The peace is short-lived.
"The cafeteria food is not quite up to the standards I expect," Draco says, shaking his head. "My house elves could teach them a thing or two."
"At the table of Asgardia's palace, we have desserts dressed with gold every night," Loki remarks dreamily.
"It's probably fake," Draco snipes.
"The house of Odin has no need to fake gold," Ciel interrupts. "That's more the Malfoys' area."
"My aunt makes just one self-replicating gold cup, and now I never hear the end of it!"
"It doesn't matter." Ciel waves his hand. "My butler's a fussy old thing if I ever saw one, useless to boot, but the little trifles he whips up could put even a royal palace to shame."
"I might double major in illusions and magical languages," Loki monologues as the roommates flip through their course catalogues. "I'll take Medieval Latin, obviously, and the Elvish tragedy class— ah, it's an odd dialect, but I should be able to pick it up in a day or two. And I want a calligraphy course to improve my spellwriting. Not Runes again, I've known those for ages . . . Ooh, kanji! Yep, I'm officially getting out the brushes this term. The spellcasting chorus looks fun, and maybe Introduction to Theoretical Arithmancy will round it off . . ."
Draco simply snorts, "Yeah, right."
Loki smiles. "You think I can't do it?"
"Everyone knows you can't," Ciel cuts in. "The Prophecy of Asgardia states as much. 'The children of Asgardia will lack in brains but make it up in brawn, and every man shall rule on the battlefield and find a queen to rule his heart.'"
"What the— you actually memorized that thing?" Draco gapes at Ciel. "What are you, a walking encyclopedia?"
"That's not a good translation," Loki mutters. "The Prophecy's so much more poetic than that . . ."
"It gets the job done," Ciel finishes.
"Yeah, and it shows that there's no way you're taking all those classes and passing," Draco says, turning back to Loki. "That's got to hit the absolute max number of credits— 25, right?"
Ciel nods.
"My planned schedule actually sums up to 27 credits," Loki replies smoothly. "I talked to the deans about making an exception."
Ciel looks at him curiously, and Draco sputters, "What kind of Asgardian are you—"
"What are you planning to take this term, Malfoy?" Loki talks over him.
"Ah . . ." Draco looks down at his own course catalogue, caught slightly off-guard. "I've known I'm going to be a lawyer since I was five— four generations of Malfoy lawyers running— and my major doesn't matter as much to law school. I'll try out Applied Potions . . ."
"Theoretical Potions is far more intellectually rigorous," Loki murmurs.
"Stick to your linguistics, Odinson." Draco shoots him a look. "I need Intro to Theoretical Arithmancy for that, and I'll double up on Potions core courses for a solid 20 credits. The core's supposed to be hell on earth, you know, extremely rigorous. What about you, Phantomhive?"
"Remedial Latin, Cross-Cultural Etiquette, and— at my butler's insistence— Beginning Dance. 13 credits, and I'm done." Ciel looks at their confused faces. "What, haven't you two got anything better to do at college than schoolwork?"
"How did he even get in?" Draco whispers to Loki when he thinks Ciel isn't paying attention. Loki keeps flipping through his catalogue, pointedly refusing to answer.
On the morning of their first day of classes, Loki sips green tea, eyeing Draco's steaming coffee mug over the rim of his teacup. "Really, you should take up tea— I can hardly even smell the fragrance of my blend, what with your espresso shots stinking up the room."
"Don't be ridiculous," Ciel cuts in, pouring his own loose-leaf tea out of a fresh linen pouch, into the strainer of his personal porcelain teapot.
"All you ever drink is the cafeteria green tea. You wouldn't know a fragrant blend if it hit you in the face."
"I like green tea," Loki says, shrugging. "Do you expect me to apologize?"
"If I could turn things green, I could feed you a bloody cup of lapsang souchong, and you'd never know the difference," Ciel retorts.
"Well, I regret to remind you that you can't turn things green," Loki replies, not sounding regretful at all.
"No, that's your area of expertise," Ciel snaps back. "I can't believe you two turned everything green before I even stepped into the suite. The navy of the House of Phantomhive should be represented somewhere."
"Well, I can't expend enough energy to remove the illusions," Loki sighs, "not with classes starting."
"And I can't spend the time to make the dissolver," Draco smirks, "not with classes starting."
"How convenient."
"Well, you two can take your tea and shove it, as far as I'm concerned," Draco remarks, slurping from his cup. "The coffee shop's roaster's charmed to make my espresso perfectly, exactly the way I like it. None of this nonsense of heating water to 'exactly 175 degrees to keep your less oxidized green tea from wilting—'" he glances at Loki—"or whatever it is you do with your weird strainer and your new blend of leaves every day." At that, he looks at Ciel.
"My butler's a silly old sod, but how could he work for the House of Phantomhive if he couldn't send me a new blend every day?"
"You're high-maintenance," Draco mutters.
"Excuse me." Ciel shoots to his feet, "I'm not the one who was bragging about having five house elves waiting on me hand and foot since age two."
"Just because they were there didn't mean I actually made them work all the time . . ."
"The linguistically accurate term," Loki interrupts, "is house-gnome, and the actual elves don't feel it's appropriate at all . . ."
They proceed to all talk at once, squabbling until they leave for class.