6:12 TST, 1st Lunar Month, 21st Day
X'halvram, College of Nobles
Flight was amazing.
Dad had taught her a spell- okay, no, he'd taught her three. One that was kinda tiring, but gave her the same flight as everyone else, and two others that gave her different types of wings and were a lot easier to use. Anyway, Dad had taught her how to fly.
She couldn't see how anyone else didn't want to spend hours on end flying. But everyone else seemed to consider it...normal. Boring, almost.
Well, screw them, flying was great. It took all her self-control to stay with the others and not go hurtling out across the small green space that surrounded the building, just for the thrill of it.
The College was different from the rest of the ship. X'halvram was a huge ship, or at least that's what she'd been told. Huger than some space stations (Dad had actually called it 'an island with engines and an attitude' when she'd asked exactly how big it was) and definitely larger than even Challenger Mountain back home (she missed home a little, but she knew Dad would find a way back). The ship was so big, it wasn't just corridors and barracks and small spaces like she figured ships should be. It had a lot of those, yes, but it also had parks, and wide-open spaces, and normal buildings...well, sorta normal. Buildings on Earth didn't have their entrances right at the top normally...or on the sides with little balconies.
Oh, well. She supposed being able to fly everywhere changed some things.
The College itself was...not old. It simply didn't have that feel she associated with old things. The Mountain had been old, she could tell that just from the bones of the place. The College looked old, it was made of stone and wood...but its bones weren't old. They were gleaming metal and things she didn't know the words for, like the rest of the ship. A quick peek into the Unseen confirmed that much for her.
Greta was actually a little surprised by that. Why build something to look old at all? Wasn't the whole point of new things: that they looked new? It wasn't as though everyone else could look into the Unseen like she did and know things weren't as old as they pretended to be.
Hmph. Maybe it was meant to look old because they didn't have any actually old things.
Well, that wasn't quite true.
They had the Keystone, which she'd called because it had held the center of the Unseen here together, burning brightly when she'd seen it as she'd let her spirit slip free of her body and wander the faint webs of magic and light along the ship. That was old...old, and it had power, like she'd never seen before. Not even in Dad, though he was like a sun in a world of fireflies in comparison to everyone else…
She recognized that her thoughts were wandering, and took a breath as she- and the others in her new class- entered the building as a group.
Calm. Centered. Aware. This was no time to get a reputation as a space cadet.
She was at the back of her group now- a conscious decision, she knew the little formalities that would be going into this first meeting, she'd been coached on them- and so she took a moment to smooth the front of the semi-formal clothing she'd been told to wear. The robes were looser than clothing she'd usually prefer. It had taken her a while to realize exactly why pretty much all 'high class' Tamaranean clothing was kind of...light, and even though she knew it was because of their powers and biology it still took a lot of effort (and some discreet internal manipulation of blood vessels) to keep from blushing a little.
The Tamaraneans might've been okay with it, but she certainly wasn't.
Everything was in order, and the rest of the group was slipping into the room. She followed.
The other students took their seats, but she remained at the front of the class, standing. As the teacher began to introduce her to the others, Greta took in the looks she was receiving from her new classmates.
The room was different from the classrooms she was used to. Everyone had their own chairs - comfortable-looking ones - arrayed in little clumps around round desks with the familiar bevels of holoprojectors in the center. It was almost designed to encourage small groups and cliques. She could practically smell the wariness, like rival packs of wolves eyeing each other. They were eyeing her, too. More than they were each other, at the moment. She was new, after all.
Once the teacher- a grey-haired woman with crow's feet and a cybernetic right leg- finished introducing her as Greta of the House of Korol'krovic, Greta bowed. "Thank you for allowing me to join you," she said, in the clearest voice she could muster. "I hope we can learn a lot from each other."
She was glad Dad had helped her learn Tamaranean properly, no kissing necessary. Seriously, how did that become a thing? Did Tamaranean diplomats go around mashing faces with whatever freaky alien crossed their path?
