Chapter 59: Anniversary (Patreon)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QIFbGBff9osQtkljPTp4ro_BxuGnZrEdq31eWpTI23E/edit?usp=sharing

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“...you would like her, I think. Didn’t waste any time at all. Jumped right in, and it certainly seemed like she knew what she was talking about.”

“Mhmm. And how about the rest of the classes?” Elise asked.

“Eh, hard to say. The first two days were filled with extra-long classes of Frontline Combat 101, which meant the rest didn’t get as much time spent on them as they normally would. Most of the classes were just the teachers explaining what they would eventually teach us, rather than actually teaching us anything. Sounds like they’ll all be decently interesting, though, once we get into it. Except for remedials, of course.” ‘Remedials’ wasn’t the official name of the class, but that was what everyone disparagingly called the class that was required for everyone whom the academy viewed as ‘behind’ on their education of common subjects like math, history, and politics. Luckily, Cayden hadn’t required the math remedial course, but the history and politics classes were going to be miserable enough on their own. Even the fact that Jeremy would be joining him, along with another dozen or so of the other non-noble adventures, wasn’t enough to make the boring classes bearable.

He was at the academy to become a better adventurer, not to learn about the neighboring kingdoms and the treaties they had with each of them. Unfortunately, Delver’s Academy didn’t view that as unrelated to being a better adventurer, and the classes were added to his schedule after he’d failed a short exam on the second day.

“How about you? How has the affiliate academy been?” Cayden asked, redirecting Elise’s original question back at her.

They were relaxing on either side of a small table within Elise’s dorm room in the affiliate academy, Cayden finally visiting his friend for the first time after his final class of the week. Unlike every other profession, the academy only had classes for five days of the week, giving the students two free days at the end of the week instead of just the one that most workers else had. Cayden wasn’t sure if that was just what nobles were used to, if there were other responsibilities still expected of the noble kids from their parents that they couldn’t complete at the academy, or if there was some other reason. But he was fully planning on taking advantage of the free day for some personal training. The training he got each morning in frontline combat was good, but after seeing how skilled some of his fellow classmates were, he was determined to dive back into his self-training with renewed vigor.

Between his classes, the separate dining halls for affiliate academy students and Delver’s Academy students, and his time spent with Jeremy and Velic, Cayden hadn’t been able to spend any time with Elise throughout the week, and he was taking advantage of the opportunity now to catch up. They hadn’t seen each other for five days. In the grand scheme of things that wasn’t much time, but it was still probably the longest he had gone without seeing his friend in years. In the last year since Tiana had left and Cayden and Elise had quit their old jobs, even a single day without seeing each other was rare. So taking the time to simply chat and enjoy each other’s presence was…relaxing.

“Not bad. The first few were somewhat similar to yours, where they were just telling us what we were going to be learning, but in the next classes we quickly jumped into the material. None of it’s particularly tough or interesting though.” Cayden chuckled. He had no doubt that Elise was being honest, but neither did he believe that the subjects Elise considered easy would be easy for most anyone else. “But the affiliate academy isn’t structured quite like the Delver’s Academy. While we still have classes, they aren’t the focus of most of our time. There’re a lot more potential paths for adventurer affiliates than for adventurers, which means that the educational paths for the affiliate academy are similarly varied. While we have some required classes, the majority of our learning happens directly under an advising professor in independent study.”

“Oh yeah. You mentioned your advisor is that Basura, guy, right? How is he?”

“Amazing,” Elise responded, and Cayden blinked, surprised. “He’s giving me free rein to pursue pretty much whatever catches my interest. And with all the free time I’ve got now from all the other enchanters they’ve got helping with the scaling of the potions of boost enchanting, there are so many options!” She paused, and then, almost as an afterthought, added, “He’s also really smart, which is nice.”

Cayden chuckled. Of course Elise would be swayed by someone being willing to ‘fund’ her passions more than any quirks of personality or impressive accomplishments. While he knew she was still excited to help along the enchanting scaling and personally see the limits she could take it, that was a long-term project that she had been working on for months. There was little ‘new’ to be contributed to that project, at least compared to what she had already explained within her presentation at the trials, and Cayden knew she itching to try out some of her other ideas.

That was perhaps one of the reasons they got along so well: she wasn’t one to settle into a pattern of mediocrity or allow her ingenuity to be dulled by repetition. She wouldn’t abandon projects willy-nilly the moment they got repetitive or lost her interest, but neither would she commit so heavily to a single project as to lose the driving force that constantly pushed her onward to bigger and better things.

