He plodded back to his next class— Qi Theory— feeling emotionally drained. The standard core classes for the elite students were all arranged in a block after their morning period, so he’d been back to back shoved into the most awkward social situations and forced to navigate them with all the adroitness he’d never really had. Sure, he was better than Lily would be, but that wasn’t a particularly great achievement.

If anything, his Aurelian Literature class had been one of the better ones. His Advanced Mathematics instructor had kept calling on him until it was obvious that, yes, actually, he did know enough mathematics that he could probably skip the class entirely, after which he’d been begrudgingly left alone. His Physics instructor had kept a careful eye on him the entire time, thought Avyr didn’t think it was borne of malice, per say— they’d been doing some sort of curated experiment that relied at least partially on dexterity, and if he had to be honest it had been difficult for him to stack up the blocks. His advanced cultivation had definitely come in clutch there.

The History instructor, though… he grimaced just thinking about it, his tail lashing in frustration as he slunk into his spot next to Lily. That man had been infuriating. He just had this way

about him, some supernatural ability to make Avyr feel stupid, whether he was being called on for a question for something he clearly wouldn’t have known, or asking questions of his own—

He sighed, slightly frustrated over it all. Clearly, he had his work set out for him. As did all his people, when it came to integrating with the Elegant Aliens, but him especially so… “you good?” Lily glanced at him from where she’d been fiddling with her brush and inkpot, drawing some sort of formation— he didn’t even try to decipher the complicated sprawl of runes on the probably-talisman.

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“Not as such. It was…” he trailed off.

“Not as good as you expected?”

“No. I can’t say with any sort of honesty that I didn’t expect things to be like this, just…”

“You hoped things would be different.” Lily nodded in understanding. That was what he liked most about her. She just got it. “Don’t let it get to you. Some of the teachers can be bastards, but they should be fair. If you can prove you can accomplish what the class needs, they’ll eventually leave you alone.”

“Personal experience?”

Lily groaned. “Definitely. I was… not quite as good at keeping up with my grades when I was younger. I deluded myself into thinking I was already a cultivator and would ignore the professors to ‘meditate on the dao’ and ‘challenge my fellow daoists.’”

“Really?” He could scarcely imagine Lily— studious, serious… hotheaded, vibrant, okay maybe he could actually imagine Lily getting up to trouble along those lines. “Surely something changed along the way, though— you’re here, after all.”

“Yeah, I discovered this magic trick to accomplish all my goals and get myself in the instructors’ good graces.”

“What was it?”

“Doing my work.”

Avyr just chuffed in amusement, butting his head against Lily affectionately. “Only you.”

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean? I’ll have you know…” in that short time before their Qi Theory instructor arrived, they relished that strange and simple and so deeply profound thing; friendship. For a moment, there— their travails didn’t seem that bad after all. He’d push through. Just another step more, like before, like always—

How strange, that.

How wonderful.