by Jade Alters
The door to the room slams again, just like it did the morning before. I roll over to find River trudging to her desk again. She hurls her backpack to her bed just in time, before her arms retract into a furry mess. She folds over on the ground into a canine form. She’s bigger than any dog I’ve ever seen, with visibly coarser fur and longer fangs. I meet her green wolf eyes for just a second. I frown without meaning to - the last thing I want is to show the girl pity. I hear how much she hates it in the snarl she gives me on the way to the bathroom. Before she gets there, her shape compacts and warps from fur to feathers. She takes the form of a parrot, which squeals all the way into the shower.
“Morning, River…” I mumble into my pillow as I turn my face back into its sweet embrace.
“Morning, Cece!” a voice chimes from the wall beside my bed. I roll away from it so hard, I slip off the sheets. My back thunks on the floor beneath the misty glow of my other roommate.
“Ugh… Hi, Stephanie,” I groan as I massage the back of my head. I can already feel the bump forming where I struck it on the drawer sticking out from under the bed. “Is it…hard for you to use doors?”
“A little, sorry,” says Stephanie. The heavy regret in her bodiless voice curls my lips to one side of my mouth. “I’m still learning how to interact with the physical world. I’m still mostly in the Blue Plane. A lot of us here… We’re here out of necessity, not preference.” My eyes drift to the bathroom door, to River, then back to Stephanie.
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” I wave her off, “So…that’s what you learn about here? What, in classes? Like a regular school?”
“Yes and no,” Stephanie chuckles, “I’m really not the best person - er - the best one to explain it. You might get it more if you ever leave this room.” Stephanie swirls around me like a silvery blue cloud as I grip the frame of my bed to climb up on my feet. I can’t help thinking I should feel cold, or a breeze, but she sends no ripples of temperature through the room.
“Maybe later,” I tell her, and hop back up on my bed.
“Maybe now?” Stephanie counters, “Cece. You haven’t left this room in two days. That means you haven’t eaten in two days.”
“I’m not hungry yet,” I lie to her. Well, it’s only half a lie, considering the word yet. I’ve already been hungry, so intensely as a matter of fact that my body has abandoned reminding me. Now I’m settled into the idea of going without, I hardly know why I needed to eat in the first place. Stephanie lets out a long sigh.
“You have no idea what that does to me. What I’d give to rip something with some teeth… To taste. To feel satisfied,” she pines. Her soft blue eminence floats towards the door.
“Sorry… I didn’t even think…” but I also have no idea how to even begin empathizing with a floating blue wisp. Still, I lay flat on my bed, unmoving. Stephanie hangs in the air by the door, like a stormcloud.
“So… You’re sure you won’t come?” she asks one last time.
“Maybe next time,” I tell her. Why feed myself now, when my stomach has so recently become accustomed to empty halls?
“Alright,” says Stephanie.
Cece,
The Broken Academy, D Wing Cafeteria
Suddenly, I’m sitting up instead of laying. My butt is on a hard surface rather than my bed. The silence of our room is instantly exchanged for the bustle of a hundred voices. I look around to find at least that many other people my age on long benches at long tables. We fill a blue and gray tiled room that is walled in on three sides by buffet trays and food lines. One side of it is open to an expansive courtyard, where a few more people sit at a few more tables. Students of the Broken Academy. It’s the damn cafeteria. What in the hell am I doing here? I find my answer in a blue mist that rolls out of my chest. It curls across the table and takes the loose, ever-collapsing shape of a woman.
“What the hell, Stephanie?” I growl, as soon as control of my voice box returns.
“I possessed you,” Stephanie admits. There’s a healthy tinge of shame in her voice, but I can’t help feeling there should be more for commandeering a person’s body.
“Oh, okay. So you can possess things,” I commend, like it’s nothing. I’m not sure exactly why I expect a bodiless spirit to pick up on sarcasm.
“Yeah, like I did with the sprinkler,” Stephanie tells me. My palm rises to shade my forehead. Stephanie explains the art of possession the same way one might on how to fold a t-shirt. Sure, you just hop on in, take over for a few, and walk the girl wherever you want!
