0theacademy0 | Welcome New Students of The Academy of Aetheric Studies

Thea - a short woman with her auburn hair back in a tight braid - sits at the lunch table with the students, joining in their chatter. A small serving of jelly, deep blue while also sparkling inside like a cluster of stars, reflected in the eyes of the dazzled children. Puffing out her chest, she proudly proclaims that that dish had been her idea. As the potion teacher, she could teach people how to make many such wondrous things, as long as they study hard!

But taking a moment to excuse herself after the end of the lunch and the continuation of the orientation, Thea could be found in the corridor, her shoulders slumped and looking utterly defeated as she groans aloud. The burned and frayed edges of her robe trail behind her.

Edited 2025-06-22 09:30 (UTC)

Tristan, who was always a difficult man to get motivated if it didn't suit his very specific whims of that given moment, was diligently making his way down the hall towards the teachers' lounge. His every step carried an elegance that those who knew him would say betrayed his true nature and was a trap to the unsuspecting. And yes, this elegant gait was cut abruptly short as he did an abrupt stop and turned around to attempt to run away from the potions professor, who was singed and sighing.

"Nope."

"Wait!"

Thea springs back up, immediately breaking into a sprint after the man, defying any sense of momentum with how quickly she had shifted into his chase. The solution to this problem clicked in her mind the very instant that Tristan had made his presence known, even if it was that very moment he started moving away from her.

"Tristan! Come back!"

She knows that he knows what she was thinking, and she knows what he must think about that. It won't stop her from trying anyway!

"I'm busy," he was not.

He picked up his pace while still keeping it within a somewhat respectable gait for a teacher in a school.

It reeked of trouble and time consuming details... he didn't want to know.

"It won't take that long! I promise!"

Thea knew very well that her promise is one she couldn't keep, much like many others she's said that, but the words spill out in her desperation. Fortunately, there weren't many other students yet here in this hall to see their Potions teacher in such disarray.

"Please! I'll owe you my life! Anything you need!"

A big favor in turn for something that supposedly won't take too long....

"I don't want your life!" But he did slow down with a sigh to finally turn back with a glance.

"What do you need?"

The speed at which her short legs had been carrying her finally caught up to Thea as she came to a stop, hands on her knees as she took deep, wheezing breaths for a moment.

As soon as she recovered, she sprang up once more with a serious expression.

"Lend me your syllabus for this course from when you taught it."

“…” At first impression the silence was cold, maybe intimidating, but then it went on a beat longer, his eyes shifted away as if he were a young boy avoiding letting on he had broken a rule or misbehaved. He started to uncomfortably shift as the request hung further in the awkward silence.

…

He couldn’t admit it.

He can’t admit it!

…

“I…” sweat was starting to form on his brow as he considered his options. In the end he lowered his head and pushed up his glasses as if to hide his face, and softly answered. “Never finished making it…”

Thea pays no mind at all to the chill around them as Tristan contemplates his answer. She is pleading for her life! What shame would she have in pleading for such a favor? It may be trouble for him, but a world of pain awaits her if she doesn't get help, so she isn't going to let something like that bother her!

She still almost expects a no, readying herself to plead some more, but the answer she hears is much more shocking.

If Thea had been winded before, that answer nearly knocked her over. She stares, slack-mouthed, suspecting that the exertion had affected her hearing somehow.

"I-I'm sorry... what?!"

"I started it... before the beginning of the term, but then... it was the first day of class, and... it sort of... well, I had a page... it's a bit late to really finish it at that point, isn't it? It felt like such a bother so... I just didn't. It was easier to just sort of give different assignments based on ability anyway than try and stick to a specific plan for everyone," And his true nature was being revealed. Despite having a notorious reputation with the students, who found his general seeming apathy and non-interest as cold and uncaring, the attitude of a strict, unloving teacher, the truth was almost worse; he was lazy and got bored easily and wasn't much of a morning person.

"When in doubt, tell them to read the book and practice self-study, if they don't focus, make vague, unrealistic threats like... 'If none of you pass the next test, you will find true difficulty in this life, which may end up being very short...' If you do it right, everyone should be quiet and orderly.

"Though, if not, you can always just enchant them, I guess...." no, teachers should not be enchanting the students. Did he sometimes do it to make his life easier? Yes. But he had been a problem child since he first set foot into these halls as a student himself. Not malicious, but definitely the sort who would rather attempt to fix his own screw ups after they happen then prevent the issue in the first place with a little more planning.

