Mother of Learning. Arc 3 Incomplete

Zorian gave her a curious look. While the wards protecting the train disrupted mana shaping, they had only a rudimentary effect on his empathy, and what he was detecting from Kirielle wasn’t boredom — it was a mix of excitement, anticipation and apprehension. As far as Zorian could tell, such complex mixtures of emotions appeared to be the most common ‘emotion’ that people experienced, and they were almost entirely indecipherable at Zorian’s current level of skill.

«What’s really bothering you?» he tried. Her mind immediately burst into a flurry of activity, and she opened her mouth to say something before losing her courage and lamely disguising her attempt to speak as a particularly deep breath. Huh, so she wasn’t just being restless…

«Nothin’,» she muttered, averting her gaze and despondently picking at the hem of her blouse.

Zorian rolled his eyes and kicked her lightly in the knee. Despite doing the exact same thing to him only few moments ago, she proceeded to send him a nasty glare. Unsurprisingly, her attempt at intimidation failed utterly — she was about as frightening as an angry kitten.

«Tell me,» he insisted.

She gave him a long, suspicious look before relenting.

«Will you teach me some magic when we get to Cyoria?» she asked hopefully.

How troublesome. The smart, reasonable response would be ‘no’ — there was no way she would get anywhere in a mere month, this particular restart was going to be extremely busy as it was, and she was going to forget everything she learned at the end of the month anyway.

«…I’ll see what I can do,» Zorian said after a few seconds of tense silence. Well, tense for Kirielle — he was pretty sure she literally stopped breathing while she was waiting for an answer.

«Yessss!» she crowed, pumping her fists in the air in triumph.

«But in exchange, I’ll want your help with something,» he added.

«Fine,» she immediately agreed, not even asking what exactly he had in mind. «Hey, can you—»

«No,» Zorian immediately said. «The train is warded to disrupt mana shaping. No one can cast spells in here.»

«Oh,» Kirielle deflated.

Truthfully, Zorian was bending the truth a little. The ward on the train that disrupted mana shaping was very weak and rudimentary, meant to deter overeager students and casual vandalism, and was little more than an annoyance to a proper mage like Zorian was. He could overpower the ward with ease, but he had analyzed it in detail during the previous restart and knew it reported any significant spellcasting to some remote location. He’d rather not get chucked out of the train before reaching Cyoria just because Kirielle wanted a free show.

Kirielle opened her mouth to say something else but was promptly interrupted by a sharp crackling sound that heralded the voice of the station announcer.

«Now stopping in Korsa,» a disembodied voice echoed. «I repeat, now stopping in Korsa. Thank you.»

Well, at least Kirielle would soon get someone else to bother in their compartment.

«So many people,» Kiri remarked, watching the throng at the train station through the window. «I didn’t know there were so many people going to that school of yours.»

Zorian, who was amusing himself by trying to count the number of people on the train station using his mind sense, made an absent-minded sound of agreement. While he was no longer totally oblivious to the world while using his mind sense, it still took most of his attention to get anything useful out of it. After half a minute of trying to separate the tightly-packed mass of people into discrete individuals that could be counted, however, he decided the task was beyond him at his current level of skill and refocused back of Kirielle.

«Why are mages so rare if there are so many people studying to become one?» she asked.

«They aren’t terribly rare,» Zorian said. «It’s just that most mages coming from rural areas don’t stay there once they finish their studies. I totally understand them too — I know I have no intention of coming back to Cirin when I graduate.»

«What!? Why!?» Kirielle protested.

Zorian raised his eyebrow at her. «Do I really have to answer that question?»

Kirielle huffed and crossed her arms over her chest in obvious annoyance. «I guess not. But that means I’ll be all alone with mother and father then. That sucks.»

«Just pester mother to let you visit me often,» Zorian shrugged. «She’ll cave in eventually, especially since you’ll be the only means through which they can maintain contact with me. Father doesn’t care about either of us, so he’ll follow mother’s lead on this.»

Kirielle gave him a weird look. «I can come and visit you?»

«Any time you want,» Zorian confirmed.

«You don’t think I’m annoying?» she asked.

«Oh no, you’re definitely annoying,» Zorian said, smiling at her mutinous expression. «But you’re still the only part of our family I actually like. And I bet you find me annoying too.»

«Damn right,» Kirielle huffed, kicking him in the knee again for good measure.