At the dinner table, Ling watched Alicia eat like a small storm, all princess etiquette scattered like leaves in wind.

Heat rose in Alicia first, bright as a blush at sunset; she forced a puzzled smile to douse it and tossed out a question like a lifeline.

“Why’re you staring at me? Aren’t you eating?”

“Seeing you eat so happily, Alicia, I feel full already,” Ling said, like a teacup filled by the scent of tea.

Alicia’s awkwardness broke like thin ice, and a fond smile bloomed warm as spring light.

“Silly girl, no one gets full watching someone else eat; dig in, or you’ll never grow tall,” she said, voice soft as a shawl.

She slid a small hill of meat into Ling’s bowl like piling up cozy embers, and Ling answered with a sugar-sweet smile and lifted her chopsticks like lifting a reed flute.

“Got it~”

Since that last incident, Ling clung to Alicia like a little moon to its tide, at meals, at bedtime, even on trips down quiet halls.

Alicia’s heart swelled first, soft as down; she welcomed the new little shadow like a sparrow welcomes sunlight on a cold rail.

Alicia was delighted, but the palace air rippled with gossip like fish under a bridge.

They whispered the princess doted on cute things, that she’d lured in an impossibly adorable girl, even that she was forming an “adorable entourage,” like collecting paper cranes.

Ling sensed no malice in those ripples, only teasing foam, which said plenty about how well Alicia was loved in this vast lake.

As for why no one judged the little girl, the answer hung in the air like a red lantern.

Who could suspect a pure, bright, heart-melting kid of ill intent, when a child is a world’s treasure like a first blossom in snow?

Insult her, and most in this palace would knock you flat like a hammer on a melon to guard that small spring.

Alicia heard the rumors too and met them with a smile calm as a moonlit pond, because even she couldn’t name the shape of her feeling for Ling.

If it was lovers’ fondness, she thought, we’re both girls, so how could that be, like two stars asking if they’re one star?

If it was sisterly warmth, then why did every small thing circle back to the other, like swallows wheeling to the same eave?

Her training dipped as her thoughts eddied; when she swung her sword, Ling’s figure flashed like sunlight through leaves, and her blade faltered like a bird mid-flight.

In the end, she let the thought-clouds drift and looked at the girl finally eating obediently, adorable as a kitten by the hearth.

Whatever it is, she decided with a steady thrum, I just want to stay with her, like a tree choosing its patch of sky.

“Oh, right, Ling, Father said the magic academy starts tomorrow; do you want to go?” Alicia asked, voice light as a breeze through paper screens.

Ling’s gaze steadied first, clear as a well, then she set down her bowl and chopsticks with the soft tap of rain.

“Are you going, Alicia?”

“Of course; I still have to learn magic, and I’m only D+ rank right now,” Alicia said, frank as noon.

“Then I’ll go too, but I’m a green mana holder; will that cause trouble?” Ling asked, worry fluttering like a leaf.

“It’s fine; a single Magic Cannon from you is something few could take head‑on,” Alicia said, calm as a mountain shadow.

Ling hesitated, thoughts skittering like sparrows; the old academy trope of building an entourage tugged at her sleeve, and she pushed it away like a proper gentleman.

“Okay~ I’ll go, but we have to be in the same Ban,” she said, voice bright as a bell.

Her real aim, she told herself, was to free naive girls from those gaudy story nets, not to weave a net of her own, like a lighthouse, not a siren.

With Ling’s answer, Alicia set her worries down like a basket and drew a breath sweet as orchard air.

“All that’s easy to arrange, but I want one promise too; don’t kill anyone, okay?” she said, eyes steady as river stones.

“Emm... okay, I won’t kill anyone (unless someone tries to hurt you),” Ling said, the aside like a feather hidden in her sleeve.

“Good girl~” Alicia said, and she stroked Ling’s golden hair; a soft purr rose like a cat by a warm window.

Next day.

Hand in hand, Alicia led Ling to the principal’s office, two bright threads entering the loom of the academy.

No standard showboating protagonist at the registration desk appeared, which left Ling with a tiny pang like a missed firework.

Still, saving time felt like catching a favorable wind, so she let that spark drift away like a dandelion seed.

Back at the registration counter, the principal’s voice rumbled like a drum in a temple hall.

“Place your hand on this pressure pad,” he said, tapping a box that glowed like a bottled moon.

Ling eyed magic measured by computers, an odd hybrid like steel ivy, and told herself to go with the local current.

Clack.

Her palm met the pad, and a wash of blue light swept her hand like tide over sand.

“Fingerprint logged. Identity registered,” the machine chimed, cool as a glass chime.

“Mana measurement complete,” it added, steady as a metronome.

“Mana capacity: S‑Rank. Mana type: Nature Mana,” it declared, words falling like polished stones.

For a heartbeat the principal lit up like a lantern at dusk, then the word Nature doused him like a bucket of well water.

“Alright, head over there and test your power,” he said, impatience flicking like a horse’s tail, though Alicia’s presence kept the gate from swinging shut.

Ling sighed inwardly like wind through reeds; why is Nature Mana so unloved, when it’s strong as a river under ice?

In the testing room, she faced a straw dummy that felt real as a scarecrow at midnight, straw whispering like dry grass.

“This dummy has S‑Rank defense magic; even a Dragonfolk breath might not break it, so attack freely,” the principal said, voice flat as a paved road.

“Not that you’ll do much even if you go all out,” he muttered, the aside thin as smoke.

The words washed past Ling like rain off a cloak; as she readied herself, Alicia leaned close, breath warm as tea steam.

“Use about half your usual Magic Cannon; don’t scare the principal,” she whispered, smile hiding like a crescent moon.

Ling nodded, a quiet ripple, then snapped her fingers; she used under one percent, and a finger‑wide Magic Cannon lanced out like a falling star.

It punched through the dummy’s chest like a needle through silk, and the numbers above its head spiked to the ceiling like bamboo in a night.

Ling watched the principal’s expression shift from scorn to shock to dawning sense to hungry eagerness, changing like cloud shadows racing over fields.

“Excellent. Here’s your S‑Rank student proof, the highest level; your Ban is the same as Miss Alicia’s,” he said, smile tidy as stacked files.

Ling accepted the proof like catching a snowflake and wondered who in this school could teach her, like asking which mountain can school the sky.

“Also—” he said, and a chill prickle rose in Ling’s chest like a wind before rain.

She flipped open the Script in her mind, hoping to sidestep trouble like stepping around a puddle.

Fate matched the page; the principal spoke the same line, words clicking like a lock, “You’ll serve as vice president of the student council.”

Ling lifted a hand like a fan and set a stern look on her face like a mask.

“Doesn’t that feel a bit handpicked?” she asked, the question sharp as a crane’s beak.

The principal pushed up his black‑rimmed glasses; light flashed off the lenses like a blade off water.

“If it serves the realm, face life and death; don’t dodge for luck or fear,” he said, tone solemn as a bell.

Even so, Ling stood firm like a pine in snow and declared, “Even if I die out there, even if I jump from here, I won’t be vice president.”

As if he had seen this coming like the turn of a season, the principal said mildly, “Alicia is the student council president.”

“Then I’m the vice president, no question!” Ling cried, planting one foot on the desk like a banner, her eyes glinting with strange light like foxfire.