The two children are training like they have done for the last week, in a room that is just big enough for it not to be called cramped. “Fuck”: Kara glares down at a dagger still slightly rocking back and forth. Next to it, another ten lie, a path of failure from the cursing boy to the training target. Another dagger, the first to hit its intended place, impacts, its flightpath mere inches from Karas face. He spins around: “Oh fuck you!”. Aary smiles, the way she always does, gentle, perfectly trained, never reaching her eyes. They’re broken, emerald green. She won’t last half a year.Kara thrashes towards her: “Don’t be so cocky”. She dodges, barely, kicking the boy in the back of his knee. He tumbles, reaches out mid fall, sweeps the surprised girl form her feet. Both fall with a thud. Kara laughs. Aary giggles, then gets up, extending her hand to help the boy up as well.

“Aary, practice transformations once you feel confident hitting the target. And remember, it doesn’t matter who falls first if you let your guard down afterwards”, I say. She nods, smiles, and turns. “And you, Kara, come here, and bring one of those daggers”. The boy sighs, dragging his feet with every step he takes. I wait.

“What!?”, he says.

“Do you want to live?”

“Of course!”

“Then why are you trying to avoid learning how to so desperately?”

“I’m not. It isn’t my fault these things are so poorly balanced.”

“No. But it is your fault for refusing to learn how to deal with that. Hold out that knife”

He does, extending the dagger in his hand like an alien object.

“Now slowly move as if you’d throw it”, I say. It’s an awkward, lanky movement, but for the first time he’s genuinely trying.

“It feels so st…», he gets interrupted by knocking on the door.

It opens but a crack: “549 Njra”. I stand up, glance over the room to Enya, then I follow the servant. Behind me, thru the hallway, I can hear Enya continuing the kids training. The servant’s face is unfamiliar, maybe a new acquisition. It’s funny, really, how we shifters cling to one appearance. It seems so much like such a human sentiment. Up in the main building the man leaves in a different direction. I know where to go without him. I follow the winding, narrow hallways until I emerge across a massive wooden door so heavy, the notion of it opening them seems strange. Even now, so many years later, I still have to fight my instincts each time I stand in front of that door. I focus on my breathing, make a few adjustments to my body, the way he likes it to be, then I enter, pulling the door open just wide enough for me to slip thru.

The room has two small stain glass windows. Niilan sits draped over an armchair; his eyes fixated on something outside. A corrupted world, parts of the gray buildings painted in blue, the rest of the sky drenched in red. His head turns slightly as I enter, glances at me, taps on his lap, then goes back to studying whatever thing outside has caught his attention. I walk over, sit where I’m told, nestle my head between his head and shoulders. Outside the window, a crow flies by, tainted red by the window glass. Niilan lays his hands around my waist. Small stocky fingers press against my skin, move on. They leave a crawling sensation long after his hands have left. Break them. There was an incident, just a few months after I came here, desperately tried to be kept secret, but rumors spread fast in a place like this. They say, one morning one of the servants, quite a trusted one at that, found the corpse of Niilan’s wife on his bed, busied and strangled in a fit of rage. The savant had disappeared by nightfall of course, but by then, it was already too late. The wife’s funeral was held in a close circle just days later. Their child, only 15 themself when it happened, left the next day. All that is left now is a carving on Niilans nightstand. I wondered if it is a human thing. Wanting to fossilize everything. People, Places, even moments, do they not realize that it does not preserve memories but only their lifeless shell.

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I think about that dead woman often, although I can’t put a face to that distant memory of a voice anymore. Niilan leans his head onto my color bone: “I swear by the legacy of the protector and all that is powerful, that woman will drive me insane.” I play with his hair, stair out the window to the mountains barely visible behind the walls: “May I ask who?”

“Maryln”

“The one from a week ago. At the arena?”

“You’re a clever one. Yes, that old hag. I don’t know why but she won’t stop trying to steal all my fighting spots. I wanted to let Enya or maybe you fight next week, and I went to check for the date, just a formality, and they told it the timeslot was already reserved by her”

“That must be frustrating”

“Yes… but the way she does it is the worst parts. Rubbing salt in the wound doesn’t even describe it”

Poor thing.

“She seemed like that, even last time, but…” and I lift up his chin, make myself look smaller, “she doesn’t stand a chance against you”. My lips curl up, the same faint gentle smile Aarys has as well. Niilan places his finger on my sternum, traces it up to my throat: “I always loved those gray eyes of yours you know. They’re so boring. All the colors to choose form, and that small girl chose the color of pavement. Any updates on the boy I sent?”

“I was a bit surprised to see one like me, but other than that, he’s doing rather well”

“I know I said I won’t give you any trainees anymore, but I knew you wouldn’t mind. Plus, he needs your handling, I swear if I didn’t pay a fortune, I would have killed him myself. That brat attacked one of the guards escorting him. While I was there no less!”

I open my eyes in feigned shock, go silent for a bit, glance down, nod: “May I speak my mind?”

“Go on”

“He was, sometimes still is... difficult. But he is talented in transforming, and smart. He will learn to listen”

“If you say so. But it better be true”

We stay like this for a while, a master and his doll, where the only words spoken are those to sooth his ego. And in between, guided by threads invisible to everyone but me, he talks about lists and times of next month’s fights, the whispered names of opponents not yet officially know. His hands keep caressing my body as if to remind himself to whom I belong. Then, as the sun has set and the colored shards of light sprinkling the floor have vanished, he picks me up, carries me over to the bed where once a dead woman had lain. I make my mind go blank.

It’s late. My head is pressed against the uneven wall of the training chambre, the darkness an impenetrable barrier. The wall is cold, my skin numb. I press against it even stronger, as if the cold could freeze my thoughts as well. Closing my eyes I wait, wait until the pain in my body becomes numb, until my breathing has slowed. Then I get up, hectic. I jump, transform, faster, higher, revel in the feeling of bone, flesh and skin being ripped apart and mended anew, again and again, until the pain of the transformations finally does what the cold could not. Tonight, I won’t sleep.