Well if this isn't symbolic you don't know what is

Wrapping your hand around the hilt you pull it free with remarkable ease. It was a little disappointing actually, you had been expecting this to be some big moment. You rested the blade against you stub to inspect the metal. It looked very plain now that you could inspect it. The grey metal occasionally specked with dark flecks, no inscriptions or symbols on it or the hilt.

"I hope you respect that I resisted any sexual overtones at you pulling that out of me. I think that makes me more mature than a Goddess." Sarean said, she reached up flicked the blade up, lifting it from your forearm and producing a clear high pitched ringing. "Still sounds the same." She noted, jumping up onto the desk as the ring slowly died. "Give it a swing."

You did just that, swinging it back and forth a few times. Not moving into a form just feeling the weight and how the blade moved. "Feels exactly the same as every other sword." Your disappointment was growing.

"What did you expect?" Sarean asked, tilting her head as she kicked her legs in time to your swings.

"I don't know, something more," you don't want to say the word magical since there literally is no magic in the sword, however, "fancy."

"It's a sword, it was made to kill not to be flashy and pretty."

"Well that's a cheery thought." You respond lowering the blade. "So how does this work, I come to get it from you and drop it off here."

"If you're in the city, just call for me." She smirks at you. "And I expect it back when you are done, not for you to," she looked at the blade hanging from your hand, "pose with it."

"Right." You lift the blade up to your eyes. "Guess I'll try imbuing." You turned for the door and saw Sarean emerge from a desk between you and it.

"One question before you leave." Her short stack from grew to be a head taller than you. "What did you find in the vault?"

You open your mouth to respond but what comes out is not what you'd thought it would be, "You can't get into the vault?" The incredulity in your voice earned a raised eyebrow.

"Dwarves are very good at making walls." Sarean sounded a bit tetchy on that subject. "So did you find the ring?"

You think about how to answer for a moment, something she seems to notice with an amused smile. "What do I get out of telling you?"

"Hmmmmm," Sarean loudly mused, "the satisfaction of sating a friends curiosity." Her chest grew a little as she spoke. At this point that only earned an eyeroll from you. "No, then what if I provided some context."

"Context for what?" That inversely seemed far to vague to be a trick coming from her.

"For my and Zara's relationship. I know you are curious after reading that letter." She extended a hand to you.

You take a deep breath to digest the idea. Considering that you didn't find anything in the vault the deal sounds pretty good. Plus, considering your mothers talent for seeing the future maybe this is what the wild goose chase was about, getting some information from Sarean at no cost to yourself. "Alright." You took her hand and felt a slight tinge. "You first, you're the one asking for the deal after all."

Sarean smiled broadly as her chest deflated and she took her hand back. "Zara came to the capital on her own at five years old, according to her. She walked from the docks, through the academy gate and into my classroom without anyone seeing her, as if she knew exactly when someone might look her way and how to avoid it. It was fascinating to watch and when she told me she had a deal to make, well, I was curious." Sarean sounded a little wistful and a gentle smile graced her face. "I accepted her deal and her rather unimaginative name, providing my assistance in distributing the letters she was leaving for you in places she told me she couldn't access. After a year she with me she left, visiting me once a year until she stopped." Her smile fell, "It took me almost a year to learn she'd had a child and died." She looked at you with wooden eyes, with a body made by her will and an aura unreadable you aren't sure if her eyes hold an edge of blame directed at you for your mother's death, or just sorrow for a dead friend.

"Sorry." You stand in silence for a few beats before a nagging gets to you. "Though I'm not sure what sort of context that really provided. Your relationship with my mother seems more about the deal you made than, how you'd met her."

"The deal we made?" Sarean mused softly. "I told you, I helped distribute her letters for you."

"And what did you get out of it?" You feel like she is dragging this out the try and aggravate you into giving up.

"Hmmm, that is the question isn't it." She lips twisted into a rueful smile. "But that was not our deal. You wanted to know about my and Zara's relationship, it was a friendship."

She was aggravating you but that was itself informative. "You're danging information to try and get me to agree to extensions to the deal. The ring wasn't in vault, clerical error, who knows where it is, stolen, smelted or given away." Best to not fall into too many deals, that tingling sensation didn't feel like magic, more like her moving the wood of her palm around to make it seem like some magic was happening.

