Chapter Five: First Impressions are Important

In the days that followed the Titaness’ first appearance, her song repeated, never changing in its promises and never stopping in tempo, there was no escape from the notes, not even in sleep.

Light is not something that Bridget ever associated with touch, but the bright, snowy white that surrounded her had a feeling to it, like the edges of her body where her skin touched nothingness were met with thousands of feathered feelers that brushed back and forth. It wasn’t unpleasant so much as it was unexpected, but before Briddy could fully formulate an opinion, she took another step forward, and her boots met the stone floor of an unfamiliar hall.

“Used knobs go in the bin.” A smoky voice drawled, with all the aplomb of one who’s repeated themselves far too many times in recent memory.

Briddy looked up from the patterned stone tiles of the floor, each piece individually polished to a shine and arranged in a pattern of squares and triangles that ranged from light grey to a pale brown. Next to her was a large blue bin, open at the top and emblazoned with the hovering domes of the university’s sigil, the same one that currently sat over her heart. Standing nearby, clipboard firmly clutched in hand, was a young woman, her hair cut into a short black shag, the shadows playing against sharp cheekbones.

“Used knob. Bin.” The taller girl pointed with her stylus, first at Briddy’s arm, and then at the receptacle. Looking down, Bridget saw that she did indeed still hold the doorknob, her fist firmly clenched around a stone that was now a blackened grey, its facets rejecting the light that had early danced in its depths. Taking a breath, she tossed it in the bin, listening to the dull thuds as it rattled to a stop within, and looked up at the other student. She noticed that the flowing cloth of the other girl’s Shroud began in white near the bottom, which –in a reverse of Briddy’s garment– faded upwards into a dazzling cerulean at the top.

“As flattering as it would be to let you gawk more, other people are coming through soon, so you need to move along.” Gesturing once more with her stylus, the girl motioned towards a knot of people that stood a small ways away. “Go on and join your class.”

Swallowing, Briddy nodded, fighting to keep the heated flush that was slowly creeping up her neck from reaching her cheeks. She hadn’t been gawking, had she? She hadn’t meant to. A quick look at the other student showed that the girl had turned back to her clipboard, a small smile playing on her lips. Glancing away before she could get caught again, Bridget started to move towards the group that she had been directed towards, taking in the rest of the hall as she moved.

Easily a hundred paces or more across, the smooth shine of the tiled floor reflected the sunlight that crept in the hall through windows that lined the top of the room, creating a circle of glass that was topped by a large dome, its underside painted in a confusing mosaic of colors. There didn’t appear to be any pattern or plan to the colors; ochres and rubies bled into amethyst and emerald in one insensible amalgam. Beneath the dome and the windows which lined its bottom, tan walls stretched to meet the tile floor, a set of eight doors circling in perfectly distanced increments. Six of them looked the same, manned by someone with a clipboard, a bin loitering somewhere nearby.

Periodically, the doors opened in a flash of light, permitting another person through the portal, their Shrouds a myriad of different colors and fading patterns. Briddy slowly rotated herself, noting that besides the door behind her, none of the other minders seemed to need to remind their arrivals to toss the used knob into the bins. Indeed, the students that came out of other doors quickly walked away, giving a wide berth to the throng congregating in the middle of the hall, and heading for the large, arched double doors to one side of the hall and exiting.

“Blegh,” Bridget murmured, pulling at her top as she slowly made her way over to the group. Despite her hair being tied back, her shirt had already begun to stick to her back, sweat beading her skin and sticking to the cloth. The heat wasn’t just coming from her, it seemed to permeate the room like an oven that had been left open, dry, and constant. She also wasn’t the only one feeling the effects, as she got close Briddy could see several other students shifting uncomfortably, and more than one wiping sweat from their brows. Adjusting the clip in her hair, she shoved the chunks that escaped her horsetail into the metal prongs, closing the clasp tight around them.

