You're confident you don't need any help

The three or four days practice having the sword now would give you won't make that much a different in growing your imbuing skills. The most complex part for is simply finding a method to imbue without destroying the sword, a problem the Sky Metal solves. Once you can imbue you can move to your actual speed, not the limit of the iron melting under air friction from swinging your arm. Also you don't really think having bust of Phile out and about is a good thing for Eve.

"Nah, I'll figure it out in a few days." You say with a shake of your head.

"Really?" the Elf asks.

You nod and say, "Yeah, I'm good." You walk around the two. "Have a good rest of your day." You say to the pair.

"Don't you want to know why I want to know what Phile looks like?" The Elf calls out as your right foot passes through the classrooms door.

You think about it for a second. "No not really." You couldn't care less about Phile and after what she's done, "I think forgotten and irrelevant suit her just fine." Not having anything to be remembered by outside of Eve's mind sounds like a fitting thing.

"Maybe." The Elf says softly as you resume walking out. You hear a muffled moan from behind you as you walk down the corridor.

You find your lovers on their way to the dining hall after a quick jog to catch up to them. They ask you what that was about but wave them off. Nothing all that important happened as far as you were concerned. After eating you and Edin made a dash up to your room, despite the teasing about a more public setting he balked at the idea of blowing you in the Dorms foyer. He was outvoted by the group almost immediately but you still went upstairs with him. When he was given his liquid lunch you went to magical practice.

It built on yesterdays lesson so more time for you to try regulating your magical flow. So focused on doing just that when Stephanie's lesson started Ana had to poke you to make you line up.

"Today you'll be imbuing." Stephanie had the bag you were starting get some real negative feelings about in hand. Reaching inside it she continued, "and wearing these." From the bag a cloth band was pulled, about the right size to fit snugly around a wrist with two firestones woven into it. She put one one and drew he sword with the same hand.

Everyone had apart from you had been getting pretty confident in their control over the last few days. As Stephanie imbued her sword, without blowing her hand off, that confidence wavered.

You didn't have any confidence built over the last few days so you were very aware of how much this was going suck. "How many more firestones do you have?" You groaned, having to constantly regenerate the only hand you had left cannot be good for you mentally. By the end of this you're worried going to have a complex.

"As many as it take to train you. I have another two bags for you." Stephanie answered without missing a beat. There was a bit of a laugh from Nika, then Vatarie then the rest of the students. Their worry about what was coming set at ease with Stephanie's glibness. If she's making jokes she clearly doesn't this is going to be traumatic.

Stephanie killed that restoration of confident by withdrawing her magic from the sword and telling everyone to arm themselves. She didn't make a note of how she wasn't demonstrating what blowing up the firestones did which only brought more attention to the changed behaviour. It had been a way to show that even making a mistake wasn't going to cost you anything more than a bit of magic. Not doing it this time made it very clear this wasn't a bit of magic at stake.

Your phantom right hand clenched, a little worried it would be soon joined in non-existence. Having to use magic to restore a hand was nothing to you, with one glaring exception, and all the other students had been watching you do that over and over the last few days. Sure a few of them had blown up a firestone but never to the same scale as you. Yours always detonated at their maximum force, theirs had mostly just been given enough magic to ignite. With a firestone on either side of their wrist and Stephanie not willing to demonstrate what would happen, maximum or minimum a hand probably wasn't surviving this.

Somewhat grimly everyone grabbed a sword then formed a line in front of Stephanie for a band to be tied around their wrist. You didn't join them, when Stephanie looked at you you just said. "I'm good, lost one hand, know what it feels like and already know how this is going to go. I'm just going to sit over there."

"The first time you've ever faced even a glimpse of a consequence in your training and you back out immediately?" Stephanie asks without any intonation, which added a lot more, 'really I expected more' to her voice than any level of emoting could provide.

"I've faced -" you cut yourself of, "it's not a consequence if its a foregone conclusion." You remember last Friday, after her test of class loyalty had ended, when she'd told you she would have trained predictability out of you if she was capable of providing any actual consequences for it. The worst consequence you'd ever faced since you'd started training had been a fraction of a second of pain and nothing approaching a serious injury. "Fine." You grabbed a sword and stabbed it into the sand so she could put the soon to be detonated firestones around it.

"Good." She grabbed your stump and put the band around that. You heard the start of a gripe coming from Nika only for Stephanie to raise an eyebrow at her, "In what had did you hold the firestone yesterday?" Nika looked a little embarrassed at being shamed to bluntly and kicked a bit of sand. "Form up." You formed your line, Stephanie moved along it, making sure there was enough distance between everyone to avoid collateral. "Begin."

