“Gods damn it,” Shaya said, reviewing her course selection and schedule as she walked towards the stables. She looked down at Quill, limping alongside her, “Can you believe I didn’t get into Tactics OR Transmutation?”

Quill looked up at her before replying, “Wark!”

“That’s right!” She said, getting a different brand of strange looks from passersby now. “And look at this schedule – it's all over the place! Some early mornings, huge gaps between some classes,” she cross referenced the map in her other hand, “and some back to back that are across campus.”

“Wark!” Quill said again, sounding less sympathetic.

“Oh, I’m sorry for making you walk, Quill,” Shaya replied, “but you’ll be fully mended soon! Just let me review the book list and I’ll carry you the rest of the-”

“Hey! What are you doing with him!?” A rough voice shouted, drawing Shaya’s attention – as well as that of many others. A hulking Zothirian with bronze skin and an obsidian beard stalked towards a man and woman who were walking together. The pair looked just as startled as everyone else.

The girl responded first, raising her hands in a placating gesture. “Ugh, Galo, it’s not what you think. Calm down, you’re making a scene.”

She was short and curvaceous, with flowing hair the colour of autumn leaves that matched the freckles on her face. Almond shaped eyes with orange pupils cemented her as a nephilim from Vayeira.

Shaya knew where this was going.

“Don’t tell me to calm down Yllaneth!” Galo shouted, moving towards her. He was intercepted by her companion, who stepped in front of her and put a hand against Galo’s chest. “Get out of my way.”

“Galo, he’s just a friend! Lan and I grew up together.”

“Titan spit!” Galo shouted, then invoked the name of his Esper, “Makul!”

The angelic figure that appeared suggested Galo was also an Astorian, or at least had attracted an Esper from Her faith somehow. Unlike Phaedra, Makul was a squat, wingless figure in heavy bronze armour with a bull’s head helm and a giant stone maul. Broken chains dangled from manacles on the Esper’s wrists,

“Titan’s balls,” Shaya cursed, watching things escalate. Others around her gasped, but every head turned toward the spectacle as people walked to their destinations. Feet slowed to make sure no one missed this scene, knowing it would be the center of gossip for some time to come. “And they say my people have anger management problems.”

“You don’t want to do this friend,” Lan warned, stepping back from Galo and dropping a hand to the curved blade sheathed at his hip. Though much smaller than the high blooded nephilim facing him down, the small Vayeiran seemed unconcerned. Like Yllaneth, he was also a nephilim descended from Cirithill, but his stark white hair and cold blue eyes gave him a wintry appearance.

“I think I do!” Galo said, cocking back a fist as it was wreathed in flame.

There was a blur of blue-grey metal as Lan drew his sword and cut Galo across the forehead, the nephilim’s bronze flesh squealing as it parted. Blood rushing into his eyes, Galo’s punch flew wide and he growled an incantation to adapt. Fire burst from his other hand, pointed towards where he last saw Lan and Yllaneth.

The fire traveled less than a foot before it sputtered out and both Galo and Lan cried out in surprise. Shaya couldn’t see anything, but some crushing force pushed both men to the ground and pinned their arms behind their backs. Three mages rushed to the scene, identical hooded cloaks of bright blue spilling out behind them as they moved. An Esper followed each mage, and Shaya couldn’t wait to see how this resolved-

Something bounced off Shaya and she was surprised to see it was a person given how light the impact felt. The pale-skinned girl in plain robes looked to be in her early teens – much too young to be enrolled in the Academy – but she was carrying a tower of books that were now littered across the ground. It took Shaya a second to notice the girl’s pointed ears under her long, black hair.

“I’m so sorry!” Shaya said, squatting to help them up, without a second thought given as to why an elf was in the Empire, let alone at its War Academy. “I was distracted, that’s my bad.”

“That’s okay,” the girl said, brushing herself off without looking up at Shaya. She was fluent in the Imperial tongue, with a just a hint of a lilting accent that Shaya couldn’t pin to any of the Empire’s six kingdoms. “I was distracted too.”

