Location: USMB 14-5-20.

Date: Located in File 29412.32.2.

Time: 1022 hours.

Subject: Aaron Lowes.

Re: ‘Annihilation’ Attempt.

...so I’ll skip past that. Okay? Okay.

So yeah, I heard all about all that. Who didn’t? At that point, I was living in Niagara Falls, doing my job, taking care of business, you know. Nothing special, entirely ordinary. I took care of my cats, I’d go out and get laid every now and again, just living a regular life.

So what did I do when I found out that they were looking for mages? What do you think I did? They were offering a free vacation, like those people that give you a free weekend trip if you listen to a pitch about a timeshare. They’d ship you out to frickin’ ATLANTIS, for God’s sake: spend the weekend, let them test you for magic while you’re sitting in paradise. I did what anyone with two brain cells to rub together would do.

Nothing.

What? I was happy! I was living the nice, quiet life. I was doing good work, helping people, contributing to society. You don’t take a vacation when you’re happy; you take a vacation when you’re drained and depressed and having trouble with life! You take a vacation when you know that if you don’t, you’re going to maim someone that you otherwise wouldn’t have.

Maybe.

But yeah, eventually, I went. We lost some people at work, things were getting stressed...and everyone starts getting affected by a Western New York winter come February or so. I scheduled some time off of work, went to the website that they were using to set up the evaluations, got my things together, and went.

It was the first time in years that I’d been on a plane, so that in and of itself was worth the time off. When the plane landed in Virginia, it was the first time I’d been out of New York State in years. It was a very early morning flight; the skies were dark when I took off in Buffalo, but when we were looking for clearance in Dulles, I could see the tip of the sun at the horizon. When I landed, there was an Alyefani man standing just outside the security post with a placard saying: ’Lowes’.

I dropped by bag in front of him and said, "Hi, that’s me."

He raised one of those perfectly sculpted eyebrows at me and said, "Aaron Lowes is you?"

I scowled. I hate hearing ’You don’t look like an Aaron’ and whatnot. Frickin’ pisses me off.

"Yeah," I said. "Something wrong with that?"

The guy smiles broadly. Must have just been a communications issue. "Not at all, yasali," he said. He extended his hand for me to shake.

I took it. People who’ve been in contact with them have said that their handshakes seem weird - like they have too many joints in their fingers. I know how what they mean, but it’s not that, exactly. It’d just...they’re so much thinner than us, it makes their hands feel weird. But still, I’ve got to respect them for trying, to incorporate new social rules on such short notice. I relaxed a bit.

"Just making sure that it was you. I am your cabbie, Maeris ca Scinnaine. Do you have any other bags?"

I shook my head.

"Alright, then let’s pound the road."

"Hit the road, actually." I had done my research into their etiquette; they actually preferred to be corrected on their word choices. They had long stated their confusion with various aspects of the human languages they were learning; understanding which words are used in which instances requires a cultural understanding that they didn’t have yet. And I was right; Maeris smiled broadly at my correction.

"Ah, hit the road. I understand. Thank you!" He took my bag in his hand and lead me to the loading area, a region set with a line of vehicles. In spite of security issues, Alyefani drivers were allowed to leave their cars there, as they were uncorrupted by human politics and would have no interest in bombing people. Or something. Maybe they had helped the government with magic to detect bombs and stuff; I dunno. All I know is that the car was there.

I looked at the car before me, a long, stretched black limo. "I think you meant ’chauffeur’, so you know. The term ’cabbie’ is used just for taxi drivers. If you drive vehicles like limos, then you’re a chauffeur."

"Chauffeur? That is different than cabbie?"

"Different connotations. A limousine and a chauffeur has an air of refinement, class, wealth. A taxicab and a cabbie have a more urban, every-day usage sense."

"Ah, this is more clear to me now. Thank you; a few of us had been wondering about that. In fact, one of my colleagues was wondering if he should change his usename to Rick, for a rickshaw!"

I laughed. I couldn’t tell if he was being serious about his friend, but I’ll take humor where I can get it. Like I said, it was pretty rough at work lately, and I could use the laugh.

What?

No, that’s what happened. Oh, I get it. Look, I’m pretty smart. You may have figured that out. I’ve got my weaknesses - like math, really, I’m kinda shit at it - but I’m pretty damned smart. I’ve got a really good memory for conversations. So trust me; if I say that that’s what was said, that really is what was said.

The trip to the shore was uneventful. I said to Maeris, "Hey, I’m surprised that there weren’t more people going for the evaluation."

Maeris looked at me in the rear view. "There was a great many people that applied for the testing within a few days of it being offered. Our days were filled with busses of people, shuttled back and forth from airport to shore to airport. For months, this endured. Not as many people are trying it now. Perhaps a few a week. I think that most everyone who is interesting in being tested has been tested.”

I shrugged. I was okay with being late; it meant that the rush was passed, and that I wouldn’t be lost in a mob of people. Sounded like a plan. “That explains why noone mentioned the difference between ‘cabbie’ and ‘chauffeur’ sooner; the term still applies - mostly - when you’re driving a bus…though simply ‘bus driver’ would be a better fit.”

He nodded. “With the bus, I was a bus driver. With this, I am…chauffeur, yes. Thank you again. I have not needed to drive it much; just for people of grandeur, of importance. As yours is the only arrival today, it was thought that a single vehicle would do rather than the bus, and this is what we chose.”

“Grandeur, huh? Politicians and such?”

“That is the word used for them, yes, yasali.”

“So what does ‘Yasali’ mean,” I asked him.

He frowned a little bit, tilting his head to consider. “It means…sir? Madam? Gentry? It’s a term of respect for a person of a certain level above oneself. Not a title, but a general word for a person to be …deferred to?”

I nodded. “Nice.” I turned back to the view. There was none. In the trip from the airport to the shore, I couldn’t help but notice that every other car was being driven by an idiot. Seriously, I could do a whole report on it. We were on the Beltway, in the second lane of the four lane road, doing about five miles over the limit. This one idiot comes racing up behind us; flipping his lights and beeping his horn for us to get out of his way. About ten seconds later, he jumps into the passing lane - no blinker, of course - to shoot past us…and then jumps across four lanes of traffic to hit an exit that was coming up in a hundred feet! People in DC are nuts.

Anyway.

So, we get to the shore; Maryland, Virginia, I have no idea. We went through several security points with nary a concern; Maeris just opened the window, said a couple soft, indiscernible words each time, and was waved on. We got almost to the edge of the water before he pulled the car over, got out, and opened the door for me. As I got out of the car, I looked around, trying to spot the boat I’d be using. Now, I remember reading the stories about the first reporters that went out to the island. It was, like, a two day trip from the mainland of Africa, let alone from the US. So imagine my surprise when I see…well, in the water was a kind of enclosed boat. It was shaped almost like a lozenge, with a port on one side and its ends tapering to almost points. The bottom half of it looked rather Steampunky; wood and bronze, and shimmering with some kind of protectant seal. The top was…well, glass, it looked like to me. If it wasn’t for the reflection off of the sealant, I might have thought that it was an open-topped boat. There was something that looked like a control mechanism at the back of the craft; a control board, some levers, some pedals. The other seats inside were high-backed, padded, with not only seat belts, but a full chest harness like in a fighter jet. The back had a strong head support, pillowed on each side.

As I stood looking at the odd boat - that’s a boat, right? Not a ship? OK. - Maeris came up on my other side and said, “Well, yasali, it’s been a…pleasure? Right? A pleasure driving you here. I hope all goes very well for you!”

I glanced at him. “You’re staying here? Not heading home for the weekend?”

He shook his head. “No, I have a place to stay here, I do alot of driving. Not just of testers, but for things that are needed on the island. It is a very important job!”

I smiled at him and extended my hand. “Well then, thank you for the drive. I appreciate it.”

He only paused for a second before he took my hand, the custom still unfamiliar to him. “It is my employ, and it is a pleasure, again.”

“Your job, this time too.”

“Ah, yes, thank you. Job.”

I smiled at him, shouldered my bag, and headed to the gangway to the boat. That thing’s a gangway, right; the long plank you walk to get down to a dock? Alright, great. Up closer to it, I could see more details; the inside of the craft was carpeted, and the glass upper section was easily high enough for anyone to walk around in without bumping their head. An Alyefani had come up a staircase in the back of the boat from the lower section and sat at the controls of the ship. The wood everywhere - inside and outside - was intricately engraved and stained and curlicued, and the bronze was embossed just as extravagantly. The glass met up with the wood base at the water level almost seamlessly. There was an elven woman in - I kid you not - what looked like a stewardess’ uniform from the 50s. Her smile was as least as broad as those flight attendants of old, but seeing someone so…unique…in such a very human uniform was something of a culture shock.

“Good morning!” she said brightly. “My name is Dieana wa Sanalis, but you can call me ‘Diane’, if you like.” Her first name was pronounced “Dee-ay-ahna”, quite the elegant mouthful. “Shall we be off?”

I gave her a little bow of the head in respect. “Good morning, Diane. Sure, let’s go. How long will it takes us to get there?” I used her ‘short’ name, since I imagine she would be getting a bit tired of correcting people all the time.

Her face took on an even deeper smile. “Only a few hours, and we will be there.”

I stopped moving forward, surprised by the statement. “Really? How? That’s like two thousand miles away from here, isn’t it?”

“Almost that. I will gladly explain along the way. Shall we?” Her hand was still extended towards the opening.

“Of course,” I said, realizing how rude it was of me to hold us up. I got inside and turned around to her as she was closing the door behind her. “So I’m the only one today?”

“Yes, you are! No waiting around for others today.” Her smile was broad and warm. Her continued exposure to humans was clearly helping her word choice and expressions.

I frowned a little bit, inclining my head to her and the ‘captain’ at the back of the craft, who was also smiling at me. “I apologize for being a bother, then. Taking the time to pick just me up and all.”

“Oh, no,” Dieana said. “It’s no trouble at all! We’re glad to help.” The captain in the back just nodded at the words, then focused on his control board again.

I shrugged. “Alright, but still, thank you. I appreciate it.”

“Of course. Would you like to take a seat?”

I looked around. There were enough seats for almost thirty people. They were arranged similarly to the airplane I just got off of, but were at the merest glance far superior in comfort. “Anywhere in particular?” I asked.

She motioned to all the chairs. “Anywhere you like,” she said.

I grinned and dropped my bag onto a chair right up front. “With a view like that, I think I want to be right up front. Like on a roller coaster.”

She tilted her head and looked confused. “I have heard the term before, but I still do not know what this is.”

“Ah.” I scrambled for the right words as I sat down and buckled myself in. “It is a…ride, an attraction, a mechanism. A cart with an open top attached to a track. It moves you very high, and at great speed, to give you…well, thrills. It is supposed to be a little scary, but it is safe, and usually very fun. Sitting right at the front is even more of a thrill, as there’s noone in front of you to block your view.”

Dieana tilted her head the other way and considered my words. “I understand the ‘what’, but not so much the ‘why’. Or maybe it is the ‘how’ of how it gives fun.”

I considered how to explain it, and came up short. I shrugged as best as I attached the shoulder straps. “It’s hard to put into words. It’s really something that would have to be experienced.”

She nodded. “Experience is much more expensive, true. You don’t have to -“

“Valuable, not expensive.”

“Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. You don’t have to use the chest harness yet; that’ll be in a bit. I’ll take care of that myself when we get to our second stage.”

I nodded and undid the shoulder harness. As she went off to talk to the captain, I secured my bag to the seat next to me using the seatbelt there. By the time I was done, she had come back, and was buckling into the seat across the aisle from me.

