The impromptu trip to the basement is mostly silent save for Astil's heavy breathing and Fionera's occasional grunt. None of his wounds—despite his abnormal healing—had managed to close up; Fionera could distinctly smell the fresh blood that continued to ooze every so often. 

"You—" A sudden jolt makes her choke on her own words. She wasn't sure if it was intentional but she hates him for it all the same. "—are you ok?"

"I'm fine," she hears him reply. His voice is muffled, but Fionera knows it's just because her ears are covered by her thick hair and the blood rushing to her head is making her dizzy enough that it dulls her senses.

Less than a minute later they're on the ground floor of the dorm. Astil had taken longer than she'd expected to go down the stairs, but he was unfairly wounded so Fionera didn't hold it against him... much.

"Where—?"

"Behind the stairs," she interrupts his unasked question. Now closer to their destination, the sound of thumping music suddenly enters into their ears.

Shit, Fionera thinks, I forgot the graduation party was being hosted by our dorm! 

It was bad enough that she wasn't attending, but if she were to run into anybody she knew… that'd be the absolute worst.

With the feeling of dread making itself known in the pits of her stomach, Fionera feels Astil start to move again. He jostles her higher up on his shoulder when she slid down, and she groans when it brings on a whole 'nother headache.

Bastard. She cursed in the safety of her mind. Fionera knew that now wasn't the time nor place to voice such minor vexations.

Behind the stairs unsurprisingly lay a door. It was made of wood like most tended to be, nondescript and plain for no one to look twice at. 

Fionera knew better though. 

Upon swinging the door open, she swears she hears Astil mumble something like 'more stairs?' and has to hold back from rolling her eyes. It was surprisingly childish of him.

Astil resolutely steps onto the little platform present right before the beginnings of a staircase that had seen better days. Feeling him once again resume moving, Fionera couldn't help but think about how she could make herself useful. 

Sure; she still felt a bit sluggish, hating how her magic didn't answer her call because of it. Her initial thought was to inscribe a rune on the door to further tie up their supposed pursuers. Seeing as her magic continued to stay beyond her control for the time being, she had no choice but to use her blood as a medium. 

One of the reasons that Fionera was so intuitive with magic was because she didn't just have an internal system that supported it like most other mages. No, a distinctive trait of her Race made it so that it also swam freely throughout her bloodstream. 

In an impulsive move that she otherwise wouldn't have done, Fionera bites the pad of her index finger between her unnaturally sharp canines until the skin breaks, before quickly using the fresh blood to scribble a rune on the door before Astil once again begins to move.

It would—hopefully—act as a repellent to anyone who touches the handle, or the whole door, really. The rune she'd chosen operated as a battery that drew in the surrounding natural energy to charge it up before distributing this same energy throughout the entirety of the door, creating a sort of barrier that prevented anyone from touching it.

However, this meant that the partygoers couldn't leave, either. A small price to pay for the two's extended survival if Astil's urgency is to be believed.

By the time he makes it to the bottom of the stairs, Fionera has thought of about four different ways she could get away with his murder. It was a super short descent—seconds, really—but he'd made it as painful as possible by stomping on each step on the way down so it jostled her position over his shoulder.

Despite having muscled arms and a relatively solid build— it was not soft at all. In fact, his lack of fat was so uncomfortable she had to grit her teeth every time his shoulder jabbed into her stomach.

However, before she can yell at him for this offence, they're interrupted. 

"Fionera..?" Someone calls out to them the moment the floor levels out once again. By the sounds of it, they'd just exited from wherever they came from. There was a distinct clack throughout the hallway that didn't fit in with whatever music was playing, which could only mean it was a door being closed.

Off by heart she knew that the length of the corridor was as long as a few metres, so going by the closeness of their voice, they must've just exited from the door leading into the actual party. It was, after all, the closest room to the basement's staircase entrance. Alicia had taken this into consideration when planning it — well, that and the only other room was used as storage and pretty much at the end of the entire hallway. 

No one would want to walk that far, just on the verge of an annoyance to get to.

"Fionera, is that you?"

She tenses up in Astil's hold upon hearing them repeat themselves.

Damn. That was a voice she recognised.

"Peter?" She guessed before clawing at Astil's shoulder to maneuver her upper body and right herself. In the end she ended up positioning himself fully in his arms like some overgrown child, with his hands humiliatingly resting just below her ass. 

The moment she settled, Fionera tried to indicate with her eyes for him to put her down.

He didn't.

"Put me down!" She hissed into his ear, ignoring her flushed cheeks when she realises what their current position looks like.

"Uhm.." Peter stumbles to find his words, deep blue eyes darting between the two of them. "Are you ok?"

"We're fine," Astil answers for the both of them, despite looking the most raggard. He didn't even bother to think up a lie— which definitely made them look more suspicious.

It was like it hadn't even been an option to him!

Fionera rears her head back in disbelief to properly look at him.

Are you stupid?  Her gaze seems to say as her eyebrows nearly raise all the way to her hairline. He squeezed the back of her thighs in answer, and she got the gist that he wanted her to play along.

… Fair enough. It's not like she wanted anyone else to get involved. Besides, it was just Peter. He wasn't some authority figure who demanded they give the entire truth.

"We're fine," Fionera repeats. Though the tone of her voice was suspiciously blank, and anyone with a decent pair of ears could tell she was lying.

So it really shouldn't come as such a surprise to her when Peter frowns.

"You're sure?"