Thea still looks incredulous, staring off a bit to the side while taking this all in. All this time, she had been putting together her own curriculum for the course! She had done it dutifully and responsibly! Her only error was not keeping it somewhere completely safe. And someone who looks so put together is actually winging it?!

"I can't do something like that! Besides being wrong, it'd easily be traced back to me!"

More accurately, the moment they even start to question her, she'd probably spill everything about what she did. She also lacks the presence that Tristan has; that would lead to her students also questioning things. She isn't the teacher that gets respect like the others. Not that her students disrespect her, but they often treat her like an older sister or an informal mentor rather than someone with gravitas like Tristan. Clearly, that's all made of thin air!

Thea sighs, almost doubled over in defeat.

"Is this... how you're teaching your class right now?"

There's no way it can be the case. Simply impossible.

"I choose the daily topics properly," though it was still an at his whim sort of endeavor.

"What happened to your syllabus anyway? Did you lose it?" he couldn't imagine she just hadn't finished it yet with her reaction.

Thea can only reflect on the unfairness of it all. How did some just manage to channel that kind of aura?

"A-Ah, well... last year, do you remember when Rowan was giving away those dragon eggs?"

Now it was Thea's turn to cast her glance aside, looking guilty.

"I do, no one would let me have one," he volunteered right away to get one, and everyone around him instantly said no. It was so unfair!

"Do you have a loose baby dragon running around burning your things?"

"N-N-- well, I might still be in the process of training Ruby..."

After all, dragons took quite some time to reach maturity. It's not like she wasn't trying! But babies will be babies, after all.

"She was only playing around. But... yes, I only looked away for a moment and the curriculum I prepared was on fire."

Thea could leave out the part where the potion she used to try and put out the flames turned even the ashes into tiny particles that couldn't be seen.

"Perhaps Ruby should live outside...." Wouldn't it be a problem later?

Either way, he had a good idea of what happened. At this point, he really couldn't just walk away, could he? He really wasn't. With a sigh, he shook his head and raised his hand.

"Take me to where it happened."

Thea's shoulders likely can't sink any lower, but she straightens up enough to turn around and walk back towards the living quarters for the academy.

Even after the school year, Thea spent most of her time on campus, seeing as she lives her and most of what she needed was provided. One exception to this would be her forays into the wilderness for potion ingredients. Otherwise, she often stayed nearby.

Thea's home is filled with different baubles and curios strewn upon various shelves, most particularly bottles, many of unique shapes and topped with colorful wax sealings. She had a particular interest in making the bottles match the potion in some sort of way, and she took great pride in her displays. What part of the living room that wasn't covered with potion components looked tidy enough, aside from some items strewn about the floor. However, she was not entirely to blame for that...

On opening her door, the aforementioned baby dragon - covered in shining red scales - looks up with vivid red eyes from a wooden ladle she had been chewing on. She lets go of it before Thea can start to reprimand her, and bounds towards the two at the door. Small wings sprout from the little dragon's back, not nearly enough to carry her weight.

Thea swoops down and gathers Ruby into her arms before standing again. She doesn't need Ruby also chewing anything of Tristan's. Ruby already starts to sniff at the newcomer.

"Behave, Ruby... ah, it happened right on my desk over there."

He was about to comment on how this dragon needed 24-hour supervision, but decided perhaps he was the last person to give that sort of lecture. He wasn't completely oblivious to his own tendencies. Instead, he focused on the matter at hand.

"Do you still have the remnants of your paperwork?" if she did, it would be so much easier, if not... he sighed just thinking about it.

Thea looks mournfully at a very empty place on her desk. There might be a few corners that weren't touched by the potion that was haphazardly used to put out the fire, but they would hardly be useful to identify anything.

"That's as much of them as I could find..."

Ruby already tries to reach over and nip at whatever she can reach of Tristan, be it his hair or clothing.

Ruby was definitely chewing on the edge of his robes, which he seemed not to mind at all. Instead, he was focused on the bits that were left of her syllabus, the little there was of it. But there was enough to work with.

"This will do," he opened his hand above the scraps, his magic circle forming below his palm and mirrored slightly larger on the table below the scraps, turned, and glowed as he performed a spell. Those familiar with spells would recognize it as advanced, but something modified, or perhaps rare. However, it wasn't until he spoke the command that it became clear what he was casting. "Reverse!"

