The First Unraveling

Is every breath a breath of life?

* * * * * * * *

Nothing.

There was no match for Alea’s shade of blue to any of the emittier clans documented in any of the supposedly “definitive” guides in the Academy Library of Talented Physiologies.

Szak left the five-story collection absolutely aggravated.

“Maybe try the Archive of Historical Information?” Ty suggested, following him down the limestone steps.

“You’d think that any gene that existed would be documented physiologically.”

Ty shrugged. “I don’t record these things. Wouldn’t know. Do you record these things?”

Szak just looked at him.

“No, right?” Ty eased. “So how can you expect yourself to know on the first try?”

Szak scrunched his face when he turned toward the path. It’s always Ty to make such nonsensical sense…

“Or you could just ask her yourself.”

“Pass.”

“Why not?”

Szak stopped walking and turned to Ty, trying his best to not blow up on the only one he considered a friend on this campus. “How obvious does it need to be? She’s not going to answer.”

“How do you know that?”

Szak rolled his eyes and kept walking, knowing Ty would follow. “Any question remotely personal gets an ‘I cannot say’ or some ‘I don’t know’ bullshit variant.”

Ty nodded with a shrug. Szak did have a point there.

There were less scholars walking along these trails. Its winding route ebbed and flowed with the formation of the trees bordering the woods at the edge of campus. In scattered, sporadic moments, the winds would try their hand at lifting leaves and hair before giving up and leaving them all behind to continue along their own paths.

“You think she’s from the Mist?” Szak asked mid-thought.

Ty shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. She apparently knows my family. That increases the likelihood, I’d say.”

“Any chance she’d be on record as a crossover in the Mist?”

“… What makes you think she’s from Oblivion?”

The question reminded Szak of that day at the hospital, when he had caught that bit in Alea’s stare. A part of his heart tugged at him to help her, but he wasn’t sure why, and that was the last thing he wanted to talk about. “Just a thought. Would she?”

“I—sure? I’d have to go check the roster for that though.” Ty blinked. “Wait, shouldn’t you also have a copy of those records you can access in the Hearth?”

Szak didn’t answer. He lost all clearance for those files when he dropped his rank.

“Szak?”

“Let’s just say I need to regain my rank, and leave it at that,” Szak muttered.

Ty’s eyes focused left, then right, then left again as he thought about what Szak had said and what he could respond with.

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Szak repeated, slightly irritated.

“Alright, well. I’m headed this way, then,” Ty said, pointing down an alternative path among the trees. “Meet you after class? Is Iago in on this?”

“Probably. I think he met Alea first. That, and, he likely has more information after combat earlier.” Szak paused. “Whatever you do, Ty, don’t let Alea touch you. Not yet.”

“Okay… why?”

Szak considered how to answer. He wasn’t ready to explain his own experiences, just yet. “She may have some psychic talent.”

“Like a siren?”

“I’ll tell you more later,” Szak huffed. “Where’s your next lecture?”

“Yeah, about that,” Ty let out a soft laugh.

Szak raised a brow.

“You have any idea why the Ashenborn gave me a weekly ceramics class this quarter?”

Szak blinked. Three times. “Ceramics?”

“Yep.” Ty made his lips do a bit of a pop at the end of his answer. “I’m just as surprised as you.”

“Your muse is still political sciences?”

Ty nodded. “For my ambassadorial missions,” he sighed.

Szak shrugged. “If it helps to make any more sense, I have a history class even though my muse is supposed to be rhetoric.”

Ty stifled a laugh at that. Any time Szak said rhetoric aloud. “Maybe Anya and Ayren have a similar kind of humor, then.”

Szak only shrugged and shook his head. Ty gave a singular nod back, then left him at the fork to attend his own lecture.

Silence let Szak hear the crackle of his own footsteps as he walked among the fallen pines.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Further down this trail was a circular glass building held up by a meeting of trees. Each trunk stood in equidistant lengths from its neighbors, straight and tall as they branched through seventy-two feet of air. Inserted between each pair of trees were enormous glass panes, curved to keep the building from forming a dodecagon.

At least, that was what Szak remembered from those “Rhetoric of Architecture” lectures back in spring. Apparently, this very building for his first course this autumn was deemed ‘…an architectural masterpiece… symbolizing the relationship between the authentic and the artificial.’

He scoffed at the thought. Coming together and completing a full circle was not the main reason; he was certain the glass curved and thinned out as it reached the top for the sole purpose of balancing its own weight.

And someone didn’t make a ceiling because they enjoyed the idea of bird shit and pinecones dropping onto people throughout lecture.

Everyone was an idiot.

As he approached the glass doors, the walkway dissolved its cemented cobblestones with a mix of miscut rocks and rounded glass fragments. Eventually, the stone pieces stopped altogether and glass pieces of all sizes crammed beside each other; some held transparent faces and revealed the dirt beneath while others reflected the nature of Szak’s own belligerent scowl as he walked over each of them. He reached out and grabbed the gaping circular opening on the door.

Pursing his lips, Szak questioned why the architect ever decided to carve such massive circles out such doors. He could dip his body through the hole if he had truly wanted to expend that effort.

It’s already transparent. May as well not have doors at all. There’s already no ceiling.

Szak took a left and walked up stairs shaped by finely embellished wood and vine, each level leading to a circular line of seating fronted by stone slabs lifted for learning. Of the twelve available rows, he chose the third and sat on a seat least likely to gain or give attention.

The stone tables were littered in blood-colored leaves, fallen and defeated from its battle with the autumn winds. Resting his elbow on the chiseled and chilly surface, he leaned his cheek into his hand and waited for lecture to begin. Alea’s blue hair lingered in the back of his mind.

