Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

James Pleiades Hawkins, against exploding stars, mutinous pirates, and all the odds, found Captain Nathaniel Flint’s legendary “loot of a thousand worlds,” and he doesn’t plan to speak of it to anyone.

Of course, Captain Amelia told the Interstellar Academy’s administrative board enough to convince them that her recommendation was indeed warranted, but Jim has no desire to expand on her description of events. Besides, he hasn’t seen any of the board members since that first meeting, and he really prefers to keep it that way. He knows his teachers won’t want to hear about his daring exploits in the far reaches of the universe, and honestly, he can’t decide whether it would be worse if his classmates didn’t believe him, or if they did. So it seems pretty clear to him that the best course of action is to keep from mentioning that adventure at all.

Unfortunately, in deciding this, Jim didn’t think far enough ahead to figure out what he would say instead. So when his first period teacher, a young, turtle-like man (really, he has a green-brown shell and very flat feet) with glasses perched on the end of his beak that remind Jim of Delbert’s, calls him up to the front of the classroom and asks him to explain how he got his scholarship, what comes out is, “Alponian solar cruising.”

The teacher (whose name is written on the board in too many scripts for Jim to find one that makes sense), blinks twice at him. “I’m sorry, what?”

“You know, Alponian solar cruising. Riding a solar surfer around, jumping off of obstacles and stuff.” Technically, that isn’t even a lie. They never would have made it off the planet if Jim was a less skilled solar cruiser.

He glances out over the sea of faces that make up his classmates. A few of them seem confused, one or two perked up at the mention of solar cruising, and most of the rest just look bored. Jim gets it. New kids aren’t interesting when they’re paraded around like spectacles. He doesn’t doubt that he’ll be swarmed when class lets out and they can actually talk to him, but for now, he isn’t worth their attention.

“Yes, yes, I believe I’m familiar with the… erm, sport, but I don’t understand how that contributed to your scholarship. Unless the school is putting together a team…?” The teacher trails off at the end, as though Jim will have the answer. He shrugs.

“Not that I know of. I’m just very good at it.” At the teacher’s blank stare, he continues. “I was recommended.”

A couple of students start snickering at that, hiding their smirks behind their hands. Great, Jim thinks. Not even a full day in and they’re already laughing. Oh well, it’s not like his goal is to fit in anyway. He remembers what he said to Silver the last time he saw him. I’m going to chart my own course.

Still, it might be nice to not stand out quite so much.

“Right, well, thank you for sharing,” the teacher says, obviously still puzzled but ready to move on. “Why don’t you go back to your seat and we’ll get started.”

Jim suspects he’s failed to keep his sigh of relief from being audible, but the teacher (Mr. Klemens, he finally reads) doesn’t comment, merely turns to the board and begins sketching a diagram of something. As he makes his way to his desk in the back of the room, Jim can feel eyes following him, but when he finally sits down everyone is facing the board on the front wall, where he can see gravitational fields and orbital paths taking shape. Not for the first time and certainly not for the last, he’s grateful that Delbert took the time to tutor him in the weeks before he traveled to the Academy. Despite what his grades back home might suggest, most academics come fairly easily to him, but the classes at the Academy are leagues ahead of anything his small school on Montressor could offer. He pulls out his notebook and copies the drawing down, adding notes in the margins whenever Mr. Klemens says anything particularly important. But it still feels like he’s being watched, and occasionally when he flicks his gaze around the room, he catches someone looking quickly away before they think he sees them.

Finally, finally, a ringing sound that is by no stretch of the imagination pleasant, but at least not as headache-inducing as the one back home, echoes throughout the room.

“Alright class, remember to complete problems thirty-five through forty-one in the workbook before next class,” Mr. Klemens calls over the rustling of two dozen notebooks being shoved into bookbags. Jim knows that if he lingers too long he’ll end up cornered, so he speed walks past the teacher as he makes a break for the door, determined to make it out of the classroom before most of the other students. He almost succeeds too, slipping out into the hallway before a hand wraps itself around his bicep, jerking him back against the wall next to the door.

“Hey, what gives?” he asks as his elbow knocks hard against the smooth white surface. When he looks up from rubbing the pain out of it, he’s being stared down by four of his classmates. Two look to be siblings, their tough scales the same shade of green, one has her sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms covered in pale grey spikes and teeth that are similarly sharp when she bares them, and the leader, who stands a few centimeters taller than Jim with his arms crossed over his chest, would appear human if he didn’t have two enormous horns curling out of the sides of his head.

“‘Alponian solar cruising’?” he drawls, leaning forward slightly. “Doesn’t sound like the kind of thing that would land a backwater kid like you a scholarship to this school. Where did you say you were from, again?”

“I didn’t, actually,” Jim retorts. He desperately wants to step back, but won’t give this asshole the satisfaction. Besides, he’s faced much worse in his life. Out of the corner of his eye, he thinks he sees another one of his classmates glance over and shake his head, but that could mean anything. He’s not counting on assistance here. “It doesn’t matter where I’m from, since they decided they wanted me enough that I didn’t have to buy my way in.”

It’s a certain type of student that cares that much about where new kids come from, and based on the way the leader’s eyes narrow and nostrils flare, Jim hit the nail on the head with this one. After a moment, though, his expression flattens out into a stiffly neutral one. “Badeg,” he says, extending his hand. It takes Jim longer than it should to realize that he’s introducing himself. When they shake, it feels like Badeg is trying to crush the bones in his hand, but Jim refuses to let any discomfort show on his face. “That’s Mikka,” Badeg continues, gesturing to the spiky girl, “and they’re Ditch and Branch.” The reptilians don’t move except to incline their heads, and Jim thinks they might not have blinked since this exchange began. “James, right?” Badeg asks as Jim tries to surreptitiously flex his fingers.

“Jim,” he corrects automatically, concluding that everything’s still where it belongs. “I’d appreciate it if you’d just ask me the next time you want to have a friendly chat.”

Badeg sneers, but just as he opens his mouth to say something else, a shadow appears at Jim’s side.

“Badeg!” a voice says, its deep exhaustion thinly veiled by false cheer. Jim turns to see the classmate he glimpsed in the hallway earlier, black hair brushing the tops of his ears and a fake smile plastered across his face. Aside from the startling violet of his slanted eyes (and the dark shadows underneath them, evidence of many sleepless nights, if Jim had to guess based on his own experience), he looks human too. “Isn’t your next class halfway across campus? I’d get moving if I were you. And I’m sure Jim here doesn’t appreciate you holding him up.”

Ordinarily Jim dislikes people speaking for him on principle, but in this case he thinks he can make an exception. He nods along, taking the escape he’s been offered. Badeg glances between the two of them before rolling his eyes.

“Hey Jimmy,” he begins, Jim instinctively bristling at the nickname, “come meet me at the recreation dome after school. I’ll show you a real sport.”

“I told you, it’s Jim!” he calls at Badeg’s retreating back before turning to his… well, not his savior, because Jim didn’t need saving, but his something-to-that-effect. “Thanks for the assist,” he says, considering it for a moment before offering his slightly bruised hand. The other boy shakes it much more gently than Badeg had. “I guess you already know my name.”

He smiles a little sheepishly. “I did actually listen in class. I’m Nori.”

“Nice to meet you, Nori.”

“Do you know where your next class is?”

Silently, Jim shakes his head. “I’m sure I can find it though.”

Nori makes a little grabby motion with his hand. “If you give me your schedule, I bet I can tell you where it is. I know the school pretty well at this point.”

“No, really, it’s fine. You’ve already helped me out, and besides, don’t you also have a class to get to?”

“Dude, it’s no trouble at all.”

“Alright, if you insist.” Jim makes a show of reluctantly pulling the folded paper out of his pocket, but he’s smiling just a bit and he knows Nori’s seen it. He scans the creased page for a moment, brow furrowing.

“No free periods? That’s rough.”

“Yeah, I’ve got some catching up to do, so I tried to take as many classes as I could.”

“Even though you’re coming in mid-year? You’re dedicated, I’ll give you that.” Nori nods before handing the schedule back to Jim. “Your class is just down this way,” he says, fortunately pointing away from the direction Badeg and his friends had gone. “Mine is near there, we can walk together if you want.”

Jim hears the offer, recognizes the undercurrent of insecurity that accompanies the belief that he’s going to refuse, and finds himself saying, “That would be great, thanks.” They fall into step together, walking quickly down the now less crowded hallway despite the fact that Jim has to shorten his strides to accommodate the other boy.

“I have to ask,” he says as they round a corner. Nori’s eyes flick curiously to Jim’s face. “It seemed like you had, I don’t know, experience with Badeg. Does he do that sort of thing often?”

Nori shrugs, glancing away. “I guess. It seems like he’s always trying to prove he’s high up in the pecking order, not that anyone tries to challenge him.”

Jim hums. “Well, maybe it’s time someone did.”

He keeps walking for several steps before he notices that Nori’s not by his side anymore. Turning, he sees Nori halted a few paces behind him, staring like Jim spontaneously grew a second head.

“You can’t seriously—are you actually going to meet him after school?” Nori rushes to catch up and they resume walking, although Jim can see tension in the other boy’s shoulders that wasn’t there before. “That’s not a good idea. I mean it, Jim. Most people can’t be bothered to pay attention to Badeg, but anyone who might want to knows that he has the power to cause consequences for those who get on his bad side.”

Jim squares his shoulders, thinking about all he’s gone through to get there. “I’m not afraid of him.”

Nori shakes his head before looking over at Jim. “I never said you were, or even that you should be. I just don’t think you’re exercising an appropriate level of caution.”

“Yeah, well, exercising caution’s never exactly been my strong suit.”

“Oh dear.” Nori tips his head back as he says it, like the ceiling might be able to help him out. It does nothing. “Well, good luck with that, I suppose. Your class is the second door on the left there. Mine’s over here,” he continues, jerking his thumb to the right, where another hallway branches off from theirs. “See you around?” He acts like it’s not supposed to be a question, but his tone lifts at the end anyway, almost like he can’t help it.

“Yeah, see you later,” Jim confirms, because this boy has been nice to him, and his eyes are really pretty cool, and he’s definitely better company than Badeg, who Jim’s almost certainly going to see again, and if he has to spend time with that asshole he wants to spend some with Nori too.

Jim sits down just as the bell rings again, in a desk about as far away from the door as it can get because that was the only empty one. He doesn’t like it, but mercifully Ms. Ghrothe doesn’t make him introduce himself to the class, so it could be worse.

When he pulls out his notebook, the stylus he’d been using in Mr. Klemens’ class isn’t clipped to the side like he’d left it. After fishing around for a moment, he finds it at the bottom of his bag. It must have fallen off at some point, maybe when he was getting jostled around by Badeg. Maybe he should look at the clip after school, make sure it isn’t broken.

Jim sets the stylus to the page, ready to start taking notes, but at first it won’t write. Then the tool goes soft in his hand, bending around his finger until it slips into a puddle of pink goo on his desk. Two eyes blink up at him, hovering somewhere between smug and guilty.

“Morph!” Jim hisses as the blob pulls themself together more fully. They whistle cheerfully as they flit around his head, dodging his futile attempts to catch them without drawing more attention to himself. “I thought we agreed you’d stay at the inn with Mom!”

Morph stills in front of his face, forming a tiny replica of Silver. “Keep an eye, keep an eye,” they parrot in their comically high voice as they stroll about on air.

“Mr. Hawkins,” a stern voice interrupts. He looks up to see Ms. Ghrothe standing at the front of the classroom, tentacles crossed and all eight of her eye stalks fixed on him. “What. Is. That.”

“This, uh, this is Morph,” he says, hand drifting up subconsciously to rub at the back of his neck. “They’re not really… they weren’t supposed to be here.”

“Indeed they are not. No pets are allowed in the school, as I’m sure you were informed.”

“They’re not a pet!” Jim protests before he can really think about it. “They have, like, abandonment issues or something, I don’t really know. But I promise they’ll be perfectly quiet and well-behaved for the rest of class!”

Morph nods and changes back into a stylus, tucking themself behind Jim’s ear.

“Hmph.” Ms. Ghrothe looks like she wants to make some further expression of irritation, but with a sigh turns back to the board. “I suppose at this point it would be more disruptive to send you out of the classroom. Be sure this doesn’t happen again.”

“Of course,” Jim assures her as he ducks down to search for his real stylus.

She teaches history, and either the class is behind or they’re ridiculously ahead, because she speeds through early prototypes of ships designed to sail through the Etherium and the cultures that built them. That’s the part of history that he’s actually interested in, and he wishes she’d spend more time on it, but maybe he’ll be able to find a book about it in the library. If he can remember where the library is.

At lunch, he briefly scans the cafeteria for Nori before realizing it’s far too crowded for him to ever be able to find the other boy. Despite this, he somehow manages to catch Badeg’s eye from across the room. Jim sits by himself at a table in a corner, as far away from Badeg and his friends as he can get. When he catches them staring at it, he gives Morph his purp.

Either Badeg’s been warning their fellow students away from him or else news just travels quickly, because aside from that one time he accidentally sits at a proboscidean’s desk and almost pays dearly, Jim doesn’t have trouble with his fellow students in his last two classes. In fact, aside from the perfunctory “Hello, it’s nice to meet you”s he gets after introducing himself, they barely interact with him at all. All too soon, the school day is over and Jim is making his way toward the large glass dome near the edge of campus. He stiffens slightly when someone falls into step next to him, expecting Badeg or his friends to be escorting him to keep him from backing out, but when he glances over it’s just Nori. He’s clutching the strap of his bookbag with one hand, tight enough that his knuckles are turning white. The other hand is shading his eyes, which are squinting against the bright sunlight.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” he says by way of a greeting, clearly having picked up on where they’re headed. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

“Doing what, exactly?” Jim asks when Nori doesn’t volunteer anything else. The other boy sighs, running his hand through his already messy hair.

“I can’t just let you walk in there by yourself, now can I?”

“Sure you could.” Jim shrugs. “People do that all the time.” He’s thinking of his dad, of course, walking out and leaving Jim alone, but then his mind turns to his mom, Delbert and Amelia, Morph, Ben, even Silver in his strange way. They didn’t run away (mostly). He should thank them more.

“Yeah, but that would be kind of a dick move, wouldn’t it?” Nori’s smiling sideways at him now, like he knows Jim can’t refute that. He grins back.

“I guess it would.” The doors to the rec dome loom in front of them now, and Jim fights the urge to gulp at the sight. “Last chance to back out,” he mutters, not sure if he’s talking to himself or Nori.

“I’ll walk away right now if you’re coming with me,” Nori mutters back.

“Not a chance.” Jim steps forward to push the left door open. It doesn’t budge. He looks back over his shoulder at Nori, who pulls the other door without a word. It swings out with a whoosh of air, ruffling Jim’s hair. He drops his head in his hands. “Fantastic.”

“After you,” Nori says, still holding the door open and failing at hiding his amused smirk.

The first thing Jim registers about the rec dome is that it’s loud. The hum of engines and sounds of impact from various pieces of equipment are overlaid by the chatter of dozens of conversations. After taking a moment to absorb and process the noise, he examines the space.

There’s an open area right in front of him, with vending machines against walls that slowly curve in and benches arrayed on the slightly spongy floor. A few students are sitting there, either preparing to work out or cooling down from one. The left half of the dome is split into floors, with two elevators bracketing a stairwell right where the lobby area transitions into the “recreation” part. Jim can’t really see what’s on the upper levels, but a track circles a few courts on the ground floor. Although nobody’s running on the track, one of the courts is occupied by a casual game of jibberwal. As he watches, the ball explodes on the far side of the court, dusting that team in orange powder. One of them sneezes violently, careening into a teammate and sending them both tumbling to the ground. Jim winces in sympathy.

The other half of the dome is one big room, from the ground to the curved ceiling. Light streams in through the glass, illuminating what looks like an obstacle course, pipes and large, blocky objects forming structures similar to the ones Jim used to cruise through back on Montressor. And all throughout the course, engines glow and sails flutter as students ride solar surfers.

“Wow,” Jim breathes, vibrating like a revving engine. Just behind him, Nori chuckles softly.

“Pretty nice, right?”

“I’ve never seen a course indoors before.” What Jim means is I’ve never seen an actual course before, but he doesn’t think this is the place to reveal that bit of information.

“If you think this is cool, wait until you see the training port,” Nori says.

Before Jim has a chance to respond, a shout echoes through the dome.

“Jimmy!” Badeg and his friends stroll over from where they’d been standing at the edge of the obstacle course. When they stop in front of him, Jim notices they’ve already changed out of their school uniforms. That’s not good.

“I said you should call me Jim,” he says, because that’s a battle he’ll never not pick.

“Or what?” Badeg says. “You’ll teach me a lesson?”

“Yeah, I’ll teach you a lesson,” Jim responds, stepping forward. He feels something brush against his wrist and instinctively flicks his hand to shake it off.

Badeg laughs, the sound somehow much crueler than Nori’s had been only moments before. “You’re the only one who’s gonna be learning anything today.” He steps back, gesturing to the course with a grand sweep of his arm. “What do you think? How does Tesseran skysurfing measure up to your Alfian sun cruising?”

“It’s Alponian solar cruising,” Jim corrects, “and from what I can see, they’re the exact same thing.”

“Is that so?” Jim does not like the gleam in Badeg’s eye. “I suppose that means you’ll be up for a little casual competition between friends. A race through the course, maybe. What do you say, Jimmy?”

In his peripheral vision, Jim can see Nori shaking his head vigorously, glaring daggers in Jim’s direction. And he’s right, it’s a bad idea. Jim’s not dressed for solar cruising, he doesn’t usually do it around other people, and he’s never run this course before. But that voice in his head, the same one that held onto the dream of Treasure Planet for so many years, is telling him not to back down.

“Sounds good to me,” he says, and hears Nori’s palm slap his forehead.

“Come on, Badeg,” he interjects, “you know it’s not fair—”

“Jimmy already said yes,” Badeg says, cutting Nori off. “It’s settled. Drop your stuff and grab a sailboard,” he directs Jim before walking back to the course and yelling at the other solar cruisers—skysurfers, Jim supposes they’re called here—to clear off.

“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Nori says as Jim lifts the strap of his bookbag over his head.

“Not the first time I’ve heard that,” Jim replies. “But trust me, it’ll be fine. I really am good at this, promise.”

Nori takes Jim’s bag without being asked. “I sure hope so. Wait, you’re not gonna need this.” His fingers brush quickly through Jim’s hair, coming back holding the stylus that had been tucked behind his ear. Jim had forgotten Morph was up there, the little shapeshifter had been so quiet. Jim remembers thinking they probably fell asleep sometime after lunch. The movement must wake them up, though, because suddenly the stylus wriggles. Nori drops it with a shriek, eyes wide as saucers when the object doesn’t fall to the ground, but floats about halfway between his hand and the floor. With a shake, Morph returns to their usual state, blinking blearily up at Nori, then Jim.

“What the fuck,” Nori asks, still breathing heavily, one hand pressed to his sternum.

It’s strangely reminiscent of Ms. Ghrothe’s class earlier that day, but Jim’s no more prepared this time. “Oh, uh, Nori, this is Morph. Morph, meet Nori. Watch them for me, will you?” Then Jim’s speed walking to the wall, where a rack of solar surfers (they’ll always be solar surfers to him, even if Badeg called them “sailboards”) stands upright. He runs his fingers along the row, stopping at the third one from the end, which looks the closest to the one he has at home.

As soon as he lifts it off the rack, he can tell he’s going to have bigger problems than his clothes or the unfamiliar course. The surfer is heavy, at least one and a half times the weight of his own. Admittedly the rusted piece of scrap metal he rode out of Treasure Planet was probably in worse shape, but Jim genuinely has no idea what he’s going to do with this.

A series of quick tests reveals that none of the other surfers are any lighter, so Jim takes a fortifying breath and pulls his initial choice over to the line next to Badeg, who doesn’t seem to be struggling at all with his surfer. All the other students who were kicked off the course are lined up along the side with Mikka, Ditch, and Branch acting as referees. Nori, with Morph floating around his head, is standing back a bit from the crowd. He flashes Jim two thumbs up and a nervous smile, which Jim does his best to return confidently.

“Sure you don’t want to forfeit?” Badeg sneers. Jim curls his lip right back.

“In your dreams,” he says. “I hope you’re ready to get your ass handed to you.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Badeg hisses before Mikka starts counting down next to them.

“Three, two, one, GO!” she shouts, and Badeg takes off in a blast of heat and light, Jim hot on his trail for all of three meters.

The biggest problem, as it turns out, is not the extra weight of the surfer, but how it’s distributed. There’s more weight toward the front of the vehicle than Jim’s used to, which skews its center of gravity. This becomes glaringly obvious when he leans forward like he would on his own surfer and instead of balancing out, the nose of the rec dome’s surfer dips toward the ground too quickly for Jim to pull it back. The fall isn’t as scary as when he was fleeing for his life, but his heart’s still racing when he goes down hard, skidding along the ground in front of his surfer. A muffled “Ooh” rises from the onlookers as he rolls to a stop well before any of the obstacles, competing with the ringing in his ears for the honor of “most annoying sound.” Badeg doesn’t even bother finishing as soon as he realizes Jim’s wiped out, swinging his solar surfer around to drift to a halt above Jim’s prone body.

“I thought you said you were good at this,” Badeg says, although it lacks the bite Jim would have expected. In fact, his eyes never settle on one place for long, and if Jim didn’t know better he’d think his competitor was checking him over for injuries. He doesn’t respond, and Badeg scoffs. “At least now we know how much your solar cruising is worth.”

“Oh my Veda, are you okay?” A warm hand worms its way under his shoulder, pulling him up so he’s sitting with his legs splayed out in front of him. He pulls them in slowly, noting the rip in the right knee of his navy blue uniform pants. It’s small, but his skin is clearly visible through it. He’ll have to fix that, which shouldn’t be too hard. He watched his mom patching up his clothes enough times as a kid, he should be able to figure it out, right?

The helping hand obviously belonged to Nori, who’s kneeling next to Jim now, fingers twitching in his lap like he wants to reach out again but isn’t sure if he’s allowed to. Morph hovers next to him until they make eye contact with Jim, at which point they zoom over and transform into bandages that wrap around his head. He laughs and slips two fingers under them, prying the shapeshifter off.

“I’m fine, don’t worry,” he says to both of them. His palms do sting a bit, and a quick glance down reveals that they’re a little scuffed, but it’s nothing bad enough that Nori needs to worry so he folds them out of sight. “The only thing hurt is my pride.”

Jim pushes himself to his feet with a grunt, Nori walking next to him as he makes his way back to the surfer. Fortunately, it doesn’t look damaged at all. There’s a reason there’s some give to the flooring in the rec dome. He pulls the sail until the surfer’s upright, then walks around it, examining it with a critical eye. If he thinks about how bad a spill he just took in front of several dozen of his peers he’ll lose his mind, so he focuses on figuring out the differences between this surfer and his. He should have done this first, but his ego blinded him. Oh well, you live and you learn.

The metal’s different, first of all, more durable but probably heavier. It’s also purposefully manufactured rather than lovingly crafted from scrap. Mostly, though, the engine’s bigger and there are fixtures on the bottom that he’s not used to seeing. Those are probably where the increased weight toward the front is from.

He steps onto the board carefully, just standing for a moment, getting used to the feel of it under his feet. Nori was right, he really was an idiot for rushing into the race like he had, but Badeg hasn’t come over to gloat about his victory yet, so perhaps the situation is still salvageable.

“What are you doing?” Nori asks with the kind of exasperation that comes from being proven right and still being ignored. Jim knows it well, he’s heard it from his mother enough times over the years.

“Just trust me.” He doesn’t have anything else to offer up at the moment.

“The last time you said that nearly ended in you breaking your neck.”

A laugh bursts out of Jim unbidden. “Oh, that wasn’t nearly as close as I’ve come to breaking my neck.”

The look Nori gives him could best be described as shocked concern. “If you meant for that to be reassuring, which I sincerely hope you did not, it really, really wasn’t.”

“Well, I made it through that in one piece, didn’t I? I’ll be fine,” Jim says in a legitimate attempt to be reassuring, as he kicks the lever that activates the engine. The surfer lifts off of the ground, drifting forward slowly while a glow ripples across the sails as they begin absorbing sunlight. Nori steps back as Jim leans slightly to the right, pulling the surfer into a wide turn. It wobbles slightly, but he doesn’t fall this time, which for the moment is a win. After a few minutes of slow gliding in the area before the obstacles begin, he’s able to surf circles around Nori, who looks on like he’s an unfortunate combination of worried and reluctantly impressed.

“See?” Jim says from behind him, causing Nori to whirl in a circle. “I told you I’d be fine. Badeg!” The horned student looks up from where he’d been talking to Mikka. Ditch and Branch don’t seem to be much for conversation. “How about a rematch?”

“Jim—” Nori starts, but Jim’s already gone, cruising to the line they’d started at earlier. He hears Nori mutter something, presumably to Morph, but he doesn’t catch it because Badeg’s lining up next to him.

“You sure about that, Jimmy? Didn’t go too well for you the first time.”

For once, Jim doesn’t rise to the obvious bait. “Let your surfer do the talking, big guy.”

“Is this really happening?” Mikka asks, and Jim can’t blame her for doubting, but he still snarls out a “Yes!” along with Badeg. The girl just shrugs.

“I’m not dragging either of you to the medbay,” she tells them. “Three, two, one, go!”

This time, although he still crouches to make it easier to slice through the air, Jim keeps his weight on his back foot. Because it’s heavier, this surfer doesn’t turn as sharply as his own, but it’s smoother and this is a straightaway course, so it isn’t much of an issue. Occasionally he feels the breeze off of something passing by him a little too closely, but for the most part he dodges and weaves around pipes effortlessly, pulling up on the sail to soar over a solid block of metal in his way. To his left, Badeg is keeping pace, running the course like he knows what to expect. His prior knowledge would probably be an advantage if he was racing against anyone else, but this is Jim Hawkins. He’s practically a master at thinking on his feet and avoiding obstacles on the fly. Badeg has a route that he’s going to stick to. Jim’s confident he’ll be able to find a faster one.

His chance comes near the end, when a strategically broken wall looms in front of them. There are several pipes that act as ramps leading up to it, and Badeg predictably begins surfing up one, hardly losing speed. But there’s a hole right in front of Jim, smaller than the one in the water wheel at home but fortunately without any moving parts. The entire course is stationary, actually, which would be a little disappointing if he wasn’t grateful at the moment.

He knows Badeg knows what he’s going to do when the taller boy glances over and sees he hasn’t gained any altitude. Jim would love to see his expression right now, but he’s too busy collapsing the sail and tucking his body as close to the surfer as he can. The hole approaches fast, not as fast as if he’d been in open air but enough to get the blood pumping in his veins. He can feel his heartbeat in his ears as he sails through, the bottom of the surfer scraping the edge of the hole slightly and his elbow clipping the side, and then he’s past it and navigating through the last few meters of the course, not bothering to open the sail back up. He slides along a pipe, wincing a bit at the screech that comes from his surfer making contact with the metal, but then it’s over and he’s swinging into a tight turn to slow down. Not his finest run, but Badeg blows past him angrily, the second to cross the finish line.

He hops off his solar surfer, walking the few meters to where Badeg drifted to a stop. It doesn’t count till he has verbal confirmation.

Badeg glares at him before baring his teeth in what’s probably supposed to be a smile. “Good race Jimmy,” he forces out, extending his hand. Jim considers ignoring it, but in the end, there’s no good reason to. He’s not trying to be petty, just proving a point.

“I told you to call me Jim,” he says, shaking Badeg’s hand for the second time that day. Badeg doesn’t try to break his bones this time, which Jim thinks shows improvement.

“Well, Jim, I don’t know how you did it, but congratulations.” Somehow Badeg makes it sound like a threat. Jim decides not to dwell on that.

Putting his solar surfer back on the rack involves walking past the small crowd that had watched the spectacle of their race, but that’s not as awkward as he thought it would be. A few of the students offer him some variation of “Nice job” or “Congrats,” but most just drift back onto the course or out of the dome altogether. The only ones who stay are Badeg’s friends and Nori, who’s waiting beyond them.

Mikka’s standing right in Jim’s face when he turns around from reracking his surfer, startling enough that he takes an involuntary step back. “Dude,” she begins, and he’s on guard for a moment before she breaks into a wide grin. “That was sick!” She holds up her fist for a fist bump, as though she doesn’t have four centimeter spikes coming out of her knuckles. He looks at them and then back at her, then raises his eyebrows for good measure. “Oh, right, sorry,” she laughs as they start shrinking, until they’ve disappeared completely into her hand, leaving nothing but little puckered marks behind. He fist bumps her slowly, still a little blown away.

“You can retract them?” He doesn’t blame her when she chuckles; he’d laugh at the wonder in his voice too.

“Yeah, how else do you think I keep from ripping holes in my uniform?” When Jim doesn’t say anything else, she gives him a little two-fingered salute before throwing her arms over Ditch and Branch’s shoulders, walking all three of them over to Badeg. He watches them go, blinking a little dazedly, until something squishy flies into his cheek.

“Morph! Sorry for scaring you, buddy,” he says as Morph rubs up and down his face as though to make sure he’s still in one piece. Nori’s not far behind, coming to stand in front of him with his arms crossed. Jim can’t quite tell if his exasperation is real or affected.

“See, I told you I’d be fine,” he says, because that approach has worked so well for him in the past. Nori looks at him for another moment before dropping his arms and his head. Craning his neck down, Jim can just barely see him smiling at the floor.

“You, Jim Hawkins, are a menace,” he says when he looks back up. Jim makes a vague gesture at nothing in particular.

“Yeah, a menace who just won,” he says, flashing a crooked smile that slips off his face too soon. “Is that gonna be an issue?”

Nori shakes his head, starting toward the exit but pausing until he’s sure Jim is following. “Nah, it’s cool.” He knocks their shoulders together. “Besides, I think I could use the excitement.”

“Oh, that can be arranged,” Jim assures him. Nori laughs, bright and clear, before wincing at the sunlight again even though it's not that much brighter outside than it was in the rec dome.

Later, when Jim’s back in his room (which he half suspects is a storage closet someone emptied out and slapped a bed in, based on the size and the lingering odor of antiseptic), he sets a holorecorder on his desk. Sitting in the chair to capture his message makes him twitchy, so he stacks a couple of books underneath it and stands instead.

“Hey Mom,” he starts before realizing he doesn’t really know where to go. “Um, my first day was pretty good, I guess.” Could use some work, but it’s alright. “Classes are going well. Thank Delbert for me, again. I’d be totally lost without him. And, uh, I made a friend? I think. Maybe. I’m not really sure, it’s only been a day, but he came to provide moral support when I raced one of my classmates. I won, by the way, even though their surfers are a lot different from mine.” No, that’s a bad idea. He probably shouldn’t mention that he’s already getting into conflicts with his peers. With a sigh, he stops the recording and then deletes it. After pacing the length of his room about a dozen times (five steps goes by quickly), he starts again.

“Hey Mom, my first day was pretty good. Classes are going well so far, mostly because of Delbert. Could you please thank him again for me? I’d be lost without him.” He pauses for a moment, glancing away from the screen before looking back. “I’ll do my best to make you proud, I promise. I think—I think it’s gonna be good here. I want it to be, at least. I love you.” There, that’s pretty good. He hits stop and pulls the chip out of the device, wrapping it up to send out with the student mail the next day.

Jim doesn’t exactly sleep soundly, his surroundings are still too unfamiliar for that, but at the very least, it’s not his own head that keeps him up that night.

Chapter Text

The schedule rotates, which Jim forgets about until he shows up to Mr. Klemens’ Planetary Physics class bright and early the next morning only to see an unfamiliar teacher and students he’s never met before. Fortunately, only one or two people glance at him while he’s standing in the doorway, so he’s able to beat a hasty retreat before it gets too awkward. When he pulls it out of his bag, his schedule informs him that he has Language Arts first that morning. It doesn’t specify what language, which is a little concerning, but it does specify the room number, which is close to yesterday’s history class. He remembers the way, thankfully, so he’s able to get there just as class begins.

“Alright everyone, I hope you have your essays ready for me,” his teacher’s middle head says as the left one focuses on the board, where a hand is writing something, and the right head looks at where another hand is shuffling papers on the teacher’s desk. It hurts Jim’s one head a little bit, thinking about what it would be like to have three. Then the teacher’s words catch up with him. He definitely doesn’t have an essay ready, but he’s not sure if he’s supposed to say something or just sit quietly at his desk.

“Mx. Rov’shi,” another student says, raising their feathered wing.

“Yes, Diphoni?” Mx. Rov’shi’s left head says.

“The library couldn’t find one of my sources until yesterday, may I please have a one-day extension?”

