Interesting.
Damn. I should have kissed him when I had the chance. I might never see him again.
Turning, I continued walking, looking around. My mood was massively improved. One, Orion wasn’t an issue anymore. That removed literally everything I needed to accomplish in this world to live comfortably in it. Minus maybe Rowan. Two, Jester appeared!
At first I wondered if I’d grown too overpowered, but nah. Nah. I was still weaker than literally every professor here, and couldn’t even heal a deep enough cut without running out of magic. I couldn’t use grace still, and I forgot what the god of magic had shown me.
Just like how Saintesses and Saints weren’t killed, why would I be killed?
Eventually, I came across the apple orchid. Pyro was there, munching on some fallen apples.
Wandering up, I pet him roughly on the side, patting him.
“You did good, Pyro. 11/10,” I complimented, “You’re the best.”
Pyro glanced up, going back to munching on apples. Looking around, I hummed. So that means I was on the southern end of the Academy, right?
So all I had to do was go straight north, I would walk past the water fountain, and then the giant cathedral-like building would be the administration office. In there, I would just find Herald’s office, and from there find the basement. And then Desmond would help me get back to Rain dorm so I could fill up cups of blood for the surviving vampires.
Nice!
Nodding to myself, I looked around, being extremely careful to gather my bearings. Heading in a direction that was definitely North, because I asked Pyro, I started walking.
It should only take two hours maximum to reach the cathedral, right?
The walk was nice and beautiful.
I stared at the wall surrounding the Academy, glancing around.
“Did I… did I miss the water fountain?” I asked, looking behind me. I didn’t see any water fountains.
I sighed, annoyed. Fuck. I was lost. Looking around, in the far, far distance, I saw woods. Right, the track was on the edge of the forest, right?
By the time I made it back to the Rain dorm, it was getting dark. I had spent all day being lost. As I hadn’t heard any reports saying class was canceled, that meant I missed all of my classes, too.
Fuck. I should have just hung out with Pyro and waited for him to become full before asking him to take me back to areas I knew.
Sighing, I wandered into the Rain dorm.
Glowing red eyes all focused on me, silence falling. The sight of various cups in their hands made me snicker.
You walk into a coven of vampires. They’re all holding empty cups and talking politics. The thought was hilarious, to me.
Damn. I just regained all of the calories I needed, too, my body finally at a healthy weight again. Regardless, a healing circle appeared, and using my sword, I slit my wrist.
“Good job. Come fill your cups one at a time. Make a line.”
I just stood there, healing myself as vampires walked up, filling their cups.
“No refills,” I deadpanned as I saw someone try and get back in line. They looked disappointed, turning to leave.
Desmond was at the very back, which was uncharacteristic of him. By the time everyone else—some fifty people—had their cups filled, I was dizzy, my body running out of calories to generate more blood. I stumbled, wrist healing when Desmond’s cup was only half-full.
“If you let me take the blood covering you, I would happily forgo the rest of my cup,” Desmond offered, sipping from the cup.
His eyes followed me as I collapsed to the ground.
Reaching out, he ignored my wordless mumbles attempting to stop him as he lifted me up, tossing me over his shoulder.
The world spun. I felt very disorientated. Eventually the world twisted into Desmond being above me.
“As you had promised, I will take the blood you have not given,” Desmond murmured, eyes glowing brightly.
I couldn’t respond, half-passed out already. Desmond’s tongue reached out, collecting the still-fresh blood on my wrist. Then his tongue wandered to the dried but still glowing parts of me.
A jagged line of gold that reminded me of the Fae King appeared all along Desmond’s skin, absorbing into his body. He glowed as he shamelessly took in the angelic blood.
The glowing red eyes that I’d taken for granted faded into the red-gold color signifying an ascended vampire.
Desmond hummed, looking at me through lidded eyes for a moment before continuing to lick up every drop of blood he could get, off of me.
When I woke up, I was naked and smelled like dried saliva. My nose scrunched as the scent made my stomach twist pleasantly.
Standing up, I collapsed to the ground. Groaning, I pushed myself up. Getting to the bathroom, I washed myself off.
Sighing, I started my morning routine. Pyro seemed annoyed that I hadn’t hung out with him during class and bathed him yesterday. I took the time to clean, brush, and otherwise take care of Pyro. I fed both him and his flames, giving him about half of my magic as he ate grains and hay. The stables were otherwise quiet, some of the more intelligent horses giving Pyro a jealous look.
