Work Text:
It was a chilly autumn afternoon at NRC, a thin layer of frost covering the ground and the last leaves holding on to the tree tops. Just outside the library, a certain prefect was taking pictures of her ‘master’.
“AWW Grim! You look so very cute with this filter, see!” Elle excitedly turned her phone around, showing a picture of Grim’s grey fur covered in sparkles as his blue eyes looked uncannily large.
“Myah! I’m not adorable! Find me one that makes me look super powerful” Grim said as he started prodding on Elle’s phone screen, causing both of them to look silly as he scrolled through all the different filters.
The phones here in twisted wonderland (alongside many other devices) are much more advanced than what Elle was used to back home, and how common they are! But out of all the new features she’s discovered, funny and decorative filters is what she deems the best invention ever made.
While the two were still messing around with the phone, hunched down on the path, suddenly a third pair of chipmunk ears appeared on her screen behind them, establishing another presence, it was Nyoka Wadjet!
“Greetings Roberts, i’m here for the tutoring lesson you inquired about” Nyoka said very matter of factly, his expression not wavering either by their shenanigans. His tail trailing behind him, swaying ever so gently as his cobra-like fangs barely peeked through his lips.
“Oh hello!” she said with that usual excited tone as she swiftly turned her head around, “thank you ever so much for accepting, we would’ve been in a real pickle if not for you”
Elle looked at him with that same bright smile of hers, maybe even brighter than usual. One would think she was being asked to a royal ball and not a tutoring lesson. She brushed a misplaced strand of hair behind her ear, as a blush barely even noticeable was starting to creep up on her.
Elle had really only seen Nyoka in passing before, like during lunch or while walking to class, his cobra-like features are hard not to notice. But now that she’s getting a closer look, he really is quite the dashing young man, if she does say so herself. Though she shouldn’t get distracted, he is an upperclassmen after all, and she’s the prefect. This is strictly a normal session of tutoring between students.
“Henchman, I still don’t understand why I have to be tutored in!.. in.. eh..” Grim tapped a paw to his chin, trying to remember what it was Elle had said.
“Math, Nyoka is going to tutor us in math, and we’re a team!” Elle explained, crouching down in front of Grim, giving the tip of his nose a tap. “And you know? I’ve heard that even the greatest mages can solve any equation lickety split! All thanks to their amazing tutors, right Nyoka?”
“I suppose so, but if i may ask, I don’t see Spade anywhere,” raising a brow as he glanced down at a note book he was holding. At first, Elle and Grim were supposed to join Deuces tutoring lessons with Nyoka, as he was the one who asked if they could partake with him, but things came up at the last minute for him.
This is starting to remind her of those scenarios where the two high school leads end up going together alone somewhere, their other friends strangely unable to make it, and come out closer than ever. No! That’s silly to think about right now, stuff like that only happens in movies.
“Oh my,. Deuce wanted me to mention that he wouldn’t be able to join us today, he was called to an urgent club meeting at the last minute” Elle recalls, nervously biting her lower lip.
“That is a shame” Nyoka taps his chin with his finger, writing something down “thank you for informing me, Roberts, shall we begin then?” extending his arm towards the library, ready to hold open the door for the young lady and her direbeast.
“Yes we shall!” Elle exclaimed in turn as the three of them were heading inside. She gave Nyoka a quick courtesy, lifting the tips of her coat to thank him for holding up the door for them. Which is something surprisingly rare to happen whenever she’s hanging out with Ace and Deuce, Ace barely even makes an attempt, poor Deuce tries, but forgets a lot of the times.
But still, something about being tutored by Nyoka causes butterflies to emerge in Elle’s stomach, her fantasies starting to run wild again. ‘What if they get snowed in at the library together!’ Or ‘she has to take her ponytail down and he realizes how beautiful she actually is’ wait.. She’s not even wearing a ponytail! That blush from before growing ever so slightly.
No! She has to focus, this is just a normal hour of tutoring between 3 students, but oh! Grim will probably lose focus or fall asleep halfway through, leaving the two of them alone anyway, darn you Deuce!
The three of them settle down around one of the tables in the center of the room, not too many students around fortunately, so they won’t have to worry too much about making noise.
Elle proudly placed down her pink, glittery, sticker covered notebook on the table, picking out a pen with one of those springy fuzz balls at the end of it. In contrast, Nyoka took out a very generic and drab looking folder, or well, drab in Elle's opinion.
