Chapter 54: Trouble in the Tide and the Talking Pineapple

I hate it when the day starts with the unexpected, especially when it involves public humiliation courtesy of my familiar. It's not that I don't appreciate having someone around who cares about me well, something in this case it's just that when your "someone" is a talking pineapple with delusions of grandeur, life becomes an endless carnival of embarrassment.

Take this morning, for example.

The Academy loomed before us, an imposing edifice of stone and magic, with spires that seemed designed to stab the sky itself. Students filtered through its grand gates in clusters, most too preoccupied to notice me. That was, until Ananara decided to announce himself.

"Ah, behold! The grand repository of mediocrity," he declared, his sharp, slightly nasal voice cutting through the crisp morning air. "Do you smell it, Liria? The stench of potential unrealized?"