Jim the Groundskeeper [Original Fantasy]

[Metel_Pen]

Jim the groundskeeper raked leaves at the edge of the courtyard, where the start of the school year at Riordan Academy for the Magically Gifted always brought a fresh wave of wide-eyed teenagers. Every last one of them looked certain they were the Chosen One, bound for glory before they'd even scuffed their boots.

He pressed his rake through a patch of stubborn, wet leaves that clung to the stone like fungus, the handle creaking in his hands. The smell of damp earth and chalk dust drifted on the breeze from the gates.

At the archway, the newcomers filed in — cloaks too clean, boots barely worn, eyes shining with that vacant, naïve hope that only existed before the world kicked the teeth in. One lad carried a staff so tall it wobbled like a drunk every time he moved; another girl kept tripping over her own hem, cheeks flushing crimson each time.

Jim snorted. Poor buggers.

Then he spotted him — Professor Elmsley.

The man's cloak billowed dramatically behind him, jet-black hair slicked back as though he were off to seduce a queen, and that same smug expression plastered across his face screamed, I've skimmed three whole books about leadership. He stood tall and stiff, chin high, as if the cobbles themselves might salute his presence.

Jim muttered under his breath, "Utter prick." His spit landed dark against the stone, and he dragged the rake through the muck with a little more force.

"Welcome, young magisters!" Elmsley boomed, arms flung wide in a grandiose gesture.

A swirl of his cloak, a flourish of his hand — pure theatre, the sort of thing that made him look like he thought the sun rose just to watch him perform.

"Welcome to your home for the year ahead, where you will learn to wield power beyond your wildest dreams!" His voice carried, rolling across the courtyard like he was addressing kings instead of a gaggle of children.

He thrust his hand forward. With a sharp crack and a hiss of smoke, a dazzling burst of blue and violet light exploded into the air. Sparks rained down over the students' heads, drawing a chorus of gasps and shrieks.

"Oohs" and "aahs" rippled through them, like they were watching gods descend instead of some puffed-up showman with a smoke charm.

Jim shook his head, leaning on his rake, the old wood digging into his shoulder. Every damn year.

"Now, follow me, children," Elmsley declared, sweeping around with dramatic flair. "Come, and witness the grand majesty of Riordan!"

He marched toward the academy's towering oak double doors, cloak billowing behind him like he thought he was the bloody wind itself. The students trailed after him in a loose gaggle, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, clutching their books and bags like ducklings desperate to keep up with their mother.

Jim leaned on his rake and watched them go, jaw working as he worried at the inside of his cheek.
Hmmm, he thought. Wonder how many of the poor buggers'll make it to the end of the year.

Last year… what was it—five? Six? He ticked them off in his head like tally marks carved into a stockade post. Two dead during the Riordan Games, carved up in the name of "healthy competition." Another three buried by those cursed Defence from Darkness lessons that were supposed to teach survival. And one lad… just gone. No body. No spell trace. Vanished like he'd been plucked clean out of the world.

And yet the school stayed open, doors polished, banners flying. Parents still packed their little darlings off with fresh cloaks and big dreams, eager to say they'd got a child in Riordan. They never saw the grave markers behind the east wall. Or didn't want to.

Jim shook his head. Madness. The lot of it.
He'd been in pitched battles with a lower death count than this bloody school. At least soldiers knew what they were signing up for.

He turned back to his raking, the scrape of metal against stone steady and familiar. That's when he noticed one of the stragglers at the back of the group.

Older than the rest — not by much, but enough to stand out in the herd. Pale skin, dark hair. Nothing remarkable there. But the eyes… the eyes caught him.

Not awe. Not fear. Not curiosity.
Something colder. Calculating. Almost like the boy already knew the odds and was wagering on them.

Eh, Jim thought, rolling his shoulders. I'm sure the "professors" will figure it out.
He went back to raking, spitting into the dirt.

About an hour later, Jim was knee-deep in dragon shit. Out in the paddocks, boots sucking at the muck, clearing the enclosures before feeding time. The air was thick with the sweet-sour reek of beasts and hay, and his rake clinked against a half-buried chain.

That's when he heard it — voices drifting over from the far side of the enclosure. Older students, second-years by the sound of them, already full of piss and bad ideas.

"Tonight," one hissed, low and eager, "we break in and see if we can't bond ourselves a dragon."

Jim froze mid-swing, rake heavy in his hands. His eyes narrowed.
What was his name again…?

"Castus, we can't," another lad whispered, his voice shaking. "It's too dangerous."

Ah. Castus.

Elmsley's bloody pet. That little arsehole had blown up Jim's rockery last summer during "practical spellwork" and hadn't even had the decency to mutter a sorry. Jim still found bits of stone lodged in the hedges.

"Are you a coward?" Castus snapped, his tone dripping venom like a snake baring fangs. "Because it sounds like you are."

The other boy shrank back, shame scrawled across his face as though branded there.

"Fine," Castus huffed, tossing his head like a sulking prince. "I'll bond one myself."

Jim stepped out from behind the feed shed, rake balanced casually across his shoulder. His boots crunched against the gravel.

"The fuck you are, lad."

Castus froze, lips curling in irritation.

"If you even try," Jim went on, voice flat as a hammer blow, "they'll tear your bloody head clean off. I'll tell you a simple fact: dragons only bond with folk who've got conviction — real conviction — and strength of character."

He lowered the rake, pointing its chipped prongs square at Castus's chest.

"And you, my lad, haven't got either one."

Castus squared his shoulders, chin lifting in mock bravado. "And why should I be taking advice from the help?" he spat.

Jim shrugged, expression blank. "Eh. Don't believe me. Give it a go." He turned back to the paddock gate with the weary gait of a man who'd seen this play out before. "Just don't expect me to mop up your organs when it all goes tits-up."

Castus's jaw tightened, but he brushed past Jim without a word, the arrogance practically steaming off him, and made a beeline for Aualine's pen.

She was the oldest dragon at the academy — massive, scarred across her flank, and far too clever for her own good. The kind of beast who'd outlived half the keepers foolish enough to try and "tame" her.

Jim leaned against the post, arms folded, and watched as the boy scrambled up the fence, knuckles whitening as he clutched the top rail like he thought he'd already earned the right to be there.

Jim caught Aualine's eye across the paddock. Just a small nod. Nothing more.

The dragon shifted, slow and deliberate. Her wings unfurled with a deep, leathery rustle that sent dust swirling from the ground. Castus froze for half a heartbeat, then clambered higher.

Aualine exhaled — a sound that could've been mistaken for a sigh if not for the low growl underneath.

Then, without warning, she spun. Her tail cut the air with a whiplash crack, whipping around like a siege engine loosed.

Crack.

Castus was swatted clean off the gate like a fly from a windowsill. He tumbled through the air, arms flailing, and hit the dirt with a winded grunt that knocked every bit of arrogance right out of him. He lay there coughing and gasping, mouth working like a fish dropped on land.

Aualine settled back down with a low, grumbling snort, her wings folding neatly as though nothing at all had happened. Within moments she had tucked her massive head back beneath a scarred wing and drifted toward sleep again, tail curling lazily.

Jim turned his gaze to the other lads, who were still frozen stiff. Wide eyes, jaws slack, faces pale. One had dropped his satchel, scrolls spilling out into the muck, but he didn't dare move to pick them up.

"He's lucky," Jim said flatly, jerking his thumb toward Castus. "She could've torn him in half."

The boys didn't budge.

"Well?" Jim barked, his voice like gravel dragged over steel. "What're you waitin' for? Pick your man up and fuck off."

That did it. Panic loosened their joints. They scrambled forward, scooped up Castus like a sack of grain, and bolted in a tangle of limbs and curses. As they hauled him away, Castus raised a trembling hand and pointed weakly back at Jim.

"You…" he wheezed, chest heaving. But no other words followed.

Jim just shook his head, expression caught somewhere between exasperation and amusement.

Ooh, I'm gonna get a hell of a telling-off from Elmsley tonight.
Ah well. What they gonna do — fire me?

He let out a low chuckle that rattled in his chest and walked toward Aualine's paddock.

The dragon stirred as he approached, pushing up from her haunches with the heavy grace of a creature who had outlived empires. She stepped forward, lowering her massive head until it hovered before him. Jim reached up and laid a calloused hand against her muzzle, the scales warm beneath his palm.

Aualine let out a deep, contented purr that reverberated through the ground, shaking his boots.

"Good girl," he murmured, scratching the scar at the ridge of her jaw. "Ya know… I wouldn't have minded if you'd hit a bit harder."

Aualine gave a soft, almost chiding whine, eyes half-lidded.

"Aye, I know," Jim sighed. "You're too kind for your own good."

He smiled and leaned into her warmth, the smell of smoke and iron lingering on her hide, and for a moment the world felt steady again.

 

[Simonbob]

I'm calling it now.

He's going to get into a situation, and call for Aualine, and she's going to come to help.


And it's going to blow everybody's minds.

 

[ThisisAbsurd]

Okay. not much here yet, but enough to pique my continued interest. Having an Hagrid analogue mc in a hogwarts-like should at least be an interesting perspective piece.

Rather, at first glance this looks like a Snape-type in Hagrid's position story, considering the first thing we saw was the Draco-lite doing a stupid after being warned not to. I'm sure it won't continue to feel like that, but first impressions and all.

 

[Metel_Pen]

I'm calling it now.

He's going to get into a situation, and call for Aualine, and she's going to come to help.


And it's going to blow everybody's minds.

Click to shrink...

Well, I can't confirm or deny that—but I will say Aualine tends to make quite an entrance whenever she gets involved.

 

[Metel_Pen]

Okay. not much here yet, but enough to pique my continued interest. Having an Hagrid analogue mc in a hogwarts-like should at least be an interesting perspective piece.

Rather, at first glance this looks like a Snape-type in Hagrid's position story, considering the first thing we saw was the Draco-lite doing a stupid after being warned not to. I'm sure it won't continue to feel like that, but first impressions and all.

Click to shrink...

That's a fair first impression. Jim is very much his own creature, but I'll let the next few chapters show you exactly what sort. Thanks for giving it a go—I hope it keeps your interest.

 

[Metel_Pen]

Jim sat in his little shack on the edge of the academy grounds. The place was no more than four planks nailed together, with a roof that leaked when it rained and a door that whined like an old hound every time it opened. Through the thin walls, he could hear the cheers and laughter spilling from the main courtyard, echoing across the stones as the new students were sorted into their class groups and assigned tutors for the year.

In the beginning, he used to attend those ceremonies. Stood at the back with rake in hand, watching their bright, hopeful faces as they were called up to the peer tables. Watched them beam with pride, puffed up like little kings and queens. For a while, he'd even clapped along, caught up in the noise.

But as the years passed — and the deaths mounted — he'd stopped going.

He'd voiced his concerns, more than once. Told the Grand Magister himself how their reckless theatrics were filling these kids with a false sense of invulnerability. How all the coloured sparks and grand speeches would count for nothing if the war ever flared up again. How it would be a gods-damned bloodbath.

He remembered the last conversation clearly. Five years ago, after the Choosing Night — the one that left two students dead before the term had even properly begun. No battlefield, no Umbar ambush. Just training. And two coffins in the ground.

The meeting was held in the Magisters' hall, all senior tutors gathered at the long oak table. The place smelled of wax and parchment, banners drooping from the rafters, every candle polished until it gleamed. Jim had felt small in there, smaller than usual, but he'd spoken anyway.

"Sir, if we don't start instilling real-world survival skills into these kids right now, they'll be torn apart if the Umbar decide to kick things off again," Jim had said, hands braced on the table.

Plandorph had smiled — calm, serene, untouchable, like a statue carved from marble. "The war ended ten years ago, Jim. No need to fuss. We won."

"Aye," Jim had said. "We won. By the bloody skin of our teeth. Don't dress it up as anything else. Believe me, it was no easy win."

"I'm just saying," Jim pressed on, "we need to go back to basics. Teach 'em the fundamentals. I know I can't access the Source, but I know about staying alive. I could teach them a healthy level of respect."

That was when Elmsley had cut in, lips curled in that smug half-smile of his.

