Arras’s days mostly blended together over time. Ever since he’d been made aware of the date that his presence would be required on, it honestly took a load off of his mind. He just… hadn’t needed to worry about it, in a sense.
Ironically, knowing the time that he in fact had to worry about it, allowed Arras to not worry about it all until then! He’d done something like it before, and… he had no reason to obsess over it or anything of the like. Surely it would just be a one and done off event. And, to be honest… the last time he’d been in a similar situation, it honestly hadn’t even been all that awful. He’d quite enjoyed watching the fights and participating in his own.
On the other hand, he… did still have a few things to worry about. Arras enjoyed his work, but it was difficult. In theory, it was easy. Perhaps the initial burst of effort would be easy, only four total hours of teaching a day… but, that’s not what Arras did. Technically, nothing about the job actually required that he put in extra effort… but… he just couldn’t help it!
Not all of his students were eager, not all of them put forward their best, but for those who did… Arras wasn’t sure if he’d be able to sleep if he didn’t put that same paw forward. It was a matter of his own work ethic. After all, how could he ever deny somebody the opportunity to advance when they so clearly displayed the desire to learn that he held dear?
Anyways… speaking of sleep, yawning quietly, Arras closed his book with a bit of manipulation magic. Whilst doing that he absentmindedly shifted his perception towards Illia. She always preferred to read on her own for some reason, and he didn't want to interrupt her when she was clearly so focused, but they really did need to get to sleep for tomorrow. It would be... quite a miserable event running on empty.
"Illia."
"Huh?"
Her figure perked up as Arras leapt up to the table, mildly surprising her given his quiet approach.
"It's time to go to sleep. Twelve and-" he stretched languidly, claws flexing ever so slightly “-if you don't want to be going off five hours of sleep in front of your family..."
"Oh, yeah alright...! I guess it's time to... wrap it up." Illia acquiesced and closed her book much the same way that Arras had. "Well...uhm...after you?"
...
It had been a little difficult to sleep that night, among others… Not because Arras himself was restless or anything, no... he'd dealt with that problem before, he could certainly deal with it again. Even though the gathering was tomorrow, he still wasn’t particularly intimidated by it either. Certainly not by the very concept of it at least.
No, the reason he couldn't sleep today, and a few other days, was, even now still being surprising, because of Illia. Unlike Arras, she was most certainly "restless". He could normally fall asleep before her, but her constant back and forth between the bed proper and a post that she'd insisted on was... annoying at best. It hadn't been that bad in recent memory, so he hadn't made a point of mentioning it, but...
"Illia..."
"Oh, uh, you're... still awake?"
Arras didn't even bother responding. There was frankly no way she hadn't realized that. He refused to believe she was that bothered by the upcoming event. She had always been much better at this whole society thing than he was. She didn’t get intimidated by these things, she… well… maybe she did, now that he thought about it.
"Look, I'm sorry, it's just..."
To be fair, Arras already knew she had a tendency to overthink these matters. She cared about them a lot more than he did, but still…
"Just... what?"
He really didn't want to cause any problems, he was all for keeping things positive between Illia and himself. No need for questioning or conflict, but, these restless nights of hers couldn't possibly be healthy. It had been going on for weeks at this point, ever since a deadline had been set she just hadn’t been able to settle down, and while he’d done his best the past few days, it was just…
"Y-you know..."
"No, Illia, I don't know. Please, enlighten me as to the problem!"
Arras's eyes finally snapped open, his previous somewhat strained affability stretched to a breaking point by the stuttering of his companion. He glared up at Illia, who had been standing above him in the moment, having just fluttered down from her post for the, he believed, thirty seventh time. He'd been willing to put up with just about anything... still WAS, really. But he certainly wouldn't be doing it without any information at all. To be precise, it had been a whole fourteen days of this back and forth, he would barely drift into unconsciousness, and suddenly he'd be floundering with a sudden abscess of supporting weight! It was obnoxious!
"I don't mean to upset you, I really don’t, but you need to stay put! I don’t mind if you choose to sleep with or without me, but please, pick one, just ONE. I can’t sleep with you constantly shifting around.”