“I’m going to go get something to eat, okay?” I said after he was taken care of, “No training or running around this morning, but I’ll still take you out during class, don’t worry.”
Pyro snorted, continuing to eat. Nodding, I went to the dining hall. Walking into the kitchens, I was glad there was food still available, the kitchen staff glancing over. Piling up my plate, I went back and forth a few times.
“Hungry?” The head cook wondered my fifth trip back.
I shook my head, vaguely sick, “No. I lost all of the calories and blood I’d had yesterday. I’m trying to refill the calories I lost. Diffusing the calories from the food using my magic is easy, but ugh. Do you have anything really high calorie that won’t burst my stomach lining?”
The head chef shrugged, “We have salted butter.”
“I’d like a pound.”
The head chef laughed, nodding again as he went to the fridge. Soon a pound of butter was being thrown at me. I caught it, surprised by the throw.
“Good luck healing yourself, Goddess,” The head chef waved off.
Nodding, I set the butter on my plate, turning to walk away, “Thanks Jeremy.”
Stomach full of mostly red meats and eggs, I ate the butter with great displeasure, a magic circle constantly healing me to diffuse the butter into its caloric form the moment it reached my stomach. I stimulated digestion, feeling bloated.
Soon my magic flickered out, the butter gone and my cheeks having squish again. Standing up, I went to manually evacuate my bowels, still feeling sick.
Man. I’m glad I thought to do that. Before, it sucked, and I had to take nutrients potions that tasted like ass for a month straight.
Wandering to the infirmary, I saw several professors with severe injuries. Ah. So Jerald and Story couldn’t come get me, they were half-dead.
Regardless, I did my part. Story’s snakes started moving around. One of them smelled me, tongue flickering along my hand. I smiled, unable to help myself as I patted the cute black and red snake on its tiny head.
How cute.
Moving on, I went around.
“You took your time coming here,” Uran complained the moment he woke up, groaning, “How long has it been?”
“Well I was lost and no one called for me,” I responded, moving to heal Silas, “By the time I found my dorm I figured I wasn’t needed.”
Jerald made a deep noise as he sat up, eyes focusing on Story, who was sat up next to him, “Yes, no one was in danger of dying. Your services were not immediately needed.”
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Nodding, I kept healing Silas. Yeah, I figured.
“What time is it?” Doom Herald groaned out as he sat up.
“The unholy hour of morning,” I deadpanned. Then I hesitated, “So how do you guys actually tell time, here? I kind of just stalk—I mean follow Aph around to get to my classes on time.”
Silas chuckled as he sat up, “Yes, I am certain everyone in the school knows of your habit of following her around. We tell time by the location of the sun, stars, and moon.”
“Wow. Dark age stuff. Cool,” I said, “How does anyone get anywhere on time?”
“Welp, we have a spell that does the location gathering for us,” Nocta explained, a spell appearing on his fingertips. Then he shuddered, “Ooh, that’s early. Do you always wake up at this time?”
“Huh? No, I woke up a few hours ago. I took care of and fed Pyro and ate a bunch first. It’s several hours into my day, this is around when Silas and his class appears at the track.”
“Ah, it is three-thirty in the morning, then,” Silas gathered as he shifted to get up, “I must go, lest my students begin to believe they can slack off.”
Everyone I healed stood up. Wandering to Raphael, who was next to Fred in his bed, I hummed.
Sorry, Raph. You’ll have to heal the old-fashioned way. The magic circle the god showed me was way too complicated to remember.
“It’s fine,” Raphael muttered tiredly, eyes opening as he stared up at the ceiling for a moment, “I owe you my life.”
“Yus,” I agreed, “That would be the case if you hadn’t healed me. We’re even, now.”
I’m probably still just a little in his debt, seeing as he was the reason I didn’t have to get tortured every night so I didn’t die again.
I’ll happily call it even that we saved each other’s life, though. Going to Fred, I hummed.
His eyes were open, and he was staring at me. All along his face and body were severe burns, half of him practically charcoal.
“Sorry I took so long,” I apologized, starting to heal him.
Fred rasped something unintelligible. His skin restored itself, only a small amount of skin healed before I ran out of magic. Going to one of the cupboards, I used two full vials of magic replacement potions before Fred was fully healed.
“You promised me a cup of blood if I survived,” Fred commented, sitting up.
