Vayal Academy

There’s only an hour and a half before class, and I want to leave early in case I get lost.

If I’m going to see Mae…

Steeling myself and shoving everything deep down, I get dressed and go knock on her door. She opens it just a crack and peers through. “Oh! Finally! I’ll be ready in a sec; hurry in.” The door opens and slams shut the moment I’m through.

“Why’d I need to-” and then I see her, in bright yellow underwear that must be a size or two too small, the way she seems ready to burst out of it.

“Don’t look away, silly! We’re friends, and it’s not like you’re a guy.”

I’ve known my preferences since I was eight. A travelling merchant came through town; when I laid my eyes on his brown-haired, freckled daughter she became the first straight girl I fell in love with — but the world is merciless, so she wasn’t the last. And here I go again.

“I guess so,” I finally squeak out.

“I’ll be changed in a minute — I sweat through the uniform when I got portal sickness.” I remember the smell, primal and comforting. “Wanna help me wipe myself down?” So the smell’s still on her… get closer and you could- STOP!

“Yes,” I say, too quickly.

I detach from my body a bit, the only way to keep myself under control while I wet a rag in the basin, wring it out, then clean her back. The lingering sweat mixes with the honey lavender smell in her hair, and only an undernote of blood (Orcish biology for you) could make it sweeter to me. If I just dropped the rag and grabbed her hips and pulled her almost-naked body tight against me and forced my lips onto hers would she grind back against me or would she shout and our friendship’s ruined forever? Oh Gods, you really should’ve sorted this.

“You’re good at that,” she purrs, arching her back and driving me straight up insane.

I’m basically at the point of saying ‘Mae, I can’t stand this anymore, I either need to kiss you or go back to my room for a bit’ when there’s a knock at the door followed by Alyx’s voice:

“Yo yo, it’s the Big A here. I’m burning to see you, Mae Maiven.” She must’ve read the name off the door — or could they have met on the train? At their stop?

“Come in!” Mae shouts back, so casual and uninhibited. I feel strangely hurt by it, like I was special for getting to see her like this and now I’m not. Alyx struts in with a wineskin in her hands — she almost drops it, but manages to bring it up and cover her eyes.

“Far out, give me some warning next time.”

“Why?” Mae asks, looking at the flustered deer over her shoulder in the mirror. “We’re all women here.”

“Sure, but you’re a woman with a great ass. And I don’t mean like, ‘damn, if only that were me,’ I mean like- haha, well.”

I shift my huge frame between Mae and Alyx, so I’m blocking her line of sight. “Oh, don’t worry, Hattie,” Mae says, “I don’t mind another girl looking at me that way.” Alyx instantly uncovers her eyes and smiles.

“Oh, shit, Hattie! Hattie the Mystic! You want some wine?”

“I have class in an hour.”

“I’ll have some,” Mae says. Alyx reaches her while Mae has both hands full, so she opens her mouth and nods her head. Alyx uncorks the skin and holds it gently to Mae’s lips while my cheeks burn.

“Come on, it’s my own vintage.”

“Summoned?” I ask, because keeping myself busy will distract from the way Mae smiles with a trickle of red running out the corner of her mouth, and how Alyx wipes it away with her brown-furred thumb.

“Sure is, my friend, sure is. And it’s not just wine. I can get you shineleaf, gigglegrass, Pure White, esbochain, kafkrul, wisterwile, blowbar, harpyclaw; shit, if you can grow it, I can get it.” My father taught me to stay away from anything other than a responsible goblet of wine on special occasions and holy feast days. I’m shocked Mae isn’t the same.

“You can get gigglegrass?” she says, eyes wide.

“Sure can, sure can — and no charge for friends, no charge at all. That’s the way the world should be. I only ask that, you know, if a time should come when I need friends to stand by me…”

“Of course! We’re all in the same dorm, after all — we should stick together.”

“A girl after my own heart.”

Unaccountably my hand, steadying Mae’s shoulder as I wipe her arm, tightens into a vice. Her eyes flick to me in the mirror and she smiles. “Come on Hattie,” she says, “drink with us! I’ll sober you up before your class.”

Finished at the basin, Mae starts wriggling back into her clothes. Both Alyx and I track her the entire way. When I realise Alyx is staring, I take the wine from her to drag her attention to me. “Are we even allowed to drink?” I ask, though since Mae’s doing it there’s no question I will.

