Myconids apparently communicated on multiple levels through a combination of sign language, spores, and magic—some of which were similar to nuance and tone—but they could write if they had to and some could use illusions to write words or portrait ideas in the air.

A handful could even use magic to speak, by conjuring sounds, but there were mixed feelings about that among her family …?

Ryan didn’t really get why. He supposed not everyone would want to or had the time to learn and then maybe they felt left out. It was hard to guess considering this was a whole other species they were talking about.

A whole other species.

He knew Eliot, who was half-vat, and sure, he looked stark white when he didn’t use his spell, and yes, he changed his hair, skin, and eye colors like others changed clothes, but he still looked and acted like any other slightly eccentric person.

Myconids. Living with Myconids, sharing a house with them, waving to them on the street—or forest trail—growing up with some as childhood friends. Family.

He wondered if he knew anyone who had a summoning crystal for one so he could see what that might be like but … that also seemed like a horribly insulting idea if Lisa found out.

Maybe she will introduce me someday? It was a comforting thought as he left the office.

A warm day enveloped him. The air smelled like wood and stone, cut grass, and fresh flowers. A hint of smoke drifted from somewhere. Micah probably would have been able to point to where if he’d asked.

He didn’t.

Ryan took in an almost involuntary breath and stood taller in the daylight. Together, it all made him want to go do something and relax at the same time, eat some barbecue, and weirdly enough, have a nice beer. It would have been the perfect day for an alleyball match near the park.

He trailed after their mismatched group, half young, half older, as they ran about the residence instead.

Anne and Lisa wanted to gather some supplies before they headed back to school where most of their other gear and their shortcut into the Tower were.

He listened to Micah ask questions, listened to Lisa’s every answer, and cherished them, but when Navid and Sion joined from the living room, the tone became stilted. They danced around issues and made it out to sound like they were talking about her home near Trest at the Rock.

If either of the two noticed something, they didn’t say so. They watched curiously and threw in the odd comment or talked about other things.

Lisa had answered what she wouldn’t be able to talk about at all outside the office and it was those things Ryan turned over and over in his head while he had waited.

Apparently, her family lived in a network of homes rather than a proper village, with trails and basic roads between residences. They had secure spaces for magical experiments like labs, bunkers, and wide-open fields, and had cleared other fields for sports and family events.

He imagined her playing baseball in a stretch of wild grass, hair flowing in the breeze, then remembered how weird she was about physical activities and scratched the image in favor of a giant picnic.

Better.

She said there were ponds, lakes, and rivers, and that a few family members had even constructed an underwater cavern they could dive to—except, she hadn’t been allowed to try for the longest time.

As a sort of ‘test’, they tricked me into working hard. She’d rolled her eyes as she explained. They said I could join them when I can make an air bubble to breathe or hold my breath long enough. It was mean. And boring, after the third visit. It was just another room, really.

‘Just another room’? Ryan tried not to laugh. Magic was a fundamental part of their lives apparently, something they learned from a young age onward.

Micah had asked. She’d said she ‘sort of’ had two or six spirit affinities depending on how they counted.

One is similar to mana, a mental affinity, but it leans toward certain elements: light, fire, wind, and lightning.

The other, she wasn’t allowed to talk about. Ryan didn’t ask. He wanted to ask. Micah gave up after begging for a little while.

But if they could make something like that, underwater caves … He upgraded his mental image of her home from a village to something like an advanced scout camp or the Lost Queen’s country manor: luxurious log cabins surrounded by carefully culled pines and every comfort in magic and engineering imaginable.

Except, then she talked about how they grew and crafted lots of things themselves, like vegetables and pottery, had to make long trips to trade for months of supplies at a time, and simply went without a lot of things when they couldn't get them any other time.

Then, he had no idea what to imagine. It all sounded so very … rustic, put nicely. But it did sound nice.

She told them about playing hide and seek in the woods, swearing her family would cheat with magic if they couldn’t find her soon enough, studying and hunting monsters for ingredients, both as food and components, maintaining the property and forest, and diving off a giant cliff with their version of a [Featherfall] spell.

Lisa. Cliff-diving. Somehow, it made sense.

It sounded like fun. He wanted to hear more, but then she’d glanced at the list and asked him if the coast was clear. He got the sense there were questions she didn’t want to answer.

So then they left and started talking in code around Navid and Sion. And then they started talking about other things.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“So are you all going to be there on Monday, for the dance lessons?” Micah asked on their way out the front gate.

“Oh, yeah,” Navid said as if he were now just remembering. He shoved Sion with a smile, frowned, and turned on Micah, “Wait, were you invited?”

“Yeah!” He grinned. “Principal Denner actually told me a week ago. I just wasn’t allowed to say so.”

“You told everyone,” Lisa said.

“I mean, yeah. People I trust,” he said and glanced aside, then quickly added, “and whom I hang out with lots so I had a chance to tell them.”

Ryan might have expected Navid or Sion to joke about hurt feelings. They didn’t.

“So it’s just going to be us who were invited on Monday, huh?” Sion asked.

"Yeah, you've been looking forward to it for a while now, haven't you?" Navid asked him with a sly grin.