I nodded, “Yeah. Give it a day or two, I used empty calories to restore my blood, but it’s mostly butter running through my veins right now. It’ll take awhile before my blood goes back to normal. At least I think, I’ve never tried restoring my blood using empty calories before.”
Fred scrunched his nose, “Gross. I’ll wait a few weeks.”
I nodded. That was a smart decision. My tongue still tasted of butter. It made me feel vaguely sick.
No one seemed to have anything to say to me, everyone except Story leaving. Story didn’t have much to do, as he wasn’t a professor. He mostly just chilled around the Academy, letting the sun touch his skin now that the President addressed him and mentioned he wasn’t dangerous.
His official title was security guard.
The door opened, Lazarus yawning as he wandered in. Hesitating, he sighed when he saw me, turning on his heel. The door closed behind him as he went back to bed.
Poor Lazarus. He was a forth-year who worked in the infirmary to pay his bills. His story was so sad, mentioning a sister that died of illness and everything. At least I helped make his job easier.
Wandering to another cupboard, I drank a gross potion of nutrients. Speeding up the process like Lazarus taught me, I took another potion and set the vials down.
Turning, I regarded Story. He was holding and staring at one of his snakes. I think it was the black and red one that greeted me.
“Do you wanna go on a walk?” I asked Story.
I had nothing to do for the next few hours, and I wanted to know if he had names for his snakes. As someone who adored snakes, I was very sad that it wasn’t addressed in the story.
Sadly, the author blocked me on all forms of social media after I spammed her about Jester, and stopped answering my comments, so it wasn’t something I had been able to find out about.
“Certainly,” Story agreed, standing up. He was still soaked in his own blood.
“Do you want to wash off first?” I wondered, reaching out and grabbing his hand to walk off.
Story couldn’t give an official complaint about harassment, so I was fine doing this. Story’s head turned toward his hand.
One of his snakes reached out toward me. It strained itself, becoming a long and straight noodle.
I grinned, reaching out and rubbing it under the chin. The red and white snake took the opportunity to wrap around my finger, seeming content.
A black snake with a red collar around its neck and a red belly reached out, too, resting it’s head on the top of my fingers.
I gently pet both the snakes in my hand, suddenly finding myself unable to open the door as we came up upon it.
Regretfully, I released Story’s hair, reaching out. I didn’t release his hand, opening the door wide enough that we both were able to go through before it closed.
“You do not seem afraid of me,” Story mentioned.
He hadn’t been one of my favorite characters, but that was because he was mostly just a lonely character. It wasn’t shown that he was overly competent or intelligent, just that he was a kind wandering soul, seeming forever lost.
“Nah, I’m not,” I agreed, “I love your hair, you can’t turn me to stone, and while you’re powerful, you’re not really all that aggressive.”
Story chuckled, “Most people are wary of snakes, in this realm.”
“Oh? Why?” I wondered, “In my world they’re the symbol of healing and goodwill. Also they’re really cute.”
Though they were also viewed as a great evil, that was more metaphorical snakes for media’s sake. Actual snakes in my world were seen positively, from what I’d seen and heard.
A sort of balance between fiction and reality, because while people feared them, they still helped create a lot of useful drugs and procedures that wouldn’t have existed had snakes not been around.
I mean I bet no one would have thought to milk a spider for its venom if they didn’t do it to snakes first. I’m just saying.
“I see,” Story said evenly.
“Sorry, I’ve been doing it without asking, is it okay if I play with your hair?” I wondered curiously, reaching up.
One of the snaked reared back, clearly surprised after being gently tapped on the nose.
“I would like that,” Story agreed.
Today was a weekend, so I just wandered around the campus with Story. Eventually we ended up under a beautiful tree with green leaves, sunlight shining down.
Story had his head on my lap, and I was gently and methodically patting each of his snakes for five long strokes of affection before moving on to give other snakes attention.
They all seemed amenable and relaxed, most curling up on my lap after I was done. A couple of the snakes seemed to hate me for little to no reason.
I just patiently held out my hand. They glared at me. Rolling my eyes, I leaned back on my hands, ignoring the stubborn ones.
Looking up, I stared at the sunlight as it filtered through the leaves of the tree. Gently dotted around the grassy plains were buildings, but in this area they were few and far between, the giant tree being pretty great. Story had taken me here, saying it was a place he quite enjoyed coming to.
I could see why. It was peaceful, and everyone that was walking around was so far away it didn’t matter.
