"You’re calculating whether you can live until graduation." She pulled her claws away. "The answer is yes. Because I’m here."
Cecil fell silent for two seconds. "You can’t even grow bigger."
"I can’t grow bigger only as long as you stay alive. If you’re about to die, I will."
Gwendolyn lowered her head to meet his gaze, a rare spark of sincerity flickering in her bright-blue eyes. "You’d better believe me. I’ve never lied to you. I won’t start until I learn how to make things up."
Cecil stared at her, then let out a short, joyless laugh — a helpless "fine then."
"Let’s just survive until six o’clock tomorrow," he said.
"Your robe needs washing," Gwendolyn remarked."...Can you go one day without shooting me down?"
"Nope." She flopped back onto his head, tapping his skull with her tail. "I’m your ancestor. Knocking you down a peg is the job."
The crowd scattered in every direction. Before Cecil could decide which way to go, an assistant instructor in blue stepped in front of him, holding a small flag.
"All students who have successfully awakened, follow me for registration. Follow the flag. Anyone who falls behind finds their own way to the hall."
He turned and strode off. Cecil fell into the middle of the crowd, following it around the main building and down a pine-lined avenue, light from the floating-castle dome scattering gold across the ground.
He stopped at the final bend — so did everyone ahead of him.
The registration hall was impossible to miss: a vast, flattened tower over two hundred paces across, built of pale-grey stone in shrinking tiers, capped by a spired terrace. Runes covered every surface, glowing faintly gold.
Gwendolyn poked her head out to squint at it. "...It’s alright. Smaller than my old ice cavern."
"How big was that?"
"A whole mountain."
Cecil said nothing, and followed the crowd through the arched entrance, past silver-armored guards standing like statues.
Inside, the space was even larger than it looked — a soaring dome, spiral galleries winding along the walls, and a ground floor twice the size of the ritual square, paved in black obsidian.
The hall was packed with people and Spirit-Beasts of every kind: a pony-sized stone lizard dozing by its master, a vine-snake coiled over a girl’s shoulder, a huge grey wolf trailing a tall boy, fire-sparrows circling overhead like floating candles. The air hummed with mingled auras, noisy as a marketplace.
Scattered among them, a few students kept small beasts — a palm-sized beetle, a squirrel tucked in a hood — and stood hunched in the corners, avoiding attention. Common-grade beasts.
Cecil lifted Gwendolyn from his head to his shoulder for a steadier perch.
Four windows stood ahead: Battle-Beast, Rare-Beast, Common-Beast, and Special Registration. The first two queues stretched halfway across the hall. The common-beast line was shorter but still busy. No one stood at Special Registration — a note beneath it read: Application Required In Advance. Do Not Queue Without Approval.
He’d taken two steps when a familiar, mocking voice called out.
"Ashford."
Leon stood a few paces away, his Thunder Gryphon preening sparks between its feathers, flanked by two students with a fire fox and a wind falcon.
"You’re going the wrong way." Leon glanced at Gwendolyn and didn’t finish the sentence — he didn’t need to. "Don’t follow me. I don’t want anyone thinking I came here with you. Move aside."
They’d walked the same corridor for a few steps at most, hardly "together" — but Leon couldn’t stand being seen in the same aisle.
Cecil stepped aside without hesitation, so readily that Leon’s expression froze. With no excuse left to pick a fight, Leon let out a cold huff and strode off toward the battle-beast window.
Gwendolyn nudged Cecil’s shoulder with her tail. "He’s shorter than you."
"He’s half a head taller."
"I meant his spirit. I’ve met poorer people than you, but never anyone this petty."
Cecil said nothing, only smiled, and walked on toward the common-beast line. As the other students noticed Gwendolyn, they shuffled aside, opening a gap for him.
Ahead stood a gaunt boy clutching his belt, a copper beetle at his shoulder. He glanced back, eyes lingering on Gwendolyn.
"...Yours is small too," he mumbled.
"I suppose. What can yours do?"
"Bite."
"Practical."
"What about yours?"
Cecil looked at Gwendolyn, who was lazily scratching her chin. "She can argue."
The boy fell quiet. "...That’s also pretty practical."
The line moved. The boy’s beetle was logged as Common-Grade · Beetle · Gnawing Type, and he hurried off without looking up.
Then it was Cecil’s turn. Behind the window sat a middle-aged woman with round spectacles, a thick register open before her.
"Name. Origin. Spirit-Beast species. Physical description. Beast-type classification," she recited without looking up.
"Cecil von Ashford."Her pen paused. "Ashford?"
"Yes."She looked up, studied his face, then Gwendolyn — who was busy twining a strand of his hair with her tail, unbothered. "...Species?"
"She says she is a Frost Dragon."
The pen paused again, longer this time. After several seconds, she wrote: Suspected Lizard Genus. Pending Verification.
"Physical description?"
"Palm-sized, blue-and-white, two transparent horns, and it can speak."
"It talks?"
"Yes."
She added a note in the margin — Possesses high-level intelligence. Suspected degraded hybrid rare beast — and slid a bronze token across the counter. "Present this for classes tomorrow. Three silver coins to replace if lost."
Cecil took the plaque. It read: Tentative Classification: Common-Grade · Lizard Genus · Under Observation. He pocketed it and thanked her before turning away.
Gwendolyn leaned over to read it. "’Under Observation’?"
"Yep."
"’Suspected Lizard Genus’?"
"Mhm."
"Do you think I can’t read?"
Cecil laughed and rubbed the top of her head. "Once you’re back to full size, the words will change on their own."
She turned her head away — but her tail coiled gently around his wrist. "...You’d better keep that promise."
"Of course." He tucked the token into his inner pocket, the cold metal pressing through the fabric. "But it won’t happen overnight. We’ve a long road ahead."
She loosened her tail and hopped back onto his shoulder, her breath warm against his ear.
"Long road or not, don’t drag your feet," she grumbled. "Every day we waste, the seal sinks deeper. Before you know it, I’ll be stuck in this ridiculous lizard body forever."
Cecil walked out of the hall, a faint, playful smile tugging at his mouth.
"Honestly?" he said. "Even stuck like this, you’re kind of cute."