>>5787149“I’m sorry about… Well, you know,” Pearce volunteered, as your party returned to the Tower.
“Don’t be,” you sniffed. “Maybe he’ll shape up. If he doesn’t, well…”
You ruffled the two furry head of your pet chimera.
“Who needs him? I have Muffins.”
Izirina smiled, seemingly in agreement with the sentiment. You supposed she’d know.
You didn’t see or hear from your father for the rest of the year, nor did you have much free time to dwell on that—or on anything else. You were excused from further lessons in Chimericism—something that was framed as your ‘graduation’ from that level of study, but which still felt like a punishment. They never HAD found the jackalope(s), after all, and after your display you were the obvious suspect. If they suspected Pearce’s involvement, they kept mum about it and failed to offer HIM this dubious honour; perhaps the Mage Proctor just didn’t like being so shown-up, more than anything else.
“Good riddance to substandard mages,” you’d muttered sulkily
The end of the year being upon you, graduating ceremonies official and LESS official were well into the planning process. While you were a few years away from a Mage Apprentice’s hat-buckle, the senior students of good standing knows as ‘Initiated Arcanists’ were permitted a band of striking crimson upon their hats; the receipt of this, before friends and family in a small private ceremony, was a most auspicious event, for only a few received this honour each year. You were among them, of course, and so was Izirina Henzler—though not, or not YET, Pearce.
It was here where the absence of a mother or father in your life perhaps stung worst… Though Izirina, with the elder Henzler presiding over the ceremony, seemed scarcely happier for a maternal presence. For your part, you tried to avoid looking directly at the Archmage. They occasions you failed to do so, you found her looking back. It was… Unnerving.
When the ceremony was concluded, and you and Henzler had regrouped with your yet-to-ascend friends, they responded predictably. They crowded around and, before you could so much as summon an elemental to intercept their efforts, Efron had removed your hat with a <Gust of Wind> and Pearce had snatched it out of the air for all to survey.
“Pretty!” Testa remarked, stroking the ribbon. “Doesn’t match your eyes, at all, though.”
“If you put that on, Is wear to the Wild Gods…” you began.
“Ooo, hear that?” she laughed. “The WILD Gods!”
“Just don’t go getting all full of yourself, alright?” Blanchette told you. “I’m right behind you!”
“And I can still beat you in a fight,” Efron noted, grinning as if goading you.
Pearce slapped you hard on the back and smiled down, a silent congratulations. He might not yet be on your level academically, but between the two of you there was no competition.
“Hello?”
