Moon's Shadow Ch. 01

Beryl took his hand as he blinked back tears of genuine gratitude and rose to his feet, taking care to dust off his dress as he did. "No, nineteen," he answered, again not holding back the truth when there seemed to be no reason to do so. Beryl could tell the man seemed a bit skeptical of his answer but he didn't question it. The two of them escorted him into one of the larger buildings using an entrance several stories off the ground. They explained his 'situation' to a secretary there using technical terms he didn't fully understand. Terms like 'Lockdown at East Laboratory', 'Temporary registration', and something about 'assessment' that sounded ominous.

"Name?" The secretary finally asked, looking over at Beryl.

"Beryl," he blurted out, and immediately realized that nobody who lived on Zeal was named after a gemstone. The secretary rolled his eyes at him and wrote it down anyway. "Fine, you want a cute name, you got it. I don't suppose you're going to make things easy on by just telling us who your guardians are?"

Beryl blushed and looked away, starting to get a feel for the role he was playing. They thought he was a runaway, some kid who'd just gotten a bit too rebellious for her own good and gotten in over her head. It was actually quite fortunate, foolish and naive were roles he was very suited to in this situation. The whole tracking down his 'guardian' thing was a bit ominous, but that'd be a problem he could deal with when it came to it.

"Thank you, but, umm... Do you have any idea when the lockdown will be lifted?" he asked timidly.

The secretary shrugged disinterestedly as he continued to write things into his ledger. "Six Months? A year? Two? Take it up with the Empress, kid." After a few moments, he reached into some cubby behind his counter and took out a few forms and started to slide them across the counter towards her. "Here's your registration - Don't lose this. This is a schedule for the academy you've just been assigned to, show up at... this orientation and then every class subsequent to it," He circled one of the calendar dates with black ink and kept on going without even looking at her. "And here's a city directory. I've got your dormitory listed there and also your interim guardian agency - you need to check in with them at least once a week, do you understand?"

"Umm... yes?" Beryl offered. It seemed straightforward enough.

The secretary rolled his eyes a little again and then nodded to the two soldiers who were standing a little off to the side. "It's recommended that you find a sponsor to act as a more long-term guardian for you, these agencies aren't meant to fulfil that role for more than a few weeks. Take that up with them, though. Have a nice day, miss."

***

Beryl walked past the threshold into the academy he'd been assigned into with a bit of trepidation. He'd spent all week living a shockingly relaxed life in the little dormitory he'd been assigned to. A pile of textbooks had been delivered to the room the day after he'd arrived, and he'd been quite content to spend the entire week studying them. He slept when he was tired, places that 'sold' food only asked him for the number on his registration rather than payment, and everybody around him seemed profoundly disinterested in what he got up to. He'd even gone out to get more clothes and they'd been a little more particular about checking his registration information, but hadn't asked him for money either. Unfortunately, his registration very clearly had an 'F' on his gender marker, so his idea to just reassert that he was a boy felt like a risk that probably wasn't worth taking just now. Instead he'd just settled for acquiring some slightly more androgynous clothing. Women certainly wore pants less frequently on Zeal than they did on Kaaz, but it didn't appear to be scandalous as long as he wore a certain style.

"Beryl?" A young man probably only a little older than him was waiting inside for him.

"Yes. I'm here for—"

"Orientation? Yeah I'm surprised you showed up, everybody skips these," He chuckled at him and made a gesture where he deliberately placed his hand on the side of his neck. Beryl had seen it before and been baffled several times before he realized it was just a gesture they used as a friendly greeting. "I'm Vanis, I volunteer to do these orientations. Follow me babe, I'll show you around."

Part of Beryl wondered what significance his calling him 'babe' had but he decided to drop it. He'd probably figure it out in a few weeks and then be embarrassed when it was something obvious. Vanis took him down one hallway, gesturing towards some study rooms and a library and reciting a few quick facts about them that he'd undoubtedly memorized and repeated several times during other orientations.

