Chapter 44
Hours Pass
Eilor looked up, surprised by the precision of the detail.
"After that, the following week we started our first class," she continued, with an almost distracted air, as if reliving it felt natural to her.
Her voice softened for a moment, slipping between memories that seemed to want to emerge on their own, unfiltered.
Eilor watched her in silence, noticing how her expression changed slightly: a faint gleam in her eyes, a smile that wasn't mockery or coldness… but something closer to nostalgia.
But the moment didn't last long.
Eli returned to her more neutral tone, resting her elbows on the table.
"That was quite a while ago," she added, as if putting a final point on the topic before he could delve deeper.
Eilor raised his hand, stopping Eli with a firm but calm gesture.
"Wait," he murmured.
She fell silent instantly, watching him with a mix of curiosity and caution.
Eilor stretched out his arm, took the sheet that still lay on the table, and pulled it toward himself.
The paper had part of its edge crumpled from the earlier haste, but there was still space left.
With his other hand, he grabbed the bronze pen.
The metal reflected a faint glint as he turned it between his fingers, preparing.
He arranged the sheet carefully, aligning it with the edge of the table, and rested his forearm, the tip of the pen barely grazing the paper.
"Continue," he said, still not looking at her.
She remained still for a few seconds, surprised by Kaep's firm tone.
Then, a small smile formed on her face—this time more authentic, less calculated—and she nodded slowly.
"Alright…" she murmured.
She straightened her posture and looked at the sheet in front of him, as if reading what hadn't yet been written.
"[First octamana]," she said finally, her voice clear, almost dictating.
"The first day we all introduced ourselves, one by one, after the professor entered wearing his black uniform with yellow stripes."
As she spoke, Eilor began to write.
The sound of the pen scratching on the paper filled the silence between them.
"I remember," Eli continued, leaning slightly forward, "that almost no one knew what to say. Everyone was looking at their boots, or pretending to check their blank sheets."
"And you…" a light laugh escaped her, "you said your name and sat down without another word. Not a greeting, not a gesture."
Eilor looked up for an instant, arching an eyebrow.
"Really?" he said with a barely perceptible smile.
Eli nodded.
"Yes… it sounded more like you back then, and it still sounds like you now."
For a moment, both fell silent.
The memory seemed to have softened something between them, but not enough to erase the tension still vibrating beneath the surface.
Eilor looked back at the sheet, ready to keep writing.
"Good," he said quietly, "go on."
"After that," Eli continued, her gaze somewhat lost as she searched her memory, "the professor asked another question.
He asked who had had their eye color changed."
Eilor paused the pen on the paper for a moment.
Eli noticed the gesture but kept speaking.
"So you, and a few others, raised your hands," she said in a softer tone.
"I remember the silence that fell afterward…"
She made a small pause, resting her elbows on the table and interlacing her fingers.
"There were few. Three, maybe four, including you. And the professor looked at them one by one, without saying anything for several seconds. Just… observing."
Eilor nodded, letting the tip of the pen mark a short line on the sheet.
"Yes…" he murmured, almost to himself. "I remember that."
Eli frowned a little, remembering something else.
"When you lowered your hand, you didn't say anything, but you were tense. You were barely breathing. I thought you were nervous, but… now that I think about it," she looked at him again, with some curiosity, "it was something else, wasn't it?"
Eilor looked up, meeting her gaze.
For a moment, he didn't respond.
He just left the pen suspended, his hand still over the paper.
"After that," Eli went on, moving a hand as if she still saw the scene before her, "the professor asked us to move the benches and tables.
He organized us into groups, a ratio of one to three:
one with changed eyes and three with eyes still in their original colors."
She made a brief pause, glancing sideways at Eilor, who kept writing without looking up.
"And that lasted the entire first month," she added in a lower tone, as if she didn't particularly enjoy remembering it.
Eilor nodded slowly.
He could almost smell the classroom air again, feel the grating of wooden legs being dragged across the stone floor.
"One to three…" he repeated, writing the number on the sheet. "Basic."
Eli let out a humorless, light laugh.
"'Basic classification,' that's what they called it, yes. But it was more like a way to get used to the idea that eventually we would have them like that too, don't you think?"
Eilor stopped writing.
"And you?" he asked, looking up. "Where were you in that division?"
Eli looked him straight in the eyes.
She didn't respond immediately.
She just let the silence stretch before sketching an almost imperceptible smile.
"Where I needed to be," she said finally.
"After that," Eli continued, her tone more relaxed, "the rest of the month was calmer.
It alternated between tours of the academy's four buildings and introductions to the different professors."
Eilor noted down each word, while images formed in his mind.
The buildings of Takran:
students walking from building to building, veteran adventurers coming and going from the buildings. Occasionally, one would take a Marked student or another with them to train them in the world outside the academy; other times, an Imperial soldier would do the same.
