Dante smiled widely when Kitzi came out of the exam room. And even in one piece! "Hey, you made it!"
Kitzi smiled weakly. "Yeah, guess so."
"Don't worry, you'll be fine after a while! Just a matter of time, and time's on our side, right?"
"Yeah, sure. Sure."
Dante frowned lightly. There was something wrong, but the infirmary was hardly the place to chat. He touched Kitzi's elbow to guide the fox towards the exit. "C'mon, we'll just head back to our room and-"
"Oh, look, Kitzi. Giving you the cripple routine again. Is he going to drag you all through the place by your arm? Doesn't that idiot know you get along fine once you know the way? I'M NOT HELPLESS, DAMMIT. STOP TREATING ME TH-"
"WHOA!" Dante yelped, letting go of Kitzi's elbow. "S-Sorry, man! Didn't mean to imply anything!"
"No, it's okay," Kitzi quickly replied. "It's just that-" He cocked his head. "Wait, I didn't say anything..."
The mouse looked down at his hand, then back up at Kitzi. "Are you still shielded...?"
"Shielded? No, actually I'm not sh-..." His mouth opened and closed a few times as the realization hit him. "GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" he finally snapped and stumbled backwards.
"Kitzi, wait! I'm not! Calm down!" Dante quickly shouted, hoping to avoid another encounter with Kitzi's angry tentacles. When the fox was only staring in his general direction, he sighed. "Listen to me... I promised you I wouldn't mess with your mind, and I will NOT break that promise! Okay? It's just that without a shield, anybody can pick up your stray thoughts."
The fox slowly nodded, apparently remembering the lesson about emotional control. "Right... right... I'm sorry..." he whispered. "I just... I mean... Could you help me with a shield?"
Dante smiled again. "Yes, of course I can! Just kneel for a second. This works better when I'm close to the head." Kitzi quickly dropped to his knees and bowed his head slightly, allowing Dante to place his hands on the his head.
"Oh, so now we're dating, huh?" Kitzi thought, making the mouse snicker.
"Well, we can continue the foreplay in our room later, if you insist," Dante jokingly offered to lighten the mood. "But right now, hold still so I can take a closer look at your present state." He closed his eyes and focused on Kitzi's mind. "Ahu... you have been introduced to the wall analogy, I assume?"
"Yeah, Ink mentioned it, why?" Kitzi asked.
"Mh... looks like you subconsciously tried to create your own wall in your mind..." Dante inspected Kitzi's self-made shield and smiled lightly. "It's not bad for a first try, actually. At least for a shield against idle probing. You just didn't factor in that mindreading is a lot easier in cases of physical proximity."
"...ah. And now in English, please?"
"I can still read most of your idle thoughts when I touch you," Dante translated. "Okay, and you're not prepared against mental attacks, but that's advanced stuff, anyway."
Kitzi frowned. "Mental attacks? So I have to expect people breaking into my mind unless-"
"Don't worry," the mouse addressed Kitzi's unspoken fears, "such attacks are very rare outside the mindreading courses. You have to keep in mind that you possess the potential to retaliate. So most Cubi follow a few mostly unwritten rules to avoid conflicts. That means, among other things, that a regular shield should be enough to protect your thoughts."
"Wait... everybody here follows these rules?" The fox cocked his head. "Then why did you have such trouble finding a roommate?"
"You're catching on quickly!" Dante said and smiled drily. "The main reason is that Cubi rarely switch rooms once they arrive here at SAIA. You can always request a room-change, but few do so. That means that basically all Cubi who are assigned to a room are also new at SAIA."
"So they don't know these rules?"
"Exactly. They only know what their Clans teach them, and that is basically to stay away from my Clan. Sure, they later learn that I'm effectively not allowed to mindwipe random students, even if I felt like it, but by then they're already in another room. Not that any of them ever offered to come back to my room. Or to hang out with me." Dante's grip on Kitzi's head tightened a little bit. "They trust the rules, but they still decide to avoid closer contact just to be sure."
"Is everybody like that?" There was a hint of genuine pity in Kitzi's voice.
Dante let out a long sigh and eased his grip again. "No. There are a few who still hang out with me every now and then, but I'm a loner for the most part."
"Like me." Kitzi's thought made Dante smile in sympathy.
Maybe that's why Fa'Lina sent him to my room, he mused. Two loners who can understand each other...
"Okay... so, can you put up a better shield for me before we head out and conquer the world with our loner way?" Kitzi asked with a smirk.
Dante briefly considered teaching Kitzi how to put up a better shield. No. Not right after his placement test. He must be drained. "You bet on it! Just relax and I'll set up a shield for you..." He quickly set up a basic shield, making sure that it covered Kitzi's mind from all angles.
"While you're in there," Kitzi whispered, "could you figure out why I got a headache?"
