Nerluce scarfed down a bowl of noodles, much to the general disgust of the yellow-haired boy - whose name Nerluce refused to learn - and was on his third mung bean cake. The sweets weren't native to Itoroh, but its neighbor - Lailusha - and though the relationship between the two countries wasn't necessarily poor, import goods were considered a luxury, even for nobility. Ethera bordered Lailusha and there were many disciples for which Lailusha was their home country.

So it made sense they'd have bean cakes. Nerluce, who enjoyed the soft and delicate pastry, was very pleased.

"Why are you trying to choke yourself on cakes?" the yellow-haired boy asked, though his expression read more as: "Why are you trying to choke yourself on cakes and getting crumbs all over me in the process?"

"So-wvy," Nerluce said while still chewing.

That disgusted look on his face grew even fiercer. "Don't talk with your mouth full," he said, scolding Nerluce.

Nerluce snorted.

The tall, deep-spoken boy - who spent most of his time silently observing or reading but most notably never went anywhere without the yellow-haired boy - offered what might've been a sympathetic glance at Nerluce. From what Nerluce had discerned, the two were friends from the Old Empire, Dumore, which seemed to explain away the yellow-haired boy's general attitude.

For the smallest nation in Ecekasuri, the denizens of Dumore seemed to still think they were a part of the greatest empire to ever exist.

Lyana slurped the last of her noodles and let out a content sigh. "I think these northern countries are onto something," she said. "You can slurp and burp all you want and it's actually considered a compliment!" She let out a sharp laugh. "Don't you think it's nice not to have to obey all those strict manners from your country, Corbett?"

"No," the yellow-haired boy snapped - or perhaps snarled would be a better word for it. "And don't be so familiar. I-" He drew out a pause, giving the word a heightened sense of importance, "am a very prominent figure in Dumore."

Like that meant anything here.

"Well I'm the son of a noble," Nerluce said, rolling his eyes.

"And I'm more powerful than either of you," Lyana said, sticking out her tongue. Nerluce returned the childish gesture before reaching over and picking up another bean cake. Lyana sighed, looking at the bean cakes with sorrowful eyes. She didn't like the bean cakes as she didn't think they were sweet enough. "I wish they had proper sweetmeats," she said, despairingly.

"Why not conjure some oh great and powerful magician?" Nerluce asked.

"Because unlike you," Jurine said, leaning into the conversation, her long black hair like the sheen of silk. "Lyana isn't a heretic."

Nerluce bit the inside of his cheek. For some reason, when the words came from someone from his own country, they made shame roll in the pit of his stomach. "They were just questions," Nerluce said, before hurriedly changing the topic. "What are sweetmeats?" The foreign word rolled over his tongue.

"Oh, it's just a food with a lot of sugar," Lyana said.

"Why does it have the word... meat in it then?" Jurine asked, crinkling her nose.

"I- I don't know." Lyana frowned.

Luckily - or unluckily depending - the yellow-haired boy opened his mouth. "It comes from a word in the old tongue that had nothing to do with flesh." He looked very smug to be informing them of this. "It was pronounced like meat but spelled differently and was used in reference to food in general. When the countries split and the modern tongues came into existence, the people of the west continued using meat as food but only in reference to sweetmeats."

All of them seemed content to stare at him.

And then, very slowly, Nerluce opened his mouth to ask, "What is your name, again?"

The yellow-haired boy opened his mouth then snapped it shut again. Nerluce let out a laugh, watching the boy who seemed both embarrassed and enraged at once.

"His name is Corbett," the tall boy said, his expression remaining neutral and his low and deep voice like a rumble of thunder from the back of his throat, sent shivers up Nerluce's spine. "And mine is Hamelin. It is a pleasure, Nerluce of the Hebikoti Clan."

Definitely shivers.

"You- you as well," Nerluce said. "I'll try not to forget this time."

"Good," Corbett snapped, still bristling like a cat.

