Atzi took a step backwards, glancing around. "The S-serpent? Here?" She gave a nervous laugh. "Where?"

  She eyed a window, wondering if she should jump out it.

  Kurgi giggled. "Not here here! She's at her temple, or whatever."

  Atzi exhaled. As long as she's not the same way. Wait, didn't the Serpent say her favorite daughter was here? "Wh-what's it like having the Serpent as a mom?"

  "She buys me nice things." Kurgi shrugged. "Mostly I'm happy she took me here so I get away from teacher."

  "She got you one of those fancy magic tutors, then?" Atzi asked, only slightly jealous.

  "Oh, no. I'm a swamp witch!"

  …The Serpent mentioned that too. Though she called her a blood witch. I wonder if… "No kidding? Do you know Coraline?"

  Kurgi's eyes widened, and she snapped her clawed fingers. "Oh yeah! That girl teacher is always going on about! How do you know her?"

  So her teacher is that 'crone'. "We were friends a couple years back. So you didn't hear anything about her going back to Artaxta at all?"

  "I'm pretty sure teacher would have grabbed her if she did. Unless she's really good at hiding."

  Where was Cory staying then when she left? And where is she now? Atzi began to wonder what would happen if she found her outside of the job. "So you never met her, then?"

  "Nope! She apparently left shortly before I started my apprenticeship. Mom asked what I wanted to be and I thought a blood witch sounded really cool! But it's a lot of hard work…" Kurgi whined.

  "Must be tough," Atzi said without a shred of actual sympathy for the spoiled brat.

  "What's your name, anyway?" Kurgi asked.

  "Cathy," Atzi replied, once again giving the name of her childhood bully. She scratched her scales. Well, she is still hot. And a mage. And maybe if I learn more about her it'll be useful in case I meet the Serpent again. "Wanna dance?"

  "Sure!"

  -

  Kurgi's 'dancing' was mostly a lot of touching and rubbing against Atzi.

  Atzi barely managed to keep herself composed, continuing to move instead of standing there stock still.

  Then Kurgi kissed her, and it took everything in Atzi's power to not immediately dump all her poison into her mouth.

  Kurgi separated and giggled again. "You're fun!"

  Atzi's brain managed to catch up that something was said to her. "Y-you too." Just need to stick the landing here… "This your place?"

  "No, silly, I live in Artaxta! I don't even know who lives here."

  "Me neither. I just saw the party and wandered in." Atzi laughed. "Wanna see, uh, what kinda rooms they have upstairs?"

  Kurgi hummed in thought. She glanced down at Atzi's tail, which was swishing back and forth. She hummed again. "Sure!"

  I am the greatest lizard to ever live.

  Atzi wrapped her tail around Kurgi's, and led her upstairs to find a stranger's bedroom to ruin.

  -

  Atzi laid there in bed, exhausted. Kurgi laid beside her, stretching happily, before moving her claws onto Atzi's shoulder.

  Atzi suddenly realized, what if Kurgi was like the Serpent? She jerked away-

  -and fell off the bed.

  "Bugeh…"

  Kurgi laughed. "What are you doing, silly?"

  Atzi stood up slowly, giving Kurgi a wary look.

  "What?" Kurgi tilted her head.

  "You're not going to- nevermind. You don't seem like the type." Atzi crawled back into the bed. Then she realized that meant they could have more sex! Sex that didn't lead to anything horrible happening, just good, dirty fun. And she was so easy to bed, too. That means she'll be easy next time I go through everything. Finally, my luck is looking up. "Where are you staying, at the temple?"

  "No. I mean, mom wanted me to, but I'm staying at an inn."

  "Me too. The One Eye Open, if you ever wanna swing by. Where's yours?"

  "The Crystal Chime," Kurgi replied.

  Atzi had heard the name before. It was one of the fanciest inns in town and cost several gold per night. "Wow…"

  "Maybe you can come by another night and I can show you how fancy those beds are," Kurgi said. She twirled a clawed finger through her white hair.

  Atzi drooled poison on the stranger's bed she was in. She wiped her mouth and gave a dumb grin. "Any time."

  "Oh! But not tomorrow. That's when my friend is coming… maybe girlfriend? We don't know yet, but I feel hopeful!"

  "What she like?" Atzi asked.

  "She's super smart! Smartest person I've ever met! We started writing to each other after we got to know each other in letters for official business stuff between my teacher and her, and like, oh my gosh! I could talk to her forever!"

  "The spider mage?" Atzi did not actually know what a 'spider mage' was.

  "Yeah! Her name's Scabiel!"

  "Where's she from?" Atzi asked.

  "Novasium! That's where all spider mages are from, duh."

  "Well, I'm not gonna come crash your big meeting, but if the two of you wanna have any fun, I'm down."

