{Rain}
The staff meeting lasted about twenty minutes.
Brannick sat at the head of the table in his office, arms folded, listening to each instructor give their assessment of the first round of classes.
Griff went first. Then Lirien. Then Haytham, who managed to make even a progress report sound like a dinner party anecdote.
Rain sat in her chair with her arms crossed and said as little as possible.
When it was her turn, she gave the short version.
Most students had a baseline understanding of reinforcement. A handful were ahead of the curve. A few were going to need extra work.
"And the dramari girl?" Brannick asked. "Valoryn."
"Absurd mana pool. Terrible reinforcement control. But, she's working on it."
Brannick nodded and moved on.
After the meeting, the instructors filtered out.
Rain fell into step beside Celeste in the hallway, matching her shorter stride out of habit.
They'd been doing that since they were kids. Celeste walked fast for someone with legs that short, and Rain had learned early on that if she didn't keep up, Celeste would just leave her behind without looking back.
"You're taking her on, then?" Rain asked. "Ashara."
"I am! Kael told me she couldn't find a weapon that fit. I watched her move during my class. The way she carries herself, the footwork, the balance. It's all there. She just needs direction."
Celeste flexed her bicep for effect.
"Hand-to-hand against monsters is a rough path."
"It is."
"Her first kill freeze-up will probably be particularly rough."
"I don't doubt it."
"You sure she can handle it?"
"You tell me." Celeste glanced up at her, mischievously. "You're the one who recruited her."
"Well, I recruited her because her aura was insane. I have no idea if she'll be able to handle punching things to death."
"Please, you make my art form sound so barbaric!" Celeste cackled. "In any case, life's full of surprises. I can see a girl like that having a bit of a fire within her." Celeste smiled.
It was a small smile, the kind she gave when she'd already made up her mind and the conversation was just a courtesy. Rain knew that smile. She'd known it for over fifteen years.
They stopped at the hallway junction where their paths split, Celeste left toward her training rooms, Rain right toward the yards.
Celeste gave her a nod and turned to leave. Rain watched her go.
Short hair, small frame, hands loose at her sides. She walked the same way she fought, unhurried, like she had all the time in the world... even though they'd gotten so much older over the years.
They'd grown up together in Lumendell's outer districts, two kids who'd rather fight than study. They'd enrolled in the Guild together at seventeen, taken their first contract together, nearly died together more times than Rain could count.
Celeste was the one constant in Rain's life. The one person Rain trusted without thinking.
And now here they were. Teaching at the same academy. Still walking the same halls, even as they cracked thirty.
Rain still watching her go, as always.
She turned and headed for the training yards.
[... Some things don't change, I guess.]
---
{Ashara}
Mira was on Ashara's bed.
... Not in an exciting way. She was lying on her stomach with her chin propped on Ashara's pillow, her tail wagging behind her, listening to Ashara talk about Celeste's offer.
"So let me get this straight," Mira said. "You've got Rain giving you private evening lessons. And now Celeste, the A-rank, wants to train you personally every day."
"That's what she said."
"You've been here less than a week and you've already got two hot instructors fighting over you."
"I wish. They're training me. There's a difference."
"Uh-huh. How long until one of them decides to train your stamina, I wonder."
"Gods, soon, I hope. Rain was soooo fucking good, Mira, you wouldn't believe it."
"I can imagine. I don't even want to ask for the details. I'll get jealous."
"Oh, I remember, at one point, when I-"
"Nope, stop it. Blue balls is the last thing I need today."
Across the room, Yuki was sitting upright on her bed, eyes half-closed, head slowly tilting forward. Ashara and Mira both looked at her at the same time.
"Is she..."
Yuki's chin hit her chest. She was out. Sitting up. Asleep.
"..."
"..."
Mira turned back to Ashara.
"Your roommate is deeply weird."
"Cute, though."
"I guess."
---
The morning classes went by quick.
In Griff's Monster Ecology, he told them about mimics, a species of monster that could take the shape of everyday objects (though, most of the time they picked treasure chests, doors, and furniture).
One story involved a mimic that somehow snuck into an inn and disguised itself as a chair for two weeks. It ate three adventurers who sat in it on different nights.
"The bartender didn't even notice until the chair burped," Griff said, scratching his chin with his three-fingered hand.
Ashara just sat there, listening to that with her jaw on the floor.
In Lirien's class, she had the mages practice meditation (which she said would expand their mana pools), and had the fighters practice aura projection in pairs.