Seriously! It was just ridiculous at this point! Every time he was on the verge of finally keeping his eyes closed after a long day of various difficult activities, which, to be fair, he did enjoy, he just... couldn't sleep! He’d been willing to overlook that a few times, but with such an important day coming up…
"I... I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was... such an issue."
A rather uncharacteristic twitch worked its way through Arras’s flesh, his hindleg kicking out ever so slightly. He wanted to retort, to respond in that brief instant, but the urge quelled itself rather swiftly. He… couldn’t exactly fault her, she wasn’t wrong. Arras did have a bad habit of bottling certain things up until they reached a breaking point. He didn't exactly like to admit that, but it was a problem that he'd frequented throughout his thus far short life. He wasn't sure, but... maybe his outburst was a little unfair. It had been a problem for awhile, but it wasn't as if he'd ever made an attempt to clear… the said problem.
"Just... stop, please. If I don't sleep for at least… six hours? I'm not sure I can show my best. You don't want me to make mistakes in the middle of a duel, do you? I mean, I’ll probably be fine… but still. You yourself want me to show my best, don’t you…?”
Her response faltered for a moment, something else on the tip of her beak, but after a shuddering moment she sagged ever so slightly and nodded. "...Okay. You're right. I promise I'll stop"
Arras paused for a moment, it wasn’t as if he’d asked her to promise… but if she was offering a far more ironclad reassurance, then… he supposed he’d take it.
“You promise?”
“Y-yes.”
Slowly, cautiously, Arras allowed his eye to close once more. Not long after, he once again felt a familiar warmth settle on his side. And with a quiet little huff, he huddled into the touch.
...
And... an indiscriminate amount of time later, he felt it fade away. He wasn’t sure how long it’d taken, but nonetheless… she’d… just gotten up and left. Immediately… after promising she wouldn’t…
Arras’s heart tremored for a moment, with a mixture of emotion that he’d rather not describe. He was… not great at addressing them, after all.
He didn't open his eyes immediately, in the rightful disbelief he should’ve held in that moment, but instead waved his tails ever so slightly as he felt Illia’s talons brushing against his side while she walked away. Working his perception of magic into being ever so slowly, he broke the veil of his drowsiness and quickly moved onward to performing an all too familiar Mind Realm technique. While that wasn’t exactly unusual, the amount of effort he was currently putting into it might be described as… excessive.
For the moment, he merely observed. Not moving an inch besides the gentle swaying of his tails, which could easily be passed off as a simple level of unconscious movement. It wasn’t as if Illia would be able to sense anything amiss.
While Illia wasn't exactly bad with magic in any sense of the word, she did fall short of Arras himself in just about every field related to it; by a wide margin... Barring a few specific kinds of magic. So, despite his current magical activity, he was more than capable of hiding it from her. Which was just what he was doing. Now, on the flipside, whereas Illia was currently attempting to hide her own presence as best she could, the magic that came from her contrasted against the ambient magic of their dimensional resting grounds as the stars shone down to the earth beneath their feet. At least, it did to Arras, focused as he was.
Disregarding that last bit, perhaps Illia would've been able to sense something amiss, perhaps at least get a hint of the disturbed, somewhat peculiar dimensional magic that made up the fabric of their current reality, mildly irritated as it was by Arras's own light probing, if she had been just the slightest bit more careful.
She clearly hadn't bothered to double check, or pay more attention. After a very short burst of movement to get herself off the bed, her path towards the door consisted of only waddling towards it. No flight involved, nothing that would make a loud enough sound to alert Arras. Perhaps she should've gone with this subtle of an approach to begin with. Annoyed as he was at the moment, Arras had been given incentive to be quite perceptive.
Her wing stretched out to her side as she readied a use of manipulation magic, and practically walking right over the palm of Arras's proverbial hand, she twisted the knob. And... he allowed her to pass. Technically, he’d been fully capable of springing an ambush at any time, not a particularly lethal one, no of course not, but… he’d have been more than capable of restraining her for the night.