All three heads sigh in tandem. “This is why I asked you all to check with the librarians early,” their right head lectures as the middle one says, “Just this once, your deadline is extended until tomorrow.”

“Thank you!” Diphoni chirps.

When Mx. Rov’shi reaches Jim, their left and middle heads blink down at him while the right one doesn’t react.

“Um, hello,” Jim offers. “I’m Jim, I just started yesterday.”

“Ah, Jim Hawkins, yes?” their middle head asks. Jim nods. “Unfortunately, you’ve arrived right in the middle of a unit, but I’m sure you’ll be able to catch up just fine.”

“Glad to hear it,” Jim says, only slightly sarcastically.

“This class is largely taught in English,” Mx. Rov’shi’s right head says, “but we are fluent enough in Corregian, Fixra, Tesseran, and Hoflese that you may complete any of your assignments in those if you prefer. We try to grade you on your skills in the language you’re most comfortable with.”

“English is fine, thanks,” Jim manages. He hasn’t even heard of half of those languages, and he’s hardly fluent enough in Hoflese to be able to write his assignments in it.

“Alright!” Two of Mx. Rov’shi’s hands clap together. “Don’t hesitate to come to us with any questions you have,” their left head tells him.

They finish making their way around the room, collecting the rest of the papers. Today’s lesson seems to be about structuring an argument, which Jim feels confident he’s had plenty of experience with. At the very least, sailing under Amelia gave him an excellent example to study from. So although he doesn’t exactly tune Mx. Rov’shi out, his notes aren’t particularly thorough. It’s a relief when the bell finally rings, releasing him into the crushing horde of students in the hallway. He makes his way to the wall, trying to stay out of the worst of it.

Jim’s first mistake is thinking he’s safe.

His second is taking a moment to relax before consulting his schedule again, because he doesn’t even get the chance. Before his hand has so much as reached inside his bookbag, a shadow falls over him.

He’s expecting Badeg or some similarly-minded student to be looming in front of him, so when he comes face-to-face with a bat as large as he is hanging upside down from the ceiling, he’s a little shocked. But he does not scream, no matter what stories said bat might tell later.

“Are you Jim?” the bat asks as he’s catching his breath. Upon closer inspection (very close inspection, because she does not seem to have any concept of personal space), she has vaguely humanoid features. Large, twitching ears sit on either side of a face whose eyes, nose, and mouth are recognizably human (although needle-thin fangs peek out over her bottom lip), and leathery black wings shift around to reveal a body that’s managed to dress in the school uniform, somehow.

“Hello?” she says, waving the tip of a wing in Jim’s face when he doesn’t answer. “I asked you a question.”

Jim gives his head a brief shake to clear it. “Why do you want to know?” he asks, a little more defensively than he means to, although he thinks he can be excused in this instance.

“Just wanted to see the reason Nori was late to class yesterday,” the bat tells him in an almost singsong voice. “He said he was helping someone named Jim, and In’sa said xe saw him walking with some humanoid with a weird haircut, so.” She shrugs, as though she thinks that’ll negate the insult. It does not.

“My haircut’s not that weird!”

“So you are Jim!”

He sighs, rolling his eyes. “Fine, yes, I’m Jim. And you are?”

“Oh!” She slaps her forehead, nearly taking Jim’s eye out on the way. “I’m so dumb, sorry. I’m Kise.” She pronounces it “Keese.” Jim feels like he’s heard something like that before, but he can’t place it.

“So you’re friends with Nori, then?” he asks, just to clarify. He doesn’t want to get the wrong idea, especially when Nori and Badeg were clearly not on good terms.

“Or close enough that I care when he’s five minutes late, yeah.” Kise is looking at one of her claws now, so she misses Jim’s eyes widening in surprise.

“Five minutes? Why was he that late?”

“Because he was showing you to your class, dumbass,” Kise answers, although the name doesn’t have any bite behind it. If anything, it feels endearing, like she’s the kind of person to call her friends idiots regularly. She’s still wrong in saying it was Jim’s fault, though.

“Don’t blame me, he said his room was right by mine!”

Kise’s eyes snap to Jim’s. “Oh, did he now?” Her voice is filled with almost manic glee, and suddenly Jim feels very sorry for Nori. And a little guilty, which makes no sense. “You know, with better hair, I could kind of see it.”

Jim’s getting verbal whiplash from this conversation. “See what?”

“Nothing!” Kise sings, releasing her grip on the ceiling so she can swoop over their fellow students’ heads, almost decapitating Jim this time. “See you later, Jim!”

He watches her go for a moment. “Why are people so weird,” he whispers to himself before finally digging out his schedule so he can make his way to Biology.

He’s only a little late, anyway, so on the whole the morning is a success.

Jim’s not even looking for anyone when he walks in the cafeteria, too focused on scouting out a seat, but then someone shouts “Hey, Jim!” behind him. He turns to see Nori about halfway down the lunch line, waving him over. “I wasn’t sure you’d be in this cafeteria,” he says when Jim finally shoulders his way there.

“‘This cafeteria’?” Jim asks as the rosid behind them gives him the stink eye for cutting the line, probably.

“Yeah, there are three. Only way they could fit everyone, I guess.” Nori shrugs.

“Interesting.” Jim leans in conspiratorially, lowering his voice like he doesn’t want anyone to hear. “Do they serve the same food in all of them? Because this one left something to be desired yesterday.”

Nori chuckles through his nose. “Yeah, unfortunately I think they’re all the same.”

“Bummer.” They step forward to the front of the line, where there are bowls of stew being carefully watched over by something that has no discernable eyes. It’s a little confusing, but Jim and Nori each take one and move on. Jim’s complaints about the food were mostly for show; the stew smells pretty good. The only real disappointment is that the cafeteria doesn’t have purps today, just some strange alien fruit that Jim’s never seen before but looks like it has fingers. He doesn’t take any.

“So, is your little friend with you?” Nori asks when they finally sit down. It takes Jim a moment to figure out who he’s referring to.

“Oh, Morph?” When Nori nods, Jim looks for the little metal pendant that’s been hanging off the strap of his bookbag all morning, but it’s not there. Suddenly, as though possessed by some sort of clairvoyant power, Jim knows what he’s going to see before he turns to face Nori. Sure enough, the spoon wiggles in Nori’s hand before Morph eats the stew that was in it, in a perfect replica of his first meeting with Jim. He rolls his eyes as Morph begins flying around their heads with all of their characteristic energy.

“Yes,” he sighs, “Morph is with me.”

“Hey, buddy,” Nori says, desperately trying to keep up with the little creature. Jim laughs, knowing the endeavor is futile.

“Hey buddy,” Morph repeats, forming a miniature Nori and standing on the table in front of them.

“They can mimic people?” Nori looks absolutely shocked. Apparently he and Morph hadn’t gotten closely acquainted while Jim was racing a surfer into the ground yesterday. Who could have guessed?

“Oh yeah,” Jim says. “Their favorite game to play, besides copying inanimate objects and surprising me, is reenacting all of the embarrassing things they’ve seen me do.” Morph smiles mischievously at Jim before becoming him, and a spike of terror pierces Jim’s heart. “That was not an invitation!” he hisses while Morph and Nori laugh. “Pick anyone else!”

Morph returns to their natural state, considering for a moment before twisting into an oddly familiar shape. It’s not until they flip over so they’re hanging upside down from air that Jim recognizes who it is.

“That… looks an awful lot like Kise,” Nori says slowly, an actual spoonful of stew paused halfway to his mouth.

“Yeah, she introduced herself to us earlier,” Jim responds. “I didn’t realize you were paying attention, Morph.”

Morph nods dutifully before saying “Weird haircut, weird haircut!” in a pretty convincing impression of Kise’s singsong voice. As if Jim needs the reminder. He fights the urge to run a hand through his hair.

“Thank you, Morph,” he mutters, squinting at the shapeshifter when they giggle.

“She didn’t say that, did she?” Nori asks, staring studiously down at his lunch tray. The lights from the cafeteria cast a slightly bluish tint on his almost worryingly pale skin, and his ears look slightly pointed where they’re exposed by the way his hair falls forward. Even with the violet eyes, Jim sometimes forgets that he’s probably not human. Not that it matters, it’s just weird to remember.

He realizes Nori’s probably expecting a reply around the same time he realizes he doesn’t have one. “She has bat ears, what does she know?” he blurts out.

“Probably a lot more than us, considering she can hear every whisper in a ten-kilometer radius,” Nori says, but he’s smiling again, so Jim feels his mission is accomplished.

Morph chooses that moment to rejoin the conversation, chiming in with, “Nori was late! Nori was late!” Because the embarrassment must be spread evenly, Jim thinks wryly.

Nori drops his head in his hands, muttering something too quietly for Jim to hear. The slivers of his face that Jim can see look really blue now, and Jim surreptitiously checks his own hand to see if the lights are having a similar effect on him, but if they are, he can’t tell.

“Yeah,” he says, leaning away from the table and propping his elbow on the back of his chair. “She had some… interesting things to say.”

“She has bat ears, what does she know?” Nori mumbles through his fingers.

“Probably more than us.” Jim’s not sure how he managed to say that with a straight face, but soon they’re both laughing over their largely uneaten stew, Jim silently wheezing and Nori with tears trickling out of the corners of his eyes.

“As long as we’re in agreement, then,” Nori forces out once they’ve both calmed down a bit. They pass the rest of their lunch relatively uneventfully, Morph stealing bits of food indiscriminately off of both of their trays, and all too soon (in Jim’s opinion, anyway) the bell rings.

“Where are you going next?” Nori asks as they drop their trays near the cafeteria’s exit.

“Mechanical Lab. I know where that is already, you don’t have to go out of your way to show me,” Jim assures him. He found his way to the workshop his first night at the school, almost like it was calling to him. He hadn’t actually attended any classes at that point, so he didn’t dare poke around inside the room, but he peered in through the windows. It already looked like home, even empty in the dark. That’s why he’s here, really, for classes like that.

“Alright, well,” Nori says, like doesn’t really know how to excuse himself without sounding like he’s saying goodbye, even though they’re going to see each other tomorrow.

Jim’s no more sure of himself. He’s not exactly used to people wanting to see him again, with the exception of Silver. That was a bit different, though. When you’re stuck on a ship with someone, the closest you get to saying “goodbye” is “goodnight.”

Strangely enough, it’s Morph who comes to the rescue, chirping out “See you around!” before diving toward the strap of Jim’s bag.

“See you around, buddy,” Nori says with a smile, then nods at Jim, who nods back. Fortunately, Nori turns right down the hallway while Jim turns left, so they don’t end up awkwardly walking next to each other.

Unfortunately, Jim almost suffers from cardiac arrest when he walks into the workshop, because Scroop is standing at the front of the room.

Except Scroop is dead, Jim watched him float untethered into the Etherium, so whoever this is, it can’t be him. After his heart has finished palpitating, Jim can see that this alien is brown where Scroop was red, and they seem like they’re making an effort to not appear menacing, whereas Scroop tended toward the opposite.

“You alright there, lad?” And now he talks like Silver, which is confusing on so many levels. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Sorry,” Jim says, blinking rapidly to get rid of the double image of this teacher and Scroop. “Just, for a moment, I thought you were someone I knew.”

“Ah, I see. Why don’t you take a seat at one of the tables back there, and we’ll get you sorted into a group once everyone’s here.”

Jim does as the teacher suggests, sitting close to the door and looking out at the rest of the room. It’s much more interesting when he can see more than dim shapes in the darkness. There are machines all along the walls, some he recognizes and most he doesn’t. Handheld tools, which he has a greater degree of familiarity with, are scattered across the worktables. Because Jim managed to get to class early for once, only a few other seats are occupied. He sees a couple of humanoids and what looks like a giant butterfly, although he can’t really tell because they’re in front of him and he can only see their back, before he’s buffeted by the gust of wind from another student flying into the room.

“Kise, lass, I thought I told you not to fly in the hallways.”

“Sorry Mr. Kohrman,” Kise says with the practiced ease of someone who’s done it many times, “I just wasn’t made to walk.”

“Kise?” Jim asks before he can stop himself. Her left ear swivels around before she turns to look at him.

“Oh, hi Jim!” she says. She doesn’t sit with him, though, instead perching on a stool next to one of the humanoids.

Slowly, the rest of the class trickles in, and when Mr. Kohrman raps a claw on his desk to begin class, the first five tables are completely full. “Before you resume working on your projects, we’ve got a new student today. Care to come introduce yourself, lad?”

Jim walks to the front of the room once again. With how much he’s already had to do it, the process has become more tedious than stressful, but that doesn’t really make it better.

“Hello, I’m Jim,” he says, like he has about fifty million times in the last two days. Just like all the rest of those introductions, he stops there. If Mr. Kohrman asks him a direct question, like Mr. Klemens did yesterday, he’ll answer it, but Jim isn’t exactly one to volunteer information.

As it turns out, Jim doesn’t have to worry about that, because the only question Mr. Kohrman asks is to the rest of his students. “There you go. Would any of you like to adopt Jim into your group? An extra set of hands to help with your project?”

No one says a word. Jim glances briefly at Kise, who half-raises her wing, but nobody else in her group makes a move, so after a moment she lets her claws drop back to the table.

“It’s alright,” Jim says. “I can work by myself. Just give me the guidelines and I’ll be good to go.”

“Are you sure?” Mr. Kohrman asks. “This is really meant to be a group project.”

It probably is, but Jim would much rather work alone than with four people who don’t know or want him there. “I’m sure.”

“If you say so. Sit back where you were, I’ll have the instructions for you soon.”

The project, as it turns out, is to design a new type of ship. Each group has a specific goal in mind; the ones already assigned are increased attack power, defense, maneuverability, speed, and stealth.

“I’ve never had a sixth group for this project before,” Mr. Kohrman tells Jim, “so you can choose whichever of those you want to do. If you come up with a new idea you can do that instead, just be sure to clear whatever you decide with me by the end of the week.”

“Got it,” Jim says, already visualizing the RLS Legacy and all of the adjustments he could make to her. She was a fine ship, don’t get him wrong, but there’s always room for improvement.

By the end of class, Jim has four sketches covering his work station and can’t decide what to do. Ideally he would pursue his own criterion so he doesn’t end up being judged against another group, but he has to admit it’s difficult to think of a sixth objective. So for the time being he just packs the sketches up and heads off to his next class, Fundamentals of Sailing.

In an ideal world, this class would take place on a boat. As anyone, especially Jim, could attest to, this is not an ideal world, so there’s a room number listed under the class name. As soon as he arrives, he knows he’s in for a ride.

The desks are just over half filled and there are already four separate, very loud conversations taking place. At least two paper sailboats fly past his head, the second one of which would have hit him square on the nose if he hadn’t ducked. This behavior is facilitated by the distinct lack of any authority figures in the room. And seated right in the front, next to the large exterior windows, are Badeg, Mikka, Ditch, and Branch.

Oh, great, Jim thinks as he sees them, then Oh, great! when he spots Nori in the back corner, about as far away as he can get. He’s got his head pillowed on his arms and doesn’t look up when Jim approaches, so Jim slides into the seat next to him and waits a few moments before tapping his shoulder.

“Huh?” Nori’s head shoots up from his desk and he looks around the room, blinking blearily. Jim waves a little when Nori’s eyes finally land on him. “Oh, hi Jim! What are you doing here?”

“I’m in this class now,” Jim tells him confidently, as he desperately hopes he didn’t misread his schedule.

Nori nods slowly. “Cool. I didn’t think there was room for anyone else, but maybe they let you in anyway.”

“What do you mean, you didn’t think there was room?”

Before Nori can answer Jim’s question, someone raps their knuckles on his desk. He looks up to see a student bearing an uncanny resemblance to the whalefish back on Montressor towering above him. “I think you’re in my seat, mate,” they say.

Jim glances at Nori, who shrugs in what Jim thinks is an I’d-get-up-if-I-were-you way. He does, but as soon as he stands, he sees that almost every desk is occupied. As he watches, two students slither through the door, moving to take the last seats. Nori’s comment is starting to make a lot of sense.

With no other options, Jim decides to lean against the back wall, crossing his arms and trying not to look out of place. He’s not sure how well he pulls it off, but no one comes over to tell him to leave, so there’s that.

A hush falls over the classroom, pulling Jim’s attention to the front. It’s pretty obvious why everyone suddenly went quiet, because the teacher that just walked in the room is not one that Jim would want to piss off. They’re tall, taller than almost anyone else Jim has ever seen, and when they turn to face their students, he nearly gasps aloud. Their skin is a dusky blue, but other than that, they’re a spitting image of Captain Nathaniel Flint, six eyes, tentacle-like hair, and all. Their top left eye has a scar over it, the iris and pupil turned a milky white from the wound, and their right fang is broken off about a third of the way down. This is the first teacher Jim’s seen that looks like they have battle experience. And when their attention zeroes in on Jim, he feels like he’s about to be caught in artillery fire.

“What are you doing in my class?” they ask, voice gravelly and unforgiving. If Jim didn’t already have his back to a wall, he would have been sorely tempted to flee.

“Um, I’m Jim Hawkins,” he says, his voice mostly steady. “I just transferred into the Academy.”

“Mm.” The drake looks him up and down, and Jim briefly wonders if they can tell that he spent months on a ship already, or if they think he’s hopelessly inexperienced. He doesn’t look that ship worthy in the school uniform, but maybe they have some sort of seventh sense for it.

“I don’t know if I can get another desk,” they say at length. “I hope you’re fine with this.”

They pull a stool out from behind their desk, holding it out with one arm in an impressive display of strength. Jim hurries forward to take it, walking it awkwardly back to Nori’s corner. It clunks loudly when he sets it on the ground, but the teacher moves on as if nothing’s happened.

“Alright class, today you’re practicing knots. Pass these back.” The teacher hefts a bag that Jim did not notice before, pulling out lengths of rope and handing them to the students in the front row. As the rope slowly makes its way through the classroom, the teacher stands at the front, writing instructions for a standard bowline knot on the board. Jim’s glad that he won’t make a fool of himself, at least on his first day in the class. He may have actually tied a few bowlines in his sleep back on the Legacy.

When he finally gets his piece of rope, it feels familiar, almost comforting in his grip. The calluses on his hands have softened a bit, but not enough time has passed for them to disappear altogether. His fingers move of their own accord, finishing the knot as his teacher begins their demonstration. He watches as they make a loop, then pull the free end through it, around the top section of the rope, then back through the loop at a much slower pace than he just did for the benefit of the students who are seeing it for the first time.

When they go over it again, Jim realizes they’re missing the last two fingers on their left hand. You give up a few things, chasing a dream. He wonders if his teacher was chasing a dream or forced into danger against their will. He wonders if it was worth it.

He thinks, if it wasn’t their choice, then it probably wasn’t.

“Jim.” Nori’s whisper brings Jim back to the present, where Nori’s staring at his bowline. “How’d you do that so fast?”

Jim shrugs nonchalantly. “Practice, I guess.” He pulls it apart, then ties another one, just in case the teacher comes by to check on his progress or something. Nori tries to copy his movements, achieving a slightly deformed but still passable bowline of his own. After a few more attempts, he sighs and drops his rope to his desk.

“I know I’m being unrealistic,” he begins, “but I’m kind of frustrated that yours is better than mine.”

Jim has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. “Here,” he says, untying his own rope again. “Just go slow.” It’s a little weird for him to do that himself, but he tries, pausing after each step as Nori follows along. “When you tighten it, pull on both sides. It’ll keep its shape better.”

“Huh. Look at that.” Nori sits back and stares at his knot, which is almost identical to Jim’s. “It’s pretty cool that you know how to do that so well.”

The corner of Jim’s mouth lifts up. “Oh, you think that’s cool?”

When the teacher stops at Nori’s desk, hands clasped behind their back, Jim has just finished tying an anchor hitch with the end of his rope that isn’t connected to Nori’s via a butterfly bend.

“What’s all this then?” the teacher asks. Jim thinks if they had eyebrows, one would be raised.

“Jim was just showing me some of the other knots he knows,” Nori explains. “He helped me figure out my bowline.” He holds up the free end of his rope, which still has the bowline tied in it.

“Right,” the teacher says slowly, inspecting the knot before looking back at Jim. “I’m assuming this means you can tie a bowline of your own?”

“Of course,” Jim says, plucking at his anchor hitch until it falls apart, then tying a quick bowline. “Ta-da?”

They look at it for a long time, long enough for Jim to be fighting off the urge to fidget in his seat. “Acceptable,” they pronounce at last before walking to the next desk. Behind their back, Jim widens his eyes theatrically at Nori, who returns the expression. It was certainly “acceptable” on Amelia’s ship, Jim thinks.

They go over stoppers before the end of class (his teacher calls them “double overhand stopper knots,” which Jim never heard on the Legacy), and then the bell releases them into the world. Jim waits until they’re well out of earshot, and then a while beyond that for good measure, before bringing it up.

“So, I’ve never actually met a drake before.” Flint’s skeleton doesn’t really count.

“Yeah, I’ve heard they’re not big on interacting with the rest of the universe these days,” Nori says, then glances over at Jim. “Um, I know Mx. Anguis can be intimidating, but as long as you don’t get on their bad side they’re a really good teacher, so don’t worry too much. If you’re as good at everything else as you are at tying knots, I bet you’ll be their favorite by the end of the year.”

“I don’t know about favorite,” Jim hedges, “but thank you. That’s good to hear.”

Whatever Nori was about to say is interrupted by a jaw-cracking yawn. It shouldn’t make Jim smile fondly, and yet he does. “Go take a nap, dude.” He doesn’t want to be rude, but… “You kinda look like you need it.”

“Yeah?” Nori looks like he wants to protest that he’s fine, but his hand is still hovering in front of his face where it was covering his mouth, and Jim nudges his shoulder.

“Yeah. You were passed out on your desk when I walked into class. Besides, I’ve got a bunch of catch up work to do by tomorrow.”

Nori looks grateful for the excuse Jim gives him. “If you say so,” he says. “See you tomorrow!”

“See you then!”

Jim’s good cheer disappears almost as soon as Nori’s out of sight. He wasn’t lying, he’s got plenty to keep himself busy. He was assigned enough today to fill the afternoon; with everything he didn’t get done yesterday while he was busy establishing solar cruising dominance, he’ll probably be working well into the evening. He sighs when he gets to his room, then pulls his notebook from his bag. First order of business: the problem set from Planetary Physics.

Chapter Text

“What do you have here?”

Jim glances up long enough to see Nori standing with a lunch tray before looking back at the sketches covering their table. Absently, he pushes a few of them around until there’s enough room for Nori to set his tray down. “Trying to figure out what to do for Lab.”

“Mm.” Nori’s hand moves about in Jim’s peripheral vision, rotating one of the papers. “This one looks pretty good.”

He’s pointing to the attack model of the Legacy, which Jim stopped considering two days ago. It’s only here because he thought it might have something worthwhile that he could add to another design, but so far he’s come up blank.

“Yeah, but I want to do something… different.”

“Different how?”

“Different from all of these. Mr. Kohrman said if I could come up with my own goal I’d be allowed to do it, but I have to clear it with him today. I’ve been thinking all week and all I’ve been able to do is draw sketches based on what the other groups are doing.” Jim sighs. “It’s probably pointless now. I should just pick one, right?”

When Nori doesn’t answer, Jim looks over at him. He’s examining each sketch carefully now, lining them up next to each other so he can compare them. “I think you’d get a good grade with any of these,” he mutters, tracing the rudder of the maneuverable design with his finger. “How is that class, by the way? Kise had some thoughts, last time I asked her.”

“Kise seems like the type to have ‘thoughts’ about everything. Not in a bad way,” Jim adds quickly. Nori just chuckles.

“I know what you mean.”

“It’s pretty good, though.” Jim pauses, considering what to say next. “It’s a little weird, ‘cause Mr. Korhman looks a lot like someone I knew, and he talks like someone else I knew. Well, not really, I guess. He doesn’t have an accent the same way, he just says ‘lad’ and ‘lass’ a lot. But overall it’s going well.”

“That’s good. What about targeting?”

The sudden change in topic catches Jim off guard. “I’m sorry, what?”

Nori taps a couple of the sketches. “You’ve got opposing goals here, right? Attack and defense, speed and stealth.” He arranges the sketches so they’re paired up as he talks, leaving the fifth by itself. “Maneuverability and accuracy. You could design a ship with an advanced aiming system. What’s the point of having increased attack power if you can’t hit your target? And what happens if the enemy are the ones with the more maneuverable ships?”

Jim looks at the sketches, blinks, looks at them again. How did he not see that before?

“Nori, you’re a genius,” he proclaims.

“No, I really don’t think I am,” Nori says, but Jim’s not listening anymore. He’s looking at the more agile ship and sketching on the back of one of the others, he’s not sure which. It doesn’t really matter at this point.

“Thanks!” he says earnestly as the bell signals the end of lunch. “You’re a lifesaver!” He’s off before he can catch Nori’s response, dodging and weaving between groups of students. The limits of the passing period have been begging to be tested anyway, and trying to run to the workshop without being late for Algebra seems as good a way to do that as any.

“Mr. Kohrman!” Jim announces when he arrives, striding down the middle aisle of the classroom with no heed for the few early students giving him strange looks. “I’ve got my project!”

“Oh?” Mr. Kohrman sets the vise he’d been adjusting down on his desk. “Let’s hear it then, lad.”

“It’s not quite done yet,” Jim says, partially unfurling the sketches and laying the top one in front of his teacher. The unfinished accuracy model stares up at them both, upside down to Jim. “But it’s going to focus on targeting. My friend came up with the idea because there was a design for evasion but not accuracy.”

“Your friend has a good eye,” Mr. Kohrman says as he scans the sketch. “It’s a solid goal. I approve, as long as you remember the idea is to create a ship whose whole design functions toward that goal. Don’t get too bogged down in the artillery.”

Jim nods quickly, rolling the papers up again. “Will do. Thank you!”

He slides into his seat in Algebra just as the bell rings.

In Jim’s defense, it’s not his fault.

Really, how was he supposed to know that he’s not allowed to build things in the library? It’s not like they have a sign up, and “common sense” shouldn’t count as an excuse, not when there are so many cultures mixing in the school, or something.

“Jim.” When he doesn’t respond, Kise repeats his name more insistently. “Jim. Stop poking me.”

“‘M not poking you,” Jim murmurs, flipping through a stack of flashcards. He’d be regretting signing up for Xornan as his foreign language if he hadn’t helped Kise with some of her Fixra work earlier. Xornan is definitely the lesser of those two evils. “I’m sitting across the table from you, I can barely even reach you.”

“Then come get rid of the thing you made, because it’s poking me.”

“What thing? I didn’t…” Jim trails off as he finally looks up. The pile of gears and bolts that he’d borrowed (with permission) from Mr. Kohrman’s workshop has somehow made it over to Kise’s side of the table, where it’s repeatedly running into the edge of her wing and recoiling from it. He’d only set it down to pick up the stack of flashcards, it shouldn’t have moved. To be honest, Jim doesn’t even know how it moved. It doesn’t have an engine or propulsion system to speak of. Technically, it probably shouldn’t be capable of locomotion.

He stands so he can lean across the table, plucking the contraption away from Kise and setting it on a bare patch of the tabletop. It’s not very big, clicking around cheerily in seemingly aimless figure eights. Alright, it definitely shouldn’t be able to change direction on its own.

The noise must attract the attention of Mrs. Frut-Sqoval, because a moment later she’s abandoned her seat at the front desk in favor of joining Jim and Kise in observing the spectacle before them.

“What does it even do?” the librarian asks.

Jim shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says honestly just as it happens upon a balled-up piece of paper next to his notebook, one of Kise’s if the scribbles of Fixra are any indication. The paper (not holopaper, or she’d have hell to pay for ripping it out) is instantly devoured by the little device, which, with a sound like steam hissing out of a broken pipe, emits a cloud of white confetti moments later. Jim hurriedly snatches all books off of the table and thus out of harm’s way as Mrs. Frut-Sqoval glares at him, two of her seven arms crossed. He sighs. The afternoon had been going so well, too. He’d even managed to foist Morph onto Nori for a couple of hours. He loves the little shapeshifter dearly, but they are not conducive to study sessions.

“Nice,” Kise says, prodding one of the teeth on a protruding gear as the mechanism passes by her. Mrs. Frut-Sqoval doesn’t so much as glance in her direction.

“Bring anything like that in my library again,” she says coldly, “and you’ll be studying in the rec dome.”

Jim tries not to be in the habit of easily getting intimidated, especially since the whole Treasure Planet business, but even he is somewhat cowed by the librarian. “Of course,” he says, trying to shift all of the books into one arm so he can snag the devilish machine with his other hand. With a put-upon sigh, Mrs. Frut-Sqoval relieves him of everything except his notebook, allowing him to capture the apparatus. He refrains from telling her that he’s affectionately dubbed it the “paper eater” in his head.

Jim doesn’t go back to the library that day, and the next time he does dare to return, it is very carefully without anything metallic. However, he releases the paper eater in the sparse woods surrounding the campus, where it eschews the six-fingered fuschia leaves that drop off the trees but greatly enjoys scaling their azure trunks. The forest needed some wildlife to spruce it up, anyway.

And it’s really, really not his fault if someone else transports the paper eater to a classroom, where it wreaks havoc for twenty minutes before anyone is courageous enough to determine that it won’t eat their hand too, even if that someone was Kise and she told him she was going to do it.

Jim can’t say he’s surprised when he learns that Mikka was the brave soul who defeated the mechanical menace.

It’s not until two weeks after the paper eater incident that Jim gets anything in the mail. When the envelope appears in his mailbox, he barely refrains from punching the air. He’s not able to keep an overjoyed “Took long enough!” from slipping out. Morph, sensing his excitement, swims circles around his head, chirping joyfully. Jim glares back at the gastropod that side eyes them. Sue him for being happy to hear from his family.

The chip slides into the holorecorder with minimal resistance, considering how old the device is. A few moments after he presses the playback button, a soft whirring starts up near the back of the recorder and a slightly blue image flickers to life above it. His mom’s face comes into focus, and as she steps back Jim’s able to see Delbert sitting in an armchair behind her.

“Hey, sweetie!” his mom says, smiling wide enough to rival the day they reopened the Benbow. Morph trills and flies at the recording, passing right through her face. They look disappointed as they return to Jim’s shoulder, so he makes an effort to hold in his laughter. “I’m glad you’re doing well!” Jim’s mom continues. “I played Delbert your message, I hope that’s okay. I just thought it would be nice for him to hear you thank him in your own voice.”

At a glance from her, Delbert clears his throat. “Yes, yes, it was wonderful! And you are, of course, welcome. I’m happy to help you with, uh, whatever you need.”

Before Jim’s mom can start speaking again, a loud crash resounds from somewhere off screen, followed by a series of clatters, muttered curses that Jim can’t quite make out, and the unmistakable creaking of century-old machinery.

“Jimmy!” B.E.N.’s face pops up in the lower left-hand corner of the recording, their luminescent eyes as wide as saucers. Jim does chuckle this time. “Oh, how I miss you! I hope you’re having fun at the Academy! Be sure to make some friends while you’re there! Oh, but don’t forget about me! I’d miss you too much if you did that. By the way, while you’re there—oh!” They disappear for a moment before returning. “I gotta go. Something to fix, this one’s on me. Take care!” They leave once again, for good this time, Jim thinks. His mom rolls her eyes fondly, the same way she used to when he was a kid getting into harmless trouble. Morph perches on the desk next to the holorecorder and becomes a miniature Sarah Hawkins, copying her expression.

“We all miss you,” she says, returning her focus to the recording, “but we’re so, so proud of you. Like B.E.N. said, remember to have some fun, but stay out of trouble!” She says the last part with a smile, so he knows she’s not really worried. A year ago, that might not have been the case.

“Yes, erm, keep up the good work!” Delbert chimes in. Jim’s mom laughs.

“We love you!” Her hand reaches forward and the message freezes. Jim sits back, a faint smile lingering on his face, before he plays it again. He knew how much he’d miss his mom, but he didn’t realize what a difference having messages from her would make.

By the fourth time he watches it through, Morph is quoting every line back to him.

Jim really is to blame for the second incident, although he will profess innocence to anyone who asks. And in all fairness, while there is a sign this time, it’s pretty small. He totally could have missed it, but nobody seems interested in that. It’s all “What were you thinking?” this and “How did you even drag a sailboard out of the rec dome without being seen?” that.

(The answer, of course, is that he momentarily disabled the alarm and left through the emergency exit, but he’s taking that to his grave. How is he supposed to get away with it again if people know? Not that he really thinks Nori would rat him out, but this way his friend has plausible deniability.)

“Jim, I swear to Veda, you’re going to give me a heart attack one of these days. Between you and Kise it’s a miracle I’m still alive.”

“Yeah, yeah, your life would be boring without us.” Jim waves off Nori’s complaints. He’s got bigger whalefish to fry. “But I figured out what the boxes on the bottom of the surfers are for! They’re batteries!”

