Kavya Radhamma was always yearning for more, for something different, something that would surprise her and leave her content for one moment. Just one moment. Of course, this meant Kavya was unhappy most of the time, at least while her eyes were open and her consciousness blinked out at the world. Kavya was unaware that this characteristic set her apart.
Her hair was always oiled despite, or perhaps in spite of, the fact that no one in White Poppy Federation lands oiled their hair or fur or feathers or wings. Her mother liked to express her love in this way, by raking her fingers across Kavya’s scalp, leaving her with a cloying (if it was jasmine oil that day) or astringent (if it was more of a neem day) scent that wafted alongside, beside, in front of, and behind her eldest daughter wherever she went. Kavya thought of it as something to be borne silently and tragically, tying her hair tightly into a ponytail at the earliest opportunity. No nonsense, she thought. Others found it a bit severe.
Kavya was sitting in a classroom, surreptitiously reading the latest book in her favorite mystery series, when the world began to change, ever so slightly at first, but nonetheless irrevocably. They were in English class, reading Ariterian literature. Kavya had already read the assigned book twice and formed a very stubborn opinion about it, so she was reading a book she enjoyed instead. The teacher droned on about some simplistic symbolism, as if it had been groundbreaking. In this classroom, Kavya liked to sit a few rows from the front, off to the right, near the door. Sir Alama liked to lecture from the left side of the room and thus, had a limited view of Kavya for most of class.
As usual, Kavya lost track of time and space while she read. Her almost perfectly round head tilted to the precise angle at which she could easily read the book that she held in her lap beneath her desk while appearing attentive. Enthralled in the escapades of Sharond, the clever griffin sleuth, Kavya did not notice the noise of the door opening, the softness of padded feet crossing the room, the hush that fell over the class. In fact, she did not look up until a shadow crossed over her wooden desk, crafted by workers from fine merrin many years ago, the dark outline cutting across her page and casting her in a sudden chill.
She jerked her head upwards, shaking herself from the stupor her physical body had settled into. A Monitor, this one a lark in a sharply tucked-in uniform and only a little older than Kavya, stood quietly at her side. Sir Alama from his desk intoned, “They want to see you in the Southeast Hall. The Monitor will take you there.”
Even if Kavya internally questioned Sir Alama’s ability to understand the deeper emotional interpretations of certain Ariterian classics, Kavya nonetheless cowed to his authority. Despite the buzz of questions gathering in her head, she leapt from her seat, shoving her books and her unclosed notebook into her rucksack. As she did it, she regretted it – the pages would be torn and rumpled, mussed up by the time they made it to the Southeast Hall. But already, the Monitor had opened the door, ineffectually hiding her impatience at Kavya’s ineptitude, and Kavya could feel the many eyes of her classmates on her awkward frame. There was no time to take out the notebook and close it and put it back in her rucksack. It would have to be sacrificed for Kavya’s dignity and everyone else’s comfort.
Kavya trundled after the lark, who moved down the cool, stone halls of the Keeper’s Academy with the efficiency of wind-up toy.
“Why do they need me down in the Southeast Hall?” she asked the lark’s rigid back. The Monitor did not bother turning her head.
“I don’t know, but I’m sure they’ll tell you once you get there,” the lark replied, clipping each word with her beak.
Kavya scrunched up her face behind the lark’s back. Monitors were the goodie-two-shoes of the Academy, seniors who had received an early letter of invitation to join the Keep after graduation and begun training as they prepared for their final examinations. Even though Kavya wanted to become one in a few years when she herself was a senior (she couldn’t wait to become a member of the Keep), she couldn’t help but find the vast majority of them, like this lark, to be insufferable.
They emerged from the halls of the Academy into the sunlight. Challo was nearing its zenith; Dyana almost nearing sunset. Kavya loved this time of day, the way that the sky split into two, almost even layers with the creamy blue froth of Challo resting on the warmth of Dyana’s setting rays. The fact that she had to spend the two hours of the day when the sky cracked open in English class for four days out of the week, was yet another reason why she could barely tolerate what was otherwise her favorite subject.
The lark and Kavya crossed the green lawn that marooned the Academy from the rest of the Keep. Students in the Academy rarely interacted with Keep members, and were not allowed outside the Academy gates unless accompanied by a teacher or Monitor. Even if Kavya had been allowed to roam the acres of land contained by the four walls of the Southern Keep, she knew she’d feel just as self-conscious as she did now. She kept her head ducked low, her shoulders pulled close to her ears, and her back slouched as she tried to make herself as small and unnoticeable as possible.
Despite the fact her eyes were trained on the quick movements of the lark’s feet, Kavya was incredibly aware of the proximity of the other creatures on the grounds – training, working, walking, talking, and laughing – her ears ever so slightly twitching as they processed the depth, activity, and likelihood of approach for every sound picked up. More than having an interaction with another creature, Kavya dreaded the possibility the lark would recognize someone and start a lengthy conversation with Kavya relegated to standing awkwardly to the side, shifting her weight between her left and right foot. Luckily, her anxieties were unfulfilled that afternoon. They made it to the Southern Wall with nary a hi, hello, or how you do.