"Yes… you can't access the Source, can you?" he'd said, letting the words drip with poison. Then he'd turned back to Plandorph with a smirk, as though Jim wasn't even worth addressing directly. "Should he even be at this table?"

And Plandorph had said nothing.

Nothing at all.

Jim had looked around the room — not one of the others spoke up for him. Not a cough, not a word. Just silence, heavy as a stone.

So he'd stood.

"Aye. Just be warned," he'd said, voice carrying across the chamber. "You're teaching these kids to die with flourish."

And with that, Jim had walked out — boots echoing against the polished floor — and he never returned to a Choosing Day again.

Now, years later, the memory made him chuckle bitterly. He raised his cup — Highland whiskey, sharp and smoky, a little taste of home — and took a long sip. The burn spread through his chest, loosening the knot of old anger.

Then came the knock.

Sharp. Aggressive. Three quick bangs, like the door itself had offended someone.

Ah, Jim thought, right on cue.

He took another sip, leaned back on his chair, and waited.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

There it was. Just the right level of pissed off.

Jim stood slowly, joints creaking like old timbers, and wandered to the door with the cup still in hand.

"Who is it?" he asked, pitching his voice into mock innocence.

"Professor Elmsley," came the clipped reply from the other side, every syllable tight with fury.

"How can I help you?" Jim drawled, all sugar and sarcasm.

"Open the door, Jim."

"Alright, alright…" He made a show of unlatching it, taking his time.

The door swung open.

Elmsley stood there, normally pale face now flushed an ugly red, cloak askew, hair no longer perfectly slick. His eyes were sharp, brimming with the kind of anger that looked rehearsed — rage polished for effect.

But Jim didn't give him the chance to perform.

"I warned the lad about the dragons," Jim said flatly, before Elmsley could even inhale for his tirade. "He chose not to listen. He's lucky he didn't get eaten."

Jim met his gaze with a dead-eyed stare, the kind that carried twenty years of muck, blood, and bad memories behind it.

"Now fuck off."

And with that, he slammed the door in Elmsley's face. The sound echoed through the shack, a dull, satisfying thud.

Jim went back to his chair, dropped into it with a grunt, and took another long, slow sip of whiskey. The fire in the cup lingered, warming him more than the thin walls ever could.

He drank several more cups before deciding to turn in. By the time he lay down on his narrow cot, the bottle was lighter and his head pleasantly heavy.

As he pulled the threadbare blanket over himself, he wondered — would it be dreamless this time? The kind of sleep he preferred. No faces. No fire. No memories clawing their way up from the dark. Just black silence.

He hoped.

But his mind had other plans.

He woke before dawn with a sharp gasp, sitting bolt upright in the dark. Breath heaving, sweat clung to his brow in clammy beads. He wiped it away with the back of a rough hand.

"Fucksake," he whispered to the empty room.

Swinging his legs over the side of the cot, he groaned as his weight settled onto old bones. He rolled his shoulders, working the stiffness from scarred muscle, wincing when something popped in his back.

His joints creaked like old timbers in a storm.
Too many years. Too many ghosts.

Jim pushed himself upright. Best to walk it off. Walking the grounds always helped — cleared his head, shook the dreams out of him. And, with any luck, he'd stumble on some blackout-drunk prefect or tutor who'd passed out somewhere stupid. Wouldn't be the first time he'd dragged one back in before they froze stiff on the grass.

He pulled on his old wax coat, tugged his battered hat low over his brow, and grabbed his favourite poking stick — a splintered length of ashwood capped with a bronze tip. Ugly as sin, but sturdy, and it had never failed him.

He stepped out into the cold.

The air bit at his face, sharp enough to sting. Frost glazed the ground, crunching under his boots. Somewhere out in the paddocks, a dragon let out a long, rumbling exhale that rolled across the earth like boulders grinding in a riverbed.

Jim set off into the stillness.

The cool air worked on him, stripping away the last claws of the dream, dragging him back into the here and now. He followed his usual route through the woodland — old hidey holes, shadowed corners, the places half-cut prefects and tutors liked to collapse after "celebrating" their return.

He found the usual detritus: a few empty bottles glittering with frost, a lone boot someone had vomited in, the stale stink of spilled ale. But no bodies. No drunks.

Odd, Jim thought, scratching his stubbled chin. Usually someone's curled up in the brambles by now, half-dead from whiskey and bravado.

He made his way toward the dragon paddock, boots crunching softly through the frozen grass, breath clouding before him in pale puffs.

That's when he saw him.

A boy, face-down near the paddock fence. One of the prefects by the look of him — the black and purple of his coat already rimed with frost, stiff in the dawn light.

"Fuck's sake," Jim muttered, breath steaming in the morning chill.

He trudged over, boots crunching in the brittle grass, and gave the lad a shove with the tip of his stick.

No movement.

How drunk is this little bastard?

"Come on, mate. Ya need to get back to your dorm or you're gonna freeze to death."

He prodded him again, a little harder this time. Still nothing.

Jim frowned. The unease crawled in slow. He crouched down, knees creaking, and rolled the boy onto his back.

The cold hit him deeper than the air could manage.

It was one of the lads who'd been with Castus yesterday. The cocky one.

"Oi. Wake the fuck up, lad—"

He stopped dead mid-sentence.

No breath. No rising chest. The boy's eyes stared glassy at the pale morning sky.

Jim leaned closer, scanning instinctively like a soldier checking for the wound. His calloused fingers pulled open the coat, then the shirt beneath.

Blood.

A stab wound, deep and ugly, punched straight into the chest. The edges weren't clean — jagged, torn, like the blade had been forced in with a twist.

But what really turned his stomach was the mark around it. Blackened skin, a scorch spreading like cracked lightning across the flesh.

He'd seen that before.

Jim's throat tightened, his gut twisting into knots.

An ember knife.

He sat back on his haunches, staring at the corpse, the frost catching in the boy's hair like powdered glass. The silence around him pressed heavy, broken only by the distant rumble of a waking dragon.

"The fucking Umbar are here," he whispered.

 

[ThisisAbsurd]

Well, THAT escalated quickly.

 

[Fragment of Serenity]

Well, the Umbar clearly made a mistake: they've annoyed the Groundskeeper.

Powers help them, for he certainly won't.

 

[Metel_Pen]

Well, THAT escalated quickly.

Click to shrink...

It did indeed—and Jim hasn't even properly started poking around yet.

 

[Metel_Pen]

Well, the Umbar clearly made a mistake: they've annoyed the Groundskeeper.

Powers help them, for he certainly won't.

Click to shrink...

Aye, annoying the groundskeeper is rarely a sensible decision. Especially when he's been trying very hard to enjoy a quiet retirement.

 

[Metel_Pen]

Jim's mind ran miles in seconds.

Who the hell was he supposed to warn?

Not Elmsley — not after last night. That smug bastard would sooner blame Jim than believe him.

Plandorph, maybe.
Maybe he'd listen. Maybe.

His hand went to the inner pocket of his wax coat, fingers brushing the familiar lump of cold metal. He pulled out a star flare — old, dented, paint chipped away to dull brass, but still serviceable. Emergency-use only.

Well. This sure as shit qualified.

He held it up, aimed it toward the sky, and smacked his palm hard against the base.

With a thunderous whoosh, the flare screamed into the inky pre-dawn heavens, cutting a fiery orange arc across the black. It burst high above the academy grounds, a blinding flash that washed the world in molten light for a heartbeat.

Then darkness rushed back in, thicker than before. The silence that followed pressed on Jim's ears like a weight.

Within seconds, distant shouts began to echo across the grounds. Doors slammed. Boots pounded against stone. Figures spilled out from around the paddock — some running hard, others stumbling, still half-awake and clutching cloaks over nightclothes.

Two older students came into view first — a boy and a girl. Gowns disheveled, hair wild, eyes glassy from whatever they'd been up to.

Jim took one look at the way they avoided each other's gaze, at the hay clinging to their sleeves.
Probably snuck off to shag behind the hay bales, he thought, lips curling. Timing's bloody perfect.

"Go get some of your tutors," Jim barked. "Now."

The pair just blinked at him, bleary-eyed, confusion still swimming behind their pupils.

Jim stepped forward, jabbing a finger like a spear in their direction.

"Fucking go and do as I said, you dirty stop-outs!"

That did it. They flinched like whipped dogs, then turned and bolted, robes flapping behind them like limp sails in a dead wind.

Jim looked back down at the lad, really seeing him this time.

The boy's eyes were closed. No pain in the features. No fear twisted into his mouth. He looked like he was simply sleeping, out in the frost, waiting for dawn to shake him awake.

Jim hoped it had been quick.

He knelt beside the body, lowering himself with a quiet grunt as his knees cracked. Calloused fingers hovered, then pressed gently to the boy's forehead — a touch awkward, but steady.

Under his breath, he muttered a prayer. Nothing grand. No flowing scripture, no polished words. Just something half-remembered from another time, another place, where bodies lay thick on the ground and prayers were the only thing a man could still offer.

A battlefield thing. For those who didn't get a second chance.

When the words ran out, Jim exhaled hard, frost puffing from his lips. "I fucking hate this school," he muttered, rising stiffly and brushing frost from his knees.

Branches snapped behind him. He didn't need to turn to know who it was.

Elmsley came bustling through the trees, robes swishing, face sour as spoiled milk. "What in heaven's name is going on?" he barked, already puffed up, already ready to play to an audience.

Jim didn't even look at him. Eyes stayed on the academy walls.

"We've lost another one," he said simply, voice flat.

Then he turned and started walking toward the academy. Heavy steps echoed through the frost, each one loud in the silence.

Didn't wait for a response. Didn't care if Elmsley followed.

Let him.

Jim pushed through the double doors of the academy, his boots striking hard against the stone, the sound carrying down the cold, hollow halls.

Each thump of Jim's boots sent a dull reverberation up into the vaulted ceiling, like war drums that had forgotten how to stop.

He didn't slow.
Didn't nod at the few early risers who passed him, scurrying out of his way with curious glances.
Didn't speak.

He climbed the central staircase, heading toward Plandorph's chambers.

As he rose, the walls closed in with memories. Old war standards lined the stairwell — tattered flags and faded emblems of every unit that had fallen in the Great War.

Dozens of them.
Some he'd fought beside.
Some he'd watched burn.
Some had simply vanished without a trace, swallowed whole by the dark.

He kept his eyes forward. Tried not to look. Tried not to let the weight of cloth and history drag at him.

Silent steps.
Silent flags.
And all of them watching.

Jim finally reached Plandorph's door and knocked — hard, knuckles echoing down the corridor.

There was a rustle, then a croaky, startled voice from inside.
"What? What?"

"It's Jim," he called. "We've got a problem."

"Ah… Jim. Come in, come in."

Jim pushed the door open and stepped into the headmaster's chambers.

The place smelled stale, thick with the perfume of brandy and extinguished candles. A half-empty bottle sat tipped on the floor, its amber contents bleeding into the rug. Plandorph himself stood in a loose, flamboyant nightgown that had once been regal silk, but now just sagged off his stooped frame. His gut pushed soft against the fabric, his hair an unruly halo, his eyes puffy and bloodshot. He looked like a man caught halfway between dreaming and hungover, clutching at dignity with shaking hands.

"What brings you up here, Jim?" Plandorph asked, rubbing his eyes as though that might wipe away the years. "You mentioned a… problem?"

Jim took him in — the dressing gown, the bottle, the bleariness, the stench of last night's drink clinging to him like cologne.

"Aye, a problem."

"There's a lad lying out near the paddock," Jim said, voice flat and hard. "Dead. Been dead for hours. Stabbed."

"Oh dear," Plandorph murmured, blinking like a man roused from a nap he didn't want disturbed.

"Aye. And that's not the worst of it." Jim stepped further into the room, the floorboards creaking under his boots. "The wound was caused by an ember blade. You remember those, don't you?"

Plandorph paused, scratching absently at his chin. His eyes darted away.
"Err… would you be so kind as to remind me? My memory isn't what it used to be."

Of course you don't, Jim thought bitterly. Never seen a day on the front in your life.

He bit the words back. For the sake of diplomacy.

