Ellyria joined them at the top of the stairs after she’d settled into her room and they began walking down the stairs to Elayna’s dorm.
Cait glanced at Ellyria with a mischievous smile. "So, what's Elayna like at home?" She asked curiously.
Elayna's head turned sharply toward Cait, looking offended by the question.
Ellyria considered this for a moment with the expression of someone selecting carefully from a large and well-stocked inventory of memories. "Hm. I’d say overall she's like a very pretty, very clumsy doll," she said pleasantly. "Completely lost in her little world of training and starving for sweets and pastries. Also, she has a tendency to seduce some of the maids."
Elayna's head whipped to Ellyria. "Wh—what!?"
"Do you think people wouldn’t notice young mistress?" Ellyria continued undisturbed, then looked Caitlynn in the eyes. “Several maids have quit just because they couldn’t handle staying close to the young mistress any longer."
Elayna made a strangled sound and lunged forward, pressing both hands firmly over Ellyria's mouth. “S-stop saying stupid things!” She shouted, then turned around to face Cait. “N-none of this is true! She’s just teasing me!”
Ellyria's expression didn't change in the slightest. She reached up, took Elayna's hands gently by the wrists, and pulled them down from her mouth. She was still smiling. And said no more.
Cait laughed softly to herself. She looked down at Elayna, smiling, and with a look that said she was mentally constructing a very entertaining image of Elayna running around seducing maids.
Elayna looked at Cait. Cait looked at her but didn’t quite meet her eyes. Her emerald eyes just danced amusedly all over Elayna and said nothing, she kept smiling to herself.
Ellyria watched Cait's reaction for a moment from the side. Then looked forward again and continued walking.
No jealousy. No frustration huh, she must realize that the young mistress wouldn’t intentionally seduce maids... Which is accurate. It is never the young mistress’s intention to seduce them.
Ellyria remembered just last year, three of the maids working close to Elayna had handed in their notices, all citing personal reasons. All three had looked ashamed and gone pink when they’d been asked if it was because of Elayna.
Never intentionally. She’s completely clueless in these matters, she’s so innocent. Ellyria thought with great fondness... Too innocent. After all, that’s partly why I’m here.
They arrived at the dorm shortly after.
Elayna knocked on the door and opened. Evelyn was lying on her bed, when the door opened she looked up from her book and smiled. “You guys are a few minutes late,” she said, looking at Cait and Elayna, then her eyes found Ellyria standing beside them. “Oh. Hello.”
Ellyria bowed politely. "Hi. You must be Evelyn.”
Evelyn nodded with a curious smile.
“My name is Ellyria, I’m a friend of the young mistress.” She noticed Evelyn’s confusion and corrected, “a friend of Elayna, sorry. In reality I was one of Elayna’s maids before I enrolled here. Please call me Elly," Ellyria said, with an easy smile. "It’s nice to meet you. Elayna has written a great deal about you."
Evelyn looked pleased. "All good things I hope.”
"Entirely," Ellyria said with a reassuring smile.
Evelyn looked thoughtfully at her for a moment. “Huh... One of Elayna’s maids you say?"
Ellyria bowed slightly in affirmation. “Indeed, I am. Or was, rather.”
Zyvara looked at Ellyria with a flat and unbothered expression. She looked Ellyria over once, directly and not particularly concerned with what the person would think about being looked at. "Zyvara," she said.
"Elly," Ellyria said, still with a gentle smile. "I've heard about you too."
Zyvara made an approving sound, and said, “I’m hungry, can we hurry up and go eat.”
Kiri sat in silence at her desk and looked over Ellyria.
"That's Kiri," Evelyn said to Ellyria, in a tone that was fond and slightly apologetic in case Ellyria would find Kiri’s silence rude. Kiri's eyes moved briefly to Ellyria’s, then she dipped her chin once.
Ellyria nodded back with a smile, apparently finding this introduction perfectly satisfactory, seemingly not at all bothered that the Foxgirl hadn’t spoken.
A brief silence settled in the room.
Zyvara looked exasperated and sighed heavily. “So, can we go eat now?” she said impatiently.
