#pops a bottle of champagne but it's actually just apple juice. WIZARD DIVORCE

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

“So this is your College,” she says, without turning around. They haven’t spoken in—well, long enough to forget just how solid his presence feels, but not so long that she doesn’t recognize his step. He still stomps like a mammoth and drags his feet. Worse in the snow, always.

He comes to stand beside her, a professional distance from his shoulder to hers. “Impressed?”

It’s certainly meant to be impressive, at least—the stonework polished, gleaming; the towers academically tall. He’s had banners put up in too many places with a symbol she doesn’t doubt he designed himself. Waste of runework to shield that much delicate embroidery from the elements; they’ll be moved indoors well before Frostfall, she thinks to herself. “I noticed the statue.” He preens, the way his chest puffs out visible out the corner of her eye. Twitching a smirk, she says, “Funny you didn’t have it made of yourself, though.”

“Of course it’s—”

“Fellow they got to do it instead is obviously much too handsome.”

He splutters, tugs in irritation on one thick braid of his moustache. “You don’t have anything meaningful to say?”

“Hm.” She feigns deep contemplation. “What did you leave out of this one?”

“I didn’t leave anything out. If you’re here just to insult me, Ulfsild—”

“Someone’s got to remind you that you’re only a man while you’re signing your byline in titles, Archmage,” she says, light as the flakes freezing on her eyelashes. She breathes slow into her palms, curls the warmer air around her face to melt them again. Her fingers twinge. “And no one else seems particularly keen on doing the job. Kitchen?”

“It’s got a kitchen. You don’t like the title?”

“Makes you sound like a pompous ass, which is accurate, but I hadn’t thought you wanted everyone to know. Living quarters?”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“Library?” When he doesn’t answer, she barks a laugh, incredulous, and turns to look at him at last. He’s staring very pointedly at the central building and not at her. “Did you not put a goddamned library in your school, Shal?”

“There are plenty of shelves. Why would anyone borrow a book when they can just keep it for future reference—”

“You are going to kill me,” she says cheerfully. “I’ll laugh myself to death one day when you forget something important in your grand old quest to pluck down the stars. Watch, you’ll go to show off how easily you stride from here to Hammerfell in a single step, ready to revolutionize magical travel, and you’ll leave behind your own head because you didn’t think to cast down instead of up.”

“At least I’d have done it. More than some can say.” He’s silent for a moment, snow dusting his beard. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he’d oiled it just recently. He never did it this early in the week, though.

But. Well. Routines change just as well as people do, she supposes. She spells off the ache in her knuckles—comes back quicker than she’d like, these days—and shakes out her hands. Folds her arms and studies him. She needs to see his face for this part. “I read your piece on integrating runework during construction.”

He has the audacity to not so much as twitch a greying whisker at this. “Found it riveting enough to come discuss in person, did you? Nostalgic for old times?”

“I want my notes back.”

“You took,” he says evenly, “all your things already. Thirty years ago, you’ll recall.”

“You just happened, then, to remember exactly how I explicated the energy renewal process in layered stone—”

“Evidently, yes. Believe it or not, Ulfie, you do leave an impression.” His voice is dry. He flicks her an amused look, crosses his arms in perfect mirror of hers. “I’ll make a footnote in the reprint if it’s rankled you so much.”

“Footnote! You used my diagrams, Shal. From—” She shifts her jaw, finding it tight. She still spits sparks when she says the name, and the familiar static tingle in her teeth feels a warning. Instead, she takes a breath. “At least spell indeko right, you old fool. There’s no c.”

“What? Yes there is.”

“There’s not.”

“I’m not having this argument again.” He starts for the iron gate. “Come inside if you’re done and we can talk about anything else.”

She puts out a hand. He stops abruptly at the lock of the gate yanking into place with a horrible metal sound. “That’ll rust if you aren’t careful,” she says with a nod. “You really don’t ever learn, do you?”

He tips his head back, staring bleakly at the sky. “Let go of the gate.”

“Give me—whatever you kept. I told you I don’t want you using my notes. You put it at the wrong stage anyway, and I hope it was only in the paper and not in the construction here—though if you’re just going to give this one away to the first devil to dangle a promise in your face then maybe it doesn’t matter so much whether it stands or falls—”

“Let go of the gate,” he turns; “you’re going to break something.”

“Like you can’t put it together again,” she snaps.

“You know what I meant.”

Her hands are shaking. She doesn’t let go. “Swallow all the stars you want, Shalidor, but don’t pretend you’re here with the rest of us on the ground.”

“You don’t have to be on the ground. If you weren’t so damn myopic—” He cuts himself off, lifts a hand to sever her grip with a twist of his middle finger and his thumb, leaves her hands burning and claw-curled, rigid. The way he’s looking at her has her swallowing sparks again, running her tongue over her teeth. “Come inside. Stay here and do something great instead of theorizing yourself to death. Or at least let someone look at your hands. Is it worse?”

She huffs out a breath at a spasm in her palm. Stands up straighter. “You know we can’t work together.”

“You don’t even want to try?”

“No, Shal.” Shaking out her hands and tucking them into her sleeves, she closes her eyes for a moment. “I hope this one works out, I do. You don’t need me for that.”

He laughs. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t think so.” Gesturing to the gate, he says, “You’re welcome to search my rooms if you like. You won’t find anything in your hand, though, I promise.”

She doesn’t put much stock in his promises. Exhaustion presses at her shoulders: too much, again. She ought to go. Come back when she’s not dragging threads of magicka, fraying at every edge. But that would give him time to rearrange, so she shifts her jaw instead, makes her voice light. “Haven’t even seen the grounds and you’re inviting me up to your rooms.”

His eyebrows lift. “If you like.”

“Is the tall strapping statue model up there?” His face contorts—and despite herself, she feels her mouth pull into a grin.

#writing tag #Ulfsild #pops a bottle of champagne but it's actually just apple juice. WIZARD DIVORCE #not *necessarily* canonical but I liked exploring the dynamic here so. hands it to you #many many many years from now Kharish is in the courtyard staring at the statue like 'PLEASE explain about your ex-wife.' #she comes inside and tells Urag that didn't work bc the only thing that happened was she got the distinct impression the statue is wrong??