A ravishing meal turned into a quiet walk down a garden-enclosed boulevard. Xala held his hands behind his back as Colhern walked beside him. Xala’s eyes studied the flora and fungi housed between the two megabuildings of stone, each one littered with statues and patterns that made each one feel alive. He could feel the eyes of ancient peoples look down upon him with a complex blend of scrutiny and hospitality. A few people walked around the duo, each of them quiet and respectful, in a manner that completely went against the chaos of Fae Town. Druids protected this place. Their wooden and bone and stone totems were sprinkled throughout the naturescape while they meditated beneath giant mushroom trees and subterranean willows.

  “This place is beautiful, and hard to find. I suspect you’ve taken a few people here, no?”

  “Only a few. Not many people make it past dinner.”

  “Your fault, or theirs?”

  “Hey, I’m sorry if I have a specific taste!”

  “Ah, so I’ve remained within that narrow criteria? How flattering.”

  “Aw, c’mon, don’t take it that way! You’re very interesting, criteria met or not. Besides, it’s not like I have an actual list of wants. I just go off vibes.” Colhern got a bit closer in his stride, “And, I like yours.”

  “Vibes?” When Colhern got closer, Xala could feel his body tense up. When he posed no threat, his body relaxed a little and he maintained his pace. Thankfully, Colhern did not notice.

  “Y’know, a sort of,” he waved his hands around in an attempt to grasp the definition, “Overall feeling you get from someone. Whether it's good or bad. It takes me very little to tell whether I like someone’s vibe or not.”

  “Huh. And I am full of good ones?”

  Colhern’s lips pursed as he turned around, walked backwards, and looked at Xala through lidded eyes, “You’re full of ones I like.”

  Xala tilted his head, content to engage in the dance. He suddenly stepped closer, made Colhern stumbled backward, and used a spell to wrap a levitation charm around his waist and keep him suspended mid-fall. He walked toward Colhern’s side, leaned down to meet his eyes, and said, “What an odd thing to say.”

  Colhern had to hide his giggle with a hand as he felt the tingle of the charm, glanced down to see the blue runes that made a belt around his waist, and said, “I have a feeling oddness doesn’t put you off.”

  “Oh, is that a vibe you are getting?” He wiggled his eyebrows, guided the charm to let Colhern stand back up on his feet, and dismissed it.

  “Hey, don’t mock me! Sorry I don’t speak like I’m writing with a quil.” That earned him an elbow-jab in the side. Colhern’s mouth fell open and he played offense, before he and Xala burst out laughing.

  For the next hour, their stroll through the garden turned into quaint streets full of small shops and peaceful atmospheres. Through every alleyway, Xala could see the chaos of Fae Town’s main streets and broadways, but nestled between each was a labyrinth of elegance and charm. Flowers were grown beneath miniature orbs of light that twinkled as they walked past, shops had an entire staff of animated cutlery, tools, or suits of armor, and the people they passed wore all manner of attire. Xala recognized a few pieces and ornaments around a woman’s neck that came from Okra! Robes, trousers, sashes, burqas, saris, cowls, wide-brimmed pointy hats, leatherware of all kinds from a broad spectrum of modesty, pants with too many pockets, and mixed fashions all sailed past Xala like ships in the night. When people came up to him and complimented him on his shawl he smiled and nodded, attempted to make up a compliment back, and earned a range of reactions. It was rare he got complimented, and rarer that he returned the sentiment.

  After a long journey of windowshopping, where Xala offered Colhern heaps of laughter thanks to his point and gawk technique, he pulled the both of them aside into an alleyway and gave Xala a more serious look.

  “Xala, I haven’t had this much fun in a long time. I’d like to see you again. Do you have a place I can come to pick you up, or call you?”

  He stood silent for a second. Xala’s mind whirred with questions about whether he should tell the truth or not. He did not have anywhere to go, but realistically, all he had to do was kill someone who did have a home, transform into them, and squat in their home.

