Academia Verdant was still closed for the vacation period, but Aymanah kept visiting anyway. They could only peer through the gss dome, but it gave a surprising amount of information; their eyes had always been quite good… Enough to be able to angle themselves in a way that let them peer into some of the lecture halls, if they perched themself at one end of the dome and then looked right at the opposite end.

  Their favorite lecture hall was the one with the widest door, revealing most of the contents to them. A giant, golden globe of some kind was there, rotating on its own with no apparent interference from outside forces, and there were three golden rings yered around it, all of them moving on their own trajectories… They could sit there and watch that motion for hours.

  There were other things in this lecture hall as well, they could see a self-moving broom sweep the floors on occasion, and there were floating books pushing themselves into a shelf on the back, new volumes added… And there were so many books to begin with. They’d never found interest in the idea of ‘reading’, but this-

  “The Modern Magic Study Hall is amazing, isn’t it?”

  Aymanah nods- and then looks to their right, at another harpy, and almost shrieks. They muffle the sound and instead just fp their wings and roll along the surface of the dome to put about a foot of extra distance between themself and whoever this is.

  “Don’t let me startle you!”A hand rises to cover the stranger’s mouth as she ughs. She was built mostly like a harpy, although her talons had been repced by feet that she wore shoes on, and her feathers were a little smaller, as were her wings… Like comparing a condor to an eagle, maybe. Still enough to fly, she could tell, but somewhat diminished.

  “I just came here because there’d been compints that someone was flying around damaging the dome by constantly leaning on it. There aren’t many people in this city who can fly without being easily noticed, so I decided to do the Academia a favor, despite being on vacation… I didn’t think I’d find a harpy here! I was expecting some animal or another kind of vandal. My name is Hyti. I’m a professor here, focusing on weather and its study.”

  Daughter of Yti, the half-harpy that the kind weather watcher had told them about, and the one that’d started their fascination with the Academia. Now they feel a little shy.

  “I… Know of you. Was told of you. By a nice man taught by your mother. I-”

  The introduction on Aymanah’s end is naught but brief, although most of it is taken up by the usual regaling of their story up to this point. A little shorter than what Homer and Maia had, of course, but they still have to tell about their sister’s death, the trial at the mountain, traveling down, and so on… Alongside their conundrum.

  They dared not to explicitly say that Homer was to die and that Maia was to ascend to- to some higher pne of being or anything, but having someone to compin about a vague event that’d split them up and leave Aymanah to fend for themself in a city they were unfamiliar with? That was something they could do. Even with the money left to them, the journey back home would be rough.

  Hyti listened- after gently moving them away from the dome and onto another section of the roof entirely, one which supposedly would not quiver from the weight of a few harpies leaning on it. Aymanah still found that dumb; they barely weighed anything!

  “A common problem for adventurers,” she eventually speaks up, “and one that has led many to the Academia in search of something to do. When a party of travelers breaks apart, there are often some who do not know what to do after… And your journey home would be dangerous. I’ve never been to the Sawbone. My mother did talk about how perilous the journey was, even in flight; bandits with arrows, and so on…”

  Hyti idly taps her foot on the roof tiles. What an odd thing, a harpy with feet of human-like make and with toes instead of talons.

  “Perhaps you too could come to the Academia? Are you interested in studying? It’d give you something to do before you return home, a pce to stay and reorient yourself. There are student dorms, or you could keep staying at that inn you mentioned… The commute certainly wouldn’t be a problem for you, ahahaha.”

  Aymanah scrapes their talons on the same roof tiles.

  “I’m not sure I could afford that… It costs money, doesn’t it? That sounds like- I’d run out of money midway through. And my handle on scripture and reading is limited…”

  They liked the idea of learning for sure, but the actual work for it? That seemed overwhelming. Yet- they were rarely passionate about things, but this… This did tickle the back of their mind, tugged at their heartstrings.

  “The current Iskariot has made it cheaper to study, thanks to his deep patronage of the arts, although it’s still not free… But there’s some ways to go around it. Nobility and major Academia staff have the right to become the patron of a promising student, which waives the fees for a year, and if the student performs as expected of someone patronized, that waiving continues to the next year, and so on… It is quite demanding, but there’s high performers who make it work.”

