Interruptions

Vanessa staggered out of the room as the other students snickered as she left. The blame fell almost squarely on her shoulders. She only exaggerated her relationship with Sir Forolan a little bit! She didn't scare him off by acting like a creepy stalker!

Why didn't that idiot Marc take the blame? It was his idea after all! He said that Sir Forolan definitely loved her and would agree! Someone must have betrayed her. Maybe that wasn't the actual Sir Forolan? Mr. Vear did know him well enough, and truly hated her.

That was the least of her worries right now. All of her friends basically abandoned her. They didn't want to get near a lying fake with a trashed reputation. The sneers and looks of derision from the other Butterflies were the worst.

No, she was no longer a Butterfly now. She wouldn't even be a student her past this semester. Suddenly, a faint breeze pushed her back and Vanessa found herself on the floor.

"Oh my, Lady Landrienne tripped over her own two feet," a sweet voiced called out behind her. "Please allow me to help you up."

"No need!"

Vanessa flung the 'helping hand' away from her. She did not need anyone's pity. Especially that woman's. The sarcasm dripped from that woman's voice whenever she said 'Lady Landrienne', as if calling Vanessa by that title only to mock her rather than show respect like that vixen once did. The hem of an elegant couture gown swept passed her vision.

"Well… if you insist, Lady Landrienne."

The Butterflies trailed behind Corrine Bilton after she left. Only Enid stayed behind and slowly helped her up. Vanessa stared down at her tattered clothes. Her proposal dress was in tatters because of the gremlins. The rest of her closet was shredded and all of her jewelry disappeared as well. Enid's closet suffered the same fate.

Vanessa knew that the gremlins didn't actually touch her closet. Her palms bled as she tightly gripped her fingers into a fist. This was a trick that the Butterflies used before. In fact, it was one of Vanessa's favorites. Now it was used on her.

"This was no accident my lady. That Corrine Bilton must have done something. She's been sneaking around with Marc for a while now. I thought that they were secretly dating, but they must have actually worked together to plan my lady's downfall. There's no way that she could usurp your position so quickly or so well without his help. Please pardon my incompetence for failing to see through them."

Actually, Corrine just used her cunning and the power of nice to get her way. The other Butterflies had long grown tired of Vanessa's tantrums and idiocy. She secretly helped them on many occasions, and set up situations so that they would pity her. Corrine played the role of a white lotus role very well.

Vanessa gnashed her teeth as she stood up. She would get even with Corrine Bilton for this. When Vanessa got back to Landrienne, she would make that witch's family suffer. Who cares that her father was an aid to the current City Lord? The City Lord was her uncle. There was no way that he would let those treacherous lower ranked rats get away with this.

Her eyes lit up in realization. That witch must be the one who sabotaged her proposal! Yes, it must be her. That witch must have given that Aayla vixen the information about Sir Forolan that she learned from me. They tricked Sir Forolan into thinking he loved that vixen. There's no way that some lowly bumpkin is worthy of his love.

Marc set up the proposal when he knew that it would fail, then Corrine too over the Butterflies and that vixen stole her fiancé. She would make them all pay for this. To do that, she would need to get through this crisis by rescuing her man.

**********

The lounge of the residence hall was abuzz with excitement the next day. Students crowded around with their friends discussing the failed proposal. It was still the favorite topic of gossip long after the incident was settled.

Vanessa hadn't been seen in days. Aayla was happy that she hadn't been causing trouble. Work had been going smoothly because of that.

"You've mostly translated up to here?"

"Yeah. These words are much trickier than in the textbooks that I can get my hands on."

Daren flipped through Aayla's notes. She had finished transcribing the journal just before the second exam, and was making steady progress translating it to modern Ancient Celes. Well, as modern as Ancient Celes could get.

She had been working on it while she and Daren were stuck in the basement. Daren noticed her practicing what she translated and helped her correct a couple things. He kept helping even after he was freed from Vanessa.

"Are you sure that's the right letter? It doesn't look like anything I've seen in some of Headmaster Marin's older magic books."

"Yes! I'm sure…. Well, the handwriting was a little messy."

She and Daren met everything morning in the office to take care of paperwork for incidents that happened overnight. Most of them were petty squabbles and small duels between students. Theo was too busy calming the factional conflicts, otherwise he would have taken care of the paperwork.

Or at least that's what Daren told Aayla. Theo was too busy to tell Aayla himself.

"This part should be about attribute imbuement for derivatives."

"Attribute imbuement?"

"Adding an elemental attribute to an object. Like if you added the fire element to a sword you would get a flaming sword. This is fairly advanced for a first year. This type of magic can go disastrously wrong. Is this part of homework that Deputy Heston assigned?"

"No, it's just a passion project of mine. The translating part that is. I'm still working on the earlier chapters."

"You can use fire, right? I heard from the fourth years that you can use some ice as well."

"Just a bit. Depends on what I have in my artifact. Honestly, I still haven't found a way to practice earth or air elemental magic yet."

"Have you tried the basement or one of the upper spires?"

"I've tried the basement, but I couldn't feel the elemental mana at all."

"It can be a bit tricky to start out, especially if you need a concentrated source of elemental mana to start out. I have a bit of time this evening, so I can tutor you if you want."

Daren's heart pounded in his chest while Aayla thought for a few seconds. When she finally nodded, he secretly heaved a sigh of relief. He really wanted to spend some time with her. A third wheel arrived just in time to ruin what Daren wanted to say next.

"Both of you are here? Where's Mr. Lawlor?"

A petite young lady with a bob cut stuck her head inside the room. Aayla immediately sat up straight and snatched her notes back from Daren. He did his best to not glare at the interruption. Whenever random girls would woo him, no third wheels arrived. Whenever he tried to woo a girl, third wheels arrived. How frustrating!

"He should be around here somewhere, Ms. Parlow. He's been super busy with mediating disputes recently so we've been handling the paperwork."

"Let me know when you find him. I need to pass on a message to all of you. The Student Council has decided to hold a competition on the trial grounds to celebrate its grand opening. The official notices should come out tomorrow."

"Thanks! We'll let him know if we see him."

Renee nodded then glanced at Daren with a slight grin as she slowly withdrew from the room. Daren resisted the urge to throw his coffee at her.

"So, what time would work best –"

The door flew open again. Daren's smile cracked. Chris quickly ran inside.

"Did you hear about the latest news from the Student Council? They're organizing a competition in the Outer Gardens."

"Ms. Parlow just told us about it."

"So, Lady Glowery, you've done a few runs right? What's it like? Got any tips?"

"How nice of you to join us, Mr. Vear," Daren said through gritted teeth.

"Hey Daren! I just heard about the Student Council's plans and came right over to let you know. Do you want to partner up if they do a team competition?"

"I'll think about it. Don't you have some rumors to squash? Go double check that I'm not still engaged to Vanessa Landrienne."

"Ack!"

Daren promptly pushed him out of the door and slammed it shut. He calmly readjusted his clothes before turning back around. Before he could even speak there was a small noise coming from inside the mailboxes. Tiny little eyes belonging to tiny little fluffballs munching on popcorn peered out from them.

"Seriously? You all too? I thought we were sort of friends now."

The gremlins merrily chirped then scampered off like they were never there in the first place. Daren barely held back his screams of frustration.