“Couldn’t they keep their damned instruments down? Kids these days don’t understand what it means to study.”

Arenya determined not to break it to Cartalis that ‘those kids’ were likely older than both of them. “If you want, I can talk to them.”

Cartalis grimaced. “Do you think they’ll listen to you? I’ve asked them politely and impolitely alike to no avail. One might think given the fact that half the school seems so incessantly to desire my companionship, that they’d listen to such a reasonable request from me, but alas. Given that, a new student hasn’t a chance.”

To be fair, the music was rather irksome. Keeping all these countless cards filled with trivia from five classes of varying subjects straight was hard enough as it was. The aural distraction wasn’t helping at all. It made it almost as hard to focus as the gnawing hunger in Arenya’s stomach.

“Let’s go together?”

Cartalis nodded and stood, smoothing out her skirts. She’d admitted the other day to much preferring pants (easier to move in and less flashy) but agreed that Arenya could pick out an occasional outfit for her. Unfortunately, it turned out that Cartalis was right - half the men, and a good deal of women as well, had practically fallen over each other all day to do minor favors the instant they saw the barest hint of Cartalis’ leg.

After shoving the cards into Cartalis’ bag, the two students strode towards the room where the musical group met and pushed the door open.

Arenya’s eyes widened. The instruments were of a sort she’d never seen before - six strings, made of arcane metals with runes upon them, allowing for a sound of the sort utterly unlike any her family had achieved when singing around the table after a Grand Feast. The drums she recognized as drums, at the very least, but they were massive structures that could not be moved, rather than handheld or merely placed upon the ground. Six large structures, cymbals… without magic, she struggled to imagine how a single person alone could even carry them. They looked to take a full half hour to even set up. the instruments were clearly infused to produce these sounds - no normally crafted drums or strings could be like this.

There appeared to be only one person singing, mostly, but she couldn’t be sure, for the entire group - all six - immediately halted their rehearsal to stop and stare at Arenya.

“I stand corrected,” Cartalis whispered to her. “You did stop their playing.”

The first one to move was a student covered in black ink. His skin was not as deathly white as Daniel’s, but Arenya would not have been surprised to learn if he had some demon heritage to give him his pallor. His black hair went down past his shoulders, and his outfit… She tried not to flinch at the holes in his pants, clearly placed there by design. “I heard of you!” he exclaimed. The others snickered.

Arenya hesitated a moment before speaking up. “We were just w-”

“We entered the wrong room by mistake, ’tis all.” Cartalis grabbed Arenya’s arm and attempted to walk towards the door. She gave Arenya a glance and shook her head.

“What’s wrong, Blond Ice Queen?” yelled another musician from the back - Arenya wasn’t sure who. “Too busy hanging out with your drake friend to give us the time of day?”

“I’m not a d-”

Cartalis cut her off with another shake of her head. “Not now”, she mouthed.

“Before you go, you two…” The pale inked one reached into a rucksack where spare parts of that nighmarish drum were stored, and pulled out…

Arenya gasped.

“Want an apple?” He held aloft the brightest, reddest fruit Arenya had seen in days. The others snickered. “I mean, since you’re clearly so obsessed with the damn things, I almost wonder if you have apples under your d-”

Arenya flung herself forward, using a flap of her wings to gain extra height. She snatched the apple from his hands and took a massive bite before he could even think to respond. “Where did you get this?” she asked with her mouth full. “So much better than those I’ve found in this city so far.” Another bite as she hugged the apple to her chest. “The sweetness is like the Eastern varieties but it’s larger size is more like the tart ones my family specializes in. This must be a specialist variety I’ve never heard of. I need to get some of these seeds and send them to home!”

She was greeted with utter silence and stunned stares. The pale inked one stood shock still, eyes flitting back and forth between his still-raised hand and Arenya, before stumbling backward.

“Is… is something wrong?” she asked. “Sorry I interrupted you. What were you saying?”

Cartalis toppled to the floor, laughing uproariously. “These fools,” she gasped between breaths. “Dare to call me the Blond Ice Queen, you buffoons!”

Arenya crouched and held down Cartalis’ skirts. “You said you wanted not to show anything…” she muttered.

“Oh…” Cartalis froze. Arenya felt redder than the apple she still held in one hand, wondering how embarrassed Cartalis must feel at how much leg she was showing.

Then she burst out laughing even harder. “Don’t bother, Arenya… I’ll take care of myself…”

As Arenya finished the apple and Cartalis continued to roll on the floor, one of the pale student’s friends spoke up. Her face was covered by a veil beneath her almost-black eyes, but that was just about the only part of her she seemed self-conscious about. Her skirt was almost nonexistent - with every movement Arenya blushed to behold her. Her shirt barely covered herself, and left her navel exposed entirely. “You certainly know a lot about apples.”