"Interesting. You're sure it wasn't there?" You nodded and she looked thoughtful. "Then I guess we both got the better of each other." She smiled broadly then shrunk into a desk. "You should give that sword a few swings. Perhaps away from any potential collateral damage." The words echoed from around the room and you looked down at the sword.

Ignoring the feeling you make your way to the training arena. It's empty but you can see some fresh blood on the sand. Asune or Vatarie must have been sparing. You look at the blade, then at the viewing stands you had destroyed when you'd tried imbuing an iron sword and turned it into a fragmentation grenade. When you touched Stephanie's sky metal dagger it had turned the excess magic into light. Considering the size of the sword in your hand, if it converted the imbuing into light rather than explosive force, you might blind everyone in the Dorms through it's walls.

If you don't want to risk turning the sword into a completely different type of weapon you need somewhere without potential bystanders. You look up at the big empty sky and your wings form.

Leaving a small crater in the sand you ascend until you are level with the clouds and look at the sword. "Don't explode." You warn it wrapping yourself in several shields as you do, then think about it and wrap yourself in several more including a few much large to catch any stray shrapnel. "Please." You add as you fill the tip of your thumb nail with magic.

Breathing through you mouth you extend the magic into the honeycomb sheet and make the cylinder around the blade. "Don't blow up." You whisper as you sink the honeycomb into the blade.

The first thing that happens is your honeycomb breaks apart. Where the wrap touches the dark flecks in the metal it it sucked in. The flecks start glowing but not very brightly, barely brighter than the sun currently illuminating you. You look over the blade, flipping it over and swinging it. It doesn't feel any different, and you can't feel your magic in the blade. Was it imbued or did it reject or break your imbuing and the glow is just the sword expelling the magic.

You try again and once more the honeycomb breaks apart and gets sucking into the flecks. It seemed like you weren't using enough magic so you used a little more. You keep doing this another four times until almost half your thumb nail is filled with magic. Aside from the flecks glowing a bit brighter there is no notable change. Maybe it is imbued. Stephanie had told you that the style of imbuing you were using isn't very good becasue it is slow and doesn't fill the blade so much layer magic on top of it.

Are you going to have to imbue like the others? It hadn't gone well for you before, ever, in your entire life, in fact it usually involved extracting bits of metal from parts of your body. You swing the sword again just to be entirely sure it isn't imbued. Maybe you should ask the other what imbuing feels like just in case you are succeeding but don't realise it.

Looking down at the academy far below ask yourself what anyone is going to tell you. No matter who you imagine asking you can't think of any answer they give being that different, 'just imbue it.'

Lifting the sword to point it away from you with arm fully extended, you recheck all of your shields and gather magic into your palm. Imbuing the right way is just letting your magic flow into the blade. Until now doing it this way, the best all you'd managed to do was melt the sword above the hilt, the worst were the various explosions. You want to do this fast, just flood the thing with magic so get the exploding out of the way but you hold off, letting your magic slowly flow into it.

The flecks around the glow brighter and brighter but there is little response further up. Slowly the glow moved upwards but the sword held strong.

You felt your eyelids try to close to avoid the brightness. You weren't facing the sun yet the amount of light this thing was producing made you think your back was casting a shadow. At a little over halfway your eyes have to close, not that that does all that much to lessen the brightness. Turning your head away doesn't help all that much either.

Just as the brightness starts to feel like it is penetrating your very body it suddenly goes dark. Carefully opening your eyes and looking at your hand for some reason seeing the sword still there is unexpected. Pushing that feeling aside you bring the sword closer to your face to examine it. It still feels the same in your hand and the flecks aren't glowing anymore. "Please tell me I didn't break you." You try imbuing a tiny bit just to check if it was still going to glow but it doesn't. "Well, fuck."

You lower the sword upset at finding yet another way to break a sword through imbuing. There is soft whistle as you do and looking down at the air you just cut you feel a fading burst of heat. Lift the sword back up a gently wave of warmth follows from where the edge of the sword cuts through the air.

You swing a few more time feeling the same thing. "Is that, it?" You know, having never successfully done this before you aren't sure if this is what is supposed to happen. You think about it for a second then move into position to run a few forms, spreading your magic out to reinforce your body. If you have imbued you should be able to move at your actual speed, not at the friction induced melting point of the blade.