«I swear to you,» Gavron exclaimed, placing a hand dramatically over his heart, «as true as Llarya lives—may she be glorified and exalted—Mr. Ekosion is the only teacher who’s ever made me truly fear for my life! I mean it! Terrified!» His arms flailed wide as if conjuring the image of the fearsome instructor himself. «Good Goddess, the man looms—he doesn’t just enter a room, he descends upon it! It’s like… like he has this personal vendetta against my existence. I swear, every time he looks at me, I feel like I’ve committed some great cosmic sin.»
His twin sister Llana, walking just ahead of him, cast a long-suffering look over her shoulder and exhaled loudly through her nose. «Come on, Gavron,» she said. «You’re acting like you’re the tragic hero of some epic. He doesn’t hate you. He’s just strict. And you keep poking the bear.»
Gavron stumbled forward with exaggerated offense, his eyes wide in disbelief. «Poking the—?! I was merely existing! Breathing!...»
«You mocked his handwriting on the chalkboard,» Llana snapped. «In front of the whole class.»
«I said it was elegantly illegible! That’s a compliment!»
«Just do your damn homework next time and maybe he won’t single you out…»
He pressed a hand to his forehead like a doomed poet. «But I did study! Well… some. Just enough to grasp the essence of the topic. And I got it! I understood it!»
A sharp voice cut through the crisp morning air like a thrown dagger. «Then why couldn’t you remember that basic motion law when he asked it to you?» Toria’s dark brows were furrowed, her voice thick with irritation. She was walking arm-in-arm with Aeryth, her scarf wrapped tight around her neck, eyes sharp despite the hour.
Gavron let out a strangled noise, flinging his arms skyward. «I knew the formula! Space equals speed times time, plus initial distance! I had it right in my brain. It’s just… when he called on me, I completely froze! I told you, he terrifies me. I fear no man, but Mr. Ekosion—by Llarya, he is no man... He’s a walking judgment.»
Toria groaned and rubbed her forehead. «And now, because of your little brain freeze, we’ve got four pages of extra exercises due next week. Four. Pages.»
Gavron shrank, looking genuinely regretful. «I didn’t mean to doom us all…»
Aeryth, who had until now remained quiet, finally spoke, her voice soft and still tinged with sleep. «Honestly, I kinda get it, Gavy. Mr. Ekosion gives me anxiety too. Every time he looks at me, I feel like I’ve forgotten how to breathe.»
Gavron gave her a look of pure gratitude, as though she’d just thrown him a lifeline in a stormy sea. «See? She gets me. She knows the horrors. You two—» he pointed dramatically at his sister and Toria. «—are emotionless monsters who have no compassion for the psychologically fragile.»
«We’re the ones carrying your fragile ass through class,» Toria muttered under her breath.
Llana elbowed him lightly. «Come on, tragic poet. Save your monologue for Mr. Ekosion’s next lecture.»
They laughed, the morning light catching the plumes of their breath like drifting wisps of smoke, as the quirky quartet ambled through the outskirts of the city. The air still carried a bite, and their footsteps echoed lightly along the frost-bitten pavement, their chatter punctuating the quiet of the peri-urban sprawl. Beyond the looming apartment blocks and neglected tram tracks, open fields and skeletal trees beckoned—the threshold to the countryside, and more importantly, to the old villa that had become their hidden sanctuary.
This odd little group had first come together in the earliest days of secondary school, drawn to one another like stray stars in a constellation the rest of the world failed to see. Gavron and Llana Meniel, the inseparable kylov twins, had known Dyva since they were old enough to throw snowballs and chase one another down alleyways. Their shared past was tangled with memories of scraped knees, summer floods, and late-night rooftop stargazing.
Toria and Aeryth, meanwhile, had joined the trio not long after classes began. Toria—sharp-witted and sharper-tongued—had struck up a quiet, simmering friendship with Aeryth, the soft-spoken human girl with ink-stained fingers and a gaze that always seemed a little distant. A few months ago, they’d officially started dating, though anyone watching them could have guessed it long before they did.
In recent months, another name had entered their circle: Khija. Human like Aeryth and Dyva, and perpetually looking over her shoulder, she had a way of drifting into conversations like a breeze. Her appearances were infrequent, curtailed by curfews and strict parents, but every time she managed to slip away and join them, it felt like something special had clicked into place.
At school, they were unmistakable. The ones who didn’t quite fit in—too quiet, too loud, too dreamy, too strange. The misfits. Whispers followed them down hallways, paired with half-smirks and rolled eyes. But they didn’t care. Not really. Because what they had between them was something more solid than gossip and more real than reputation.
Their laughter drifted ahead of them, curling through the chill like smoke from a hearth, as the silhouette of the old estate began to rise in the distance—grey, looming, half-forgotten, and entirely theirs.
