It was a girl, first-year like them, but all of her luggage was next to her; she sat hugging her knees, her long skirt and cardigan of earth billowing in the wind, looking out into the direction of the east. Curious, Elwin cautiously approached her, and so did Isaac and Katherine.
The girl must not have heard them approaching, because when Elwin gently tapped her on the shoulder to say hello, she turned around rather startled, letting out a surprised "Eeep!" Her lightning-like tuft of hair rose like a cat's fur on its end, and fell slowly.
"Oh, didn't mean to surprise you, I'm sorry."
The girl eyed Elwin warily; her eyebrows furrowed in caution.
Elwin, taken aback, continued more gently. "Are you here alone?"
"I – whew – well..." she stammered, trying to keep her ruffling hair of deep coffee and gold out of her eyes, though it was short and came barely to her shoulders.
"I couldn't find a cabin that wasn't full."
Elwin looked more closely at her clothes. It was far from the finest of clothes, though a great effort went into making it look presentable for the occasion. In the creases between the sewn fabric, he saw evidence that they'd been mended one time too many. She tried to look away.
But in that brief turning away, the Sun caught her eyes behind her hair, and Elwin saw something familiar to his experience. He saw the same loneliness of spirit he witnessed in Isaac's eyes, Dr. Hana Reiss's, his mother's – someone who'd seen an ocean of things, perhaps deeper than all ocean, that wordlessly implored company. It didn't look like the girl had friends on the skycraft, judging from her luggage out here; she was probably as bewildered and scared as Elwin was before Elwin met Isaac at Cita de Lumière, and felt what it was to be afraid and alone in a world that didn't care, her home far out of reach.
She was probably waiting for someone – perchance, new friends.
They could be her company. Elwin looked to Isaac; and Isaac thought the same.
"Ours isn't full – would you like to join us?" asked Elwin, extending his hand.
She was hesitant to take it.
"Really?"
"Come on, you'll get cold up here – you should be pretty cold already, if you've been out here since taking off. Join us! We'll get each other some tea," he reassured.
Gradually the wariness of her brow began to relax; and she took Elwin's hand. He helped her up from the chilly wooden planks; and nearly instantly she knew how cold she had become, and wrapped her arms around herself. She shuddered with chill, scrambling for her luggage.
"That won't do," said Elwin, taking off his jacket and putting it on the girl he'd just met. "Toasty, right? It was my father's windbreaker."
Both Isaac and Katherine gave their thumbs up to Elwin in secret. The three, now three no longer, helped carry the girl's luggage to their cabin, retreating into the warm safety of the interior.
***
Katherine boiled up a warm kettle of water, carefully dancing her fingers upon the metal, and took out several tea satchels from her sling pocket, colored gold. With deft movement that informed observers she'd done this many times, she steeped the tea leaves in the water, stirring it at precise intervals with picks of fire, and took out her pocket watch. With a tock of the clock hand, she poured them out on ceramic cups wrapped in their thermal fabrics, and handed the tea for her friends to drink.
For Elwin and Isaac, the flavor of this tea was unlike anything they've enjoyed before; each lowered the cups from their lips, and took a more careful look at the tea and its color of luminescent amber. Absent was the tartness of teas they've ever drunk, black and green, or a herblike penchant of nightly chamomile; present was a cool smokiness of wood embers, and a caress of autumn maple. Curious, they turned to Katherine, but she was as cool as ever – so they turned to the new girl.
She grasped the cup with both hands, and began to drink carefully. A mixture of surprise and happiness briefly ran across her countenance, before she sniffled a little and took out a handkerchief to wipe away her nose.
Then she spoke at last.
"Thank you for the good tea. I'm Mirai."
She spoke quietly and with some shyness, but in a corner of her voice was an unexpected memento of dignity and strength. She had a gentle nose, and her eyes – once narrowed in wary caution back at the deck – were now relaxed round. They were colored lightning gold, reminding Elwin and the others of the boltlike tuft of hair on her head; her hair was styled into a loose bob, mostly straight, but her fringes were cut with quite the precision. The ends of her hair halted above her shoulders.