"It's a CQB weapon," he explained instead, his tone clipped. "Favoured by the Umbar. Leaves scorch marks on the flesh — wound's deep, but the fire's what puts a lad in shock. Less chance of him fighting back."

For a heartbeat, he saw it again — the trenches outside Brant's Hollow, the night sky orange with fire. He'd watched men crumple under ember blades, their mouths open in silent screams, eyes wide, the heat searing them from the inside out before the blood even had time to spill. He still remembered the smell. Meat, not men.

Jim blinked it away, jaw tightening.



Plandorph swallowed, the colour draining slightly from his cheeks. Suddenly he looked a little more awake.

"Ah, I can see how that's a bit of a problem," Plandorph said at last. His voice shifted, smoothing into that well-practised calm. He moved closer and draped an arm around Jim's shoulder like an indulgent uncle humoring a fretful nephew.

He began guiding him gently toward the door.

"Now, let's not go spreading panic," he said, tone warm, fatherly, infuriatingly measured. "Keep this between us, yes? I'll examine the poor lad's wound myself, and later today I'll address everyone — students and faculty — at assembly. How does that sound?"

Jim clenched his jaw. Just nodded.

"Do you want me there?" he asked quietly.

"Ah, of course, Jim," Plandorph replied with an easy smile, as though nothing at all was wrong. "I want you there."

He let go of Jim's shoulder and drifted back into his chambers, still smiling that gentle, practised smile.

The door clicked shut behind him.

Jim turned on his heel. "Smarmy twat," he muttered under his breath.

He marched down the stairs, boots echoing off the stone like cannon fire.

Don't get riled up, you knackered fool. Stay calm… stay calm, he told himself. His knuckles whitened around the rail as he forced his steps steady.

Halfway down the stairs, Jim stopped. His breath hissed between his teeth.

The old war standards hung heavy on the wall — faded cloth, stitched in blood and memory. Names and emblems of men who never came home. He could almost hear them whispering, the fabric shifting as if stirred by voices only he could hear.

His pulse climbed. Breath came short. Anger coiled tight in his chest like a snake ready to strike.

With a sudden snarl, he drove his fist into the stone wall.

Pain bloomed white-hot through his knuckles. He pulled his hand back — skin split, blood welling, knuckles bruised but not broken.

"Stop it," he growled under his breath. His voice echoed back at him, low and feral. "Work. I've got things to do."

He flexed his hand, hissed at the sting, then forced himself forward. Through the last steps. Through the great double doors. Out into the cold.

The air slapped him clean — crisp, sharp enough to bite.

That's when he caught it. A flicker of movement on the path.

The quiet, angry lad from the day before.

The boy walked past with stiff, deliberate steps. No eye contact. No word. No acknowledgment. Just a shadow slipping by.

But Jim noticed the smell.

Not sweat. Not the usual stink of unwashed cloaks.

Blood.

A copper tang clung faintly to the air, enough to make Jim's jaw clench.

He stopped. Turned his head just enough to watch the student disappear through the academy doors.

Hmm… one to watch, Jim thought, muscles tight, hand flexing again at his side.

He lingered there, watching the doors long after they had shut. Then he shook the thought off and trudged on toward the gardens.

The rest of the day passed in work. Clipping hedges. Clearing litter left strewn across the lawns from Choosing Day. Bits of ribbon, parchment scraps, half-eaten food. Mundane chores, grounding chores. All the while, Jim kept glancing at his watch. Counting down the hours, minutes, seconds until the assembly.

Finally, the time came.

He joined the tide of students as they flowed into the great hall, slipping into the current unnoticed. They filed into their seats, chatter fading to a hush. Up on the raised stage, Grand Magister Plandorph stood waiting, flanked by the heads of faculty.

The old man spotted Jim through the crowd and gave a small, beckoning gesture. An invitation to join them on the stage.

Jim's stomach turned.

Jim moved through the crowd and climbed the steps onto the stage. He took his place among the faculty, arms locked behind his back like a soldier on parade.

Elmsley shot him a glance — all contempt and misplaced confidence.
Jim smiled.
Mouthed the word: "Prick."

Elmsley's face flushed a quick, ugly red, but he said nothing. The man was too conscious of his stage.

Plandorph stepped forward, the picture of solemnity. His voice carried, calm and heavy.

"Under normal circumstances, this assembly would be for announcing the teams for this year's Riordan Games. However…" He paused just long enough to let the silence bite. "It is with a heavy heart that I must inform you of the death of one of our most beloved prefects: Alkinan Bloos."

A ripple of gasps swept through the crowd. Students whispered, shifting in their seats. Jim stayed still at the back, arms crossed, jaw locked.

"I know some of you are wondering how. How did he die?" Plandorph spread his hands, tone soft, almost fatherly. "He celebrated a little too exuberantly, it seems. Took a midnight walk through Oakfall Wood and… most likely impaled himself on a fallen branch."

Jim's eyes widened. His breath caught sharp in his throat.
Impaled? Fallen branch? You lying sack of shit…

And in that moment, he wasn't standing in an assembly hall anymore. He was back in the mud at Red Barrow, listening to some pampered colonel tell a line of grieving men that their comrades had "fallen to illness" — even as the stink of burned flesh still rolled off the trenches. Men cut down by ember blades, written off as fevers and accidents for the sake of clean reports.

The same lie. Different lips.

Jim blinked hard, dragging himself back to the present. His jaw ground so tight it ached.

"And so," Plandorph pressed on, voice smooth as polished glass, "a memorial will be held tomorrow at noon. Team lists for the Games will be posted outside your dormitories. You are dismissed."

The murmur of whispers rose again as the students filed out, heads bent together, speculation buzzing like flies.

Jim didn't move. Neither did the faculty, not until Plandorph turned with a gracious nod. They followed him offstage in a neat line, ducklings trailing their drake.

Jim stormed forward, boots thudding against the wooden boards.

"What the fuck was that?" he growled, low but sharp enough to cut.

"You saw the wound. You saw the scorch marks. That was an ember blade."

Plandorph's smile slipped away like a mask set aside. His eyes hardened, cold and flat.

"It was an accident. End of."

And just like that, he turned and walked away, nightgown swishing faintly beneath his robes, as though the matter had been a spilled drink and nothing more.

No one else even glanced at Jim. Not a word. Not a breath.

He stood alone on the stage, staring out at the emptying hall, fists clenched.

What the fuck is going on here?

Jim watched the last of the students file out.

The very last one — the boy who carried that copper tang of blood — turned just before slipping through the door. Their eyes met across the empty hall. No words. No gestures. Just that silent, cold look.

Then the student was gone.

Jim let out a slow, ragged breath. His chest felt tight, like a furnace stoked too hot. He needed to vent. To someone. To anyone.

He jumped down from the stage, boots hitting the floor with a dull thud, and marched toward the paddock. Rage and confusion rattled inside his skull like bricks in a barrel, every thought slamming into the next, leaving nothing but noise.

Every time he tried to frame it in words, only one came to mind:
Why?

Why lie? Why cover it up? Why now?

By the time he reached Aualine's pen, his fists were clenched, blood still crusted across his knuckles from the wall. His whole body thrummed with fury.

Aualine noticed. Of course she noticed. The old dragon lumbered closer, pushing her scarred muzzle through the bars, brushing against his chest with a low, questioning rumble.

"I'm okay, girl," Jim muttered, running a hand along the warm ridges of her neck. The scales felt like stone under his calloused palm.

"Why the fuck is he lying? Is he trying to save face? Denial? What the hell is he doing?"

Aualine tilted her great head, one golden eye fixed on him.

"I know I need to calm down," Jim admitted, his voice rough. "But he's gonna get these kids killed."

The dragon poked him gently with her nose.

"I'm just the groundskeeper," Jim said, half to himself, half to her. "There's not much I can do."

She poked him again — harder this time, snorting hot breath into his coat.

"You think so?" he asked, raising a brow at her.

She licked his hand, tongue rasping over scarred skin, and let out a deep, thrumming purr that shook the bars.

"Aye… fuck it," Jim muttered, nodding to himself. "If those soft bastards won't lift a finger, then I will."

She licked him again, softer now, a sound almost like approval rising from her chest.

Jim patted her head, leaning into her warmth for a moment longer. "Thanks for the chat, girl. I needed this."

He turned to leave.

Aualine whined after him, the low sound following him into the cold air like a plea.

"I can't spend all day talkin' to you. I've got work to do."

Aualine snorted, a gust of hot breath rolling out like smoke from a bellows, then curled back into her bedding with a heavy rustle of wings. One golden eye lingered on him a moment longer before sliding shut.

Jim stepped out of the paddock, boots crunching against the frosted ground. His breath clouded in front of him, sharp in the cold air.

"If they ain't gonna do anything…" he muttered, jaw set, fists tightening at his sides.

He stared back at the academy — tall, proud, hollow.

"Then fuck it," he growled. "I will."

 

[Fragment of Serenity]

10 bucks says one or both of those higher ups are plants. Old man is going to have to have words with them.

Possibly violent ones. Likely darkly amusing ones as well.

 

[Metel_Pen]

10 bucks says one or both of those higher ups are plants. Old man is going to have to have words with them.

Possibly violent ones. Likely darkly amusing ones as well.

Click to shrink...

Interesting theory. All I'll say is that fear can make otherwise respectable people do some remarkably stupid things.

 

[Metel_Pen]

Jim returned to his cabin and poured himself a glass of whiskey. He took a slow swig, let it burn, then set the glass down with a dull clink on the table.

At the back of the room sat his narrow cot. He crouched, reached beneath it, and dragged out a heavy wooden trunk. The thing groaned as if it hadn't been moved in years. Jim laid a hand on the lid, pausing — almost reverent — before opening it.

On top were leather-bound books, their spines cracked, and a neat stack of yellowed letters tied with fraying cord. He shifted them aside and lifted the false shelf beneath.

There it was.

A chainmail shirt, dark with age, a dragon's head embossed across the chest. The symbol caught the firelight, faint but unmistakable. He ran a calloused thumb over it, feeling the old grooves. Then, beneath it, a battered broadsword wrapped in oiled cloth.

Jim unwrapped it, stood, and drew the blade. The steel whispered free. Pitted. Scarred. Specked with rust. But the edge still gleamed sharp and hungry in the firelight.

He held it a moment, memories pressing close, then slid it back into its scabbard. He laid it carefully beside the whiskey on the table.

"Right," he muttered. "If ya gonna do this, ya gonna need a plan."

He scratched his chin, thinking.

"First thing… keep an eye on that quiet boy."
He lifted the glass again. Took another swallow.
"Second thing… keep as many of those poor bastards alive as I can."

The liquor burned on the way down, but it didn't warm him. Not this time.

He sat in silence for hours, watching the sun bleed itself out across the horizon. Long shadows crept like bruises across the academy grounds until the last light died.

Jim rose. Pulled on his waxed coat, stiff at the seams and heavy with old rain. Sleep wasn't coming tonight, so no sense wasting time pretending.

The door creaked as it opened, then shut with a dull thud behind him. The night air bit at his face, sharp with the promise of a coming storm.

The academy loomed in the dark, its old stones rising like the ribcage of some slumbering beast. Windows glowed warm with light. Laughter spilled careless into the night.

Jim walked toward it.

Jim entered through the front doors. The entry hall glowed with golden sconces, their light pooling over polished stone, the air thick with perfume, chalk dust, and the unmistakable reek of adolescent arrogance. A cluster of students loitered near the archway, half-dressed in academy uniforms, the other half draped in smugness and self-importance.

As he passed, their voices buzzed in his ears — optimism and ignorance bundled together, sharp as gnats.
"Do you think Castus'll win the Games this year?" one lad asked, leaning against the banister like he owned the place. His cloak was already hanging just-so, the kind of pose Jim had seen in green recruits trying to look like veterans.

"How can he not?" another piped up, voice cracking with eagerness. "He's top in Defence, smashed every assault course. He's always winning."

"Yeah, and if he gets the Cup this time, maybe Gerrel'll finally say yes to the dance," a girl giggled, her eyes shining with the sort of daft hope that only came with youth.

Jim didn't stop. Didn't speak. But the words were a thorn in his side, digging deeper with every step.
They had no idea what was coming.
Oblivious. Clueless. Laughing their way toward the end of the world, all because Plandorph — that smug bastard — chose not to tell them. Chose to keep them in the dark.