The dining hall was loud and full. The evening light coming in from the windows at the side and lighting up the hall with the help of many high chandeliers and burning torches and candles. There was no magic light in the diner, only natural warm orange from the candles and torches and the bright light from the sun. Although Elayna was pretty sure the candles were made with some sort of magic.
They joined the queue together, loaded their plates and trays with food and filled their cups with beverages, and found a round table near the end of the hall in a quieter corner. Elayna sat at the part of the table facing the walkway in between Cait and Evelyn, Ellyria sat directly across from her between Zyvara and Kiri next to the windows.
Ellyria quickly started conversations and was a natural at keeping them going.
She asked about everyone's magic and fighting style at first. Starting with questions that sounded like genuine curiosity, but they were asked in a way that revealed a lot with few words.
Evelyn talked about her great axe and body strengthening magic with the casualness of someone who was more than happy to answer. Zyvara described her unique magic and orbs with a quick directness that implied she found the question slightly annoying and invasive but answered it anyways, probably because she was Elayna’s friend. Kiri said nothing at first, but when Elayna smiled and told Kiri she trusted Ellyria completely, Kiri nodded after thinking about it for a moment and then briefly summarized her wind magic and made a few small gestures with her hands that Ellyria seemed to completely understand without any problems.
“So you use wind to keep people at a distance where you can utilize your long-range attacks best?” Ellyria asked.
Kiri nodded.
Ellyria nodded back with a small smile. “That’s pretty cool! It’s simple but can be extremely effective and powerful.” she said it earnestly. Then it looked like she took one second to put all of this deep into her memory.
Ellyria asked about their classes next, since she’d also be joining them from now on the questions seemed completely natural. She asked about the training halls, the theory classes and all the teachers.
The conversation flowed naturally around the table, everyone was talking without ever really noticing how much stuff and information they'd actually covered. Ellyria smiled easily and listened attentively while asking the right questions at the right moments.
Elayna watched Elly throughout. Ellyria had been sent here by the emperor. She knew Elly wasn’t here just to make friends and have fun. She saw how easily and naturally Ellyria slipped into the role of a new, innocently curious student and felt an internal flicker of something between admiration and unease.
Then Ellyria's gaze moved to Zyvara. She studied her for a moment with a calm measuring look.
"You're Zy'kael," she said. It was not a question.
Zyvara looked up and looked slightly confused. "...Yes." She glanced to the side at Elayna. "Did you—"
Elayna shook her head with a mouthful of food.
"How long did it take?" Ellyria asked curiously. "Your horns. thirty years? Forty? Sixty?"
Zyvara’s eyes widened slightly at Ellyria’s question. Her red eyes met Elly’s grey ones. Her expression then shifted from mild surprise and confusion into a look of something almost like wonder.
"... Seventy," Zyvara said slowly, distantly.
"Ohhh," Ellyria looked deeply interested. "Seventy. That's on the longer end."
Elayna looked between them. "What are you talking about? Seventy years?"
Ellyria glanced at Zyvara. The look was a question, doyou want to explain, or should I?
Zyvara was quiet for a long moment. Then she set down her fork.
"... When Zy'kael are born," she said, in the flat, bored tone of someone stating a fact they'd had to recite too many times in the past, "the horns aren't fully grown yet. They grow slowly, the growing takes mana. A lot of it, drawing on it constantly, for years. Until the horns are fully grown into the skull." She paused. “And we stay as infants until the horns finish, which takes depending on the individual anywhere between roughly thirty to a hundred years."
Evelyn went still. "...Thirty to a hundred years. Your race stays as infants for thirty to a hundred years?"
Zyvara nodded.
"...You. You were an infant, for seventy years?" Elayna asked very slowly, cautiously, like she was scared by the fact.
"Yes..." Zyvara confirmed simply, expression impassive, she didn't think of this as anything special.
The table was quiet for a moment.
"Us female Zy'kael are born with our races unique magic," Zyvara continued. "As I said, the horns draw on mana during growth. Our magic develops inside the horns, we rely on our horns to use that powerful, innate magic. And as you’ve seen mine, you can probably tell it’s a pretty destructive magic."
