The light of the sun flooded through a window as the clamour of hundreds of people moving rose to new heights. Sofia watched the girl remain motionless as her dual-coloured eyes scanned the notebook in her hands.

 

The northern noble seemed to possess only cursory knowledge concept of ownership or at least anything regarding paper. She was currently holding hostage the study notes of another student attending the Mana and Spell-Based Navigation class. Although the girl seemed to have lost the adorable spark she began the day with, replaced with a cold and calculating visage which strangely fit just as well as her previous expressional mask. Even if her transformation from quite a shy girl with a lively spark continuously burning in her glowing eyes to a stone face statue was suddenly happening gradually over the course of the day, it didn't surprise Sofia too much given how high up Lady Siri was on the political ladder. There was no doubt in her frontier mind that city nobles had to wear multiple of such faces to simply survive but the image of the scared, fragile as glass girl far from home which had seemed into Sofia's mind caused her to want to hug her cold body wanting to return the spark dwelling deep in her colourful eyes.

 

"I would like my notes back." A male voice of the student caused the sea-green eyes to look away from Lady Siri putting an end to the idea of a warm hug.

 

"Lady Siri, you should give it back the notes are not yours." The night velvet on top of the cryomancer shook as her guide tried to gently pull on the notebook.

 

"But I said please." The Firmusian noble said tilting her head to the side, expressing her seemingly genuine confusion.

 

"..." The heroic noble was stunned as Lady Siri appraised her before turning her attention back toward the notebook, flipping through it with incredible speed.

 

"I guess she should finish this in no time if she reads like this?" The man said, his voice walking the line between a sigh and a question. He then sat down on the bench as a servant from the Academy entered the lecture hall and began to sweep the blueish dust left behind from the teacher's spells. "You're not a Kuprum am I right?" The man asked.

 

"No, I'm an Aurum ranked." Sofia replied unknowingly replicating the barked-out a response her brothers did when her Lord Father assumed his commanding rule.

 

"Then are the two of you friends? I had seen you coming in looking like a student and a servant pair." The man with short dirty blonde hair asked as he peered over the badly hunched cryomancer who didn't show any signs of hearing them.

 

"I was assigned to Lady Siri as a guide and we met only three days ago so it's too early to say anything. But I'm very open to the possibility of becoming friends." Sofia replied, adding the last sentence purely for Lady Siri's ears but her words reached only one mind.

 

"Interesting..." The man roughly five years older than her, began to stroke his chin, his eyes appearing deep in thought before she spoke again. "Black Ribbon Navigation Officer Vilkas Amroch from Dol Amroch greets the two beautiful strangers." The man stood up in a military stance giving the two a small bow before returning to a seating position.

 

The scion of House Junker quickly began to look for the southern-sounding place in her mental map of Edor. She eventually found it on the border region between Havenfall and Catalina guarding the narrow stretch of land between those two mighty countries crushed between the Southern Sea and cursed wasteland surrounding the Systemait stronghold of Mensana.

 

She didn't recall any major houses named Amroch and given that Vilkas's house name lacked additional honorific or was immediately recognisable it was safe for her to guess that the navigation officer was a scion of a rather standard house like she was minus her heroic lineage.

 

"Sofia Junker, the third child of Louis I Junker, Baron of Hero's Frontier and Lord Protector of Hero's Vale," Sofia replied mirroring how the man stood but instead of a military greeting she did as instructed by her House's talented maid.

 

An awkward silence momentarily filled the space between the two nobles as the hooded girl who was currently coping a passage into her own notebook sat completely still, her noble instinct not activating even as two of her esteemed brethren waited for her.

 

"Lady Siri dar Blackworm from Firmusa." Sofia introduced the high noble with none of the esteem that such a name required but not because of a lack of effort as the frontier woman tried her best. Unfortunately outside of these basic and self-evident facts, she knew very little about the fair maiden.

