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The shadow fairy walked deeper into the room with Farah trailing behind her, her brows knitted together as her gaze fell on the wooden podium standing in the centre of the room with a large yet shallow bowl resting on top of it. As she moved closer to the bowl, she realised there was a cluster of glowing crystals resting along the curved bottom.

"Today we're going to work on materialisation," Farah spoke as she moved to stand opposite Vienna. "Shadow merging and travelling are useful for stealth, but having the ability to transform them into physical beings will be useful in a fight. You saw how Terra ensnared the Burned One with vines. With practice, you'll be able to do that with shadows."

"I'm still struggling with it," Vienna admitted. "I can somewhat conjure shadows.." she held out her palm, allowing a small ball of wispy shadows to form in her hand. "..but they disappear seconds after they turn into a solid state." She let them disappear with a small sigh.

"That's okay. We can work on that," Farah said with a soft smile. She gestured towards the bowl in front of her. "These crystal shards have a magical affinity and help amplify your powers. Hold out your hands above them, and let the magic flow through you."

With a nod the girl hovered her hands above the shimmering crystals, letting out soft steady breaths as she did so. Her eyes transformed into a bright violet as she felt a surge of magic rush through her, and looked down to find wisps of black weaving through her fingers, small tendrils branching off as if they had a mind of their own.

"Good," Farah praised, "now remember, to any other fairy, shadows simply exist as they are. But to a shadow fairy such as yourself, they're a part of you. They're essentially an extension of yourself, and you can manipulate them in any way you desire.

Vienna furrowed her brows in concentration as she stared at the dancing shadows, her fingers curling slightly as she tensed. The shadows continued to move around her fingers, unbothered by her obvious advances to try and make it materialise in the air.

"Don't think too hard about it Vie," Farah advised. "You need to stay relaxed and focus more on how the energy feels rather than trying to force it." Vienna nodded as she listened to the woman, and gave another attempt.

With crystal shards enhancing her magic, Vienna finally managed to see progress after half an hour of disappointed sighs and words of affirmation from Farah. Rather than lasting a few seconds, the shadow branches could now last about a minute in corporeal form before turning into a mist again. She still had a long way to go until it became a second nature to her, but with Farah's guidance she was positive she could do it.

"Brilliant," Farah praised as she watched branches wrap around the bowl like the roots of a true. Her attention moved to her phone as the screen lit up followed by a small chime. Her eyes darted across the message across the screen before she looked up at Vienna again. "There are some matters that need attending so i'm going to cut today's lesson short."

Vienna nodded at the older woman. "See you tomorrow then?"

"Of course. Keep practicing every so often until then." With a quick nod the woman strided out of the room, leaving Vienna in the room with shadows as company. Better company than most.

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Vienna sat with Adrianne in the main foyer of the academy, the latter aggressively stabbing her food as she muttered to herself.

"I can't believe that jackass humiliated Terra like that," Adri spoke as she glanced up at Vienna. "I can understand Riven doing it, you know, as the resident prick of Alfea, but Dane? I thought he was cool."

Vienna sighed as she listened to the girl. "I can't tell if he's been a snake this whole time or if he's been infected by a snake." Her gaze moved over Adri's shoulder as she watched Riven and Beatrix stride into the hallway. "Speaking of snakes," she muttered.

Adrianne turned her head slightly to observe what Vienna was looking at, before turning back around to violently stab her fork into her discarded food. "I've lost my appetite."

"In that case," Vienna reached over and snatched the abandoned muffin away from the girl. "Better not waste food."

The two girls turned again as several laughs caught their attention, the sound having come from Riven and Beatrix.

"I can't tell what's more tragic. The fact he thinks that Terra is gonna forgive him for that video, or the fact that he believes the changeling bullshit that you fed him."

The boy let out a startled cry as a glint of metal caught his attention. He stumbled away from the pillar he had been leaning on, only to find a dagger sticking out inches away from where his head had been.

Vienna smirked as the boy turned to face her, a thunderous expression on his face and he stormed over to her table with Adri.

"Do you think that's funny?" he questioned in a raised tone, his gaze on her like two daggers. "You could have taken my ear off!"

Vienna shrugged casually. "I wish I could take credit, but that was all Adrianne." He turned to find the girl in question snickering to herself. "And to answer your question, yes, I did find it funny."

Riven scrambled to clap back at the two girls, but aside from his face turning a deeper shade of red from the anger, nothing else happened.

"Didn't I warn you already?" Vienna questioned as she feigned confusion. "Cause I don't remember Terra telling me that you apologised. Or any of you for that matter." She comically peered around the boy, and found Beatrix standing in the same position as before with a bored expression. "Speaking of, I only see two thirds of the loser squad here. Where is the other one?"

"I don't know, I don't keep tabs on him." He jabbed a finger in both girls' directions. "I'm warning you. Stay out of my way. And keep your dumb little knives away from me."

"They can't be dumb if they managed to rile you up this much."

"Hey," Adri spoke again with a questioning look on her face. "Has anyone ever told you that you look like Nuka from the lion king?"

Riven simply let out a yell of frustration before stomping off, sending the girls into a fit of laughter. Vienna clutched her stomach as she laughed, the comedic image of Riven as Nuka haunting her brain.

"I think my appetite is back now," Adri spoke as she attempted to calm her breathing down, her hand reaching out to swipe her muffin back.

"I'm not even gonna fight you for it," Vienna spoke as she looked at the girl. "You deserve it."

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Once again, I'm literally making up the plot as I go along, and for some reason it always comes back to Vienna knowingly triggering Riven.

I've also realised that Vienna is just a mix between Nico, Rhysand, Azriel and the Darkling in terms of her shadow abilities.

The last half isnt edited but I felt bad for not posting sooner so here it is.

A x