I cleared my throat, and she looked up at me. “I thought that the trip to the island would have been by a charter plane or something. If this will only take a short time, how come the initial -“

“When our home was brought up from - erm, ‘storing’,” she said, with confusion in her voice, searching for the right words, “many things needed…to be…charged?”

I nodded, and she smiled, relaxed. “It takes time to move energy, and to prepare for visitors. This type of ship has been used for a very long time, a very long time ago.”

I didn’t correct her on the ‘ship/‘boat’ difference. Forgive me.

She looked at me and smiled. “Are you ready?”

I was getting pretty excited. I heard about the magic that these people had used, but I’d never seen it myself other than for on YouTube and such. I nodded. She smiled at me and nodded to the captain.

I didn’t turn around to see his response; I didn’t need to. Within seconds, the boat was shifting, dropping, submerging. The water line rose above the floor and began curving against the glass around us. Faster than I could recognize it, the water level met over our heads, and we were under water.

I was just amazed. I mean, I couldn’t have said a word if I wanted to.

And with less of a jolt than you have in a car with a manual transmission, we were moving forward. The pylons of the docks around us were sliding past. The waters were rather grayish and the bottom dirty with refuse, but I supposed that was fairly normal for a public dock on the edge of the capital of the country.

We were moving forward, banking gentle turns left and right, at a faster pace than anyone would be able to run - maybe around twenty miles an hour. Maybe more, it was hard to gauge. The waters before us were deepening and widening with every hundred feet. As we sunk deeper, our speeds increased.

I looked at Dieana. “I thought that you had to go really slow in a harbor around other boats.”

Dieana waved a hand to indicate above us. “Yes, for boat wakes and avoiding other ships. No need for that down here. Ours are the only crafts that can be so low and so quick.”

“Even human submarines?”

“Oh, we would see one of those coming from a very long ways away, especially considering how they’re always beeping to find their way about, having no windows. Besides, they can’t really work so close to the bottom.”

I looked behind us, past the captain, who was intent on his control board and the sea around us. “How are we moving? How is it so quiet? There’s no propeller.”

Dieana smiled softly. “Well, it’s what you call ‘magic’, of course.”

I looked back at her and grinned before turning my gaze backwards again. “That’s no good answer. C’mon, how is it doing this?”

Dieana shrugged. “Think of it like a string between one place and another,” she said. “The strings are anchored in place, but the string has some play in it. If you pull string from one side, it causes the string - and what’s on it - to move to that spot. But the thing that’s on the string can move on its own, too. That’s what we’re doing here. We’re actually anchored to a spot on both shores: in Washington D.C. and in Atlantis.”

I looked back at her. “Not seeing a string, though. So I’m assuming that the string is, well, magic too?”

She nodded.

“Still, it’ll be a long time before we’ll be in Atlantis at this rate.”

She nodded again, then said, “We’ll be moving faster once we clear the mainland and get closer to the continental slope.”

I blinked. “Continental slope?”

“It’s where the continental shelf drops off into deeper waters.”

I blinked again. I didn’t tell her that my surprise was over the implication, not an unfamiliar term. “Exactly how deep are we going to be going?”

“The deeper we are, the safer it is, keeping us away from other ships, animals, anomalies, et cetera. We won’t be skirting the bottom all the way there, but we’ll definitely be in the lower half of the sea.”

“What about the pressure?”

She smiled at me again, and raised a hand negligently to the glass dome about us.

“Right,” I said, sitting back and trying to relax. “Magic. Gotcha.”

I sat back and tried to relax.

Fortunately, the view around us was wonderfully distracting. The deeper we went, the bluer the waters around us became. Without the unsettling engine noises, schools of fish had no fears in approaching us - for all the good that it did them, considering the speeds that we were moving at. We seemed to be hovering around twenty feet from the bottom, avoiding boulders, protrusions, and more garbage than I cared to admit. I was starting to feel some personal responsibility for all the trash and wreckage that we passed, like I was some kind of cultural attache, the need to apologize for the messiness of the human race rising.

I don’t know if Dieana or the captain even noticed it - though I’m sure they had noticed in and probably called attention to it on their trips in the past - but they didn’t bat an eye at it other than to make sure that we had a clear course past it all.

Soon, the distant ’walls’ of land to our sides dropped further away, and we were clear of the surface lands. At that, we put on some more speed, but noone said anything about the shoulder straps yet. The waters got deeper and deeper - or, since we were staying around the same distance from the ground, the waters got higher and higher over our heads. As the light from the surface grew dimmer and dimmer, I noticed that it was no harder to see around us. Despite the fact that I couldn’t see a specific light source coming from our ship, we were emitting some kind of light that permitted us to clearly see about us.

I looked over at Dieana, the confusion clear on my face. Without waiting for me to ask, she said, "The dome translates different kinds of light in the world around us into regular like that we can see with. Creatures outside can’t look in and see us. That way, creatures that are picture-sensitive won’t be disturbed."

"Photo-sensitive."

"Is that not the same thing?"

By the time I had finished explaining the difference in terms, the light from the surface above was much dimmer, and we were clearly descending deeper. Dieana looked back at the captain, then looked at me. "With your permission, I need to secure those shoulder straps on you now."

I nodded, pulling my arms through the straps. She took the appropriate buckles and connected them together, adjusting the straps until they rested comfortably against my chest. I nodded at her, then shifted my weight around to ensure comfort as she buckled herself in.

At this point, we started going really fast. I mean, I had thought that we were going pretty fast before, but we took off, man. I mean, like, it felt like we were going faster than the plane that I just got off of!

"How...how is..." I looked at Dieana in confusion.

She smiled gently at me and my confusion. "I’m not a magic user, so let me see if I can explain properly myself. Remember the idea of that string?

I nodded.

"Well, obviously, there isn’t a physical string before us or behind us. It’s a line of force. Imagine a tube, like a tunnel train, and you’re in a car of that train."

"I follow you so far."

Her eyes unfocused for a second as she processed the colloquialism. "Now, imagine being able to compress that tunnel before and after you. Imagine it small, very small, only a few atoms wide. As she approach it, it grows bigger, stretches around us, and compresses behind us, pushing us along."

"Wouldn’t that take immense amounts of energy to accomplish."

"Again, I’m not a magic user, but I’m told that the pressure of the sea itself helps....squirt us along from behind."

"What if something passes through that ’thread’? If it’s that small, couldn’t it cut like a mono-molecular blade?"

Amazingly, she didn’t need me to explain that term to her. "If it were a physical tunnel or a real string, yes - but again, we are talking about magic. The string is a line of force that we follow, that surrounds us, that compresses behind us."

Not knowing enough about magic to really ask more questions, I just marveled as g-forces pushed me into my seat, watching the ocean floor stream by beneath us. I could see mountains in the distance, islands stuck beneath the waters, too small to rise above the surface. We were staying well away from those; long, slow banking keeping us in a clear path as the captain drove us through the depths.

"I really hope that you’ve treated people from our navies to a show like this," I said dreamily. "They can’t see things like this in their submarines, but I’d be pretty sure that it’s scenes like this that made them love the sea in the first place."

Dieana smiled at that, but didn’t say anything.

We rode in silence for a while. There were, of course, no recognizable landmarks that I could make out; I would have needed a ton of degrees to understand more on the ocean floor, and at the clip we were moving, I doubt that even an experienced oceanographer would be able to do more than gawp and gape. I didn’t spot any recognizable forms of life. The ground was moving far too fast to identify coral or seaweed or the like, and fish and whales would have been a blur too - if they even went down to those depths.

Still, I was riveted. I couldn’t get over what I was seeing. It was so much to absorb - my first real taste of magic in the world, as I flew underwater.

Just as my neck was starting to complain the tiniest bit about the position that it was held in - at those speeds, it’s safest to keep your head against the back of the seat itself, just in case - the nose of the ship tipped up, and we started shedding speed.

Dieana nodded. "We should be arriving in half an hour or so now." She looked at me. "Do you need anything? Are you comfortable?"

I nodded, silent, still absorbed with the sights around me.

She smiled. "Keep looking about; I think you’ll find the waterside around Atlantis even more interesting than that around your own shores."

"And cleaner, surely," I muttered.

I shouldn’t have been surprised that those pointed ears picked that up. She laughed. "That as well. But I think you will see what I refer to soon."

And before too long, I did. In the distance ahead of us, rose a mountain, a massive mountain. It was like seeing visualizations of Olympus Mons on Mars. The relatively flat ’ground’ acquired a straight, consistent grade as far as I was able to see. We rose higher and higher, going slower and slower.

Eventually, we came to the gardens.

At least, that’s what I would call them. Gardens. Bands of corals - different colors at different depths - a massive, banded reef filled with life of every kind. We were moving slowly enough that I could see schools of silvery fish, moving like sentient clouds, pecked about at the edges by the occasional predator. I could see octopi moving along the bottom, jellyfish undulating in the brightening light, crabs and moving shells, eels and fish of every color and shape imaginable, all moving up and down, from band to band, around the island, a bright and precious ecosystem of ocean life.

I wiped away a tear. No idea where that came from.

Dieana noticed, and she smiled again. "I think you will like it here."

"I’m sure if it, I said."

The waters above us - that distant line of paradigm change from ocean to sky - grew lighter and lighter until we finally broke through, water streaming from the sides. I blinked in the increased brightness and looked about. We were a few hundred yards from shore, rapidly approaching the distant docks. They seemed, at first glance, alot like the ones that I had seen before we left, but these were pure white. I thought they looked like marble, from the boat. Turns out, they were. But who would use marble for docks? They used marble to build everything. Must have something to do with their magic, I guess. I never found out.

Anyway, Dieana reached over and undid the buckles that held me in my chair. "Please stay in your seat until the captain has turned off the ’fasten seatbelt’ sign," she said.

I looked around, not getting it. I hadn’t seen a sign like that. It took me a minute to recognize that it was a joke. I grinned and looked at her. "That was a good one," I said.

She dimpled. "Thank you! Humor is difficult to do when you are uncertain of the language."

"Keep at it," I said. "You’ll figure us out."

Oh, bite me. I know what you’re thinking, Sarge; the Alyefani have no interest in conquest. That’s part of what I’m here to prove, right?

Like I give a shit about your rank. Just drop it.

Well, she smiled and thanked me again. In that time, we had come up to the dock, and she rose to open the hatch. I undid my seatbelt, got up, turned around, and bowed to the captain. "Thank you for a safe ride and a wonderful trip," I said to him.

He put his hands together and bowed to me. He didn’t say anything to me; I hadn’t heard him speak at at all, actually. Maybe he wasn’t trying to; he had his hands full with work.

The sudden breeze of tropical air hit my side and turned me towards Gloria, who stood at the hatchway, her hair ruffled by the outside breeze. I breathed deeply; the smell of the sea air was cleaner than it was in D.C., and there was something indistinguishable behind it, some freshness and purity that I’d never experienced before. I stepped past her, bag in hand, and emerged onto the dock.

I marveled at how warm it was. It wasn’t much higher in latitude than D.C. was, but the air was much warmer. The skies were a brilliantly bright blue, punctuated with the occasional cloud, bleach-white and distant. I couldn’t even see any plane contrails from where I was. It was like I was standing in the middle of an alien planet, one that had never known the touch of man.

Dieana bowed to me, in the way I’d seem the Alyefani do, in the way I’d attempted to bow to the captain: hands flat against each other, eyes down, bending at the waist with a straight back, just until the nose was over the toes. "It was a pleasure speaking with you, yasali. I hope to see you again during your stay here."

I attempted to bow to her in the same way. "Thank you, Diane. I hope to see you again too. Please, call me Aaron."

She brightened. The permission for the use of first names is a gift in their society. She bowed again, a little deeper than before. She might have said more, but we were interrupted by someone coming down the dock.

