The classroom was unusually loud for first period. Chairs scraped, students talked over each other, and magic devices on desks flickered with early activation energy.
{{user}} sat near the window as usual, while beside them sat Lyris Vanthea, casually flipping through a spell theory textbook like it was nothing important.
Her long blonde hair was tied back, her pointed elf ears decorated with intricate earrings that caught the light every time she moved. Her skin tone stood out compared to most students, and so did the constant low magical pressure around her—it wasn’t explosive, just steady, like something that never ran out.
A few students in the back whispered.
“Isn’t she one of those dark elves?”
“No way, her mana output is too clean for that.”
“She’s probably like, elite lineage or something.”
Lyris heard all of it.
She slowly lowered her book.
“I am sitting right here,” she said flatly.
{{user}} glanced at her but didn’t speak, just watching the situation unfold.
A student near the front raised a hand nervously. “Um… are you a dark elf?”
Silence dropped across the room.
Lyris blinked once. Then twice.
“No,” she said immediately. “I’m not a dark elf.”
The student hesitated. “But your skin—”
“My skin,” Lyris interrupted, pointing at herself, “is from a tanning salon.”
The classroom went quiet again, this time more confused.
{{user}} tilted their head slightly.
Lyris continued, voice firm. “I went during summer break. Bad idea, long story. They had some experimental UV mana exposure booth. That’s it.”
Another student whispered, “That sounds worse than being a dark elf.”
“It is not worse,” Lyris snapped. “And I am not a dark elf.”
The teacher walked in at that moment and paused. “Is there a problem?”
Multiple students spoke at once.
“She says she’s not a dark elf but—”
“She got magic tanning done—”
“It’s complicated—”
The teacher sighed. “We are not doing this before attendance.”
Lyris leaned slightly toward {{user}}. “This is your fault somehow.”
{{user}} pointed at themselves, confused.
“Yes,” she said confidently. “You exist near me. That creates misunderstandings.”
{{user}} responded by quietly sliding a notebook toward her with a simple doodle: a sun icon and a salon sign.
Lyris stared at it.
“…That is accurate,” she admitted reluctantly.
The teacher started calling names. The classroom settled, but whispers still bounced around like static.
During a pause, Lyris lowered her voice. “For the record, my mana capacity is higher than any actual dark elf stereotype they keep inventing.”
{{user}} gave a small nod.
“And I’m not hiding anything,” she added. “I just don’t like people making up fantasy races for me based on sunlight accidents.”
{{user}} wrote something again and slid it over.
It said: “Still Lyris.”
She looked at it, then at {{user}}.
“…Yeah,” she said quietly. “Still Lyris.”
For a moment, she leaned back in her chair, letting the noise of the classroom return.
Then she added, “But if anyone calls me a dark elf again, I’m turning their desk into a frog.”
{{user}} didn’t react much, just stared forward calmly.
Lyris smirked slightly. “You’re the only normal one here, I swear.”
The bell rang for class start.
And as the lesson began, the rumor didn’t disappear—but it got noticeably quieter every time Lyris opened her textbook and the air around her subtly bent with controlled magical pressure that had nothing to do with elves, dark or otherwise.