Kavya had started her first year at the Academy six months ago. Students of the Academy either stayed in dormitories, or with their families, if they lived within walking distance. Kavya’s parents had uprooted the entire family to the small town of Fa’zen to be within walking distance, despite Kavya’s protestations and well-reasoned arguments. Her mother lived her life on a tightrope wire, tensile in its razor thinness, and her heart could not take the anxieties of her eldest child being so far away. Kavya, who consciously decided to be oblivious to even the possibility of danger, would furiously think of all the dorm room get-togethers she’d never be invited to, let alone go to, because of her parents’ terribly strong love, as she walked to and from school every day. And every day, as she walked from the wheat fields and fruit orchards that embraced Fa’zen to the Academy and then back home, the only thing that abated her indignant anger was the sight of the Wall.
Even following the Monitor to the Southern Wall on an otherwise nondescript day, Kavya couldn’t keep the sensation of awe from rising within her as they approached it. The Southern Wall of the Keep rose to take up her entire field of vision. Made of large bricks cut from trika, a rose-pink colored stone abundant in the region, it stretched as high as the trees that abutted it, and as far down to Kavya’s left and right as far as she could see.
They reached a small red door made of neat wooden slats that had been dyed light grey, constructed so well that each strip sat flush with the next one. The lark pushed it open, the door easily swinging on its well-oiled hinges into the relative darkness of the Wall’s interior. The lark closed the door behind them, pulling a chain of large, heavy keys from the vest pocket of her smart jacket, and locked it. She carefully unwedged a heavy, wooden slat from the side, pulling it down across the width of the door to secure it. Kavya followed the lark, blinking with urgent purpose as her eyes readjusted to the dim hall. Though she passed through their arches every morning and evening on her way to class, Kavya had never been on the inside of the Walls. Only those in the Keep, or on Keep business, were allowed within the and atop the Walls.
Kavya’s glasses had fogged up, passing from the warm, summer humidity of the day outside into the cool temperature within. By the time she’d cleaned them, put them back on, and scrunched her nose to get them properly in place, her pupils had dilated enough for her to see the hooked ends of the lark’s claws turning the corner of the first flight of stairs they had to climb. Thinking to herself that Monitors, and this one in particular, could be infuriatingly taciturn, Kavya scampered after her.
After climbing an egregious number of steps, the lark and Kavya reached another grey door. At this door, however, the lark rapped the slat that ran down the length of the door with her beak. She rapped it in a strange pattern of five in quick succession, two slow, then three loud as a bang! A voice from the other side called out:
“Judicious, unfeeling, righteous of all?”
“Learnedness amiss,” intoned the lark.
“Considerate, compassionate, cautious of all?”
“Non scholae sed vitae discimus,” answered the lark gravely.
With that and the click of a lock being turned, the door swung outwards into the fading sunlight. Two creatures stood on the other side of the door. One was a medium-sized chameleon, coming about as high as Kavya’s elbow; the other, a beautiful faun with lovely little horns that curled delicately beside his triangular ears which jutted out from either side of his skull, straight upwards.
“Anaxos,” twittered the lark, “are you not posted to the Lower West Door? What are you doing up here? And why was the door left unlocked?”
The faun slid his eyes sleepily from the enraged lark to Kavya. This half-hearted, weary demand for connection from someone so good-looking made her stomach turn.
“Well, Ms. Lark,” he replied, deliberately ignoring the trimly stitched name on the lark’s lapel, “I thought I’d pop upstairs and grab a quick bite before returning to duty. I was just on my way down when you knocked. Couldn’t have been gone for more than ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes!” thundered the lark, who was at least four or five years younger than the faun, judging from the stripes on her Keeper’s uniform. “For ten minutes, you left the Lower West Door unlocked and unguarded so that you could get a bite to eat?”
“Shocking,” the faun replied evenly, “but true. I better head down then,” With a mocking bow to the lark, and a wink thrown to Kavya over the back of the flustered lark, the faun heave-hoed his way down the stairs. The chameleon, who had been as silent as Kavya during the interaction, locked the door behind the faun and resumed her sentry stance. The Monitor gave a fierce shake of her head, and Kavya briefly wondered if the faun had an easier time getting under other people’s skins because of his attractiveness. In any case, they were off again, walking along the length of the Wall towards the Southeast Hall, with the lark muttering about being late.
Only essential personnel populated the top of the Wall – sentries, messengers, officers, all of whom were too busy fulfilling their responsibilities to stop and chat. Freed from the possibility of social interaction, Kavya kept her head up, drifting closer and closer to the left-hand side of the wall, until she could just peer over the edge while walking on her tiptoes. She loved heights, especially looking down from them.
Thousands of feet below her, arrays of all sorts of creatures marched, busy with their evening tasks. Kavya saw a group of foxes and condors cleaning pots, pans, and a large cauldron behind a giant, rectangular building which was most likely the main mess hall. In the far east corner of her eyeline, she could see a troop of birds, varied in species and size, conducting some sort of drill as they flew high past the orange sky and into the still blue portion, then sharply diving towards the ground, stopping just short of the grassy field where they’d gathered before swooping back up to repeat the drill. Closer to the Southern wall, small dragons practiced setting fire to straw targets that were too far away for Kavya to see, centaurs and fauns arching their bows, elves with gleaming red hair and green uniforms making their way through a complicated obstacle course, and a group of what appeared to Kavya to be rather large lightning bugs, but were really pixies flitting about in an orderly fashion in the twilight haze that had settled over the land.
There was much more to observe and take in, including a majestically blue range of mountains that edged the skyline in the distance, but Kavya would have to wait for another time to properly appreciate the view. Already the lark was at least one hundred feet ahead of her, and Kavya, having seen how quickly the creature could get worked up, hurried after her. The evening hum of the Keepers, who thought they were simply training and readying for the potential of a threat, hazy in its undefined nature, followed her hurried footsteps.
