An infighting between the Student Government and its Professors occured in the latest election. A huge vacuum in power since the last coup d'é·tat had left both sides without a leader, the Magic Council had no power to intervene because of the Dean, Harvard Fernandes' signature of absolute autonomy. The rest of the University Belt in the school district aren't affected by Era University's shenanigans.

Era University once again becometh a warzone, no man's land, albeit the Netherworld. Zana Fernandes, the younger sister of the 5th Wizard Saint, Harvard, once more has returned to power as the Student Government's Scholarlord with her cohorts — devoted to her cause. Many assumed that Harvard's actions of turning himself in, at the hands of the Student Government's random was out of love for his sister. Others have assumed other things, such as his dark ancestry dated back to Jellal Fernandes and probably plotting evil in the midst of the revolt.

Who knows...

The once incarcerated detention Scholarlord was clad in red for she have painted Era in red. Zana delivered her lackeys to capture those who oppose her regime and show them superiority against those who oppose her. "My brethren. It has been said that I am a fascist...no I am not. I do not hate the weak, there is value in weakness for they will rise. I hate the adults who refuted us better education, I stand before you today at this very auditorium stage to declare that this revolution ain't for nothing. The school is ours and the rest of the University Belt will be ours! We will colonize the rest of the schools and spread our wisdom!"

A thunderous applause and scream rose in her wake. As the Student Government's Emissary — Giselle Kaiser — Ice Mage|Winter Dress couldn't stomach the return of corruption in her beloved school. The Ice Mage petrified in terror yet had no choice but to serve her moniker. "I'm glad you haven't changed loyalty Lady Gospel." — Student Government Chevalier Kai Haul — Enchanter|Enchantment said in a raspy voice through his plague doctor mask.

"I can say the same to you, Kai." Giselle said.

Kai declares. "The School District is sick, they need to be educated. All of us are sick and need a cure, Scholarlord Zana is the cure to educate us." The Emissary rank in Era serves as the Scholarlord's right hand, logistics and second in command, the Chevalier is the student Government's scheduler of periods.

"You guys are the one to talk, I sure hope those Fenixtear fools don't send that stripper and that Dragon bitch again! I swear they stole Kai's thunder!" Messenger — Ramiel Dreyar — Thunder Dragon Slayer

"Do not test Master Kai's patience, Master Dreyar. There will be blood in money." Student Government Treasurer — Hama Bloomfield

Kai roasted Ramiel. "You lost to a guy who can take over, he's not the First Ranked Wizard Saint. He just happened to look like him. Is the Thunder Palace ready?"

Ramiel chuckled. Kai instantly grabbed his collar.

"You mean it's not yet ready? Jeez Ram. Get your shit straight for once or I'm gonna have to kill you!"

Zana came to them as she finished her speech. "Don't fight before my sight, mongrels. It's alright, I am sure Fenixtear has received my big brother's quest and we came prepared this time. I've been looking forward to thrash Liliana. I see to it that the floodgates will destroy her!"

The Dragon Slayer stood awkwardly as she waited for a response, resisting the urge to walk back to her cloak and throw it on to conceal herself despite their seclusion. She eyed the younger mage herself as he spoke, likely surprised to find her here of all places - and it seemed so, as he asked what exactly she was doing. Her own response seemed less.. measured than usual - it was a noticeably more comforting locale than what she was used to. She didn’t feel the need to throw glances over her shoulder as often as she normally did.

“Was just looking for a quiet place.. the guild has been hectic lately. As you know.” She explained, pulling her right arm behind her back and curling her clawed fingers into a fist. “What about you?”

Cloven eyed her for a second more. Her answer wasn’t suspicious at all and the red tree forest had, in a way, become a source of calm to him. It was home, for the time being. His gaze softened and the truth felt right to tell. “I’m staying out here now. Mostly because of our guildmates. The new ones anyway.”

Lies, he thought in a voice not his own.

His breathing became shaky, a shuddering fear threatened to rake itself out his mouth. He unclenched his hand and carefully placed it over his mouth. I gotta conceal it, gotta try.

