It has been a little over a month since I left on Big Sister's boat. The whole time she and the crew treated me just like a prince and made sure I had lots of fun. When we made it to Muron, she even walked me into the academy to make sure all of the papers were filled out and sat through this thing called orientation with me. It was super cool. I do not think I have ever spent that much time with Big Sister in my entire life. And all the adults around kept sweating and acting nervous every time they looked at her. I always thought she was awesome, but I guess everyone else does, too. She's so cool that the academy's security followed behind her after we said goodbye to make sure she got back to her boat safely. Though, they followed pretty far behind her, probably just so she did not get nervous or anything.
But now it is just me on my own. I am only seven and it might seem like a young age to leave home and attend a military academy... sorry, Mommy says it is "an international training institution for emergency services and securities." I do not know what all that means, but I am sure they will teach me that while I'm here. Anyway, some kids have been at this place since they were only four or five. That means I am actually starting a bit behind. It is okay though. I do not think everyone starts that early. My cousin Anon, he is a soldier in the Thamian army, said that some people do not start here until they are already twelve. That means I get to meet so many different people of different ages. That is pretty cool.
After that orientation thing, they said that we would be in introduction classes for the first month before we had to decide on a career path. That sounded pretty heavy at first, but they said we do not have to decide on a given field or our specialty or anything like that for a long time. We just have to figure out if we want to be in services or securities. I think services are like search and rescue and doctors and stuff while securities is where all the fighting happens. Anon told me that nothing good comes from the life of a soldier and to stay away from combat, but I kind of want to be a big marshall for the IBKP when I grow up. Oh well, I have a month to decide. Right now, I just have to find my room.
Dormitory Wing; room number 637. Floor 6; hall 3; room 7. It's a good thing this place is easier to find my way in than my hometown. Instead of all these complicated street names that loop around up and down hills, the entire academy is laid out like a grid and everything is numbered very clearly. You don't even need a map even though they're on the wall by every stairs.
"Wahhh!" I cry suddenly falling forward to the floor. What happened? I do not think I tripped. It felt more like something hit my back.
"Look at this freak!" a gruff boy's voice comes from behind me. "He looks like a little kid but he's got hair like an old man!"
"And look at those ears," a snotty-sounding girl chimes in. "What are you, an elf?"
"He's too pale to be any elf I've ever seen," croaks out another boy with a froggy voice.
"Maybe the freak's an albino," the first boy retorts.
"That's gotta be it!" a boy with a whiny voice blurts out. "Just look at those ugly red eyes. Don't albinos have those, too?"
"I'm not albino," I finally work the nerve to softly speak back.
"What'd you say, freak? I didn't hear you," the gruff boy mockingly asks.
"I said that I'm not albino!" I cry back. "My mommy says I just got all the recessive genes... whatever that means."
The boy picks me up by the collar and says, "Look at you, gotta be about ten and still a momma's boy." He throws me into my room and I hit the floor bad. I panic and don't even manage to break my fall. I look up and a good glance at him for the first time. He is taller than the other kids he showed up with. His face looks young, like a twelve or thirteen-year-old, but he is already the size of most of the men in the school's staff. Almost as tall as my mom, actually. He is definitely human, just like his entire gang. He has long rusty hair tied back in a ponytail and under a grey cap. His eyes almost match his hair and he has a slight tan. He is wearing an outfit that looks a lot like the military uniform my cousin Anon always has on, but it is grey and looks like a cheap knockoff like he made it himself or something. It is definitely not the issued uniform for the school, especially since they said during orientation that we are only allowed to wear those when we eventually get sent out on assignments. Maybe that is why he is being so mean to me. My mommy made me an outfit like cousin Anon's uniform as well, but mine looks so much nicer than that boy's. Plus, mine is black with gold trim because those are Mommy and Big Sister's favorite colors. I can not really make out the other mean people now that I am in my room and they are in the hall being blocked by the big boy who is taking up my entire doorway.
"I'm seven," I mutter.
"What?" he asks back.
"I'm only seven, not ten," I reply.
"Wow, you really are a freak," he says laughing. "You suck on your mommy's tits too long to end that big so young or something?"
