Aire was jolted awake by a sharp yip. Her sleepy little hands pushed her long teal hair out of her face as she rolled over in her bed to find her puppy whining at the window. She climbed out of her bed to pick him up. She caught her older sister, Eleris, out of the corner of her eye, holding her knees in an upright fetal position with her blue and green eyes wide open behind her long pink hair.
“They’re fighting again,” she said to Aire, referring to the shouting from the house next door. It happened a lot, almost every night, but that night was different. They were louder than usual. It sounded like they were breaking things.
Aire couldn’t help but look out their window to the house next door, holding her puppy tight. She felt sorry for Yanaes, her lamian friend who lived in that house. She didn’t know how he lived with his parents like that. It must have been scary for him. It was scary for her, as well as her sister. And just when she thought of how scary it was, she saw the window across from them open, and the fighting inside was all the louder.
She watched in shock as Yanaes opened the window all the way and climbed onto the windowsill in a ball of coiled grass green scales, his slitted copper eyes dilated in terror. She put the pup down and scrambled to open her window, too, as Yanaes tried to climb from his room into the tree between their houses. Her sister rushed to her side as they opened the window, watching the lamian boy grab a branch. To their horror, the branch broke under his weight, and time slowed to a crawl as Aire watched Yanaes fall to the ground, his eyes wide with the fear of death.
“Kyril to Aire…” a voice teased her, grabbing her attention as she slogged to her first day of the school year. Her long legs carried her apprehensive and slender body forward, walking alongside her older sister and her lamian friend from next door. “You’re spacing out on us,” he prodded her. “Something on your mind?” Aire didn’t answer for a while as she just listened to their footsteps on the warm marble sidewalk, light spilling over the dunes and the city in the distance. Tall palms swayed in the wind, as she tried to work up the courage to speak after having such a vivid daydream. Removing her glasses, Aire cleaned them with her shirt until she was satisfied, still staring at the marble sidewalk as she put one foot in front of the other.
She didn’t know why it bothered her so much, so many years after the fact. No matter what she tried to distract herself with or tried to focus on, that night would inevitably worm its way back into her mind. Aire didn’t know why it was so hard for her to get past, considering Yanaes was fine and all. He smiled at her as he slithered along, comfortably at eye level with her at their height of six-foot-three, his necklaces and pendants jingling as he swayed. Cloth and beaded bracelets adorned his slender arms, and each of his pointed ears bore a line of three studded earrings that shined out from underneath his layered brown hair. She averted his gaze, her eyes traveling down the t-shirt that clung to his thin chest to the denim skirt and wallet chain that covered his waist. Sometimes it was hard for her to believe that the happy, carefree, cocksure young man next to her was the same boy who fell out of his window that awful night. He carried himself in such a way that she could trick herself into thinking that, for a moment, that night was just a nightmare that never happened, even when she knew otherwise. Surely, she had to just shake it off and move on, right? What was in the past, stayed in the past, as far as she was concerned.
Conversation was hard. It kinda sucked, in Aire’s opinion. It was hard even with her sister and her closest friend. Or she just sucked at it. That was also distinctly possible. “Uh… windy today, I guess.” To be fair, she wore her hair to a near-ankle length, and it almost pulled her head back with how much it was blowing behind her. There was nothing out in the desert that cut the force of the wind, either.
A playful nudge was the answer she received from her childhood-friend, almost knocking her into her sister. She certainly didn’t have much mass, being built lanky and tall, and hiding that with clothes that were at least a size or two larger than she needed. She was probably one of the few people she knew stubborn enough to persist in wearing black in a desert, too.
“What’s with the awkward icebreaker?” Yanaes teased, stretching his arms out and throwing his head back. “It’s the first day of our senior year! Come on, doesn’t that get you pumped up?” He pushed himself ahead of the Leerhart sisters on his slender green tail. “You can’t tell me you’re worried, are you?”
Aire couldn’t help but give him an incredulous look. He couldn’t be serious. Yanaes knew who he was talking to, right? She held up the breaks they had as sacred times to not worry, watch movies, and play video games. “Noooo, why would I be worried that the class we decided to take together would require a summer project… Or a presentation on the first day!?” She groaned internally, cursing under her breath as she glared through her specs at Yanaes.
