Arcane Dropout

by Edmund Hughes

  “I’m not entirely sure,” she admitted. “I think… maybe it’s better if we don’t find out?”

  She glanced up at him, blinking a bit too fast. Lee put his hand on top of hers and squeezed.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked. “Why don’t I go and grab you some food from the dining hall?”

  “Ooh, ooh, yes please!” said Tess. “Can you bring me some tea and biscuits? Fruit juice if they have it, too. Oh, and on the off chance that there’s cake…”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  CHAPTER 35

  Lee made his way north across campus, toward the dining hall within the Ewix Center. It was still close to lunchtime, which gave him fair odds of fulfilling all or at least most of Tess’s requests. It felt like the lazy Saturday afternoon that it was, which was at least part of the reason why it took him so long to realize what was wrong when a few slow falling snowflakes descended through the air in front of him.

  He stopped in place, glancing upward in time to see a swirling white cloud descend over the college grounds. There weren’t many other students walking around, which was probably a good thing, given the sudden rush of frigid air that accompanied the unexpected change in weather.

  Primhaven’s magical climate shield had failed. Lee didn’t know enough about the college to guess how or why it had happened, but he was sure that it wasn’t good. He pulled his kris dagger out from the inside of his jacket and unsheathed it.

  Wielding a weapon openly on a college campus, even in a place like Primhaven, was an act Lee would have normally avoided. The snow was falling in thick curtains now, however, and the wind sent it swirling around him, limiting his field of view to no more than a few dozen feet in either direction.

  The flowers and green grass that had made Primhaven’s grounds seem so colorful and lush were quickly covered by a thick layer of powder. Lee ran forward, scanning his surroundings as the winds intensified, making it hard for him to even know where he was.

  He had a strong suspicion that the specter he’d encountered in Gillum had something to do with whatever was going on. If he was right, he would be the only one inside the walls that stood any real chance at stopping it. Lee spotted the statue of Shay Morrigan in the distance and began jogging toward it, eager to find a landmark to reorient himself.

  “All residents of Primhaven should take cover in the nearest building.” Lead Instructor Mattis’s voice seemed to echo from nowhere and everywhere at once, loud and urgent. “This goes for students, practicing mages, and instructors. Stay inside until the issue affecting the campus’s climate shield can be resolved. I repeat…”

  She began the message over again from the beginning. Lee tuned it out, approaching the statue and trying his best to get a sense of the area around him through the blizzard and icy fog. He was shivering and had to put his kris dagger away as the grip became too cold for him to justify holding onto.

  Lee caught sight of a silhouette in the distance, the outline of a teenage girl walking through the snow at a leisurely pace. Even before he could make out the fine details of whoever it was, he sensed that something was wrong. She wasn’t wearing college robes or any clothing at all, judging from the definition he could see in the curves of her body.

  As she drew closer, Lee made out more of who, or rather, what, he was facing. The girl’s skin seemed impossibly pale, and it took him longer than it should have to realize it was because she was covered in fine, white fur.

  The strangeness of her body didn’t end there. From the waist up she looked almost like a normal—albeit rather busty—mature teenager, but her ears were long and jutted upward, like those of a rabbit or a hare. Her legs were different too: she had thick thighs and a generous butt combined with knee joints that bent at an unusual angle and a small, furry bobtail. She smiled at him and slowly lifted her hand up, as though reaching out to beckon him toward her.

  “What are you?” muttered Lee. “Are you the one doing this?”

  She took a step toward him. Her eyes glowed a deep, silvery blue. She bounced as she moved and snowflakes tumbled loose from the fur of her ears, which had fallen back to hang down her head almost in imitation of a normal woman with long hair. Her lips were deep purple in color, and she moved them, silently at first, and then forming proper words.

  “Warm…” whispered the girl. “You look so warm…”

  She jumped toward him, launching herself into the air and scattering powdery snow in her wake. Lee made the mistake of hesitating instead of immediately reaching for his kris dagger, and the next thing he experienced was the monster girl’s furry feet colliding with his chest.

