Common sense was supposed to be reliable—simple rules like students can only leave campus on weekends, group classes happen every Tuesday and Thursday, and final exams are coming in a month. But outside the Academy walls, those rules felt meaningless. As I tried to accept everything I had just learned from Shrik and Lanius, my thoughts tangled into knots.
"Is that… even possible?" I asked.
Shrik answered calmly, saving me from spiraling any further. "We're not adults by human standards. Among the Ikin, adulthood begins at fifteen. So what we call 'marriage' is really just a promise between the two of us."
His steady voice helped ground my thoughts, but I still needed one more answer.
"Lanius," I said. "Start from the beginning. How did you end up at Trinity Academy?"
She hesitated, lips tightly sealed. But Shrik nodded, and eventually she mirrored him. Together, they began their story.
To the south of the Alima Union lies the vast Jir Forest—a dense, untouched wilderness where a tribe of winged beastmen lived far from human civilization. The Ikin valued nature above all else. They rejected cities, rejected technology, and rejected anything they believed tainted the purity of their way of life. Children grew up learning only the tribe's rules, living and dying without ever questioning them.
But there are always exceptions.
"Lanius! Come play with us!"
"…No."
A young Lanius quietly refused the other children, folding her brown wings neatly behind her. The others whispered about her the moment she walked away—her solitary habits, her silence, her emptiness. Even her own parents struggled to understand her. She rarely spoke, felt almost nothing, and spent her days staring at wooden dolls or the open sky.
When she felt overwhelmed, she flew.
Her Gift—Unaffected by Wind—let her ascend effortlessly, cutting through branches and leaves until the blue sky opened above her. Sunlight warmed her face. Clouds drifted overhead. The boundless freedom she found in those brief seconds was something she couldn't feel anywhere else.
But one day, just before she descended—she noticed it.
Between the trees stood a cabin. Small. Secluded. Forbidden.
She should have reported it to the chief immediately. But curiosity outweighed obedience.
The closer she got, the more her heart raced. The cabin looked too clean to be abandoned. No footprints, but the forest around it felt… tended. And when she pushed open the unlatched door, the faint smell of cooked food lingered in the air. Someone lived here.
"Mother?"
Lanius froze. A thin boy stared at her from the bed.
"You're not my mother… Oh! Are you a guest?"
He tried to stand, smiling brightly—until she saw his back.
He had only one wing.
His name was Shrik.
A cursed child, born incomplete. The Ikin chief saw him as an omen and exiled him to a cabin outside the village. No one was allowed to visit except his parents.
Lanius, who barely interacted with anyone, had never heard of him.
So the two met—
a sickly, outcast boy,
and a girl desperate to escape her suffocating world.
Shrik owned books and items from the outside world, treasures she had never seen. Lanius visited again and again, discovering joy in someone for the first time.
"I can't really see the sky from here," Shrik said one day, lying on the dirt outside the cabin. The tangled branches hid everything above them.
Lanius understood immediately.
He had never flown.
Never seen the world she loved so much.
"We're trapped," she murmured.
Shrik laughed softly. "You can fly though. Can't you look at the sky whenever you want?"
"The rules," she said. "Thirty seconds. No more."
"Even thirty seconds would be amazing," he replied.
She looked at his empty right side—where his wing should have been. And something inside her cracked open.
"…I'll show you," she said.
"Huh?"
"The sky," she repeated. "I'll show you."
He shook his head sadly. "I can't—"
"Wings," she interrupted. "I'll give you those."
Shrik stared at her. Lanius stood, trembling with determination.
"Only for you."
Shrik paused there, but I lifted a hand before they could continue.
"That's enough. I get the picture." Honestly, it was a touching story, but the sun was already starting to dip. "So basically, the village persecuted you, and somehow you ended up here."
"Yes," Shrik said.
"We were exiled," Lanius added. Her voice was firm for the first time. "I promised to give Shrik the sky. Even if my wings were torn off, that wouldn't change."
"…Right. But what does that have to do with the Academy?"
Her tone dropped back into her usual choppy rhythm—embarrassed she had said too much.
"Village exile. City settlement. Letter. Parcaso. Proposal. Deal."
"Deal?"
Shrik nodded. "You've seen Rani's armor and mechanical wing, right?"
"Obviously."
"The Academy heard rumors about armor that could make even a wingless Ikin fly. They sent us a letter. They would support Rani's growth and help treat my condition… and in return, they wanted me to create armor that even a human with no wings could use."
A faint tingling ran across my forehead—my Gift reacting.
Why did Principal Parcaso want that?
Was it just research curiosity?
Or was there a deeper purpose?
"Shrik," I began.
But Lanius shook her head sharply, silencing him. He simply smiled back at her. They didn't need words to understand each other.
Suddenly, I felt like an intruder.
"Uh… wow, look at the time. I should… get some rest."
[…What was THAT tone supposed to be?]
Shut up, Kyle.
I'm leaving before this turns into some melodrama.
Despite my awkward excuse, Shrik only smiled politely.
"Yes. Goodbye, Connor."
"Yeah… uh…"
As I reached the door—
"Connor."
Lanius called me.
She held Shrik's arm tightly and fixed me with a glare sharp enough to cut steel.
"If you speak, you die."
My forehead tingled again. This time, it was a warning.
And I believed her.