Alisa really, truly tried to pay attention, but it was hard to sit through yet another lecture on third-circle spells. She could have taught it better than the current teacher, and she hated that she had to sit through it anyway.

If Zen were still tiny, she could use 'watching my dragon' as an excuse to get out of it. Alas, he was old enough to wander off unsupervised with his whole flock of wild admirers. Alisa missed his constant presence. She kept trying to find him under her chair, or checking the corners to see if he was getting into the decorative plants again, and kept being surprised when he wasn't there.

In recent weeks Zen had experienced a substantial growth spurt - as had the other two Aelaniri, though Zen maintained his size lead by a significant margin that only seemed to grow wider as time went on. He was far too large to fit under Alisa's chair or around her waist any longer, his body as thick as hers and many times as long.

She sketched out spell circles, but it wasn't the same. Ever since her doorway project hit a dead end, nothing the academy had to offer could hold her attention. And she didn’t have Zen to keep her company any more.

Never had Alisa wished for the library to still exist more strongly than now. The building had been replaced, but its interior remained mostly empty. The few tomes that survived by being checked out or in deep storage were largely useless, the former basic and the latter with issues that prevented them from being available to check out. Many were being rebound, repaired, and otherwise prepared to fill the gaps as best as possible, but they weren't yet available to students. And the political situation in the wider world was making acquiring replacement books tenuous.

"The differentiation between an impact delivery and a triggered delivery is important to keep in mind. While most spells we use in daily life are set to a trigger in the third layer, most combat spells are set to activate on impact. Much of what you learned at the Preparatory Academy would be geared toward triggered effects, like a lamp which can be turned on or off with a touch, or …"

I know this, I know this, I know this.

Alisa could tell the teacher was as bored with her lecture as Alisa was hearing it, as she droned on and on, but that made it no less intolerable to sit through. Alone. Without Zen’s clever mental asides or constant questions to distract her.

Renand Grand Academy teachers were the best of the best. To have their curriculum forcefully neutered, stripped down until they were forced to teach basics that everyone here should have already known by heart, must be utterly demoralizing.

“Alisa there,” she heard someone whisper, and spun. Two of her classmates hastily looked away, but she’d definitely heard her name. She frowned, then looked around the area more carefully. She wasn’t the only one trying to find something other than the tedious, useless lecture of uselessness to focus on, and she couldn’t help but notice there were a lot more whispers around her than usual.

Had Zen done something terribly scandalous?

But, no, Tia was also getting the same quick glances, the same uneasy tension. Alisa couldn’t think of anything they had in common. Tia had a large sleek blue dragon, Maya wasn’t sure of the breed.

So it wasn’t Alisa specifically, and that meant it probably wasn’t anything about Zen either.

But then, what was it?

The teacher finally noticed their distraction and snapped at them to focus, and the whispers stopped, but it left Alisa with a vague unease.

Finally the interminable class of tedium was over, and she could go look for Zen. He was, unsurprisingly, no longer in the academy, having flown away somewhere. The only thing she got from their mental bond was a giddy sort of swooping feeling that made her dizzy. He was in no mood to converse.

She paused once out in the open lawn between the covered arenas that had replaced the old lecture halls and flexed her hands, testing out a few basic spells. The first several months of the dragon magic training had been unbearably frustrating, but by now she'd internalized enough of the limitations that she could probably continue her research into spell creation without much difficulty. The skew to dragonfire would throw everything off, but adapting to that was well within her capabilities.

Most spells couldn't be simply converted. That was the big thing. They had to be rewritten from the ground up with the altered power at their base. Nearly every basic spell had a preexisting dragon mage equivalent which had already been established, so for those it was just a matter of adjusting the casting from the base form to the dragon form. But for more complicated, or personal, spells, there was no such easy fix.

It took her days to recreate even the simplest of her personal spells, not many of which worked as well when scaled up to dragon magic size. She could only focus so long on her own studies, however much she loved them, and attending pointless classes drained her energy faster than anything else.

Without Zen as a distraction to keep her company and help bounce ideas off, she suddenly had all this free time that had for so long been occupied by watching him constantly. Instead of a sense of freedom, it left her feeling strangely empty. Like without Zen taking up so much of her attention, she didn’t know what to do with herself.

Zen was out showing off his flying prowess or something equally exciting, off who knew where, and she was stuck here.

“Alisa Veyara?”

“Yes?” Alisa looked around to find who’d addressed her, only to find Reen grinning mischievously. He’d shifted his voice into an unfamiliar tone, specifically to confuse her. “Reen. Why.”

“Miss Veyara,” he continued officiously, “I am here as an official representative of the Academy, to escort you to your new lodging and assist with any transportation that may be required.”

Alisa blinked, then stared. “You… is this some kind of joke?”

“Nope,” he said in his normal voice. “Lia will be along shortly, but she had to help Riss with his shedding. He can get quite temperamental with old scales sticking places.”