Quill gave a small squawk as they picked up one of the notebooks and handed it back to the girl, but she recoiled from the gryphlet.

“It’s okay,” Shaya said, “Quill won’t hurt you.”

“S..sorry,” the girl’s blush deepened, still not looking up at her.

Gods, I need to watch where I’m going. I can’t believe I just ran over a little girl.

Guilt nipped at Shaya as she helped the girl collect her books, fueled by the passing commentary of a few other students who couldn’t help but remark at the barbaric bumpkin hurling a small foreign girl to the ground. As she picked books off the ground, Shaya noticed that one was a sketch book filled with some beautiful works of art. Knowing how touchy artists could be and already feeling enough guilt for a month, Shaya resisted the urge to flip through its pages.

“You’re a really good artist,” she said, handing the book back to her victim. “My name’s Shaya, by the way, and again, I’m really sorry for running you over.”

“It’s okay,” she said, “Really. And thank you.” She hesitated after standing up, once again cradling her many books. Finally, she looked up at Shaya with midnight eyes that glinted with starlight, “I’m Apricot. It’s... it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Shaya smiled and nodded, then turned to see the aftermath of the ‘duel’. More blue cloaks had arrived on the scene, one of them channeling Jade aether into the wounded Galo’s forehead. The bull of a nephilim struggled against the invisible restraints, his mouth shouting without a noise coming from it. Lan simply lay passively on the ground, his mythrite curved blade lying out of arms reach. Another blue cloak stood a few feet away, chatting with a flustered Yllaneth.

Shaya cursed. She could have sworn she saw Espers from multiple traditions across the Empire, but now they were all gone. Dismissed or hidden from manifesting since the need for shock and awe was over.

“Don’t worry,” Apricot said, following Shaya’s gaze, “As the local authority, the Order of Heiwa will deal with them. The instigator will likely be expelled, at a bare minimum. The use of magic to assault another student here is a very serious crime.”

“Order of Heiwa, eh?” Shaya said, turning her attention back to the smaller girl before her, “The Inquisition must not like that kind of competition.”

Apricot shrugged, “The Order of Heiwa pre-dates them by a millennia. They’ve been the Academy’s peacekeepers since it was founded by Vynderwynd after the Great Titan War, but their jurisdiction is limited to Imperial troops.”

“Huh, you sure know a bunch about the Academy’s history. Are you a student here?”

Apricot blushed before nodding. “Yes, I sometimes forget how much I stand out. My, uh, moms teach here. As a condition of accepting their positions, I was allowed to attend class here and at the University.”

“Oh, that’s neat!” Shaya said, appraising Apricot anew, “Aren’t you a little young to be attending an Academy of War?”

“A little,” she replied, looking away out of embarrassment, “but I passed all of the entrance exams without issue. So, I won’t hold my Lance back.”

Shaya blinked, “They assigned you to a unit of Warmages?”

The elf chewed her bottom lip and Shaya got the impression she was pushing her comfort with social encounters too much. As much as she wanted to grill Apricot on how an elf got here, if her parents were also foreign, and why she even wanted to serve in a foreign military...she thought she should let her go.

“Well, I’m sorry for bumping into you and keeping you from your destination.” Shaya bowed her head in apology, but beamed at Apricot when her head came up, “But I’m glad I had the chance to meet you. Hopefully we bump into each other again – err, um, but not like today.”

Shaya’s joke earned a nervous giggle, but the ghost of a smile touched the girl’s lips when she turned back and nodded at her. “Me too, take care Shaya!”

Half an hour later, Shaya entered the Academy’s stables with Quill curled up in her arms, her eyes wide with wonder yet again. From a distance, she thought the multi-tiered structure was made of glass, but up close she realized it was formed entirely from planes of force powered by an aethercyte circuit at the base of the building. Unlike some of the other domes she saw that were dedicated to a specific biome, the stables featured a plethora of smaller biomes so that each animal stabled would be comfortable.

