Go after the sisters

You get up from the blanket, taking the wooden box with you, and walk after the sisters. They'd made it further than you thought as you see them disappearing around the corner of the teaching building on their way to the training field. Oriana must be trying to get Auria moving so she didn't come back to further flirt with you.

You walk after them keeping a decent pace. When you round the corner you see a large collection of women all making their ways past the training field. As you walk you see the guys gathered inside. Right the practical class, well it's not like you can't go from here to your class in a few seconds if you use magic. You keep walking confident in your abilities to move.

As you pass the training field you look for the sister. All of the women were gathering the open area outside the arena with the stands were the guys were. As you walk you see Vatarie and Asune, both taller than the average women and both careful avoiding each other. You hoped that meant that meant they were going to keep pretending to not hate each other in public rather than just around you. Or rather that Vatarie would pretend she didn't hate Asune, you weren't sure if Asune felt much of anything for Vatarie one way or the other.

You stretch your perception over the group and slow your walking. There are more people there than you are used to and it a lot of input all at once. You find the sisters at the edge of the group and shut off your perception to focus. The sister are chatting with some others and you feel a little awkward interrupting them just to hand over their box. You however, feel more awkward lingering around a group of women so approach.

"Oriana?" You call out lifting up the box as she turns. "Sorry didn't want to forget to give it back twice in a row." You say coming to a stop just in front of her.

"Oh." She looked at the box and takes it off you. "Thank you." She smiled at you and you wondered if she was going to take this too far, the proof of her beliefs returning something to her ... your thinking too deeply into.

"No worries." You smile and turn before being stopped by a comment.

"That's him?" You don't recognise the voice but the tone is hard to mistake anything other than belonging to a bully. "And I thought the peasant was supposed to be decent." Against you common sense you turn to look at the short black haired woman sneering at you. "We shouldn't be surprised, a peasant had no business being in Lady Stephanie's class, even if he's a man, at least he's a noble." She looked up and down. "Though he doesn't look it."

This was a strange experience. You were being bullied and yet found this barely more than bemusing. "Adorable." You say then see the women collectively look over your shoulder. behind you was either Anastasia or the teacher. You turned to see a woman glaring at you. Teacher it is. "I'll be –"

"Why is a man interrupting my class?" The teacher asked.

The bemusement returned. "I'll be going." You turn and take a step when she speaks again.

"No." She looks you up and down. "Why did you interrupt my class?"

"I had to return a lunch box."

"And you think that is reason enough."

Your bemusement was turning into annoyance. "Yep, your class hadn't started after all." You regret it as soon as you said it. Clearly learning you are stronger than average had really fucked up your perspective and your ego.

The teacher's glare intensified . "And yet here you are, during my class." You bite your tongue rather than point out that is her fault.

"Maybe he insulted me." The wannabe bully said.

"I could just go back to my class." You say hoping to be done with this, your class may be pointless but it was undoubted less aggravating that this.

"Then the two of you can perform a demonstration." The teacher clearly ignored you. "Stand here." She pointed at the ground. You considered just leaving but there were a lot of eyes on you and that had changed annoyed to awkward. Chewing your lip you stood where the teacher indicated.

"As I said yesterday, men have limited magical ability." The teacher announced as the class turned to you. "The average man will at best be able to muster a limited level of talent, however any woman will be more than able to overcome them." The direction of this lesson may be about to take a drastic turn depending on the teacher's next statement. "Are you able to externalise your magic, or is that beyond you?" This was the second time you had been singled out by a teacher in under two hours.

The annoyance was back. "Yep." You can see Vatarie push her way to the front and look from your to the teacher with concern. Lady Stephanie had said she was going out when you had fought but that didn't mean every teacher would be weaker than her.

"Create a shell around yourself." The teacher said making you look at her. "Stand here." She said looking at the wannabe bully.

You wonder how this could possibly be happening. Stephanie had duels and you figure the practical classes, at least the woman's ones, might have them at some point but having two student attack each other just seem irresponsible, what if you were just average, would that mean you could get really hurt here.

The wannabe bully takes her place and looked very pleased with herself. You look over to see Vatarie glaring at her, seemed a decent chance Vatarie would pounce before anything even happened. Asune's face was painted with anticipation. The sisters looked very unsure.

"Is that all the magic can muster?" The wannabe bully said. You hadn't even made a shield yet so you coat yourself.

"Send a pulse at the centre of his chest." The teacher said, she was standing out of the way between the two of you. You feel a tingle and look down to see a tendril of her magic coiling protectively in front of your chest. It wasn't much but at least she wasn't totally insane and was making sure you couldn't be badly hurt.

The wannabe bully raised and arm and you saw dust being pushed aside in a line towards you. On instinct you coated yourself in magic. Even if it wouldn't have hurt you, why that the risk.

When it hit you, you didn't feel it. At all, there wasn't even a breeze. You looked down at your chest to make sure the pulse had hit and she hadn't stopped it just short. It was a faint idea but you thought she might not actually try to hurt you in the end.

You could see any magic and when you look up the wannabe bully looked confused. "Does that mean it's my turn?" You ask as a joke.

The wannabe bully laughs. "Like you could do anything to me."

Annoyance flickers to anger and you raise an arm readying a pulse of your own. You didn't shape the magic into anything, planning on just sending a wall down range. As the magic pools in your palm you get a hold of yourself and strangle the magic. Instead of a wall a puff comes out, it doesn't even reach her before dissipating.

The bully looks confused for a moment. She was looking down the barrel so she had seen the magic you were pooling. No one else however was.

"As you can all see, men are simply unable to compare." The teacher said. "Leave to you class."

A few of the woman start to jeer at you. Vatarie whirls around and the jeers around her die instantly. Asune looks disappointed at you. The sisters look confused and you realise if you want Oriana's religious ideation off of you, failing to meet expectations might be the easy way to do that.

You turn to leave, going back to your class feeling a little sore about how that went down, but proud of yourself for managing restraint. As you walk you realise how horribly that could have gone if you hadn't met Stephanie and she hadn't explicitly told you how strong you were. You are pretty sure you owe her quite a bit, if nothing else she absolutely saved someones life.

When you reach the men's practical class you still don't see Edin. The teacher looks at you but more at where you had come from and doesn't say anything. The class itself is about how to external your magic. Since you had seen some students throwing magic around yesterday you figure most of the guys here are past this level.

The class moves slowly. Your magic allows you to function significantly faster slowing down you perception of time, after this you wonder if you can speed it up.

The guys leave and you sit on the stands waiting for Stephanie's class to start. The women's class ends and you see most of them walk to the stands and taking seats. You wonder if Stephanie is going to tolerate so many people watching. Cynthia you figured could get away with it by not being overt but this was a lot of people just watching.

Vatarie walks over sits next to you she doesn't say anything but her aura radiates her desire to question why you had been so weak in your response to the bully. Asune sat a little further away her aura radiating annoyance at your going easy. The sisters couldn't sit too close to you so they sat with their friends.

Looks like this was going to be an exhibition lesson if Stephanie allows it.