Epilogue Espirit

“Senator Taoc, are you okay?”

“Hmm? Yes, of course. Everything is fine. Tell me, what am I supposed to talk about today?” asked the tiny old spirit as she bobbed up and down in the air.

“The Academy wanted you to talk to the kids about magic. Nothing to specific, the teachers will handle that, but a nice little overview to get the kids motivated and working in the right direction should do nicely,” said the stately fairy walking through the doorway.

Taoc nodded, slowly. She turned her gaze down the road, watching the first rays of sunlight wash against the cobble and concrete. Leaves moved lazily in the breeze. An insect darted away beneath the ivy hugging the walls leading out of Senator Taoc’s home. A sweet scent filled the air. Flowers were blooming somewhere.

“Magic, huh…” Taoc said quietly. “That’s a big topic. I have a lot to say about it.”

“I know Senator, but please, do try to keep it brief. The kids have to get to their classes after your speech. You know how tough the Academy is. They barely let those kids rest at all,” said the tall fairy as the two of them began making their way down the road.

Taoc’s gaze wandered to the walls on either side of the cobblestone road. Uneven flakes of paint were chipping off the walls, but there were barely any chips on the ground. A yawning fairy walked out of an alleyway with a dustpan and broom, sweeping away flakes and dust and even the first few falling leaves of the season.

There weren’t a lot of plants this deep inside the city, but the cobblestone swerved around a couple of thick trees. The leaves on the trees had only a hint of green in them, the rest having been consumed in the fiery colors of fall. The leaves crunched under the stately fairy’s feet. Taoc lowered her body until her legs were just above the path, and she kicked down, awaiting the same satisfying crunch.

The leaf didn’t wrinkle.

Taoc hovered along, her face imperceptible. The fairy fought back a chuckle. Taoc tried to step on another leaf and this time, she managed to rip right through the leaf and tripped herself up in mid-air. She swung around and slammed into the fairy’s sturdy leg.

Taoc grumbled with a hand held to her head. The fairy didn’t say anything under Taoc’s gaze, but they both knew this little event would be great ammunition for Taoc’s fairy advisor during all of their meetings today.

“Why did the Academy have to take new students in the fall,” grumbled Taoc. “Stuff starts right in the middle of the calendar. It would be easier to just start on the first day of the year.”

The fairy advisor nodded. “Yes, this system does not make much sense, Senator. Perhaps you should take it up with the person who instituted it this way?”

“Oh? And who was that dumb piece of—”

“It was you Senator.”

“Ah,” said Taoc. “Right.” She frowned. “How many years ago was that again?”

“I do not know,” said the advisor, shaking his head. “It was far before my time.”

Taoc sighed. Time. Right. An illusion and a curse. Bah, she didn’t need to wax poetically about time. It wasn’t worth wasting time worrying about having wasted time. “God, my brain hurts.”

“Would you like some medicine, Senator?” asked the advisor.

“No, those pain meds they give out these days are too powerful. They make me lose all feeling in my body. Make me tired too. I’ll be fine. I’ll take a short nap after the speech,” said Taoc.

The narrow road banked by houses gave way to a wide open square with a massive fountain in the middle. Clear water flowed through the fountain, making an artificial rainbow that seemed almost a little too perfect. Little fairy and spirit children were playing in the square. They were too young to be going to school, and the city was safe enough most parents let their kids play outside all the time.

Taoc nudged the stately fairy and he nodded. The two of them moved to the side of the road and walked near the edge of the square, staying in the shade and out of view of the kids and the adults that were looking over them. There was a guard sitting on a pile of bricks near the entrance to the square. The guard yawned and said something about annoying kids making noises so early in the morning. He didn’t do anything about it though since he knew the kids were only out here because their parents had had to wake up even earlier than he did.

Taoc walked right past the guard. Nobody batted an eye. They didn’t even notice the Senator as she walked right through the rainbow and made her way out of the Republic District.

---

The Academy was an imposing structure smack-dab in the middle of the city. Four tall towers reached for the sky in each cardinal direction. Between them was a sprawling complex of imposing stone-brick buildings, each with enough space to fit thousands of students at a time. Still, with the rate the city had been growing lately, Taoc knew the Academy would need more space soon. There had been talk of building another campus outside the city but everyone knew it wouldn’t be the same going to a new campus when this one had so much history tied up in its hallways and dorms.

The Academy had been one of his ideas, after all.

Taoc felt a strange gloom pass over her as she passed under one of the arches leading into the main lecture hall. Above her head hung the Academy’s coat of arms etched into stone with strange words written underneath. Nobody could read the language those words were written in, but Taoc knew what they meant because she had been told about it.