“I am not a sprinkler, Stephanie!” I hiss. A few of the students adjacent to us on the bench shift away when they overhear it.
“No, you’re not,” Stephanie bounces back. The remorse is a little thicker in her tone this time around. “You actually need food. And sun. And maybe a little human interaction?”
“This may come as a shock to you, but I actually prefer my human interaction to happen outside my body!” I counter. I cross my arms over a collared Academy shirt. The symbol over the chest pocket is the Council Chamber, from above. A gray arc with a bright blue circle inside, surrounded by six other colored circles, I guess to represent the six Councilmembers. Orange, red, green, gray, white and black. I wonder briefly where it came from, but at least Stephanie had the decency to dress me first.
“Well, I’m not human, so possession doesn’t count anyway. That’s why I brought you here. Mingle. Eat. Function for a few minutes, then we can go back, I promise,” Stephanie tries to bargain. Bad as I want to shove it back in her face, for adding to the long list of people backing me into a corner, I feel my fists begin to unclench. I don’t need to see her face to tell how worried she is, despite hardly knowing the first thing about it. I guess it’s a preferable alternative to the shove of the Council, River and Serge. Besides, the tempting aroma of a delectable meal has already spread to my lungs. My stomach roars awake.
“Bring me to whatever that amazing smell is, and you’ve got a deal,” I tell her. My lips twitch in a little smirk. Stephanie floats up from her seat, and I follow suit towards one of the buffet lines.
“Well, I can show you the stuff everyone else raves about, at least,” she chimes.
“Right. Of course, you don’t eat,” I realize. The poor girl can’t even open a door, why would she need to pour solid matter down her ghostly throat? “You went to lunch yesterday too. Do you…go every day?”
“Most days,” Stephanie tells me as we move along the line. The deep, steaming steel trays come up fast.
“Why?” I ask.
“If I’m not around people…if no one acknowledges me…it’s hard to make myself stay here. I tend to fade back to the Blue Plane,” Stephanie admits, quietly, so the people around us can’t hear. I make it to the first tray, a precut meatloaf. It has a nice crust to the top of it, but I pass it right by. I’m too wrapped up in the rest of Stephanie’s explanation, but it doesn’t come on its own.
“You mentioned that before, too. Want to tell me what you mean by Blue Plane?” I probe. Now those mashed potatoes I can’t pass up, no matter how enthralled I am in other matters. I scoop and slam a massive dollop on a tray.
“I mean… A place that’s here, all around you. Above and below. But it works like a one-way mirror. Things in the Blue Plane can see what’s happening in this Realm, even if you can’t look back. Only Astrals can move freely between the two,” Stephanie tells me. Her remarkable lack of emotion tells me this is rote memory - something she learned but doesn’t fully understand, either. “That, right there. The chicken with lemon is always a sellout. I’m surprised there’s any left.”
“Thanks. It sounds a little like the Soul of Fire. It’s like a place, I think, but I can only go there by closing my eyes or focusing.” I chuckle at how much more animated she is about the chicken. I pluck up a piece with the tongs and sneak a spoonful of the buttery sauce it sits in. Angry as I am with my Mom, I can’t keep her out of my head when I see the tray of asparagus and slivered red peppers
. She cuts them that same way. I frown my way past them and elect for a spoonful of soggy Brussels sprouts instead. “I’m good, we can go back… How long have you been here, Stephanie?” I ask on our way back to our seat. She floats beside me until we reach it, when she passes right through the table to “sit” straight across.
“A year, maybe two. The beginning is really hazy. For…I don’t know how long, maybe years, there was just blackness. It was like sleep, but…better. Then one day this blue light flashes by and…I was just alive again. Rather - I was awake again. I’m not sure if I’m actually alive, you know? I guess I was, at some point. Astrals are supposed to have physical bodies, though we can exist without them, thanks to the Blue Plane,” Stephanie pieces together, a little too casually for my comfort. I slice off a cut of lemon chicken and toss it back before I ask:
“You don’t remember your life before, do you?”
“No… Why do you ask?” Stephanie bounces back.
