What We Do to Survive

Of all the events that Avalon organized for its students, I didn’t think there were any that I disliked more than the summer and winter honor challenges. They were everything I hated. Public, unavoidable, and potentially deadly. Sure I had quite enjoyed watching it the past two years, but this time I was apparently going to be participating and that was very annoying.

Towards the end of each semester, any student could present a ‘genuine grievance’ against another student in their year to the headmaster’s office, and, if that student had not been challenged in at least a year and the cause was accepted, the two would be forced to have a public duel in front of any students who wanted to watch. The duels weren’t technically to the death––the duel ended when one person was considered incapacitated––but practically speaking, most duels ended with one student killing the other.

I hated it. I hated everything about it. My entire time at Avalon I’d done my very best to keep attention off me, stay away from dangerous situations, and not make enemies. In my eyes, the best fight for me was one that never happened. If I did have to fight, I’d much rather do it from ambush and with overwhelming power, preparation, and numbers behind me. A straight up one versus one duel in a giant sandy pit was the exact opposite of that.

On the bright side, Clarient’s warning meant I wasn’t going to be blindsided by the challenge. If the idiot who’d decided to challenge me was as weak as Clarient was implying then really he was all but doing me a favor by ensuring no one actually dangerous could do so instead, since no student could be challenged more than once every year. I would much rather fight a fool than someone like Weavingroot or one of my other competent yearmates.

The story was about what I had expected from Clarient’s initial words. The Oratorio family owed Clarient’s family––so just Clarient now that they were all dead––a horrifyingly large amount of money, the debt enforced by an oath binding the family’s eighth-circle patriarch. However, the debt could also be forgiven or paid off with services to the Valorous dynasty, such as fighting their enemies for them.

Delphin Oratorio, the third son of the family’s patriarch, was a rather ambitious young man. He thought that by lessening his family’s debt he might be able to gain his father’s favor and potentially usurp his eldest brother as heir. It wasn’t technically a terrible idea. Or it hadn’t been when he’d first come up with it.

Unfortunately for him, the oath Clarient had sworn to me ensured that his challenging me would do nothing at all to reduce his family’s debt. Also he apparently had a very overblown opinion of his own combat strength and Clarient was confident that he was no real threat to me, even if I hadn’t known ahead of time that I would be fighting him. As it was, Clarient told me I had nothing to fear and the oath between us let me actually believe her when she said as much.

Under most circumstances, my reaction to Clarient’s story would be to spend a few days observing Delphin, then ambush him when he was alone with Miranda, Briella, Camille, and Cayla for backup. The best fight was one that never happened in the first place, and since Delphin had already lodged a challenge against me, I was protected from further challenges even if he died before he could go through with it.

Unfortunately, that would most certainly involve ‘hurting’ Delphin pretty damn badly, and that was what Clarient was trying to avoid. I was somewhat tempted to do so anyway, but a favor from Clarient Valorous was potentially even more valuable than not having to fight someone in front of all of Avalon.

Furthermore, I could empathize with Clarient’s reasoning for wanting to leave Delphin alive. He was almost certainly going to be withdrawing from Avalon after our fourth year and at that point would be spending much of his remaining life working to pay back the massive debt his family owed her. The Oratorio family only consisted of a few members––the patriarch, his wife, his three sons, and a few cousins. If Clarient wanted to collect what she was owed anytime soon––and gods above that was a truly colossal amount of money––she needed them all alive so they could tend to their family’s expansive greenhouses.

To complicate matters further, Delphin was apparently engaged to the daughter of a rather wealthy merchant family, who were unaware of the debt hanging over the Oratorio’s powerful patriarch. If the marriage went through, Clarient would receive a huge influx of wealth and useful connections. If Delphin committed suicide by me before he and his fiance tied the knot, she would get nothing at all.

She wasn’t asking me to spare him for the sake of Delphin’s well being, but simply to protect her own interests. As long as the price I asked of her was less than what Delphin could bring her, it was at least worth trying to keep him alive.

After some thought and a lot of questions, I tentatively agreed to her proposal. I’d need to do some research into Delphin and his family myself––or rather, have Miranda do it––but as long as he really wasn’t a serious threat, going along with her proposal seemed worth the risks. Sometimes a show of strength was a better deterrent than obscurity, and my actions over the last few weeks and months had already attracted a lot of attention.

I left the cafeteria in something of a bad mood. I still felt gross from dealing with Brenda and this whole situation with Clarient also left a bad taste in my mouth. It wasn’t how I preferred to do things, and I didn’t like surprises. Even finding the class booklet for next semester didn’t do much to lift my mood. Ultimately, that was just another task I needed to push through before I could get back to work on something genuinely interesting.

I had originally intended to go straight to the library, but as I left the cafeteria I found my feet leading me back down to the student dormitories. It had been too long since I’d last checked in on Lea and talking to her was a surefire way to burn away some of Brenda’s lingering stench. Lea was a ray of sunshine on a gloomy day, a lighthouse beacon guiding ships to safety.

