They arrived in the same shuddering jolt combined with the sensation of Dryht's stomaching dropping out from under him as the time Ewan had teleported them to his house. When the bright light cleared and Dryth felt safe opening his eyes he saw they were in the same room they'd left the Association campus from. Ewan was already striding out the door looking as chipper as ever as Dryth recovered and checked on Sindri.

  "I didn't like that." Sindri complained, wrapping himself tighter around Dryth's neck, but thankfully not tight enough to choke. "That felt strange."

  "Yeah, I'm not a big fan of it either, but Ewan says you get used to it."

  "You do!" Ewan called back from the entrance to the teleportation room. "Now hurry up, I don't want to spend any more time in this dreadful place than I have to."

  Dryth hurried to catch up and together the three of them passed the very studiously expressionless guards that kept people out of the teleportation chamber.

  "This way," Ewan pointed off to one side and they headed in that direction. "We can get to everywhere we need to go from the central section of the campus, so we might as well start there."

  "Do all teleportations cause big flashes of light?" Dryth asked as they walked.

  "No. Actually teleportation doesn't usually have any visible effects at all, besides someone vanishing one place and appearing another. The light show comes from the platforms we use to go too and from the Association and other designated spots."

  "Why do they do that?"

  "Keeps people from running into each other, or for an incoming teleport coming in right as an outgoing one leaves, that can get messy. It's basically a big warning sign telling anyone who can see that a teleport is happening. The rooms we use are actually enchanted platforms that detect when someones trying to go to or from them and they shine those bright lights around when they detect the magic."

  Dryth could tell that Sindri was only half-listening to the conversation as Dryth bugged Ewan for more information about teleporting in general, he didn't get much out of his mentor who just told him that was for later lessons, because he was too interested in looking around this brand new place. He didn't yank himself around, which Dryth's neck was thankful for, but he did continuously rotate around Dryth to see everything he could as they headed for wherever Ewan was taking them. "The central section of the campus" didn't mean anything to Dryth since he'd only been here once before and no one had told him what anything was called.

  The central section turned out to be the center of the campus, which was obvious in hindsight, where most of the buildings sat around a park space filled with trees and benches. A number of people in Association robes were sitting around talking or eating meals while the enjoyed the nicely maintained space. A few of them looked askance at Ewan, who wasn't dressed in robes and instead just had a normal pair of pants and a shirt on. Dryth assumed he wasn't the target of any of the glares since his obvious youth next to Ewan's less obvious age marked him as the pitiable youth being corrupted by a bad mentor, or something like that. Anyone thinking that wasn't wrong, but Dryth was definitely a consensual party in the corruption, at least when it came to learning anything and everything including what the Association didn't want him knowing. Ewan's attitude potentially rubbing off on him was another matter entirely.

  "The one beneficial thing I will say about the continuous encroach of the bureaucratic into the magical in this kingdom is that things are at least properly labeled, including the maps they have everywhere." Ewan commented as he led them over to one such map, which had a convenient arrow pointing out where on the map that map was. "So, here's what we're going to do. I have to go deal with the bits that involve shouting at stupid people that are too obsessed with rules even when they get in the way of things that will cause no harm happening, so you'll be dealing with the less annoying bits." He pulled out two thin wooded folders that each held a small stack of papers. "You'll be taking this folder with the blue mark on it to the Department of Magical Beings, which is an incredibly pointless name because we mages are magical beings, so that you can apply for a Magical Being Handling License, which is a rude name since it also covers being accompanied by sapient magical beings, who are people and don't need to be handled!" The new looks people in the area were giving them helped Ewan realize he was shouting, and he let out a long breath. "Sorry. There's no point getting myself worked up. Anyways, that license is so that you can Sindri can travel around anywhere in the kingdom without getting stopped, questioned, searched, fined, or any other bullshit. I have no idea how much traveling you're going to end up doing in the long run, but I doubt you want to live with me in forever so you'll need it to at least travel to wherever you two decide to settle down, or not as the case may be." He held out the second folder, "This one, with the green mark is to declare your new status to the Association so they won't bother either of us about it later on. You're going to get the run around no matter what you do and they're going to send you from department to department until eventually one of the people you've already talked to about it takes your damn papers from you." He growled. "The blue one should take longer than the green one either way, but its up to you if you'd rather do the short one or the easy one first. Oh, and the green one goes to the Department of Personnel."

  "'Change in status'?" Sindri asked before Dryth could. "How has his status changed?"

  'It makes sense that you don't know about this Sindri, but based on your expression Dryth you were going to ask the same thing?" Ewan clucked his tongue when Dryth nodded. "Typical. It's their own damn nonsense and the Association controlled teachers don't even teach it." He sighed. "Short version, any child that can be reliably determined to have a blue bordered card, which means they'll have a mage Class Soul Card, whether that's through the child having a vision of their card border, which is the most common way, or one of the rarer ways it can be determined, is moved to an Association boarding school when they're old enough to learn about the basics of magic and mage Classes, not that that's worth anything anymore as we've already determined. Those children are classified as mage-prospectives. Once they reach the age of adulthood and go through their Reveals they become mage-trainees, or in a few rare cases mage-pupils. Mage-trainees get a mentor and that mentor gives them a crash course in having their Class, then they take the testing and become a full mage. Mage-pupils end up in that fancy magic school for special eggs that I'm sure they talked up to you."

