"The four schools of magic, as they are currently reckoned, are Divine, Primal, Arcane, and Occult," I said. "Divine and Primal magic are both powered by the mage's relationship with a larger power, while Arcane and Occult magic are powered purely by the mage's own will. Meanwhile, Primal and Arcane magic primarily deal with the material, whereas Divine and Occult magic primarily deal with the spiritual- although that isn't to say there's no crossover or overlap, as many Arcane spells can affect spiritual subjects, and many Divine spells have material effects."

"Good, good," Mom said. Ariel Silver was an old elf- how old, I wasn't sure, she never would tell me, but she certainly did remember the time before the War, and what High Elven culture was like before it. Her surname, Silver, was a special one among high elves- it wasn't a name people were born with, usually, but rather, one they took on themselves, when they wished to disavow the family they'd been born to.

What I did know about her past was this: she was a natural redhead, which was typical of the High Elven nobility, but kept her hair bleached white like a commoner. Considering I'd inherited that red hair from her- my father had been born blonde, although his hair was dyed green by his use of Primal magic, as had Talia's- I could only hope that she didn't see a painful memory every time she looked at me.

"Now, this is less for the interview, and more to satisfy me," Mom continued. "I want to make sure you've truly learned from me."

Ariel Silver was also a genuine scholar of magic, and not simply a mage who studied magic to advance their own practice of it. She studied the history, how other people had felt about magic through the ages, and all manner of other things that a "proper" Guild Mage would regard as trifling curiosities, rather than a serious area of magical study.

"What does a society's favored forms of magic say about it?"

(Of course, just because Mom was a scholar didn't mean she wasn't a damn good wizard. She wasn't a member of the Mage's Guild, but that was more because she hated the Hikaano Pantheon and their sponsored Guilds; the Mage's Guild had very much tried to recruit her a few times. She had mixed feelings about me trying to join the Mage's Guild myself, but as near as I can tell, she ultimately settled on the stance that, so long as I didn't delude myself into thinking the Guilds were my friends, and kept my eyes on the prize of making money to fund my ventures, then she'd support me as best she could, as a mother should support her son.)

"Well, quite a lot, usually," I said. "For one, nearly no large society favors only a single school of magic over the others; each school is quite incomplete on its own, and leaves gaps that need to be covered. However... strangely, most societies seem to favor two of the four schools of magic, and I don't really know why. I know that the Hikaano Empire favors Arcane and Divine magic, which creates a strong conceptual divide between the sacred and the profane in their thinking, with Arcane magic being seen more as an unusually useful skill rather than as something of the same kind as Divine magic. I also know that the High Elves favored Arcane and Primal magic, reflecting our prioritization of the material world over the spiritual."

"Anything else? Perhaps about societies you don't live in?"

"Well, there's the Wood Elves, who supposedly favored Primal and Occult magics- Primal to help them live off the land, and Occult to hide them from outsiders and throw off the trail. There's the Green Orcs, who favor Divine and Primal magics due to the both of them being about connection to a greater power, and thus being considered holy in comparison to the more individualistic magics of the Arcane and Occult. And... I think the Tordan Empire favors the individualistic magics of the Arcane and Occult over the more communion-based Primal and Divine." I tapped my chin. "...It feels like there should be some society that favors Divine and Occult as a representation of their focus on the spiritual rather than material, but if they exist, they have completely slipped my mind."

Mom nodded. "You've forgotten the Alpine Goblins; they practice a religion that prioritizes the spiritual over the material, which leaks into the cultural practices that aren't already sacred. They're a bit isolationist, what with living in some of the most mountainous terrain around and not living primarily underground in well-maintained tunnels like the Mountain Dwarves do, but you might meet one of their shugenja one day, so... it's good to keep them in mind. We'll go over geography a bit more later on, but for now... good. I think you're ready. Your wizardry is good, even if sometimes I worry about your application."

"Oh?" I asked.

"You're a smart boy, and you've taken to wizardry naturally," Mom said. "I've taught you so much of it, it's hard for me not to notice. But... Sometimes, there are gaps in your understanding. Gaps that fill quickly, but which tell me... There's times you say you're practicing your wizardry on your own, but you aren't."

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Ah, beans. Okay, so, the truth is that I've been dabbling in Occult magic, but... well, Mom doesn't exactly think highly of the Occult. Says it's for charlatans and cheaters, and while I can't completely dispute that... well, sometimes a man needs an ace up his sleeve, y'know?