Jim shook his head. Focus. Remember the plan, old man. Stick to it.

He moved past the classrooms, halls dimly lit, their shadows stretching long. The stone seemed to carry the echoes of lectures, the ghosts of late-night cramming, and the faint, sour tang of spilled ink and stale sweat. His destination was the admin office — the heart of the place, where they kept records on every student, faculty member, and janitor fool enough to set foot inside these walls.

He wasn't after grades or glory. He was looking for the new starters.
One in particular. The quiet one.

Something about that kid didn't sit right. And Jim trusted his gut more than he trusted any prophet or prophecy-believer in this cursed academy.

He kept his eyes open and his steps soft, spreading his weight like he had a hundred times before on battlefields where noise meant death. Students sneaking about after curfew didn't worry him — that was tradition. But faculty? Faculty asked questions. And Jim hated questions.

So he moved smooth, not a march — just a shadow in motion. Boots placed with care, every step muted against the flagstones.

Then he froze.
A voice. Too familiar. Elmsley.

Jim slid into a nearby alcove, pressing himself flat into the cold stone until he felt like part of the architecture. He didn't need to see the man to know that posh, honey-dripped tone.

Elmsley strolled by, robes billowing with self-importance, Castus at his side like a well-groomed mastiff on parade.
"Sir, do you think I've got a real shot at winning?" Castus asked, his bravado stretched thin over nerves.

"Of course you do," Elmsley replied, every word polished and gleaming. "There's a great power in you, Castus. Potential for greatness. For wondrous things. You just need to believe."

Jim rolled his eyes in the dark. Didn't need to hear the rest of the tripe spilling from Elmsley's lips. He just needed them gone.

A minute passed. Then another. Their footsteps faded down the hall.

Good.

Jim stepped back out of the shadows, jaw set, eyes narrowed. The files waited.

He reached the office door. Tried the handle. To his surprise, it wasn't even locked.
Jim blinked. "Brilliant security, that," he muttered under his breath. "Whole damn world on the brink, and they can't be arsed to lock a door."

He slipped inside, movements casual but sharp, his body braced with the same readiness he'd carried into a dozen enemy trenches. He even had a speech ready — some bollocks about cleaning rotas and misplaced scrolls — just in case some bookworm was burning the midnight oil.

Turns out, he didn't need it.

The room was dark. Silent. Empty.

Of course it is. Why bother guarding the place that holds every kid's secrets?

Jim exhaled through his nose, slow, controlled, and made his way to the row of cabinets. His boots whispered across the polished floor. The air smelled of dust, parchment, and something musty — like a place left forgotten for years, save for the occasional magister checking his own reflection in the glass.

He scanned the labels until his eyes landed on the one he wanted. New Arrivals.

Bingo.

Jim slid the drawer open, slow and steady, careful not to let it screech and betray him. Inside were neatly arranged folders, each with a portrait clipped to the front. Always struck him as odd — why in the fuck did they need photos? Vanity, he thought. Parading faces before they'd even learned which end of a wand to hold. Still, tonight he was thankful for the magisters' self-indulgence.

He started flipping through them, one by one.

Too smug. Too loud. Too pretty.
He flicked past folder after folder, each face a fresh reminder of how soft this place had become.

Then he found it.

The portrait nearly made him stop breathing. It wasn't the hair, the jawline, or the posture. It was the eyes. Hollow. Not tired. Not weary. Hollow. Like the soul hadn't quite caught up with the body. Jim had seen that look before — in mud-slick trenches, in blasted wastelands where lads barely older than this one stared at nothing even as seraph blasts tore the sky apart.

It chilled him in a way nothing had in years.

"Found you," he muttered, voice low as gravel.

He slipped the file inside his coat, shut the drawer with slow precision, and gave the cabinet a light pat, like quieting a sleeping dog. Old habits — never wake what doesn't need waking.

Turning for the door, his jaw clenched, his pulse ticking faster. He paused with his hand on the handle, listening.
Nothing. No voices. No footsteps. Just the faint hum of lanterns and the ancient bones of the academy groaning in the night.

Jim eased the door open and slipped into the hall. Closed it behind him with the same care he'd give a trap-wire hatch.

He moved quick but quiet, retracing his route. The main doors were in sight when—

"Jim?"

He stopped dead.

Turned.

Plandorph stood twenty feet away. Robes half-tied, hands folded neatly behind his back, face unreadable. Bloody slippers. The man moved like a cat when he wanted to.

"What are you doing here at this hour?" Plandorph asked, tone mild, but his eyes sharp.

Jim didn't miss a beat. "Just doin' a pest inspection," he said, voice pitched tired, annoyed, bored. "Found rat shit near the paddock earlier — figured I'd make sure the bastards hadn't made it this far. Thought I'd lay a few traps. Precautionary measure."

Plandorph let out a long, measured sigh. "Ah… look, about earlier—"

Jim cut him off with a raised hand. "Not my concern. You've made it very clear I'm just the groundskeeper." His tone was flat. Cold as winter stone. "I know where I stand."

The two men stood there in silence for a beat — not angry, not friendly. Just weary. Like old soldiers who'd fought too many battles on different sides of the same war, and knew neither one was ever going to change the other's mind.

Plandorph inhaled slowly, his hands still folded neatly behind his back. "Would you care to join us for the opening of the Games next week? You're still part of the staff, after all."

Jim scratched his chin, weighing it like the words might turn into a trap if he answered too quick. Finally, he said, "I'll come. If I ain't too busy."

"Please do," Plandorph replied, offering a small, practised smile. "It would be nice, seeing you take an active part in some of this great school's traditions."

Jim gave a short nod. "I'll see."

And with that, he turned and stepped out into the cold night air. The heavy door clicked shut behind him, echoing off the stone like a gavel.

"You can bet your arse I'll be there," he muttered, tugging his coat tighter against the chill. "Someone's gotta keep you soft fools from getting more of these daft kids killed."

The path back to his cabin stretched quiet and dark. The night pressed thick around him, heavy as a cloak. The wind had died, and the trees stood too still, their branches clawing at the sky like black bones. That's when he felt it.

That itch. That weight between his shoulder blades.

He slowed his pace, letting the crunch of gravel fade beneath his boots until the silence swallowed him whole. Then, without a word, he stepped off the path onto the grass. Softer ground. Easier to listen.

And there it was.

Footsteps. Just behind him. Light. Careful. Trying not to be heard — but not careful enough for Jim.

He turned sharply, eyes cutting through the dark.

Nothing.

Just the shadows stretching long, the faint smell of damp earth, and the distant hush of owls calling across the fields. Whoever had been following him was gone. Melted back into the night.

Jim stood very still, breath slow and measured. Ears straining. Muscles coiled. The itch at his back didn't fade. Finally, he muttered, "Looks like I'm sleepin' with one eye open tonight."

He made it the rest of the way in silence, every step careful, every sense sharp. At the cabin, he shut the shutters tight, dropped the deadbolt, and checked it twice. Then he dropped into the old wooden chair at his table, the legs groaning under his weight.

Jim grabbed the whiskey bottle, took a long pull straight from the neck, and let the fire settle in his chest.

"Looks like they might be onto me," he muttered to the room, voice low, almost conversational with the shadows. "But how the hell do they know?"

He set the sword down beside him on the table. The steel drank the lamplight and threw it back in a dull, obedient gleam — honest metal for honest work. He liked the feel of it nearby; its presence steadied him like an old friend.

From the inner pocket of his coat he drew the file he'd lifted from the drawer. The name stared up at him in cramped handwriting: Emile Caloden. At last, a name to pin to the face.

He flipped the cover open and read, voice flat as he scanned the lines. "Orphan. Guardian of the state. Placed here due to magical potential." He frowned at the shorthand and the clipped sentences. "Extremely introverted."

Jim rubbed his chin, feeling the stubble rasp. "So. You don't play well with others, then… Emile." He let a tired half-smile crack and then died.

There was the portrait again — those eyes. Hollow. Not sad, not frightened, just… absent, as if someone had forgotten to put a soul behind them. Jim's stomach tightened. He'd seen that look in places that smelled of iron and smoke; it wasn't natural in a child.

He turned the page. The rest of the file was thin: no guardian listed by name, only a state-issued approval number stamped like a bureaucrat's cough. Medical notes? Blank. Early schooling? Nothing before his twelfth birthday. Just dates, a few scratchy reports, and official seals that begged more questions than they answered.

Jim tapped the folder with a knuckle. The sound was small in the quiet room, but it felt like a hammer on a tomb. "That's not a student file," he said, slow. "That's a planted record."

He sat back in his chair and let the implication settle over him. Either someone had gone to trouble to bury Emile's past — tidy, neat, deliberate — or there was no past to bury at all. Neither prospect sat easy. Both of them smelled like trouble.

He poured another shot of whiskey, the amber liquid slapping against the glass with a familiar, numbing burn. He kept the sword close, hand drifting to the hilt now and then as if to check it was still there, real and waiting.

Outside, the wind picked up and threw itself at the windows. The lamplight wavered; shadows jittered along the rafters. But Jim had stopped listening to ordinary noises a long time ago. He knew there was a watcher still out there — not the random footpad or prankster prefect, but something that had interest and intent.

He let his eyes go back to the portrait for a long moment. Then he folded the file closed and slid it under the table where he kept his maps and oddments. He rose, the joints in his knees complaining, and moved to the shutters. Twice he checked the bolt, twice the lock, then clogged the gap beneath the door with an old rag. Paranoia, he told himself. Habit. Preparation.

Still, as he sat back down, whiskey warming his belly and the sword a cold comfort at his side, he couldn't shake the sense that the hollow eyes in the photo were less a warning and more a promise: something unfinished, waiting in the dark, and very, very close.

 

[Metel_Pen]

The next day, Jim made sure all his duties kept him in and around the academy proper. Leaves could wait, the paddocks could rot — today he had one priority, and one alone. He had no intention of letting the boy out of his sight.

Thankfully, the stolen file included Emile's class schedule, neat as you please. Jim had worked these halls long enough to know them like the back of his calloused hands — which corridors fed where, which staircases creaked, which rooms spat out students in clumps and which in dribbles. He knew how long it took to shuffle a gaggle of magisters-in-training from one chamber to the next, and how many excuses he could invent to loiter nearby without raising suspicion.

And of course, Emile had been placed under Elmsley's tutelage.
Jim's teeth ground together at the thought. Naturally.

But he said nothing. He'd already promised himself not to start something — not yet. There'd be time for words, or worse, when the need came.

So he stayed close.
Not too close. Never obvious.

Jim became a shadow. The boy's own ghost.

When Emile sat through Defence Theory, Jim was down the hall, rattling old rat traps into place — most real, some nothing but empty props. When the boy took lunch, Jim was outside, fixing the cracked pane in the cafeteria window, back turned, ears pricked. When the students spilled out on break, Jim was at the hedge line, shears snapping, his eyes always flicking toward the lad with jet-black hair who sat by himself, away from the chatter and the cliques.

And Jim watched.

What he saw didn't sit right.

Emile struggled. At everything. Spells fizzled in his hands, or backfired with a puff of smoke. Books seemed to swallow him whole; he'd thumb the same page over and over, eyes dull, like the words slipped away before he could hold them. When called upon, he muttered answers that barely strung together. No spark of brilliance. No hidden cunning. Just a boy utterly out of his depth.

Except for one thing.

He kept glancing at one of the other new starters — a girl with red hair and freckles. Maizel, if Jim remembered right. Nothing leering in it, nothing sly. Just quick, furtive looks, like a boy trying not to get caught wanting something better. Quiet interest. Maybe even hope.

Jim noted it. He noted everything.

Days of watching had given him a picture — and the picture wasn't pretty. Emile was… awkward. Not the fake kind, not the clumsy charm some of these preening little bastards liked to put on when they wanted sympathy. No. This lad was a knot of nerves in boots. Shoulders rounded like he wanted to disappear into himself. Eyes always darting, never landing. Lips moving in little rehearsals of words that never made it to air.

He sat alone at meals, hovered just outside the edge of groups in the courtyard, flinched whenever someone spoke to him. A walking apology.