"Look out!" someone shouted suddenly, making Beryl jump and whirl around in surprise, his heart racing. An incandescent mass of flame was streaking towards him, emanating from a rod carved with Glyphs in the hand of some girl Beryl didn't know. Beryl's instinct wasn't to dodge out of the way, it wasn't to scream and shield himself, it was to Evoke a Sorcery. From the center of his chest, a pillar of ice formed, rapidly expanding and rushing outwards towards the flames. The flame Sorcery dissipated instantly, the heat standing no chance at overpowering the extreme chill that Beryl had conjured. The ice split into a conical shape as it came within a meter of the girl who had cast it at him, engulfing her and pinning her to the wall without harming her directly. Beryl broke the evocation and stepped backwards, shivering with adrenaline. The horizontal pillar of ice that emanated from where he'd been standing broke under its own weight, crumbling to the floor. The cage that Beryl had trapped his assailant in remained intact, though it did dominate nearly the entire width of the hallway.

There was a moment of silence as nearly a dozen students stared at the spectacle before Vanis exploded with laughter. "Woooooooow! You just got destroyed, Taniala." He broke down into more fits of violent laughter, giggling, slapping his thighs and sneaking pleased looks over at Beryl. The mirth spread a little, the other students starting to chuckle a little though they still looked over at Beryl very warily.

"W-What just...?" Beryl asked, suddenly aghast as he realized that he'd either done something wrong or worse, something weird.

"Not! Cool!" A voice yelled from inside the impromptu prison of ice as the girl Beryl had trapped started to melt her way out. The evocated ice melted into vapor as Taniala broke it apart with as much heat as she could safely use without scorching herself in the process.

"Taniala thought it would be funny to prank you with some flash fire. It's a pretty harmless flame Sorcery but it looks a lot like a fireball if you're not paying attention.

The embarrassment that Beryl had been feeling suddenly intensified as he realized just what he'd done. Aghast, he darted forward and laid his hands upon the ice, triggering a Sorcery that would dissipate the conjured material. The ice hissed and crumbled, and a few moments later, Taniala was free and alternating between scowling at Beryl and scowling at Vanis. She levelled a finger at Beryl's chest, unknowingly pointing directly at the Moon Crest.

"Not cool." She then looked over at Vanis accusatorily. "You told her, didn't you? Nobody evokes like that on instinct."

"Sorry, I can't take credit for this one. I think you actually just scared the poor newbie half to death," Vanis continued to snicker, but his laughter was starting to die down and he was wiping tears from his eyes.

"What exactly is going on here?" a cold feminine voice came from behind him. It sent a deeper shiver down Beryl's spine than had the frigid temperatures he'd just evoked. He turned around slowly and saw a tall girl in an ornate-looking gown surveying the scene of the prank. She looked old enough to be a senior at the academy, and there was something about both her presence and her attire that indicated to Beryl that she was far more important than a regular student here.

Vanis straightened up a little and changed his tone when he answered, but he still had a confident air about him. "No problem, Analisse, we just-"

"You are tormenting this poor girl?" Analisse interrupted him and gave him a look that let him know she didn't need him to answer the question.

"H-Huh? No... we..." Vanis' eyes went a little wide and he looked over at Beryl, flustered like he'd just done something far more extraordinary than the freezing Sorcery he'd just performed. Beryl kept his eyes forward on the newcomer, not understanding what was happening beyond the fact that Vanis was clearly being put in his place.

"These little pranks of yours are over. Do you understand me?" Analisse spoke with a deathly finality as she continued her withering stare towards Vanis.

Vanis opened his mouth as if to protest, but no words came out. "Yes, Ana," he finally murmured. "Should I finish the orientation?"

"You volunteered to do so," Analisse replied, and finally looked over at Beryl. He shuddered a little, trying not to shrink away from the intimidating presence. The fact that this woman was absolutely gorgeous on top of it did little to set him at ease. "That," she said flatly, gesturing at the wall where Beryl had aimed his Sorcery. "Is not to be repeated."

"Sorry, Ma'am," Beryl mumbled, breaking eye contact and looking down at his feet.

"Do not apologize, I was actually somewhat impressed." Beryl looked back up, a little stunned at the praise. He'd never actually been praised for his Sorcery before. With no frame of reference, he'd always assumed that he'd be utterly lacking in talent compared to a Zealian. "That does not mean that such displays are acceptable indoors, intentional or otherwise."

"Of course, Ma'am, I understand," Beryl nodded, feeling his tongue briefly dart across his dry lips.