“That’s great,” Nori says slowly, elbows propped on the windowsill, “but I could have told you that. You didn’t need to show up at my window on the sailboard in the middle of the night.”

“The sun’s barely set, it’s hardly the middle of the night. And if you don’t want me showing up you should at least pretend to be asleep. Turn off your light maybe.” Jim pauses before shaking his head. “Anyway, that’s not the point!”

Nori sighs the sigh of the long-suffering, but he leans forward a little more. “Then what exactly is the point?”

“The point, dear Nori, is that I can do this—” Jim wheels around in a circle before coming back to a stop in front of Nori’s window again, “—without sunlight! It’s awesome!”

Nori raises an eyebrow. “Absolutely incredible,” he says flatly. Jim drifts close enough to swat lightly at Nori’s arm. He has to be mindful not to leave scorch marks on the walls of the dorms.

“Don’t even start, I can see you smiling.”

Nori’s features smooth out until there isn’t so much as a trace of a grin on his face. “Mister Hawkins,” he begins. Jim takes a deep breath through his nose, doing his best to match Nori’s gravitas. “I ought to turn you into the authorities for this flagrant disregard of the rules. Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused, young man?”

Jim clears his throat to disguise the chuckle that he wasn’t able to contain. “Terribly sorry, good sir,” he says as sincerely as he can possibly manage, which isn’t very. “Perhaps you can make an exception, just this once?”

Heaving an exaggerated sigh, Nori shakes his head. “You ask a lot of me. What do I get out of letting you go?”

“Hmm.” Jim strokes his chin, gazing up at the stars. “You can copy off of me during our next Planetary Physics test.”

“Replacing one crime with another, I see.” Nori’s beginning to crack, Jim can sense it. He almost has him.

“It’s only a crime if you get caught,” he says sweetly. That’s what does it. Nori’s head drops to the windowsill, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter. When he looks up, he’s not even trying to hide his smile.

“I’ll pass on your offer of collusion,” he says. “I’m not even sure it would be worth it.”

“Hey!”

“But that reminds me,” Nori barrels on. “If you do get caught, I know nothing about any of this.”

Jim rolls his eyes hard enough that the surfer actually tilts back. “Duh, I’m not about to throw you under the bus at the first sign of trouble. What kind of friend would do that?”

“Fair point,” Nori says, but something in his eyes has gone hard in a way Jim hasn’t seen outside of his interactions with Badeg. Jim kind of hates that he’s caused it now.

“Well, I probably should return this soon, seeing as it’s the middle of the night and all,” he says, looping around once again. The surfer doesn’t handle quite as well at night. Jim thinks it has something to do with the current. Even if their batteries are the best money can buy (and this is a rich school, they probably are), he doubts they can hold a candle to solar power.

“I thought the sun had barely set.” Jim squints at Nori, who returns the look with wide-eyed innocence. “Besides, wasn’t the purpose of taking it out actually using it?”

“No,” Jim scoffs. “I’ve never solar surfed at night before. An unfamiliar location hardly seems like the right place to try it out for the first time. I just wanted to test my theory.”

Jim does not like the way Nori seems to peer into his soul. “Which theory?” he asks. “That the board has batteries and you can use it at night, or that you could sneak it out without anyone noticing?”

Jim checks his nonexistent watch. “Well, it’s time for me to go! See you tomorrow!”

Nori’s laughter follows him all the way back to the rec dome. It’s probably not a good thing that there’s external access to the wiring for the fire alarm, but Jim would be in dire straits if the building’s architect had planned that better.

He almost thinks he’s gotten away with it too, until he slips back out the emergency exit door and a shape melts out of the shadows, multiple armored legs clicking on the paved sidewalk.

“What are you doing out so late, lad?”

“Mr. Kohrman!” Jim squeaks, almost backing up into the smooth exterior of the rec dome. “Nothing! Just, um, out for a stroll.” After regaining his breath, Jim narrows his eyes at his teacher. “What are you doing out this late?”

“Oh, same as you,” the arachnid says, waving a claw casually through the air. “I do wonder, though.” Jim hopes his gulp isn’t audible. “Your ship design was quite well thought out, and I’ve heard here and there that you’re not half bad on one of those sailboards.”

Jim blinks twice in surprise. “Um, thank you.” What’s happening?

“Your final project for my class is to build something that works. There are no limitations except for the materials you have access to, through my workshop of course.” Jim’s spent enough time in the workshop to know exactly what Mr. Kohrman has access to, but he’s not sure he trusts the conclusion his brain is leaping to. “I’ve been thinking for a few days now that you might like to get a head start on your project. Here,” Mr. Kohrman says, handing Jim a slightly dull steel key. Jim’s no expert (he never did manage to learn how to pick analog locks), but it looks like it might match the workshop. “So you can work on it after hours. Don’t go abusing that power,” Mr. Kohrman warns. Jim clutches the key to his chest and shakes his head vigorously.

“I won’t, I promise.”

“Good lad.” It’s a little hard to tell, due to both the darkness and Mr. Kohrman’s general biology, but Jim thinks he might be smiling. “Perhaps now you won’t have to borrow equipment from the rec dome.”

Mr. Kohrman has faded back into the darkness down the sidewalk by the time his words catch up to Jim. “Oh boy,” he mutters, key still pressed against his sternum. “Nori would’ve killed me.”

Chapter Text

For the few moments that Jim stands in darkness, he allows himself to acknowledge the barest trickle of apprehension sliding down his spine. Then the overhead lanterns flicker on, and the fully illuminated lab chases away any of his lingering nerves. He takes a deep breath through his nose and sighs it out of his mouth. The air smells like grease and freedom, so strong he can almost taste it. Oh, this is gonna be awesome.

Contrary to popular belief, having a key to somewhere does not automatically mean you get priority access whenever you want it. Actually, the time Jim can work in the lab is fairly limited, as there are classes in and out all day (not that he’s got a free period to work in anyway) and two different robotics clubs that meet there after school and on Saturdays. Mr. Kohrman offered to let him work alongside the clubs, but one glance at the complete lack of available space had Jim politely declining his suggestion.

He was also extended an invitation to join one of the clubs, but Jim declined that as well. Although the months on Amelia’s ship taught him that he can be a team player if strictly necessary, he still prefers working alone.

Now, a sane person might have come to the conclusion that work could be undertaken on Sundays and Sundays only, which is exactly why Jim is standing in the lab at eleven PM on a Wednesday night. He’s got a time frame in mind, and one day a week to work on his final project just isn’t going to cut it. But what also isn’t going to cut it is falling behind in his other classes, much as he would love to make the final his top priority, hence showing up at eleven instead of just after dinner.

Ugh, school.

Jim has to fight the urge to rub his hands together like Silver surveying Flint’s treasure, and then has to fight the following urge to sit on the floor and spend hours wondering where Silver is. When he finally shakes himself free, he practically skips over to the drums of scrap metal. Most of the parts are in pristine condition, and Jim feels his heart soar. His surfer back on Montressor was a labor of love and he wouldn’t give it up for the world, but he’s got the chance to make this one good, and he’ll take it if it means he’s welding deep into the AMs.

The first order of business, of course, is to take stock of exactly what he has to work with. Precisely 0.5 seconds of digging around in the metal (with cut-proof gloves on for safety, of course) reveals enough pipes to make ribbing for a half dozen sails, so there’s that taken care of. There are a fair few smaller chunks of metal that look like they came off of other sailboards in there too, which bodes well for fashioning the more delicate pieces of the board. The system that controls the sail is a pain in the ass to build, but it is kind of important, so Jim supposes he’ll have to suffer through.

He even finds the right joint to attach the head so it can be separate from the rest of the board. He tosses it back and forth between his hands, testing the weight. It had taken him ages to find that piece back home, and trips to four separate scrap yards if he recalled correctly. Pure luck that it was just here among the other scraps. It’s not even that dinged up.

When all is said and done, Jim’s short a few other joints and the main body of the board, which would be too big to be housed in the scrap barrels anyway. He’s also missing the engines and the batteries, which are no surprise. Jim would honestly be concerned if Mr. Kohrman left highly volatile parts lying around in a classroom. Distantly he wonders if he can request them once the rest of the surfer is assembled.

Aside from the racks of sheet metal along one wall, there’s not much else he can use to construct it, but this makes for a good start. It’ll keep him busy for a few days, at least. And fortunately, there’s a metal drill among the tools lining the other walls. Welding is all well and good, but sometimes it’s better to just rivet things together.

Jim’s just deciding which pieces he wants to work on first when he makes the mistake of glancing up at the clock by Mr. Kohrman’s desk. “Damnit,” he mutters, glancing around the room for a spare crate. The frame for the sail will have to wait till tomorrow. He finds a few empty bins stashed under one of the back tables and drags one out to the table his parts are scattered atop. He spent two hours finding all of those pieces, he sure as hell isn’t going to put them back in the scrap barrels.

Once the not-quite-overflowing bin is labeled to prevent thievery and stashed away in a corner, Jim creeps back out of the lab. He hits the switch for the lanterns’ fuel supply on the way, plunging the room and the hallway beyond into darkness. Even for someone who never had any qualms about a little breaking and entering, walking around an empty school at night is weird. He releases a breath he didn’t realize he was holding when he escapes through the side door closest to the lab.

Of course, the real threat is under the open sky.

“What are you doing?”

“Kise, I swear to the Etherium,” Jim breathes, clutching his chest. “One of these days, I’ll…”

“You’ll…?” Kise prompts, landing delicately on the cement in front of him. He can barely see her, she’s just a fuzzy gray outline against a darker background, but he glares at her anyway. She clicks her tongue back at him. “Oh, you don’t look very happy.” She doesn’t seem concerned.

“Yeah, ‘cause you… wait, did you just echolocate?” Jim’s prepared to forgive any and all transgressions over this.

“Uh, yeah?”

“That’s so cool!” When Kise just shrugs, Jim rolls his eyes. She obviously doesn’t understand the magnitude of her abilities.

“I guess, I don’t know. I learned pretty young, maybe it just seems normal to me.”

“Well, it’s seriously awesome. I wish I could do that.”

Kise clicks at him again. “I don’t know, your ears are kinda small. I think it would be hard for you.”

“Thanks.” Jim starts walking down the sidewalk, motioning at Kise to come with him. She hops over until she can shuffle along next to him on the grass. “Do you want to walk up here?” he asks. “I can move over.”

“Oh, no, I prefer the grass,” she tells him. “It’s nicer on my claws.”

“Ah.” They walk in silence for another moment before Jim stops. “Wait, what were you doing?”

“Hm? Oh, I was flying.”

“At one in the morning?”

She gives him a sidelong look. “I’m a chiropter, idiot. We’re nocturnal, it’s part of the package.”

“Right, yeah. Do you ever sleep?”

Kise laughs. “Oh man, I’m so not the one you should be worried about. Yeah, I sleep. I usually get a few hours in before school starts, and I’ll sleep in the evenings too, after I’ve done my homework. You might want to try it sometime. I think I read somewhere that humans aren’t meant to get all their sleep at once.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jim says. He doesn’t really mean it until he realizes that in the interest of building a solar surfer by night and attending classes by day, that might not actually be a bad idea.

The dorm looms out of the darkness in front of them, reflecting the barest sliver of light coming off of the crescent moon in the sky. Kise stays on the grass when Jim goes to open the door.

“Not coming?” he asks. She shakes her head.

“I’m gonna fly around a bit more,” she says. “It’s still pretty early for me.”

“Alright, have fun. Let me know how many bugs you catch!” he calls after her. He doesn’t bother shouting since she’ll hear him either way, and he doesn’t want to wake anyone up.

It’s too dark to really tell, and she’s flapping her wings anyway, but she might have flipped him off in response.

It takes three days for people to start noticing.

“Oh, look, if it isn’t the merry little band of outcasts. Is insomnia contagious now?” Badeg asks as he walks by with Mikka, Ditch, and Branch in tow. Of course the sunny afternoon couldn’t stay nice forever. Nori’s hand, which is shaking just the smallest bit, and Kise’s claws on his arms are the only things that keep Jim from obliterating Badeg on sight.

“It can be an actual medical condition, asshole!” he shouts instead. Mikka just laughs at both of them as she pats Ditch and Branch’s shoulders. The reptilians, predictably, don’t say a word. Morph, who’s just trying their best, waves tiny fists at Badeg’s retreating back. “Hate that guy,” Jim mutters as he settles back down on the bench he and his compatriots occupy, crossing his arms with a huff.

“He’s not that bad,” Kise says flippantly. Nori nods in agreement.

“He’s better if you ignore him.”

“Well, he doesn’t like being easy to ignore.”

Nori nods. “True. Although as much as I hate to say it, he might have a point. Are you okay?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Jim counters. “Your leg hasn’t stopped bouncing once today.”

“I’m fine,” Nori protests just as Kise interjects.

“Stop taking care of each other,” she says. “I’ve got an idea. Jim, you haven’t seen the training port yet, have you?”

“I sure have not,” he says.

“Have not! Have not!” Morph parrots. Kise giggles as she claps her wings together.

“Great! Then that’s where we’re going.”

“We don’t have a choice, do we?” Nori asks with the subdued exasperation of someone who’s already resigned to their fate.

“Nope!” Kise chirps, already flying off in the direction Badeg and his friends had come from. Jim glances at Nori, who rolls his eyes but smiles as he stands.

“You heard her,” he says, offering his hand to help Jim up.

“We shouldn’t keep her waiting,” Jim agrees, and they set off in Kise’s wake.

It turns out Nori, from all those weeks ago, was right: if Jim thought the rec dome was cool, it has nothing on the training port.

It sits at the edge of campus, on the opposite side of the commercial spaceport that Jim’s shuttle had docked at when he arrived for school. While it’s smaller than the Montressor port, what it lacks in size it makes up for in equipment. There must be a ship of every make and model currently used by the Royal Navy, and a few that Jim’s quite certain he’s never seen before in his life. There’s a small vessel that has twice the number of sails as it should; Jim would bet it’s able to approach half the speed of sound. Another is built like an orcus galacticus with a double row of cannons on each side. Jim cringes inwardly at the thought of having to steer that one. Scanning the rest of the rows of ships, Jim glimpses split sails, engines the size of small lifeboats, great variation in the number of masts on each vessel, and even a boat that looks like it was designed based on a solar surfer. All told, there are somewhere around two dozen vessels bobbing gently in their berths, and the only thing that’s keeping Jim from boarding every single one is the fence that surrounds them.

He presses his face to the iron bars, sighing wistfully. So close, and yet, so far.

“I think Mx. Anguis said next week we’ll get to come out here for Fundamentals of Sailing,” Nori says over his shoulder.

“Do you think they’ll actually let us sail?”

Jim can feel Nori’s exhale ruffling his hair. “Not for a while, no.”

“Or,” Kise says, flapping her wings enough that her feet lift off the ground, “we can check it out now.” In a single graceful motion, she flips over the top of the fence and lands on the other side. Jim rolls his eyes.

“Show off.”

“You bet,” Kise responds, baring her fangs in what Jim assumes is a grin.

“You sure about this?” Nori sounds casual enough, but Jim hasn’t missed the frantic rhythm his fingers are tapping against each other. He can’t remember what it was like to still be nervous about a little trespassing.

“It’s Saturday,” Kise says. “There’s literally no one else here. We’ve got maybe a two-point-three percent chance of getting caught, if that.”

“Well, I’m sold,” Jim says. He’s well aware of his own physical limitations, in that he knows he can’t vault the fence with the same acrobatic skill Kise displayed, but it’s not that tall. After a minimal amount of struggling, he manages to scale it and drop down to the other side without landing flat on his face. “We’ll be back in a bit,” he tells Nori through the bars.

“You really think I’m letting you two run around in there by yourselves?” With a hop and a well-planted foot, Nori sails over the fence and lands next to Jim. “That’s a recipe for disaster,” he finishes.

Kise shrugs. “Suit yourself. Jim, you coming?”

Jim tears his eyes away from Nori, jogging to catch up to where Kise is already halfway to the boats. That was super cool, I’m gonna have to get him to show me how to do that sometime, he thinks before the vessels chase everything else out of his mind.

He runs a hand along one ship’s glossy hull, marveling at its smooth finish. Another ship, behind the first, boasts exposed artillery. Jim can’t help but touch the cannon where it emerges from the ship’s body. His fingers come away sooty. He’s at least not impulsive enough to stick his face in the muzzle, although he does inspect the opening around the base and the square-shaped piece on the hull just next to it. Those are definitely mechanized hinges. Someone might get in trouble for not retracting the cannons.

He skips around after that, bouncing from one vessel to another as Kise and Nori follow behind him. Every once in a while, when he sees something he recognizes, he’ll turn to them and point it out excitedly.

“This one’s a barque, you can tell because the fore- and mainmast are square-rigged but the aft mast is gaff-rigged. See how it’s different from the one next to it? That one’s fully rigged.”

“That’s so many sheet bends. I might’ve replaced a couple of those with Carrick bends, but it’s fine as long as they don’t loosen up, I guess.”

“Wow, look at these engines! If the hull is reinforced, I bet this thing could split another ship in half!”

Jim rounds that ship’s stern, giving the engines one last, appreciative glance, and stops short when he catches sight of the final berth. Kise slams into his back with a gust of wind and a muffled curse. Next to his head, Morph squeals unintelligibly.

“Hey, sorry, but what’s wrong?” she asks, hopping over to stand next to him. He doesn’t really hear her, not enough to respond anyway. He’s got tunnel vision, focused on the ship in front of him, because he’s seen it before. Tucked in the corner, all the way back here, is the R.L.S. Legacy.

He steps closer slowly, eyes sweeping the length of the ship before catching on the name brushed in gold along its bow. R.L.S. Justicia. Of course it’s not the Legacy, Amelia would never let her out of her sight. Oddly, the whole experience reminds Jim of Mr. Kohrman. Why do I keep doing that?

He doesn’t dwell on it, though, because he has better things to occupy his time. In all aspects other than the name, they could have been the same ship. When he catches sight of the gangplank around the Justicia’s other side, it takes all of his impulse control to not sprint onto the deck.

“Jim?” Nori asks, hesitant. “You good?”

Jim turns to face him and gets momentarily distracted by Morph zipping back and forth in his peripheral vision. “Hm? Oh, yeah, I’m great.” He gestures up the gangplank. “Wanna check it out?”

Nori takes a step back, shaking his head. Next to him, Kise shifts from one foot to the other, making her wings slide against each other with a dry rustling sound. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Nori says. “What if we get turned around on there? We’re already not supposed to be here.”

I could show you around that ship with my eyes closed, Jim wants to say, but somehow that doesn’t feel very productive. He’s just about to assure Nori that they totally don’t have to, he’s not going to peer pressure his friend into an uncomfortable situation, when Kise’s eyes widen.

“Wait,” she starts, glancing at the sky like she’s working out a tricky calculation. “Is today—?” Nori looks at her sharply. She meets his gaze for a moment before her eyes drop to the white-knuckled grip he has on his own elbow, which Jim notices with no small amount of concern. When Kise rustles her wings again, drawing Jim’s attention, her smile is just the wrong side of casual. “Well, I think we’ve seen pretty much everything. Time to head back?”

Jim knows two people who have a secret when he sees them, but he doesn’t call Kise and Nori on it. “Sure, it’s getting late anyway,” he says. The sun hasn’t reached the horizon yet, but the shadows of the ships are lengthening. A single ray cuts through the masts of the back rows to land on the Justicia, bathing her in golden light. He’s sad to have to say goodbye, but hopefully he’ll be able to see her again soon. Morph sighs dejectedly as Jim brushes the pads of his fingers against her hull in farewell before following Kise and Nori back toward the front of the port.

Walking back, the question that’s been nagging at the back of Jim’s mind finally surfaces. “How did you two become friends anyway?” When they cast twin looks of confusion his way, he cards his fingers through his hair. “I mean, you seem so different. Not that different people can’t be friends, but… I’m just curious, I guess.”

Kise looks to Nori, who shrugs back. “It’s all about what you have in common,” she tells Jim. “I found him wandering around campus once.”

“I haven’t been able to get rid of her since,” Nori adds.

“Oh, please, you love me,” she says, flicking him with a wingtip. “Besides, who else here would hang out with you in the middle of the night?”

Jim nods. “You know, it makes sense that you’re both nocturnal. Do they not have any night classes, though? Seems like they should.”

Nori shrugs one shoulder. Jim notes with some satisfaction that his grip has loosened somewhat since the conversation began. “There just aren’t enough of us for them to offer many night classes, I guess. There are a few, but not the ones we need. But it’s alright. You learn to adapt, and then you can list that as a skill on your résumé.”

Kise snorts. “Sure, whatever helps you sleep in the afternoon.”

“Speaking of which,” Jim cuts in, “if you’re both nocturnal, why are you awake now? Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

Nori and Kise shake their heads in tandem. “Screws with my schedule for the rest of the week if I sleep like that on the weekends,” Kise supplies.

“Yeah, that makes sense.” Jim might have to start taking notes. If he manages his time like they do, he might be able to finish the surfer in a few weeks, and wouldn’t that be amazing? “At least now I know I can bother you two at all hours of the night and not feel bad about it.”

“Why are you going to be up at ‘all hours of the night’?” Nori squints at Jim. “Last I heard, you weren’t nocturnal, and you’d better not be picking up bad habits. Between the two of us,” Nori waffled his hand between himself and Kise, “we’ve got enough stupidity for an entire class. If you start adding to it—oh, honestly, why do I even bother? You challenged Badeg to a race on your first day of class.”

“Technically, he challenged me,” Jim points out. Nori rolls his eyes.

“And you accepted, so what’s the difference?” He’s not-so-effectively concealing a smile, though, and Kise and Morph are openly laughing at them both, so Jim’s fairly confident his place in the friend group is secure.

Later, after Jim has bid Kise and Nori goodnight, he slips into the library. An hour’s worth of searching doesn’t get him any closer to figuring out what today’s significance is, but he doesn’t have much to go on. By the time the library closes and he’s affectionately kicked out by Mrs. Frut-Sqoval, the sun has fully set. He looks up at the sky, taking in the scattering of stars against absolute darkness. The lunar cycle here isn’t the same as it is on Montressor, which is to be expected, but at least it seems consistent. Tonight, there’s no moonlight to illuminate the path back to the dorms. When he gets to his room, Jim makes a note of the date and the new moon. He might as well familiarize himself with it, since his two best friends here are nocturnal. And it won’t hurt to know while he’s working on his final project, either.

“Alright everyone, pair up and talk through these problems.”

Jim’s head drops to his desk. Partner exercises are the manifestation of everything evil and anyone who disagrees is part of the problem. But he isn’t even given a moment to mourn his immediate future before something jabs the side of his head.

“Ow, hey!” He glares up at his assailant, pointedly rubbing his scalp. Mikka smiles down at him, dagger like teeth giving her an almost predatory air. Her sleeves are rolled up to her elbows as usual, baring her spiked forearms. “Can you grow spikes out of your fingers now too?”

“Nope!” she says brightly, poking Jim’s shoulder for good measure. “Figured we could be partners.”

“You sound entirely too happy with that idea,” Jim grumbles, but obligingly shifts over so there’s enough room for Mikka to drag her chair next to his. Morph reaches out to touch the point of one of Mikka’s spikes, then experimentally creates one of their own. Yeah, that’s gonna end well.

“Well, we can’t all cover up our inner joy with sarcasm and grumpiness,” Mikka says.

Abruptly, Jim is struck by the realization that if Mikka and Kise are ever allowed to become friends, they’re all doomed.

He clears his throat. “Alright, if an animal is observed to be largely inactive during the day, consume mostly insects and smaller animals, and dig holes to sleep in, which of these species is it likely to be?”

Mikka snorts. “Yeah, I thought so.” They both scan the list of possible species, or more accurately, the characteristics provided for each one. The question isn’t testing their knowledge of specific species, but the terms used to describe their behaviors. Jim manages to dismiss half of the list for not being nocturnal before Mikka speaks.

“Hey, about Badeg,” she starts, and Jim so does not want to do this, so he employs a tried-and-true distraction tactic.

“Could it be a polar shrike?” Jim points at the name, but Mikka taps one of the listed characteristics.

“They don’t burrow, they roost. The only burrowing carnivore on this list is Cosser’s gruvet.”

Jim scans the gruvet’s characteristics. Carnivorous, burrowing, crepuscular. It takes him a moment to remember what the last one means.

“Sneaky. Thanks for pointing that out.” He circles Cosser’s gruvet on the worksheet.

“No problem. Seriously, though,” Mikka continues, “don’t listen to him. Half of everything that comes out of his mouth is bullshit, and the other half is suspect at best.”

Jim sighs. It looks like they’re having this conversation after all. “Why do you hang around him, then?” he asks, turning to face her fully as he crosses his arms. Mikka raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t comment on his defensive posture.

“Because if you can learn to see past the bullshit, he’s not that bad. Look, he likes to pretend otherwise, but we're just as ‘outcast’ as you, if not more so.” She smiles then, and despite the sharpness of her teeth, it seems softer somehow. “I like my spikes, I really do, but most people find them off-putting. He never did, so I stuck around. It was nice. And he’s cool with Ditch and Branch too, which is kind of important.”

Jim’s brow furrows in confusion. “Why wouldn’t he be?” Sure, they’re a little scalier than most other students, but there are so many species attending the Interstellar Academy it’s impossible to keep track of them all. Ditch and Branch are by far not the strangest.

Mikka just shrugs. “Oh, you know, they don’t talk.”

“Well, yeah, they’re pretty quiet—”

“I don’t mean that they choose not to talk,” Mikka interrupts. “I mean they do not talk. Diplodactyls have no spoken language.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“So then… how do you…”

“Communicate?” Jim nods. “One of my moms is a linguist with a focus on languages that developed without verbal or auditory components. I grew up with a lot of interesting books. Taught myself diplodactyl one off season. That’s what I’ve been calling it, anyway, since there’s no name for it that I can say.”

Jim whistles. “That worked out pretty well for you all, then, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, it was a happy coincidence.” Mikka chuckles. “Tell you what, though, it was a little rocky at the beginning. Books can get you far, but not as far as people.”

Oh, there’s definitely a story there. “What happened?”

“Suffice it to say, there are complexities to the language that I didn’t anticipate. It’s a good thing they’re not easily offended.”

It looks like Jim’s not getting his story after all, but he moves on. “Okay, wait, if there’s no spoken component, how does it work?”

Mikka flips their worksheet over to the blank side. “They have a system for writing, see?” She writes a few characters on the top of the paper. “That’s their name for the language. For conversational purposes, they communicate using a combination of gestures and touches.” She touches a finger to her nose, then twists her fingers together and bends her wrist. “I just asked for your name.”

“How do I tell you?”

“Alright, so you would just point to yourself, then make the same gesture.” She pauses to help him arrange his fingers the same way, then nods as he bends his wrist like she did. “After that, you would make the gesture for your name, but I don’t know what Jim would be. I’ll have to ask Branch what ze thinks.”

Jim makes the movement for “name” again, then rolls his wrist to loosen it up. “That’s really cool,” he says, because it is, even if it’s a little hard on his joints.

Mikka notices, though. “Yeah, they’re more flexible than we are, but I make do. Ditch and Branch can usually tell what I’m trying to say even if I can’t always complete the gestures. They’re pretty intuitive like that. Oh, but you want to know what else is cool?” she asks, leaning forward. Jim finds himself pulled in too; it’s obvious Mikka really loves what she’s talking about.

“What?” he asks in response, and her smile grows.

“Every gesture they have has a corresponding way to communicate it through touch. It’s often easier to use visual gestures if there’s enough light to see by, but because of touch communication they can converse in the dark too. And that doesn’t go both ways, either. There are some things that don’t have an associated gesture and can only be communicated through touch. I didn’t really know that before I met Ditch and Branch, though.”

“Really? That’s awesome!” Jim pauses awkwardly as he tries to figure out how to ask his next question. “And they’re cool with you telling me all of this? It’s not, like, secret Diplodactyl-only information?”

Mikka waves her hand around. “Yeah, they’re fine with it. In fact, I bet they’d love it if you started to learn. I can lend you one of my books if you want, or if they’re on board we can just hang out for a while and I can translate.”

“Yeah, I mean, either one would be great.” Diplodactyl already seems far more worth Jim’s time than Xornan. Maybe he’ll be able to convince the administrators to let him do a private study instead of a listed foreign language class next semester. “I wonder why their language system evolved like that. It makes sense to have ways to communicate in sub-optimal conditions, but if they can hear….” Well, that brings up another question. “Um. Can they hear?”

Mikka nods. “They have perfect listening and reading comprehension of more languages than I do, actually, including English, Tesseran, and I think Vin-sar? Ditch complained about the literacy test ey had to take to be accepted to this branch of the Academy, although Branch didn’t seem to mind too much. I think that’s just how ze is, though.”

Jim is about to respond, seriously, his mouth is open, but a harmonized voice cuts him off.

“I trust you’re talking about the worksheet?” Ms. Oros says as she slithers past them, arms folded behind her back. Her six eyes look up at Jim, who nods hurriedly.

“Of course,” he says. “Lots of biology happening here.”

“Species, very cool,” Mikka adds. Jim would laugh, but somehow it sounds convincing. Ms. Oros just rolls her eyes, which involves waving each eyestalk in a circle, and moves on. Mikka flips the worksheet back over. “We should probably work on this now.”

“Yeah, probably.” Jim scans the page until he finds question two. “Define ‘speciation’ and give two examples. Alright, that’s not too bad.”

“We’ve got this,” Mikka agrees, stylus already on the paper. Jim reaches for his own, experiencing peace for all of two seconds before blunt spikes erupt along its shaft.

“Morph!”

The shapeshifter giggles as they jet out of Jim’s grip, disappearing into his bag. Their laughter echoes even after he can’t see them anymore.

Chapter Text

“All hands on deck!”

“Aye, Captain!”

“Release the fore- and mainsails!”

“On it!”

“Tack to the left, heading due east!”

“Yes Captain!”

The vessel bustles with activity; rope flies from one set of hands to another, feet, claws, and other appendages scurry about the deck and rigging, and the mainmast hums with solar energy. It feels like home in a way the rest of the Academy, for all its benefits, hasn’t quite managed to achieve yet. Jim takes a deep breath through his nose, eyes closed, just absorbing it all.

“James Hawkins.”

His eyes slide open of their own accord. Perhaps he was getting ahead of himself.

His Fundamentals of Sailing class is standing on the deck of the barque he pointed out to Kise and Nori just last week. No captains are barking out orders, no sailors are preparing for launch, and absolutely no solar sails are active. That’s probably a good thing in the long run, but Jim can’t help but be a little disappointed.

“Yes, Mx. Anguis?” he says in lieu of complaining about something as utterly ridiculous as the fact that his horribly inexperienced class isn’t actually preparing to sail.

“What is the first rule of sailing?”

“Always obey the captain’s orders,” Jim answers without missing a beat. Amelia would have his hide if he didn’t know that.

Although they do nothing outwardly to indicate as much, Jim gets the sense that Mx. Anguis might be just the smallest bit surprised. They probably have low expectations when it comes to transfer students, he supposes.

“Good,” they say, then address the rest of the class. “Any time we’re on a vessel, I am your captain. My word is law, and even minor disobedience will result in severe disciplinary action. This is not only a matter of performance, but of safety. Is that clear?”

About half the class, including Jim and Nori, answer with some variation of “Yes Captain!” while the other half nod vigorously. Even Badeg is attentive, although that’s not really remarkable considering he usually gets along with teachers better than his fellow students.

“Now, the purpose of today’s trip is to let you all get up close and personal with the workings of a ship. This barque should not move at any point, and everything should be as you found it when we leave. That doesn’t mean you can’t touch anything, but please, use your judgement.” Captain Anguis pauses to stare into each of their souls. Jim is proud to say he doesn’t flinch under their gaze. “As a general rule, don’t untie any knots, don’t press any buttons, flip any switches, or move any levers, and when in doubt, ask what something does instead of trying to figure it out on your own. Understood?”

“Aye, Captain!”

“Alright then.” They make a sort of shooing motion with their hand. “Have at it.”

Nobody moves for an awkwardly long period of time, but eventually small groups start breaking off, moving toward different places on the barque. The pair of serpents Jim saw on his first day head straight below decks, while the rest of the class seems content to stay above for the moment. Their main points of interest appear to be the masts, the wheel, and the bow of the vessel. Jim can’t say he’s surprised, but he also knows there’s more to a ship than her flashy parts.

“What do you want to—” he cuts off when he turns to find that Nori’s no longer standing next to him. A cursory sweep of the barque reveals that the other boy is examining the shrouds attached to her side. Jim sidles up to him and runs his finger along one of the ropes. It’s smoother than the ones on the Legacy. This barque probably doesn’t get out much. Morph’s eyes blink open from their spot on Jim’s wrist, but they must catch sight of Mx. Anguis because they hurriedly assume the shape of a regular bracelet again.

