Nevertheless, these beautiful glass spheres adorned not only the girl’s hair but glittered all about her clothing and accoutrement. And yet they did not look gaudy on her; if anything, they suited her as perfectly as a favorite ribbon a girl her age might wear every day. A rosy blush bloomed on her puffed cheeks, and her eyes, open wide in surprise like a startled feline’s, were of a mysterious shade no words could describe. In one hand she held a staff that towered disproportionately over her, which in turn boasted another orb, this one black and big as a clenched fist.
“What is it, lad? What business might a sagacious young man such as thyself have with me?”
As a student in such imminent danger of failure, this address left Saybil at a loss. Not to mention the fact that he hadn’t actually come to see this young girl at all. As his silence dragged on, she frowned with ever greater displeasure.
“Come now, hast thou naught to say? Rather taciturn and altogether dull of thee, wouldst not agree? Thou couldst at the very least display some small joy at being complimented upon our first meeting by a girl so beautiful as I.”
“Wow, if you don’t say so yourself…” Saybil blurted without thinking, but the girl winked flirtatiously, not in the least bit offended.
“’Tis naught but the truth, as thou canst see for thyself. The vice of humility serves but to waste time. I need not wait for others to assure me with coos of ‘No, thou truly art adorable!’ as I am more than fully capable of evaluating mine own worth,” she asserted. “And, as thou canst also see, I am terribly occupied at the moment. Begone, shoo!”
Saybil almost obeyed reflexively as the girl waved him away, but then he remembered that he himself had business on the other side of the door. Silently he pointed at it, whereupon the girl’s expression instantly brightened.
“Thou hast business here? Beyond this confounded door?”
“Yes, ma’am. The headmaster summoned me,” Saybil replied, a certain politeness unintentionally slipping into his address. The girl was his age─or maybe even younger─but perhaps her antiquated way of speaking had influenced his choice of words.
“Not with me?”
“Not with you.”
“Wonderful! I withdraw my previous sentiment!” She clapped happily, then ran around behind Saybil and pressed herself against his back. The young apprentice was on the taller side, and she was exceedingly short, her head just barely reaching the level of his chest. Nevertheless, she pushed him forward with a surprising amount of strength for one so tiny, urging him on with a cry of “Come, quickly now.” Saybil did what he could to resist, but his thin frame gave way to her insistent shoves, and he was nudged closer and closer to the headmaster’s door.
“Thou hast business within, correct? And must pass through these doors? Every river requires a bridge, and I welcome thee as mine! My good will and support are thine to enjoy. Now, be a good lad and open this bedeviling door that has so stubbornly denied me thus far.”
Ughh, what do I do? This feels like a bad idea.
As Saybil hesitated, the enigmatic girl’s wide eyes narrowed into a glower. “Here now, child. I am not known for my patient disposition. If dost value thine own safety, I advise thee to heed my request while I maintain such even keel.”
“And what will happen if I don’t?”
“I shall whack thee with my staff,” she informed him in earnest. The large, heavy-looking staff in her hand seemed perfectly suited to double as a blunt instrument.
“Looks like it would hurt,” Saybil noted, equally earnest.
“That it would. Enough to draw blood, at times.”
Well, that clears that up. She’s not playing around. I’ve got a feeling a full-force blow from that thing could crack my head open like a nut.
“But unless I’m mistaken, the fact that the headmaster hasn’t opened the door means you haven’t been invited, right?”
“…Hnh.”
“So if I sneak you in, the headmaster’ll be angry with me. And honestly, that sounds scarier than a beating from your staff…”
Saybil’s academic future already hung by a thread. He desperately wanted to avoid anything that would further tarnish his standing with the head of the school. Given the choice between losing a little blood and losing his place at the Academy, Saybil would unquestionably choose the former.
“Hnnngh…! A sound argument. And I have a great love of sound arguments. Very well, rejoice in my pardon! How about this, then!”
Adjusting her grip on the staff, the girl swung it around in a great circle. In that one swift motion, the black sphere imbedded in the weapon transformed into a razor-sharp blade, which pressed against Saybil’s throat before he could so much as cry out.
He held his breath. Not out of fear, though: more than anything, the staff’s glorious transformation and the girl’s dexterous movements had astonished him, like a child enthralled with a magic trick.
The corners of the girl’s soft, full lips rose into a mischievous smile. “How now? Surely this is more perilous than a beating, no? Wishing to save thine own life is more than sufficient cause to plead for entrance. Now, weep! Beg for thy life! Not even Albus could deny me entry once thou─”
“Oh.” Saybil raised his head to see a figure looming behind the halberd-wielding girl. That’s when he realized the door to the headmaster’s office had opened. A tall half-beast, half-human monster─a wolf beastfallen─had silently appeared from within and now stood directly behind the girl, his clenched fist raised in the air.
“Oh,” the girl repeated after Saybil. Realizing the danger, she managed to twist around and face it, but the staff─currently in the form of a halberd─she held menacingly against Saybil’s throat impeded her ability to dodge. In that split second of delay, the lupine beastfallen ruthlessly brought his fist down upon her skull.