"I'm a teenage boy," I said simply. "What do you think I've been doing when I'm alone, claiming to be doing something that needed uninterrupted privacy so I could focus?"

"I assure you, there are ways to multitask."

"Okay, this conversation is now over, good talk, I'll see you when I get back from the interview."

---

I'd dolled myself up to look like every other young Guild Mage- a long blue tunic, extremely baggy blue pants that gathered at the waist through a drawstring (concealed by the tunic) and just below my knee through elastic bands, and pointy leather slippers that had been carefully dyed a light powder blue.

And wearing that ridiculous regalia was a handsome young man of tall and slender build, with sharp, refined features, pale and unmarred skin like fine porcelain, long flame-red hair elegantly slicked back, and all manner of shiny rings adorning his graceful fingers. The spitting image of the ideal young Mage, marred only by two elongated, pointed ears.

Still, I had my ways around that little handicap.

It was distressingly easy to cast a spell of friendship on Magister Brown- an ironically-named man, whose pale skin, blonde hair, reedy build, and sharp-faced countenance must have surely seen him field many 'accusations' of being a half-elf, rather than just a blonde human who never went outside. For all his apparent bookishness, he didn't seem a terribly impressive mage to me, and considering how impressed he was by my abilities with the arcane- which, sure, were beyond the standard Novice Certification, but not by that much- I was very, very confident that this interview was going to end with me joining the Mage's Guild.

Right up until he decided to show me his latest acquisition, just to make himself feel bigger.

"Behold!" Magister Brown said, pulling away a dropcloth to reveal a statue of a beautiful human woman, wearing a flattering dress of a style I recognized from old drawings, and holding a small harp to the side of her chest, where it created a very lifelike squish and fold in the dress and her breast. "This statue is supposedly of elven make; the script, certainly, looks elven to me. And yet, it depicts an unquestionably human woman, and given its provenance, it is likely some sort of funerary effigy. This, my boy, is going to be the centerpiece in my museum exhibit on the history of friendship between humans and elves! So! What do you think?"

"...Do you know my name?" I asked mildly, scanning the script on the base of the statue. There was... There was no way this was what I thought it was, no fucking way-

"Hm? Oh, er... Joseph Ironheart, I should think, yes? Why do you ask?"

"'In loving memory of Terpsichore Ironheart,'" I read aloud, pointing at the writing on the base of the statue. "'Wife of Artorias Wind-Caller and Elana Blackthorn. Blood-mother of Frederick Ironheart, Lysander Blackthorn, and Rebecca Ironheart. Hearth-mother of Napoleon Ironheart, Elendar Blackthorn, and Rosenthal Ironheart. She was always singing, and brought joy to us all. May her memory be a blessing.'"

"Oh my," Magister Brown said. "I had no idea you could read elven, my boy! This is wonderful!"

I pushed past his oblivious surprise that I was literate in my native language, which was by no means lost knowledge, to get to the point of the matter. "This statue was stolen from my father's home, three centuries ago," I said dryly. "At some point, after the exhibit has been rotated out of the museum, we would like it back."

Magister Brown reared back with a look of disgust on his face, as though I'd suggested I'd like to knock up his daughter, and possibly also his wife, you know, while I was in the neighborhood.

"Now see here, my boy," Magister Brown began, beginning to go red in the face, his voice growing imperious. "Three centuries may not be anything to an elf, but by rational sensibilities, it is a very long time indeed! It has long since ceased belonging to your family, and now, it belongs to me! I bought it, it's mine! And, aside from questions of ownership, this here is historically significant! It belongs in a museum, not in some random person's house!"

I'd like to say I considered the situation carefully, but unfortunately, I've only got so much patience for self-important humans who think elves aren't real people. Besides. Mom didn't need these assholes. Neither did I.

"Your exhibit on the historical friendship and cooperation between humans and elves is going to star a stolen statue of my grandmother, whose firstborn son is still alive, because your definition of friendship doesn't include returning stolen property," I said dryly. "Tell me, does the Mage's Guild approve of this kind of rapacious intellectual dishonesty? Or is your mendacious banditry a blight upon your colleagues?"

---

It wasn't a surprise that the Mage's Guild sent me a rejection letter, a few days after that, but it didn't make me any less angry. But hey, I was already planning to rob the building, just to get back Terpsichore's effigy. Why stop there, when I could steal some other shit while I was at it, and fund my expedition to the frontier that way?

It was a surprise, a week after my interview, to hear that I was too late:

Someone else had robbed Magister Brown's office, and my grandmother's effigy was gone.

Someone was going to bleed for this.