Work Text:
Drift's breath caught in her lungs as a powerful blast of wind sent her soaring into the air. She shrieked as she fell, fumbling to redirect her magic to save herself. The ground beneath her softened into a muddy slurry, catching her as she landed and hardening again into stone beneath her.
"What the hell, Shelby?" Drift complained as she regained her balance. The way that she could feel completely right again the moment her feet were on the ground once more still amazed her. It immediately cleared her head and soothed the panicked heaving of her chest.
Shelby frowned. She stood in the opposite corner as Drift, watching her through narrowed eyes. "Don't tell me you can't handle a little wind blast by now."
"You've been tossing me around like a rag doll."
Shelby merely shrugged. "You're the one who wanted to duel. It's not my fault Wind's the hardest element for you to beat," she said pointedly, stepping forwards and flicking her wrist upwards in a motion Drift had learned to recognize.
Instinctively, Drift swung her leg, flexing her foot until her heel connected with the ground. Immediately the earth surged towards Shelby, splitting down the middle in a faultline. The air bubble spell Shelby was casting burst, interrupted as she went flying back.
Shelby caught herself , countering the impact of Drift's faultline with her own jet that sent her straight up into the air. Mid-air, she moved with that telltale twist again. A pillar of stone rose underneath Shelby and Drift reached up to try to grab her and force her back down, but it was too late.
She felt herself swept off her feet, caught in Shelby's notorious air bubble again. The gales rushing around her penned her in as Shelby directed the spherical prison high off the ground and then catapulted her across the training room.
Drift hit the wall with a thud that had her teeth buzzing and her back smarting. She groaned and tasted the metal of blood in her mouth where she'd bitten her cheek when her jaw had abducted slightly on impact.
"Gods above, Shelby," she whined, more annoyed that she hadn't been able to stop her in time than she was at Shelby for hurting her. "Are you trying to kill me?"
"Sorry!" Shelby exclaimed, hurrying towards Drift. "I didn't realize it would throw you so hard!"
"You're the one who controls the strength!" she groused, rubbing the space between her shoulder blades which had hit the wall first. "If you throw the bubble like that, of course I'm gonna go flying."
"Sorry," she apologized again, helping Drift back to her feet. "I guess I'm still getting used to it."
"Hey, it's okay." Drift squeezed her hand, finally realizing how worried her friend actually was. "I'm sorry for snapping about it. It just scared me and it hurt, but actually that was really impressive."
"Really?" Shelby's eyes brightened like two golden lanterns.
"Totally! I don't think even Scott could catch himself fast enough to escape that," commended Drift, shrugging her shoulders up and back to test the bruising there. "You're super good at it now."
"Thanks!" Shelby said, leading Drift by the arm back to where they'd dropped off their backpacks.
Their dragons, adolescent now and too big to stay in their backpacks, watched them as they approached. Firefly was bouncing excitedly while her wings fluttered haphazardly. Meanwhile Fern stared Drift down like a cat, focused and alert even as she rested her tail neatly over her claws.
"I think the problem with dueling each other is that our magics balance one another so well that it's almost impossible to get the upper hand," Shelby mused as they rummaged through her bag. "It took Pyro nearly an hour to beat Scott, and even then it was only by a split second's difference. Like you and me."
Shelby pulled a tiny vial of a regeneration potion from her backpack and passed it over to Drift who murmured her gratitude downed it in one gulp. Immediately the potion took effect, numbing the ache in Drift's muscles and reducing the inflammation where she'd collided with the wall. She'd probably still have a bruise, but the potion relieved her pain in the short term and hastened the healing process.
"I guess our magic isn't really designed to be pitted against each other. They're meant to be complements," she said, dropping next to Fern with a sigh. Fern sniffed inquisitively at Drift's hair, her hot breath making the skin of her scalp burn a little. She let out a low, rough sound as if in agreement with her rider. It echoed deep in her throat, almost like a purr.
Drift pinched the corner of her cape, which she'd set aside for their duel, and swiped it across her brow where sweat had been beading for the past thirty minutes. "That's why it's such a great challenge though."
"Plus, you know how I think. I know how you think," Shelby added, nodding while Firefly was busy butting her head into Shelby's arm for attention. She reached up and scratched Firefly's chin. "It's hard to find another pair so evenly matched outside of the quartet."
"I don't know. I'm not sure 'evenly matched' is the way I would describe that fight, pretty one." A familiar drawl sounded from the direction of the training room's entrance. AJ leaned against the wall nearby, arms crossed over her chest and her face hidden in the room's shadows. It was some inexplicable effect of her magic, Drift was sure, that somehow she was constantly cast half in shadows. "Open book, it looks like you were getting your ass handed to you."