Slowly, the specks of cinder and ash started growing and glowing, it was as if watching them burn in reverse time, bits from around the room floated towards the reconstructing Sylybus as it stitched itself back together. This wasn't just a mending spell; this was literally turning back time on a specific object. Didn't such a powerful spell feel a bit of overkill? And also... kind of dangerous? What were the wider uses of such a spell? Where were the limits? And yet, Tristan cast it like it was nothing and didn't matter.

"Oh... let's pretend we fixed it a different way, ok?" He smiled awkwardly and laughed as if he was caught stealing cookies meant for after dinner.

Thea looks on worriedly at first as Tristan readies himself. How could anything of this actually be brought back?

As she watches, however, her jaw drops even further than before. She isn't sure what's the most unbelievable thing she's learned today: that Tristan was actually a bit of a slacker, or this!

She hears what he says, but she can only ask first, staring at him and speaking without any concern for anyone potentially listening in:

"How did you do that?!"

"Manipulation of time magic, adjusted to a local object, an implementation of stop, and then a seal on it. I suppose you should be careful with it, though, just in case, there is a chance it might go back to the way it was if the spell wears off. Though it should be guaranteed for at least several years," Tristan said every spell as if it were just some casual thing to do, and the mixing of them all into one casting was also simple.

Time magic was extremely difficult; it required a great amount of mana, a great amount of focus, and in many instances was considered taboo! You could localize it to an area, but usually, if someone did that, it would have affected the entire room. Stop was more widely used, but it wasn't an indefinite spell, and still required an incredibly strong mage to cast. It only stopped time for a few moments, usually just long enough for a mage to escape a situation.

But all of it together like that? That was custom, that was Tristan, or someone he knew, writing up new spells with new specific uses, which was also extremely rare.

He had been told not to casually cast these things, it caused more trouble than it helped most the time, and sometimes he could be a bit careless with larger spells or the side effects that could come up from such powerful and experimental magic. But what choice did he have? None! None he says!

Arms trembling, Thea tries to carefully set Ruby down before she accidentally drops the little dragon in shock. (Ruby then goes on to bite at Tristan's pant leg, trying to fall back with all of her little weight as if to pull a chunk away from it.)

She straightens back up to take the curriculum back into her hands, still not entirely believing that it's back in her hands. She hardly even feels relief at her own fate quite yet, still too overwhelmed with this knowledge.

"And you... you can just do this," she says, looking over the paper. All of her writing is there, just as it had been. She turns to look at Tristan in utter awe, amazement with a twinge of fear.

"Does this not make you one of the most powerful mages... alive? Right now? If not of all time?!"

Thea was not new this year, but she was one of the more recent instructors to join the academy's staff. Was this some secret that everyone else knew except her?

"I wouldn't say that, but if I'm not good at much else, I might as well be good at magic, right?" he shrugged it off without a thought, but then, he had a lifetime of being called a 'genius' and didn't really care for it. More often than not he was yelled at for his talents. When one could quickly understand advanced concepts, it led to... self-study and experimentation.

When he was a student, he had frequently delved into ancient tomes and forbidden magics just to see what combining A with B would equal. It was such a problem when he graduated they had more or less forced him to be on staff so they had an eye on him. Was it such a bad thing? Nothing had ever truly gotten out of control and destroyed anything irreplaceable. The worst situation happened to himself, so shouldn't he be the only one with issues at his own tendencies?

"Anyone could do it with enough time with the ancient archives," though he was ignoring the fact that he is the reason they have new extreme restrictions on who and how much a person can access from them, and the requirement for a teacher to be present at all times when accessing or reading a book from them. He might also be the reason why half the books have since been locked up only accessible to specific individuals who had proved themselves capable and trustworthy.

He was not allowed to access the archives without a shaperon either, even as a professor now.

"Magic is not rigid, you just need to be creative to find the new theories to implement them, but... at the same time, learning tried and true methods is safer...." he traild off, it wasn't like he needed to explain it, a fellow instructor should understand this, though, perhaps his eccentricities made his adherence to tried and true methods harder.

"I bet you thought I wasn't very good...." he said, turning towards Thea and pouting. "They never let me do anything fun, so it's always just boring stuff."

“I didn’t think that…”

Thea hardly has to deny such a thought. Anyone who puts on at least an appearance of seriousness can always come off as skilled or professional, even if they’re not. With no real evidence to the contrary, she assumed that the man was at least competent.

“But this is what the archives can do? Then… could you show me what else you can do with it?”

Maybe it’s pushing the matter despite knowing they shouldn’t. Still… it’s too good of an opportunity to pass up! At least she can witness something few can ever see!

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