…He’d admittedly been very tempted to do that, the stirring shall not be named emotions urging him towards that particular course of action… But, “violence” wasn’t exactly what he wanted to employ against his Fiance? Mate? One of those two things. And either one of those weren’t things that he wanted to harm, even if that “harm” would be a bit of a shock at most. The whole reason he was… upset, about this, was that he cared about her and her promise-breaking.
He didn’t think he’d be all that shocked if… say, what’s his name… Arras couldn’t just call them “Pennsworth” any more, there were two Pennsworth’s that he knew, one of them admittedly far more preferable than the other, but still. Ah, he believed it was “Mikaela”. If that Mikaela were to break a promise, but… Illia?
He had to wonder… What was so important, that she had to directly go against what she promised to do? What couldn't possibly wait a single day, and had to be kept a secret from him? He very much hoped it was important. Because he didn't appreciate this blatant misuse of his trust. He very much did not appreciate it.
Promises were made to be kept. On a similar scale to a contract, but made between two individuals who should be able to trust each other, without the need for a contract to enforce the end result. And for Illia to just...
He laid there, for a minute or two. Just waiting as Illia neared the edge of his Mind Realm. He could've stretched it further, but it was an omnipresent rule of magic. The more that one spread their magic out, the more difficult it was to control. Arras was no exception to that rule, and he wasn't willing to test Illia’s competency like that. He was better, certainly, but not that much better. Not to the point that he'd so blatantly disrespect Illia's skills with the attempt.
And then, he got up. He was still tired, but more than capable of the feat of stealth that would be necessary. Though, just to ensure his presence would stay undetected, Arras began to weave a few layers of illusion magic. Just a few, only a reasonable amount.
Obviously Illia had closed the door behind her, but it wasn't like opening it quietly was much of an issue for Arras. Manipulation and illusion magic paired together ensured that. And with a nervous energy to his steps, Arras strode forward.
Silently stepping out, he finished wrapping himself in a multitude of illusion spells. Matching the signature of his currently active magic to the environment around him as Illia had done, but through a seperate medium, that being illusion magic. As well as completely obscuring his physical presence, muting any sound that would've happened to come off of his form, and lastly mirroring the physical environment around him in order to perfectly hide any trace of his existence.
Well, perfectly was a stretch. Arras was nowhere near perfect, but, undetectable for the most part, to anybody who'd be roaming the place at the moment, and most certainly undetectable to Illia. Especially so as he began to shrink the radius of his Mind Realm and ever decreasing the chances of himself being found due to an extremely unlikely lapse in his concentration.
With a slow, nervous gait, Arras rounded his way past the railings and onto the stairs, continually sensing Illia on the fringes of his Mind Realm time and time again. There were a few other people out around this hour, but even then there was a slight difference in the magical signatures that different races gave off. Illia was certifiably the only ashwing present, and thus while similar to the rest, her presence was unmistakable to Arras. Though, even if there were other ashwings around, everybody had slight differences in the magic that rolled away from their personage. It varied greatly, but generally an individual's amount of magic was the general indicator. But, he'd spent so much time with her that he liked to think he'd be able to tell regardless of a crowd.
As for Illia, she'd settled into one particular spot by now. A place she frequented quite often while they were in the library, so Arras supposed she was reading something. But, what could that something be, that it was this important? He was very curious.
It didn't take too much longer to make his way to her. She was basically a hop skip and a jump away, none of which were actions that Arras took. A quiet walk was more than enough, and before long, he was right behind the bird. Getting up onto the table without causing any alarm was simple, easy even. Not a sound broke outwards as he leapt up once more and touched down on the hardwood.
Each and every one of his illusions still functioning, Illia was none the wiser, looking over a page with narrowed eyes and a gritted beak. Hazarding a guess, Arras would say she was... anxious. Well, as she should be lying to him like she did, he sure did feel the… no, no, anyways… He couldn't be sure if it was for that reason.
So... instead of immediately confronting her, Arras laid down, continued to uphold his magic, and... watched.