Yeah, there’s probably something there, but Morph doesn’t seem inclined to talk about it. Jim’s never been able to figure out exactly when Silver rescued the shapeshifter, but if they ever did meet Flint, he doubts it was a good experience. At least they’re always well-behaved during Mx. Anguis’s class.

“You know,” Nori says, following the rigging up to the mast with his eyes, “I never quite understood what these were for.”

“Besides the added stability?” Jim glances over his shoulder to make sure Mx. Anguis is otherwise occupied, then anchors his hand on the rope. “They let you do this.”

He swings himself around the edge of the shroud so he won’t be climbing upside down, then starts scaling it like a ladder. He really should have learned by now that the school uniform isn’t designed for athletic endeavors, but Jim is nothing if not good at making do. Even with the limitations of his clothing, he could be in the crow’s nest in seconds flat if he really wanted to. But nobody in this class can fly, so there’s no point in racing up there. Besides, he’s far less likely to tear his clothes if he takes it a little slower.

“Jim, what do you think you’re doing?” Nori whispers as loud as he can below him. Jim’s grateful he didn’t shout, but that seems like overkill.

“Hey, I’m not untying knots, pressing buttons, flipping switches, or moving levers, and I already know what this does. Ergo, no rules are being broken.”

Nori opens his mouth again like he has more to say, but sighs instead. “Why me?” he mutters, low enough that he probably thinks Jim can’t hear him. He smiles down at Nori, who rolls his eyes.

The barque may not see much use, but someone’s obviously invested in keeping her in good shape, because the rigging is taut and steady beneath Jim’s feet. Even at the slow pace he’s set, Jim makes it halfway up the shroud in good time.

“Mr. Hawkins!”

Jim winces internally before turning to look at the source of the voice. Mx. Anguis is standing at the bow of the ship with their hands clasped behind their back, looking directly at Jim. He stares back, not quite challenging them but not backing down. If his teacher needs a demonstration to prove that he knows his way around a ship, he’ll be happy to provide one.

“If you fall, I’m not going to catch you,” Mx. Anguis says at length. Jim almost laughs.

“I won’t fall,” he promises before resuming his ascent.

The view from the crow’s nest is pretty nice. Nori returns the gesture when Jim waves down at him, and a few other students crane their various appendages back to see the kid who was crazy enough to climb all the way up there. Badeg sneers up at him, but Mikka pulls him away before he can say anything. Soon enough, Jim remembers that there’s not really much to do this high off the deck, especially if the ship is stationary. He briefly entertains the idea of swinging down on one of the loose ropes hanging around him, but figures he’s pushed his luck enough already.

He still drops off the shroud sooner than he probably should have, but no one besides Nori is watching, so it’s fine.

“Alright, what do you want to look at next?” Jim asks, dusting his shirt off. He doesn’t need to look at Nori to know the other boy is wearing that signature exasperated grin of his.

“Showoff,” he says as he starts walking toward the stairs that lead below, Jim following a step behind him. “How are you so good with ships, anyway?”

Jim shrugs, feigning nonchalance. “Spend enough time on one and you start to pick up a few things,” he says.

Nori cuts him a look, like he wants to say No shit, but he doesn’t press. “Alright, O Wise Sailor,” he says instead, “what is there to see down here?”

There’s just about enough room for the hold, the galley, and some sparse sleeping quarters on this barque, and Jim knows the hold and the sleeping quarters won’t have anything interesting, so he leads them forward. They only have to take a few steps; the galley is practically right in front of them.

“Ta-da!” Jim says, gesturing at the kitchen like he’s showing off his own ship. “There’s somehow even less room than I’m used to, but this is where they’d cook all the food.”

“Wow,” Nori breathes, pacing from one side to the other. It doesn’t even take him three full steps. “It really is tiny, isn’t it?” he says, turning back to Jim.

“Yeah.” He chuckles softly. “‘S even smaller when there are two people in it.”

The shadows are doing weird things down here. For a moment, the half of Nori’s face that isn’t illuminated by the light pouring in from the doorway looks like it’s very slightly glowing on its own.

“And they can cook for an entire ship in here?” Nori asks as he opens a cabinet, revealing stacks of wooden dishes.

“A good one can, yeah.” Jim’s really fighting to obey the “don’t flip switches” directive right now. It’s just, the stove is right there, and he wants to test his theory that it’s solar powered like the engines. Honestly, he’s pretty sure it is, so turning it on wouldn’t even cause any issues. If it’s not, though, that’ll be a different story.

He’s just starting to accept that he’s going to lose the battle, hand inching toward the stovetop, when he hears a sharp intake of breath to his left.

“Ow, fuck,” Nori hisses, his right hand clutching his left.

“Are you okay?” Jim asks, leaning forward to see what the problem is. There’s a line on Nori’s index finger, with something dark coming out of it, something like blood? Only it doesn’t look like Jim’s blood. Jim presses the pads of his fingers against Nori’s palm, tilting his hand so light shines on the cut.

It’s blue.

“Yikes,” Jim says, releasing Nori’s hand. “That doesn’t look good.”

“It’s fine,” Nori tells him, and even though Jim himself has said that exact phrase a few dozen times since coming to the Academy (with varying degrees of honesty), he’s not a huge fan of hearing it from Nori. Strange. Nori moves on though, sticking his finger in his mouth and then pressing his thumb over the cut after he’s licked the blood off. “It’ll be gone in a few hours,” he assures Jim, who’s still sort of processing, but shakes it off.

“Man, I wish I healed that fast,” he says as they make their way back above decks. Nori mumbles something in response. “What?” Jim asks.

Nori glances at Jim and shakes his head. “Nothing. Just, maybe don’t mention it to Mx. Anguis? I don’t need them knowing I sliced myself open in the galley of the first ship we were allowed on.”

“My lips are sealed,” he promises. And he wants that to be true, really, he does. But he’s just too damn curious, so he steps closer to whisper, “Blue, though?”

“Hemocyanin,” Nori replies. “It’s copper rather than iron-based, which is why it’s blue. I read somewhere that it’s not as efficient as hemoglobin, though, so there aren’t too many higher life forms that have hemocyanin. I’m basically a mollusc.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Jim says, and Nori chuckles.

“Alright, is everyone back? No one’s hiding in the recesses of the vessel?” Mx. Anguis doesn’t seem to wait for a response, although if Jim had to guess based on his time with Amelia and Mx. Anguis’s own obvious experience, they’ve already counted everyone up. As the rest of the class follows them down the gangplank, Jim glances over at Nori to see the tips of his ears darkening, taking on an azure hue. It’s kind of cute. They step into place at the end of the line, walking shoulder to shoulder.

The soft whirring of the fan in the back of the holorecorder precedes Jim’s mother’s face, still slightly blue-tinged (which is funny to think about, now that he picks up on that a lot more from Nori). They’ve kept up with sending each other messages, even though Jim’s been pretty busy with school and his mom is supervising the reconstruction of the Benbow Inn. Jim never thought he would say this, but it’s been nice having this connection to home. Something about spending months having swashbuckling adventures on a ship that’s literal galaxies away from everything you know will make you appreciate what you have, or so Jim’s heard.

But it’s good, even if the connection sometimes comes with the words, “The police stopped by today because they miss you a little bit.” Morph still repeats that one to him sometimes.

His mom doesn’t open with that today. No, instead she’s smiling almost too wide for her face to contain it. Morph flits around the room, practically buzzing with energy. “Guess who’s here!” She doesn’t give Jim time to guess, not that he would have been able to respond anyway, before reaching offscreen and pulling a familiar face into frame.

“Hello Jim,” Amelia says, prim and proper as always. “I had a few days’ rest between contracts and thought I would come by to check up on the Inn.”

“Amelia’s been very helpful,” Jim’s mom says over Morph’s squeals. They’ve mostly figured out that they’ll just pass through the projections, but apparently they think Amelia won’t play by those rules because they fly straight at her.

“She’s got quite the eye for design,” Jim’s mom continues.

“Oh, stop it Sarah, you flatter me.” Despite her humility, Amelia looks pleased by the compliment. “Anywho, I hear you’re doing well in school. I’d expect nothing less, of course, but do remember to enjoy yourself as well.”

Jim’s mom swats Amelia’s arm, still beaming. “We tell him that every time, I’m sure he won’t forget. In fact, he said he’s made some friends!”

“Oh, how lovely! Although I suppose it does beg the reminder to stay out—”

Just then, the sound of a door creaking somewhere Jim can’t see halts the conversation. Amelia’s ears swivel toward the sound, her gaze following soon after. It’s hard to miss the way her eyes light up at what she sees, almost like they did when she got a look at Flint’s treasure map for the first time.

“Delbert!” Jim’s mom says, beckoning him over. “I thought you were going to be tied up at the University all evening!”

“Yes, well, fortunately the department meeting concluded sooner than I anticipated.” Delbert’s voice filters in from somewhere to the left, leaving Morph confused when they can’t find him. Jim can tell the exact moment Delbert sees Amelia, even though he’s still out of frame, because Jim’s mom has to hide her snort behind her hand.

“Nice to see you, Doctor,” Amelia says, the barest hint of amusement in her expression.

“Ni-nice to see you too, Captain,” Delbert replies. He must be rooted to the spot, because Jim still can’t see him and he knows for a fact that Delbert’s study isn’t that big.

The banging open of another door precedes the second off-screen voice. “Oh, isn’t this wonderful!” Delbert is ushered over to the two women by B.E.N., who extends their arms so they can wrap everyone in a crushing hug. There’s barely enough room on the small holorecorder screen for all four of them. “The old crew’s all here! Well, except the pirates, of course. And Jim, although he’s here in spirit, aren’t ya, Jimmy?” B.E.N. says this last bit directly to the recorder, then pats everyone’s head. “Gotta go, dinner’s on the stove, but I’m sure these crazy cats,” Amelia chuckles delicately at that, “will keep you plenty busy!” With that, B.E.N. whirls back out of the room, leaving the remaining three with space to breathe.

Jim’s mom prods Delbert’s shoulder, returning his attention to the holorecorder. “Say hi to Jim!” she suggests. He gives it what is probably supposed to be a jaunty wave.

“Hello, Jim! I’m sure Sarah has gotten you all caught up on the progress to the Inn.”

“Actually, I haven’t had the chance yet!” Jim’s mom leans closer to the recorder. He can’t recall seeing her this excited about anything since before his dad left. “The first floor’s almost done! They’ll be able to start finishing up the second one pretty soon. After that, it’ll be a few more weeks to get everything squared away and then we’ll be back in business!”

“Yes, it’s just been a flurry of activity over here,” Delbert adds. Jim’s mom pokes him again, smiling, if possible, even wider.

“Tell him about your research!”

Delbert straightens up unconsciously, the way he does when anyone asks him to talk about his work. He folds his hands behind his back like he’s about to give a lecture. Jim manages to hold back his laughter, but Morph takes one look at his expression and bursts into a surprisingly accurate rendition of Silver’s guffaw. Although he supposes it’s not really surprising, considering how much time the little shapeshifter had to pick up on the pirate’s mannerisms.

“Well, as you already know,” Delbert starts, then pauses to clear his throat. “Um, after our little adventure, I began looking into the mechanics behind anomalies in space-time. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to examine Captain Flint’s portal long enough to concretely determine how it operated, but I was able to formulate a hypothesis. Based on that, my research assistants and I believe we are close to solving the necessary equations to replicate it. In fact, we’re about to enter a partnership with the engineering department. We may have a working prototype as soon as the end of this academic year.”

“Isn’t that great!” If he didn’t know the both of them better, Jim would be tempted to say his mom is more delighted by Delbert’s research than Delbert himself. Even so, her energy brings an answering smile to Jim’s face.

“Yes, it’s quite thrilling.” Delbert stares at the recorder for another moment before abruptly turning to Amelia. “And what, uh, what have you been getting up to? More fabulous adventures, I’m sure?”

“Oh, nothing as… stimulating as our trip,” Amelia says easily. “No need for me to put you to sleep with my boring contracts.” Her ear twitches. That’s definitely not the whole truth, but neither Delbert nor Jim’s mom press the issue.

“Well, sweetie, we can’t wait to hear what else you’ve been doing! Tell us all about it when you get this. We love you!” Amelia and Delbert wave as Jim’s mom stops the message, the last frame a blurry shot of the three of them frozen in various states of motion. Morph decides they can imitate the blur, which results in a visual that Jim will never be able to unsee, but he chooses to ignore that spectacle in favor of prepping the holorecorder for his own message. After a moment spent standing in front of the device, he snatches it off his desk and strides out of the room, Morph hot on his heels.

Five minutes, a long hallway, two flights of stairs, and a second hallway later, Jim’s knocking on one of the million other plain wooden doors in the dorm. After the rustling from within quiets, it swings open. Nori stares out at Jim, hair sticking up in every possible direction, and blinks slowly. Morph zips right over, draping themself around Nori’s wrist like the bracelet they were on Jim during the field trip to the port. The eyebrow that was already raised when Nori opened the door climbs farther as he catches sight of the holorecorder clutched to Jim’s chest.

“Jim.”

“Nori.”

“Jim.”

“Nori.”

“It is,” Nori pauses to lean back and glance to the left, “one in the morning.”

“Don’t act like I woke you up,” Jim replies, which might be a low blow, but he can’t stop himself from smiling, so hopefully that softens it.

“Fine, fine,” Nori says, crossing his arms. “What brings you by my humble dorm room at this hour of the night?”

Rather than answer, Jim holds the recorder out. Nori looks down at it, then back up at Jim, distinctly unimpressed. “You’re gonna have to give me a bit more than that.”

“My mom and I send each other messages,” Jim explains. “I want you to do this one with me.”

“For real?” When Jim nods, Nori runs his fingers through his hair. Even with the gravity-defying stunts it’s pulling, it looks soft. “I don’t know, dude, what would I even say?”

“It’s just my mom, she’ll love you. Besides, she’s mostly gonna be happy that my friends aren’t made up.”

“Oh, well, in the interest of proving that you do in fact have friends,” Nori says as he steps to the side. Jim does a little fist pump of victory as he walks in.

“This is gonna be great.”

“We have to stop meeting like this.”

It’s a few days later and Jim’s standing outside Nori’s door again, although it’s only ten-thirty this time. Jim just shrugs and grabs Nori’s wrist, tugging him out of the doorway.

“Come on, I’ve got something to show you.”

“Okay, okay, give me a second,” Nori gripes, but he’s smiling. “Let me lock my door, at least.”

When the door is successfully locked, Jim takes off down the hall, Nori in tow. “Where are we going, anyway?” he asks. Jim laughs.

“You’ll see!”

“Have it your way, then.” Nori hasn’t stopped grinning, though. “You know, I was always told not to follow strange people who won’t tell me where they’re taking me.”

“Good thing I’m not strange, then.”

“You keep telling yourself that.”

They emerge from the dorm building to a dark, cloudy sky. A waning gibbous moon would be hanging over their heads if they could see it. Jim hopes it isn’t going to rain. Campus seems temperate pretty much year-round, but it’s been getting slightly warmer, so he didn’t bother to bring a coat. At this point, they’ve come too far. There’s nothing to do but forge ahead.

“Where’s Morph?” Nori asks as they walk along the path that’s oh-so-familiar to Jim by now.

“Sleeping, in theory,” Jim tells him. “This isn’t the best place for them anyway.”

“Well, now I’m concerned it might not be the best place for me.”

“You’ll be fine, don’t worry. Just don’t touch anything that looks like it could cut one of your fingers off.”

“You’re really not selling it.”

“Too bad, because we’re here!”

It almost feels like he’s picking the lock, what with the way he has to jiggle the key to make it turn, but the side door Jim normally uses opens easily under his practiced hands. He leads Nori down the hall to the left, past three classroom doors, and stops at the end of the hall.

“Hey, isn’t this—” Nori says right as Jim throws the door to the lab open. He flips the switch and a few moments later the lanterns flare up above them.

“Now, I don’t really think I’m supposed to let other people in here, so it would be best if you didn’t cause any lasting damage,” Jim says, walking to the back of the lab. He can practically hear Nori’s eyeroll, and when he glances back over his shoulder, Nori has jumped up to sit on one of the worktables. It’s not the one Jim usually works at, but he drags the skeleton of his surfer over there anyway.

Nori whistles. “Someone’s been busy.” He reaches out, hand hovering over the supports for the sail, then looks back at Jim, who nods. His fingers skim over the metal, lingering where it’s welded together. “You did all this?”

Jim shrugs. “Not my first solar surfer, but it might be my best.”

“And this is what you meant when you were talking about ‘all hours of the night.’”

“Well, yeah, what else would it be?”

“I was concerned you might be considering taking up vigilantism.”

“Can’t be a vigilante without a sidekick.” Jim lifts an eyebrow as something occurs to him. “Are you offering?”

Nori chuckles and turns back to the surfer. He taps one of the welded joints. “Isn’t it dangerous to solder metal by yourself?”

“Not really,” Jim answers. He gestures back to the tools along the far wall. “Want me to show you?”

“That’s, uh, that’s alright,” Nori says, although he legitimately looks a little uncomfortable at the idea. Jim supposes the blowtorch can be tabled for the moment. He grabs a wrench instead, tossing it so it flips in the air before falling back into his hand.

“I’ve still got work to do, plus I need batteries and an engine, but as soon as I get those, it’s all over for you all.”

“Oh, I bet.” Coming from anyone else, it would seem patronizing, but Nori manages to sound both gently sarcastic and earnest at the same time.

Jim doesn’t break out the open flame all night, as it turns out, but the hours pass faster than they ever have. Nori stays up on the table the whole time, handing Jim the tools he asks for, despite that the requests sometimes don’t involve words. It’s a little impressive, actually, how comfortable the silence between them is when it falls. Jim never quite forgets that Nori’s there, kicking his feet in Jim’s peripheral vision. Even so, he’s able to sink into the zone in a way he usually can’t if there are other people around. Jim doesn’t even realize how late it’s gotten until he yawns so wide he can hear his jaw crack.

“Alright,” Nori says, removing a different wrench from Jim’s grasp and lifting his other hand. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Four.”

“Yeah, people who can’t answer that question correctly don’t get to work on complex vehicles. Come on, let’s put this away.” Nori helps Jim move the surfer back to its spot in the corner of the room, then Nori packs up the tools Jim was using while Jim stands in the center of the room, rubbing his eyes and wondering why the clock on the wall reads three AM when that’s clearly impossible.

“How are you not dead on your feet right now?” Jim asks as the lab falls into darkness behind them. Nori shrugs, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“I’m chronically sleep-deprived, Jim. I’m used to it.”

“That’s… not a good thing,” Jim mutters as he fumbles with the key. “Also, I’m very sure you were holding up four fingers, you cheater.”

“You got me, I was. Doesn’t mean you should have kept working.”

“Why’d I have to go and make friends that actually take care of me? Worst decision of my life.”

“Truly, you’d be thriving without me.” The clouds have disappeared and the outside air is slightly cooler now. It manages the equivalent of slapping Jim awake when they step out of the building. “Besides, if it makes you feel any better, I took a four-hour nap this afternoon, which I’m pretty sure you didn’t do.”

“That is accurate, yes,” Jim says, although it probably comes out more like, “Tha’s acc’rate, ye.” There’s a reason people compare sleep deprivation to intoxication.

A light breeze ruffles Jim’s hair, and even though it’s easier to keep his eyes open, his body is still informing him that it’s beyond time for him to go to sleep. That, at least, is his excuse for why he didn’t realize that the breeze was in fact from Kise passing right over his head.

“You’re out late,” she says, a particular brand of glee that usually spells trouble suffusing her voice. He blinks slowly, once, twice, before her face comes into focus in the moonlight.

“Wanna come next time?” he offers. “I’m just building something in the lab.”

“So that crazy contraption in the back is yours?” Kise shakes her head. “I should have guessed. Let’s go, you look like you’re about to keel over.”

“Worst decision,” Jim grumbles again, glancing over in time to see Nori snort as he tries to hold back laughter.

They split on the first floor of the dorm building, Nori heading to the left while Jim and Kise turn right. She’s on the fourth floor, he knows, but she still pauses after the first flight of stairs.

“Hey,” she says, twisting her claws together, and wow, that’s new. Kise isn’t nervous about anything. “I don’t know exactly what you’ve been doing,” she continues, “but whatever it is, he’s been happier since you showed up. It’s good to see. So, thank you.”

Jim tilts his head to the side. “Of course. For the record, I don’t know either, but I’m glad to hear it.”

Kise nods once, decisively, then pushes him toward the door on the landing. “Now go to bed before I have to march your dumb ass down to your room.”

Jim’s eyes roll involuntarily, which accurately represents his feelings but also sparks a headache right in the middle of his forehead. “Okay, mom.”

He walks to his room to the sound of Kise’s barking laughter echoing in the stairwell.

[Top to bottom, left to right: a drawing of Jim from the shoulders up, wearing a tan shirt and looking straight ahead. A drawing of Nori from the shoulders up, wearing a gray shirt and looking straight ahead. A drawing of Mikka from the shoulders up, wearing a green shirt and looking straight ahead, smiling so her sharp teeth are visible, with spikes protruding from her shoulders. A drawing of Kise from the torso up, looking straight ahead, wings held up so her claws are visible and wearing a white button down and a red tie. The shirt doesn’t cover her wings, and she has two large bat ears. Morph is next to her, mimicking her. A drawing of Jim and Nori from the shoulders up, smiling and talking. They’re angled toward each other slightly but not in profile. They each wear a white button down and red tie. Both are blushing, Jim’s is pink while Nori’s is blue. A drawing of Jim and Nori kissing from the neck up. I don’t think that’s a spoiler, since I’m pretty sure we can all see where this is going. A drawing of Jim and Kise’s first meeting, Jim talking to Kise, who hangs from an unseen ceiling with her wings wrapped around her. Jim wears the school uniform and his black boots. Both are in profile. A quick sketch of the back of Mikka and Kise’s heads as they look at Jim and Nori in the distance. Mikka is saying, “I ain’t never seen two pretty best friends” while Kise replies, “Me neither.” Morph hovers between them.]

+ Close ups of a few of my favorites!

Jim

Kise

The Kiss

Jim and Kise’s first meeting

Chapter Text

“Jim, lad, stay back a moment.”

Jim glances up from packing his notebook back into his bag. Mr. Kohrman is looking at him, but he doesn’t seem upset, so Jim’s not too worried. He shoulders his bag as Morph assumes their preferred place on the strap and waits for his classmates to file out of the room before walking up to Mr. Kohrman’s desk.

“Those parts you asked for should arrive later today,” Mr. Kohrman tells him before he can even ask what’s going on.

“Oh, great! I’ll be just about done once I get the engine hooked up.” When Mr. Kohrman shifts his pincers awkwardly on the desktop rather than telling Jim to hurry off to his next class, Jim knows something’s up. “Um. Was there anything else you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Yes,” Mr. Kohrman says slowly before sighing heavily. “I saw you walking here a few nights ago. Nights, I say, because it was far later than most students are out and about. Aside from my concerns about your lack of sleep,” he says, presumably in response to Jim automatically opening his mouth to assert that he knows what he’s doing, “I noticed the nocturnal boy was with you, the one that’s friends with Kise.”

Jim feels his defensive expression morph into a grin without his conscious input. After that first time, Nori’s accompanied him to the lab most nights. He makes the time fly by even faster than it usually does when Jim’s working, which is saying something, but he’s also good at reminding Jim to stop working before he drops a(nother) wrench on his foot. Nori’s still wary of the blowtorch, but Jim can’t really blame him.

“Yeah,” Jim says, still smiling. “Nori’s been helping me out. He’s a really great friend.”

“Right.” Mr. Kohrman suddenly looks unsure of how to proceed, not that he seemed all that confident to begin with. “Well, it’s great to hear you’re making friends, lad. And you should keep that up, but, you’re nearly an adult yourself, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you to be careful….” He trails off as Jim raises an eyebrow.

“Careful of what?” he asks pointedly. Saying he’s tired of adults telling him how to move through life, even if those adults have thus far been quite supportive, would be an understatement.

There’s a moment of silence as Mr. Kohrman’s golden eyes scrutinize Jim’s face. Jim isn’t sure how much of his irritation is visible, but at least some of it must bleed through because Mr. Kohrman sighs again. “Just don’t let the lad wreck my lab,” he says, faux exasperation hiding the fondness in his tone. Jim’s grin returns, albeit slightly smaller than it was before.

“We’re no trouble at all, I promise,” he assures Mr. Kohrman as the bell rings above their heads. Jim winces. “Damn.”

“Take one of those.” Mr. Kohrman gestures to the slips of paper resting in a basket on the front corner of his desk. Jim snatches one up and makes for the door. Even with a late pass, Mx. Anguis isn’t going to be happy.

“And Jim?” Mr. Kohrman calls after him. Jim pauses in the doorway, glancing back over his shoulder. “Let me know when you finish your project, lad. I want to be there for the test run.”

“Will do!” Jim promises. “Any day now!” With that, he flees down the hallway. It’s been too long since the bell rang. Mx. Anguis really isn’t going to be happy about this.

(They’re not happy, but the way Nori’s eyes crinkle in amusement and the smile he tries to hide behind his hand more than make up for it.)

The knowledge that the last few pieces Jim needs for his surfer will be sitting in the lab, just waiting for him, makes the rest of the day drag out impossibly long, but soon enough Morph is tucked away in their favorite corner of Jim’s bed and he’s knocking on Nori’s door. When he doesn’t get a response he knocks again, the percussive sound echoing down the hall. There’s no way Nori didn’t hear that, and he wouldn’t just ignore someone, which only leaves one option. To be honest, Jim isn’t terribly surprised. He was twitchy in class, filled with the same kind of nervous energy he’d had when they’d snuck into the training port. Jim doesn’t usually like being stuck in a room when he feels like that, and from what he knows about the other boy, Nori doesn’t either.

The question now is where he’s gone.

He wanders around campus when he can’t sleep, Jim’s well aware of this, but somehow that just doesn’t feel right. So he finds himself climbing the west staircase, up and up and up until he gets to the top. The hatch in the ceiling is closed but not locked, so it’s easy enough for Jim to climb the ladder leaning against the wall and push it open.

Students aren’t technically allowed in the attic, but considering how rarely it’s used, it has very little dust. Crawlerwebs hang in thick sheets from the pitched ceiling, but that’s to be expected. And Jim doesn’t really care anyway, because there’s a clear path to the window at the opposite end of the room. That, unlike the hatch, is thrown wide open, and as he leans out of it a puff of air ghosts over his face like a warm breath. He steps onto the windowsill, then twists himself around so he can grab the sloping edge of the roof. It’s oddly reminiscent of all the times he climbed onto the roof of the Benbow as a kid, and those old skills don’t fail him now. With a heave and a little bit of footwork, Jim finds himself crouching on midnight blue shingles. It’s oddly comforting, this steep surface spreading out in front of him, and the expanse of the Etherium overhead. Too many stars to count, too many planets to visit, but Jim wants to try anyway.

Nori’s sitting with his back to the largest chimney, the one that connects to the perpetually unused fireplace in the first floor common area, with his elbows resting on his knees. Jim can only see him from the side, but as he walks closer (if it can really be called walking), he notices that Nori’s head is cradled in his hands.

“Hey,” he nearly whispers. Nori doesn’t jump at the sound, but the line of his shoulders visibly tenses. Jim watches as Nori takes a deep breath, forcing himself to relax. Jim recognizes the motions; it’s something he does too.

“Hey,” Nori replies, straightening up without turning. When he doesn’t say anything else, Jim takes another step toward him.

“Want to go to the lab?” he tries. Nori shakes his head.

“Sorry, not tonight. Go without me, it’s fine.”

Batteries and an engine are waiting down in that lab, but there’s something in Nori’s voice. Jim shuffles forward.

“You don’t have to apologize.” He’s close enough to reach out now, so he does, his hand touching Nori’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Nori sniffles, turns his head slightly. His face shines in the low light. Jim’s arm falls back to his side as he takes the last step, coming to sit next to Nori. He stretches his legs out so they’re lying flat on the roof, one of his knees knocking into Nori’s. Here, Jim has a clearer view. It’s not Nori’s face shining, or rather, it’s not just his face, because there’s definitely some sort of bioluminescence happening there that Jim takes a moment to marvel at before filing away to discuss at a later date. No, there are tear tracks down his cheeks, reflecting the stars.

It’s not fair how someone so melancholy can look so hauntingly beautiful.

“Are you sure?” Jim asks gently, because he’s not the best at this, but he’s never seen Nori cry before, and he’s pretty sure it’s not a good thing.

Nori blows out a breath, tilting his head back to stare up at the moonless sky. He pulls his legs up to wrap his arms around his knees, hugging them to his chest. He’s smiling almost imperceptibly, the kind of smile that’s sad and amused at the same time, that says he thinks he should have guessed Jim wouldn’t leave him alone. “I’m fine,” he says, eyes still fixed above them. His tone is strange now, different than it was before. He sounds almost… homesick. “It’s just my birthday, so….”

“Um.” Jim’s really not sure how to respond to that. “I feel like I’m supposed to say happy birthday, but I’m not sure that would be appropriate.”

Nori exhales through his nose in what Jim thinks is a laugh, or as close as he can come to laughing right now. “It’s alright,” he says, finally, finally looking at Jim. “I don’t really know how to feel about it either.”

They stare at each other long enough that Jim loses all sense of time. The glow fades from Nori’s skin slowly, but not completely, leaving him illuminated like a full moon is shining on him even though there’s no moonlight to speak of. Nori breaks eye contact first, turning back to the darkness in front of them and scrubbing at his face with his sleeves. He succeeds in removing the worst of the tear stains, but his skin just gets more blue with the agitation. When it seems to be doing more harm than good, Jim touches his fingers to Nori’s wrist. He stops moving, almost frozen, before lowering his hands slowly to the roof between them.

“My mother died,” he whispers into the silence. Jim blinks, taken aback. He doesn’t even realize he’s pulling his hand away until Nori’s comes up to grab it, fingers circling Jim’s wrist in a reversal of their previous position. “She died so I could live, and I don’t—I don’t blame myself, per se, but I still feel responsible, somehow. I know I shouldn’t, I know it wasn’t my fault, it wasn’t me, but it’s still—” Nori takes a shaky breath. His hand is like a vise around Jim’s wrist, but he doesn’t mind. “She’d still be alive, if it wasn’t for me.” He inhales again, swiping at his eyes with his free hand. “Sorry, that’s a lot to dump on you. It probably doesn’t make sense.”

Jim bites back the reassurance that jumps to the tip of his tongue. Although it likely wouldn’t hurt, he’s pretty sure he can offer something better. So, after a moment to sort the words out in his head, he says that instead.

“My dad left.” Nori’s gaze snaps to Jim, and suddenly he’s the one who can’t bear to make eye contact. He looks down at their hands instead. Nori’s fingers are hot, feverish almost, where they’re pressed against his skin. “When I was ten, he just walked out on me and my mom.” Nori’s white-knuckled grip loosens slightly. Not much, but enough that Jim can feel the tell-tale tingle of blood flowing back into his hand. “I blamed myself for the longest time. Didn’t matter what anyone else said about it. No one got through to me until this one guy, and most of the time, I don’t even think he meant to. It just happened.” Somehow, he glances back up. Nori looks almost unreal in the night, like a creature straight from the Etherium. Despite his humanoid appearance, he’s so unlike anything else Jim has ever known, it’s hard for him to imagine a whole species, a whole planet of people like Nori. “I know it’s not the same thing,” Jim says, “but it’s close, I guess. So I get it.”

“That sucks,” Nori says after a beat. Jim doesn’t even realize he was holding his breath, bracing himself for the perfunctory “I’m sorry” that he heard so many times after his dad quit, even from Delbert and his mom. Should have expected Nori to be different, he thinks as he sighs, equal parts surprised and relieved.

“Yeah, it does,” Jim replies, and Nori nods. He releases Jim’s wrist, slides his hand down. Jim laces their fingers together. His eyes are slowly adjusting to the light, enough that he could probably see some of the ground if he wanted to look off the rooftop again. The trees are off to their left, the training port straight ahead, although definitely too far to spot. The main building, and the lab, would be to their right. Jim doesn’t bother checking. Time’s gone all weird again, and he finds he doesn’t mind.

He wouldn’t have noticed, except thousands of stars are glittering in Nori’s eyes and one of them carves a burning streak right across his iris, white light stark against the deep amethyst. Jim’s head whips toward the sky, eyes seeking any sign of movement. “Did you see that?” he breathes, as though speaking any louder will scare the shooting stars away.

