Azura had been left alone for longer than he expected. Roran had entered the library not too long after he had, but the man was nice enough to leave him be for the time being. He was grateful that at least one person he’d met was as into magic as he was, and even better it so happened to be someone who was a lot wiser than he was too. Granted Roran had a bit of an advantage there. They both sat at a table reading, but Roran didn’t say a word, simply waiting for him to decide he was ready to talk. “I’m sorry I’m not able to break your curse.” It had nothing to do with why Roran was here now, but he did feel guilty about it. He had tried after the dagger incident, but had unfortunately discovered it wasn’t safe to do so.
“It’s fine, if the alternative is aging all at once, and most likely dying from the shock of it is my other option, being trapped in a child’s body isn’t so bad.” He’d figure out how to prevent that someday so Roran could actually reach his full potential, but for now he allowed it to recede back into comfortable silence. They kept reading for a few more minutes, but once Azura finished the book he was reading he closed it with a sigh.
“She’s right, you know. It was selfish of me not to tell them anything. Or at least it was once we got here. My reasons for needing her not to know were no longer valid, but… I didn’t want her to know, honestly I didn’t even want to know. It was all so deeply repressed, but there were bits of things I still knew. Things I should have said.” His voice caught. He didn’t know what else to say.
“You’re only human, it’s normal to make mistakes, and before you say it yes I do realize you aren’t technically only human anymore, but it seems the phrase still fits.” He chuckled. Roran was right, on both counts. It had been so ingrained into him that he had to be perfect, he wasn’t allowed any mistakes. He hadn’t realized how much all that training had impacted him, but perhaps it was time he had learned that he didn’t have to be perfect all the time, and trying to be only made him more likely to mess something up.
“The worst part is that I know you're right, but believing it is another story altogether.” He was angry at himself, more than anything. He couldn’t believe he had let his father impact him so much, and not even realize it. He had thought once he was out of there he’d be able to shed the habits his father had forced upon him, but apparently it wasn’t as easy as he had thought
“It’s not a bad thing to have things to work on. We all have flaws, and we work on ours too, once you finish fixing this one, if you ever do you’ll find another flaw to try and fix. Nobodies perfect, and no one ever will be, that’s just the nature of life.” Roran continued to read his book, as if what he said was just common sense and not worth noting. Perhaps it was, maybe it was him who hadn’t understood. Perhaps he didn’t know what it meant to be human, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t find out.
“We really need to work on that curse of yours, it’s awkward to receive wise life advice from someone who looks 12.” Roran laughed, and he chuckled too. Perhaps he wasn’t so unlucky after all, he had made friends like that, and he’d say that more than balanced out the bad. His eye twitched as the chair he was sitting in chose that moment to have a leg break. He caught himself before falling, but it was the principle of the thing. Roran laughed even harder, causing the librarian to shush him.
He sighed and fixed the chai while Roran sheepishly apologized to the librarian. “Can we not tell the others about that last part?” He asked once the librarian had retreated back to the front. Roran’s mischievous smile told him what the older man thought of that particular request. He sighed one last time. “Yeah, that’s about what I thought.”
***
Azura reluctantly trekked back to the school. He had asked Roran to go on ahead, said he just needed to clear his mind a bit. He wasn’t sure he had succeeded, but he couldn’t hide from them forever, well maybe he could, but he shouldn’t. For many reasons honestly. First and foremost being he wasn’t a total jerk. Alright, enough stalling, it was time to face the music. He walked into the academy, and began heading to his room, where no doubt his friends were waiting for him.
Sure enough opening the door revealed his friends who had all stopped chatting the moment he opened the door. “Wow, I've never felt like an intruder walking into my own room before.” He laughed awkwardly hoping the joke would ease some of the obvious tension. It did not unfortunately.
He went to talk again, but Katy beat him to it. “I’m sorry. Not about thinking it was selfish to hide those things, I still think that, but about accusing you of intentionally hurting me and Selena, and about how I did it too.” He was a little surprised, but Katy had always been one to own up to her mistakes when she made them. He’d like to think he was the same.
“I’m sorry too, some of it I couldn’t have, but there were definitely things I should have told you once we were accepted. In all honesty, we are well past the point where I can say I don’t trust you yet, I’d bet my life on you guys, and my secrets should be a part of that, or at least most of them.” After all, he hadn't told them about the book. He had a bad feeling that it led to something, and that if others found out he had it he’d be attacked by people hoping to retrieve whatever the book led to.