For one, she turned the pages quite fast. Arras had heard her reading via their links a few times, and while she did read somewhat quickly... with the amount of words on each page, he didn't quite think she was giving each one a fair go over. More-so a once over, barely skimming over each page with the amount of time she was dedicating to them. And if Arras wasn't wrong... he believed that was basics on transformation magic, with the few words that he could make out backwards. Definitely not the kind of thing you wanted to rush, if Arras's own experience was anything to go by. While most magic reverted no matter what, transformation magic had a tendency of... displacing bones with misuse.
But, Arras continued to watch. As long as she wasn't harming herself, he was okay with allowing it to continue. For now, it seemed to be purely theoretical practice... but, he still very much hoped she had a reason for needing to do this. He was at least starting to put the pieces together now though… he’d had an idea since he made out the title of a chapter.
The room was silent, aside from the occasional whisper off in the distance or the turning of a page. It would be just the right environment for Arras to actually drift to sleep if he hadn't been maintaining five different spells at the same time.
...The fifth one had seen a rise in necessity the more and more he thought about Illia lying to him. He didn't want to think about it too much, more specifically, about the something it invoked. He couldn't even call it "anxiety", it was deeper than that. Far, worse. He had no idea what it was, the only thing he knew was that he really didn't want to feel it. Not even his senses magic had been able to properly block it out as of the past few minutes. Perhaps it was just too fresh of a feeling, an unknown, maybe he was just less skilled than he thought he was. So... he was... blocking it out, for now, entirely. That couldn’t possibly be good for him as past instances of such magics had proved, but in the moment he couldn’t find it in himself to care.
Continuing to shove down his darker thoughts, Arras rose to his paws and padded his way over to Illia's side. She, of course, didn't know he was there, but she would soon enough. Because as he laid down yet again, he loosed all but one of his spells, allowing his presence to bleed into the world around him.
Nothing was stopping her from noticing him any more, but...
She didn't. Even as Arras slowly breathed in and out, waiting ever so patiently for her to just notice the red splotch in the corner of her vision... she just... didn't.
The page turned again, and finally Illia began to move, her left wing stretching outwards with a use of manipulation magic, and then shortly thereafter brushing up against a ball of fur.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
"..."
He blinked slowly, and Illia blinked back.
He didn't move, and her wing shakily retracted as she sucked in an equally shaky breath.
"How... how long have you... been there?"
"Five or so minutes. But I've been watching you ever since you broke your promise."
"Well... I didn't think it'd matter too much..."
She was about to continue, but when a pang of something else managed to break its way through Arras's magic... Well both of them knew what mental suppression magic was by this point. It wasn't too difficult to tell when somebody's thoughts were... altered. Even if it was difficult to tell what lay beneath that veil.
"...I'm sorry."
"Why?"
"Well... you know what's happening tomorrow. It's a gathering, but... we're supposed to be the main event. I know you don't care, but... if I can't perform transformation magic, that... that doesn't look good. So, I snuck out. I figured I almost had it, but I guess I kept waking you up, huh...?"
"So, what? …You've just been practicing in secret? …Why? Why not just, tell me?"
Diverting the mental focus freed up to him via the collapse of four other intricate spells, Arras doubled down on the use of his mental magic. He would most certainly be paying the price for bottling this up in the short term, but he’d already been far too invested into the moment to break down now.
“Well… I didn’t want to bother you with helping me, I didn’t want to put anything else on your shoulders. You’ve been so occupied already with your students, and I know you’d do it if I asked, but… I’ve just… been kind of worthless, haven’t I? Worse… than useless.”
“...What?” For a short moment, just about everything took leave of Arras’s mind. As if his heart had stopped for a second. His magic, the world around him illuminated by his constant perception, his dread. For an instant, it just… vanished.
“Y-you know… ever since we arrived in the Capital. I haven’t… really done anything, besides make your life more difficult. I gouged out your shoulder on the first day, you’ve been getting alienated from the rest of the staff because I haven’t tried to do anything, you’re being forced to work with my family because of me, and I know firsthand how terrible they can be! And I know you don’t care about your image, but to my family, I’m fairly certain you and I are basically as good as married because you have a position here in the Academy, and that’s going to be public information to anybody paying attention. Do you remember what I told you a long while back? That if you can’t maintain a humanoid form in public events, then it’s really bad for your image? So if I can’t do it, then it doesn’t look good for me. I don’t care about any of that myself, I don’t have any bearing in it! But what do you think that says about you if your wife can’t do it!? I-I’m sorry about sneaking around, but-”
“Stop.”