“Yeah,” Nori answers, just as quiet. Silence descends once again as they both search every centimeter of the sky they can see. Out of the corner of his eye, Jim catches Nori’s free hand stretching upward. He follows it to see another comet slicing through the heavens, leaving a fiery trail in its wake. They keep coming after that, one after the other until it’s so fast the next one appears before the first one fades away, and all Jim can do is watch. Most are like the first one, but occasionally a flare of scarlet or cyan will burst across the sky. Lithium and copper deposits present in the rock, most likely. It almost looks like it’s raining light around them, bright and beautiful and utterly captivating.

Captivating, except that Jim tears his eyes away to look over at Nori, finding his face full of wonder as he gazes up at the show. He nudges Nori’s shoulder with his own, waiting until the other boy looks over at him to speak.

“Happy birthday,” he whispers, and Nori’s answering smile is more radiant than any of the comets.

Neither of them say anything else until the stars are done falling, the few stragglers melting away into the Etherium after painting their own lines. For a moment, the only change in the environment is the soft sounds of their breaths echoing through the still air. The sky seems oddly static after all that, the darkness stagnant around them. Jim’s struck by the urge to move it, to do or say anything to reanimate the night.

“So, can you do anything special, like shoot beams of energy out of your eyes or something?” He did not know that that was what would come out of his mouth when he opened it, but now that he’s said it, he stands by the query.

Nori rolls said eyes. “No one can shoot beams of energy out of their eyes.”

Jim shrugs. “Well, yeah, but I’ve never seen anyone with violet eyes before.”

Nori gives him a wry look. “‘Violet’?”

“Oh, shut up.”

“What would you say if I told you I’ve never seen anyone with cerulean eyes before?”

Jim tries for the same expression, although he’s pretty sure he ends up closer to amused. “‘Cerulean’?”

“Exactly.” Nori turns back to the sky, satisfied that he’s won. Jim considers it, though.

“I’d say you’re bluffing, because I’ve seen at least three other humans here with blue eyes, not to mention the many other species that have similar coloring,” he says. “No one else is like you.”

Nori nods. “Point. We don’t tend to travel much.”

Jim wants to ask why that is, but the air already feels heavy with shared secrets and he doesn’t want to pry. So he falls back on a tried and true approach. “Can you make plants grow just by looking at them, then? Or light things on fire?”

“Ridiculous.” Nori shakes his head. “You’re absolutely ridiculous. All I can really do is see well at night.”

“Right, makes sense.” The statement makes Jim realize something, though, and he glances at Nori. “So you can see me better than I can see you right now?” It’s halfway between a question and a statement.

“Cerulean eyes and all,” Nori replies, not even trying to hide his smirk. It’s Jim’s turn to roll his eyes.

“You’re impossible to have a conversation with, you know.”

“You’re one to talk,” Nori fires back, smiling wider now. Jim can’t help grinning back.

“Really, it’s a miracle we can communicate at all.”

“Yeah, how did we ever get as far as we have?”

“Probably Kise,” Jim says, and Nori inclines his head. Silence, familiar by now, creeps back in, but Jim has one last question to ask.

“So are you a vampire?”

Nori’s quiet for a moment before he snorts. Jim chuckles in response.

“A vampire,” Nori repeats. His inky hair seems to swallow the light around them, while his eyes still reflect the stars. Jim shrugs; even though he wasn’t being serious, at the lovely hour of whatever time it is, it doesn’t seem quite so far-fetched.

“Yeah, you know, I read a book like that once.”

The eyebrow Nori raises at Jim is distinctly unimpressed. “I suppose that would explain my fangs and tendency to sparkle in the sun.”

Jim wrinkles his nose at the sarcasm. Nori just laughs.

“You are nocturnal, though, you can’t deny that.” Nori nods and returns his focus to the night sky, craning his neck to look at the stars above their heads. Jim wonders what he sees up there, if he can pick out his home from here. Montressor seems impossibly far away.

Jim snaps his fingers. “I’ve got it!” At Nori’s confused expression, he continues. “Your fangs are retractable!”

“You’re still on that?” Nori’s smile belies his exasperated tone. Not for the first time, Jim’s grateful that the first friend he made here shares his sense of humor.

“This is my future now,” Jim replies, throwing an arm out wide. “I’m going to become a professional conspiracy theorist and it’s all your fault. I’m not gonna stop until you admit you’re a vampire.”

“Fine then, why don’t you let me bite you? That should settle it.”

Jim grins crookedly at Nori. “Is that a challenge?”

“You,” Nori begins, barely holding back laughter, “are a menace.” Even in the low light, Jim can see the dusty blue spreading across the other boy’s cheeks. Jim smiles as he turns his head to stare out over the campus. He can pick out the outlines of the trees against the sky, as it turns out, although the training port is predictably obscured.

“Hey, Jim?”

When Jim glances over at him, Nori’s already staring back. His eyes burn like potassium on fire, and Jim honestly can’t tell if they’re actually luminous or if it’s just his perception. “What?”

Nori shakes his head. “Nevermind.” He leans his head back against the chimney, gaze drifting back up. After a moment, Jim follows suit. They’re the same stars he’s been seeing for months now, but even after the meteor shower, they seem brighter somehow.

As one last shooting star streaks through the Etherium, Jim feels Nori squeeze his hand.

Chapter Text

Jim wakes feeling more rested than he has in weeks. The sun is shining (at least, he assumes this is the case; there are no windows to be seen in his room, which only lends more evidence to the theory that it was once a closet), Morph is chirping happily, and as cliché as it feels, Jim’s got a hunch that it’s going to be a good day. He doesn’t exactly jump out of bed. He’s sixteen and it’s early in the morning, after all. Nevertheless, when he strolls out into the hallway, it’s with a spring in his step.

Whether by universal design or happy coincidence, Nori’s coming out of the stairwell right as Jim passes it. He smiles and bumps their shoulders together, and Nori smiles back.

“Ready for Physics?” Jim asks. Nori’s grin morphs into a grimace.

“Oh yeah,” he says, voice thick with sarcasm. “I love… planets. And stuff.”

Jim rolls his eyes. “As if you weren’t the top scorer on the last exam. Don’t try to deny it, I heard Mr. Klemens.”

“The variable definitions of whispering strike again,” Nori says, halfheartedly shaking a fist at the sky.

When they arrive at the school building, the hallways are as crowded as they always are first thing in the morning. The Physics classroom is already almost full by the time Jim and Nori get there. Mere moments after they take their customary seats in the back row, Mr. Klemens strolls into the room, flat feet slapping against the floor. He drops his papers on the desk at the front of the room, but instead of leafing through them, he comes around to stand before the class.

“Did anyone—”

He’s interrupted by the bell and the few students who slip through the door as the sound peters out, but he doesn’t seem at all put off by it. “Did anyone see the show last night?” he finishes, glancing expectantly around the room, eyes shining behind his round glasses. Jim conducts his own subtle investigation. A few students look confused, heads tilted to the side and various phalanges tapping against their desks or the floor. Most, though, sport the slumped posture of the half-asleep. No one gives any indication that they “saw the show,” or that they even know what the show was.

No one except Nori, who meets Jim’s questing gaze with a raised eyebrow. Jim answers with a shrug, to which Nori rolls his eyes and returns his focus to the front of the classroom. With an amused exhale, Jim does the same.

“Shame,” Mr. Klemens is saying. “It was quite something. As many comets as I’ve ever seen at once. Interesting composition too. Metal deposits in the rocks gave the tails some unusual colors. I guessed at copper and lithium myself.” Jim allows himself a small, satisfied grin at the words. It’s always nice to be proven right. “Anyway, I supposed in the spirit of that, I would adjust my lesson plan for the day. We’ll be discussing the physics of comets and the Etherium’s effects on them today. They behave much differently than we would expect if they were traveling through a vacuum, as you’ll soon see.”

And see they do. In fact, after ninety minutes, Jim’s convinced he could give Delbert a lesson in comet physics. It’s not a bad way to kick off the day, though, and before he knows it he’s being released back into the world.

Foreign language classes have their own hallway in the main building (not to be confused with language classes, which are the next hallway over and focus on critical analysis and writing skills, rather than the basic stuff Jim’s learning in his Xornan class), and he’s walking down this hallway after class when someone falls into step next to him. Even knowing that Kise and Nori don’t have any foreign language classes at the end of the day, he’s a little surprised to see Mikka strolling along to his left.

She doesn’t bother to say hello, just asks, “What class are you coming from?” It suits Jim fine. It sure seems like people who are as direct as Mikka are rare these days.

“Xornan,” he replies. “How about you?”

“Advanced Przdlgt. It’s interesting because vowels are assumed in the written language, and they’re also used much more sparingly in the spoken language than most others.”

Jim chuckles. “Yeah, I can tell. That’s crazy, I didn’t even know you could take Advanced… Przedlogt?”

Although she hides it well, the way Mikka’s eyes are sparkling makes Jim think she’s laughing at him internally, just a little bit. “Close enough. And yeah, it’s most of the reason I was able to convince my mom to let me come here. She wasn’t thrilled at the idea of me living off-planet for entire semesters at a time, but you really can’t get an education like this anywhere else.”

Jim nods. He knows that well enough.

He’s about to ask what Mikka’s other mom does when she flings her hand in the air. Fortunately, it’s her left hand, or else he would have been sliced by her spikes. He barely has a moment to wonder why before he spots Ditch and Branch making their way across the somewhat congested hall.

When they come to a stop in front of Mikka and Jim, he realizes that they really are quite similar. He’d noticed that their scales were the same color when he first met them, but they’re the same height too. He tries not to look like he’s scrutinizing them too closely, since he doesn’t want to make them uncomfortable. He just wants to be able to tell them apart.

The one on the right might have a wider face and nose, and the one on the left might have more pronounced eyebrow crests. This would be more helpful information if Jim knew who was who. Fortunately, Mikka seems to remember that they haven’t interacted much.

“I know you’ve already met, but this is Jim,” she says, gesturing to him (he recognizes the sign she showed him for “name” as she moves). “Jim, this is Ditch,” she indicates the Diplodactyl on the left, who blinks slowly, “and this is Branch.” Branch, unlike Ditch, inclines zir head. Jim nods back to both of them.

“It’s nice to officially meet you, I guess,” he says kind of awkwardly. They all stare at each other for a moment before Ditch moves eir hands, too fast for Jim to make it out. Mikka responds in kind before turning to him.

“We’re gonna go chill by the rec dome, wanna join us?” she asks.

Jim doesn’t really have to think about it. Nori tends to nap after class, Kise will probably be working on assignments, and Jim got half of his homework done in Algebra. Morph has always been a little intimidated by Ditch and Branch, possibly because they’re a bit like drakes and Morph doesn’t seem to have great memories of Flint, but the little shapeshifter decided to spend the afternoon with Kise. (Those two have formed quite the bond. Jim’s only a little terrified.) There’s no reason he shouldn’t.

“Sure, lead the way,” he answers, and a corner of Mikka’s mouth quirks up. The scales around the corners of Branch’s eyes seem to crinkle too, although Jim has to admit he’s not great at reading reptilian facial expressions.

They head straight for the rec dome, but to Jim’s mild surprise, instead of going in it, they circle around the back, passing the emergency exit Jim used to liberate that solar surfer close to the beginning of the semester. The forest bordering campus is pretty close here, and Mikka throws herself on the grass halfway between the dome and the tree line.

“Ah, peace and quiet,” she sighs, which isn’t exactly true. Plenty of noise still drifts over from the rec dome, but there aren’t any other students back here, so Jim supposes that’s probably what she means.

“I should be worried about you kidnapping me,” he jokes, sitting down next to her. She pushes herself upright so she’s sitting with her legs stretched out in front of her. “Three against one isn’t great odds.”

“Trust me, if we wanted you kidnapped, you’d be long gone by now,” Mikka replies, flashing a grin that reminds Jim just how sharp her teeth are. He glances at the Diplodactyls only to find Ditch with what he thinks is the equivalent of a smirk on eir face, while Branch doesn’t seem inclined to get involved. Honestly, Jim can’t blame zem.

“Well, I suppose I’ve sealed my fate by now.” He leans back, planting his hands on the grass behind him so he can prop himself up. Ditch and Branch drop to the ground across from Jim and Mikka, crossing their legs in perfect mirrors of each other. Each of their tails swing around to lie next to them.

Ditch touches a claw to eir nose and taps the claws of eir other hand together. Mikka tilts her head to the side, considering eir obvious question.

“I figured I’d translate what we all say, me and Jim too. That way he can see the gestures for everything.” She turns to him, hands held up. “Ditch just asked how this was all going to work. Does that sound like a good plan to you?” She moves more slowly than Ditch, but with the same fluidity, so it’s hard to tell where one sign ends and the next begins.

“Yeah, it sounds great.” It’s a little weird to be so intensely focused on someone’s hands while having a conversation with them. Jim’s mother drilled manners into him from a young age, and because of that he’s always had the urge to maintain eye contact. Mikka, Ditch, and Branch aren’t looking each other in the eyes, though, so that makes it a little easier.

“Good! Just remember that I’m not perfect, unlike some people.” This last phrase is directed, along with a teasing side eye, at Ditch. If it were possible, Jim would say even the gestures looked sarcastic, but ey doesn’t seem bothered. Branch moves for the first time, rolling zir eyes and signing at Mikka. She laughs.

“Ze said, ‘You know we don’t do that.’ That being sarcasm.” Her hands go strangely still for a moment, but she picks up signing again as she continues. “They don’t actually have a gesture for that word, since it’s not really something they’re familiar with. I try to tone it down, but I can’t help it sometimes. Fortunately, good friends that they are, they’ve mostly figured out how to interpret my expressions so they know when I don’t mean what I said.”

Jim makes a note to dial his own sarcasm back for the rest of the conversation. “Alright,” he says, and Mikka touches two fingers to her temple. “I can’t always tell if I’m being sarcastic, actually, so uh, let me know if I say anything that needs clarification.”

Ditch lifts eir tail and flicks the tip down. It’s not until Mikka tells him, “Ey said ‘Will do,’” that he realizes the motion was intentional.

“Oh, by the way, before I forget,” Mikka says, gesturing rapidly in Branch’s direction, “what do you think Jim’s name would be?”

He knows she means what would the gesture for his name be, but something about the question strikes him as just barely amusing enough that he huffs out a breath through his nose. Across from him, Ditch snorts without making a sound. It’s funny to em too, apparently.

Branch, on the other hand, looks to be giving it some thought. Eventually, ze makes a wavelike motion with zir claws. Mikka nods, moving her fingers the same way. “Understandable,” she says, tapping her temple again. Branch makes a few more gestures, and Mikka turns to Jim. “It’s the sign for wind,” she explains. “Ze says it’s because of how you rode that sailboard ‘like the wind,’ apparently. Go ahead, try it.”

“Alright,” Jim says, lifting his hand and copying the movement. It feels like he’s fluttering his fingers through the air, like they could take off at any moment. He approves. “Thanks,” he says to Branch, who nods. Jim moves his hands just like Mikka taught him in Biology, pointing at Branch, twisting his fingers, and bending his wrist, although suddenly his confidence isn’t great enough that he doesn’t ask aloud as well. “What’s your name?”

Branch’s eyes widen, and ze glances over at Mikka, who’s puffed up like a pelitross. “I’m proud of you for remembering,” she tells Jim, almost forgetting to sign along with what she’s saying.

“Hey, you taught me one thing, so I committed that one thing to memory,” he says. He looks back at Branch, who makes a gesture that’s hard to describe but somehow evokes leaves rustling in a spring breeze. Jim definitely doesn’t think he can recreate it, and Mikka doesn’t try either. “Cool,” he says, with feeling, and Branch looks pleased.

When he asks Ditch, he doesn’t say anything, just makes the gesture. For a moment it seems like ey’s not going to respond, but the Branch nudges eir arm and ey sigh quietly. Ey trace a line down eir forearm with a claw on eir opposite hand. Jim can see how that would translate to Ditch.

“Nice,” Jim says. Mikka touches the first two fingers of each of her hands together, forming a triangle in front of her face. It’s the same gesture she used for “cool,” which is noteworthy, at least to Jim’s brain.

When he signs to ask her name, she grins back at him. She presses the backs of her hands together and laces her fingers, so they’re pointing toward the grass. “It means ‘stalactite,’” she says. “I think the reasoning is obvious.”

“If I had to choose a word to describe you, that would probably be it,” Jim agrees.

Silence and stillness descend over their little group, heavy and not entirely pleasant. Briefly, he wishes Nori or Kise were there, but he pushes the thought away just as quickly as it appeared. He’s perfectly capable of making conversation. He is. Definitely.

“So, uh, finals are coming up soon.” Way to go, Hawkins, bring up everyone’s least favorite part of the year.

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Mikka says, flopping backward. She doesn’t stay down long, though. It’s hard to watch the conversation from the ground.

Branch touches a claw to zir nose like Ditch did at the beginning of the conversation before tapping the center of zir forehead, circling zir fingers together, and pinching the air. “‘What do you think will be on the Physics final?’” Mikka shrugs. “Well, it’s cumulative, right? So it could be anything.”

“Mr. Klemens said we wouldn’t be tested on the comet stuff from today, since it’s not in the standard curriculum,” Jim says. “That’s not very helpful, though.”

Mikka pauses halfway through translating Jim’s response, then continues slower than before. Ditch starts gesturing almost before she’s finished, but instead of telling Jim what ey says, Mikka rolls her eyes. “It’s close enough,” she complains. Ditch signs something else that Jim doesn’t understand. “You know I can’t do that one!” Mikka’s voice is rising, but she doesn’t really look upset. It’s a token protest at best.

Ditch bares eir teeth in response. Jim’s concerned for Mikka’s safety for a moment; Ditch’s teeth aren’t as sharp as Mikka’s, but they’re still pretty big, and nearly every science or culture-related class he ever had back on Montressor taught him that bared teeth were usually a threat. He glances across to Branch in the hope that ze’ll provide some indication of what’s going on. Aside from zir eyes, which have been carefully tracking the conversation, ze’s completely still.

But to Jim’s relief, Mikka just smiles and throws grass at Ditch’s face. “Stop laughing at me!” Then, as if remembering that one of their company is still woefully uneducated, she turns to Jim. “Sorry about that,” she says. “Ditch was just complaining that my translation wasn’t accurate. As if ey’s ever had reason to be that pedantic.” She aims this last word directly at Ditch, who only grins wider (laughs louder?). “The gesture for ‘help’ is waving their tails back and forth, but as I am unfortunately tailless, that’s a little impossible for me,” Mikka explains.

Jim nods sagely. “A tragedy,” he says, and Mikka makes a motion like one of her hands is eating the other.

Ditch, now that ey’s done poking fun at Mikka, moves again. Mikka starts talking before ey’s even finished. “‘What I want to know,’” she says, “‘is what the Sailing final will look like.’”

Branch nods and Mikka translates their response. “‘Good point, Mx. Anguis doesn’t seem like the kind of teacher who will have a regular exam.’”

“There’ll probably be some sort of practical element,” Jim says. When the other three look expectantly at him, he barely refrains from waving a hand through the air. “You know, they spent all that time teaching us skills and getting us familiar with ships. We even got to take one of them out to practice sailing yesterday. I’d be surprised if there wasn’t any sort of application of that stuff as part of the final.”

Mikka sits back after she finishes translating, gazing thoughtfully at the sky. “You’re probably right, but it would take ages to test each student individually on that. I wonder how they’ll make it work.”

Ditch presses eir hands together and pulls them apart, then repeats a gesture from earlier, tapping the claws of one hand together. “‘It’s Mx. Anguis,’” Mikka says. “‘They’ll make it work.” It seems like more words than would accompany the few gestures Ditch made. At the back of his mind, Jim noticed this trend throughout the conversation. Diplodactyl seems to mostly drop articles, and unlike English, most words don’t have many synonyms. When he thinks about it, it’s logical. English is effective, but not very efficient.

It does make him wonder, though. Why would Diplodactyls prioritize efficiency so much?

“‘Jim, I can see you thinking,’” Mikka says. It takes Jim a moment to realize she’s translating Ditch’s signs. She keeps going after Ditch’s hands drop to eir lap, though, making it clear enough that it’s actually her speaking now. “Yeah, what’s got you staring off into the Etherium?”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Jim tries, and absolutely no one buys it. Mikka raises an eyebrow, and Jim might still be pretty bad at interpreting reptilian expressions, but even he can tell that the looks Ditch and Branch level at him are unimpressed.

After a moment, Branch lifts zir hands. “‘Not to assume,’” Mikka starts, “‘but if you have a question for us, you can just ask.’ They won’t get offended, I promise,” she adds at the end. “They still talk to me. Trust me, there’s very little you can do that would be worse.”

“We’re gonna circle back to that,” Jim says, “but first… um, if it’s not horribly insensitive of me, why is your language sign-based if you can hear?” He’s got a sneaking suspicion it’s connected to the efficiency question somehow.

Ditch and Branch exchange a look that clearly says, “Which one of us is going to answer this?” Jim can’t follow the ensuing mental debate, but Branch seems to emerge the winner (or the loser, depending on how you look at it), because ze starts signing while Ditch leans back.

“‘It’s a survival mechanism,’” Mikka translates. “‘Our planet has a lot of predatory flora that hunt largely through sound. Having a spoken language would be a huge liability there, but being unable to hear would also make survival difficult. Not impossible, of course. Maybe three percent of our local population is deaf, but we all work together to protect each other. It was weird when we first arrived. Really loud, and no one was scared of the trees, but we’ve done our best to adjust.’”

Jim blinks, then whistles through his teeth. “Damn. And I thought I experienced culture shock when I got here.” That makes a lot of sense, though. If you’re constantly watching for carnivorous plants, you’d want to be able to get your point across fast.

Branch bares zir teeth. Mikka called it laughing when Ditch did it before. Ze makes a few more gestures, and Mikka says, “‘I’m sure it was strange for all of us.’ True,” she continues. “There aren’t any plants where I live. It’s all cities, as far as you can see.”

Ditch, who sat up straight near the end of Branch’s explanation, signs at Jim. “‘What’s your home planet like?’” Mikka asks. Ditch began, once again, by touching a claw to eir nose. That’s probably used to indicate a question, Jim thinks.

“It’s nothing special,” he says. “There used to be big oil drilling operations there, but since solar power got so widespread, most of the rigs and refineries are abandoned now. They make good obstacle courses though.” He smiles a little. His surfer is going to be finished tonight, if he has any say at all, which he does. “Now the only thing worth seeing is the spaceport. A lot of ships use Montressor as a stopover point to refuel and sleep on solid ground for a night or two. It’s our main source of revenue, since there isn’t really anything else there.”

“Aww, don’t sell it short,” Mikka says. “I’m sure it’s lovely.” The sign she makes for lovely is the same triangle-like one she used for cool and nice.

Jim shrugs. “Maybe I’m just used to it.”

Branch yawns then, forked tongue curling out of zir mouth. Suddenly Jim realizes how much time has passed. It’s not dark, not by a long shot, but the shadows of the trees are beginning to encroach on their little quartet, and his legs are cramped from sitting on the ground for so long.

Ditch takes one look at eir sibling and starts signing at Mikka. “‘Want to call it a day?’ Yeah, that’s fine by me,” she says. “I’ve got work to do, anyway. Jim?”

“I’m okay with that. It’s about time for a nap, I think,” he says. Mikka closes her eyes wistfully.

“Oh, that’s such a good idea. Scratch work, I’m napping too.”

With a heave and a barely-contained grunt, Jim pushes himself to his feet. Mikka does the same; across from them, Ditch rises fluidly and offers a hand to Branch, pulling zem up.

It’s definitely not weird to emerge from behind the rec dome accompanied by three people with whom Jim was on nearly antagonistic terms just a few months ago. What’s definitely not even weirder is seeing Badeg sprawled across one of the benches that line the sidewalk, reading a book. Mikka waves as they pass, and he starts to wave back until he catches sight of Jim. If the other three are bothered by the way he rolls his eyes and returns his focus to his book, they don’t show it.

Jim catches sight of the cover before Badeg is out of sight, though. The Life and Times of Captain Nathaniel Flint.

Interesting.

Tap. Tap. Tap tap tap tap.

Jim keeps knocking until the door swings inward, revealing Nori standing with his hands on his hips. Jim pauses, fist still suspended near his face, but the other boy doesn’t say a word.

“Come test out my solar surfer with me,” Jim says, hand dropping to his side.

“I thought you tested it earlier today,” Nori fires back. Jim grins playfully.

“Yeah, when there was sunlight. I’ve built like five, that part was always going to work fine.”

Nori returns Jim’s smile, crossing his arms and leaning against the door frame. “Why do you need me?”

“I don’t want to do it alone,” Jim tells him, which is a relatively new feeling, but undeniably true.

“Why not ask Kise?”

“There’s only room for two of us.” Technically, there’s only room for one of them, but Jim’s confident they can figure something out.

“You could have asked her instead of me.”

“Fine.” Jim leans forward and Nori raises an eyebrow in what would be a convincing impression of someone who’s completely unbothered if not for the cobalt flush spreading across the bridge of his nose. Adorable, Jim’s brain supplies. “I want you to be there for the Legacy’s true maiden voyage. Is that what you want to hear?”

Nori gazes at a spot above Jim’s head as if considering, then shrugs. “Yeah, that’ll do.”

They’re halfway down the stairs when Nori glances over at Jim. “So, the Legacy, huh?”

“Well, she needs a name,” Jim argues. “Do you have a better one?”

Nori looks like he’s going to say something, but after a moment, he shakes his head. “Where is your contraption, anyway?”

“Mr. Kohrman let me park it on top of the rec dome to charge,” Jim tells him as they slip out of the doors and into the night. After a few steps, he realizes Nori’s not keeping pace with him anymore. He turns to find him standing still just outside the dorm. Even in the low light (the moon is barely a sliver above their heads), Nori’s incredulous expression is clearly visible.

“Seriously? On top of the rec dome?” he hisses.

Jim bites his lip, but he can’t help it; a chuckle bubbles out of him, nearly growing into a full-blown laugh before he’s able to rein it in. “No, but you should have seen your face!”

When he looks back at Nori, he’s not laughing along, or even mildly annoyed, as Jim had expected him to be. Instead, his eyes are closed and his chest is rising and falling rhythmically, almost mechanically. Where his hands are clasped tightly together, his knuckles shine white. All of a sudden it feels like the ground has fallen out from under Jim’s feet. He doesn’t know what happened, doesn’t know what to do. Should he apologize? Try to help? Give him space?

In the end, the moment passes before he makes a decision. Nori blinks, the rigidity falling out of his shoulders, and refocuses on Jim, who’s still frozen in place. He takes the opportunity to step forward and lightly whack Jim’s shoulder. “Don’t do that to me,” he says casually. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

He starts walking, leaving Jim to shake his head and jog to catch up. “Uh, you good?” he asks. This is… weird. Strange. Dare he say, unnerving.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Nori’s easy tone is less and less convincing. His jaw is tight, set like he’s preparing for battle. “Fine” probably isn’t the word Jim would use to describe him.

He doesn’t want to nag, but concern for his friend wins out in an actionable way for once. “Hey, if you’re nervous about riding the surfer, you don’t have to come, really, I don’t mind—”

Nori halts suddenly, pivoting to face Jim, who just manages to pull up short. They’re mere centimeters apart, but Nori doesn’t back down. He looks Jim square in the eye, and with the same kind of stubbornness that resulted in Jim and his mother not speaking to each other for hours several times in his early teen years, says, “You are testing that surfer, and I am coming with you.”

Jim isn’t stupid. He recognizes that this is a battle he won’t win. He swallows; his throat is dry for no apparent reason. “Okay,” he says, and if it comes out a little raspy, Nori doesn’t comment.

“Now,” he says, turning back toward the school just as abruptly as he’d stopped, “where did you actually put your surfer?”

“Just outside the lab,” Jim tells him, following with a grin as Nori strides off in that direction.

It is, of course, right where he left it. A “DON’T MOVE” sign, provided by Mr. Kohrman, lies propped against the folded sail, with Jim’s added “on pain of DEATH” scrawled beneath his teacher’s words. If that wasn’t enough to deter any wannabe larcenists, the rope securing the craft to one of the pipes that protrudes from low in the wall of the building has certainly done the trick. Jim tied the knot himself. He knew it would hold up.

“Here she is,” he says, gesturing with a flourish. Nori gives a low whistle as Jim crouches to work on the knot.

“I know I was there for a lot of the actual construction process, but nothing prepares you for the finished product, huh?”

Jim glances up to see Nori running his fingers along the main support for the sail, eyes filled with admiration. It doesn’t fade when he meets Jim’s gaze; if anything, he only looks more impressed. It sparks something bright and hot in Jim’s chest, and for unknown reasons he finds he has to look back at the knot. A few more tugs and it falls apart in his hands. His spine pops when he stands back up. So much for youthful spryness, or whatever it is that adults say. (If Jim hears Mrs. Dunwiddie tell his mother “youth is wasted on the young” one more time, he won’t be held responsible for his actions.)

“Yeah, well, I outdid myself on this one,” Jim says proudly, coming to stand next to Nori. He really did. This Legacy is sleek and polished, with a sail that’s made out of one sheet of fabric and parts that are generally less rusty than anything he’s ever seen on Montressor. Not for the first time, he wonders how much funding the Interstellar Academy gets. It’s probably so obscene that he doesn’t even want to know.

So he makes use of it instead, planting his feet solidly on the metal board. Even now, with her engine silent and still behind him, he can feel how smoothly she’ll maneuver. It’ll take him some time to be able to operate her like his surfer back home, but this won’t be a bad start at all.

“Well, come on then,” Jim says when Nori doesn’t move. “We don’t have all night.”

“Fair point,” Nori replies, taking a tentative step forward. “Counterpoint: where do I stand?”

This is a very good question, and one that Jim didn’t think through. He glances behind him, but the engine lever is there and he really needs to be able to step on that. He can’t just stick Nori on the front of the surfer and tell him to hold on for dear life. Even Jim wouldn’t be crazy enough to try that. Which leaves one option.

“We’re all friends here, right?” he tries. Nori narrows his eyes.

“Normally I’d say yes without hesitation, but that is a very concerning thing for you to ask right now.”

“If you’re not willing to commit, I don’t know if this will work.”

“No, I’m on board, just tell me what we’re doing.”

“Alright.” Jim shifts a little so he’s only holding onto the surfer with his left hand. “Come over here.” Nori steps up, and Jim pulls him onto the surfer in front of him. “Hold on to the guard rail.” Nori obediently wraps his hands around the metal. “This is where it gets tricky. How close can you stand to that rail?”

“Um.” Nori shuffles to the side until he’s practically leaning on it. “This is about as far as I can go.”

“Hmm. Could you turn so you’re facing the sail?”

Jim isn’t sure if Nori’s guessed what his plan is or if he just trusts Jim that much, but he complies without questions. With Nori’s chest pressed against the guard rail, there’s just enough room for Jim to reach around him with his right hand and grab it himself. It’s a bit of a squeeze, but it’s functional.

Nori’s breath hitches as Jim’s arm comes to rest across his back. Jim can feel Nori’s warmth like a brand where his chest is pressed to the other boy’s arm. “Is this alright?” Jim asks. His breath ruffles the hair by Nori’s ear. After a moment, he nods.

“Just, maybe don’t go too fast,” he says with a shaky smile.

“I genuinely don’t think I could,” Jim assures him, but if he’s extra careful when hitting the engine lever and guiding them away from the wall, that’s his business.

The fact that he’s even able to do that means the surfer is, for all intents and purposes, a smashing success. The engine lit without a problem, and even though the sail remains dark, Jim can feel energy humming through his feet. The weight of an extra person is a bit of a challenge, but Jim was anticipating it this time, so they don’t go spilling onto the grass. After a brief wobble, the Legacy stabilizes and Jim nudges her forward gently. They glide in a straight line a few centimeters above the ground. When he can, Jim risks a glance at Nori only to be greeted by the back of his head.

“Wow.” The word is whispered so quietly Jim can barely hear it, but he smiles nonetheless.

“You think this is cool?” he says. “Lean back a little bit.” Jim moves first, stretching his arm as much as he can to give Nori room to lean. As their center of gravity shifts, the surfer pulls into a wide, lazy circle, straightening out again when Jim pulls them in close to the sail.

“Holy shit,” Nori breathes. When he looks back at Jim, his eyes are impossibly bright. Jim could stare at him all night, but there’s more he wants to do.

“Want to kick it up a notch?”

Nori bites his lip, although he looks less nervous than he did before they started moving. “Yeah,” he says, “go for it.”

Jim’s heel taps the lever, taking the engine to the next output level. They speed up slightly, and he moves so they start lifting further up, the ascent controlled compared to most of the stunts he likes to pull on Montressor. It’s smoothest in a spiral, so that’s what he makes them do, rising in slow curves above the grass. He levels them off when they’re about even with the roof of the school, too low to be seriously injured if they fall (which they won’t), but high enough that Jim can feel the void of empty air surrounding him. He steers them toward the rec dome, less because he wants to go there than because he knows the way is open.