“They’re the family business. We tend an apple orchard in the country.” She sighed. “I never thought I would find an apple I disliked, but the ones here…”

“Then why do you eat them so much?”

Arenya looked at the ground. “It’s all that’s there I can eat. They’ve served pork and catfish and burgers with cheese… my family doesn’t eat those things.”

The woman’s gaze traced over Arenya’s wing. Her gaze widened in realization. “Oh. I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t k-”

The pale inked one spoke up. “So you’re refusing to eat anything there because your parents’ll get their panties in a bunch? Who cares what they think? You’re free of them now!”

The woman turned to him, eyes in a glare. “Shut your trap, Drav. It’s not about what your parents think, is it?”

Arenya shook her head. “Mom and Dad would forgive me. It’s God I don’t want to disappoint.” She felt a tear drip down her cheek. “They say they’re serving chicken tomorrow - plain, unadorned meat. I still shouldn’t eat it because it was made on the same grill as the pork, but I’m so hungry. I haven’t had anything but those disgusting apples in days. I think I can be forgiven for that… I hope.”

The pale inked one - Drav - looked at his hands. Any trace of mockery was gone.

“I’m… I’m sorry we tried to make fun of you,” the poorly dressed woman muttered. “Cartalis is right, we’re the ones who look like fools. I’m Zelzad. You’re A’etheran, right?”

“Arenya.” She looked down. “I guess rumors travel fast here. It’s only been a couple days and everyone seems to know about me.”

Zelzad hesitated a moment. “It’s… there’s a reason. You made a name for yourself faster than anyone. You have wings and striking hair, you dress every day like you’re going to a business meeting, you somehow got the Blond Ice Queen to spend time with you…”

“Are those compliments?”

“…”

“…”

“…”

Arenya wasn’t so foolish as no not read the silence. She bit her tongue to keep from a dark frown, and changed the subject. “So what kind of music do you play?”

At that, Zelzad smiled. Arenya wasn’t sure how she knew through the dark veil, but her posture changed in some slight way, her eyes curved just a bit. “Metal.”

Arenya blinked. Behind her, she heard the rustle of fabric as Cartalis stood, still chuckling occasionally. “Well, I know that that’s what those…” She gestured at the instruments. “That’s what they’re made of, but what kind of music is it?”

Now it was Zelzad’s turn to blink. “That’s what it’s called. Metal, or heavy metal.”

“Is it okay if you play a little while I’m here?”

Cartalis let out an exasperated sigh. “Weren’t we here to ask them to stop playing music so we could study?”

Drav spoke up now. “We were going to wrap up soon, but we can finish the song we were working on.”

“It’ll only be a couple minutes, Cartalis.”

“Fine.” Arenya felt, more than saw, her friend roll her eyes a bit.

The sound hit Arenya like a wave of force. It didn’t sound the same from the hall, with the door closed. It didn’t sound right. But this… this sounded like nothing she’d ever heard and like everything, at once. The familiar tunes and note sequences, pumped through levels of magic she could scarcely comprehend.

Zelzad lifted one of the metal instruments and played it at a rate so fast Arenya was shocked her ears could even keep up. Drav was the singer, she realized, but his voice was hardly singing. It was a growl, a fierce guttural sound that reminded Arenya of the tale of the Greatest Dragon’s fury when he struck the boulder for water instead of asking as he should have. She couldn’t make out a single word. Zelzad did sing the occasional line, however - her voice was a high alto, much more typical singing, complemented by the drum’s deep blasts.

It was a chaotic frenzy of a sort Arenya had never heard before.

It was beautiful.

It wasn’t music to dance to, but she twirled anyway, finding the peace within the rhythm and dancing to it nonetheless.

When the song drew to a close, Arenya catching her breath, she found herself at the receiving end of shocked stares fro the third time, though for once the most shocked one was Cartalis. “Can I come by for your next rehearsal?”

“Not a ch-” The one on the drums, who’d said not a word thus far, yelled.

“Yes,” said Zelzad. “Any time.” Her voice was so quiet speaking, a far cry from that of her singing, but it still silenced the one in back. “We’ll be here next week at this time. Right, Drav?”

“Right. And I’ll try and get some more food. Plain, unadorned chicken, like you said.”

“Thank you,” Arenya whispered, then turned before they could see another tear roll down her cheek.

Back in the hallway, Cartalis muttered, “That just might be the strangest sequence of events I have witnessed in my time here. Are you okay?”

Arenya took her seat, still catching her breath from her frenzied dancing. “Well? Back to studying?”

“I suppose so.” Cartalis poured the pile of flash cards onto the table. “So, for our next card… tell me, what is the derivative of X to the N dx?”