If this is an Umbar agent, Jim thought, then he's the best fucking actor I've ever seen.

Still, he didn't stop watching. Years in warzones had drilled one lesson into his bones: quiet doesn't mean harmless.

Several days bled past like that. Always the same pattern. Awkwardness. Silence. Dropped books. Spilled water. Cutlery clattering to the floor like it was spring-loaded. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Then, one night, something changed.

It was well past lights-out when Jim spotted movement from his cabin window. A slim figure slipped out of the east dorm's side door, wrapped in a dark cloak. Small frame. Careful steps.

Emile.

Jim was already reaching for his coat. He slung his sword over his shoulder — habit, not ceremony — and slipped into the night after him.

The lad moved with more purpose than Jim expected. He picked his way through the woods like someone who knew the paths, avoiding the noisy branches and deadfall with practised care. No wand in his hand. No whispered spells for light or warmth. Just quiet determination.

He stopped near an old cedar, its trunk gnarled and wide. From inside his cloak he drew something small. The lamplight didn't reach, but Jim knew the glint of steel when he saw it.

A knife.

Here we go, Jim thought, crouching behind a cluster of bushes. His hand settled on the sword hilt, pulse climbing. Show me what you're really up to.

Emile crouched and started sawing at something on the ground. Quick. Focused. Almost mechanical.

Jim's jaw tightened. If he's carving a sigil, I'll cut him down before he finishes the first fucking stroke.

The boy's shoulders hunched with effort. A few more strokes, and then he straightened, slipped the knife back into his cloak, and started walking away — toward the dragon paddocks.

Jim crept forward, keeping low. When he reached the cedar, he glanced down at the spot Emile had been working.

There, on the frostbitten grass, lay a snare. A rabbit — freshly skinned, its guts neatly set to one side, the fur peeled clean and folded like cloth. The sight made Jim's stomach twitch.

What the fuck is this little weirdo doing? he thought. Feeding something? Poisoning it? Maybe a ritual?

He picked up his pace, boots crunching softly on fallen leaves, every sense sharpened by suspicion. He reached the paddock fence just as Emile slipped through the gate, his cloak flicking behind him.

Shit. The dragons.

Jim jogged, then broke into a sprint, heart hammering against his ribs. He shoved the paddock gate open with a clatter that echoed across the frost-hardened ground.

"Get the fuck away from them!" he barked, sword already half-drawn, voice rough with command.

But then he stopped short.

The scene before him knocked the wind out of his lungs.

In the centre of the paddock, Emile stood perfectly still — a skinned rabbit dangling from one hand. And towering in front of him was Aualine.

She wasn't snarling. Wasn't rearing back or lashing her tail.
She was nuzzling him. Her vast, scarred head pressed into his chest, a low, rolling purr rumbling from her throat and filling the pen like distant thunder.

Moonlight streaked silver across her scales, catching on the sharp ridges of her jaw as she leaned into the boy like he was a trusted companion.

Emile looked up, startled at Jim's shout. His eyes went wide, mouth parted, still half lost in awe at the creature before him.

For a long moment, neither of them moved. Only the purring of the dragon and the mist of their breath in the cold air.

Jim lowered his sword slowly, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. "…The fuck are you doing, lad?"

Emile blinked, glanced down at the rabbit in his hand, then back up at Jim. His voice came soft, almost apologetic. "Feeding her. She won't take food from the handlers. Not unless it's fresh."

Aualine gave a slow, contented huff and pushed her muzzle harder into Emile's chest, nearly knocking him back a step.

Jim just stood there, stunned. This awkward, quiet little bugger… had managed something most of the faculty couldn't. Aualine liked him. Genuinely liked him. Trusted him.

He slid his blade back into the scabbard with a single smooth motion, his eyes never leaving the boy.

"I'm sorry, sir," Emile stammered suddenly, words tumbling out. "I didn't mean any harm. I thought it was alright — some of the others come down here sometimes and— I'll go, please don't tell Professor Elmsley. He already doesn't like me. I'm so sorry—"

He practically poured the words out, tumbling over himself, as though if he spoke fast enough he might outrun the trouble already snapping at his heels.

Jim lifted a hand, palm open, voice steady. "It's alright, lad. You're not in trouble. Just… slow down a second."

The words landed. Emile froze mid-babble, chest rising and falling like bellows, eyes wide and glassy.

Jim gave a slow, deliberate nod. "I won't tell Elmsley. Not if you answer a few questions for me. Fair?"

Emile swallowed hard, Adam's apple bobbing, then nodded rapidly. "Yes. Anything."

Meanwhile, Aualine hadn't the faintest care for the boy's nerves. She kept nosing at him, her enormous snout butting into his shoulder with an affection that rattled him more than calmed him. One particularly enthusiastic shove sent him sprawling backward into the frost.

"Oi, Aualine! Leave him alone!" Jim barked.

The dragon swung her scarred head toward him and gave a short, sharp bark of her own — more reprimand than roar.

Jim raised an eyebrow, lips twitching. "Don't give me that. He's still in one piece, ain't he?"

Aualine huffed like a spoiled noble, then promptly turned back to Emile. The ground thrummed with the thunder of her purring as she nudged her snout against his chest again, almost trying to press her way inside him.

"Oi! I said leave the lad be! You'll get your fuss after I talk to him, alright? Deal?" Jim called, his tone half-command, half-bargain.

The dragon's eyes flicked between him and the boy, slow and calculating. Then she let out a guttural, rumbling whine that carried all the petulance of a sulking child. With a reluctant stomp, she padded to the far end of the pen and flopped onto her haunches like a moody hound. But her eyes stayed fixed on them, molten and unblinking.

Jim shook his head, muttering, "Bloody diva."

Turning back to Emile, he softened his voice. "She seems to like ya, lad."

Emile rubbed the back of his neck, awkward and shy under the dragon's unwavering gaze. "Yeah… though I think it's just the rabbits I've been bringing her."

Jim let out a grunt that might've been a laugh. "Bribery's a fair strategy. Dragons or people, it works well enough." He tilted his head, fixing the boy with a look. "How long you been comin' down here?"

"Every other day since I got here," Emile admitted, his voice carrying the weight of someone confessing to a crime.

Jim raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

There was a pause. Emile didn't meet his eyes at first, staring instead at the dirt, at the rabbit's discarded fur, anywhere but at Jim. When he finally did, Jim caught it — that shimmer at the corners, the glassy stare of someone carrying more than they could ever set down.

"I just… needed someone to talk to," Emile said softly. "And she listens."

Those hollow eyes weren't so hollow now. There was something cracked and glinting behind them, fragile as broken glass catching the light. Jim didn't press. He'd seen too many lads snap when pushed too hard. Instead, he shifted gears.

"So," he said, scratching at the stubble on his chin. "Where'd ya learn to handle a dragon like that? She's usually a right stubborn beast."

Emile blinked, rubbed at his eyes with the sleeve of his robe like he could wipe away the shine. "Back when I was little," he said. "My dad used to train gryphons. Same temperament — proud, temperamental. You've just gotta treat 'em with respect. Don't be too forward. After a while, they start to like you."

Jim nodded slowly. "That explains a lot."

He flicked his gaze to Aualine, still sulking in the corner. Her head was turned away, but her ears were cocked toward them, every word soaking in.

"Must say," Jim muttered, "you've made more progress with her in a few weeks than most the staff ever did."

He let the silence hang for a beat, then asked gently, "You said used to. What happened? He get sick of it?"

The boy froze. That hollow, faraway look bled back into his eyes, a look that didn't belong on someone so young. His lips parted, then clamped shut again. Finally, he spoke — softer, like it hurt to drag the words out.

"They were killed."

Jim didn't speak. Didn't even shift. He just watched the lad, eyes narrowed, listening for the truth beneath the words. No twitch of a liar, no gilding of details. Just raw, ugly honesty.

"The Umbar?" Jim asked, though the answer already soured in his gut.

Emile gave the smallest nod, eyes falling to the dirt. "They… they'd taken the village. Said they were 'relocating' us."

Jim's jaw clenched until his teeth ached. He'd heard that word before. Relocation. A neat little lie dressed up for polite ears. He knew well enough what it meant in the Umbar tongue: burn it down, scatter the bones, and call it mercy.

"My dad…" Emile went on, voice catching in his throat. "He tried to stop them. Told them we'd done nothing wrong. Said my mum was pregnant, begged them to let us be."

He swallowed hard, blinking fast against the sting.

"They slit her throat in front of him. And then they beat him to death. I tried to scream but—" He stopped, breath hitching. He dragged in air, steadying himself. "Didn't matter."

The words hung heavy in the cold air, like smoke that wouldn't clear.

Jim didn't move. Didn't interrupt. He just let the boy spill his truth into the night air. The silence that followed was thick, heavy enough to press against the ribs.

"And what'd they do with you?" Jim finally asked, voice low, careful.

"They put me in a labour camp."

"How long?"

"I don't know. Two winters, I think. Maybe more."

At least a year, Jim thought grimly. Long enough to break most lads. "How'd you get out?"

Emile looked up for the first time since he'd started speaking. His eyes shimmered, but no tears fell. Stubborn, or maybe just wrung dry.

"We got rescued," he said. "Not by magisters. No magic. Just… soldiers. Men with swords."

Jim nodded slowly, something cold settling in his gut. That tracked.

"The guards must've known they were coming. Fled in the night. Soldiers found us in the morning — broke the gates open, gave us food, water… warm blankets. Took us back."

Jim stayed quiet. That explained it. The odd gaps in the boy's records, the blank years no one could account for.

Emile looked like he was about to keep pouring his story out, mouth working around words that hadn't been said in years. But Jim cut in gently, not unkindly, steering him away before the memories swallowed him whole.

"So," he said, jerking his chin toward the pen, "you like Aualine, then?"

Emile blinked, dragged back into the present like a lad waking from a nightmare. Some of the weight in his eyes lifted.

"Er… yeah," he said quietly, glancing over. "She's… she's beautiful."

At the sound of his voice, Aualine perked up. Her ears twitched, eyes brightening, and her tail gave one solid thud against the ground — the kind of gesture Jim had seen her reserve for very, very few.

Jim watched her, then looked back to Emile. "She's got good taste," he muttered. "Must see something in you."

Aualine let out a soft huff and rose to her feet, padding toward Emile with that slow, deliberate grace dragons carried when they trusted someone. Her scales caught the moonlight, silver rippling with every step.

Emile looked up at Jim, almost sheepish but hopeful. "Can I, sir?"

"Go for it, lad. And it's Jim," he said, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Keep the 'sirs' for the academy — I earned my living, not a title."

Emile reached out and laid a hand on her scales. Aualine leaned into the touch, eyes sliding half-shut, and let out a deep purr that rumbled through the paddock like distant thunder.

Jim folded his arms, watching the two of them, and something he couldn't quite name settled in his chest.

"Look, lad," he said after a moment, his tone firm but not harsh, "I've got a lot on my plate right now. Would you be up for lending a hand around the paddock?"

Emile's eyes lit up, wide and unguarded — not just surprise, but something dangerously close to joy. For a moment, he looked younger, lighter, like the weight he'd been dragging around had loosened its grip.

"Before you agree," Jim cut in, raising a finger, "it's proper work. Mucking out, watering, feeding — not just Aualine, the other scaly bastards too. And trust me, some of 'em are nowhere near as charming as her."

Emile nodded quickly, almost bouncing on his heels. "Of course, Jim. I mean it. I will."

Jim studied him for a beat, then gave a slow nod. "Right then. Just make sure you keep up with your classes… much good they'll do you," he muttered, half to himself.

He jabbed a finger at the lad. "And be warned — I'll be checkin' in. If I catch ya slackin', you'll be shovellin' shit from dawn till dusk. No dragon time. No fun. Got it?"

"Got it," Emile said, still wide-eyed, like even shovelling dragon dung sounded like a gift.

"Good." Jim jerked his chin toward the path. "Right, get back to your dorm. It's late, and you've got a pile of shit waitin' for ya in the morning."

Emile gave Aualine one last fond pat. "Thanks, sir — I mean, Jim!" he called as he bolted off into the dark, cloak flapping around his thin frame.

