After supper that day, Cadeyrn doesn’t immediately drop off to sleep. Instead, he lugs out the history book and reads on his bed. He’s already almost a quarter of the way through, and it has only been a couple of months since he started. He recognizes half of the words now, too, and can usually figure out the rest when he says them aloud enough times. He remembers what Dell had said - that he has nothing to be ashamed of - and decides that if someone laughs at him, it won’t bother him at all.

The other apprentices ignore him, thankfully. The pair nearest to him are loud, though. They are both adults, one of them lounging on her bed while the other stands hunched and jittery by the bedpost.

“Jowan, stop worrying. You did fine on the test, I’m sure. You didn’t accidentally blow anything up this time! Isn’t that a success?”

“The test was to blow something up, Neria!”

“Don’t nag over the details, it’s unattractive.”

The apprentice named Jowan drops his face in between his hands. Neria stretches leisurely on the bed. Cadeyrn remembers her, his heart jumping. She was the prodigy that blasted the index room with fire a while back. She doesn’t look much like a powerful mage, though, lounging around as she is. She makes another quip, to which Jowan groans. They go back and forth like this, and while the exchange is funny, it’s not of much interest.

Cadeyrn goes back to reading, mumbling along as he figures out the words. After a short while he hears the Jowan apprentice hiss something in an alarmed tone, so he looks up. Neria towers over him, fingers stretched out like claws.

He blinks placidly.

The older apprentice pouts, lowering her arms. “Well, that’s no fun. I expected you to jump up and flail like a scared little girl. Jowan did.” Said man groans in the background. “So what’re you up to? Reading a bedtime story?” Neria clambers into his bed, making Cadeyrn shift to the side to avoid being squished. “The History of Mages? Seriously? Are you reading this for fun?”

Cadeyrn glares and scowls at the nosy woman invading his space, any sort of admiration for her because of her powers fading. “No.”

“So it’s assigned reading. You poor slob. Don’t know why they bother ‘teaching’ you this stuff, Maker knows I never remembered any of it,” the woman says breezily, flipping through the pages without reading any of them.

Jowan speaks up behind her. “To be honest, me neither.”

“You see, at your age they should be teaching you how to set things on fire. At the rate they’re going, by the time you’re as old as we are they’ll ask you to make a fireball and you’ll just set your own robes aflame. Like Eadric, this morning?” Neria barks out a laugh. “Ha! Hilarious.”

“Great,” Cadeyrn says flatly.

“I suppose you don’t really get a choice, do you,” the woman muses. “Hey, you’re the newest one, right? Just came here a few months ago?”

Cadeyrn glares and doesn’t answer. Jowan pipes up, “He is,” and Neria nods.

“Mhm,” she hums, looking him over critically. She sweeps back her black bobbed hair, and Cadeyrn is surprised to see that her ears are pointed. She’s an elf.

“Surprised?” she asks wryly, noticing his gaze. “Yeah, I hear that out of the Circle we elves are at the bottom of the barrel. All ‘Yes master, of course master, please don’t whip me, master’. You’re not going to find that here, kid. All us mages are measured by power, and me?” She grins sharply. “I am pretty Maker-damned powerful. If I do say so myself, of course,” she adds flippantly.

“She is,” Jowan chimes. Neria preens.

Cadeyrn just stares blankly at her.

“Oh, you just don’t react to anything, do you?” Neria ruffles his hair, and he scowls. “There we go. Cute, like a sour nug.”

“Leave me alone,” he grumbles.

Neria coos, “Aww, the wittle appwentice wants to be weft awone. Like he has been for the past three months. No wonder you have no friends, with that sparkling personality.”

“I have friends,” he immediately defends, but then thinks, pig shit.

“Oh really,” the woman drawls, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes,” he says vehemently. Dell counts as a friend, right? The templar does help him, and he’s spent a lot of time with him now. They could be friends, even if he refused to let Cadeyrn use his sword. He frowns at the memory.

The elf doesn’t seem convinced. “Uh huh. Silly me, of course you do. How could I not have noticed what a social butterfly you are, what with how you’re always asleep or with your nose stuffed in a book behind the bookshelves.”

Cadeyrn flinches and looks at her incredulously. “Oh, sorry, was that supposed to be a secret?” she asks blithely, resting her chin on the palm of her hand.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Neria,” Jowan interrupts. “We’re supposed to be meeting Enchanter Oren now.”

She groans and collapses on the bed. “No no, let’s not and say we did.”

“Neria!” the other apprentice whines.

“Fine.” She gets up and makes to leave, but not before tweaking Cadeyrn’s nose. “Catch you later, sunshine.”

He scowls after her, rubbing his sore nose. He hates the other apprentices. All of them. Especially her.

Cadeyrn arrives at the ritual room at dawn, just as Dell is about to leave.

“Oh.” The templar shifts in his armor. “I didn’t think you were coming. Slept late, did you?”

Cadeyrn shrugs. “I read in my room last night,” he admits, shuffling his feet. He doesn’t bother going behind the bookcase since people will start arriving in less than an hour.

