Introduce Yourself to the Class

Damon and Andrew liked to believe they did a passable job of tailing the pink-haired visitor. It helped that the University was busy during the daytime, with men and women of all ages walking across the yards and streets of the institution, letting the two mingle and hide behind the crowds.

Her humble appearance had been drawing eyes, as heads furtively turned here and there to register the odd figure she cut, but no one did more than that. Propriety, shyness, or busyness ensured that no one else had the strength of will to go up and question her presence.

Her tails weren’t any better in that regard, though they were having a little fun with their misadventure.

“So far, her great crime is sightseeing,” Damon muttered. “Unless we’re planning to follow her all the way to her wicked cabal of spies under the city, let’s just tell a professor about her and be done with it.”

“Just a little bit more,” Andrew insisted. “I’ll feel better if she–”

The pink-haired woman turned to look backwards their way, and they swirled and tried to shove themselves through the door of a smaller archive building like they had planned on it, even as their shoulders slammed into each other.

“That’s it. This project is stupid,” Damon loudly declared. “Find a new thesis to work on, seriously.”

“I can salvage this,” Andrew grunted, and tried to ignore the heat in his ears when he heard whispering behind him. But after a few vital seconds of hiding, the dark-haired student turned and peeked out past the doorframe. His quarry hadn’t noticed them – in fact, it seemed she had disappeared entirely.

“A slippery one,” He hummed, intrigued. But that changed was the amount of tools he allowed himself to use. Reaching into his pockets, he withdrew a Breath-imbued wand, though its sharp nib made it look more like it wanted to be used to writing.

With a few practiced flicks, the wand did indeed slot into Andrew’s hand like a pen, and he scraped it across the air. Breath was left trailing in its wake, thickened enough to be made out as a blue luminescence.

The line stretched, warped and solidified, and then flopped on the ground in the shape of a snake, forked tongue flicking. While it may have been a tangible living creature once upon a time, as a spirit weak enough to be called up by a mere university student, it was no better than an imprint the Breath of the World just happened to remember. But it could accomplish everything Andrew needed a serpent to do.

“I’m sure you can make her out,” He ordered. “Someone who smells more like the city outside.”

A few tongue flicks detected something and it began to slither towards it. Less noticeable than a beagle, but with a better nose – Andrew was happy to have such a companion, enough that he focused entirely on following his summon, even if he faintly heard some protestations behind him.

“Hey, you can’t use that outside of authorized–”

“Don’t worry about it,” Damon cheerfully answered, giving a little salute to the annoyed onlooker as he followed right behind Andrew. “He’ll stop once he gets it out of his system!”

The snake spirit sped up, and its master picked up the pace. Its capabilities were a marvel, and even now Andrew was eager to see more of his spirit function outside a sterile workshop.

Doing some stress tests while chasing a suspect. Two birds with one stone, right?

The self-assurance led him all the way off the beaten path to a small alley between the Millicent Arhaut Building and Records House C. It had its uses as a shortcut to Administration, but it wasn’t a common route to take – most students weren’t exactly chomping at the bit to chat with the headmistress.

Andrew followed, and then stopped short, with Damon narrowly avoiding slamming into his back, though he did have to look over his friend’s shoulder.

“What’s up?” the redhead asked.

Andrew looked down at his spirit, which was contentedly curled up on the grass.

“Why did you stop looking?” The researcher hissed at his handiwork, accusingly. “She’s not here!”

“Maybe the spirit hit a limit?” Damon suggested, but his friend waved that off.

“A beginner’s problem. I’ve been working with spirits–” Andrew began, looking back at his compatriot, before choking up.

“What?” Damon asked, completely ignorant of the woman behind him, who was surprisingly tall enough now that Andrew could see her up close. Close enough, and tall enough, to heavily slam a palm down on Damon’s back as she drawled, unamused.

“Can I help two shifty guys who’ve been tailing me for the past few minutes?”

Damon’s instincts and training kicked in, and his hands darted up to grab the offending limb so he could throw the person over his shoulder as hard as he could.

The woman, however, didn’t panic, and used the sudden momentum to jerk her hand free of Damon’s grip so she could keep sailing through the air, up and over Andrew’s wide-eyed gaze so she could land effortlessly on her feet in front of them, allowing the Administrative building to frame her from behind.

She fixed her hat, and coolly dissected the pair as they emerged from the alley to face her side by side. “Not pencil pushers, I see.”

Damon hadn’t drawn the sword-like tool on his waist – yet. But the hand keeping a firm grip on the scabbard was warning enough as he called back. “Hey, we just want to know what you’re doing here. You’re a student here, so I don’t know why you’re walking around or sneaking up on me like that.”

“You two snuck up on me first. Can’t a lady just take a walk around and see the sights?”

“No,” Andrew flatly returned. “Most of the grounds are restricted, and you’re not being guided around. You don’t have a leg to stand on here.”

Despite the implicit warning, it only seemed to make the woman in the large witch’s hat just smirk. “I’m glad this place got people who love it. Now I’m starting to second guess what to do…”

Andrew kept his wand tight between his fingers, and Damon spread his legs a little, readying his stance as he saw the woman’s hands edge towards her pockets. No one was about to move just yet, and they waited until–

“Oh crap! Andrew, Damon, Cerise, relax!”

A voice familiar to all three cut through the tense anticipation, and they turned to look and see a bright-eyed blond rush down the steps of the building towards them.

“Ruben?”

“Marcus?”

Whatever his name was, he ran up and caught up to the woman – Cerise – and slapped a hand on her shoulder to brace himself after his sprint.

“Andrew, Damon,” he panted, “It’s okay. The old lady said Cerise here was probably dropping by and that I should keep an eye on you whenever you dropped by Admin or the front gate. I didn’t think you’d just sneak around–”

“I wasn’t sneaking. I literally just walked around. Marcus, did you refer me to Sanarsmark? If you did, I'll never forgive you.”

“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t let it go, especially after, uh…” He looked over at his two friends, who were watching with growing confusion and realization. “...The thing at the river.”

“Your Highness, you know her?” Damon asked, posture relaxing.

“Only recently.”

Even as Ruben said that, Cerise looked him up and down appraisingly, and her expression grew ever more sour in growing realization.

“Your Highness,” she said, and Andrew found he’d been beaten in the sheer level of sarcasm one could employ with that address. The black-haired man could almost see the events that tied the two together in his mind’s eye. Someone who snuck out to escape from his duties, resorting to a bad alias, and then a run-in with a mysterious lady from beyond the bounds of the University.

Damon, as ever, offered his words without thought. “I guess most people wouldn’t ever see royalty in person, but Ruben here is a member of Arnis’s royal family.”

Andrew decided to add his own two cents, even if he fought to keep a smirk off his face at Cerise’s growing annoyance. “May I present to you Prince Ruben Ambrose Arnis – your lord, essentially.”

When she made the same enraged noise Damon and Andrew did whenever they discovered Ruben had run off and done something stupid, they immediately knew that they would forgive her.