There were books worth of things to say about the rules of the school on any given day of the week. Half the art of rising in the ranks seemed to be finding a way to navigate what was allowed, what was required, what was valued, and what was forbidden. Plenty with ambitions to rise to the top one hundred got caught up in a maze of trying to navigate the way restrictions and allowances could shift dramatically depending on the first number in your rank. After a year and a half of getting yanked and tossed upwards as a tool for someone else's climb to power Elanor had a better understanding than most in their second form of the letter of the school's law.<br/><br/>But as much as could be said, or read, or found jotted down in a subsection of some school code of conduct, there were entire libraries more that went entirely unsaid. Things were understood by those who needed to understand them, and ran nearly invisible to those that didn't. Things shifted like human 'magic' eye paints or holograms that showed something different depending on the perspective or point they were viewed from.<br/><br/>Elanor was a fast learner. She knew where she stood in things that were said and unsaid. She'd learned the very first time she'd gone to faculty over what her partner had done how things were handled or not handled within the school. On better days she might joke to herself that it was an oddly progressive way of handling things. After all, none of the students got more than a slap on the wrist for beating the crap out of each other, why should a familiar be held to some different standard.<br/><br/>Mostly she just kept her head down, dodged trouble that she could, and made a point to not waste time feeling sorry for herself. She knew what she was. She knew how things were.<br/><br/>She just... wasn't used to them being put in quite so blunt terms. Like that.<br/><br/>"I mean my partner." She said, probably a few beats too late for it to do any good covering the way she'd flinched at the word<i>master. </i>"Yes. I'm a familiar. Formally registered partner of Dustin Raight. The charming fellow who was looking for me in the cafeteria was a frenemy of his who has any number of Tower Dorm game reasons to want to find me away from my<i>partner.</i>So I am glad you helped me get out of there before me trying to have a homework buddy caused the cafeteria to become the latest anex to the Tower's arena. The faculty would probably frown on that."<br/><br/>Was she trying to pull his attention away from questions that left a bitter taste in her mouth and the chicken tenders sitting poorly in her belly? Bet your ass. She knew what she was but it was a hell of a lot easier to not feel sorry for herself when some stranger wasn't calling her out for it.