Elior's day started with someone screaming.
Not just any scream. A full-throated, panicked, slightly too familiar yell.
"WHAT THE ACTUAL—WHY AM I IN A LIBRARY?!"
Elior sat bolt upright.
Except… the bed wasn't his.
And neither were the arms he used to push off the covers.
Also—his voice. Was. Not. His.
He scrambled to the mirror across the unfamiliar dorm room.
Kael's face stared back.
He blinked.
Kael's reflection blinked.
"No," he muttered.
"Yes," said a voice from the hallway, muffled but definitely furious.
Elior shoved open the door and nearly collided with—well, himself.
Kael. In Elior's body.
Hair slightly mussed, shirt wrinkled, and face set in absolute horror.
"You're me," Elior said flatly.
"And you're me," Kael hissed. "Fix it."
"I didn't do anything!"
"You were in that cursed potions lecture!"
"You were the one who tried to bottle raw chaos essence for 'fun'!"
"Oh. Right. That might be on me."
---
Twenty minutes later, they sat across from each other in the infirmary while Professor Thistle adjusted her glasses and muttered, "Interesting. Very interesting."
"Is that good 'interesting' or we're-stuck-forever interesting?" Kael (in Elior's body) asked, tugging at the stiff collar.
Professor Thistle hummed. "Looks like a sympathy tether backlash. You were exposed to shared magic last week, correct?"
"The gauntlet trial," Elior replied. "We were… partnered."
Thistle gave them a look.
Kael grinned. "Emotionally linked, apparently. Gross."
Elior shot him a glare. "Can we undo it?"
"Eventually," she said. "Give it a day. In the meantime, try not to break each other."
Too late.
---
Being in Kael's body was like trying to steer a storm.
Magic simmered under his skin, volatile and hot. Even casting a basic levitation spell made the room smell faintly of sulfur.
Elior tripped over Kael's longer legs, got caught flirting with two first-years by accident, and had to sit through Draven family fire-element etiquette class without lighting anything on fire.
"I've never burned so much toast in my life," he muttered to himself, staring down at the sixth piece.
Meanwhile, Kael was busy impersonating Elior too convincingly.
"Why are you so boring?" Kael complained later that afternoon, arms crossed. "Your whole schedule is just study, heal, repeat."
"That's called discipline."
"It's called being no fun."
"Someone has to make up for you."
Kael leaned forward, wearing Elior's frown. "You ever relax?"
"Not when I'm in a time bomb."
"Oh, you like being in my body."
"I tolerate it."
They glared at each other.
Then, without meaning to, both of them said at the same time:
"You're impossible."
A beat.
Then:
"Stop copying me!"
"You stop!"
---
That night, they were forced to share Elior's dorm—Kael's had too many booby-trapped scrolls and was currently housing an angry imp he'd forgotten about.
"I snore," Elior warned.
Kael, flopped across the bed, grinned. "I know."
"Excuse me?!"
Kael smirked. "Noticed during study nights. You fall asleep with your hand in a book and do this little snort thing—like a rabbit sneezing."
"I hate you."
"No you don't."
A silence stretched, soft and not so sharp.
Then Kael added, quieter this time, "Being you… it's weird. Everything's heavy. Like you're always waiting for something to break."
Elior blinked. "That's because… things have broken. Before."
"I get that," Kael said, uncharacteristically serious. "Even if I pretend I don't."
For a second, Elior didn't know what to say.
So he just said: "You can't ruin my reputation while you're in my body."
"No promises."
---
By morning, the spell had unraveled on its own. One moment, they were brushing their teeth in someone else's mouth. The next—
Pop.
Back to normal.
Elior looked down at his hands. His hands. His height. His calm.
"Thank every constellation," he muttered.
Kael grinned from the doorway. "Miss me already?"
"You drooled on my pillow."
"You left me with your anxiety."
"Touche."