  But, as he looked up at Colhern, he saw the genuine curiosity in his eyes. The interest and affection was palpable.

  “No. I,” he smirked, “I actually got to Feltkan this afternoon.”

  Colhern’s eyes lit up and a smile spread, “Hah! Double welcome, then! I hope I made your first night memorable. As for a place to stay,” he put a hand to his chin as he looked up and down the alleyway. It was empty, save for a few dumpsters and sodden trash sprinkled around and within puddles of ancient water that hardly evaporated in the dark. “You could stay at my place?” The look on Xala’s face immediately told Colhern he was going too fast, “No pressure, I have a guest room you can take.”

  “I wouldn’t want to intrude,” the irony was not lost on him. “You’ve already done so much for me tonight. I would hate to be a burden.”

  “No, you wouldn’t be a burden. Plus, it could be fun to have a roommate. I haven’t had any since I moved out of my family’s place. My sisters, all older than me mind you, were relentless. So, just as long as you don’t wedgie me with a spell, you’re welcome to stay.”

  “Heh, alright, I promise. Yes, please. How should I pay you?”

  “I’m not sure. I won’t charge you rent, so, I guess we’ll just figure it out?”

  Colhern was a very strange man. To Xala, his genuine kindness and flirtatious nature was enigmatic and difficult to reciprocate. Xala saw an enemy that lurked behind every glance, every touch, every person. A writhing, festering hatred that simply had to be coaxed out. He consumed enough people’s souls to know that even saints had evil within them. Alas, for Colhern, he did not feel the enemy within. Was this what Colhern meant by someone’s overall feeling?

  Colhern’s apartment building, a stone pillar of balconies and oozing gardens, was situated beside a massive park overflowing with life beneath one of the largest skylights Xala had seen thus far. The duo walked into the building and entered a dome-shaped marble and glass themed lobby area covered in greenery and lavender flowers. Xala looked at them, the ones on his shawl, toward a slightly embarrassed Colhern, and raised an eyebrow.

  They continued toward the trifecta of elevators in the center of the massive dome, each one a column of glass and marble. Colhern led Xala onto the mosaic platform, closed the curved door, and stood up straight as a waffer of green lights bloomed to life above them both and moved downward, scanned their bodies, and spoke in an ethereal, rigid voice all around them, “Colhern Malren and guest. Welcome. Where would you like to go, Mister Malren?”

  “Just my place, Shaza, thank you.”

  “My pleasure.” The voice vanished and the platform began to rise.

  Xala immediately stumbled and put his hands on either side of the chute as they were propelled upward by some form of propulsion and levitation mechanism. Colhern caught him and chuckled, “First time in an elevator?”

  Is that what you call this death machine?!” The chute went through the ceiling of the lobby and burrowed into the stone building’s innards, a rocky, dark place. They were illuminated by the golden light emitted between the tiles of their platform, enough that Xala saw the stone doors they whizzed past on their climb. The other three glass and marble chutes were nowhere to be found. They must lead to other parts of this abominable building.

  “Haha, relax, you’re totally safe. These things are built with nulls like me in mind, so you shouldn’t have a problem.”

  “In the very obviously real case there is a problem with this thing?!”

  The platform began to slow down as the glass chute entered a tinted section. Xala looked up to find the very top of the elevator, and stood up with quivering legs as the tinted glass unfolded in segments, laid flat against the ceiling, and revealed the luxurious suite. They were at the very top, and around them was a circular room covered in beautiful furniture and mosaics and murals all over the walls. Archways revealed the wrap-around balcony outside. A cool wind blew through those archways and caressed Xala’s skin. Rooms were created by stone columns connected by paper panel walls, easily movable and exchangeable. He stepped off the elevator and walked toward the living area, where a conversation pit was excavated to make room for a circular lavender colored sofa with a table in the center.