And man, was he good looking. Yes, humans and Alyefani don’t ’relate’ that way, I know; I’ve experienced it first-hand. But ye Gods, this guy was gorgeous.

He had long, richly brown hair that cascaded off of his shoulders. His eyes were the same shade; they sparkled and danced with good spirits. His long ears peeked outside from beneath his hair. He was a little taller than me, his eyes canted with that exotic angle. He was dressed in robes, deep purple, brown, white, and silver. The layers moved gently in the wind like an alien flag. If this guy were human, I’d have been all over him.

But since he wasn’t, I was just agog, watching him walk like a moving work of art.

"Aaron Lowes?" He said. His voice was deep for an Alyefani, similar in pitch to my own.

"That’s me, yasali," I said, extending my hand towards him.

He grinned broadly and shook my preferred hand. "I think that that would be the first time that one of your people has addressed me as such, and I thank you for your...courtesy, right?" He asked, squinting at me in a silent request to check his word choice.

"Courtesy, yes. Please, call me Aaron."

His smile deepened. His teeth were arrow straight, pure white, and even looked minty fresh. He released my hand and executed a bow to me exactly as Dieana had, the second time. "I am Borsin po Upshallan. I am a…human relations person? For the testing program.”

I laughed. “Human relations? Never was the term better used, I imagine.”

He laughed with me. I swear, if there was any way for him to look better, I couldn’t have imagined it before that laugh. Damned evolutionary divergences!

“Indeed! It is so. Would you care to join me?”

“That would be fine, thank you,” I said, as formally, elegantly, and politely as I could. I turned back to Dieana and bowed to her again. “Good day, Diane.”

Her smile was broad. “Good day, Aaron.”

And then…she looked at Borsin and said…I think it was something like, “Way shandarallina ahtsan.”

He gave her a cunning look before glancing at me and saying, “Nyea? Wah. Cannessa.” With that, they turned from each other; Dieana back into the craft, Borsin back down the dock. Surprised, I started walking in his wake.

“Wait, what was that about?”

“Hrmm?” Smug bastard was trying to play it off. Subtlety wasn’t quite their thing for us yet. It’s like learning a different language. The ways that I’m subtle with you are different than the ways that we’re subtle with them. They hadn’t mastered human subtlety yet.

“What was that all about? The…Alyefen…talking? It was something about me?”

“Oh, that,” he said, trying to sound disinterested. “Suffice it to say that she…has confidence in you.”

I looked at him over the tops of my glasses. “Confidence. Okay. That’s it?”

He shrugged. “Well, before testing, who can say? But she has high hopes. It’s not good to raise your own hopes before the official testing, though; that’s why she mentioned it to me in our tongue. She wasn’t trying to be rude, I placate you.”

“I think you meant to say you ‘assure’ me, but trust me, ‘placate’ is probably closer to the mark,” I mutter. From that point on, he really didn’t do anything for me that flipped the ‘desire’ switch, even when I remembered that he reminded me of how my ex used to ohGOD I need to stop talking about that now.

Anyway.

Now, I’ve been the videos of the people that visited the island while they were still setting up the place. Some of those vids have more views on YouTube than the kid after the dentist’s visit. Let me tell you, things had changed.

The grass was deep. The buildings were of every single type you can imagine; long school halls, rounded stadium seating around a center stage, tall spires, even a distant castle of imposing dimensions - all carved from that marble that was prevalent everywhere. It was distinctive; even after being up for months - or years and centuries, if they did indeed bring it with them from where they were using it in the other dimension - it didn’t bear any signs of dirt or wear. The grounds were gorgeous too; even though the island was underwater months ago (or phased out of this existence under the ground underneath it was brought back up to the surface, whatever), there were trees of every time dotted around the island; most seemed to be fruit-bearing types, but I saw some people - students, I suppose - flying around the branches of a massive oak tree.

Took me a minute to realize what it meant, that they were flying. They were doing magic. Real magic, not slight-of-hand or misdirection or the like. Actually tapping the fundamental forces of the universe and…well, in the words of an old friend of mine, ‘making physics their bitch’.

I turned back to Borsin, who was clearly waiting to hear my reaction to seeing magic being performed in front of me for the first time. “So,” I said to him, “tell me more about what you’re looking for with this testing. How long does it take to know if I’ve got the spark you need?”

He raised an eyebrow at the calm tone I managed to push out. “Well, there are various facets of using magic. One of them, you’ve already passed; do you remember the intellectual test that was required on the webbed site for your reservation?”

“Website. And yes, I remember. It was pretty easy.”

He shrugged. “Well, it was to you. That’s why you’re here. One of the things that magic users require is a quick and facile mind. You have to come to terms with understanding how some primeval forces work, and work together, to cause the universe around us to exist. By understanding those concepts, you begin to see…what do you call them…loopholes?”

I nodded. “Yes, that’s the term. I didn’t think that physics had loopholes.”

He looked uncomfortable. “It is an analogy. I once heard it said that the way air pressure was lessened over the top of a wing, allowing a plane to fly, was a loophole of physics. It is not - not truly - but it is a way of exploiting rules to work in our advantage.”

I considered as we walked. “And it’s all connected, so you also have to come to terms with how changing one thing can affect another, and resolving that, I guess?”

He looked sharply at me. Shrewdly, one might say. “Yes, that is exactly right,” he said slowly. “I begin to see the hopes that Dieana wa Sanalis had for you.”

“May I ask a question?”

He laughed at that. “This is a school! There is no better place for questions.”

“I’ve noticed that all of the Alyefani names I’ve seen have a short syllable between the personal name and the family name. Why is that?”

He nodded slowly, smiling. “Tell me; if you were talking about four different people, and none of them were in front of you, and all of them were men, how would you say who was talking?”

I was confused. “I would say their names.”

“Each time? Or would you use pronouns like ‘he’ and ‘him’ and ‘his’ when it was appropriate?”

“Well, yes,” I said, not getting the point yet.

“And if you were speaking of four men, would it not be difficult to keep track of which ‘he’ or ‘him’ you were referring to?”

I nodded. “Even with the context of the conversation, it can be difficult. Why?”

“We use those name as…there is no term in your languages for it. It is like a cross between a pronoun and a…nickname, you call it. In our tongue, we use that shortname when we are referring to that individual in the third person. It’s not used as a nickname as your people use them, though; noone would think to call me ‘Po’ or call Dieana ‘Wa’; but we would use those names to refer to each other if we were not there.”

“Kind of a non-gender-specific pronoun.”

“More than that; it is a pronoun which is specific to the person. In the rare instance that someone might have the same…proname? Is that good?…then we would add a short syllable to indicate sex or rank or position or such. Otherwise, it makes speaking about others very clear.”

I nodded again. “I like that. I can’t think of any human languages that do that. And ours are all gender-biased. ‘He’ and ‘she’, ‘his’ and ‘hers’, and the like.”

I frowned. “Regardless of how my testing turns out, I have a feeling that it might be a good idea to learn your language.”

He shrugged. “You can try, if you like. English is much easier, though.”

“Oh geez,” I said. I knew how hard it was to learn English when it’s not your first language. ‘Easy’ is not a word I would use for it. “That hard to learn, huh?”

“The words to learn in our language are not difficult to learn, nor is the way that they are used. But context is important to grammar, and that is difficult to pick up. You can see the problem that my people have in using various terms in your tongue; it would be much similar if you were using ours, but to a much higher degree.” He smiled. “I have seen your dictionaries, ones that help to translate from one language to another. Ours would be much more in-depth. Probably twice as long, with three or four times as many interrelations. But I would encourage you to try.”

My mind was reeling. “One thing at a time, I suppose.”

He nodded, meeting my eyes. “That is wise.”

I grinned. “I contemplate for us no soreness.”

He rolled his eyes, but smiled. “Ugh, we hear about that so often. I wouldn’t recommend mentioning it to the Consort. He’s a good sport about it, but he’s still embarrassed about it.”

I chuckled. “Well, I doubt that I’ll get to meet him anytime soon.”

“That’s probably true.”

By this time, we had walked straight past the main…well, ‘campus’ building, I suppose. It looked like any other school hall you might have ever seen. It was made, obviously, out of their pristine, white marble, but it looked out of place around the other, varied classical architecture. I got the impression that it was built for us, for students, to have an idea that was familiar and comfortable. Not as alien or time-struck.

We moved past to a series of apartments, picked one at seemingly random, and opened the door. It was clearly some kind of guest suite. If the main building looked like a generic campus hall, then this room looked like a generic hotel room…but an upscale one. No television was within, but a broad desk, a comfortable-looking bed, opulent….’facilities’, and a deep clothes closet. I looked about the corners and walls.

“I don’t see any electrical outlets.”

He nodded. “That was a later addition that we needed to add in.” He went to the back of the desk and pointed. I joined him, and noticed a grounded outlet coming out of the side of the desk.

“We noted that most were looking for this for smaller devices like computers and cellular phones. Of course, we have no cellular service here, but the devices have other uses as well, I’m told.”

I nodded. "Alarm clocks, music players, cameras, maps, you name it - we get full functionality out of those little buggers."

He extended his head towards the bed and the room in general. "Please feel free to relax from your travels. We will have someone here shortly to escort you to the testing facility."

I bowed to him as I had observed. "Thank you, yasali," I said respectfully.

He smiled again and bowed back at me. "The pleasure was mine," he said smoothly, backing towards the door and closing it behind him.

I shook my head. If he and four others like him founded a boy band, little girls all over the world would explode. Wow.

So, I started putting my things away. I didn’t unpack my clothes; after a few traveling issues, I’d always felt more comfortable having the majority of my things together. I put my toiletries in the appropriate room - the one with the bathtub big enough to swim in - and opened up my suitcase and put it up top of the dresser, organizing my clothes in it after being jumbled by the trip. If there was an emergency, I could run into my room, close and grab my bag, and bug out; I could get a new toothbrush somewhere else, but clean underwear is priceless. I was sitting on the bed, contemplating whether I might have enough time to take a bath, when a knock sounded at the door.

"Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome, c’mon in," I said, in true Lili vonSchtupp style.

Oh, go see a movie.

The door opens, and of course, another elf enters. This one’s got more of a college student, little sister vibe going for her. Cute, but innocent, and more of that "this-is-not-for-you" sense than Borsin had. Long, blonde hair (they all had long hair, even the guys - made me feel really comfortable), very slender, a very bright smile. I mean, she was actually wearing jeans and a turtleneck, even sneakers. Very college-freshman feel to her.

"Aaron?"

"That’s me." I stood up and went to the door.

She extended her hand to me, I took it. She’d clearly had alot of experience dealing with humans; other than that her hand was so slim, you wouldn’t know that she was an Alyefani. She had the majority of the nonverbal communication points down pat.

"Hi! I’m Gloris fi Sopsorris. You can call me Gloria, if you like."

I nodded. "If you’re comfortable with that, that’s fine. I don’t want to take liberties with your name; names are important."

I was taking a little bit of a risk based on what I could tell about their culture, what I had read about them. Names are important to humans, but we use nicknames and the like with little concern. I was getting the feeling that names were even more important to them, especially if it was a society that restricted what you could do based on whether you were a magic user or not. I would bet that there’s a whole aspect to their culture that we have no idea of.

Which is fair; we’re aware of various unsavory parts of our culture that we’d rather others didn’t acknowledge. Still, it was a good way to make sure that I would be showing respect.

Her smile grew broader, which I wouldn’t have thought would be possible. "No, that’s fine!" She tipped her head onto her shoulder like any chipper teenager might. "I think it’s nice! Inclusive. Makes me feel accepted by you and yours."

I smiled back at her. "Thanks, Gloria,” I said, walking forward and shaking her hand. "Call me Aaron."