“...”
“Just… stop for a moment, please.” Arras muttered as he recomposed somewhat. It was difficult to hold onto his previous qualms in the face of… that.
“O-okay.”
“You are not… useless.”
“...How am I not?”
“Well… how would you prefer I tell you? There’s so many things that I could list that it’s hard to imagine any way that you’re useless.” Arras started off as calmly as he could manage. From his logical perspective, it really was an absurd concern. She’d done so much for him, it was absurd to imagine any alternative from her being one of the few things he truly cared about, let alone her being worthless.
“Oh, I don’t know… Maybe literally anything I’ve done for you in the past… month?”
Arras thought for a moment, then nodded. He could do that.
“You did what you usually do for me with your family, and helped me through negotiations I would’ve otherwise had no clue how to deal with. You’ve been assisting in my combat class with healing magic, you’ve made being around other people much more bearable, we haven’t had the chance to go yet, but you’ve done your best to make a lot of different things around the Capital City sound very appealing… You’ve done a lot.”
Likewise, Illia too paused for a moment, however…
“You would’ve never had to deal with my family if not for me, you would’ve never even had to get involved in any part of this kingdom if not for me. Anything that I can help one of your students recover from is something they’d naturally recover from, I’m sure you’d have gotten used to it with or without me, and is all of that… not just me trying to get you to do what I want?”
Arras blinked in surprise as she carried on and on, going through each point that Arras had listed and standing counter to them. And… he couldn’t exactly disagree with any of them except for the third, and even then… he had a feeling that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. It’s true, if he’d never met Illia, he would’ve never gone anywhere near humans, or at least not any time in the near future. Illia’s healing magic wasn’t great, barely better than his, and Arras didn’t have much interest in anything she talked about most of the time…
If he’d never met Illia…
“I…”
She remained silent, laying on the table without a peep, staring into space with a blank look.
“If not for you… I’d be dead.”
“...What?”
“Way back… in The Grand Forest, back when we’d just gotten to my family's old home… if not for you… I wouldn’t have gotten back up. At least not before something else put me down. When nothing was left for me… you were there.”
“Well-”
“You alone were there. You were the only thing that mattered. Maybe that’s not true any more, maybe there are things I care about now, maybe you’ve caused me some trouble. But more importantly than any of that… You’re the reason that anything at all matters to begin with. So… how could… you… ever be worthless…?”
“I…”
“I care about you, more than anything else here. You give this place meaning to me. Even if you made everything more difficult, didn’t help me in the slightest, it wouldn’t matter. You’d still be the most important thing to me. It doesn’t matter if you’re pointless, useless, worthless, or actively a detriment, it doesn’t matter. The only worth you need to have is being you.”
“I… wow.” She mumbled halfheartedly.
“I wouldn’t be standing here with you tonight if not for you, so as far as I’m concerned… you’ve already done more for me than I could ever ask of you.
“...Alright.” She acquiesced, closing the book with a huff and a wave. “Well… I… I guess we should go to sleep.” she sagged dejectedly, having been at the very least somewhat swayed from Arras’s rather rare heartfelt declaration.
“...Maybe.” Arras hummed as he worked at fighting back the building dread in his gut. “Illia… I know I said it doesn’t matter to me… but… beyond just trying to help me, you… care about this, right? You said you didn't really care about your image earlier, but… you didn’t really mean that, did you?”
“Well… yes, but, not more than I care about you. And you’re right, I was… being dumb. I’m sorry about all of this, I really am…”
Mulling it over for a second, Arras nodded deftly. “Apology accepted, but… how far along are you, with your practice?”
“...Eh?”
“How close are you to being able to use a proper metamorphosis spell?”
