by Jade Alters
“This is why we teach you to transform - rather, to shed your disguise. You need to make yourself aware of all the power at your command, before you command it. The art of unveiling your true form consists of two stages,” Thise goes on. Again, I have to fight the urge to take it down as a note. She’s right again, though, I can’t see myself forgetting whatever she’s about to say anytime soon. “First, you must staunch the flow of hallucinogenic gas from within. Then you must ignite the remainder of the gas left around you. Only these two steps, and only performed in this order, will reveal what you really are.”
God damn. Try as I might, I can’t argue with that amount of sense. That’s why I can’t change. There was a piece missing from the process. Last night, I skipped to step two. I probably have a thousand times before. I combusted the gas cloud around me and wore it like a cloak of fire. But I never cut off the flow of hallucinogens from inside me. How could I? I didn’t know it was there. Crazy as it sounds, the alternative is even crazier. It’s a hell of a lot easier to believe I’m igniting some invisible gas than creating fire from nothing.
Suddenly, all of Thise’s warnings about writing down what she says fly out the metaphorical window. My pencil flicks double time in tandem with the Dragonlord’s lips. There’s no word too insignificant. I need to memorize this process, inside and out. I need to understand every breath in and out, throughout the process.
If I want to lay Jason’s spirit to rest, if I want to kill Darius Jecks, I’ll need to transform. I can imagine it already. My scales will be pure gold. I’ll shine with the glorious light of triumphant revenge. I’ll see that same look of fear in his eyes that he saw in mine, just before the furnace slams its door shut on him. Before he burns.
“Cece,” I jump at how close the voice is to my desk. I snap my notebook closed before Thise can get a look at the verbatim descriptions I’ve scribbled up and down my page. The rest of the students have all gone, how long ago, I’ve entirely lost track of. I’m surprised by how embarrassed it makes me, by how much I suddenly care what the Dragonlord thinks. “Are you writing a new textbook for the class?”
“I- ah… I just didn’t want to miss anything,” I trickle down to a mumble. My lips form something that fails to imitate a smile, while my teeth cringe behind them.
“I’d say that’s fairly normal,” Thise surprises me with. I look up at her again and our embers connect in the Soul of Fire. I breathe a sigh of relief when I feel no disappointment or anger, only a peculiar level of concern. “Which is surprising. Why the sudden academic investment, when you’ve elected to take things into your own hands, outside the classroom?” Thise raises me an eyebrow. Her hands are empty, yet her words feel like a knife edge to my throat. She knows.
“I-I-I’m not sure what…you…” I try to play it off, but her consistently heavy glare wears me down. Still, she seems only concerned. If it were anyone else on the other end of this conversation, someone I couldn’t connect with in the Soul of Fire, I’d think they were angry or disappointed. I’d lash out, to protect myself. But there’s no thinking my way around this one; no matter what I think, it won’t change what I know, what I can feel myself through our connection. All Thise cares about, just now, is me, safe. It’s disarming. “I’m sorry, I...” I surrender, without a tool to fight this kind of battle.
“You needn’t apologize for exploring your strengths, Cece,” Thise raises a hand to stop my flood of reconciliation, “But I would offer you a word of advice, if you would hear it.” She looks down at me with patience, acceptance. Two things I’ve never seen before on the face of a teacher.
“Sure,” I whisper.
“Each Dragon’s journey is different. Yours will be even more so than your classmates,” Thise states, plain as day. I can’t deny the little pang at how confidently she declares that, but she’s right. “Most Dragons don’t grow up with quite so strong an association between their nature and destruction, or crime. Most have at least some rudimentary education on what they are and why they can do the things they do. It’s going to take some time for you to rework that image of yourself. Until then…diving headfirst into your new abilities might be dangerous for you, and everyone. Wait. Just a while. Give yourself time to adjust.”