  Aymanah could screech. More human nobles?! More small tasks to earn their favor?! Was everything decided by such banal things here?!

  “Back home, all you had to do was do your work and you were fine. I didn’t have to go and grovel to the Warleader for my bread, or for the right to fly…That’s ludicrous. Shouldn’t learning be free too, without the need for payments or permissions.”

  Hyti lets out this kind of ugh that’s not really happy. Just breathy and maybe a little bitter. Or tired.

  “Those kinds of words would’ve gotten you into trouble before; the Iskariot now might let people say what they want, but you should still be careful. Free education sounds nice, but there simply aren’t enough funds in the treasure- or so the treasurers always cim. I’m just a lecturer here and the head of a small school besides, I can’t get into trouble trying to cause a scene over it. Hahaha… Aah.”

  There’s that ugh again.

  Hyti then stretches her wing out. Beautiful patterns on those feathers, like a searing sun melting into the clouds.

  “But I could help you by making you my protege. I’ve more than enough clout for it, especially because I’ve never become a patron before… And your situation has endeared me to you a little. I’d be cruel to see someone so dedicated and longing for the chance to learn left out to the metaphorical cold.”

  “You would have to tolerate my ck of knowledge. I already told you-”

  “And I can help you learn how to read and write on our own time, assuming you truly want to try. I don’t mind. I have plenty of free time beyond my work, and I don’t mind sacrificing some of it to help you catch up. You seem intelligent enough to be able to do it.”

  Did Aymanah want to try?Aymanah did want to try. They didn’t even need to think about it. They were afraid of being alone, yes, and they wanted something to tch onto- this journey had shown them that their former sense of isotion at their home vilge had faded away- but also…

  This world was quite beautiful, wasn’t it?Maia and Homer were going to leave it behind for them to experience, and they should treasure that, and the best way to experience the world was to learn from it.

  “Well, I- Sure. Yeah. Sure, I can try that. That sounds nice.”

  The rest of the day was a bit of a blur for them. They flew off the roof and headed to Hyti’s own house, a pleasant little abode- and oh, thank god, there was a tch to open the roof up! No more flying through windows, and it even had an attic with an open hole on the floor so that Hyti could fly up there whenever. Apparently her mother, Yti, had specified the building of the house to some harpy standards.

  Much of what they went over together went over Aymanah’s head. Dorm room arrangements, how actually signing up for lessons at the Academia worked. The basic idea they got was that they could sign up for a primary school among the many offered, and then take supplementary lessons from others… If their chosen main school was too small, they might need to take required supplementary schools to earn enough academic credit to finish their studies.

  “It’s a little complicated, but you don’t have to worry! My school is big enough that you don’t have to take additional studies if you don’t want to.”

  Hyti had inherited the school from her mother- how each school was handled depended on the school itself, and there were few unifying standards. As long as the schools did not discriminate as to who actually got to attend and as long as they paid their fees to the Academia to keep the metaphorical light magic on, they would be fine.

  “I teach weather magic and the simple, scientific study of weather- and now, one might wonder what the difference between weather *magic* and weather as a *science* is, and the line I draw is along the lines of… Hmm. Weather magic is us affecting the weather and bending it to our will, while weather as a *science* has us study the weather as it is, without changing it.”

  Aymanah somewhat got the difference, at least. They had tea too, and some pastries, and they talked about things- what it was like back at the Sawbones, since Hyti was born and raised in the capital… And what it was like to live as a half-harpy. It was fine, apparently. A little rough at times, but the Academia was accepting and protected its teachers and students.

  It was dark by the time Aymanah actually got to fly back to the Gallivanting Galnt, brushing in through the window. Homer and Maia were already asleep, one snoring loudly- the other as still as a corpse, like she often slept. They brush off and stretch, perching at the end of their bed and preening for a little bit.

  …It’s going to be okay.No matter what happens,life goes on for those not beloved by Death itself.

  Tomorrow, the end begins.