At the Aqueduct

After a perfectly ordinary day of classes concludes, Libarius begins to walk towards the aqueducts on his own. He can see them in the distance, though having not explored the city he has no idea whether there’s an easy path there or not. He has no desire to walk with either Gracia or Callidus, and no interest in the mission entrusted to him at this moment. The aqueducts approach Polaris from the opposite direction of the Mitis household.

As he begins to walk in the opposite direction of home, Cura emerges from her hidden vantage point and quickly catches up to him. She looks at his face, instinctively trying to read him, but, as always, there’s nothing there. Cura begins to question him.

“Young Master, you’re going the wrong way.”

“I am aware, and it is what I intend.”

“Where are you going?”

“To the aqueducts. Forced upon me, on top of the first insipid task of mine, was a request to provide aid there. I’ve chosen to undertake it out of deference to a man so great as Mr. Tetricum, but truly, as I think of it, I would much prefer to simply return to my chambers.”

“You’re always talking about things being uninteresting, Young Master, but it doesn’t seem like you do anything at home either, just sit around. You won’t even join Master Salvo for meals. Shouldn’t you be excited by something like this?”

“Perhaps it seems to your eyes that I simply lie about idly, but—”

“Master Salvo has a lot of books too. He’s said that you’re something of a bookworm, so why don’t you read them?”

“They’re utterly dull, Cura. It’s a far better use of my time to simply revisit texts within the comfort of my own memory than to bore myself so.”

“So what is this thing you need to do at the aqueduct?”

“I hardly care. I’ll simply do what I am made to, as I am required to for the sake of my research.”

“So there must be other people involved with this, right?”

“There are.”

“Who is it?”

“That’s hardly a concern.”

“Young Master, would it be alright for me to support you?”

“I take no issue with your monitoring. If providing aid will assuage your own misgivings towards the work, then so be it.”

“You really don’t mind it?”

“Why would I? Without my magic at hand, I have no secrets to keep. And so long as I am under watch, what reason would I have to act improperly?”

“So if you had your magic you would care?”

“I would hardly need to. A monitor would be no issue at that point.”

“And then you could commit whatever mischief you’d like.”

“‘Mischief’ is perhaps too soft a word, but indeed. Though I have no desire to break this curse as of yet.”

“Could you break it?”

“Whenever I’d like to. Spellbreaking the work of an inferior mage is among the simplest tasks one could ask for.”

They continue to walk, Cura discreetly pointing them in the right direction to the aqueduct. They soon reach the city wall, where the aqueduct flows into the city proper. They walk atop its circumference until they reach the aqueduct itself, tall arches propping it up as it passes through the wall at a decent drop from the top of it. Gracia and Callidus already stand there. Callidus looking down into the city and Gracia on the other side of the wall looking out towards the length of the aqueduct. Callidus turns to look at them, though Gracia does not. He seems interested in Cura.

“Ah, who’s the maid?” Callidus uses his magic to grab a disc-like stone from the wall, then begins to whisper a spell. Cura curtsies at him.

“My name is Cura Clementis, a maid in service to the Mitis family. I take it you’re one of the Young Master’s students?” Callidus throws the stone as far as he can into the city.

“You’d be right. I’m Callidus Mercurius, Ms. Cura.”

There’s a loud boom from the direction of the city. Cura jerks her head to look at the source of the sound and sees a ball of flame in the sky. As the bright orange ball disappears, it seems that it caused no damage, just the bang. Cura breathes easy as relief fills her, then she looks over at Callidus and sees him smirking, his eyes still fixed where the explosion was.

Cura makes the conclusion easily and decides she needs to regroup with Libarius. She needs to confirm that Callidus, who had just blatantly and joyfully thrown a bomb into the city, truly is one of his students. More than that, she needs to know whether ‘Mercurius’ truly meant ‘Mercurius,’ given that she cannot believe such a dangerous boy would be a member of such an esteemed family. However, when she looks to Libarius, he’s standing at the other end of the wall, now bickering with Gracia.

“And now you’ve gotten me involved with this too!”

“I’ve done hardly anything at all, Gracia. All I’ve done is as you’ve borne witness to: I resolved the challenge with my own strength, though in far less elegant a way than a mage of my caliber should. Indeed—”

“You hit him in the back of the head! Of course you would get punished for that!”

“And had you provided a spell as I had asked, it never would have come to this.”

“If I let you use a spell you would’ve blown him up or something! You wouldn’t just be sent out to do something like this!”

“I am not some lowly mage who can hardly regulate his own spells, Gracia.”

“Then maybe if you weren’t so untrustworthy and violent all the time I would have believed in you enough to let you cast a spell!”

“I’ve come to understand that you seem to have an essential problem with belief, so I suppose I can hardly blame you for your utter lack of trust. However, what I have done is hardly violence at all. To cast spells freely, and to do so in competition with fellow mages, is simply the prerogative of the mage. And a single blow to the head is far less than even that.”

Cura grabs Libarius by the jacket from his shoulder and begins to pull him away, hoping that she might end their argument even if somewhat forcefully. Libarius allows himself to be pulled, understanding Cura’s intention quickly and having no intention of fighting her as well. However, still irate with him, Gracia reaches for him to keep him there. She grabs his hand, then quickly releases it without a word and returns to looking out at the aqueduct. Libarius continues to allow himself to be pulled away from her.

“Young Master, will this really be okay?”

“Gracia is a proper mage of much the same kind as I, and as such I can only imagine that she’ll complete this task properly regardless of how much she intends to stand against me.”

“Is that what she’s doing?”

“Of course it is. She said as much herself.”

“Well, I’ll leave that in your hands then.”

The four of them wait in silence, though for Libarius and Cura they have no idea what for.