When Entoma awoke the following day her first act was to see if Bertra was still present. She stood in the open door, her left hand out and pressed against the wooden frame and stared through all eight eyes at the empty but neatly made bed.
Entoma shook her head and took a deep breath, she was somehow unsurprised.
'That's just like her. No tearful farewells, pleading for me to intercede for her… that girl really should learn to rely on her friends more. One word from me and I'm sure she'd have nothing to worry about…' Entoma reached out to the handle of the door and drew it slowly closed.
It clicked shut as the heteromorph stepped backward, away from the dark interior that it became at the moment the door shut. 'Bertra… you really should stop punishing yourself.' Entoma reflected with a moment of rare pity before she went about the business of readying herself.
She was washed and ready within an hour, and the only question that lingered was… 'What do I wear?'
Her maid outfit was an obvious choice, 'A gift of a supreme being…' She loved her precious outfit enough that as she stood there holding it, she hugged it against herself.
But then there was her mask. She threw her maid outfit on immediately, 'Was this a gift… a challenge… a criticism of his creation?' So many questions that Entoma had no answers to, and no one to ask.
She reached for her mask and put it on her face, immediately feeling a bit better. 'If only Bertra were there I could… or if Inta were…' But the thought of even a dozen looking at her while she taught, and thinking 'How ugly' or 'Nobody would want you to serve them' or… so many critiques ran through her mind and she told herself, 'I eat people… sometimes. Why do I give a damn…?'
But she did, and the why was meaningless. So she touched her mask to reassure herself it was in place and taking up her materials she ventured out of her room, her hall, her building, all the way to where her class would be held.
Entoma stood outside her classroom, her notes in hand, and looked at the emptiness. One of her textbooks sat ready for use in front of every seating space. She approached, curious to see the cover they chose for it. A sword-bug and a shield-bug with the former laid over the latter on a simple black leather binding. 'Nice, very nice.' She had to admit and went to the front and center of the class, the blackboard was at her back and the sea of empty spaces were in front.
'I'm early.' She knew it, and she used that time to try to imagine the students she would have.
'Ten? Twenty?' Even that many were pushing it. 'At the end of the day, 'bug' is an insult, even my sister can't help but use the word that way. Regardless of how well I performed in the duel… will there really be many who want to learn what I have to teach?' Entoma sighed heavily and began to run through the routine of her lecture to an empty hall, a little last minute practice, but at the back of her mind there was one ongoing frustration.
'I'm so tired of not having answers…'
She paced the floor and spoke to the empty air, her voice ringing off the walls for several minutes as she gave her first lecture to nothing, until a knock at the door interrupted her thought and she whirled around.
There was Inta, standing at the door, holding a letter in hand.
He didn't meet her eyes, he looked a little sheepish, down at the floor and held a rolled up paper out in front of himself as far from his body as he could. "I know you said you didn't want to see me for awhile, so I'm sorry for coming by, but Bertra came to see me this morning, she asked me to come by your class and give you this. She said you'd be here early."
Entoma approached on slow moving feet and reached out to take the paper from his hand.
It had a little red ribbon wrapped around it which she began to slide up to remove and free the document within. "That woman…" Entoma muttered.
"I know, I barely know her, but after no time at all it's like I've… I don't know…" He scratched his head.
"Known her for years." Entoma finished his thought, and he nodded along.
The red ribbon fell toward the floor only for Inta to snatch his hand out and take it in midair.
"That's exactly it…" Inta replied. "So, I did what I promised, I'll go, I'll… I'll see you soon, Entoma."
Entoma unrolled the paper, "Wait." She said immediately.
Inta stopped, his hand on the door and looked over his shoulder. "I'm sorry?" He asked, a little surprise clear in his voice and from the way his head snapped around.
"I said, wait." Entoma repeated herself, "Could you… sit, you know, the way I did at your lecture?"
"If- yes of course, if you want." The words rushed out and he went immediately to a little desk set off to one side wall.
They then waited in silence, he didn't look at her, she didn't look at him, and then it happened. Entoma rolled up the paper Bertra left for her and set it aside on the little metal rail which held the chalk for the board. 'That woman, she would go and do that… I can't believe her…' Entoma's heart swelled at the letter, and then she watched as students began to stream in.
