Arianna was bawling back at the academy and a crowd of students and teachers quickly gathered around her. It didn't take long for Argus himself to show up.
"Out of my way!" the old man yelled as he pushed through the crowd. When he saw it was Arianna who was lying on the ground with a broken leg and crying her eyes out, he sighed.
"Oh no..." he spoke under his breath, already knowing that this meant nothing good. He walked over and crouched down next to her, first taking a look at her injuries. After deducing that her life is not in imminent danger, he decided to ask the grueling question.
"Where is...where is Velvet?"
This only made the poor girl go into a new crying fit. It took quite a while before she managed to calm down enough to speak.
"She's...she's..." Arianna could barely get out between her sobs, "...she's gone!"
Everybody gasped when they heard this. The girl continued to cry her heart out and Argus hugged her tightly.
"Get the students away from here!" he yelled at the teachers sternly. "And get me a healer!"
They quickly obliged and emptied the premise. The only one who stayed behind was Priscilla.
She crouched down next to Arianna and looked at her leg. It was a nasty sight to see, the way the broken bone was sticking out through her skin and stocking. "An open fracture...ouch..."
"Can you heal it?" the headmaster asked her while patting the girl and letting her cry.
"There hasn't been a wound so far that I was unable to heal," the elf said proudly. "But it will cost me some of my life to do so..."
"Kiss of Life?" Argus asked quietly and the woman nodded.
"It's the only spell that can fully heal injuries as great as this. Everything else would require bone adjustment first...and that is painful as heck. I think this girl has suffered enough."
"Just when I thought you could not be any better.« The old man smiled. »Knowledgeable, kind, charming, and selfless...is there a woman more perfect than you?"
"This is not time for flattery," Priscilla answered with a more serious tone. "She's in pain." The elf leaned forward and planted a kiss on the girl's broken leg. "Kiss of Life," she whispered before her lips reached her.
Arianna felt a warmth envelop first her leg and then her entire body. She peeked down and observed as a thin layer of water covered her wound. The elf emanated a faint blue glow that spread over her lips to her body as well. A slight tingling sensation was felt in her leg as the protruding bone receded and skin regrew where it was pierced. All of the other cuts and bruises she received were also closing up and vanishing while she bathed in the blissful warmth of her spell. She had heard of it and read about it in books. The spell that could heal any injury, no matter how severe. But it came at a cost...
Priscilla removed her lips and gasped for air. "This is not...an easy spell...to cast," she spoke drawing heavy breath.
"Truly, it is not." Argus nodded. "It drains your life energy when used. Will you be alright?"
"Yes," the elf replied. "I just...need some rest. As does the girl. Healing at such a rapid pace leaves a toll on the body."
Arianna felt her eyes getting heavy, still unable to stop the tears from coming. Eventually, she cried herself to sleep and they brought her inside. Hours later, the girl woke up with a start.
"VELVET!!" Her eyes shot open and she jumped up on the bed.
Miss Wormwinkle, the academy nurse and water magic teacher rushed up to her to calm her down. "Shhh. It's alright. You're going to be alright, my dear. Just breathe..."
"W-where am I?!" Arianna blurted out, frantically looking left and right. "What happened?!"
"You're in the academy infirmary, Miss Goldleaf." The woman spoke with a calm and motherly voice. "Miss Pampleton healed you before you passed out and were brought here."
Arianna remembered now. She remembered everything. Once again, she began to cry.
"Oh, sweetie..." Miss Wormwinkle hugged her. "I'm so sorry. You must be so distressed..."
"My...my friend..."
"I know...Argus told me everything..." the teacher tried reassuring her, but to no avail. It took a good half hour for Arianna to finally stop crying and even then she only did so because her tears ran dry. The headmaster and Priscilla stood at her bedside now, concerned looks on their faces. The elf gripped her hand for comfort, not saying a word.
"Miss Goldleaf," the old man spoke with a calm and soothing voice, "I don't know the details of what happened. And the last thing I want to do right now is upset you. But I would really need you to help me understand the situation, so we can send help for Miss Crow."
Arianna simply shook her head and spoke quietly. Her voice was meek and raspy from crying so much. "You...can't help Velvet...it's probably already too late..."
"What makes you say that?" Argus inquired carefully. "Perhaps there is something we can..."
"I don't think there is," the girl cut him off, her head falling down in defeat. "Velvet was...she was left in a cave...with about a dozen wyverns...and a dragon..."
"A dragon?!" Priscilla looked at the headmaster with a surprised expression. "What is a dragon doing in a wyvern cave? That was their task, was it not?"
"Indeed it was," the old man confirmed. "Well...that explains how the dragon egg got there."
"Dragon egg?" Arianna glanced up at him.
"What you brought back in your backpack was not a wyvern egg," he explained. "Nor was it the golden egg we planted for you to recover. It was a dragon egg. I have yet to find out how it got there. We always use this same wyvern nest for the task which you received. And never in all the years I've been here has a dragon entered that cave. Never."
"Oh...I see," she said quietly. This explained why the dragon was chasing her so relentlessly. She was carrying something that belonged to it all the time!
"You think..." the elf started.
"Precisely," Argus immediately responded with a stone-cold face. "Someone has planted it."
"Do you really believe someone from the Council would stoop so low? Just to get you kicked from your position? Putting these two girls' lives in danger like this?"
"I don't know who did it and why," the headmaster spoke sternly, "but if I ever find out, that person will remember the name Argus Finkleshore for all eternity!"
