I wielded the power to become anyone. I could be an imposter of our people's leader. I could blend in with the Alaligera, who shunned us. I could create an illusion with just my body. I could make up anything I wanted about myself, and no one would question it. When I had the potential to be everyone, it was difficult to tell who I was. Daily, I needed frequent reminders of my identity, and even then, that changed constantly.
I was Bri Dillon, I was a shapeshifter, and today I was neither a boy nor a girl.
Some days, I was one or the other, but every once in a while I can't tell which one I am, and naturally my return to Bruxwarry Academy would be one of those days. Perfect. Not that I was one to pass judgment on them, but the Alaligera were likely to take this as a reason to denounce us. "See?" they would say. "This Nyxta can't even make up their mind on their gender, much less their identity. Surely, people so mercurial shouldn't be worthy of having any power."
And then the other Nyxta will retort that such mutants had deformities that pegged them as monsters who didn't have the morality to hold proper authority, and the Alaligera would get mad and fight back, and the slippery slope would dictate that the war that's been predicted to come would happen.
All because I'm genderfluid.
Maybe the whole ordeal about the war happening may have been an extreme. Yes, it had been predicted for years. Yes, the one place in the land where the Alaligera and Nyxta aren't separated to damper hostility was Bruxwarry itself. But the academy was found for the purpose of trying to create peace. It was a place where the two classes of people would gather without threat of conflict.
The fistfight in the hall would say otherwise.
A burly Nyxta, almost a brute for our kind, sustained a Alaligera with four limbs in the air with an invisible force that tugged on his shirt. The Alaligera grabbed his attacker with his lower set of arms and shoved him down. Surrounding the fight, a large crowd with a clear divide of the races jeered at the fighters. I guess the big news today wouldn't be about the androgynous Nyxta.
I kept my head down as I walked past the crowd to the right, hoping that it would be blocked from my periphery. That's the thing about shapeshifting. I could make my skin appear patched up over my left eye as if it had never been hurt at all, but no change in form could restore my sight.
The slap of slippers on the marble floor echoed down the hall opposite of the fight. Only one person worth remembering, Alaligera or Nyxta, wore flip-flops at this academy. With a quick inspection of my surroundings, I assessed the different rooms available. They were all closed, and no candles had been lit in any of them. Empty. All of them.
I slid over to the nearest door and morphed my finger into the keyhole, adjusting the shape until the doorknob recognized it as a key. A twist of my finger let me in, and I slipped behind the door, leaving it open a crack to watch the intruder pass.
Dakota Doyle, or so her pen name dictated. She was actually Molly DeShmidt, as everyone knew, but with her reputation as the reporter on everyone's business in the school, she wore her alias with pride. A gargantuan Alaligera with sticky, obnoxiously pale skin, but not even the goo that coated her limbs competed with her stickiness to her investigations. I had been avoiding her for years, for she would grab hold of the most incriminating secrets and publish them with the printing press situated in her dorm. And boy, did I have my secrets.
My line of vision went up, and bangs started to tickle my forehead. As I glanced down, I learned with horror that my chest was growing bigger by the second, contrary to my thinning body. Deep breaths. Beating heart, calm down. Envision who I wanted to be. Today was a genderless day. No marked curves or angles, but with a good amount of weight. Short, wispy hair that could have been on anyone's head. A tanned face that would blend into a crowd. The single one-design-fits-all uniform of the Nyxta, as opposed to the feminine Alaligera one.
I needed to stop doing that every time I saw her.
Her brisk strides disappeared down the hallway and was drowned out by the sounds of fighting. I slipped out of the empty classroom with furrowed eyebrows. Looking down at my feet, I saw that I still had her stupid flip flops. They weren't even in the dress code for any of the people groups' uniforms.
I could turn her in.
Considering that both the Alaligera and the Nyxta were here, we were definitely at the heart of the school, right by the headmaster's office. A stupid decision to start a fight right there, but tensions were always high when the two groups intermingled. I strode to the headmaster's office, hoping she'd accept my testimony. There was no reason not to; Dakota had been caught with flip flops countless ones before. Then she'll be caught and be out of my hair for a short while.
