My eyes widened, and before any thought went through my head, I slammed the door.

That was my old tutor, right?! I wasn’t just imagining things!?

Cobaltio, behind me, cocked his head, concerned at my alarm.

Frick.

“SAYA, COULD-” I heard Gruan begin to yell.

“She’s not an idiot, no need to call her back in,” my old teacher interrupted annoyedly.

Why was he here!? How had he tracked me from my home to here? Why had he tracked me down? Did mom hire him? Was he planning on taking me back?!

I wouldn’t be able to run, even if I tried, I knew that much. Jahan was an incredible magic caster; he could track me down once, and he could track me down again. The question was why he was here. Anything I did besides asking him directly was, as he said, stupid.

Slowly, I opened the door, unsure what expression to make, and looked between the two oldish men.

I held up my slate before either said a word. {Why are you here?}

“To teach you, obviously.”

My eyebrows narrowed, and he, obviously used to my expressions, rolled his eyes.

“Your mother sent me, in a fashion.”

Even if he tried to take me back home, I had at least proven my point, although I would fight with every fiber of my being if he did. I quickly erased the sentence, down to, {Why}

“Not any particular reason,” he said. “Your mother is quite fed up with you and your constant...pushback. However, unfortunately, she asked me to find you regardless.”

I didn’t change my question.

“The simple reason is that she wanted me to ensure your safety. It’s up to me whether or not I drag you back.”

I let down my slate and stared him in the eyes, staring daggers. He met my eyes, and after a few seconds, he broke contact, shrugging. “I doubt I would be bringing back the same person, though,” he said. “Ten extra levels, a [drake], an [oathbreaker], and more, I’m sure. You sure outdid yourself with the levels of ludicrousy you’ve reached. Again, you’ve impressed me.”

I ground my teeth nervously. It could have been worse. Clearly, he didn’t plan on taking me back. But then why... I raised my slate again. {Why}

“I already told you. I was sent to find you and ensure your safety.” Jahan gripped a bag of coins strapped onto his waist, making them clink. “And with no reason to bring you back and a changed person before me, I’m hoping that you won’t fret if I remain your tutor.” He shrugged. “Or we can part ways. I’ll have made a profit either way.”

I looked down, thinking.

Did I want to be tutored by him?

3 Years ago:

I sat on the dirt, beside a cliff of rock and chalk, scribbling runes down over and over into the dirt.

My wrist hurt, as did my hands, and my mind...I was bored.

Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Haet-

“Wrong rune,” a stern, unenthused voice sounded from behind me. Jahan leaned against a tree, scarily perceptive.

I rolled my eyes, continuing my mind-numbing practice. I had to be able to write it right a thousand times in a row before I was considered practically capable of using the rune. And the rune wasn’t as easy as a few letters, but instead, a fusion of ancient characters strung into a much larger one.

“I don’t understand you in the slightest,” Jahan said absently as I continued, unflinching. “I’ve always treated magic seriously, as have most of my peers. Magic has grown more...willy-nilly over the years. More people learn it, and more of the ancient tradition is lost. Not to mention, kids like you don’t need passion to be enrolled in schools and with tutors.”

I glanced back at him, blindly writing the runes.

“What?” he responded.

I shrugged, turning my head back with an annoyingly uncaring expression.

“Why would I teach you, then?” he said, correctly assuming what the look meant. “Money. I also owe your mother a favor. She saved my life long ago, and it cost her much.”

I paused my practice, then held up my board. {Just tell my mom that I don’t want to do it.}

“As if that would stop her. You’re too behind the curve already. Other children are fighting monsters with their parents by now. You, on the other hand, have no experience, either learned or gained. You have no weapon, no strength, no great inborn ability, nor an ability to communicate.”

My face twisted into a scowl.

His own turned grumpy. “I didn’t mean that as an insult.” Though it sure sounded that way. “What I mean to say is that magic is a great equalizer. You may not have those things, but you have an affinity, a studious mind, time and money, and most of all, me. I don’t see you ever fixing yourself with some ludicrously specific class skill. So, instead, we must find a way to overcome or ignore your weakness. I will teach you that through magic...”

My expression turned concerned.

“Hmph, you’re free to find your own path, of course. However, I won’t be enabling that any more than it helps myself.”

Slowly, I swiped away the dust, then wrote, {Great way to monologue.}

He just rolled his eyes. “Get back to work, please.”

As much as I didn’t want my mother lording her presence over me...Jahan was somebody I liked a bit more than I wanted to admit. Not just that, but he was damn good at magic, not to mention tutoring.

