Chapter 14: A long way down
Felix Sythias’ POV (continued):
“That’s crazy. No wonder your brother is so entitled,” I said to Tiki.
“Yeah, it’s ridiculous. My parents try to do better now, but it’s hard to change someone when they think they’re already the best self they can be. Even the literature teacher they hired couldn’t help.”
“Ha, tell me about it. Dad was really stubborn too. Still is, I… suppose....” I trailed off as I looked down, between the planks, towards the trees kilometers beneath our talons.
It was a long way down to the ground. A very long way. All that would need to happen is for one of the floorboards to break, or for one cable to snap, and we’d be plummeting towards the ground, unable to do anything to slow our rapid descent. I only had one wing. All I could do would be to flap it about, hoping for the best, knowing very well it wouldn’t be enough.
I shook my head to clear my thoughts. It didn’t work. Alex patted my shoulder soothingly. He stepped in front of me and lifted my snout up towards him.
“Come on, deep breaths and keep looking at me. The bridge doesn’t exist, just me. You’re safe on solid ground.” I focused on his eyes, beautiful as they were with the ring of red scales around them, and breathed in deep, and out, and in, and out. Slowly my terror faded. “Good. Now tell me again about the bridges. When was the last accident?”
“It was a decade ago,” I told him.
“And why did it happen? Did the bridge fail?” he asked.
“No. They were fighting and someone was pushed over the edge by accident.”
“And why didn’t it fail?”
“The bridges are built with great redundancy in mind. You could stand on them with a thousand people and still not reach a tenth of their capacity.”
“So, will it fail while we’re on it?”
Despite my fear, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “No. The chances are so tiny that they’re completely negligible.”
“Alright. Keep that in mind and don’t look down.”
He patted my shoulder one more time and then stepped aside. I took one last deep breath, and we continued.
We were walking along one of the many bridges connecting the islands. It swayed lightly in the wind, but it was sturdy and large enough for us three to walk side by side with room to spare, so the swaying wasn’t all that noticeable. It was strange crossing over bridges again. I hadn’t done so in years. Even when I gave the tour earlier this week, I just hovered alongside the bridge while the students crossed it.
It was scary. Terrifying, even. It hadn’t been at first, but the more I used them, the more I realized there was nothing I could do if I fell. The small spark of fear had promptly turned into a wild flame when I realized there were no safeguards beyond the sturdy design and choice of materials. If something happened, if we fell, I wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it and we’d probably die. I had no wings to catch my fall, only the branches of a forest kilometers below.
It didn’t help that you could see the forest below through the gaps in the floorboards, either.
I tried not looking down, but the bridges were long. Once in a while I caught myself looking between the planks and I’d stop mid-step, halting any conversation I was having at the time. It had happened four times so far, and each time I felt like I could handle it just a little better. The first time had scared Tiki and Alex quite badly, though not as much as it had me. I’d just stopped moving and went unresponsive, paralyzed by the thought of falling. It would’ve been funny if it weren’t for the still rapid thumping of my heart.
It was kind of embarrassing to be afraid of heights as someone with wings. But it wasn’t really the height I was afraid of. No, I’d given it some thought and realized it was the fall. More specifically, the lack of control when I would fall. The inability to do anything about it. Just like I’d be unable to do anything about getting my System back.
Explaining my fear to myself didn’t help all that much, though.
We kept walking along, with me in the middle and as far away from the edges as possible. We mostly talked about books, since we were on the way to the library. Tiki had an interest in autobiographies. Especially those from Academy members that often went on adventures.
Alex talked about what books he’d gotten when we went to the library a few days ago. Apparently, he’d already finished one of them. He also forgot to mention one of the books, the one we got together, but when I tried reminding him, he just shook his head at me. So I kept my mouth shut.
Tiki glanced between us but didn’t say anything about it and just powered on telling us about the crazy life of Tori Firethistle, a crazy elf who’s solution to any problem was to set it on fire.
