"I'll be okay," you sniffle. "I'll be okay."
You sit like that for a while, hands on your lap and turned away from your new... what did she call herself again? Guardian? You can hear her softly coo to herself, as if attempting to figure out what to do or say.
"Look, I... I understand." She strokes your hair gently. You shiver away from her touch, and you can tell she reels back like you're a hot coal because she pauses for a long time after that. "... What did Torielle say to you?"
"She told me to take a rat-catching job."
There's a sharp exhale from her direction. "Yeaaah. That sounds like something she would have said."
You nod, leaning onto the armrest as if it was a pillow.
The house is silent again. You don't realize it when you start to drift thinking of all manner of things, falling asleep on the bench you suspect is actually a couch.
Your name is Torielle. Most of the time you have a feisty, cheerful yet kind disposition, but on the flipside you are easily annoyed and not one to try to hold that annoyance back very far. You may also be a bit of a Social Darwinist, which also may explain why you live in the middle of nowhere with a charm over your house.
But it's not like you're a crazy psycho who wants everyone below an arbitrary standard to die! You just think that certain people without talent in something should stop
bloody pursuing that thing. And the fact that someone like that managed to snag an apprenticeship from the IIII under your belt, while
drunk, after two years of
nothing... Well, to you, that speaks volumes about how much the Ignoramus Institute respects you.
You sigh as you walk over to a lone tree in the grasslands. You dismiss your invisibility charm (may as well be polite about "filing a complaint") and start knocking on the trunk in 5/8 time. "Little bird, little bird," you whisper into the tree, "get your ass out here and sing me a song."
You keep knocking for a few seconds before you grumble. "I know you're supposed to be here. Keeping lookout is hard and all, but wake up for fuck's sake."
A distinctly reptilian lilt sounds from the other side of the tree. To people foreign to this area, they'd be surprised by this. But you know nagas, and you know they start hissing even more when they're not paying attention. "Are you part of the inssstitution?"
You groan with barely-constrained frustration. "Yes. Torielle, honorary MoD. Last visit was about two years ago. I'm here to file a goddamned complaint."
There's silence for a few more infuriating seconds, before you start getting hissed at again. "I'm not finding your name in the recordsss, missssss..."
"I'm on page
eleven!" You throw your hands up in the air. "Listen, you overgrown mouse eater, I'm a damned Master of Deception. I didn't maintain an invisibility charm for ten miles to realize your cushioned cloud-addled brains forgot about your most recent assigned tutor!" You rub your hands a little, gripping the hot pink blackjack hidden in your belt. "Let me in right now," you say, glaring at the tree so hard you could feel you could burn it down with just your ire.
The trunk shimmers blue for a minute, and you release your breath. "Good to see the fear charm still works." You take the newly-created portal and find yourself face-to-face with a naga behind a desk whose expression reads somewhere between "completely out of it" and "pretty uncomfortable".
"Unlawful ussse of the fear charm isss a criminal action, you know." Slitted eyes stare at you, the effect of the charm warming from magical anxiety to natural irateness.
"Yeah, yeah, not the first time you lot couldn't take a harmless empathic spell."
The Naga merely turns away from you and shuffles a few papers to look busy. You sigh, crossing your arms. The lobby room is about the same as the last time you were here; marble walls, obviously fake golden furniture, plastic plants on each corner, regularly placed miniature portals to feed breathable oxyen into the room, giant wooden door.
[ ] Find the High Illusionist yourself. You've much to say to her and you do NOT want to waste any time with it.
[ ] Ask the snake where the High Illusionist is. You're not in the mood to navigate the sprawling maze that is the Institution's main headquarters.
[ ] Take a moment to calm down, explore the place a bit. You're not usually one to be nostalgic, but it HAS been a long time since you've visited. Maybe they took down those gaudy statues.
[ ] Write a note, make sure the High Illusionist will read the note at some point, leave.
Cat-ear headband (Worn)
Pink cat clothes (Worn)
Pink enchanted cat tail (Worn)
Torielle's Blackjack (Worn)