Once the boy was gone, Jim turned back to Aualine. She was already watching him, those great golden eyes half-lidded, wearing the smug look she always pulled when she thought she knew better.

"And why didn't ya say he'd been comin' down here, eh? Sneakin' treats, fussin' over ya?" Jim asked, hands on his hips.

She let out a soft chuff, almost innocent.

"Oi. Don't give me that," Jim grumbled, stepping closer.

Aualine whined, low and sheepish.

"Oh, so ya like him, huh?"

She gave a short, sharp bark — more laugh than sound.

Jim snorted. "Looks like I am gettin' paranoid in me old age." He scratched behind her ear, feeling the warmth of her scales under his calloused fingers. "Still, least I've got someone to pick up a bit o' slack now. About bloody time."

She pressed her massive head into his chest for a long moment, a deep rumble of contentment vibrating through him before she padded back to her bed and curled up like a mountain settling to rest.

Jim turned, staring out over the paddock, the night cold on his face. The fire in his gut cooled — not out, but banked, like embers smouldering in ash.

"Lost me only lead," he muttered into the quiet. His hand tightened on the rake still in his grip. "Guess I'm gonna have to start diggin' harder."

Jim reached into the inside pocket of his wax coat and fished out his battered old pocket watch. The silver plating had long since worn away, the casing dented and scuffed like it had been through the same wars he had. Still, the thing ticked on with that stubborn rhythm, steady as a soldier who refused to fall in line with time itself.

He thumbed it open.
Nearly midnight.

He let out a long, low sigh through his nose. A sane man would've called it a night. Got himself a few hours' rest. But Jim wasn't a sane man, and his gut wasn't giving him the luxury. It was twisting itself in knots, that instinct he trusted more than any prophecy or professor.

"Can't sleep with all this shit hanging over me," he muttered, snapping the watch shut with a sharp click.

He pulled on his coat, slid his blade into the loop behind his back — just in case — and stepped out into the dark.

Two hours later, Jim stomped back into his cabin. The door rattled in its frame as he kicked it shut behind him with a solid thud. He yanked the satchel from his shoulder and tossed it onto his battered little dining table. Files spilled everywhere — folders fanning out like the aftermath of a bureaucratic explosion, parchment fluttering to the floor. Thirty of them, at least. Thick, heavy, full of ink and redacted horseshit.

He shrugged off his coat, dropped it over the back of a chair, and dragged a hand through his hair.

"Second bloody file heist," he muttered, almost laughing.

It had gone smoother than it had any right to. No magical wards humming on the drawers, no enchanted ink biting at his fingers. Just unlocked cabinets, sloppy security, and the blind arrogance of magisters who thought their ivory tower walls were strong enough to keep the world at bay.

Well… almost smooth.

Jim scratched his jaw, the corner of his mouth twitching. "Bloody close call, though."

He could still smell it — mushroom vapour, cloying and sweet, sharp enough to sting the back of his throat. Bliss caps. Stronger than whiskey, outlawed in half the realms and frowned on in the other half.

Right as he'd turned the corner by the south archive stairwell, he'd nearly walked straight into Professor Aidra. And there she'd been — slouched in a shadowed alcove behind a crumbling tapestry, silver vapour pipe clutched in her ink-stained fingers. Her hat gone, her robes wrinkled, her hair falling loose across her face. She wore a lazy grin like she was watching stars explode inside her own skull.

Jim had frozen. Shit. That's it. I'm done.

But Aidra only giggled. Lifted a hand and waved. Not at him, but at the wall behind him.

Didn't even see him. Or if she did, she probably thought he was an angry-looking unicorn on a tea break.

He'd slipped past without a word, boots whispering over the stone as Aidra giggled at ghosts only she could see.

Now, back in the safety of his shack, Jim set the bolt on the door twice over, checked the shutters, then finally let his shoulders sag. He poured himself a generous glass of whiskey — more like half the bottle than a proper measure — and dropped into his chair opposite the pile of stolen folders.

The lamplight flickered across the battered table, catching the edges of parchment and sealing wax, turning the stack of files into a little fortress of secrets.

Jim raised his glass in mock salute, the amber liquid trembling against the firelight.
"To you, Professor Aidra," he muttered, voice dry as old paper. "Keep chasin' stars. And keep outta my way."

He threw the drink back in one, coughed once at the burn, then wiped his mouth with the back of his scarred hand. The glass clinked hard against the table as he set it down.

Then he dragged the first file off the top of the pile, squinting at the neat handwriting and the smug little portrait clipped to the front.

"Right then," he growled, cracking the folder open like he was gutting something. "Let's see what all you bastards are hiding."

 

[Metel_Pen]

Jim yawned wide enough to crack his jaw and rubbed at his eyes until the pages in front of him stopped swimming. Dawn was bleeding into the sky, its first pale rays creeping through the grime-smeared window of his cabin. The weak light caught on the piles of parchment scattered across his table. He'd been up all night hunched over them, sifting through the files like some half-drunk librarian with a grudge and a hangover waiting in the wings. His back ached. His eyes burned. But he'd pressed on.

Thirty thick admission folders, all stacked like bricks, and he'd combed through every single one with the same suspicion and scrutiny he'd once reserved for enemy field reports. Each detail weighed, measured, filed away in the weary machinery of his soldier's brain.

Most were easy to toss aside — the usual crop of bright-eyed prodigies and nobles. Kids with glowing recommendations from families with more gold than sense. Ancient bloodlines tracing back to half-mythical heroes. Some carried flashy "chosen" birthmarks written about in prophecy books no sane man would trust. A handful wore curse scars like badges, others boasted of bearing "the mark of the dragon's breath," whatever that was supposed to mean. One lad apparently screamed magic the moment he was shoved into the world, nurses dropping him in shock. Another had a duchess for a mother who'd written a recommendation dripping with disappointment, as though her son's mere existence had ruined her weekend. One file even included a prophecy stitched into the baby's first blanket, the ink smudged from proud tears.

Jim rubbed his temple and muttered, "Born under a blood moon. What the fuck does that even mean?" He tossed that file into the discard pile and kept digging.

But then came the oddities. A handful of files caught his eye — not because of what was written inside, but because of what wasn't. No heritage, no noble blood, no divine omens. Just clean, dull records. Ordinary. Unremarkable.

Three boys. Two girls.

On the surface, decidedly uninteresting. Which, to Jim's weary mind, made them very interesting indeed.

He leaned back in his chair, rubbed at his eyes again until sparks flashed behind his lids, and swore under his breath. He shrugged into his waxed coat and rose, joints creaking like floorboards. When he stepped outside, the frost in the air bit at his cheeks and lungs with sharp little teeth, cruel and bracing — but it did wonders for his fatigue. Cleared the cobwebs better than coffee. The grounds lay silvered under morning light, every blade of grass stiff with ice, every breath of wind knifing cold. Jim hunched his shoulders and trudged back toward the academy, boots crunching a steady rhythm on the frozen dirt.

His mind kept working over the five files he'd marked. He needed to start narrowing things down, and he had a chance today. The Riordan Games were fast approaching, and someone had to make sure the arena infrastructure could hold several hundred teenagers hopped up on bravado, hormones, and poor decision-making. That someone, as usual, was him.

But the inspection gave him more than just work. It gave him cover. An excuse to snoop. His first target: Alfred Guckle, one of the three lads who'd landed on his suspicious list.

Jim pushed through the academy's front doors without a glance at the gaggle of students loitering in the foyer, their laughter buzzing like flies around a carcass. He made a beeline for the locked key press tucked behind the eastern stairwell. Pulled out his heavy ring, the brass clinking like old coins, found the right tooth among dozens, and slotted it into the cabinet. A turn, a click, a creak of hinges. He grabbed the arena key, locked the press back up again without a sound.

Then he took the long way around — what he generously called "the scenic route." The corridors wound like veins through the old stone, some half-familiar, some less so, shadows pooling in the corners where the torches sputtered. He walked them at his own pace, a man who knew how to make himself small, weaving through the academy's bowels until he reached what he was looking for.

Alchemical Studies 101 was etched in curling script above a thick oak door, the kind of pompous lettering that thought it belonged on a cathedral. Jim barely had time to sneer at it before the corridor split with a fizz-pop, sharp and wet, followed by a scream that ripped high and raw through the stone. For a heartbeat, his shoulders twitched like an old war reflex, then the rest of him was moving, charging forward as if the past twenty years hadn't dulled his instincts at all.

The stench met him before his eyes could. Acrid smoke, scorched parchment, and beneath it — copper. Blood. His boots hammered across the floor as he shoved through the doorway. Inside, chaos held the room in its teeth. A professor hunched helpless over a boy on the ground, robes billowing uselessly. The rest of the class froze, faces pale, like rabbits caught too long in torchlight.

Jim pushed them aside, dropped to a knee, and the sight carved its way straight into him. Alfred. Pale, trembling, his right arm gone clean at the elbow — sheared away like it had never been. Eyes wide, unblinking, the shock holding him hostage more than the wound itself.

"Shit," Jim spat, already ripping at his belt. He wrapped it round the stump, cinching tight until Alfred lurched and a sound like a broken groan spilled out. "You're not dying in this bloody classroom, lad," Jim growled, voice low but certain, as if his words could will the boy to obey.

No time to wait. He hauled Alfred up into his arms — dead weight, yet nothing Jim hadn't carried before — and stormed out of the room, the professor's useless hands still fluttering behind him. The corridor blurred around him. Students scattered. Voices gasped. None of it mattered. He kept moving until the infirmary doors burst open, his voice bellowing for medics. Only when hands seized Alfred from him and pulled the boy into frantic care did Jim finally stop, his chest heaving, the belt still biting into his palm.

Hours later, Jim stood outside in the cold, coat snapping against the wind. His hand dipped into a pocket, pulling free a crumpled sheet — names, notes, suspicions. He tugged out a nub of charcoal and scored a line hard through one: Alfred Guckle.

"Well," Jim muttered, breath steaming, "that's one mystery solved. Poor sod. Lost an arm, but he'll live." He folded the list, shoved it away. "At least it saved me some time."

The wind bit into his throat as he drew a deep breath, rolling his shoulders until something popped and settled. With Alfred's fate decided, the edge of him looked for something else to gnaw on — work. The arena, for once, was reason enough. The Riordan Games loomed just five days away. If he didn't get ahead of the problems now, he'd be the one dragging corpses out later.

He muttered as he set off down the path, boots crunching frost, "Wouldn't be the first time we had a collapse and some lad left with a femur full of splinters." His scowl cut deep. "And Elmsley called me a risk."

The keys in his pocket were heavy, iron teeth clinking with every stride. He gripped them like weapons as he picked up pace, boots hammering the rhythm of grim duty.

At last he came to Thornate Gate, the rust-bitten arch crouching like an old sentinel. The lock resisted, then surrendered with a groaning clunk. The hinges screamed as he shoved the gate open — a sound so sharp and pained it could've woken ghosts if any still lingered from the last bloodied spectacle.

Jim stepped through, climbing the narrow steps to the main viewing platform. The wind caught at him, carried the smell of dust and iron, and tugged his coat into a whip at his legs. From the top rail, his gaze swept the field below. Churned earth. Gravel. Empty now, silent and waiting. In less than a week, it'd be crawling with spinning blades, fire-belching pipes, collapsing platforms, illusions thick enough to choke in. A blood maze dressed up as tradition.

He sighed through his nose, shaking his head slow. In a decade here, he reckoned thirty had died in that pit. Twice as many maimed. The smiles of the survivors had always looked borrowed — as though some part of them had been left down there, buried in the dirt.

"All for glory and a cup," he muttered. "Fucking daft."

He spent the next hour circling the perimeter, boots crunching as he tested planks, slapped supports, checked pins. Rust bleeding through bolts, cracks spidering wood like veins on old skin — enough to make him frown, not enough to break. Not yet. He filed each problem away like an officer tallying rations: reinforce, replace, retighten.

When it was done, he descended the steps, boots thudding, and slammed the gate shut with a clang that rang against his teeth. The hinges shrieked again before silence folded over the arena once more. Just dirt and ghosts. For now.

He checked his pocket watch. Nearly six. The morning was biting in full.