“Aw, but we all put a lot of work into it.” No one would have ever guessed that Aire and Eleris were sisters at first glance. Honestly, sometimes she wondered that as well. Contrasting with Aire’s super lanky, tall nerd physique, Eleris was a bit shorter at an even six feet, and she was significantly curvier than her sibling. Her soft and plush complexion hid deceptively powerful muscles, giving her a voluptuous frame that easily turned heads at school. That, and (in an effort to sleep more than is reasonable or healthy for a teen of any race or species,) she grew her pink bangs out into a hairstyle reminiscent of a mop, or a sheepdog. It was messy, somewhat curly, and completely covering her eyes at all times, only showing off her freckled cheeks and usually mysterious smile. Really, it just made guessing what she was thinking about or what she was even feeling that much harder. And she didn’t wear anything flashy; just a gray tank top that showed off lightly freckled shoulders, and faded blue cargo pants, with black and blue sneakers peeking out from under the long pant legs.
“Yeah, El, we all put a lot of work into it… OVER OUR BREAK.” Aire used summer break to be a lazy shut in. Everything else that happened over the break was an extra bonus. Like this class was supposed to be, but (apparently) to take anything actually interesting at their school, they needed to slog through busywork. “As a consummate slacker and procrastinator, you knew this was going to piss me off from the beginning, didn’t you?”
“It was Yan’s idea, so…” A sheet of pink hair, framing a chronically present smile leaned in far too close for comfort, putting the lamia in a more-than-awkward spot. Sweat glistened at his brow as he leaned forward in kind, tickling Eleris’s nose with his own.
“I do it out of love,” he teased, and was promptly pushed away with a hand to his giggling face.
“You do it to make me suffer,” Aire stated flatly. “Naw, let’s take Elemental Studies together our senior year, it’ll be fun! What’s the worst thing that could happen, a summer reading project? Suuuure, why not!”
“... But you got it finished. And you had fun… which is amazing considering you’re usually not having fun without a controller in your hands, and a screen in your face.” A light flick on the forehead from her sister almost knocked her off balance as she walked, a casual reminder of the list of things her sister had over her.
Better grades despite being the laziest human being in Kyril? Check. Being casually attractive to the point that even some of the girls in their school had a crush on her? Check. Or being strong enough to possibly lift their actual house. Yeah, check. To say Eleris was “gifted” was an understatement, while Aire was a shut-in in the making. However, Aire wasn’t given much time to dwell on that as she found herself tripping over Yanaes’s tail, the lamia intent on shaking her up.
“I know that face. I know that face...” he said as he put his hands on his hips. “That’s the face you make when you’re insecure about something. The ‘I’m putting myself down for some reason’ face. Stop it. This year is gonna be great. We’re gonna do great. Just you…” Yanaes seemed to trail off as his eyes wandered up, his attention caught by something. “Wooooah...”
Up on the rooftops above them was a pair of unfamiliar figures, two women jumping from house to house with an inhuman level of grace and precision. Aire’s mouth hung open slightly, as Eleris placed her hands behind her head.
“... I could do that.”
“...El, come on, you’d break someone’s roof or fall through their ceiling, come on. That is some…” She continued to watch the figures, eyes widening as she saw both women land in front of their school, brushing themselves off as the taller one nudged the shorter one and walked in, as if parkouring their way to school was a normal thing. Then, something just clicked in Aire’s head.
“No way. That’s that girl who transferred in during fourth quarter last year. It has to be.” She looked between Yanaes and Eleris, pulling her bangs over her left eye, instead of her right, and wrapping her hair around her neck like a muffler. Oddly cozy, but not the point. “Remember? Super quiet, none of us could get more than a word out of her?” Yanaes seemed to study Aire’s impression for a moment before snapping his fingers in realization.
“Oh, you mean Arlee? That was her? Who was the other…?”
“Do you know any other arens who go to our school? Or even live around here, for that matter? HAD to be. Damn, I’ve never seen someone move that fast before!” It wasn’t entirely unusual to see people using their talents to move around the city more quickly. Even then, someone hopping like a ninja across the rooftops was a sight to behold. Flying with wings like aves was cool and all, but that was downright stylish.
