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It’s only one thing at first.
AJ trails behind Magpie on the way back to Lupi. The gardens were still packed when they left, somehow everyone needed the pot at the same time. And nobody seems to want to go to the actual kitchen anymore… you poison something one time.
“You’re sure you have more coffee grounds, Magpie?” She asks again, just to stop the silence more than anything. She’s met with it anyways, aside from the clicks of their footsteps. “Magpie?”
The other mage whirls around, making AJ backpedal to avoid slamming into her chest.
“I need you to be more careful, AJ!” Magpie scowls down at her.
“More careful?” AJ parrots. “But that’s already, like, my best virtue, Magpie, I don’t know what you think I could improve upon.”
“Maybe not using my name in a room full of people? When I’ve already told you not to?” Magpie scoffs at AJ’s blank stare. “I know it can be hard to switch back and forth, or something. But then maybe just stick to Megii?”
Later, AJ hauls herself up the ladder to her bed. The empty plant beds and blank space on the wall glare offensively, but she shoves it from her mind. Magpie’s words still linger in her mind.
She wants to keep her name a secret. Yet she’d told AJ of all people, back however long ago that was. She begins throwing her coffee into a nearby barrel. Whatever the dark and traumatizing past behind Magpie’s name is, the dramatics feel slightly unwarranted. She’ll try her best, or whatever, but-
A memory drifts across her mind. AJ reaches out for the details, only to be met with haze and mist. Names, no, her name, that’s what it was. A jolt of anxiety runs through her stomach, mixed with a vague sick feeling.
“It’s interesting, what people are calling you now.”
Ghostie. That first day AJ had crawled out from the crypt only to find her roaming the halls. A taunting reminder of her past trying to suffocate her.
Without really thinking, AJ opens one of her books, uncaring of which one. She flips to the back page and tears it out, scribbling a short message on it.
AJ jumps back down the ladder, trying to ignore the ominous crack from her knees and the ache that comes with it. She grabs a random flower from her voidchest. Crushing it in her hand, she smears the sticky paste onto the paper. Then, on the back of the painting covering the ladder up to her bed she pins the note. Her neat writing stares at her, just at eye level for whenever she leaves her room each morning:
‘Don’t use Magpie’s real name around others.’
Just one reminder, for Megii’s sake.
~*^*~
She should make Seamstress some glasses.
The thought hits AJ with a slight sense of deja vu, as she watches her best friend (forever for life). Seamstress continues her walk through the main hall to wherever she’d been off to, despite her eyes passing directly over where AJ is perched on the stairs.
“Hey Flick, do you think you could steal some bottles from the Hot One? I think Seamstress’ eyes aren’t all there. I could maybe fashion her some goggles like mine.”
The familiar flutters from her spot a step below AJ. She lands lightly on her shoulder with a caw, nibbling at her ear. AJ swallows, trying to banish the twist in her stomach.
“Oh, right. Sorry, Flick. Maybe I have been drinking a bit too much, eh?” She turns to the crow with a grin she doesn’t mean. That could never fool Flick, not after all they’d been through, but that she normally lets go. Now, though, that grin earns AJ a much harder bite on the nose.
“I don’t know what’s happening either, Flick.”
‘The bottles for Seamstress’ goggles are at the bar. Get to it.’
~*^*~
The moon is blotted out in the sky, casting darkness to the point where AJ doesn’t even need to stick to the shadows of buildings to avoid being seen. She does regardless, peeking around a corner at the empty stalls of the market.
A cold, hard beak nudges her elbow. She turns around, withholding a groan. Her dragon stares up at her with wide eyes, Flick perched on his feathery head.
“How are you here?” AJ’s hisses, only half-keeping a whisper. He sits down, head as high as her shoulder and tail swaying back and forth.
Flick chirps, wings puffed with pride. AJ narrows her eyes at the both of them.
“I don’t care what sort of mentor-friendship thing you have with… Nico. The plan for if a guard comes was to fly out of here, he’ll get us caught!” The aforementioned dragon’s head droops, and Flick doesn’t need to voice the disapproval in her onyx black eyes. She really does deserve some sort of award for not being louder in her frustration.