I just needed to dodge the fighters and the bystanding crowd for a while first. Stupid, stupid! They were right in front of the headmaster's door. She would come out any moment and—
The crowd dispersed as the door flew open with a bang. If it were not for the fierce glare held in her slanted eyes, the disdainfully disappointed sneer that revealed her fangs, or the sheer power she was capable of, one could easily mistake her as a rookie, maybe even a mere student of the school. She possessed a timeless youth, and she was short and frail, almost sickly-looking. The perfect kind of person to underestimate.
"Who started this?" She pointed a finger at the two culprits. "Hawley, Jansen, I will not tolerate this intolerance on the first day. We have important guests that will be here any minute today, and if our school is painted with this kind of reputation, all hell will break loose. You will be punished accordingly after the rally. Now all of you, go!" She waved her hands away from the door, and then she made eye contact with me. "Dillon!"
"Yes, ma'am!" I straightened my posture, and she narrowed her eyes even more. I doubted the headmaster even knew my name, much less the body I made up just earlier this morning.
"Come into my office. We have plenty of things to talk about."
The crowd stared at me, and then whispered to themselves as I took slow strides toward the open door and the stern headmaster. She looked back at the crowd and said, "There is no commotion here. Why don't you... what do kids do on the first day? Mingle?" Her attention turned to me as the crowd dissipated, and she closed the door behind us as we entered.
"Dakota was wearing flip flops—"
"When is she not, Ms. Dillon?"
"Ma'am, I am not a miss." This will be a long year.
"Oh, forgive me." She dipped her head down. "What would you prefer to be called?"
I scrunched up my face as I though, and I shrugged. "Bri is fine, I suppose."
"Yes, and I suppose you want to be on a first name basis with me as well?" She arched an eyebrow and sat down in the chair behind her desk. The headmaster wasn't even on a last name basis with anyone. "I appreciate that you are relaxed, but you cannot afford to be insouciant toward authority. A lack of professionalism will come to bite you in the butt if you don't control it.
"Ms. DeShmidt will be punished accordingly as well, but a dress code violation is hardly something to approach me about." She waved her hand dismissively and leaned forward. "But you're not here to talk about Ms. DeShmidt's attire."
"Actually, ma'am, that is what I came in for."
"Yes, but that's not what I called you in for." She smiled and gestured to the chair on the other side of the desk. "Please, sit."
I plopped into the chair and cocked my head in anticipation.
"You've heard about the important guests who are slated to come to the academy today, if not from rumors but rather from my admonishment of Mr. Hawley and Mr. Jansen outside."
"What about them?" I leaned back in the chair and crossed my legs, hoping to leased the temptation to prop them on top of the headmaster's desk.
The headmaster rolled her eyes. "They are people unfamiliar with the ways of both the Nyxta and the Alaligera, and they will all need to adjust to this new environment. As such, I have appointed student escorts to accompany them as soon as they arrive on campus, and this will continue until they are well-versed on our ways and can handle themselves."
"How could they be unfamiliar with both when that's all they can be? What kind of person am I escorting?"
"It's not." The headmaster clasped her hands together. "You will be watching over one of these..." She waved her hand around. "Well, the council has dubbed them the Asyata. And you will be working with one of the Alaligera to show her both aspects of the academy, so that divides do not grow larger."
"Why me?" I asked.
"Because I know you... Bri. And I know that you, more than anyone, would want to see the Alaligera and the Nyxta get along. To stop the fights in the hallways, and to prevent one on a battlefield. You believe in the vision of this school more than any other student here."
"Too bad there's only one of me to be an escort then," I mumbled.
"Yes, a pity, but there are other students who fit the criteria." The headmaster glanced down at her desk and snapped her head up. "You are to meet at the school's entrance prior to today's rally and meet your shadow, along with the Alaligera who will be doing the same."