“Yeah, neither have I. Do you think she made any friends over the summer? Maybe that other lady?” Yanaes looked back ahead as they drew closer to the school, noticing that she had already headed inside of the building. “... I mean, that was badass. She’s gotta have friends now. Right?”
“Definitely,” Eleris blurted out with a degree of certainty that was immediately undermined by her addendum of, “I think. Does… she have a sister? She looked older, but I couldn’t tell from back here.”
“I’m not so sure, to be honest,” said Aire as she let her hair back down and straightened herself back out. “I never see her sit with anyone, or speak with anyone she didn’t HAVE to. Definitely don’t remember her having a sister.”
“Oh yeah, true.” Eleris left a finger on her lip as she thought about it a bit harder. “... I kinda feel bad for never really saying hi, but… Arlee gives me the stink eye every time I get close to her.”
“...Yeah, I get that look too. Makes sense, I guess, considering… well, what happened to Delphinus.” Aire pondered this, as they walked up the main drive. Some students drove or took the bus, but the lamia and Leerharts lived close enough to walk. They all had their permits. All of them could drive, but none of them really had their own cars. Arlee, meanwhile, parkoured her way to school like it was no big deal. Probably because she could, and also because it avoided people. Of course, as they were pondering this, a friend of theirs waved from the entrance.
She was a much shorter girl, sporting face-framing blonde hair, with a pair of glasses even larger than Aire’s. Strapped to her black backpack was a violin case made of hard plastic. A sky-blue hoodie over a t-shirt, and a pair of somewhat baggy sweatpants made up the rest of her wardrobe, as she walked right up to Eleris, leaned up, and kissed her quickly upon the lips. This was Lea Zeal, Eleris’s girlfriend, and as far as Aire and Yanaes were concerned, an utter cinnamon bun of a human being, if not the biggest wallflower they had ever known.
“How come you never greet me like that?” Yanaes turned to Aire, giving her a teasing grin. All it really earned him was a swift punch in the arm, her cheeks burning ever so slightly as he and her sister snickered before Eleris hugged Lea close to herself.
“H-Hey, no fair!” It was always a sight to see how those two interacted, what with Eleris being six feet tall with Lea not even managing to break five. She was rather petite for a girl her age, being a year younger than Yanaes and the sisters. Her feet left the ground easily when El pulled her into a big, soft hug, but Aire could see just how red her cheeks were, and how much she was smiling. It really was a wholesome sight to see her so happy nowadays, considering how swiftly she used to shrink from social interaction.
“Someone’s enjoying themselves.” Aire’s teasing was playful, as she was desperate to change the subject from Yanaes’s earlier… Was it a joke? Flirting? She could never tell with him.
“Hey, you would, too, if you were a-hundred-thirty-seven centimeters and forty kilos. She might as well be a doll to El,” Yanaes chimed in.
“Yep.” Eleris confirmed this by turning Lea around and pulling her up into a gentle hug, all the while lightly nibbling on the edge of her ear. Lea just let out what was possibly the happiest, most embarrassing noise that neither Aire nor Yanaes could possibly hope to describe… right before being put down again.
“D-Don’t pick me up like that here, El! People stare, and-” This time it was El who bent down and pecked her on the lips. Steam was practically coming out of the poor thing’s ears at this point. Honestly, sometimes Aire wished she’d snatched her up first; she was just that cute. Little by little, her sister was helping Lea come out of her shell. She certainly smiled more than when they’d first met her during their freshman year.
“A-Anyways…” Lea sighed, as she placed a hand on her chest. “You guys all have your projects ready, right? I, um… I got help with mine. So I’m good.” She didn’t elaborate much more than that, but Aire knew she’d gotten help from that friend of hers in the alternative school a few miles away. Honestly, she figured they were in for a light show.
“We all have it first period, yeah?” Eleris and Aire had drawn straws for their projects. Obviously, their dad was a huge help for Aire, as she’d chosen to do her presentation on the application of lightning magic, which her dad was a born natural at using. Eleris, meanwhile, had gotten the help of a scolid girl outside of their class, and put together a presentation about poison magic, of all things. It had been Lea’s suggestion, and Eleris seemed to actually be engaged for once while working on it.
“Did you know that vespids actually have the ability to manipulate honey?” Eleris smiled as she held the door for the rest of them. “I almost wish I’d pulled aside Zita from Phys Ed last year, and done a project on that.”