Milling around was a melting pot of shapes and colors of people, talking amongst friends or bouncing from one conversation to the next. Her peers didn’t seem to take in her arrival any more than they did the others that came through the doors, though Briddy thought she felt more than one set of eyes on her after she began making her way deeper into the group. On the far side, she spotted a somewhat familiar head thrown back in laughter, brown hair tightly coiled against its scalp, and green eyes dancing in mischief. Warrin never failed to try and get into the center of attention at any event they had attended as children, his pranks and stunts legendary for causing great stress to many a parent in the Gilded Down.

Taking one step in his direction, Briddy stopped, almost of her own accord. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with Warrin, besides a constant need to keep an eye out for incoming tricks, but her father had told her she should seek him out, and she had no desire to be defined by Titanium Kerr’s choices for her company. Chewing her lip, she took in the others he was speaking to, trying to come to a decision.

She could see the back of a shaggy head, its dirty blonde locks loose and unkempt as its tall owner laughed with Warrin. Nearby, a girl with a tightly pinched face watched, her lips drawn to a point as she watched in marked disapproval. Joining the fun, his arm slung around Warrin’s narrow shoulders, was a boy with an angular face, its edges softened by a full head of large, loose black-brown curls. Dancing bright blue eyes met Briddy’s for a moment, sliding on as she looked away so as to not be accused of gawking again. He did have nice eyes, though.

Shaking the thought from her head, Bridget slowly rubbed an arm, the soft material of her wide sleeve shifting up and down with the motion. She wasn’t going to go over. Warrin already had an audience, and she didn’t want to be a spectator.

“You’re Titanium Kerr’s daughter, aren’t you?” A voice demanded, sounding less like a question and more like an accusation.

Pursing her lips, Briddy slowly turned to face its owner. Not what she would’ve wanted to initially be recognized for, but it also wasn’t shocking given her family’s notoriety.

“Hello?” She said, looking at the young man standing before her.

Stringy dark hair covered his large forehead, watery blue eyes peering beadily out from behind a pair of spectacles that seemed a touch too small for the scale of his round face. He was about a head shorter than Briddy, yet still somehow managed to look down his nose at her. A smile adorned his face that didn’t quite reach his eyes, at odds with the force of his tone, which sent a small shiver of malaise up her spine.

“I thought you looked familiar, though that scowl put me off for a moment.” His expression didn’t waver, those eyes glancing all over her body with shrewd calculation. “You should smile more, it would make you easier to approach.”

Bridget had to take several moments, blinking as she tried to sort out how to reply. She hadn’t been scowling, so far as she was aware a pursed mouth was a far cry from a glare or a frown. Who did this boy think he was?

“What’s your name?” She said, slowly getting the words around gritted teeth.

“Niles Sanlaraunt, lancer prodigy and heir to the relic -” His smug smile as his mouth silently moved said he knew she couldn’t hear the name and made a point of saying it anyway. “I’m actually a massive fan of your sister’s, she’s the reason I’ve been all but promised a spot in the Gilded Down once I graduate.”

Briddy’s eyebrows shot up. She had never heard of this man, let alone heard Adelaide mention him while recounting her various escapades at school. “She’s never mentioned you before.” She said mildly. That empty smile returned, plastered across his face like a piece of meat flung against a wall that stuck before slowly sliding down.

“You may not have been listening.”

Briddy raised an eyebrow at that, crossing her arms and waiting for him to continue.

Bulling on, oblivious to her reaction, Niles peered at the surrounding students, sniffing at a small cluster whose silken Shrouds faded from verdant green to a dark grey. Briddy had assumed that the first person she saw with a covering like that had somehow gotten it stained, but as she cast her eyes about, she noticed that more students wore uniforms of green and grey than the white and green that she and Niles wore.

“I don’t know why we’re stuck with the general course students for this, we have completely different aims.” The self-proclaimed ‘lancer prodigy’ spoke loud enough that several of those standing nearby looked about, a frown on their face.