Katy’s eyes narrowed. “Can you tell us why you have secrets you’re still keeping?” He considered it for a sec. He didn’t feel like simply knowing he had something he thought was dangerous would get them attacked.
“I think that the more people know the more likely it is I’ll be attacked, and I’m ot sure about the strength of the opposing forces.” There that should be enough that the secret was accepted, but vague enough that they would have no idea what it was.
Katy sighed and shrugged. “Fine, I believe you.” She smiled faintly. “Also you missed it, Elismara came in with 2 investigators, and was furious when they turned up nothing. Although you know you cleared any taint from Roran’s curse too. Maybe Luna’s as well, but I’m not sure there were any traces of that left after all this time either.” He chuckled, that had in fact been on purpose. If Rorans' curse had been detected the investigators could use that as an excuse to prolong their investigation. It was better to leave nothing at all.
“Yeah, that was intentional. The clean all evidence thing that is not Elismara being furious, but that part is kind of funny too.” He hadn’t really meant to continuously antagonize the older student, but he wasn’t one who would just let it be. If she continued after him then he’d keep pissing her off, that was just the nature of things.
“She’s going to attack you soon, you know?” He glanced at Lily who didn’t really look concerned, more like eager. He hadn’t held back his aggression in the fights with his friends, but that isn’t to say that he went all out either. They knew that, and Lily was likely eager for a fight where he wouldn’t have that option. In a lot of ways he was too. The investigators had come and gone, and with no more cursed items Elismera had no more reason not to challenge him. It would probably hurt a lot, and there would be no technical victory like there was against Kaiser, but he’d become familiar enough with her magic to find out just what it was she was hiding.
“Here’s to hoping.” He was honestly curious how well he’d be able to do. She wasn’t going to toy with him like Kaiser did, and he had no doubt he was going to have to reform parts of his body, which would take a while, but he honestly needed the practice anyway. The faster he learned how to quickly form and stabilize parts separated from his body the faster he’d be able to make a bunch of amazing magic items. His dragon form wasn’t fully developed yet, so it wouldn’t be up to par with ingredients gathered from a more powerful dragon, but they would be much better than what he typically had to work with.
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“Hoping? You think you can take her?” Siara seemed shocked. Which made sense, she was the most sensitive to energy levels, and Elismara was monstrously strong.
“Oh, not even a little. She’s going to one-sidedly beat me to the ground while I use everything I have just to stay alive.” He had no illusions about how the fight was going to go. He may very well be the strongest first year student, but he wasn’t confident he could beat the strongest of the 2nd years, much less the strongest of the 3rd years. Elsimera was even an anomaly on the same level as him as far as being stronger than most of the higher year students. So it went without saying that he was going to lose.
Siara looked at him strangely before shrugging. “Well if that’s what you're into I guess.” He choked on air, while everyone else started laughing.
“What no! It’s not like that! It’s just an opportunity to get stronger, and figure something out that’s been bothering me.” He took a deep breath as they all continued to laugh at him. He calmed down enough to start laughing too. She got him, well good thing he was already planning on getting them back for caking him in mud. He smiled maliciously, and set off the traps he had set for each of them in his room.
“What the hell! My Hair! What did I do?!” Lily had the most verbal reaction, with her hair turning a dull murky green. Katy screamed as several spiders landed on her from multiple sides, and Luna froze as a bunch of slime dropped onto her. Siara’s skin turned green, but she wouldn’t notice that until she looked down at her hands. Cynthia paled as she tried to figure out what the prank on her was. Which was in of itself the prank on her. Roran was the hardest one for him to decide on, in the end he came up with an enchantment that would vibrate loudly whenever Roran raised his voice.
“Right now nothing, when you lot caked me in mud, I’d imagine you were the orchestrator.” Her flinch indicated he was likely correct. Odds were that Luna and Cynthia hadn’t done anything themselves, but they also hadn’t tried to stop the others so they got off with middling pranks. The slime would wash off and leave Luna totally fine, and Cynthia would catch on to the fact her fear was the prank after a few hours. The rest would be stuck with theirs for a few days. Except for Katy, but she really hated spiders, so he figured it evened out.
“If I say I’m sorry can you undo this?” Lily was surprisingly calm, or at least she sounded calm as she stroked her hair in horror. He smiled innocently at her. Revenge was sweet. He had been able to clean himself immediately, but they hadn’t known that so they would suffer. “Please?” She pleaded with him. Unfortunately for her he was immune to puppy dog eyes.
“Nope.” He didn’t even try to hide his mirth. “You get to have ugly green hair for a few days, and learn the lesson of not pranking the enchanter.