In addition to a cavalry division’s worth of normal horses, the stables also had giant horses strong enough to carry giant-blooded people and even full kitahm into battle. Shaya walked past other stalls and enclosures that housed giant birds with axe-like beaks, pure white pegasi, and snarling drakes in barbed collars. Up above, she spied other sections where the light bent at strange angles, separating the land dwelling mounts from giant eagles that roosted high above.

“I can’t wait for my Mounted Combat class...” Shaya nearly drooled.

“Can I help you?” A matronly voice asked in a guttural accent, drawing Shaya back to ground level. She was surprised to see a large, curvy woman in front of her – the first person she’d seen on campus that was her height. The woman’s bestial aspects - antlers, large ears, claws and fangs – marked her as a golkah along with her size, shocking Shaya even more than her height. Unruly white hair and crows feet marked her as older than Krebo, and the flecks of jade in her otherwise brown eyes suggested she had spent enough time in her life channeling the aether for it to leave a mark. Simple leather garments of brown and green let her blend into her surroundings easily, and Shaya recognized the beaded necklace with fangs as something from Asharel.

A look passed across the woman’s face as Shaya’s shock stretched into an agonizing and awkward second.

“Sorry,” Shaya said, “I just haven’t seen a golkah from Asharel in, well, a very long time. Umm, one of my mothers was from there, but I lost touch with that half of my family.”

The woman nodded at her, sympathetic but busy. “Don’t worry about it, I’ve grown used to the staring since coming to the capital. Now...did you come here for a reason?” She looked pointedly at Quill, who still snuggled into Shaya.

“Ah, yes, could you please heal my companion here? I’m afraid his leg was mangled in a battle with Titan spawn and my own healing abilities weren’t up to the task of righting it.”

“Of course,” the woman said, gesturing for Shaya to follow her. “I’m Bari Valosa, by the way.”

“Shaya Heirosoth,” Shaya replied, “And this here is my friend Quill.”

“A pleasure to meet you both,” Bari said, smiling at them, “How long have you had him?”

“I found him about three weeks ago, with this injury. Wait, him? How can you tell without the, umm...”

“Genitalia?”

“Yes,” Shaya said, trying not to blush like an immature child. I’m mature damn it! “I didn’t think eagles had sexually dimorphic feathers.

“Impressive,” Bari noted, a hint of respect entering her tone now, “You are correct, but while some gryphons take after eagles and lions, they are their own species. Gryphons are sexually dimorphic, however, and I know that Quill is a he because his feathers already have more white and gold to them. For northern Kelahkese gryphons, females have more brown and grey markings to better blend into their environments. They’re also larger, but you wouldn’t be able to tell at his age.”

They walked behind the main building Shaya could see to find a small grove amidst large trees. Shaya only realized then that she walked on dirt again, and marveled at how trees were growing on this otherwise barren mountain. At the center of the grove was a plain stone slab that looked like an altar around which a circle was carved into the dirt.

Bari nodded at the altar and Shaya stepped into the circle, making sure not to disturb the dirt, and placed Quill on the stone slab at its center. “There you go buddy, hopefully we’ll have you good as new in a moment.”

He squawked in excitement, head turning to look at Bari as she approached. She held a hand out to him, letting him sniff at it and then poke it with his large tongue. Shaya expected at least one aggressive nip, but he seemed to accept Bari faster than any other person she had seen.

“Sorry big guy,” she said to him in a soothing tone, “I just need to poke at you a bit here.”

She gently picked up his mangled front leg, running her fingers along the claw marks and probing where the bones were out of place. Quill emitted a constant, low screech of complaint, but not enough to harm their ears. Bari ran her hand up his limb towards his shoulder, pushing aside the bulk of his feathers and fluff there to reveal more skinny bird leg.

Bari set his leg down and shook her head. “I’m sorry, the limb can’t be repaired in this state. We’ll need to regrow it.”

“Okay,” Shaya nodded, expecting as such given how long it had been left like this. “How much will it cost to do that?”

She braced for impact.

“Five hundred gold coins.”

Shaya reeled.