"Ugh, gods, what is that sll on you?"
Kordia released Kir almost as soon as she hugged him, during the secret lunch date he proposed to make up for not being there this morning.
They were sitting in one of the "hidden" gardens of the school. A square space with a small magical fountain in the middle, made for being seen from above, not used. There were no benches, so they sat at the edge of the fountain, Kir’s glamoured tail playing in the water.
"I, uh, just tried smoking for the first ti..." Kir blushed under his wolfkin glamour.
"And your past life thanks you for your service," Kiryu snarked from inside Kir’s head. "I swear the stuff here is way better than all that chemical-added shit from Earth."
"It’s also mana-rich," Kir added. He’d bought "the good stuff" after all, to hold up his end of the deal. In exchange, Kiryu was going to help Kir with developing Programmable Magic.
"Please don’t make it a habit," Kordia replied, "My nose is pretty sensitive."
"Please do make it a habit," Kiryu said. "I haven’t felt this alive since I died."
Aside from making him spend a large gold on good tobacco, Kiryu made Kir buy a rosewood and gold pipe similar to a kiseru - a style of smoking pipe from Japan. Losing three large gold to smoking ant he was temporarily unable to even pay his own bounty if a student managed to land a cut on him...
They were just finishing up their al when a rustle sounded in one of the nearby bushes.
Who would be eating lunch away from the cafeteria?
"Squeak?" A blue creature, which greatly resembled an otter but with a goldish-yellow gem on its forehead, entered the square.
A carbuncle? Kiryu wondered.
"Oh my gods! It’s an undine!" Kordia said, before bending and cooing for the creature to approach.
"Squeak." The undine padded over, sniffing Kordia’s fingers and licking her.
With his manasight ever active, Kir saw its licks shave tiny bits off of Kordia’s mana where they touched.
"Hahah, she likes my mana," Kordia said.
"She? How can you tell?"
"I don’t know, just a feeling I guess..."
Kir tried offering his hand to the creature-
"Squeak!" the undine skittered away and jumped into the fountain.
"Undines are a type of water nymph," Kordia explained. "As a healer, I’m slightly more water-aspected, so it’s probably just not a fan of your mana."
Kir grunted. "I don’t really believe in the whole ’aspecting’ thing." Kir had read about it, and it was his hypothesis that aspecting worked almost the sa way as enchanting. It was just a pre-carved pathway that any kind of mana could enter to produce the sa result, only the pathway was in the body or brain rather than an object.
"I think having four elents is nicer than two hundred," Kordia teased back.
For a few monts, they watched the undine play in the water. At one point, Kir tried to poke at it with his tail, only to wind up bitten.
"Ow!"
"Squeak!!" the undine angrily gathered water into a jet that splatted into Kir’s face.
"Grrr..."
Another rustle in the bushes drew Kir and Kordia’s attention.
"Nimfi! Are you in there again?" a girl’s voice sounded.
Nimfi... like the Common word for water lilies? Before Kir or Kordia could react, a familiar form squeezed its way into their little square.
"Professor Nasumi?!"
"Keiya?"
"Squeak!!!"
"Kordia?!"
"The Real Kiryu Nasumi!" Kiryu called out in Kir’s head.
Really?!
"Co on, let pretend to be part of this telenovela."
As soon as all the callouts ceased, a slightly breezy silence descended upon them.
"I promise I won’t tell anyone!" Keiya said nervously. "Just, please don’t tell anyone about Nimfi!"
"Squeak!" the little undine popped out of the fountain and climbed into her waiting hands.
"I didn’t know you have a familiar," Kordia tried her best to smile reassuringly, before realizing exactly what Keiya had implied, "Wait, it’s not what it looks like!" Kordia said.
"It’s okay, I an, you aren’t married yet, and I guess he’s pretty handso for a wolfkin, so..."
"Miss Keiya-"
"You stay out of this!" Kordia cut Kir off.
"Nothing bad is going on with and Kir- Kiryu."
"You’re on a first-na basis?"
"Professor Nasumi then!" Kordia corrected herself. "More importantly, why do you have a wild spirit for a familiar? Don’t you know how dangerous that is?"
