”
I turned to go toward the track to start stretching and running myself.
“I will not deny my own sadistic nature, however this is not me fulfilling any of my sadistic desires,” Silas refuted casually, crossing his arms, “Would you like to hold off on your morning routine and spar with me while I have the time?”
Stopping, I turned back to Silas.
I glanced at how slowly the people were running. It would take a few hours for them to finish, if not half the day.
“Yeah, sure. I still remember Herald’s spell to create swords. Do you have one?”
“Yes. Will yours be able to fare well against a steel sword?” Silas wondered.
“It might cut through it,” I agreed easily, doing the math I remembered, the circle an amber color as I recreated my first work, “Do you want me to make you one so your sword doesn’t get cut in half? It’s a bit on the heavier side.”
“I doubt it will, however if you so wish,” Silas muttered.
We both walked to the center of the track, grass soft under my shoes. I handed him the first sword I created, watching his silhouette swing it around for a few moments.
When I made mine, I did something similar, getting used to the weight and doing some stretches.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Yes.”
Darting forward, my sword swung out. Silas took a step back, seemingly unaffected by the weight of the sword as he swung it downward.
I let the weight of my sword pull me to the side, one foot kicking out. A spear of water left my foot. Silas dodged to the side, reaching out and raising a stone wall before my magic could hit a student.
After the moments’ pause I allowed him to do so, I swung my sword again.
Clang!
His sword batted mine out of the way. I froze at the blade held to my neck.
“Your win,” I muttered as he moved his sword away, taking several steps back.
“Yes.”
This time he went on the offensive, sword slamming out. I ducked under it, his signature spell burning brown as I speared directly into his abdomen.
He staggered back, dropping his sword. Foot slamming into the ground on top of my sword, it got torn from my hands.
I leapt up, arms using his neck to pivot to his back. A spear spell was aimed at his neck.
The moment he felt the magic touch his neck, he stopped struggling. A sigh escaped him as I released him, glancing around after dancing away from him.
Light formed around my hand, and I found the two swords. They were next to each other, one having scarred the earth in its fall. Crouching, I picked them up, tossing one to Silas.
Our sparring continued until the sun started to rise.
Mid-spar Silas stopped attacking. I couldn’t stop my swing, but he just blocked it.
“You have bruises and bite marks all along your neck,” Silas said, gesturing, “Heal yourself before others see. You may not care about your image, however I would prefer not to have rumors spreading.”
“Huh? Oh, sorry,” I said, a circle of healing magic appearing. I healed myself. Then, for fun, I healed Silas too.
Our sparring continued after a moment, Silas beating me down with an added brutality. It ended when he knocked my sword out of my hand. It went flying, sticking into the ground and staying that way.
I stared up at him. His silver eyes were intent, black hair plastered to his face and body soaked in sweat.
“Looking mighty fine right now, Silas,” I complimented, chest heaving, “Makes me want to—“
“Enough,” Silas interrupted, “Your crass comments aren’t welcome here.”
I chuckled, staring up at him. I tried getting my hammering heart under control.
“Crass? They’re words of affection. We are engaged, are we not?”
“Using that as an excuse to speak about licking the sweat off of me in a public space is unacceptable behavior.”
“Well, how was I supposed to know?” I teased, standing up, “I have amnesia. It wasn’t like I was taught how to act properly in society. Regardless, I wasn’t going to say that. I was going to say that it makes me want to—”
“I do not wish to know. You have your morning exercises to do still, do you not?”
My smile faded, heart aching, “Fine. I’ll just write it in a letter that’ll never be sent,” I muttered to myself as I turned and walked toward the track, “Like I do with everything else I wanna say to you but can’t. Loser. Asshole.”
After a while of sprinting as fast as I could for as long as I could, ending in me collapsing on the track and scraping across the ground, I started my morning routine.
Stretches, lunges, cartwheels. Anything and everything that moved my body in a very nice way and exhausted my muscles without hurting them, I did. Then I walked to the forest, not seeing anywhere else to do pull-ups and chin-ups.