“Bah, of course,” Alyx says. “We’re all responsible adults.”

It goes down smooth. The flavour seems to coat every inch of my mouth, rich, velvety, sharp. I hate to admit it, but it’s incredible — far better than anything we could source on Hoshu.

“Should we play a game?” Mae asks, sitting up straight on her bed and smiling at me. “Truth or Dare?”

Alyx cuts in instantly. “Can’t do Truth or Dare.”

“Why not?”

“I always lie.”

“So don’t?” I say, feeling stupid for how obvious a solution it is.

“I don’t have that kind of self-control.”

“I’ll know if you do, and you won’t like what happens.” When we both stare blankly Mae adds, fiirst thing you learn as a Restoration mage is how to monitor a patient’s heart rate.”

Oh Gods. My mind flashes through all the times she’s had my heart beating out of my chest. It starts up again, and she flashes me a grin.

Alyx sits down too, her back against the wall and legs lazily out in front of her. “I’m more interested in what happens if we lie.”

Mae frowns and then brightens, rifling through her bag until she finds her letter opener.

“This goes in the thigh muscle of any liars, kay?”

Alyx stiffens. “Maybe we should just play The Wizard Drinks instead.”

Mae cocks her head. “Why? I’ll heal you right afterward. It’ll only hurt for a sec.”

I’m decisive. “We’ll play this.” It’s dangerous territory, but Alyx is more afraid than me, which means it’s the best field to meet her on. Mae’s approving smile only makes me bolder, and I sit myself next to her — her bed’s absolutely enormous, so there’s plenty of space, but I wanna be close.

“Since you’re nervous, why don’t you start?” Mae says.

“Alright.” Alyx takes a long drink of wine while she thinks. “Actually, my pick depends on this: how far are we taking these dares?”

“Drive’s one of the Four Fundamental Qualities, so let’s say everything’s on the table.” Quickly, she adds, “as long as it’s something I can fix after.”

“Hattie. Truth or Dare?”

There’s no way I’m picking Dare now, obviously; Alyx doesn’t even try to keep her disappointment from her face. “Alright,” she says, “tell me, did you really think it was cool when I conjured those vines? And did you like my joke?”

“One question only!” Mae says, with a tightening grip on the letter opener.

“Okay the first one.”

“It was certainly impressive,” I say. “I suppose it was ‘cool’, but mostly it made me think about how I’ve never cast a spell.”

“You will tonight.”

“What, in my intro class? More likely they’ll have us on metamagic principles. Are there even beginner Mysticism spells?”

“There’s a few,” says Nym, who’s always been here. (Wait a minute…) Yes, indeed, Nym, who came in with Alyx. “There’s this one… Oh my Gods, wait, let’s like, help you cast it.”

“I don’t even know what it is!”

Nym reaches into her satchel and produces a thin leatherbound book of vellum pages. Flicking through, she finally lands on a page halfway through the book. “Here: it’s called Pitiless Denuding Orb. It creates a connection with consensus reality and uses that to verify anything it hears. A blue flash for true, and red for false.”

The page is a confusion of runes and lines, but the longer I stare the more sense it all makes. I’ve never cast before, but then again I’ve never tried a Mysticism spell. Gods, every spell I’ve ever read didn’t make sense, but this… it does. It does!

With my eyes screwed shut I reach within myself. Mana’s a muscle like any other, and the more you cast the better you are at it — so I’m groping in the dark for what little sparks I can find, gathering the motes in my palm and forcing them into a ball.

“Here.” Mae’s lovely voice makes my eyes flick open. She touches my wrist and a shot of mana flows through my body. The jolt forces everything to order in my mind, and like that there’s a crackling orb floating between the four of us.

“By the Gods!”

“Wow,” Alyx says, “Mae just took your spell virginity.”

While I burn up, Nym giggles. Mae just smiles and plants a quick kiss on my cheek. “Was it as good for you as it was for me?” she says, flush with wine.

“It was incredible.” The orb flashes blue. “My first spell…” It’s the happiest day of my life. Maybe I will make it at this place. Maybe I won’t embarrass myself when I finally get to class.

