If ‘Thousand-Tongue' Zora had to be honest, he liked the nickname the kids gave ‘Conductor’ Cecilia, the academy’s one and only music teacher, more than his.
The ‘Conductor’ sounded less frightening, in any case, though it also helped that she was a young, stunningly beautiful lady in her mid twenties. Her teacher's cloak was sapphire-blue in stark contrast to his pure gold, and her blouse underneath was crisp white with puffy sleeves, her dark skirt ankle-length and flared at the bottom. A conductor’s baton hung on her belt. Her long chestnut hair was tied in a long braid, and small, silver pins shaped like musical notes were woven between the loops, which he knew the kids loved playing with like they were keys on a piano.
If it weren’t for her and her silly braid, he’d no doubt have been crowned the academy’s most popular teacher both years he’d been working here… but he smiled wearily at her nevertheless, still patting Emilia’s head as he did.
In most cases, it’d certainly be frightening to have a wand pointed in his face, but she’d given him her conditions to survive; he was going to take full advantage of them.
“... Fun fact about Miss Sarius, number one: she still sleeps with her pinky in her mouth because she never got over her nail-biting habit from back when she was first learning how to play the lute,” he said plainly.
Cecilia blinked.
Emilia pulled her head away from his waist, looking up at him strangely. He simply kept smiling as he tilted his head.
“Fun fact about Miss Sarius, number two: despite having been the academy’s ‘Food Avoidance Teacher’ the past four years, she secretly hates all sorts of fruits and always picks them out from her cafeteria meals like a child,” he continued. “Fun fact about Miss Sarius, number three: she is woefully incompetent at any sort of work related to cooking, but puts on the front that she is incredibly skilled at it whenever a student asks her to cook them something. In truth, the food she gives to her students the next day as ‘perfect examples’ are always cooked by me and–”
“Quiet!”
Her spell struck him in the face, eating his voice, and within a second she managed to close the five-metre-gap between them to whack him on the head. He feigned and exaggerated a pained groan, stealing glances at Emilia and mouthing ‘help me’ as he did—Cecilia, of course, was a bundle of rage and embarrassment rolled into one, and she spun him around by the shoulders until there was no way Emilia could see the flush on her cheeks.
“Okay, okay, I get it! It’s really you!” she hissed, as he waved his wand in front of his face to dispel her spell and she patted him down from head to toe, seemingly checking for… injuries? Not that she’d be able to help him out with those, anyways. “I was worried when Emilia ran in by herself and told me to help you, but I couldn’t just go out alone when our kids were still in the back. Thank the Great Makers you’re safe. I would know what I’d do if–”
“You thought I was a bug in disguise, huh?” He chuckled softly as he shrugged her hands off, beckoning Emilia to follow him into the common room at the end of the foyer. “Julius has been planting too many scary stories into your head. I don’t think there are bugs out there that can perfectly disguise as someone down to their hair and nails.”
Cecilia harrumphed, following after him as she cast ‘coda’ on the floating pipes, trumpets, violins, and bells along the walls to make them fall to the ground unceremoniously.
“You don’t know that,” she grumbled, sticking her wand onto her belt as she held out her hands. He passed her one of the heavy butterfly legs and made her flinch. “The giant bugs of the Swarm aren’t just oversized versions of the bugs we’re used to seeing and stomping. Some of them have freaky abilities, don’t they? If there’s anything I’ve learned from Julius, it’s that there’s always a bug out there that does exactly what you think it does.”
“Maybe. But your first mistake was thinking half of what Julius says has any credibility.”
She grumbled again. “True. I’d still appreciate it if he were here, though.”
The star-shaped common room came into view as he ducked through the doorway with Emilia and Cecilia in tow. About forty children, none older than twelve, were scattered all across the cavernous space lit by dim lantern light: some were sprawled out on the low sofas and armchairs, while others were curled up on the floor with blankets and pillows pulled from their private rooms. A few were huddled before the only crackling hearth in the centre of the room, their faces lit by the soft orange glow as they whispered amongst themselves.
The common room was supposed to be a cosy lounge for everyone to rest and play in after a hard day of school, but instead… it was quiet, the lanterns were all dark, and the wooden floorboards felt cold even through his shoes.
It was a dreary, hopeless sight.