“Loux Krystas! What the hell do you think you’re doing?! Get your hands off that student!”
“Ouch!” the girl yelped, crouching down and cradling her head in her hands. Her staff clattered to the floor, and the blade that had formed at the end melted away and was absorbed back into the black orb.
Curious as to how it worked, Saybil reached out to pick it up─
“STOP! Do you have a death wish?!”
─but the beastfallen grabbed his wrist and kicked the staff away.
“My staff!” The girl leapt after it, then rose to her feet, rubbing the sore spot on her head. Tears welling in her eyes, she angrily thrust her precious staff toward the beastfallen.
“Holdem, thou vile fiend! How darest a third-rate manservant such as thyself strike a blow ’pon my cranium, repository of all wisdom! And, unsatisfied by the grievous nature of thy crime, thou hast defiled my hallowed treasure, my little Ludens, with thy revolting foot! ’Tis a transgression worthy of a thousand deaths!”
“Too long─didn’t get. Try again, but simpler this time.”
“How darest thou hit me, thou third-rate fiend!”
“Stuck with the ‘third-rate’ bit, huh…” Saybil once again blurted out, then clamped his hands over his mouth. The beastfallen called Holdem stared icily at him, while the girl─“Loux Krystas”─guffawed.
“…Since you’re standing out here, I take it you must be Saybil?” the wolf inquired.
“Yes. I was summoned by the headmaster…”
“We expected you sooner. I was actually on my way to get you…when she got in my way. Apologies for the trouble this intruder must have caused you.”
“Oh no, it was…” no trouble, Saybil was about to say, but stopped short when he remembered how close he’d come to getting killed. “Um… Is she an acquaintance of yours?”
“I suppose so, technically,” Holdem scowled. “If you can call a pest who incessantly shows up at your door an ‘acquaintance,’ that is. I’ll let you decide.”
“Quite the insolent analogy from a third-rate manservant. What harm canst thou claim I have caused?”
“Your very presence is a pestilence,” Holdem growled. “Come on, Saybil. Forget her and head on inside. The headmaster’s waiting.”
“I will join you.”
“The hell you will! Go back to whatever hole you crawled out of!” the beastfallen barked, mercilessly pushing Loux Krystas back as she tried to follow Saybil into the office. At that, the girl’s porcelain cheeks flushed red and she began to flail her arms, wailing, “Nay! Nay!” in protest. The tears in her eyes added the finishing touch to the pathetic picture.
What could this girl possibly have done to make Holdem hate her so much? Sure, she’s pretty weird, but she came all the way here─would it kill them to hear her out?
Holdem caught Saybil’s curious gaze and let out a sigh. “Don’t let her appearance fool you, kid.”
“Huh?”
“She’s not as young as she looks. The old bag’s over three hundred years old.”
“……Huh?”
In the wake of Saybil’s exceedingly muted show of surprise, Loux Krystas aggressively swept Holdem’s hands off her, snorted a petulant Hmph!, and struck the floor with the butt of her staff.
“Age matters naught when one is this adorable. Or, do you lot truly hold age so dear? Or is it simply appearance as determined by age that you love so?”
“Who gives a damn about appearances?!”
“Thou didst bring it up!”
“Oh, shut up! The only reason I said anything was that your innocent little girl act was hurting this actual innocent boy here!” snarled the beastfallen, roughly flicking Loux Krystas’s forehead with his claw.
“Desist, Third-Rate!” she shouted, swinging her staff at him.
With such a commotion going on outside the door, it was only a matter of time before the office’s occupant came out to take stock of the situation.
“Quite the racket you’re making, Holdem.” The voice was calm, androgynous, powerful. “What in the world could be so difficult about going to fetch a single student?”
From within the office appeared a beautiful woman with long, blonde hair that stretched down to her waist. While her facial features were as androgynous as her voice, slightly lower down Saybil found an eloquent argument for her gender, and quickly averted his eyes from the ample bosom that bulged beneath her robe.
“Oh.”
I know this person.
“You’re the receptionist who helped me with my enrollment.”
For a moment, time stopped. The blonde woman, Holdem, and Loux Krystas all turned toward Saybil with expressions so similar, it almost seemed like they’d rehearsed them in advance.
Was that such a weird thing to say? Wait. Something’s clearly off here.
“…Why would a receptionist be in the headmaster’s office?” Saybil wondered aloud.
“Because I am the headmaster.”
Aaahhh, there goes that.
Saybil inwardly accepted his now all-but-certain expulsion. This whole time, he’d been under the mistaken impression that the headmaster of the Academy of Magic was just a receptionist.
Well, I guess this means I did meet the headmaster when I first got here.
An awkward silence hung thick in the air. Saybil felt like he should probably say something, but the fear that he’d only dig himself further into this embarrassing hole left him tongue-tied. Headmaster Albus waited patiently for Saybil to speak, a placid smile on her face.
Until─