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  "You mean the Academy? Yeah, they said it was where the really gifted go to learn instead of getting a mentor."

  Ewan pulled a face. "That's... certainly what the Association wants you to think. It's not an evil place or anything, but it's not all it's cracked up to be either. Not my cup of tea for sure. Anyhoo, mage-pupils spend longer at the Academy than mage-trainees do with their mentors, but eventually they graduate and also become full mages. That leaves special cases like you." He reached out and poked Dryth's forehead, who tried to knock him away. "You were a mage-trainee until you decided to be my student, which makes you a mage-apprentice under yours truly. Back before the Association became what it is today that was really the only way we trained young mages, and we certainly didn't have all of this rigmarole and different names for what's all basically the same thing. Full mages are divided into tiered ranks based on ability, experience, accolades, and other factors, but we can talk about that later."

  "Your status change," Ewan tried to poke Dryth again but he managed to dodge this time, "Is really just telling the Association that I've taken you on as my personal student and that I'm responsible for you legally until I allow you to take your licensing tests and become a full mage. Doing this means they won't come looking for you like you're some kind of criminal or runaway when you don't take your licensing tests in the time frame the Association thinks is best."

  "Why won't I be taking them then?"

  "Because I'm not some random mentor giving you the absolute basics and then shoving you out of the nest, I'm a real teacher. And none of my students are going to be average little mages taking the test on the Associations timeline and passing within average parameters and going on to be average as a mage. My students blow the damn tests out of the water and make all of the association flunkies worry that there's another me going to be running around! And maybe a few other reasons." He added almost under his breath, "But that's why I'm going to end up yelling at people, and maybe they'll actually do the smart thing this time instead of making me go bother the Chairman until she does what I want. I'll give you all the details once I know the actual results of the yelling. You go turn those in and get all that done, and I'll find you when I'm done with the yelling."

  "Where should we go if we get done first?" Sindri asked.

  "Good question, I knew there was a reason I switched out those cards." Ewan pulled a card from his deck and tapped Dryth and Sindri each once. "There, tracking spell on both of you. Go anywhere you want, just don't get in trouble. Normally I'd be able to bail you out or intimidate anyone into backing down, but the shouting's going to reduce my stature a little bit and I won't get it back until I mysteriously show up with the Chairman and wield her as a weapon to browbeat my way into getting what I want."

  "Um..." Dryth wasn't sure how to respond to that, at all. The more Ewan talked about himself the less convinced Dryth was that he knew who his teacher actually was. He didn't know who his teacher was on a historical or political level, but the little view he had was getting more and more warped the more time he spent with the man.

  "Yes, yes, I am mysterious, magnificent, and mighty. Now be off with you!" Ewan waved both hands as if sending Dryth off into the cold snow from a warm hearth, "You have the beast known as bureaucracy to wrestle with, and I have bureaucrats to yell at! And potentially threaten depending on how ornery they get. Bureaucrats are surprisingly hostile when you're explaining to them how the rules they love so much are actually problems in some cases. They get all testy."

  Comments like that made Dryth even more confused about who Ewan really was. He waved goodbye to his teacher, who sauntered off in a different direction, and headed into the building that house the Department of Magical Beings, deciding to get the longer task over with first. He followed the directory, which had listings beneath each sub-department telling everyone which tasks they handled, and headed to the third floor. Helpful signs on the walls directed him to the correct room and he stepped inside to find an stern, older woman sitting behind a desk. She looked up from whatever she was doing and glared at him through her glasses.

  "Young man," She scowled at him, "It is the middle of summer. Why are you wearing..." She leaned forward and adjusted her glasses as she stared at his neck. "Some kind of strange feathered scarf?"

  "This isn't a scarf ma'am. This is my companion."

  Sindri lifted his head so it was more visible and waved his tail at her.

  "We're here so I can get my magical being handling license." He held up the folder with the blue mark on it. "I have all my paperwork."

  "That really is a rude name." Sindri sent to him.

  "I know right? I was thinking the same thing."

  The woman huffed and held out her hand. Dryth placed the folder into her hand and she flipped it open to the first page.

  "You haven't gotten page one stamped yet." She immediately told him as she practically threw the folder back at him. "You need to take this to Magical Being Identification one floor down and have your 'partner' properly identified as a magical being. Then you can come back here for licensing."

  Dryth kept his rising dread and anxiety from making its way onto his face. "Thank you ma'am." He took the folder back and left the room, pausing outside the door. "Ah! This might be worse than the DMV!"

  "What's a DMV?"

  "I..." Dryth's brain froze up. "I don't know?"

  "Huh." Sindri watched him for a moment then twitched his wings in an approximation of a human shrug. "You're kind of weird sometimes." He suddenly perked up looking really excited. "Hey, Ewan said that this is like beating a beast, right? He said we needed to wrestle the best called bureaucracy, right? Then this counts as an adventure!"

  "Well..."