Drift shot to her feet, Fern mirroring her sudden animation. "How long have you been here?" she demanded, narrowing her eyes at her. "Were you watching us fight?"
AJ shrugged noncommittally as she peeled herself from the wall, stepping into the torchlight. "The training room's free to any student in the Academy for training. Or for spectating." She raised a brow, her expression suddenly hewn with roguish intent. "Would it bother you if I were watching?"
"Of course not. Like you said, the training room's open for everyone," Shelby interjected, saving Drift from having to respond. "Were you hoping to train, AJ? Or maybe duel?"
"I actually came to find you, pretty one. That ditzy friend of yours—the green one—has been wandering all around the Academy looking for you." AJ replied, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "Something about a picnic and a snack pouch?"
AJ was lying through her teeth, Drift could read her well enough by now to notice how her eyes were alight with mischief and how one corner of her mouth lifted a little higher than the other in spite of her supposed uncertainty. She was trying to separate the two of them by using Elaina as bait. What did AJ want this time?
Shelby was perhaps not as insightful. Or if she did catch it, she cared too much about Elaina to ignore even the possibility of it being the truth. She stood, brushing the dirt from tackling Drift's earth walls and boulders off her shorts.
Drift handed Shelby's backpack to her as she did. "Go make sure Sprout's alright."
"Are you staying here?" Shelby asked, taking the bag from her and slinging it back over her shoulders.
"Yeah. I think I'd like to practice a little more. Besides, I have an audience," she said, gesturing to Fern and blatantly ignoring AJ standing beside them, and the way that particular exclusion made AJ laugh in return.
Shelby glanced between the two of them. "If you say so." She leaned forward and wrapped Drift in a quick hug, and Drift didn't mention the way it made her bruises ache. "Go easy on yourself, okay?"
She nodded as Shelby pulled away from her. "Got it. Tell Sprout I said hi."
"Will do. Come on, Firefly," she said and her dragon bounded after her. "See you around, AJ."
AJ shot her a promising grin. "I'm sure you will."
Once Shelby left the room, Drift swatted AJ's arm with the back of her hand. "Cut that out, will you?"
AJ jumped, rubbing at the spot where Drift had hit her. "Cut what out?"
"Oh, I'm sure you will," Drift mocked, rolling her eyes. "Really?"
The other woman only laughed, delighted by her reaction. "What? Are you jealous?"
"She's my best friend," she said by way of protest. Fern huffed, as though she were also butting-in to agree Shelby—or perhaps Firefly—was her closest friend.
"So you are jealous," AJ prodded, but she threw her hands up when Drift shot her a lethal glare. "I'll stop, I'll stop. Don't get your panties in a twist."
"What is it you want anyway? You clearly just misled Shelby to get me alone." She had bunched up her cloak in her hands, rolling it up only to toss it on her backpack again without care. "Well, now you have me."
"Now I have you," AJ echoed, always a little too giddy to be entirely natural. "How charming. Can't I want a moment alone with my 'girlfriend' without being questioned?"
Drift studied AJ carefully. Then she exhaled, pushing the air through her tight lips. "What's wrong?"
"Wrong?" AJ scowled, the barest look of surprise escaping before her typical arrogance shuttered around it. She'd clearly been caught off guard by Drift's discernment. "I don't know what you're talking about. There's nothing wrong."
"You look like you might jump out of your skin if I touch you," Drift said evenly. She knew it was no use to lose her temper if AJ was on edge like this. It would only give AJ the satisfaction of arguing when she was already actively searching for excuses to sabotage, even if she was doing so subconsciously. Drift gestured at AJ vaguely. "This…volatility. What's that about?"
"I'm always like this, open book. Surely you know that by now," she objected cheerfully. She sounded like how Drift imagined walking on a tightrope would feel: precarious and wobbly. Her indifference towards openly admitting that her behavior was off-putting was not new. Nor was it enough to persuade Drift.
Chances were AJ wouldn't tell her what was wrong, even if she kept asking. And the truth was that Drift wasn't in the mood to try to dissect whatever was causing this. She was stressed and tired from her duel with Shelby. She didn't have the energy to go picking through the wires of AJ's mood, worrying that if she cut the wrong one, it would all explode. Neither of them did.
Still, AJ had come to her for a reason. Help, perhaps, redirecting her agitation into something less destructive. She was looking for an outlet. That thought softened Drift a little. She'd done the same to AJ before.
"If you say so," Drift relented, dropping the issue. She reached her arms up over her head and stretched. "Want to duel?"
AJ's brow shot up at the unexpected deflection and Drift wondered just how badly she'd been searching for the fight Drift denied her. Then she grinned, eager for a different challenge, especially one that required less talking, and Drift couldn't help but feel the same. "Sure. But I should warn you, open book: fighting Shelby is nothing like fighting me."