“Does it matter? It’s the first day.” Briddy shook her head, her heavy horsetail bobbing from side to side.

“It’s bad enough we have classes with them, there’s no need to lump us all together for the opening speech. Heirs should be treated differently.”

Bridget pinched her lips shut, making a murmur of dissent. Adelaide and Nolan would’ve been ‘general course’ students when they went here, and they still managed to make more than enough of a name for themselves without a Relic to separate them.

“You know, you remind me of an Aunt of mine, she has the same sort of…” Niles vaguely gestured around his face “Rural look to her nose. Were you cradled to your family by any chance?”

Briddy slowly turned her head to look at him fully in the eyes, stretching the moments until she responded by pinning him with her gaze. “I am my parent’s child by blood.” She said, carefully enunciating each word to try and control the emotion. Strong dislike curdled in her stomach, curling up into a ball of anger at his implication that she wasn’t her parent’s child. “Is that a question you normally ask people you’ve just met?”

He ignored her, turning away to stand on the balls of his feet as he peered through the throng of students, which had continued to grow during their conversation. Hot flashes of irritation thundered in Briddy’s chest, but she took several deep breaths to dissipate the storm before speaking again.

“I should really be going-”

“Aha! Gail! Over here!” He waved at someone off in the throng, bouncing slightly to be seen. A person with straight, dark hair turned, looking for who had called out their name.

“Eh?” The tall girl shouldered her way through the crowd, her lithe form pushing past her peers where others might’ve sidled through. As she approached, Bridget noticed that the right side of her hair had been braided back in two horizontal braids, the ends of which rested on her shoulder, tied off in green string. The rest of her dark mane was combed over to the other side of her face, which currently bore the expression of someone who looked like they would rather be anywhere else but where they were.

“This is my very good friend, who I’ve known from childhood. She’s already had experience slaying monstrosities.” The way Niles spoke implied that Gail’s accomplishments were his own, but Briddy chose not to respond as she looked at the other girl’s face. She had a dark, intense brow and a nose that was slightly too large for her face, but the hazel eyes that shone out from it held a spark of wit that made her all the more interesting to look at.

“Hey.”

It took Briget a moment to realize that Gail was looking directly at her when she spoke, and her response came out in a jumble of vowels that took her a second to work until she could form a reply.

“Hello.”

“My cousin should be around here somewhere too.” Niles barged his way back into directing the conversation, and Briddy looked away from the other girl.

“I should probably go-”

“Nonsense, I’m sure I saw him after I came in, though Sculptor knows where he wandered off to, Tuck has his heads in the clouds and just wanders in blindly half the time…”

Nile’s search was cut short as the large double doors at the end of the hall were flung wide, their impressive bulk swinging inwards and thudding against the walls. A large, oppressive wave of the driest heat Briddy had ever felt rolled over the room, wicking away the moisture from her lips within seconds.

She only had time to catch a quick glimpse of a hazy, wavering horizon lined by orange-red waves of sand before a woman strode in, demanding the attention of all those present.

Short, stocky and dressed in a dark grey shirt lined with golden trim, the lady strode in with the confidence and agility of someone still in her youth. Wiry grey hair was cut in a brutally short bob near the middle of her ears, and her face was marred from cheek to brow with a brutal, puckered scar. Sharp, searching eyes cut across the assembled students, their brown depths never lingering until they settled on Briddy, narrowing briefly before the woman began to speak.

“My name is Headmistress Terna a’Tyr. You may be familiar with my name from my days with the Imbar Company, you may be familiar with my name from my association with this school. Either way, I don’t care. What you need to know is that I am more than qualified to shape you into the next generation of Slayers, Healers, and Guildworkers like the clay that you are.” She began to pace, walking a circuit in front of the doors as she looked different people in the eye, as though addressing them directly. “This is not your uncle's brawlyard or your mother's hand-holding tutelage. This is Palanquin University, a place of learning, discipline, and progress. Your narrow-minded views, personal biases, and political qualms mean squat. Either abide by the rules or get out.” Terna paused, inhaling sharply through her nose.