"No, everyone in my fam-" I try to explain how even my Big Sister and cousin look a lot older than they are but I suddenly feel my breath taken from me when he kicks me in the belly and I hit the back wall of my room. Why? Why did he kick me? What did I do? It is not like when I play with Big Sister and I start the trouble; I didn't even do anything this time. I would not start trouble with a stranger because I know Big Sister is tough enough not to get hurt and nice enough to make me feel better if I get hurt. But this guy is so mean and I do not even know him.
"What's the matter, freak? I thought you were saying something," he giggles.
"I'm sorry the outfit your mommy made you does not look as good as the one my mommy made. You can have it if it will make you stop, but I do not think it will fit you." I cough out hoping to get him to stop being mean to me.
"What the hell are you even talking about, freak?" he asks laughing right as he kicks me again just as hard. This one hurt even more since I was already on the wall and had nowhere else to go. "This is just what freaks like you get for existing. It's bad enough they let those other dirty species into the institution, but you're such a freak that I can't even tell what you are."
He keeps kicking me a few more times before he lifts me by the collar and presses me up against the wall. He gets super close to my face and looks me in the eye as he says, "What, too scared to fight back, freak?"
I am not supposed to hurt people, right? I think that's what everyone back in my hometown always told the other kids. Anytime another kid hit me, that is what their parents would tell them. But this guy is really mean. Think, DeciaZ. Not what the other families say, but what would your family tell you? Hng! Big sister would say, "If anyone crosses ya, turn 'em to ash!" Okay, but Anna is crazy. I probably should not listen to her on stuff like this. How about Mommy? She would say, "Death is too merciful a reward for those who harm my child." Ahhh! I forget that Mommy is even scarier than Big Sister sometimes. Maybe Cousin Anon would have better advice. I'm pretty sure he would say, "It's just like being at war with another country, kiddo. You can never even start to do something good if you are too weak to do something bad when absolutely necessary."
While the boy is still in my much shorter reach, I swipe the nails of both my hands across each of his cheeks. They run deep and blood pours from his face. He drops me and covers his face while he screams.
"What the hell," he yells, "you got claws or something, freak!?" Fuck that burns! This better not leave a scar!" He goes back to kicking me and I cough up some blood of my own. It's still not as bad as some of the stuff Big Sister has done to me, but I don't think any of these guys are going to fix me after and I might pass out soon.
"Scram, Archie! The tree hugger is here!" the snotty girl shouts.
"The original target," the big guy mutters. "Fine, we'll split. I don't exactly want to fight her while my face is bleeding out." He jolts out the door but stops to say one last thing: "Don't worry, freak. You'll see me again."
"Running already, Nicky!" a soothing girl's voice yells after them from outside my door. "Oh sweet mothers, are you okay!?"
I'm lifted onto my bed by the girl and she starts treating my wounds. She seems a little bit taller than me, but not very old. She is thin and pale, but also very green. Not her skin, that was like mine. Her eyes are bright green a fruit that is still too ripe to eat, her hair is long, straight, and dark green like a tree that never loses its leaves, and she wears short skited dress similar to some forest ranges that is also green enough to blend into the treetops.
"I'm Kira LeRona. I'm in the room next to yours: number 639," she says softly.
"DeciaZakarNoahTako Riknia, but my family just calls me DeciaZ," I say in kind.
"I can see why; that's a mouthful. Just how many names do you have?" she asks.
"Oh, just three. Most of that is the first name. According to Mommy, Daddy originally gave me several names but when we moved away the immigration form only accepted three names and she forgot most of what he named me, so she just slapped what she remembered down into the first field. Kind of stupid, I know," I admit almost ashamed of it.
"Funny, sure, but not stupid. It's more interesting than most people," she chuckles. "Anyway. It looks like you've had a rough first day here."
"Yeah," I whimper. "Who was that guy and why is he so mean to me?"
"That's Archeim Bosnick, "she explains" Everyone who sucks up to him calls him Archie, but I call Nicky because it pisses him off. He's a racist pile of trash that thinks so lowly of the other species on this planet that he even treats other humans like trash just for associating with them. That's how I know him. When I started here last year, he found out I was orphaned and raised by faeries and tried to pick on me just like he did with you. Unfortunately, that bastard didn't realize that faeries don't put up with that sort of shit. I've been beating his ass every other week for the last year and he was probably only next to your room because he was gonna pick another rematch with me. Sorry, about that."
"Why doesn't he get in trouble?" I ask.
