Elinora

We stayed there in the infirmary for a while. Just talking about life. Arine told me about her family, her siblings and her friends, what her old life was like. It was easy to tell that a heavy weight was lifted off her chest this afternoon. She expressed herself so freely, and she spoke joyfully of some of the mischiefs she did with ‘the boys’. She was like a completely different person. I wondered how long it would stay that way.

Long after the sun had already settled down for the night, we made our way back to the dorms., with the chilly night air as our steady companion.

“Eli? Can I ask you something?” she said, unsure of herself. Was there something else that was bothering her? “I don’t think I can sleep alone tonight.”

She sounded so ashamed, asking me. 

I think I understood her a little better now. At home, she was the big brother, a role model for her little sister that was always supposed to be strong. She was used to hiding her feelings, controlling them and even buried them deep inside her. But that wasn't possible anymore. And now she was drowning in her own emotions, and in the guilt of having them.

“Hey, sure! Let me just grab my pajamas.” I said in an attempt to raise her mood a bit. It worked, producing a small smile on her face. Even if it was just to hide the pained expression beneath it, a smile is a smile.

The first thing that greeted us was her live sized shallofin, safely tucked up in her bed. I didn’t know what I expected, but definitely not this. It seemed so out of place for her, especially after all she told me about her former life. Well, she didn’t yet know it was her former life, but sooner or later she would have to learn. I do wonder if Olaf and mom did the right thing in hiding this from Arine.

“Oh this - ” flailing her arms, she rushed toward her bed and put the shallofin onto the windowsill - “ it‘s just, I don’t know… This shark thing eased my nightmares, so I wanted to give him something back.”

Seating herself next to me she looked down at the wooden floor.

“It’s silly, I know… I don’t know why I feel this way.” It was getting harder and harder to understand her, as slowly every word was interrupted by a small snivel. “I think I’m losing myself… with every passing day I feel more and more like I have to be Arine…” wiping away the tears, she looked up to me, beaming again with a bright grin she said, “but they said everything will be alright.” This time, I was the one who had to hold back tears. This would never end well.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“Oh yeah, it’s nothing. I was just thinking, well...” How could I explain this to Arine? It was hard to think of Arine as anything other than this shy girl I met a week ago in class. But this wasn't right, Arine wasn’t a girl, and Arine wasn’t even her name…or was it now? This magic stuff is starting to make my head spin. But maybe there was a way to make her feel at least a little better. “I was thinking, maybe I should call you something else. You know, instead of Arine.”

Just as I finished talking, I realized my mistake. 'Our magic determines our name and our name only.' The words my mother told me ran through my head again. How could I forget? Had I made things worse than they were before? I wanted nothing more than to takes these words back, but it was already too late, and now I was the one guilty of giving Arine false hopes.

“You would do that for me?” the excitement was clearly written all over her face. Arine didn’t know about the name thing. How could she? No one told her about it. I kicked myself mentally but I had to keep going now.

“Sure, that’s what friends are for, aren't they?”

Arine nodded her head and was pondered what we should call her. She came up with a few masculine sounding names and some androgynous names. 

“No, this isn’t working.” she said a bit disappointed but I was hardly surprised. “If you call me that I feel like I have to vomit.”

“That bad?”

“Yeah, ” she said, “ the androgynous ones were a bit better but it’s like when you eat something really bitter, and there’s this sense of wrongness that just lingers there.”

“So...” I said, unsure of what I should tell her next.

“Well, Arine it stays I guess.” she said while plopping onto her bed.

I wanted to apologize again for what happened, but she stopped me, “It’s not your fault. It’s this damned witch‘s fault.” She looked up at the ceiling, a grim expression forming on her face as she told me what she was thinking about. “You know, I really hope all this is over before the month ends.”

What was she going at? She was staring blankly at my confused face, raising an eyebrow she said, “before it happens.”