  He tumbled across the snow, sliding to a stop flat on his back. As he started to rise, she jumped again, this time landing in a straddle on top of him with her powerful legs pinning him tight to the ground.

  “Ooh!” she said. She made several more noises that sounded more like the squeaks of a mouse or rather, a rabbit, and started touching his face with her hand.

  Even just making basic contact with her was enough to sap away at Lee’s willpower. He felt himself far more focused on the point of contact between his crotch and her furry thighs and buttocks than he should have been. He reached up to push her off him and ended up groping her breasts instead. That part of her, at least, still felt extremely human, though the soft white fur covered all but her nipples, which were both the same color purple as her lips.

  “Warm!” said the monster girl. “Warm, warm, warm!”

  She leaned forward and kissed him. Lee tried to pull away, sensing the wrongness of it as soon as her lips made contact with his. He didn’t feel cold anymore, even though he was half buried in the snow and more was coming down by the second.

  The monster girl began pulling at his clothes, lifting his shirt up and pulling his pants down. Lee was disappointed, but not surprised, to find that he was hard. He was just lucid enough to recognize that he was dealing with an entity that had an arousal aura, not unlike Nurse Susie with her succubus powers, but far more powerful.

  He kissed her again and let his hands dance over her breasts. The monster girl’s hands stroked his cock quickly, almost as though trying to warm it. She lowered herself down and Lee discovered another part of her anatomy that still felt extremely human.

  “Ooh!” squeaked the girl. “Warm…”

  It was warm. It was wet. It was weird. Lee could feel how the soft, silky fur that coated the rest of her grew just as thickly on her crotch and the interior of her thighs. The monster girl put her powerful, rabbit-like legs to good use, bouncing herself up and down on his tool with near reckless abandon.

  “Stop,” whispered Lee. “Stop this!”

  He tried to focus and extend his mystic stream. If he could manage it, much of the power of the sexual aura she’d used on him would be dispelled. He needed to breathe, to find the state of calm that had seemed so easy while casting with Harper earlier that day.

  The monster girl let out another high-pitched squeal and pressed her hands down on his chest. Were they even hands? Lee focused on her thumbs and fingers, feeling a bizarre mixture of confusion and disgust as his eyes tried to determine whether they attached to paws or palms. In a strange way, it only fed into the heat of his arousal, like dirty oil onto an open flame.

  He resolved to at least make an effort to take control of the encounter if he couldn’t find a way to defeat her. He ran his hands through her silky fur, finding a breast with one and reaching up to take hold of her long, pliable ears with the other. The monster girl gasped as he touched them. Lee yanked down, but that only sent her into a series of wiggles on his cock that was pleasurable enough to distract him from his focus.

  “Close?” asked the monster girl.

  “What?”

  “Ooh…” She arched her back and undulated her hips. “Close. Close!”

  She leaned forward, pressing her body against his and planting a rapid series of inaccurate kisses across his lips and cheeks. Her hips began to move in e
arnest, bouncing and riding him with the kind of overwhelming force and speed that brought clarity to the phrase “fucking like rabbits.”

  At that point, Lee was aware of his mouth trying to form words and make sounds. Any vestiges of self-control faded as the monster girl put on a performance that he doubted anything less than another supernatural entity would ever be able to match. He seized her furry waist and gave in, pumping up into her until he couldn’t hold out any longer and finally delivering on the hot, sticky warmth she’d been begging for.

  “Ooh,” cooed the monster girl.

  Her eyes flashed a dangerous shade of blue and Lee got the distinct feeling that he was about to overstay his welcome. His mind was clear now, and he managed to pull his kris dagger out and slash at her. The edge of the blade didn’t connect, but that was solely because of how she leapt backward, finally disentangling herself from him.

