Avyr wondered, sometimes— if even the kind ones didn’t understand, then what hope did they have? He sighed, pulling on his qi with a simple movement— unhurried by any technique— raising the temperature around his paws fast enough that a slight flame all but invisible to the casual observer burst into being around him. All the dirt that’d been stubbornly clinging onto his fur since his herbology class earlier in the day burst off, falling in little pitters of almost-molten earth to its cold brethren below.

  The herbology professor had been nice enough. She’d expressly told the class that her sole goal in life had been to spread knowledge of the practice— and to him, in private, that so long as he continued to put forward his best foot… or, paw… she’d continue helping him to the best of her ability. Yet… she didn't quite understand. Buried beneath her acceptance, so deep that Avyr wondered if she even realized she was doing it in the first place, was an obstinance borne of the same fruit— she wanted him to do things her way. A very human way.

  He was not human, and so… he feared that he was doomed to failure regardless.

  The weather, as he slunk through the summer-green paths of the university towards his next clas was disconcertingly cheery for his mood. His cultivation sang with the radiant sunlight, streaming down over the whole city— the pagodas that rose high into the sky around him, the yearning trees and grasses and so many different plants, uncountable in their variety. About him, refreshingly fresh air swirled and whispered, swept up by some northerly breeze— pleasantly cool, carrying on it the first echoes of autumn. It ruffled his fur in mesmerizing waves, playing and leaping and laughing away into the far distance.

  He sighed, again, this time a far more gentle sound— hoping, in the same way his hope had materialized before, that this class would be better than the others. He had to pull out his map every now and again to check he was making towards the right destination, but eventually he found the classroom— or, rather, the tower the classroom was held in. Unlike most of the buildings in the innermost parts of the university, it was not wrought of delicately carved wood— rather, it was a much more blocky building of concrete and steel, reminiscent far more of buildings in the outer parts of East Saffron than anything that should have been present in the innermost echoes of long-passed ages.

  A plaque sat above the entrance way, inscribed in a lithe language all curled and swept, which he didn’t recognize in the slightest. It didn’t resemble the common languages at all— nor did it resemble any of the isolated languages of the forests of Refuge, of his kind. He wondered what it meant, that he’d not seen its like in any of his personal studies…

  Something, perhaps, for another time.

  He slipped inside, pushing open the door with a delicate touch— careful not to follow the instinct that told him to extend his claws and get a better grip on the doorknob. It would be embarrassing if he was referred to some punishment committee so soon for defacing university property or some such thing…

  The interior was no less underwhelming. Compared to the majestic pagodas that lay littered around the university grounds, the dull, almost spiritless office-like interior of the building was painfully different. It’d clearly seen better days, too— he would not quite describe it as in disrepair, but neither was it wholly well kept.

  There was, thankfully, a sign that pointed him to where he needed to go— Post-Imperial Sect Ideology; Philosophy of Cultivation in the Modern World, top floor. Helpful. There was an elevator, but some students were filing into that, so he figured it’d probably be best not to cram himself in with them. Humans didn’t like to be in close proximity with his kind, typically. The fear was irrational— he was no more dangerous than any other human—

  Well, any other human of comparable cultivation level, at least, and he was pretty sure from everything he’d seen that he was somewhat above average when it came to his exact cultivation…

  Caught up in his thoughts, he ascended the stairs, step by step slinking up until he reached the uppermost floor of the building— an open, stark nothingness, hallway on the edge of an airy window revealing, the whole city seemingly spread out below them.

  Fifteen floors off the ground, higher than most of the pagodas around them save only a few, the city was… Beautiful, in a way, bordered by the bare concrete of the building around him made only all the more so.

  One day, he hoped, once they’d settled into the Bloody Saffron Sect, he and Lily would truly be able to explore everything East Saffron had to offer. He still had plenty of time before class, so, until then… sunlight streaming through high windows, yang qi haloing him in faint memory of the intensity of that heaven-piercing peak, he sat down and took in the whole-city vastness.

  Almost unconsciously, his breath settled into that familiar rhythm, the solar qi drawn to him and settling over his core like a particularly comfy blanket. He could probably… fall asleep, here, trapped in that shaft of sunlight, if he so felt like it…

  “You look comfortable.” Avyr didn’t respond for a moment— thinking he was dreaming. After all, why else would someone be speaking to him in his native language? “A perfect little sun-spot. You must have been tired.” He glanced behind him— but instead of some indistinct, hazy memory of kin long lost, there stood a young cat he’d never seen before.

  Right. There had been a few other cat students— he’d seen them at the initiation ceremony, but hadn’t sought them out. He’d had more important tasks that required his attention at the time. “Hello,” he mewled, relishing the ability to speak without having to modulate his voice for the human tones. It wasn’t all that difficult, not now that he’d gotten plenty of practice, but as the cat anatomy could not quite grasp the full range of human speech, so too could the human speech entirely occupy the fullness of the cat’s anatomy. There was a richness, in the language of his youth, that felt at times almost painfully lacking from the human speech.