Alisa nodded. Zen was growing so fast, he seemed to be shedding almost constantly. And though lately he’d been too caught up in his exploits off who knew where, he did tend to get very grumpy if stuck with old scales lingering around.

“So, let’s go get a cart and load up your things.”

Alisa trailed along behind him as he went to fetch a cart, trying very hard not to think about how kind and handsome he was. Lia was very protective of her twin brother, and Alisa had seen more than one girl who tried to chase Reen be driven to tears by Lia’s subsequent tongue-lashing. She still wasn’t entirely certain how to feel about the older girl. Lia was brash and forward and didn’t seem to understand that other people besides her mattered, but she wasn’t unkind and could sometimes be surprisingly thoughtful.

Reen, though… it was sometimes hard to see how they were related at all. He was quiet where Lia was loud, soft and gentle where she was sharp and brusque, and always kind and considerate. In fact, if Reen had any flaws at all, Alisa didn’t know about them. And he was adorable. His face had just the right amount of soft, just the right amount of strong definition. His light hair looked so smooth, his hands so big and warm, she just wanted to grab one…

She shook away the thought, hoping desperately that the heat in her face wasn’t visible. She pressed a hand against her cheek, trying to cool it before he could notice. This wasn’t like her, she didn’t get all flustered by boys; she was above them, thinking of higher, more important things.

Except… she couldn’t think of any more important things at the moment. And Reen was so sweet.

Maybe he would be interested in researching esoteric powerscript and adapting it for use by dragon mages, too? She’d not specifically asked him about it, but…

“How do you feel about exotic powerscripts?” Alisa blurted, blushing even hotter as he turned in confusion. “I just, um, I’ve never had a chance to talk with you without Lia there, and I was wondering, you know, what you’re interested in.”

Reen’s confusion melted into a casual smile. “She does tend to dominate the space, doesn’t she?”

“Only because you let her.”

"Well, Lia needs the attention more than I do. I'm perfectly happy being her backup." He disabled the cart’s movement with a touch, dropping the reins and hopping down.

"But don't you have any dreams of your own?" Alisa pressed, leading the way up to her dorm.

"Of course I do. But sometimes dreams are less important than the person sitting in front of you."

Alisa considered this, thinking of her own lost dreams, and Zen, then nodded. "Yeah," she said quietly. "You might be right."

"But, to answer your original question, I have no feeling either way toward exotic powerscripts. I am neither pleased nor disappointed that we didn't get the opportunity to study them this year, and have no particular preference as to whether they come up next year."

"Ah," Alisa said, but she couldn't hide the slight disappointed tilt to her voice. “You can just shove that stuff in a crate, it doesn’t matter.”

"You were looking forward to them?" Reen guessed, neatly stacking her clothing into the indicated receptacle.

"Yeah. I'm not planning to be an enchanter anymore, but I still want to be able to do things. New things, old things, things no one else is doing. There's so much potential we've never explored! Sure, you can make a chair, or you can make a wood bolt to throw at an enemy, but why don't we have flying chairs?"

"Because it would be an extremely ineffective way to get around?"

They finished clearing her possessions from the dorm, leaving it looking bland and empty, then began carrying the boxes down to stack in the cart.

"Wheeled carts aren't the end-all of vehicle design,” Alisa said, gesturing at the jointed cart in question. “So why do we put so much time into refining them instead of trying something new?"

"New things are hard to sell," Reen said, sounding more confident now. He turned the loaded cart around, reactivating its powerscript and gripping the reins securely as it started off. "If you have a new kind of apple, you can say 'this is an apple, but special'. If you have a weird blue spiky crossbreed thing from foreign lands, it's a lot harder to get people to take it. The apple is familiar and they want a special apple. The spiky blue thing is weird and unless you say 'this is a blue spike apple' they won't be as interested. Sure, some people go for new weird stuff, but not nearly as many as just want something comfortable, familiar, but just a little different."

"But new things are the most interesting! I'd buy a blue spike fruit."

"So would I, but we're in the minority." Reen brought the cart to a stop and pointed. "There's your house."

Alisa stopped and stared. She'd not disbelieved him, but to actually see it right there in front of her felt so strange.

"This whole thing... is mine?"

"For the remainder of your stay at Renand Grand Academy, yes."

Alisa jumped down off the cart. The house seemed small by city standards, with only two rooms, but it was still much bigger than her dorm and perhaps even than her mother's home back in Leviir. Not by a huge amount, but enough to be noticeable. The interior contained no ornamentation and only the basic bed and table in the bedroom, the front room entirely bare. But she could fill it. She smiled, easily imagining turning it into a proper home.

Then she remembered that she planned to leave in less than a month. ... she could keep it bare. It wouldn't hurt so much to lose it, then.

Reed was already unloading her possessions and stacking them neatly by the inside wall, and Alisa hurried to organize them so she could unpack easily. She didn't have a lot, but it would be enough to make the bedroom feel like hers at least.

