Chapter 14 — Diver Ducks and Haste Magic
Ria was receiving the cold shoulder from her two best friends again, and she was sure Jax would’ve teased her or discreetly asked about it or something, but instead, the boy was focused on his dissection and harvesting work with a quiet determination.
Dissecting avians was much more complicated work than what they had done previously, but that didn’t seem to be the reason. Ria would have normally expected Jax to joke around to relieve his squeamishness, or ask questions on techniques or tools, or at least, glance occasionally at what the rest of them were doing. But none of that was happening.
Feather plucking was more tedious than technical, but still…
Returning her attention to her own work, Ria resumed plucking feathers from the bird in front of her, an adolescent ‘screaming roc’. A monster she was familiar with, having hunted the full-grown ones near Vorshan’s Hills. As much as she disliked the screaming roc quill she tried that first time at Master Rigure’s, Master Rigure had been right and they did make good quills for preparing weak enchantments. The conductivity was poor, but that insulated the ink from inconsistencies in energy density provided by the enchanter, resulting in more consistent energy density in the inked designs—something a delicate low-power enchantment would be more susceptible to.
Ria was disappointed that she missed the practicums on reptiles entirely. She did have some experience with snakes already, but not lizards. Forest lizards weren’t really a thing, unless dragons counted as lizards, maybe?
Wait…were dragons lizards?
Did that make her part lizard?
Her hand paused mid-pluck and she glanced down at her gloved fingers and to her forearm before remembering the strange impressions of crescent shaped bruising from when she tried to hurt herself with the weight of her domain.
Scales?
Ria ran a gloved finger over her forearm that had been bared to the elbow to keep her clothes from getting dirty. The glove wasn’t catching on anything.
She pulled the glove off and tried again. Her skin didn’t feel like scales, and she had a layer of very thin hair like most people did… did lizards have hair?
With her sharpened vision, the hair did seem to bunch into a suggestion of crescent shapes. Maybe she did have scales?
“Something wrong?” Keira asked.
Ria shook her head, gently denying, and put the glove back on, rapidly plucking more feathers with the assistance of her body-strengthening magic. “Un-uh. Just thinking about something related to my bloodline.”
She spread out one of the roc’s large wings, taking more care with the larger and more valuable feathers there.
Dragons had wings, didn’t they? Ria had formed wings of flame as a joke the first time she and Leon seriously sparred. Something about standing within the flames of her enchanted stamina barrier inspired the idea, but now she couldn’t help wondering if her bloodline was the source. The shape had come to her with suspicious ease, now that she looked back.
She had never seen dragon wings before other than in books. Was that really enough to be able to shape them as well as she had?
As natural as the feeling had been, she didn’t have wings—ones made of flesh and bone, anyway. She did have parts of her that clearly weren’t human, her energy-refining horns for example. What other ways was she anatomically different from a normal human? Surely, there were other things.
How much different did she need to be before she wasn’t really human? Did she still consider herself human?
Ria sighed at the direction her thoughts had taken while trying to avoid the obvious and glanced again at Jax. It wasn’t as if she was actually clueless to the cause of Jax’s newfound seriousness.
And now that it was on her mind, she felt bad about being so lost in her own feelings since she awoke after the debut that she hadn’t wanted to really think about what Jax or any of the others were experiencing. Jax in particular had been much closer to Ellen than she had been. “Were you able to go to her funeral?”
Jax blinked—his good eye—and after a moment shook his head. “No. Ellen’s parents held a private funeral.”
Ria paused at that, but it made sense. Why would a commoner family want to share their grief and failure with the pride-filled and successful nobles that had been Ellen’s peers? The situation with Ellen’s rented dress being ruined was still worrisome, too. “Would you want to go see her parents if you could?”
“...I don’t know,” Jax eventually responded, bitterly adding, “What good would it do now?”
Jax was probably right. Best would be to have someone discreetly find out about the debt, and to pay it off anonymously. That was something that would be difficult to do while confined to the academy grounds.
Even just finding out who Ellen’s parents were, where they lived, who owned the debt, and whatever else was required sounded like it would require navigating at least two distinct bureaucracies. Ria didn’t have a clue where to start.
Maybe it was something Aeri might be able to help with? The Vorshan Hill’s girl was studying about governance. Arthur might be able to ask. Worth a try at least.
Bored with the screaming rocs, once she had finished harvesting the meat and talons and everything else from the monochrome black and gray bird she was working on, Ria brought the next enchanted sack onto the shared table and moved on to the second avian of the day’s practicum: diver ducks—a weird waterfowl that used air magic on its brain to prolong the depth and duration of its dives.
With the arrival of Princess Aveneph during lunch, Ria’s efforts to read the book on time magic had been cut short, but she was fairly certain one of the entries in the chapter listing had been: ‘Diver Ducks: A Possible Solution To Haste-Induced Air Deficiency?’
Ria didn’t have any idea what ‘air deficiency’ was or why a time magic spell like ‘haste’ would affect one’s air element. That was just weird.
