Tick, tick, boom.

"..so if I understood this correctly," Fionera said in a voice full of disbelief, "You want me to smuggle you out of the academy?" She peered into his eyes to see if he was perhaps playing a joke on her, but all she could see was a cold, serious gaze staring right back at her.

"Precisely." Astil further confirmed with a nod of his head, the movement shifting to spill that pale hair of his over his broad shoulders. He usually had it up in a loose ponytail, the ends of which barely seemed to touch the nape of his neck. Seeing it free from its bindings was a little.. different. Nice, but different.

She sighs and drags a hand down her face. "Your highness—"

"Just call me Astil."

"Your highness," Fionera insisted. She really didn't want to build a closer relationship with him than she'd already had. It was bad enough they were conversing under the cover of night and in secret; if anyone were to stumble upon them, Fionera wouldn't put it past them to think they'd met up for a midnight tryst or something, despite them never interacting with one another before now.

"What makes you think such a thing is even within my power to do?" Nevermind the fact that it was weird he was being so incognito about leaving.

Fionera really didn't want to know more than she had to, the blood on his clothes hinted towards a scenario she herself didn't want to be factored into. Because whatever shit that Astil had gotten himself into, for someone to leave an injury like that on him meant that they could be a possible threat to her own well-being also.

Just looking at his uniform assured her of that.

Although it was somewhat wearable— it was ripped in certain places and stained with so much blood that someone definitely must've died. There was a wound most probably made from a sword that lay diagonally across his chest; cleaving open the fabric of the uniform. It may not have been actively bleeding anymore, but the cut on his thigh still was.

From his composure alone, one could get the feeling that this didn't affect him much. In fact, now that she thought about it, he showed no adverse reaction to the chair either.

Fionera eyed him dubiously. Could he be telling the truth about his identity after all? Was there really no illusion placed over his appearance?

The chair he sits upon was a rough enough model for what she wanted to create that it couldn't be taken as a reliable source of information. But. Her own instinct was telling her that he appeared to be who he said he was.

If that was the case then perhaps she should be addressing him with a bit more respect…

Astil lets out a semblance of a chuckle. "Did you think no one else in the dorm noticed you sneaking out?" He raised a single eyebrow that looked way too regal on someone with blood quickly matting in their hair. "You obviously have a well travelled route—"

"That's different!" It was her turn to interrupt him when he spoke so assuredly of her disobedience to the dorm rules. Forget respect! He was practically blackmailing her!

The fact that he had enough confidence to back up his accusation could only mean that he had evidence of her wrongdoings. But how the hell he even knew the ongoings of the female dormitories— she really doesn't want to know.

"I'm one person," she says after calming down.

The jig was up. There was pretty much no point in denying it any further when she'd so blatantly been caught red-handed. "And smuggling you out of the academy would require the two of us— which raises our chances of getting caught exponentially."

"I didn't say you had to come with me."

"Does it look like I plan on doing so?" She snarked, "Leading you there is bad enough. Activating the route alone is already risky, but spending more time keying in your signature — I may have no choice but to follow you just so I don't get caught."

Fionera wasn't stupid enough to tell him the exact coordinates of where her route began at, she'd already exposed too much as it is. Anyways, he'd find out where it was when and if she agreed to helping him.

He hummed. "Fair enough."

"Listen," Fionera sighs. "I haven't agreed to anything yet, and even if I do," she frowns, "I need to know that my life won't be in any imminent danger."

Astil pursed his lips. "… I can't promise that." He eventually answered and avoided her narrowed gaze.

"Then we haven't got a deal." She instantly rejected him. If he couldn't even do the bare minimum and guarantee her life, then their partnership could go straight in the bin. Sure, it was a bit harsh of her — but he was a prince for fuck's sake! How did she know that smuggling him out of here didn't count as attempted kidnapping..? The king of Yulté would (probably) have her head if he ever found out!

But before Fionera could think too much of repercussions that weren't even valid yet, she stares with wide eyes as the panes of her windows shatter with no audible sound.

"What the hell!" She shouts and instinctively leaps to her feet. There was no denying it now, the ward was definitely a dud. Instead of preventing an attack or alerting her before one was imminent; it silenced any noise of it happening entirely.

Fionera felt her heart thud in her chest at the spike of adrenaline she could feel making its way around her body. A few glass shards had sliced her cheek, but the dull sting was shoved to the back of her mind. There's a sudden weight in the air that makes Fionera's tongue feel heavy and thick in her mouth. Any words she tries to form come out sluggish and slurred, which she belatedly realises is the work of a saturated field of magic.

She was completely drunk on it.

