Arcina sighed as she stared up at the rising towers of the Norneau Academy of Magic.
It was early morning, and anxiety twisted in her gut as she fiddled with the little moth made of cloth in her hand, a present from her father’s sister, sewn with care and attention to detail, before having enchantnt sigils placed all throughout it, letting it fly in circles for as long as she fed it magic.
She didn’t feel like letting Titan fly today, because today was her big exam, and she already felt like she was going to blow it.
The big magic exam... that would determine if she got to study at the best school in the tiny bubble of a world that was Norneau. Once it had been a school for mages, but now it was a school for anyone gifted with enough magic and talent to show they could achieve great things.
But Arc didn’t have talent. Or magecraft. She was a maven, which ant she had one thing she could do outside of her body with the magic she’d developed.
Her ambitions weren’t so lofty as to dream of being a mage, not when she was incapable. She just wanted to join the Dragon Knights, or at least beco a dragoneer.
"If only I could fly..." Not getting in wouldn’t hurt so much if she could fly. But that was her sister’s ga, whenever they let Attika out of her room, which wasn’t often. Attika floated as a matter of course, but she rarely got to fly outside of her room. Her aura was enough to flatten the untrained, and her steadfast refusal to reign it in or cooperate with their father ant she was confined to the one place where she could do no harm, locked up in her tower...
A toll reverberated into Arc as she contemplated asking Attika for so last-minute help. It ca with a low sound, one that ant danger. One that ant sheltering in the basent and hoping everything would be alright...
A monster attack.
At the fifth toll, Arc knew exactly what kind of monster it was. A kaiju.
She was about to head for the shelter when her sister Sylvia appeared in the hall. They weren’t related by blood, but Sylvia was the second oldest child in the family, not counting Stella’s brood, who were more like cousins. Sylvia had their brother Corul, who was Arc’s half-brother by Rainier and Cassiel, in tow and they were already dressed, the sa as Arc.
"Arc, you are awake." Sylvia... asked? Her tone was just a little distant enough to be unreadable despite the obvious ergency. Sylvia was weird. She was the only druid in the family so far, and sotis it felt like she cared more about plants and animals than people. A foxkin, she had been born with three tails and over the eighteen years of her life grown to a lush set of six. Unlike their mother, who preferred a more human form, Sylvia was always in a form that was more beastkin in appearance, and she stared down her muzzle with eyes of green flecked with silver. "Perhaps you wish to know how the beast will feed the land?"
"Wanna watch the fight?" Cory translated a mont later with his usual cocky voice. He may have been younger than Sylvia by half a year, but he was pretty much her dedicated protector and sotis translator. Sylvia gave him a look that said it was very much not what she ant.
"Can I?" Arc asked, her wings, bat-like in appearance, perked up, and her tail, a short, whippy thing, lifted.
"Of course you can, sis! We’ll protect you!" he rubbed Arc’s head between her two frondy horns that arced backward from her forehead. They only looked that way because she had them shaped with dical magic, Kordia’s specialty, and their similarity to moth antennae was hardly coincidental, considering they were Arc’s favorite animal.
"You’re asking to be henpecked by a dozen birds," Sylvia chuffed, referring to the total number of their parents. "Besides, you’re supposed to be protecting , Knight. Sylvia was a druid, and Cory was her Arcane Knight, technically a Knight Protector, once he graduated from the Academy in Fall. Sylvia, of course, had already graduated. She had talent and mana to spare, even if she was a little weird about everything.
"Co on, she’s about to go to the Academy," Cory said like it was a sure thing, even though it very much wasn’t. He leaned in, and Arc barely heard him whisper his argunt in Sylvia’s ear, which twitched down to his level, "...and if they have to cancel her test because of the attack, at least she’ll get to say she saw sothing exciting, right?"
"If you want the little bird to fly too early, then you carry her on your back," Sylvia said, stalking ahead.
Cory chuckled and scratched the back of his head nervously. "Guess that ans I’m in charge of you, little sis!"
Strapping herself to Cory was an arduous process, not least because tandem flying was exhausting for anyone who didn’t have ridiculous amounts of mana like her dads. Furthermore, she’d need to match her wing movents with Cory’s to keep from distracting him.
At least he didn’t have horns, which ant she didn’t have to wear a helt.
By the ti they finished preparing, dawn was well underway. But she was grateful for the light, because it let her watch as the Dragon Knights took off from Glideway Tower, flying straight for the largest shadow in the Veil. That was where Cory took her as he awkwardly launched into the air, while Sylvia used her mother’s thod of walking on barriers to race ahead.
The shadows were how people knew when to expect a monster attack. Things could wander through the Veil, always in and never out, and the largest left shadows in the Veil that could be spotted from watchtowers. This ti, the monster was coming in from the northeast by the forest, which ant the Dragon Knights could probably use their full strength.
Arc’s heart beat faster at the thought of seeing dragons in action. They were one of the few beasts that managed to integrate mana into their species without becoming monsters, and more than anything, Arc wanted to befriend one so that it could beco her wings...
The Knights were flying two full talons this morning, each comprised of four Knights operating in pairs, and Arc kept her neck craned to see them, even as Cory flew a wide circle around the impending fight.
Judging by the shadow, it was going to be a big one.
As one of the talons broke off, heading towards the nearby hunters lodges, the other kept on, even as the shadow deepened and darkened, until at last the head of the monster burst through the Veil.
It looked like nothing Arc had ever seen.
A snout long enough to be a hallway was lined with sharp teeth, and it was covered by short, shaggy fur in various shades of brown and off-white. As the rest of its head ca into the Veil, four eyes the size of boulders, their irises muddy yellow, locked onto the talon of Dragon Knights, and a long tongue rimd in razor-like bone whipped out, nearly knocking one Knight from the air and splitting the formation as the Knights rose to avoid it.
The rider who’d nearly gotten slashed by the tongue dove instead, pulling a head-over-tail maneuver before their dragon let out a burst of white-red fla, searing the cheek of the monster.
In pain, the creature surged forward, a claw coming out from the Veil as its body was forced inside. With six stories worth of flesh behind it, the claw was fast despite its size, and while the Dragon Knight nimbly escaped its swipe, the claws ca down on a cluster of trees that snapped like twigs before its might.
A deep, airso trill of pain and anger sounded from the beast as it let its tongue out once more, chasing the Knight with it, only to co up short. That was when the rest of the talon ca down on it, their dragons shooting bursts of fire as they rallied, trying to draw the beast away from the forest and toward the nearest place where its harm could be minimized.
There was no doubt in Arc’s mind that the dragons were barely harming the thing. In manasight the monster was so dense with magic that she could see as the disparate circulations within its body congealed around its injuries, healing them rapidly.
Like any creature that ca through the Veil, it was lost and afraid. But because it had ford a corrupted core, it could not be allowed to live.
Minutes after the fight began, a single magical toll reverberated triumphantly from the city, signaling the monster’s impending death...
Because the toll ant Arc’s father had been authorized to act.
In a flash of light, the battle ended.
There was no fanfare. No great feat of martial prowess.
One mont, the monster lood over the trees, and the next, it collapsed in a heap, snapping a great swath of destruction through the forest as its body fell away from its head.
And above it hovered Arc’s father, wearing a look of sheer boredom...
Until he turned and looked right at her.
Crap...
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