Killing Time

Presleigh sat in her last class of the day with the tip of her fountain pen tucked into the pocket of her cheek.  The rest of it dangled like a cigarette, precariously perched on her lips as her eyes slid shut and then open again, shut and open.  ‘Mancy Phenomena 100 had all the potential to be a very interesting class but somehow, with a great deal of talent, the professor had rendered it into a lecture in which even the most implausible and interesting subjects had all the life of a mathematical formula.  Of course, some students adored said formulas, but Presleigh was not one of those.

“Presleigh!”  There was an elbow into her ribs and the pen toppled from her mouth and onto the desk.  She jumped.  “You’re falling asleep.”

The professor didn’t even turn around from writing his bullet points up on the chalkboard.  The Stormrider sat up straight in her chair and rolled her eyes at the classmate that had woken her.  A second-year student that had helped her find this class on the first day.

“What’s with the hickies?” he asked, putting two fingers to his neck in approximately the same location of the vampire bites.

“Hickies?”  She made a mental note to ask one of the girls back in the dorms what that word meant.  “A vampire bit me.”

“Awesome!”

The last phrase was a bit too loud and the professor paused in mid-lecture, his hand poised over the last phrase that only half the students were dutifully recording into notebooks.  Something about the nagas.  Presleigh and the boy remained silent until he started writing again and then resumed their conversation in a lower tone.

“You should use that for your assignment,” he said, leaning over his desk closer to hers.  

“What assignment?”

“The one that’s due at the end of the term.”

Oh.  Yes.  That assignment.  A research paper on a ‘mancy phenomena.  She closed her eyes at the reminder.  Like most good students she did her best to not think about research papers until the last month of the term.  However, her friend had a point.  Vampires had been covered, albeit briefly, in this class and therefore were eligible for the term paper.  It would certainly cut out a good deal of research if she could just talk to someone who knew what it was like first-hand.

That required finding the resident advisor again.  Brin?  Yes, that was his name.  She smiled and slumped lower on her desk.  The belt she’d stolen wound up in a pond and she’d told at least ten people the story so far and almost fifteen about the vampire attack.  She’d already gotten one invitation to go around the city tonight with a group of girls and been asked to repeat the story for friends twice now.  Things were looking up.



Finding someone in the Academy was not as easy as it sounded.  There were records of all the students kept on campus but unless the building or class level was known there was simply too much to wade through.  A first name wasn’t going to cut it.  She might be able to pull something off if she was better at literamancy but somehow, she doubted it.  Besides, the record-keeper would probably get really mad if she botched her ‘mancy on his books.

For this the singular talents of one person would be required.  Not precisely a friend of the family, but someone who was so much like the Stormriders in temperament that he invariably got along with the students from her family.  The bestiamancer weapons-master Dog.  She was learning basic martial arts under him and had already been in his office a couple times.

The west wing of the building for natural ‘mancy always reeked of animal musk.  On the third floor it reeked of iodine and other medicinal aromas that made Presleigh feel sick to her stomach.  Dog’s office usually had the windows open which brought in the fresh smell from the gardens that were planted across campus.  When Presleigh filled the doorframe he was at his desk, feet up on the top and chair tilted back far enough to fall over in a heartbeat.  She opted to scuff her feet instead of knocking.

“Oh,” he said, setting the legs of the chair back onto the ground, “Hello.  Presleigh, was it?”

She nodded.  This was another reason Dog was one of the better-liked professors around the Academy – he could single-handedly thrash an entire class and use everyone’s first names in the process.  Most professors just pointed and said ‘you.’

“What do you need?”

“It’s not related to class actually… well…”

“Been getting nosebleeds?”

“Come again?”

Dog shrugged.  “Got an unusual amount of kids with those the past few days.  Someone is cooking up something big here on the Academy and I haven’t been able to figure out who or what.  Well, I’ll probably hear about it next staff meeting.   Now, let me guess again… need some help with those bite marks on your neck?”

He didn’t miss anything.  She flushed and the thickset man eyed her sternly, rubbing the stubble on his chin as he did so.

“No-no, I can handle that myself.  Just met a vampire.  I… wasn’t able to get away.”

“Course not!” he boomed, “It’s a vampire!  I don’t expect anyone below eighth year to be able to hold their own.”

And suddenly she felt a lot better about everything.

