For a moment as the morning sun’s light shone down, Aoife shivered as a chill ran up her spine. She did not feel cold, the breeze was by no means cool and there was the warm blanket of sunlight covering everything. Instead, there was a momentary innate [i]wrongness[/i] upon her, beleaguering her senses.

It was right after she had her small staredown with Lovedaia, though the investigator knew with certainty that this was not a consequence of that engagement.

Aoife was reminded slightly of the ever-present feeling of being watched owed to the instructors’ sight wards placed about the school, but it was all the same [i]different[/i] in comparison. The investigator could not put a finger on it, but more than the sensation associated with the wards, it was similar to how it felt when a spirit was staring at her. That feeling of her mortal flesh being transparent and the light of her soul being observed. 

She looked about as she continued onward, to see if anyone else was acting peculiarly. No one? This was the second time that she had felt this way that morning, both when in the presence of Adam. Deducting every other factor, she shifted her focus to the young adult in question, he had one eye closed in recoil from the sudden daylight, the other peered at her; his open eye betrayed his dazed state, appearing unfocused, but there wasn’t anything else to remark on. Not like the Adam’s eye was glowing or anything.

“Adam, did you——” she said, then stopped mid-sentence, “Never mind.”

The moment passed, Aoife let the feeling fade out of her mind. It was a mystery that she hadn’t any solid clues to follow up on, that seemed to affect only her for a matter of seconds. No use worrying about something that nothing can be done about.

The rest of the trip to the Hall of Healers was, expectedly and somewhat thankfully, uneventful and quiet. No more students being kicked into them or screaming boys fleeing through the passageways. Just Aoife, Adam, and a scant few straggling students just waking up or lounging about to squeeze in some social time before the Opening Ceremony.

Aoife originally had in mind that the end of her short journey with Adam would take place as the pair had arrived at the Hall of Healers. She would leave him in the capable care of the eponymous healers, perhaps do some magical stretches of her own, and then return to her previously intended destination.

Plans never survive contact with the enemy. Things never really go as intended. 

The pair was greeted at the door. Frequent visits for self-inflicted injury sure had their way of taking their toll on a healing staff, their emotions highlighted as one said, “What did you do this time?”

Though it was a question in structure, her easily visible annoyed exhaustion made it more of a statement in tone. Her injured friend was helped into the Hall of Healers, Aoife suppressed a small chuckle at the dejected look he was being given. She began to turn, now ready to leave as he was in the hands of the healers.

“Ah, Miss Aoife, would you care to come inside as well?” the same healer asked, staring directly into the investigator’s eyes. Her body language and expression seemed to speak a bit more, saying something along the lines of [i]‘You brought him here, he’s your friend. Your responsibility extends to the end of his visit so you can keep him under watch for us!’[/i]

“I… Uh…” Aoife stammered and let out a short sigh, unable to think up a good reason to reject the offer, “I suppose I should.”

She pressed into the building, just behind the healer and her new patient. 

The Hall of Healers was a simple enough building, its interior barely partitioned by solid walls here and there to section off staff areas, a storage area, and the area for the patients. The latter was divided by simple curtains looming between comfortable beds—the comfort being one of the reasons some lower class students faked illness just to get some shut-eye there—and given that ‘place of healing’ feeling with stocked bedside tables full of medications and healing reagents.

Aoife rarely visited for herself, though she did occasionally stop by to drop off an injured student or a message from a teacher. Sometimes, she also visited in hopes that she might catch a job.

Just through the door, a Healer in the middle of enjoying a spot of tea spoke up upon seeing Adam, "Mister Adam as well as Miss Miataea? Before the opening ceremony's even begun? You two aren't trying to set new records aren't you?"

The investigator perked up as she heard Miataea’s name. She did not have to rack her brain in the slightest to recognize it. Another student infamous for the irresponsibility of experimentation, but never-the-less better known as Aledine’s Star, the Academy’s best hope in the Honor Games and the Student Council Representative. If Miataea was here, then who was going to perform the opening speech in the Opening Ceremony?

"I resent that," said a girl resting on a nearby bed, Aoife bent at the hip to get a view past the healer with Adam. It was Miataea indeed, "and hello uh... Adam? Aran? Sorry I forget."

Not the target of conversation, Aoife’s attention drifted elsewhere. Her gaze shifted not too distantly: one bed over, behind the star student sat a man, one arm sat still in a sling as the other was being used to pat away some sweat on his brows. Their eyes locked for a brief moment and the man blinked, almost literally jumping in his seat as if surprised to see the red-headed Magestrava there. He beckoned her over with a gesture of the hand.

“Pardon me,” Aoife said, and moved towards the man.

Desmond Cormac appeared as neither a sagely Magestrava in flowing robes nor the practical combatant that Aoife looked to be. Instead, he was a diminutive, portly man that looked much like a human colored melon with arms, legs and a head. His breath came in off and long heaves, with the occasional sniffle from a lifetime of allergy problems. Despite his languid appearance and altogether poor health condition—[i]or perhaps because of it[/i]—he was quite the instructor for physical reinforcement magic. That his arm was in a sling told the investigator in Aoife that something [i]interesting[/i] was about.

And it was this instructor that had another job for Aoife.

Funny how these jobs seemed to come in rapid concession…