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  “Not asleep then.” His fellow cat flicked his tail in polite dismissal, settling down beside him. “Probably for the best. I dread to think what the humans would do to you if they found you sleeping on their precious floors.”

  Avyr flicked his tail in return. “Not much, probably. Quiet distaste, maybe, but then again a human caught sleeping on the floor would probably get as much.”

  “A human committing human crimes always gets off lighter than a cat doing the same.”

  Avyr raised an eyebrow. “Crimes are crimes. I don’t see the difference.”

  “I don’t mean—” a clenched paw, sunlight glinting for a second off claws. “Social crimes. In the eyes of the humans, we’re criminals by our very nature, just by coming to this place and breathing the same so-rarified air as they do— as if we didn’t fight and bleed and die for their wars. As though we were the ones that asked to be enslaved.” There was a very real vitriol to those words— not one that Avyr hadn’t felt before himself, though. There was always a sense of profound unfairness to the whole deal. He had a point.

  Still, there was no point in letting it get to him. He just breathed in deeply, pulling in the yang of the world and then, once more, exhaling. Calm. Quiet. “It is what it is. We’ve already reached their most exalted ranks— save those of the sect disciples themselves— if our species doesn’t earn us any favors, then surely our work will?”

  “A human would sooner die than respect a cat.”

  “My…” he read the expression, the bitterness that had draped itself over the other cat, and decided to let sleeping lions lie for the moment. A more nuanced conversation could wait until… “I don’t think I caught your name, actually.”

  “Svvh. Ji’an Svvh of White Rock Refuge.”

  “Ai’er Avyr of Black Rock Refuge. Formerly.” Not that that place really existed anymore. “Nice to meet you. I’ve not had the chance to speak with many cats since I left Refuge, so it’s nice to get to talk with one again.”

  “Must have been torture.”

  He shrugged. “It wasn’t actually that bad. They’re not idiots— even if they sometimes act like some—” by Svvh’s ugly snort, he figured he’d taken his rather lighthearted joke in an entirely more serious manner— “so their various teachings aren’t entirely without merit.”

  “You’re well acquainted with human philosophies?”

  Avyr nodded. “Well enough. I mean, aren’t you? You have to be, to have gotten into the elite cohort in the first place.”

  A shake of the head. “I try and avoid human inanity as much as I can. The less I have to deal with that sort of thing, the better…”

  “I doubt you’ll be able to do that in this class.”

  “I know.” He all but snarled— “I’m not looking forward to it. More preaching by humans who don’t even know how foolish they are? Save me the torture and just string me up already. If I didn’t have to get through these classes to get to the actually important stuff— and the cultivation— then I’d have dropped them entirely.”

  “Bad teachers?”

  “In my last classes, yes. They seem to have no idea what to do with someone who isn’t exactly like them. I hate it.” He stopped for a second, breathing heavily. “I hate it. The way it makes me feel like a rank fool— like a kitten who can’t even do the most basic tasks, and the disappointment they always seem so ready to talk about, as if they weren’t the ones solely responsible for setting me up for failure in the first place.” Svvh slapped a paw down on the concrete beside him, the sound startlingly loud— for a moment, quiet, before he slumped in an all-too-relatable exhaustion. “Whatever. I’ll just memorize whatever they put before me and hope that’s good enough.”

  Avyr didn’t respond. He didn’t need to.

  Slowly, a few more students began to make their way up, and— even though he was certain that none of them could understand them, what with them speaking a rare foreign language that most humans would struggle immensely to learn— he and Svvh, by some unspoken agreement, shifted to far more mundane topics. The weather— the climate, so much colder up north than the familiar warmth of the southern equatorial lands they’d grown up in— the city, the troubles when it came to acquiring food that didn’t have something or another poisonous within them… The architecture, which never failed to be annoying for the cats’ build, whether it was seats that were just a little too cramped or doors with difficult-to-grab handles or whatever.

  Finally, the professor arrived. As they were funneling into the classroom— a rather quiet, nice little thing, perched atop the tall building and bordered by those massive glass windows, lit with streaming sunlight, almost alive in that glorious radiance— Svvh leaned in to him, whispering. “The other cat students and I are part of the Refuge Culture and Society… club, of sorts. We meet every other week at our place near the interior woods. Close to where Qi Theory is held. If you’re interested.” There was something in there, some touch of… he could not tell what it was, beyond the faint glimmer that twinkled across his deepling eyes— but it sounded fun. And, to just spend a little time with his fellow kind, once again…

  It would be good. To be with someone who understood.