>>5826362Eventually, everyone split up to go their separate ways, except for those of you who lived in the Tower… And even then, not Zith-Zi.
“I’M nocturnal,” Zith-Zi reminded you.
“We sleep at the same time these days,” you replied skeptically.
“YOU sleep,” Zith-Zi retorted. “I’m just… IN bed.”
You remembered the ‘incident’ whereby you had walked in on her ‘not sleeping while in bed’, and flushed, to the goblin’s obvious amusement.
“I’m gonna’ take in the night-life, anyway,” ZIth-Zi said, waving and walking backwards. “Izirina, Tips, watch Hershy for me.”
Izzy obviously did not mind this arranegment, nor did Hershy hesitate to swoop over to her and land upon her hat, nearly knocking it off her head in his enthusiasm. Together with Muffisn and the little drake, you and Izzy walked the rest of the way home. Or, well, ‘home’.
You strolled in uncomfortable silence for a time, and it eventually became comfortable. You naturally found yourselves enjoying one another’s company, as you so often did… But Izirina’s reflections upon the play, and the world, stuck with you. It made you think of her dreadful adoptive mother, the Archmage… And of her own instinct, still clearly very much alive, hat the world was a sort of prison. In truth, your world WAS a prison of a sort—a prison full of books, and resources, and opportunities, but her mother was jailer to you both, in different manners. Even outside the Tower, you were not wholly free… Could not be.
“After the break,” Izirina said, startling you with her sudden speech, “what are you going to do?”
“What do you mean?” you asked.
“I’ve heard Zith-Zi and you… Talking sometimes. About escaping. About being trapped.”
“You’ve been listening to us?” youa sked, surprised.
Iziirna’s eyes widened, and she flushed slightly, but cleared her throat and pressed on.
“A-anyway,” she said, “are you leaving? Or coming back?”
Your brow furrowed as you considered the matter, and in the end you decided…
>The Tower and it resources were too good an opportunity to pass up—you would remain there until you graduated to a full Mage Apprentice, and gain your (bounded) freedom that way>You couldn’t go back to that place, and couldn’t bear years more of that oppressive atmosphere, fearing your pure research would be bent to fell purpose by the Archmage—you weren’t coming back>That it really depended on where IZZY was going to be—did she plan to remain? If so, for how long? What were HER plans?>Write-in 