"Right," he muttered, jaw tightening. "Better check in on Emile. Make sure the lad's not pissing about with Aualine."

His coat flared as he strode off, keys heavy at his side. If Emile had gone soft on his chores, there'd be hell to pay before breakfast.

He stepped through the paddock gate, braced for the usual chaos: mucked pens, dry troughs, a sulking dragon.

Instead, he stopped dead.

The place was spotless.

The fence lines were neat, hay bales stacked square as parade kit, and for the first time in years the main gate didn't squeal like a tortured banshee when Jim swung it open. He stopped just inside, boots sinking into the frosted dirt, eyes narrowing. Every pen he passed was… clean. Fresh-smelling. Not the half-arsed sort of clean where muck had been shoved into corners, either — proper tidy. Even the storm drake — foul-tempered bastard that it was — had a smug shine across its black scales, like it had been polished.

"What in the fuck…" Jim muttered, voice low, suspicious as a dog sniffing a locked meat cellar.

He moved slow, scanning each stall like an inspector waiting to catch the trick. Nothing. No half-finished chores, no stale stink, no squeaking hinges. The place ran smoother than it had in years.

Then he reached Aualine's pen.

And there was Emile.

The boy was knee-deep in muck and dragon tail, shovel in hand, sweat plastering his fringe to his forehead. Aualine circled him like a spoiled hound, nudging at his shoulder, letting out a whine so pitiful Jim almost laughed.

"Hey! Hey! I will fuss you up," Emile said, dodging a playful nudge with a lopsided grin. "But I gotta finish the work first, alright?"

Jim leaned on the fence, one eyebrow raised. That was a new sight — a dragon waiting her turn like a jealous schoolgirl while a lad shovelled shit around her feet.

"How ya getting on, lad?"

Emile jolted like he'd been caught smuggling wine barrels, nearly dropping the shovel. "Oh! Uh—hi, sir—I mean, Jim. Yeah, just finishing up this last bit," he stammered, nodding toward the half-full wheelbarrow. "Unless… unless you think there's more that needs doing?"

Jim let his eyes sweep the paddock. It was spotless. Cleaner than it had been in years. Even the water troughs gleamed, rippling full. The gates swung without a whisper. For once, the place didn't reek like a midden.

A faint grin tugged at the corner of his mouth before he caught it. "Nah, lad. Reckon you've done more in a day than I usually manage in a week," he said, folding his arms over his chest.

The effect was immediate. Emile beamed like he'd been handed a medal, teeth flashing, shoulders loosening. He gave one final shove of the shovel, dumped the muck, then wheeled the barrow out of the pen with the careful pride of someone guarding treasure.

Aualine huffed as she watched him go, her rumble rolling deep through her chest, almost proud.

Jim tapped the rail with two fingers, thinking. Might as well use the lad's good mood. "Do ya know any of the kids ya showed up with?"

Emile paused mid-shove of the wheelbarrow, tilting his head. "Erm… I did speak to some on the train ride down."

Jim nodded slowly. "Good. What about these lot?"

He reached into his coat, pulled out four worn photos. The paper was creased, edges dog-eared from too many nights of thumbing them over. He fanned them out like a deck of cards, each one marked in his head after poor Alfred's accident earlier.

Emile wiped his hands on his trousers, leaned closer, squinting.

"Oh, that's Jonns," he said, pointing with a muck-stained finger. "He's all right. Haven't talked to him much since we got here, though."

"Quiet one, is he?" Jim asked, studying the lad's reaction more than the picture.

"Kinda. He's really good with incantations and such."

Jim raised a brow, lip twitching. "Anything else about him? Odd hobbies? Glows under moonlight? Knows twelve kinds of ancient blood rituals?"

Emile chuckled nervously, shifting his weight from one boot to the other. "Not really. Oh—he did say he's part Elder One?"

Jim rolled his eyes so hard it nearly hurt. "Of course he bloody is. Bet he's already practisin' how to stand in the moonlight lookin' mysterious."

He tossed the picture into the dragon's water trough with a flick of his wrist. Aualine lowered her snout, blinked at the soggy scrap of parchment swirling in her drinking water, then gave Jim a look that was equal parts disdain and insult.

"Don't start," Jim muttered. "You drink out of puddles half the time. You'll live."

Aualine snorted a misty spray of water over his boots, thoroughly unimpressed.

"Right, what about the other three?" Jim asked, shaking his leg dry.

Emile leaned in again as Jim held up the next photo. "That's Oomah," the boy said, pointing to the face of a girl with wide-set eyes and hair tied in too many ribbons. "She's… a little weird."

Jim raised an eyebrow, tilting the picture toward the pale light so the ink caught. "Weird how? Weird like won't-eat-bread-ends, or weird like keeps jars of toenails under her bed?"

Emile hesitated, clearly unsure whether sharing was the right idea. "Well… she reckons her cat is the reincarnated prince of some ancient, long-lost civilisation."

Jim stared at him. "Come again?"

"Yeah." Emile nodded quickly, almost apologetic. "Apparently, he speaks to her at night. Gives her advice and stuff." He scratched at the back of his neck, cheeks colouring. "I think she's a little nuts, if I'm honest."

Jim blinked slowly, then looked back at the girl's painted face. "Prince cat, eh? Right." He let out a humourless chuckle, muttering, "Whole bloody academy's gone." With a flick, he tossed the photo over his shoulder like a bad hand in a card game. It fluttered lazily through the air before landing face-down in a pile of dragon dung.

Aualine snorted again, clearly amused.

"Right," Jim said flatly, dusting his palms like he'd just rid himself of a bad debt. "Next."

Emile leaned forward eagerly, pointing at the next image. "That one's Brazden. He's pretty normal, I think. Doesn't like me much, though."

Jim gave the boy a long side glance. "Why's that?"

Emile shrugged, looking down at his boots. "Dunno. Just gives me that look, y'know? Like I'm something he scraped off his shoe. Spends all his time hanging around this guy called Cas—"

"Castus," Jim cut in, voice tightening like a pulled bowstring.

"Yeah, that's it."

Jim gave a short, grim nod and slipped Brazden's photo into his coat pocket. The movement was small, but the grunt he made as the picture disappeared into the fabric was heavy, like he was storing away something rotten that still needed keeping.

"And what about her?" Jim asked, pulling out the final photo and holding it up between two fingers.

Emile's expression changed in an instant. His whole face softened, the tension in his shoulders easing, his tone quieter, warmer. "That's Maizel."

Jim didn't say a word. He just watched, letting the silence stretch. Silence always made people reveal more than they meant to.

"She's… lovely," Emile said, the word slipping out before he could catch it. His ears went red, but he carried on anyway. "Kind. Clever. Good at everything. Like, stupidly good. Doesn't have any weird stuff going on, at least not that I've seen. Everyone likes her."

Jim arched a brow, lips twitching like he might smirk. He didn't, though. He just tucked the last photo back into his coat, slow and deliberate.

"Lovely," he repeated under his breath. "That's always a bloody dangerous word."

Jim gave a slow nod, slipping Maizel's photo into his pocket alongside Brazden's. "Hmm," he grunted, the sound more like a verdict than a word.

Emile tilted his head, curiosity flickering in his eyes. "Why do you wanna know about them, anyway?"

Jim shrugged, casual as an old soldier could manage. "Little project I've got runnin'," he said, chewing the thought before spitting it out. "Nothin' for you to worry about."

Emile still didn't look convinced. His brows drew in just enough to show suspicion, but not enough to start an argument. He was young, cautious — didn't yet know how to press without getting snapped at. Jim liked that. Meant the lad wasn't entirely daft.

"Good," Jim muttered under his breath, turning slightly.

Behind him, Aualine was standing statue-still, her golden eyes fixed on Emile with the intensity of a mother eyeing someone who'd taken too long with supper. Her tail swished, slow and deliberate, each movement scattering dust across the pen floor.

"Now go on," Jim said, jerking a thumb toward her. "That big lass has been throwin' me death glares since you stopped fussin' her. Looks like she's ready to burn your face off if you don't give her more head scritches."

Emile laughed, a nervous, light sound, and hurried back over to the dragon. He buried his hands in her shimmering scales, scratching along her jawline. Aualine let out a deep, rolling purr that shook the fence posts, her great head leaning into him like a hound leaning on its master.

Jim watched for a moment, chewing on the silence. The boy's smile was unguarded for once, his hands steady as they moved over the dragon's hide. No nerves, no fumbles — just calm. Natural.

"Bloody hell," Jim muttered. "Maybe the beast's got better judgment than I do."

He turned on his heel and started walking away, pulling a half-chewed bit of twig from his coat pocket and sticking it between his teeth. The taste was bitter, bark scraping against the back of his tongue, but it gave him something to gnaw on besides the worry clawing at his insides.

"Well," he muttered around the twig, "that's me shortlist trimmed down to two."

His boots crunched over the frost-hardened dirt as he headed for his cabin, shoulders hunched against the creeping cold. The thought of a bed — even a lumpy, splinter-prone one like his — tugged at him like gravity. A night's rest. That's what a sane man would take.

Jim adjusted his coat, spat the twig into the grass, and muttered, "If the gods've got any sense left, they'll let me sleep without bloody interruptions tonight."

He didn't believe it for a second.

 

[Metel_Pen]

Jim allowed himself a lie-in — which for him meant waking at dawn instead of hours before it. The light through his cabin shutters was pale, the sort that never quite warmed your bones, but he let himself linger for once. His joints complained anyway. The price of getting older, he thought, tugging his coat on and stepping out into a world already coated in frost.

The morning blurred into labor. He spent the better part of it herding groups of half-awake faculty and excitable students from shed to shed, pointing out where the academy kept its collection of "sporting equipment." Old gates groaned, locks protested, and dust billowed out of hinges that hadn't been moved in a year. Jim's back twinged from the effort of hauling open a storage barn door that stuck halfway, the metal teeth grinding like they hated him personally.

He was halfway through dragging a rack of mock golem targets into the yard — wooden torsos bolted onto weighted stumps, their surfaces peppered with old scorch marks and half-melted dents — when he heard a voice like nails dragged down slate.

"Here," Elmsley said.

The single word carried all the warmth of a slapped glove. Jim turned, already scowling.

"Morning to you too," he muttered, brushing splinters from his hands before taking the folded sheet of parchment Elmsley thrust at him. "What's this supposed to be?"

"Updated list of participants for the Games," Elmsley said, tone clipped. "Plandorph wants the plaque changed."

Jim unfolded it, scanning the tidy script. "How many changes we talking?"

"Just one," Elmsley replied. His lips pursed like he'd sucked a lemon. "Alfred Guckle has been replaced. After his… unfortunate accident."

Jim bit the inside of his cheek, hard enough to taste copper. Gods, that man's voice pisses me off.

"Anything else?" Jim asked, voice deliberately flat.

Elmsley didn't bother to reply. He simply lingered long enough to deliver one of his patented superior stares — all nose-up disdain — before pivoting on his heel. His black robes flared behind him as he stalked away, the picture of a man who thought himself a hero out of a painting.

Jim watched him go, muttering under his breath, "Prick."

He looked back down at the list, eyes sliding to the replacement name. And his heart dropped straight into his boots.

Emile Caloden.

There it was, inked plain as day.

"Shit," Jim breathed. He folded the parchment, stuffed it into his coat, and checked his pocket watch. Nearly the end of lessons.

The mock golems could rot where they stood for all he cared. He shoved the rack back against the shed wall, shrugged into his coat, and set off with heavy steps toward the paddocks. His boots thudded against the cobbles with purpose, each impact carrying the weight of old fatigue. He wasn't angry — not quite. Just unsettled. And tired. Bone-deep tired, the sort that whiskey only dulled for a while before it came roaring back.

By the time he reached the paddocks, the sun was bleeding out into late afternoon, the sky paling at the edges. Jim sat himself down on a hay bale near Aualine's pen, elbows on knees, eyes fixed on the ground while his mind turned over like a millstone. He chewed absently on a sliver of straw he'd pulled from the bale, his jaw working slow and steady.

An hour dragged by. The cold bit deeper, the paddock fences creaked in the wind, and Jim didn't move. He just waited.

