Arcane Tangle

"Well," said Niko. They were exactly halfway between the men's and women's dorms. Diane's presence was gone from him. He'd sleep better, but he thought that he'd also miss it a little.

With her mind she lifted some pebbles from the gravel path, made them float in a circle around her, and let them drop onto the ground. She let out a satisfied hum. It's so easy to take ordinary things for granted.

"You feel completely fine?" he asked.

"Mhm. As if nothing's happened."

He half-smiled. "Guess we did a decent job with the ritual."

"You've got a great touch for... rituals." His smile broadened, and his eyes dodged to the side. "Which makes it such a pity."

"What pity?"

She nodded at the pamphlets in his hand. "Such a pity that they'll teach you to be chaste and virtuous."

He stared at her for a moment. She was partly turned away from him, her head tilted, and that hint of a smirk was just barely showing on her face. She was really herself again, a being of pure, calm and confident mischief.

He closed his eyes and rapidly scanned around him for any hidden creatures. Then he ran up to her and seized her by the shoulders, and kissed her viciously on the mouth. It wasn't a very good kiss, because they mostly ended up laughing into each other's teeth; but amid all the squirming and hair ruffling it took quite a long time, and then it ended with them holding each other in a rocking vice-like hug, so overall it wasn't that bad I think.

"Let's try to find or rent an empty house for the next holiday, Niko," she muttered into his neck. "I want to spend a whole night with you. Get our fill and fall asleep together and wake up in one bed and all that."

He hugged her closer and then let go, to look at her face.

"I'm so glad you still want to get in trouble with me, after this."

She smiled, and then got thoughtful.

"Do you know what's strange? These past days... having no magic was tough, and I was always afraid that somebody would find me out... But whenever I remembered that my magic was with you, I was actually relieved. Because at least it was in a good place."

Her eyes searched into his. He let out a little chuckle.

"Okay," he said.

"What I'm saying is, you're my favourite person to be in trouble with."

He closed his eyes and rested his forehead on hers.

"And you're mine. By far, like."

They stayed like this for a moment. Then their ever-vigilant minds picked up on a creature nearing them, and they immediately jumped away from each other. The creature, a large tawny owl, landed on a nearby elm. It might have been an ordinary bird, but it was better to play it safe; the problem with owls is that often they are not what they seem.

"See you tomorrow, then," she said. He smiled brightly and turned away, biting down on his lip.

They had a good reason to look forward to their future trouble. The half hour between the end of their ritual and them leaving the study room had been very productive. They had spent it leafing The Practicall Guide-book to Safe Sex Magic, Niko from the beginning and Diane from the end, and furiously scribbling down every bit of sex magic that they thought especially fun or useful to have.

Thus lots of old spells, held for a long time in a restricted room and behind a ward, have freed themselves; and in the form of two stacks of pages filled with hasty handwriting they were about to return to the wild. The wild, in this case, being a university full of students whose secret wants were strong enough to lure leech-wraiths to their cellars.

Among these was one particular ritual of summoning. One that they would never dare to use, to be sure, but one that they'd for some reason copied anyway. I mean, why not. Given an opportunity, would you not copy a Rituall for inviting an Incubus or a Succubus to your Presence, just to have it as a curiosity?

Surely, nothing indecent was going to come out of this. Surely, the highly respectable Vallnord University was not about to become the stage of a great deal of bewildering scenes.

No, this was a calm night (thanks in large part to an expertly cast muffler spell over a study room's door), and the only worrying thing about it was that the two students who just got out of trouble were already so eager to get into more trouble. Which means that they've learned nothing, and that this story wasn't very instructive, and probably not all that educational to the Reader. This is too bad, but it sometimes just happens this way.

The End

If you're interested in more backstory to this, you'll find several shorts in my profile.

[1] Unless Dear Reader had previously researched into untangling theory, in which case I hope that Dear Reader will accept my sincerest apologies.