It? What was.. oh. Oh. Right, this was something I too had to deal with now. How did I miss something as crucial as this? How would I even deal with this, who was I going to ask about this? My roommates? No that would just raise more questions. My mom? No, I would die of embarrassment, maybe I could-

“Eli, are you alright? You look so pale?”

“Oh, yeah. I just… remembered something.”

“Well then, ” she said, “I’m pretty tired, wanna hop in bed?”

I made myself comfortable next to Arine and started thinking again. Should I tell her about myself? Would it help her knowing someone else is in the same situation as she is? Was I even? Compared to her, my situation seemed to be more like a mild inconvenience. And if I told her, things might get even more complicated between us. I didn’t want that. I had to be there for her and shouldn’t put my own worries on her shoulders. Ultimately, I decided against telling her.

“You know Eli, you’re probably the strangest girl I’ve ever known.” And with that she fell asleep. Before sleep overtook me, I look back up at the windowsill and the shallofin. If I didn’t know any better I could swear he looked jealous. I really hoped he wouldn’t eat me while I slept.

---

The next morning it was Sunday. Time to relax, and forget about all the messed up things happening around us - or so I thought. Not an hour after Arine and I had breakfast, Mr. Sirus

managed to catch us on the academy grounds. “Ah, just the two pupils I was looking for.”

We followed Mr. Sirus back to a building that reminded me of a gym, only nicer. The inside looked just like the training grounds, only a bit bigger and seemingly with more training devices.

“This is the place were our students normally practice some of the more destructive magic. The hall is surrounded by two absorption barriers, so don’t worry, ” he said, turning around and smiling at us, “we’re only here because we don’t want any of the other students to distract our training.”

“Training?” Arine asked.

“Yes, training. In light of the current situation, we decided it would be best to further your training. It’s all in your best interest.”

He then ordered us to meditate. We were to try to feel the aura of our surroundings. “With enough training you will be able to see the intentions of people around you - ” a sudden rush of energy was washing over us “ - just like this.”

“What… what was that?” Arine said looking up at Mister Sirus. Her eyes were wide open and her mouth was moving further, but no words came out.

“If you concentrate a large amount of magic into a single point - ” he looked to Arine, who was still in shock, “ - like you did yesterday, it will disrupt the natural flow of magic and you can feel it.”

This made sense so far. If the magical energy came from those flows it, would only be natural that a large disruption like this would be noticeable. However, it didn’t explain why we were here. “And what does this have to do with us feeling the aura of things?”

“An excellent question. While it requires a great amount of training to feel the aura of other things, a change like the one you witnessed before can be felt by everyone. But -  ” he said while holding up one finger “ - of course some things can’t be hidden. If someone with a great amount of magic and sinister motives were to join us - ”

“Someone like Jenna.” Arine said, getting a grip on herself again.

“Yes, someone like Jenna. She wouldn’t want anyone to notice her, however - ”

“So she tries to hide as well as she can. But she can’t hide her intentions.” Mister Sirus now had Arine‘s full attention, while I was still struggling to follow a bit.

“That’s right little Miss Shiva. Do you know why we’re doing this?”

“Yes, to pick up on those disturbances that Jenna can’t hide, to be prepared when she makes her move.”

“Excellent. Now, I do believe that Jenna is so rotten, a few training exercises will be enough to alert you of her presence - you can, however, train this skill as long as you want. You never know when it might be useful.” he said with a wink.

We meditated for what felt like an eternity and while I didn't feel anything, I learned a valuable lesson. Meditating and I are two things that don’t fit. I was totally looking forward to our upcoming lessons…

“Tomorrow we will repeat this, and I will pick you up after breakfast outside the canteen. Don’t be late.”

After Mr. Sirus left, we just wandered around the different gardens. Telling each other about our experience in this short training. To my surprise, Arine told me that she did indeed feel something. “At first there was nothing, but after a while I started to notice people moving around. I even felt you shuffling around the whole time.”