  Kurgi giggled. "Are you proposing what I think you are...?"

  Atzi laughed, too. "Who wouldn't, if they had the chance?"

  "You're so fun!" Kurgi let out a sigh. "Most people I meet don't know how to have any fun. Except my mom, but she's just weird. I don't like talking to her."

  Atzi pushed her memories of what happened in the temple out of mind. "What's it like having an actual God that's your mom?" She asked. "She's got other kids, right? I heard stories about people getting invited to the temple and all..."

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Kurgi's eye-looking ears twitched. "Weird! At least she seems to like me? Most of her children she doesn't pay a lot of attention to. But I'm her favorite so she pays a lot of attention to me."

  "Better than my mom. She could have taught me magic herself, but she kept having excuses not to. Council business, her research, always stuff like that." Atzi remembered her brief time back home, but decided that the dumb and spoiled Serpent's daughter wasn't someone she wanted to mention her repeating time to. "Last I heard she's pretty mad at me still for running off."

  "The worst!"

  "Yeah! Shoulda taught me how to be a mage too. How hard is it to learn, anyway?" Atzi propped herself up in bed. "I did the basics but never learned any spells."

  Kurgi groaned. "Super hard… I don't like reading! Stupid books!"

  Atzi nodded excitedly. "Yeah, and then you get yelled at just for wanting to go run around outside instead."

  "Exactly!" She snuggled up against Atzi. "You understand, Cathy."

  As the cute woman snuggled into her, Atzi immediately regretted using her childhood bully as her fake name. "You still pulled off learning magic though... that's pretty cool."

  "Teacher says she'd eat me alive if I slacked off. And she probably would."

  Atzi paused, and considered very carefully how to proceed. "Cory always said the cannibal stuff was made up. She got really mad when I joked about it."

  Kurgi looked guilty. "...it's not."

  Atzi had no easy escape this time, with Kurgi's arm already around her. She still considered running. "So when an Artaxtian girl says she'll eat you up, it really is a cointoss how it'll go, huh?" She tried to joke.

  "Mmm, only if she's a swamp witch." Kurgi said. "I could eat you up myself." She laughed.

  Everything in Atzi's brain told her to run.

  "I actually haven't done that yet." Kurgi sighed. "I'm supposed to sometime before the next stage of my teaching. Sounds gross!"

  "Um, you're not going to- ah…"

  "Of course not, silly!"

  Atzi sighed in relief. Then a thought occurred to her. "Do you reckon... Cory might have?"

  "Hmmm… I don't know how far she would have gotten, before she left?" Kurgi let go of Atzi. "She seemed like an important student, but I never asked for any details."

  "She must have known..." Atzi thought back to her conversation with Cory. How she insisted the Serpent didn't eat people. She said she didn't, either.

  "If she didn't tell you the truth, it's probably because we're not supposed to?" Then Kurgi's eyes widened. She bopped herself on the head. "Oopsie."

  "Don't worry, I can keep a secret!" replied Atzi immediately.

  "Yay!" Kurgi clapped her claws. "If teacher found out I told you she'd eat us both. Or try to make you a swamp witch. One of the two."

  Atzi gulped. "Sounds like a scary lady."

  Kurgi nodded. "She's super scary! I'd rather get on mom's bad side than hers." She rolled her eyes. "At least mom knows how to take a joke."

  It wasn't funny when she ate me! Then Atzi started considering what other information she could get out of Kurgi. I don't actually know how good a mage Cory even was. "You know that blood magic spell where you make a whole tidal wave of blood out of it that wraps people up? Is that something pretty advanced?"

  "What?"

  "Y'know... like a small cut on someone's shoulder or something, then you pull a bit of blood out and it turns into a whole wave of it?"

  Kurgi looked confused.

  "It looked pretty impressive... is that not a swamp witch thing?"

  "Um..."

  "I thought blood magic was what you guys did."

  "We do!" Kurgi tapped her pink scales. "But I've never heard of that spell."

  "Huh." That's really weird if they had the same teacher. "Maybe she found it elsewhere..."

  "That's scary if she's doing blood magic that teacher didn't teach her." Then she let out a short laugh. "Teacher. Teach her."

  Atzi politely laughed, too. "Yeah, she was always trying to get her hands on any. Tomes and stuff like that."

  "Oh, she's one of those kinds of people." Kurgi rolled her eyes.

  "That's not normal for mages?"

  "Well, usually we specialize in something so we know it well enough to be really good at it?" Kurgi waved her claw. "But some people try to learn everything they can about everything. Some call themselves 'sages', but only the rare successful ones can really be called that, like the one at the academy. Most of them are just bad at magic. That's what teacher always said."