Priscilla could hear his voice crack at the end and he turned away. She let go of Arianna's hand and walked over to him, seeing tears glisten in his tired eyes. "That girl...was supposed to become a great sorceress. She had so much potential. She was...like a daughter to me."
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"I'm so sorry." The woman put a hand on his shoulder. "I will do whatever I can to help."
"Thank you." He nodded. "But I am old and tough. That girl just lost her best friend. She needs your comfort more than I do. If you want to help, be there for her."
"Of course," Priscilla said and turned back to Arianna, who looked completely lost.
***
Days passed and Arianna spent most of them locked inside her room, staring at the wall or out of the window. A part of her still hoped that Velvet would somehow miraculously return, but with every day that came and went that hope was steadily dwindling. This was not how she wanted her graduation to go. Not at all.
The empty bed and Velvet's items were constant reminders of the gaping hole that was left behind by her absence. Arianna cried every night before eventually closing her eyes, only to wake up into the same nightmare again next morning. Even in her dreams she saw her, asking why she had abandoned her and waking up drenched in sweat and tears.
"I didn't...I didn't want to abandon you...please...I didn't want to..." she cried on her bed.
Priscilla and the other teachers tried talking to her, but she completely shut herself in, not wanting to deal with anyone. There wasn't much they could do for her. In the days that followed, she didn't do anything at all, sinking into a deep depression. It got so bad that she didn't even bother to comb her hair or wash her face. She was a complete mess. Utterly lost.
On the sixth day since the dreadful event happened, a commotion at the academy woke Arianna up in the afternoon and her tired face poked out of her room. Her greasy hair hung loosely over her face. From its usual golden shine, it almost turned to a shade of brown. Her eyes were reddened because of the lack of sleep and dark circles formed under them. A couple of passing students jumped away in fright when they saw her. She became an enigma.
"The girl who lost her partner." This is what she was known as right now among her peers. None of her former friends and classmates dared talking to her. And frankly, she had no interest in talking to them either. Alone. That is how she wanted to be. She wanted to just bury herself somewhere and disappear from this world. Still, curiosity got the better of her that day. A lot of students seemed to be rushing down while mumbling something and she could swear some of them mentioned Velvet's name.
They must have found her body, she thought and dreaded envisioning what the wyverns and the dragon had done to her. Unless...was there still a chance? No, that's just not possible. Don't kid yourself, Arianna. This is only wishful thinking...
Slowly, like a ghost, she drifted across the hallway, following the others. Apparently, she also looked the part, as everyone was avoiding her like the plague, not daring to come closer than a few meters. Something she couldn't give a rat's ass about. The crowd seemed to be gathering in front of the infirmary, so that is where she headed as well. When the students and teachers standing there noticed her, they stepped aside, as if making a path for her to go inside. Dozens of shocked faces were staring at her as she walked in their midst, slowly advancing towards the room in which she found herself less than a week ago.
Stepping inside, she saw Argus, Ralph, Miss Wormwinkle, and Miss Pampleton all hunched over a bed at the far end of the room. Arianna swallowed as she came closer. She braced herself, but nothing could prepare her for what she was about to see.
"Ah, you came here after all, Miss Goldleaf," the headmaster met her with a stern face. The four of them moved out of the way a bit and...
"Arianna!" Velvet smiled and waved at her, propped up on the bed. "You came to see me! I'm so happy! Wow, you look awful...what happened to you?"
The girl's eyes went wide. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. "You're...alive?!"
"Do I look dead to you? Of course I'm alive! I told you I'll be fine!" Velvet laughed. Her smile quickly faded, though, when she saw tears in her friend's eyes.
"You're...an absolute idiot!!" Arianna yelled and ran towards her, jumping up on the bed and hugging her tightly. "I thought you were dead!" she cried into her chest. "I thought I'd never see you again. Never scare me like that again! Never!"
Velvet patter her back gently. "I'm sorry...I just wanted you to be safe. And you are! Look, everything turned out alright. Although," she glanced at Argus, "I didn't come back in time..."
The old man only laughed at what she was concerned about. "You're still worried about your graduation, Miss Crow?" He turned towards the pink-haired elf. "Well, what do you say, Miss Pampleton? Should we give her a pass?" He winked at her.
"The task itself was completed at the moment her partner returned with the egg." She smiled. "And her own task was completed when the carriage returned with the chest a day later, all of which was still in the seven-day timeframe. She was held back by extreme circumstances. This counts as a pass in my book."
"You mean that?!" Velvet's eyes lit up. "Does this mean..."
"Yes," Argus nodded. "You both have passed your graduation exam. Congratulations!"
"YES!!" She squeezed her distressed friend tighter. "We did it, Arianna! We graduated together!!"
Arianna couldn't care less about graduating or not graduating. All that mattered to her was that her dear friend was back in one piece. She held onto her for a long time, before finally letting go of her and wiping her tears. "I'm so happy you're alright!" She smiled.
"I'm glad to see you too!" Velvet said and pinched her nose. "Although...you should really take a bath. Sorry, but you kind of stink..."
"Idiot!" Her friend got angry. "I was worried sick about you! I thought I lost you forever! All this time I was super depressed! And now you're complaining because I didn't take a bath?!" She took a few deep breaths to calm herself down. "You know what? I don't even care. Nothing can ruin this moment. Not even your blatant idiocy!" She hugged her again. "You may be an idiot. But you are my idiot and I love you!"
"Was that supposed to be a compliment?!" Velvet cocked her eyebrow at this remark.
Thank you for reading this part of the story! I appreciate you and wish you a nice day!
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Velvet is alive! But how did she survive?