“Thank you,” she said, “Anyway, I think I should be fine.  In fact, I’m trying to find the vampire again.  Well, his resident advisor at least.  Named Brin.  Don’t know much else.”

Dog scratched his stubble some more in thought.  Repeated the name under his breath several times before adding a couple names after it.  Something that started with an ‘L’ and an ‘S’.

“That’s it!  That chronomancer those two always ran around with.  Yes, I remember now.  Brin Laughlin.  Son of a rather wealthy family that lives here in the city.  Not very good with weapons but could fight as dirty as the lowest drunkard in a tavern-brawl when he had a pocketwatch on him.  Senior, although I imagine he’ll be staying for a few more years.  Can’t say I know where he’s living now though.”

“That’s alright, I can find him in the records now that I have a last name and class level.  Thank you.”

“Right, right.  When you see him ask if he’s heard from the twins yet.  Langley and Sabreur Stormrider.”  His eyes narrowed.  “You know them?”

Stormriders.  Twins.  Presleigh shook her head.

“Well, ask for me.  I’ve been very curious as to what those two are up to.  Old students of mine.  Bring back good stories.”

His chair tilted back again and Presleigh slipped out into the hallway.  Stormriders.  Brin knew Stormriders.  Two of them.  It just wasn’t fair.  Here she was, a spoiled only child that grew up in some remote Stormrider estate planted firmly in the middle of the backwards countryside.  

“Well,” she said to herself, “I’ve been attacked by a vampire and stole someone’s belt.  There’s hope for me yet.”



Presleigh found Brin’s dormitory shortly after dinner.  There was a great commotion outside, young men running around and hollering.  Off to the side was a small group of about three.  A man with shoulder-length blonde hair was bent over one of the boys.  Presleigh walked faster.  And stopped as soon as she got close enough to see what was going on.

It was a pillow fight.  A pillow fight that had seemingly emptied the entire dormitory to participate.  What’s more, it was a shirtless pillow fight.  A pile of jackets lay to one side and a huddle of girls to the other.  There didn’t appear to be any rules – just a bunch of shirtless men running around and hitting each other with pillows.  With each successful hit or dodge the participant would whoop and then jog over to the sidelines to pose and preen before the girls, who dutifully giggled and blushed.  Presleigh just blinked and shook her head.  

Brin was tending to a student with a bloody nose.  He had his hand cupped over his face and Presleigh could smell the copper tang.  

“Probably just got hit too hard,” the resident advisor was saying as she approached.

“By what?  A pillow laden with bricks?”

He pinched his nose and swore a bit.  Brin looked up at that point and noticed Presleigh.  He looked away very quickly.

“Dog says that there’s been a lot of students with nosebleeds,” she said to no one in particular, “Says something is going on around here.”

“There’s always something going on here at the Academy,” Brin replied crossly, “The professors are all involved in research and sometimes that research requires huge amounts of ‘mancy concentrated in one place.  I just wish it’d stop giving students headaches and nosebleeds every time they do.”

“Oh.”

He sent the student away with a friend until the bleeding stopped.  Turned and faced Presleigh with a sigh.

“Alright, how did a shrimp like you hunt me down?”

“Dog helped.”

“He would.”  Brin rolled his eyes.  “Whaddya want?”

“I want to talk to Genoa.  I have to do a paper on ‘mancy phenomena.”

“I remember doing that.  I did mine on ‘mancer twins.  They’ve got some oddities to them-“

“-Langley and Sabreur Stormrider?”

A pause.  “Yes.  Those two.  Friends of mine.”

“So Dog said.”

There was an awkward silence that ended as a pillow flew through the air and landed squarely on Presleigh’s head.  She didn’t even twitch, not when the pillow slid off her hair and onto the ground and the thrower retrieved it with a ‘sorry’ and a laugh.

“Tackle him,” Brin suggested and turned to walk off into the dorms.

Well, she knew where the chronomancer lived and by proxy would be able to find the vampire now.  Besides, it wasn’t dark yet.  Presleigh turned and broke into a run, leaping and landing squarely on the offending student’s back.  She hung on, growling and spitting, and eventually got her hands on a pillow herself, turning the duo into a double-pillow wielding piggy-backing monster.

After the fight ended Presleigh had to admit that she was certainly starting to enjoy herself and that perhaps acting on the Stormrider blood for causing trouble was the best way to fit in around the Academy.

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