The Consequences of Meeting a Dragon

Ariom really wasn't having a good day.

He hadn't slept well the night before because he'd been thinking over everything Thenio had told him about Ki'shiu and dream magic. And that morning, when he was already feeling a bit on edge because of Jasel's impending visit, he'd suddenly gotten a message from Mideis saying that the ice mage had returned from her latest assignment a day early and was free that afternoon. Which meant that Ariom had to rush around getting everything ready for their first practice session, all while being irritated by the fact that he would have to deal with two people from the military in one day.

And if all that hadn't been enough to put him in a bad mood, when Namyis had actually shown up, Thenio's magic did something crazy and unexpected by somehow imitating her magic affinity. And then did something even crazier by repeating the change when she wasn't even nearby.

It wasn't Thenio's fault, of course. He obviously hadn't been trying to freeze himself to death, and there was no way he could have known his magic would react like that.

It wasn't really Namyis' fault, either. She'd been a little careless about the crack in her dampening cuff, but there was no reason to expect a combat wizard to know enough about enchanting to understand why a small crack like that could cause such a big problem. Even Mideis, a master rank enchanter, hadn't realized the full extent of it.

And it wouldn't have been such a big problem if Thenio's magic didn't react so weirdly to everything....

It was no one's fault, really. But that didn't stop Ariom from feeling stressed and bad-tempered. It was hard to stop himself from taking out his frustrations on the seemingly innocent and friendly ice mage who was visiting his home.

Why did she irritate him so much? He wasn't sure.

Just because she was a battlemage? Or because he knew she was a member of the first squad, which meant she worked with his father? No...that was part of it, but it wasn't enough to explain the unsettled feeling she gave him. Even General Obarin didn't grate on him this badly.

Namyis hardly seemed like a battlemage, anyway. She was clearly in excellent physical condition, showing that she trained regularly, and like many battlemages, her manners were a little casual. But her clothing and hairstyle were pretty and feminine. And her personality seemed to be gentle and playful...maybe even a bit naive.

Was it bothering him that her attitude wasn't professional enough? A little. It was a serious matter they were dealing with, after all. But she was a lot more subdued than Kymia usually was, so that probably wasn't it, either.

Ariom was starting to think that it was just the result of him feeling tired and overwhelmed....

...until he saw that stasis crystal. That beautiful, flawless stasis crystal. Which Namyis had formed almost instantly, even cheekily snapping her fingers as if to show off how easy it was for her.

And he finally understood.

He stared at the crystal for a long moment, before turning to look at Namyis, who was still smiling, looking pleased by the fact that he'd complimented her magic.

"Your training regimen must be absolutely brutal," he said quietly.

He was rewarded by seeing her smile momentarily vanish and her violet-blue eyes widen in surprise.

Then the smile reappeared, although there was a rather different feel to it than there had been before.

"It used to be. It's not as bad now." Namyis glanced at the doll encased in her crystal. "You seem to know a lot about stasis magic."

"I know enough. I can even use it a little." Ariom also looked back at the doll. "I'd never be able to make anything like that, though."

Right. He knew enough about stasis magic to understand just how skilled she was. And how many thousands of hours of dedicated practice it must have taken her to get there.

"I'll confess that I was worried your skills wouldn't be as good as Vice-Captain Ranior said they were," he went on. "Having someone talk up another wizard's skills to me, and then being disappointed when I actually see them...well, it happens quite often."

Namyis nodded. "I understand. The same thing happens to me sometimes, when I get assigned to work with less experienced combat wizards. It's usually safer to assume that their skills aren't as good as I've been led to believe." She gave Ariom a playful grin. "I guess you were doing the same for me? Do you have to change your plans now because I exceeded your expectations?"

"Not completely," Ariom said seriously. "But it will probably mean we don't need as many practice sessions as I was originally thinking. And we should be able to get more of the analysis done in one go. Which means we might only have to dissect one or two frozen corpses instead of three or four."

"Well, I'm all for not having to deal with as many explosive lunatics," Namyis said with a pleasant smile. "And if we get the work done faster, maybe I can get a few extra days off." She looked over at the dragon box, where Thenio and the familiars were sitting and watching them. Then she turned back to Ariom with an eager expression. "Hey, if I do a good job and earn some extra vacation time, can I use it to come play with your dragon?"