Sion made a face. "Shut up."

“Thankfully, it will be just us,” Lisa said. “Maybe we’ll actually have room to, you know, move. The school could have given us a larger space to practice in.”

“Oh, yeah,” Anne said. “I dropped by a few times and it always looked very crowded. It won’t be like that?”

“Nope.”

“Lots of people wanted to learn,” Micah said and held a fist up, “which is great! But it also sucks. We had little space to move, or air to breathe, and you’d always stumble into other dancers—”

“Are you sure that was the room and not you?” Sion asked.

He shoved him. “Not anymore.”

“Wait,” Navid said and held an arm out to slow the others down, “does that mean Lisa can dance now?”

She glared at him.

“Yeah, she can!” Micah said.

“See, now I am beginning to regret not going because I’ll only believe that when I see it with my own eyes.”

“Not everything is about you, Madin,” Lisa said.

“You could always just ask her to dance …?” Anne needled him with a smile likely as sweet as her tone.

Navid almost missed a step. “What? I’m not—”

Sion saw the look on his face, Anne’s smile, and joined in, “Navid and Lisa sitting in a tree—”

Lisa waved a hand and his voice muffled. He clawed at his face as if the spell effect were a physical spiderweb he could peel off, glared at Lisa, and ran at her. They chuckled as she dodged back, but then Micah picked it back up.

“K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”

Lisa kicked him and he almost tripped over a ridge on the sidewalk.

Ryan bought himself a shish kebab from a food stall half a street away, watching with one eye. It wasn’t quite the same as a proper barbecue, but with the right sauce, it tasted good enough.

When he caught up, they didn’t seem to have noticed his absence. They did notice the smell of his food, but it took them a moment to pause their conversation, and then they had to turn back because they all wanted some.

If he had known, he wouldn’t have bought it.

At school, they split up to gear up in their rooms. Micah practically sprinted down the walkway that connected the two buildings. Ryan couldn’t find his other boot for the longest time and when he did find it—it was under his bed—he almost fell flat on his ass as he struggled to put it on.

He almost threw his regular shoes across the empty room, then almost slammed the door on his way out, but stopped when he saw Micah waiting for him at the end of the hallway, looking around impatiently.

He didn’t know if he should be surprised but either way, it was a nice gesture. He sighed, locked the door, and hurried up.

Lisa and Anne were already waiting for them on the ground floor of the common room, by virtue of having prepared stuff beforehand at Garen’s place. He caught a glimpse of them standing in the far back, near the door toward their school’s exit toward the Tower, and they headed toward the stairs down.

The perspective blocked their vision of them and Micah ran toward the railing to ‘fix’ the issue, but Ryan could still hear them talking about the weirdest things far better than he could ever see them. They were talking about him.

So … what color are his eyes anyway? I’m assuming they aren’t blue.

Lisa hesitated. Brown, I’m pretty sure.

Yeah, but what kind of brown? I need details.

Ryan slowed his steps on the staircase. Micah ran down.

Just … brown, Lisa said. Brown is brown, what do you expect me to say?

Leaning toward amber, Ryan thought, and bright, though not necessarily in color, but because their … lines, the sponges and ridges, are so pronounced even from a distance.

Micah wasn’t exactly the most conventionally attractive person, he could admit to himself. He was definitely above-average now because of how much he trained, but that was fitness and not his features. His eyes, though, they were one of the things he had going for him.

Anne didn’t even know which color they were?

By her hum and the fact that she had asked instead of looking for herself, it couldn’t have been for a lack of interest.

Something to do with her own eyes, her sight, then? He didn’t know if he should feel sad for her or not. Or feel sad for Micah. He didn't have their perspectives.

He wondered why she saw his eyes as blue, though. Somehow, it sounded familiar … Had Lisa made a comment along those lines, once?

His [Mage] Class was blue. Could [Alchemist] be, too? It was a magic Class, but … he didn’t know if that rang quite true to him. Why would Lisa have commented on it, then?

Maybe they could see his [Essence Sight].

Either way, she had a smile in her voice when she nudged the far shorter girl. Why do you ask?

Huh? Oh, because— I mean, What color are your eyes anyway? Anne dodged the question.

Lisa called her on it, Don’t dodge the question.

Micah spared her having to answer. He waved as he ran toward them, rustling in his full armor minus the broken chainmail, as if it were important to get back to them those few seconds quicker.

Anne elbowed Lisa in the side and hissed a warning, looking embarrassed. Lisa didn’t react.

Micah asked them if the other two weren’t back yet, even though they were obviously absent, and Anne answered anyway, and made an idle comment about Navid always taking forever with things like this; he asked her about the mace she had with her instead of her usual longsword, she said something about following Garen’s advice and adapting to the monsters they expected to face, and Micah held back a comment about it being nice to be able to afford an entire armory to choose from—

Well, Ryan didn’t know that, but he knew for sure that the topic would be on Micah’s mind.

And … it was just painfully obvious to anyone who overheard them that they were reaching for conversation topics. Knowing Micah, he could keep it up all day.

Ryan sighed.

If someone could just … shove me into a spike trap, that would be nice.