Eli kept speaking, with a hint of nostalgia.
"They showed us the classrooms, the practice yards, the dining hall… everything seemed huge at first. There was something new to learn every day."
She smiled slightly.
"And, of course, there were the surprise evaluations. Some professors enjoyed seeing us fail more than they admitted."
Eilor looked up for an instant, recognizing that half-smile.
"Yes… I remember not all of them were exactly friendly," he said with a grimace that was almost a smile.
Eli nodded.
"That, and that you earned your first sanction in the second week."
Eilor went still, pen in hand.
"Sanction?" he repeated.
She rested her elbow on the table, with a look both amused and accusatory.
"For arguing with Professor Daen in front of the whole class."
He blinked, surprised.
"…I don't remember that."
"I figured," Eli replied, with a barely visible smile. "It was because you argued that a friend of your uncle was better than him with a battle style. In the end, you ended up making him duel the professor… and surprisingly, he won."
---
"After that, among the most notable things…" Eli continued, letting her voice flow between memory and description, "must have been the gym in the west building. That place left a lasting impression on me."
Eilor nodded slightly, recognizing the name. Just hearing it brought a vague echo of metal, effort, and voices resonating against wide walls.
"After all," she went on, "they had a gym that took up practically half the building.
A massive structure, with metal arches supporting the upper levels, and that constant air of sweat, energy, and discipline."
She ran a finger absently along the edge of the table as she spoke, as if tracing the map of that place in the air.
"That half was divided into sections: the battle style gyms, where instructors shouted relentlessly; the duel practice areas, with their floors marked by containment circles; and further back, the gyms with muscle precision machines, full of pulleys, weights, and structures of polished copper."
Eilor remembered the echo of impacts, the rhythmic sound of chains, the dry thud of practice dummies being thrown to the ground again and again.
"Yes…" he murmured, more to himself. "It was impossible to go in there and not feel… small."
Eili smiled faintly.
"Or motivated," she added. "Some were intimidated, others wanted to prove they belonged there. You were one of the latter."
Eilor turned his face toward her, arching an eyebrow.
"Oh, really?"
"Oh, yes," she replied with a slightly wider smile. "I remember it very well. You almost broke your wrist in your first duel attempt."
Eilor let out a sigh mixed with a half-laugh.
"Definitely… that sounds like me."
"If I remember correctly," Eli continued, her tone more relaxed, almost nostalgic, "your uncle Laios went very often with his friends. They always occupied the same area of the gym, remember? The one near the columns on the west side, where the direct afternoon light came in."
Eilor tilted his head, thoughtful.
"Yes…" he said slowly. "The group that never seemed to get tired."
"Exactly," she replied, sketching a smile at the memory. "They took turns between the machines and the impromptu duels. And you, every now and then, joined them. Sometimes to train, other times just to watch and pretend you were resting."
Eilor let out a short snort, with a slight, crooked smile.
"I pretended… but ended up more exhausted than them."
"I know," Eli said, both amused and condescending. "Laios used to say you were too stubborn for your own good."
"That sounds like him," Eilor replied, letting out a light laugh.
For a moment, the atmosphere softened. There was no tension, only the warm echo of shared memories.
Eli watched him out of the corner of her eye, her gaze more serene.
"He admired you, you know? Even though he never said it out loud."
Eilor raised an eyebrow, surprised.
"Laios? Admiring me?"
"Yes," she said, shrugging. "He said that, unlike many, you didn't wait for anyone's permission to try. Besides, since you were little, you spent all your time training the North Star style."
Eilor lowered his gaze, turning the pen between his fingers.
"I don't know if that was admiration or concern," he murmured, but there was a hint of gratitude in his voice that he couldn't hide.
"Oh!! Also, once your uncle told me," she went on, "that your father told him how you had a duel with an adventurer who claimed to use that style, and that you started that duel because you insisted you were better at it than him. Later, if I remember correctly, he went to your house for private lessons from your father every other afternoon."
Eilor listened attentively, his elbows on the table, his body slightly leaning forward. Every now and then, without interrupting her, he moved the pen over the sheet, jotting down isolated phrases, names, fragments he found relevant.
The lines were uneven, sometimes crooked, others barely legible, but he didn't seem to mind. He wasn't writing to remember—he was writing to order.
From time to time, he murmured to himself, as if trying to connect the pieces:
"West building… training sections… Uncle Laios… motivation…" he wrote in cramped handwriting at the edge of the sheet, filling the empty gaps.
Eli watched him for a moment without saying anything. There was something curious about seeing him like this: so immersed in the act of writing, so serious, almost mechanical.
The tapping of the bronze tip against the paper filled the small silence between them.
"You still take notes like before," she commented finally, in a low voice, almost with a smile.
Eilor looked up for just a second.
"It's the only thing that keeps me sane when everything starts to mix together."