Ellyria looked at Zyvara. "And male Zy'kael. They don't have that magic and can’t really cast spells at all, correct? Their horns draw on mana just like the female’s, but distributes it throughout their bones and muscles instead of staying and developing in the horns. And the male Zy’kael’s horns prevents them from releasing that mana outward, I’ve heard the most they can do with their mana is concentrate it to within their bodies, like, strengthening specific parts of their bodies. It's essentially a permanent body enhancement magic. Other races's body enhancement users have to draw the mana out from their mana soul to their bodies to use it. Meanwhile, the male Zy’kael’s mana is always spread throughout their bodies."
"Yes," Zyvara said. Her eyes had become slightly narrowed, not unfriendly, maybe a bit suspicious. She’d never met someone so knowledgeable about her race. "Male Zy'kael's magic works exactly like standard body enhancement magic. Zy’kael males also have natural physical strength and might that stands above most if not all other races, that combined with their magic makes them unbelievably strong."
"I've read a great deal about it," Ellyria said simply. "It's a fascinating race. And not many of you around, if I recall correctly, the recorded population totals just a few thousand."
Zyvara looked at her for a long moment. “Sounds about right,” she said, as she picked up her fork again.
"... Are there only two genders?" Evelyn asked after a moment, with the tone of someone who was genuinely curious and saw no reason not to ask.
Zyvara glanced at her. "No. Four."
Evelyn tilted her head slightly. "Four?"
Zyvara sighed and set down her fork again. "Zy’kael can also be born completely genderless. And of course, like most races, as hermaphrodites as well." Zyvara said simply and matter-of-factly. "The difference with those Zy'kael genders is that they both just toss a coin about which horns they grow. Either they grow female horns or male horns, there’s no genderless or herma horns. So, naturally if they get female horns means they get the magic, like mine, and if they get male horns. The strength and the 'body-enhancement' magic."
"It's completely random?" Elayna asked curiously.
"Completely," Zyvara confirmed. She picked up her cup and took a sip. "No pattern. Or any logic, I guess. It’s just... that’s just how it works."
Zyvara seemed to realize she’d missed something. She looked at Ellyria for a moment. “Speaking of races. What race are you?”
Ellyria finished chewing. Looked up at Zyvara as she cut another piece of meat on her plate. “Half-Fae,” she answered right before she took another bite.
The table went quiet for a second.
Zyvara looked over Ellyria’s features. “Huh. I kinda just assumed you were quarter Elf or something.”
“Or something? Well. I suppose my ears do hint at that.” Ellyria said as she brushed her hair behind one slightly pointy ear.
Evelyn looked at Ellyria in a new light and said, "huh. Half-Fae, Faes sure are a rare race, I’m pretty sure there’s only one other Fae in our year, in the crimson class." She seemed to be thinking quite deeply. "And I’m pretty sure there are no Faes at all in the second year."
“So there’s one and a half Faes in year one and two combined.” Zyvara said bluntly, staring ahead at nothing.
Evelyn chuckled. “Well there’s one Fae and one Half-Fae, but yes.”
Zyvara looked unimpressed with Evelyn. “You know that’s what I meant.”
Evelyn smiled and seemed to find this slightly entertaining. “I said but yes, didn’t I? I understood what you implied. But. How does it sound when I say there’s one and a half Humans at this table? Strange right?”
Zyvara rolled her eyes. “Ugh. Stop trying to be annoying.”
Evelyn smiled and said nothing further.
Elayna looked around the table, she looked and listened at Zyvara and Evelyn eventually moving to another topic while still going back and forth with each other. She listened to her old friend Ellyria quickly fit herself into her friend group and smiled.
She then felt Cait’s hand brush over her thigh, she blushed and looked to the side and saw Cait smiling at her. She took Cait’s hand. Squeezed it. Smiled a fake smile. Then harshly put Cait’s hand away with a haughty pout before she went back to her food.
Cait chuckled once, and her hand didn't come back.
