Rorri

　　"Rorri, could you please pay attention?"

　　Shacia stands in front of the white board, her eyes puffy and red. Rorri watches her blood pulse, ignoring the giant, floating eye beside her, its iris conspicuously whited out.

　　"What? Sorry&"

　　"If you`re not serious about your studies, I should ask you to leave at once."

　　Her pupils expand to black starbursts. Rorri trembles in his seat. She writes on the giant eye in magic ink, spelling out words he doesn`t know, until his head hurts from trying to understand. He opens up his notebook and starts drawing a six-petaled flower.

　　"Rorri."

　　He looks up. Shacia sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose.

　　"I know, I`m sorry," Rorri says. "It`s so hard to pay attention without&"

　　"Don`t say it."

　　He spins around to find Adar standing behind him. His silver skin sparkles, and his eyes glow blue as if lit from inside, like some otherworldly angel. Rorri looks away, unable to bear the light for too long. Shacia`s study grows cold.

　　"You don`t understand," he says. "I need it. I`m so tired, so goddamn tired, all the time! Can you imagine what that`s like?"

　　"I can," Shacia says. He turns and sees her, skeletal, shriveling like a daisy in the winter. The eye hovers above her, crying tears of black ink that stain her Snow-white skin. She`s so tired. She`s wasting away&

　　"No& Shacia, you need to eat," Rorri says. "Eat me. I don`t care. I shouldn`t even be here, for god`s sake! Please, just let me help you!"

　　But when he blinks, she`s gone. His words echo in the void: Please, just let me help you! Please, just let me help you! Please, just let me help you!

　　*******

　　As the day of the Gala drew near, Rorri felt like he was suffocating. He knew he wasn`t good enough to be there, and the worry consumed him. He would have to socialize, to woo a slew of noble patrons, and he was terrible at wooing.

　　The thought of the Palace, its people, its grandiosity and the noise that would surely accompany such a party made him sweaty, nauseated, and so, so tired. He thought of not going at all, of burning all his works and never looking back, but Adar surely wouldn`t let him, and he couldn`t exactly fight him on it. He could refuse to go, but the guilt of that would eat at him worse. He couldn`t let Adar down after all he`d done for him. The same could be said of Shacia, even though she wouldn`t be there. Rorri didn`t have a choice, not really. It was a huge opportunity, and he`d be a fool to pass it up.

　　But he wasn`t good enough on his own. He never had been.

　　And there was only one way he knew how to fix it.

　　Kano

　　Kano was starving and parched by the time his captors pulled him through the strange jelly wall into their cavernous city. He only got a brief glimpse of his surroundings from the twinkling spores in the air before the dizziness overtook him and his consciousness faded away. He hadn`t even been unstrapped from the snake`s back, yet, nor had he seen his captors` faces. The whole thing felt like a long, twisted nightmare he couldn`t remember, but still felt sickened by.

　　He awoke to a sudden crackling in his head-

　　SSSKAP

　　-and the flood of vision that came with it. He shut his eyes and turned away, as if the light came from in front of him, but it wasn`t long before he realized that the light was all around him, somehow permeating the air itself, and there was no escaping it. Strange that he`d have the instinct to turn away, he thought. He`d been in darkness for so long, the light should be a relief.

　　"Would you like some water?"

　　The voice rang profoundly clearly in Kano`s mind, but his ears heard something very different. He hadn`t heard sentient speech in so long, but he didn`t understand why it made sense when the language was clearly foreign. He noticed the mask strapped to his face. It smelled like soft, fresh dirt, something you`d plant a seed in.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

　　As his eyes adjusted, he realized he was in an undecorated bunker of some sort, sitting in a chair, in front of a table, across from a person& a handsome person, with long pink hair splayed over their shoulders, the top button of their crisp uniform undone to reveal the smooth indent of their collar bone. Kano gulped, glancing up to take in their face. Their features were sharp, refined, and clean, eyebrows perfectly manicured into gentle arches, lips sculpted and plump, long pink eyelashes casting a sultry shade over their eyes. Had Kano met them months ago in a bar, he would have done everything he could to take them home, but the circumstances were quite different, and the deep green-black tint of their skin alone was enough to send a ripple of fear through his heart.

　　"We`re not going to hurt you," the Du閚 said, their voice like a cat`s warm purr.

　　Kano averted his gaze. His stomach growled. Another Du閚 appeared from behind him, setting a clay mug full of water on the table. As if overwhelmed by animal instinct, Kano lunged for the water, but his hands were bound, and he ricocheted back into the chair. The handsome Du閚 nodded towards the second, who quietly removed the restraints. Kano went to gulp the water down, but he forgot about the mask, soaking it and his lap instead. He ripped it off and feverishly downed what remained. The Du閚 across from him leaned forward, resting their chin on their knuckles, and flicked their gaze towards the person behind him, who took the mug and left the room.