"Yes, ma'am." I nodded. I wasn't entirely sure of what these Asyata would do to mend the rift between the Alaligera and the Nyxta, but if this would create more peace, then I would try.
"That will be all," said the headmaster. "You're welcome to leave."
"Thanks, ma'am," I said as she escorted me to the door. "So, entrance of the school before the rally, yes?"
She nodded as she waved. "If you have any more questions, you may come back in here. My office is always open." She slammed the door.
I twisted on my heel and nearly crashed into Bella. "Oh, my, my, look who got in trouble," she said, using her tentacles to poke me in the chest. "You're a new face around here."
"Bella. Seriously." I slapped her tentacles away and glared at her.
"Wait, Bria—"
"It's Bri now," I said. "Bri. My name is Bri."
"Well, sorry." Bella waved her arms around as her tentacles drooped behind her. "You didn't tell me."
"Because I haven't seen you in months?" I shook my head and pointed to her. "You may want to step away from the headmaster's office, with your... just being you."
I may have outed Dakota for her slippers, but I wouldn't bust Bella's shredded tights, cropped shirt, and leather jacket that replaced the blazer. No, she had no problem getting caught herself.
She stretched her arms and yawned. "I was going to end up here anyways. Might as well get probation over with."
"You're incorrigible," I said.
"And proud of it." Bella winked at me.
"Your sisters are going to riot."
"Hey, I'm the one who riots in the family." She held her hands up. "Can you imagine Keeleigh rebelling? Or Quinn? Ha!"
"Well, find me after the rally if the headmaster lets you out alive," I said, saluting her. "And headmaster's making me escort some important guest for however long, and so maybe you should behave so we make a good impression?"
Bella snorted. "Behave? Bri, are you serious?"
"I mean don't kill someone."
"Hey! I'm not amoral." She crossed her arms and turned to the headmaster's office. "Whatever, time to start off the year with a bang. Pew pew!"
"She'll literally blow you up," I said.
"Oh well! Ta ta!" She waved me, and I sighed and left, hoping not to get caught in the warpath of Bella vs. Authority. She'll be fine though. She's gotten in trouble enough time to know exactly how to get out of it.
--
As the throng of students pushed toward the auditorium, I pushed against the current and jostled my way toward the front of the school. The lofty ceiling of the lobby illuminated with the early afternoon sun, and the intricate murals etched into the walls proudly displayed the history of the academy: its foundation with the original headmaster, its training of proud citizens who carried the ideology of peace, its success in creating diplomatic relations between the Alaligera and the Nyxta--but the attitude unfortunately didn't carry over to the common people.
Hopefully, the headmaster's guests would improve that. Even if they didn't, we still had to improve the relations on our own. Who were they, these Asyata? Did they have physical alterations like the Alaligera, or would they possess magic like the other Nyxta? Would they have something else entirely?
I stood at the front of the school, scoping the crowd of Alaligera and Nyxta alike for anyone familiar while avoiding physical contact. I didn't acquaint myself with many students here, so the only people I would have really recognized were Bella, her sisters, a few other Nyxta in my classes here and there, and--
Dakota.
Of course she'd be here, pushing her way through the crowd to be the first to get a look at the guests when they arrived. With notebook and pen in hand, she used her sharp elbows to jab into various people and jostle to the front.
One of the jabs hit my chest.
"Watch it!" I said, recoiling as I rubbed my chest. Ugh, the goo stained my shirt. Don't turn into Dakota, I thought, daring to stare at her.
Her head swiveled toward me, green eyes sparkling with purpose. "You!" She shoved her pen in front of my face. "What do you think of these guests? I assume you're here to be an escort to one of these Asyata people, whoever they are?"
My throat constricted, and I coughed as I weaved through the rest of the crowd. Only when I could no longer see her head, still taller than everyone else in the crowd, did I finally relax. Never again would I say a word to Dakota. Or the next thing I know, my identity would be splashed on the front page of the papers.
I popped up near the middle of the crowd, and I elongated my figure to see if I could see above the heads of the people in front.