"Headache? Since when?"
Kitzi shrugged. "Kinda since I arrived here..."
"Might be emotional overload," Dante guessed. "Since you can feed on emotions, you can also 'eat too much', so to speak. I'll just set up a filter for now. Like my shield, it'll only last a day or so, but don't worry, it's not hard to learn, so you so you should be able to put up your own shields by tomorrow."
"All this, just to be able to survive the day?" Kitzi whined.
"Don't worry," Dante chuckled, finishing the filter spell, "it's a small price to pay when you consider what you get in return."
"A headache?" the fox asked without much enthusiasm and got back to his feet.
"Very funny." The mouse smirked and gave Kitzi's robe a tug. "Come on, I'll tell you on the way to the changing room." They left the infirmary and walked down the corridor. Dante gave Kitzi's staff a curious look. "Why're you sweeping like that?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Close your eyes and find out." Kitzi replied with an innocent smile.
Dante hesitated. "Okay... fine." He closed his eyes and walked next to Kitzi. "So, this is what the world is like for you? Just this... void?"
"It's actually not a void. But I guess that people normally rely heavily on their sight, so it might feel like a void to you."
"That doesn't explain the stick," Dante replied, his eyes still closed.
"I didn't say it does." The fox chuckled. "Oh, by the way, I think you will figure out its use in... five seconds."
Five seconds? What's going to happen then? Will the revelation hit me? The mouse shrugged and moved on. After three steps, his face was buried in something soft. "What the-" he asked and opened his eyes. After taking a step back, he realized that he had walked straight into the backside of an elk Succubus. A rather enraged elk Succubus. Elk, how odd, he mused. Not too many of those around, especially not elks without antlers, even though that might be a gender thing. I kinda dig the brownish fur and wing feathers, though... and she's kinda cute with that blush. Come to think of it, isn't she in my 'Advanced Elemental Studies' course? Might be worth findi-
The elk raised a fist, causing Dante to abandon his thoughts about a possible romance. "If that was a new attempt to ask for a date, let me show you what I thought of it."
"Oh, frig," was all Dante could reply before the elk's punch sent him flying down the corridor. He barely managed to protect his face by raising his arms before hitting the floor. After skidding to a halt, Dante let out a groan. "Damn... can't believe I'm still in one piece." He looked up just in time to see the elk conjuring a disturbingly large boulder. "Oh, for the love of-" She tossed the boulder at him, causing Dante to skitter away from his current position. Yep, she's definitely in 'Advanced Elemental Studies', he thought even as the boulder hit the spot he had just left.
"THAT ENOUGH OF AN ANSWER FOR YOU?" the elk shouted, waving her fist.
"DULY NOTED! I'LL TRY ROSES NEXT TIME!" Dante shouted back and gave her a thumb-up sign. Much to his relief, the elk gave him a silly grin and walked off.
"Yasma had a nice voice," Kitzi remarked when Dante finally got back to him. "Very melodious."
Dante gave him a look. "You almost got me killed, and now you're talking as if-... Wait. You know her name?"
"Yeah. She told me after... what did she do to you, anyway? Sounded like a brief fight, and then she started whispering something about some some seal of some order..."
"Seal of the First Order," Dante replied automatically "Or maybe the one of the Eighth Order. Not sure, I'd have to look it up. Depends on the composition of that FRICKEN BOULDER SHE THREW AT ME BECAUSE YOU MADE ME WALK STRAIGHT INTO HER BACKSIDE!"
Kitzi jumped slightly and chuckled nervously. "Well, she did call you cute, if that helps."
"Wait, what?" The mouse blinked. "How long did you talk with her? She should've been too busy beating me up!"
"She's a fast talker, I guess." Kitzi gave him a smile. "What did she look like, anyway?"
"Starting to flirt on your first day already?" Dante gave him a smirk. "She's an elk. A tall, strong, brutish elk."
"I think most people are tall in your eyes," Kitzi retorted. "And she said you're cute, so I kinda doubt that she's interested in me."
"Eh. My next class with her is next week, so I can't even ask her about a date till then, anyway." He gave Kitzi's robe a light pull and started to move on. "Besides, I wouldn't know what to get her. Perfume, maybe?"
"You could just go to her room and ask her. Oh, and she doesn't use perfume."
Dante rolled his eyes. "Kitzi. Do you even know how many floors SAIA has? Do you have any idea how many students are living here? With only her name, the chances of find-" He noticed Kitzi's knowing smile. "...she told you her room number, did she?"
"She certainly did."
"WHEN?" Dante gestured wildly. "She spent less than a minute on beating me up, and she still told you her name, her room number, her perfume preferences and the fact that she finds me cute?"
"Well, the perfume thing is just what I noticed," Kitzi admitted and tapped his nose. "She had a nice, natural smell going for her. But the rest, yes."
