Azura had a kind of nervous energy he hadn’t had in a long time. He was far more prepared than he had expected to be, but even with the 4 extra familiars he’d have accompanying him wouldn’t guarantee that nothing would go wrong. Lily and Luna were a little peeved that they hadn’t been able to lend him assistance, but he appreciated them caring more than he actually needed anymore help anyway. Bringing the familiars along was more something he agreed to with the hopes of easing their concerns rather than something he actually thought was necessary, but the extra help couldn’t hurt.
“Are you sure this is really necessary? Believe me I totally understand wanting to spite your father, but doesn’t this feel like a bit much? It’s not like a dragon contract is going to hurt you.” His friends had of course come to see him off, even if that meant they’d be rushing to get breakfast before the first class starts. He didn’t think Katy was really trying to convince him not to go, she was probably just trying to understand his reasoning. It was interesting the bizarre mix of faith and worry that Katy seemed really adept at displaying. She trusted his judgment and his abilities and yet worried that they wouldn't be enough.
“It won’t, but frankly the kind of improvements that come with that kind of spirit aren’t really the kind that I need. The enhanced senses are far more valuable to me than being a little stronger and faster, and the increase in mana barely matters given my ability to store mana away. Not only will this particular contract suit me better, but deepening it at the pool will do wonders for my enchantment abilities just as forging the contract in the first place did.” He’d be lying if he said spiting his father didn’t affect his decision, but that wasn’t the only thing affecting it either.
“Yeah that’s just what you need, another bs power up.” Lily gave him a baleful glare.He rolled his eyes. Lily was currently the strongest in the group even counting himself. He could probably win against her if he was willing to burn up certain resources, but his baseline ability without wasting any special abilities or items he had a limited amount of were worse than hers by a wide margin. Not counting physical attributes anyway. However Lily had definitely noticed that gap shrink by a lot immediately after making his contract. No doubt she would be training like crazy to avoid him surpassing her during the trip.
“If it’s any consolation I’m not actually getting any stronger per se, just more efficient, and more in tune with the spirit world with which my magic interacts.” Her unimpressed look made him smile. He was rather competitive himself, and the stronger he got the stronger they would all get to compete, and vice versa. Who said friends couldn’t be rivals?
“More efficient means you can use more powerful spells and more of them. Hate to break it to you, but that’s pretty much the definition of getting stronger.” He chuckled. It was a pretty rare occurrence, but he’d give this one to Katy he really had nothing to counter that with. He nodded at her acknowledging his loss this time. The infuriatingly smug grin she returned made him roll her eyes. Well if she was going to be a poor sport about it.
“Speaking of getting stronger you should probably practice more without your weapons, your performance in that spar was abysmal.” He weathered her stink eye with practiced grace. It was her fault really. She should know better than to play with fire. If there was 1 area he was inarguably better than the rest of them it was wordplay. The joke of the Silver’s being named such as a reference to their silver tongue didn’t come from nowhere after all, and the line between a silver and a sharp one was razor thin.
“Are you sure you can’t wait a bit longer to depart? I can feel that my familiar is close to hatching, and I’m sure she would be of use to you.” He sighed. Luna’s familiar would be extremely useful once the phoenix was at least partially grown, but it would take a few weeks after hatching for it to be combat ready, and he knew better than to risk waiting. After all, the longer he waited the smaller his margin for error was, and he didn’t trust his luck not to snap back to normal the second he was out on his own.
“Sorry Luna, as powerful as your phoenix will be, if I risk waiting that long odds are I won’t make it back in time.” Luna pouted, but nodded her acceptance regardless. He was quite grateful to have made good friends like these already. He had actually accomplished a lot of his goals for the academy, and for that he was quite grateful. He wondered how much of the situation his friends would be able to glean from their familiars. Him and Reign had a pretty decent ability to share info, but they had never been particularly far from each other.
“At least between Phantasma and Argent you will have a good way to get out of fights, and a solid defense.” Katy was trying to reassure herself more than him, but he appreciated it nonetheless. He knew this was going to be hard for her, honestly it was hard for him and he hadn’t even left yet. They had been together since they were little, and this would be their first time spending any real time apart. Also for the first time he understood why Katy would get upset at him for sending copies to hang out with her. It wasn’t going to be the same. He would receive the memories of his copies, but that wouldn’t change that fact he’d have gone at least a month without seeing her.