Analisse's expression changed a little as he spoke. The tiniest coy little smile crept across her face and she spent a moment in silence just... looking at Beryl. He tried not to squirm as she inspected him, but doubted that he really did very well. She eventually looked over at Vanis and gave him a nod before walking past the two of them, down the hall that Beryl had iced over moments before.

"Who was that?" Beryl whispered to Vanis as he led him through the hallways of the academy, standing a little closer to him this time.

Vanis gave her another confused look. "You're not from the city, are you?"

"...No?" he answered.

"That's Annalisse Trecorya, one of the Empress' nieces. She's, uhh, sixth in line of succession, or something, but a thousand times more important than us." Vanis explained, looking agitated. "If my guardians find out I pissed her off I'll be in so much trouble..."

They finished the rest of the orientation in terse near-silence, Vanis sticking to his explanations and continually looking over his shoulder for Analisse. He explained in brief detail what all the rooms were for, who all the professors were, and various other bits of academy etiquette to her over the next hour or so. The two of them moved in a loop through the academy, ending up with them coming back to the entrance where they'd met.

"Hey, sorry about all that, by the way," Vanis spoke up as he took her to the door, no doubt only apologizing now because it was going to be his last chance. "I actually feel bad that I brought you to Ana's attention. She's pretty intense and acts like she owns the academy. Well, her family basically does, actually."

Vanis gave him a little bit of a wave and went into one of the reading rooms he's shown him earlier, leaving Beryl with nothing to do but go home.

***

Attending classes at Trecorya Academy was a mix of trivially easy and extremely frustrating for Beryl. As it turned out, the Sorcery classes were all far beneath Beryl's skill level and the greatest challenge he faced was not drawing too much attention to himself. The most interesting thing he learned was that his Sorcery was somehow fundamentally different from what he was being taught bt the professors. That difference obviously had something to do with the Lunar crest upon his chest. He'd thought that all of the people born on Zeal would have had something similar, if not a birthmark that allowed them to draw upon the Moon's power then something less conspicuous. He'd assumed it wouldn't be exactly like his, it clearly hadn't made any of the men as feminine as his Crest had made him. But, as he studied more, he began to understand just how different he was.

Many of Beryl's evocations relied upon his position relative to the Moon itself, the amount and type of power he was able to draw upon varied upon the time of day and the Moon's phase. The Zealians didn't draw upon the Moon's power directly, but rather through a conduit they just called "The Source." The Source required some proximity from the ones evoking power from it, which is why, Beryl was shocked to learn, Zealians couldn't invoke their Sorceries directly if they left the island. Instead they bound Sorceries to objects like the shocksticks so that their soldiers could use Sorceries to enforce their hegemony upon their colonial subjects.

But while Beryl found the Sorcery lessons trivially easy, and they were the majority of the curriculum, that was not all he was expected to study. Beryl had mostly taught himself to read back on Kaaz just so that he could read the crumbling tome of Sorcery he'd found in the library. He'd later learned that such a tome should never have been in that library and he could only guess that it had avoided notice because nobody knew what it was.

Being self-taught did not make his literature and language lessons go smoothly at all, and he barely struggled by with his history lessons too. He'd been studying his butt off for two weeks straight just to avoid drawing too much attention to himself. He could explain away being a bad student or a slow learner, but it would be hard to explain why he didn't know basic facts that any child born on the island did.

"Hey, could you keep it down?" Beryl asked, his fist clenching in frustration as he looked up from his stupid, awful literature assignment. Taniala was seated a few tables away with two of her friends and they were chatting and laughing loudly.

Taniala looked over at Beryl and made a rude gesture at him. "Freeze me again, why don't you?" she jeered back, before returning to her conversation even more loudly than before.

Beryl just exhaled and smoothed down the page of notes he'd crumpled a little, determined to just tolerate the disturbance. He only lasted another few minutes before his distracted mind started to toy with the idea of actually freezing Taniala like she'd asked. Instead, an idea for a different Sorcery came to him, and he decided to give it a try. He wove his evocation, sending tendrils of his power to manipulate the air pressure around him. It took a few minutes to form it right, but he managed to create a small shell of near-vacuum space around his spot at the table. The sound around him died off instantly, leaving him only with the tiniest buzz of noise that was carrying through the floor and the table.