"Uh...." Ariom hesitated, looking uncomfortably between Namyis, whose eyes were sparkling, and Iggy, whose ears had just flattened in alarm. "Well...I guess if that helps you focus on the job.... It would be better if you come on a day when my uncle and cousin are around, though. Then you'd have three dragons to play with."

He made a mental apology to his family members as he said that. But Tava and Humerus would be able to tolerate that level of ice magic much better than Iggy could. And Uncle Bero and Seyli would probably be able to deal with Namyis herself much better than Ariom.

Thenio was out of the question, of course....

"But I've only seen you form a stasis crystal so far," Ariom added quickly, trying to divert the topic away from her request. "We still need to try out the actual analysis method to see how well we can work together."

"Then let's try it," Namyis said cheerfully. "I'll work extra hard—for the sake of playing with cute dragons!"

Ariom sighed and rubbed his temples. His head was starting to ache a little....

But the exasperation he felt toward Namyis had been partly replaced by pity.

Between his uncle's military friends and his own professional contacts, Ariom had met quite a few monstrous wizards in his life. Most were like General Obarin or Eteon. They put on a gentle front when dealing with other people, but they knew perfectly well that they were monsters, and they were content with that fact.

There were also some, like Ariom's father, who didn't want to go to the trouble of hiding their claws and preferred to stay away from ordinary people and lower-ranking magic users instead.

He'd even encountered a few baby monsters, who hadn't yet realized their own strength. Thenio had a bit of that air about him.

But Namyis probably wasn't any of those types. Ariom was fairly certain that the reason he felt so unsettled by her behavior was that she was actually a much rarer kind of monster: One who knew exactly what she was...but wished that she were something else....

She'd been born with much higher than average magic power and had devoted most of her life to intense training in order to be able to control it. As a result, she'd achieved a level of magic skill that most wizards could only dream of.

She could easily kill everyone here if she wanted to. Ariom's void magic and the strong barriers separating her from Thenio and the familiars would barely even slow her down.

But she didn't want to kill people. She just wanted to be able to play with cute magic beasts....

She was a lot like a revenant, really. That was probably why Ariom felt such a disconnect in how she'd been acting.

It was almost impossible to find a revenant with a stable personality. And the more bodies they'd possessed, the worse they got. They were constantly torn between wanting to be accepted for what they truly were and wanting to become whatever creature they were possessing. Those that had inhabited multiple vessels were even torn between which false identity they wished for most.

It was quite similar to a certain ice mage, who wanted her struggles and accomplishments to be acknowledged but wanted to be a normal person at the same time.

Ariom sighed again. It was a good thing he had a lot of experience dealing with revenants....

Namyis had been having quite an interesting day so far.

The job for the Royal Guard hadn't seemed like anything unusual when she'd first heard about it. Go catch some of those demon-obsessed idiots and use stasis magic to avoid setting off some magic traps? She'd been doing that kind of thing for years. The fact that the traps were on one of the demon idiots was a little different, but it didn't really change what she needed to do.

But working together with a grandmaster enchanter to analyze the flesh enchantment? She perked up a little when she heard about that. And said enchanter was Emberhawk's son, no less?

Now the job seemed much more interesting....

Namyis had only been on the same squad as Emberhawk for a few months, but she'd known him for much longer than that. It was common for different divisions to work together on demon subjugations. And since high-rankers all had their own magic specialties, they were frequently sent around to different parts of the country for assignments that required their specific skill sets. They also served First Rift duty together. So Namyis had worked with almost all the other high-rankers in Kafron at some point, plus quite a few from other countries.

Riomel had a reputation for being bad-tempered, and Namyis didn't disagree with that assessment. But she actually found him surprisingly easy to work with. Part of that was because their magic affinities and combat styles were complete opposites of each other, so their individual roles were well-defined. Namyis was usually stationary during battle, and specialized in wide area attacks or creating barriers to control enemy movements. Riomel was constantly flying around the battlefield, taking out stronger enemies with swift, targeted attacks.

Like their call names, she was a queen ruling over the field, and he was a hawk diving down from above to strike at his prey.

And despite his general grouchy attitude, Riomel rarely actually lost his temper as long as you followed one simple rule: Don't talk about family. Especially not his family.

Namyis was fine with that. She didn't like talking about her family, either.

