"Come on, I have something to show you!" Rissie pulled her tutor along, he providing as much resistance as he could without toppling the little girl over, the ever-present frown still present as ever. Whatever it was that his pupil had to show him, there was no way that it could be as important as schoolwork. Why, today they were going to cover the Pick-Me-Up spell, his favorite... again. It was good to relearn such useful spells every week, he had decided, with the excuse that since Rissie didn't have field training to pound the magic into her memory, book training would have to do. In reality, his extreme partiality for this spell was from an ineptitude in his own white magics, and he'd been doing his best to cover up that he'd already taught Rissie almost everything that he knew. Almost: he'd managed to stretch it out long enough that they weren't quite finished with new things yet, and good thing, too, since she'd already begun whining about not learning anything in the seven hours he got to "enjoy" in her company. He would insist that the reason she learned so little was because of interruptions like the present one, but then she'd just say that no, it was because he was a grump. Which he was not. This was not the face of a grump, this was the face of a... studious professor. And said professor was always too busy thinking "big thoughts" to wear anything on his face but a contemplative frown. Not that Rissie was the only one who told him he looked like a grump, but really none of their opinions mattered. He would frown if he wanted to. Rissie had managed to drag him up two flights of stairs and to her study, and finally released his sleeves to gesture widely at her desk, upon which sat various books and one vial of an almost-purple liquid. "I made a potion! And I want yooooou to try it out!" She got around behind the teacher and pushed him now, against the friction of his firmly-planted heels, toward the probably terrible concotion that he would eventually, more-likely-than-not, drink down reluctantly just so that they could get a move on. This wasn't the first time that he'd been in this situation. There had been the time with the potion that gave him hiccups (though Rissie said she was sorry and that the potion hadn't actually been made to do anything), the one that tasted like smashed pears in vinegar (smashed, not normal-old pears. Rissie had insisted on the distinction, and he'd kind of agreed, too. The words "smashed pears" had come to his mind upon first drinking, not just "pears"), and the one that had made his tongue swell up until they had to take him to the infirmary, where the nurse kindly spent some time explaining allergies to Rissie. Hopefully they were past any repeats of that one. He let her pester him for a good two or three minutes before relenting, and sniffed the almost odorless liquid for another few before downing it. Rissie ran off to get her pictobox to take pictures "for posterity's sake", and the teacher got to be alone for maybe thirty seconds. By the time that Rissie was back, he'd collapsed in a sleeping mass on the ground. Well that had gone as well as she'd dared to hope! Rissie jabbed at the man with her foot a few times to make sure he was actually truly asleep, and then her smile grew even larger. Today was the day. She was gonna do the biggest thing in her entire life today, and her professor was going to help. Not that he knew that he would be doing so, but Rissie decided that she would wait a week or two longer before complaining about him again and ending up with a new tutor. He deserved at least that much for aiding her in getting outside to see the town on this Carnival of Time. But the carnival would start the next day! It was going to be an odd wait, out there beyond the walls that she called home. But she couldn't have escaped tomorrow, because the teacher wasn't going to come over that day: something about it being a holiday and he didn't "intend to spend my Clocktower Festivities sitting in this house making sure that you don't misbehave." And nor did Rissie. And whereas other years she'd settled for making sure that she misbehaved, today it was time to go all-out. Outside the walls, that was. Her plan was perfect. She'd been working on tuning an illusion to look just like this professor, since she knew that the guardsmen never bothered him; his grumpy face was enough to keep them from asking questions. She would escape one day early since he wouldn't be at the house tomorrow, but that would doubtless be no problem; she could already hear the starts of wares being bartered, and surely finding somewhere to sleep wouldn't be that hard. Maybe she could just climb a tree and sleep in the branches; she'd read plenty of books that used that method, so it must have been a good one. But she had to get out of here before the sleeping potion wore out. She grabbed her nearly-empty bag, ran through a mental checklist of what else she would need (nothing), and slung it into position over her shoulder. No need for books for two days, certainly she'd be able to find something better to do with her time. She eased down the stairs, and then, as the clock tolled the hour after the professor's arrival, she cast the spell that would make all this possible. Where once little Rissie had been standing now stood her tutor, reflected perfectly visually, all the way down to that frown. Copying the way that he walked, Rissie (for it was, of course, her under the disguise) approached the gate and, without the guards even giving her a second look, stepped through. Haha, she was free! For the first time in like, forever, she was going to see what the outside world was like!