She shook it warmly, smiling all the time. "So, are you ready to begin your testing? The sooner we get today’s work done, the sooner you can join everyone else for sports and activities and such later."

I nodded. "Sure, let’s get the work out of the way first."

She nodded, turned about, and stepped out the door. Just before I closed it behind me, I looked at the massive tub in the bathroom. "Later tonight," I said to it menacingly, "I’m havin’ you..."

"What was that?" Gloris said to me, her head canted to the side a bit.

"Oh, just noting how opulent the guest housing is. I take it that student dorms aren’t quite as...plush."

Gloris shrugged. "No, they’re pretty and nice, but they are built for multiple people. We wanted to establish a sense of community, and we think that group housing - with the right people - can help add support and structure."

"Understood and agreed. ’Pretty nice’, though, not ’pretty and nice’."

She frowned a little bit. "That’s not the same thing?"

As we walked, I explained the difference to her. She picked up on it...well, ’pretty’ quickly. Like everyone else that I’d met so far, she was very thankful for the corrections.

"Of course, we have more than a few people here who are...what do you call them...introverts? They prefer to live alone. They have single bedding areas, but they still have a communal study and eating area. We try not to force people to live outside of their comfort...zones? Right...but working together is such an important aspect of learning magic."

"Why is that?" I asked.

"Well, there are, as you probably heard, four aspects of science, of magic. There are very, very few people who excel at all of them. Most people have a...tendency? A preference? Well, they work better with one force than another. So, by working with others with different strengths, they can accomplish more together, with less wasted energy, than they can individually."

"So noone’s a master of everything, huh"

"Well, it’s not that noone is; it’s just very, very rare. Magic is often governed by perspective as much as ability, so finding someone that has the proper mindset on each of the four forces, each one balanced against the others in turn, is unusual indeed.

"Using the Fire-Water-Earth-Air names, you might find someone with a strength in Earth, but weaker in Air, its perceived opposite. Or you might find someone that is strong in both of them, balanced, but has trouble with the other two. Our strongest users call themselves ’quarked’, as they have strengths in three ’elements’ - either a strong pair and a weaker one, or a single strong and two weaker ones."

"And the elemental physical items are ’quarks’, and they group in threes. Right."

By this time, we had crossed the...well, it was something like a college campus, so it was more or less a ’quad’. We just crossed the quad, passing students of all ages as they poured over notebooks, meditated on piles of rocks or campfires or basins of water, argued over minutiae of study, or lazed about on the grass. I even saw two guys throwing a football around...using magic. It would hover in place in front of one of them, start spinning like a bullet, angle itself upwards, and take off. The receiver would focus on it as it was coming at him, eliminate its forward motion by spinning it around himself a few times until it came to a stop in front of him.

I wonder what kind of penalty that would get you in the NFL.

We entered the main scholastic-type building. The ceilings were nearly twenty feet high. The marble of the floor was...coarser, slightly darker...than that of the walls, assumably for traction

"Besides," she continued, "for the larger magics, like the one that brought the land up to the surface, no single mage would ever have had the willpower to lift it all themselves. They had to work in groups - individuals that were well versed with working with those that helped them that day, a cooperative team that had honed their mutual abilities together for decades. And each group was working to merge their efforts with the other groups...seamlessly, losslessly."

"Losslessly?" I asked as we approached a series of offices.

She tipped her head, considering how to reply. "If you use gold as a wire for electronics, it is a good conductor, it works well, yes?"

"So I’ve been told. Haven’t seen alot of gold in my day."

"And copper is good too?"

"Less good, but it works."

"Iron? Steel?"

"Sure, I guess."

"And aluminum?"

I frowned. I wasn’t familiar with aluminum wire, and I knew that aluminum itself wasn’t magnetic...an aspect I assumed was something to do with electronic currents. "I’m not sure."

She nodded. "They would all work, but depending on what you used, less energy would make it through the wire and be lost as, in this case, heat energy. When working with magic, you want as efficient a channel as possible, so that you aren’t wasting your strength and energy that you don’t have to. You want every erg and bit to be caught up in the effort, in the...erm, ’spell’."

"If wasted electrical energy is lost as heat, what is wasted ’magical’ energy lost as?"

She smiled at me. "Mostly as exhaustion."

I laughed, and she laughed with me.

"But seriously, it’s important to remember that it’s not really ‘magic’, as in, unknown, mysterious forces. It’s applying scientific forces in a new, personal way. When that kind of energy is lost, it relates to how it was being used...but mostly, it’s just straight entropy - energy that could have been used to cause an effect, but is just lost to the world."

I considered as we entered a room with an office desk. There were several human and elven...I mean, Alyefani...office workers. "If you’re working on something that involves the ’Earth’ or ’gravity’ force, and you lose some of it in the spell, does that mean that it affects the local gravity as the energy is absorbed into the world around it?"

Gloris shook her head. "No, not exactly. Magic that is properly expressed can have that...uh, ’flavor’....but when it is, it’s not lost. It’s like losing a battery. That battery could have been thrown at someone, and the kinetic energy is now lost, or it could have been connected to a circuit, and the electrical energy is now lost, or it could have been hooked up to a poor conductor, and the heat energy is now lost."

"But these are better questions to ask your teachers, once you have been tested, and approved, and accepted, and taking classes," an Alyefani sitting at a desk said into the momentary silence. We both turned to the desk, Gloris’ face becoming formal and closed. The individual at the desk was an older male, his hair composed of lines of silver gray and bold black. His face...wasn’t so much ’lined’, as a human’s would be with wrinkles, so much as it was slightly gaunter than the norm I’d seen. He wasn’t anywhere near close to the vicinity of possibly considering the future chance of perhaps smiling, which was perhaps the oddest thing about him, in light of how many Alyefani I had recently met that were already some of the kindest, friendliest people I’d met in my life. This guy...judged you. You could tell.

"And should curiosity not be rewarded regardless, yasani?" I asked with a little shoulder-chip in my voice. "Surely anyone that seeks wisdom should be able to chase it, whether or not they will have the faculties to catch it."

You know, I’d never seen an Alyefani get angry before. It’s something, lemme tell ya. His mouth opened, his face went pale, and his eyes bulged and flashed - literally flashed! - at me. Made me take a step back, lemme tell you.

He stood up, and I noticed that the room was dead quiet. Not a single sound from any of the other workers in there...who were all staring at him with damned near fear in their faces.

Muttering to himself in their tongue, he stepped around the desk, brushed past me, and headed out the door, slamming it behind him. I thought the marble might crack from it.

The tension in the room knocked down a couple points as soon as he left. Diane leaned in to me and whispered, "It’s very kind that you try to use proper forms of respect with us - I appreciate it very much - but for him, that was the wrong one. You more or less gave him way less respect than he’s due. And he’s big on respect."

"I can tell," I muttered. I turned to the others staring at me. I bowed, leaving my hands at my sides. "I apologize for disturbing the peace here. It was not my intention."

"We’re fairly used to it," one matriarchal type said, rising from her place, casting a disapproving look at the door. She focused back on me again with a less-disapproving-but-still-not-happy look and said, "But that was of significant annoyance to him, I have no doubt. Let’s hope you don’t have a strong affinity to Air, child; having that one as a teacher would not be a pleasant experience for you now."

I blanched a little bit. "He teaches new students."

"No."

I relaxed a little. "Oh."

"He’s the...how would you say it...head of the ’department’. The lead mage of the ‘Air’ force."

I relaxed far less. In fact, I anti-relaxed.

The matronly one moved forward. Her own hair was slate gray, the color of a late-afternoon storm. Her eyes matched her hair, twinkling as if lit by stars. The edge of her mouth lifted in one of the most human expressions I’ve seen of these people; she was smirking.

"I give you credit, young one," she said, moving around her own desk. "It usually takes a little bit longer to get that one’s ire. Not too much longer, I grant you, but that was one of the fastest I’ve seen."

She extended her hand to me. I took it. "Roecandris ma so Qi’larapantin. Head of the...Water teachings, you might say."

I shook her hand reverently. "I would offer a proper greeting to you, my lady, if I knew the correct words." I wasn’t going to ask about the two short names - that is, if I heard them right. I’d messed up enough already. But beyond that, something didn’t look right about her. It took me a minute to recognize what it was.

She had a hairstyle.

The vast majority of the elves that I’ve seen - online or in person - had long, straight hair, and they wore it straight. Many of the men would have it in a ponytail or such to keep it out of the way, but none of the women had any styling. This woman had a hair do, much like a human woman. Her long hair was curled and bobbed, gathered at the back of her head, with long strands of it coming down before and behind her ears. Now that I noticed its shape, it reminded me more of the thunderstorm than ever.

"Professor...Kilarapantin", I said, wincing, knowing that I was horribly mangling the pronunciation and terrified of offending someone that I had actual respect for. "Forgive me, I didn’t mean to offend."

Thankfully, she smiled. "I am not offended, child. You try, that is enough for me." As our hands separated, she looked again to the door. "That one, all must be perfect to be simply acceptable."

"Then I’d say he’s setting himself up for some major disappointment, if you ask me," I muttered, looking at the door over my shoulder as well.

"I would not ask," she sniffed at me, reminding me that I was speaking of my ’betters’, as it were. When I looked back to her, she had her smirk back on. "But there is a saying that works in your tongue and mine: ’you hit the nail upon its head’."

I smiled at her as Gloris came up besides us, still a littler pale. "Was he to..."

"No, no; we would never have that one administer the testing of potential students," the regal lady said. "We would not have a single human pass his tests, and our own ranks would be a quarter of what they are, no more."

She looked back at me. "I will walk you through the testing for this. Are you ready?"

I shrugged with a grin. "Ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose."

Gloris turned to me, a tiny ghost of her earlier fear left in her expression. "I’ll be here to pick you up when testing is over. By that time, you’ll be ready for dinner, I wager."

I had breakfast before I left the ground in Buffalo, but I wasn’t hungry yet. I nodded. "That sounds fine, thanks."

She smiled at me, squeezed my upper arm in support, bowed to the professor, and quietly left. The others in the room went back to their tasks as Qi’larapantin lead me to a door on the other side of the office. She reached for the doorknob, and the door swung quietly open. I leaned around to look inside, wondering what kind of testing I would have to endure to find out if I had magical abilities...

There was a desk. Not a big, office desk like the others were sitting behind, but a school desk. With an attached chair. Pure college hall style. There was a stapled set of papers on the desk.

I looked at her wryly. She responded with a grin. "Not what you were expecting?"

"You could say that. I was thinking of something with more....theater."

"Those kinds of tests come later," she said. "I think you’ll find a suitable number of whistles and bells."

"Bells and whistles."

"Yes, that, thank you. Hrmm, surprising that it works one way and not the other."

"Kinda hard to defend a colloquialism when the thing that started it isn’t used anymore."

"I would imagine so. After you?" She extended a hand into the room, and I did as she asked.

It was very bare bones. No windows, no discernible light sources, about ten feet by ten feet. There was the desk, the papers on the desk, the pencil on the papers on the desk, and that was it. I shrugged and sat down at the desk.

"It’s not timed, so take your time and answer them the best you can. For many of them, there are no ’right’ answers, but how you answer them is important."

I nodded. "Gotcha."

She nodded and closed the door behind her, leaving me alone.

For the next hour or so, I just sat there, answering questions. Some of it was a questionnaire; learning more about me, my schooling, my philosophical views, my religious views (heh; I nearly knocked on the door to ask for more paper to answer that one), political leanings, and the like. It was followed by a test similar to the online intelligence test, but for puzzles. I don’t mean puzzles like ’what reversed shape matches this piece’ or ’what number follows this sequence’, but puzzles like ’There is a ball hanging from a string from the ceiling. You have a button, some string, and a straw; how would you get the ball down?’. Situational puzzles. I figured that they were trying to measure creativity, or determine what kind of ’learner’ I am. I guess I was close.