Still… air deficiency…
It did sound vaguely like she had heard the term somewhere before.
Air deficiency… deficient air? Ah-! Mining! She’d read a story where characters were trapped in a mine and the air was deficient or in some cases bad! And, the characters began to become dizzy or sleepy and pass out…
Ria’s eyes widened. Haste-Induced Air Deficiency.
The example Aldri had given when explaining the dangers of her magic was ‘a bubble where time is moving faster’… Was that ‘haste magic’? Had she been using ‘haste magic’?
The blackening vision and loss of consciousness—could she have been suffering from air deficiency?
Did that mean the reason she collapsed at the debut was her own fault?!
Her mind froze and refused to follow that thought further.
Deep breaths.
Deep breaths.
What was done was done. She didn’t know anything for sure yet, and now was not the time or place. She would read the chapter later and deal with it then.
Her fault or not, she had failed. Nothing would change that, and short of finding a way to send her astral body back to the past, she could only strive to do better, to be better prepared.
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Hells, even if she managed to send her astral body to the past and change things, would things be changed for her or only her past self? Would her current self cease to exist? She just didn’t know anywhere near enough about how time worked.
Mechanically, Ria forced her attention back to the duck on the table beneath her paused hands and carefully cut the skull open with a shadow edge, pulling back the halves to reveal the air-attuned brain-flesh.
She closed her eyes for a moment and took two more calming breaths.
Even with all her harvesting experience, harvesting brain-flesh or even just the fatty lining from anything remotely human, it always creeped her out and made her feel queasy. Ria took hold of her already prepared tongs and quickly finished the extraction, trying to ignore the sounds.
It was hard to believe that her own brain, the center of her ability to think, was wrinkled and gross like that, but she knew it was. Studying and practicing the techniques from the Soulkeeper manual had made her well-aware of the structure of her own brain.
That knowledge did make her wonder whether souls had memories or could think? What would it be like to exist in such a way?
In a way… maybe she already had some of the answer. Ria mentally sought the divine spark connected to her ‘body’ gate—a piece of her ancestor’s soul. The feeling that filled her when she wore the mantle of pride, the innate knowing of primordial fire and more, that couldn’t be anything other than ancestral memory, a memory not from her brain or her own experience.
But what of her ancestor’s will? Did any self-directed purpose remain?
The sound of another duck skull being split open and having its brain noisily extracted brought Ria’s attention back to the table and to Iselyn gleefully wielding tongs to the task.
“It’s such an interesting sound,” her amused moon-elf friend commented.
“Only you would think that, Iselyn,” Keira complained, grimacing.
Ria’s lunch threatened to escape as her enhanced ears subjected her to the variations of the same beginning to take place at the other tables.
Ugh.
Keira’s gaze went to Ria’s paused hands and looked up. “Oh? Seeing you queasy is unusual, Ria.”
“I guess the sound is getting to me. How about you, Jax?”
Jax glanced up from his work. “It is unpleasant, makes me think of mortality—how fragile life is.”
Ah… that right there was a topic killer. Her fault for trying to deflect the attention.
Ria resumed her work on the now brainless diver duck. Though not valuable to the extent of the brain, the duck’s meat and feathers were still worth harvesting. No sense in wasting any of it. The feathers’ water-phobic nature made them poor for quill use, but use in dusters or drying tools seemed plausible.
Thankfully, there hadn’t been many of the ducks to process, and Ria was only too glad to reach down next to the table and pull up the last large enchanted sack from the floor. Torvest Delta Siltstrider yearlings were the final specimen. As flightless birds, they had adapted to the muddy shallows by gaining control over the mud itself. Flocks of the bird were apparently quite dangerous when threatened.
The organ the birds used to control that magic was situated in the abdomen, not necessarily hard to get to, but delicate and requiring precise cutting to not damage or spoil it. Maybe one could say the siltstriders had a gut instinct for their magic.
Heh.
In any case, as well as the four of them were doing, the fortuitous selection of specimens for the day’s work should help each of their financial situations.
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When Ria got back to her room on the seventh floor to change and prepare for her meeting with Sophia, two sealed letters were waiting on her desk.
Curious, Ria broke the seals on both letters.
> Dear Celestria,
>
> Your choice of maid, Ana, daughter of Ethan and Cienne of Vesali City, has been approved to work within the Grand Academy grounds and assigned as a tower maid for our Order. She will be arriving on the morrow for her orientation and training.
>
> Towerkeeper Alenna
Ria smiled, envisioning the cheerful girl bouncing up and down with excitement. That was great news. She would have to thank Keira later.
The second letter…
> Cousin Ria,
>
> Grandmother will be here in Vesali City and will meet with you this Divinesday in the afternoon. The details are already being worked out to arrange the meeting here on the academy grounds. I wanted to let you know as soon as possible, to avoid any conflicting commitments.
>
> Wendra
Ria’s chest tightened at the contents of Wendra’s letter. Having a day and time for meeting her father’s family made it feel more real, and she couldn’t help feeling nervous. Would they like her? Would they try to use her to their own ends? There were so many ways the meeting could go wrong.