“Just the way you talk about it… Being an Astral, not knowing where your body is. There’s no emotion attached to it. I think, if you remembered, you’d feel something. You’d be upset, or angry, or something,” I tell her. After all, she’s been the most honest with me of anyone I’ve met at the Academy. She stays quiet for a few uncomfortable bites of my mashed potatoes and sprouts. It goes on just long enough for some regret to bubble in the hungry pit inside me.
“I’d feel something… Huh,” Stephanie mumbles. I go on munching, not entirely sure how to approach the ghost with the identity crisis watching me eat. Maybe it’s twisted, but in a way, it’s relieving. It’s refreshing. That ghost is struggling with what she is - she hardly understands it - I’m not the only one. I resolve to feed myself in the quiet interim. That is, until another voice projects over me. It comes through not my ears, but the very fibers of my consciousness. My ember connects with that of another in the Soul of Fire.
“Stimulating as this conversation seems, I’d like to suggest you try to understand yourself before you jump right to the role of supernatural therapist.”
Lee,
The Broken Academy, D Wing Cafeteria
“What the hell is wrong with you, Lee? You’re as bad as Stephanie. Are you just going to pop into my head whenever you feel like it, listen and weigh in on all my conversations?” Cece’s rage flares back at me through the invisible connection we share.
“Check behind you,” I tease her. I turn my own head back to watch her do it. I’m about three tables behind her across the cafeteria. “I didn’t mean to pop in, uninvited. I heard you talking to Stephanie, I saw you, and we connected. It’s going to happen from time to time, until you get a handle on this whole Dragon thing.”
“Me?” Cece calls back without an actual sound, “You saw me! You must have been thinking about me too.” I can picture the pout on her face with my eyes closed. I gaze into her azure ember in the Soul of Fire.
“Guilty as charged. I was thinking you could come join us at our table over here. Thought it might do you some good to get to know a few others like us,” I invite her. She considers it for all of a second - I can feel it. Then her ember flares up to chase me out, to sever our connection. Unfortunately for her, she can’t know that it’s not so easy. “Stephanie can come too. Everyone likes her.”
“Yeah, she’s a blast. Possessed me to walk me down to the cafeteria. Thing is, I can hardly deal with one other Dragon in my head. I’ll pass on the team bonding for now,” Cece tells me. It might be seventy-five percent true, but that other quarter, that last little piece of her, wants more. Hell, if she’s going to make it here, she’ll need more than one friend. I remember how scared I was to join the other Dragons too. How could I expect them to open their doors to someone like me? After everything I did?
“Cece. Please. It can be better for you than you’re thinking right now,” I try, gently. Her ember surges to a blue wildfire.
“It’s for me to decide what I think and when, Lee! If you want to be another voice to push me around, you come to me, and I’ll let you know exactly what’s on my mind!” Cece dares me. She’s fierce, but I’ve been doing this longer than she has. I know how to channel one emotion to conceal another, or my conscious intent. That’s how I got so close to her without her realizing. I lay a soft hand on her shoulder.
“What’s on your mind, Cece?” I ask.
“Hi, Lee,” Stephanie chimes.
“Hey, Steph,” I grin at her. Then the temperature of Cece’s skin spikes against my hand. I pull my hand away just too slow. She shoots her arms back over her shoulder and grasps me by the wrist and forearm.
“Cece, no!” I hear Stephanie’s shout too late, it’s already flipping away from me. Cece’s just discovered some of the other things excess heat in the muscles can do, if you use it right. I flail head over heels, over their table, to the hard tiled floor. A few of the Dragons at the table I left behind stand up while all heads turn to me, sliding to the border of the cafeteria and the courtyard.
“Relax. It’s alright,” I send to the Dragons through the Soul of Fire. I’m only halfway to my feet when Cece leaps from the bench of her table and lands right in front of me. I can’t help a smirk at how at home she already looks, only two days since I’ve seen her last. She’s got an Academy shirt on. She doesn’t shy away from exploring her powers, right out in the open. She lumbers over me like a statue in the glare of sunlight that comes in through the courtyard. “See? You can let it out. Whether or not you want it, we’re here to help. You need it.”