"Mirai? That's a beautiful name," said Isaac, kindly shaking her hand. "I'm Isaac, by the way. I'm from around here – Cita de Lumière."
Each took a moment to introduce themselves.
"I'm Elwin, Elwin Eramir. It's good to meet you. I'm from Ascension."
"I'm Katherine, from Illium. It's a pleasure. Are you from the Republic of Heian?" Katherine energetically shook her hand.
Mirai raised her eyebrows, albeit only a little.
"Yes."
Both Elwin and Isaac glanced at Katherine in surprise.
"How did you know?" asked Mirai, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
"I had some intuition. Your hair's quite beautiful." Katherine turned to Elwin and Isaac. "People from the western republics seldom have hair like Mirai's."
Elwin took a second look at her hair from a distance; it was a rich, dark coffee blended with hues of gold; the tips of her hair seemed to brighten into amber, a little like Dr. Hana Reiss's, except Mirai's hair was overall lighter in color. Hair of such colors were frequent among the peoples of Heian.
Mirai blushed ever so slightly; she brushed her head with her hand to smooth out the frizzles made by the wind outside. It wasn't too presentable, but Elwin and Isaac didn't care much about frivolous appearances – Katherine wasn't concerned either, but because the occasion didn't call for formality.
"Thank you. The Hojicha was great."
"'Hojicha'?" enquired Elwin, curious at the unusual pronunciation of the name.
"May I?" asked Katherine, holding out the gilded satchel of tea from earlier.
"If you'd please," said Mirai.
"In our standard Mythrisian tongue, it's simply Hoji tea. But the peoples of Heian call it Hoji-cha in their traditional language."
"What is it made of? How do people make it?" asked Elwin, curious to know more.
"It's made by charcoal-firing leaves of green tea and maple twigs grown in the east. It's a popular tea there because it's less astringent than the teas made in our republics to the west."
"Wow!" exclaimed Isaac. "That's so cool. I didn't know there were more varieties, much less techniques... How many times have you been there?"
"Half a dozen," replied Katherine, coolly re-tying her hurricane bun at the back. "You get to travel a lot when there's business."
"Oh! Business?" inquired Mirai.
"Yep. Industry and orders and all that. I'm from the Heriz family, so..."
Heriz. It was a name seldom heard in Heian, but when it was, they were cognizant of its clout in the center and west.
Elwin and Isaac, city-boys who were not acquainted with the upper circles of the republics, didn't really have a feel of the name Heriz or what gravitas it was to make an acquaintance with Katherine.
But Mirai – Mirai was quick to realize the astronomical distance of status between her humble background and Katherine's family of industry titans, and fell silent. She immediately felt self-conscious, and realized she was still wearing the jacket that Elwin had given to her.
"Oh!" said Mirai, taking off Elwin's jacket. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hog it for myself. I'm warm now."
"It's alright, you can keep it for the time being," was what Elwin wanted to say, but Mirai had already folded it neatly and smooshed it into his lap, not wanting to be a burden on those around her.
"Thanks for letting me join you." She smiled to him, forgetting her weariness for a while.
"If you're from the Republic of Heian," continued Isaac, "does that mean you came all the way here by train? The – Elwin, what's the distance from our capital to Heian?"
"Give me a second," as Elwin conjured up a memory of his maps. "It's 1600 miles as the falcon flies, but it's probably a lot more than that because of mountains and plateaus and lakes in the way. Something like at least a two-thousand and five hundred?"
Katherine looked to Elwin, mildly impressed.
"Yes," answered Mirai.
"It'll take about a day on a skycraft like this, but more than a week by rail," offered Katherine. "I've been there before using both modes."
"The FOUNDERS forbid, that's a long journey! I'm a city boy, I had no idea..." said Isaac, trailing off.
"So am I. I like to think that with all the stuff I look up in my free time, I have experience... but that isn't the way things are. Theory is so much different from practice – from actually being there." Elwin shook his head.
Katherine crossed her arms and nodded in agreement.