Then there were some essays, asking me about parts of my life. Earliest memory, favorite vacation place, worst job, et cetera. I write fairly well, so I went into some detail. I had just finished expounding on the last question when the door opened. Gloris popped her head in.

"Hi! How’s it going? Ready to get a bite to eat?"

I sat up and stretched, arms reaching over my head. "I’d say so. I just finished up here."

"I know; come on, we can meet up with some students in the dining hall."

I was getting the papers back together when I paused. "How did you know I was done?"

"Qi’larapantin told me you were getting close to the end. They were observing your aura as you were answering questions."

My WHAT? Okay, I get it, I’m in their place, and they have the right to do as they liked. But I sure would have liked some warning that they were going to do that! And my aura? I don’t even know what that looks like! Talk about invasion of privacy! I grabbed my satchel and my papers and stomped to the door...

...to be intercepted by the matron herself, a piercing, knowing smile on her face. Stopped me dead in my tracks like a deer in headlights.

"Umm..." I said, a paragon of intelligence.

"Ever sift sand through a screen?"

"I...what?" It sounded faintly familiar to me.

“I observed you in contemplation, dear. The questionnaire is merely the axis of the test. Our test is crisis and observation.”

It settled in me, and I grinned. "Okay, I can get that," I said. "But an Alyefani quoting ’Dune’ at me? Surely, that must be a thing unheard of!"

She laughed. “Only as much as someone quoting ‘Lord of the Rings’ to an ‘elf’,” she quipped back, making fingermarks over ‘elf’. “I’m quite impressed that you know the reference.”

"Not going to deny that I’m surprised you know about either of those things," I said to her.

She shrugged. "When our people decided to reopen a doorway to this world and rejoin your people, we had access electronically to a great deal of your media. I found great wisdom in much if your literature. Others were amazed by what you’ve accomplished with music. Others, cinema. Other than being unique forms if art, each in their own right, they do help us understand how to integrate ourselves into your culture."

"Before I leave your island," I said to her solemnly, "I promise to give you a list of notable books worth reading...in my own opinion, of course. I’ll try to stick to the classics, but there are some more modern books that I doubt you’d have heard of that I bet you would appreciate greatly."

Her eyes lit up at that. Not in the same way that Professor Snideass’ did, but with anticipation and glee. Where his flashed with something like lightning, hers seemed to swirl and sparkle.

“So,” she said, taking my papers, “we’ll look over these tonight and compare them with the readings we took of your aura. Have you ever seen your aura before, child?”

I shook my head.

“Most haven’t. It changes depending on your concentration, emotion, exertion…so many things. We’ll get you a…picture, I suppose. In the meantime, I will see you here tomorrow at 10am. Alright?”

“Yes, ma’am. And thank you.”

We bowed to each other, and I left with Gloris smiling ahead of me.

Once we got to the cafeteria - again, it was amazing how much it was like a regular collegiate cafeteria, right down to the hairnets - I asked her, "So what’s your guilty human pleasure? The prof goes for books, how about you?"

She blushed a little, but before she could answer me, someone came over to our table. And I kinda lost my train of thought for a while.

She was gorgeous. I mean, just beautiful. And human! She was tall, taller than me (granted, not saying alot) by a few inches. She was blonde, a warm blonde, not a bleach-your-brains-out blonde, with her hair cut into a bob. She was slim without being emaciated and sickly-looking, feminine without being too ‘girly’, beautiful without being standoffishly intimidating. Her smile was bright, her eyes were warm, and I got a special feeling in my pants.

She was, however, entirely focused on Gloris at the moment. "Gloria! Will we be seeing you tonight? It’s the start of Season Three!"

Gloris’ eyes widened, and she got this big, near-goofy grin. "I’ll be there!" Then she remembered her manners, looked at me, and extended a hand towards me. “Sandy, this is Aaron. Aaron came here for testing."

Sandy focused on me. I kinda lost track of time for a couple seconds, under that look. I think she blushed.

She extended her hand to me. "Hi, I’m Sandra Williamson. Everyone calls me ‘Sandy’.”

"Hi, I’m Aaron. Everyone either calls me ’Aaron’ or ’hey, asshole’," I quipped.

It worked. She giggled as Gloris looked confused. I looked over at her. "Self-deprecating humor. It’s a human thing."

She nodded, clearing only pretending to understand.

"Season three of what?" I asked, turning back to Sandy. Man, she looked better every time I looked at her. I think she could tell I was interested from the drool.

"We got the DVD set of ’Avatar: The Last Airbender’. A group of us get together on weekends and marathon them until everyone’s on the edge of falling asleep."

I looked at her incredulously. "Okay, first of all, ’Avatar’ is awesome. Secondly, I’m kind of stunned that anyone actually studying the elements would still like that show. I mean, you’ve got the reality of it in front of you; why watch the show?"

Sandy took a seat at our table and crossed one leg over the other. She was wearing comfy-looking blue jeans and a colorful top somewhere between a blouse and a T-shirt. I looked around; it didn’t look like she had others waiting for her at another table. Weird; pretty girl like that wasn’t popular?

"First of all, it’s an awesome show, and you don’t really need more reason than that," she said matter-of-factly. Gloris and I nodded in agreement. The show was, in fact, super sweet.

"Secondly, character development? Zuko’s evolution, studded by failings and slips? Aang and Kitara growing up, maturing, through the seasons? And don’t get me started on the awesomeness of Iroh.

“But the things with the elements themselves? Sure, they still apply to us. The martial forms are actually helpful for understanding the perspectives of the forces we’re working with. Believe it or not, we’ve actually got a tai chi teacher here to help relax students and give them new perspective on ’Water’," she said, making air quotes around the last word. “There’s talk about finding masters for the other forms too.”

“Maybe we should,” Gloris grumbled. “Then we could remake that terrible movie…”

"Lemme ask you two something," I said. "Clearly, everyone thinks that the old words, for the elements, are insufficient to label the forces. And I’ve never heard of a ’magic’ user talking about Gravimetric or Electromagnetic forces. So what do you call them, or do you just make ’air quotes’ all the time?" I made air quotes around the words for effect.

They both smiled. "We used the Alyefani words for them-" Gloris began.

And Sandy finished. “But we can’t tell you what they are until you sign up for classes, if you’re accepted. Total super secret and stuff. Inner circle only." She cracked a grin.

Gloris looked upset. "No, it’s..."

Sandy and I broke down laughing at the same time. "We’re kidding each other, Gloria, it’s fine, really," I said. "Cultural reference. Just be glad she didn’t toss on the obligatory -"

"’I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you," Sandy and I said simultaneously, breaking down into laughter again.

Gloris looked horrified. "Who would possibly...you’re sure this is a joke?"

We both nodded. "It’s an allusion to the old days of the cold war, covert intelligence, and the like. Spy stuff," I said.

"Trust me," Sandy said to her. "The next time someone in one of your classes asks a complicated question that you don’t plan to answer yet, say ’I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.’ Say it matter-of-factly. I guarantee; every human in the room will start laughing." Sandy smiled at her. "Once they realize you’re joking."

I looked at Gloris, realizing what Sandy had just said. "Wait, you’re a teacher? Should I have been addressing you differently or something? I thought..."

Sandy smiled, and Gloris held up a hand to calm me. "I am what you would call a ’teacher’s assistant’. I cover some of the basic concepts, assist with demonstrations, guide groups in workshops, and the like. I am not a teacher yet, but I could be in a few decades."

I opened my mouth to ask...but stopped and shook my head. Human or Alyefani, never ask a woman how old she is. It’s bad for your health. Instead, I looked back to Sandy. Didn’t mind doing that one bit.

"So, Sandy, any chance I could join you and yours for Avatar Night? I could stand to recharge my humor with a couple Sokka jokes."

So then, it turns into a big talk about Avatar - cartoons being the guilty pleasure that Gloris was leading up to. My personal favorite character was Toph (metal-bending badass that she was), and Sandy’s was Ty Lee. I was surprised; I figured she would have picked a ’bender’.

"She’s surrounded by benders, but she’s an ’ordinary human’," Sandy explained. "And yet, with training and determination, she becomes a person that can even stop benders from bending. And she’s still innocent! She’s adorable! She’s just so...poofy."

We grinned at each other. Even Gloris joined us when we all went, "Poof!"

The real surprise was Gloris’ favorite, and she defended him passionately.

"Bumi is a genius!" she argued. "He’s over a hundred years old, but he’s still very strong. He’s power in body, yes, but he’s still very wise."

"And eccentric, don’t forget that."

"Well, yes," Gloris said, pouting at me. "But brilliant. He thinks differently. He doesn’t care how others think of him, he just goes off on his own path...and manages to do exactly the right thing anyway. He’s odd, he’s unique, he’s entirely unpredictable, he’s...human!"

Gloris froze, as did Sandy and I. "Bumi represents humans to you?" Sandy asked.

"Well, in a manner of speaking," Gloris said, her hands twisting against each other in embarrassment. "I don’t mean it in a bad way..."

"No, not at all," I said. "He was a king, after all. Freed his country from the Fire Nation single-handedly, member of the White Lotus Society, it’s not an insult. But..." I winced a little bit. "He’s hairy, uncouth, rude, obstinate, and pretty deceptive to Aang."

Gloris hung her head.

I looked at Sandy. She was sober too, looking at me wondering what to say. Noone likes being associated with a caveman, even if the caveman was a genius.

‘This is how some Alyefani consider humans, isn’t it?” I asked.

She nodded, eyes lock at her hands, twisting in her lap.

“And I’m betting Professor Grundlebritches is one of them, isn’t he?”

She nodded again, as Sandy looked confused. “Who?”

“Aaron met Master Tomoriasi po li Ir’kaleniatoris. It…did not go well.”

Sandy looked at me funny. “What happened?”

By the time I told her what went down, she was pale. Which was impressive; looked like she hadn’t seen the sun in years. My kinda lady.

“Oh boy. You’re not just starting out on the wrong foot - the ankle is sprained and a couple toes are broken.”

I nodded at that. “Yeah, I figured that out. I’ve been told that it’ll probably be for the best if I’m not a strong ‘Air’-type.

I looked over at Gloris; she still looked pretty miserable about the comparison that was made. I took a chance, reached out, and took her hand. Her eyes shot up to me in surprise. I didn’t know if I was breaking some kind of Alyefani custom, but I kept going.

“Gloris, please don’t worry. Trust me; I am well aware of the fallibility of humans. We’ve shown ourselves time and time again all of the bad things we’re capable of. That’s one reason humans are so comfortable with self-deprecating humor.”

She looked over at Sandy, who was nodding.

I squeezed her hand. “Yes, it’s a little disconcerting to see that we were right; someone with an outside frame of reference can see those flaws that we’d rather ignore. But you give us an opportunity to make more of ourselves and a standard to live up to. Your people are doing a great good for us. For all humans.”

She sniffed a little bit. “You think so?”

I nodded in cadence with Sandy. I grinned. “Hell, we need you to keep us humble.”

She looked surprised for an instant, but with Penny’s giggle, she broke into a smile. Within seconds, all three of us were laughing.

“Besides,” Sandy said, “it’s not like you compared us to Ozai. Or Azula. Or Momo.”

That joke, Gloris got right off the bat.

I woke up the next day rip-rarin’ and ready to go. It was such a great night; a bunch of us were watching Avatar in a community room. There were snacks, there were jokes, there were magic tricks…one guy was obsessed with figuring out the trick to getting three marbles to spin around between his hands the way they would for Aang. You know the saying, ‘It’s all fun and games until someone puts an eye out…and then it’s just hilarious’? Well, when he lost control over the marbles and had them ricocheting off the walls…well, once we were sure nothing was broken, we laughed our asses off, even the guy that did it.