"I'm sure it'll be easier," Drift retorted, stroking Fern along the side of her neck to calm her. It seemed even her dragon did not approve of AJ's mercurial attitude.
"Wanna bet?"
Drift pursed her lips and regarded her curiously. Money was of little concern to Drift thanks to her family's affluence. However, money was also of little concern to AJ because she was a notorious thief. "What are we betting?"
AJ's dark eyes sparkled with mischief. "A favor."
A favor could mean just about anything. If Shelby were here, she'd probably advise Drift not to take an offer like that from the likes of AJ. However, Shelby was notably not present anymore.
"Deal," she said, smiling as she shook AJ's hand.
They took their positions on opposite sides of the dueling grounds. In a cloud of inky smoke, AJ summoned Flick.
"Am I dueling Flick too?" Drift asked, tugging her sleeves up past her elbows. She knew Flick was immortal, but it felt a little cruel to make Drift fight AJ's familiar too. She had grown rather fond of the little crow.
AJ cooed something to Flick, too quietly for Drift to hear, before the bird took off and landed near Fern. "No, I just figured since you get a cheerleader, I ought to have my own."
The corner of Drift's mouth lifted with bemusement. "Don't you have your own dragon?"
AJ rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "Let's just start, yeah?"
"Sure thing," she said. Without further warning, she stepped forward and the ground shuddered, splitting in two along its seam as the faultline surged towards AJ.
Even across the room, Drift could hear the way AJ laughed in surprise, dancing quickly away from the spell's epicenter, even as the edges of the power surge sent her stumbling sideways. "That was dirty of you," AJ jeered.
Drift ignored her taunting and the stone floor shook as her magic carved out a boulder easily twice her size from either side of where she stood. She lifted them and hurled them at AJ, one right after the other. AJ shrieked as they hurtled towards her like asteroids, crashing and exploding into a shower of debris and dust as they collided.
Like a bullet, a black shadow shot out of the cloud of detritus. It hovered in the air for a moment then it careened towards Drift. She had only a split second to process AJ's face and a Stygian pair of wings, before she was erecting a wall of stone between them. Her stomach dropped and she heard the clang of metal on stone behind the wall as AJ's daggers hit the blockade instead.
"Nice save," AJ confessed, rebounding off the wall and landing once more, dark wings still open behind her.
"Thanks! I really panicked," Drift said cheerily, then shoved the earthen wall towards AJ with shocking speed.
AJ tried to take off again, beating her wings furiously, but found that the ground beneath her had turned into thick, soupy mud that held her viciously in place. She groaned with irritation. "Fucking hell," she muttered, trying to rip her legs out of the mud. "You're an absolute snake for this."
Drift shrugged, content to watch her struggle while she took the chance to catch her breath. If it was anyone else, she'd be worried about the wall actually crushing them. But AJ…
As the wall grew alarmingly close, AJ finally gave up on the mud and reached for the wall. Their hands disappeared in a maze of deep gray and black shadows which wrapped around them. She slashed at the wall and it crumbled around her.
Destruction was an inherent part of AJ's magic. Still, it took it toll on her to use it. Like seeing a rubber band snap back into its original shape, Drift watched AJ reel back as if she'd been slapped. AJ coughed, expelling a tiny cloud of acrid smoke and gravelly dust. She grimaced. "That's literally my least favorite spell, you know that. The aftertaste is horrendous."
Drift couldn't help but cackle at the pure disgust and look of betrayal on AJ's face. If only she could frame that and hang it up to laugh at every day. "It can't be that bad."
"You try coughing up rock dust!" AJ exclaimed in outrage while Drift laughed, rounding on her as the mud hardened back to stone. She dove at Drift once more, hands distorted into talons which cleaved the air. "Decay magic tastes like a two week old cigarette you found ground into the dirt."
Drift threw up more walls to block her attacks, each one crumbling the same way as AJ clawed at them with her magic. "And how do you know what that tastes like?"
"Hey, that's actually a really embarrassing and personal story," AJ jested gleefully as Drift was forced to back away from her onslaught. "I just don't think we're close enough for that."
Drift barked out a disbelieving laugh at that. "Yeah, I don't think we can get much closer than we've already been," she scoffed.
Before AJ could get out a (most likely vulgar) reply, Drift stamped her foot down hard into the ground. A column of stone shot upwards from underneath AJ, sending her rocketing into the ceiling. "Watch your head!" she yelled up to her.
Vaguely, Drift could hear AJ shouting something incredulously at her. But, much to her entertainment, she was too far to make out the words.