"Because his dad is one of the three head people who run this place. Unlike his son, he's a pretty good guy, but he's got other IBKP responsibilities too, and is hardly ever around here. He and his other three siblings use his absence as an excuse to do whatever they please," Kira paused for a second like she was focusing on something, "but at least whatever the other ones do never seems to be trouble for us other students. The youngest just joined this year like you. By the way, how old are you?"
"Seven," I mumble.
"Really!?" she shouted with glee. "I just turned eight last month during the break. We should sign up for the same class! I mean, he won't be as big of a problem for you if we stick together."
"But I have to take all these intro-duck-story classes they kept talking about because I'm new. Did you not take the ones you needed last year?" I ask without any confidence.
"Psh, don't worry about it. I got into so much detention from fighting Nicky that I missed out on half the lessons," says while laughing. "Besides, I'm changing my career path and have to take new intros anyhow."
"I thought you had to have that set by your first month," I say in confusion.
"You get two chances to switch between service or security, once at the start of each your second and third year and as long you haven't turned thirteen yet," she explains further. "They just want to make sure that you don't have regrets so if you switch and don't like the intros you can switch back, but you still need enough time to start your focus studies or you won't graduate."
"So you didn't like the other intros?" I ask.
"Like I said, I was in detention half the time," she jokes. "No, the service intros were pretty fun and I probably could enjoy that career path a lot. What actually made me change my mind was a book."
"A book?" I repeat in confusion.
"Yeah," she continues, "one day when I was chasing Nicky, who was running from another fight he started with me, he lost me in the library. That place is huge, really. As I was hunting him down, something stuck out to me. Wedged in between the gaps of two of the cases was this old handwritten journal that didn't match any of the printed books they had. I tried to find it in the catalog but it didn't exist. I kept flipping through the pages and it was just littered with formulas and diagrams I couldn't understand, but I was hooked. I figured out it was some sort of chemical science called Liànjīnshù, but none of the chemistry books in the library helped make heads or tales of it... well, if I could even understand them in the first place."
"So, that is why you are changing? Would not services be a better fit for chemistry?" I ask as my interest increases.
"That's the thing," she jumps up with excitement. "A lot of these look more like combat spells than stuff you'd use in a lab. I think I need to be in active combat if I'm going to gain the experience needed and travel to the locations that will help me figure this stuff out. I don't know why, but something in my gut tells me that figuring this stuff out will take me straight to the top. Call it the type of intuition you develop growing up around faeries. The same intuition that tells me that we should be friends."
"Really, but you just met me?" I respond scared.
"DeciaZ, what's your dream?" Kira asks me.
"I would like to be a marshall. A well-respected one," I try to say with any amount of confidence I can muster.
"Why not aim higher, like one of the select Grand Marshalls?" she asks back without any pause.
"Those guys are the coolest!" I yell. "My home continent of Fortna lost our resident Grand Marshall in battle a few years back and they still have not appointed a permanent replacement just rotating the mobile GMs from the IBKP headquarters. But I could never land a station like that."
"Shut up," she says somehow both playfully and seriously at the same time. "You can't have that attitude. I'm telling you that if you stick with me and we figure this book out, we can climb to any position we want."
"It might just be a book you found that someone threw away, you can not know that for sure," I say trying to lower the tension that is building up.
"It's fate, I tell you!" she nearly explodes as she speaks. "This thing had to be sitting in there for years and I'm the first one to actually notice it between those back shelves. What do you got to lose? You were going into security anyway. Just do it with me."
This girl sounds crazy. She is starting to remind me of Big Sister a bit. What would she say about this? Probably something like, "Friends are just another anchor keeping you from sailing off." How does she even keep a crew? On the other hand, Mommy would say, "If you ever meet a girl that likes you, marry her right away and always do whatever she says. Don't be an asshole like your father." I don't know the reason, but I've come to understand the feelings behind why we did not live with Daddy. Either way, probably should not listen to that. Of course, cousin Anon would say, "Last time I listened to a woman, my fiance's sister shoved me off a boat out to sea in only a barrel. If only she had given me some jerky, I wouldn't have had to eat the wood before I made it to shore." The only three people I count on in my life and none of them are helpful. This girl has been the first person to actually help me without being forced to in years.
"You know what, okay." I finally answer. "We'll do this thing together. I have never had a friend before. What could I have to lose?"