　　"You`ve been out there for a while, haven`t you?" they said with an air of idle curiosity. "You can speak in your language, by the way. I`ll understand you as well as you can understand me. A wonderful thing, magic, don`t you think?"

　　"Pak told me about a spell like that, once..." Kano teetered suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion.

　　"He sounds like a very smart boy," the Du閚 said with a smile. "You must be very proud."

　　"Uh&" Kano blinked and narrowed his eyes. "I mean, sure, I guess?"

　　"In any case, magic like this is quite costly. It`s not the sort of resource we`d waste on just anybody." They leaned in closer, ducking their head coyly. "That makes you a special guy. I am just dying to know more about you."

　　They leaned back, watching him like a blind date, assessing every motion he made. Nearby, Kano heard a quiet scratching sound that reminded him of the mice in his dormitory wall. He shivered, made worse by the chill meeting his wet clothes, and shook his head, letting his gaze drift to the Du閚`s long, slender fingers.

　　"What`s your name?" Kano asked.

　　"Quan," they said. "Yours?"

　　"Kano."

　　Quan gave a low hum.

　　"Kano. I love your name," they said - laying it on a bit thick, Kano thought, but at least it wasn`t torture. "A lovely surface-dweller like yourself has no business down here, I`d say."

　　"I`d normally agree&" Pain shot through his temple. He winced.

　　Quan tilted their head. "But?"

　　"But&" Kano didn`t know what to say, if he ought to be careful with what he revealed, or if they`d get the information from him, anyway. But why did it matter? He had nothing to hide, no ulterior motives. He had no useful information.

　　The other Du閚 came back with another mug of water and a strange, stiff towel, or something like one. It had a springy quality to it that reminded him of a sea sponge, but long and flat. He mumbled a thank-you to the Du閚 and set about drying his clothes, then returned to the water, careful to stay civilized this time. Quan waited patiently, inspecting their fingernails with nonchalance that had to be practiced.

　　"My friend went missing a while ago," Kano said, "and I think he might be down here somewhere&"

　　"Oh?" Quan shifted, their body strangely unaligned. Too casual, Kano thought. Unnaturally casual. The scribbling around the corner grew briefly louder. He pictured the desks at school, pens against paper on wood with nothing to soften the sound. He was always the type to nap through class. A nap would be wonderful, he thought.

　　"Why do you think he`s down here?" Quan prompted, snapping Kano back from his tired stupor.

　　He cleared his throat and opened his mouth to speak, but hesitated, re-assessing whether he should have been so forward in his response. The pressure to answer squeezed at his chest. If he told them about Pak`s heritage, what consequences could he unwittingly bring upon his friend if they did find him - or worse, if he had already been captured? He didn`t know what kind of people the Du閚 really were. He`d always had the sense that what they taught him in school was wrong, but how wrong was it, really? What if they were right, and the Du閚 were as evil as they said? If they hated surface-dwellers, then a half-breed like Pak would be like an abomination, no different than how the white elves had treated him. And anyway, he didn`t really know why Pak had come to the Obsidian, and it wasn`t even his first guess when he`d realized he had left. The only reason he suspected Pak was down here was because of the inscrutable cat-owl familiar who led him here to begin with.

　　"Cabbage&" he murmured. A moment of silence passed. He glanced up to see the Du閚`s face had hardened.

　　"What did you just say?"

　　Kano`s shoulders crept inward, tense. "Um& Cabbage?" he said, perplexed. "You know& like the vegetable?"

　　The scratching sound became furious. Quan eased back into the chair, though their guard had inexplicably shot up, all pretense of polite banter abandoned. They searched Kano`s face intently for something that almost certainly wasn`t there, unnerving the half-human to his core.

　　"S-sorry," he said, fumbling with the spongy towel. "I`m& I`m having trouble thinking right now. I`m really tired. I do want to talk with you, I just really need a nap&"

　　He shut his eyes, as if to shut out the world around him, but he remained keenly aware of the handsome Du閚`s intense gaze on his shrunken form. He suddenly felt a deep longing for home, for the tavern, for any stranger in his bed, his nice, warm bed.

　　"I`m sure that can be arranged," Quan said. "Please be aware that your cell will be under guard, and any attempt to escape will be met with whatever force is necessary to ensure your detainment. We don`t want it to come to that, but I need you know the potential consequences so you can make the best decision for yourself." They smiled, though it didn`t reach their eyes. "Do you understand?"

　　Kano nodded meekly.

　　"Perfect."

　　Quan gestured towards something or someone out of Kano`s sight, and with a-

　　SSSKAP

　　-the world around him went dark again. He kept still as his captors bound his wrists and escorted him to a cell, then curled up on his thin mushroom-fiber mat to rest. Despite the fear that curled his toes, sleep still snatched him away.