"Good morning Mother!" She spoke cheerfully to woman with red hair and blue eyes.
"Good morning Absolutumia, I expect you to do exceptional in your magecraft classes." She said evenly. Even though she smiled, her tone wasn't all that warm.
Absolutumia kept her expression blank. 'She probably named me Absolutumia because she could probably sense that I had been through a lot,'
She sat in place at the table, putting on the front of being happy to enjoy breakfast before going to the Scholastique Mage Academy.
In her thousand reincarnations, it wasn't the most grand school but it still screamed nobility.
Her school uniform was teal with gold lining, reminding her if a cross between a formal military uniform and a prince get up. But that was the Uniform.
The jacket she wore like a cape, ignoring the faint jingle of the silver epaulettes.
She had just stepped out of the carriage and approached the gates when a girl wearing the same uniform approached.
Her hair was magenta pink with light pink swirls. There is a swooping bang with a gradient of a burgundy to magenta. Two strands of hair are pulled back and tied back by a burgundy rosette hair tie with blue ribbons.
Unlike Absolutumia, her uniform featured a skirt.
"Ah Good Morning Dorothea,"she said.
"Good morning senpai!" Dorothea greeted.
She had burgundy eyes with tan skin.
"You didn't wait for me did you?" She asked.
"Of course senpai!" Dorothea exclaimed.
"Dorothea, you know I said you don't have to call me that-" she sighed.
"But I couldn't! You outrank me in terms of status, magic CircuitCores and magical proficiency -" Dorothea defended.
'Eh- I've more lifetimes where someone like you had far more prestige than me, but I suppose there's nothing wrong with allowing this.' She thought wryly.
"Alright alright," she conceded. 'Speaking as someone who once had a senpai.... It'd probably highlight her day if I did this....'
"Wanna have lunch together?" She asked.
Dorothea lit up with pure joy. "I'd be honored!" She exclaimed.
A peaceful lunch break with Dorothea on a peaceful day, she could envision it perfectly.
But she was hoping something would happen to lead to her being the 'chosen one of this world', waiting just made her anxious.
At lunch she did get her wish, the courtyard was under the attack of raining fire. The fire pooled together and made a line figure that floated above ground. Despite this it left a trail of charred grass in it's wake.
Startled many students who'd also chosen to eat outside fled. Even though they were mages -albeit some were beginners- elementals where hard to fight back against. And this attack was definitely from an elemental Spirit.
Get to the other students follow them inside the building!" She told Dorothea who nodded and ran.
The Fire Elemental Spirit had come into contact with something toxic. Its red orange silhouette of a figure on fire flickered like it was struggling.
Abruptly a spear- actually a oversized fork made of crystal was thrown at the Elemental and it seemed to freeze in place, either frozen or stunned.
'Way to make my job easier,' she muttered.
The tome, Yggdrasil opened and supplied her with information - Fire Elementals are weak to all forms of water, especially ice.
She frowned upon realizing that Yggdrasil could talk with the reveal upon her death in her last incarnation. But Yggdrasil still filled the information in her mind with a sort of telepathy.
Dismissing it, she focused on fighting the fire elemental. Willing herself not to slip off the branch of the tree, she summoned a bow an arrow made of ice.
"Andronica's Freezing Arrow!!" She pulled the string and let loose the arrow. As it passed through the tree some of the leaves and branches got a thin layer of frost on them and she winced.
Scrambling down the tree she approached the frozen sculpture. It looked pretty and slightly terrifying. But most importantly harmless, sealed by ice.
Holding her book tightly she furrowed her eyebrows and focused her concentration.
"Yggdrasil..! Break!" She shouted before the spirit could burn free.
The ice sculpture fractured oddly, surprising her with a twinge of unease, then shattered into many small cubes with bits of red flame shapes in them.
"That's impressive magic,"a voice responded. A boy was approaching, albeit hesitantly.
She stared at him. While he was being cautious he had approached. More than the other students who were further behind her.
He wore the exact same uniform as she did and had a stoic air about him.
On his left ear was a black earring of an upside down icecream cone with a dripping scoop of icecream. The ice cream sparkled with some sort of ice magic and looked like a skull.