Wendra being kind to her gave some hope for optimism, but she would still be cautious. There was too much at stake to let any one faction gain control over her future. Even so, it was a huge potential opportunity to increase the depth of her resources and support.
She’d also have to confirm with Wendra that the meeting wouldn’t interfere with her commitment to attend Orlisi’s award ceremony and banquet later that evening.
A worry for later, though. For now, she had an obligation gift to puzzle out and an afternoon tea intended toward resolving that.
Setting the letters aside, Ria opened her armoire and looked over her dresses and other clothing. She had been wearing her plum dress and her yellow dress a lot. Could she get by with a fancy shirt and simple skirt…? If she had time to make some matching jewelry, maybe. If Ana or Orlisi were there to fancy up her hair.
Ugh. Was her blue summer dress formal enough?
Wait. They were just meeting for tea. Might dressing too formal be seen by Sophia as a challenge or as implying distance between them? Would dressing more casually be better?
Ria’s eyes stopped on one of her knit floppy hats. A light blue one. And the beginnings of a plan started to take shape.
She selected and dressed in the blue summer dress, trying her Sage’s mantle overtop in place of the knit shawl she would normally wear. She braided one of her side-bangs and tied it off with a drooping bow using Grandma Fana’s blue ribbon and left the rest of her hair worn loose under the knit hat. Checking in the mirror, the result was a casual look with just the right amount of effort, friendly without expectation or obligation.
Really, it was a change from her usual elven and high-nobility stylings of late and a change of plans—maybe because of the somber mood from the practicum. Maybe, after the importance all her friends had surprisingly given to dining at the Phantasia, she just wanted to try to enjoy the visit.
The more she thought about it, this was a subtle sort of manipulation that Ria didn’t usually think up on her own. Normally, she would try to dress to the expectations—to convey her seriousness. This confident and unpretentious casualness, on the other hand, was as if meeting a friend for an inconsequential but potentially cherished moment.
Ria practiced a soft smile in the mirror. Her evil fangs made the effect more difficult to achieve but not impossible.
A direct confrontation would be a lot less likely to get Sophia’s honest opinions. The girl might even try to sabotage her. But, maybe now that she seemed to have Ophesia and Nielle’s tacit acceptance, maybe a softer touch might put Sophia off balance.
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Sophia was sitting on a gilded bench in the Phantasia’s waiting area when Ria and Knight Arella entered. The girl was dressed in her best. A lacy layered dress with expensive deep colors, an enchanted flower in her complexly braided hair, jewelry on her wrist, neck, and ears.
At the complicated grimace that briefly occupied the girl’s face when Sophia took sight of her, Ria wondered if the simpler choice of attire had rebounded to unintended effect with the other girl having dressed to match Ria’s more usual style only to be intentionally mocked by Ria’s choice.
There was no way it wouldn’t look intentional. Ugh. What had she been thinking?!
All wasn’t lost yet! Soft smile, soft smile!
In the middle of her effort, Ria caught sight of Allemi, the serving attendant from before, returning down the stairs to the reception podium.
“Ah, honored guest, I must apologize, but the third floor is currently in use. Would you like to wait?”
Ria turned toward the woman and shook her head. “There’s no need for that, Allemi. I would be happy to enjoy an afternoon tea and snacks with my knight and Young Lady Sophia here at any of your tables.”
For some reason, Sophia’s head snapped in her direction with an expression of undisguised incredulity, and Ria briefly wondered if she had said anything wrong. That was thankfully fleeting as the skilled serving attendant gave her a welcoming smile and beckoned toward the stairs.
“Then if you would come this way, I shall lead you to your table.”
Ria gave a polite nod and followed up the familiar stairs where, this time, they proceeded onto the second floor’s gallery and to a small table at the end.
The shop was packed with students and academy staff, all impeccably dressed. It seemed Ria and Sophia had been lucky not to have to wait.
After Allemi had queried them on their preferences, placed enchanted crystal teacups and pots with their individual tea choices, and left with an assurance that the snacks would be ready soon, Sophia leaned forward and harshly whispered, “You do know this place requires patrons to reserve tables in advance, do you not?”
Ah-.
Arella was pretending to not hear a thing, attention fixed on the aroma and changing colors of the tea the knight woman had chosen.
“All of the food prepared here is made with blessed or spiritual ingredients! There’s a waiting list! How? How can you just walk up and get a table? You even know the names of the staff! Your regular table is the third floor! How, when you’ve only been in the capitol for three weeks!”
There was definitely a misunderstanding going on here, and Ria could only blame Orlisi. Yep. It was definitely the elf’s fault. Somehow. She was sure of it.
That didn’t excuse not bothering to ask Wendra or any of the others about it before writing out the invitation. It was a stupid mistake that could have resulted in a huge embarrassment!
She wouldn’t disabuse Sophia of whatever misunderstanding the girl had jumped to, though. This task was going to be difficult enough.