I walked silently through the empty hallways, the sound of my quiet footfalls reduced to nothing by the enchantment worked into the soles of my boots. The enchantment was a new addition to my favorite pair of shoes––I’d only finished imprinting the runes a few hours before lunch––and I was really happy with how well it was working.

I’d gotten the design from Camille––it was something she’d made for one of her classes this past semester––and I was very impressed by her work. It was certainly better than what I could have come up with in any reasonable amount of time and used a tiny fraction of the mana my usual sound-canceling ward required.

The enchantment was nothing revolutionary, but Camille had only been studying runes for a few short years and it showed just how talented she was. I was really looking forward to collaborating with her on the next design for my magic-suppressing collars. It would probably take her some time to learn the principles I was using, but once she did I was certain she’d be able to make plenty of improvements and it would save me an enormous amount of time in the long run. Unfortunately she didn’t currently have the skills needed to manufacture the collars, but perhaps that was something I could teach her when the time came.

When I finally made it to Miranda’s room, I found Lea sitting cross-legged on Miranda’s messy bed with her back to the door and a trio of marbles floating around her in wobbly orbits. I quietly closed the door behind me and extended my senses throughout the room.

Miranda wasn’t here––not that I’d been expecting to find her. She’d told me ahead of time that she would be out of Avalon for a few days and the bond between us was stretched into a thin strand instead of the cable I would have expected to see if she was still within the Academy’s pocket dimension.

I focused on Lea, watching the way her mana moved sluggish through the air as she focused on one of the mana-control exercises I’d given her. Her core was already looking much better than it had been when I’d first brought her to Avalon, but she hadn’t made nearly as much progress as I would have liked. She was clearly practicing, but not with nearly as much dedication as the task deserved.

That, or she was doing something wrong. I’d have to go through things with her again and make sure she wasn’t screwing up one of the more delicate exercises. Bad practice built bad habits after all, and it was absolutely possible for a novice mage to do irreparable damage to their own soul and magic.

After about a minute, Lea’s eyes opened and the three marbles dropped down onto the bed around her. One of them landed on the very edge of the bed and bounced. I caught it before it could hit the stone floor, a strand of telekinetic force scooping it out of the air and depositing it gently back on the bed.

Lea sighed heavily and stretched her arms out above her head, then slumped backwards onto the bed. She spent several seconds staring blankly up at the ceiling, then sighed again. “Why is this so hard!” she whined suddenly. “It's just three marbles! Three! You can do better than three Miira–damned marbles, Lea! Orion’s not going to be impressed with just three marbles!”

Lea sighed a third time, and this time it sounded like she was barely holding back tears. “You can do better than this, Lea. I can do better than this.” She closed her eyes and the marbles slowly rose up off the bed. They spun through the air around her, slowly at first but growing slightly faster with every rotation. Then Lea’s concentration slipped and all three marbles whirled away from her, two clattering against the room’s walls while the third vanished through the half-open bathroom door.

“Fuck!” Lea cursed, and then she choked back what was very clearly a sob. “Damn it, it's useless. I’m useless.”

I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t sure how Lea hadn’t noticed me yet, but she clearly hadn’t and I wasn’t sure if it would be better to just quietly leave or to try and comfort her. It was clear that I was part of what was eating at her, but it was possible that my presence would just exacerbate her issues rather than help with them.

Then Lea did something that made me decide that perhaps I should come back later. She was wearing one of Miranda’s dresses, though it looked more like a nightgown than something a woman would wear out in public, and the sheer fabric did little to hide Lea’s body from view. Lea pushed the already low-cut neckline of her dress down, fully baring her chest, and began to slowly massage and grope one of her breasts with one hand. The other slipped down between her legs and a small smile appeared on Lea’s face as she began to pleasure herself.

I was just about to veil myself and leave when Lea did something that froze me in my tracks. I honestly didn’t have any problems with my friend taking care of her needs in front of me, I’d walked in on Miranda masturbating in my shower something like a dozen times at this point and it wasn’t like I hadn’t seen Lea naked in the past, but I was pretty sure she would prefer that I wasn’t here while she did so. No, if it was just that I would have left and come back in an hour or two.

What did freeze me in place was what Lea did next. I watched transfixed, my hand clenched tightly around the doorknob as Lea let out a long string of moans interspersed with mumbled words. “Oh god, Orion…Orion,” Lea’s hips bucked up off the bed and she let out a long, guttural moan that echoed throughout the room. “Please Orion, oh Ori––” Lea arched her back and suddenly our eyes met.

Lea also froze and her eyes widened comically. “Or––Orion?” she asked shakily.

“Hi Lea. Sorry about barging in. I’ll just be going now. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“Orion? Wait, no! Don’t go! How…how much did you––oh Miira. How long have you been…I’m so sorry I…I…”

And then Lea promptly burst into tears. Again. And Miranda was out in the city somewhere, leaving me alone with Lea in a state that I very much wasn’t willing to leave Lea alone in. Damn it.