“That would have been amazing!” Yanaes blurted out as he slipped on through. “You could have done a presentation on making mead, for science! Damn you, hindsight.”
“Hindsight is a bitch, that’s for sure. Apparently they can conjure it, but also harden it into this super tough and flexible amber. And melt it right down again.” Eleris sighed, and looked to the side before adding, “of course… Revvet was creepy as usual, but… I can’t deny that conjuring poison is just as impressive. Way less tasty, but definitely sort of badass.”
“Isn’t her home like… bug free because she can just flood it with pesticide, and then snap her fingers to make it all go away?”
“... Yep. Remember when Dad tried to do the same thing with electricity? Burned out the entire neighborhood.” Aire and Eleris couldn’t help but grin at each other. Their dad was stubborn and had a (often misguided) ‘do it yourself kind’ of attitude.
“Honestly, my project couldn’t have gone any easier. I actually finished it the first week of summer.” Of course, it was just like Lea to be proud of that fact. She was, as Aire so eloquently put it, “obnoxiously good at the whole ‘school’ part of school”. Top of the class, skipped eighth year, the whole nine yards. Of equal infuriation was how her own sister seemed to pass classes while asleep for half of them with baffling ease. She knew what she and Lea got up to in their free time, and it definitely wasn’t studying.
“Well of course you finished it fast,” Yanaes chimed in. “That means more time with El. There’s no better motivator. Unless you’re Aire.”
“Heeeeey, I got it done the second week. I just think having summer assignments at all is bunk.” Her hands were shoved into her pockets for emphasis, as she rolled her eyes, glancing at Yanaes with a subtle smirk. “Honestly, out of all of us… you procrastinated the most. Even Maro got on your case about it.”
“That’s because I knew I could finish it in eight hours. Which I did,” Yanaes said with a smug grin as he ran his thumb across his chin. “It was child’s play for a lamian prodigy such as yours truly. And so, if we’re all up to the task, there’s no point in crying about performing.” All of them rolled their eyes, naturally. This was just Yanaes being, well… Yanaes. But, at the same time, they were glad they were able to coordinate things so well. They all had several of the same classes at the same periods, and they got to get this school project out of the way first thing.
The school they attended was Black Marble High, an aptly named school and the largest high school in Zarrid, the capital of their nation. Back in Devoid when Aire and Eleris were young, everything felt sterile. Steel, titanium, silvrite, and durable polymers with crystal clear glass, hard light fields, and so forth. The Federal Republic of the Grand Divide, on the other hand, was a nation with enormous stone quarries, and it was cheap as a result, not to mention durable. Their school got its name from its construction; the floors were made of polished black marble, and even though students scuffed their shoes across it, it remained an almost surreal sight for Aire and Eleris, knowing how different the world was outside of their little childhood bubble. They were grateful for that.
“Right then, let’s get this over with.” Aire reached into her backpack, swinging it into reach as she brushed her teal hair out of the way. “Right, I have my holodisk. No one forgot their project, right?” There was still a good few minutes before class, and thankfully, Lea, Eleris, and Yanaes held up their own disks, as a collective sigh of relief was shared between them.
“That would... suck.” Lea was a bit of a timid thing, nervously wringing her hands as she looked up at the rest of them. “I heard that if you blow off Miss Ranger’s summer assignment, you get a nasty make-up assignment that’s hard to complete over the semester. Worse yet, I heard from some seniors last year that she deliberately targets your weakest subject.”
“‘Weakest subject’? Bitch, please…” Yanaes scoffed. He intertwined his fingers and stretched his arms out in front of him, popping every joint in his hands.
“... I think I’m going to get along with this teacher just fine.” Hands behind her head, Aire turned the corner, as they collectively began to look for the room number of their first class. “Room 106… 106….” She looked around as they moved through the halls. It was on the first floor, but they couldn’t find a name plate for it, and the next door read 107 instead. Standing there in confusion, something bizarre began to happen to the wall between the two doors.
“Whoah.” Lea blinked as they passed a certain section of wall, and a door simply appeared before their eyes as if shimmering into existence, light searing the edges of the entryway into reality. They’d all heard varying accounts of Miss Rangers’ flair for the dramatic, but none of them had actually seen this room the last two years of coming here.