…
The moment Cecilia closed the door behind him to keep in the heat from the hearth, though, the kids whipped their heads over to see who was the new arrival—and then their faces brightened instantly. The room itself sprang to life as they jumped to their feet, blankets cast aside, and rushed to crowd around him with wide-eyed excitement.
Emilia backed off quickly as tiny hands tugged at his sleeves, pulling him closer. The air was immediately filled with dozens of eager voices, each spilling out in a different tongue, so he crouched and spoke to each gently in turn. In one moment, he replied to a girl in the low, guttural edge-dialect of the far north, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder as she beamed at him. In the next, he was answering a boy in the clicking and humming tongue of the western shore, the boy grinning ear to ear at his response.
Cecilia watched him reassure everyone from the back, and only once he calmed about thirty of the forty children down and sent them up to their private rooms did she let out a quiet sigh of relief.
“... When the dome shattered, I was teaching my 2-B and your 2-A in the courtyard of the music building,” she whispered, dropping her butterfly leg and stepping forward to pat a few of the kids’ heads as well, helping him send them up to their rooms for sleep. “There were academy mages nearby, so they made me evacuate the kids while they held off the Swarm coming in through the southeastern gate, but… the mage who was protecting us as we ran to the dorm didn’t make it. She made me eat her system before she died, so now I’m a Magicicada Mage, I… guess.”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
He glanced at the bloody wand and the conductor’s baton on her belt, eyes slanted.
So she survived the integration, too.
Since all of us teachers of the academy were once orphans in the academy, does that mean all of our immune systems were tampered with, and that all of us have the aptitude to inherit a magicicada system class?
“Same,” he said slowly. “I was helping Emilia with her homework in my homeroom when the mage who was defending me died. I’m a Magicicada Mage, too.” Then he held up his wand, making her eyes widen. “Not how I wanted to get an insect class, but a fly wouldn’t fuss over stale fruit. Where’s class 2-C and 2-D? None of them had any classes outside when the dome was broken, right?”
Cecilia opened her mouth to speak, but it was the young blond boy she was patting the head of who coughed and spoke first.
“Class 2-C was doing fitness with Mister Evander, and class 2-D was having… I think natural sciences in Mister Tadius’ indoor garden on the skybridge!” Titus, 2-A’s twelve-year-old homeroom monitor, said. “Mister Evander and Mister Tadius both extended their classes today, though, so 2-C and 2-D aren’t back yet!”
Zora fixed him with a small smile, turning where he knelt to face the boy eye-to-eye.
“And the other teachers?” Zora asked. “Miss Becker? Mister Abel? Do you know where any of them are?”
“They were… staffroom? Um, in the staffroom?”
“I see. What about the Headmaster?”
“I don’t know. I think… her observatory? We didn’t see her the entire day, though.”
Cecilia grimaced next to him. “It’s just me and you here, Zora. There’s fresh food and water in the kitchens, but they’ll only last us a week even if we all ration—and that’s including you and me giving up most of our portions to the younglings. If the bugs get bored and leave in a week, that’ll be great, but–”
“They won’t,” he muttered, much to Cecilia’s evident confusion as she raised her brows; he didn’t want to talk about what he’d heard from the bugs in front of Titus and his friends, though, so he simply glanced up at her with a knowing look. “Food and water’s important, but what’s more important is making sure there are more teachers and adults here to look after the kids. Some of them might be stuck in the staffroom, so if I can go and fetch them, we’ll all stand a better chance at surviving this invasion.”
“You… want to go alone?”
He heaved as he stood up straight. “My throat’s messed-up, but if I can have a glass of water or two, I should be more or less… okay. I’ll keep to simpler spells. I’ll try to sneak to the staffroom as well so I can get them back before dawn, and then we can–”
“Not a chance.” Cecilia scowled, pinching his ear as he tried walking over to the open kitchen with his butterfly leg in tow. “I’m going with you. Now that I know you’re still alive and kicking, I’m not letting you out of my sight ever again.”
He feigned another groan, winking at Emilia and Titus as he did. “Stop bullying me, Miss Sarius. I am in great pain. I am in great pain. I am in great–”
“I didn’t leave to help you earlier because I couldn’t get the kids to sleep by myself, but now that they’re all back in their rooms, I can afford to leave them alone for a bit,” she breathed into his ear, keeping her voice low so the kids couldn’t hear her. “You’re not going alone, you hear me? Only the Great Makers know what sordid monstrosities crawl behind those gates—a walking skeleton like you won’t be able to make it ten strides to the faculty room by yourself.”
