The Academy: you've come this far and we're broken

Wyvern can smell autumn but Aelina cannot even feel it hidden beneath the folds of summer warmth. She is a sensitive mare-child but she thinks little of the future. This state of living in the present is one that few can master. It is unlikely that Aelina will be able to hold onto it as her body matures and even more unlikely if she succeeds in learning the way she wishes to. This path of intellect that leads to Seeing, to becoming an Oracle strips one of the right to live in a particular instant.

Aelina does not know this. And who can blame her for lacking appreciation for something she has not yet lived without? She is a child of irony, of ignorance. And she is not to blame.

She bends into Wyvern, smiling as his muzzle brushes her back. In return her lips find his neck, pressing a smile into the warm gold. Aelina hears the soft hiss of the snake below them and eyes it without fear. Though it has never been spoken to her in words, Aelina is aware of the sanctuary that is the Academy. Aelina breathes in the floral air and smiles at the safety. Here, nothing will touch them.

"Hardly anything," comes her soft, breathy reply. She expected him to ask. "But you are Earth, aren't you?" she says, but liek Wyvern, not completely because it is her roll as student. She wants to know.

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