“I… almost done…? I’ve been able to do some partial transformations, and it’s difficult, but… I can manage with my wings somewhat. I’m not as naturally talented as you are, so I’ve been working on the efficiency of my magic while working my way up to a proper usage of it, but… I’m probably not going to be able to finish before the gathering tomorrow. I still need to bring everything together and actually WEAVE the spell. Even then I’d only have enough magic to hold out for… ten, fifteen minutes, if I was fully rested with all of my reservoir available? It’s not like I’d have enough time to get an artifact made for this, and even then it’d barely help…”
Arras still felt a little… icky, to be frank. That was about the best way he could describe it without dredging anything darker up out of the more murky parts of his mind. But, despite Illia having hid her little project from him… he still had to respect the effort put into it. It was practically a compulsion. Regardless of what it was, any amount of true effort and grit put into something simply… resonated with him.
Sleepless nights, over and over, no wonder she’d been asleep through his first class all the time! She wasn’t restless, she was rest-nonEXISTENT! And, in Arras’s eyes… well, if she’d actually told him about this little exercise… he was in full support of it.
After an extended silence, Arras breathed in gingerly before resuming their conversation.
“No, you can make it.”
He needed an outlet for his stress anyways, it was either that or let it all burst at once, which would almost certainly end in ugly crying.
…He knew it might not be for the best, but he didn’t like letting such feelings show. It just felt wrong to him, unnatural even. Something deep in him writhed in discomfort at the thought of pouring any more of his heart out, despite the person before him being the most important thing in the world to him. So… he didn’t writhe back. He let it bind him, if only because it was easier in the moment.
Illia paused for almost as long as Arras had, before blinking confusedly and tilting her head at him. “...You… don’t mean?”
Not giving her much time to piece it together, Arras immediately launched into an excited spiel.
“If you work most of tonight with me, then we can hopefully get a solid foundation for a completed spell. Then you can sleep through most of the day and stretch the efficiency of it as much as you can before the gathering starts. We can get you normal clothing and… I’ll hold onto it with my spatial storage artifact, then whenever you transform I’ll cover you with illusion magic so you can quickly get dressed.”
“W-wait, hold on! You still need to sleep too! I-the logic is sound for me, but you’re the main event for this whole thing! It’s already late and you’re not getting much sleep because of me, six hours and a quick nap before the gathering at best! And you want to stay up even longer to help me after the past two weeks?!”
“Yes.” Arras nodded enthusiastically to Illia’s dismay. “I’m not going to be able to sleep right now anyways. And it doesn’t matter what you did in the past few weeks… You’ll promise you won’t do something like this again for me, right?”
She nodded without much hesitation, mumbling as she did so. “Well… I guess so, but…”
And Arras almost immediately interrupted her anyways. “It doesn’t matter. Anyways, tomorrow is a simple enough class day. My students in my first class are taking a written test in the second half, and I should be able to get about an hour and a half of rest before my combat class. And most of the students have no need to fight me right now. Today will mostly consist of sparring against designated partners. The only student eager to still have a go at me is Miela, and he’s not good enough to properly threaten me yet. Though… he might be somewhat difficult to manage if I haven’t properly slept. After that… I should be able to sleep for… another two or so hours before we need to meet with your sister? So… perhaps seven or so hours in total? That should be fine, shouldn’t it?”
“Ehhhh… is there any chance I could convince you to reconsider…? I can manage practice on my own, it won’t be an issue…?” She asked with dwindling hope, coming to recognize the predicament she’d kindled.
“I don’t think I’d be able to sleep anyways unless you came with me. And well, that defeats the entire point doesn’t it?”
With an exaggerated slump, Illia nearly folded in half as she cringed. “...Hahhh-fine! But I'm only agreeing because… because I’m sorry, and if you’re not willing to let this just go, then neither am I.”
“Alright, then let’s start. Point me to where you need help and I’ll do my best.”
“Yeah yeah, let’s just get this over with as soon as possible! Do you understand?”
“Absolutely. I won’t hold back anything.” Arras cheerfully hopped to his paws, his muzzle twisting upwards ever so slightly
“Y-yeah, you do that…”