After crossing the bridge, we were finally at the library. To be more specific, we were at the Second Greatest Library. It was a magnificent and large building with a spiral theme woven into the very foundation of the building. It looked very impractical, but they made it work. This library mostly had books that focused on practical knowledge, reports, and other non-fiction works, like autobiographies. The perfect spot for Tiki, according to her. We made a deal to pick her up on the way back and continued on towards professor Vuillio’s house.
Once Tiki was out of sight, I tried asking Alex about what the deal with the book was, the one he didn’t want me to share with Tiki. I already had an inkling of an idea, but I wasn’t going to shove my theories in his face. He evaded the topic and told me to ask about it later. I dropped the issue for now and we continued walking the last bit to our destination.
There, we found the students around Sìnna Vuillio’s house being busier than usual. Not only were they carrying cages and squirrel feed around, but they were now also busy trying to give notes and scent samples to squirrels, getting them to listen. They all looked very frustrated—the students and the squirrels both.
I knocked on the door of the main building, and moments later, one of the servants opened the door. She handed us the book we were here to pick up and while Sìnna wasn’t home, we were still invited in for tea.
We went inside and took a seat. A few minutes later, some squirrels delivered a plate with tea and cookies. I took the plate and put it on the table. The squirrels ran away and into holes that lined the walls.
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“Huh, that’s new,” I said.
We drank the tea while we chatted about how surreal it was to be served tea by squirrels. It reminded me of something Alex had said earlier.
“Didn’t you say it was your suggestion to have the squirrels deliver notes? How did that come about?”
Alex blinked. “Oh, we were about done with the meeting and she had a suggestion for a guide I should read.” He pointed at the book sitting on the table beside him. It didn’t have a title—nor any text on the cover, for that matter. “She just wasn’t sure where to find it. She didn’t have the time to deliver it to me, and didn’t trust her servants enough to deliver it either. So I suggested that the squirrels do it. They’d been handling tasks about the room quite well, so I figured why not? She shot the idea down but then shooed me outside, muttering about notes. The grin on her face was kind of scary, if I’m being honest.”
“Huh. Sounds like you gave her some inspiration,” I said with a grin.
After the tea, we thanked the servant, Marlijn, and started our journey back. When I asked about the book the servant had given him, he told me it was a journal of an old friend of Sìnna who had a great survival Skill. Apparently Sìnna thought Alex would greatly benefit from the story and the process of how her friend had gained the Skill.
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When we were about to cross the last bridge to the island with the library, I decided to once again ask about the deal with the book earlier, before we dropped off Tiki.
“Why don’t you want me to talk about At the end of the rainbow?” I asked.
Alex took his tail in hands and fidgeted with it. “I… I don’t want her to know I read that sort of stuff.”
I raised an eye-ridge. “Romance books? You don’t have to be embarrassed about that. I’m sure everyone has read at least one at some point in their life.”
“No, not romance books. Just… romance books with…” his voice got really small, to barely a squeak, “two guys.”
“Oh,” I said, not quite expecting that and mentally adjusting the theories I had. “Sure, I’ll keep it to myself.”
“It’s just that… I… um…”
I shot him a gentle understanding smile. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
“I… thanks.”
“Just know that those sorts of books are perfectly normal here, and no one will judge you for reading them,” I said. It was only mostly true, but he didn’t need to know that. It was close enough, anyway. “Come, we’re almost there. Hopefully she’s waiting outside like promised.”
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“You guys are late,” Tiki told us when we arrived.
“There was tea. It would’ve been rude to say no to tea,” I retorted.
“Hmm, fair. Shall we get going then?”
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When we got back to the dorms, the garden was filled with people, so we decided we were going to sit in my tower. There was plenty of space and it was quiet, so no one protested when I suggested it. They did grab a chair each, though, as I told them my room didn’t have any.
“Stars, your room is big,” Alex said when we entered.
“I have to agree. The rooms we got are very decent, but they’re tiny compared to this.”
“Privileges of being the son of the headmaster, I suppose. Also, the room only feels big to you because you require less room. To me it actually feels slightly cramped. Especially compared to what I’m used to.”