  The biting sensation of the cold came back in that instant. Lee gasped, and his teeth started chattering as he felt several worrying parts of his body go numb from the chill. He started pulling his clothes back on, glancing around the swirling blizzard as he heard a new set of approaching footsteps.

  “Thumper!” cried a voice. “Thumper, stop this! Get back into my tower this…”

  The monster girl let out a screeching hiss and began bouncing off into the distance. The snowstorm’s intensity seemed to travel with her. Lee still didn’t take any chances, pulling his shirt and jeans back on and dusting as much ice and snow off his body as he could.

  Head Wizard Odarin slid to a stop next to Lee, eyebrows shooting up in a mixture of horror and surprise. The Head Wizard looked Lee up and down and cleared his throat.

  “You say you ran into a rabbit monster?” he asked. “How strange!”

  “I didn’t say anything,” said Lee.

  “Ahaha, yes, well, of course you didn’t.” The Head Wizard clasped his hands together. “Here, why don’t you come along with me for a moment? I need to explain a few things about what may or may not have just happened, you see.”

  The snowstorm had died down further, which gave Lee enough visibility to note that the monster girl no longer seemed to be on the nearby campus grounds. He considered his options and decided that he was more interested in finding out why the Head Wizard seemed so shifty than he was in getting back to Tess.

  “Sure,” said Lee. “An explanation would be nice.”

  CHAPTER 36

  The Head Wizard brought Lee into the First Tower and up to a private study on one of the higher levels. He lit the fireplace with a mere snap of his fingers, and Lee oriented the comfortable chair that the Head Wizard offered him toward the flames, warming up his frostbitten extremities.

  “You look like death itself,” said Odarin. “Here, let’s start by warming ourselves up properly, shall we?”

  He reached into an ornate cabinet and pulled out a half-full decanter of blue-colored liquor, along with two glasses. Odarin began humming as he poured some out for each of them.

  “You don’t mind gin, do you?” he asked. “I usually have more variety in my cabinet, but the start of the academic year is always a tad stressful.”

  “That’s fine,” said Lee. “You do realize that I’m 19, though? Technically under the legal drinking age here in Alaska.”

  He wouldn’t have pointed it out if not for the fact that he almost felt bad about how dreadful an example Odarin was setting as the prime authority figure of a college for struggling young mages.

  “Oh, it’s fine,” said Odarin. “The Frostfire Tavern serves underage students, anyway. It’s not like it’s that much of a taboo.”

  “You know about that?”

  “Of course I do,” said Odarin. “I was, er, the one who worked out that detail with the proprietor. It makes my job easier if the students have somewhere more interesting than the campus to be on their days off, you know?”

  The Head Wizard let out a somewhat forced laugh and took a sip of his gin. Lee did the same, almost coughing as he realized that it was far stronger than he’d expected.

  “So getting to the point, Lee,” said Odarin. “I can call you Lee, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Part of, er, my responsibility here at Primhaven as the Head Wizard is to keep abreast of the local supernatural entities,” said Odarin.

  “Keep abreast of them?” asked Lee, suppressing a smile.

  “Aware, keep aware of them, I mean,” said Odarin. “An odd turn of phrase on my part, ha. The entity that you may or may not have encountered is known as the snow bunny. A type of hybrid hare-were slash ice elemental. I managed to capture her before the start of the semester and, well you see, I was, er, conducting some... very important research on her.”

  “You called her Thumper when you were shouting after her,” said Lee. “Do you name all of the supernatural entities you capture? Also, how exactly did she escape?”

  Odarin let out a nervous laugh and tapped his knuckles on the table. “You heard me shouting? Ha, yeah, I uh, I guess I should have expected that. Look, we were in the middle of some... very important research when she escaped.”

  Odarin glanced from side to side and then poured himself more gin.

  “What’s the issue, exactly?” asked Lee. “Are you worried about the threat that Thumper poses to the campus?”

  “Oh, no, she’s long gone by now,” said Odarin. “Probably miles away from Primhaven.”