"She’s not my familiar... We just sort of t, and she started hanging around ..."
"Where did you et?" Kordia asked.
"At the lake..."
"Then you should release her back to the lake. A spirit needs to be out in the wild to grow."
"B-but... it’s dangerous out there... There are monsters..."
"That isn’t for us to decide!"
"But Nimfi decided! She’s stayed with for the last few months!"
Wait...
Kir took a closer look at both Nimfi and Keiya. As the latter held the forr, there was sothing going on with both of their mana... sothing subtle, because their auras were so similar, though Nimfi clearly had a stronger mana aura than Keiya.
It was almost like watching a lava lamp, the way their mana shifted about...
The sa sort of mana... but almost like they’re at different temperatures and viscosities... which is why they don’t completely blend, sliding around each other instead...
There was a bond there... it was just incomplete. And it was only visible when they were together...
Kir’s role was to help his students overco the strangenesses in their magic, and now a missing puzzle piece had fallen right into his lap...
"Kordia, may I address your friend now?" Kir interrupted their back and forth, which had mostly been Kordia insisting the spirit be freed and Keiya insisting the undine was already.
After growling out her frustration, Kordia turned to him. "Fine..."
"How can you talk to a professor that way?" Keiya asked. "Just because you’re a special student doesn’t an you can just-"
"Keiya," Kir interrupted, "I know this may be a bit difficult for you, but from what I can see, there is in fact, a bond between you and Nimfi. It might be responsible for what’s happening to your magic."
"No! Nimfi wouldn’t harm ," she protested.
"It could be that Nimfi doesn’t know what she’s doing to you. I don’t think it’s a matter of harm, I think it’s a matter of you having a bond with her that’s incomplete."
"That can’t be! I’ve never tried to make Nimfi a familiar, I just feed her, and let her stay in my room..."
"How did your roommate not notice?" Kordia asked.
"She can turn into mist when she feels like hiding... And I didn’t get a roommate after the demons took the tower..."
A small amount of mist indoors would be difficult to notice, especially with all the cracks and crevices that had been in the old rooms, back when the Academy had its tower. After the siege, a large number of fifth-years and above had elected not to re-enroll, scattering to different cities and armies to fight the Heavenswar where it was active.
To them, the Heavenswar was a chance to beco heroes. But for Keiya, it ant she’d been left alone with Nimfi... and if their interactions had only increased because of that privacy, then it was no wonder her magic had been affected to the point of near-disablent.
Having all of her spells co out as blobs of liquid made them uncooperative and downright dangerous in cases, like when Kir had asked her to make fire, only to have it roll away as it followed gravity down the path of least resistance. Just like water.
"Sothing needs to be done about your bond with Nimfi," Kir said.
"I told you I never tried to bond her!"
"That doesn’t an she didn’t try to make you hers," Kir said.
Keiya’s eyes widened and she brought Nimfi up to her face. "Is that true?"
"Squeak," Nimfi squeaked excitedly, looking from her to Kir to Kordia and then back to her. "Squeak, squeak. Squeak, squeak squeak squeak."
Does she understand what the undine is saying?
"I don’t understand what you’re saying..." Keiya said.
"Squeak." The undine said with so finality.
"Maybe you will, if you open yourself up to her-"
"Ki- Professor Nasumi!" Kordia said. "That’s a spirit! It has a place it belongs to, and if she does that, Keiya will be forever bound to that place!"
Sothing in her voice told Kir that this was sothing deeply personal to her...
"I’m not insisting," Kir said. "But Ms. Keiya, you should really think about what it is you want before you make a decision like that. If what Kordia says is true..."
"It is!" Kordia insisted. She looked so much like she wanted to tell him sothing... "I... read about it in a book..."
Was that really what she wanted to say?
"Regardless, Miss Keiya, please take today’s class off to decide what you want. I’ll see what Chancellor Lumin has to say about Nimfi, and we can et up again after classes are done, okay?"
"Okay, Professor..." Keiya said, hugging Nimfi close.
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