Cursed with immortality, Mars goes on a journey with his lifelong more-than-friends partner Astral, a painfully average future-seeing mage, to find the root of magic, in an effort to ease the side effects of Astral's visions - and to finish their th...
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"... And that's our proposal," Astral said and rolled up the parchment. "We'll continue our studies after the thesis as well, to find the roots of magic. To learn as many forms as possible."
The arch mage and his right hand shared a look before both smiled. "We'll be looking forward to reading your thesis, boys. It sounds like what you'll find out in the world, will be good additions to the college's knowledge. We will of course be offering financial support. Whatever you need."
We hadn't expected that. We were applying for some grants in our proposal but getting it all paid for? This went above and beyond what we had imagined in our wildest dreams.
We were both staring at our elders, our eyes very wide.
"Congratulations, boys. You've earned this. Now, you have a thesis to write and a journey to plan. I would like you to write up where you plan to go. Just to satisfy my curiosity." The arch mage winked at us. Actually winked.
And with that wink we were shown out of the office, so they could continue to hear more proposals from the other students. Castus stood outside, leaning against the wall.
"Did they pass? Or could they even pass through their laughs?" He smirked at us, looking dumb.
"No, actually we got full funding for our study journey after our thesis is finished. The thesis is only the beginning of a much larger study," I replied happily and turned to Astral, ignoring whatever retort Castus threw our way. "We need to go to the library immediately. There's some books we need for this that I think will be excellent."
"Lead the way," he replied and hooked his arm with mine, ignoring Castus as well.
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I loved the library. And I loved wandering the halls of the college. It used to be a castle, built in stone and with large glass-less windows, but they had filled all the windows with stained glass, telling the history of the mages in this world. Astral and I had played here when we were kids. We had been sketching the windows in our notebooks.
The library was more like a maze of bookshelves, with tables at its centre where you could study. The librarian was an old mage who'd wander between the shelves to make sure no one messed with the order of the books. She was very precious about her books. She had caught Astral and me kissing between the shelves once and had banned us from the library for a full week. After that we helped her out instead of adding to her grief and since then she had always greeted us very happily.