"You! Nyxta! Stop being an arrogant asshole and let us see!"
I furrowed my eyebrows as I sunk back down and slipped to another part of the crowd. Only the first day. There had already been a fistfight that erupted in the common area. We needed to keep a good impression for the guests, who would bring peace.
The road leading to Bruxwarry lay straight ahead of the school, and a carriage would come any minute now. Any minute now... They were supposed to be here soon enough not to keep the rally waiting. How long did the kids without escorts stay in the auditorium? Unless we're the ones missing the announcement.
Then something--not a carriage, but an entirely different contraption roared down the street. Literally roared, like a dragon or some other beast, and reaching a speed that no normal carriage could have achieved. It wasn't even led by any animal, but rolled along, alone. And it wasn't the only one.
"Everyone, out of the way!" called one of the students, and pandemonium broke loose as we all dove to the sides of the road. But regardless of the effort, the beasts stopped a good distance away from the entrance of the school.
"What was the headmaster thinking?" someone whispered. "They're going to destroy the school."
"Was she even thinking when she invited them?" another responded. "Who are they? How does she trust them?"
The doors to the carriages swung open, one in the front and a set in the back. How did they fit so many doors onto it? Four people came out of each one, staring at the academy. Not a single one had the features of a Alaligera, yet they were as large as they were. Maybe a little bit smaller on average, but certainly larger than the majority of the Nyxta.
Some of them took out funny little rectangles and held them against their vision. A few of them created light, but some didn't. Then they would hold the shaped objects in their hands and tap on them furiously with their thumbs, the item resting on their other fingers. Their eyes furrowed with intense concentration that I had never seen on another person before.
They murmured to each other and pointed to their rectangles, and they stared and pointed at us next. The lights returned. They frowned. More conspiratorial whispers.
Dakota stalked up to a few of them and started asking questions. Typical of her. She just had to get the first word of everything. That was how she prided her reputation. Before you even knew something was happening, she would already have an article on it. Knowing Dakota, the paper would be out before the rally was over.
The doors to the academy swung open, and the headmaster walked out and walked straight to the front of the crowd, stopping right in front of the metal contraptions, unafraid, unastonished.
"Fellow humans," said the headmaster, outstretching her arms and facing the newcomers. "Welcome to Bruxwarry Academy, where you will be equipped to be beneficial citizens of your society. Now, I understand that you have tons of questions regarding the academy, and I feel that the best way for you to have them answered is through immersion into our culture. As such, for your duration at this academy, you will be shadowing not just one, but two of our people. You must have been briefed on how this will work before you came here, but I do not doubt that you still have questions. Do not hesitate to ask your shadows or the faculty about this. But let's cut to the chase. When I call your name, Asyata, Alaligera, and Nyxta alike, you will all gather to begin the shadowing promptly."
The headmaster started reading off names, and as the crowd around me disappeared, I continued to conceal myself to blend in. Despite Dakota's obvious occupation with the Asyata, I still feared that she would remember that I hadn't answered her survey, and then she would come after me. However, I ended up at the front of the crowd, right in the line of sight of the headmaster. She looked at me and grinned before continuing to read off names.
"Melody Farwell." No one stepped up. The headmaster cleared her throat. "Miss Farwell? Umm." She stared down at her roster. "Oh, my apologies. Tarana. Farwell?"
Still the crowd didn't stir for a few seconds. The headmaster called out the name again, and then one of the other Asyata led him to the headmaster. Tarana was smaller than the other Asyata, with cropped hair that didn't seem like it would ever cooperate. A splotchy red birthmark covered his eye, and his soft features held a childlike innocence. He wore loose clothing, and after the headmaster's slip-up, I knew exactly why.
"Oh, Mr. Farwell, my apologies.You are to be coupled with Issalyse Fethring and Kaiden Papademetriou."
"Oh, heck, no!" Issalyse Fethring flew out of the crowd and landed right next to the headmaster. "Madame, with all due respect, I will not be working with a Nyxta to help... what's your name?" She regarded him with a quick glance, and then rolled her eyes.