Lilliana nodded to herself as she looked off to the side in a moment of thought - his response wasn’t exactly what she had expected - but what surprise was there didn’t show on her face.

“You have been pretty scarce around the guild lately.” She paused for a moment. “But I suppose I can’t blame you.” She said as her eyes moved back to the younger mage as his hand crept to his mouth. He seemed...off. More than normal. She spoke again, her tone retaining its lack of carefulness that it usually held. Despite the rumbling sound of it, she sounded oddly - softer. But not by much. “I can say from experience that covering your face is more comfortable with a mask than with a hand. But, why do you hide yours now?” She said, the latter part sounding more like a statement than a question.

Cloven shook his head slowly, his voice muffled “No reason.” Except that was far from the truth. There was something terribly wrong and it was poisoning him. Seeping into every bit of who he was. But he couldn’t let that be known and out here he had nowhere to run too. If he ran, it would just create concern or interest. Attention for sure. So he dug a hole inside his mind, shallow as it was, and buried his anxieties.

… So close, just hold out a little longer.

He was methodical when he moved his hand up his face and ruffled his hair. “Morning breath,” he answered. “And unfortunately I’m lacking a mask.” He fixed a smile on his face, kindly enough though weary.

Lilliana waited for a moment, her eyes gazing out from above her mask as if waiting for a better response from the boy. She wasn’t exactly sure if the attempt at a lind smile was genuine - but there was definitely a certain weariness to him. She turn and took a few steps to pick up her cloak, before turning back to the young mage. “I see.. well. If you would like one, I know a guy.” She said, her tone remaining unchanged as she draped the half-folded article of clothing over her right shoulder.

She wondered if he was just wandering the woods just before she revealed herself, or if he’d been returning to the guild. It’d be good for him to return; although it may have been somewhat hypocritical, Lil thought it was good for him to be around those who considered him family. That was the way of a traditional guild, afterall. Not that she thought she was quite ready to call him or anyone else in the guild ‘family’ quite yet, but there may have been a certain tiny degree of kinship creeping into her brain - whether she realized it or not.

She wasn’t digging? Not even prying? That was refreshing and to Cloven, a sign of someone worth their salt. A glimmer of hope twinkled for a moment. Could she be trusted to keep it to herself, cause it was becoming crippling trying to carry the secret on his own. So far away from The Son and Syra, he had no one to trust. Despite all the blabbering back at the Guild, none of them had ever felt like family, not even friends. Marduk maybe, he reconsidered.

But… admittedly shortsighted as he was at the moment, he could feel a kinship with Lilianna. She was ‘not’ human physically but in a way, she was raised to be one. One look at her face; which he had gotten a few times, rare as they were, and one could see the difference. That bright eye meant something and her voice. It’s a heated debate, Cloven bemused. A conflict between her humanity and her past.

That thought had made him realize he’d been thinking clearly for that split-second. Cloven smiled that same smile, only it had reached his eyes. I get it, just the thought, the hope of unloading this burden… The answer is right here in front of me, it's her. The void-above is marvelous.

But how to bring it up? you can’t just come out and say it. The smile was starting to fall, replaced by a thoughtful countenance. “That’s it!” he blurted out.

Then just as quick, attempting to catch the sudden outburst by the tail. “Lilly,” A bad habit of his when thoughtless or excited was shortening names. “How did you feel when you fought the dragon? Didn’t it seem off to you? And if so… how… did it seem weird?” His voice hardened near the end.

The older mage was a bit surprised by the short outburst, and for a moment thought the boy was going to accept her offer to procure him a mask, but he seemed to have his mind elsewhere. It was followed up by a line of questioning she wasn’t entirely prepared for, but one she had been thinking about for some time. She resisted the urge to correct his nickname for her, for the moment.

She thought back to that moment she had first felt the dragon’s magical reading. It was - oddly clean, in a way. Pure. She had felt it over and over again by memory since that day, trying to find out what it reminded her of. She had eventually found something. But it didn’t make sense. It felt similar to...Grasidia, in a way she couldn’t explain - a way she thought couldn’t make sense. She didn’t know why it felt that way - maybe she was seeing it wrong. But her eye had never failed her before.