Grabbing a branch, I exhausted myself with pull-ups. While I waited for my arms and lungs to get under control I planked, alternating to chin-ups once my heart stopped hammering as hard. I repeated the process until I couldn’t hold onto the branch any longer.
Then I altered my shower spell to pour freezing cold water over me. My legs and arms were made of well-cooked noodles.
“Exhausting yourself like that is not healthy,” Silas called out as he stood in front of a lot of people swinging an odd-looking sword.
“With how often I heal myself it doesn’t matter,” I called back, unable to lift my arm to wave his words off, “All I plan to do today is reread my textbooks. Oh!” I stopped, “Do you know if there’s a place I can exhaust my magic? People that need to be healed, or maybe a place protected against destructive magic? I think everyone would be annoyed if I just shot off fireworks all day.”
Silas looked at one of his students, scolding them on their form for a moment. I waited patiently.
“Yes, there is no end of disabled or otherwise injured professors and students. If you wish to spend all your magic healing, Professors Indigo, Jerald, and Nocta all have injuries similar to the servant you healed at the castle.”
I hummed, tilting my head. I’d only heard of Jerald, before, because he was an immortal dragon, one of the ones that made it to the end. He had white hair and golden eyes. He killed the last two of my favorite characters. They were dragons, too. Thoros, a black dragon with purple eyes, and his purple son with green-gold eyes, He Who Reigns Over The Sky. Sky for short.
I’d heard of his injury in the story. It was a giant scar that showed his ribcage, something that caused him unending pain and something that made one of his arms unusable.
I wondered what it would look like on his human form. He was mostly just created to be the main character’s faithful and loving method of transport, so I couldn’t say much about him.
Thoros and Sky only appeared in his backstory and as something that prevented Aph from getting to safety a few rides in. Thoros was the one to give him that scar during one of their various battles.
He was the worst off of the ten remaining immortals, practically at death’s door. The only reason he still lived was because Orion and like two others were Lawful Good like he was and helped him.
I suppose it didn’t matter if I healed him or not. He survived anyway, and managed to beat Thoros alone while heavily injured. At best I would get a free taxi service instead of Aph.
Which I didn’t mind.
Regardless, I’d probably search for the other two first. Indigo sounded like a good starting place.
“Where’s Indigo?” I called.
“Professor Indigo. Ask around, this is a weekend so he may not be here,” Silas responded.
I huffed, turning to continue, “That was helpful.”
“I can help her find him, pro—“
“Did you do your extra twenty laps already, Ethan?”
“… No, sir.”
I glanced back to see Ethan looking miserable. Poor guy. Wandering through the halls, I sighed.
“Damn. Should I call out to him like a dog? Here, Indigo, Indigo,” I called out as I walked through the halls.
A man with heterochromatic eyes glanced over, looking annoyed. He was wearing a professor’s outfit, the midnight blue blazer over a button-up with white pants pretty obvious.
“It’s Professor Indigo,” The man corrected sharply, “What do you need him for, aside from disciplinary action?”
I rolled my eyes, “Dude whatever. Lance already soul-scours me every night, isn’t that punishment enough? Oh! Wait, you could help me find him!”
I turned to the professor, staring at him for a moment. His eyes were dandelion yellow and a vibrant red. His indigo hair was choppy and mussed, like he hadn’t brushed it. I mentally dubbed him Ronald McDonald. Not only did the colors fit, but he looked like a clown due to his hair and eyes.
“Why do you need him?” McDonald asked irritably, glaring at me.
“Well Silas said he had an injury, and I don’t plan to do much of anything today, so I want to exhaust my magic by healing him. Apparently he has an injury similar to a very complicated one I’ve healed before.”
McDonald’s face grew red, and he looked furious, “His injury can’t be healed.”
I blinked, “Well, maybe, but I regrew some guy’s hand, and trying isn’t going to hurt anyone, so…” I trailed off awkwardly.
Before he could respond, someone knocked into him. It was another professor with blond hair and brown eyes. He scoffed as he looked down at McDonald.
“Hello, Indigo,” He said.