Miraaz walked ahead. Fast. Hair flying behind her, shoes loud on stone. Didn't look back once.
Dorian followed. Hands in pockets. Katana on his back. He knew he fucked up. But whatever.
Corridors. Offices. Teacher voices behind closed doors. Windows showing the mess that used to be the arena. Few students in the hallway saw the director coming and just pressed themselves flat against the wall. Eyes down. Nobody moved.
Miraaz stopped at a door. Big. Dark wood. Silver handles. Pushed it open with one hand. No sound.
Office was way too big for one person. Books everywhere, floor to ceiling, old dusty ones. Desk in the middle, dark wood, covered in paper stacks and a cup of something that looked like coffee from three days ago. Chair behind it. Massive. Way too big for her but that was probably the point.
"Sit." she said, pointing at the chair on his side.
Dorian sat. Hard chair. Uncomfortable as hell.
Miraaz didn't sit. She floated. Arms crossed, feet hanging couple centimeters off the ground, like standing was too much work for her.
'Showoff.' Dorian thought. Flight spell was something normal mages used maybe once in their life. When you're falling off something and got no other option. Mana cost was stupid high. And here she was just floating around her office like it was nothing.
Quiet. Five seconds. Ten.
"Do you understand what you did?" she started. Voice calm but you could tell something was boiling under it.
Dorian said nothing.
"You cast a spell that blew up every dummy at once. No warning. Nothing. I barely got the barrier up." she floated closer. "Barely."
Still nothing from Dorian.
"If I was one second slower, dozens could've been seriously hurt. Or killed." voice went up. "Dozens! Could've been hurt! Or killed!" she repeated, louder, like saying it twice would make him care more.
Dorian snorted. Just came out.
'Wrong time to laugh, idiot.' he thought.
'Shit. She gonna kick me out before I even get in?'
Miraaz eyes flashed. "You think that's funny?"
"Sorry." Dorian said. Wasn't smiling anymore. "No. It's not."
Miraaz looked at him like she wanted to hit him. Fist tight, knuckles white, jaw locked. But she breathed out. Slow. Forced it down.
"You're lucky I don't hit students." she said through her teeth.
'Your eye been twitching for thirty seconds.' Dorian thought. 'Pretty sure you wanna hit me right now.'
She floated back. Leaned on the desk. Arms crossed. Eyes still on him.
"What spell did you use?" she asked.
"Air compression."
"No." she shook her head. "The fight. When the sword went through you. That wasn't illusion. Wasn't wind magic. Wasn't anything I know." she came closer. "So what was it?"
Dorian looked at her. Thought about lying. Decided nah. She's been around too long to buy that.
"Spatial magic." he said.
Quiet.
Miraaz didn't blink.
"Spatial..." she started. Stopped. Eyes went wide. Slow. Like the word was crawling through her brain.
"You have... spatial magic?" Voice completely different now. Anger gone. All of it. Something took over. She was trying not to smile. Failing hard.
"Yeah."
"OOOO!" She jumped. Just straight up jumped. Grabbed the desk edge, pulled herself forward, eyes wide as plates. "You're a mutant!"
Dorian opened his mouth. Closed it. What do you even say to that.
"You're a mutant you're a mutant you're a mutant!" And then she lost control of the flight spell. Shot up, spinning, hands on her cheeks, floating higher and higher until her head almost hit the ceiling.
'What the fuuuuuck.' Dorian's mouth hung open. Eyes empty. Soul left the body for a second. He just sat there, jaw somewhere near the floor, staring at a three hundred year old woman spinning near the ceiling squealing about mutants. Brain tried to process it. Failed. Tried again. Failed again.
"Me too!" she yelled. Then froze. Slapped both hands over her mouth.
Quiet.
She landed. Feet on the ground. Took a breath. Then another. Straightened up.
"Okay." she coughed. "I don't usually tell students about that. Teachers know. Some higher ups. But students don't need to."
"Got it." Dorian said.
"So keep it to yourself."
"Yeah."
Dorian leaned back in the chair, arms crossed. "You done yelling?"
Miraaz blinked. "I wasn't yelling."
"You yelled at me. Twice."
"I didn't." too fast, face going red. "That was... an educational discussion."
'This is the director?' Dorian thought.
"So what's your magical mutation?" he asked.
She looked at him for a second. Then floated to the desk. Put her finger on the corner. Didn't say anything.
Wood under her touch started changing. Got darker. Crumbly. Few seconds later the whole corner fell apart into dust.
"Decay." she said, blowing dust off her fingers. Voice calm now. "Whatever I touch breaks down."
Dorian looked at the dust. Then at her hand. Then at the dust again.
That wasn't a party trick. That was terrifying.
Then something clicked.
She made herself immortal young. Teenage body. Teenage brain. Three hundred years of that. Are all immortals who froze themselves as teenagers stuck like this? Hormones that never settled down, no matter how many centuries go by?
He thought about himself. Regressed in a fifteen year old body.
'Am I gonna deal with this shit too?'
'Why is she this chill with me?' Dorian thought. 'I'm a student. Been here half a day. She should be grilling me, not showing me her magical mutation like we're buddies.'
"So..." Dorian said. "Am I getting expelled or what?"
Miraaz stopped. Looked at him. Blinked.
"Expelled?" tilted her head. "Why would I expel you?" floated closer, eyes all curious. "You know how rare our type of mutation is? Not bloodline. Not inherited. Pure magical mutation. Even if I had kids they wouldn't get decay. Even if you had kids they wouldn't get spatial magic. Doesn't run in families."
She poked his forehead with her finger. Dorian flinched.
"This happens once every few hundred years. Maybe thousands. And now two of us in the same building." she grinned. "I'm not expelling you. You're way too interesting."
Dorian didn't like that grin.
'What... is happening.'