It’s not until they’re about halfway there, and Nori’s been craning his neck looking at everything, that Jim remembers he can actually see well. “What’s it look like?” he asks. They’re still going slow enough that he doesn’t have to shout.

Nori opens his mouth to respond, but suddenly the whooshing of the air grows noticeably louder. “Looks like Kise!” he responds, just as a shadow swoops over their heads. Jim steadies the Legacy as the figure wheels around to glide next to them.

“Seems like you got yourselves some wings!” Kise calls over to them. “Looking good!”

“Thanks!” Jim says.

Kise clicks a few times, then peels off to the right. A moment later, Jim sees why. The rec dome looms large in front of them, and in a split second decision, he decides they’re not going around.

“Jim!” Nori yells, but Jim just leans back until they’re zipping up the side of the dome. For a short second, he can just barely see their reflections, dim and wobbly, in the glass panes underneath them. Then Nori lets out a yelp and buries his face in Jim’s shoulder, and he becomes much more concerned with the continued operation of his surfer.

They shoot over the top and Jim fights the urge to shout. He’s not going to be the asshole that wakes up the entire campus. Instead, he guides them gently down until they come to a stop on the grass near where he’d hung out with Mikka, Ditch, and Branch the day before. Some of the blades are a little scorched, but that’s an occupational hazard.

Kise touches down with a thump just as Nori lifts his head. “Nice maneuver, Jim,” she says.

“Yeah,” Nori says derisively, but there’s no genuine bitterness in his voice. “A warning would have been nice.”

Jim shrugs sheepishly. “Sorry. I guess I got a little carried away.” It’s true. Somehow, going a quarter his normal speed at night gave him a bigger rush than everything but literally fleeing for his life from an exploding planet. He should have figured this out years ago.

“Anyway, what was that kerscuffle on the quad earlier today?” Kise asks. “And why was Mr. Kohrman there?”

“Oh, that.” What had happened was Jim still didn’t understand the rules Badeg plays by. Sometimes they’re almost cordial, and sometimes he decides to see how many of Jim’s buttons he can push. Unfortunately, he has a good memory and remembered exactly where to start. “Badeg may have called me Jimmy, and I may have been informed by Mr. Kohrman that he’d have to confiscate my surfer if I chased him down on it.”

Nori chuckles. “You really don’t like that, do you?”

“Nah, only one person’s allowed to call me that, and to be honest, that was less me letting them and more them ignoring my requests to stop until I gave up.” Jim shrugs. “But as they said, you go a little nuts when you lose your primary memory circuit for a hundred years, so I forgive ‘em.”

Kise rustles her wings and nods along like this makes perfect sense to her. Who knows, maybe it does. Her mind is a mystery to all. Jim suspects that even she doesn’t always know what’s going on there, which is fair. Recently, he seems to be struggling with the same issue.

Nori, who had been tugging the wrinkles out of his shirt, perks up at the mention of B.E.N.’s primary memory circuit. “You’re friends with a robot?” he asks.

“Yeah, he’s… well, I don’t know if I can really call him an ‘old family friend,’ but he is old, and he’s now a family friend, so yeah.” Jim glances up at the sky. It’s clear today, and all of the stars and clouds of gas filling the Etherium look back at him. “I’m friends with a cyborg too. Wonder what he’s up to now.” It’s wild up there, so full of things but so much empty space at the same time. He could be anywhere, but Jim would bet the newly reconstructed Benbow that Silver’s causing trouble everywhere he goes.

The thought makes him smile.

When he comes back planetside, he sees the look that passes between Kise and Nori. They try to be subtle, but Jim isn’t an idiot. What it means, though… if they want him to know, they’ll tell him.

“Anyway,” Kise says, spreading her wings and nearly taking Jim’s eye out, “I thought you were mostly cool with Badeg now. I saw you hanging out with his friends a couple days ago, unless I’ve finally been knocked out of orbit.”

Jim chuckles. “No, you’re still with us. I don’t know that the transitive property is really applicable here, but yeah, I’m friendly with them at least. Besides.” He bumps Kise’s shoulder with his own. “I’ve figured out that it’s better to have friends than enemies.”

“A good conclusion to reach,” Kise agrees. “And not to undermine it, but I can’t usually relax this early in the night, so….”

“Of course,” Nori says, waving his hand gracefully through the air. “Go ahead.”

Kise smiles gratefully, flashing fangs that aren’t quite as sharp as Mikka’s, and lifts into the air with a powerful downstroke of her wings. “Don’t have too much fun without me!” she calls as she soars away.

Jim watches her go, pondering the night. “It kinda sucks that things aren’t set up to work with you guys,” he muses.

“Hey, you’re practically nocturnal yourself,” Nori says. “You can be an honorary member of the club. And, you know, it is what it is.”

“Yeah, but should it be?”

They fall silent, Jim leaning against the sail of his surfer and Nori standing a meter or so away. It’s different from the awkward quiet he experienced with Mikka, Ditch and Branch. There’s something about Nori that’s just… comfortable.

Jim’s gaze wanders, jumping from the stars overhead to the trees in front of him to the blades of grass fluttering in the slight breeze, before landing on Nori. He has his eyes closed and his face tilted up toward the sky, but unlike earlier that night, he looks peaceful. The same breeze stirring the grass runs invisible fingers through Nori’s hair. For a moment, Jim imagines replacing them with his own.

He’s busy enough blinking that image away in confusion that he misses when Nori begins to speak. “…me if you don’t want to, but why do you dislike Jimmy so much?” Jim hears when he tunes back in, but he’s still too distracted to consider whether or not he even wants to answer.

“It’s what my dad used to call me,” he says automatically, and is promptly surprised by his own words. His mom knows, of course, as does Delbert, but he’s never actually told anyone why he’s so adamant about being known as Jim. Although, he supposes it shouldn’t really be much of a shock at this point. It is Nori, after all.

Jim wonders what he’ll say when he finds out about Treasure Planet, and then wonders when “if” became “when.”

Nori hums in thought, eyes fixed on the stars. “Understandable,” he says, then, “What’s your favorite color?”

Jim’s going to get verbal whiplash from this conversation. “Uh, what?”

Nori shrugs one shoulder. “I was just thinking, I know your dad left, you know my mom died, but I don’t know what your favorite color is. Feels like we skipped a step or two.” After a beat, he adds, “Mine’s blue.”

He has a point. “I don’t really know. A year ago, I probably would have said black. Now….” He casts his eyes upward, to the ever-shifting heavens. “Probably the color of the Etherium.”

Nori snorts. “That’s cheating. It’s so many colors.”

“No, that’s the point,” Jim says. “They’re all beautiful.” That might be the sappiest thing he’s ever said in his entire life. What the hell is happening to him?

The other boy doesn’t move his head at all, but somehow Jim senses that Nori’s gaze has shifted to him. Jim allows the silence to sit for a moment, waiting for Nori to speak.

“You’re always thinking about it, aren’t you?” he asks softly. Jim doesn’t have to wonder what he’s talking about. To him, it’s as clear as the night air. “Back home, people used to say my head was in the clouds, but yours is farther out than that. It’s okay,” he continues before Jim has a chance to respond. “I don’t know everything that’s happened to you, and you don’t have to tell me. But I hope you get to go back out there someday.”

Jim doesn’t even realize a tear has traced its way down his cheek until Nori reaches up to brush it away with his thumb. His fingertips linger against Jim’s jaw for a moment; Jim misses the heat when it’s gone.

“Well,” Jim starts, voice shaky. He clears his throat and tries again. “We can start here.” He steps backward, fortunately keeping his footing and not falling backwards over the surfer. Securely in place, he holds his hand out to Nori with a flourish.

“Thank you, good sir,” Nori says with a grin, accepting the proffered hand and stepping up next to Jim.

That’s not the last time they take the surfer out. Nori begs off the next few practice runs on account of homework, but in the weeks after, they’re on it almost every night, zipping around campus and flying with Kise. Jim even starts teaching Nori the basics of solar cruising, without the “solar” part, of course. (He’s a natural, not that Jim’s jealous or anything.)

And it’s good, except Jim can’t help but feel like something’s missing.

Chapter Text

Jim knows Nori’s there before he sees him. One moment he’s sitting at their lunch table, sketching aimlessly in his notebook, and the next he’s just… aware of a presence over his shoulder.

“What’s up?” Jim asks. He doesn’t look up until the silence stretches a bit too long. Nori’s hovering to his right, mouth open like he wants to say something, but after a moment he closes it and slides into his seat.

“Nothing,” he says. Jim’s about to call bullshit, because it so clearly isn’t nothing, but Nori doesn’t give him the chance. “Do you think Mx. Anguis is gonna hand back those pop quizzes today? I was feeling fine at the end of it, but now that I’ve had a few days to think about it, I’m pretty sure I got a few things wrong.”

Jim sighs good-naturedly, flipping his notebook closed. “I’m sure you did great,” he says. “You worry too much.”

Nori side-eyes him. “Are you new here? Who even am I if I don’t worry too much? We can’t all be Jim ‘What Are Consequences?’ Hawkins.”

That gets a chuckle out of Jim. “You should try it sometime,” he tells Nori. “The next time you start worrying about something, just go for it. No fear.”

“I absolutely will not,” Nori says, the corner of his mouth twitching up before he’s able to school his features into submission. “No offense, but that’s the worst plan I’ve ever heard in my life. And my cousins are incarnations of Vito.”

“Your cousins?” Jim can’t be sure, but his glee at the mention of Nori’s family may have inadvertently channeled his inner Kise. At any rate, her presence is somehow manifested, because rather than give in to Jim’s implied plea for more information, Nori catches sight of her across the room and waves her over.

“How goes it, gentlemen?” she asks when she alights at their table. Jim props his elbows on the top.

“Nori was just telling me about his cousins,” he says.

Nori scoffs. “I was doing no such thing.”

“Mhm. Jim,” Kise says, shifting her laser-like focus to him specifically. “The final project. I am struggling. It is a struggle.” She pauses to take a deep breath. “Will you tell me what I’m doing wrong before Mr. Kohrman comes by to check on our progress in class today?”

Jim shrugs. “I mean, yeah, of course, but your design looked fine to me. What’s the issue?”

Kise sighs. “Theory is not practice, plus most of those machines weren’t made for my claws.” She taps said claws against the table for emphasis. “If it starts smoking again I’m going to riot. There isn’t even a fuel source yet, that shouldn’t be possible.”

“Well, maybe you’ll get bonus points for breaking the laws of physics,” Jim mumbles through a mouthful of something that’s pretty close to his mom’s noodles. They’re not bad, actually. He gets an eye roll from Kise for his efforts at cheering her up, although Nori snorts into his hand.

“Just help me, please,” she says, and Jim assures her that he will.

With a little help from Morph, of all people, they’re able to figure out it’s as simple as a misplaced pin causing friction in one of the joints. Jim enters Fundamentals of Sailing still riding the high of a problem solved, even though they’re not going out in the field today. Instead, Mx. Anguis does in fact hand the quizzes back, and then spends the rest of the class covering the questions that most of the class missed. Nori got a perfect score, as Jim knew he would, but he still takes studious notes on everything Mx. Anguis says. Jim, in contrast, checks out as soon as he sees the 10/10 at the top of his paper. There are several pages at the back of his notebook filled with doodles and sketches; he flips to the one he was working on earlier that day and puts his stylus to the blank half of the paper.

He doesn’t register a single school-related word the entire period, but he’s tuned in enough that the rustling of paper alerts him to the end of class. He’s just about to join his classmates in packing up their stuff when Nori leans over.

“Let’s go out tonight,” he whispers. “There’s something I want to show you.”

Well, this is new. Nori’s pretty much always game whenever Jim wants to take his surfer for a spin, but he’s never suggested it himself before. Jim opens his mouth to ask what, exactly, Nori wants to show him, but the other boy just holds a finger to his own lips. “No fear, right?” he says as he stands up, flashing a smile that can only be described as mischievous. Jim feels his heart thump in his chest. He’s corrupting his formerly straight-laced friend, and he couldn’t be prouder.

The bell rings, triggering the customary flood of students toward the door, Nori among them. Before he closes his notebook to follow them out, Jim catches sight of what he’d been drawing. Amidst his usual sketches of ships and engines, a face in profile stares up at him from the page, the suggestion of pointed ears, floppy hair, and a single slender eye visible before it’s obscured by the notebook cover.

In yet another surprising turn of events, there’s a knock at Jim’s door before he’s even finished pulling his shoes on.

“Come in,” he calls, because his left boot is half on his foot and his right boot is clear across the room. It’s not that he minds the idea of twisting his ankle, per se, but if he’s gonna do that there better be a damn good story behind it, and hobbling across his room to get the door is not cool.

Nori throws open the door, closes it gently behind himself, and executes an almost flawless dramatic flop onto Jim’s bed. “Nine point five out of ten,” Jim tells him. “Next time throw your arm across your forehead. Really sells it.” Nori responds by tossing Jim’s other shoe at him. Even though it bounces harmlessly off of his shoulder, Jim still lets out a startled “Hey!” He casts about for something to throw in retaliation, but there’s nothing good at hand, so he settles for returning the offending boot.

Of course, Nori snatches it out of the air before it even comes close to hitting him, without even lifting his head from Jim’s mattress. Is Jim jealous of his reflexes? Absolutely. Is he going to let that show? Not a chance.

“Don’t you need this?” Nori asks, pushing himself upright and giving the boot a small shake. Tragically, he’s right and Jim must concede defeat. Nori springs up from the bed as Jim stuffs his foot into the remaining shoe, offering him a hand when he’s done.

“Come on, time’s a-wasting,” Nori says, already halfway out the door by the time Jim grabs his key off of his desk.

“I’m going as fast as I can,” Jim replies, locking his door behind them. “What’s got you so excited, anyway?” he teases.

Nori rolls his eyes. “I thought I made it clear that it’s a surprise.”

“That may have been implied,” Jim hedges, unable to keep a smile off the corner of his lips.

Despite his insistence on secrecy, Nori practically vibrates as they walk to the Legacy’s designated parking spot. The full moon bathes the path there in silver light. It would be eerie if Jim was alone, but since he’s not, it’s just pretty.

Riding the surfer with Nori is almost familiar at this point. Occasionally, Jim worries that he’s going to be pretty terrible at solar surfing when he’s alone, but then he reminds himself of escaping Treasure Planet and figures he’ll probably be fine. The point is, as soon as Jim unties the Legacy, he and Nori step on in tandem and lift off from the ground.

“Alright, where are you taking me?” Jim asks.

“Over the trees by the dorm,” Nori says, and Jim smiles. They’ve never gone out that far before, but he is so ready. He takes them up so they can soar comfortably over the treetops and angles them to the left.

Even with the wind whipping through Jim’s hair and clothes, it’s close to hot tonight. The air is sticky too, filled with more moisture than Montressor ever gets. It reminds him a bit of Treasure Planet actually, all that water trapped in the atmosphere because it couldn’t be absorbed by the metal. The forest at the Academy isn’t quite as jungle-like, but to someone who grew up in a desert, it has the same feel.

Of course, being so close to Nori probably doesn’t help with the heat. He isn’t as warm as the night they tried out the Legacy for the first time, but he’s not cold by any stretch of the imagination. Jim doesn’t really mind, though. At the very least, he’s gotten used to it over the last few weeks. Besides, it’s helpful to be so close sometimes. Easier to adjust to Nori’s minute shifts and keep the surfer balanced. (And if Jim’s being honest, it’s relaxing. If he didn’t have to stay focused on solar cruising, he’d be tempted to rest his chin on Nori’s shoulder.)

In fact, Jim is so attuned to the boy in front of him that he notices the slightly deeper inhale that precedes speech.

“Turn a bit to the right,” Nori says, and Jim obliges. Nori’s mostly looking at the trees below them now. It seems like he’s searching for something, although Jim isn’t sure what. Granted, he hasn’t explored terribly far on foot, but from what he can tell, it’s mostly just forest.

Evidently Nori knows something he doesn’t, because after another few seconds, he points to a spot off to their right. Even with the illumination from the full moon, Jim has to squint to pick out what Nori was able to see clearly: a break in the trees. “Right over there,” he tells Jim.

The clearing is small, but Jim is nothing if not an excellent solar surfer. He puts them down cleanly in the center of the space and is proud of himself for all of three seconds before he catches sight of Nori’s expression.

“What’s wrong?” he asks as they step onto the grass. Nori shrugs, blinking the tightness out of the corners of his eyes.

“This just isn’t the place I thought it was, but it’s fine. We’ll probably have to walk a bit to get there.”

“Oh no,” Jim replies, deadpan. “I hate walking. Especially at night, in forests, with friends.”

Nori punches Jim gently on the shoulder in lieu of dignifying that with a verbal response, but Jim catches the glint of his teeth in the moonlight and knows he’s smiling. With a chuckle, he collapses the sail and drags the Legacy to the treeline. Nori’s already a few steps into the trees when Jim turns back to him. “Come on,” he says, “it’s this way.” He waits till Jim catches up, though, and tangles their fingers together so he can lead the other boy through the trees. Jim’s kind of grateful, actually. Even with the occasional break in the canopy, he can’t see that well. It would be all too easy to get lost.

When they pass directly through one of those moonbeams, for a moment Nori is etched in pale light. Jim can only see the back of his head, but it’s all too easy to imagine what his face looks like haloed by silver. Then they’re back under the cover of the leaves, and the moment’s gone.

Jim isn’t sure how far they walk, but Nori hums quietly the whole time. If it was daytime he probably would have been able to figure it out; as it is, the darkness messes with his perceptions just enough to make that difficult. It doesn’t really matter, though, because Nori seems to know where he’s going. He picks up the pace a few minutes in, practically dragging Jim through the trees, and Jim has to devote his entire focus to his feet so he can keep up and avoid tripping over the roots that lunge up from the soft dirt. At least, that’s his excuse for why he quite literally crashes into Nori’s back.

Fortunately, they don’t go sprawling across the ground. Instead, Nori stumbles forward and Jim ricochets back, ripping their hands apart. “Sorry,” Jim mutters, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “I didn’t realize you stopped.”

“It’s okay,” Nori says, shrugging it off. “Besides, I had a good reason.” He turns around, propping his hands on his hips. “We’re here.”

“Here” turns out to be a different clearing, which explains why Nori mistook the first one for their destination. This one, though, is significantly larger, and where the other clearing was mostly covered in grass, here the plant life largely peters out a few meters in front of them. It’s replaced by a thin strip of dark sand, followed by the clearing’s dominant feature: a small pond, nearly perfectly circular and as flat as glass. Looking into it is like staring directly into the Etherium. Pinks and oranges mix with midnight blues and violets, everything slightly washed out by the full moon. It’s breathtaking in a surreal way. Jim’s seen the largest treasure trove in recorded history, but this feels more valuable, somehow.

“I found this one of my first nights here,” Nori says. “My internal clock was even more of a mess than it is now, so when I couldn’t sleep, I wandered out here. I still visit sometimes, even though it’s a bit of a trek. It’s a good place to come for some peace and quiet. You’re actually the first person I—what are you doing?”

Jim pauses with his shirt half over his head. “I’m going swimming, what does it look like?”
Is it his imagination, or do Nori’s cheeks darken slightly? It’s hard to tell in the dim light, and everything already looks a little blue anyway. “Yeah, sure,” Nori mumbles, eyes downcast. Jim finishes shedding his outer layers of clothing, leaving them in a smile pile on the grass. Even if the sand is fairly smooth between his toes, he doesn’t want it all over his clothes.

The thing is that for the most part, water will remain significantly colder than the air around it. This holds true for the pond, but as soon as Jim’s foot sends ripples across the formerly pristine surface, he’s committed. It’s been well established that the words “tactical retreat” aren’t in his vocabulary.

Besides, he tells himself as he wades in further, it isn’t that cold. It’s actually kind of nice compared to the warm air, or it will be once he fully submerges himself. Well, no time like the present.

He feels the water close over the top of his head like a vacuum, tugging gently at the strands of his hair, before he pops back up. “Water’s great!” he not quite lies. “Come on!” He punctuates the invitation with a splash that Nori avoids with the deftness and grace of a pelitross.

“Fine,” he concedes, somewhat fondly, Jim thinks.

He turns around when Nori starts unbuttoning his shirt, then gets bored of squatting in waist-deep water and swims a little further out. With a deep breath, he swings his feet up so he’s floating on his back, staring at the stars above. The pink and orange have moved on, leaving purple and blue drifting across the sky, fluctuating like Jim’s looking up from the bottom of the pond. Wherever the moon is, it’s not within his field of vision.

The water lapping gently against his skin changes rhythm a moment before a sharp gasp echoes from behind him. A grin steals its way across Jim’s face, but before he can say anything or even turn around, a wave of water crashes over him. He emerges spluttering indignantly.

“Hey! What was that for?” He snorts, trying to dislodge the water that went up his nose. In front of him, Nori stands with his arms crossed, water up to his elbows.

“You said the water was great,” he answers, accusation evident in his tone. “This is cold.”

“I know,” Jim says, crouching so only his head is above the surface. “Isn’t that great?”

He ducks quickly to avoid the splash he knows is coming, a chuckle bubbling out of his mouth as he feels the displaced water rush past him. From underwater, it’s easy for Jim to wrap his hand around Nori’s ankle and tug just hard enough to pull the other boy off balance. Nori’s outraged screech is audible even through the water.

Jim is full-on laughing by the time Nori surfaces, arms wrapped around his stomach and head bent so close to the water his hair is trailing in it. When he finally glances up, Nori meets his gaze for a fraction of a second before shaking his head. Water droplets fly from his hair, showering Jim. One hits him square in the eye and he falls backward, dramatically clutching his face as he sinks down to his neck.

“I’ve been wounded!” He squints up at Nori with his good eye. There’s no remorse to be seen.

“It’s what you deserve,” he says. Jim narrows his eye further.

“Then you leave me no choice,” he declares solemnly. He moves forward slightly. Nori holds his ground, which is his first mistake. “I’ll have to exact my revenge!” As he speaks, Jim lunges forward, sending a wave of water back at Nori.

“Oh, you’re on!” Water is dripping down his face, but under the dark hair plastered to his forehead, there’s a spark in Nori’s eyes.

They chase each other around the whole pond, splashing around, pulling each other under, and generally being nuisances. At one point, Jim spits a mouthful of water at Nori, who catches it on the shoulder and proceeds to berate Jim for purposefully letting the pond water into his body. Jim retaliates by swallowing some of the water and laughs as all hope visibly drains from Nori’s face.

It doesn’t taste great, though, so once his point is proven he doesn’t try that again.

Their fighting spirit abandons them in the middle of the pond. “Truce?” Nori gasps, swimming backward lazily as Jim approaches. The water goes up to his chin when he tries to stand, so he opts to tread water instead.

“Sure,” he says, and Nori drifts closer. Even in the moonlight, Jim can tell he’s flushed a deep blue, and he’s sure he’s similarly rosy. “Thanks for bringing me here,” he adds. “It’s really nice. I know you usually come here for quiet, though. Um, sorry about that.” He scratches the back of his neck awkwardly, but Nori just chuckles.

“This is the most fun I’ve had in ages,” he assures Jim. His smile is different from the smirk he wore during their valiant battle, so genuine that Jim can’t help but grin back.

The silence that falls between them should be comfortable (Jim’s grown to expect that by now), but instead the air feels somehow charged. The surface of the pond stills around them, forming a near-perfect mirror. Jim’s smile suddenly seems out of place. He feels his own face relax as Nori’s grin slips away. The moonlight highlights Nori’s hair, illuminates his skin, catches on drops of water trapped in his eyelashes.

When did he get close enough for Jim to see his eyelashes?

Jim doesn’t move away, though, and neither does Nori. He blinks, dislodging a few of the water droplets. Jim watches as they trace paths down his cheeks. “No fear,” Nori whispers, and it sounds like he’s talking more to himself than Jim. “Can I kiss you?”

Nori had glanced down before, but now he’s staring at Jim, the violet of his eyes so deep Jim could get lost in them. There’s barely centimeters between them now. It would take almost no effort at all to close the distance.

Jim blinks once, twice. After a moment’s hesitation, he nods.

Nori’s lips are soft and warm against Jim’s. His eyes slide closed almost of their own accord, leaving him hyper aware of the pressure against his mouth. Their knees knock together, but Jim barely even registers that. The kiss is light, quick, just a simple press of lips. Jim craves it as soon as it stops. And, as Nori pulls away and Jim opens his eyes again, he realizes he probably should have made more of an attempt to kiss back.

It’s fairly obvious that Nori’s face isn’t as shadowed as it was before. Jim reaches out, brushing his fingers along Nori’s jaw and running his thumb over his cheekbone. “You’re glowing,” he murmurs, and then they’re kissing again.

He can’t tell who initiated it this time, but it starts out the same way, gentle and slow. At some point Jim’s feet drifted down so he’s standing solidly on the pond bed. He takes advantage of this, digging his toes into the sand to anchor himself. It’s a little longer before Nori pulls back, lips parted to take a breath, but Jim isn’t one to waste an opportunity when he sees it. Nori tastes vaguely like the pond water, Jim discovers, but a little sweet too, and something else he can’t describe. Both of his hands are holding Nori’s head now, fingers threading through his hair, which is silky smooth even when wet, just like he thought it would be. Nori’s own hands are on Jim’s shoulders, probably keeping him afloat.

I could do this forever, Jim thinks, and it’s true, but they don’t. They break apart and come together, but eventually they have to stop to really breathe, and then Nori whispers, “What time is it?”

There aren’t any clocks in the forest, so they turn their heads as one to look at the sky. Jim isn’t great at estimating the passage of time by the stars (spending months on a ship isn’t actually that helpful when the sky you fall asleep in is different from the one you wake up to), but the moon has changed position significantly, so it’s safe to say it’s probably pretty late. “We should go.” Jim’s voice comes out softer than he meant it to; there’s something about the atmosphere that seems to keep him from speaking any louder. Nori nods. Together they swim to shore, get dressed, walk back to the surfer. Jim doesn’t even realize he’s smiling again until he sees the expression reflected on Nori’s face, until they kiss again under the Legacy’s sail.

Reality doesn’t set in until later, after they’ve parted at the stairwell as they always do and Jim is back in his room, hair still damp despite the ride to the dorm. It’s slow, the dawning realization that something just happened. He sinks down on the edge of his bed, scrubs his hands over his face, and whispers, “What the fuck.”

Chapter Text

There’s a moment, before anything truly happens, when you crack open your eyes and take in the day for the first time. You’re still groggy, half-asleep, with the last vestiges of dreams playing on the insides of your eyelids and barely enough awareness to register the existence of a world outside the boundaries of your bed, let alone form a coherent thought. Just for that moment, nothing matters.

Jim thinks, as he blinks himself fully awake, that he would bottle that moment if he could. There’s a sense of peace that comes with it; it reminds him, strangely enough, of hours spent lying on his back in the crow’s nest of Amelia’s ship, gazing at the stars passing them by. Yeah, he could use some peace right about now.

Not that there’s any particular reason for that. Everything’s fine.

Although Morph doesn’t seem to think so, for some reason. They’re hovering in that way they tend to when they’re either scared of something or they think Jim’s distressed. Which is ridiculous. He’s not distressed. Everything is fine.

Everything is so fine, in fact, that Jim spends a bit too long thinking about how fine everything is and ends up nearly sprinting down the empty path to the school. He’s three steps away from the door to Planetary Physics when the bell rings. Not ideal, but he’ll live.

At least, that’s what he thinks before he actually enters the classroom. But all it takes is one fleeting glance at one specific person—barely even a glance, really, he doesn’t even have time to discern the expression on the other boy’s face—and Jim’s soul attempts to flee his body. He walks past quickly, head down, face burning, palms sweating, and slides into his seat to the frantic thump of his own heartbeat in his ears.

Everything is not fine. Jim is going to die.

He just… doesn’t get it. He didn’t think—he’s not—it’s overwhelming, too much to make sense of, especially here and now. So he keeps his eyes laser-focused on his notebook, carefully writes down every word Mr. Klemens says, and resolutely does not look up.

Something in the back of his mind says this isn’t the right thing to do, but it’s easy enough to ignore.

About six hours or seven minutes into class, someone knocks on the door, cutting Mr. Klemens’ lecture off and sending shockwaves of curiosity rippling through the students. Every pair of eyes in the room must be focused on that door, except one. Jim’s not sure why class is being interrupted, but he figures it’s probably none of his business.

The door creaks open, Mr. Klemens stutters briefly, and Jim keeps his gaze fixed on his paper.

“Terribly sorry to bother you, professor—” Jim’s head shoots up before he has a chance to even begin to process what’s happening, his grip on his stylus tightening enough that he hears it groan under the strain, the band on his wrist flinging itself through the air, transforming into a squealing Morph along the way, “—but might I borrow Jim Hawkins?” Captain Amelia finishes from the doorway. She casts the barest of smiles Jim’s way before returning her attention to Mr. Klemens. Morph alights on her shoulder, trilling happily as she reaches a finger up to stroke their head.

Mr. Klemens glances at Morph with no small amount of confusion before looking back at Amelia. “Of—of course,” he says. Amelia flashes him a grin, her canines visible even from Jim’s distance.

“You have my thanks,” she tells Mr. Klemens before turning to the students. “Hop to it, Jim,” she says, not unkindly. “Bring your things, this may take a while.”

He doesn’t need to be told twice. His backpack is on his shoulder in seconds, his notebook and stylus scooped into his hands, and he’s all but running to the front of the class.

Entirely accidentally, Jim catches Badeg’s eye as he hastens to follow Amelia out of the room. Badeg seems… reluctantly intrigued. It’s no surprise; Amelia is well-known at the Academy, even among the students. Jim would wonder why she was pulling him out of class too. Actually, he is wondering that.

He avoids looking at anyone else, though. It’s not like he’s actively trying, he just leaves too quickly.

Yeah.

Amelia’s already a few steps down the hall by the time Jim catches up to her. “I didn’t know you were visiting the Academy,” he says, only slightly out of breath. She glances sideways at him, gaze flicking down to where Jim realizes he still has his stylus in a chokehold, knuckles white on his notebook. It takes conscious effort to relax his grip enough to shove them into his bag, which is always a good sign.

“Yes, well, I thought I might surprise you,” Amelia says, in that matter-of-fact way of hers that makes it difficult for Jim to tell if she’s amused or completely serious.

“Yeah, you managed that pretty well,” he huffs, mock-affronted. The slight crinkle at the corner of her eye points toward amused. “So what are we doing that might take so long?”

“For now?” She pushes open the door out of the school with a flourish. “Walk with me.”

Jim’s more than happy to oblige, strolling along the paved paths that thread through campus by Amelia’s side. Morph flits about their heads, chattering excitedly. Amelia seems to know where she’s going, so Jim’s content to let her take the lead. “What’re you doing here, anyway? I didn’t think you’d come all the way out just to say hi.” Not that I’m not happy to see you, he doesn’t add, because he knows she knows already and sometimes it’s easier to leave things unsaid.

Amelia chuckles, reaching out to ruffle Jim’s hair. He laughs too, swatting at her hand. If he doesn’t duck away quite as fast as he’s theoretically able to, that’s for him to know. “Unfortunately,” she says, clasping her hands behind her back and settling back into her Captain demeanor, “you’re correct. I am here on business, as it so happens. The Academy requested I consult on some minor project or other. Personally, it strikes me as a formal excuse to invite me here.” She leans in conspiratorially, whispering her next words loudly enough that Jim knows they’re not really meant to be secret. “I suspect they’re trying to hire me as a teacher.”

Jim isn’t quite able to keep a grin off of his face. “I think you would make a great teacher,” he says, and Amelia scoffs.

“Oh, stop lying, it’s not becoming of a young man like yourself,” she replies.

“Maybe not in a classroom,” Jim concedes, “but I learned more on your ship in a few months than I did in ten years of school. That doesn’t count for nothing.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Amelia says, lifting her chin as though Jim can’t see that she enjoys the praise.

“You could make it work, I bet,” he continues. “My Sailing teacher isn’t really one for classrooms either, so we spend a lot of time in the training port. Mx. Anguis teaches much better out there. Uh, don’t tell them I said that,” Jim adds.

Amelia doesn’t seem inclined to. In fact, she looks downright pensive. “Anguis, you say?” She shakes her head. “So this is where Savynn ran off to,” she mutters, more to herself than Jim. When she catches Jim staring at her, she nods her head decisively. “It seems I should check in on the state of affairs at this school more often, if I can’t even keep track of the staff. But enough about that. If you’re so familiar with the training port, perhaps you could show me around.”

