Chapter 73: Fox Fire
Kir awoke from his dream to near-complete darkness.
The infirmary was filled with a soft glow of greenish moonlight, coming from the windows.
Experimentally, Kir tried to reach up and touch his chest, only to realize there was a weight on his right arm. He looked over and saw Kordia’s cheek resting against his wrist, a small dribble of drool working its way down his wrist and onto a small puddle on the sheet.
He reached with his left instead, finding his ribs blessedly whole and the flesh only a little tender with pain. He tried making his tail shift a bit, and was rewarded with painless movement. Only then did he try to pry his arm out from under Kordia, gently pulling and rolling it up his hip as he tried to let her down gently.
He succeeded, the act eliciting a mumbled phrase that Kir couldn’t make out, before proceeding to leave his bed in search of the bathroom. He found it across from the infirmary. After he took care of his needs, he went to the mirror and stared at himself, taking off the basic robe he’d been covered with. There weren’t any overt signs of his fight left, but his eyes were drawn down to the place where Lugh had stabbed him when he was twelve.
He touched it, feeling nothing but still remembering what it had been like to be unable to use magic when he was stabbed. It wasn’t an experience he planned on repeating, but getting himself armor would be a costly solution, based on what it cost for his helmet alone.
A better solution was to get his magic back as soon as possible. Maybe play with magnetism once he was able to; a subject he’d avoided given how disruptive it had been to his household environment. One oil lamp fire was enough of a lesson in generating unconstrained magnetic forces.
After spending a moment contemplating the past, Kir looked down at the sink. He had a different sort of problem since most of the school’s facilities worked on the ability to feed mana into them, and just turning on the sink’s rune for water would be painful.
"Kir?"