“Well, I tried. I guess meditating just isn’t something I’m good at.”

“Don’t worry, ” Arine told me, “I think everyone struggles at the beginning. It's just a matter of practice. So anyway, what are we going to do now?”

“Hmmm, let me think for a - Oh I know. There's this spot I found, you have to see this!”

I grabbed Arine’s arm and dragged her along in search of the spot I found after Ms. Pern instructed me to read her book. It took us two hours to find the spot again. Apparently, someone thought it would be a good idea to make a maze out of all these gardens. When we finally arrived the same feeling of ease washed over me. I let go of Arines hand and dropped onto the ground, taking in all the different sensations. From the scents from the flowers around, to the grass tingling my toes after removing my shoes. This was heaven.

“Eli, are you okay? You look like a cat on catnip.”

“What -” I was so lost in basking in the nature around me that I completely forgot I wasn’t alone. “Oh ehm, sorry.”

There was one thing I wanted to try out though. Getting into meditation again, I try the exercise Mr. Sirus taught us again. I had a feeling that it might work better if I was more connected with my flow.

And it did work. Well, sort of. While I wasn’t able to feel the people moving like Arine did, I was able to feel all nature around us. In a small radius around us, I could tell how the flowers and leaves moved in the wind. Once I opened my eyes again, I found Arine sitting opposite me, her eyes closed, also meditating.

“Well, if you’re going to train and leave me alone for half an hour, I’ll take the opportunity and do the same.” she said without opening her eyes.

“Half an hour?!”

“Yep - ” she opened her eyes, got up and looked at me “ - You know, this magic thing would be kinda cool without all the fucked up stuff.”

“I agree, we could do without this mess.” I said, looking down at my body. It got me a weird look from Arine.

“Well anyways, ” she said, “do you have something else planned? Because I’d like to study a bit more in the library.”

On our way back I noticed that Arine's mood changed once again. She certainly wasn't the happiest person in the world but her spirits were much higher today, than the week I’ve known her so far.

I got the answer to my question when we arrived at the library. A few students who were just going about there, stopped in their tracks to look at us, especially Arine. I couldn’t read their expression, they were all over the place as if they couldn't decide what they wanted to feel.

Some students whispered under their breath when Arine took my arm and pulled me into the library, “Ignore them.”

We disappeared to the second floor, “Ancient History and Magic”. I wasn’t sure what Arine wanted here, but I used the time to acquaint myself with one of the books. “Magical Creatures and Beings” was the one that caught my eyes. It contained the sort of information you’d think it would. Descriptions of all sorts of things that lived in this world, some of which reminded me of a few fantasy novels I read back on Earth, others that I hoped to never encounter.

There was one about a plant that would drug its victims, plant their seed inside the victim's eyes and let them go. Later on, a new plant would grow and use the host’s insides as nutrients. After a few days, the plant would root the host's body and start to grow out, ultimately turning it into another plant. Now the worst of it was that throughout this whole process the plant would feed on the host, letting him live to perceive the transformation process.

Apparently even years after the infection, the host's brain was still intact, leading to some research, which concluded that the plant intentionally tortures their host. It got the fitting name “Flos Cruciatu”, aka “Flower of Torture.”

Besides the description, a picture of the plant was drawn. It was a plant with golden glowing flowers, and thorns that coated the trendils that it could move freely, it looked like a golden flowerbed, and trapped anyone who unfortunate enough to step into it.

As humans were its preferred host, I knew what nightmares would have awaited me.

Praying to god or whatever gods and goddesses existed in this world, to never encounter this sadistic plant, I bumped upon the next section - “Divine beings”.

My thoughts instantly shot back to Arine and Zeres. I didn’t had to search long, as on the fourth page there she was, Zeres. I didn’t bother reading the description as her image took my breath.

Only her eyes were different, as both of them were violet. Everything else was the same. It was an adult version of Arine.