Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

"This could have all been avoided if you just held back a little in classes," Zorian sighed.

"I kind of like the attention," Zach admitted.

"Really?" asked Zorian. "I’m only going through this once and I’m already sick of it. You’re saying the novelty of all that attention still hasn’t worn off after, what, more than a decade?"

"Oh come on, do you really think I spend these reverts attending classes, of all things?" scoffed Zach. "That got seriously old after the third revert or so. I spend most of the time doing my own thing. Hell, usually I’m not even near Cyoria! I only attend the classes when I want to relax or when I am feeling nostalgic. The only reason why I’m here right now is because I got kind of roughed up in my last revert and I’m still trying to sort out the holes in my memory. Oh, and because you’ve kind of caught my interest."

"Why did I catch your interest, though?" asked Zorian. "Not that I’m complaining or anything, but how come you’re willing to invest so much time in me? Isn’t it all going to be useless in the next revert?"

"That’s a pretty cold way of thinking about things," Zach said. "I don’t really think like that. I’ve tried to get to know all of our classmates in these reverts, even though some of them were pretty uncooperative with the idea, and I’ve never thought of it as a waste of time. This is the first time I’ve gotten you this friendly, and I have no idea what exactly I did to cause that. It’s best to make use of it while I can."

Now he was starting to feel pretty bad. Not only had he never tried to get to know any of his classmates during the reverts, the idea had never even occurred to him. And this wasn’t the first time Zach had insinuated that Zorian was kind of a jerk to him in the past. Just what had happened between Zach and past-Zorian to leave that much of an impression?

"I see," said Zorian uncertainly, not knowing how to respond to that.

"I really do wonder about you, though," Zach continued. "You’re so different from the Zorian I knew, I’m starting to wonder if you’re really the same person."

"Who else would I be?" asked Zorian, honestly at a loss as to where Zach was going with this. He didn’t appear to have figured out that Zorian was reverting , as he would say, so what was he getting at?

"I think I may have shifted timelines, or something," Zach said.

Zorian gave him an incredulous look. Shifted timelines? That’s his explanation? Really? Really really ? He almost revealed himself right then and there, just so he could tell him how silly that was. Almost.

"Or something," deadpanned Zorian.

"Whaaat?" protested Zach. "It could happen. Do you know how temporal mechanics work? No? Didn’t think so."

"I did look up a couple of books about time travel after our first meeting," said Zorian. It was a lie, of course, but only a small one – he had sifted through time travel related texts, just not in this particular restart.

"And learned nothing," concluded Zach. "It’s a total wasteland. All they write about is about various ethical dilemmas and time paradoxes and whatnot. That was the first and last time I set foot in the academy library, let me tell you."

Zorian gave him a strange look. "That was a joke, right?"

"Which part?" Zach asked.

"The part where you only visited the academy library once," clarified Zorian.

"Err, well…" tried Zach, chuckling nervously. "What can I say? I don’t really like to read…"

Zorian stared at Zach, wondering if the boy was pulling his leg. He would totally understand if the old Zach, the one he knew before the time loop, told him he never set foot in the library. He wouldn’t be terribly unique in that regard – lots of students never visited the library before their third year, since they couldn’t access the spell repository before their certification, anyway. But this Zach had lived through this month over 200 times, and had access to the spells buried within its depths. And he never tried to search through it. Because he didn’t like to read.

The mind boggled. Well, Zorian’s mind boggled.

"You’ve clearly read our textbooks," Zorian noted. "There’s no way you’d excel as well as you do otherwise."

"Yeah, well, I didn’t say I don’t read at all," Zach countered. "Just that I’d rather avoid it if I can. I learn much better by example anyway."

Funny, it was just the opposite with Zorian – he tended to learn much better when he had the chance to study the topic on his own before trying. He still thought it was a pretty serious flaw for a mage to avoid books, but Zorian had to remind himself that Zach was clearly achieving results somehow. Come to think of it, there was a serious shortage of anything dangerous in the academy spell collection, so a mage that was chiefly interested in the more restricted areas of magic would find the library of very limited usefulness.

"So you learn primarily by mentorship?" guessed Zorian. "I’m surprised you can convince mages to teach you in less than a month. Don’t they all require apprenticeships lasting for several years before they’ll agree to teach you anything useful?"

"Well, usually," said Zach. "But I’m the last Noveda, don’t you know? I had highly respectable mages tripping over themselves to teach me my whole life. Usually I just have to show up and tell them who I am and they’re all too happy to help me out."

Zorian suppressed a wave of jealousy that washed over him. Zach was just making the most of his unique situation, just like Zorian would have in his place. It still bothered him, though, reminding him of how Daimen and Fortov could ask and get all sorts of help and concessions from their teachers, only for Zorian to fail in securing the same for himself. His parents had lectured him endlessly that the difference was in their attitudes – that if only Zorian was more sociable, more polite, more everything … he too could enjoy the same benefits. To Zorian, it always seemed like his brothers had some sort of invisible tattoo on their foreheads that only mages could see, and which marked them as somehow more special than him.

Zach wasn’t his brothers, though, and didn’t deserve to be the target for Zorian’s personal frustrations.

"Convenient," said Zorian out loud, giving his fellow time traveler a smile that was somewhat forced. Zach didn’t appear to notice.

His jealousy aside, he was really starting to wonder if his assumption about Zach being an accidental stowaway like him had any merit at all. Zach had ridiculously huge mana reserves, probably the largest of any student currently attending the academy. He was the last member of a famous Noble House, enjoying all the prestige that comes from that without having to deal with nosy parents who might be freaked out by Zach’s sudden transformation. In addition to the power inherent in his name, the boy was also fairly charming and outgoing, further improving his chances of getting help from otherwise unapproachable high-circle mages. He was not your average spoiled prince, by any means – there was a lot of potential in the boy, if only he would get enough time to bring it out. Time that Zach now had. It was… convenient. A bit too convenient, in Zorian’s opinion.

That is why, despite Zach’s seeming friendliness, Zorian just didn’t feel at ease with the boy. Not enough to reveal himself as a stowaway, in any case. Right now, his main advantage was that he was an outside element in this game Zach was playing. An unaccounted variable. He intended to use and abuse that advantage for all it was worth.

Whatever force was behind Zach, Zorian had no intention of revealing himself to it any time soon.

"Take a seat, mister Kazinski," Ilsa said. "I sort of suspected I’d be seeing you soon."