Tarana stumbled away from her, tripped over his own feet and fell backwards. The girl who escorted him to the stage picked him up and said, "You okay there, buddy?" He signaled to her with his hands, and she nodded before walking over to the headmaster and whispered something to her.
"Oh, my mistake." She looked down at the roster. "Thank you for this information, Miss..."
"Kycie."
The headmaster smacked her lips together and pointed to a spot on her roster. "Stay right there, Miss Huang. You're right after Mel--Tarana." She smiled apologetically at the boy, and he just frowned.
I turned my head to the left and caught Dakota taking notes on the exchange and biting her lip. That was a sign that she was restraining herself from launching straight into an interrogation. Thank the heavens that she hadn't done so already.
Kaiden pushed through the crowd, stood next to Tarana, and ruffled his hair. "Hey, just so you know, Featherbrain, I should be the one who's helping out this little guy here. Bud, I'll tell you everything you need to know without the holier-than-thou angel over there."
"Excuse me? But I'm not the conceited, arrogant 'king of the Nyxta' trying to belittle all of my people." Issalyse grabbed Tarana and held him against her chest. "It's okay, I'll watch over you."
"'King?' Ironic retort coming from you, Miss 'Oh, my father is an Alaligera council member and I can do whatever I want' and he's mine." Kaiden yanked on Tarana as though he were just a doll. "You're safe with me, okay?"
"We could say the same for you! Your mother, ugh, do you have any idea how stupid her policies are?"
"Stop it, both of you!" the headmaster barked. They stopped, and Tarana sniffled. "First of all, you do realize he's the same age as both of you."
"But he's so..." said Kaiden.
"...Small..." Issalyse stared at him, and Tarana tilted his head at the both of them.
"Second of all, he's deaf and selectively mute, according to Miss Huang here, and you two, in due time, will be attending different classes to learn sign language. And I do pray that you both get along. Otherwise, there will be repercussions."
"But she talked to him," said Issalyse, pointing at Kycie and Tarana.
Tarana pointed to his ear and mouthed, 'Hearing aid.'
"Could you repeat that?" asked Dakota.
"Hearing aids. So he can, you know, hear." Kycie reached into her pocket and pulled out one of the rectangular contraptions. "Oh, wait, ohh. I... Ohh. Ignore me. And my phone." She waved it around before putting it back in her pocket. "There's no signal here..."
"There are probably a lot of questions that need to be answered," said the headmaster, "but we cannot waste more time than we already have. From my understanding, you are able to speak with him, but he cannot respond back unless it's with sign language. But it will have to do for now."
The three walked off, with Issalyse and Kaiden squabbling as Tarana shuffled behind them. The headmaster sighed and rubbed her eyebrows before continuing on. "Right, Miss Huang. Luckily, your escorts are much less likely to fight than poor Tarana's. Perhaps I should rearrange that, but... too late now." She shook her head.
"I am excited for the opportunity, ma'am," said Kycie, although her grin was strained.
I took another look at Dakota, wondering why she hadn't gone to follow the children of two of the most important members of the council being forced to oversee a deaf transgender boy. News didn't get much more exciting than that. Unless...
She was here to escort.
I wouldn't have put it past her. She would have wanted to sign up to get an insider's look of the new guests. Good. She would be occupied showing around her new headline and not with trying to dig into my personal life.
The headmaster looked at me and smiled. "Oh, Bri Dillon. You will be Miss Huang's escort, alongside... I saw her around here somewhere. Probably hiding somewhere..." She looked down at her roster as I approached Kycie.
"Hello," she said, outstretching her arm. "You are..."
"Bri." I looked down at her hand and looked back at her with a smile. No handshakes. No physical contact. Not for a while.
"Call me... Ky." She looked down at the floor as she lowered her head. "It's nice to meet you."
"Ah, there you are!" said the headmaster. I craned my head to see who I was escorting Kycie with, and my stomach plummeted. "Miss Huang, you will also be accompanied by Molly Deshmidt."