Horse riding classes didn’t stop during the weekends, though, so once the sun reached around the midpoint of the sky, I had to get up.
“I have to get to class, now,” I commented with a sigh, “It was great hanging out with you. We should do it again sometime.”
Story sat up, a peaceful air about him, “Of course. Enjoy your classes, Fi.”
I grinned at the nickname as I got up, “Have a good day, Story.”
Jogging in the general direction I thought Pyro would be in, I was surprised to find familiar buildings quite soon. Ay! I wasn’t going to be lost, this time!
They should have maps absolutely everywhere in this place. Why didn’t they have any?
Pyro seemed especially restless today, going into a full gallop with a lot of relish the moment he was allowed. He was so excited that he injured himself, and I had to scold him as I healed his injury.
“Most horses would be permanently disabled by what you did,” I scolded, ignoring the horse’s scoff, “You gotta be more careful, or you’ll be in a situation where I can’t heal you! I don’t know horse anatomy, Pyro, I can only heal basic wounds on you. If you get seriously injured I don’t have a way to save you.”
Someone scoffed. Glancing up, I saw a male student with blond hair and pink eyes walking up. He was taller than Dawn, the horse-riding and familiar bonding professor. A very fancy white suit was wrapped around him, his buttons made of gold. All of his jewelery was gold or the same shade of hot pink as his eyes.
Milling around him were many people who looked ashamed or afraid, only some looking at me with as much contempt as the man was.
Glancing around, I saw a pure white stallion with pink eyes almost exactly the same shade as the student’s. The albino mare was refined looking, covered in enchanted gold-steel armor.
Oh. Rowan.
I was wondering when the tyrant of the Academy would confront me. The moment I heard people outside of the professors calling me goddess I knew he’d appear eventually. After all, he was the current unofficial leader of the student body.
“Speaking to your horse? I doubt it’s intelligent enough to understand you,” Rowan sneered as he walked up.
While I knew he meant no harm, loving all things beautiful, the snobby brat was still a snobby brat.
“My horse is more intelligent, more beautiful, and better than you are,” I greeted, turning back to my horse, “If you would excuse me.”
I mounted my horse, settling into the saddle.
“Come on, Pyro. Let’s go somewhere that doesn’t reek of tyranny,” I muttered to my horse, raising my voice to ensure he actually heard me this time, “You still want to run, right? The track just opened up.”
“Race me,” Rowan demanded.
I glanced down, staring at Rowan. I rose my eyebrows, “Why should I? Pyro isn’t fully grown yet, and Celeste can fly.”
“Do you know who I am?” Rowan asked arrogantly.
I sighed, shifting to sit sideways on Pyro. My black horse shifted impatiently. No, I thought sardonically. I just know your horse’s name out of pure coincidence. Never heard of Celeste’s owner.
“I think so,” I agreed casually, “You’re the piece-of-shit tyrant, Rowan, that traps students and forces them to give their fealty to you through magical oath, right? One of the princes hailing from the Kingdom of Rage?”
Rowan’s expression twisted. I continued.
“Being needlessly aggressive and insulting someone’s friend when you’ve just met them is a sign of arrogance and idiocy, your highness,” I drawled.
He snarled. Before I could stop it, a glove smacked me in the face. I sighed, catching it before it could fall.
A duel, huh?
I suppose it’s about time I found out where I was in terms of strength. Using Silas as a baseline was not a great way to hold any sort of confidence. If I used Silas as a baseline, I was very weak.
“Sorry, Pyro,” I commented, hopping off his back and throwing Rowan’s glove back to him, “You’ll have to run on your own.”
Pyro whinnied, rearing back for a moment before galloping off. The students all milled around, and Dawn looked annoyed as she strode over.
“This is a duel to forfeiture or knock out,” Rowan demanded, “If I win, you will become my slave and concubine.”
I rolled my eyes, sighing heavily, “If I win, you’ll release all slaves you have and transfer any magically binding loyalties you have to me. That means every single student and other person in and out of this Academy that has sworn loyalty to you will switch loyalties to me, if you’re too dim to understand what that means.”
Magic blasted out, surrounding him and I. Rowan reached out. Glancing around at the magic, I grasped his forearm.
“Professor Silas, Healer Lazarus, and Chancellor Herald, please report to the coliseum,” Dawn drawled over the PA system, “A duel to defeat between Prince Rowan of Rage Kingdom and the Goddess of Life Fiona has been agreed upon.”