Wayfinding | Aaravos x Reader |

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 37: THE ELEMENT OF CHANGE

"Are you sure you can't grant me a single hint?"

"No."

"But-"

"No."

"My Lord-"

"I said no. You'll see when we get there."

Despite the shrewdness of his tone, the mage grew sheepish when you stumbled over the length of your kirtle. With a timid ocher dying his sunken cheeks, he took your hand and placed it on his upper arm. At the touch, your face echoed the colors too. Aside from the metrical beat of his staff against the stone floor, you both walked in comfortable silence down the palace corridors.

After some time, the noble stopped and delicately removed himself from you. Using your unobscured senses, you tried to identify your surroundings, but it was oddly quiet and cold where you were. Following the moan of an opening door, the male cleared his throat.

"You can come in. Oh, but - uh - watch your step. There's a ledge."

Seeing you hesitate and reach out blindly, the man dropped his stern resolve, only for a wink, to guide you in by the hand. Once you made it to the center of the room, he withdrew again and squared his shoulders.

"Right." He grinned dimly, clearly satisfied with his charity. "You can look now."

Excited, you wrestled with the knot behind your head. As the blindfold came undone, the gentle amber wash of the room invaded in your vision. Imbued with terrene hues, the quaint little den welcomed you with a warm embrace as if it were glad to see an old friend.

"Dragons me . . ." you sighed, unwittingly. You clapped your hands over your mouth and turned to the man who screwed his face in disappointment. "Sorry - force of habit."

Viren shook his head and chuckled. "It's fine."

"What is this place?"

"My study. This is where I complete most of my research."

"Makes sense. Your library could easily compete with the palace's." You smirked before averting your interest to the shelves of tomes, manifestos, and ancient scriptures. You ran a curious finger along their leather-bound spines. "But is this entire room yours? No one else uses it?"

"Well, aside from Claudia - no. Soren makes an appearance every once in a while, but he's not the . . . brightest when it comes to reading-"

"So was I his age," you frowned in mock offence and tittered. Your blithe tenor began to falter when you spotted a few of your old spellbooks tucked into the cabinets. "How did this . . ." Before you could finish the question, you noticed more of your belongings organized amongst the items. It was as though they had always been there. "W-What's going on?"

"I hope you don't find this too bold," Viren said, stepping towards you. "But you've made exceptional progress in your apprenticeship over the past year. I thought the next step would be to graduate you to more resources so you can expand the realm of your training. Hence, I offer you mine."

Your features broke into a wild beam.

The mage was so uptight when it came to teaching you magic. It was like he was only willing to instruct you enough that you were good but never better than his daughter and himself. You thought maybe the difference was because you were being trained in archaic magic while he and Claudia practiced dark magic. But, seeing as how he trivialized your every success, giving him the benefit of the doubt sounded naive. Sometimes when you could not tolerate his nonsense, you reminded the man you were the Ivory Paladin. Unfortunately, with that came the risk of getting badgered about your past - something that, you imagined, was your only appeal to him. Even after learning about your connection to the primal sources though, the man limited his lessons to what he thought was best for you.