The energy of the subsequent discussion was unlike anything Mirai had ever experienced. It was altogether novel, and free of bad looks or insinuations – something which she experienced as a destitute child in Heian, after her family's fall from grace.
"Mirai, I have a question," said Katherine. "Isn't there the Tokubetsu Kissei Academy at Heian? Equally great, as people say. Aeternitas is pretty far away. What motivated you to join us here?"
"Tokubetsu Kissei? Oh..."
Elwin vaguely remembered the rivalry between the two national academies from his reading at the Grand Library, more than half a year ago.
"I... didn't manage to get in because of some reasons outside my control."
"May I ask what they were?"
"Wha – I..."
At the question, Mirai flinched a little and rolled down her shirt sleeves past her wrists. She looked away.
Elwin saw that whatever the answer was, Mirai was not comfortable sharing it with everyone for the time being. They've just met half an hour ago, after all. He glanced and nodded at Isaac, and Isaac to Katherine.
"Oh, I apologize if it was a personal question."
"Not – at all..." Mirai looked outside the windows to distract her from the past.
"Um, changing the topic," said Elwin, breaking the thin layer of ice that'd formed momentarily, "what do you reckon life at Aeternitas would be like?"
"Fun and full of adventure," said Katherine, unfolding her arms to relax. "Lots of things to learn. Lots of things to master. Fire will be the first thing I tackle!"
"Oh yeah, since your Maht is Fire," said Isaac. "Do you know if we get to pick a House?" he asked.
"Right! There were Houses. Headmaster Abraxas over there – you know, in our acceptance letters – is from the House of SUNNA," replied Katherine, reaching for her memory. She'd memorized the entire students' guidebook the week before.
"He's an alumnus?" asked Elwin.
"Of course. All the faculty there are," was Katherine's cool reply.
Mirai half-heartedly listened to the conversation; her heart was already full with the unknown.
"Wait, are we placed into our Houses there when we arrive? In an hour?"
Katherine answered Isaac immediately. "Nope, not us. Not the first-years. Something about allowing us to experience all four Arts and training and combat before we commit ourselves. I think it's a waste of time, honestly. If you came to Aeternitas without certainty and a clear goal of who to be, why did you even come here?"
Though that statement wasn't directed at anyone and was more of a critique of academia, Mirai flinched a little. She feared for her time there and of her own resolve at success – if everyone there was as intimidating as Katherine, then...
"I think it's not such a bad idea. In theory, you might really like fire. But what if upon meeting new people and learning new things you realized some other Elemental Art was more suited to you, and was really interesting to learn? You might change your mind." Elwin offered his alternative view. Perhaps it had to do with his Element of water, but just like the ocean that held vast possibilities, Elwin was ready to entertain everything before choosing. And though he didn't notice, he gave Mirai enormous comfort and assurance with his comment.
"Hmm, but those who want it should be given the choice to decide their first-year, not the second," Katherine retorted.
"I'm sure the professors and the headmaster there have given it a lot of thought. Theory is different from practice, after all. Being there, doing things there..." said Isaac, backing Elwin up.
"I guess you're right," said Katherine, crossing her arms again. "Not bad. I like people who can make and defend their positions instead of agreeing with me all the time."
Both Elwin and Isaac sheepishly rubbed their heads. Katherine spared no expense in getting her point across as directly and searingly as possible, but she also got them across in a very refreshing manner. She was curiously like fire, which seldom hid anything.
"What about you, Mirai? What's your Maht?"
"Oh! Me?" said Mirai, surprised the discussion had come her way again. They all looked to her, curious.
"It's Earth. I'm from Heian, after all."
"Oooh! Earth!" commented Isaac. "Masters of the creative arts, with principles to boot!"
"Come to think of it, people with earth as their Maht are everyone good I know. Including my mother," said Elwin. It was not a statement with a particular purpose; he said it because it was the truth. But Mirai looked at him, the embers in her heart restored.
And gradually, as the conversation went on and forth, Mirai found herself in good company; perhaps for the very first time in her life outside of her family.
Thus, on that beautiful day, the four together became one as kismets on their voyage to Aeternitas.