{You just want to teach me magic?} I asked.

“I’m here to be a magic tutor,” he responded nonchalantly, avoiding an exact answer.

I rolled my eyes. {Fine.}

He raised an eyebrow. “Really? I’m almost surprised, knowing you.”

“Erm...” Gruan interrupted. “You two can do what you want after this, I only needed you two to meet before I signed Saya into the guild. It sounds like I won’t make a retired military captain angry by taking her in, so can we get this over with?”

“The adventurer’s guild sure is unconcerned about taking in runways, aren’t they?” Jahan said with dangerous curiosity, glancing at the [dwarf] behind him. “Not that I care. I will see you in the place with the tables.”

“The cafeteria,” Gruan corrected as my old teacher walked out.

He just had me sign a few pieces of paperwork, and I left. I walked back to the empty cafeteria, where Jahan leaned against a chair with a few books left out on a table before him.

I took a seat on the other side, and he began to speak. “Anyways, we will resume where we left off. I believe you were the last working on the [mage hand] spell, were you not?”

I stared at him annoyedly.

“What?”

{Already?}

“Magic takes time. Time is limited. I’m sure you had quite the journey while I struggled to track you down, but it’s only been three weeks. Give or take. Would you prefer to study before we begin runecrafing?”

I nodded. {What about ritual casting?}

Jahan frowned. “That’s a term I haven’t heard in quite a while. Ritual casting...is its own form of magic art. A much more dangerous one, at that. Scribble a few runes wrong, and you could be drained of your life force, left for dead by your own machinations. There is a reason I didn’t teach you even the basics.”

I grimaced. My teacher didn’t exaggerate. {Then what about healing spells?}

“You know as well as I that healing spells are quite complex. They would require you to learn quite a few more runes, even to begin on the most basic of spells.”

I leaned my head on my palm, then looked to the side, thinking of something that didn’t require work. Nothing came to mind.

My teacher suddenly slid a book across the table, my old spellbook. “You can keep that,” he said absently, standing up. “Since you appear to have lost any inspiration you may have had, and making you scribble letters into dirt seems unappealing for both of us at the moment, we will visit a place I’m sure you’ve heard of.”

I slipped off my chair, following him as he walked out.

“The university library.”

Unsurprisingly, there was a school for magic in The Preclaimed City.

As we approached it, I got a better and better look of the enormous place. Between marble columns were banners, depicting a rabbit with golden bands on its legs and neck. The campus wasn’t too packed, and we approached the front entrance, above a wide flight of stairs. The roof stood taller than large trees, and as I got to the top of the stairs, I could see there were at least three stories to the enormous building, indicated by windows built into the wall. It was easily the largest building I’d been in.

“Your identification card, please?” a woman in a red robe said as we approached the door, looking at us for only a brief moment.

Jahan gave her a smallish white card, and she skimmed it for a few seconds before her eyes widened, and she looked back up in shock. “Professor Maneyer?!” she said disbelievingly, staring at Jahan. “No way. You’re back?! It’s been decades since you taught me.”

He nodded. “Don’t make a big fuss out of it if you would. I’m working as a personal tutor now, so I’d rather not have too much attention brought onto me.”

“Oh, yes, I get it,” she practically whispered. “You can pass.”

He brought me through the colossal entrance room, through the halls, and to what appeared to be a wing of the college.

The library used all three floors of the college and just to hold the sheer number of books within. It was separated into sections, with stairs leading up to each tall floor, filled with equally tall bookshelves in each.

As I looked around the place, mystified by it all, Jahan said, “I’m sure you’re familiar enough with books, Saya. The section we are standing in is dedicated to magic. As your first lesson, I will teach you how to navigate this library.”

I’d heard of a library before, but I had not imagined this. How could there be so many books? Just...in general?!

Jahan began to explain as he walked me to a bookcase and slid his hand across the books’ backs. “This, as you can tell, is a library. Not just any library, of course, but the largest of its kind. You can find most anything you need to know here, however...” He motioned his head to the books. “...good luck finding it. Thankfully, there is a level of organization to this place.”

We passed a patrolling guard, who eyed us attentively.

“Gaining clearance is also a problem, as well. You must be accompanied by a professor or another whitelisted individual to use it. Also...” he trailed off, frowning. “Nevermind. Anyway, you must learn how to seek what you need before you can make proper use of the library...”