“Don’t forget Callum! He’s an excellent scout, and can also perform some simple healing!” He chuckled. All the familiars were more than capable of pulling their weight, so as bad as he felt for keeping them with him he really appreciated the assistance. He was especially grateful of Siara since her familiar was vital to her ability in certain situations whereas the rest of the party only really used their familiar as backup.
“I don’t think I’ll be forgetting any of your familiars.” He chuckled lightly. “I imagine they will all be beyond helpful, and I greatly appreciate the extra assistance.” It was kind of nice to get to say nice things and genuinely mean them. It wasn’t like that whenever he had to deal with other nobles with his father. Any niceties were obviously lip service, and compliments were only given to butter people up so they might make a mistake.
“You better not. I expect you to make sure Gaia gets to eat lots of interesting plants. Both to keep her fed and to increase her repertoire.” He smiled. Siara was fiercely protective of her familiar, so he knew how much trust he was being given. Aside from his sister and Katy who might as well be his sister he had never really had anyone trust him like this before. It felt nice, like this time he could genuinely say that he earned that trust, and it wasn’t just given to him on principle.
“Of course. Making sure all of your familiars are healthy and strong when they return to you is the least I can do to repay them and you for their assistance.” Not like he needed that as a reason to try and protect these creatures anyway. He would do everything he possibly could to prevent his friends from getting hurt.
“Don’t forget to make sure you return healthy too. If you come back on death’s door I'll have Cynthia bring you back just so I can kill you myself.” He rolled his eyes as most of the group nodded along with Lily’s threat.
“So violent, and here I thought you were starting to mellow out some. It would seem that I might be in more danger here than I am out there.” They were stalling. He knew it, they knew it and yet no one seemed willing to break the loop. He really did need to get going though, and if he held them up much longer they would be late to their first class. “I best be going now, I want to cover as much ground as I can. The faster I get there the faster I can get back.”
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It was clear they were reluctant to accept it, but they nodded. Katy sighed. “I will see you later. If you die out there I’ll never forgive you.” He smiled and put a hand on her shoulder. The time for words was over. He simply nodded at them all one last time before Climbing on Reign who had been impatiently waiting for them to finish and was currently about 15 ft tall and quite a bit longer than that. The other familiars had all made themselves as small as possible so they could fit on his person. Gaia resting in a coat pocket while Phantasma rested around his neck like a scarf, Callum perched on his shoulder while Argenti showed an extremely impressive ability to shrink and was currently playing the part of a ring on his right index finger.
With a final wave goodbye Reign violently flapped his wings shooting into the sky in an impressive burst of speed. He had mixed feelings about how quickly his friends disappeared from sight.
***
Katy sighed as even the giant form of Reign quickly became too distant for even her enhanced senses to pick up. “I guess we better get to class.” In a showing of group Solidarity they had all agreed on a class to take for their first one of this day. Azura’s copy would be there, and even despite her constant exposure she never had found a way to distinguish his copies from the original, but now she’d know. Until he came back she’d always know. It wasn’t as comforting a thing as she thought it’d be.
“It’s kind of weird. We just had this dramatic goodbye, and yet we’ll see him in class acting the same as always. It’s probably going to be a little disorienting.” Luna looked like she was disoriented just thinking about it. Not that she could blame her. She felt the same in a lot of ways, even if the thing she was hung up on was a little different. He had been right when he said she relied on him too much. He had played it off like a joke, and Lily had probably taken it as such, but she knew better. He was guiding her to a conclusion he wanted her to come to without just telling her. It was a little patronizing, but she knew why he did it that way.
Either way she had been working towards being a bit more responsible with her own studying even though His copies would still no doubt help with that during free time. When he got back she would show him that she could stand on her own 2 legs. She knew that more than anything else would make him happy with his trip. He had never said it outright, but she knew he was worried that he was enabling her to lack self sufficiency. Not in terms of actual survival. If anything they both were equally capable on that side just in different ways, but in terms of managing her life and training she had left a lot of that stuff to Azura in the past, but it was time for her to start figuring that stuff out herself.
“It certainly is odd. Although I’m a little worried about doing it this way if I’m honest. You’ve all seen how bad the headaches he can get when he absorbs a copy that has gathered too much information. And that was with a day’s worth of info at most, he’s going to come back to copies that are a lot older than a day.” She winced. Cynthia had brought up a point that they had already discussed with Azura, but his answer hadn’t exactly inspired confidence. How he thought an assurance that he was more likely to recover than die from the process would reassure them. They had only even let it slide because he said if worst came to worst he could abandon the memories. It would mean losing out on all the copies had learned, but if it was that or death the choice was obvious. At least for most people.