She was a little curious, though. She'd heard enough about Riomel's history from the other battlemages to understand why he might be sensitive about his wife or his father, who had both died from magic instability. But she wasn't sure why he was quite so touchy about his son.

From what she'd heard, Ariom Denifor was a remarkably talented wizard and a well-respected enchanter who'd won several prestigious awards. And he was currently the youngest grandmaster wizard in Kafron.

He seemed like the sort of son that most fathers would be thrilled to claim as their own and would happily brag about whenever they got the chance.

So why didn't Riomel feel that way?

No one really seemed to know. Of the people that Namyis had asked, no one was aware of any particular falling-out between the two of them. Riomel seemed to have just always disliked his son.

Even General Obarin had only given her a vague answer about Ariom being 'a reminder of painful things.' Though she hadn't tried to press him for any more details. She was aware that the Denifor family was a difficult topic for him, too.

Hydra probably knew. He knew practically everything about his subordinates. But he was also notoriously tight-lipped about their private affairs. That's why everyone trusted him so much. Namyis hadn't even bothered to ask him about it.

With all that, she had been quite eager to meet Riomel's mysterious son. And at first, Ariom seemed to be exactly what she'd been told—a slightly friendlier version of Riomel.

They definitely looked a lot alike. Ariom was a little taller and slimmer than his father, and their stigmas gave them very different coloring. But their facial features were quite similar.

Ariom also seemed to have the same kind of prickly personality, although he was clearly making more of an effort to be polite than Riomel usually did. And it was hard to say just how much of it was his normal behavior and how much was because he was upset over what had happened with his assistant when they'd first arrived.

He did seem quite concerned about the boy, which was a notable difference from his father. In addition to his inexplicable hostility toward his own son, Riomel had never taken on a single trainee. He wouldn't even spar with anyone lower than a mid-ranked battlemage.

But overall, Ariom behaved more or less how Namyis had expected him to....

...up until the moment she showed him her stasis magic.

She'd been quite happy just to get a compliment out of the grouchy grandmaster, but when he'd turned and looked at her after examining the stasis crystal, his expression had completely changed. His irritation had faded, and his silver-colored eyes seemed to be looking at her seriously for the first time.

"Your training regimen must be absolutely brutal."

Namyis' eyes widened. Was that...sympathy she heard in his voice?

She was used to being praised for her magic talent. She was used to other wizards being impressed or envious when they saw her skills.

She wasn't used to them immediately comprehending what she'd gone through to get those skills and giving her the kind of concerned, empathetic look that Ariom had on his face right now.

It took her a moment to recover from the surprise of it.

Then Namyis smiled. The first truly authentic smile she'd shown today.

This really was going to be an interesting job....

Thenio was having a very strange day.

When he'd woken up that morning, he'd been a little disappointed to realize that Ki'shiu hadn't visited him during the night. He'd been sort of expecting it after his conversation with Eteon the day before.

Well. Maybe mythic beasts did have better things to do than give teenage boys magic lessons....

Still, he had his acrobatics lesson to look forward to. And he was a little excited when Ariom said that Mideis was bringing Ice Queen with him for their practice session that afternoon.

The lesson had gone well. Jasel was pleased with Thenio's progress and had given him a couple of new exercises to work on for their next lesson. And Casturi and Iggy had enjoyed playing together and were both happy with the snacks Thenio had prepared.

The meeting with Ice Queen...obviously hadn't gone so well.... Thenio felt a little guilty for causing such a fuss, even though he knew it wasn't really his fault. And no one seemed angry at him, not even for how he'd somehow caused his magic to change again while he was drawing.

Namyis and Mideis were both apologetic that they hadn't realized there was a problem sooner, and Ariom seemed to mostly just be relieved that the consequences hadn't been more serious. He also seemed a little glad to have found another clue about the strange behavior of Thenio's magic, even if they didn't really understand what that clue meant yet.

Before they left Thenio's room to go back to the workroom, Ariom had given him two assignments: First, to not use any dream magic until they knew better why it had triggered a change in his magic type. And second, to write a message to Eteon, explaining everything that had happened since Namyis had arrived and asking for his advice.

Because of that, Thenio hadn't brought his sketchbook with him, since he still wasn't completely confident in his ability to control his dream magic when he was drawing. But he brought his message book, along with one of his magic theory books and a notebook. Plus Iggy's new encyclopedia of gryphons and hippogryphs, in case the little dragon got bored.