“The first one of you morons to pull a relic, weapon, or spell on your classmates gets a one-way ticket to the eels. Work hard and keep in line, this won't be you. I promise you that the more you put into your time here, the more you will get out of it. If you want to leave these halls a legend, then you had better work to become legendary.” Suddenly, the old woman pivoted on her heel, whirling towards the left side of the room.

“Am I boring you, Mister Demarov?” The words were a hiss that carried throughout the room, echoing even from the ceiling to reach their intended recipient. Bridget looked over and met Gail’s eyes, which were widened in surprise. They both gazed around the room, joining the crowd in looking for the perpetrator.

Near the edge of the crowd, Warrin and the curly-haired boy with nice eyes stood stock still, frozen like two children caught sneaking sweets from the larder after refusing to eat dinner. Warrin’s lips were sucked in as he slowly motioned back the wiggling creature he had been levitating towards the Shroud collar of the girl with the pinched face from earlier. Eyes wide now that most of the assembled crowd had turned to look at him, the prankster slowly floated the creature back in his pocket and made a show of looking innocent, hands tucked behind his back.

Nostrils flaring, Terna cleared her throat loudly, bringing the collective gaze of the room back to where she stood, back ramrod straight. “If there are no further interruptions?” Her voice dripping in sarcasm, she continued “Thank you.”

Briddy couldn’t help but smile a little, despite the prickly nature of the older woman, she respected her brusque nature. Terna could command a room like no other, and anyone that could go toe to toe with Ruba Vasily and come away the victor possessed quite the wit indeed.

“The Palanquin is not here to waste its time or resources teaching you the basics. You should already know them, else you should not be here.”

Bridget’s eyes dropped to the floor, her feet shifting slightly. Was being able to summon one’s relic considered ‘the basics’? She looked at her hand, opening and closing it into a fist several times. At the front of the room, Terna continued.

“We are here to refine, define, and sharpen you into the weapons you will need to be should you wish to venture outside the Embrace. I am not here to hold your hand, pat your head and give you mystical advice to solve your problems. I am here to extract purpose and use from each one of you, and a failure to produce either will result in dismissal. I have no daylight to waste on those not willing to work.”

Coming to a neat halt, the short woman looked at those assembled once more, her fierce gaze sweeping across those in front of her like each one had done something inexplicably wrong. “Some of you are Fable-Children, heirs to living legends that give your families great power. Some are heirs to Relics meant to fight a war we lost hundreds of years ago. All of you are the beneficiaries of an astounding legacy wrought in the sweat and blood of those who came before. It's time you did something with it. Your path is unknown to everyone right now, even you. The moment you stop moving forward is the moment you become lost.”

Bridget felt like the Headmistress was looking directly at her as she spoke those last words, and shuffled uncomfortably under the gaze.

“Keep moving, students. And let this be the last time I see you before you qualify for my class.”

Terna’s exit was less explosive than her entrance, with a sharp turn and steps that carried her out the double doors, but the lack of her presence was like a child’s balloon popping, the entire room seemed to let out a collective breath, tension releasing from holding themselves still that rolled out into some relieved sighs, and a few nervous chuckles. Slowly, but surely, the familiar hum of murmured conversation began to fill the room as the students began discussing their welcome.

“Well.” Briddy said, wiping her clammy palms on her shorts. She had tried to just wipe them on the silk of her Shroud, but the cloth had shifted out of the way whenever the moist skin got close and seemed to refuse to get the sweat on its fibers.

“That was….” Gail stretched, drawing out the last word with the movement. “Exhilarating.”

Bridget grinned. “And mildly terrifying.”

“That’s part of the fun.”

“Oh, Terna’s always like that.” Niles cut in, stressing his use of the Headmistress’ first name.

“Is she really?” A boy said from nearby, his robe the green-gray that the lancer had earlier sniffed at.

