Fury and Fragility

Vivian walked through the gates of the Lamia Scale Guild Hall, looking around like an amazed child. This was the guild she had always dreamed of joining; as a child and through her teenage years, she had fantasized about joining LS and their pursuit of knowledge. The books lining the walls only served to further excite her; she barely recognized half of them, which was a wondrous feat for the bookworm. She fully expected to spend a lot of time here, simply exploring; everything about the guildhall, from the unknown books to the unique layout and architecture, only excited her more.

Her other half, however, was less than happy. Vi snorted slightly in their shared mindspace, watching the scene with disdain. She had been perfectly happy in their old guild, thank you very much. Just because the ship had crashed and the two main members of their guild had disappeared didn't mean that they had to leave everything behind and start anew! They could have easily rebuilt it, especially with Vivian's magical knowledge, but nooooo, they had to go start a stupid bookshop with somebody else from the guild they barely knew and join up with this one. It didn't look that impressive anyways; Vi had no idea why her counterpart was so captivated by this guild. Maybe she would learn in time, but for now, she had no intention of becoming chummy with the residents.

And so the two shared personalities delved deeper into the Lamia Scale headquarters; one filled with wonder, the other disdain.

“Need something?” Ean said as he suddenly appeared behind the young woman as he has done with so many others. Appearing out of nowhere, disappearing into thin air. It wasn’t magic. People just didn’t notice him. People even forgot who he was if they didn’t interact with him consistently and when I say consistently I mean literally every day. If someone left for an extended period of time they frequently forgot who he was.


This was not one of those circumstances though. Even if he was forgotten in the background it just made him remember his relations with other people more so somebody knew if they had interacted or not, because one side was not going to remember. He had never met this girl before. Perhaps she was lost and had found herself in the library. This place was easy to get lost in and even Ean still didn’t have the entire place committed to memory despite being here so long. He avoided a lot of the place to avoid Zuo Cii, the guild master and his eccentric and excessive training of weaker members. Ean wasn’t strong, he probably wouldn’t become strong, Zuo still had something on his mind to make him, and every other member of Lamia scale, strong.


She seemed to be looking for something though and Ean knew the library well enough to help her find things, since he regularly read the books here as a means of ‘training’ or at least avoiding ‘training’ from Zuo. If he read and learned more about magic maybe he could become a little stronger. “If you’re looking for anything in particular I can help you miss,” Ean told her with the usual straight, unchanging face he always wore. Everything about him seemed ordinary, everything about him WAS ordinary. It’s just who he was, an ordinary person.

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Word count: 306

Ni-Ju sat in the hall leading to the dorms, scrub brush working fervently against the floor. Someone had to volunteer to keep this place looking clean and he had taken up the job without a second thought. Satisfied with the state of the dorm corridor, Ni-Ju picked up his bucket and headed towards the library to finish off the last of his cleaning tasks for the day. Poking his head through the library door quietly in an effort to not disturb anyone who happened to be reading, Ni-Ju spotted a pair of mages standing in the middle of the room. Failing to recognize either of them he decided a friendly overture would be in order. Closing the door behind him just loudly enough to get their attention, he brushed off his butler's uniform self consciously and extended a hand in greeting. "Welcome to the Lamia Scale guildhall.".

“Need something?”
Vivian jumped half a foot forward as a voice sounded from behind her. She whirled around to see a very plain-looking man standing in front of her; despite being somewhat tall, his features seemed absolutely forgettable. He also had almost no presence; even though he was standing in front of Vivian, she could barely sense him. He was certainly a strange person, but Vivian had prepared herself for that; after the chaos that was her previous guild, she knew that every guild had it's share of oddballs.
“If you’re looking for anything in particular I can help you miss.”
With a start, Vivian realized she'd been staring. There was also a small boy coming in through the back; he said something about the Lamia Scale guildhall, but Vivian was too busy figuring out a response to the man in front of her to listen closely. "H-hello," she stammered nervously. "I'm l-looking to join Lamia s-Scale. C-can you help me?"

Ean didn’t flinch or even react when the girl jumped away from him. He was used to that. Nobody ever seemed to notice him and he ended up frightening them whether he appeared from behind them, beside them, or even directly in front of them. He wasn’t using any kind of invisibility magic to hide so they should be able to see him in some way shape or form, but they always failed to notice him. It didn’t hurt his feelings since he had grown quite used to it though, he just kept a straight face and waited for her to reply.


Ean let out a light smile on his face. “You’ll need to speak with the guild master about that,” Ean told her. She seemed trustworthy. Of course Ean’s opinion didn’t matter in this case as he wasn’t the guild master. Never once though had Ean seen Zuo Cii reject someone from joining the guild for any reason. He had seen him scare of plenty of potential members with his over eccentric personality and ‘training’ methods but never once has he said no to someone who wanted to join.


“He will arrive eventually. Until then is there any particular book you’re looking for? I can help you find it,” Ean offered. She was rather fixated on the books when she came in and Ean thought she may want to read something in particular, especially since she would have to wait for the guild master. Hopefully he didn’t do anything overly eccentric and scare her off. She seemed like himself, quiet and timid. It was amazing Ean was still a member of this guild considering what he had gone through. He can barely hold a conversation with the guild master without hiding behind something that probably wouldn’t be able to protect him anyway.

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Word count: 303