A woman from the front row blurted out, “Slower aging process?”
“Yes, despite sharing a general lifespan with the other sentients, usually outliving us by a hundred or so turns, Nojerna do not seem to physically age past two hundred turns of age.”
The student nodded and scribbled in her journal.
“Moving right along, I’m sure at least a portion of you wonder why it is so many people think of the Nojerna as ‘celestial beings’ or why they look like they do. How many of you have heard the creation myth of the primary Nojernan culture?” Seven hands rose from the crowd. Seriously? “I suppose I should probably share it then...” Tab closed her eyes, breathed in deep, and put on her smooth, silky story-telling voice.
“Long ago when the various sentient species were budding on our world, an intelligent, highly-advanced people watched our planet from the stars. Our planetary cousin Yuma, at this point in time being considered the greatest of the stars, was home to many of them. But at some point, they viewed the tribes of the world entering a time of great strife; barbarians and warlords wreaking havoc across all continents.
“In this time of chaos, these ‘star folk’ decided to intervene. To save the fates of the many intelligent species on the planet, they came down with their astral cities, ripping the land from Yuma, and brought with them their celestial peace. Over the following hundreds of turns, their simple presence on the planet brought with them order and tranquility. For the species that weren’t as easily affected, they created bases on the ground.
“Teral, unexplained even in their own creation myth, was found and inhabited by their first scouting parties. From there, they branched out with boats, sailing to the various continents and bringing with them as much harmony as they could muster. The world slowly learned the peaceful ways of the Nojerna and enjoyed them for an age.
“According to the Aramoorian lore-keepers, the planet eventually grew a tolerance to their auras and returned to their warlike ways. Those same lore-keepers also blame our planet for the current state of the species, being exactly where everyone else is: prone to aggravation, war, depression, and other natural tendencies. The rest of the world? We believe that Nojerna are, you know, people. Like everyone else. Just people, prone to faults just like every other species. We treat them like everyone else. Well, we try to. Some people can’t be assed to accept another species as equal, and their otherworldly aesthetic doesn’t help. Civilized people simply accept everyone as fellow sentient beings. It’s worked for massive chunks of our history. I don’t see why we should think any different just because they think they fell out of the sky.”
She paused dramatically, satisfied with her spiel. The first student to speak piped up again. “So I assume their biology works the same?”
“As far as our research tells us, they’re just like everyone else. They eat, they digest, they excrete. They breathe air, suck it into their lungs, and breathe out. A man and woman have sex, a child forms, and it comes out of her vagina nine to ten turns later.”
A Milaric girl responded; “So what does that mean for crossbreeding? Could Nojerna breed with a Northman?”
“For the most part, oddly enough. Despite the knowledge that most sentients can’t crossbreed, the Nojerna are capable of breeding with any of the sentient species except for Rilarians. They’re reptilian, so they can’t breed with a mammal by natural law. We’ll get into that later, though.
“The difference in the cross-breeds, it seems, comes out only in the eyes. The child is born with a combination of traits from both parents, including physique and facial build of the Nojernan parent, but always retains the dominant structure and aesthetic of the other parent. The only part that gives them away is slightly pointed ears and their eyes.”
She pointed to a female student. She was apparently Northman with white hair, a short skirt, and a flowy blouse. “Excuse me, ma’am, could you come up here?” The student looked warily and, quite nervously, walked up to Tabitha. Softly, she asked the student her name.
“A- A- Anabeth? Anabeth Smith?”
“Ah, Northman father?”
“N— No?”
“Oh. Alright. Would you mind being a model for the class? I just need your eyes.”
“Uh- Um- Uh- S- Sure?”
“Okay, this’ll feel a bit funny for a second.”
Tabitha drew the magic forth from the paper, and squished the orb onto Anabeth’s face. The ‘ink’ spread over the girl’s head, and coating her skin with liquid, whirling motion taking in her contours. A short time passed before Tab pinched her hand quickly, leaving the azure ‘liquid’ on her face, but pulling a tendril from it. She pointed at the runic circle, snapped her fingers, and the tendril shot to the active runes, sunk into it, and pulsed up the tendrils, morphing the illusion into a perfect reproduction of her face animated in real-time. Anibeth’s eyes darted around nervously as the magic coating her face thinned, growing translucent.
The students of the room saw a large head of a normal looking Northman girl save for two madly darting eyes unlike many of them had ever seen.
Instead of the common sclera, a milky white in nearly every other species, hers were a vast expanse of black littered with stars. Where a pupil would normally rest sat a brilliant flaming sun, not bright like the sun the students knew, but nonetheless radiant and flaming animatedly. It burst in multiple small places akin to a large campfire. To the surprise of perceptive students, the two eyes did not hold the same starscape or the same sun.
“Notice the eyes, how they mimic the aesthetic of a Nojernan, but have the added brilliance of a glorious sun where the pupil lies. And no, her eyes do not glow; they function as any other eye, the star simply acting as if it were an animated painting. As you all can see, the suns do, in fact, act as her pupils, showing where she looks.”
