Hyenas
Fate gave the ring only a brief glance before returning his furious stare to Alessandra. "I thought you were better than this, Alessandra. Do you really think you can buy my trust back?"
"The thought never even occurred to me," she said as she continued to meet his gaze. Fate could see the truth in her eyes, and the anger in his own dimmed somewhat. "I only wish to apologize. While what I did was perfectly acceptable by the Academy's laws, I know how invasive it is.
"I want you to know that everything I learned stays between us. And while I expect you to hate me for what I've done, I still want you to have this." She pushed the ring forward, and Fate begrudgingly picked it up.
When he sent his aura into the ring, he couldn't help but let out a short gasp.
Within the ring were several stacks of books, with tiles ranging from "The Language of Ziob: A Dictionary," to "Weaving Your Own Spells" and even more surprisingly "Relationships and Keeping Them: How to Compromise, Please Your Significant Other, and Explain Your Feelings."
"I know how much you've been looking forward to delving into the world of books," Alessandra told him. "So I thought I'd help you start. All of the books within that ring are not present in our Academy's library, whether that be through rarity, the complexity, or the mundanity, and took me the better half of this week to gather them.
"Many of them I had to acquire through personal favors from the Empress' Guard and not a small amount of pleading to the Empress. Some of those came from Empress' personal library, an endeavor that cost me several dozen Guard Points, so be sure to take care of them."
Fate sat in silence for a long time. "I… I don't know what to say."
"Then don't," she said. "Also, I talked to your SCD professor, and they've produced a summary of today's lessons for you. You'll find it in your dorm room on your bed, along with the professor's explanations and a recording of his lecture that can be imprinted into your memories. I suggest you study it thoroughly."
Fate's fury abated, his eyes glistening as he forced back a tear. While this wasn't enough to entirely forgive her for what she had done, it was clear at a glance that she had been working on this for him long before today's events.
The last time anyone had bothered to do something so nice for him, Old Man Travis had surprised him on his seventeenth birthday with a bottle of expensive liquor and a massive bonus.
He took a short breath, blinking away the unshed tear as he looked up. "Thank you, Ms. Alessandra," he said sincerely, his hand curling into a fist around the ring.
She nodded, her hat flopping as she smiled. "What's more, you can put that ring in another storage ring, so long as it has the room. That only holds books though, so don't try stuffing in scrolls or loose paper."
Fate concentrated, and true to her words, the ring vanished. He checked the storage ring on his middle finger, finding the book ring tucked safely in one of the cube's corners.
"Thank you, Ms. Alessandra," he repeated, at a loss for words.
"Don't mention it. You'll notice your robes are brown now. This is because I've decided that your advancement to Journeyman was legitimate. The robes in your closet will have changed as well. Now go study, I'm sure you're eager to do so."
Fate bowed and left, on his way to the dorm to catch up on his SCD class. He didn't make it more than halfway down the hall when a blur formed in front of him, manifesting into the short, dark-eyed form of the triplet, Tresbeney.
Around the corner to the front of and behind him came the rest of the quartet: the light-haired triplet, Semenda; the pale-skinned triplet, Deodeky; and the brother, Ventraga. They surrounded him like hyenas encircling prey as they glared at him with the hungry eyes of a journalist latching onto a juicy story.
As they tightened the circle, leaving only a foot between them and Fate, Deodeky closed the distance and placed a hand on his shoulder, looking up into his eyes.
"Forgetting something?" she asked, a sweet smile spreading on her face.
"You made us a promise," Tresbeney chimed, afterimages left in the air around her as she did the superspeed equivalent of jogging in place.
"And you never showed," Semenda said, stomping in anger. It was admittedly quite adorable. A faint cloud of crackling, dark gas spread along her skin.
"You owe us an interview," Ventraga said intimidatingly, a discrete pulse of Mana racing out toward his sisters. A similar pulse came from Deodeky.
The effects the other two generated grew a tad more exaggerated, the afterimages left in Tresbeney's wake less blurry and the slight crackles and pops of Semenda's gaseous protection growing louder.
"I didn't forget," Fate said smoothly, calmly meeting Deodeky's gaze to reinforce his words. "I just got busy."
"Well, you don't look busy now," she stated as her smile grew wider. "So let's go do that interview. And while we're at it, you can tell us all about those brown robes around you."
"Fine by me," Fate replied.
Deodeky released her grip and pivoted on her heel, marching along down the hallway as Fate followed. The other siblings made sure to stay close to him, a noose around his neck that could tighten at any moment.
Fate didn't particularly care one way or the other. The interview would be a nice escape from the horrible thoughts still lurking at the back of his mind.
They came to a stop before a door as plain as the rest of the doors in the hallway. The plaque next to it said this room was the "Official News Club Headquarters," but the Febenochi family could have easily just commandeered the unused room with permission from Alessandra.
They ushered him in and closed the door, Ventraga locking the door shut as the Tresbeney and Semenda took positions on either side of him. Fate sat in a rather comfy leather chair, Deodeky taking a seat behind the desk as she steepled her fingers with a grin.
"Shall we begin?"