“I need you to shut up. I need everyone…to just shut up and let me think this out,” Cece grumbles. I get myself halfway to my feet before I dare open my lips again. I wait until she looks more confused than angry again.
“Cece…please, just listen. This isn’t something you can think-”
“Plan B,” Cece cuts me off with a sigh. Her hands snap open. They stretch as wide as her fingers will go to hone her focus on the spot just in front of my shoes. The very air itself combusts with a thunderous pop, and flings me right out of the cafeteria. I drive my heels down into the sun-baked mulch of the garden just outside to stop, a bit too fast, and slide into the walls of a raised brick garden.
“You want to chase everyone away? Go ahead and try,” I pant. Cece strolls from the open front of the cafeteria, both hands flickering with crimson fire. The very beginnings of scales dimple her skin where the flame circles round.
“You might have been where I am now, Lee. But you’re not me,” Cece snarls. Yet, even while her voice seethes venom, her eyes fill with water. She squints to cage it all inside. She can’t see, she won’t let herself see how good this is for her. A place where anyone can let the beast loose, before they try to tame it.
“We’ll see,” I dare, just to piss her off. Just to put that candle she’s so afraid of lighting up in flames. Cece thrusts both hands before her. Two cones of fire twist across the courtyard, straight at me. Tall grass folds away from it in crackling black tendrils. Flower petals wilt everywhere within inches of Cece’s fury made manifest.
Her fire crashes into an invisible barrier created around me when I put my own arms forward. Just as she can strike the air into flame, so I manipulate it to spiral around me and up, harmlessly into the sky. Cece presses, intensifying the flaming beam, and I redirect it into a smoking tornado that students gather from every adjoining hall to see.
“I can hold this all day!” I scream to Cece. But, if that’s true, why am I sweating so much? “Go on, let it all out!” I challenge, even while my own skin starts to heat. She’s only just Awakened - a fledgling at most - I can hardly believe it when my own scales start to show through my skin. Cece spews hellfire from within harder and longer than I’ve seen any newbie do before, maybe even a few veterans I know. She goes on, in fact, until someone cries out to us both:
“Cecelia Ford! Lee Kaiba! That’s enough!” Our embers connect with an enormous ruby torch in the Soul of Fire. I’d lower my guard instantly to Dragonlord This
e, but my sparring partner seems uninclined to let me. Just then, a winged shadow descends from above.
Thise maintains a mostly human form, with the exception of her wings, even while dispelling the flaming tornado around me. She shoots down straight through the eye of the cyclone and spins against the flow, wings outstretched. The flame puffs out to rising smog all around me. She puts a hand up to intercept the twisting whips of fire from Cece. She lets them crash straight into her palm with no repercussions while her wings give a single, sonic flap. The hot air wave she launches eats through Cece’s river of fire and blows out her arms easier than the candles on a birthday cake. The second it’s over, Thise folds her arms in front of her and her wings behind her. She dismisses the credit of any remaining threat with her casualness as she announces:
“All students return to lunch or class!” Thise then turns to Cece and me to utter, much quieter, “Everyone besides you two. My office, if you would.”
The Dragonlord turns her back to us and begins on her way. A challenge to Cece - to test her flame against stronger mettle. She elects not to take it and follows Thise alongside me. We make uncomfortable eye contact a few times, but we don’t speak on the whole walk there. My hands tremble at my sides at the thought of how much power really sleeps inside the pretty little girl beside me.
From Ashes
Cece, The Broken Academy, Dragonlord’s Office
“Office” seems to be a loose term in the Broken Academy. Lee and I stand shoulder to shoulder inside a tiny cave that looks like it belongs in the heart of a volcano. Its bleak rocky walls are splintered by a hundred dripping creeks of lava. The gummy red-orange flow bleeds down from several openings in the ceiling, along every wall, into little cracks on the floor that we had to step over to get this far. All signs of the expensive-looking, but fairly normal waiting room Lee brought me to before were left behind the second we stepped through the door to Thise’s private office. Where in the hell the lava comes from or goes is a mystery my brain can’t handle. Not now, on top of the burning silence between the three of us.