  The whole space was an immaculately designed oasis. Art covered every panel with illustrious paint. As Xala walked past the paint, he smelled the arcana laced within the dried liquid and watched as a serpentine dragon crawled and flew across the clouds as he walked past. Each piece had a certain airy and colorful style to it, where every brushstroke was made with determined care and careful consideration.

  He turned toward Colhern, who stood with his hands in his pockets and a smug look on his face, and said, “I did not pin you as an artist.”

  “What? Did my fit make you think I didn’t have taste?” He shook his leg, drawing attention to his baggy grey joggers. “Aside from clothing, I can find the beauty in anything.”

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  “Hm, I wish that were true,” Xala said to himself as his eyes drifted toward another room, visible through the open sliding door.

  “What do you mean?”

  Xala had not realized he spoke aloud until he saw Colhern’s confused face, smiled weakly, and said, “I wish that was true for most people.” He walked toward the open room and paused before a shrine of achievement. Trophies, golden and silver and bronze, stood high on pedestals covered in medals, awards, and certificates.

  Colhern walked up to Xala’s side and said, “I agree. Nowadays, everyone sees the ugliness first.” He moved his hand to shut the door, but Xala interrupted him by stepping inside. Colhern cringed slightly. He was proud of his achievements, but it was usually a bad thing to bring a date into this room. It always changed the way they saw him for the worse.

  Xala walked toward the trophies and read aloud, “Fae Town Champion of Four-E Four-Hundred-Twenty-One.”

  “Yup, won that last year.”

  He looked around some more and pieced together what these were for. Pitfighting. Brawling. Martial arts. “You’re a gladiator?”

  “We just call ourselves fighters or martial artists. Gladiator is a little out-dated, but a few Drakul still use that term.”

  “You know, back where I come from, I used to go to the Arena every day. I loved watching the,” he supposed gladiators might be the wrong word, “Warriors spar and compete. Though, I’m surprised, you don’t strike me as the killing type.”

  “Oh, no, we don’t kill each other. That ended just before I was born. Also, you’ll have to stop making assumptions about me,” he stood closer, leaned against a stone support beam, and cooed, “I’ve got a lot of tricks up my sleeve.”

  “Fair point,” he side-eyed Colhern. Xala put his hands behind his back, nodded, and said, “You’ll have to bring me to one of your matches, some day.” He turned on his heels and strolled out of the room, around a bend, exited an archway covered in colorful aqua blue tiles, and leaned against the parapet. Moonlight caressed the world beneath him and wreathed the park in a bluish glow. The pond in the center reflected the night sky through the pinhole that was the skylight in Fae Town’s roof. He heard the scuff of Colhern’s shoe as he followed and said, “I’ve rarely given much thought to nulls, and how they live without magic. Where I come from, they are treated as second class citizens. Nothing is designed for them, nothing is made for them. They must make all their own feats. And yet, there are more of them than those who cast. Here, I can sense the equalization.”

  Colhern put both hands on the stone beside Xala and leaned forward to look over the edge. Three hundred feet separated them from the ground below. “Feltkan’s always been a good place for nulls. It’s been that way ever since it was founded by a null and his lover.”

  “Oh? Do you know the story?”

  “Eh, somewhat. Back when Feltkan was just a fishing village full of nulls, two humans came from the west. They were exiles, sent to die in the wilderness. The fishing village took them in and the woman, a mage, showed them her abilities. They were terrified, but her husband convinced them to let her help. She created nets, boats, fishing poles, spears, and wire that could help the nulls collect more fish at a time. With her help, the village flourished. She did the work and her husband became a leader of the people. He was a monster hunter who could best any beast, and when a Saultan came to crush the village, he single-handedly defeated it with his bare fists. I doubt that part, but,” he shrugged, “The people loved them both. Their children were a mixture of nulls and mages, and so on, until that fishing village turned into the Feltkan we live in today.”