“I have some work sheets consisting of what you have been going over during your lessons, we will work from there” Nyoka says, handing Elle and Grim a couple of papers that have each been stapled together. “Oh goodness! You’re so prepared” Elle exclaims.
“Yes, I put in the effort to be” His expression is still ever the same, even after her compliment! Talk about professionalism to a whole other level.
Some time passes as Elle and Grim slowly make their way through the first sheet, though Grim inevitably fell bored and decides to take a cat nap on Elle’s coat. Meanwhile Elle was keeping up a pretty good pace, until she too started to lose interest, starting to draw some silly animals at the bottom of the page.
“If what I have given you does not interest you anymore, we can cut this session short” Nyokas voice echoed behind her, sending a chill down her spine, almost as chilly as professor Trein’s. But he doesn’t sound frustrated or annoyed, just stating the option.
“Oh no we won’t need to! I will only focus on the problems from here on out, cross my heart” Elle feels a tinge embarrassed that she got caught distracted, though, she still finds it strange how well composed he is, like seriously composed!
Nyoka doesn’t say anything else, not even giving her one of those scary glares some teachers do. Instead, he moves in front of her across the table, gently taking the worksheet from her as he picks up a red pen.
“I see, you keep confusing when to use multiplication or division. Try to keep in mind what question you are trying to solve in the problem” Nyoka points out, pointing things out in her calculations with the pen, then he gives the work sheet back to her.
No shift in expression or his body language, only adjusting his glasses and bringing out a book to read while she works. Yet, she feels like she has been calmly scolded.
But they’ve only just begun! Surely that rock hard exterior is going to melt eventually and reveal just how sweet and vulnerable he really is deep down, right?
40 minutes have passed, Grim is snoring comfortably next to her, Nyoka is reading his book, and Elle has barely gotten halfway through on this worksheet.
And not only that, no one told her being tutored would be so mundane. Always in those high school flicks when they were tutored, someone would make the first move, will they won’t they, or would pretend to be dumb to spend more time with her crush, pity that she actually is kind of dumb regarding the subject.
“Ughh…” Elle groans, face planting her head into the paper. There goes her delusions with only 20 minutes left of their session, and it looks like she may not be needing many more as Nyoka's advice has actually helped her understand the material.
Some more time passes, Elle is tapping the fuzzy part of the pen against her chin, looking genuinely confused. “Uhm.. i may need help with this problem” she says calmly, keeping her eyes on the paper rather than looking up at him like before.
“Let me see,” Nyoka says as he puts down the book he’s been reading. He walks around the table to Elle, needing to peer closer at the worksheet since the question she’s having problems with is at the very bottom of the page.
That’s when Elle feels a presence encumber her, the scent of amber and spiced bergamot filling her senses, as a pair of toned arms have placed themselves on each side of her. “Nyoka…?” she mumbles, needing to make sure this isn’t just her dreams alluding her. She lifts her head up to get a clearer picture, only for the back of her head to bump into a soft yet sturdy surface.
Turning her head just a smidge, just to see his face only a couple of centimeters away from hers, revealing those purple markings clear as day, which are usually hidden by his hair or the frames of his glasses. Was this actually happening to her? Was this… the move?
“I see where you may be confused, what you need to do is…” Nyoka suddenly stopped mid sentence the moment he turned to look at Elle, but his expression showed a hint of.. concern? “Roberts, do we need to take you to the infirmary?” he then said out of the blue.
“The infirmary? Why ever would we need to-” one drop of blood fell down onto the paper, then a second, and a third. Oh no.
Elle’s cheeks started throbbing, her face turning a shade of red mimicking that of a lobster, as blood slowly ran down from her nose, catching some on her finger to confirm what she feared was happening, is happening.
“I will write down notes for you and end our session prematurely” Nyoka steps back from Elle, handing her a white handkerchief with light pink flowers on it that he was keeping in his pocket, urging her to use it for the bleeding.
Hurriedly he packed away his things, even doing the same with Elle’s supplies. “N- Nyoka, i can assure you that i will be fine” Elle insisted, the handkerchief still pressed against her nose. If she wasn’t embarrassed before, she definitely is now. And she can’t just stop and explain that this is all happening because he’s too handsome!
“Oh dear, it seems you may be coming down with something as well, I will have to escort you to the infirmary myself” lightly pressing the back of his palm against her forehead, sounding genuine concern.
Panic. Instant, flushed, panic.
“Oh g-goodness no! I mean- you really, and I mean really don’t have to do all that for me” Elle stutters her way through, doing her best not to fold at every light brush from this cobra. If only Deuce had been here!