Another wave of this dense magic almost had her falling to her knees, but she was still conscious enough to see how the blast had destroyed nearly all of her furniture and cracked parts of the walls. In her inebriated state, she couldn't help but stumble back into her bed, almost falling over the mattress that now rested on the floor from the broken bed frame.

Fionera watches with peeled eyes as Astil reaches a hand out to her. She drowsily blinks, thinking he was going to harm her, but he instead gently lays her face against his chest and cradles her head in the cups of his hands.

"I don't think you have a choice anymore," Astil mumbles, the sound vibrating his chest. "They managed to follow me."

He shuffles both of them away from the broken window in case anything happened to immediately follow after the blast. Fionera had no choice but to get her legs moving if she didn't want to be a dead weight in his arms.

'.. Who followed you?' She thinks with slight delirium. 'Your fans? Your buddies? Ex-lover?'

Fionera quickly squashed that train of thought. From the tone of his voice she doubted it was something as mundane as a friend inquiring his whereabouts. And really — what did it matter who followed him? They'd smashed her goddamn window so they could be nothing but an enemy!

Astil stiffly straightens up from where he was slightly hunched over her, unexpectedly mushing her face deeper into his chest area and probably smearing the flaky blood there onto her cheeks.

"You stink." She says quietly, words slurred.

His lips purse into a thin line as he stares down at her with furrowed eyebrows; eyes slightly widened. Fionera is pretty sure it's the expression he makes when he's surprised—or something similar, at least.

'Cute.'

Fionera ignores this muted stunned silence of his and stretches out her arm towards her shattered bed. "Gra.. grab my lamp and let's.. go..!" Over the ringing in her ears, she could distantly hear the sound of someone scaling the wall just outside the broken window.

Astil paused for half a second before he went to grab the lamp that hadn't cracked despite being hit by the blast; subsequently falling off the side table it was resting on, and rolling a ways across the floor.

For some reason, his grip on her wasn't letting up. She didn't bother to struggle too much, either, because he had already forced her hand by imposing into her room and bringing uninvited guests with him, so the least he could do was cater to her every whim.

With this thought in mind she drunkenly runs a hand over the wound on his chest. She'd noticed it was closing at a slow rate, but the fact it was even healing without any outside interference was odd. Healing of this capacity where it was visible to the naked eye, should've been impossible. There was also something about being in close proximity to him that helped sober her up to the point that she could make this analysis. It wasn't something she could finely pinpoint, but perhaps it was also the reason why he was colder than a corpse.

She tilts her head back when she feels a heavy stare on her person.

"What?" She blinks unafraid once she finds him looking straight at her. Astil held her gaze for a few seconds longer before he turned away.

"It's nothing." He gently shakes his head. Not long after, a small smirk curls on his lips as he says, "hold on."

Fionera barely has time to react before her view is suddenly upside down.

..what the hell was she supposed to hold on to?!

His ass!?

...…

The impromptu trip to the basement is mostly silent save for Astil's heavy breathing and Fionera's occasional grunt. None of his wounds—despite his abnormal healing—had managed to close up; Fionera could distinctly smell the fresh blood that continued to ooze every so often.

"You—" A sudden jolt makes her choke on her own words. She wasn't sure if it was intentional but she hates him for it all the same. "—are you ok?"

"I'm fine," she hears him reply. His voice is muffled, but Fionera knows it's just because her ears are covered by her thick hair and the blood rushing to her head is making her dizzy enough that it dulls her senses.

Less than a minute later they're on the ground floor of the dorm. Astil had taken longer than she'd expected to go down the stairs, but he was unfairly wounded so Fionera didn't hold it against him... much.

"Where—?"

"Behind the stairs," she interrupts his unasked question. Now closer to their destination, the sound of thumping music suddenly enters into their ears.

'Shit,' Fionera thinks, 'I forgot the graduation party was being hosted by our dorm!' It was bad enough that she wasn't attending, but if she were to run into anybody she knew… that'd be the absolute worst.

With the feeling of dread making itself known in the pits of her stomach, Fionera feels Astil start to move again. He jostles her higher up on his shoulder when she slid down, and she groans when it brings on a whole 'nother headache.

'Bastard.' She cursed in the safety of her mind. Fionera knew that now wasn't the time nor place to voice such minor vexations.

Behind the stairs unsurprisingly lay a door. It was made of wood like most tended to be, nondescript and plain for no one to look twice at.

Fionera knew better though.

Upon swinging the door open, she swears she hears Astil mumble something like 'more stairs?' and has to hold back from rolling her eyes. It was surprisingly childish of him.

