“This is not really how I expected the opening day of a tournament to be,” Leon said, slapping down the thick volume he had pulled off of the shelve of the library onto the dark lacquered wood surface of the table they were using. It connected with the table with a solid thwack that seemed to reverberate through the entire library, echoing off the high vaulted ceilings.

“Yeah, this part sucks,” Aaron agreed, pushing his seat back from the table and putting his feet cross-legged on top of it, leaning the chair back onto its back legs.

“Your gonna fall-” Tilly said in a distracted tone as she scratched notes down on some spare parchment paper, her nose buried in a book.

“Have more faith in me I will do no su-” Aaron started to answer, but his snarky reply was cut off as the back legs the chair had been precariously balanced on slipped out entirely from under him. He tumbled to the ground with a loud clatter and began rolling over to his side holding his head and groaning. Lira pulled out a wand and not even looking at him cast a healing spell. The green sparkles rained down on him and his moaning stopped. With a groan, he sat up and rubbed the back of his head. “Don’t you dare say it,” he growled and pointed an accusing finger at Tilly.

“Say what?” she asked, innocently.

“She told you so,” Leon said, Aaron, turned a mournful gaze towards him.

“I thought you were my friend!” he cried out, hurt to not have his backup like he had expected.

“I am, but I am also a survivalist, I know when I need to rack up points to cash in later when the women are grumpy.” He smiled, as Aaron narrowed his eyes at him and nodded.

“I see how it is...” he growled, the two locked eyes before both of them started laughing out loud, Leon offered him a hand and practically lifted him bodily off the ground.

“Do you have no concept as to what a Library is and how to act when in one?” A voice said partially irked and partially amused. Leon turned around and smiled at the Headmistress, who had somehow appeared behind them without even Leon noticing. She still wore the same outfit, her hair up in the severe bun she had become known for.

“Uncle Leon!” Eva bounced behind her mother, “Can you teach me how to melt things to please?” she pleaded with him, big blue eyes staring up at him in near reverence.

He crouched down, resting on his haunches to be at almost eye level for her, “To do something like that you have to be a good girl, and learn everything your mother teaches you.” he said with a deadly serious face, “Can you do that?” Eva nodded her head, she looked adorable as she bit her lower lip, a habit she had no doubt picked up from her mother. He stood up and smiled at the headmistress who was beaming at him, only his smile was not so benevolent as her own, as she looked at his face her smile faded. “Uncle huh?” he laughed, “That makes you what my sister?” she started scowling at him, her hands dropped to her hips as she struck up a perfect irked sister pose. “Ain't that right Sis?” he asked.

“Don't call me that,” she growled at him.

“What? Why?” he asked in a mockingly hurt voice.

“It makes me feel old,” she muttered.

“Wait, me calling you Sis makes you feel old? But having a child Eva’s age does not?”

“I don't know how things work in Leon land, but no, here in reality having a small child call me mom does not make me feel old, I will have you know that I know several women who were students here that have their own children here now, the fact that Eva is so young is-” she paused. “Dammit, now I do feel old, thanks, Leon.”

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“Always happy to help Sis.” he nodded his head in perfect sincerity, The headmistress was about to say something when Krya, who had to her credit not looked up from the pile of dusty old scrolls that she had Fluffy fetch for her this entire exchange, spoke.

“It is not worth arguing about headmistress, mostly because when Leon makes up his mind it becomes a reality, I swear if he believed the sky was purple it would be, just because he wished it.”

“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-” Fluffy flopped onto the table, before rolling sideways, pushing books and stacks of paper out of the way as she did so. Laying there with her arms stretched out over her head she looked up at Leon. “Leeeeeeeeooooooooonnnnnnnnn its sooooooooooo booooorrrriiinnnnngg,” Leon reached down and scratched her head between her ears, her eyes half-lidded as a lazy smile stretched across her face and her tail began vigorously swinging back and forth.

“Fine,” she huffed out, “But if you are going to call me that then I expect at least a minimum level of respect, are we clear?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.

“Wow, you agreed to that much faster than I would have thought,” Krya said, brushing her hair back behind her ears as she looked up at the headmistress with one eyebrow cocked. The headmistress simply sighed and took off her spectacles so she could rub at the bridge of the nose.

