Nathaniel felt exhausted. His arms and legs felt like they were weighed down, his scabbed over gashes continued to throb, and he never felt more ashamed in his life.

Gods, I wrecked my relationship with the Mona, I brailed, and under the influence of backfired magic, proceeded to insult Nauleth, who was only concerned about me, he thought bitterly. I just need to get back to my room. If I can bandage my wounds there, and sleep, maybe the Mona will feel more receptive to my apologies. Everything got screwed up all because of me getting excited in that one moment.... he trailed off wistfully.

Alisoina sighed, sitting at her desk, hands flicking through old sketches, some of which were of a certain boy... some of which were of that same certain boy. Her lime colored eyes ran over every single one, wondering just what do do with them now that she'd gathered all of her doodles in one area. She didn't want to burn them; it struck her as childish. Besides, there were some good drawings in there, it'd be a shame to lose them because her heart was fickle and her mind was growing up.

Distracted by Leisant's insistent mewling, Ali looked over at the osta in the window. Many girls were enjoying the sunshine and the common room, so Ali was alone with her kitten.

"Oh, Leisant, what is it?" Slipping the drawings into her desk drawer, she strolled over, not even bothering to pull up her fallen socks. "If there's someone's Hingle out there, I'll..." The young osta pawed at the glass while the redhead stared down, dumbstruck for a moment. Nathaniel was stumbling, properly fumbling, over by a building down the way. After the second of stillness, Alisoina suddenly came to her senses and squeaked loudly.

"Oh my goddess he must have gotten hurt and oh my-" She dashed out of the room, only pausing to grab her living magic notebook. Shoeless, she pounded down the stairs, tripping over her feet and catching herself on the walls, always moving forward. Tearing out through the common room, she chased after the slow moving seventh year.

"Nathaniel! Nathaniel, are you alright?" If Ali had taken a moment to look up, she would have seen Leisant cleaning his paw from the fourth floor window, looking very pleased with his kitten-self.

Nathaniel's mind snapped out of his recovering reverie at the sound of the familiar voice. Looking up, he saw the young girl sprinting out of her dorm as fast as she could go, with a grimoire in tow. Heh, that's awfully sweet of her.

Pulling together a sheepish grin at Alisoina's unrestrained concern for him, he responded. "Haha, considering what happened, I could be a lot worse. Except for here." He gestured at the crown of his skull, his blond hair completely caked with dry blood. "I'll be fine though."

At that moment Nathaniel tripped on a previously unseen tree root, falling into Alisoina's arms.

"Well, I brought my notes so I-" when suddenly, the tree root caught Nathaniel's foot, and then he was a lot closer, and then...

FWOOM - she was knocked back, the older boy's momentum completely knocking her off her feet. With a high-pitched "Eep!" Alisoina fell back, landing heavily on her rear before the rest of Nathaniel's weight knocked her fully back, head bouncing on the ground.

Wincing at the bruise that she knew was forming, unable to prop herself up because of Nathaniel's frame atop hers, she waited until her ears stopped ringing before opening her eyes.

Only to find herself staring directly into Nathaniel's golden eyes.

Meep.

A red blush crept up her cheeks like a stain.

It took a moment to regain a bearing of where he was when he found himself staring his Alisoina's eyes.

"Oops! Um....." Flushing furiously, Nathaniel scrambled up off of her, pain momentarily forgotten. "Are you all right?" He reached down and helped her back up.

In all the excitement, Nathaniel's wound opened up again and began bleeding profusely. He swayed, feeling lightheaded.

Alisoina accepted the hand, the normally chatty, bossy redhead totally speechless and shell-shocked. What... what just happened? Her face felt like it was aflame, and though she wanted to stare at her socks, Ali's eyes were locked on Nath, unwilling to believe the moment had passed.


And just like that, the old Alisoina was back. Without fuss, she leaned forward and grabbed his elbow, pulling him to the tree over whose root he had so recently tripped.