You heard fourteen almost simultaneous pops and five screams of pain. You looked down and saw the two who hadn't screamed were Vatarie who looked to be trying to tough it out. And Asune, who looked to be getting off on it based on the fascination she had with her reforming hand. You also had a suspicion she'd done it on purpose, her magical control was exception getting this wrong didn't seem in character. She looked at your stump and her healing paused for a moment, you could see the gears in her head turning as she tried to figuring this whole empathy thing out, then finished healing with you think, one cog a little too small to fit right. You have a very strange taste in women that is easier to prove than you would have once thought.

Stephanie handed out new bands and told everyone to go again but not to rush. This wasn't a competition of endurance of speed, this was purely about controlling your magical flow. Her words settled the injured and this time when she said begin not everyone sword was imbued.

With the firestone of your right arm and not the one holding the sword you imbued rather freely. Still trying to use as little magic as possible to make the iron last. You remember your record was around three minutes. Turns out not imbuing for a week does have an impact. As you wrap your hexagonal sheet around the iron you don't conform it correctly. You manage a total of two seconds before the metal turns into neat little hexagons on their way to the ground. Stephanie gives a disappointed look which honestly, probably more effective a consequence than having your hand explode.

You grab another sword and spend the rest of the creating an ever growing of neat hexagons. If only you could make money making hexagons your eight coppers would soon be joined by gold. At the end of the class you were able to hand back your unexploded band, Ana and Nika were the only others who could do the same. You didn't feel anywhere close to as accomplished as they did.

However, your feeling of personal disappointment would soon come to an end because today, today you will finally get to see Stephanie naked. Striding into the baths with determination Ana joins you in the changing room, making a comment about how she liked when you were confident. You did have to fend off her advances so you could enter the baths as quickly as possible though. When in the baths proper you moved to secure the most advantageous viewing position, sitting on the edge of the pool with legs in the water, no way for anyone to block the view in front of you, and easy to move out of without people blocking you.

Set in your position you waited, and waited, and had to ignore Vatarie sitting behind you, pressing her chest against your back and her leg wrapping around your waist as she sat behind and hugged you. And continued to wait.

Where was Stephanie. She had been right behind you on the way in, you were more than certain of that. And you had no doubt that she would be here. Everything you know about her tells you should wouldn't go back on her word to obey the condition of bathing with the students until your duel.

It is only when Ana pokes you to ask if you'll be joining her in the changing room do you accept that Stephanie hadn't shown up. A little dejected and surprised you follow her. The two of you change and leave the bath, only to catch Stephanie exiting from the middle class baths.

"Princess Anastasia, Lord Christopher." She said to you with a little smirk.

Oh, so it's gonna be like that is it. You think, eyes narrowing at her retreating, swaggering in victory, form. Well this means war.

"Maybe she's sick of everyone staring at her." Ana asked as you waited for the other to join you.

"Oh she will be, she will be." You muse quietly.

"What?"

"Huh?"

"You said something."

"Oh nothing, nevermind." You said with a smile. "There they are." You added with a nod as the others emerged from the baths.

You went to dinning hall and got your dinner. There were a few comments about Stephanie's non-attendance, but since her being there was completely unexpected to begin with, those comments were mostly about how weird it was that she'd shown up in the first place. Vatarie didn't comment much, just cuddled against your side and ate lazily.

When dinner was resolved Asune and Ana said their even goodbyes and you and Vatarie retired. This time she led you to your room rather than to her own. Inside you did not find a Clare or a Delilah.

Vatarie, in a stunning change of pace, did not decide to jump you at first chance. Even as you both pulled off your clothes you remained unjumped. You checked both beds to see if there were safe to sleep in. Thankfully they were, the sheets and possibly the mattresses had been changed.

Climbing into your beg Vatarie cuddled up next to you, putting you left hand firmly on her stomach and going to sleep. No preamble, or getting comfortable. Her head touched the pillow, she made sure you were touching her and she was gone.

As she started to snore while you lay naked and unmolested next to her, concern for her health grew within you. You checked her aura just in case you'd hurt her in someway before you saw the reason for her sedated behaviour. Her aura was dimmed near exhausted. She blown her hand off three times in Stephanie's class. Fixing it that many times had taken a lot out of her.

The concern melted away into affection. She'd been exhausted and just wanted to cuddle with you. Kissing for forehead she mumbles your name and a smile spreads on her sleeping face. The cuteness was a little undercut by the mumbled, "Love you." Said through a dream. You closed your eyes and went to sleep rather pleased with today, floating on the lovely lightly burnt smell of Vatarie into a dream of her.