Arenya’s lungs were on fire. She coughed and sputtered, barely able to see from the smoke before her eyes. Her mouth filled with a bitter taste. She was overcome with an urge to vomit. And the smell… burning materials she did not wish to know the name of.

“Why… why would you…” she breathed out between hacking coughs.

“You took way too big a drag. I’ll show you.” Zelzad inhaled on her cigarette, held the smoke for just a moment, then released it over several seconds. “You want to go smaller, especially at first.”

Arenya shook her head and spat the cigarette out of her mouth. “No way. That was disgusting. And you smoke these every day?”

Zelzad grinned. She was surprisingly plain-looking when not dressed like she was that first night. In a normal, unrevealing shirt, she looked just like any other student. Her face was tanned and her lips pale. In a crowd of fellow students, she’d not have stood out. “Just one a day, if that. Hardly anything. Now Drav, he's an addict."

Arenya lay back on the grass before Serpent Wing and looked at the setting sun. “I’ll pay you back once I have money. I don’t want to smoke this. It’s awful.”

Zelzad waved her hand. “Don’t pay me back. It was a gift.”

They sat in silence for a bit as the sky darkened. Zelzad took occasional puffs of her cigarette, but Arenya noticed she was careful to blow the smoke away from Arenya.

“Arenya, can I ask you something a bit personal?”

“Umm… I guess so.”

“How did you get the Blond Ice Queen to be friends with you?”

Arenya blinked. “Cartalis? What do you mean?”

“She’s…” Zelzad looked away from Arenya. “Please don’t take this the wrong way. Cartalis is kind of an aloof celebrity, you know? Beautiful, rich, foreign. Her family’s well known around here too. But she’s closed off to everyone. She never talks to other students except when she’s annoyed, at which point she'll just explode at them. She spends hours poring over her work, reading her books, or talking with professors. You’ve seen how many boys have tried to get into her good graces just these last couple weeks. That's nothing compared to how many chased her around when she first arrived. She’s spurned each and every one, and gotten so furious at some that now only the biggest dolts and bravest fools in the school try to do more than say hello. And then you come along out of nowhere, and from the first moment you two are thick as fiends. When she laughed last week, collapsed on the floor... Even the craziest rumors about her have never discussed her showing anywhere near that much of any emotion that wasn't cold rage - and there are a lot of rumors about her. How did you do it?”

A stray cloud moved, revealing the first star of the night. Arenya watched the cloud drift by. She remained silent.

Stolen story; please report.

A minute passed. At last, she said, “We ran into each other on the train here. She was excited about my wings. I expressed interest in her books. It was a little awkward, actually. Then… Then we were friends.” She sighed. “I know that isn’t much of an answer. You know, she’s really not that cold or aloof. She gets excited, she shows happiness and confusion just like you or me. She’s just a bit different in when and how.”

A second star twinkled in the sky as Zelzad lay down. “When you’re around, maybe. But I swear, any time I have seen her it was always with a scowl. I’d say it’s just because I’m a metalhead freak -” she chuckled - “but it’s the same story from everyone.”

“It’s the same story about me, too, you know.”

From the corner of her eye, Arenya saw Zelzad blink and do a double take at her. “What?”

“How many other people with wings are there here? How hard is it for me to find food I can eat around here? I don’t think people say I’m beautiful like they do Cartalis, but -”

“They do.”

Arenya rolled her eyes. “But other than that, she and I are both outsiders here. We don’t have a lot in common on the surface, but I think she saw through that. We’re both strangers in this place. You have your friends and your band. Cartalis and I only have each other. I think she was just lonely.”

Silence reigned.

Arenya was about to sit up and see if Zelzad was still nearby when she finally responded. “The founder of the academy was a dragon, wasn’t he? I remember reading that.”

“Yeah.” Arenya allowed herself a slight grin. “Yesod Hall was a giveaway. The hall of the foundational courses, named for the foundation upon which the world stands. It’s half the reason I chose this school. But there’s no Followers here. Just me and Professor Kazurist?"

"What about Ya'el?"

"Ha. Good one."

Arenya relaxed her suddenly clenched fists, took a deep breath, paused a moment. "That was rude. I shouldn't have said that. You're right, she is a Follower, technically, but she doesn't actually follow. She thought her great grandfather was a drake! She doesn't know the difference between drakes and dragons and she's descended from a dragon. She's not... I never realized how few of us there were until now.”

She looked up at the sky once more. One, two, three stars. A new day. Arenya smiled, or least tried to. “What brought you here?”

Zelzad hrmmed. “What do you mean?”

“What are you studying?" asked Arenya, thankful Zelzad took the bait to change the subject. "What’s your plan in life?”

“Get something easy to get. Get a job. Fund the band. That’s what I want to do.”

Arenya blinked. “But what something? What job? That’s why we’re all here.”

“Whatever pays well.” Zelzad shrugged. “I’m not here to learn. I just want to get enough that I can focus on what I really care about. That’s why most of us are here, you know. You and the Blo - You and Cartalis are exceptions.”

Arenya sat up and stared at the grass. “I don’t understand. I don’t know if I understand anyone here at all. Maybe not even Cartalis.”

Zelzad laughed. “Join the club. Nobody understands Cartalis.”

The two stared at the sky and the slowly gathering clouds for a while.

“I should probably get going,” said Arenya. “I have something I need to work on.”

Zelzad stood and clapped Arenya on the back. “Best of luck, my girl. Come by on our next band practice. Drav’ll have some more apples for you. Other food too, I hope.”

Arenya was torn between a squeak of surprise at being touched in such an odd way and an elated grin, and ended up standing frozen for a few seconds.

“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you and your friends.”

Arenya hurried off, glad for the few minutes’ respite from her work.

She threw the almost unused cigarette in the trash on her way back to the dorm. She might be in a position to learn much from Zelzad and her friends, but that was one habit she was not intending to pick up any time soon.