“Yes,” She replied, a moment’s pause interrupting her before she continued. “its magical essence felt...pure. In a way similar to few things I have encountered. It didn’t feel like a dragon.” She finished, the thoughts that ran through her head over the past few weeks broiling up again. The Slayer pushed all the questions down - she needed to focus on Cloven for the time being. “Why do you ask?”

Cloven smiled again, the stonewall of his face and voice chipping away to gentle relief. Her question was ignored. “That’s right…” The cat was out of the bag and Lilliana had ushered it so close to the exit that his reveal was harmless; she would’ve figured it out on her own anyway. He fixed his eyes on her. “The dragon didn’t feel like a dragon. Your Dragon Slayer magic did little to nothing. It should have. You should’ve hurt it more.”

He guessed he should let that sink in but he was on a roll. He had courage built up and for once his mind wasn’t cluttering up his wants. A deep, prepping breath filled his lungs then filed out. He unclasped his cloak and stood straight in his battle gear; the black leather and brown gloves and boots he typically wore. “Look at me, what do you see, Lilliana?”

The Slayer was all too aware that she had been of little importance in the fight against the dragon - honestly it bugged her. But it wasn’t the only thing that tugged at her mind. As she watched Cloven stand to present himself, she paused. He was.. her mind scoured the surface of his energy, coming back with a measure of that feeling she had been playing back over and over in her head like a tape recorder. It was similar but somehow it felt darker. It felt.. sickened.

“A boy...with a similar reading. Once again similar, but...different.” She responded, her tone now shifting to one of part confusion, part meager realization.

Cloven searched her reaction. It was hard to pinpoint it, after all her mask hid a great deal of her expression but her voice, it had wavered with confusion? Maybe, he wasn’t all that sure. Yet, he could feel his shoulders slump and he plopped down to the ground, legs casually folding, arms falling between his thighs.

“I’ll tell you something secret, something that I don’t even understand myself… but apparently, I’m the same as that dragon. Same as…” No that’s not my secret to tell. He doubled down on his confession. “I’m a… an Etherious.”

“And Lilly I know it sounds crazy, unbelievable even but you got to believe me. Grasi told me herself,” his hands clawed at the soil. “And why would she lie.”

She wasn’t sure how to respond. She was shocked. She knew there was something different about him but, being an Etherious? Not that she knew much about them, seeing as she’d never met one. But she did know that if anybody else found out, they might not be very understanding. The dragon slayer looked down at the boy sitting in the dirt, confessing something to her that he probably had never told anybody else. He didn’t seem non-human. He looked like, talked like, and acted like(mostly) anybody else.

She let a long uncertain pause permeate the air before she responded. “..I believe you. I don’t think Grasidia would lie.” She assured him, though wondering to herself how exactly Grasidia of all people would know. It got her thinking. “And I won’t tell anyone. Promise.”

An anxiety attack was sneaking up on him, the pause she left in the air was dangerous or it felt like it was. Somewhere inside, he wanted her to be okay with ‘him’, with his existence. Somewhere further down, he was sharpening his claws and preparing to defend himself.

Then when she replied, when her cool words had sunk in; he could see something beautiful, a hopeful seed being plunged into sickened soil. That image did something unnatural to him; a great mirth started to bubble inside.

It started slow.

He chuckled quietly while looking at his hands lose their tension. Then he smiled unapologetically at the ground, eyes watering and himself on the verge of crying. The reaction to this was unprecedented; a piece of him was manically searching for answers. He had been beaten and bullied into the shadows, then suddenly thrusted into the spotlight as a ‘monster’, only to come out to a stranger, a freaking stranger, and be accepted? Was that how the world worked? his past would have disagreed.

But here he sat, with a woman nearly as inhuman as him, accepting something worse and promising not to tell anyone else. It was unbelievable but it rested in front of him with neon lights framing it.

Cloven felt at peace for a moment. Yeah… peace was the perfect word. So he let his tears fall and boyishly, head tilted up at Lilliana, said, “Thanks, Lilianna. I needed that. Honestly.”