"It's not worth remembering," Jurine said, with a dismissive wave. "Though this does make me fearful that you might've forgotten my name as well."

"Of course not, young mistress Jurine," Nerluce said. "Nor have I forgotten young mistress Lyana's name either."

"So it seems you only care to learn the names of women," Corbett - and how Nerluce wished to forget the name already - said with a huff.

"I'll learn the names of men," Nerluce said, letting the pause hang, "if they're pretty enough."

That caused Corbett to choke.

Nerluce dissolved into laughter over the yellow-haired boy's reaction. Corbett snarled a few choice words - something about Nerluce being a shameless embarrassment not only to his country but for magicians and the entire human race if he even was human - before Nerluce stood himself and gave a sweeping bow.

"Well, I better be going," he said.

"Have fun in remedial classes," Lyana said.

Nerluce tried mimicking the crude finger gesture she had given the other disciples on their first day, but he must've remembered it wrong since Lyana snorted at him.

Regardless, they weren't remedial classes - Nerluce had told her as much and even asked Taayir, who also told him they weren't remedial - but Lyana teased him regardless. Of course, it didn't really matter because even if there were remedial classes Nerluce would be in them, but they were just... teaching him a new way of doing things. Which was good because the old way wasn't working.

He walked carelessly across the temple grounds, stopping only once to flirt with a pretty young mistress who laughed before returning his flirtation and making Nerluce go red. He wasn't exactly used to being flirted back at. The girls here were much bolder than those at home, though that might be because here he wasn't the son of their lord, but just another disciple.

Eventually, though, Nerluce arrived where he was told to go. It was a small, grassy area near the edge of one of the cliffs. The grass was well-trodden, however, so Nerluce had always thought that people went to sit and look at the view. What he saw instead was a collection of about five individuals who sat: lax and bored. Of these people, Nerluce only recognized one.

Aristide.

Nerluce beamed and sat down next to him, despite the look of displeasure on Aristide's face. "Good afternoon, angel," Nerluce said, a teasing hilt to his voice. "Couldn't bear to be apart?"

"I am supervising you so technically, yes," Aristide said.

Which was certainly news to Nerluce. He froze, startled, before scrutinizing Aristide to see if he was joking. His face was dead serious. "You... you're doing what? Why?" Nerluce exclaimed before twisting around. "Is everyone here being supervised?"

"No," Aristide said. "Just you."

"For what reason?" Nerluce asked.

"Do you recall a certain incident where you snuck into the Chosen Light's nursery in the middle of the night with unknown intentions?" Aristide cocked a brow, lifting his chin.

"There was a crying baby! What was I supposed to do?"

"Not be in the innermost sanctum of the temple in the first place," Aristide said before he turned his head. "If you are not a threat then don't be concerned. If you are, however..." Aristide turned two very sharp, very cold, and very golden eyes at him in a fridge glare, "I am under orders to eliminate you."

Nerluce swallowed.

He forced himself to smile, all teeth because he wasn't sure what else he was meant to do. He was pretty sure that regardless of his reaction, it would only serve to make himself more suspicious to Aristide. Then again, he hadn't killed Nerluce yet so Nerluce figured he probably needed some sort of proof or had a morality that prevented him from lying and ridding himself of a nuisance.

There was an old saying about gods and flies. Nerluce couldn't exactly remember how it went but it had something to do with how wicked humans were flies in the eyes of the gods, annoying, easy to kill, but they restrained their hands because they saw the beauty in all life. Nerluce thought the story was a good one as a child, sitting in his mother's lap. Now he thought it smelled of horseshit.

Guess the wicked humans and flies got their way, then.

"Angel," Nerluce said, turning to look at Aristide, "what's your opinion on flies?"

"There are no flies in Ethera," Aristide said. He still didn't seem pleased by the nickname but he also didn't seem to want to give Nerluce any sort of reaction. "The altitude is too high for them."

"Well then..." Nerluce frowned looking down. "What about moths?"

