What We Do to Survive

I woke up slowly, something warm and soft pressing against my side as I lay peacefully under the thick covers. Rea’s slow, even breathing tickled my shoulder, the rest of her body stretched out against my side and one leg was thrown over my waist. I opened one eye, glad I’d left one lamp shining and looked at the clock over my desk. It was just after eleven, later than I usually let myself sleep, but I still had plenty of time before my afternoon practical with professor Shrike.

I smiled faintly and closed my eyes, letting my head sink back into the down pillow. I was glad I’d remembered to disable the alarm spell I usually used to wake up. I felt… rested, lighter than I had in a while. I shifted slightly, rolling onto my side and pulling my Rea closer to my chest. She mumbled something too quietly for me to make out, but didn’t wake up. I didn’t really blame her, this was her first time sleeping in a proper bed in quite a while, and she’d had a long night.

My smile turned into a grin. A very long, pleasant night after that utter mess of an afternoon. Sure I’d mostly done it for my benefit, but Rea had obviously enjoyed it quite a bit as well. I could definitely see a repeat performance in her future, though maybe not for a little while yet. Just as punishment should be saved for when it was needed, so too should rewards be earned. I could always satisfy myself with one of my cows if I felt like it, elves seemed almost purpose-built for that sort of thing. Still, having such an eager partner was definitely nice for a change as well.

I took a long, deep breath, then wrinkled my nose in annoyance. Still, I would need my cute little pet to deal with the laundry once she woke up. She’d really made a mess of things and I couldn’t just hose down my bed like I would a useless elf.

I lay there for a few minutes longer, enjoying the feeling of her breasts pressing up against my bare chest and the warmth of her skin against mine. Then, with a quiet sigh I carefully extricated my arm from under her and got to work. Just this once, I would let my Rea sleep in a little. Usually she was awake and ready to receive me before my alarm spell even rang out, so she deserved a little extra rest. The last dregs of her well-earned reward, so to speak.

Even without her help, getting ready for the day didn’t take long. I took a quick shower, cast my usual shaving spell, and cleaned up the ragged edges of my circulations where they had degraded somewhat while I slept. Still, I clearly noticed her absence as I went about my morning routine. Little conveniences I’d grown used to –having everything set out neatly for me, a hot drink ready to help me wake up, and other things like that– were ultimately unimportant, but annoying to go without. I glanced over at the bed. Rea had rolled onto her back, arms wrapped around a ball of messy sheets and a slack smile on her face. It was cute, but yeah, letting her sleep in wasn’t going to become a regular thing.

After taking my morning shot of milk, I spent the next hour quickly taking care of some work I’d planned to get done the night before. It was nothing particularly important or difficult, but I had to do it at some point and I had a feeling I would be having another late night today. It was Wednesday, so I only had the one class thankfully, but I’d told the drowsy Lea I’d come visit her in the late afternoon so I would be leaving almost immediately after class.

It was almost painful not to go now. Leaving her the night before had been the right choice, I knew that on an intellectual level, but it had hurt. It was part of why I’d had to distract myself the night before, and made sure I wouldn’t wake up too early. If I’d been up at dawn like I so often was, I didn’t think I could have resisted visiting before class, and that was definitely not the right thing to do.

To know that she was so close by, and yet we’d hardly had a chance to speak yet was… unpleasant. A constant strum of worry in the back of my mind. Had I done the right thing last night, just… leaving her at home defenseless? What if those fucks decided to do something to her, some sort of twisted revenge for what I’d done? Lea had assured me everything would be fine, but could I really trust that? Could I trust her?

Sure, she’d clearly been through some things in the years past, but… she wasn’t like me. She still seemed so very innocent. I hadn’t felt any wards in her house. That would have to be corrected as soon as possible, but it meant that if someone decided to break in while she slept, there would be nothing to stop them.

I forced myself to sit back down, having half risen to my feet without even noticing. No. It wasn’t Avalon. A person could be safe in their home, even without a mountain of barriers between them and the outside world. They had laws, guards.

‘Laws and guards hadn’t protected her yesterday,’ my own voice whispered in my ears, ‘You should have taken her, brought her here. Here she would be Safe.’ Yes. She would be safe. But she would be horrified and miserable. ‘You could change that’. I could. Maybe I should. I wouldn’t. Maybe. Someday. No. I wouldn’t. She was my Lea. I didn’t have to do anything to make her mine.