  A thought occurred to Atzi. "I had a bit of talent for magic, I remember some of the basics... lemme ask you something. Say you went back in time and could do anything you wanted. Would you get really good at magic and show off?"

  Kurgi considered the question. Then she fixed Atzi with a serious stare. "If I could go back in time and do anything I wanted, I'd sleep with everyone I could!"

  "...Good idea."

  "Right? I'm a genius!"

  Atzi didn't think she was particularly smart. "Well, I should get going." Better than staying here and getting caught.

  "M'kay!"

  -

  As Atzi trudged along back to the inn, the morning sun began to show. Did we really go at it that long? Wow. I wonder if all Serpent-blooded women are like that.

  Then she realized she couldn't go to sleep, because Jem had told her to meet in the morning. Atzi groaned, and trudged her way to the Water's temple instead.

  -

  Atzi entered the temple. "Hi..." She yawned.

  Jem looked at her, frowning. "Are you okay, Atzi? You look exhausted. And why is your dress all disheveled?"

  "... I didn't realise how late the festival had gotten last night, is all." Atzi stretched. "I went there to... see if anyone else had visions and were talking about them. No-one said anything about that, though."

  Jem smiled sympathetically. "I spoke with my friend." She fixed Atzi's clothes, straightening them out with her claws. "In fact, one of her colleagues has been having visions as well."

  Atzi hummed. "A crazy old guy? No-one believes him, and he kept saying everything was gonna end."

  Jem nodded. "Yes, that's him."

  "Saw him in the vision too. He wasn't helpful, but maybe your friend'll believe me."

  "Maybe." Jem hummed. "She's been rather… stressed lately, so please forgive her if she appears out of it. She is coping poorly."

  Atzi nodded. "Sure, sure."

  "She said she would meet you just outside the academy gates," Jem said. "I'd go with you, but the Water is due to arrive soon."

  "Oh..." Another long walk. Atzi turned around. "Alright, I'll… head over. Thanks."

  "Any time, Atzi! I hope your issue is resolved!" Jem waved goodbye to her.

  "Same." Atzi said, tired and very firmly wanting things resolved.

  -

  At the gate to the college, she saw a familiar face.

  Surrounded by a group of people murmuring to each other was Terra, the mage V had taken her to see. She still looked drugged out of her mind. Her big red hat, decorated with bands of steel embedded with shiny yellow stones, sat proudly atop her head.

  "You're Jem's friend?" Atzi asked, curious.

  "Yes." Terra's eyes lazily moved to her. "You match the physical description. Atzi, I presume?"

  "Yeah."

  "Let's head inside," Terra said.

  The crowd continued to murmur as Atzi followed the mage through the gates. She led Atzi to the front desk, where the butler insisted on handing Atzi the same silver token as last time. Then Terra led Atzi up the stairs.

  "Describe your issue," Terra said as they walked.

  Atzi nodded. "So, I know what's gonna happen in the future, and I need-" Atzi yawned. "Urgh... I need help figuring stuff out."

  Terra stared out into space for a moment. "...I will do my best. What have you seen?"

  "Sostra's gonna blow up in six days." Atzi said. "Same way Novae went."

  "Do you know what caused it?" Terra asked. Her expression didn't shift.

  "Nope. That's what I wanna figure out. Then get someone to stop it." Atzi waved her claw. "It might be linked to... the academy got stuff on history right? Ancient history?"

  "We do." Terra yawned as well.

  Atzi stepped closer and said quietly, "Gods? Ones that aren't around anymore?"

  "Please maintain your distance," Terra said, and stepped to the side.

  Atzi wanted to convince the mage she was telling the truth, so she decided to mention a detail she remembered. "Then can we talk in your room? It's one of the ones on the third floor, right?"

  "Those are all academy lecture rooms."

  "...Ah. Why'd you examine me in a room like that, then?" Atzi groaned. "Whatever. You did something to check me for magic, but it didn't find any anyway."

  "Examine you? Check you for magic? Was this part of your vision?"

  "Yeah. Sorry…" Atzi tried to figure out a good explanation. "It felt real at the time. So if I just describe something like it happened, that's why." Perfect excuse.

  "That's strange. Visions of the future are typically not so personal."

  "Maybe I'm secretly very important," Atzi said as they reached the top of the sixth and final floor.

  Terra hummed. She led Atzi down a hall, to an office door.

  Atzi glanced at a fancy silver plaque next to the door. That's gotta be worth a fair bit. Then she took a closer look at what was engraved upon it.

  'Madam Terra, Sage of Sostra'.

  Atzi's eyes widened. She looked towards the mage. "Y-you're the Sage of Sostra? The one with the missing spellbook?"

  "Yes," the Sage replied.