With her awkward flittering brought to the attention of the class, she looked down at her shoes and closed her eyes, hoping this would end soon.
“You will also notice that her eyes are ever so slightly larger than average. It’s hard to tell, but just like her ears are ever so slightly pointed, her eyes are just barely larger than average.”
She rested a palm over Anabeth’s face, then drew it back, causing the magic to revert to an orb in her hand. Her fist clenched tight, and the magic dissipated with a shower of blue sparks. Tab bid Anabeth to her seat, thanked her, and affirmed the promise of extra credit for her trouble. The nerve-wracked hybrid raced back to her seat and curled up into as much of a ball as her desk would allow. A man in the middle of the room asked, “How is it I’ve never seen anyone like that before?”
“Hybridous people are very commonly self-conscious about their eyes. This stems from many Nojernan societies looking down on them, and other societies of previous times sometimes banishing or executing them as ‘mutants,’ ‘witches,’ or some other barbarically hostile title.
“As such, it’s common for such folk to wear shaded glasses or goggles to hide their eyes. Also, quite depressingly, the suicide rate for hybrid men and women is extraordinarily high. There aren’t very many of them because too many never make it through preliminary schooling. Children can be monsters.”
She noticed a subtle nodding from Anabeth and a small tear running down her cheek. Professor Tabitha Atwood said nothing.
Chapter 2: A Body Condemned
Greater Voorhaven Township, Fellblade Prefecture
Her book snapped shut as she grew bored with it, the subject running its course quickly. Fiction just didn’t grab her as it had the turns previous. She’d found that truth, in fact, ended up stranger than fiction as the saying went more often than not. Fiction had to abide by a sense of logic and understanding. If someone went missing, they had to be found. If someone turned up dead, the killer would have to be brought to justice. If someone hated another sentient species, it was because o
f childhood trauma, one of them killed their father, some link back to some scarring that caused this deep-seated hatred. If they were just a prick, the readers wouldn’t stand for it.
In a piece of fiction, an answer was given by the end of the book. Non-fiction, however, had an open ceiling. With an account of true events, the answer might be left open-ended, leaving the reader to piece it together themself. This is what grabbed Lea. That, and the education they provided.
Though she never went to school for it, Leana Incubore studied the sciences and the arcane arts both intensely. This mostly stemmed from her lack of ability to function otherwise. A strange sickness plagued her from a very young age, leaving her unable to operate as a member of society. The undiscovered disease, which was absent from any and all texts she studied, went out of its way to make her life miserable.
For many turns, her muscles had slowly degenerated, leaving them atrophied enough to bind her to crutches whenever the urge to move gripped her. On top of that, her skin had long-since paled due to a practical allergy to sunlight, leaving her fatigued with stiff, aching joints and coating her skin with scaly rashes upon exposure.
She considered this thoroughly obnoxious, not because she spent extravagant amounts of time outdoors, but because the precious time she had in her herb garden was cut short by the disease for half the turn. During the twenty desses of daylight, she spent her time researching feverishly inside. As soon as winter came, however, she took advantage of the darkness by growing crops of fungi before the sun came up. She lamented the loss of leafy greens, but was satisfied by her mushrooms and algae.
Gardening was one of the little things she took solace in, something she could do herself without any outside help. Something beautiful she made herself, and more than that, something that could aid her research without need for money or a trip into town. It was nice.
To exacerbate her ills, the lack of physical ability left her muscles frail and weak, thwarting her plans to garden or harvest even during the dark of winter. And coupled with a feeble body, an utter lack of appetite and chronic insomnia left her intensely emaciated.
This painfully gaunt, pale individual covered in sores and lesions was also plagued by poor eyesight, necessitating glasses, a regularly dry mouth, and degenerated muscles, causing simple actions such as picking up an object of any significant weight or standing up to be a ridiculously painful ordeal. The latter beset her as she set the book on the table beside her plush smoking chair (used for reading, as her lungs would surely give out with a smoke) and rose with the help of her crutches.
The simple act of standing up took more effort than she began to think was worthwhile, leaving her standing on crutches in pain and out of breath. For once, however, she found herself hungry, so she took the opportunity and hobbled across the hardwood floor into the kitchen. Her sister sat inside doing some form of paperwork. No doubt finances.
The two were identical twins, which a bystander could hardly tell. If one were to give Lea a rich tan, muscle her up, and shave the two of them bald, then the similarities would come through. As it was, Anixemeter was the quintessence of everything Lea couldn’t be.
Sharing the same height, if not for difference in posture, Ani had remarkably toned muscle left from her time in the military and her insane workout regime, though most wouldn’t call her muscular. Both in her attire and her lack of bulk, she seemed perfectly unassuming until she showed some skin.
In addition to this, she held a deep natural tan and perfect posture. It wasn’t even her ability to sit properly and walk with her head up, she just carried herself as a woman with charisma and self-confidence with an utter lack of care in the world. She exuded a sense of pride that drew people to her and made her a paragon of social standing. This was also helped by her time in politics teaching her the ways of the voice. It put her on a pedestal, drawing people into her charisma even more than before.