“How’s the library?” Cayden asked. “Have you started trying to get your book added?”

Elise nodded back at him vigorously. “You definitely should come check it out. It’s huge, and so much better organized than the Avernon library. I’ve looked into the process of getting my book published there, and it seems like it qualifies. I’m in no rush though.” She hesitated. “I’m sorry, but I haven’t exactly spent too much time yet looking up skills for your build. There’s just so many other things to explore!”

Cayden chuckled and waved away her apology. “It’s fine, take your time. I’m not planning on rushing into any decisions anytime soon – hopefully the skills class will also have some good advice. And besides, you have your own stuff to do. Looking up skills for me isn’t your responsibility. Especially if I can access the library too?” His voice rose at the end as he changed his last statement to a question. The Avernon library had been fairly strict about who it let inside of its walls, and Cayden had never qualified. He could have easily purchased a library pass with the amount of money he was making over months before he left, but by that point Elise had largely explored everything the Avernon library had to offer.

“Oh yeah, you’re definitely allowed. That’s the only bad thing about the library – some of the academy students can be rude to the rest of us.”

“Well, let me know if any of them give you too hard of a time,” Cayden said, and Elise nodded. He wasn’t sure what he could do about it, but he was the muscle of his and Elise’s relationship, and he felt any ‘rude’ academy students should be his responsibility.

They fell into a companionable silence, sitting on either side of the table in Elise’s room. Cayden wasn’t sure what was going on in Elise’s head – she was flipping through the pages of her soul notebook, for once not actually adding notes to it – but he was simply enjoying the quiet companionship. The classes hadn’t been all that difficult or demanding, at least not yet, so it wasn’t that he hadn’t had free time during the week. But his free time had been spent with his new ‘friends,’ Velic and Jeremy.

Neither of the other boys was unpleasant. But they were new. Every action felt a little bit like walking on eggshells, never knowing exactly how they might react to his words or actions. And it seemed as if they felt obligated to fill almost every silence with their voices, never allowing themselves to fully relax around Cayden or each other.

It was nothing like his relationship with Elise, where he felt no obligation to do anything except simply be himself.

He sighed.

Or perhaps he was just projecting, putting his own hangups with his new friendships onto his friends rather than himself. Trying to find an outlet for the stress and worry that was building within him.

“...have you talked to the princess?”

…and with those few words, Elise cut directly to the heart of the issue. She knew just as well as Cayden what day today was. How could she not? They didn’t much celebrate birthdays in this world, save one: the birthday that, for Tiana, happened exactly one year earlier.

Today was the day he’d been anticipating for so long. The day that marked the end of his sister’s supposed year of enforced isolation in whatever training facility she’d been hidden away within. Before meeting the princess and coming to the academy, Cayden had looked forward to this day as a deadline: a day that, unless he heard otherwise from his sister, he’d be forced to take more drastic measures to see her again.

But now that he’d moved to the capital and was so close? And he’d still not heard back after his recent letters? He didn’t know what to think, anymore.

He knew someone who had seen his sister. Though he didn’t trust the princess nearly as far as he could throw her, he didn’t think that she was lying about having met Tiana. As long as he stayed in the princess’ good graces, he should get his chance to talk with his sister eventually.

In the meantime, though, he had no idea what he was supposed to do except confront the increasingly realistic possibility that Tiana was fine, that she simply didn’t miss him as much as he missed her, and he was just paranoid.

“Yeah, I talked to her,” he eventually said. It hadn’t been the best of talks – it was in the cafeteria and Valeria had been surrounded by hangers-on. He remembered how the fateweavers’ existence was supposed to be some state secret, so he was forced to ask her about Tiana only in vague terms that he hoped she’d understand.  “She said she’d look into seeing Tiana over the weekend.”

Which left Cayden exactly where he started – stuck waiting, with no news, unable to act out of fear of doing something foolish that could jeopardize his chances of seeing Tiana. And tomorrow he didn’t even have classes to distract himself with. Only more training.

Elise nodded, and a few more beats passed in silence, Cayden lost to his own thoughts.

“...I haven’t had much of a chance to look up potential skills for you,” Elise finally said, and Cayden looked up from where he’d been staring at his lap. “But looking up some low-level dungeons nearby the capital doesn’t take nearly as much time.” She gave Cayden a sharp smile. “Want to go on a delve, tomorrow?”

Cayden breathed out an explosive sigh, chuckling and nodding emphatically. It probably wasn’t the best way to deal with his anxiety…but he would really enjoy killing something.

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