Elayna was chewing, and mid-thought about how good the food was, and everyone else at the table was deep into a conversation about training when a group arrived.
Elayna noticed them first peripherally, there was a subtle shift in the mood around the table. She heard a small cluster of people slowing down beside their table. She didn't look up but her fork paused mid-way.
Then Elayna felt it. Someone looking at her. She felt eyes moving over her in a way that had become a practiced feeling she’d learnt. She felt it on her legs and the part of her lower body visible between the table and the chair she was sitting on. She went slightly still.
Cait was looking up at the group.
Her expression didn't change much. But something moved through her eyes for half a second. Something that said her eyes immediately recognized what they were looking at.
"Not interested," she said pleasantly, to the group standing beside their table. There were five of them, all males, all second years going by the two stars above the emblems on their uniforms. A Human male at the front had an easy and confident smile.
"We haven't even said anything yet," he said smiling, apparently not bothered or dejected by Cait’s words.
"No. You don’t have to either," Cait said simply. “I already know we’re not interested. So, you can leave." She went back to her food and didn’t look at them.
He laughed. Not a mocking laugh or a scoff, but a short and easy laugh as if he’d been told something slightly funny or silly by a friend. His eyes moved along the table and landed on Elayna.
Elayna's face had gone pink, she could still feel eyes from the group running over her legs. She was looking at the table, staring at her food and squeezing her fork.
The guy saw Elayna’s pink and embarrassed face and seemed to decide something.
"What about you?" he said, to Elayna directly. "Would you like to join us?"
Elayna blinked once. She wasn't entirely sure who he’d spoken to. And she didn’t take her eyes away from the table.
Cait breathed a short sharp exhale through her nose. "As I said. We’re not interested. We. As in all six of us." Cait said in the tone of someone who couldn't quite believe she had to explain herself this thoroughly.
"Hey," he said, still smiling, turning his attention to Cait with the mood and look of someone being very reasonable. "I'm just asking her. Why not just let her answer for herself."
"And why don’t you just listen to me? We’re. Not. Interested, go hit on someone emotionally blind and or dumb enough to be interested in you," Cait said with a bothered expression.
The guy seemed to think about this for a moment. He looked at Cait. Then looked at Elayna. He then somehow seemed to have decided that Cait was either not being serious, or that it didn’t matter either way. He stepped slightly closer to the table and put his hand lightly on Elayna’s shoulder.
Elayna froze up and a small, visible shiver ran through her. The guy smiled, he seemed to have misread this as Elayna being shy from being approached by someone as handsome as himself.
"Hey come on cutie," he said warmly to Elayna. "I can see you that you're thinking about it. No need to be shy."
Cait’s pupils had shrunken to almost nothing, but her eyes were darker than ever. "... Take your hand off her," she said. Her voice had gone flat, very level and very clear.
Evelyn glanced over at Cait with a slightly worried look. "Okay listen, we're really not interested," she said, in a tone that was still polite but carried a distinct, firm edge. "All of us. We really aren’t. You should just leave."
He glanced at Evelyn. Then back at Elayna. Then at Cait, who was not lookat him, but was looking directly at the hand in front of her. On Elayna's shoulder. On her Elayna’s, shoulder.
The guys kind and casual smile had thinned slightly at the edges but he still looked like he was being nice.
"Look," he said, to the table generally, in a tone hinting he was being completely reasonable and fair, "I think you're all just a little too hasty, you haven’t even let her answer herself."
He still had his hand on Elayna's shoulder. He leaned down slightly, turning his head toward her.
“Hey, what’s even your name—”
Cait's leg snapped out from under the table.
The sound of a bone breaking was sharp and loud.
The guy fell down hard with a heavy thud.
“—FUCK!!! Aghhh!??? The — FUCK BITCH!!? OW!!!”
Cait, still sitting down on her chair next to Elayna, had thrown her foot out from under the table hitting the guy square in the knee with her heel.
He lay on the ground clutching his knee that was brutally bent completely in the wrong direction, shouting and cursing at Cait asking what the fuck was wrong with her. Cait didn’t answer or say anything, she looked down at him as if he was a fly that had landed on her food. Which wasn’t far from what she thought of him as.
