“So, what have you attempted towards fulfilling the terms of your vow?” Siofra asked Darius, as he and Esti finished telling the story of how Esti had become bound to him to his new bondservant. Siofra was in her ‘human’ form. (Human-like, rather. No one would mistake her for anything other than an sídhe, though they might not be able to place her clan.)
“Esti, I’ve told you that you don’t need to do that.” Esti was cleaning Darius’ room. Again. He kept telling her she didn’t need to, that whatever the effects of the spell he’d cast to keep her from a worse fate, he was not going to order her around, or make her serve him.
She stopped, and came over to where he was working. Studying, really. “Darius, I’m not cleaning your room because I love you. I’m cleaning your room because I’m a meliae.”
“Are you sure this is a good idea?”
Esti ignored Darius. “Come on, we’re getting close. This way.”
They were in the sub-basement of The University, well beyond where second-year students were expected to be. “I’m just saying that whomever put your tree down here isn’t going to like this. We should get a professor or something.”
“And tell them I’m a dryad? No way.”
“Meliae.” Darius corrected. The difference was normally a pet peeve of Esti’s. She just headed through the catacombs.
A general timeline, containing both written and unwritten events in the story:
(Note that year 1 was a normal year for Darius Kimball. He probably helped people as a friend, and at some point he saw Esti getting out of her tree.)
Darius’s life at a student at a university for magic.
<!–break–>This story has had several incarnations, and I’ve tried to turn it into a webcomic several times. It is not an ‘EMC’ story, though there are hints of MC in it. It’s more of a Harry Potter meets… Well, a few different fantasy series’ I’ve read.