"Oh, goddess. Sit there, yes, under the tree, there's a good Nathaniel." She guided him down the the ground, hand on his shoulder, her tone smacking of sassy control. Ali's shyness decidedly evaporated, she rushed over to her fallen notebook, glaring at the older boy. "Don't move, you'll only make it worse. I'll get you fixed up." Flipping though the pages, Alisoina found the spell she wanted and after reading through it a few times, knelt beside Nathaniel, a hand hovering over the wound.

With a steadying breath, Alisoina began to recite Heal Tissue, hoping that it would take; living magic wasn't her specialty, though she made sure to include all the mona in her nightly prayers.

The mona around Alisoina seemed reluctant for a moment, before giving in with a sigh. They didn't have an issue with her. They just felt hurt, was all. Her skin tingled as some runoff healed a kitten scratch from earlier that day. The air felt crisper.

Nathaniel felt most of the ache in his head seep away. The flaked blood on his neck did not disappear but the itching in his scalp did as the wound closed. He still felt slightly odd, though he may not have recognised it, he was mildly concussed. Ali's heal spell couldn't make that go away.

Dazed from the gradual blood loss, Nathaniel let himself be walked down onto the ground under the tree. He wasn't about to complain about her healing him. It'll save himself the trouble of bandaging up the gash when he finally got back to his room. It was comforting to feel that someone was taking responsibility for his care instead of.....himself, as usual.



He breathed out a relieved sigh. At least I'm not going to die from blood loss today, he smiled at Alisoina. He felt so much better with most of the pain gone, and with the continued slight throb in his head, he concluded that he got a concussion as well from the accident. At least there's no broken bones. Getting up and stretching his limbs with renewed vigor, he turned and smiled kindly at the younger girl who healed him.

"Thank you for that. That was a splendid Heal Tissue you cast. I feel much better and," he laughed in good cheer. "it saves me the job of patching myself up once I got back to my room."

He stooped down to pick up the things that had fallen from his arms when he tripped into Alisoina.
"How can I thank you for this?" he asked conversationally.

Alisoina was not going to be appeased quite so easily. She knew it was a good spell, she'd felt the mona. Although their pause gave her some minor trepidation, she was satisfied with the spell. Narrowing her eyes, she pulled back the bloody hair, making sure that the entire wound was healed.

"Yes yes I know. I don't think you could have made it up stairs in your state, let alone be trusted with gauze and scissors." Pulling a hanky from her pocket, she wet it with the tip of her tongue and rubbed off the worst of the blood caked behind his neck.

She could guess how he got the wounds; it was obvious from Nauleth and Athrym's words that they had gone to bait and duel the seventh year, and it appeared Nathaniel had lost. With consequences. His field was not happy, hissing and buzzing like disgusted wasps. She wondered if that was why the mona had been reluctant to heal him, but she shrugged internally; it didn't matter now.


Had Alisoina been the same smart-alec girl she had been, she would have said 'Don't lose again and make me clean you up.' She even thought it in a moment of sass. However, she smiled at him brightly and blushed as she wondered why when princesses uttered those words in her novels, the hero usually became suddenly much more interested.

"Oh, um, well... it was nothing really..." She glanced down at her shoeless feet, noting the grass stains that were already appearing. "Um. Well, I guess you could just owe me one?" She clutched her notebook and tried not to look as flustered and foolish as she felt

"I guess I could." Seeing her getting flustered made increased Nathaniel's heartbeat. Heating rising to his face, he was unsure of what to do next.

"Um, thank you. Really, I mean it. I doubt I would have even made it to my dorm in my state. I guess I'll see you tonight?"

There was an awkward pause as Ali tried and failed to come up wit anything to say.


Alisoina nodded, grinning slightly. "Yep! I'll see you then." She wanted to say so much more, but instead she turned on her heel and walked back tot he dorm. She knew what she was going to do with those sketches now, and if she wanted to be done before midnight she had better start now.