"More often than not, ostentatious and overly luxurious decorations are displayed at royal castles to provide an illusion of wealth and grandeur. Often one that does not fit the reality of the people on whose backs said illusion was built upon." - Excerpt from a lecture by Garth Wainwrought, socioeconomics Professor at the Levain Institute of Higher Learning.

Students at the Levain Institute of Higher Learning have a month and a half long holiday in the summer, and once again in the winter. For her students, Cal had planned at most three weeks in Al-Shan, since Aideen had wanted to bring them elsewhere for the latter half of their vacations. Something she agreed to readily since the students were by now as much Aideen's as hers.

They had decided to spend the few days left until Xain's wedding - the primary reason Cal went back to Al-Shan to begin with - in the imperial palace, since the young emperor eagerly offered its amenities to his new friends. Her students had taken the revelation better than she expected, and had joked around with the young emperor like before during breakfast that day, something she knew would give old Halmout some fits if he noticed. Also something she looked forward to.

While Xain was busy with lessons and imperial business, and Layla occupied with preparations for her upcoming wedding, the students were left to roam free in the palace. Xain had left orders with the head servant to notify them to give the kids free passage, but to be honest, their status as Cal's students was plenty even without that.

Cal naturally used that little privilege and dragged the students with her to the imperial guard's training ground. Vark and Krystal on the other hand were more attracted to the imperial library and art gallery, respectively. Aideen had went along with Cal since she too was half a teacher to the kids.

To her surprise, she saw some familiar faces on the training ground. Mustafa bey Leung was there, his once slim figure now slightly chubbier after some years of living in comfort. Next to him stood Zhang Hu-Lao, his husband, and also one of the Al-Shan army's top field officers, a man who led charges from the very front and was beloved by his men for it. Unlike his now-softer husband, Hu-Lao kept himself in perfect shape, his valiant musculature displayed proudly as the man walked around topless in the sparring area.

Lakhsman bin Mansoor was his sparring partner, and Layla's twin brother struggled to match the veteran warrior's large glaive with his scimitar and shield. He was pushed to the defensive immediately, before a brutal swing flung his scimitar from his hand. At that point Lakhsman found the glaive's point halted just before his face and yielded.

"Celeysria! You're back!" Hu-Lao shouted when he caught sight of Cal approaching from the corner of his eye. "Care for a spar?"

"Lay off it, Hu-Lao. Ain't like you ever won one yet," Cal shot his request down with a smirk. Next to her Mustafa cupped his face in exasperation at his husband's behaviour, as he had always been a bonafide musclehead. "I'm here to borrow some of your students as sparring partners."

"Not for me, no. For these kids," Cal added as Hu-Lao gave her a totally incredulous look complete with a raised eyebrow. The human man did not look his forty-five years of age even with his thin, well-trimmed moustache and beard, which made him look like he was a decade younger than his husband, who aged less gracefully. "They're my students, wanna see which of us can teach better?"

"You're on!" Said the burly man boisterously. "Wish one of you could do me a good fight though, haven't found anyone as fun to fight since you left."

"Hey, Cal, mind if I take him on for a ride?" Chimed Aideen from the side with a mischievous look on her face.

"Hey now, don't bully him too badly, okay?" Replied Cal with some worry.

"No worries, I'll just bruise his pride a little bit," the Unliving woman added with a grin.

Hu-Lao raised an eyebrow at that and made his way to the center of the sparring area, where he stood in a wide stance, his glaive held with one hand. Aideen stepped lightly across from him as she extracted her staff with one hand and spun it a few times around her as she walked with practiced ease.

What followed was less of a fight and more just an utter bullying. Or as Aideen would have put it, a lesson in humility. Hu-Lao was not a mage, and thus Aideen had played along and not used her magic either as that would have given her an unfair advantage. Even then, the gap in experience between the two was so wide she would not have needed it to begin with.

Hu-Lao's powerful strikes were all intercepted mid-swing by Aideen's staff and deflected away to a harmless direction. She never even matched strength with him at all, her skill more than plenty to turn his own strength against him. It only took fifteen minutes before Hu-Lao knelt on the ground with his glaive laid down powerlessly as he panted in exhaustion, sweat running in rivulets all over his muscular form. Aideen had never moved even a single step from her position since the spar started.

"I yield," he said as he panted in an effort to catch his breath. When he saw how his opponent barely looked like she had done a thing he realized just how far the gap between them was. And he had thought that Cal was bad enough as an oppponent before. "How does one pursue the arts martial to your level, if I may ask?"

Aideen stepped forward and offered him a hand to grasp, which Hu-Lao accepted gracefully. He gave her a warrior's palm-over-fist salute once he stood up straight. Aideen just smirked before she answered him honestly. "It'll be a bit of a tall order, I'm afraid. Unless you got a millennia of time to burn ahead of you."

The look on Hu-Lao's face when his husband pointed out that to get trounced by the legendary Silver Maiden herself was nothing shameful was one of the most amusing things Cal had seen so far. The man looked like he could have had an apoplexy at any moment for a while.

It was a fruitful day for the students - though they had grumbled a bit at having to train even during vacations - and they soon proved themselves beyond most of the Al-Shan trainees. Blood mages had a rather unfair advantage in that regard after all.

By the afternoon, the rested Hu-Lao took on the students himself, his greater experience and expertise in turn proved to still be too great for the students to overcome, so Cal had them take him on two at a time to practice their teamwork as well. With Aideen around they had no need to worry about injuries and could go all-out at will.

Cal and Aideen shared some tricks with young Lakhsman instead while the students sparred with Hu-Lao, the far greater experience the two women offered a boon for the young man.