Jim must’ve really not been paying attention to where they were walking, or else he would’ve seen the iron gate far before Amelia mentioned the training port. Without missing a beat, he shrugs as though he knew all along. “Sure. Do you have the key?”

“Well, I can hardly imagine something like a key will have stopped you.” It’s spoken like a challenge, like even if she did think he hadn’t trespassed before, she’s confident he’d find a way to do it now. And the worst part is, she’s not wrong. She read him like a book, and Jim isn’t sure if he should be proud or offended.

He settles for delighted that Amelia’s the one suggesting they break the rules and smirks at her as he grabs the iron bars. “One of my friends can fly,” he says as he pulls himself over the fence. He’s perhaps gotten better at it over the past couple of months, not that he would admit to that. “She makes it look so easy, it’s not fair,” he finishes as he drops to the other side.

“It can’t possibly be that difficult,” Amelia says, unfazed. If anything, there’s a determined glint in her eye. She takes a few steps backward, then runs and leaps at the fence, sailing over it as though the laws of gravity no longer apply to her. When she lands, it’s silent and graceful, as Jim came to expect after months on a ship with her. “See, Jim?” she says, brushing nonexistent specks of dirt off of her coat. “Not difficult at all.”

“Not difficult at all! Not difficult at all!” Morph repeats, taking on Amelia’s image and hovering in front of Jim’s nose. He takes a halfhearted swipe at the blob, who giggles and flies behind Amelia’s shoulder.

“Showoff,” Jim mutters under his breath. Amelia simply tilts her head back slightly, lips pursed like she’s trying not to smile.

He doesn’t show her the Justicia right away. Instead, they wander among the ships, Amelia making the occasional comment on one or another.

“This was the first ship I ever set foot on,” Amelia says, staring up at one of the sloops Jim has practiced sailing on in class. It shows so few signs of wear that Jim can’t imagine it was very old when Amelia attended the Academy.

“It’s a good ship,” he offers. Amelia nods thoughtfully.

“Indeed.”

A few berths later, Amelia chuckles and raps her knuckles against the hull of one of the barques. “They still have this bucket of bolts? It was ancient when I was here, and I’m no spring borgen.” She winks at Jim, letting him in on the joke, and he laughs. Morph provides a concerningly accurate depiction of the barque falling apart into a literal bucket of bolts.

They’re nearly to the back corner of the port when Amelia sighs fondly and looks around. “You know,” she begins, “I reckon I could still captain any one of these ships.”

“I’d believe it,” Jim replies. “I think there’s one that might give you a little trouble, though.”

He catches the skeptical look she throws his way. Damn, she knows him too well. It doesn’t really matter, though, because as soon as they’re within sight of the Justicia, she catches on completely.

“I should have known they would have one of the R.L.S. line,” she says levelly enough, but when her eyes meet Jim’s, they’re gleaming mischievously. Without saying another word, they sprint around the ship and bolt up the gangplank. Jim drops his bag on the deck and swings himself onto the nearest shroud, scaling it much faster than that time in class when he was showing off for No—

His foot slips suddenly, leaving him dangling half through the ropes. It’s no issue to pull himself upright, but he scolds himself internally as he does it. He shouldn’t have misstepped, there was no reason for it really, he should have been paying closer attention to his footing. The thoughts temper the last third or so of the trip.

Even so, he reaches the crow’s nest quickly only to find Amelia already standing in it. “No fair,” he complains. “How’d you get up here so fast?”

“I’ve been sailing this ship for longer than you’ve been alive,” she counters, and Jim has no choice but to concede to that.

They stand in silence for a moment, surveying their domain, before Amelia casually asks, “So, what’s troubling you, Jim?”

He starts at the question, blinks rapidly, hopes Amelia didn’t notice. “What? Nothing, I’m fine. Great, actually.”

The expression she levels at him says she’s clearly not convinced. “Now what did I say about lying?” When he doesn’t reply, she sighs, her face softening. “You were wound tight as a spring when I visited your class earlier. You still are. Don’t think I didn’t see you jump just now.” Well, he did his best. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but sometimes two heads are better than one.”

Morph has fallen silent, watching the conversation with huge eyes in Jim’s peripheral vision. “Uh, thanks,” he says. He appreciates the offer, he really does, but he doesn’t even know how he would start to explain. Especially since there’s nothing to explain.

… Okay, maybe there’s something to explain.

He can’t look at Amelia for this, so he gazes back out over the campus. It takes a few tries before any words leave his mouth. When he finally does speak, what comes out is, “When you were younger, how—how did you know you liked boys?”

Amelia takes long enough to answer that Jim begins contemplating the pros and cons of just throwing himself over the railing enclosing the crow’s nest. “Well,” she starts. Jim keeps staring ahead, avoiding any sort of eye contact. “It seemed like the expected thing, and I never had any reason to challenge it. It didn’t feel strange or wrong.”

That’s… not very helpful, actually. He’s never quite put it into words before, but if he had to describe it, that’s how Jim would say he feels about girls. He’s supposed to like them, and he does. It’s an open-and-shut case.

He’s about to brush it off somehow, maybe thank Amelia for her non-advice, but then she keeps talking. “Realizing I felt the same about girls, however, was a much longer and more difficult process.”

Jim’s knuckles go white where his hands are wrapped around the railing, and he can’t help but turn to Amelia at that. Whatever face he’s making, she must find it funny, because she chuckles. “I shouldn’t think it’s that surprising for you, really. Although perhaps it’s not me that you’re surprised about.”

Jim ignores that last remark in favor of leaning forward and asking, “So how did you know?”

Amelia smiles fondly. It can’t be a bad memory, at least. “The first mission I was assigned to after graduation took me far away from anyone and anything I’d ever known. It was just me and the rest of the crew out in the Etherium for nearly a year. We all got along well enough, but I became particularly close friends with one of my crewmates. I always thought she was beautiful, and kind, and I was so grateful she would even speak to me. We were both relatively green, but she’d been on one mission before me, so it seemed to me like she knew everything.

“One night, several months in, we had watch together while everyone else was asleep. I was stationed in the bow and she the stern, but a few hours in she left her post to visit me.” Amelia pauses to take a breath. Jim doesn’t realize until then that he’s been hanging onto her every word. “Then she kissed me under the stars, and it was the most romance I’d ever experienced in my life. It was strange for a few days after, but before long I realized I didn’t care about any of that. All I cared about was her.”

“Wow,” Jim breathes. “That’s, like, straight out of a book.”

Amelia laughs. “I suppose it is.” Then she looks at Jim, really looks at him, compassion and something like sympathy in her eyes. “I’d wager you’re a few years ahead of me,” she says gently.

It’s this more than anything else that Jim has been avoiding, but in the end, he has to admit that… “Yeah, I think I am.”

Amelia smiles then, warm and rare and filled with something like the fondness she shows when Delbert does something particularly brilliant or clumsy. “Well, it’s up to you how to proceed,” she says, “but I promise, whatever happens, it won’t be the end of the world.”

Somehow, it’s exactly what Jim needs to hear. He nods slowly. “Yeah.” After another moment, during which he drums his fingers against the railing and alternates between staring at the horizon and his own feet, he musters the courage to look Amelia in the eye. “Thank you,” he says, and means those two words more than he’s ever meant them in his life.

“Any time,” Amelia replies, the smile lingering on her face until she drops easily into Captain mode. “Now, I’d say it’s about time for us to get down from here before someone spots us.”

Jim chuckles as he hops back onto the shroud. “If I get in trouble today, I’m telling Mom it was your fault.”

Amelia wrinkles her nose, eyeing the nearest yard. “Nonsense, anyone hoping to write you up will take one look at me and turn the other way. Ordinarily I would never support such gross abuses of power, but I think I can make an exception.” She winks before leaping down the mast, landing on the deck in much the same way she had when she’d introduced herself at the beginning of their voyage. Jim grins, following her down at a much safer pace and grabbing his bag on his way off the ship.

“Speaking of your mother,” Amelia says as they walk away from the training port, the picture of casual innocence. Jim stiffens a bit at the mention, worried something’s happened to her, or worse, Amelia has been sent along with a message for him. Instead, he gets something he didn’t quite expect. “If this is about who I think it is, and I’m hardly ever wrong,” Amelia continues, “you might find her somewhat less surprised than you would imagine.”

Jim blinks rapidly, processing what Amelia is trying, albeit in a very roundabout way, to tell him. When he finally puts the pieces together, the warm flush of embarrassment floods his face and neck. “What—” He clears his throat, tries again. “What do you mean?”

He knows what she means, but he’s kind of hoping he’s wrong.

“Well, I have of course been sworn to secrecy, but for several weeks now, she’s thought you two were… you know….” Amelia doesn’t look the slightest bit uncomfortable with the conversation. Jim gets the feeling she’s avoiding names and labels more for his benefit than hers, and he won’t deny that he appreciates it.

Nevertheless, he buries his face in his hands. “Oh no.”

“If it’s any consolation, she thinks you’re good for each other.”

“It is not.”

“That’s a shame.” Through his fingers, Jim can see Amelia turn her head, ears perking up. “I believe your lunch period is just starting. If you hurry, I’m sure you’ll be able to eat with your friends.”

She’s correct, Jim realizes as they draw close enough to the building that his inferior ears can hear the sounds of chatter and footsteps filtering out through the windows. He takes off down the path with a hurried “thanksseeyoulaterbye” tossed over his shoulder.

He swears he hears Amelia chuckle behind him as he goes.

His blood is singing in his veins when he bursts into the cafeteria, scanning the tables for familiar ears and even more familiar eyes. When he spots them, he lights up, dodging and weaving over to the table without bothering to stop for food on the way. He’s grinning as he plops down in the seat across from Nori. The smile Nori offers in return is close-lipped and tight.

Kise, almost as if on cue, stands up. “I’m gonna get another purp,” she announces. “Jim, do you want one?”

“That would be great, thanks,” he tells her, and she takes off with a nod.

When Jim opens his mouth to speak, probably something along the lines of “sorry for being an asshole this morning” or “I figured my shit out,” Nori holds up a hand.

“Before you say anything,” he starts, and Jim’s mouth clicks shut, “I want to apologize. Not for what happened,” he adds hurriedly, right as Jim was about to embark on that downward spiral. “I’m not sorry about that, but I am sorry about what I’m going to do now.”

He takes a deep breath, like he’s steeling himself. Jim lets him. “It’s just—” he breaks off, looking frustrated, hands clenching into white-knuckled fists. Jim thinks he hears a muttered “Veda, fuck” before Nori inhales again, spreading his fingers flat on the tabletop. He looks Jim in the eyes as he breathes out.

“I’m not ready,” he says. “I’m not ready for things to change. And I know it’s kind of fucked up for me to kiss you and then say that, and I’m really really sorry. But I can’t start anything new with you right now, and if you don’t want to be around me I get it, but I really hope we can still be friends, if not now than at least at some point.”

Of every outcome Jim’s thought of in the brief time since talking with Amelia, and there are many, this isn’t one of them. Nori’s eyes are searching his face, looking for something, anything, and Jim doesn’t even know what to show him. He doesn’t know how to respond.

But he feels himself smile softly, knows it doesn’t reach his eyes, hears himself say “it’s okay” and “I understand” and “of course we can still be friends,” catches the purp that Kise chucks at his head.

Amelia was right. What happened wasn’t the end of the world.

But this feels pretty damn close.

Chapter Text

It’s surprising, actually, how easily they fall back into their routine.

Jim expected it to be awkward, at least at first, but it isn’t. There’s something about them, him and Nori and Kise, that just works together. They keep eating lunch at what’s become their table in the cafeteria, keep going to their classes, keep sharing secret looks and inside jokes when their teachers’ backs are turned. They even, for the most part, keep spending an inordinate amount of time wandering the campus long after the sun’s set, talking about everything and nothing until Nori’s voice is hoarse and Kise’s restless energy is quelled and Jim can’t see straight. And it’s all fine, really. It’s just like it was.

Except sometimes, when Kise leaves them alone, Jim will remember how it felt to tread water in a stolen moment of time, when the Etherium grew so big it opened him up and swallowed him whole. He’ll look at Nori, laughing, head tipped back, face bathed in the light of the gibbous moon, and he’ll think about holding hands through thick branches and gnarled roots, he’ll think about the taste of those lips and the light in those eyes, he’ll think, There’s no coming back from this. And Nori will smile at him, as blinding as the sun in the darkness, and Jim will pretend the feeling creeping under his skin is just an itch and not an ache, and he’ll look away but it won’t matter because the afterimage is already burned on his retinas, has been and will be long after they part ways for the night.

But he’ll take what he can get, and he’s grateful for what he has.

“By now I’ve heard all of your theories about the final exam,” Mx. Anguis says as they stride into the room, blowing past the desk at the front. “Don’t think you can surprise me. I’ve been to places you can’t even imagine.”

A couple of students near the back snicker at that. Mx. Anguis gracefully doesn’t react.

“As many of you have guessed,” they continue after a moment, “your final will be a practical examination.” A fairly even chorus of groans and pleased hisses sounds throughout the room at that statement. Jim is among the cadre that remains silent, but it’s no secret which side he falls on.

“Furthermore,” Mx. Anguis intones over the faint murmurs rippling through the student body, “you will be expected to work in groups.” Jim’s spirits fall slightly at that, but he squares his shoulders. Most of his classmates aren’t half bad, actually. It’ll be fine. Probably. “Part of the point of a practical exam is that it’s difficult to prepare for beforehand, but I’m giving you today to do just that, insofar as you’re able. If I were you, I’d start getting to know your classmates.”

They sit on the stool at the front of the classroom (a replacement for the one they gave Jim his first day, which he’s still using) and produce a sheaf of papers from inside their jacket. The class hovers in silence for a moment more, waiting for any other form of instruction, but slowly they realize the will receive none. Mx. Anguis acts as though they’re not even there.

Jim’s as wary as the rest of them, but he’s also not one to look a gift wibbler in the mouth. He’s turned halfway toward Nori, mouth already open to speak, when a shadow falls over them, cast by an… oddly familiar figure.

It’s Badeg, he realizes, mouth clicking shut as he looks up at the other boy, looming above him with his arms crossed over his chest. Jim glances at Nori and is met by a confused blink. So they’re both in the dark, then.

“Can we help you?” Nori asks, not even bothering to make it sound like anything other than a veiled What are you doing here?

“I was hoping to borrow your boyfriend for a minute,” Badeg replies, equally as subtle in his attempts to poke and prod at the two of them, not that it’s working. At all. Even a little bit.

“Um,” Jim and Nori start in unison, then glance at each other again. Nori shrugs a shoulder and Jim shrugs one back, an answer to a question he’s not even sure he interpreted correctly. Then Nori says “Okay” and Badeg says “Great” and Jim’s halfway across the room before he’s even realized he started moving because Nori didn’t bother to correct Badeg.

And, logically, he knows that there are any number of reasons for him not to do that, and why he didn’t doesn’t really matter anyway, but the little voice in his head that he usually ignores on account of its general idiocy won’t stop repeating the word.

“So,” Badeg begins, halting to lean against one of the windows. Jim stops too, hip resting on the edge of a desk and hands shoved into his pockets. Morph twists between his fingers, forming themself into a rubber band that Jim starts stretching idly.

When Badeg doesn’t add anything else, Jim raises an eyebrow, taking a perverse sort of pleasure in the way Badeg rolls his eyes. It’s always nice to know he hasn’t lost his knack for being “difficult,” as his mother would say.

“Captain Smollett,” Badeg prompts. It takes Jim a moment to figure out who he’s talking about, since Amelia went by her first name on the ship.

“Captain Smollett,” he repeats. He watches, with no small amount of amusement, as Badeg’s nostrils flare as he sighs.

“How do you know her?” he asks, and Jim almost wants to congratulate him on finally getting the question out, but that seems like a step too far.

Instead, he shrugs. “She’s a family friend,” he says.

It’s not even a lie, but it’s not the answer Badeg wanted either, if the tic in his jaw is to be trusted. But he seems to recognize that continuing that line of questioning isn’t going to get him anywhere, because he abruptly changes tack.

“Mx. Anguis seems to think you’re a decent sailor,” he tries, and suddenly Jim knows exactly what this is about. But Badeg doesn’t want to be the one to say it, and two can play at that game.

“I guess,” Jim equivocates. He glances over at the teacher in question, who is now scraping dirt out from under their claws with a pocket knife. Definitely not allowed on school property, but pretty badass.

“Don’t act like you don’t know it,” Badeg scoffs. “You walk around the deck like you own the place. It’s annoying.”

Jim leans forward slightly. “Oh, so you’ve been watching me?”

The look Badeg levels at him is so flat he could skip rocks across its surface. Jim does laugh this time, just a little bit.

“Are you always this obnoxious with your…” Badeg gestures vaguely over Jim’s shoulder, “friends?”

“No.” Jim abandons Morph in favor of plucking at a loose thread on his sleeve. “Usually I’m much worse.”

Badeg looks as surprised as Jim is at the chuckle that escapes from his lips. When he casts an appraising glance over Jim, it’s clear he finds more than he thought he would.

“Well,” he says, “good luck on the final.” With that, he pushes off the wall and heads toward the front of the room. Jim stays where he is for a second, processing what just happened, before making his way back over to Nori.

“What was all that?” Nori asks when he arrives.

“I think he just called me a decent sailor,” Jim replies slowly, each word feeling a little less believable than the last.

Nori sits, frozen, for a moment. “Huh,” he says.

Jim gazes across the room, eyes seeking out twin curling horns and the spiky, scaled company they’re keeping. Badeg’s answering the same query, no doubt.

“Huh,” Jim echoes.

Morph takes great delight in tormenting Jim whenever the opportunity arises. The fifth time they mimic Badeg, Jim has to lay down an ultimatum. It takes threatening to withhold their daily allotment of purps to get them to stop.

Jim only has to draw one line in the sand, and it’s easy enough to pass off as natural that it doesn’t really exist outside of his own head.

The thing is, they haven’t ridden the Legacy together since that night. Jim told Nori it’s because he’s gotten good enough that he should be surfing completely by himself, which isn’t even a lie; if Jim’s being honest, Nori hasn’t needed his help for weeks. It’s just that neither of them said anything about it.

Not that anyone’s on the surfer tonight. It’s perfectly clear, shining stars and colorful swirls of gas dripping light onto the planet below them. Jim leans back on his hands and turns his face up to the sky, counting the fiery pinpricks that burst across the insides of his eyelids when he closes them. The stars on Montressor were never bright enough to leave impressions behind.

The only thing interrupting the glow of the Etherium is a dark circle where the moon would be, if it was in phase, but Jim doesn’t even miss it. (He thinks his night vision has improved over the last few months, if that’s possible.)

In front of him, Nori pauses in his pacing. “It really does depend on the species,” he mutters, mostly to himself. “Just a few characteristics could make the difference between success and failure.”

“So, allow for that in your argument,” Jim supplies. “If someone brings up a species that, say, always tells the truth, or physically can’t go back on their word or something, acknowledge that they could be an exception, but in general your point still stands. Your assignment wasn’t to make your side airtight, it was to make it convincing.”

“True,” Nori says thoughtfully. When Jim looks up from his seat on the ground, Nori’s holding his chin in one hand and his elbow in the other. It’s an almost comically exaggerated thinking pose. They could make a statue of Nori like this and put it in front of the Academy. “Allowing for the rare exception, true democracy is still the best way to ensure every citizen’s input is considered.” He says it like he’s writing an essay and that’s his thesis statement, which isn’t really that far off, Jim supposes.

Jim goes back to fiddling with the parts he got from Mr. Kohrman’s lab. These ones weren’t technically spare, since they were provided new for the class, but Mr. Kohrman said he needed Jim to work on something while he was there and didn’t seem to care when Jim took it with him at the end. And the leftover sail cloth is just begging to be used anyway. “And especially in multicultural metropolises—metropoli? Metropolities?” Jim glances at Nori for help, but all the other boy has to offer is a shrug. “Especially in multicultural areas where the government is responsible for a vast array of species, democracy may be the only way for a lot of people with specific needs to be heard.”

Nori’s eyes light up. “Yes! Exactly! If there’s no one else like you wherever you are, how is a representative system supposed to represent you?” He keeps talking to himself, resuming his pacing, but Jim can’t help but think about what he just said. There’s no one else like Nori in the whole Academy. Even if his friends aren’t human, Jim’s seen other humans around. And the Academy operates on a schedule that is far more accommodating to him than Nori.

There’s a reason Nori’s debate is about theory and not practice: institutions are hard to change. Nevertheless, a vague, smoky outline begins to coalesce in the back of Jim’s mind, involving equity, the Academy’s administrative board, and the kind of stubbornness that landed Jim on Amelia’s ship in the first place.

But that’s a problem for later. Now, what’s important is that this joint isn’t connecting the way he wants it to. Jim prides himself on being familiar enough with mechanical systems that he can do simple repairs in the dark (an occasional necessity when his first surfer sputtered out in the shadow of a canyon), but this is detailed work. He taps his shoulder a couple of times, rousing Morph from their nap.

“Hey buddy,” he says as they blink awake, squinting in Jim’s direction. “Could you give me a little light, please?”

With marginally less zeal than usual, Morph chirps and transforms into a flashlight, shining down on the bits of metal scattered across the grass in front of Jim’s crossed legs. He doesn’t know how Morph bioluminesces, let alone how they do it at will. He doesn’t know how they float in the air or how they shapeshift, either, no matter how many times he observes them doing it. Morph is simply a fact of existence, an immovable, incomprehensible truth about the universe.

Jim wants to understand so badly, but he learned a long time ago that Morph isn’t exactly one for answering questions.

“I know that time is the major issue, but I feel like I’m as prepared for that as I can be,” Nori states. It takes Jim a moment to realize he’s talking to him. “What else is there?”

Jim considers the question for a moment, swapping out the socket he was using for a slightly more spherical one. This time, the joint clicks together easily and rotates through the full range Jim needs it to. “If anyone can propose anything, people are going to make joke proposals that shouldn’t be taken seriously. How do you decide what proposals will actually be voted on?”

“You could make a council to root out the insincere proposals,” Nori suggests, although he sounds skeptical before he’s even finished.

“That’s just a republic,” Jim points out, slotting a hinge together. A quick count reveals that he doesn’t have enough segments to make all of the hinges he’s going to need, so he resolves to liberate a few more pieces from the lab during his next class. It wouldn’t be such an issue if he wasn’t determined to make fully articulated limbs, but it also wouldn’t be any fun, so there.

The body, at least, doesn’t require a huge range of motion, but it does have a fairly complex interior to connect the solar sails to the rest of the contraption. The system is sitting on Jim’s desk, constructed but not connected to anything yet. The rest of the outer structure has to be completed first.

“Signatures!” Nori exclaims. “To officially propose a law, someone should have to get a certain amount of support for it. It wouldn’t pass if nobody else wanted it anyway, so that’s not infringing upon the general intentions of a true democracy. What do you think?”

“Yeah, I think that’s probably the best solution,” Jim tells him. There’s a small pile of hinges and joints by his left foot now. “Most of the counterarguments I’ve got are ridiculous enough that you could probably laugh them off in front of your teacher and it would count as a solid rebuttal.”

Nori chuckles. “I don’t think I’m brave enough to pull that off, but thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Half of a debate is convincing yourself of what you’re saying. I should know, I bluffed my way through teaching an entire class on a book I hadn’t read back home.” Mr. Frelie wasn’t very happy about it, either. That was probably the most grudging passing grade Jim ever received in his life. “If you believe it, they’ll believe you,” he finishes.

Nori nods in agreement. “Not always easy, if you’re arguing for, say, a dictatorship,” he says.

He adds something else, but Jim doesn’t catch it. There’s a flash of light in the corner of his eye, momentarily distracting him from both Nori and his newest pet project. He has just enough time to think that it came from the left even though Morph is to his right before a sound like a burst of cannon fire rips through the air. Jim’s on his feet in an instant, heart beating out of his chest, looking around wildly for its source. The Academy is so safe it’s unreal. There’s no way they could be under attack right now, is there?

Not that he would be able to see if they were. Clouds rolled in while he wasn’t paying attention, blanketing the Etherium in its entirety. The trees at the edge of campus are nothing more than black smudges against the slightly lighter horizon. Jim can’t remember the last time he saw a sky this dark.

It must have been thunder, he realizes, even though it isn’t raining. He’s honestly a little embarrassed he didn’t think of that first. He remembers the storms on Montressor when he was a child, crawling into his parents’ bed when the noise was so loud it kept him awake. He also remembers when his dad told him he was too old to keep doing that, but he takes that particular memory and slides it back into the box labeled “Do Not Open.” Now isn’t the time.

“Jim,” Nori says behind him. Jim’s about to crack a joke to disguise how startled he really was, but when he turns to face Nori, anything he might have said dies on the tip of his tongue.

Nori’s not just pale, he’s bone white, shining just enough for Jim to see that all of the blood has drained from his face. He’s trembling in place too, as if it’s taking all of his strength just to keep himself still. And his eyes… they’ve never looked like this before. Except for touches of blue-tinged white at the corners, they’re completely black, like his pupils swallowed his irises and most of everything else too.

Jim didn’t realize how accustomed to that bright violet he had become. He couldn’t have imagined how unsettling it would be to see his friend’s face without it.

“What’s the brightest place on campus?” Nori asks, voice strained. It takes Jim a moment to register the question.

“Um, the mechanical lab has pretty good lights,” he supplies. Nori blinks, then nods slowly.

“Great. I need you to bring me there and turn on every light source you can find.”

It’s an odd request, but Nori’s never asked anything of Jim that he wouldn’t agree to, every time. “Okay.”

He reaches for Nori’s arm, but he flinches away. “Don’t,” he says, and Jim’s heard plenty of warnings in his life but none have made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up quite like this. If they were in the wild, he would be the prey.

Jim steps back, putting some space between them, before setting off for the main building. Something tells him he very much should not run right now, but he can walk quickly when he wants to, and his strides eat up the ground along the walkway. He fumbles the key a bit when he tries to unlock the side door, but second time’s the charm and then their footsteps are echoing down the hallway. He risks a glance over his shoulder to see Nori staring resolutely ahead, mouth pressed into a tight line and fingers curled into fists at his sides. Jim turns away quickly.

The door to the lab swings open and Jim slaps at the switch for the overhead lanterns before he’s fully through it, then circles the room, lighting individual lamps at work stations and poking at the contraption on Mr. Kohrman’s desk until it flickers to life, a soft yellow glow emanating from the cube at its center. Satisfied that the lab is positively ablaze, he turns back to the center of the room.

Nori’s standing at one of the tables, gripping the edge so hard Jim can see the outline of his knuckles under his skin. He thinks Nori’s eyes are closed at first, since he’s facing one of the lamps, but stepping closer reveals that he’s actually staring directly into the light. It can’t be good for him, especially as a nocturnal species, and under any other circumstances Jim would mention that. Somehow, he doubts it would be appreciated right now.

He’s not sure Nori even remembers he’s there until he speaks. “Thank you,” he says, eyes still fixed on the lamp. “You can go now.”

“What?” It comes out incredulous, of course it does; there’s no way Jim’s leaving him alone like this. “There’s no way—”

“Jim.”

It slams back into him like ice sluicing down his spine, that feeling that Jim shouldn’t be here, that he’s in the presence of something powerful, something wild. Something dangerous. He knows this feeling. It’s a feeling he associates with mutinous pirates and exploding planets. Listening to it is what kept him alive through everything he’s experienced. Never in a million years did he think he’d be standing here, in a workshop with the person who’s become his best friend, the adrenaline spike characteristic of life or death situations flooding his veins.

But the worst part is that despite it all, Nori’s still the most beautiful person Jim’s ever seen.

Before he even knows what he’s doing, Jim takes a step back, then another, until his back is against the door to the lab. His gaze remains trained on Nori as he searches for the knob, the pads of his fingers trailing over rough wood until they hit cold metal. The door catches as he tries to open it, but then he’s stumbling through and pulling it closed behind him, the only sign anyone’s there the glow from the glass window. He stares at it for a moment, at the bright square and the dark wood surrounding it, the splash of yellow on the floor where the light falls. Then he turns.

And he runs.

The next morning, Nori’s nowhere to be found.

By this, Jim means he checked the lab as soon as the sun rose only to find it empty, and knocking on Nori’s door produced no results. Jim’s nearly resigned himself to actually going to class when Kise finds him wandering the second floor aimlessly.

“He’s on the roof,” she says in lieu of a greeting. “He told me to tell you, if you were looking for him.”

Something about her tone makes Jim pause. “And if I wasn’t looking for him?”

Her wings droop, as if gravity is suddenly acting twice as strongly on her. “He understands.”

“Bullshit,” Jim retorts, and Kise grins.

It’s windy when he vaults onto the shingles, grey clouds scudding across the sky over his head. Nori’s sitting with his back to the window Jim came out of, hair fluttering about his head. He’s holding his knees to his chest, and either he didn’t hear Jim over the wind or he’s choosing not to acknowledge him for the moment. It doesn’t make a difference to Jim, who picks his way across the roof to sit next to Nori. He doesn’t say anything; if the way Kise spoke was any indication, his presence is a statement in itself.

They stay like that for a while, Jim’s knee not quite touching Nori’s foot. Neither of them moves until campus clears out below them, the last few stragglers making their way to their first classes.

It’s Nori who breaks the silence. “I’m sorry,” he says, and he’s rarely the loudest person in the room but he’s never sounded quite so small.

“Why?” There are two questions in the word; although Jim might be curious as to what Nori thinks he has to be sorry about, that’s not really what he’s asking.

And Nori seems to get that, because he only glances at Jim for a second before smiling and looking down at his knees. “You’re impossible, you know,” he says, slowly unfolding himself and stretching his legs parallel to Jim’s. “I had a whole speech ready about how if you didn’t want to talk to me anymore I’d understand. It was supposed to be serious, too.”

Jim nudges Nori’s foot with his own. “You didn’t really think you’d need that, did you?”

“You never know,” Nori replies. There’s fear behind those three words, a lot of it, but there’s something else too, a thread that Jim wants to hold onto.

“Come on, you’re not getting rid of me that easily,” he tries. Sure, last night freaked him the fuck out, but Jim doesn’t make friends to drop them at the first sign of trouble. It really wouldn’t get him far, since he’s usually the first sign of trouble.

“Oh, don’t be so sure of that just yet,” Nori says, chuckling weakly, and that. No. That just won’t do. Jim sits up so he’s partially in front of Nori, staring at him until he looks back.

“I mean it,” Jim tells him. His eyes are back to normal, Jim notes distantly, the violet disappearing momentarily as Nori blinks slowly. Then he dips his head, acknowledging Jim’s statement or trying to escape from it, Jim isn’t sure which. It’s the best he’s going to get, though, so he lets it be, settling back against the roof.

There’s a weight to the air between them, compounded by the returning silence. It feels so easy to break, like it’ll shatter to pieces in Jim’s hands.

“Remember when I told you about my mom?” Nori asks. Oh, Jim thinks. Oh. He casts about for any response—none seem fitting—and settles on “Yeah.”

“Her death was more… complicated than I made it sound.” Nori takes a deep breath, visibly steeling himself. Jim catches himself bracing his hands on the shingles beneath him and forces his fingers to relax. “My species, nyctids… for the most part, I think we’re pretty similar to humans. We’re nocturnal because our atmosphere isn’t thick enough to protect us from our sun’s radiation during the day, but other than that, there are only a few differences between you and us.

“But one of those differences is kind of… I don’t want to call it critical, but it’s not really the kind of thing you can ignore, even if you really, really want to. The funny thing is that it isn’t even an issue for most of us, but my… my mom was in the lucky thirty percent. Which means she was born without the ability to keep herself alive on her own.”

Nori pauses for a moment. Jim realizes he’s been holding his breath, but he doesn’t want to let go of it just yet.

“W—they just kind of… stop working. Go into organ failure with no real cause. It’s been like this as long as anyone can remember, and no one’s figured out why. But nature didn’t need to know why. It created a problem, so it engineered a solution. Not a very elegant one, but it works.”

Whatever Nori’s building up to, he’s intimidated by it, that much is clear. Or maybe he’s intimidated by the thought of sharing it. Should Jim be scared to hear it?

He isn’t.

“There’s another species on our planet, cherotes. They aren’t parasites, not exactly, but they can’t survive without a host. They used to be able to live with almost any animal, but over the last few thousand years, they’ve evolved to, uh, to make nyctids their ideal hosts. Specifically, those of us that otherwise wouldn’t survive. It’s a little murky, the actual process, but we keep them alive and they do the same for us.

“It’s not perfect. Our species are both nocturnal, but cherotes are far more sensitive to light and more active at night, which can make it… difficult, sometimes, for hosts to acclimate to different conditions. And usually you can’t even tell that they’re there, but sometimes, if it’s dark enough, or the cherote senses a problem or, or a threat or something, they can—assert themselves, to try to protect the host.”