“Are you all studying for the test?” she asked, referring to the test all students that would be participating in the tournament would need to take. It was the first requirement of the tournament, making sure they all knew what the rules of the tournament, well that and testing the student’s academic abilities, seeing as the questions that would be asked were random, and the source text they could be drawn from was vast.

“Unfortunately.” Tilly said, placing down the book, “Honestly why am I even doing this? I can't even compete I'm 16,” she sighed in disgust and pushed the book away.

“Oh come on, you know how hard it is for me to study...” Aaron laid his upper torso on the table so he could reach across it to Tilly, who crossed her arms and turned away, chin up.

“So, Headmistress is there something I can do for you?” Lira asked, she had been up a stepping block to reach a book, but now she had the dusty tome in her hands she looked at the headmistress confused as to why she had come down to talk to them.

“Yes, Lira may I talk to you?” the headmistress asked, Lira, set the book down and nodded her head as Eva got pushed towards Leon by her mother. “Leon, will you watch little Eva, and please for the love of all that is holy don't plant ideas in her head about stuff.” she shot him a look, “You know like melting a cup-” Leon rubbed the back of his head with his hand and gave a little smile.

“Leon, while we are gone do you think you can look up the twelfth theory of TermoMaldumorics of Lord Balmo’s third law?” Lira asked, pointing at the book she had just set down.

“Sure,” Leon shrugged, picking up Eva and setting himself down on a seat picking up the thick tome.

“What did you wish to speak to me about?” Lira asked when they were out of earshot of the group.

“Well it's about Gwenice, you see, her mother is pushing for her to you know,” The headmistress shrugged uncomfortably and smiled at Lira. “In her own words she is a great great grandmother twice over and she doesn't want it to be thrice over before she sees her daughter grow up, also she wants to meet him, and really all of you.”

“Its progressing,” Lira shrugged, “I got her to talk about it, and she is interested, but I don’t know, this all still feels strange and weird to me.”

“Was it strange and weird when Krya joined?” she asked.

“It was, but it was a smoother transition than this, Krya was a friend, a good one and it just happened naturally from there, but Gwenice, she was an outsider, and so it is more of a leap, perhaps I should work on being her friend but I dont know, its all,” she paused, unsure how to say it.

“Its fine, I get you-” she looked at Lira, “Well, not your specific issue but I have also had some issues with my love life, after all there is a little bit of a hurdle in being in a relationship with a dryad who is the mother of a grove, has lived for over 500 years and has more than enough children to populate a small city, and that's not counting the grandchildren or the great grandchildren, and that was almost 15 years ago, now, well, there are great great great grandchildren.” she once again rubbed the bridge of her nose, “Just be nice to her if you can ok? You really don't want to piss her off,” she looked at Lira, “She and Leon have a lot in common when it comes down to how they react to threats to there family.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Lira said with a smile, “We will come see you so you can take us to her at some point, but I really have to get back,” she said, and the headmistress nodded, and walked back with her. What they found there amazed both of them, freezing them in place.

Leon was sitting in a chair surrounded by a stack of books, on his knee, which was bouncing ever so slightly rested Eva, who was looking at a book much too large and advance for her but was also filled with colorful illustrations. In his hand was a book, and as they watched he reached over to the table not taking his eyes off the book and took a sip of wine from a goblet and went back to reading. The amazing part of this was the speed at which he was reading, every five or so seconds he would flip the page, and his eyes would blur as they ran across the text.

He finished the book he was on in a matter of seconds and was reaching for another when he looked up. “No matter that cannot conduct heat can be changed to one that does such either through magic or transmutation,” he said looking at Lira, and then he grabbed the book he had been given by her and flipped open the page and pointed out the answer.

“Leon, did you read all of those while I was gone?” Lira asked, knowing the answer but not really believing it.

“Yeah, I'm still reading a little slowly.” he smiled at her.

“Slowly?” The headmistress croaked out.

“Yeah, well this stuff is all phonetically spelled, so it is much easier to read than say hieroglyphics or Sanskrit.” he shrugged...