That night, for some reason, the trio split up watch duty into three watches. Serenity would be on watch with Hale first, then Katya would be alone, then Zan and Raz. Serenity smiled to himself; it was clear that they still weren’t trusted. That made sense; it wasn’t like walking out of a dungeon you shouldn’t have been in was the best introduction he’d ever given.
Serenity decided he needed to know what would happen with the Heart when he entered the Tutorial. He had a number more Tutorials to teach in, and he might as well get some of them out of the way. Sleeping in the Tutorial instead of on Tzintkra would also have the benefit of not making him switch forms in front of strangers - and he’d be able to keep an eye out from his bedroll in case of attacks or the three mercenaries not being as friendly as they seemed. The tutorial would only take a few seconds each time, after all.
Once his watch was over, Serenity rolled out his bedroll and sat on it. He waited until he was sure Hale was trying to sleep and Katya wasn’t paying attention, then triggered his entrance into the Tutorial.
[Tutorials Completed as Instructor: 26/180]
Serenity appeared in the student entry area, as usual. What wasn’t usual was that a number of the students near him weren’t human. They could probably pass as human, but he could smell the difference between dryads and humans. Dryads smelled of their trees.
The other thing that wasn’t normal, of course, was that he was far more obviously nonhuman than they were; while he could - and was - concealing as much as possible, he didn’t have a way to conceal his eyes. He made his way towards Kerr, who was startled to see him. “Serenity?”
“Yeah. It’s been an interesting time.” He drew her to one side and asked where none of the students could hear, “Is there anything different for nonhuman students, as long as they’re successfully passing as human?”
“I assume you’re not asking for yourself, because you’re definitely not successfully passing.”
Serenity chuckled. “No, dryads. Nature spirits - I think this group is mostly trees.”
Kerr nodded. “No, nothing different. YOU are joining us for dinner and telling us all about it, though!”
Serenity nodded. That was only to be expected.
----------------------------------------
Dinner that evening included Kerr, Sillon, Margrethe, Ekari, and Blaze. Serenity’s Chimera status wasn’t known to Ekari and Blaze, so he’d have to come up with something to say. Serenity didn’t bother to change clothes for dinner; as he’d done many times before, he simply sat down to eat in the same clothes he’d worn all day.
They’d established a sort of a rotation for dinner when they could all get together as a group. Once or twice per Tutorial, each of them would cook for the entire group. Serenity tended to do steaks or burgers, since they were easy and he wasn’t great in a kitchen (especially since many of the ingredients were different from the ones in the kitchens he was used to). When no one was cooking, they’d either all eat separately or they’d gather in the dining hall after most of the students were out.
This time, Kerr provided the food. Serenity thought she’d cooked extra, but that was probably his fault; she teased him sometimes about always being hungry.
He definitely was hungry tonight. The stew had tasted good, but for some reason it hadn’t been filling. Some of that was his drained healing reserve, but that hadn’t filled as much as he’d expected for as much stew as he’d eaten.
Serenity didn’t say anything at all at first. He found himself gravitating to the meat options; everything else seemed bland, but the meat was absolutely delicious.
The idea of explaining his changed form made Serenity very nervous. He didn’t want to lose friends, especially not over something he couldn’t change, yet he didn’t know how to talk about his choices in an acceptable manner.
He wasn’t even really sure what was acceptable; he’d never asked, since the first time he’d changed species was when he died and rose as a semi-intelligent Draugr. He’d been lucky his group at the time had kept him, even though he’d lost most of his magical capability until he was able to recover his mind, but it hadn’t been an easy climb from there.
How changing physical appearance and species was treated might even change from culture to culture, and each of the people at the table was from a different planet. Serenity didn’t know how it was treated on Earth, even, because it hadn’t applied to him and he seemed to remember that Vengeance had spent the entire time fighting someone or in a dungeon. He was sure it wasn’t treated kindly, given all of the other prejudice based on appearances.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
It definitely was a problem here if it was because of monster cores. That was what Margrethe did, but he was sure Blaze and Ekari assumed Margrethe had checked him. If Margrethe wasn’t worried about it, they knew his change couldn’t have been caused by monster cores. There weren’t any dragons in the Trials anyway, and Serenity doubted the Great Tutorial Dungeon had one either. Dragons were simply too big a threat, even relatively young ones.
Serenity was still trying to figure out what to say when Blaze took the question out of his hands. “You really should take off that cloak and stretch out your wings. I can feel the muscle cramps from over here.”