The doors of the front room were extra wide, probably to allow students with larger dragons to let them in, but the house wasn't intended for dragons to live inside. Alisa had a whole patch of lawn out back, thin recently-planted grass poking up through the new layer of dirt, a covered pavilion big enough for a dozen dragons erected over one half of it.

This whole section of new student-dragon housing had once been packed down streets and merchant shops and apartment buildings. In less than a year, all of that had been torn down and cleared away, people relocating to different sections of the city as the Academy grew and grew and grew. It barely felt like the same place any longer, the old buildings remodeled or demolished. Instead, most classes took place in open air arenas or huge covered pavilions, arranged with plenty of space between students for their rapidly enlarging draconic charges.

The library had been replaced with a new building, and the secret room beneath it sealed. There was still a trapdoor on the lowest level, if you knew where to look, but with no latch or handle. Alisa thought she could probably force it open from the inside if she ever had to use the hidden cavern as a quick escape, but didn't want to risk trying it unless it were an actual emergency.

And now the last vestiges of their previous existence was vanishing, the student housing dorms replaced by individual houses. Small houses, by city standards, but bigger than any one student needed. Alisa wasn't sure what she'd do, not having Sadie down the hall a few rooms away. Even if she didn't speak with the other girls as often, they were still friendly neighbors she'd miss having around.

Now it was just... her and Zen. If Zen even bothered to come by any more.

There were times she wished she'd bonded him like she was supposed to, early enough that she could exercise some control over him.

Her moral high ground stance sounded great in theory, but when it meant in practice that her adolescent young moron of a dragon could do whatever he pleased and she couldn't do anything to keep him in line? It started to feel more and more like she'd made a mistake.

He was already too big and heavily muscled for her to physically restrain him any longer. If she tried to strap a harness and leash on him, he'd likely end up flying off with her dangling helplessly, or simply yanking the leash from her grip before she could get a solid hold on it. He may still be long and thin, but his lithe body was all taut power. He could twist his long body into any shape he pleased and hold it while hovering in midair, that kind of control didn’t come without considerable hidden strength.

"Last one, where do you want this?" Reen held up a lamp she'd made in precad, and she smiled fondly at it, glad he’d interrupted her.

"In the bedroom, thank you." It had colour changing functions built into the powerscript array covering its base, with the power activation cycling through them on sequence before deactivating. An ambitious undertaking, the circles interconnected messy-looking things, scrawled and squished across the base, but it was one of her early great successes.

Nothing groundbreaking, but it had worked, exactly as she'd intended. And she'd built the circles herself, not using a script stencil or anything. It was one of the things that pushed her to the top of her year, one of the special accomplishments that had set her apart from the others, enabling her to continue on to the Grand Academy without the exorbitant entry fees charged to anyone below the very top.

Francine was another of those very top students, though her family could have afforded the entry fees, unlike Alisa's. Francine had surpassed Alisa's score in half the classes, and never forgave Alisa for beating her in the ones that really mattered. Well, and Alisa's friendship with Sadie. For some reason, Francine just absolutely had it out for Sadie. It was one of those things Alisa had always wanted to know, but didn't quite dare ask. However close she and Sadie may be, whenever the conversation inched toward that particular topic, Alisa could feel the tension and backed off. She didn't want to do anything to jeopardize their friendship.

But now, looking back, she wondered if maybe that had been a mistake. Maybe she'd been a little too considerate. Maybe it would have been better if she'd pushed for more of a deep connection.

"That lamp do something to upset you?" Reen asked, lightly.

"Oh, no." Alisa set it down on the table. "I didn't realize you were still here."

"I put the cart away and came back. Lia insisted we all go shopping together."

"Shopping?"

"For furniture and decorations, all the new-house things."

"I don't think I need new house things."

"You have a whole front room to decorate, plus a kitchen."

"Empty kitchen."

"For now. But you don't have to rely on academy meals any more unless you want to."

Alisa made a face. "I want to. It's hard to imagine anything less satisfying than spending all day making something that's going to be gone in a few minutes."

"Cooking isn't that bad," Reen laughed.

"Then you are welcome to do it."

"I think I will," Reen said, tilting his chin up defiantly. "You'll learn to appreciate kitchens before long."

"If you say so," Alisa said dubiously, then started sorting out boxes. "If you're going to be hanging around, help move these into the bedroom."

He set to working immediately without protest, and Alisa wondered why her stomach was so fluttery feeling. It must be the mention of food, and the strain of moving. Probably something like that. Definitely not anything more.

She found she'd stopped sorting, just watching Reen as he lifted each box, his stride as he moved, the little smile every time their eyes met.

No, focus. She shook herself and forced her attention back to the boxes. Important boxes. Stop staring at Reen. The moment his sister isn't around to dominate the conversation, you start ogling him? What is wrong with you?

But as she glanced up, she saw him smiling at her, and her own face couldn't help but mirror his happiness.