“I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light.”

- Helen Keller

Wisteria Dorms

Alyssa carved another rune compared it to the open book lying on the table and cursed under her breath.

Asandria hovered near her shoulder and a sigh like the wind brushing over dead leaves accompanied her disapproval. ‘Perhaps you should leave the carving to someone with more artistic talents in that regard?’

“My ‘artistic’ talents lie more in song and music. Thank you very much.”

Putting away the failed wooden board she stretched and looked outside. The snow had not been disturbed much in recent times as the cold and the generally depressed mood after the death of seven students made venturing outside a chore.

It made for some clean, white snow though.

She looked at the runes and frowned. They did not – look- complicated. But the devil was in the details, there were almost no straight lines, all had a little curve or twist to them, and getting it just right- or right enough for her purposes- was not as easy as the author of the book ‘Runic considerations of Space’ made it seem.

Grabbing another board, that would go into the side of the coffer she was aiming to enlarge, she grabbed the magical stylus and began to scratch the runes anew.

Semiramis was sleeping further along the table, legs splayed over the edge in a decidedly uncomfortable-looking pose, her wings were tightly folded at least. Sometimes her claws extended and she made little implied slashing motions probably dreaming of prey.

Cyrus had claimed her bed and filled it too. The wyvern had had a growth spurt to rival her friend Mireille and was much too large to sit on her shoulders anymore, with a bit of effort she could lift him still but the time neared when even that would be impossible.

In a more sedate moment some weeks back she had read about forest wyvern and some of them were between fifteen and twenty meters from snout to tailspike with a wingspan of about ten. Some grew even larger and she was not inclined to take bets as to which length he might reach in time.

Grinning at the thought of flying on his back which did not seem that far away anymore, she scratched another rune. Breathing a sigh of relief as she saw that the error this time was well within the tolerances she had set herself she put aside the second board she had finished in as many days. Two more and she would have enough for a rudimentary spatial enchantment. She would have to use a lesser mana jewel because only using dust wouldn’t be enough to reliably last the journey and she had read about the results of failing space enchantments- it could even lead to a small explosion when space no longer sufficed for the items it contained.

Whistling she pulled at the nether spider silk gloves covering her left arm. Learning not to use void when she wanted to use magic had been difficult but she thought she had gotten the hang of it. Infusing spatial magic while cutting the runes was much easier than getting the runes right- at least for her.

She stretched again and a kink in her neck straightened with a pop. ‘I’m an old woman now! I must never let Mireille see me like this!’

The door to the room opened with a bang as a roundish ball of snow and furs burst through the opening. “Alyssa, come quickly! There are snow spirits near the pond!”

Mireille had a fur-lined cap with ear flaps pulled deeply into her face her cheeks were quite red from the cold and her hairs were tangled everywhere. The coat she had put over a jacket, that she had pulled over her winter uniform made her movements stiff but lightning magic helped with that.

“I am working here, Mireille! I saw them this morning when you were still sleeping.” She smiled to take the sting from her words.

“But you should go outside sometimes.” Mireille looked at her imploringly. “Alea is with her family and even Lorelle is gone. Please!”

Looking outside Alyssa saw the first tinge of red in the snow from the sun nearing the horizon. She shrugged, “Ok. But only for a few minutes. I have to finish at least one enchantment otherwise I would be too embarrassed to look Alea in the face. Why did you not ask Paula?”

“That spoilsport is in the city with some friends of hers. She had asked me but I had forgotten and when I went to get her they were already gone.” Mireille frowned in dissatisfaction.

‘Getting some exercise might improve your concentration. That last rune was nearly a failure.’ Asandria admonished.

Grabbing her coat she spoke a quick fire spell and warmth infused her garments.

“Ah, nice trick. Do you think I could use it too? Fire should be okay don’t you think?” Mireille mused while walking beside her friend. She took a disproportionate amount of satisfaction– at least in Alyssa’s opinion- from the fact that she could now look down on the smaller white-haired girl.

Venturing outside the biting cold soon put a blush on Alyssa’s face, thankfully her quick spellwork held- for now.

“I can lend you the almanac if you want to. It’s properly titled ‘Primer for the magically inclined Housewife’. It was my mom's. ” She smiled a bit sadly. She breathed deeply of the crisp air and continued, "It's simple enough and- more important- close to your affinities that it should be manageable even with your brand.

“Thanks in advance.” Mireille skipped through the snow and kicked plumes of the stuff into the air.

Near the small pond under the wisteria trees which gave the dorm its name small funnels of snow moved in unnatural patterns, some contained sparkling lights, and some even seemed to form a small humanoid figure.

“Look, there seem to be more.”

“The time of dusk is a time of passage and so it is easier for elemental forces to influence the world.”

A snowball impacted the side of her torso and the now loose snow fell to the ground leaving her dusted with white.

“Hey!” Alyssa turned and frowned in mock fury before she also grabbed some snow and after packing it into a more or less even sphere hurled it back at her attacker.

After a fierce battle, both of the girls were covered in a thick layer of half-frozen snow and the minor spell had long since ceased to work. After cooling down from the exertion Alyssa was shivering, her teeth chattering from the cold. “L...le..ts...brr...go in...in…”

Mireille grabbed her friend and hauled her towards the dorm. Madam Gosling stood in the doorway and shook her head in exasperation a carpet beater in hand. “Come here you two. You won’t get inside with all that snow so let me quickly pat it off you.”