For the first time in my life, I take a critique with my head down, my mind truly open. There isn’t a thing out of her mouth meant to hurt or demoralize me. In her voice, I hear kindness. In the Soul of Fire, I feel that this advice is born from pain, from experience. I can’t tell just then if it was her or another student, but I’m not the first receiver of this counsel. All I can bring myself to do is nod. I can’t promise her much, with Jason’s killer living right down the hall, but I can at least manage the respect to take in her words.
“Very good. I’ll see you next week at class. Don’t let it be before that, hm? This place is your second chance. I can’t promise you a third.” Thise smirks, and heads for the door.
I marinade in the moment, alone in room C2F, for about thirty long seconds. I stare into the glossy cover of my Academy lender’s notebook. In it, I can see the faintest distortion of my own reflection. Inside are the secrets of my true nature. The keys to unlocking the power I need, the power I’ve been conditioned to cage, even to hate. I’m not sure who I wish it is - Jason, Serge, Lee, Thise, or myself - but I hug the little notebook tight.
Fire and Tricks
Cece The Broken Academy, D Wing
I try to close the door as quietly as possible, when I get back to our room. I’m not entirely sure where Stephanie goes throughout the day, maybe fading in and out of our Realm or something, but I know River’s there. She hardly lifts an eye as I cross the room to my bed. I flop on the side of it, like usual. River goes on analyzing notes and whatever else she’s always doing at the desk under her bed. I usually sleep on my side, facing the wall, to minimize the chance we’ll indirectly piss one another off, though it’s been rarer since the wall-of-fire incident.
Today, I decide to roll on my back. I cradle a hand behind my head and stare into the spot of vague discoloration on our ceiling. I did a pretty damn good job painting over the fire damage, but there’s still always a slight difference. This isn’t my first coverup job, after all. It’s a good a spot as any for staring. For zoning out into that comfortable trance of questioning all your life choices.
How did this happen to me? In a few weeks, I went from delinquent hothead to orphan to a dedicated student? Suddenly, I’m kissing my Wing Supervisor, paying attention in class and standing up for my shapeshifting pain in the ass of a roommate? It doesn’t sound like the girl who agreed to come to the Academy with Lee. The girl who was willing to do anything for justice for her brother. That was the girl who dove off the side of the Academy to force it out of her. The girl who’s thinking about taking Thise’s advice to hold back and wait… I don’t know who she is. I don’t know which I am.
“What’s got you so bent?” asks the last voice I expect. My head creaks over to the side to look at her. River faces me with her legs straddling the back of her desk chair. She might have the only thighs I’ve ever seen more muscular than my own.
“How do you know I’m bent?” I ask, only eyeing her from the corner of my vision. There’s not spite in my tone when I talk to her anymore. River and I have established deeply enough how we feel about one another - the distaste is implied without actually being nasty to one another anymore. At least, that’s what I thought, until River says:
“You always stare at stuff when you’re brooding. Random objects around the room and whatever. It’s distracting.”
“I’m not brooding!” I try to snap at her, but my surprise makes it come out more like a chuckle.
“You do so. You stared at my desk lamp for a full thirty minutes when you were trying to decide about going on that date with Serge,” River points out. My jaw pops open to bark at her on instinct alone. With nothing to say, however, it only lets in the breeze. “I…overheard you talking about it with Stephanie,” Rive
r admits, to funnel out some of my shock.
“I always figured you sort of shut everything out during your two-hour showers,” I bounce back, to prod just how determined River is to have this conversation. This is the first time she’s struck up a conversation without shouting or taunting me, ever.
“If I could I would, but they had to go and give me a second roommate,” River grunts. Then, before I can cut her off again, she says, “quit changing the subject. Either there’s something on that ceiling I can’t see, or you’re brooding. Wanna dump it, so we can both go on with our lives?” Wanna dump it. The phrase sticks in my throat. I cough it out as a chuckle, which devolves into full-on hysteria. Never before have I heard an offer to vent sound like such an inconvenience for someone. “What?” River finally gives into frustration when my laughs don’t stop.