Dante rubbed his temples. "At this rate, I'll stab my eyes out. It sure seems to help getting information from cute girls."
The fox snickered quietly. "It just boils down to paying attention to your environment."
"Is that how you knew I would walk into her?"
"Yes, actually," Kitzi replied. "I could smell and hear her a few seconds before you bumped into her."
The mouse gave the cane a glare. "Okay," he muttered, "and what does the stick do?"
Kitzi sighed and tapped Dante's foot with it. "It tells me when I'm about to bump into things I can't detect otherwise. So in the worst case, I would've touched her foot with it before running her over."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
"You let me walk into a near-death situation simply because you didn't feel like telling me this ONE SENTENCE?" Dante snapped.
Kitzi shrugged. "I kinda expected you to get the idea before actually hitting something." He gave Dante a grin. "But hey, you got a potential date out of it."
"Right, right. But next time, please use your super-senses to get me a date before I almost get buried alive."
"Super-senses? I wish. Using my senses of smell and hearing isn't super."
Dante frowned. "Well, I kinda believe the scent thing since you're a fox and all, but... you heard her standing there from, five to ten steps away? While we were talking?"
Kitzi hesitated. "Well... yeah. Why?"
That sounds fairly unlikely to me, Dante thought, giving Kitzi a critical look. If I didn't know better, I'd say he's using some kind of magic. Well, either that, or I really didn't pay any attention. He shook his head. "No, it's nothing, I guess..."
"If you say so..." Kitzi opened his mouth, as if to add something, but then shook his head. "So, where's the changing room?" he changed the subject.
"Oh, right! Fifth floor. We're actually close to the staircase." The mouse guided Kitzi through a door, and into the main SAIA staircase.
"...how huge is this place?" Kitzi asked, turning his head from side to side.
Dante took a quick look around. "The staircase? Pretty huge. Spiral staircase, built in a massive cylinder that's usually ten or so floors high. I think that if I climbed these stairs until I was right above you, I'd easily be standing two floors higher. Possibly more. And don't get any ideas of jumping across the gap in the middle, it's large enough to make you fall for-"
"Usually ten floors?" Kitzi interrupted him, scratching his head.
"It's... complicated," Dante hinted. "I'll tell you later. For now, come on." He slowly guided Kitzi to the stairs leading upwards, letting the fox work out the size and location of the steps with his cane. After moving up one floor, they left the staircase again. "Okay, we're almost-"
"Wait," Kitzi said, touching Dante's shoulder, "didn't you say that the changing room is on the fifth floor?"
Dante let out a quiet sigh. "Yep."
"And we started out on the second floor?"
"Yep."
"And after climbing up one floor worth of stairs, we're now...?"
"...on the fifth floor," Dante muttered. "Like I said: It's complicated."
"How can this be complicated?" Kitzi snapped. "It's a staircase! It's simple!"
"Kitzi, this is the SAIA staircase!" Dante explained, waving his arms wildly. "It... takes some gettin' used to!"
"How can we just skip two floors?" Kitzi asked, giving Dante a wild, unfocused look.
"We... it's..." Dante opened and closed his mouth. "How much do you know about Multidimensional Travel and Continuous Folding?"
"You know, it's no shame to admit that we're on the wrong floor," Kitzi told him after a few seconds of hesitation. "You don't have to invent stuff just to pretend-"
"Oh, for the love of..." Dante hissed, dragging Kitzi back into the staircase and up two flight of stairs. After leaving the staircase again, he dragged the protesting fox through a few corridors and to a closed door. "Okay," he said, trying not to pant, "we're in front of a door. Tell me something about it."
Frowning lightly, the fox reached out and touched the door, letting his hands wander to the golden numbers on it. "Number 256... that's... no, it can't be..." he whispered.
"Yes, that's our room. We're on the second floor again."
Kitzi grabbed the doorknob and pushed the door open. Not bothering to use his cane, he rushed inside, sniffing the air. "I can smell... my own scent. I've been here before."
"Well, yeah. Like I said: This is our room. Go check the drawers if you still don't believe me, your stuff should be where you left it."
Much to his credit, the fox simply sat down on the bed without going through a mental breakdown. "Fine," he muttered, not bothering to hide his resignation. "What's the deal with the staircase?"
"Officially, it's a proof of concept, designed and implemented by the Multidimensional Theories class roughly 150 years ago."
"And unofficially?"
"Late-night drinking binge by said class. Nobody is really certain how they did it, but everybody would be happy if it didn't happen again." Dante hopped onto the bed, landing next to Kitzi. "Oh, but it gets better!"
"Even better?" the fox asked sarcastically.
"The profs aren't sure if it's dimensionally stabilized. Heck, they're not sure about anything when it comes to the staircase."