Ashara got paired with Sable.
The exercise was simple: project your aura at your partner, hold it, feel theirs push back. Like an arm wrestle, but with mana. Apparently, this was something that typically happened in fights between people, and since some adventurer jobs required taking out bandits and marauders, this was a skill they'd need to practice.
So, Sable stood across from her, dark hair, pale skin, ominous look on her face.
"Hey," Ashara said. "Cool sword."
Sable stared at her.
"... I'm Ashara."
More staring.
"Okay! Great talk. Let's do this."
Soon, they projected.
Ashara's aura rolled outward, steady and warm, the way it always did. Sable's hit back and it was... sharp. Dense. Focused, like a blade pressed flat against Ashara's skin. It wasn't bigger than Ashara's, but it was precise in a way that made Ashara's eyes widen.
[Damn. She's good.]
They held it for ten seconds before Lirien called time. Sable dropped her projection instantly and looked away.
After class, Ashara was packing up her notes when she felt someone behind her. She turned. Sable was standing three feet away, mouth half-open, like she'd been about to say something.
"..." Ashara blinked. "Uhm... Yeah?"
Sable closed her mouth, turned around, and hurriedly walked away.
[... Okay then.]
---
The afternoon was free training. Ashara hit the yard.
She ran laps, did pushups (badly), and practiced the basic stance Rain had been drilling into her. Feet shoulder-width, weight centered, knees bent. Simple stuff, but her muscles needed the repetition.
Jesse was there too, putting arrows into a target at the far end of the yard. He hadn't missed once since Ashara started watching.
She jogged over during a break.
"You're really good with that thing."
Jesse pulled an arrow from his quiver without looking at her.
"I've had a lot of practice."
"Self-taught, right?"
"Yeah." He nocked, drew, released. The arrow hit dead center. "Couldn't afford a teacher. So I practiced until I didn't need one."
They trained in comfortable silence for a while. Then Jesse spoke up again.
"You see Vik shove that beastkin kid in the hall this morning?"
Ashara looked at him.
"No. What happened?"
"Cat-kin girl. Small, first-year. She was in his way, I guess. He put his hand on her shoulder and moved her. Not hard, but not gentle either." Jesse's jaw tightened. "Nobody said anything."
"..."
Ashara's hand curled into a fist at her side.
"Figures," she said, quietly.
"Yeah." Jesse nocked another arrow. "Figures."
---
That evening, Ashara went back to Celeste's training room.
"Alright," Celeste said, standing in front of her with her hands behind her back. "Basics. Everything starts here."
She spent the first twenty minutes on stance and weight distribution.
Where to put her feet, how to shift her center of gravity, how to move without losing her balance. Then she moved to strikes.
"Step, jab, pivot, hook." Celeste demonstrated it once, slow. Her body moved like a machine, every joint turning at the right moment, every motion connected to the next. "Step forward to close distance. Jab with the lead hand, straight and fast. Pivot on the front foot. Hook with the rear hand, all your weight behind it."
Ashara drilled it. Step, jab, pivot, hook. Again. Again. Again.
Her arms started burning after ten minutes. After twenty, they felt like they were filled with sand.
[Wait a second this is... surprisingly hard.]
"Again."
Step, jab, pivot, hook.
"Faster."
Step, jab, pivot, hook.
"Good. Now," Celeste gave a damn near evil smile, "add reinforcement."
Ashara covered her arms with her mana. Too much. Her right fist flared with energy and the force threw her off-balance mid-hook. She stumbled forward and Celeste caught her by the shoulder.
"Easy. Control it the same way you control your body when you dance. You don't throw everything into a spin, do you? You give exactly the amount of force you need."
Ashara steadied herself. She breathed. She thought about the stage. About measured movements, about giving the right amount of energy to each motion.
Step. Mana into the lead arm, just enough. Jab. Pivot. Mana into the rear arm. Hook.
It connected with the air and something cracked. Not her hand, the air itself. A sharp snap, like a whip, as her reinforced fist broke through its own momentum.
Ashara stared at her hand.
Celeste grinned.
"There it is."
[... Holy shit.]
"That," Celeste said, "is what a reinforced strike sounds like when it's done right. Remember that feeling. We're going to build on it."
Ashara was breathing hard. Her arms were shaking. She couldn't stop smiling.
"Now get some rest. We go again tomorrow." Celeste paused, her grin widening. "Oh, and next class? I'm going to have you fight someone talented. So, make sure you're ready."
[... Wait, what?]