Astil resolutely steps onto the little platform present right before the beginnings of a staircase that had seen better days. Feeling him once again resume moving, Fionera couldn't help but think about how she could make herself useful.

Sure; she still felt a bit sluggish, hating how her magic didn't answer her call because of it. Her initial thought was to inscribe a rune on the door to further tie up their supposed pursuers. Seeing as her magic continued to stay beyond her control for the time being, she had no choice but to use her blood as a medium.

One of the reasons that Fionera was so intuitive with magic was because she didn't just have an internal system that supported it like most other mages. No, a distinctive trait of her Race made it so that it also swam freely throughout her bloodstream.

In an impulsive move that she otherwise wouldn't have done, Fionera bites the pad of her index finger between her unnaturally sharp canines until the skin breaks, before quickly using the fresh blood to scribble a rune on the door before Astil once again begins to move.

It would—hopefully—act as a repellent to anyone who touches the handle, or the whole door, really. The rune she'd chosen operated as a battery that drew in the surrounding natural energy to charge it up before distributing this same energy throughout the entirety of the door, creating a sort of barrier that prevented anyone from touching it.

However, this meant that the partygoers couldn't leave, either. A small price to pay for the two's extended survival if Astil's urgency is to be believed.

By the time he makes it to the bottom of the stairs, Fionera has thought of about four different ways she could get away with his murder. It was a super short descent—seconds, really—but he'd made it as painful as possible by stomping on each step on the way down so it jostled her position over his shoulder.

Despite having muscled arms and a relatively solid build— it was not soft at all. In fact, his lack of fat was so uncomfortable she had to grit her teeth every time his shoulder jabbed into her stomach.

However, before she can yell at him for this offence, they're interrupted.

"Fionera..?" Someone calls out to them the moment the floor levels out once again. By the sounds of it, they'd just exited from wherever they came from. There was a distinct clack throughout the hallway that didn't fit in with whatever music was playing, which could only mean it was a door being closed.

Off by heart she knew that the length of the corridor was as long as a few metres, so going by the closeness of their voice, they must've just exited from the door leading into the actual party. It was, after all, the closest room to the basement's staircase entrance. Alicia had taken this into consideration when planning it — well, that and the only other room was used as storage and pretty much at the end of the entire hallway.

No one would want to walk that far, just on the verge of an annoyance to get to.

"Fionera, is that you?"

She tenses up in Astil's hold upon hearing them repeat themselves.

Damn. That was a voice she recognised.

"Peter?" She guessed before clawing at Astil's shoulder to maneuver her upper body and right herself. In the end she ended up positioning himself fully in his arms like some overgrown child, with his hands humiliatingly resting just below her ass.

The moment she settled, Fionera tried to indicate with her eyes for him to put her down.

He didn't.

"Put me down!" She hissed into his ear, ignoring her flushed cheeks when she realises what their current position looks like.

"Uhm.." Peter stumbles to find his words, deep blue eyes darting between the two of them. "Are you ok?"

"We're fine," Astil answers for the both of them, despite looking the most raggard. He didn't even bother to think up a lie— which definitely made them look more suspicious.

It was like it hadn't even been an option to him!

Fionera rears her head back in disbelief to properly look at him.

'Are you stupid?' Her gaze seems to say as her eyebrows nearly raise all the way to her hairline. He squeezed the back of her thighs in answer, and she got the gist that he wanted her to play along.

… Fair enough. It's not like she wanted anyone else to get involved. Besides, it was just Peter. He wasn't some authority figure who demanded they give the entire truth.

"We're fine," Fionera repeats. Though the tone of her voice was suspiciously blank, and anyone with a decent pair of ears could tell she was lying.

So it really shouldn't come as such a surprise to her when Peter frowns.

"You're sure?"

She nods and.. dislikes the way something warm seems to bloom in her chest at his blatant concern.

He was a decent guy, Peter, one that tried his best to help whoever he could. It was the kind of attitude Fionera was surprised to see from someone on the Knights & Paladin track. The students swathed in white usually didn't look twice at those in Formal Studies — which wasn't out of some blood feud or generational hatred, but that their classes nor paths tended to cross.

The two of them had first met at a mutual hangout spot in the Academy, and as time passed, they realised that their scheduled breaks were strangely aligned.

Still. His enthusiasm when approaching her was obvious to all. Fionera may be a bit dense when it came to interpersonal relationships, but his crush on her was as clear as day.

She'd rejected him once, but he'd said that he liked her as a friend far before he'd started developing more intimate feelings for her. After that particular interaction where he explained all this, Fionera finds that she probably would have come to love him — if she had opened herself up. But ultimately; she was at the academy to study, and relationships deeper than friendship felt like a distraction to her.