"Well I guess that's the end of the duel, AJ," she crowed. She stretched, forcing herself to feign leisure despite how exhausted she was. A moment of silence followed so she tried again. "That definitely counts as being out of bounds. I guess you owe me a favor now, huh."
"Not quite," AJ giggled, the sound somehow coming from behind Drift. She spun around and turned to find herself face to face with AJ and a cool, iron blade to her throat. AJ was clutching at her stomach, probably where she'd been hit the hardest by the stone column, and her body was tense with pain. Her wings were broken and half-decayed—literally falling apart as the spell wore off. Still she beamed triumphantly at Drift, her swagger clearly uninjured. "Your back's to your own wall, Drift. I think I win this one."
Drift groaned, shoving AJ's arm aside so she'd take the dagger out of her face. "How'd you even get over here?"
"I have my ways," AJ answered unhelpfully. She sheathed the dagger she'd brandished at her and ran am unsteady hand through her sweaty hair. Her face was grimy with perspiration and now a significant amount of dirt. Drift imagined she didn't look much cleaner herself. "Though you may seriously have broken one of my ribs with that trick."
Drift grimaced sympathetically. Since all their powers had grown much stronger, so had their injuries grown more intense. Fortunately (and with no thanks to Nurse Violet) so had their medical. Nevertheless, every injury still hurt the same. "I'm really sorry! I have potions in my backpack you can use and we can check with Ros if they don't help."
"It's alright," AJ assured her, to which Drift rolled her eyes and pulled her along back to the bleachers where Fern and Flick sat waiting with her bag. "I'm tougher than I look."
"Just shut up, sit down, and drink these," murmured Drift as she passed AJ a potion of healing and one for regeneration. AJ laughed as she obliged. Her eyes were bright still, but no longer with the same, nearly manic energy they'd been carrying before. This glow seemed inexplicably more authentic—warmer and a little more subdued.
Drift settled down next to her and practically attempted to drown herself in a drink of water. When that didn't work quickly enough to cool her off, she relented and peeled off her shirt which felt suffocating in the warmth of the training room. In her undershirt she leaned back and wallowed in the burn in her arms and legs. She could feel AJ's gaze on her as she did so but she was too spent to care.
"Damn, that really took it out of you," AJ chortled, taking what was left of Drift's water without bothering to ask.
"Look, I was dueling Shelby for like nearly forty minutes before you got here, " she droned, eyes closed and gesturing absently as she spoke. "It wasn't just the one round, you know. She wanted to perfect this move and so guess who kept getting thrown around?"
"You?"
"Me!" Drift exclaimed dramatically, jolting upright as she did. "I've got all the bruises to prove it." She held out her arm, rotating at the shoulder to demonstrate her point. She was in fact covered in numerous darkening bruises.
AJ pouted playfully and took Drift's hand. "You poor thing," she teased and began peppering her arm with tiny kisses from her wrist up to her shoulder.
"Stop, stop," Drift complained half-heartedly, pulling her arm away. Mortifyingly, her face was burning with a different kind of warmth. "I'm like sweaty and gross and I probably smell horrible."
AJ cackled shamelessly and let her go, content instead to tuck the loose strands of hair sticking to Drift's forehead back behind her ear. "Yeah, well, so am I," she conceded breezily. She pressed a single light kiss to Drift's shoulder and slumped against her, threading her fingers in and out of Drift's. "Thanks, by the way."
"Hm?" Drift hummed with confusion. AJ rarely said thank you for anything. "What for?"
"Nothing." AJ shook her head, smiling in spite of herself it seemed. "Just, that this was good. This helped."
Drift squeezed AJ's hand in hers and let them fall together gently on her thigh. "I knew something was wrong. You didn't seem like yourself."
"Yeah, I just…" AJ sighed and tipped her head back, disgruntled by the whole affair. "I don't really want to talk about it right now. Later."
She shrugged; she could accept that. She believed AJ would follow through. If she promised they would talk about it later, Drift believed her. "Later then," she said, raising AJ's knuckles to her lips before she stood, dropping her hand. She reached for her backpack, slinging it over her shoulder. "I'm going to go shower because I feel like I've been rolling in the mud for an hour like a pig."
AJ raised an eyebrow inquisitively, mouth curling into that puckish smile Drift loved. "Is that an invitation?"
"I need to take Fern back to my room, but after that… Who knows? It could be," Drift replied in her best impression of nonchalance. She turned away so AJ couldn't see what a terrible act it really was. "If you get there fast enough, that is."
"Oh, I'll be there. Don't keep me waiting," she said with a chuckle. Then AJ's body twisted in a black mist until only a familiar crow in a macabre bone mask looked back at her with beady, bright eyes. "See you soon, open book."