Most other classes of the first day had by any objective account been comparatively easy for Isak. Though it was primarily a discussion of what exactly could be expected of the class, and each professor’s take on what exactly that subject meant, Isak spent every chance he could get furiously taking as many notes as he could. After all, he had much to catch up on obviously.

Much to improve on.

Core Spells looking to be easy was an obvious misdirection and indication that it was going to be an absolutely brutal class, which had Isak taking even more notes than his increased new usual of “many”. And finally before lunch the saving grace of Magical History, and the host of subjects to be covered his Empire mandated general studies had only touched on in brief, was that he knew Zyn would be all too eager to help him study.

It was all a blur still, much as he tried to focus and take as many notes as he could. A blur that Isak was acutely aware of in moments of clarity. Magical history had just let out and yet he was in no rush to head to lunch, just aimlessly wandering a lecture hall complex until he happened upon a door leading out onto a balcony with a clear view of the beach and the roar of waves far off in the distance. He didn’t delay as strode out to lean against the railing and take several deep breaths as he slumped down to rest his elbows on the rails.

“Just gotta get some fresh air, clear my head. Put myself back together so my new friends don’t think this is how I usually am. Cool Isak not Problems Isak. Right Vidal?” As he let the salty island air fill his lungs, he got the distinct feeling that he and Vidal were not alone up here. Isak slowly turned around to find a tonatecah girl in a dress as black as her beak and feathers staring back at him from her place on a bench in the shadows at the corner of the enclosed balcony.

They stared at one another, both unblinking for what felt like a few minutes before Isak finally broke the silence. “I know that’s one of the school’s colors and all but I didn’t expect anyone to actually pick that to wear with all the sun.”

She finally blinked before responding in a surprising contralto for someone roughly Isak’s age. “The rest of me is black, a little more won’t hurt.”

“Makes sense.” Isak nodded. “I got a friend who’s a drow, so he’s in a fairly similar situation. Minus the hair. He goes with the canary yellow, and you know it sounds like it wouldn’t work but for the drow and everyone else from Mu it just does.”

“Black is my favorite color.” She stated as she gently pet the large black scaled rattlesnake curled up in her lap with fierce looking talons. “Was that the same friend that you’re deathly afraid of showing vulnerability to?”

Isak sputtered and coughed, trying to morph it into a laugh as he attempted a casual lean against the rail and settled for an only slightly awkward lean. “See…”

“Put myself back together so my new friends don’t think this is how I usually am.” The diminutive tonatecah girl opened her beak wide as Isak’s own voice spilled back out at him.

He pursed his lips hard before biting them. “That was mean and you know it.”

“Hmm, maybe.” She tilted her head, eyes at such a dark blue they could be mistaken for black boring a hole through the human.

Isak looked off before giving a definitive shake of his head. “I should be going then, wasted enough of lunch.”

“Alone time to recharge isn’t a waste. It’s why I eat away from others.” The girl blinked before looking out over the balcony and to the sea in the distance. “It was nice to find this secluded place on my first day here.”

Isak groaned, pushing himself from his reclining lean back onto his feet to walk to the balcony exit. “Got it, sorry to have bothered you.”

He was out the door before she could respond, hurrying along through empty halls, stairways, and grassy fields to be one of the last to grab a meal during the lunch period. His small group of friends had already informally established a usual spot towards the side in the main hall, and true enough he found them there.

“Easy enough to navigate when you’re outside, but inside?” Isak rolled his eyes and shook his head as he quickly took a seat. “It’s like a maze for some of these buildings.”

Zyn chuckled. “Yeah...yeah okay I got a bit turned around a few times. But not all of lunch!” He said as he elbowed the human’s side.

“Haha yes! Imagine!” Xoco said with the guiltiest of smiles that soon dissolved into an even guiltier frown as she poked at her food. “I only got here five minutes ago after getting turned around in one of the converted bunkers.”