But when they first got to the dragon box, Thenio was still feeling a little out of sorts because of all the strange magic fluctuations he'd experienced, so he simply sat quietly with Iggy and Amisi and watched what was going on inside the workroom.

He didn't really know enough about stasis magic to judge the crystal that Namyis made himself, but based on how impressed Ariom was by it, he knew her skills must be top notch.

She was supposed to be one of the best ice mages in the world, after all.

It seemed to be enough to change Ariom's attitude toward her. He was suddenly taking her more seriously and acting less annoyed by her presence. He didn't even refuse when she asked to come over and play with Iggy...though he had sidestepped the responsibility a little by saying she should come when Seyli and Bero were around....

Of course, having more people here to keep an eye on things made it less likely that Thenio would have to stay shut up inside a dragon box during her visit, so he probably shouldn't complain.

"Don't worry. I don't think he'll make you play with her if it makes you uncomfortable," he said softly, leaning over to pat Iggy, who was looking unhappy about the prospective playdate. "He'll either find a way to protect you from her magic, or he'll let Tava and Humerus handle it."

"He'll protect Thenio, too, right?" Iggy looked at him with concern. "So you won't freeze into ice cream again?"

"Right. Ariom won't let anyone freeze into ice cream. So you don't need to worry. Okay?"

"Mmm. Okay." Iggy waved his tail a little, looking happier.

They both turned their attention back to what Ariom and Namyis were doing. The two of them had taken up positions on either side of the work table, with the frozen doll in between them. Namyis was currently shrinking her stasis crystal down to more closely fit the doll's form.

"Like that?" she asked when there was just a thin layer of crystal covering the surface of the wood.

"Yes, that's good." Ariom nodded. "Now, I'm going to start undoing your stasis magic, just a tiny piece at a time. Your magic is stronger than mine, so I need you to let go of the part I'm trying to undo but hold onto the rest. I'll be disarming the trap formations as I go, so you won't need to redo the stasis once it's been undone."

Namyis frowned a little. "How are you going to undo it, exactly? I'm not familiar with any techniques like that."

"I wasn't either, until a couple of weeks ago. But fortunately, my assistant is friends with...a rather interesting fellow." Ariom glanced in Thenio's direction. "He seems to have traveled around a lot and picked up some unusual magic techniques along the way. He taught me this one when I asked for his advice on dealing with trap formations that were under stasis magic. Well, I had to adapt it a bit. The original version was intended more for cutting through physical objects. Which would still work, but we'd have a bloody mess when we were done. Of course, we'll get that anyway, if we set off one of the trap formations, but I'd like to at least try to keep things clean...."

"So how does it work?" Namyis asked, looking interested. She didn't seem particularly upset by the idea of their analysis subject being turned into a bloody mess.

"I'll show you. I didn't put any traps in the arms of this first dummy, so we can start with those to practice the technique a little without worrying about setting them off."

Ariom held his hand over the doll's hand. Thenio could just barely see a few thin strands of magic coming out of his fingertips and weaving together to form a kind of thin blade shape.

He must have figured out how to use Eteon's technique without a knife. As expected from the genius enchanter and thaumaturgist....

"I'm going to slice through it with this, see?"

Ariom used his magic blade to cut into the doll's finger. Namyis watched closely, her brow furrowed in concentration. When he lifted the blade again, there was no change that Thenio could see. But Namyis nodded her head in understanding.

"All right, I get how it works. I let up on too large an area that time, though. Let's try again."

Ariom lowered the blade and made another small cut.

"Ah...I did too much that time, too. It's hard to get the distance just right...."

"That's why we're practicing, remember? You'd be too scary if you got it right off the bat."

"I think you're both pretty scary for being able to do this at all..." Mideis muttered, watching the procedure with a rather incredulous expression on his face.

"Says the guy who's going to be pulling the formation information straight out of my head...as if that's not scary...." Ariom raised an eyebrow at him. "Wait a bit, though. Let us get through this dummy first to get the hang of it. It'll be your turn on the next one."

"Take your time. I'm fine just watching for a while."

Thenio and the familiars watched for a while, too, but Thenio's interest was already waning by the time they were halfway up the first arm. Since he couldn't use magesight, he couldn't actually see what was going on, so watching seemed a little pointless.

