>>5777401You saw Izirina Henzler jump slightly at this direct acknowledgement, out of the corner of your eye—though only the corner, because you cannot bring yourself to look away from her mother’s terrible, beautiful visage.
“Oh?” she asked. “I don’t recall asking your opinion, CHILD.”
You bristled slightly at her tone—and at the way she’s treating your rival—no, your classmate, her own DAUGHTER. It disgusted you, even as you could not help but fear and admire the Archmage as a scholar of the arcane. That slight offence, that dawning disgust, they metastasized into something dangerous: defiance.
“She’s one of the best students in EVERY other class,” you retorted. “No—THE best! And she’s the youngest while I’m… Like you said, I have advantages, and she’s STILL beating me in every field. She doesn’t deserve to be treated like this when she’s doing so well.”
“She ought to be doing better than ‘well’,” the Archmage replied coolly, unflustered. “She has my name, and she’d do well to live up to it. That doesn’t mean ‘doing well’. It means EXCELLING. I do not breed nor rear weaklings. I REPROCESS them into perfect specimens. That’s why I’M the Archmage…”
She raised a sleeve-hidden hand and, allowing the fabric to fall away, gestured but slightly with her slim, almost bloodless fingers. You felt your world tip sideways as a spectral wind lifts you off your feet and hurl you sidelong, crashing into a decorative display representing a gryphon—one of those which the Paladins of the Holy order of Hawksong ride, produced by this very Tower’s chimera breeding program.
“…And why you are nothing.”
You could not respond, dazed and (if you are any judge) lightly concussed. The Archmage drifted by, not looking at you once as she departed… But Little Henzler, Izirina, rushed to you. She held her hands to her mouth, staring with eyes wide and watery… And then she, too, scurried off, without a word. Ungrateful!
Or… Well, maybe just embarrassed, and scared.
You sighed, breathing out some of your spite and envy, and breathing in understanding and compassion, just as the druids of the Iternagreyn Tower taught you to do. All living things develop in the shape of their environments, after all… And BY THE GODS what an environment Izirina Henzler had found herself to grow within!