“Ah. And how was it? Did anyone…?”

He scowls, remembering the elf woman.

“Hey, it’s okay,” the templar says in a rush, waving his hands around. “You’re welcome to read here. Well, not technically, but. You get the idea.”

Cadeyrn’s scowl fades, and he nods. “Thanks,” he says, feeling less irritated. “And… sorry. For last time. I don’t want to get you in trouble. I just…” He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. Just, sorry.”

The templar waves him off. “Don’t worry about it. Keep doing your best, all right?” Cadeyrn nods. “Good. Well, it’s about time I go. People are going to start coming in any minute now. Pay attention in class!”

The templar waves goodbye before climbing up the stairs and disappearing through the doorway. Cadeyrn waves back a little, and smiles.

See, he does have a friend.

His good mood evaporates by lunchtime.

“Well look at my favorite little novice,” Neria greets, seating herself next to him on the bench. Cadeyrn feels himself scowl as quick as lightning. “Wow. He’s so glad to see me, isn’t he?”

“I don’t think we should be doing this,” Jowan says, sitting down next to her anyway.

Cadeyrn stabs the peas on his plate.

“Why so glum, sunshine?” The elf knocks her shoulder against his. He bats her away. “We have got to work on your people skills.”

“Go die, knife-ears,” he snaps. Jowan gasps.

Immediately he feels the air crackle. Neria glowers, eyes thinned and gleaming darkly. “You wanna say that again, you-”

“Neria Surana,” a raspy voice admonishes. Cadeyrn looks up and sees Irving, his arms crossed and face stern. The air clears as the elf woman rears back, smiling sheepishly. “It appears to me that you are harassing this poor child.”

“Nonsense!” she cries, throwing an arm over Cadeyrn’s shoulder. He tries to shove her off, but her grip is tight. “It’s just a bit of friendly banter and insult-slinging. We’re good friends here! Right, sunshine?”

She brings her mouth to his ear and whispers, “If you nod your head I’ll owe you a big favor.” He jerks his head to look at her, and she winks.

“Cadeyrn?” Irving prompts.

He hesitates. Somehow he gets the feeling that even if Irving punished her now, she would just come back, like a bad rash or a case of mold. But if someone as powerful as her owes him a favor, then…

Cadeyrn gathers himself, looking up at Irving. He nods shallowly.

“She’s… okay,” he says, grimacing.

“Flattered,” Neria snarks into his ear.

Irving lets out a deep sigh. “All right. I will believe you for now. Do consider this a warning, however.” The First Enchanter pointedly looks at the elf, who pouts.

“Did you really get away with that?” Jowan asks incredulously.

Neria smugly says, “I think I just did,” and turns her smarmy smile at Cadeyrn. He curls his lip and spears another pea.

“So what do you want, sunshine?” the elf asks, bouncing on his bed. He kicks her with the leg that she isn’t sitting on.

“Get off me,” he snarls, blinking blearily at the candle light. He had just gotten to sleep, and then she had to ruin it.

She scoots off his leg. “That’s easy enough, sure. But what else?”

She is insufferable. He growls out an aggravated sigh, rubbing his eyes with his fists. “Why did you wake me up?”

“As I said earlier,” she says, fiddling with her unevenly-cut bangs, “You’re always either reading, in class, or sleeping, and I’m not waking up at the crack of dawn to catch you when you’re reading. And need I remind you, this is for your benefit.” She taps his chest with a finger. “I owe you a favor, little one, and I always pay my debts. Well, almost always. So what will it be?”

He stares at her. Right. The favor. He sighs and squints his eyes. He should have just told Irving she was a meddlesome sow.

“I need to think on it,” he ends up saying.

“Yeah, I’m not waiting for that.” She drapes herself over his legs and kicks her feet in the air. “So maybe there’s something I can help you with. Like socializing, for one.” He scowls. “Didn’t think so. What do you like to do? Any hobbies?”

Cadeyrn pulls his legs out from under her, clutching them defensively to his chest. He tells her, “I like swordplay. I’m good at it,” because as dumb as he may be, he’s not fool enough to think ignoring her will make her go away. Better to get it over with.

“Oh, I’m good at playing with swords too, but it’s not something I advertise often,” she says in a weird tone of voice, smirking. He looks at her flatly. There’s no way he’s would believe she knows how to fight with a knife, let alone a sword.

“You mean actual swords. Of course you do.” She gets up into a sitting position. “In that case, there’s nothing I can do for you…” Neria taps her bottom lip with a finger. “Hm. How ‘bout I teach you some magic instead? Could show you a few tricks with Primal spells that’d put you ahead of the rest.”

Cadeyrn looks at her suspiciously. “What’s Primal magic?”

“Maker,” she sighs. “Okay. First, let’s take this somewhere else. Follow me.” She slides off the bed and walks away. Cadeyrn stares after her, and after a moment’s deliberation scrambles to put his boots on and follow.