When adequate memories had been planted, he pulled his hands away, breaking the connection between the three of them. Ned shuddered, and Eris hissed with pain as she lifted her hands up to her forehead. Adrissu’s head throbbed with exertion, too, but he kept his expression carefully neutral.
“What did—did you—?” Ned started again, frowning and blinking. Adrissu glanced between each of them with concern on his face.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “You both had a strange look on your face just now.”
Ned frowned deeper, putting a hand to his forehead. “I… Forgive me, I have a headache all of a sudden, I think.”
“I’m sorry to have brought all this stress on you all at once,” Adrissu replied, letting his voice waver.
“No, no, don’t apologize,” Eris murmured, rubbing her temples. “It’s alright, Headmaster. What were you saying about your son?”
It was as simple as that. His guise was safe for another century or so.
They both seemed to shake off the effects of the memory alteration after a moment and returned to their same attentive, sympathetic expressions, as he explained he would be away for at least a year, while remaining in contact with them as best he could.
“We’ll miss you,” Eris told him, as he gathered his belongings out of the headmaster’s office—it was a strange feeling, since it had always just beenhisoffice.
“I know,” he sighed, not quite meeting her gaze. “But I’ll be back.”
“Headmaster,” Nethendriel said suddenly, frowning. “Are you sure this is what you want to do? Don’t you think it would help, being somewhere familiar, where you have people who know you and care about you?”
Adrissu stifled a bitter laugh. They cared about him to the extent any employee might care about their superior; they wished him well only enough to pay their salary and keep the academy running smoothly, to deal with all the minutiae and red tape so they could teach their classes and conduct their studies. No one herereallycared about him. Even if they did, if they knew what he truly was…
But he couldn’t say that, so he managed a slight smile in response to Eris’ worried frown.
“I just need to get away from all this,” he sighed, gesturing. “It’s all... too much of him, still.”
For a long moment, they were silent.Him. Though he hadn’t named him, from the way Eris looked, Adrissu was sure she, at least, knew now that he was talking about Kian. But after a beat of silence, she only sighed and glanced away; Ned remained quiet, an increasingly uncomfortable expression passing over his face.
“And my son is there,” Adrissu added.
“That’s understandable,” Eris said softly, sadly, as Ned reached over to place a hand on the small of her back. She had always thought he was lonely, Adrissu knew, and all this must have only made him seem even lonelier.
“I’ll keep you updated,” Adrissu continued, shouldering the bag that held the last of his personal items.
“Safe travels, headmaster,” she replied. He brushed past the two of them and did not look back.
Adrissu spent longer than he would have liked simply wallowing in misery at home, but eventually he mustered the strength and momentum to leave. He had meant to travel, to get away from everything that reminded him of his mate and how much he’d failed, but part of him felt frozen with grief. A letter finally spurred him into action; it was addressed to Kian from one of his colleagues in Gennemont, asking after his progress on his research, and if he would like to visit again sometime. Adrissu penned a very uncomfortable message curtly informing the sender that Kian was deceased, then almost immediately decided that he would go to Gennemont himself to deliver it, so he might lose himself in their massive library. What he would study, exactly, he was unsure; but if there was anything that made him feel some semblance of normalcy anymore, it was studying.
He packed his bags, leaving Vesper behind to guard the tower, before soaring through the dark night. He flew until the first light of dawn inched up the horizon, then landed in an empty field about ten miles from Gennemont. In his go-to, unassuming human disguise, he slept for a few hours, then began walking toward the road around midmorning. It was early in the afternoon when Adrissu arrived on foot in Gennemont, and the heat of the day was at its peak. He rented a room at an inn that neither he nor Kian had ever visited, then bathed and changed into fresh clothes before heading toward the school with the letter for Kian’s colleague. He also carried a fake letter of introduction from Adrissu, dubbing his human guise as Adam, a promising student, with a request to access the library for his research. It was vague, but would suffice to grant him access for the semester.
The receptionist at the library was a bored-looking boy, probably a student volunteering at the library for extra credit.
“Identification,” he prompted as Adrissu stepped through the doors, and he handed him the letter of introduction. The boy considered it, gave Adrissu a careful look, then handed it back. “Let me fill out a visitor’s form for you. Long way from Polimnos, eh?”
“It was,” Adrissu agreed, nodding. He pulled out the second letter. “I was also asked to deliver this, but I don’t know who the recipient is...”
The receptionist took it, looking at the name with a frown. “I don’t know him myself, but I know his advisor. I can pass it to her to give to him if that’s alright with you.”
Adrissu nodded silently, and the boy set the letter aside, bringing his attention back to the visitor form. Once it was complete, he handed it to Adrissu and waved him through.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in the Gennemont library. It was expansive, and he had no idea where to start.
A thought tickled him—he wondered how much information they had on dragons, and how much of it was true. As he wandered, observing the layout of the library, he realized maybe understanding what mortals truly knew of dragons would be beneficial. Could anyone in that village have known that the yellow dragon—Vantas—was barely a hatchling, or that he had a twin? Did even the wisest of mortals have any conception about the stages of draconic growth, any recognition that a dragon was at its weakest when its lair was new, its body small and young?
Knowing would only help. He walked slowly, purposefully, until he found a section on magical beasts and creatures: monsters that were real and monsters that were myths. The section was sorted alphabetically by creature name, so it was quick work to find the section on dragons, which took up an entire bookshelf, narrow as it was. The number of books surprised him; he wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but he would have been far less surprised by either only a handful of texts, or else an entire section.
The first book was titled “An Overview of Dragons”, which seemed a good place to start. He pulled it from the shelf and found an empty chair amongst the groups of students gathered around long tables, studying with their own tomes and parchments strewn about; then he began to read.