It takes a few more seconds for me to wind completely down. By then, River’s already waved me off and spun back around in her chair. She tries to go back to writing. She waits for me to laugh myself out, which I do. My chest deflates to the flatness of a mountain lake. The first breath in after that is a gasp. It doesn’t stop there, either. I grit my teeth to keep it all down, but now River hears as well as I do what was so funny to me a second ago. Nothing. As a matter of fact, the inverse is true. It’s just that, if I didn’t laugh, I’d cry. A stream from each eye pours over onto the pillow under my head while I stare into my ceiling.
“My brother died, just before I came here. I…I technically killed him, when I lost my temper, but he was already dying. Darius Jecks bit him - practically tore out the side of his throat,” I tell her. The words come out flat, without half the feeling of my tear streaks or my heaving chest.
“The guy from down the hall? The one that lives with Serge?” River asks. She spins in her chair to face me again.
“Yeah… I only came here because I wanted to learn how to channel my powers into killing him. But now…” I shake my head and swipe my arms across my cheeks at how stupid this is. Crying won’t change a damn thing, not to anyone. I can’t believe I’m doing it at River Murtagh of all people.
“You have any proof it was him?” River asks with an unexpected level of interest. My head shakes again, hard.
“No. I torched the entire scene to hell. But his voice… I would never forget his voice. I know it’s him,” I tell her. River rises idly from her chair. She leans her back against her bed.
“What…are you going to do about it?” River asks. The million dollar question. But I can’t deny how different it sounds coming from outside my own mind. How much clearer the answer seems.
“I need to bring my own justice. I need…” I trail off, hearing the mania in my own voice. Part of me still jumps instinctually to the breathing exercises Mom taught me. Another part of me screams fuck it, breathe how you want and go crazy. I was never really part of her world anyway. She showed me that when she walked out of mine.
I turn to River, who’s been oddly silent, only to find her gone. I sigh, figuring I should have known she’d split when things got too heavy. But then I hear the faintest little whine. It’s more hollow and raspy than any noise a human could make. I lean over the edge of my bed to find a dog looking up at me, in place of my roommate. River has become a border collie, and I can’t deny the cuteness in her wretched little face as it cocks at me and cries. She stands up on her back legs, stretching until her front paws just reach the edge of my bed.
“What… You… You want to come up here?” I ask, whether or not I believe it. River gives a single, short little bark. I stare down at her for a second, wondering if the River I know is even in there right now. I mean, she has to have a dog brain…right? I slide my hand down beside her nose to make sure she’s not planning to sink her teeth into me. But the adorable little bitch just noses under my hand and whines some more. “God, this is the weirdest… Alright. Get up here.” I slide over a few inches and pat the bed.
River hops up beside me and flattens her nose to eye me like I’ve just outlawed her favorite treats. I glide a shaky hand over the back of her head and give her a good scratch. Her lips curl open into something like a smile. Her tail wags. She pants. Is this really the same girl? But I guess I understand, in a way. I wear a disguise all day without knowing it. I wonder who I’d be without it? As different from River the girl and River the dog? As I think it over, she digs her nose down underneath my arm and gets uncomfortably comfortable with her head on my stomach. As odd as it is to know exactly who I have on top of me, it’s also oddly soothing to feel her canine chest rise and fall with contented breaths.
“Al…alright. I guess. For a few minutes,” I say, although I’m not even sure River can understand me anymore. I run an idle hand through her fur while my head sinks back into my pillow. I stare at the ceiling as long as I can, until we both inevitably fall asleep.
Lee
It’s not exactly a call that stirs me in the middle of the night, more of a feeling. Someone I’m connected to is reaching out. They want to see me, to hear my voice. I know it as well as I know my own thoughts. I shudder at the thought of answering, though. If it is who I think it is, she might not be quite ready to accept what she really wants yet. But what if she’s in trouble? Dammit, I’ve fallen for it before, the night of her date with Serge. I shouldn’t have answered then, and I shouldn’t answer now. Why is it so damn hard for me to say no to this girl? It might be the image of her distraught eyes glaring at me through the fire of a burning hospital gown. From the beginning, she’s needed more than she’ll ask for.