There was a surprisingly complex set of protocols to just staying in the library. The third floor’s books were forbidden without higher clearance than Jahan had, at least at the moment. Each hour a bell would ring, and the guards would begin a check of everyone in the library, meaning that I needed to be beside Jahan on each interval. The books needed to be meticulously placed where they had been. Taking a book out of the library without express permission was a serious crime that could get you thrown in a cellar or worse. The list went on.

The long and the short of it was that the library was taken very seriously.

Once he’d shown me the ropes(and latters, in this case), Jahan pulled a book out and leaned against the second story’s railing. “Now look for something to read and show it to me.”

I nodded, then walked off.

Obviously, the library had a lot of books. I struggled to find what I needed without any experience in navigating it, but after turning down a few books I came upon something interesting.

Draconic Magic By Scholard of Gallant

I recognized the name printed into its spine, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on who they were. Probably some relative of Ritta’s. I was curious, so I opened the book and read the first few lines.

“Often, when I speak of Draconic Magic, the uninitiated assume I’m refering to some type of magic that mimics dragon’s magic, such as [fire breath] or [intimidate]. They would be(roughly) right, but far from it at the same time. With my time of caretaking for wyrms and especially [dragon]s I’ve learned more than I expected to about what magic was like before The Age of Gods, and more particularly, about how dragons cast magic completely differently than us humanoids.”

Working with [dragon]s? Just who...ooohhh. I recognized instantly who he was; the most recent [dragon rider], the legendary class that let a person ride dragons. Without them, they were savage beasts that would kill anyone who got near them. Definitely not riding material. Though Cobaltio was a dragon of sorts, and he was plenty friendly.

I quickly returned to my teacher and showed him the book.

He silently skimmed through the first page, then handed it back to me. “Too abstract. Not my expertise. Dubious,” he said before handing it back to me. “If you want to read a book unrelated to your studies, you can do so on your free time, although I would obviously need to accompany you.”

I sulked and put the book back where I had found it. After some more digging, I found a book on healing magic and Jahan okayed it, stating that I could make the commitment to learning healing after reading it.

For about three hours we lounged at the tables on the bottom floor and read what we’d picked out.

Afterward, we climbed down the steps, the sky dark in the winter chill.

“So? Are you still insistent on learning healing magic?” he asked, hardly looking at me.

[It seems really complicated.] I responded.

He glanced at the slate. “Hmm. Yes, though, unlike combat magic, you don’t often need to imagine the parameters on the fly. Nonetheless, I don’t even know that type of magic myself.

It seems really complicated. I signed to myself. I still didn’t have the muscle memory to sign very fast and...something felt nice about using it, even if just about nobody knew it.

“We will return there each day on all but weekdays until we can settle on a field of study for you. In the meantime, I will expect you to treat your studies seriously.”

I clipped my board back to my belt, and we walked back.

Cobaltio, who I had left to Thraisly’s care while I was out(he obviously wasn’t allowed in a library), had apparently been fisty. I obviously couldn’t take him to the library, and she was good with animals, so I just assumed they would do well together.

They didn’t, obviously, because when I got back, he was muzzled and grappled by Thraisly. The instant we were close enough to read each other’s thoughts I could tell that he was frustrated, but it was even more apparent by how he was squirming in her hands as she sat on a bench in the training yard.

When Thraisly saw me, she let out a sigh of relief as she let go, and Cobaltio immediately leaped off her lap and lounged straight into my arms. I could barely hold him myself, though, because he weighed, like, half my own weight. She could restrain him for that long?!

I untied his muzzle and he began to bark difficult-to-parse words at me. I didn’t need to hear them because of our [draconic bond], though. He was clearly pretty freaked out.

I looked up from him to frown at thraisly.

“I know,” she said, “I didn’t want to muzzle him, but he just randomly started barking at us an hour ago. It was...” she trailed off, glancing to the side. “A-anyway, it was dist...a disturbance, so I had to muzzle him.”

My eyes narrowed. After I kneeled to let him splay his body over my lap, I wrote, {I’ll try to find a better place to keep him while I’m at the library next time.}

“That’s probably for the best...”

That would be a bit difficult to do, though. I couldn’t think of many people I trusted who could take care of him. Plus, Cobaltio wasn’t treated badly or anything, he had just become scared because I was gone for a long time. Hopefully, he would grow out of that sooner or later. A [drake] should have been relatively independent by a year old, from what I’d been told.

I set down my board and rubbed his back comfortingly.

Well, he’d eventually become a fierce companion, Cobaltio just needed time.

Or maybe Zatchel could help me with raising him. I wondered, when would he contact me?