Eli nodded, understanding.
"Then keep going. There's a lot worth remembering… and some things you shouldn't forget."
Eilor didn't respond, but his fingers tightened around the pen before he continued writing.
But even so, Eilor enjoyed what Eli was telling him.
Not just for the content, but for how she did it. Her voice had that soft cadence that comes when someone remembers something with affection; a mix of nostalgia and genuine enjoyment.
Every time she mentioned a detail—a name, a scene, a lost laugh—her eyes seemed to brighten a little, and for an instant, the weight of time vanished.
Eilor watched her as he took notes, but his thoughts began to drift.
He realized he was listening more for the tone than the words; it was as if the sound of her voice anchored him to something more human, more simple.
The atmosphere, once tense, had become lighter. And although he kept writing, he was no longer doing it just out of habit.
Eli smiled as she remembered something about their classmates, laughing softly at a trivial anecdote, and he, without meaning to, felt a spark of warmth… a sensation he didn't know belonged to his own past or Kaep's.
He watched her for another second and thought that perhaps—just perhaps—not everything left behind had to hurt.
What made him stop the pen mid-stroke.
If she enjoyed those memories so much… if she spoke of them with such warmth, then why had she seemed uncomfortable when he called her by her name?
The thought turned over in his mind, slow, insistent.
" Did you really call me that? "
" It's been years since you called me that… "
The phrases resonated in his mind, each with a different weight. It wasn't just surprise; there was something more in her tone. A mix of restraint and reproach, almost as if the name itself had hurt.
Eilor lowered his gaze to the paper, but he no longer saw the words he had written. His mind slipped between the invisible lines of the unspoken.
How much time had passed for her?
What had happened between them for saying her name to sound… wrong?
Eli kept talking, perhaps without noticing his silence, but he was barely listening now.
A part of him felt he was touching something important, something he didn't want to fully awaken.
The memory had sharp edges.
He took a breath and let it out slowly, placing the tip of the pen back on the paper, more to feign concentration than out of necessity.
But in his head, a single question spun with force:
What exactly had broken between them?
---
Eli kept talking, threading memory after memory with the naturalness of someone reliving a story more than telling it.
Eilor listened, attentive, nodded now and then, and wrote a short phrase when something seemed relevant to him.
The hours dissolved without either of them fully noticing.
At first, the incoming light was dim and cold; then it gained clearer, warmer tones. Outside, the distant murmur of the wind changed direction, and the air inside the room became lighter, more welcoming.
The rhythm of the conversation had also transformed. It was no longer just reviewing facts: there were small laughs, long pauses, silences that weren't uncomfortable.
At times Eli leaned over the table, using her hands to shape something she was describing; other times, she spoke while looking at nothing, as if she were still seeing scenes only she could see.
Eilor didn't interrupt. He kept taking notes, though his jottings were now more scattered, less organized. Sometimes just a word, or an unfinished line.
When he finally looked up, he noticed the tiredness in his own eyes, the slight tremor in his hand.
"How long have we been at this?" he asked quietly.
Eli smiled with a calm expression, resting her chin on one hand.
"I don't know. A while, I suppose. But..." she glanced at him sideways, with a tired but kind gleam, "it feels like we've only just started."
Eilor let out a soft sigh, between weariness and something like relief.
"Yes..." he murmured, letting the pen fall onto the table. "I suppose so."
As time passed, the soft murmur of voices began to mix with the creaking of benches and the scrape of boots on the floor.
Some of those sleeping nearby began to stretch and others to wake up, changing the guard shift or simply seeking to move a little after so many hours still.
Noticing Eilor and Eli talking at the table, several approached with curiosity.
First one, then another, and soon there were several hovering nearby, asking what they were doing so focused.
The answers were simple, almost casual:
"Just remembering old times," Eli would say, with a half-smile.
"Gathering information," Eilor would add, lifting the couple of sheets slightly.
Hearing that, some would smile and leave without another word, returning to their blankets. But others—tired of sleeping or wanting to kill boredom—stayed. And little by little, the table became a small circle of stories.
The younger ones like them listened attentively while the veterans told anecdotes from their academy days.
Some, from different generations, spoke of field adventures, travels, strange creatures, and absurd accidents. Others shared quieter memories: lost comrades, eccentric professors, traditions that no longer existed.
Laughter began to mix with the tales. Sometimes they interrupted to add details or correct versions. At other times, a brief silence took hold of the group when someone touched on a heavier memory.
Eilor watched them while taking more spaced notes, this time without the initial urgency. It was no longer just information he was collecting: it was the human weight of the voices, the gestures, the faces sharing the same history.
Eli, for her part, smiled in the shadows of the dim lamp, enjoying that small disorder that had been born almost unintentionally.
For the first time in a long time, the room didn't seem like a place of waiting or confinement.
It seemed… alive.