For xDarklightx, HPLUVR71495, RooenEnnyte, and xMxRosex. Thanks for the reviews!

Breakfast was a comical affair. Almost all of the pages had the same hideous green hair. The exceptions were Eleni, Schuylar, Perci, Alex, Pier, and a boy named Alwin of Irimor. As far as Eleni could tell, they were the only ones with Gifts, or friends with Gifts, strong enough to overturn the glamour on their hair.

That's why Alex was running to her room so early, she thought. Every day that dawned, she became more and more convinced that Pier kept Alex on a short leash. She's only using him.

The pages in the hall were not amused. Well, one person was very amused. Herne found the backfiring spell so funny, he hadn't bothered to glamour his hair back to normal. To him, it was one of life's quirks and he welcomed it.

Although, Herne was laughing as if the whole idea was hilarious, his laughter died when Lord Padriag entered the hall. If anyone was going to suffer a fit this morning, it was him. All of the pages, with the exception of those who had glamoured their hair back, where sentenced to three hours of stable duty the following Saturday. After administering the sentence, he walked out of the room, bound for his office.

Eleni did not envy the other pages in the hall, but the look on Herne's face was priceless. The incident was a common cause for the friends to rally around. Perci was speaking to them again, chiding the younger pages for their folly.

"Really," he admonished. "Did it not occur to any of you that Master Radzimierz is our teacher because he is a capable instructor?" Perci had quickly developed a habit of checking his bangs. "If the man is charged with teaching pages, then you should know he's not a man you angry. If I had known what you were up to, I never would have allowed it. Just what did you expect would happen?"

"But we didn't expect him to be capable of this!" Herne had stopped finding the prank funny when he received punishment work for it. "Why didn't anyone tell me that he was a powerful mage."

Simon replied before Perci could begin a second lecture. "Probably because he didn't want it known. We don't know much about the man."

"Well, now you know that he's a great mage!" Schuylar, now that his hair was back to normal, acted as Master Radzimierz's defense. "I always knew that he was great, you just couldn't see it." He looked smug. Of course, it was easy to be smug when you were one of the few people present without green hair.

Trying to distract himself, Herne used Schuylar as an escape. "And just how did you avoid the spell?"

"I glamoured Myles' and mine back before breakfast." His cheeks became tinted with pink. Schuylar vividly remembered the way his friends had looked at him the last time he had used his Gift. "Myles asked and it was easy enough to."

That got their attention.

"Now that I think about it," said Perci. "You do seem to have a very powerful Gift. Why train for a shield when you should be at the City of the Gods?" He noticed how bashful Schuylar had become. "If you don't want to sa-"

"My grandmother said I had to." Seven pairs of eyes stared at him. "I'm the only male child, so I had no choice."

The mood turned bleak for the rest if the meal. And the same general mood continued for the rest of the day. Not even Sir Asher's undignified hollering changed the mood. It wasn't until after lunch and the majority of classes that there was any change.

It was time for history, and to face Master Radzimierz.

As they sat at their desks, it was easy to feel the anxiety. Some of the pages were annoyed with the mage, others frightened by his previously unknown Gift. Would he punish those who had defied his glamour? Praise their ingenuity? Would they all be punished again in person? They waited and waited, but Master Radzimierz was late to his own class.

Eleni was suspicious.

When the man in question finally appeared, he acted as if there weren't a dozen boys with green hair before him. Master Radzimierz began his lecture almost immediately and never once played with his hair. Right about the point when he was recalling more social reforms of the Rittevon dynasty, he finally addressed a student.

"Amorite!" He signalled out a third year page who had not stopped fidgeting. "Either you sit still, or you sit outside. The choice is yours." He then continued with the lesson, never giving the boy a chance to respond.

Now, Eleni was truly suspicious of the mage. She hadn't pegged him as the most free spirited of men, but he had never appeared to be a authoritarian either. Something was very wrong with this Master Radzimierz. Curious, Eleni redoubled her observations of the blonde.

He wasn't fiddling with his hair, that was the first thing that troubled Eleni. The man had disciplined all of the royal pages because a handful had dared to turn it green, and he acted as if his hair was just hair. His skin wasn't as pale as it usually was, it looked as if he had spent a whole afternoon outdoors. What he was playing with was a very shiny locket on a gold chain around his neck. The bauble was distracting by itself, but the way his kept flashing it was driving her insane. There was something else that was wrong. Master Radzimierz had dark green eyes, but this man had brown eyes. The difference wasn't that striking to the other pages, but they hadn't been raised to read people.

This was not Master Radzimierz, not by a long shot.

The lesson over, the impostor released the class. Eleni waved off her friends, intent on staying behind to speak with the man. After making sure that she wouldn't anger the mage, the boys left. She was sure that more than one of them was going to beg Schuylar or Perci to glamour his hair back to normal. Jarek of Amorite was the last page to leave the room, bowing respectfully to Master Radzimierz as he did.

Now, it was just Eleni and the impostor.