Brows twitching, he was about to retort when Titus stepped up, thumping his chest with a confident fist.
“Me and my friends can watch the gate on the inside while you get the other teachers, Miss Sarius, Mister Fabre!” he said, smiling brightly as he looked up at the both of them. “I can take charge! I’ll make sure nobody leaves the dorm while you’re away!”
Zora sighed. He knew it, and Titus knew it; he’d be much safer if he had Cecilia watching his back, so he gave his star student one more headpat for the road before heading towards the kitchen with her in tow.
This time, though, it wasn’t Cecilia who held him still, but Emilia who was holding onto his leg with all four of her arms.
“... I wanna go, too,” she muttered.
“Stick with Titus,” he replied, perhaps a bit too curtly than he liked. “It’s not safe out there. I had a good run for my life trying to get back here, so it’s no place for a child. Let us handle this. Just try to get some sleep and–”
“I don’t wanna stay here,” she whispered. “I don’t… belong here.”
“...”
Zora sighed again. He wasn’t oblivious, either; he was well aware Emilia's extremely apparent mutations made her stand out even amongst the orphans of the academy, and he also knew she never once hung out in the common room with the other kids after school. For the past two weeks, after attending his classes, it was always straight to her room with her dinner and nothing else.
He stole a glance at Titus and his friends and saw them fidgeting as well—they weren’t mean kids whatsoever, but they definitely weren’t good enough at hiding their discomfort hanging around Emilia—so he looked at Cecilia, asking for input with his narrowed eyes.
Maybe he just didn’t want to make the decision himself, but he already knew what she was going to say.
“Emilia’s a good girl even in my classes, so I think she’ll listen to us if we tell her to run back in a dangerous situation,” she said, rubbing Emilia’s head with a soft smile as she did. “Besides, she helped me seal off the other gates with her threads. I think her ability will come in handy when we’re outside.”
Zora frowned. “What threads?”
To demonstrate, Emilia circled in front of him and stuck her crimson nails into her mouth, biting and tearing them off—and he would’ve immediately grabbed her and told her to stop if her nails didn’t unwind like a spool of threads instead, turning into glowing, stretchy red lines.
“I kan du dis!” she said, still biting onto the ends of her threads as she beamed up at him. “I kan halp! Dey’re very… um, shticky!”
Cecilia shrugged, kicking Zora’s ankle discreetly. “See? I think she’ll be very useful when we’re outside. We can take her along with us and send her back if it gets too dangerous, right?”
Zora pursed his lips. He was still hesitant to put a student of his in danger’s way, but he knew what Cecilia was trying to get at. She wasn’t oblivious, too; it’d be cruel if they left her alone in the dorm now without any friends or allies.
“... Alright,” he said, sighing as Emilia jumped and cheered with a fit of hiccups and giggles. He stuck his wand in his pocket and held his hand out, offering to hold her all the way to the kitchen. “But you’re coming back the moment me or Miss Sarius tell you to, okay? No arguing. You’re to go straight back to your room when we tell you to.”
“Okey!” she replied cheerily, chewing on her glowing threads and slurping them up like noodles; his eyes twitched when he watched her nails regenerate at breakneck speed.
What type of moth is she?
Aren’t spiders the only bugs that can make sticky threads like that?
As Emilia held his hand and he instructed Titus to wait by the western gate—and to only open the gate if he heard their voices—Cecilia picked up the other butterfly leg, tilting her head at the open kitchen.
“You need a glass of water, right?” she asked. “I can get that for you. It’s eight-eighteen right now, so maybe we rest for about forty-five minutes and leave for the staffroom at nine? You look exhausted, anyways.”
He nodded quickly. “Rest is good, but we also need to deal with this first,” he said, raising the butterfly leg under his arm as he did. “We’ve got systems now, and that means we can get stronger by unlocking mutations and increasing our attributes with points. You know how any of that works?”
Cecilia gave him a blank, pointed stare.
“Well, it starts with this,” he said, waving his butterfly leg around. “First, we eat the bug.”