"Against your ward again?" Janius asked, "I hope you've not got some kind of ward trick I'm unaware of that drains my magicka."

The two of them took up positions and prepared the spells in their hands. While Janius knew that he could make a stream of fire akin to a candle, he decided to be fair and assume that Meesei meant a basic stream of fire that would engulf an area in front of him.

The signal was heard and the two mages carefully extended a hand each and let loose cones of frost and fire.

The space in front of Sabine glowed white and condensed soft, frigid steam in the humid air. In some places little crystals of snow would appear. The plant life of course became frosted over.

Janius' stream of flames seemed about as powerful, though it was all but completely absorbed or deflected by Meesei's ward. The small amount of detritus and undergrowth between them shrivelled, smoked, and eventually blackened in the heat.

Neither of them seemed particularly strained by their spells. In fact, they even traded glances while they cast. It wasn't for another half a minute that looks of concentration started to harden on their faces. Another half a minute later, there was a gaseous thud as Janius' stream gave a sputter. Janius grit his teeth and his stream stabilised, though he looked to be struggling. Sabine's face was a blank mask as she put all the effort she could into keeping her stream going. Janius held for another ten seconds or so before another sputter sounded, and another, and before long it was mere puffs of flame drawing from magicka that was no longer there.

Janius released his held breath and stopped, bringing his hand back. He looked over to Sabine curiously. "Did you beat me? I wasn't paying attention."

Sabine had her eyes to the ground. Her stream had stopped as well, though more quietly than Janius' had. She looked up to him with a disappointed frown and shook her head. "Mine ended first," she said, defeated.

[hr]
"How long have you two been together now? A couple of months?" Gallus looked up thoughtfully, "I've been in relationships for that long, certainly. Though if your asking what to expect from here on out, well...that really depends on you and Sabine." Gallus brushed a hand through the air between them. "If Sabine's not been in a relationship this long, perhaps she doesn't know what to expect either. However, sooner or later at least one of you is going to grow from this 'having fun' phase and question what you want from the relationship. What comes up might be confronting, but it's worth thinking about."

Gallus clasped his hands together. "It might be some heavy thought, but do you know what you want out of it? Just say whatever comes to mind, no bad answers exist here."