I set my pen down on its stand and rubbed my eyes. The assignment I was finishing up was only half done, but I just couldn’t focus. It was simple work, just a matter of selecting the correct parts of All-Material into the same spell matrix, but I’d caught three minor mistakes in the twenty minutes. That… wasn’t like me. I took pride in the quality of my work, and alchemy was not one of those classes I ever cut corners in. Professor Meadows often made students cast the spells they submitted exactly as they were written, and a poorly formed transmutation would kill you just as certainly as any other spell backlash.

I could finish this later, maybe take some work with me when I went to check up on her? Perhaps I could use it as an opportunity to see how her studies were coming along. I’d heard that magical education outside Avalon was slow and sloppy at the best of times, and the skill level of her classmates painted a concerning picture. She told me she’d been at Whitecastle for four years, almost a quarter longer than I’d been studying magic, and yet her aura had felt sloppier than those of my newest servants. What the hells were they teaching them up there?

I leaned back in my chair and sighed. Just as with the question of what had happened to her over the last decade, there was no reason to be stressing about these questions when I had the answers waiting for me in just a few hours. I would hear what Lea had to say and only then would I start digging deeper. For now, breakfast, or well, lunch really, and then class. Simple.

Of course it couldn’t be that easy. I had barely stepped out of the practice room, magic still singing in my veins when Miranda barreled around a corner, eyes wide in terror and her dress a tattered ruin. The relief on her face when she saw me was palpable and without breaking stride she gasped out, “Orion, help!”

She all but dove behind me and I was about to ask what was going on when another student floated around the corner, fury shining in her eyes. She stopped, hovering several inches above the ground as she took in the hallway before her. It was all but empty, I’d stayed late speaking to Professor Shrike and he had simply teleported out of the room. Only a few stragglers remained in the out-of-the-way corner of the building and they quickly made themselves scarce. Avalon students tended to have good survival instincts.

Seeing that I wasn’t going anywhere, she floated forward several inches, ethereal claws glinting around the clenched fists at her sides. “Step aside, third year. This is a private matter between me and this whore.”

Oh for gods’ sake. I wanted to close my eyes and rub my forehead but this wasn’t the time. Of all the things… For a moment, I was tempted, so very tempted. I had been planning to finally go visit my Lea right after class, every minute away from her sending spikes of worry through my chest, but this was not something I could walk away from.

Despite her occasional disobedience and the problems she caused, Miranda was mine, and I wasn’t going to just give her up. The only person allowed to damage my property was me. “I don’t think I will,” I said simply, my mana flaring. I half turned to look at Miranda. “What’s this about?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered shrilly, voice several octaves higher than I’d heard it in years. “I swear, I didn’t do anything Orion, please, I swear I didn’t do anything!”

The other girl interjected before I could say anything. “Oh, she knows what she’s doing! My fiancé’s been making eyes at her all year and she’s loving it!” Of all things! For gods’ sake, it was even stupider than I thought! “She needs to be taught a lesson, and as her better it is my responsibility to teach it!” Her shimmering claws swept through the air with a worrying hiss. “Now, step aside third year!”

I met her gaze squarely, judging the fire in her eyes. Well, it didn’t seem like talking things out would go well unfortunately. Oh how I hated emotional idiocy like this. Someone was going to die here, and I certainly had no plans for it to be me or mine.

I took a deep breath, eyes flicking around as I examined our surroundings and assessed the situation. I honestly had no idea who this girl was, only the magic of Avalon’s wards telling me that she was a fourth year and thus attacking the two of us was well within the rules. That was both good and bad, good because it meant she wasn’t anyone exceptional, bad because it meant I had no idea what she was capable of.

I extended my senses, trying to get a feel for her magic. She was stronger than I was from a purely magical perspective, which was expected and annoying. Fortunately, the difference was much smaller than I had feared. Neither of us were at our best, both down about a third of our total mana from what I could tell, and Miranda was at about half energy. I could feel a strong taste of wind in her mana, she had a very well trained affinity, but I wasn’t sure how much of a help that knowledge would be. Specialist mages tended to learn magic that punished people for targeting obvious weaknesses.

First year me would have offered her another chance. First year Orion would have asked if she was sure she wanted to do this. I exhaled, letting my worries and plans for the rest of the day slip away, leaving my mind crystal clear and empty of distracting thoughts. I didn’t hesitate. Three smooth metal bands floated silently into the hand I was holding behind my back. Mana flooded into prepared enchantments and all three of us moved near-simultaneously.

The three collars behind my back sprang apart, launching themselves into the air on either side of me and blitzing towards the rapidly accelerating fourth year. Whatever flight spell she was using was a good one, she dodged effortlessly around all six half-bands, but the distraction gave me just enough time to erect a flimsy shield of pure mana between the two of us.