“Oh we’ve had her for dinner quite a few times, she’s a professional through and through. Tough, but she never loses her temper.”

Briddy couldn’t stop the snort that escaped her until after the heads had already turned her way.

“Sorry, sorry. It’s just I’ve seen her lose her temper and it is not a pretty sight.”

Niles’s mouth creased in a frown, his watery eyes glaring out from behind his spectacles. Gail cut in before he could make a remark, curiosity lifting her dark brows. “You’ve seen her lose her temper?” A smile curled her lips “What in the Reach did you do to deserve that?”

“Well, it was after Nolan turned a building into a block of ice-”

“Wait.” The boy who had joined their conversation earlier cut in. His wide, freckled face had formed an “o” of surprise. “By Nolan, you mean Nolan Vasily?”

Grimacing, Bridget slowly nodded.

“He’s my brother.”

“Is it true that he managed to save half of the staff from a group of assassins his greencoat year?” The other student’s eyes danced with the question. Nearby, a girl with an arm made of silver turned, adding her own opinion to the mix. “I heard that he and Adelaide burned their entire den to the ground, but got detention for leaving the school grounds without permission.”

“No, that was when they went to Sheltered Jewel of Arist and-”

“Shhhhhhhhhhh.” Niles loudly shushed the conversation, waving a hand back towards the doors at the front of the room. “Another teacher is coming.” His face was thunderous, but he made a show of giving full and rapt attention to the direction he had gestured to.

Briddy, raising an eyebrow, found herself looking over at Gail. She found it hard to be around the man, let alone be friends with him from childhood, but the other girl seemed just as annoyed, her long legs tapping her foot against the patterned stone of the ground. Meeting Bridget’s gaze, she too raised an eyebrow, shaking her head slightly in mild exasperation before turning to look towards the front.

Stepping through the doors was one of the tallest women she had ever seen, with enough height to easily match her father, if not outstrip him. A long, pale braid slid over her bare shoulders, the tan of her skin blending into the soft fawn brown of the dress she wore, embroidered in gold. Near her left shoulder, a symbol of a cracked greathammer gripped by a fist was circled and wrought from metal, a brutally sharp-looking needle completing the pin that connected the fabric of her draping clothes.

“Well now, those are some wide eyes, hmmm?” Her voice was soft, husky, the tones still carrying across the room as though she stood next to the group. “Judging by your expressions, I’d say the Headmistress has already laid you all out within an inch of your lives.”

Briddy found herself nodding, unable to tear her eyes away from the statuesque woman.

“Well I am Doctor Alani Nguyen, I’ll be teaching most of you in Bestiary Studies this year. Let’s get you off to receive your schedules and some food before the afternoon rest, mmm?”

Though Doctor Nguyen spoke to them like they were all children, Bridget found she didn’t mind, mostly owing to the calming tones in the teacher’s voice. As the students slowly filed out of the building, following the imposing woman, she noticed that most of those surrounding her seemed to be around her age, and only a small handful looked younger. It shouldn’t have been surprising, considering that Nolan had been accepted to the University at a young age, but she had half been expecting teenagers to make up most of the class.

Glancing up at Niles’s back as he stiffly marched ahead of them, Briddy silently reminded herself that being older didn’t necessarily mean her peers were more likable. Guiltily, her eyes slid over to Gail’s loping form, and she amended that not all were unpleasant. It was just the more that she thought about her conversation with the ‘lancer prodigy’ from earlier, the angrier she got. His comments made it seem that she had done something wrong, that she glared too much or she looked too rural, and that the onus was on her to change simply because he didn’t like it. A coward’s dig, and her aversion grew all the more for his fecklessness.

Ahead of them, the wide, yawning arches of the building beckoned, shimmering heat waiting to wrap them in its arid clutches the moment the students stepped through. Rolling her shoulders, Bridget took a deep breath and continued onwards, out into the sun.