Good times were had by all.

I woke up early - I always wake up early; it takes forever for hair this long to dry. While the bath the night before was of truly memorable depth and leisure, I still needed to wash my hair before the new day. I was out the door and on my way to the offices well in advance of the required time.

When I got there, Magister Smarmybritches was there. His eyes narrowed as I crossed the threshold. Trying to make the best of a bad situation (after all, I figured; what if I was a strong Air-type?), I put my hands together and bowed to him, not saying anything.

He smirked, snorted - no lie! He snorted at me! - and went back to his work, pointedly dismissing me. I didn’t even have time to fume at him before Mage Qi’larapantin walked in.

“Ah, Aaron, excellent. You’re right on time.” As we shook hands, we each went to the books that we were carrying for mutual gifts. She got to hers first.

“This is a…a picture, you could say…of what you looked like when you were focused on one of the situational questions during the questionnaire yesterday,” she said, extending the photo out to me. I accepted it as I passed her a piece of paper, studying it as best I could.

I could see what she meant when she said that it wasn’t exactly a picture. While it was clearly of me, it seemed to be more of a drawing than a photograph…but the details were as crisp and clean as any photograph I’ve had taken. And it was overlaid with a series of swirls and colors that reminded me of…well, the magnetic fields around the earth. They stood out in four different colors, each finding its own path around and into me.

I would need alot more time before I could figure out what it entailed. I looked back to Qi’larapantin to thank her, but her eyes were greedily moving through the list I gave her.

“Read it…not yet…not yet….often recommended, that one must be good…not yet…” Her eyes focused on a title and she frowned a little bit. “What is ‘One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich’ about?”

“A man in a Russian prison, what they called a ‘gulag’, and the story of a single day in his life. Not to give away spoilers, but it’s actually of a good day…for him, at least.” I thought back to Shukhov’s trials, and my own. “One of my personal favorites.”

She folded the list carefully and tucked it into the bag I noticed hanging off of her shoulder. “I will read that one next. So, are you ready for the rest of the test?”

I nodded, glancing subtly (or so I thought) around the room. “Sure am. Will it be in that side room again today?”

She smirked at the magister who was pointedly ignoring us. “No, I think we can find somewhere more comfortable for this part. When we were overflowing with new applicants, we would sometimes do it here…but I think you would enjoy our gardens. Let’s do this there.” She turned on a heel and lead the way out. I followed her without looking back. I didn’t even slam the door behind me.

Now, I’ve been in gardens before. Buffalo has a very nice botanical gardens, in fact; I’d been there with my family when I was little. But lemme tell ya - ain’t no botanical gardens got nuthin’ on this place.

What they call a garden, we would call Eden. It was a smallish park between the main scholastic building and the one mirrored behind it. The paths were made of rounded pebbles…yes, of marble, but gray this time…with marble bricks edging it. The grasses were greener than anywhere I’d ever seen before. The trees were all fruit-bearing: apples, pears, figs, and oranges all growing together, despite the radical differences in climate that those trees were used to. I reached out and took a fig…and I don’t think I could ever eat them again, ‘cause that was so delicious, nothing else could compare to it.

I can’t say that at ‘random’ spots, there were flowers, because that implies that it was chaotic. It wasn’t so. Everything was as artfully arranged as a painting, but with an organization style that was beyond me, like a Zen rock garden. The flowers were huge, and fragrant, and open, and the bees stuck to the flowers ‘cause thank God for that, or I’d never have been able to make it through there. So scared of bees. I mean, really. But yeah, moving on.

There were various areas clearly made for relaxing, larger lawn-sized areas of grass with a single tree in the middle providing shade. Professor Qi’larapantin (I only found out later that ‘professor’ was a sufficient term of address for her, so it works) picked a spot, sat down, and motioned where she wanted me to sit.

“You seem like a fairly intelligent person to me, Aaron, and the tests agree,” she began, placing her bag in her lap as I sat down. “Your mentality scores were very good, your communication skills are as well, and I realize that the picture of your aura might have looked uninformative to you, but it gave us some great insight into your thought processes.

“So when I tell you that this test of your magical abilities is going to seem…underwhelming, I don’t think you’re going to be too disappointed, will you?”

I grinned. “No, ma’am. I honestly don’t know if I’ll be able to do anything anyway.”

She smiled. She reached into bag and pulled out…

…A pickle jar.

No, seriously, it was a pickle jar. It was a nearly gallon-sized pickle jar, the labels stripped off, turned upside-down, with a needle sticking up from the lid on the bottom, and a paper triangle balanced on the point.

And you know what? Despite what she just told me, I was still disappointed.

I guess it showed, because she laughed. “Yes, that would be the look that everyone gets when they see the device for the first time. Here, let me show you something.”

She placed it on the ground between us. The paper pyramid wobbled, but stayed up on its needle. She looked at me to make sure I was paying attention, and then blew on the pyramid.

The glass stopped her breath, obviously. The pyramid didn’t do anything.

She looked back to me. “It’s fairly easy to make the paper spin around on its point, if you focus your energies right. So, we’re going to…meditate…and focus, and channel your energies. And hopefully, you will be able to do…this.”

She looked at the pyramid and didn’t even bother with faking a breath; the pyramid just started spinning on its own with no delay. She relaxed her look slightly, and it stopped.

I looked at the jar. “You think that I can do that?”

She shrugged. “It certainly couldn’t hurt to try, could it?”

I shook my head, shifted my weight until I was sitting as comfortably as possible, and took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s do this, then.”

Over the next five minutes, she talked to me. Softly, quietly, calmly. I couldn’t tell you exactly what she said, even with my memory; her words were faded, relaxed, almost monotonous. It was very relaxing. The next thing that poked through the haze was a comment on the elements - you know the ones I mean.

“The winds, swirling, blowing in all direction, ceaseless, no beginning and no ending, circular, moving in every dimension; cycling up and dropping moisture, falling down to pick up more, the currents of air that circle the world, imagine it, the uninterrupted flow; move yourself into it, move with it, channel it within yourself, grab hold of the reins and push…”

And with that last word, I focused my will on where she ‘pointed’ me, my half-drooped eyes focused on the paper pyramid inside the bottle.

The paper pyramid wiggled slightly, then began to spin. Somewhat slowly, then a little faster, then slowly again, sputtering.

Her words brought me back. She left off of talk of the wind, and back to centering me, getting me in touch with myself. Again, I can’t remember the words; it wasn’t a spell, they don’t do that, but it felt either like magic or the best hypnotism money could buy.

A couple minutes later, her words solidified for me again. “The power of the sun, of heat, waves of fire; heating the air, lifting it up; warming the world, the breath of life, of action, of movement, moving, a force you can feel on your face with your eyes closed, blind direction, pressure against your skin, feel that pressure, harness it and push…”

And with that, I could feel myself moving into another channel, an entirely different feel than Air had, like tongues of fire lifting on their own and pushing everything above them away. I took that pressure and applied it in front of me…

And again, the paper pyramid wobbled a bit, then began to spin. Soon enough, her words found me again. The pyramid stopped, and I fell within.

I can see the pattern of it now, but at the time, in the middle of it, I had no conscious thought to recognize the pattern of it. The words came up: “The solidity of earth, the stability of the planet, the unification of the solar system, of the galaxy, it binds together, but it’s all spinning about from the force of it, each with its own decision to move, but each affecting everyone else around it, planets spinning about the sun, the sun affected by the planets, everything a tiny part of that pull…”

And with those words, I applied that force to one side of the pyramid, with my mind, with my heart, my willpower. And again, the pyramid began to move. Faster this time, with more force. And even as her words pulled me back, I could see the pyramid only reluctantly slowing before I lost myself again.

When I came back the last time, it was to a new set of words: “Water flowing, rivers and streams, cascading, rolling, bending their own path through the earth, forcing their will upon it, battering the rocks ’til they’re smooth, chipping the seafloor into sand, from its constant moving, the motion of the tides, the waters of the world affected by that pull…”

And what do you know; I saw the pyramid, and like Bruce Lee said, I became like water. I reached out and set my will on that spin-amid, and set it moving.

After that, her words grew less…calming, less vision inducing. She brought me back to my ‘center’, then relaxed her words until I…well, found my consciousness again. When I ‘came to’, I looked at the pyramid. It was stopped again. I remembered making it move with just my willpower, and smiled.

That smile faded pretty quickly when I looked up into her pensive frown, though.

“What is it,” I asked. “Did I do badly? Was is supposed to spin faster or something?”

“Oh, no, not at all,” she said, still pensive and frowning. “You did very well. Very well, indeed. Concerningly well.”

“I…don’t think I know what that means,” I admitted sheepishly, not wanting to anger the person that quickened magic in me for the first time. I was holding onto the feelings that I had had of making the pyramid move, but I didn’t want to investigate them too deeply yet, for fear that I might lose them.

“It means that you are a bit more talented than anyone here had expected to find today,” she said, that pensive tone still in her voice. I swear, if she were human, I think she’d have been chewing on her fingernails.

She shook herself out of her contemplations. “This part of the test is done for now. If you don’t mind, I’d like for you to go back to your room for a bit. I want to have the chance to introduce you to some others, and their schedules are somewhat…complicated. It will be difficult to get them all together at once, so staying in your room for now will be a great help to me. Would you mind this?”

I frowned. “Well, no, lady, but I was hoping to get a bite to eat…” I figured that Gloris and Sandy might have been in classes - it might have been the weekend, but that’s off a human calendar; who’s to say that they followed our schedule? They indicated that they were going to be busy until about noon or so. After that, we were going to meet up and finish the third season of Avatar.

Qi’larapantin winced. “And there, we see my need to learn to take other people’s needs into account more. I apologize, Aaron; you certainly can get something to eat.” She looked up, seeming to gauge the time from the sun. “In fact, let’s go now.”

Hrmm. I hadn’t expected that she would want to go with me, but I had nothing against it. “Sure, let’s.” I levered myself up from the grass to find that she was already standing. She managed to push up from her sitting position straight to a standing one, all in one fluid, graceful move.

I picked up the jar and handed it to her. She took it, gave it something that even I would call an ‘odd look’ and put it back in her bag.

The trip to the cafeteria she filled with a running commentary on the various books she’s read since she learned English and human culture. We had a very thorough discussion of ‘Atlas Shrugged’, since she’d already read it, while we got breakfast, sat in the cafeteria, and ate together.

As she smoothly segued into her observations in another book, I noticed one…’negative’ effect of sitting with her: none of the other students were sitting near us. In fact, those that I could see looked surprised to see her chatting away with a student - or someone that looked like one, I suppose - in the student cafeteria. I wondered if it was intentional, but kept my thoughts to myself as we moved on to The Old Man And The Sea.

Upon leaving the cafeteria, she pressed various foods upon me to take back to the room with me, in case I was hungered while she organized the people that she wanted to meet up with me. I shrugged and took a few things at her insistence. I doubted that I would eat it all - trying to watch my intake and such - but her pressing was lending strength to the niggling worry that something was wrong in Denmark.

Soon after, we were back at my room. The door opened at my touch, and I invited her in. She declined softly, indicating the work that was before her.

“Again,” she sad, “I would appreciate it if you would remain here until I contact you. Knowing where you are will make organizing the meeting ever so much easier.”

Ever so much easier? OK, now I knew that something was wrong.

Still, I resolved to let it pass. I had some faith that she would let me know what was going on in time. For the time being, I could rest knowing that I really did have some control over magic, as disappointingly small as it seemed to be, and wait for her to make her plans.

“I look forward to hearing from you soon,” I said with formality.

She focused on me with that phrase; she could tell, no doubt, that I wasn’t happy with being left in the dark, but she jus pursed her lips together.