Pieces start shifting around in Jim’s head, like they’re about to slide into place, but Nori barrels on before he can glimpse the picture forming.

“Which is fine, you know, it’s a symbiotic relationship, no one’s getting hurt by this, usually. It worked well for a long time. Still does, sort of. But a few decades ago, there was a problem. A disease. It only targeted cherotes, but it didn’t—it couldn’t only affect them. A lot of us died when the cherotes did.”

Nori breathes in again, a little shakily, and after a moment’s consideration Jim reaches out and lays his hand on top of Nori’s. The smile he gets in return is small, but grateful. Nori turns his hand over and laces their fingers together.

“My mother—she and her cherote survived,” he says, which wasn’t what Jim was expecting even though it shouldn’t be a surprise. Nori said it was a few decades, after all. “But there haven’t been enough cherotes to support everyone who’s been born since… yeah. So when I was born, she—she gave her cherote to me.” So I could live, he doesn’t say. So she died.

Nori sniffs and swipes his free hand across his face. “That’s what happened last night,” he finishes. “I was stupid and thought I could ignore that it was a new moon, and the thunder was shocking enough that it seemed threatening, and I put you in danger and I’m really, really sorry.”

“Hey,” Jim intervenes before he can get any further. “It’s alright. I’m fine, you’re fine—you are fine, right?”

“Yeah,” Nori says, what might be the echoes of a weak laugh reverberating through his voice. “I’m fine.”

“See? You’ve got nothing to apologize for.”

They’re quiet for a long moment, the wind whispering around their heads, Nori gripping Jim’s hand like it’s a lifeline, like he’ll die if he lets go—and Jim doesn’t say anything, doesn’t pull away or flex his fingers or even so much as twitch even though his muscles are cramping up—before Jim speaks again.

“So…” he starts, slow and drawn out. Nori turns to him, one eyebrow quirked up. “You’ve got a cherote, just, living inside you?” Nori’s eyebrow returns to its original place and his lips flatten as he presses them together. He nods once, the motion jerky and tense. Jim considers him for another second, then shrugs. “Cool.”

“‘Cool’?” Nori echoes in disbelief. “You don’t think it’s, like, weird or something?”

Jim doesn’t, but he also knows Nori well enough by now to know that just telling him that won’t be enough to fully reassure him. “Let me tell you a story,” he says instead, taking Nori’s confused expression in stride. “Every word of it true, I promise.”

Nori still looks like he doesn’t get it, which is fair, Jim supposes, but he bobs his head, the movement a little looser, more relaxed this time. “Sure,” he says.

So Jim tells him everything, starting from the very beginning. He tells him about getting arrested

(“Escorted home by the police!” “Sounds like getting arrested to me.”),

Billy Bones showing up dying on the Inn’s doorstep, lugging a chest containing the strangest map Jim had ever seen

(“You should have seen Delbert’s face when I cracked it! It wasn’t even that hard!”)

and the subsequent burning of the Inn

(“Honestly that was probably the worst part of the whole thing.”),

meeting Amelia and the rest of the crew

(“She was fucking badass, but I didn’t trust the rest of them from the start.”),

working for Silver

(“I don’t know, it kind of felt like no one had really listened to me before him.” “Yeah, I know how that feels.”),

Arrow’s tragic death

(“And they tried to frame me for killing him!” “They framed you for murder?” “Well, negligence, but still!”),

actually arriving on Treasure Planet

(“It looked like a jungle but the whole planet was actually metal!”)

and the crew’s subsequent mutiny

(“See, I told you I didn’t trust them!” “And I believed you!”),

meeting B.E.N. and Scroop trying to throw him into the Etherium

(“He looked just like Mr. Kohrman, did I mention that?”),

being forced to lead Silver and the rest of his crew to the treasure

(“Delbert’s working on recreating the portal technology right now, he got a grant and everything.”),

the booby trap that nearly got them all killed

(“Because B.E.N. just couldn’t remember any sooner.”),

Silver rescuing him, his own daring exploits that saved them all in the end

(“Wait, how many times did you nearly die?” “Oh, um, it wasn’t really that dangerous—” “James Hawkins, I swear to Veda—”),

and of course his triumphant return to Montressor, where his mother was given a heavily censored account of the journey and he, Amelia, and Delbert swore never to speak candidly of the adventure to anyone else unless absolutely necessary.

“So, you know,” Jim finishes, going for a casual shrug, “I think my threshold for weird is pretty high.”

“Yeah, no fucking kidding,” Nori breathes. “Almost makes my whole thing seem boring in comparison.”

The sentence is innocuous enough, but Jim catches the nervous laugh that accompanies it. “Hey, thank you for telling me,” he says, and when Nori rolls his eyes and glances away, Jim grabs both of his hands. “Seriously, thank you,” he repeats to Nori’s wide-eyed stare. “I know it can’t have been easy to tell me about your mom and everything. That’s why I told you all of that stuff. I—I trust you too.”

Nori blinks, momentarily stunned, before a smile breaks like dawn over his face. He looks down at where Jim is still holding his hands, biting his lip. The tips of his ears are cobalt blue, and his nose is dusted with periwinkle, and suddenly Jim realizes that they can be good friends, great friends even, but he might not ever stop wishing for more.

Then Nori looks back up at him, and Jim’s probably out of realizations for the day because all other thoughts fly from his head.

“I know I’ve probably lost my chance by now,” Nori starts, but he sounds hopeful, in a way that makes Jim’s stomach clench and his heart ache, deliciously sweet, “but that… that was why I wasn’t ready to be more than friends. I didn’t know how to tell you, and I couldn’t let you get closer to me without knowing, but y—you know now, so if you’re still—”

Jim doesn’t let him get any further. He looks at the boy in front of him, hair mussed from the breeze, eyes glittering with uncharted stars, every line of his face painfully earnest, and all he can think is that he really, really wants to kiss him. So he does. He takes Nori’s face between his hands and pulls him in until their lips press together, cutting off Nori’s speech with his answer.

Nori smiles against him and Jim can’t keep himself from grinning in response. They’re barely even touching when the wind changes direction around them.

“Ugh, get a room!” Kise shouts from somewhere above their heads. Jim doesn’t bother looking up, just lifts a hand in the air to present her with a choice finger. Across from him, he feels Nori shift, presumably doing the same.

Kise’s indignant squawk is almost certainly exaggerated. She’ll probably still be friends with them.

Chapter Text

“Alright recruits. Today is the day you’ve been waiting for. You’ve been training for this for your whole lives. Every second of the last five months has been preparing you for this moment. Are you ready?”

“Um, Mx. Anguis?”

“Yes, Sinaq?”

“Exactly how likely are we to die during this exam?”

“The chances of any mortal injuries occurring in the course of this examination are negligible.”

Jim catches a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. Should be zero, Ditch is signing. Next to em, Branch bares zir teeth in zir silent laugh.

It’s the last day of finals, and the whole class is standing in a building Jim has never seen before. As it turns out, first years have laughably little access to academy facilities. Campus is at least twice as big as he’d thought. Upperclassmen even have their own dorms and largely go to class in different academic buildings, one of which is presumably the one he’s in now.

They’d all had to pile into a lift to get to this room, but aside from its size, Jim can’t see anything particularly special about it. The walls are plain, and there’s no furniture to be seen. The room is lit by glowing segments of the ceiling, which is pretty cool, but it’s also definitely not the reason Mx. Anguis brought them here. Jim’s still thrilled, though. Not even the boring room can truly dampen the atmosphere of this place.

“Now,” Mx. Anguis continues, “I’m sure you’re all curious as to the format of your exam.” Their statement is met with affirming murmurs and a few nervous chuckles. “Allow me to show you.”

With a flourish, the wall behind them starts shifting, diamond panels disappearing from view until the entire surface is one huge window overlooking the biggest solar cruising course Jim has ever seen. Only, it’s not for solar cruising, he realizes. There are honest-to-Veda (heh, he’s starting to sound like Nori) ships parked at the beginning of the course.

The class surges forward to examine the strange new frontier they’ve been presented, carrying Jim close enough to the window to see that the course is… empty? He’d assumed that it was dark, but now that he can really look at it, it’s obvious that it’s not just dark, it’s bare. A straight shot from beginning to end, no twists, turns, or tricks to it. He’s just starting to wonder what the point of such a thing is when a sharp clap echoes through the room behind him. At the sound, the ceiling cracks open to bathe the scene in sunlight. Blue light flickers to life until the entire course is thoroughly etched in it, asteroid fields, rogue debris, and other ships picked out in stark, glowing, holographic detail.

An obstacle course without real obstacles. It’s kind of brilliant, actually, especially as a training exercise. The risk of injury is drastically reduced if your ship won’t be ripped apart by a mistake. Negligible, some might say.

But there’s something else about all of this that has Jim’s mouth twisting into a smile. “Underneath it all, Mx. Anguis really has a flair for the dramatic, don’t they?” he whispers to Nori, who stifles his laughter into his palm.

“Don’t let them hear that,” he responds.

“The class will be divided into crews,” announces said teacher, effectively pulling the class’s attention back to them. “Each crew, one at a time, will race a ship through the obstacle course in front of you. Your crews as a whole, as well as each of you individually, will be graded on your performance during the race. You will be timed.”

They pause for a moment, as though to let that information sink in, before revealing the final piece of their dastardly plan. “Usually, I split the class into two crews, but as this class is so large, you will form three. Team captains will take turns choosing the rest of their crews.” They hold up one clawed hand before the class can burst into motion. “I have already selected the captains, although you may abdicate provided there is someone else willing to take your place.”

This time, the silence is most definitely intentional and more than a little dramatic. “The captains are Hoa’li pha-Una,” Mx. Anguis begins slowly, “Seven Centel,” which, seriously, they’re reciting this from memory, it should not be taking this long, “and Jim Hawkins.”

Jim’s first instinct is to yell and fist pump hard enough that he punches the ceiling. His second instinct is to ask, “What would Amelia do?” and firmly decide it is Not That. Instead, he follows his fellow captains as Mx. Anguis gestures for them to line up facing the rest of their classmates, just like when teams were picked in Phys. Ed. back home. Admittedly, Jim’s never been on this side of it before. He kind of likes the view.

“The first person you pick for your crew will be your first mate,” Mx. Anguis tells them. Instinctually, Jim seeks Nori out in the crowd of students. Looming over his shoulder is a familiar pair of horns. “So choose wisely.”

Mx. Anguis gestures to Hoa’li, who makes a show of propping her chin up on one of her tentacles and seriously considering the faces in front of her before choosing Colthu. Seven picks Sinaq, to no one’s surprise. And then it’s Jim’s turn.

He looks at Nori, who lifts a solitary eyebrow, then at the boy standing just behind him. And then, Jim makes a decision that catches even himself off guard.

“Badeg.”

Jim knows, logically, that the whole class doesn’t freeze at that. At the very least, Mx. Anguis does not care about class politics, and come to think of it, most of the rest of the class probably doesn’t either. In fact, Badeg, Nori, and Jim himself may be the only ones who are at all surprised. And possibly Mikka, although she’s perceptive enough that she might have seen this coming.

It still feels like the room falls silent.

Nori’s second eyebrow joins the first, so Jim’s impromptu bear-with-me expression wasn’t all that successful, but he doesn’t look angry. Behind him, Badeg’s eyes widen in shock before narrowing. His gaze stays trained on Jim as he shoulders his way to the front of the class. Even when Badeg comes to stand next to him, Jim can feel his eyes burning holes in the side of his face. Well, not literally. That wasn’t something Jim had been worried about until he started living with a robot who helpfully reminded him that with the right parts, they could very easily give themself laser vision. But the point stands.

The rest of the process goes by quickly; Jim chooses Nori second, of course, and manages to get Mikka, Ditch, and Branch, as well as a handful of other classmates in whom he has varying degrees of confidence.

“Heads, claws, or tails?” Mx. Anguis asks, procuring a token from their pocket, or possibly within their sleeve, Jim isn’t quite sure. Hoa’li chimes in with claws and Seven claims tails, leaving Jim with heads. Mx. Anguis flips the token in the air, catching it and revealing a holographic, serpentine tail twisting above its surface. On the second flip, a flexing talon flickers to life over the token, cementing Jim’s crew as the last to sail the course.

“It will take some time to prepare everything and have all of you take the exam,” Mx. Anguis informs them. “If I were you, I’d use this time to develop a strategy.” At their words, Badeg makes a beeline for the far side of the room, leaving Jim and the rest of his crew with little choice but to follow.

“What’s the plan here, pal?” Badeg asks Jim once they come to a stop, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Well, ideally it’s to win the race,” Jim replies, because even though he should really be trying to get along with Badeg at this point, he just can’t help himself.

“Ha ha,” Badeg says, voice as flat as his expression. “You know what I mean. Why the hell did you pick me as your first mate?”

And there’s the million-credit question. Jim is suddenly acutely aware of the students gathered around them, each and every eye trained on him. Nori stands at his shoulder and Badeg’s gaze flickers to him, no doubt because he’s wondering why Nori isn’t in his position. Actually, Nori’s probably wondering the same thing. Even Jim isn’t entirely sure of the answer.

But he’d better figure it out, because he’s pretty sure “I don’t know, man” isn’t going to cut it.

“Look,” he begins, and just keeps talking. He’s always been pretty good at that. “You’re a good sailor, and you’re good at thinking on your feet. I want you on my team. I didn’t come here to make enemies, you know, I’ve done enough of that already. And I know we aren’t really friends, but I trust you to know what you’re doing. I hope you trust me too, I guess,” he finishes.

Badeg glances away for a moment; when he looks back, he nods. “Alright then,” he says. “How are we gonna do this?”

Jim takes the time to ask each of his crewmates what job they’d like, since the fastest way to a mutiny is by making people do things they don’t want to. Not that he’d know anything about that personally.

(He doesn’t mean Amelia, of course; the crew had been predisposed against her, there was nothing she could have done about that. No, he’s determined to learn from Silver’s near mistakes, even in something as seemingly trivial as a school exam.)

Mikka, whose eyes are as sharp as her spikes, offers to take lookout. Anyone comfortable enough with climbing and heights, including Ditch and Branch, are set to work on the rigging and masts. Everyone else is stationed on the deck, hauling ropes, monitoring the engines, or simply trying to keep hazards away from their crewmates’ limbs. Not the most glamorous work, but nobody seems upset by it.

They’re not allowed to watch the other teams sail the course, something about “unfair advantages” or whatever, so they have to stay in that large room with the wall panels closed. An adult that Jim’s never seen before, presumably a babysitter sent to watch over them while Mx. Anguis is observing the final exam attempts, leans against a corner, but they don’t seem particularly interested in conversation. This suits Jim fine; he gathers his crew in a huddle and goes over possible obstacles and plans for handling them.

For the first hour or so, Hao’li’s crew occupies the other half of the room, similarly muttering among themselves. Then the door in the back of the room opens and Mx. Anguis gestures for them to follow them. Seven’s group, who left with Mx. Anguis shortly after the teams were picked, doesn’t come back.

By the time Mx. Anguis returns for Jim and his crew, they have all been thoroughly overcome by boredom. Their planning session quickly devolved into hopscotch on an imaginary court, several contrasting memory games, and a few naps here and there. A good number of Jim’s classmates are gathered in a knot around Morph, fascinated by the little shapeshifter, who basks happily in the attention. But even the most nervous among the students seem grateful to be following their teacher down the hallway and into the lift, if only because they’re finally doing something. And Jim? He’s practically bouncing in place, itching to get back on a ship.

It looms large over Jim and his classmates when they step onto the empty course, although not quite as tall as the Legacy. While there were three visible earlier, only one remains, a glittering 4 painted on its side. A ship built for practice then, unnamed, somewhere between a sloop and a frigate in size. Jim takes stock of the masts (two, square-rigged, marking it as a brig), the deck (split-level, wheel on the upper one), and the engines (obviously solar cells, and likely the reason the ceiling opens). In his mind’s eye he sees it come alive with sailors, a feline captain swinging from the mainmast and a boulder of a first mate striding the length of the deck.

But now isn’t the time for imagination. A set of stairs leads to a raised platform placed next to the ship. At Mx. Anguis’ indication, Jim leads his crew up them and across the gangplank where it rests on the platform. Mx. Anguis themself brings up the rear, taking up a position near the stern from which they can observe the whole ship.

“You may begin at your leisure,” they say, which Jim figures is really code for “get a move on.”

“To your stations!” he yells as he takes his own position behind the wheel, reveling in the feeling of command. After some awkward fumbling and nervous glances toward Mx. Anguis, the rest of his crew sort themselves out and all eyes turn to him.

“Loose the main sails!” He knows that as a practice ship, it can’t possibly be designed to go very fast, but still, it’s best to start slow when sailing into unknown territory. Especially since his teacher is watching his every move. The sails unfurl with a whoosh and gleam in the sunlight, casting a warm orange glow on the ship and its inhabitants.

Jim looks down at the lower level of the deck where Nori stands by the mainmast, hand on the lever that will feed power to the engines. “Output level three,” he says, and Nori complies with a smile. With a slight lurch, the ship glides forward, picking up speed as it rises further from the ground. “Four,” he calls as their speed begins to plateau and nothing appears on the course. He’s not going to lead them through the course at a snallish’s pace; they’re being timed, after all.

They’re moving at a good clip when the first obstacle appears: a planet, far to starboard but close enough that its gravity is acting on the ship. (Jim’s going to have to ask Mx. Anguis how they were able to mimic that in a controlled environment after this is over.)

“Loose all sails!” Jim shouts as he tacks to port to counteract the gravitational pull. “Loose all sails!” Morph repeats at a near-scream right next to Jim’s ear. A few members of his crew, including Badeg, chuckle in direct and willful contempt for his plight. They pick up speed, just enough to skate past without losing their heading.

“Twenty knots,” Badeg reports at Jim’s side.

“Vessel approaching, ten o’clock,” Mikka calls down to him.

Sure enough, a glimmering holographic ship appears off the bow. “Hail the ship!” Jim orders, and the crew members on the deck rush to comply. After a moment the holo ship returns their signal and peels off, fading out at the edge of the course. Jim fights the urge to look to Mx. Anguis for approval. They’re behind him anyway, so it would be glaringly obvious.

The obstacles don’t let up after that. “Rogue satellite off the stern!” Mikka shouts, and Jim has to ask Nori to take the engine all the way up to output six as he pushes the ship as high as it will go, giving the satellite just enough space to hurtle beneath them.

As soon as it’s gone, the deck starts swaying under Jim’s feet. “Secure all sails!” Jim orders as the wind currents pick up around them. His crewmates are wonderfully responsive; this is something they practiced for weeks. Ropes fly to the deck, where they’re caught and pulled by students working in teams of two. Jim spots Ditch and Branch running along the yardarms, their tails swinging back and forth to balance themselves. Jim himself has to grip the wheel tightly to keep the ship from rocking too violently. Morph ties themself into a knot around one of the spokes.

The gusts don’t exactly spin them around, but with the sails closed and the atmospheric interference, they’re practically dead in the water by the time the wind dies down. Jim has them loose all the sails to try to get back up to speed as soon as possible, but then a pod of orcus galacticus swims alongside them for a stretch and suddenly going fast doesn’t seem like the best idea. Also, some of Jim’s crew is distracted by the animals, even though they’re very clearly projections. Fortunately Mikka is taking her role seriously and spots the holographic eagleshark behind them, shouting to Jim in time for him to keep the ship steady as the whales fly off in a frenzy.

They’re nearly to the end of the course now, and casting his mind back through the semester, Jim’s pretty sure they’ve passed most, if not all, of the potential hazards they studied in class. They were significantly slowed, though, and while it’s entirely possible that the other teams were similarly held up, it’s more than likely that they were able to get through more quickly than Jim and his crew. “Nori, take her up—” he starts to say, but he doesn’t finish the thought.

A wall of shimmering blue rock rises in front of them, an asteroid belt that spawned seemingly out of nowhere and is fast approaching. They could make it through the middle and barely lose any more time, but they won’t be able to avoid getting hit.

“Gap to starboard!” Mikka shouts, and sure enough when Jim glances to the right there’s a space between the rocks wide enough for their ship to pass through unscathed. If they go that far out of their way, though, they can almost certainly kiss the fastest time goodbye.

Jim’s first instinct is to say Screw it and push them through to the end; it’s this instinct that got him arrested (escorted home by the police) three times in five months and also netted him the greatest discovery in the history of planetary exploration. His second instinct is to ask what Nori thinks, but there’s no way to do that without essentially asking the whole ship and that’s more input than Jim’s prepared to deal with.

And then Badeg appears at his elbow. Jim looks at him, and he looks back at Jim, and immediately Jim sees that Badeg sees the two options he does. Badeg hesitates just a moment before squaring his shoulders, which unhelpfully reminds Jim how much taller he is, and speaking.

“It’s your call, Jim,” he starts, “but I think we should go around.” Badeg says it with a level of confidence that makes Jim bristle. He almost shoots back that the asteroids aren’t real, they wouldn’t actually cause any damage, so really there’s no reason for them to try to avoid them, but a little voice in the back of his head stops him. What if they were real? the voice whispers, and if they were real it wouldn’t even be a question, Jim would never risk his crew’s safety in the interest of time, and that’s the whole point, he realizes. It’s not about being the fastest or the best, it’s about preparing for when it is real, it’s about making the right choices under pressure.

Also, fighting with his first mate in clear view of Mx. Anguis would probably hurt his grade, but that’s neither here nor there.

He nods, once, before latching onto the steering wheel with a white-knuckled grip. “Hard to starboard!” he yells, and spins the wheel as hard as he can while the rest of his crew scrambles to adjust for the turn and Nori reduces the engine’s power output to give them enough time to make it. Blue light pours onto the deck from the holograms flying by. “Port!” Jim calls before angling them in as the gap approaches, and then they’re sailing past the asteroid belt and creeping over the finish line, slow but completely intact by even the most strict criteria.

There isn’t really a place for them to dock, but Jim spots another raised platform like the one they used to board. “Secure all sails,” he instructs his crew. Once they’re raised, he’s able to maneuver the ship closer to the platform. “Output zero,” he says as he pulls up alongside it, and Nori obediently pulls the lever down, cutting off the power to the engine. Jim takes a moment after the ship comes to a stop to look over his classmates. As inexperienced as they were, they performed admirably. “Well done, everyone,” he calls out, and receives a smattering of muted applause in response. Morph shoots up into the air and explodes into a pile of confetti.

Mx. Anguis is the last to disembark from the ship, following them all down the gangplank with their hands clasped behind their back.

“Before I begin, is there anything you’d like to say?” Their gaze moves across all of the students assembled before them, but when it lands on Jim it rests there for a beat longer than anyone else. When no one else speaks, he clears his throat.

“I can’t speak for everyone,” he starts, “but I think we did alright.” He shrugs, and a couple of his classmates chuckle.

“‘Alright,’” Mx. Anguis repeats, nodding slowly. “Well, Jim, never let it be said that you don’t have a gift for understatement. Anyone else? No? In that case,” they pause for a moment to allow a pocketwatch to dangle by a chain from their claws, “I would first like to inform you that you were the slowest of any of your peers to complete the exam this semester.” They tuck the pocketwatch away inside their coat to the tune of several disappointed sighs. Jim looks at the ground, too embarrassed to meet anyone else’s eyes. “I will also reassure you that your completion time will not factor into your grades whatsoever.”

At that Jim’s head jerks up. “Not at all?” he asks before he can stop himself. Mx. Anguis cracks the closest thing to a smile he’s ever seen on their face.

“No,” they say. “The point was for you all to experience the pressure of knowing you were being timed. You’ll have external pressures put on you by every person or entity you work for, and you need to be prepared to make the decisions you feel are correct, even if they may go against the desires of your employers. In this case, it was choosing the safer route over the faster route. In the future it may look different, but the decisions will be no less difficult.” They pause again, looking at each student before continuing. “Your crew in particular demonstrated a remarkable degree of cohesion and cooperation. Furthermore, you managed something that in all of my years of teaching has only been achieved by a few teams: a perfect run. You did not suffer a single collision, nor did you lose control of the ship at any point on the course. As far as I’m concerned, there were no improvements to be made to your performance.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Jim can see several of his classmates looking at each other in disbelief. Someone jostles his shoulder; when Jim glances over, it’s Nori, grin so wide it could split his face in two.

“You all pass with flying colors,” Mx. Anguis finishes. A cheer rises up from their group, students embracing each other and clapping with enthusiasm. Nori throws his arms around Jim’s neck and kisses his cheek. Mikka comes up on his other side and fist bumps him, spikes mercifully retracted. Even Badeg claps him on the shoulder (Jim definitely does not stumble, thank you very much) and offers a not quite reluctant, “Not bad.”

“I require nothing more from you,” Mx. Anguis tells them, and then their face softens almost imperceptibly. “Go enjoy the nice weather.”

They don’t need to be told twice, the whole crew piling out of the building in a knot, still hugging and congratulating each other as they emerge onto the grass outside. “Alright, fearless captain,” Nori jokes as the rest of their classmates slowly peel away, “where to now?” His hand clasps Jim’s and squeezes it gently.

Jim looks past Nori to Ditch and Branch, then at Mikka and Badeg on his other side. Morph hovers between them, covered in spikes with a pair of horns curling up above their eyes. A breeze ruffles Jim’s hair, and he cranes his neck up to see Kise swooping low over their heads. She wiggles her ears at him and he waves back. “Well, we’re done with finals,” he says with a shrug and a smile. “We can do whatever we want.”

“I’m not helping you break into the planetarium,” Nori fires back immediately.

Mikka howls with laughter.

Chapter Text

Under a starry desert sky, the windows of the new and (some would say) improved Benbow Inn glow with a warm golden light. Muffled conversation and the clink of silverware leak out around the panes of glass. By the door, scents of chocolate cake and Andromedan curry stew waft through the air.

“Um. Are the police bots really necessary?”

Jim waves his hand dismissively. “Don’t worry, it’ll be funny.”

“If you say so.”

Jim turns to look at Nori, a couple of steps behind him. He’s striking in his white cadet uniform, a figure of contrasting light and dark. Where Jim’s hair is a little shorter than it used to be and the braid at the back of his head is gone, Nori’s let his hair grow long enough to fall into his eyes a bit. Jim tucks a strand of it behind his ear and leans in to kiss him, a brief press of lips.

“Trust me,” he says when he pulls away, “this is gonna be great. My family already loves you, B.E.N. makes really good cake, and don’t forget the main reason we’re here.”

“To show up all of the people who thought you wouldn’t amount to anything,” Nori dutifully recites. The corner of his mouth quirks up slightly. “And also to eat cake.”

“And also to eat cake,” Jim echoes, cracking a smile in return. “Ready?”

Nori steals another kiss, then nods. “Ready.”

“Alright then,” Jim says, turning back to the inn with a clap of his hands. “What are we waiting for?”

The police bots open the door to a gasp from the group assembled within. Jim catches Nori’s hastily stifled snort from behind him and almost chokes holding his own laughter back.

The room erupts into cheers when the robots reveal Jim, who grins and spreads his arms to play to the crowd. Jim sees his mom smiling by a table before one of the police starts shaking his hand. Morph, who was presiding over the illustrious inn for the past few weeks, squeals and zips over to him, flitting around his head before bouncing to Nori and hiding in his hair. Once Nori, equal parts amused and exasperated, dislodges them, the little blob hangs themself off the front of Jim’s jacket in the form of a medal.

“Welcome home, sweetheart,” Jim’s mom says as she comes to a stop in front of him. He pauses for just a moment before sweeping her into a hug that lifts her off her feet. When he sets her down, giggling, she swats gently at his shoulder.

“Thanks, Mom,” he says. “It’s good to be back.”

She smiles at him for a moment more before catching sight of Nori, standing somewhat awkwardly at Jim’s shoulder.

“It’s good to see you, Mrs. Hawkins,” he offers, and she rolls her eyes.

“Oh, come here.” She beckons Nori forward until he’s close enough for her to embrace him too. Jim meets his gaze over her shoulder; Nori makes a good effort to look unruffled, but Jim can see the shine in his eyes. There’s something about a mother’s hugs, Jim supposes.

After that there’s nary a second to rest. Everyone Jim’s ever met in his life seems to be here, and they all want their chance to offer their congratulations enthusiastically (to him) and somewhat perplexedly (to Nori).

“You know I was his fourth year teacher?” he overhears Mr. Tibble tell someone. “I always knew that boy was going places.”

Yeah, Jim wants to interject, you told me it’d be to juvenile detention, but he’s swept away to shake some more appendages before he gets the chance.

He gets separated from Nori sometime between greeting his mom and escaping to Delbert and Amelia’s corner of the room for a reprieve. “Hey guys,” he says breathlessly, leaning his full weight on the table next to them.

“Yes, hello Jim,” Delbert replies. Amelia just chuckles delicately.

“Quite the event, huh?” Jim comments airily, gesturing to the room at large. In all honesty, it’s a little overwhelming. He’s never seen the Benbow packed this full.

“Oh yes,” Amelia responds. “I’d no idea how many people were so deeply invested in your success.”

Jim rolls his eyes. “Ha ha. Your kids are adorable, by the way, but Nori probably needs rescuing by now, so…” With a quick salute, returned with a nod and a “good luck,” Jim slips back into the throng of well-wishers.

Before he finds Nori, however, he stumbles into B.E.N. who quite literally throws themself at him. “Oh Jimmy!” they shout directly into his ear. “It’s been too long!”

“Yes it has,” replies Jim, grinning and wincing in equal measure. “I’m going to put you down now.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” B.E.N. says, alighting on the floor with a flourish. “Now, I’d love to chat, but I have a job to do, and you’d better find that boyfriend of yours. Everyone keeps asking about him, by the way. ‘Who is he? Where’s he from? How does he know Jim?’ The prevailing theories are that he’s your friend from the academy and you’ve been stationed together for your first mission. Oh, have fun you crazy kids!” In a whirl of lights and machinery, B.E.N. melts away as suddenly as they appeared. Jim stands still for a moment, stunned, before shaking his head with a smile.

“Never change, B.E.N.,” he says to no one, then forges onward through the crowd.

By the time he actually does track Nori down, the other boy has gotten his hands on a slice of cake. “Nobody knows who I am,” he tells Jim through a mouthful of chocolatey sponge, “but they’re all too embarrassed to ask. They keep shaking my hand and congratulating me, then looking at each other like I spoke Fixra or something.”

“To be fair,” Jim says, stealing the fork out of Nori’s hand, “I haven’t seen most of these people in, like, ten years at least.” He scoops up a heap of Nori’s cake and closes his eyes to savor it. B.E.N. really is a fantastic baker. “I doubt they’d know who I am if I hadn’t left such an impression.”

“Best kid they ever knew, right?” Nori jokes, grabbing his fork back. “Get your own if you want some, this is too good to share.”

Jim pouts to no avail. Nori’s stare is stone-cold as he shoves another bite into his mouth.

“Kise would be disappointed in you,” Jim says, and Nori scoffs.

“Kise would have punched you in the face if you tried to steal her cake,” he replies.

“She’s done worse for less,” Jim concedes.

He doesn’t end up having time to rustle up another slice of perfection on a plate because just then someone hands Mrs. Dunwiddie an accordion bug and a tambourine, kicking off a spirited bout of music and dancing. Jim and his mother skip arm in arm underneath the arched limbs of various family friends and loyal customers, with Delbert and Amelia following close behind, secure in the knowledge that the biggest pair of eyes in the room is watching over their children. Jim drags Nori away from the wall to dance with him next, laughing when Nori tries to twirl him and seizing the opportunity to dip him after. As they kiss in front of the crowd, Jim sees a few coins changing hands out of the corner of his eye.

Eventually they fall against a window, breathless and grinning from ear to ear. “See?” Jim almost has to shout to be heard over the music and cacophony of voices. “Told you it’d be great!”

“Okay, you were right,” Nori admits. “Who’s B.E.N. dancing with?”

“No idea!” Jim turns to follow Nori’s gaze and spots B.E.N. and another android, this one greenish with pink eyes, spinning around each other. Dimly he recalls B.E.N. yelling something earlier; it may have been Lupe, but it could just as easily have been anything else.

“Hey!” Nori says, drawing Jim’s attention back to him. He drapes his arms around the back of Jim’s neck, pulling him closer. “We made it!”

“We made it,” Jim repeats, hands coming to rest at Nori’s waist. It’s like it didn’t really sink in until this moment. Showing up all the people in the universe doesn’t really matter if he doesn’t believe in himself, and standing here in his mother’s inn, having graduated from the Interstellar Academy with honors, a whole cadre of friends whom he would trust with his life, and a future he’s ready to live for, he doesn’t just think he could be great. He knows he will be.

I wish Silver could see me now, Jim thinks, and out of the window, an orange star winks down at him from the Etherium.