“I guess you can’t see the door if you aren’t taking the class,” Eleris guessed, looking it up and down and running her fingers along the edge of it, just to confirm that it was really there. A tiny smirk stretched across her face. “I know where I’m taking my free period naps from now on.”
“Dear, the room is being used during first, second, fifth, and eighth period.” All of them almost jumped as they were blindsided by (who they assumed to be) the teacher of the class they were taking. “Just so you’re aware.”
Everything about her was shocking. Her hair was a bright shade of magenta that billowed and flowed down her shoulders and back from beneath an elegant, wide-brimmed and pointed hat, framing a sinfully perfect face in a way that only accentuated how exceptional this woman was. Aire and her friends were transfixed for what seemed like an hour as they tried to process how this person in front of them looked. Her hair seemed to flow on its own, melding into a glowing pink mass that stopped at her thigh, curling around her figure on its own like living energy.
Her clothing (what little she wore) was just as striking. She wore a sheer dress of royal purple with embroidered golden highlights, which left very little to the imagination. Frankly, even Aire could recognize a perfect figure when it was put in front of her like that, and the teal-haired girl found herself nervously questioning her own orientation. The fact that she had those long, pointed ears gave away the fact that she was an elf, true, but everyone’s eyes were firmly on her bustline, which was nearly exposed for them to see. Her body seemed to slope into a perfect hourglass, the material of her dress hugging her in a way that left nothing to the imagination. All of this was capped off with a pair of heeled sandals that perfectly complemented the woman’s otherworldly appearance. In such an ordinary school, she stood out to an extreme degree, drawing all eyes to her figure and her aura of mysticism.
Yanaes seemed to sweat bullets, frozen in place before blurting out, “Ninety-two, seventy-four, eighty-five…” Even as he listed the teacher’s measurements out loud, all of them stood slack jawed at her appearance, a deep blush in all of their cheeks. This was audacious. Not just by a school’s standards, but by anyone’s standards.
Aire moved her hand under her sister’s mouth, closing it for her. “I-I-I… ah…. You, um…” She simply couldn’t find the words. None of them could right away, and that was understandable. A soft laugh left the woman’s lips as she reached down, and did the same for the shorter Lea, her hand resting on her cheek.
“In case you’re wondering… yes, I do teach Elemental Studies. My name is Leera Rangers. The pleasure is all mine.” Her eyes, a pale and cool green, shifted to Yanaes, as she smiled softly, leaning in, and whispering in his ear, “You’d do well to keep my measurements a secret, young man.” Yanaes swallowed the lump in his throat before trying (weakly) to play the tension off.
“I only promise to try. My tongue tends to slip in the presence of… overwhelming beauty.” It sounded smooth in his head, but the tension across his face and body and the shake in his voice did little to sell the act. Still, the boy did try. Miss Ranger’s hands slipped over his shoulder, as she opened the door to the classroom.
“... Holy…” Aire just mouthed as she realized this wasn’t a room at all. Or rather, it wasn’t a normal room. At all. Their new homeroom teacher sighed, as she walked to her desk, setting her hat down upon it. Everything in the room was just different. The floor was a beautifully stained hardwood instead of black marble. The desks were rather like the rows of seats you might find in a university’s lecture hall, or the school’s auditorium, though instead of cheap plastic and polyester, a dark hardwood wrapped around a soft, silk upholstered down cushion. Extravagant didn’t come close to describing any of this. “How… any of this… what?”
“That is what you’re here to learn, my impressionable young students. Heavens forbid I give it all away, but…. You lot did find your way here first. Well. Almost.” She gestured to the back of the classroom, a lavish library behind the back of the lecture hall. Hewn wooden shelves of dark red mahogany extended back as their eyes wandered all over. This room was incredible. There were simply not enough words to do it justice.
“... Either this is a closed pocket of space, or a gateway right to the Great Arkus Forest…” Lea murmured, her eyes wide. Aire didn’t exactly get it, but she glanced towards the windows to confirm that they were still in Grand Divide. The desert suburbs were visible outside the window, but they were definitely not on the first floor of the school anymore. They were much higher up than that.