"Moths?" Aristide asked.

"Yes!" Nerluce said, waving his hands. "There are so many moths up here and they always get into the rooms when I'm trying to read by candlelight." He suppressed a shudder. Ethera definitely had an infestation of moths. "I've swatted so many of them I think they're piling up in the corners of my room. What do you think of them?"

The corner of Aristide's lip twitched down. "They're the symbol of the patron goddess of the moon, Le," he said. "They are a sacred creature. You shouldn't swat them."

"You didn't answer my question," Nerluce said, rolling his eyes. "What do you think of them? Do you like them?"

Aristide didn't say anything for such a long time that Nerluce thought that he might be ignoring him again. Which, fine, Nerluce deserved it but this was a matter of science. He needed to know if Aristide was just as ethereal on the inside as he was the out. Finally, Aristide let out a small sigh and looked up at Nerluce. "All life is precious so... yes, I like them."

So it was true. Aristide had given almost word for word the same answer the gods had as to why they didn't smite evil humans. Nerluce didn't know if that made Aristide, his angel, good or bad, but it certainly made him holy.

"What's your family name?" Nerluce asked.

That got him an even nastier look than any of his prior questions. "Why does that matter?" he asked.

"I'm trying to figure out if you hatched from a peach."

Aristide scoffed.

Nerluce didn't get the chance to interrogate him further, however, as Taayir showed up, late. She never showed up to anything on time as Nerluce had come to discover, which meant that Nerluce didn't have to show up for his magic classes on time either. Of course, it then became a game to see which one of them would arrive first. Nerluce won today, out of sheer eagerness to begin learning this new method.

Taayir, like on the first day of their traditional magical studies, began with a demonstration.

She rose her arms up towards the heavens and then in a movement that almost looked as if she were dancing, she brought them back down and up again. Her feet started across the earth as water formed around her limbs, collected from the air, and it seemed to move and dance with her. This was very much not how magic was done.

Magic was a silent and studious art. Or at least that's how it had always been taught to Nerluce. He had to sit still and focus on the flame. He had to put all of his efforts into concentrating. Which he was bad at. This was movement. Frivolous movement. A waste of effort. And yet the water still collected and formed dancing tendrils around Taayir as she grinned, never ceasing her movement.

She brought the water together over her hand through an odd grasping movement with her fingers. It hovered above her palm before she finally stopped moving and the water stopped as well, falling back to the ground.

"What is this method of magic called?" Taayir said before pointing at Aristide.

She did that in class a lot as well. Nerluce didn't know why she liked to pick on him so much but he had yet to answer a single question incorrectly. Aristide rose and answered, "Physical magic."

"And the other type is?"

"Mental magic."

"And what was it that I just displayed for everyone?"

Aristide's lips quirked downward as if displeased by this question. Nerluce wondered, only for a moment, if it was because he didn't know the answer. However, Aristide answered not a moment later. "The first phase of creating an elemental weapon."

"Which one?" Taayir asked, looking smug.

"I can perform a demonstration, if it pleases you, Elder Priestess."

Taayir - who had specifically instructed them to address her by her given name and given name alone - scowled. "Yes," she snapped. "And it better be perfect or else I'm sending you back to the High Priestess."

"Yes, Elder Priestess."

Nerluce - along with everyone else present - had no idea what was going on. However, Aristide bowed and reached outwards. His fingers extended and... well and that was all there was to it. The water came to him. It came from the air, from the ground, as if the gods themselves were offering up water for Aristide to take at his leisure.

He brought his middle finger in, towards his palm then. Nerluce was sure he was only able to see the subtle gesture because he was sitting right next to Aristide, getting a front-row few of this as it happened, mouth dry. The water, all at once, ceased movement, becoming a single shape. That of a sword.