Katy finally stopped screaming as she had managed to get all of the spiders off of her, and joined the others in glaring at him. “Enchanter? You dropped spiders on me, what does that have to do with enchanting?!” He laughed breezily. Aside from hiding their presence and containing them until he needed to drop them, well it would be better if he didn’t say anything.
“I didn’t do anything you know.” Cynthia sounded desperate as she looked around trying to figure out what was going to happen to her. Lily pouted at his refusal to fix her hair. He smiled, his goal had been achieved, the tension in the room had significantly eased. Luna still looked bothered, but it was overridden by her disgust at the slime all over her.
“I know, you just watched them do it right?” He smiled innocently. Cynthia renewed her frantic searching, but continued not to find anything. Of course she hadn’t there was nothing to find. He had to say the only one that disappointed him was Siara who had seen her green hands, and shrugged. He had honestly thought that would bother her a bit more.
“I’m going to clean whatever this stuff is off.” Lily left his room. The slime wasn’t any ordinary substance though, so none came off of her to leave a mess in his room. Roran seemed to have figured his prank had something to do with his voice, because Roran hadn’t said a word since the pranks were engaged, and only held a hand to his throat and had a look of sheer focus.
“Anyway, since we’re all even I think it’s about time to go to bed, I almost definitely have a fight tomorrow.” Siara opened her mouth. He made a magic circle underneath her, and she wisely shut it. Once all of them had filed out he finally had a chance to relax. He had already prepped all he really could for the fight he knew was coming, but the prep was more to make sure he wasn’t completely humiliated rather than to help him win.
***
Azura had mixed feelings. On one hand it was good that it was a break day, he didn’t really have anything else he needed to do, so he could just relax and wait for Elismera’s challenge. On the other hand he had no idea when said challenge would come. If it was a class day he knew it would come right after classes. Although he had mixed feelings about having an off day, they hadn’t had any originally, but after attending for a while they said the no break days was just to see what the students were made of, and saturday had become a break day. An actual break day unlike sunday where there were events that most didn’t want to miss.
Anyway, he was getting off track. The question was what he wanted to do in the time leading up to the fight. He had after all, already done all of his prep for this fight. His strategy was fairly simple. He was set for a purely defensive battle. All he needed was to last 15 seconds to get a decent enough grasp on her magic, but to not embarrass himself he wanted to last 1 minute at least before being completely demolished. Not counting all the time he was sure she was going to spend talking down to him.
He sighed, not that he had room to judge for that particular habit, he was working on curbing the very same thing after all. It was kind of funny what all ended up sticking with him from his upbringing. He shook his head musing about his bad character traits was hardly the best way to spend his time, perhaps he could go down to the forge. He still had a bit of that behemoth base left. It wouldn’t make anything big, but maybe a throwing knife? Or a set of enchanted rings?
Maybe he could make a ring for each of his friends as an apology? Nah most of them were girls and he would feel super awkward handing them a ring. Maybe a pendent? Something small, for each of them. Yeah, he could do that. The question was did he make the symbol unique for each of them or have them all share one as like a team symbol. He hummed in thought.
His enchantments alerted him of someone getting close to his room. It wouldn’t alert him if it was his friends, so he supposed his time for consideration was over. The presence didn’t knock, only leaning against the wall on the opposite side of the hall. He rolled his eyes, was she hoping to take him by surprise? What if he wasn’t in his room, or if he didn’t feel like leaving for a while. Lucky for her neither was the case, and he was kind of glad to have this out of the way relatively early in the morning.
He stepped out of his room and locked eyes with his opponent. Elsimera looked calm, and usurprised that he opened the door almost immediately. “Aren’t you going to gather your little friends? Let them watch you get beaten within an inch of your life?” He imagined they were probably heading this way all on their own, no reason to gather them.
“Didn’t want you to think I was looking to gang up on you with my friends.” It was one thing if they came after the challenge was issued, and another if they were there for it. He wasn’t looking to hide behind anyone.
She scoffed. “Please I’ve done enough research that I know you won’t cheat Silver. You may be a fool, but you’re no coward.” He raised his brows. He wasn’t expecting a compliment. It was soured by her use of his family name, but it was still far more than he expected. “Perhaps I owe you an apology as I hadn’t realized you too were of noble birth, but it is too late for that, so perhaps after the fight if you live up to the rumors about you I may consider it.” He rolled his eyes. Like he cared about any of that. Nothing left but to fight he supposed.