“But I insist, you are still my responsibility as your tutor, so we really ought to be going before you feel even worse off” carefully pulling Elle’s coat from under Grim, not even minding him, and instead focusing on helping Elle pull said coat on. “Come along now”
“Myah! What’s happenin’!” Grim startled awake as Nyoka had pulled the coat from under him, and he was not a happy camper. But he quickly had to catch up to Elle, as she was already being hurried out of the library, “Wait for me!”
Nyoka held his hand at the small of Elle’s back, gently guiding her through the school. This is the one time she wasn’t too eager to be led to safety by a prince, too flustered to even utter a single word the whole way there.
“Sit here, i will go seek a nurse” helping Elle sit down on one of the spare beds.
Grim jumped up on the edge of the bed, crawling his way to Elle’s lap. “Did the snake do somethin’ to you! If so the great Grim will handle it” puffing up his chest. “Oh no Grim, it was nothing like that” she reassured him.
When she had imagined all those clichés happening to her with so many cute boys around, this is seriously not how she would’ve expected it to go. She should be swooning! But all she can feel is embarrassed. But luckily there weren't many students around, most clubs having just concluded for the day, but one familiar face was lingering here.
“BY THE SEVEN! What has happened to you!” Said a striking, tall, greenhaired half fae. Sebek strode over to Elle's booth as Nyoka had just left, taking in what he was seeing.
“Oh! Hello Sebek” She greeted him meekly, sounding pretty nasally as she kept holding the handkerchief. “And eh… he may have happened” nodding in Nyoka's direction, who was talking to one of the nurses.
“DID HE HIT YOU!” Sebek yelled out in a panic, his immediate first thought seeing her bloody nose and flushed face, horrified by the thought of an upperclassman doing such, to a lady no less.
“No!”
“Push you?”
“No”
“Did he do a gesture that could be seen as intimate so close to you that the blood pressure in your face caused a nosebleed?” thinking about something he had seen in one of those ‘mangas’ that the Ignyhide housewarden had lent to him.
“Yes…”
“This is even worse than I expected” Sebek gasped, then realizing the ridiculousness of it all. Who would ever resort to such extreme reactions simply because someone they admire would acknowledge them, preposterous.
But at least now Sebek knows what to do to help her, limit the exposure to the variable causing the reaction. He walks over to cover the curtains to Elle’s booth, at the same time that said variable was returning with a nurse.
“Excuse me, may we pass through” Nyoka said, not as a threat or order, but a simple request.
“You may, but you may not, she is resting” Sebek harshly says, allowing the nurse to pass through, but not the cobra. For once his body language betrays him, as the tip of his tail twitches in slight annoyance.
Nyoka was about to insist to be let through, but he recognizes this freshman. It’s one of Malleus’s guards, he hasn’t seen him too often, but does recall his crocodile like features whenever he had been waiting outside of class for his liege.
“So be it then” Nyoka says, digging something out of his bag before making his departure. “Could you please hand these over to Roberts, i hope she may feel better soon” handing Sebek a thin plastic folder with more exercises and additional notes. Once that was done, he turned around and made his way out of the infirmary, probably returning to his dorm or other responsibilities.
Turning back to Elle with the nurse, it seems like the misunderstanding has been sorted out, judging by the smug smile on his face, and Elle looking just as ashamed as before, but now a bit more relieved. The nurse did help her calm down and stop the nosebleed fortunately.
“He wanted to give this to you” Sebek turned to Elle, handing her the folder. “I say, be glad I was here when I did, to think what could’ve happened if you had been alone, with him!” Sebek scolded her, he wouldn’t want to see her make a fool out of herself after all, but he may not be the best at showing his concern.
“Thank you Sebek, you really were my hero” Elle smiled back, she swears that she saw a hint of pink on his cheeks after giving the compliment, but he excused himself before she could say anything more.
She picks up the folder, pulling out the papers he had so neatly organized inside of it, when suddenly a note fell out from between the pages. Curious, Elle put the handkerchief down and picked it up, the handwriting done in cursive.
‘Greetings Roberts.
I have prepared a couple more worksheets for you and your companion to work on, alongside some advice in case you may need it. I apologize that your first session with me came to an abrupt end, I do hope you are not dissatisfied. In the meantime, I wish you the best of health, may we see again next session.
PS. You may keep the handkerchief, it suits you.
Farewell, Nyoka Wadjet.’