"You look familiar," she said to the boy observing the ice with fascination. They weren't melting.
He looked up and froze, "do I?"
His expression looked at her as though trying to place her. He was a new student so it was a odd thing to hear.
"What's your name?"
"Oh! Thank goodness! You are alright!" Dorothea exclaimed as she tackled her, earning a yelp. "Headmistress Scholastique wishes to congratulate you for handling the surprise attack," Dorothea informed.
She looked back and he was gone.
Over a three days she sort of forgot about the attack, even with all the newfound admiration for defeating the rampant elemental. The Headmistress assured that the remains of the attack would be cleaned up and investigated, so she could rest easy.
Made easier by the fact the boy, whatever his name, was avoided her like she was dangerous.
She didn't have to participate in the classes the following two days due to her heroics and the Headmistress cautioning her about magic overuse.
This tranquility was ruined by a multitude of fire elementals -likely the same one from the magiaglyphs surrounding it- attacking the school entrance. Right as school has ended for the day.
The gate was blocked off. No one could go home.
"Stay close to me, Dorothea!" She insisted.
"Right! Please be careful senpai!" Dorothea remarked.
She weighed her options. Maybe someone close by had water Affinity and she could request their help. Then her gaze caught sight of the boy leaning against the wall, he recoiled when he noticed her.
Dorothea gasped in surprise.
"You again,"she noted.
The boy rolled his eyes. "I am a student here,"
"You were there last time too .."
"It's two separate entities, you have to freeze the internal one that heals it before freezing the exterior." The boy responded almost at the same time as Yggdrasil.
"Sounds like a complex video game!" She griped.
"video game?" Dorothea asked.
"Sorry, pretend you didn't hear that,"
The boy gave her a flat look. "Like how I helped you earlier." He explained.
She glanced at the fire elemental, now a myriad due to the cubes. "Please, help me again?"
"There's too many. My powers are weak in this form. I'd have to change to use more powerful magic." The boy lamented.
"Then do it! Change!" She insisted as a few students frantically conjured a water spell against a cage of flames.
The boy looked at her with a unhappy expression.
"You have that book? Surely there's another way? An alternative spell...?" He tried as his eyes acknowledged the other students in the area.
"Ice was most effective! But this time we need to destroy the cubes after!" She encouraged.
She blanched as he took off his earring and handed it to her.
The earring touched her hand and she immediately yelled throwing it down.
A sigh of disappointment from behind her.
"What is that!? Dry ice?!" She panicked. The earring made a magic hemisphere around it, beginning to give off waves of frost that froze the grass around it.
"Yes," was a simple answer.
"Are you insane -" she cut herself off. Gone was the boy that had been standing next to her.
Next to her was a monster that wasn't a elemental but gave off strong ice magic. Unfortunately it looked very much like a giant ice cream parfait, with a scoop of strawberry ice cream in the middle and strawberry halves made to resemble the back half of a crown.
The arms also reminded her of chaotically stacked ice cream cones, or parfaits. But at least it had fingers...
"Stop staring. It's irritating," a familiar voice spat, snapping her back into the situation.
He gripped his fork which as near as she could guess was a spear. At times it looked like an ornate silver form, other times it appeared to be made of pale blue crystal.
She blinked. 'That was similar to the spear from before.'
"Okay I can use the same spell as last time"
"The catch is I need to be in the air unlike the courtyard which had trees, there are none here." She explained.
Yggdrasil fluttered its pages, already probably going to offer a equivalent flight spell.
She wasn't sure if Yggdrasil actually had a spell directly focusing on flight. Most of the time she was more worried about landing as opposed to staying in the air.
Dorothea grabbed her arms.
"I- I endow you with wings!" She exclaimed.
On her back white wings appeared. And she began to float upwards.
"Oh-- alright I can do this!"
"Andronica's Freezing Arrow!!" She yelled just like before.
The fire elemental froze just as before, but this time she used a different spell.
Yggdrasil had its pages open to read 'Kaleidoscopic Burst'.
The multitude of sculptures cracked into tiny splinters.