"Did you need something, Pirate's Swoop?"

A part of her conscious recognized the voice. There was no mistaking the call of the birds and the melody of the rolling waves. She had heard that voice, singing over her cradle when she had been a babe. The rings upon his hands had drawn her eyes more than a decade ago. The damned trinket around his neck was hers, one that he had bestowed upon her. He had made miniature crows flit above her cradle, always the entertaining and dutiful nursemaid. The man had known Eleni her whole life, but he was not the man she had spoken to the day before.

Kyprioth the Trickster had played quite the trick.

"Do your siblings know what you're up to?"

Alianne had taught her daughter to be wary of the Trickster. During those lessons she had learned that he could be intimidated by few things. Mithros and the Great Mother Goddess were his only fears. As her mother had taught, "When you have a killing blow, take it."

Kyprioth was not amused. His borrowed eyes turned to steel.

"Does your mother?"

The door shut of its own accord and the shutters sealed the windows. Before her very eyes, the god shed the illusion of mortality and took up his preferred form. The light emanating from the god blinded and forced her to her knees. When Eleni could see again, the was a lean and wiry raka with a salt-and-pepper beard where her teacher had once stood. Now, he meant business.

Refusing to back down, even to a god, Eleni continued to goad him. She was stubborn to the end. "No sparkles to accompany the lights?"

Leaning back on Master Radzimierz's desk, Kyprioth had to admit that he was impressed by the little girl. No fear and plenty of gumption. He had chosen correctly, it was clear now.

"I'm sure you'll get all the sparkles you want when your grandmother hears of what you're doing, chick." Cornered, he thought. He watched her squirm for less than a minute, and saw the fright turn to steel. "Not afraid of a god. And not afraid of the Lioness. What a conundrum, little one."

"What do you want?" Eleni knew there was no way she could defeat a god on a mission. Her mother had taught her that too. When the gods wanted you to do something for them, you had little choice. "Well?"

"Is that the tone you take when addressing a god?" He was enjoying this too much, but it would be worth it. The chick was too headstrong to obey otherwise. Eleni did not waver. "Fine, be that way. I want you to leave Radek alone." At her awestruck look, he clarified. "The loon swore his life to me, after he got himself in trouble. The poor thing would die if anything happened to his appearance. I simply request that you don't indulge in the need to nettle him. See, I like to look after my own."

"That's it?" She had expected a mission. A life-altering revelation that would change history. "Leave the teacher alone" was not what she had expected at all.

"Yup," he said. He decided to tease her a bit more. "Did you want something more? There aren't any revolutions stirring, but if you want I can start one just for you."

"Mother was right." Eleni thought back to how her mother had described the god. Alianne was still sore for all that she had been put through.

"I bet she had wonderful stories to tell." The grin on his face looked as genuine as any, but he was also the patron of players. He knew how to act.

"None that praised you. I remember her cursing you on more than two occasions." That chafed him, and Eleni took the higher ground. "Said you were a silly crow with too much time on your hands. I see she was right." Turning for the door, she called over her shoulder. "You gave your message, you can let me out now."

She was dimissing him. Him! A god! When she reached for the handle, Eleni burned her fingers.

"I should have made you mute," he said. Truly it would have made his existence easier. "I had the chance." He returned to his happy countenance, now that Eleni's hand had been burned. "Did you enjoy my trick? Wasn't it delightful?" He was no more than an overgrown child looking for praise.

"Which trick?" Her hand was beginning to hurt and she had little patience for his silliness. "Pretending to be Master Radzimierz? I'm sure Jarek of Amorite knew what you were. The poor boy was almost blinded by you!" She was yelling at him again, almost as if she hadn't been burned the last time she was disrespectful.

"Not that one," he waved her words away. "I meant the surprises you all got this morning."

"That was you!" Burns or no burns, Eleni was livid. Her life was cursed, if this one had decided to meddle in it. "My hair was green!"

"So was everyone else's," he replied nonchalantly. "Besides," he pushed himself off the desk and stood before her. Taking her burned hand in his larger ones, he continued. "It was necessary. You two had to make up."

Her hand healed, Eleni racked her brain. Could he be referring to Schuylar? "The Fool?"

"See that's exactly the attitude that forces me to intervene. He's a good friend, he'll prove it before long."

"You gave almost two dozen boys green hair to get me to make up with Schuylar?" Eleni couldn't believe his logic. She should have listened to her mother. Gods brought nothing but headaches.

The door openned and Kyprioth began to fade. As he disappeared, he said, "Trust me, chick. You'll need him soon enough. And you'll thank me."

Ringing bells told her that she had been kept captive for less than a few minutes. Shaking her mind of Kyprioth's folly, Eleni went to sulk in her room. If the gods were interfering, she was in for it.

Comments? I thought it had been a while since any of the gods had butted in, and it seemed that green hair was right up Kyprioth's alley. So, yeah... A bit of foreshadowing at the end there. I told you that Schuylar had to be part of the group! Thanks for reading!