With the promise that if he gets them caught AJ will kill Nico, her own life be damned, she makes the rest of the way to the ender pearl stall. The guard at the steps nearby none the wiser.
She pulls out her lockpick and begins fiddling with the chest’s mechanism. It clicks open, and a familiar rush of magic floods her veins. A flash of light bursts from the lock as her crime hits some sort of benchmark of improvement.
“Hello?” The guard’s lantern casts a glow over themself as they loft it higher. AJ tries to freeze for a moment, but they are already locked in on her stall. And of course neither her bird nor her dragon are anywhere to be seen.
AJ snags a stack of pearls before shutting the chest and vaulting over the counter onto the public street.
“Well hello,” AJ calls, hands shoved in her pockets as she walks over. Her feigned casualness is met with the guard putting a hand on their sword, which is probably reasonable given the time.
“The market’s closed, why are you poking around…”
“Alex. Just out for a walk, no big deal.” It’s a fight to keep her eyes from darting around the town, searching for inky feathers or an escape route. The guard, on the other hand, manages to be very obvious in their eyeing of the stall AJ just raided, even from under the helmet.
“I think I need to ask you to come with me,” They step closer, adding on before AJ can protest, “I insist.”
Bury them. Kill them and run. AJ raises an arm to do just that when her breath catches. Phantom screams echo off sewer walls into her ears. Amber eyes and hands clawing at moss fill her mind.
Stumbling back below the hood of the stall, AJ fumbles for her daggers and the guard fully draws their sword. They rear the blade back, and she raises her own to meet them-
Something drops down from the roof above, landing with a thump. The lantern goes flying, extinguishing and plunging the street into darkness again. AJ blinks, willing her eyes to adjust, expecting some sort of blow.
But when she can finally see more than black, the guard is sprawled on the ground. With Nico sitting on his back, head tilted and eyes sparkling. Flick lands to perch on ground beside him, with a chirp that rings with ‘I told you so.’
‘Nico is your dragon. He won’t eat chicken. The rapping at the window is him or Flick.’
~*^*~
It’s been… two weeks? Yes, must be, since AJ started her notes. A small cluster of them greet her before she leaves into the second level of her dorm room every morning. She forces herself to read them, and tears down any that seem irrelevant.
‘Jibble is real. Don’t forget him around Ghostie.’
She doesn’t care enough about the ins and outs of the academy enough to write most things down. Nor did she ever care enough in the first place, so her lack of knowledge isn’t all that suspicious. If it’s something she should know it’s easy to pretend she’s just trying to get under someone’s skin.
‘Duskie= Osteon’
The only thing AJ can’t keep track of on paper is the rebel stuff. As much as she doesn’t want anyone to find her reminders regardless, she isn’t careless enough to leave anything incriminating out in the open. Any rebel books go in her voidchest hidden under that white log for her to read over when relevant.
‘Call the Cold one Scott.’
~*^*~
Whatever Juniper had been saying to their small group of people AJ is quickly distracted from when a gloved hand slips into hers. She nearly jumps out of her skin as she is made aware of Drift all at once. Warmth. The faint light from her crown. The smell of earth, fresh dew, and flowers.
Her, th- Scott, and Shelby join the gaggle of other mages in the main hall seamlessly. Aside from a few greetings everyone else gets back to whatever the subject had been.
“Getting awfully close, aren’t you Princess?” AJ whispers scathingly, trying to unthread her fingers. She doesn’t know how hard Drift must’ve hit her head to be cozying up to her all the sudden, but she shouldn’t particularly care. They are firmly back to hating each other. Or at least they’re supposed to be.
“Don’t call me that.” The earth mage mutters back by reflex. Then her hand tightens around AJ’s with surprising fierceness. “What are you doing?”
The bewilderment in Drift’s tone is what convinces AJ to not wrench away immediately. Instead she looks up at Drift, barbed comment primed on her tongue. She meets her eyes and-
Warm amber burns away mist. Full lucidity returns to AJ just to make her heart pound from its absence. She feels her eyes widen into rings as she turns her head to the floor. Shit.