  Odarin scratched at his neck nervously. Lee leaned back in his chair, opting to yield his half of the conversation to the silence.

  “Look, Lee, the research I was performing on the snow bunny was top secret,” said Odarin. “If the students, or, uh, other faculty members found out about it, the integrity of some of my experiments might be compromised!”

  Lee did his best to keep his face serious as he gave a slow, understanding nod.

  “I get your meaning, Head Wizard,” he said.

  “So you’ll keep quiet, then?” asked Odarin. “Please? I wouldn’t want to have to use a dream weaving spell on you to keep you from talking, ha ha. That, uh, was a joke. Oh god. Please, please don’t tell the Lead Instructor I just said that.”

  Lee tapped his fingers on the table, drawing the Head Wizard’s attention. He finished his glass of gin, coughed slightly, and then seized the opportunity he’d been given.

  “I won’t tell a soul. Of course, since I’m doing you a favor, you’ll owe me one.”

  “A favor,” said Odarin. “Yes, well, I suppose that’s fair.”

  “If I was, say, struggling with one of my classes, would that be something that you could help me out with?” asked Lee.

  “It would be my pleasure!” said Odarin. “That’s extremely reasonable.”

  “Then we have a deal,” said Lee. “Glad we could talk this through, Head Wizard.”

  Odarin breathed a sigh of relief, sagging into his seat. He grinned at Lee and snapped as he pointed a finger at him.

  “You’re a straight shooter, Lee,” he said. “Here, take this with you, too. I’ve never been a big gin fan.”

  “Ah, really, I’m fine…”

  ***

  The snow was already starting to melt as Lee made his way back across campus, carrying with him the mostly empty bottle of gin that Odarin had so kindly insisted on him taking. Lead Instructor Mattis had lifted the lockdown, though it was clear from the tone of her announcement that she was unaware of what the initial cause of the snowstorm had been.

  It was early evening, and Lee was exhausted. It wasn’t until he’d made his way back to his dorm and found Tess sleeping in his bed that he remembered what his initial reason for going out had been in the first place. He gently extended his mystic stream and sat down next to her, running a hand through her soft brown hair.

  “Hey,” he whispered.

  “Lee,” yawned Tess. “Did you get the cake?”

  “There was an incident. I forgot to grab your food.”

  “That’s okay,” said Tes
s. She lifted her arms and wrapped them into a hug around his waist. “This is enough.”

  “Are you feeling better?” asked Lee.

  Tess blinked a few times. “Yeah, actually, I am. Surprisingly so.”

  Lee wondered if the absorption of essence that she’d talked about before was something that she needed to do consciously, or if perhaps a part of it happened automatically due to the characteristics of their pact.

  “Hey Tess,” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  “A snow bunny attacked the campus,” said Lee. “Some type of monster-girl hybrid elemental entity. She pinned me down and, well, one thing led to another…”

  He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but Tess gave him a small, mischievous smile.

  “That sounds kind of like rape,” she said.

  “You can’t rape the willing,” said Lee.

  “You shouldn’t say things like that, Lee!” she said. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I am.” Lee shifted onto the bed, pulling her into a deeper hug.

  “It does give me an explanation, at least,” said Tess.

  “An explanation for what?”

  “Why I was so cold,” she said. “And why I felt so…”

  She cleared her throat and buried her face against his shoulder. One of her hands slid down between her legs.

  “Tess?” asked Lee. “Hey, are you blushing?”

  “No more questions.”

  “Wait a second,” said Lee. “What were you doing here while I was gone? Were you—”

  “I know what you’re about to say, and a proper lady would never indulge herself like that!”

  “Tess, you did, didn’t you!”

  “I didn’t!” squealed Tess. “But even if I had, I’m classy enough that I would never openly admit to it.”

  “That’s as good as a confession in my book.”

  Lee started tickling her in earnest, and Tess playfully retaliated by hitting him with a pillow.

  CHAPTER 37