“Thank you for your faith, Aaron,” she said. “I will be in contact soon. You have my word.”

“And you have given me no reason whatsoever to doubt you, Professor. If I have your word, then you have my faith.”

She smiled at that, broadly smiled, warmly smiled. It changed her whole demeanor from surprised and confused and plotting and concerned to welcoming and positive and optimistic. I bowed to her and closed the door. I saw some of the concern cross her face again as I watched her through the spyhole in the door, but she was nodding now, as if things were clicking into place.

Well, I decided that whatever would be, would be, laid down on the bed, pulled out a book, and started to read. ‘Cause why not, right?

I put my cell phone on its charger, attached to the outlet at the desk, and laid back to read. The way my work schedule was, I hadn’t had the time to relax and just read in a long time.

It was no more than an hour or two later that there was a knock on my door. I looked through the spyhole, expecting to see the professor again, but to my - well, glee - it was Sandy. And she was looking right at the spyhole as if she knew that I was looking out at her.

I opened the door to see that beautiful smile broaden. She was wearing jeans, a light green blouse with some intricate weavery around the elaborate neckline, and something like a combination scarf/half-sweater.

She beat me to the punch. "Hi!" She said cheerfully. She showed her hands, which she had been hiding behind her back. She was holding a gallon of apple cider. "Care for some company? I don’t have classes until the period before dinner, so I’ve got some time. Want to hang out?"

Yes. Yes. Yup. Yes-yes. Yes. Uh-huh. Yes Indeed. YES.

"Sure, if you like," I said smoothly. Yeah, that didn’t work, her smile got brighter.

As she stepped past me, she leaned over a little bit and planted a kiss on my cheek. Gotta tell ya, nearly died of awesome right there.

So, of course, her first question was about my test. "How did it go? Did any of them move for you?"

I frowned. "Any of them? There was just the one jar..."

She waved her hands as if the motion would clear the air. "No, no, I mean, those four times that the tester was helping you focus, did it move any of those times?"

"Yeah, each time."

She looked impressed. "Wow, that’s something," she said. "It moved - spun like a top - for me on ’Fire’, and moved a little for ’Water’ and ’Earth’, but it didn’t move at all for me on ’Air’. I guess this means you’re going to get more classes than me!"

I smiled, letting her make the assumption. “Well, none of them really spun fast for me, like it sounds like Fire did for you. So we’ll see. But what was classes like, anyway?" I asked. "I mean, I doubt they have textbooks for the study of magic - and even if they did, I doubt that they’d be in English."

She contemplated. "It changes, depending. It’s very ’Montessori’; very little book learning, very applied and hands-on...but it’s also alot of meditation, open discussion, ’labs’, and the like. Like, the one I have later today is a general class, to enhance our understanding and connection to our ’elements’, as it were. Guided meditation, kind of. So that we can evoke them on ’command’, when we’re not in that highly receptive state that the tester had you in. Who was your evaluator?"

"The head of the Water studies," I said, not wanting to horribly mispronounce her name, even when she wasn’t there. "Nice lady."

Sandy kinda frowned a little bit. "Wow, she’s nice. She must like you if she took care of your testing personally."

I shrugged. "She’s a reader, so we connected on that. Besides, I think she might have still been...well, I dunno if she was ’feeling bad’ about how Professor Assgoblin was treating me, or if she just wanted to show him up by handling my test herself."

Once she figured out who I was talking about for the latter name, her eyes bulged, and she broke down into a fit of giggles. Ye gods, I could watch that woman laugh all day long. It...heals the heart. No lie.

"Oh, God," she said, trying to catch her breath. "I don’t have alot of classes with him since it’s not a focal for me, but I swear, the next time I’m stuck in a class with him, I’m going to think that, and I’m gonna disturb the whole class. You watch. It’ll happen."

I grinned, glad that I could make this beautiful creature laugh.

So, we talked, and kept talking, for the next hour or so. And it was great, just hanging out, flirting just a tiny bit, enjoying each other’s company, until another knock came from the door.

"Ah," I said, "maybe that’ Professor...Qi’kara...ummm..."

Sandy grinned. "Qi’larapantin", she said.

"Yeah," I said, "that." I went to the door and looked out the spyhole again.

But no, it wasn’t’ the professor this time either. I opened the door again and welcomed Gloris inside.

We exchanged hugs - you know, like ya do - and sat down on the bed to share cider.

"So how was your testing today?" Gloris asked.

Before I could answer, Sandy beat me to it. "She activated on all four ’elements’. Amazing, huh?"

Gloris’ reaction was a bit stronger than Penny’s was. She froze, her eyes wide, looking at me. "Truly?"

I nodded. "They were pretty slow, I guess, but it moved every time we shifted focus."

Gloris sat back, her eyes focused into the distance. "Wow," she said. "I’ve never met a natural tetra before."

Sandy and I both looked confused at that - which was nice, you know; I didn’t want to feel alone in that conversation. "What’s a tetra?” we both said.

She looked between the two of us. "I dunno how much of this I am allowed to say..."

"Why wouldn’t you be allowed to say something?" I asked, surprised and concerned.

"It’s not that I can’t, it’s that we usually just don’t..." Obviously, she saw the shadows growing on my face, so she shrugged off her reticence and started explaining.

"You two know what quarks are, right?"

I nodded, and I saw that Sandy was too. For those military types reading this report in later years that were more focused on bombs than the building blocks of reality, here’s a quick explanation. You know how atoms make up everything? Well, quarks make up atoms. The basic building block of the things that are, themselves, the basic building blocks.

"If someone has a...’focus’ in one element, it’s fairly rare. They’ll be strong in it, but not really able to manage the other forces. A matched pair is much more common: affinity to ’Earth’ and ’Air’, or to ’Water’ and ’Fire’. Sometimes, it’ll be for two that aren’t opposites, but that’s also rare. Now, some people are what we call ’quarked’...or, at least, the word in our tongue for what we call them is ’quarks’. That’s for people like Sandy, those that have an affinity for three forces, because quarks form up into groups of three to make up protons and neutrons and such.

"Your people have discovered that, in some tests, that it’s possible to group four quarks together into a particle. It’s referred to with the prefix ’tetra’, which I am told means ’four’ in one of your ancient tongues. That tongue was used before we had moved our realm to the other dimension, so we’ve been using it for that time as well."

"So a tetra is pretty rare?" I asked. To my surprise, she shook her head.

"A natural tetra is incredibly rare. Someone that’s quarked could, in theory, though practice, meditation, and study, become a tetra, but they’ll always be a bit weaker in that element. Some go for it anyway, but many just choose to focus on their own strengths. The difference between a natural tetra and a quark that becomes one is the difference between finding one in nature and creating one in a lab."

I nodded. "Alright, analogy understood. Does this have anything to do with the meeting that the professor wanted me to do today?"

Gloris’ face reflected confusion. "Meeting?"

"Yeah, she sent me back here and told me that she wanted to introduce me to a bunch of people. She didn’t say why."

Well. If I thought that Gloris was surprised before, we was friggin’ shocked now.

"But...already? That doesn’t make any...how fast was it spin..."

"Hey, Gloris," Sandy said soothingly. "Calm down. It’s still Aaron, even if..."

She shook off Sandy’s hand, getting more and more frantic now. "I don’t know what I can...what I’m supposed to...if I should have..." With that, she broke towards the door, slammed the bolt, and tossed open the door...

And nearly slammed into Professor Qi’larapantin, her hand raised to knock.

Poor Gloris didn’t look like a deer in the headlights. She looked like a mouse in front of an oncoming train.

"Professor, I didn’t know...I mean he...or, she..." She broke off and started speaking a long rant of the Alyefani tongue that I still can’t match to this day.

"They have problems with our pronouns," Sandy whispered to me as Gloris unloaded. "It’s like people from the Phillipines; they keep mixing up ’he’ and ’she’, ’him’ and ’her’, and whatnot. It’s because -"

"- they have those short pronames that identify personally without gender, right," I said, watching Gloris, almost on the edge of tears, still pouring out a breathless stream to the Professor, who...well, bore a look of interest in her student’s hysteria.

In a minute or two, she raised her hand, and Gloris’ words cut off instantly. "Enough. It is well," she said, turning her gaze to me. "Aaron? I’ve assembled some people for you to meet. Would you care to join me?"

Okay, I was a little freaked out. One of my first friends on the island was on the verge of tears just for trying to explain something to me? Who the hell was going to be at this meeting that had Gloris so scared?

"I dunno, ma’am; I’m thinking I might want to sit this one out," I said, leaning back, putting every bit of body language I could into my reticence.

Professor Qi’larapantin looked...well, ticked off. For the first time I’d seen her, she seemed genuinely displeased at me. She began to speak, but stopped when Gloris beat her to it.

"No, Aaron, you should, you really should. Please trust me, trust the Matron. She would never steer you wrong, I promise. I just didn’t want to...sometimes, when it’s too early..." She sat in a chair near the door, put her head in her hands, and just...collapsed.

That broke my resolve, and it looked to break the Professor’s as well. She put her hand on the girl’ shoulder. "Gloris," she said softly.

When she looked up at her teacher, Professor Qi’larapantin smiled lightly. "It is no harm to help your friend."

Gloris smiled up at her weakly, her shoulders sagging in relief.

The professor’s eyes flicked over to Sandy. "Miss Bernanke, Aaron and I have something of an appointment. Would you mind staying with Gloris for a bit to ease her mind? I give you my word, this is not anything bad."

Sandy nodded. I squeezed her shoulder in support, then got up and walked over to the professor. I leaned over and put a kiss on the top of Gloris’ head. When she looked up at me, I smiled. "Hey, don’t worry. If I did that with all four forces, that makes me the Avatar, right?"

She laughed at that, almost maniacally, and tried to smile at me. I patted her shoulder.

"As long as Appa and I don’t run into any icebergs on the way back here, I’ll see you for dinner, right?"

She nodded again, wiping away the tears at the edges of her eyes.

I nodded back at her, glanced back to Sandy with a knowing look, and followed the professor outside.

The door closed behind us, and we started walking in silence. After a minute or so, I said, not looking at Qi’larapantin, "I really hope you’ve got an explanation for what just happened in there, ’cause it is seriously impacting my faith in your people."

She paused, slowing down, eventually stopping completely. She pursed her lips, obviously choosing the right words. I said nothing else; I just waited.

"I believe it is said by your people that ’information is power’. This is so?"

"It is."

"On that, your people and mine agree. It is also said that ’power corrupts’, yes?"

"It can."

"Logically, it can be stated, then, that ’information corrupts’."

I frowned and said nothing.

"I have also seen it in my readings that many of you believe that if a child is old enough to ask a question, that they are old enough to hear the answer."

"I’ve heard that as well."

"On that, your people and mine disagree. Strongly disagree. Vehemently disagree. Complicated questions lead to answers that lead to more complicated questions and potentially dangerous answers. It’s far too easy for a child to hear an obscure point about magic, run home to try it himself, and be utterly unaware of the securities and protections that we use to shelter ourselves from primal forces involved. The child can be hurt, or blinded to magic, or even killed. We have been aware of this for a very long time.

"Over the years, we have...compartmentalized some aspects of our teachings. To learn certain things, you must reach a certain level, prove that you are worthy of it. To teach those things, you must reach even higher accolades. In time, that philosophy has affected other parts of our society as well. For the most part, it is a good thing - those who need the information have it, and those who could do harm with it do not. In time, that kind of information segmentation meant that there were two people responsible for any tragedy: the one that used the information that they should not have had, and the one that gave the information to them before they were ready."

I nodded slowly, understanding her point.