Doing as much as she had said she removed the worst of it before letting them go inside, not before she gathered the outer layers for drying near the kitchen's hearth fire.

Both of them looked a bit sleepy after the exertion with Mireille being clearly less winded. Realizing this she looked at Alyssa with a superior smirk, “You should train more, if Julia- my teacher from Sword One- saw your performance she would whip you around the training field for a whole afternoon.”

“Wouldn’t that be difficult if I were as bad at it as you think?” Alyssa retorted.

Smiling, both of them took a quick bath, heated water in winter being a gift from the gods themselves.

As they sat on the bed and dried their hair there was a knock on the door. Both of them looked at each other and shrugged before Mireille called out, “Who is it?”

A soft girlish voice answered, “It’s me, Vivienne. Valens is with me too. Do we come at a bad time?”

“Come in, the door’s open,” Mireille called back.

Soon the four of them sat around the table and Vivienne inspected Alyssa’s handiwork. “I have not had much exposure to spatial runes but your rune-carving seems to have progressed nicely. She looked at a broken board lying against the wall and grinned at the crudely carved sigils adorning it.

“Damn. I thought I had given it away as firewood for the kitchen!” Alyssa cursed.

Valens clenched his fists and said with some effort, “No one can do that without first learning it.” His eyes implored his sister to be gentle.

Both half-elves were in simple leather and fur clothing with a foreign cut and some ornamental stitching reminiscent of fish.

“Is that from Kruoghs Breach?” Mireille looked at the leatherwork with interest.

“Yes, it's from the north.” Vivienne gave up on further teasing and put her chin on her folded hands, elbows propped on the table.

Valens sighed, he never won against his sister and now she punished him by making him carry the conversation further, “How are you two? And where is Alea?” Relieved at having gotten this far he looked at Alyssa.

“We are well enough I suppose. The wounds were quickly dealt with but the fight was something else.” She sighed. “Alea is with her family. Her grandmother is in bad health at the moment and cannot leave the townhouse. Demavar, her uncle plans to return to Graufurt after the coronation and this is one of the last occasions where she can easily meet with him and talk.”

“I understand.” Valens nodded.

“Do you have any family?” Mireille looked at him guilelessly.

Valens swallowed an angry retort, “No.”

“Oh, ok. Sorry, I did not want to remind you.” Mireille lowered her eyes.

Vivienne gazed at all of them and then gave Valens a considering look that seemed to say, ‘You are off the hook- for now.’ Before she interjected, “It's been a long time now. But it's still not something we are comfortable talking about. Where is Iseret? She did make a really good showing at the Exhibition. And the smaller girl with her was truly gifted with her ice-claws.”

“Iseret is back in town at the moment, I don’t know where Vanes…” Mireille began to answer as Alyssa kicked her against the shin. “I don’t know where the girl went.”

“Was she an elf?” Vivienne looked at both of them intently.

Alyssa looked at Mireille consideringly and then asked, “Why do you want to know?”

“She looked a bit like our mother,” Valens answered to everyone's surprise.

“That is true.” Vivienne nodded. “And we would very much like to talk to her if possible.”

“We will ask, but she is normally very withdrawn and does not often meet new people.” Alyssa prevaricated.

Vivienne’s eyes held even more interest now but she no longer asked.

“Should we play a game? I can ask Madam Gosling if she has some bread and cheese if you haven’t eaten already?”

“That would be much appreciated.” Vivienne grinned.

They played a few card games before the two siblings left just before the dorm mother would have locked the door.

“Do you want to go to bed now or could you show me the fire spell?”

“I’m a bit sleepy but the spell is easy enough. Come here I will show you.” Alyssa grabbed the well-thumbed ‘Primer’. The edges were nearly bare of ink, she had not been the first owner, that had been probably her mother, but the book was perhaps even older. Countless hands had turned the pages so that the outermost words were sometimes blurred.

“Here look at this diagram, you have to align those three glyphs and the spell is…” Alyssa patiently explained the spell to her friend. “And now you try.”

Mireille licked her lips nervously and gestured, glyphs sprang into being, small and barely glowing they did not look like much. Channeling energy and speaking the spell a small rush of warmth left her hands and settled into her clothing. “Alyssa! I did it!”

Her friend smiled, “You shouldn’t have any difficulty with that. It does not last long but with a bit of practice and familiarity, you can extend the time quite a bit. If that does not work out for you I can look into adding a few qualifier glyphs.”

“No thank you. If it gets too complicated it will be like work and irritating instead of nice. It's perfectly fine as it is!” Mireille hastily deflected those thoughts.

Alyssa laughed.

“You seem better.” Mireille looked at her friend.

“I am better. I want to be honest- The potions did a lot for me and I have to thank Vanessa when I see her. Without that, I would be a wreck probably. I still see decay everywhere but if it is important I can simply close my left eye. The void magic I unconsciously release from my left hand is a problem but with the gloves, it is not insurmountable. I got a lot of control back through Vanessa’s exercises. If we are not killed by assassins or undead, or mad nobles things should be looking up.”

Mireille hugged her suddenly, “I am glad.”

Patting her on the back Alyssa smiled and was glad that she was facing the wall so Mireille could not see her teary eyes. “Me too. And thank you.”