“Aha, both are good guesses, and to some degree, both are correct. This entire room actually rests on the roof of the building, and only when I’m present in school to teach.” A shrug graced her bare shoulders as a playful wink sent the blood back to their cheeks. “And it simply… comes with me when I leave for the day. Think of it as… an add-on to my home that I can take with me wherever I go.”
Lea gawked around, Eleris hand on her shoulder. Aire knew she was eating this up just as much as she was. “... Wow. Here I was thinking we’d get just another history course, but about magic. This is…”
“Oh heavens, no!” A light laugh left their teacher’s lips. “This is a course for controlling your own inborn affinity, forming your own magics! Why, with the right grimoire or catalyst, even the most painfully average individual would be able to control at least their own element with ease!” At that, Aire and Lea looked at each other, their jaws promptly hanging open yet again. For ungifted humans such as them, well it was an incredible thing to hear.
“You’re… not pulling our leg, right?” After all, the last thing Aire wanted was to get her hopes up about doing anything incredible with her life.
“Oh no, hardly. Qualifying students would even be able to check out the appropriate grimoise. Of course, I would be screening this, making sure nothing… extreme happens. It’s, how do I put this… grimoires can have a mind of their own, you see. They’re magical books that impart their knowledge upon a person as they read, after all. Depending on the grimoire, this can… have unfortunate consequences.” Aire looked to Lea again, then to her sister and Yanaes. This teacher was certainly teaching them a lot before their first class had even begun. Then again, they were early. Maybe this was a bit of a reward?
“... I’m almost scared to ask what those consequences might be.” Eleris finally spoke up, picking out a seat near the back.
“Depends on the writer’s sense of humor… or lack thereof.” Leera shrugged as she sat at her desk, the small friend group more than a bit interested at what their newest teacher had to say. “It’s typically a trap of some kind, normally triggering if someone not matching the elemental affinity of the grimoire picks it up, and tries to read it. Some may devour all of a person’s mana, while others may… shrink or enlarge specific body parts. Mages are eccentric, after all, witches and warlocks doubly so. And masters of the four paths? They can be downright vindictive.”
“What’s the difference?” Lea questioned, her head tilted in curiosity as she leaned forward, just ever so slightly.
“A mage, or magus is officially sanctioned by the Arkus Magister’s Association, which operates out of the Temple of Thunder. Witches and warlocks are not. This is either due to a lack of talent, being deemed unfit for the practice, or… general stubbornness and unwillingness to follow authority.” Leera rubbed her temple under the brow of her hat as she spoke, and it was pretty clear to everyone that the point shouldn’t be pressed on further. Not only that, but a handful of other students were also starting to file in and take their seats. Almost all of them were transfixed for a moment at the sight of their teacher, before shaking their heads, and sitting down. “... But, these are excellent questions for another time.”
Clearly, they thought better than to try to deduce her measurements like Yanaes had done upon meeting her. A quick glance between the four, they quickly filed to their seats of choice. Each seat, much like a lecture hall, had a flip out desk. Unlike a lecture hall, however, there was plenty of space to use it. Without much more than that, Miss Rangers stood up and cleared her throat.
“Welcome to your senior year, students. I’m quite positive you all weren’t sure what to be expecting. Surely, not some barely-dressed sylvan mage in a classroom that looked like it plopped out of some fantasy novel, or video game.” A few small laughs were shared around the room, Aire among them, as their teacher continued, “But Elemental Studies is about more than that. It’s an examination of the building blocks of our world, of mana, magic, of the very essence of creation. Seeing as we have summer assignments to present, I’m keeping the introduction brief, and giving a more thorough intro to the course tomorrow, but I believe each and every one of you are here, taking this course for a reason. Be it curiosity, ambition… or merely a course for easy credits that might be more interesting than your typical canned art class. For now, though, that’s all I have to say. I would much rather let your summer projects do the speaking, wouldn’t you?” There was an affirmative murmur throughout the room, as quite a few students were on edge… what few there were.
“Very well then. Mr. Akonda, as we’re going in alphabetical order, your project is the first we have today.” The lamian boy cracked a devilish grin.
“Alright!” He psyched himself up, slithering up to the front of the class. He dropped his backpack with a notable thud as he pulled out his notes and his holodisk. “I hope everyone else gave it their A-game, because I get to make the first impression!”