Another squeeze of her thigh brings her back to the present.

She looked at Astil in mild disdain out of the corner of her eye, but when she saw him incline his head to somewhere behind Peter— this same disdain eventually fizzled away into a sense of urgency.

They really shouldn't be spending so much time here so leisurely chatting. Fionera squeezes his shoulder back in understanding.

Astil takes a silent step forward with the intent to bypass Peter altogether.

"Are the two of you not here to attend the party?" Peter jutted his chin out towards the door he had earlier exited from. His question makes Astil once again pause. "Alicia's still waiting for you."

"No, I.." Fionera suddenly tensed up. "I've got something urgent to do." She quickly lied.

"And this includes Astilon?" He looked at her weirdly. After all, her and Astil had never been seen together before.

Peter takes a step forward as he frowns, blocking Astil's path.

"You're sure you're ok? He's not.. forcing you to do something, is he?"

Fionera appreciates his concern, really, and as it stands Astil was forcing her to do something. But Peter didn't need to know that. She could look after herself — besides, seeing the "Genius Knight" of the Academy looking so pathetic was enough of a reward for whatever shit he got her involved in.

… that and Fionera would never admit that she couldn't, in good conscience, turn anyone away who honestly came to her for help.

"Thanks, but I'm good," she shakes her head, "Can we pass through, please?"

Peter steps to the side with only mild suspicion, gaze flickering to where she and Astil were joined. She ignores the blush on her cheeks from being reminded about this fact.

Perhaps it's because of the fact that she's hyper aware that she hears Astil's heavy breathing. He's unnaturally laboured, and she can feel his chest heave with every breath he takes.

'Shit! That's not good!'

Fionera would do something about his suddenly dwindling condition if she could, but she can't. It was Alicia who had the natural constitution for healing. If.. if her magic flowed properly then maybe—just maybe—she could whip up a temporary stimulant that halted the worsening of his wounds. Because at some point without her noticing, his naturally abnormal healing seemed to have stopped.

"Well, it looks like whatever it is you're doing means you won't be coming back this way— so I may as well tell you now," Peter suddenly says, snapping her out of her inner musings.

"Tell me what..?" Fionera blinks as Astil finally shuffles past him to continue striding forward.

"That Alicia got accepted into a branch of the Solas Tower on the Western continent!"

At his words, Fionera felt like she'd been dealt a heavy blow to her stomach.

"The Solas Tower..?" She repeated to no one in particular, talking aloud to herself more than anything else. Astil continued on his way despite her still having a semblance of a conversation with Peter.

"Yeah!" The graduated Knight hollers and Fionera turns to face him over Astil's shoulder; having gotten far enough to a point that he needed to shout. "Didn't she tell you beforehand?!"

'If you thought so then why did you repeat it!?'

"N… no!" Her expression was especially vulnerable as she realized just how important her presence at the party was. Alicia must've planned to announce it to her as well as the rest of their 'friend group' once they'd all gotten together.

However…

Fionera fights to hold back a groan. When she next met her friend she would have to do nothing short of prostrating herself on the floor to earn her forgiveness. In the meantime.. perhaps her guilt would be enough of a punishment for disappointing this close friend of hers.

"Alicia? Alicia Boulevard?" Astil suddenly said, now wheezing but still taking those big strides of his. He was almost on the verge of breaking into a full run, but hadn't, which could be for no reason other than that one wrong move and she'd lurch head first out of his arms and onto the floor.

Although… Fionera belatedly realises this could just be because he still had open wounds that hindered his movement. Perhaps his earlier trek had taken the last of whatever energy he had to appear so flawlessly put together.

This sudden decline of health was concerning— but there wasn't much she could do to improve it.

Astil uneventfully arrives at a sharp corner and heads down it at her instruction, though there was really nowhere else for them to go.

"Yeah." Fionera nods, schooling her face back into something neutral. "You know her?"

"The.. the two of you are in..infamous." He quietly huffs, barely turning his head towards her to say, "You're both prodigy's at what.. what you do — who in the academy hasn't heard of you?"

She rolls her eyes at him. Did he have to exaggerate it like that?

"Not as renowned as you, Mr. I'm-so-good-at-my-classes-that-I-skip-all-of-them."

"… I'm not that.. bad." He excuses while Fionera shifts to stare at him in disbelief. "Maybe they just have nothing more to teach me?"

She honestly has nothing to say to that.

A somewhat comfortable silence descends upon them, and barely a handful of seconds later they finally arrive at their destination.