“Dammit, Lee. You’re too soft,” I mutter to myself, even as I give in to the feeling. My consciousness condenses into an orange ember in the blackness of the Soul of Fire. I drift on an invisible wind towards the one who woke me.
“Cece?”
“Lee…” the blue feather of fire mutters in return. I wait for her to say something, anything else. But, every few seconds, she just whispers, “Lee…”
“I’m here,” I tell her, “are you hurt? What do you need?” Cece answers with a surge of heat that grows to a blue inferno all around me. Our spirits crash together and erupt into a blistering new world.
The second this new world is born, I’m on my back, on a bed of pure white linen. My bare body is splayed out for all to see, all being Cece. She stands over me at the side of the bed, every inch of her naked tan body glistening by the circle of orange-and-blue fire that surrounds the world. The slightest step towards me sends a ripple of force through her breasts. It transfers to everything around her, rising up my own desire as a tower between my legs. Cece slides a hand up my thigh to the base of my shaft before I can say a thing. I feel myself throb hot in her slowly sliding grasp.
“Cece… What is this?” I manage to ask, though each word threatens to choke me with anticipation. She works her fingers up and down again, sending tingles of pleasure through my awakening senses. She kneels on the side of the bed, pinching her breasts between her arms while she pleases me.
“A dream… I think,” Cece says. Her lips moisten with desire. Her eyes drink in every inch of my well-trained muscle.
“Are you controlling it?” I ask. I’ve heard of Soul of Fire fever dreams before, but I’ve never been part of one. I’ve never been pulled in, or pulled someone in.
“A little,” Cece confesses. She leans over me, letting her chest droop onto mine, while she elongates the strokes of my penis. Her thigh climbs up the side of my leg.
“The last time I saw you, you were hot and heavy on someone else,” I say. If I could just keep my mouth shut, there might be a good time ahead of me here. I can’t deny the rush of adrenaline that floods my head every time I cross Cece’s path. But neither can I deny how out of the blue this is. Or maybe it isn’t - now that I think of it. After all, my connection with Cece in the Soul of Fire was broken up until a few days ago. How would I know what she’s thinking? Even now that we are connected, I can’t say the interpretation of her feelings is as clean cut as it is with ot
hers.
“So what if I was?” Cece asks with a face far too innocent for what she’s doing to me. She slides her hips up over mine. With her fingers, she opens her intimate lips to slide them down the bottom of my shaft. We’re one steady rock from joining as one in flesh. It takes two tight fistfuls of sheets to maintain my focus on anything but physical pulses of sensation.
“I guess I just can’t help but wonder if we’re here more because you’re worried about something, and not because you want to actually be here with me,” I tell her. Tantalizing as the idea of being a sex toy is, I fear my own disappointment when it’s all over.
But Cece doesn’t fear anything. Not here. She glides up the length of my twitching muscle and pushes it up inside her. She flattens me under her hips as hard as our bones allow. She arches down to slide her lips along my neck. It raises the ridges of scales in place of goosebumps. A little gasp escapes me against my will. Cece plants little pecks across the ridge of my jaw to my lips. Her back arches up, sliding up the length of my penis. She crashes back down on me with a low flutter of those crystal eyes.
She floats up and crashes down with a steady rhythm that threatens to break me. I grit my teeth to keep from letting a moan out. Cece shows no such restraint. Her lips hang open for kisses at the bottom of rolling waves of passion. It’s a current I can hardly withstand, let alone ride. I give into temptation with rises of my own hips. I push myself up deep into Cece. Her lips let out little whimpers of ecstasy in my ears as they pass by.
The first sign I know something’s wrong is when those whimpers stop. Then the rocking slows. I unclench my eyelids to find Cece’s face twisted up in confusion.