Satisfied, he held onto the evocation and went back to work, ignoring Taniala and her obnoxious friends. He worked like that for another hour or so and holding onto the power became sort of a background effort that he barely even noticed anymore. It wasn't any noise that caught his attention, but a hand on his shoulder made him yelp as he dropped the Sorcery and spun around to see who it was.

"Ms. Beryl," Analisse stood over him, her hand on his shoulder, her gaze intense upon him. "Were you using Sorcery just now?"

Beryl felt the blood drain out of his face and his stomach dropped into his legs. He stared at her wide-eyed for several seconds, trying to process whatever it was Analisse was implying with her words and tone. Using Sorcery in the school wasn't forbidden, it was actually encouraged.

"It was... they were being loud, so..." Beryl looked desperately over at the table where Taniala had been, but the reading room was abandoned now save for the two of them. "Is that... against the rules?"

"I'd like to have a word with you in private if you don't mind, Ms. Beryl," Analisse responded, ignoring Beryl's blubbering answer and follow up question. She looked up towards the door to the hallway and made a tiny gesture with her head. "My family maintains an office in this academy."

"Err..." Beryl tried to stall a little but Analisse had already released his shoulder and started walking away with a silent implication that he was to follow. Beryl started to hastily pack up his books but her voice stopped him.

"They will be there when we're done, Ms. Beryl." Reluctantly, Beryl set his pen and notes down on the table and rose to his feet. Analisse had already exited the reading room into the hallway and he was forced to scramble a little to catch up with her. She walked through the Academy without looking back at him for even an instant, but Beryl knew that she knew he was there. She stopped in front of a locked door that Vanis had just glossed over during the orientation and placed her palm upon the front of it. A glow spread throughout the wood and metal for a moment as Glyphs came to life for an instant and then faded once again. The door clicked and swung open silently, admitting the two of them to a small, tidy office adorned with a few tasteful pieces of expensive-looking furniture and art. As Beryl stepped inside, Analisse put her hand on his back and moved him to the side so that she could close and lock the door behind them. Beryl felt a lump form in his throat as the door clicked shut, trapping him in here with the intimidating woman.

"I've been watching you, little gemstone," Analisse spoke softly, looking over at him with a fierce intensity. "And I've seen several things that don't quite add up. She moved closer towards him and he backed up instinctively until he was pressed up against the far wall. He didn't answer her, or try to explain himself. He knew such efforts would be pointless, he could no sooner convincingly lie to this woman than he could stop breathing altogether.

"No comment? No Explanation?" She asked, cocking an eyebrow at him.

"I... I only..." Beryl stammered, trembling. He just wanted to study quietly, to start his life anew, to not be so afraid anymore. His terror was so great that he couldn't even get those words out, and his mind started to run through a half dozen nightmare scenarios of torture and execution that he was convinced were about to happen to him all at once

Analisse watched his reaction interestedly for several moments. "Take your blouse off." she finally said.

Beryl recoiled slightly in confusion, blinking at her. Take his blouse off? Was this actually some kind of weird sex thing? Was he actually just being sexually assaulted? The thought that this woman was only going to violate his bodily autonomy and not throw him into the Ocean was almost a relief for a moment before he realized that he couldn't do as she'd asked. Without his blouse on, Analisse would see the Crest of the Moon on his chest, clear as crystal. His eyes flickered towards the door, trying to formulate an escape plan, a way to incapacitate Analisse and flee the building.

"Beryl," Analisse's voice re-grabbed his attention and he looked at her. "If you want to avoid doing as I ask, your only option is to wield your Sorcery and overpower me, so either do it or stop wasting my time." She took another step towards him so that her form blocked out the light of the office's two small lamps. "Take it off."

The truth of her words struck him like a mallet, and he immediately realized that no matter how terrified he was, no matter how much he wanted to keep his secret safe, he couldn't just attack her. It wouldn't be right, and it wouldn't work. Even if he overpowered her, what then? He'd be caught almost immediately. Tears formed in his eyes as his shaking hands slowly went up to the buttons on his blouse. His fingers grabbed ahold of the top button and paused there, tugging slightly on the little bit of brass but lacking the resolve or the dexterity to undo it effectively.