She rebounded off the barrier, unfortunately protected from the impact by a swirling, almost skin-tight, bubble of wind, but my spell had served its purpose of buying time. The complex fourth-circle matrix I’d devoted most of my attention to flared and a crystalline shield of interlocking hexagons rippled into existence around me.

At the same time, Miranda finally finished her own spell. Thin darts of white-hot fire flared to life around her before launching themselves at the still recovering wind mage. I saw her eyes widen slightly as she saw them and she began to cast some sort of counter, but the flying collars launched themselves at her once more and she had to abort the spell in order to avoid them again. Her face screwed up into a rictus of pain as the backlash from her failed response slammed through her, but unfortunately she managed to fight through it.

For a moment, I let myself think that we had her. The collars looped around in wide arcs, closing in on her from all sides. The darts burned through the air, leaving trails of sparks in their wake as they flashed across the intervening space. A small volley of force spikes blocked off any other routes of escape as I carefully timed them to arrive at just the right moments.

Then, that hope was washed away as she showed how she’d lasted almost four full years at Avalon. In the blink of an eye she lashed out with both sets of claws, showing an impressive level of body enhancement as she moved nearly faster than I could see. Eight neigh-invisible blades of tightly compressed air hurtled through the air, knocking collars out of the air and shattering force spikes. At the same time, her flight spell sent her hurtling sideways along the corridor, the edges of her trailing sleeves all but brushing against the floor. Blazing darts tried to track her, but the angle was too sharp and they burnt themselves out uselessly against the ground.

Miranda cursed, but neither of us had really expected the first gambit to work. We had both already begun to cast again before we’d even seen our spells fail to find their mark. I narrowed my eyes as four of her ‘claws’ focused on my collars, chasing them through the air and knocking them aside each time they tried to fly towards their target. The enchantments I’d imbued into the metal were well made, but they wouldn’t last much longer against such an assault.

Still, I didn’t have a chance to focus on that for long as the other four shot towards the two of us. They slammed against my shield, grinding against the joints between panes of force with a terrible screeching sound. I spared a moment to lash out with tendrils of pure mana, trying to break apart the spell construct that animated the blades, but hit nothing. Interesting.

Miranda finished her next spell before I did, this time transmuting the air around her into translucent shards of razor-sharp glass that she gathered in a loose sphere and sent spinning down the hallway. A moment later, my force lance lashed after them, a sonic boom ringing through the air as the tip of the lance broke the sound barrier.

For the first time since we’d begun, the older girl cried out as her shield failed to fully stop my attack. I smiled in grim satisfaction as blood began to flow freely from the divet where I’d torn a chunk of flesh from her shoulder. As I’d expected, she’d used a wind-based shield, which was not particularly effective against such a tightly concentrated beam of pure force. Against a regular force lance, that might have worked better, but I’d modified the spell to have a much narrower point designed specifically to punch through that sort of defenses. I’d originally done it in case I ever came face to face with something like that demon, but this was a fine practice run for the spell as well.

Unfortunately, Miranda’s attack proved much less effective. Shards of glass flew in every direction as the flying girl simply bulldozed through them, her flight spell protecting her from their deadly edges and sending many of them back towards us. A new set of claws formed on her hands and she thrust them violently into my shield. Two hexagonal panes cracked under the blow and she wound back for a second hit that would certainly destroy the shield and leave me at her mercy.

I couldn’t fully hide my smile. The hand I’d been holding behind my back shot forward, fingers extended and glowing with a baleful red light. My circulations burned under my skin as I eked every bit of power I could out of them. At the same time, I kicked the collar lying under an illusion on my foot into the air. It split into two pieces and launched itself at her exposed neck.

She tried to dodge, but she was floating far too close to me and my hand was moving faster than even her flight spell could manage. I lunged through my own shield, the spell parting effortlessly in front of me. My hand cut through her flight spell with no resistance and into her belly; I’d aimed for a lung but she’d juked upwards in a frantic attempt to avoid the collar.

A moment later, the collar closed around her neck and both her flight spell and claws cut out in an instant. She tried to fight off the suppression, but she was right beside me. My mana flared as I bathed her body with my presence, burning through mana like a raging bonfire as I smothered any shred of resistance. Then, Miranda’s sleep spell slammed into her unresisting mind and she was out like a light.

I pulled my hand back, letting her drop bonelessly to the ground, and wiped my blood-soaked fingers on her top. “She should have listened the first time,” I said quietly.

Miranda nodded her head slowly and I heard her swallow loudly behind me. “Yes sir.”