"And that means...?" Kitzi asked, even though his expression told Dante that he didn't really want to know.
"Well, if it's not stable, then the worst-case scenario is TDC - Total Dimensional Collapse. Reality will twist and warp until the entire universe collapses into the staircase, which by then will be a complete void, leading into some other dimension."
Kitzi's jaw dropped. "Wha-...?"
"To be fair: That is the worst case. And it worked out for 150 years, so it should be mostly safe."
"So... all my life, there had been the chance of my entire world being sucked into a staircase?"
"Yeeeeep," Dante said, grinning proudly. "We got the most awesome staircase in the universe! And if TDC ever happens, it'll also be the only staircase in the universe." His grin vanished when he felt a massive wave of negative emotions hitting him. He gave his new roommate a quick glance and frowned. "Hey... c'mon, it's not that bad... I was mostly kidding, actually. The chances of that happening are really slim, and-"
"You wanted to bring me to the changing room?" Kitzi abruptly changed the subject and started to get up.
Damn, I've pushed him too far, too fast, Dante realized and bit his lower lip. "Look, it's not urgent," he whispered, pulling Kitzi back onto the bed. "Why don't you rest a bit? You still sleep, right? So you could-"
"I still sleep?" Kitzi asked. "That's a very odd question."
Way to go, Dante. Way to go... The mouse Incubus smacked his forehead. "I'm not sure that you want to hear the answer to-" he started to reply, but stopped when he noticed the look on Kitzi's face. "Fine," he muttered. "You're a Cubi. You don't need sleep anymore."
"I don't need sleep anymore," Kitzi echoed in a mocking tone. The fox suddenly jumped up and started to pace. "So being a Cubi now makes me an insomniac, and I guess you will tell me next that this is a good thing, right?" He glared in Dante's general direction. "Oh, and let me guess, it's because of my emotions, right? Because, like, EVERYTHING is connected to my emotions nowadays!" The fox threw up his arms and cursed.
Dante tried not to smirk at the outburst. "Well, you're not an insomniac since you can still go to sleep just fine. The thing is that you don't need sleep anymore. You can easily keep going for months or years without a second of sleep." He smiled sheepishly. "And yes, emotions. Even though the not-sleeping bit would count more as a natural ability, thanks the way your body works. But the energy we gather from emotions is usually what keeps us running."
Kitzi placed his hand on his forehead. "How many Cubi go insane on their first day?"
"Not too many, actually. But that is because we usually learn about all of that when we are young, so you're at a slight disadvantage since you only learn about stuff whenever it happens to you." He smiled softly. "Rest a bit, Kitzi. You've been through a lot in the past one or two hours." Thanks to me dragging him all around the place without any sort of organization, he mentally added. Heck, we didn't even reach the changing room! We had been almost there, and I dragged him back here just to prove that I'm right. Way to screw up, Dante.
"I don't need sleep, I need... normality!" Kitzi gestured vaguely, looking incredibly lost and helpless. "My entire world has been turned upside down in less than two days!"
"Yes, it has," Dante admitted, "and your brain needs some time to adjust to the various new things that are going on in your life." He stood up and joined Kitzi. "You need sleep. And nothing on your to-do list for this week is urgent, so you can sleep as long as you like."
The larger Cubi nodded slowly. "I guess you're right," he muttered. "But... what about your schedule? Isn't this messing with your-"
"I'll be fine," Dante interrupted him. "Trust me. You just go to bed, and once you wake up, things will be better. I promise."
"If you say so..." Kitzi said and sat on the bed.
"I do, I do. Trust me." The mouse Incubus hesitated and then grinned sheepishly. "Just... uh... tell me her room number, pretty please?"
The fox blinked twice before grinning, too. "Room 915."
"And no perfume for Yasha, but roses might help!" Dante said, proud that he remembered her apparent preferences.
Kitzi sighed. "Her name is Yasma. Not Yasha."
"Um. Right. Right." Dante chuckled nervously. "I totally meant that."
"You sure did," Kitzi replied mockingly. "Have fun on your date!"
The mouse smiled widely. "Thanks... and I wish you a good night!"
With that, he left the room. The last thing he heard before he closed the door was, "...why is there only one bed in here?"
---
Author's Notes:
- The first of the 2.5 chapters I wrote before I aborted my NaNo attempt.
- I had to make some changes to both finished chapters because the encounter with Yasma had not been planned and thus led to some changes in the near future.
- In fact, Yasma had not been a part of my plan, but I think she fits nicely into the cast.
- This chapter has some of my favorite lines, I think.
- Hey, look! I managed not to break the "No necro after more than one month" rule (even though I highly doubt that anybody would have enforced it here)
- Thanks to all the people who still care about this story, even after the massive delay! :)