Aristide wrapped his fingers around the hilt of this watery blade and... ice spread out, almost as if it was coming from Aristide's fingertips. The blade of this ice sword was extremely thin, almost completely transparent save for those frozen breaths trapped beneath. It radiated cold, so much of it, Nerluce shivered. He didn't know how Aristide could stand touching it, much less with his bare hand.

"Show off," Taayir muttered. "Alright, everyone, this is the Head Disciple for the water affinity, Aristide. He'll be assisting me in teaching this class since he was able to craft his own elemental weapon at a very young age."

Aristide bowed once more and walked to the front to stand next to Taayir.

"What Aristide demonstrated for all of you was the complete two-step process to forming his elemental weapon, Kōttaiki," Taayir said, rolling her eyes. "Any elemental weapon can be crafted in these two steps - summon and shape - but how these two steps look can vary. You-" Taayir pointed at someone sitting in the front, "what was the difference between how Aristide summoned Kōttaiki and how I did?"

Her victim stood up. "Um, the- the Head Disciple moved a lot less?" she squeaked out in a high pitched, nervous voice.

"Correct," Taayir said.

It was such an uncommon word in their other class that Nerluce almost choked when he heard it. He looked Taayir up and down, trying to figure out just who this imposter that'd replaced his teacher was. But looking at a teacher was a very, very good way to get called on as well because Taayir pointed at him next.

"Nerluce," she snapped. "What was another difference?"

"You took longer," Nerluce said. He didn't bother standing and it was well worth it for the look on Aristide's face.

"Correct," Taayir said. "Anyone else?"

A couple of other students - encouraged by this wave of correct, seemingly obvious answers -pointed out several other differences. Someone said that Taayir looked like she was dancing. Aristide looked like he was just waving his hand. Aristide was much more subtle. Taayir collected less water. And so on.

Finally, Taayir, grinning from ear to ear asked a new question. "Why?" And there was the demon that Nerluce knew. "Both me and Aristide were summoning the same weapon so why were there so many differences."

Someone rose a hand. Taayir grunted and nodded in their direction. The boy stood up, looking a bit unsure. "Were you using physical magic and the Head Disciple using mental?"

"No," Taayir said. "We were both using physical magic. Think about this one. You all know the answer."

The boy sat down again, looking a little flustered.

Nerluce frowned, trying to figure out what the answer that he apparently already knew was. He toyed with it but... well he wasn't very good at magic and its rules. They were so subjective, they changed from person to person. Unless... was that it? Was it different for Taayir and Aristide because they were different people? Was the answer really that simple?

"No one?" Taayir asked, growing a little impatient. Nerluce looked down. Should he... should he try? "I know at least one of you has had a teacher with some common sense. In fact... I'm that teacher. Nerluce."

Shit.

Thoughts racing, Nerluce couldn't pin anything solid down. He could just say his best guess but if that guess was wrong... well what then? If he tried his hardest and still got it wrong then... then... shit. No. Nerluce couldn't think right like this. He couldn't think at all. He didn't want to be doing this. He wasn't good enough.

So he grinned, stood up, and said, "Is it because you're an old lady?"

"No," Taayir spat.

Nerluce sat down, feeling satisfied with the couple of smiles he'd gotten before they were quickly hidden away to avoid Taayir's wrath. A couple more victims were called but no one got it right. They either mumbled they didn't know or said something so overly complicated that it had Nerluce's mind spinning just for Taayir to shoot those theories down as well.

Taayir, apparently fed up with them at this point, sighed. "Alright. The first rule of magic: magic is life." She looked Nerluce dead in the eye. "Second rule: there is no right way to do things. Magic is different for everyone."

Ah. So... so he had been right after all. Nerluce didn't know what to do with this information as Taayir went off on an impromptu lecture about how magic was subjective and this time Nerluce didn't listen, not because he got lost but because he knew this already. Nerluce... Nerluce had never really known the answer before.

Maybe... maybe next time he'd try answering seriously. Or not. For now, he cradled this one, single right answer against his chest like a fragile flame he was afraid would go out.