Amisi seemed to feel the same way, because she stood up and stretched, then jumped from the platform she'd been watching from onto Thenio's lap, where she settled down, apparently deciding that she'd rather take a nap for a while.

Surprisingly, Iggy was still watching the practice enchantment analysis with interest. Could he actually tell what they were doing? Maybe his magic sensitivity was even better than Thenio had realized....

He looked at the little dragon curiously for a minute before shaking his head and turning his attention back to Amisi. He spent a few minutes stroking her velvety fur and gently scratching her large ears. Then he opened his message book to the tab labeled 'Eteon Idarin' and started thinking about what to write.

Eventually, he started off by just saying that something strange had happened and that he and Ariom wanted advice on how to deal with it. Then he wrote the whole experience out as it had occurred, starting with Mideis and Namyis arriving and continuing on through Iggy and Ariom protecting him from Namyis' magic, Ariom sending him up to his room, him drawing Namyis and starting to feel cold again when he used dream magic, the chunk of magic ice he'd somehow produced, and Ariom coming to help him after Iggy and Amisi sounded the alarm.

He ended by briefly explaining Ariom's theory about essence magic and mentioning that he was trying not to use dream magic until they knew what was going on.

It ended up being several pages long. Thenio read the whole thing over to make sure he hadn't left anything important out, then he sighed and sent the message, silently apologizing to Eteon for using up so much of the magic in his book's crystal.

Not that someone like Eteon would have any trouble getting a new magic crystal.... But Thenio's parents had taught him to be mindful of things like that.

Eteon was apparently keeping an eye on his message book, because it only took about ten minutes for Thenio to get a response back. He'd started studying his enchanting theory book by then, but he glanced up as he reached the end of a page and noticed that Eteon's tab was glowing faintly.

Thenio set the theory book aside and opened the message book to find a short reply.

I'm glad you're all right. I'm sorry I didn't give you any warning that something like this might happen. I didn't expect it to come up so soon. Fortunately, Ariom handled it well.

Try not to use dream magic for the rest of the day. Ki'shiu will be able to help you tonight.

Thenio frowned as he read Eteon's message. He didn't expect it to come up? What did that mean? If Ariom was right about the effects of the essence magic, it could have happened anytime Thenio came in contact with a high-ranking sorcerer. Had Eteon misunderstood somehow? Or had Ariom?

He stared at the book for a minute or two, puzzling over Eteon's choice of words. Then he looked over at Ariom. They seemed to be almost done with the first practice dummy. Its body was now free of Namyis' stasis magic except for part of the head. And it was currently yellow. It had changed color several times by now, indicating that Ariom or Namyis had set off one of the trap formations.

As Thenio watched, the doll changed color yet again, this time to blue.

"Aww...we were so close!" Namyis said in a disappointed tone.

She seemed to be treating the whole thing like some kind of game. It was a little concerning to think about her analyzing an actual corpse with that attitude, but it probably wasn't a bad way to approach this kind of basic practice.

"It's all right," Ariom said, sounding rather tired. "We're still doing well for our first try. Let's just finish it up, and then we'll take a short break before we move on to the next one."

It took them a few more minutes to get through the rest of the doll's head. Then Ariom finally released his magic blade and leaned back in his chair.

"And...done," he said with a long sigh.

"Nice!" Namyis raised her arms in celebration. "We only blew him up six times! Though it would have only been five if I hadn't slipped up at the end..." she added, making a face and lowering her arms.

"Six times actually isn't bad considering how many trap formations there were," Mideis commented. He'd been watching them closely throughout the procedure, but now he also leaned back in his chair. "Do you still want to try telepathy on the next one?"

"I don't want to...." Ariom closed his eyes. "But yes, we should probably give it a try."

"And what about Thenio?" Mideis asked a little hesitantly, glancing over at the dragon box.

"That's a good question." Ariom opened his eyes again and looked over at Thenio. "Did you send a message to Eteon?"

Thenio nodded. "Yeah. And I just got a reply."

Ariom got up and came over to the window. "What did he say?"

Thenio held the message book up to the glass. He saw a frown appear on Ariom's face as his eyes moved over the words. But he didn't comment on them. He simply nodded and then turned back to Mideis.

"Looks like we're just practicing with you this time. Eteon thinks that Thenio should rest for today. And he's the expert, so we'll follow what he says."