She bit the inside of her cheek to avoid giggling at that mental image, and looked over the classroom as the teacher told them to get to know one another.
Silly. She was the only new person- boundary lines for everyone else had already been drawn. Still, she looked over the groups. Most of the seats had been filled around the desks already- there were only two real places for her to sit. Two groups.
The first, she already recognized- not their names or their ranks, but their attitudes and appearance. Their clothes, though technically the same robes she wore, were better-quality, and the group (all girls) sat taller in their seats, projecting confidence.
She was fairly sure they were what she'd heard called 'alpha bitches'. Yeah, she was not naive enough to stick a hand into that bear trap.
That left the other group.
Four in number.
Two whose robes were...not shabby, but definitely second-hand. Both of them, a guy and a girl, looked nervous, stooped shoulders, trying not to be seen. She sympathized. Another girl was tall and thin, painfully plain, but with sharp eyes. The last, black-haired and lanky, leaned back in his chair as though it was the only thing holding him upright, fingers toying with a stylus, flipping it end over end across the backs of his knuckles.
Well, that was an easy choice. She walked over to the second group, and sat down between one of the shabbily-dressed students and the thin girl. She smiled at them. "Hello. You know who I am, I guess, but I don't know you."
"Sin'sa, of the House of Sil'ney," the plain girl said quietly.
"Naran, House Priz'rak," the black-haired boy said, suddenly leaning forward and fixing Greta with a grey-eyed gaze.
"Raist'la," the shabbily-dressed girl says quietly. "This is my brother, Cara'mon. We...don't have a House. Got in on a scholarship."
"You say that like it's a bad thing," Greta said.
"We're orphans."
"Again, not bad. I was one, too."
"Wait, what?" Sin'sa said. "But your father-"
"Adopted. Do I look like I'm going to be seven feet tall when I grow up?" she replied with a smile.
"Nah, more like a midget," Naran drawled. "Was wondering, myself," he added.
"So what are you going to do?" Cara'mon asked. "Magic?"
"I heard he was taking students," Raist'la mused. "Maybe we'll be in the same classes together!"
Greta shook her head. "Different kind of magic. I'm...not going to be learning the same things you are. Dad says they'd be incompatible, and maybe dangerous."
"Like trying to use the wrong kind of circuit in wiring, right?" Naran asked.
"I...suppose?" She shrugged- engineering wasn't her expertise.
"But you still know how to do things, right?" Sin'sa asked.
Greta nodded, not sure where the thin girl was going.
"Could you show us something?"
Greta glanced up towards where the teacher was. The woman was busy reading something on a tablet, not paying much attention to the class.
So she nodded. "Alright. Watch closely."
She bit the pad of her thumb, suppressing the urge to wince at the familiar pain (it'd be gone in a second) and let a single drop of her blood fall onto the surface of the desk. Everyone stared at it as Greta took a deep breath and focused, gathering her power.
Controlled. Calm. Centered.
She forced power into the drop of blood, causing it to vibrate softly, and bent it to her wishes, urging it to become something greater.
There was a soft popping noise as a tiny sculpture, of a wolflike creature, replaced the drop of blood, and Greta let out a breath, refusing to show her sudden exhaustion.
"...Interesting," Naran said softly, over steepled fingers.
"More than interesting, don't try that act with me, Naran," Sin'sa said, staring at the little sculpture, barely longer than her pinky, with the intensity of a thousand suns. Raist'la was doing the same thing, albeit a little less obviously.
"What act?"
"The 'I'm cold as asteroid ice, completely unflappable' act. It clearly doesn't work on Greta and it never worked on me."
Greta would've laughed at the byplay, but before she could, she saw- felt- every magical instinct in her body simultaneously scream. The force of it hit her between the temples, and she gasped, falling back into her chair.
"Greta, are you-"
Focus. Calm. Centered. Controlled. "Something's-"
X'halvram screamed.