“Do you wanna keep celebrating, or get back to the game? It’s your moment, so your choice.”

Maybe if it were just her here I could celebrate until class, but with Nym and Alyx’s eyes on me I start to feel heat on the back of my neck, even if they’re both smiling. “I’ll take my turn. Mae, Truth or Dare?”

“Dare!”

I remember when the game started, when she drunkenly leaned over and whispered ‘you should dare me to take my sweater off,’ and so I do, to hoots from Nym and Alyx, and it’s only then that I realise the memory’s false — I want to shoot daggers at Nym, but I’m too busy dreading Mae’s uncomfortable reaction.

Except she pulls the sweater and her blouse off in one fluid motion and sits there perfect in stockings, skirt, and bra. “Liked what you saw before?”

“It was Nym…” The orb flashes red and I blush blue. “Okay. Nym’s false memory was the cause, but, I guess, I wanted to see more,” I stammer. Blue flash.

“It’s okay, Hattie! I don’t mind a bit of attention.” Another blue flash. “Especially not from you.” A flash of blue so bright it sears into my eyes for a second. When the glare fades, Mae’s blushing too. “Alright, Alyx, Truth or Dare.”

“Dude I straight up love the direction Dare’s going right now so, you know. Let’s do it.”

“Kiss Hattie.”

Did I hear her right? Did she not just say…?

“What?” asks Alyx, as confused as me, it seems.

“I just think I’d enjoy seeing it,” Mae says, her features briefly lit by a pulse of flattering blue light.

“Are you-” I begin, but suddenly Alyx’s lips are against mine, her cervine face obstructing my view — out of the peripheral I can just see Mae staring.

Those lips are rougher than I expected. Far more surprising is the tight ball of energy in my belly, like a goblin’s run amok in my stomach. Not wanting to interrogate the feeling, I begin to pull back — her hand on the back of my head pushes us together again, holds me there.

“Gods, maybe someone will dare her to do me next,” says Mae.

The orb flashes blue.

Wait.

Everyone noticed it too. Their eyes flick between it and me. “It can do that?” Alyx says.

“No!” Nym, breathless, leafs through the spellbook. “The spell only detects things the speaker knows to be false — it shouldn’t have triggered for something you can’t possibly know.”

“Maybe we’re all so horned up that Mae knew it was inevitable.” Alyx’s theory earns a red flash, which only raises more questions.

“Or I just wanted someone to, and that confused the spell?” Red again.

“Seems like we’re not gonna get anywhere with this.” Blue, now.

“In that case we should get back to the game,” says Mae, who I can’t take my eyes off. “Alyx, your turn.”

“Mae,” says Alyx, big brown doe eyes fixing on her in an incongruous way, more wildcat than deer, “Truth or Dare?”

“I think, uh,” I say, not wanting to humiliate myself any more but also not wanting this to go where it’s going, “I think you’re supposed to ask Nym now, it’s her turn.”

“I don’t mind,” says Nym, and the orb flashes red. It’s her turn to blush.

Alyx’s eyes haven’t left Mae. “You’ll ask Nym next turn, won’t you Mae?”

She nods, stareyed now. My face flames despite myself, jealousy getting the better of me; all I can do is hope she’s not paying attention to my heartbeat. “Good,” says Alyx, “Truth or Dare?”

“Dare,” says Mae instantly.

“Kiss me.”

It’s only a second before they’ve collided, Mae’s arms wrapped around Alyx’s taller neck — and another much more confusing second of watching them kiss before the door bursts open. The orb disappears in the moment of shock, but Vila’s already seen it.

“As I suspected,” says Vila, tapping her shoes in the doorway, “a Second Year reported a suspicious light coming from the window. Using unauthorised magic is an instant black mark on your record.” She looks to Mae, who is making only a cursory effort to cover up but who at least has the sense to look chastened. “I already let it slide once Mae, I’m sorry. It’ll be a mark for everyone here.”

“No!” I cry, “I’m sorry, it was my spell. No one else should be punished.”

Vila raises a leonine eyebrow. After what feels like an eternity, she says, “Fine, a mark for the orc girl, and I’ll forget that it smells like a brewery in here, but that’s it Mae. I’ve more than repaid the favour.”

The three of us not in the know look between each other while Mae shrugs. “Fine.”