"These were the origins of the...hrmm, the ’standing order’, if you will. Much of that has been compromised with our reintroduction to this world - or, should I say, the reintegration of humans into our society, and that on a level unprecedented. So there are two ways to approach you and yours: as part of us, our brothers and sisters and friends, and therefore requiring the same kind of information safety that we have upheld for centuries; or as outsiders that we are teaching, therefore requiring even more information safety than we maintain between ourselves. We’re still trying to understand that delicate balance."

"That would explain the rather strong opinion of your Air-bending master," I said wryly. "To him, we’re just interlopers trying to steal your precious hoards of information,"

Qi’larapantin sort of nodded. "That’s part of it. But he’s also bound up in that various classes and social levels of our society. He thinks that only the elite, of the highest families should be mages. The fact that any child born, even to the humblest gardeners, could become a mage and attain heights as lofty as his...the idea offends him."

I grinned. "So we, the hairy apes that we are, are probably no better than monkeys tossing poo through the zoo bars to him. Not even worthy of something that a gardener’s child is only barely acceptable for."

She grinned. "And one monkey walked into the room yesterday, stood up, and in polite terms told him that he was wrong, that information was free, that curiosity was inherently good, and used a term to describe him that was several levels underneath his desserts."

I winced. "I begin to see the trouble there."

"I thought you might. You’re a very smart monkey."

My wince turned to a smirk. "So, tell me about this meeting we’re heading to."

She sighed.

"C’mon," I said, "I’m on my way to it. You can hardly say that I’m not in a position where I need information about it yet."

"I know." She sighed again and rubbed her temple. "I can’t tell you everything. But I can tell you what is important. Is that sufficient?"

I really wanted to respond with a snarky quip, like ’I suppose that will have to do’, but she was obviously under some stress. So, I said, "You’re a teacher. I can trust you to give your student the information needed in a timely manner."

She smiled at me. "Thank you." She turned her focus to our path, and said, "Mages are often incomplete. We have strengths in proportion to our weaknesses. We rely on cooperation to minimize those weaknesses; your strengths buttressing me when I fail and vice versa.”

I nodded.

"But between humans and Alyefani, we can attain a special level of parity, to a degree that is not really attainable with members of our own race. Call it differences in mindset or perspective, but a human-Alyefani pair of moderate Talent could, with cleverness, easily ‘defeat’ a much more powerful Alyefani pair. Think of the power in the proton. It is positively charged, it is balanced against the electron on its own. But unless it is paired with a neutron, it cannot form even the most basic forms of matter. "

“Alright."

She bit her lip and powered on. "Not everyone knows this, but before we left this plane, we were able to work magic with humans, in parity. In fact, some humans left with us when we moved to the other plane. In the fullness of time, they died, and our ability to pair on that level died with them. While we Alyefani are capable of extremely powerful magic, it is not the same as what we can accomplish in a paired set."

"’Nucleated’, you might say," I said.

She frowned, looking at me, translating my word. "That is...not a bad way to express it," she admitted in a bit.

"So what you’re telling me is that we’re going to see who might get along with me. Why is that a big deal?"

She winced. "I can’t divulge all of that yet. Suffice it to say that this kind of...’relationship’...with our people is usually reserved for when you have graduated to a certain degree of magical skill. I had no thought of this kind of parity with someone beneath an acolyte level. But with your potential..."

"As a...tetra, you call it?"

She visibly gritted her teeth - which frightened me - before calming herself. "Yes," she said, unballing the fists she just made, "a tetra. Again, not the kind of thing I would have mentioned to you until you were more trained, but I suppose that there’s no harm in being familiar with the term. Anyway, with your potential, I thought that your studies would be assisted by achieving parity with someone sooner."

"How many tetras do you currently have among your people?"

"Of those who achieved the rank through study, five," she said, "myself included." She grinned. "And including your friend, the Air master."

I winced.

"Of those who were admitted to studies with those abilities in place already, what you might call a ’natural’ tetra, only three...in our entire history. None currently live."

My eyes bulged a little bit at the thought. Only three others in a thousand years...

Wait. She just said that it was thought their history...which was largely in the other plane. But what about...

"Of those who demonstrated those abilities, without study, from your people, there has only been one." She pointed at me. "You."

I blanched. "Are you sure I did it right, then? Maybe I accidentally cheated or something."

She shook her head. "That test is just the fulcrum of the experiment, the pivot point. I saw the energies rising in you, each band of force in its own ’flavor’, at each time. No, you are truly a...tetra."

By this time, we had reached one of the ’campus’ structures, an inset, Roman style theater. That word seemed to carry through the theater...

...reaching the ears of the three dozen elves that suddenly turned to look at the two of us that just arrived.

No, let’s be honest. They were all staring straight at me, trying to see what a natural human tetra would look like.

What did I look like? Well, what do you look like when you’re frozen in panic?

I did the only thing I could think of: I put my hands together and bowed to them en masse, a little deeper than normal.

For the most part, that was the right answer. The majority of the people in the...well, mini-colosseum...bowed back to me with the same inclination. Some of them responded like their brethren, bowing back, but shallowly. And some few, very few, didn’t bow at all, but turned away to talk to those nearby them.

I looked at Qi’larapantin, who had clearly caught the delays and refusals, and was not happy. "Well," I said, loudly enough for them to hear, ”information is power, as you said. At least their lack of subtlety helps us know how the playing field is set."

The disapproving look changed to a considering one as she turned to me. A few faces below had predictably paled. ”Yes," she admitted. "You’re not wrong at all on that. An interesting observation."

I smiled at her. "Shall we descend into the pit of friends and serpents, milady?"

She grinned at me, gave a little bow, and preceded me down the stairs.

Several Alyefani were clumped around the base of the stairs. Most simply took respectful steps back to allow us entry among them, but a few non-subtle types used the opportunity to shift away from us.

She introduced me to several of them, mostly the enthusiastic ones that were looking forward to meeting me, while the others stood around and mingled.

After a few minutes, she looked broadly around and frowned. She addressed the very friendly Alyefani she had just introduced me to. "Raneshi, where is..."

At that moment, another Alyefani appeared at the top of the stairs we had descended a few minutes before. She looked at the entirety of the group disinterestedly, primly, with a supreme holier-than-thou look. She rattled out a long string of their speech as she came down the stairs. Raneshi leaned in close to me and whispered in translation, “‘Alright, I’m here, teacher, this had better be good, I’ve got alot of work to do for the Queen, and time is short. Where’s this miracle you wanted to show us?’”

"Thank you," I whispered to Raneshi, as I straightened up and faced the new entry.

And just like that, kismet.

Not in the romantic sense, mind you. But I was looking at a person that I suddenly knew that I understood as well as I understood myself. Not that our thought processes were the same, or that we bore anything in common necessarily, but I found that I could read her slightest gesture like I was reading a book.

Sure, she was gorgeous, but what elf wasn’t? I was starting to become inured to it. Unlike other sylph-like elves, though, she actually had some strength to her - strength of character, strength of limb, strength of will. Most other elves were quiet in their strength - the idea that ’still waters run deep’ would certainly fit the elves. But not this one. She was clearly noone to mess around with. Her long hair was blonde, with some long strands of it bound up in braids around her ears, emphasizing the points. Rather than the flowing silks that many of the elves wore, she was in real clothes: a tunic, vest, leather pants, tall boots, and a baldric with an actual sword hanging off of it. It was the first real weapon I’d seen in the hands of an elf. There was a set of matched daggers on her belt as well, and unless I missed my guess, the long hair ornament at the back of her head probably doubled as a throwing spike.

So yeah, it’s safe to say that I probably would have liked her alot, right out the gate, if it wasn’t for what came out of her mouth next.

"That thing?" She screeched in English. "That is your newest tetra? Matron, if before I did not think you foolish, I do now. The thinking that a human could learn magic is of a bad flavor, but the notion of one as a tetra makes me wish to throw over!"

I smiled at the mistakes she was making with English. I mean, even in spite of malice like that, I couldn’t get mad. She was adorable in her temper tantrum.

Unfortunately, she noticed my smile. "What, you lake slime, why do you grin? I have a half of a brain to jog you out of this place on your lobe."

My smile got broader, and she got angrier. She put a hand on the hilt of her sword. "The last hour that I allowed someone to laugh at me, they walked away with half a face."

I walked forward slowly, ticking off on my fingers. "Not ’of a bad flavor’; you mean ’distasteful’. Not ’throw over’, you mean ’throw up’. Not ’lake slime’, but ’pond scum’. Not ’half of a brain’ - accurate as it might be,” I said, drawing gasps from those elves around me, “- but ’half a mind’. Not ’on your lobe’, but ’on your ear’. Not ’the last hour’, but ’the last time’, and finally -"

By this time I was standing right in front of her, nose to nose. I growled, "If the only way you think you can beat an unarmed human is with a sword, you’re useless. I can beat you -" I tapped my forehead. "- with this."

"I do not believe you," she smirked.

"Your loss," I said, as I headbutted her.

Yeah, I know it was completely transparent. And if she were paying attention to me the way that I had her number, it probably wouldn’t have worked. But this did work, and big time. I dipped my head down, bending at the waist quickly, bringing the crown of my head, the hardest part of my skull, right into the bridge of her nose. Considering the reaction from those around me, the sound carried to every side of the colosseum. She stumbled back, hands clasping her nose, eyes shut in pain. I quickly stepped forward, planted one foot on her stomach, and shoved.

As she collapsed onto her butt, she looked up at me to find what my other hand had done: namely, taking her sword. I leveled it at her, my face sober, not giving any sign about how my forehead was throbbing.

"If you judge everyone you meet based on a few seconds of observation, then you are not worthy of this blade."

Her eyes blazed at that, through the pain, but she didn’t try to get up with the point of her own sword in her face.

I reversed the grip in my hand so that the blade was pointing down, raised the pommel, and slammed it into the marble at our feet. I kneeled on the way down, using all of the power of my body, through my shoulder, parked on top of the hilt. I focused all of my intent on forcing the blade into the stone, locking it into place, willing it to stay whole. I wasn’t sure which would break, the blade or the marble, but fortunately, the blade stayed true. I felt an odd vibration through the blade as I did so, pushing it deeper and deeper, the point diving a foot down before stopping.

I let go, never letting her go with my eyes. I turned from her to face Professor Qi’larapantin, who was absolutely pale with shock.

"Matron," I said respectfully, "I believe this vacation is over. It is time for me to return home." In truth, I was supposed to leave the next day, but there was no getting past this. I didn’t want anything to do with these people anymore - as nice as most of them were, they had some seriously bad apples with far too much power and far too little regard for my people.

Qi’larapantin locked eyes with me and slowly nodded. "Alright," she simply said. "Did you feel any connection with...anyone you...met today?"

I smiled. "Yeah, that one," I said, turning to She-Bitch-In-Slacks, who was trying to pull her sword out from the stone while blood ran down her nose. "But life’s a bitch, huh?"

I turned and started walking up the stairs. I could hear the professor following me.

"I understand. Take care of your affairs, put everything in order. Hopefully, we will have this whole thing ironed out when you return for classes."

I winced. "Professor, I think you might be misunderstanding something."

"What’s that?"

I stopped at the top of the stairs, in full sight and hearing of those in the group below. "Regardless of my aptitude here, I’ve had no intention of joining your school. This was a vacation for me. No obligation, as it is said, and was clearly stated to me on your website. In spite of the majority, the polite and genteel individuals such as yourself, due to the casual rudeness of those that I’ve met here, I cannot think of a reason why I would wish to come back. I am returning home, and I am staying there."

Absolutely and utter silence from the professor, her mouth open like a fish. Absolute silence from everyone below...except for the grunts of the entitled bitch still trying to pull her sword out of the marble.

And I turned and left.

And I went home, and I stayed there.