"..so if I understood this correctly," Fionera said in a voice full of disbelief, "You want me to smuggle you out of the academy?" She peered into his eyes to see if he was perhaps playing a joke on her, but all she could see was a cold, serious gaze staring right back at her.

"Precisely." Astil further confirmed with a nod of his head, the movement shifting to spill that pale hair of his over his broad shoulders. He usually had it up in a loose ponytail, the ends of which barely seemed to touch the nape of his neck. Seeing it free from its bindings was a little.. different. Nice, but different. 

She sighs and drags a hand down her face. "Your highness—"

"Just call me Astil."

"Your highness," Fionera insisted. She really didn't want to build a closer relationship with him than she'd already had. It was bad enough they were conversing under the cover of night and in secret; if anyone were to stumble upon them, Fionera wouldn't put it past them to think they'd met up for a midnight tryst or something, despite them never interacting with one another before now.

"What makes you think such a thing is even within my power to do?" Nevermind the fact that it was weird he was being so incognito about leaving. Fionera really didn't want to know more than she had to, the blood on his clothes hinted towards a scenario she herself didn't want to be factored into. Because whatever shit that Astil had gotten himself into, for someone to leave an injury like that on him meant that they could be a possible threat to her own well-being also.

Just looking at his uniform assured her of that. 

Although it was somewhat wearable— it was ripped in certain places and stained with so much blood that someone definitely must've died. There was a wound most probably made from a sword that lay diagonally across his chest; cleaving open the fabric of the uniform. It may not have been actively bleeding anymore, but the cut on his thigh still was. 

From his composure alone, one could get the feeling that this didn't affect him much. In fact, now that she thought about it, he showed no adverse reaction to the chair either.

Fionera eyed him dubiously. Could he be telling the truth about his identity after all? Was there really no illusion placed over his appearance? The chair he sits upon was a rough enough model for what she wanted to create that it couldn't be taken as a reliable source of information. But. Her own instinct was telling her that he appeared to be who he said he was.

If that was the case then perhaps she should be addressing him with a bit more respect…

Astil lets out a semblance of a chuckle. "Did you think no one else in the dorm noticed you sneaking out?" He raised a single eyebrow that looked way too regal on someone with blood quickly matting in their hair. "You obviously have a well travelled route—"

"That's different!" It was her turn to interrupt him when he spoke so assuredly of her disobedience to the dorm rules. Forget respect! He was practically blackmailing her!

The fact that he had enough confidence to back up his accusation could only mean that he had evidence of her wrongdoings. But how the hell he even knew the ongoings of the female dormitories— she really doesn't want to know.

"I'm one person," she says after calming down. The jig was up. There was pretty much no point in denying it any further when she'd so blatantly been caught red-handed. "And smuggling you out of the academy would require the two of us— which raises our chances of getting caught exponentially."

"I didn't say you had to come with me."

"Does it look like I plan on doing so?" She snarked, "Leading you there is bad enough. Activating the route alone is already risky, but spending more time keying in your signature — I may have no choice but to follow you just so I don't get caught." After saying all that, Fionera still wasn't stupid enough to tell him the exact coordinates of where her route began at. She'd already exposed too much as it is, and anyways, he'd find out where it was when and if she agreed to helping him.

He hummed. "Fair enough."

"Listen," Fionera sighs. "I haven't agreed to anything yet, and even if I do," she frowns, "I need to know that my life won't be in any imminent danger."

Astil pursed his lips. "… I can't promise that." He eventually answered and avoided her narrowed gaze.

"Then we haven't got a deal." She instantly rejected him. If he couldn't even do the bare minimum and guarantee her life, then their partnership could go straight in the bin. Sure, it was a bit harsh of her — but he was a prince for fuck's sake! How did she know that smuggling him out of here didn't count as attempted kidnapping..? The king of Yulté would (probably) have her head if he ever found out!

But before Fionera could think too much of repercussions that weren't even valid yet, she stares with wide eyes as the panes of her windows shatter with no audible sound.

"What the hell!" She shouts and instinctively leaps to her feet. There was no denying it now, the ward was definitely a dud. Instead of preventing an attack or alerting her before one was imminent; it silenced any noise of it happening entirely.

Fionera felt her heart thud in her chest at the spike of adrenaline she could feel making its way around her body. A few glass shards had sliced her cheek, but the dull sting was shoved to the back of her mind. There's a sudden weight in the air that makes Fionera's tongue feel heavy and thick in her mouth. Any words she tries to form come out sluggish and slurred, which she belatedly realises is the work of a saturated field of magic.

And she was completely drunk on it.

Another wave of this dense magic almost had her falling to her knees, but she was still conscious enough to see how the blast had destroyed nearly all of her furniture and cracked parts of the walls. In her inebriated state, she couldn't help but stumble back into her bed, almost falling over the mattress that now rested on the floor from the broken bed frame.

Fionera watches with peeled eyes as Astil reaches a hand out to her. She drowsily blinks, thinking he was going to harm her, but he instead gently lays her face against his chest and cradles her head in the cups of his hands.

"I don't think you have a choice anymore," Astil mumbles, the sound vibrating his chest. "They managed to follow me." 

He shuffles both of them away from the broken window in case anything happened to immediately follow after the blast. Fionera had no choice but to get her legs moving if she didn't want to be a dead weight in his arms.

.. Who followed you? She thinks with slight delirium. Your fans? Your buddies? Ex-lover?

Fionera quickly squashed that train of thought. From the tone of his voice she doubted it was something as mundane as a friend inquiring his whereabouts. And really — what did it matter who followed him? They'd smashed her goddamn window so they could be nothing but an enemy!

Astil stiffly straightens up from where he was slightly hunched over her, unexpectedly mushing her face deeper into his chest area and probably smearing the flaky blood there onto her cheeks.

"You stink." She says quietly, words slurred.

His lips purse into a thin line as he stares down at her with furrowed eyebrows; eyes slightly widened. Fionera is pretty sure it's the expression he makes when he's surprised—or something similar, at least.

Cute.

Fionera ignores this muted stunned silence of his and stretches out her arm towards her shattered bed. "Gra.. grab my lamp and let's.. go..!" Because over the ringing in her ears, she could distantly hear the sound of someone scaling the wall just outside the broken window. 

Astil paused for half a second before he went to grab the lamp that hadn't cracked despite being hit by the blast; subsequently falling off the side table it was resting on, and rolling a ways across the floor. 

For some reason, his grip on her wasn't letting up. She didn't bother to struggle too much, either, because he had already forced her hand by imposing into her room and bringing uninvited guests with him, so the least he could do was cater to her every whim.

With this thought in mind she drunkenly runs a hand over the wound on his chest. She'd noticed it was closing at a slow rate, but the fact it was even healing without any outside interference was odd. Healing of this capacity where it was visible to the naked eye, should've been impossible. There was also something about being in close proximity to him that helped sober her up to the point that she could make this analysis. It wasn't something she could finely pinpoint, but perhaps it was also the reason why he was colder than a corpse.

She tilts her head back when she feels a heavy stare on her person. 

"What?" She blinks unafraid once she finds him looking straight at her. Astil held her gaze for a few seconds longer before he turned away.

"It's nothing." He gently shakes his head. Not long after, a small smirk curls on his lips as he says, "hold on."

Fionera barely has time to react before her view is suddenly upside down. 

..what the hell was she supposed to hold on to?! 

His ass!?