The dragon slayer responded with an awkward scratching of her head, averting her eyes as the boy cried what could only be tears of joy. It was an odd feeling to make someone happy - it had been a long, long time since she felt she had. And she also got the feeling that it had been a long, long time since this boy in front of her had been happy himself. But it seemed now that he was relieved by her acceptance. She couldn’t think of any other response she could’ve had.

Lilliana stooped and sat herself down in front of him, crossing her legs. She let another pause take place as her response, as she seemed to be deciding what she should say next. “So..” she began, sounding somewhat out of place leading a conversation, “..tell me something..”

---

It was some time later that Lilliana once again found herself shrouded in her cloak, walking down one of the many Crocus streets. She was alone, having left her guildmate to his own devices, but she expected to see him more often after the uncharacteristically long conversation she’d held with him. Gratefully she remained unbothered as she made her way into the alley that led to their guild, not pausing this time to check behind her. In recent weeks it became rather difficult to determine if someone misplaced was snooping around because, well, there were now way too many people to tell.

Even before entering the guild she found it too crowded for her liking. Approaching the doors, the cacophonous activity of the guild that she had hoped to escape earlier returned to her ears already. She let out a short sigh before she pushed the doors open with a hand and stepped inside. She scanned the room briefly as she walked straight to the bar, not bothering to hide under her hood anymore, and dropped herself onto one of the stools.

She needed a drink.

The recital rehearsal finished with Mari portraying Lucy in the Edolas stageplay — packed up and showered. Of all the ruckus that her eyes behold, Mari saw a vision that it's her lucky day as she's secured by her new cohorts. A second vision appeared, it wasn't as fleeting because Mari saw herself ransomed at the hands of the dark guild, God Hand.

Marduks' laugh was positively boisterous. The sequence of events that started as soon as the walking-talking vending machine crashed through their window probably should have left him confused, but he always found it better to be amused instead. He didn't need every particular to find out why the things that happened, happened - quest giver got impatient, wanted to force quest, ergo, reverse defenestration.

So, default to amused.

Back to the matter, or matters, at hand, it looks like things were getting busier, with his guildmate's picking up quests and splitting into teams. He was mildly pleased to see Holly take up his suggestion and invite Zenith to join her. He was less pleased to see Kaden and Lavinia in the same team; to be clear, he had nothing against the boy. He trusted Torys' judgement and if she let him in, that was good enough. What he didn't trust was his personality withstanding Lavinia.

The girl was different. Her mannerisms would make her out to be endearingly clumsy or an absolute irritant, for all that the girl was caring in a way that defied everything about her upbringing. Mentally, Marduk shook his head. Perhaps less different, more one-of-a-kind. Whatever the case, she came with her peculiarities, and frankly speaking he wasn't sure that Kaden would be able to stomach them, and that may cause problems down the stretch. He also wasn't afraid to admit that he held some personal affection for the girl, so his concern about her well-being may be less than biased.

He scratched his chin, pondering the problem before deciding that it wasn't up to him. He'd step in when he needed to, but they were all adults on that team. He had to trust that they could work it out between themselves.

Setting down orders for drinks and seeing as there was little more to be done, Marduk made his way to the side of the bar where Torys' was sitting, carrying two glasses of hard liquor on the rocks with him. He arrived soon enough to catch the tail-end of her conversation with Tone, one of the newer guys who'd signed up after the Dragon Incident, and gave them both a big, toothy grin.

"You know, one of these days you ought to accept 'your cut,' just to humor him a little." He placed a glass down in front of her, and kept the remaining one for himself. Leaning over the counter, the old man took in a mouthful of liquor, setting it down, and giving the four other mages in front of him a thumbs up. "Thanks for hearing me out Holly, Zenith looked just about ready to choke his frying pan to death. Be good for him to see the outside of his kitchen for awhile. Who knows, maybe if all goes well with your Job we'll finally be able to hire an actual crew to man the thing."

With a chuckle, he downed another mouthful of his drink, while eyeing the job board. He considered taking one of them earlier, but it looks like the rest of his guild has them covered. Hm, guess that meant he'd be spending more time with whoever stayed behind.