“Hooray!” Tonauac cheered mid bite of food, startling even Patli who gave a few annoyed flaps. “I’m not the worst at something for once!”

Isak flinched and sharply inhaled as though he had been stabbed. Appropriate as it certainly felt like he had. “Yeah…guess it’s something to work on.”

Zyn raised an eyebrow as he ate, opting out of saying nothing for now as he finished his meal and shared a questioning look with Ozzy. Xoco pat Isak on the back.

“We have Astronomy next so if we get lost at least it’s together?” She shot him a smile and never before had a smile filled with so many daggers been more comforting.

“Yeah, yeah that sounds good.” Isak said as his smile attempted to return before he had to hurry to scarf down the rest of his meal. The days were scheduled around leaving a good amount of time free from afternoon to night and a busy morning, with alternating schedules on the first four weekdays. Friday was reserved for the two “labs” of select classes. One of such being a late night stargazing lab.

“And I guess that’s in the observatory at the far end of campus, up on a hill of course.” Isak was repeating what he had learned of this from Zyn to look knowledgeable to Xoco yes, but she was intently listening which meant it was worth it. “Strategic importance and all. To the Southwestern Lost Land.”

Even Xoco had to crane her neck up to see the top of the watchtower where the daytime classes took place. “It is...surreal to me…” She softly muttered.

“Now you know what it’s like for me looking up to you.” Isak joked bearing a confident grin that lasted 5 entire seconds before he began to panic and wonder if he had gone too far and misspoke somehow.

The jungle troll blushed deep green as she lost her train of thought. “Aha, no I meant...no it can wait.”

“Y-yeah that’s fine. I can wait. Patience. Calm. Nelli’s got the right idea.” He started ascending the stairs as Nelli looked up at the mention of her name just long enough to give a tongue flick of acknowledgement before resting her head on Xoco’s shoulder once more.

The stairs were a trial in and of themselves, as the watchtower was the highest point of the main campus by a longshot. It had been the site of the earliest observatory back when the school was a fort, and before the fort had much of an adjoining town to pollute the night sky with even more lights. Xoco was handling it without any issue thanks to having legs long enough to skip a few steps at a time and though Isak was finding this to be a decent workout on its own, the real workout came from trying to keep up.

Nevertheless, he made it to the top in better shape than other students complaining all the way up the stairs. Though on no less than 5 occasions he considered turning in his dignity and just having Vidal carry him up the stairs.

The vast octagonal room had every manner of star chart and constellation map imaginable, all centered around a large mechanical model of the solar system surrounded by a brass railing and simple gate that swung outwards. The professor leaning against the gate handing out warm smiles and welcoming waves to all students finding their seats was an older jungle troll, skin a much lighter teal than Xoco and with fading orange hair that could almost be mistaken for a human shade of “red”. Striking yellow eyes were accented by crinkles of age, but did a good deal to offset the standard troll razor smile and give her a far less intense appearance made even more approachable by her cream colored dress.

Isak and Xoco found a pair of seats together near one of the windows overlooking campus, with many other students taking advantage of the views up here as there was a general uneasiness cut with curiosity in the air in anticipation of the coming class.

“Welcome, welcome all!” The Professor said as the last of the students took their seats in a tone that reminded Isak of his favorite aunt. “I’m delighted to see you’ve all made it today and let me start by saying yes I have asked and no, my application was denied to have a portal pair installed to bypass the stairs.”

This got a laugh out of the class, easing the tension of the room considerably.

“My name is Professor Aluxa Itza, and it is my goal to show you all applications of the wondrous field of Astronomy!” As she spoke she left her perch on the railing and started making her way towards the front of the classroom which held the vast majority of the myriad charts and maps. “Astronomy is quite simply a study of all that resides in the night sky.”

She unfurled a large map of the night sky from a hanging roll, and another, and another in turn of yet more constellation maps and comet pathings. “I know many of you think of astronomy as a means to predict Starfalls and deal with Nightspawn, and to be sure that is one of its most important applications, but the wonders of the night sky are infinite! Many a powerful Ritual has proper astrological alignment as a requirement before anything else may begin.”

