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And just like that, the conversation was over. Aaron promised to consider cutting everything he held dear out of his life, and with that, Varis was on to the next mundane task. Aaron supposed he couldn’t blame him - the world didn’t stop turning for the fleeting struggles of mages - but after the week he’d had, everything coming to a neat little end so suddenly felt like whiplash.

It was enough of a system shock to keep Aaron on his knees as Varis left, the mage staring at the couch cushions in a stupor until the [i]slam[/i] of Varis’ door woke him up. Even still, the idea of standing felt like an insurmountable task; exhaustion crept in fast as his former anxiety trickled away, and with both body and heart so heavy, the floor was starting to feel like as comfortable a place as any to close his eyes at long last and forget the world for a while. 

But, he acknowledged with a sigh, there was no time for that. While it had been far from his mind all week, class [i]was[/i] starting today, and with Varis back, in an instant he was expected to go back to normal. So, though his knees shook as he hauled himself to his feet, Aaron collected the two glasses and washed them, doing his best to fight through the swirling fog in his head and get on with the night. 

He got more and more aware of his own sorry state as he put everything away, and by the time he was done he made a beeline for the shower, tempted to burn his clothes rather than hamper them. After a thorough scrub, he even allowed himself a few extra minutes in the hot water, hoping it might bring him back to his senses. The heat was nice, at least; now that he was finally able to relax - by his standards, anyway - it was clear he’d been holding himself stiffly, the muscles in his back and shoulders loudly complaining as they finally started to unwind. He let the water run over his face, almost a little too hot, as if he could wash away the bags under his eyes, but only succeeded in making himself sleepy. Jamming the shower to cold fixed that problem, and he finally stepped out, shivering, but awake. 

The rest of his routine took a little longer than usual, too - he’d let his stubble go more than he ever usually allowed, too nervous before to use his straight razor with shaking hands - but after much struggle he finally managed to get himself looking halfway presentable, dressed and waiting in the kitchen for Varis to decide it was time to go. With a few minutes to kill, Aaron finally opened his phone, wincing a little at the inordinate number of missed messages. To his dismay, if not his surprise, most of them were from Lilie - as if he needed yet another reason to feel like garbage. He felt worse and worse as he read them, nights’ worth of totally ignored greetings and questions. He didn’t mean to ignore her; he’d tried to at least give her a few signs of life over the week. But he’d been running himself so ragged that it was easy to lose track of time, and he’d been going non-stop since his arrival at the Academy. 

Aaron shook his head at himself, laying his forehead in his hand. There he was again, making excuses for himself. He’d let his imagination get the best of him, throwing aside his other obligations, and that was the end of it. He really owed Lilie an apology, but it felt cheap to do it over text. So, after a few attempts, he decided on the decent course of action. 

[indent][color=f0d705][i]> Hey Lil, it’s a long story, but everything’s alright. Can we meet before class? I really need to talk to you. [/i][/color][/indent]
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