She nods and.. dislikes the way something warm seems to bloom in her chest at his blatant concern.

He was a decent guy, Peter, one that tried his best to help whoever he could. It was the kind of attitude Fionera was surprised to see from someone on the Knights & Paladin track. The students swathed in white usually didn't look twice at those in Formal Studies — which wasn't out of some blood feud or generational hatred, but that their classes nor paths tended to cross. 

The two of them had first met at a mutual hangout spot in the Academy, and as time passed, they realised that their scheduled breaks were strangely aligned.

Still. His enthusiasm when approaching her was obvious to all. Fionera may be a bit dense when it came to interpersonal relationships, but his crush on her was as clear as day.

She'd rejected him once, but he'd said that he liked her as a friend far before he'd started developing more intimate feelings for her. After that particular interaction where he explained all this, Fionera finds that she probably would have come to love him — if she had opened herself up. But ultimately; she was at the academy to study, and relationships deeper than friendship felt like a distraction to her.

Another squeeze of her thigh brings her back to the present.

She looked at Astil in mild disdain out of the corner of her eye, but when she saw him incline his head to somewhere behind Peter— this same disdain eventually fizzled away into a sense of urgency.

They really shouldn't be spending so much time here so leisurely chatting. Fionera squeezes his shoulder back in understanding.

Astil takes a silent step forward with the intent to bypass Peter altogether.

"Are the two of you not here to attend the party?" Peter jutted his chin out towards the door he had earlier exited from. His question makes Astil once again pause. "Alicia's still waiting for you."

"No, I.." Fionera suddenly tensed up. "I've got something urgent to do." She quickly lied.

"And this includes Astilon?" He looked at her weirdly. After all, her and Astil had never been seen together before.

Peter takes a step forward as he frowns, blocking Astil's path. "You're sure you're ok? He's not.. forcing you to do something, is he?" 

Fionera appreciates his concern, really, and as it stands Astil was forcing her to do something. But Peter didn't need to know that. She could look after herself — besides, seeing the "Genius Knight" of the Academy looking so pathetic was enough of a reward for whatever shit he got her involved in.

… that and Fionera would never admit that she couldn't, in good conscience, turn anyone away who honestly came to her for help.

"Thanks, but I'm good," she shakes her head, "Can we pass through, please?"

Peter steps to the side with only mild suspicion, gaze flickering to where she and Astil were joined. She ignores the blush on her cheeks from being reminded about this fact.

Perhaps it's because of the fact that she's hyper aware that she hears Astil's heavy breathing. He's unnaturally laboured, and she can feel his chest heave with every breath he takes.

Shit! That's not good!

Fionera would do something about his suddenly dwindling condition if she could, but she can't. It was Alicia who had the natural constitution for healing. If.. if her magic flowed properly then maybe—just maybe—she could whip up a temporary stimulant that halted the worsening of his wounds. Because at some point without her noticing, his naturally abnormal healing seemed to have stopped.

"Well, it looks like whatever it is you're doing means you won't be coming back this way— so I may as well tell you now," Peter suddenly says, snapping her out of her inner musings.

"Tell me what..?" Fionera blinks as Astil finally shuffles past him to continue striding forward.

"That Alicia got accepted into a branch of the Solas Tower on the Western continent!"

At his words, Fionera felt like she'd been dealt a heavy blow to her stomach.

"The Solas Tower..?" She repeated to no one in particular, talking aloud to herself more than anything else. Astil continued on his way despite her still having a semblance of a conversation with Peter.

"Yeah!" The graduated Knight hollers and Fionera turns to face him over Astil's shoulder; having gotten far enough to a point that he needed to shout. "Didn't she tell you beforehand?!"

If you thought so then why did you repeat it!? "N… no!" Her expression was especially vulnerable as she realized just how important her presence at the party was. Alicia must've planned to announce it to her as well as the rest of their 'friend group' once they'd all gotten together.

However…

Fionera fights to hold back a groan. When she next met her friend she would have to do nothing short of prostrating herself on the floor to earn her forgiveness. In the meantime.. perhaps her guilt would be enough of a punishment for disappointing this close friend of hers.

"Alicia? Alicia Boulevard?" Astil suddenly said, now wheezing but still taking those big strides of his. He was almost on the verge of breaking into a full run, but hadn't, which could be for no reason other than that one wrong move and she'd lurch head first out of his arms and onto the floor. 

Although… Fionera belatedly realises this could just be because he still had open wounds that hindered his movement. Perhaps his earlier trek had taken the last of whatever energy he had to appear so flawlessly put together.

This sudden decline of health was concerning— but there wasn't much she could do to improve it.

Astil uneventfully arrives at a sharp corner and heads down it at her instruction, though there was really nowhere else for them to go.

"Yeah." Fionera nods, schooling her face back into something neutral. "You know her?"

"The.. the two of you are in..infamous." He quietly huffs, barely turning his head towards her to say, "You're both prodigy's at what.. what you do — who in the academy hasn't heard of you?"

She rolls her eyes at him. Did he have to exaggerate it like that? 

"Not as renowned as you, Mr. I'm-so-good-at-my-classes-that-I-skip-all-of-them."

"… I'm not that.. bad." He excuses while Fionera shifts to stare at him in disbelief. "Maybe they just have nothing more to teach me?"

She honestly has nothing to say to that.

A somewhat comfortable silence descends upon them, and barely a handful of seconds later they finally arrive at their destination.