“Your room at home is even bigger than this?” Tiki asked.
“Yeah. See that loft? I have three of those in my room at home, and they’re a bit larger too.”
“Now I kind of want to see your actual room,” they both said at the same time. They glanced at each other and giggled a bit.
“Some other time maybe. When my wing is fully regrown. The walk is way too far for a casual visit.”
Tiki grunted non-committedly and moved deeper into the room.
“Is that you on the wall?” Alex asked, pointing at the anatomy poster that I’d hung on the wall earlier today.
“It is, yeah. There aren’t any textbooks on dragon anatomy, so Elena, the best healer and head of the hospital, made this for me when I turned ten,” I said, adding the bit of information about Elena for Tiki’s benefit.
The poster itself was very detailed and entirely accurate. It had four drawings on it in total. One of my skeletal system, one of all my organs, one of my muscular system, and one of my cardiovascular system.
Tiki stared at it intently.
“Is it accurate?” she asked, and I nodded. Alex snorted and tried to suppress his laughter.
Tiki glared at him. “Get your mind out of the gutter, that's not what I meant,” she said.
“Are you sure?” he asked, but Tiki ignored him. He glanced one final time at the poster, then looked away embarrassed.
Tiki turned back to me. ”It’s really impressive. We have drawings of the Elven body back home, but they're not quite as detailed.”
“Elena is great, yeah.”
“What’s up there?” Alex asked, pointing at the loft, trying to look anywhere but the poster.
“Oh, just my bed. You can take a look if you want, if you can get up there.”
“I think I can manage. Via the walls, right?” He looked at Tiki. “You want to come, too?”
“I’m good, thanks. But you go on ahead, I’ll just read down here and maybe see if I can’t draw a copy of that poster.” She looked at me. “If you don’t mind it, that is.”
“That’s not a problem, go ahead,” I said and turned back to Alex. I took his bags, and he started climbing. I waited down below to catch him in case he fell. It took him about ten minutes, but he got to the top eventually.
“Hey Felix, I thought you said you were the only dragon?” he asked.
Fuck, I’d forgotten about Drugu. I rushed to climb up to the loft so I could explain. Only when I slipped and almost fell off did I slow down. When I got to the top, Alex sat on the edge of my bed looking over the plushie.
“That’s my… um… plushie. It was a gift, and it felt rude not to take him…” I sighed. I shouldn’t lie to my friend. “Sorry, that’s a lie. He is a gift, but I took him with me because he’s the only other dragon I know. It’s kind of sad, really. And embarrassing. I mean, plushies are for kids, not adults.”
Drugu was a large dragon shaped plushie. It had red ‘scales’ and was differently proportioned than me, but still clearly a dragon.
Alex laughed and shook his head. “It’s not embarrassing. It’s adorable, really. Besides, I sleep with a plushie too. I need to have something to hold, as you know.” He patted the plushie. “What’s his name?”
“Name?”
“You called it a he,” Alex said, nodding to the plushie, “so I assume you also gave it a name.”
“Oh, yeah. I called him Drugu. I named him when I was very young and couldn’t yet pronounce ‘dragon’ correctly.”
He smiled. “I like it. It’s a good name.” He looked around the rest of the loft. It only really held my bed. “I like your bed, by the way. It’s like a big, fluffy nest.”
“Want to give it a go?” I asked, and I immediately felt weird for asking. But I’d already asked, and I now felt the need to clarify. “We can lie and read in it together if you want.”
Alex hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Sounds good. Did you take my bag with you—ah, thanks.” I handed him the bag and laid down on the bed. I put Drugu next to the bed to make space for Alex. He took his shoes off and crawled onto the pillows. He sat down in the middle, resting his back against my side, while I laid down at the edge. The pressure of him against my side was nice.
“Oh, that’s really comfortable,” he said, relaxing into the bedding. “You don’t mind me lying against you like this?”
“No, it’s fine. Nice, even.”
He smiled and took out a book and started reading. I ignored the slight weirdness of the situation and followed his example and opened my own book.