His friends. The rest of the group that had stood beside the table. Stood still for one second before they went down to help their friend lying on the ground shouting out sounds of pain between curses aimed at Caitlynn.
One of his friends whispered something to the rest of them, they all then looked up at Cait with a new understanding and then immediately started apologizing as they grabbed their friend on the ground by the arms and dragged him away quickly.
Nobody at the table said anything for a moment.
Cait looked at everyone and then took a bite of her food. “What?" she said, raising both her shoulders and eyebrows. "He more than deserved it, I even gave him several chances,”
Elayna had been spacing out, a little bit shocked over what had just happened, she came out of her thoughts as she heard Cait’s voice.
She looked at everyone and found everyone looking at Caitlynn.
Except Ellyria.
Ellyria’s eyes were following the group of second years as they disappeared into the crowd of the dining hall. Her expression was silent and unchanging.
But for one moment, just one brief moment. In her eyes. There was a flicker of something. Something cold and quiet... the way deep black sea water was cold and quiet. Her eyes tracked the guy being dragged away with an expression Elayna had never seen on anyone before.
The look was quickly gone as Ellyria turned back at the table with her usual pleasant expression and picked up her cup to drink.
Elayna felt a cold shiver run through up her spine.
She wasn't entirely sure what she'd just seen. Maybe it had been nothing. Ellyria's face was currently completely neutral. Maybe it had just been the light, or the angle, or Elayna's imagination or something.
But Elayna was pretty sure that look must've been the definition of a murderous look.
Elayna’s attention then snapped to the current conversation.
"—What?" Cait said, with hints of disbelief and amusement, then chuckled.
"Both legs," Zyvara said immediately, after swallowing down a bite of her food. "You should have broken both legs."
Kiri looked up from her food. "... I don't disagree," she said dryly. Her blank, purple eyes looking at Cait for one second before going back to her food.
"Okay calm down," Evelyn said, in the tone she used when she was trying to be the reasonable one, but was seemingly finding it difficult since she was also having some thoughts that weren't entirely reasonable. "They’ve left now, let’s just finish dinner."
"We are finishing dinner," Zyvara said.
"Without talking about breaking people's legs and arms," Evelyn said.
"I only said Cait should’ve broken both legs," Zyvara said in a frustrated tone.
“You said that Cait should’ve kicked and broken both legs, then you said that you were going to break his arms.”
“Yeah, yeah. Why are you always only giving me all the crap. Cait was the one who actually broke his leg. I was just making empty threats.” Zyvara pointed out, casting Evelyn an irritated look.
Evelyn and Zyvara continued to bicker.
Elayna felt Cait’s hand over her thigh again, she looked up and met eyes with Cait. Cait smiled warmly at Elayna as she gently caressed Elayna’s thigh. Elayna shyly smiled back at her. Then looked at the table, Evelyn and Zyvara were currently in a conversation about how far one could justify self-defense.
She felt herself smile.
Then she looked back at Cait who was currently eating with one hand and silently and gently caressing Elayna’s thigh with the other hand. Elayna felt... safe. And as she realized that this, Cait caressing her thigh, made her feel safe. She felt her face heat up and her chest tighten up slightly.
Conversation then easily carried on throughout the rest of dinner. Elayna looked down and ate her food and didn’t talk much, still feeling a bit weirded out by what had just happened. She also had to give Cait a couple of silent glares as she kept squeezing her thighs throughout.
After dinner Ellyria said her goodbyes. She said she’d a really nice time and wanted to chat more with them some other time and that she was looking forward to practice with them in the coming classes. The group said they were all heading for the training halls a bit after dinner and asked if Elly would like to come. Ellyria told the group she had things to attend to, she'd enrolled three weeks late after all and still had things to sort out, one being her room.
The five looked at each other. Then nodded, and said they were looking forward to seeing more of her.
Ellyria then hugged Elayna before she left the group.
“... So. An hour?” Evelyn asked, “let’s meet up in an hour outside our dorm and then head for the training halls.”
Everyone agreed.