Another map, this one taking up half the wall and covering many others in the process revealed The Sun as one could observe, as well as it’s more metaphysical forms surrounded by a host of foes beyond their light. Her eyes had already lit up and were one step short of casting a yellow light over the entire class.

“Divinations begin with the sky! Understanding of The Sun and his brothers forms the basis of Magical theory!” Whatever reserved and warm smile she had previously was replaced by a look of pure joy at talking about something that excited her so.

The silent slightly dazed stares of the class as Professor Itza bore a broad grin had her clearing her throat and composing herself for a moment into the relaxed woman she had been before. “By the completion of this course I hope you shall share in some of my enthusiasm! Now, if you will all open your books to the start we shall begin with a brief history of the vital importance of Astronomy and its key role in the early rise of The Empire.”

Most of the rest of the lesson was quite a bit more sedate, though Professor Itza did get quite excited when noting how precise astrological measurements allowed for the successful mapping and quarantine of The Lost Lands. Isak had noticed a trend with many of the professors at Black Reef Institute having a penchant for casually bragging and playing up the importance of their chosen subject matter. None so far had taken direct swipes at one another but puffing themselves up seemed to be fair game. An observation that Xoco had found herself agreeing with.

“You know...hmm, now that you mention it yes.” She put a hand to her chin while clearing at least 3 steps in one stride, struggling to think through her own bias of how her Linguistics professor had talked himself up as being of vital importance which she had obviously agreed to as an obvious truth.

Isak cursed his rushed lunch that had not given him nearly the caloric intake to be keeping up with someone who made even him feel short. “Got a favorite professor ye-”

“Professor Shrinebuilder!” She proclaimed with a spark in her eyes.

“Is that the lingui-”

“His father was on the team that helped the tonatecah rediscover their native language!” Xoco was excited enough that even Nelli was getting in on it, poking her head up to survey her surroundings and curiously staring at Vidal.

The human counted his blessings that he was on level ground and out in open air once more as he now had the rest of the day for studies. Which he desperately needed to attend to. On the other hand.

“Huh, so how exactly was all that...you know, a thing? Like how’d they lose their native language in the first place?” He asked, actually interested.

Xoco’s bright pink eyes got even larger. “Well it’s a bit of a long story but-”

“Well in that case, if you got to lunch all of five minutes before me want to tell me about this over lunch 2?” Isak asked, trying to maintain some smoothness this time. “If you want to, since we didn’t get lost. I mean this time wasn’t hard since the watchtower is just right there but, never know we should probably not get lost together more.”

Though it didn’t last but a moment, it seemed to not matter.

“I would enjoy not getting lost with you and also talking about resurrected languages!” She looked over at Isak’s silent guardian, still following closely. “I even had some theories about Vidal in regards to that, and if you’re not doing anything after lunch 2 then perhaps we could start looking into that? I didn’t get any homework on the first day and we should take advantage of that!”

Isak’s brain was like a finely tuned pocket watch that had a spring go wild and zip off into oblivion as he gave a dumb nod while he remembered words. “Yeah no yeah that sounds cool yeah. Let’s do that. Cool!”

Xoco tilted her head, looking concerned. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, yeah just...long day you know? Didn’t get much lunch, those stairs are a workout too. First day jitters.” Most of what Isak used as an excuse was actually true, simply repurposed to cover up other less true things.

The jungle troll spied a group of familiar well to do students, frowned and nudged Isak off the standard path to the main hall through several fields and pathways and onto a more scenic detour.

“You would hate troll architecture, everything made for long legs and long arms.” She gave a small yet sweet laugh. “I still remember my first time in the city and learning that not everything was built like that. Never did go into many public buildings, too sheltered I guess...so all of this has been a shock for me too. So you’re not alone.”

Isak took a moment to mull that over, looking off to give himself some space to think before looking back to her with a simple nod. “Thank you.”