Then came the sound of boots scuffing dirt. A clatter of buckets. Emile wandered into view, juggling two heavy pails of feed, his thin frame bent slightly under the weight. He moved with his usual nervous energy — quick steps, shoulders hunched, eyes darting as though expecting someone to tell him off just for breathing too loud.

He didn't even notice Jim sitting there in the shadows until a low voice cut through the quiet.

"Afternoon, lad."

Emile jumped so hard he nearly spilled both buckets.

Why,?" Jim asked, voice low and flat.
"Shit—sorry! I didn't see—what?" he stammered, cheeks flushing as he bent to scoop the feed back into the pail with hurried, awkward hands.

"Why'd you put your name down for the Games?" Jim asked again, slow and deliberate, his tone unreadable so the boy couldn't guess what he was thinking.

Emile blinked, looking genuinely confused. "I… I didn't." The denial sounded small, brittle.

Jim rose, took a deliberate step forward, and fished a crumpled scrap of paper from his coat pocket. He smoothed it enough to show the inked list and held it out. "Well, it says here you did." He watched the boy's face the whole time he handed it over.

Emile snatched the sheet, eyes scanning the lines as his lips moved silently over the words. Colour drained from his face. "Oh… shit," he whispered, catching himself. "Sorry—I didn't mean to swear. But I swear I didn't put my name down! I wouldn't… I mean, I wouldn't want to. I can't even do half the spells they show in class. I—I didn't…" His voice trailed, tight with panic.

Jim watched every twitch and tremor, the way Emile's fingers worried at the edge of the paper, the way his breath hitched. He believed the boy. That made the whole thing worse — belief sharpened the danger like a knife.

"Someone must've put me down," Emile said, staring at his name as if it might evaporate under his gaze.

"Any idea who?" Jim asked, voice low, pressing without cruelty.

Emile shook his head, brow furrowing in concentration that went nowhere. "I don't. I can't think of anyone."

"No one you talk to? No one who might've done it as a laugh or to get you hurt?" Jim pushed.

Emile's answer came small and honest: "I… I only really talk to you. And Aualine."

Jim let a slow breath out through his nose, fogging the cold air. His eyes narrowed. "You do know the Games are a bloody death trap, right? Roughly a quarter don't make it out alive. And that's not counting the ones that crawl out missin' limbs or too twisted up in the head to ever come right again." The words were simple; the warning heavier than any scolding.

Emile's voice dropped even lower. "I can't back out. My house would get penalised, wouldn't it?"

Jim stared at him a long beat. "Who gives a shite?" he snapped, before the edge in his voice softened. "I do." The admission came quiet but real.

Emile's guard went up, panic and pride tangling. "I mean… it'd be cowardly. Dishonourable." The word fell awkward in the cold.

Jim arched an eyebrow. "Dishonourable? Lad, sayin' no to a foolish tradition that's more ceremony than sense—that ain't cowardice. That's common bloody sense. They'll feed you to the wolves in there and call it sport." He let the point sit in the air between them.

Emile's mouth set hard. "I still can't," he muttered.

Jim's tone hardened, the soldier in him stepping forward. "You said it yourself. You can't do half what the others can. You'll get yourself killed." He watched the boy's reaction closely.

Emile didn't answer straight away. His fists clenched at his sides, knuckles whitening. "That's not how I was raised," he said finally, voice quiet but steady.

Jim studied him. The lad wasn't trembling with fear; he wasn't putting on an act. He was stubborn — maybe stupid — but the stubbornness came from somewhere real, and that made it more dangerous than any lie.

Jim let out a long, tired sigh. He was about to speak when Emile cut him off.

"No," Emile said, firmer this time. "I'm doing it."

He turned and walked out of the paddock, boots crunching on the frosted ground, shoulders set as if he'd already decided his fate. Jim watched him go, the chill in his gut growing teethy.

"…Bloody idiot," he muttered under his breath.

Then, without warning, something shoved him. Jim felt his body lift and hit the hay-covered floor with a dull thud, the air knocked out of his lungs by the sudden impact. He rolled, trained reflexes taking him back to his feet before the dizziness could set in.

"Aualine?" he muttered, breath ragged. The dragon loomed over him, massive and composed, golden eyes narrowed as if measuring his insolence. Her chest heaved with low, annoyed huffs that puffed the straw around them.

"What the fuck?" Jim snapped, more startled than hurt.

Aualine answered with a disapproving bark, a quick, curt sound that held all the reprimand of a scolding housewife.

"The boy?" Jim guessed, rubbing the sting from his elbow.

She chuffed — a hot, low rumble — as if to say yes.

"Not my fault he's choosing to die," Jim muttered, pushing himself upright and brushing straw from his coat.

Aualine barked again, harder this time; the single sharp sound had the patience of a creature used to giving warnings that were often ignored.

"Look, what do you want me to do?" Jim asked, meeting her gaze.

She tilted her great head, then jerked it in the direction Emile had gone — a decisive, impatient motion that left no room for ambiguity.

Jim stared at her, jaw setting. "Oh, right. Go after him. Stand in the crowd and watch him get torn apart while everyone cheers?" he said, incredulity edged with bitter humour.

Aualine's eyes narrowed further and she gave a deep, rumbling chuff — not acceptance, not resignation. Something like insistence.

"No," Jim said, voice firmer than before. "I won't watch another life get snuffed out if I've got any say in it."

She barked once more — and this time the sound landed with a meaning that hit him hard, a single sharp note that cut through the fog of his irritation and lit a stubborn, dangerous ember under his ribs.

He did have a say. Not a big one. Not official. But enough to tip the scales if he wanted. A little shove in the right place. A touch of rough-edged, mud-soaked intervention.

Aualine reared up, wings half-spread, muscles bunching like she was about to knock him flat again.

"WAIT!" Jim barked, throwing both hands up, palms wide. His voice cracked louder than he meant it to. "I'll talk to him! I'll help him!"

She froze, then dropped back onto all fours with a heavy, ground-shaking thump. Dust shivered off the beams overhead.

Jim met her gaze. Big, unblinking eyes. Patient as the moon and twice as judging.
"I'll keep him alive. Okay? No promises. But I'll try."

Aualine rumbled, the deep, rolling purr of a creature content — or satisfied she'd won.

"Fuck," Jim muttered, rubbing his ribs where her earlier shove still ached. "You really have a soft spot for him, don't ya?"

She barked once, sharp, almost smug.

"Alright, alright — I'm going," he grumbled, grabbing his coat tighter around him.

He turned and took off at a run, boots hammering against the frozen ground, breath already burning in his lungs. The cold slapped his face raw, the kind of air that scraped every breath down your throat like gravel.

It took Jim ten minutes to catch up with Emile. By the time he did, sweat was sticking his shirt to his back, and every old scar in his legs screamed like it was the war all over again. He caught the boy's shoulder, leaned forward, and wheezed hard enough to bend double.

"Fuck," he croaked between ragged breaths. He spat into the grass, shoulders heaving. "It's been a while since I ran that far…"

Emile blinked at him, wide-eyed, unsure whether to laugh or bolt.

Jim straightened, dragging air in until his ribs quit protesting. "Right," he said, voice steadier now. "If you're dead set on this, then I'm gonna help you, lad. You've got, what — five days? I'll train you. Show you what to expect. How to survive."

He fixed the boy with a look sharp enough to cut. "I can't help with spells. Never could. But I can teach you how someone who can't touch the Source still lives through magic. How to dodge it. How to gut it. How to outlast it."

Jim stepped in close, tone dropping like a hammer.
"But first, tell me something. The truth. This ain't just about your house getting docked points, is it? There's more to why you won't back down."

Emile hesitated. His lips trembled before words formed. Then his voice came out soft, quiet enough the wind nearly carried it away.
"My… my dad. He didn't back down. So I can't."

Jim stood silent for a long second. The boy's face was young, but the weight behind the words was old — older than it had any right to be.

Finally, he gave a slow nod. "Aye, lad. I get that."

He clapped a hand on Emile's shoulder, the way soldiers once did before the charge — heavy, firm, meant to anchor more than comfort.

"Five days. It ain't much. I'd say we start tonight — but it's your call."

Emile looked up at him, that same flicker of stubbornness behind his eyes.
"Okay. We start tonight."

"Right then. First lesson: action," Jim said, cracking his knuckles like he was limbering up for a bar fight.

"Action?" Emile asked, brow furrowing.

"Yeah. Action. Movement. Striking first. Look—magic, conjuration, all that flashy shite—it's powerful, sure. But it takes time. And it's always bloody telegraphed."

Seeing the confusion still on Emile's face, Jim sighed, dragging a hand down his own weathered features.

"There's always a giveaway before someone blasts you. A build-up. A twitch in the fingers. A flourish. I've even seen some daft bastard do a little dance—no shite." He rolled his eyes.

"Long and short of it, you get a heads-up. And that's where action comes in. Move first, and most of the time, you live."

He jerked his chin at the boy. "So… what offensive spell can you do without cocking it up too bad?"

"Er… Isamiel's Blast?" Emile offered, hesitant.

"Good. I want you to hit me with it."

"What?"

"Blast me. Go on." Jim held up a hand. "Give me a second first."

He started stretching, groaning as his back cracked like firewood in the frost. His knees gave a loud pop that echoed across the paddock.
"Fuck me, I'm old."

Emile shifted uneasily. "Are you sure? It might hurt—"

"I'm sure," Jim snapped. "Now stop fucking about and blast me."

Emile swallowed hard, nodded, and began the spell's flourish — hands twitching, voice muttering syllables that sparked faint wisps of heat.

Jim moved before the spell even built. A sharp leap to the side, a roll across the straw, and then—

Thwack.

A boot to the gut. Emile hit the dirt wheezing, air blasted clean out of him.

Jim crouched beside him, grabbed him by the collar, and hauled him back up. "See, lad? Action. You can learn to level a mountain, but if it takes you ten minutes, there's nothing stopping someone from just twatting you in the bollocks before it's done."

Emile coughed, trying to pull in air.

"I've seen dozens of magisters get themselves killed 'cause of that exact thing," Jim went on, voice low, steady, like he was etching it into the boy's skull. "They get too used to the comfort of power. Too used to folk flinching when they wiggle their fingers."

He gave Emile a long, hard look.

"You ever hear of Grand Ickybod?"

Emile nodded quickly. "Yeah. He could take out entire companies with a flick of his wrist."

"Aye. And he did. Wiped out half a rebellion in the Northlands. Folk thought he was invincible." Jim paused, the corner of his mouth twitching in grim amusement. "Know how he died?"

Emile shook his head, wide-eyed.

"Dropped by a farm boy. Little bastard got close in the chaos, stuck a dagger between his ribs. Right in the armpit, where the fancy robes don't cover. Just like that — gone. All that power, all that flash — didn't mean shite when it came down to cold steel and bad luck."

He folded his arms, leaned back against the paddock fence like he had all the time in the world.

"Which brings me to your next lesson, lad: hubris. Overconfidence. Overreliance on magic. All of it'll get you killed just as quick as a blade."

Jim's tone darkened, gravel in his throat.

"Magic's a tool. Like a sword. And like a sword, it can fail. It will fail. And when it does, what've you got left, eh? Bugger all — unless you've trained your hands, your feet, and your instincts."

He jabbed a thick finger toward Emile. "Don't go thinking the Source is some divine shield. It's a hammer. A good one — but it only works if the one swingin' it knows what they're doing. You lean too hard on it, you forget the basics — that's when the world bites back."

He softened then, just a fraction. "Some of the best magisters I ever knew were bastards with a sword. They could hex you sure enough — but if the magic didn't land, they'd still drop you like a sack of shite. Be like them."

Emile swallowed. "How is it you know all this? You weren't always a groundskeeper… were you?"

Jim paused. His expression unreadable in the torchlight. He rolled his shoulder, the old injury creaking, and stared off past the boy — not looking at anything in particular, just remembering.

"No, lad," he said quietly. "I weren't."

A silence hung heavy.

"But that's a story for another night," Jim added finally, voice low. "And it ain't one that ends with me walkin' off into the sunset."

Emile nodded, sensing the line he wasn't meant to cross.

"Right," Jim said, clapping his hands together and shifting the mood. "Next lesson. Distraction."