One, then two beside one another, then a cluster of three. Inta got up and went to the locked side of the double door and glanced at Entoma, when she nodded at him, he undid the latch and opened it as well. With both sides of the door opened the floodgates had opened and the noise of chattering students along with the sound of their feet on the hard wooden floor of the class became like a raging storm.
From elves and humans to minotaurs and bearmen, the class was quickly filled to capacity. Every sound and every voice was like a battlecry, and soon there were no seats left.
Entoma's blood froze. 'It's so much easier to be in front of people you're going to eat and/or kill than it is to be in front of people who are going to judge you…' Her breathing raced and she had to ask herself, 'How did common humans do this?!'
Inta closed the double doors when the stream ebbed, then locked them and gave her a wink. 'You can do this.' He mouthed the words and then went to the observer's seat.
Entoma cleared her throat, and the chatter began to die down.
"Welcome to Entomancy 101. I'm professor Entoma Vasilissa Zeta. One of the heteromorphic maid demon servants of His Majesty and a former bound servant of the Demon Emperor Jaldabaoth. I assume you all saw my exhibition with Professor Inta?" She introduced herself and asked, and paused while the student body uniformly cheered.
'If I could, I'd blush at that.' She thought, but it wasn't lost on her that Inta stood up to applaud her as well with a great broad fang filled smile on his face.
"I seem to have underestimated the total number of books we would need today, so those of you without, please share and I will have new ones prepared for you next week." Entoma said with confidence she didn't really feel as she took the center position.
'How can there be this many?!' She quailed inside, she shivered, all those endless eyes staring at her with expectation that she could give them something she'd never given anyone before. But there was another set of eyes, bright red beams of light that never left her back, or her face whenever she turned around from the board, like a magic spotlight that was used in the great playhouses of the Empire and centered on her, holding her up.
Every word she faltered, he mouthed again, 'You can do this.'
Minute after minute passed with agonizing slowness, sped up only during her actual demonstrations of entomancy that sent a bug to flit around the room where it was looked over by curious students.
"Entomancy is an especially dangerous form of magic, it requires the utmost control because you are, like a necromancer, literally controlling a living thing. Unlike low level necromancy where you can easily deal with a brainless zombie or skeleton, even low level insects can be lethal killers to the unprepared. You must know what you're doing at all times, or you are done for." She slapped her pointer stick down into her hand with a sound clap that echoed emphatically all over the quiet hall.
Most of her gestures were slow, jerky, hesitant, and when she looked out over the sea of quiet faces, her heart pounding and knees all but knocking, it was good to feel at least one face she knew was friendly. But when she was decisive, hard, speaking of the danger of her craft, there was no question of her confidence.
When the class finally began to wind down, she sat behind her desk at the front of the large open hall and said, "I'll stay behind for a little while to answer questions, but after today use only my office hours. Class dismissed!" She shouted the phrase like she'd just won a great battle and could not hide the deep sigh of relief when she'd said it.
The students began to rise from their seats, books rustling and already chattering, and out of the corner of her eye she caught that Inta was also standing up. She raised a hand and pointed at him, he stopped in mid step a moment later.
"Wait… please." She said for the third time that day.
He inclined his head toward her and took a seat again.
Students lined up to chat with her a little, some only letting her know they needed books, others offering words of thanks or praising her fight, but it took the better part of two hours to clear them out before Entoma was alone with Inta again.
Entoma took off her mask and set it upside down on her desk. She then stood up, glanced at the door, and said, "Lock it."
Inta did, quickly striding to it and then returning to where she waited for him.
When he reached her, he stood closer than before, looking down at the jewel-like eyes.
"Thank you… for delivering the letter." She said in a quiet voice.
"Thank you… for staying with me today." She remained quiet.
"Thank you… for giving me time to think… for letting me not be ready…" She was barely whispering.
But she was speaking nonetheless.
"Thank you for…" His hands seemed to move of their own accord, though she saw them coming long before they reached her, and she could have easily done a thousand different things to stop them…
Entoma did nothing.
She let his clawed hands close around her face, his fingers interlocking around the crescent shaped finger like shells that helped to hold her mask in place.
She also did nothing to stop him when his lips came down and kissed her just between her bright and shining red eyes.