  “Interbreeding? Huh. Curious.”

  Colhern’s lip twitched as he shot Xala a suspicious look, “What? Are you one of those pureblood types?”

  “Pureblood types?”

  “The ones who believe mage blood needs to be pure, and that mages are superior.”

  “I never gave it much thought. I don’t know my parents, but I know that hybrids are heavily looked down upon. Or at least, were. They were back home,” he clarified, “Sometimes lynched for sport. I’ve never really imagined a place that didn’t operate that way.”

  “Huh. No wonder you don’t want people to know where you’re from. It sounds backwards as fuck.”

  “Oh, you have no idea. The fact that there are so many different races here still shocks me. A lack of race wars and mass violence is incredible. It is a pleasant shock, though. The idea that I don’t have to live in fear, at least not on the basis of my appearance, is quite nice.”

  Colhern smirked, “You sound ancient.”

  “Oh? I still speak as though I’m writing with a quil?”

  “Hah, yes, but I like that. It’s your vocab. And, well, everything, I guess.”

  Xala pursed his lips, put a hand to his jaw, and tapped his finger against his cheek. It was practical to understand the modern world, and thus, manage to speak the modern world’s tongue and dialect. He looked to Colhern and said, “Then you are polite to not lecture me, but I would like to better fit in. Tell me when I say something backwards.”

  “People usually say species instead of race, the way you use it. Race is moreso for,” he gestured toward his dark ebony complexion compared to Xala’s pale ivory. “Coloration and pigment. It applies to all species.”

  “So, are there people who utilize this new form of race as a means of collaboration? Do humans and elves with my complexion look down upon those of yours, rather than it being a matter of interspecies hatred?”

  “Huh. Uhm, no, that was sort of dealt with by individual species before we all sang justalah. Oh, c’mon, you don’t even know that one? It’s peace, holding hands, singing how much we love each other. Hippy shit. Woah, you were isolated.”

  “Should I just pretend that I know what you’re saying? Or, is there some sort of dictionary that tells me what these things mean?”

  Colhern raised his eyebrows, scoffed, and said, “Ok. I get it now. Wherever you come from, they don’t have Lyceum. Uh-huh, yeah, based on your face, I’m right.” He reached into his jacket and plucked out a small black disc. He rubbed his thumb across one of the reflective surfaces and held it between them. Holograms burst out of the disc as it converted into a hemispherical projector of three-dimensional shapes, like from the restaurant. However, Colhern’s holograms were a frenzy of mapped out imagery of locations, broadcasts, literature, art, and even a few dozen fighting styles animated by people made of featureless light demonstrating the moves. “This is the Lyceum. Well, this is a Lectern, but the stuff it shows comes from the Lyceum. Most of the world’s knowledge, most of the world’s trade, and all sorts of other stuff go through it. If you have a Lectern, or something that can connect to the Lyceum, you have access to all that stuff.”

  Xala stood in mesmerized shock. He reached up to touch the shapes and watched the light bend and warp under his touch. When he ran his fingers along a floating flat page of text, he blinked as he scrolled down to see the rest of it. He played with a few of the interactable shapes for a moment, simply baffled, before he looked to Colhern and asked, “Who can put stuff into it?”

  “Anyone. Watch,” he took his hand away from the Lectern to let it float between them. He brought up a bar an array of floating letters, typed into it, and all the holograms were minimized to make way for a list of different options based on the search. He navigated it for a moment, brought up a blank page, and used the “keyboard” to type in a random set of letters, tapped on the send button, tapped three times on his minimized holograms, brought them back to full size, and gestured toward a jumble of tabs full of opinions and random statements, and there was his message. “This is just one room where you can post stuff, and there are billions. Anyone with access to this room can see it.”

  “Huh. Is everything you say in these rooms protected? Does anything get filtered out?”

