Mother of Learning. Arc 3 Incomplete

«Yeah, but I’ve been kind of slacking off in that regard, so my commander is constantly nagging me about missing my quota. Can you blame me though? We get paid extra for doing it, but it’s a pittance considering the hassle.»

«You know better than I do,» Zorian shrugged. «How does, err, ‘introducing me to the profession’ get you off the spider case, though?»

«I don’t have time to do both,» Haslush said. He frowned for a second and then shook his head, as if to clear it. «Yup. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.»

The discussion petered out after that, and Haslush promised to meet him again at Monday. Zorian was lost in thought as he went back to Imaya’s house, wondering whether anything would come out of the whole spider investigation. Probably not, considering how seriously it was taken by Haslush, but still. He’d have to prod the man for additional details after a week or so.

Zorian tapped his foot impatiently as he waited for Imaya to open the door. He had the key to the front door, but that was no help — Imaya had an annoying habit of leaving the key in the lock, and today was no exception. He couldn’t enter without her help.

She probably liked it that way.

The sound of unlocking brought his attention back to the door itself, which flung open to reveal a concerned-looking Imaya staring at him.

«Umm… did something happen?» he asked. Did Kirielle do something stupid while he was gone?

«I should be the one asking that,» she said. «Where were you? You were supposed to be back hours ago.»

«Uh…» Zorian floundered. «What’s the problem? It’s not like I’m coming in the middle of the night or anything…»

The annoyed look she was giving him told him he shouldn’t have said that. Not that he understood why — its not like there was a rule saying he had to rush back home after class, after all. Back in Cirin, his parents never cared what he did in his free time, so long as he didn’t neglect his duties or embarrass them in the process. It was an alien feeling to have someone concerned for him just because he didn’t come home on time.

«Look, I’m sorry but I had to meet with my divination instructor after class and the meeting sort of dragged on,» he said. «Really Miss Kuroshka, you’re going to lose your nerves if you freak out every time I’m late from classes. It’s not the first time I’ve been held up after class, and its certainly not going to be the last.»

She sighed and shooed him inside, apparently somewhat mollified by his speech.

«In the future, try to notify me when you’re going to be late,» Imaya said. «Surely there is some piece of magic that can transfer messages within city limits, yes?»

That was a good idea, Zorian had to admit. «I’ll see what I can find,» he promised.

«Good,» Imaya said. «Your sister has been asking for you for a while now, you know?»

Zorian groaned. «She hasn’t been a bother, hasn’t she?»

«No, she’s a little angel,» Imaya said, waving his concerns away. Zorian silently rolled his eyes at the idea of Kirielle being an angel. If Kirielle was so nice then why did Imaya want him to come home so badly? «She spent most of the day drawing, playing with the magic cube you gave her, and talking with Kana. Or should that be talking at Kana? I swear, that child is far too quiet. I have to talk to Kael about it one of these days. It’s not normal for a child to be so withdrawn…»

Zorian quietly nodded, pleased that the cube he made was such a success. It was nothing special, just a simple stone cube with a bunch of light-emitting sigils arranged into a childish puzzle. He found a design in one of the books Nora recommended to him back when she had been tutoring him in spell formulas and decided making one would be doubly useful: it would give him some practical experience using spell formula and give Kirielle something to pass the time with.

«Sounds like she had fun today,» Zorian remarked. «What did she need me for, then?»

Imaya gave him a strange look. «You’re her big brother. She doesn’t need a special reason to miss you.»

«And the real reason?» Zorian pressed.

«Kana dozed off and your toy ran out of mana and went inert,» Imaya finally admitted after a second of silence.

«Ah,» Zorian nodded. He noticed the design had very little in the way of mana storage, but he wasn’t feeling confident enough to redesign it while creating the cube. There was a reason why the cube had such rudimentary mana reserves, after all — large concentrations of mana tended to explode if handled inappropriately, and the cube was meant to be practice for beginners. Beginners that could totally botch things during the first couple of tries. Considering how many problems he had with simply recreating the design on the stone cube, he felt he had made the right choice when he had decided not to mess with the base design. He would simply make more of them if Kirielle still wanted to play with one — it was good practice, anyway. «She’s in her room, I guess?»

«No, she’s in your room, reading your books,» Imaya said casually.