Chương 53: Day Fifty-Three

Dear Diary, I had nightmares again last night, but Saffron helped me through them enough that I didn't really remember how many. The boring one almost felt soothing, like I could feel someone nearby, outside the chest, and faintly heard them crooning to me. I woke to Saffron laying on top of me, quiet snores vibrating my chest where she'd used my tits as a pillow. I couldn't very well wake her up what with her looking so cute, so I just lay there staring at her until she woke up on her own.

She stopped snoring, snorted a little, and lifted her head, looking around blearily.

"Dia..." she interrupted herself with a yawn and stretch, pushing herself up a little as she did.

"Tabitha? You awake?"

"Yeah."

"You mind turning the light on?" I gently rolled her off of me, guiding her so she didn't wind up with her arm stuck under her or anything, then hopped out of bed and walked over to the desk to turn the light up. I debated keeping it low, but figured we probably needed to get moving to get breakfast, and pushed it all the way open.

"Gah! Warn a body before you do that!" I grinned.

"Sorry. Figured we need to get dressed right away, but I wanted to enjoy the view while it lasts." She just rolled her eyes at me, rolled off the bed and went to the armoire, where she'd hung a few uniforms the night before. I just leaned against the edge of my desk, watching her.

"Well, aren't you going to get dressed?"

"Like I said, enjoying the view while it lasts." She blushed a little at that, stuttering a bit before saying, "if you dawdle so much you're late for breakfast, I'm not saving you any eggs." She'd said that as she pulled her shirt lapel ties around behind her. Not gonna lie, the view was still pretty good, but I could see that view any time, so I started in on getting myself dressed. Unlike Saffron, I didn't much care if everything was perfect, so we wound up finishing right about the same time.

I held out an elbow and said, "shall we adjourn to the Dining Hall, milady?" She slapped at me playfully, giggling, "you goof." But she took my elbow as we proceeded to breakfast. Today the staff blessed us with spicy eggs, peppered scrapple, and loaves of some really thick black bread. Pumpernickel or dark rye bread, I'm not sure exactly what it was other than really good. They even had little tubs of cream cheese with it, and you bet your ass I schmeared that shit all over slices of my bread.

Right as the Maids brought around what I guessed was the final round of food and water, I snagged a loaf and whispered to Saffron, "I'mma try somethin'." While I had yet to convert a single Spell to a Skill, I'd gotten really good at the Spells I knew, and even better at manipulating my little Mana wires. I held a loaf of bread by one heel, pushed a six inch wire of Mana out of my index finger, focused on some of the light instead coming out as heat, and sliced it through the bread near the opposite heel.

I cackled out some mad laughter as the heel wobbled off the loaf, smoking faintly, then went to town turning the rest of the loaf into insta-toast. When I'd finished, I pulled my little Mana-knife back into my finger, lifted the still-smoking heel of bread in my left hand and grabbed a spoonful of cream cheese to spread across it. As I watched it melt, I looked around the table. Bonita and Fred looked like they'd near shat themselves.

Angel and Bill sat there laughing their asses off, although I couldn't tell if they were laughing at the gobbo's reactions, Saffron's facepalm, Raven sitting there sketching what I'd done, Doc Roberts standing there mirroring Saffron's facepalm, or some combination of all of the above. I decided to ignore all of them until someone said something to me directly. Instead I just took a great big bite of my toast, groaning at the pure sybaritic luxury of cream cheese on toast.

When the others all more or less got themselves under some kind of control, I shoved the rest of the heel into my mouth and mumbled, "What? Would'a been better with butter, but damn that hit the spot." Doc Roberts stopped facepalming long enough to say, "Cadet Diaz, do you recall what I said about putting your fellow students in danger by practicing untested Mana Shapes without proper protections in place?"

I thought about it for a second before replying, "is a half foot or so of solid rock 'adequate protection' for something like what I did?" To their credit, they thought a second before saying, "I know I'll regret this, but yes, it ought to be." I grabbed up another slice of toast and started cheesing it while I replied, "no problem, then. I tested this in my room." At that Saffron's hand dropped, and she just half-glared at me until I said, "I mean, what else do I have to do when I can't sleep from nightmares."

She just shook her head and said, "I can't believe you, of all people, are troubled by nightmares. I suppose they don't believe in professional courtesy to another nightmare." That got everyone except Raven laughing, even Doc Roberts. I shot Saffron my best sultry look.