Perfectly straight silver hair fell from her scalp, framing her face when allowed, though it currently fell down her back in a ponytail past her shoulder blades. Her chiseled, angular face, much like the rest of her body, was perfectly smooth, supple, and hairless, something Lea took particular umbrage to. Her own face grew small dark hairs just visible enough in sunlight, which she could deal with if not for the more noticeable hairs lining her arms and legs. She knew Ani didn’t notice and didn’t care, but Lea noticed. Lea cared. Lea didn’t have time or energy to shave. Ani didn’t even have to shave.
That aside, Ani’s eyes were the first thing to grip any passersby. Deep hazel irises floated in a white sea in the globes of her face, piercing the soul of anyone she gazed upon. Anything she said was emphasized by her simple glance, adding power unlike any other socialite or politician. Her enchanting eyes combined with her chiseled jaw, strong physique, and striking voice caused men to fall over themselves for her. The entire town showered her with love, none of which went Lea’s way.
However, their eyes were one piece the two did seem to share. Unfortunately, Ani’s seemed to shine and glimmer while Lea’s sulked and stewed. Her eyes held pain, weight, thoughtfulness. Ani’s held power, drive, confidence. Lea wished hers could; she wished she had any confidence at all to show. She found it hard to be confident when she looked like a mutant and couldn’t walk without the support of two hunks of wood.
Leana was born with, as Ani had put it, “the shit end of the genetic stick.” Despite coming from the same womb as Anixemeter, she was born with a debilitating disease that thinned her blood, destroyed her joints and vision, stemmed the production of saliva, and practically ruined her physical body. As such, with her muscles in a constant state of atrophy, her posture never developed, leaving her with something she worried could turn into a hunchback any dess now. The pain of standing left her bowed over in a chair, her neck rarely lifting higher than forty-five degrees, making her back form and grow deformedly. At this point, standing or sitting up straight shot enough pain through her it wasn’t worth the effort.
Oddly enough, as they were both born blond, Ani’s hair turned silver in the military while Lea’s became a dark, oily black in her early hundreds. In addition, Ani’s hair stayed straight while her sister’s tightened and curled, not into tight springs, but into clean waves. At the time, she kept her hair cut short enough the curls couldn’t show, something else endlessly frustrating socially. Despite never seeing other people, Lea knew that her nearly shaved head wasn’t doing her any favors. Long hair was just too much trouble to keep up in her condition, as much as she longed it.
“Wakin’, sis.” Even a simple greeting filled Lea with dread, her sister’s voice booming throughout the house with ease.
“’Sup.” Again, a simple response reminded Lea that her voice was nothing compared to her sister’s. Not even due to lack of power and projection, but just speaking tore her throat apart, leaving her pained as her pathetic, raspy words ripped out of her mouth.
“Just doing some finances, looks like we’re fine for now. Hey, if we can be happy about anything, you keep food costs down.” She laughed to herself as Lea let out a couple weak breaths filling in for chuckles. Yeah, laugh it up you smarmy fuck.
She couldn’t really blame her, though. Ani was a good sister, always taking care of her, making food, cleaning up the house, helping her where she needed to go, keeping up with the finances. She basically did everything Lea couldn’t. Being appreciative was the very least she could do, so she forced it.
“What’re you up to this wake, girlie?”
“Studies. Food first.” Her words stayed concise so as to damage herself the least. It pained her vocabulary, but she suffered it to ease the physical pain.
“You had your stew yet?”
“No...” She sighed defeatedly as she pulled out a pot. Ani leapt up in response.
“Lemme get that for you. Eat some granola while I fix it up.”
“Thanks.” Despite all pain, she figured courtesy was important. Within a few minutes, as she chomped slowly at a granola bar, a smell filled the room that would have made her sick if she hadn’t dealt with it every meal for the past two hundred turns or more.
A long time past, in order to combat the sickness, a doctor prescribed a treatment he described as an “enzyme booster” which was supposed to stimulate her immune system. The downside to this treatment was the ingredients. It came in the form of a stew with ground pig organs and a hearty infusion of iceroot, an herb they bought off a travelling salesman once every ten turns or so in obscene quantities, as it only grew far up north in the snowy wastes. This, combined with seasonings and a meat of her choice, made an entirely unbearable stew, but focusing on the other flavors at least let her stomach it.
“So how are your studies going, sis?”
“Slow. Hit a block. Need experiments.”
“What kind of experiments? Like a test subject?” She punctuated the last words with a dramatic tone and wiggling fingers, followed by a chuckle.
“Yeah, ‘nough reading. Need practice.”
“Yeah, I understand. You can only theorize so much before you have to actually do it. What are you gonna do it on?”
She shrugged. “Rabbit? Cat? Some’in small. ‘N’ broken.”
“Broken?”
“How’m I fix some’n if it ain’t broken?”
“Good point. You mean, like, broken legs or something?”
“Yeh.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what, I’m headed into town for groceries here soon, so while I’m out, I’ll grab you somethin’ to suit your experiments.”
Gods, just stop. Lea honestly couldn’t tell if her sister truly understood what she was doing or not.
Biomancy Page 2