 

"I guess I have to pray my thanks to the Aspects I ate my breakfast and didn't do anything stupid." Vilkas gave a smile as he jested. Sofia couldn't get rid of the thought that the noble jested more to himself as his brow twitched reminding her of her eldest brother Roland who reacted similiarly when narrowlingly missing a defeat at Square.

 

"Breakfast?" For the first time in a while, Lady Siri perked up like a fox and turned her head toward Vilkas.

 

"What of it?"

 

"Can I have some?" The high noble asked in monotone, her head moving, tilting and bobbing up and down as she spoke.

 

"It's afternoon my Lady." Sofia chimed in.

 

"Annoying." Sofia felt the hair stand up on her spine as a single word reverberated in her ears. Alongside the intimidating force behind her voice, her head stopped and a frown appeared on her round face.

 

"Woah, come down there Lady," Vilkas tapped the angry mage on the shoulder. Ordinarily, such a casual approach would be taken with be taken as a great offence deserving of a grudge held for so long a dwarf might become envious. "You can take it if you want, I already ate." In his hand, a sandwich appeared out of thin air and he handed it to the Firmusian Fury.

 

"Delishisness?" The high noble made a cooing sound albeit her voice remained rather passive with only a fraction of the previous energy coming back. 

 

"Was that Inventory?" Sofia asked.

 

"Indeed it is," He said with pride emanating from his words while Lady Siri turned into a squirrel next to him. "It comes rather handy in everyday life, my Lady."

 

"Bandy?" The cryomancer tried to speak stuffing her cheeks with food.

 

"It means convenient my Lady." Sofia responded trying her best to restrain the smile forcing the ends of her lips upward. 

 

“Ohmmm.” The girl nodded, making an interesting hum while still remaining adamant about speaking while resembling a mouse.

 

“Why are you not in your House’s retinue,” Sofia asked seeing Lady Siri turning away from the two and returning to reading. “Are you not a Catalinan noble?”

 

“My Lord Father is keeping me as an insurance of my House’s continued relevance. A curse or a blessing of being the ninth son.” Vilkas’s openness restored Sofia's opinion of military nobles previously tarnished by the female knight. Most would attempt to hide the fact that they were a spare and especially when you were a spare so far down the hereditary succession.

 

“I’m done.” The Firmusian noble suddenly announced as she straightened her broken posture.

 

“Did you catch up with what we've done so far?” Vilkas said in half a jest, nobody could learn much from reading in the time Lady Siri had in addition the girl looked more like she was flicking through Vilkas’s notes rather than reading them

 

“I have read it." The hooded girl responded, her tone making Sofia think of a diplomat carefully choosing their words. 

 

"Don't worry, most people need time to understand the arcane." Vilkas said gently taking his notebook from the Firmusian noble and pocketing it in the depths of his overcoat.

 

Sofia saw the stone-faced cryomancer flinch as if reading herself to interrupt her older noble peer before deciding to remain quiet. Finding a little hint of what the girl wanted to do next the Junker said hers and Lady Siri's farewells before turning toward the exit bringing her ward back to her room.

 

The two climbed the set of stairs, their footsteps keeping their company in the lonely building.

 

Focusing on her fellow woman of small size, Sofia found Lady Siri's face ceased in a slightly bored expression changing little over the course of the few past bells.

 

"?"

 

Suddenly as the door to her room became visible Lady Siri looked at Sofia, her eyes blinking slowly as she cocked her head to one side.

 

"Iris!" Lady Siri's blue and golden eyes came to their old life with little explanation as the cold mage bolted forward, sprinting across the corridor and eagerly knocking on the door.

 

*Boom*

 

Such a strange girl... I do hope I don't have to deliver another letter.

 

Sofia didn't have time to catch up with her ward as a pleasant voice greeted her and she watched as the high noble quickly disappeared from her view appearing like an over-enthusiastic child. Sofia leaned her body managing to balance her other leg in the air using it as a counterbalance as she glanced at the poor door. A large crack looked to have appeared along the grain of the wood near the top left corner.

 

I can't believe she used a spell to shut the door.