  “Uh, yeah, it depends on where you are and how you’re using it. For example, a lot of movies and media are banned in Feltkan’s borders. But, in Fae Town, it's practically standard knowledge to get past the censors and just have access to whatever we want.”

  Xala paused, blinked, and asked, “What does the rest of the world think about how Feltkan treats mages?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Surely, the rest of the world does not agree with how Feltkan handles mages, right? Some enforcers were ready to arrest me because I dried off someone’s shirt after I spilled some alcohol on him. In fact, the entire bar got angry at me! There is no conceivable way the rest of the world is simply fine with such ignorance and,” he gestured around the Fae Town below them, “Segregation.”

  Colhern stared at Xala, at a loss for words, before he chuckled and said, “Uhm, well, I guess I’ve never really looked. Anywhere outside of Feltkan isn’t really talked about, unless you’re really into politics. A few of my friends are, but,” he shrugged, “They don't talk to me about that stuff. But, what’s this about you spilling alcohol on someone, before me?”

  Xala’s lip twitched at Colhern’s lack of awareness, at his lack of drive against whatever was so clearly deeply wrong in this city, but his irritation vanished and embarrassment took its place. He told Colhern about his encounter in the night club, and halfway through Colhern stopped him and laughed at the idea that he charmed the bouncer just to let him in.

  Despite Xala’s earlier curiosity, their conversation shifted toward more flattery and a constant change of topic. They took it from the balcony to the pit in the primary living room. Colhern offered drinks and snacks, which Xala took meager but polite interest in. They spoke into the night’s long hours, fascinated by the sound of their own voices. Colhern told Xala about his favorite bands and artists, played their music in the background, while Xala told him about literature he remembered from his time. He could recite ancient poems off the top of his head, which made Colhern only more fascinated by his out-dated references and linguistics.

  Finally, Colhern’s droopy eyes closed shut for the last time in the midst of Xala’s analysis of a long-dead philosopher’s ideas. When Colhern was asleep, Xala sat up. He did not require sleep. To him, dreams were falsehoods invented by those who could sleep and simply got bored in their darkness. Xala’s race — or, apparently, species — was incapable of rest. He looked down at Colhern, at his awkward position along the sofa, and sighed. He reached forward, gently lifted Colhern’s head, and guided it onto the seat cushions so he could be more comfortable on his side.

  When the task was complete, and an all too deep sleeper now lay before Xala, a piece of him hungered. Such an elite fighter, an exceptional charmer, and well-known face would be immaculate for him. A perfect agent to explore Fae Town with unrestricted freedom. An easy means to exist in a constant state of entertainment and debauchery. The idea made Xala’s head tingle at all the possibilities.

  And as soon as that hunger arrived, he clutched his chest and pushed it down. Why did he want to eat Colhern? This man had been so sweet, so gentle, so kind. Xala did not deserve any of it. If anything, he did not deserve to even be in his presence! He was a creature of blood and death, dedicated to the slaughter and consumption of mortals. His blood sang when he saw a potential meal.

  Xala held his face as he hunched over, stared at the floor, and shivered slightly. He was not even hungry. It was just because Colhern was such an easy target. Anyone who trusted Xala enough to sleep near him was. Lord Morl caught Xala’s fangs close to his throat many times, and punished him accordingly. Xala rubbed at his neck, as if those scars were on his elven form. Morl’s fangs and claws grazed and pierced his throat many times in many ways for many reasons. His fingertips ran down from his neck to his shoulders, where more existed in his true form.

  He looked toward Colhern and wondered if he would do the same to him. Even after centuries of dark contemplation, he still desired Morl. He desired his touch, no matter how painful. He looked at Colhern and wondered if he would come to desire that same touch, if it ever began. Sure, Colhern was nothing like Morl. He was far more hospitable toward the idea of life itself. Morl hated so many things, and when he looked at Xala, he was just another item on the list of hatreds. When would Colhern look at him in the same way? It was only a matter of time. Eventually, Xala always received that look.