AJ relaxes into Drift’s side, all too aware of half of the goddamn academy around them as she tries not to vomit.
They’d met in her village. When did she finally go there? She’s dating Drift again. Fake dating. Her head hurts. Throbbing just behind the eyes and trying to scatter her thoughts like petals in the wind.
“AJ?”
What else is she missing? She could handle the first few days. Her first encounter with Goggles surely isn’t something she would have cherished anyways.
Was this always happening? Was she already being hollowed out from the moment she got here? She remembers vividly when the rotting started, and when she realized it won’t go away.
“AJ, come on.”
AJ almost asks herself. All the questions that matter. She’s scared she can’t answer them.
Maybe if she doesn’t think about whether she remembers, doesn’t force her brain to check and find nothing there, they won’t actually disappear. The vague notion of an ancient proverb about a cat crosses her mind.
“AJ look at me!”
Drift’s dorm slides into focus. Soft greens and warm lighting. The ET poster is exactly where it’s always been on the wall by her bed. Her hands rest on AJ’s shoulders, burning into them. She shakes her again after a moment with no response.
AJ bats Drift’s arms away and, with a great deal of effort, stumbles back a step. There’s worry in every line of her face, and it makes AJ sick.
“What was that? Do you know how suspicious that looked?”
It takes AJ longer than she’d like to admit to steady her breathing enough to answer.
“Sorry, Open Book.” The kitchenette in the corner is where AJ chooses to rest her gaze. This is fine. “Didn’t mean to blow our cover.”
She almost longs for Drift to blow up on her. To be yelled at and berated with serrated words that tear her to pieces.
“No, what was that? You looked scared.” Because this is the alternative.
“I guess you startled me. I almost thought you really wanted me for a moment, Open Book, you should take up acting.”
“AJ, cut it out.” She hears the steps of boots on wood, and looks back to see Drift leaning in close, anger mixing with concern. “I had to basically drag you back here! Make up some bull excuse that I’m going to have to explain later to everyone about why you had to be led around like a puppy. You wouldn’t answer me and you had this look in your eye, I just-
“You don’t get to make me worry over you and shut me out.” Drift pulls back, arms folded. “So, what was that?”
“I forgot, okay? I forgot about our stupid plan. Say I’m the one who needs to put up a better act, if that’s what makes you happy.”
Drift’s confusion is scrawled across her face. “You forgot? You said it was only the first few days at the academy that were faded, what-“
“I thought it was.” Her floorboards are white. “I still know most of the past few weeks, I think. Nothing else has… come up like this.” AJ has to drag the words out like thorns. The silence while the gears in Drift’s mind turn is suffocating. Her bones itch.
“You should talk to Osteon.”
“What?”
“I asked her about memory issues,” Drift fiddles with a curl of hair sheepishly. “And they had some pretty good advice, he asked me to send you to them.”
AJ bristles, swallowing hard. “You told them? I give you one secret and you immediately go to Osteon of all people?”
“I didn’t say it was you, she doesn’t know! Who else could I ask?”
“No one! I told you it’s nothing.” AJ’s voice cracks, and she can feel her arms tremble. She can also see that Drift notices.
“Nothing? You don’t even- I only asked him because-“ Drift cuts off like the air in her lungs were shut off. She steps back, letting her feet catch on her bedframe so she flops down into a seat on the mattress with a huff. “… She said it would only get this bad if you stifled your magic.”
Drift’s gaze is a little too piercing for AJ’s comfort. “I’ve told you I’m not much in the business of burying people at the moment, Open Book.”
“Why not, then? Spell it out for me.” A familiar frustration returns to her face. “If it was so easy for you before then what changed?”
AJ is very suddenly aware of the fact that the door is behind her, with Drift on the other side of the room. She starts inching backwards.
“I don’t know. Half the time I try I can’t, and anytime it works it doesn’t help anything.” She turns away, and leaving doesn’t feel like a decision as much as her body just needing to go. “Thanks for the cover Open Book, see you later.”
“AJ, wha-“ The veil cloaks the rest of Drift’s words, and by the time she gets into the hallway AJ is gone.
‘You’re dating Drift. Never end up alone with her.’