At the left of the circular stage where the sun gleamed warmest, Szak saw the head and torso of a slim and slender woman slithering her scaly body, layers scraping skin against skin as she circled and swayed about in spirals. The vivid green saturation in her eyes were split in the center with thin, steep slits that scanned the room. Szak considered drifting back to sleep, but he could not.

For once again, just as he was to close his eyes, a head of blue hair walked past him and took a seat in the first row with diligent fervor.

Alea? Here?

Szak blinked. As if it could focus his vision to a different reality. It did not, because it was real.

She had not noticed he was in this lecture with her. Szak gave himself credit for that—he had, in fact, chosen the seat least likely to gain attention. He watched her reach into her satchel to retrieve a bounded notebook and a… a pen?

Szak was distastefully intrigued.

I don’t even use a pen. Well—not that I take notes, but if I did… why doesn’t she just use a talented feather? Does she not care about efficiency? A freshly-charged feather would—

His thoughts were interrupted by a woman’s scream in the air. Other scholars in the hall heard that same scream and looked all around the sky for the reason.

In the next blink of an eye, a heavy shadow covered half the auditorium. A muscular snake of enormous size stretched across the circular stage and reached up to the sky. The front half of her body extended past the height of the glass walls as the scream drew closer.

Rushing down at an incredible speed was an enlarged feather carrying two people. Szak noted the scream was coming from the brown-headed one. As the feather approached the professor, she ducked her torso just below them. This made her reposition the lower half of her body coiled about the room as well, shaking the wooden seats and stone tables with the weight of her force. A collection of dust flew up and threatened the breaths of scholars seated too close to the stage—including Alea. She held up an arm to cover her nose and mouth from the upheaval. Eventually, the dust settled, and the feather sloped down the professor’s back, following her natural curves.

The two scholars toppled over halfway down the professor’s spiraling body, their feather not able to keep up with the acceleration of their weight. At that same moment, the professor lifted her body and guided their featherless bodies around until they reached the dirt ground. The girl went from deathly screams to near-silent whimpers once she stood up and found herself surrounded by the largest reptilian body she had ever seen.

“Mussst be Esssavir’s doing.” Professor Cobella lowered to the girl’s eye level. She continued slithering around to uncoil the lower half of her body, freeing the two humans that had never been happier to feel solid ground beneath them. “Sssat inconsssiderate smartass.”

Each time a word required her to press tongue against teeth, Szak saw her tongue ribbon out.

“We’re v-very sorry, Professor Cobella,” the young man said with shaky lips.

Professor Cobella smiled, and a chill went down both humans’ spines when they saw her fangs protrude past the rest of her teeth.

“My dear, my dear…” she whispered as she circled herself around them. “My darsssing dears. Don’t take b’ame. Sssere were many ways Esssavir could have sent you darsssings. He is a ssshowoff, and unfortunatesssy ssse two of you bore ssse burden… My poor darsssings. Take a ssseat now, and forget what happened. You are on time. Sssat is asss ‘at matters.”

She bridged part of her snake body, and the two shuffled away to empty seats as quick as their feet could carry them. Professor Cobella turned to the class, eyeing each and every one of them once more with her green and black slits for eyes before starting lecture.

Szak found it excruciatingly hard to pay attention, as the professor’s incessant hissing of all ‘l’s and ‘th’s made it nearly unbearable for his ears.

As if history were not boring enough.

“Ssse day fosssowing ssse sssree Mossser’s Mornings, ssse Asssenborn announced a proposasss for humans of every breeds: beginnings of wor’d peace, sssrough ssse creation of ssse Provinces of Aideysss. Your textbook outsssines a compsssete sssist of dates each province added ssseir names to ssse Treaty of Reprieve, asssong wisss maps detaisssing ssse shrinking of Obsssivion and ssse growsss of our great unification. Ssse most recent territory added to Aideysss—”

Alea, however, seemed to be paying attention just fine. Szak watched her scribble down every word uttered from the cobra woman’s tongue. Her penmanship was on par with a print press—something seldom seen. There was something almost inhuman about how perfect her words sprawled.

Szak thought back to combat. Alea looked clumsy enough when sparring against Iago. In fact, she moved as if she had never practiced before—didn’t even know the basic footwork. Or, if she did, she never implemented it. But the way she moved the pen with intense focus and ease.

For what reason would a girl like her sign up to be a combatant?

The gold sword that she had—is she looking for something, or someone, in Oblivion?

Oblivion had to be the answer. Szak could not think of any other reason for Alea to answer the way she had been. All this “I cannot say, I cannot say” crap.

He looked away to keep himself from staring at her for too long. To his left, a water faerie sat with hands crossed before him. Dyed water danced around in the air before him, and drops plopped down onto paper periodically to stain the page with words in Aideylli.

Szak turned to his right to prevent himself from scoffing aloud. Normal ink was always a vibrate shade of its relevant hue, and it was evident that the water faerie did not hone his talent enough—his ink had been diluted with water so that he could control it effectively, and the words that fell upon his pages had become such an embarrassing shade of gray that Szak wondered if the notes would even be legible when dried.

“First of ssse provinces to be added to Aideylsss were ssse sssands to ssse east of Essensia. If you sssook at your map…”

Szak looked back down at Alea. She wrote at an impressive speed, and upon a more detailed look at what was actually on her pages, Szak realized she was transcribing Professor Cobella’s lecture word for word. Quite inhuman.

Too inhuman. There was almost a—Szak tried to think of the Oblivious term for it.

What was it…

It was a slang term he studied for one of his missions.

He kept eyes on the mindless grace with which the words flowed out from Alea’s hand.

Something inhuman… something… something…

… Robotic.