Serenity froze. His wings did hurt, but he hadn’t realized it was that obvious. He had to hold them still to keep them from peeking out of the cloak. It was fine for a while, but he’d been holding them in position for hours.
“I’m also not sure it had the effect you were looking for. It might actually be better to show the wings next time. Minimizing their shock is nice, but this isn’t the first group; most of the time, people have heard about the Tutorial, which is helping more than I’d expected. Some extra shock might be useful.” Blaze stopped talking and tilted his head. “I meant it about stretching your wings. I’m getting cramps in muscles I don’t even have. It’s really uncomfortable and I can’t turn off physical empathy, unfortunately.”
Serenity realized that Blaze literally did not care what he looked like, as long as he wasn’t in pain. Serenity had never met a physical empath before, as far as he knew, but he could see why they’d consider others’ physical comfort to be important. The amazing thing was that Blaze had chosen to follow the path of Healing magic, which meant he was continually surrounded by people who were at best uncomfortable.
No wonder he was insisting on making Serenity relax.
Serenity looked at his other friends and realized that they didn’t seem to be expecting an explanation of his altered body. Somehow, he’d forgotten the differences between Earth and places that had been integrated for a long time; it wasn’t that there wasn’t prejudice - there absolutely was - but it wasn’t usually prejudice against physical appearance. That was too easy to change.
Of course, he’d been a target of much of the prejudice there was. No one liked a necromancer or an undead, after all. There were reasons he’d valued the friendships he’d had over the centuries, and reasons many of them had been with marginalized people. Perhaps it wasn’t that he hadn’t remembered but that he was used to being a target. He’d have to remember that these people were his friends.
Serenity slowly took off his cloak and stretched his wings. Stretching was wonderful, and it did feel better to relax them than hold them tightly against his body.
“You have pretty wings. I think the only wings I’ve seen on a person were-” Ekari stopped and a flash of pain crossed her face. There was an uncomfortable silence until Ekari repeated, “The only wings I’ve seen on a person were on L-” she broke off for a moment. “-On the person who conquered my world. They were knives of golden light. I remember-” Another flash of pain crossed Ekari’s face. “I like yours better. They aren’t sharp.”
“Where are you from, anyway? I don’t think you’ve ever said.” Kerr had an odd expression on her face. Serenity wasn’t sure what it was.
“I can’t.” Ekari’s voice sounded almost strangled. “Not yet.”
After a short uncomfortable silence, Blaze started a story. “Did I tell you what a couple of students managed in the last Tutorial? Erin jumped out of a tree with her sword. She was trying to stab a boar, but-”
Everyone had a story of the crazy thing a student had done when Serenity wasn’t there, and Serenity was able to tell a few of his own; the instructors were surprisingly interested in what happened after their Stage was over. Serenity hadn’t thought about it, but they never got to see what happened after the students left, and most students weren’t given the chance to come back.
When they asked what things were like at home, Serenity had to admit he wasn’t at home, he was on Tzintkra. He was afraid someone would ask why, but instead Sillon asked, “So how many people have you scared with those fiery eyes of yours?”
“Just one. But it’s only been a day since I ran into anyone, so just give me time.”
Everyone laughed at that.
----------------------------------------
The next day at the Trials was different. Everyone had been so shocked at everything the first day that no one had really reacted to him, but the people looking over the Trials were some of the people who’d recovered the fastest. Most were just looking for information, but a few were difficult.
Several called him a devil, for tearing people out of their own lives; many others couldn’t believe that he was the Serenity they’d heard about. He spent the entire day either explaining the Trials or telling people that yes, Paths could change your physical form but you could choose your Paths so if you wanted to stay human you could.
At around lunchtime, he ended up discarding his cloak; it was better to have his wings on display than have someone accuse him of hiding his “deformity” again. Each of them had shut up when he showed that what he was hiding was wings, but he still didn’t like it.
He knew a large portion of humanity wouldn’t stay fully human in appearance, but many others would.
The funniest moment was after a woman and her daughter walked up to him. The daughter was in her twenties, and seemed to be the one leading her mother around; sometimes it was the young who were more resilient but other times their elders’ experience of hard times helped more. This time, the name the woman used for him was “demon”.
Serenity sighed and started to reply, but the daughter got there first. “No, mom. Look at his wings. He’s got feathers, and they’re silver! Feathers means he’s a good guy, especially in bright colors.” Serenity swore she winked at him as he said it, but her mother seemed to accept it.