“Yeah I’m pretty worried about that too. If he has to abandon the memories he’s going to have a lot of catching up to do, not to mention that I’m not confident he’d know when to give up and accept the loss. Knowing him it’s just as likely that he’d wait until his mind was practically torn to pieces before he accepted that he wouldn’t be able to handle it.” Azura wasn’t an idiot, she knew that better than anything. He’d typically do just about anything for survival, and he’d joke about odds but he’d never actually gamble with his life until he had no other options. That only worked if he knew that his life was at risk though, Azura was stubborn and was extremely confident. Perhaps not as arrogant as a standard lordling, but still far more than most people. He knew that about himself too, but despite his best efforts he had never managed to rid himself of that mindset. Partly because he genuinely was more skilled than almost anyone he met.
“Surely not even Azura is that stubborn right? I mean it was one thing when he sealed Luna’s curse, and during some of the trials, and when he stopped Lily’s rampage, oh didn’t he also take on a water elemental by himself? Ok on 2nd thought nevermind Azura is absolutely that stubborn.” She smiled. Siara had hit the nail on the head. Azura didn’t do anything by halves. If he committed to something he’d get it done no matter what. In a lot of ways it was one of his best qualities, but it was also something that led him into danger constantly. He knew that too, but hadn’t put in any effort to escape this particular quality and she couldn’t bring herself to ask him to. As much as she didn’t want him to get hurt as often as he did, she knew he needed that. It was the one thing he held tighter than all else, proof that he wasn’t like his father. He cultivated that part of him, until it was an essential part of his existence.
“You don’t know the half of it, he gets himself into trouble constantly, it probably happens even more than he lets on, he just only tells us the stories at least one of us was there to bear witness to. I guarantee he’s gotten himself into far more trouble than he’s ever told us about.” She tried her best to make it sound humorous, but the concerned looks she received told her she had failed to keep the bitterness out. She just didn’t understand. She knew Azura trusted her, and yet he still kept so many secrets from her. It’s not like she didn’t know why, she wouldn’t keep a secret that she thought would put him in danger, but still that just meant he acknowledged all of his secrets were dangerous to him.
“Yeah I got that vibe as well. He sure is a handful. To be honest, part of me hopes he abandons the memories, otherwise it’s going to be really hard for us to keep up with him. He’ll have normal development since his copies are still here plus the field experience and special power up that come with his mission.” She had worried about that too, but Azura was really good at training people, so even if he did outstrip them after this trip he’d be able to help them reach his level.
“It’s better for us if he gets as strong as possible though. I get the feeling between me and him that we’re all going to need to be as strong as possible if we hope to survive.” She sighed. Luna was right of course, and they all knew that. But knowing and feeling weren’t always the same, and she really didn’t like the idea of Azura outstripping her again. She had worked really hard to catch up to his strength, and even worse than just him being stronger, if he didn’t think they were strong enough to keep up with him he’d try and do everything on his own.
“That just means we have to give it our all too! He actually left me with a lot of super useful magic research he had. Including a few spells that he thinks would be good for each of us!” Everyone's eyes widened in surprise at Roran’s statement. Magic research and spells were highly coveted, not really the kind of thing you casually share. She never would have thought Azura would go so far as to share that kind of stuff with his friends without learning anything in return. Even Lily seemed surprised, and she didn’t even fully grasp how significant such a thing was in their culture.
“He what?! No way. I might believe that he found some spells in the library that he’s bringing to our attention, but no way he shared his research before submitting it to the magic association to be credited with any discoveries!” She just sighed. She understood Siara’s reasoning, but she also knew Azura didn’t care much about credit. He did however need money, and that was usually why he kept his stuff as closely guarded as most mages did. Plus him and Roran were basically research partners at this point, and looked at from that angle this really wasn’t too strange.
“We can’t submit anything until we’re licensed anyways, so he has years to make this stuff seem like small potatoes with new discoveries! That being said, there really is some incredible stuff in his research I would never have considered! To think magic could be used in such a way! These spells will be a little tricky without enchantment magic but they shouldn’t be impossible! Oh how exciting!” She sighed again. Leave it to Azura to make sure they stay busy even when he isn’t there.
“His copies are still here; they can still help us with these spells.” Cythia managed to calm down Roran’s excited ramblings. If only by replacing them with different excited ramblings. Azura better hurry, she was already feeling like this was going to be a long few weeks.