"To quote Beyonce, I'm a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare."

"What I'd really like to know," said Doc, "is how you managed to practice anything in your room. They're Warded to prevent just that; anyone with the knowledge to disable those knows enough to set up shielding before... Experimenting." Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. I thought back to the first time I practiced alone in my room.

"Oh, is that what that was?" I put on my best contrite kid face and said, "I'm sorry. I think I broke it." That got another round of laughter, even from Saffron. Doc shot me a 'really, Diaz?' look and then shook their head and said, "I'll see you in class." When we got to class, they already had my Mana detector set up, and once Saffron and I had sat at our desks they put up a pair of bubble shields around us.

"Just in case you can't stop yourself from experimenting entirely." They said before shaking their head and walking to the door. They paused there and said, "oh, come see me before Lunch. I need to show you something." Just to buy myself a few extra seconds before Saffron gave me another dose of irritated disbelief at my weird Status screen, I practiced my Inspect on her first. NAME Saffron Aetos RACE Hybrid HYBRID Bag (12. 5%) / Human (87. 5%) AGE Young Adult ATTRIBUTES STRENGTH 2 AGILITY 3 ENDURANCE 3 REASON 3 MEMORY 5 PERSONALITY 2 AFFINITIES Air (6. 25%) / Earth (9. 375%) PATRON Artemis SKILLS STATUS 1 (++) MANA SHAPING 1 (+) INSPECT 1 ASSESS HEALTH 1 RACIAL SKILLS None"Dammit," I muttered under my breath.

"What's wrong?" Saffron tilted her head, curious. I swallowed my growing resentment, because it just plain wasn't fair to her, and complained, "you're progressing really well. You've got two notches next to Status, and one next to Mana Shaping now. When you age out of 'Young' Adult, you'll be picking those up left and right." She smiled, blushing a little and said, "I practice them every chance I get.

I know we're not really supposed to, but I do Status while whenever we get a moment to breathe in all of my classes."

"Ooh, look out, my rebellious is rubbing off on you." She shook her head.

"No, there's no rule against it. I checked. It's more an unspoken thing. But until someone speaks it, I'm gonna keep on following the rules as written." I had to smile at that, even though my resentment still lurked. I let a little of it out when I said, "I just wish I could get some kind of idea how long it would take me to get a new Skill." She just stared at me. I stared back, not sure what kind of idiot thing I'd done or said now.

Eventually she broke and said, "okay, first, you've already gotten one new Skill, Artemis alone knows how." I winced.

"You... you saw that? I didn't notice you casting Inspect."

"You... you really don't remember anything from class last week, do you?" Part of me winced at the sympathy in her eyes, but the rest of me desperately needed it. I just shook my head.

"Ouch. Also, I'm screaming inside right now, because you still wound up taking all your turns with that crazy eye-Inspect you do." I perked up a little at that.

"Huh. Muscle memory? Maybe?" She frowned.

"Muscles don't have memory. That's brains. Or hearts. Or stomachs. Depends on who you listen to, but my gut tells me it's brains." I laughed.

"So your gut tells you it's not your gut doing the thinking?" She smiled.

"Yeah, you know what I mean, you goof. Anyway, however you did it, you did it. Once I get Stabilize down as a Skill, I really want you to teach me that."

"You got it. You mentioned 'first'. What's 'second'?" She just huffed out an annoyed sigh and said, "the Inspect screen shows you as a Juvenile. Sort of. No matter how un-Juvenile you act, the Spell thinks you're not able to gain any Skills except Racial Skills. But you've still got two full on Skills listed. I suspect the Spell is trying to account for your," here her voice dropped to a whisper, "unusual origins."

I grimaced, hoping she'd think it came from my need to keep my isekai nature a secret, rather than me feeling more than a little guilty for lies-by-omission about my other Status screen.

"So, what does that mean, I've got to get a Skill past tier one for it to show up at all?" She shook her head, but her face said 'maybe' when she replied, "that might be true, but really? I think not. According to Inspect, and I suspect Status, you're a Juvenile. Juveniles can't have Skills. So no matter how much you practice, you'll never show as having a Skill."

I swear to god, my forehead is going to put the Academy's 'you can't break this shit' furniture to the worst stress test it's ever going to get by the time I graduate.