Knowledge. Wisdom. Truth.

“Ah, Senator Taoc, glad you could make it! The students should begin arriving any minute now. Do you need any help with the magical projector?” asked a small fairy wearing comically large spectacles on his face.

“That won’t be necessary. A geezer like me can barely handle all these new magical devices. Back in my day, if you wanted to give a lecture, you had nothing to rely on but your own mind and maybe some paper,” said Taoc with a light wave of her hand.

The bespectacled spirit scratched his chin and laughed lightly. “Right, Senator. Well then, I’ll get out of your way. Just let me know if you need anything! Oh, look at that. Here come the students.”

The students started filling in the hall in a trickle, but the trickle soon turned into a steady stream, which soon began to fill the hall to bursting. The bespectacled fairy tried to help as much as he could, but there were simply too many students, all chatting with each other and trying to find a seat. The hall was the largest one in the Academy and rumored to be the largest in the world, and yet, students were already starting to sit in the pathways and on the little stairs leading up to the stage.

The air was dense with chatter and the entire hall was a little cozy and full of the smells of a few hundred young adults who had been out studying all day. It would have been an imposing sight to most professors and speakers, but Senator Taoc didn’t bat an eye. She had a small pile of papers in front of her which had some of her notes on them. It was mostly stuff the Academy’s dean had told her to mention. Taoc had been meeting with the dean and other professors since she arrived at the Academy early in the morning. Dealing with all of their doting had been more tiresome than speaking to this audience, so Taoc had been relieved when afternoon rolled around and she was finally able to make her way to the hall.

The doors to the hall closed. The thud resounded like a little gong, reverberating through the hall, quieting down some of the loudest whisperers. Taoc cleared her throat.

Silence.

Taoc began her speech.

---

“...right, that’s all from me. I’ll take a few questions to finish off. Raise your hand and I’ll cast voice amplification magic on you,” said Taoc from behind the podium.

Dozens of hands shot up. Taoc suppressed her sigh and began making her way through all of the questions. These kids were smart, talented, and eager to learn, but man, was it tough answering all of these questions that they could probably ask their professors anyway.

“Senator Taoc, thank you so much for speaking to us today,” said a small fairy who did not have the big burly frame that most fairies used to have. Taoc figured she must have been half fairy and… perhaps half human? Yeah, that seemed about right.

“My pleasure,” said Taoc. “Let me just say, this will probably be the last question for today. I have a very important meeting to go to in an hour or so.”

“Right, of course,” said the small half-fairy. “I know you have said before that you don’t like this question, but everybody has been talking about it for weeks now. Pretty much ever since we found out you would be coming here. Nobody else wanted to ask, probably because they didn’t want to upset you, but, please, could you tell us about the blank letters!”

Taoc sighed. She shook her head. “You kids never change. I’ve been giving speeches here every decade or so and you always manage to sneak that question in. Listen. Why won’t you believe me? It’s just an empty piece of paper. They all are! You can see them, can’t you? Whenever you go to the displays under the four towers right here in this Academy.”

“Nobody believes you, Senator! Every time one of you pass by it, you stop and stare at it for at least an hour! Your eyes travel over it, as if you were reading every word,” said the half-fairy.

“Enough,” said Senator Taoc as she hovered away from the podium and cut the voice amplification magic. “You kids get more persistent by the decade. And I can’t believe you’ve been observing us that closely. It’s not nice to stare! Anyway, thank you so much for having me. I wish you all the very best with your studies. Work hard to make this world a better place for everyone and who knows, maybe if you do something amazing enough, I’ll tell you what’s on that letter!”

Murmurs began to break out in the crowd. So there really was something on those letters after all! The students couldn’t believe their bluff had worked. Even the bespectacled professor had her jaw open as Taoc walked away with a long, loud sigh.

The gates of the hall closed off behind her.

Taoc passed under one of the towers of the Academy and hesitated. Eventually, she stopped and went inside. Somewhere right in the middle of the first floor was a massive glass case with a single item on display.

A seemingly empty piece of paper.

Taoc’s eyes passed over the letter quickly. A gruff voice came from her side. It was the stately fairy who had come with her to the Academy in the morning.

“I’ll be heading over to the meeting now,” said Taoc, without taking her eyes off the letter.

“Understood, Senator. Do you need any assistance finding the way?” asked the fairy.

Taoc raised a tiny hand. “No.”

She snapped her fingers and disappeared.