The academy gates were taller than I expected.
Not just tall but watchful, black iron curved into sharp, deliberate shapes, etched with symbols I didn't recognize but somehow felt in my bones. They didn't hum with magic the way I had imagined, they didn't glow, threaten or roar. They simply waited.
Is tood at the foot of them with my duffel bag cutting into my shoulder, feeling very aware of how small I was. Around me, students arrived in clusters, laughing, shoving, scenting the air like they already belonged in it. Their voices carried confidence, the kind that came from knowing exactly what you were.
Wolf. I wasn't.
At least, that was what the paper work said. "Name?" The registrar asked without looking up. "Liora Vale," I replied. Her pen paused. Not dramatically, not suspiciously just long enough to be noticed. She lifted her head, eyes flicking over me in a way that made my skin prickle. She looked at me not with disdain or curiosity but confusion. Her brows knit together slightly, and for a moment, she leaned forward slightly as if you get a better look like a person trying to focus on something out of reach. Then she blinked. "Hmmm," she murmured, flipping through her ledger. "Human transfer." I nodded. That word again, Human. It followed me like a shadow, like a label stitched too tightly into my skin.
She stamped my admission papers and slid them across the desk. "Dormitory C. Curfew at ten, no access to Eastern wing. Don't wander." "I wasn't planning to," I said. She finally smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "No one ever is."
The academy grounds stretched wide and unforgiving, all stone pathways and towering spires. Everything felt old, not abandoned old but enduring. As if the walls had seen generations of wolves pass through them and decided which ones were worth remembering. I don't gfelt none of that recognition.
As I walked, conversations around me dipped and shifted, not stopping, but changing. Glances slid toward me and away just as quickly, they were not hostile but assessing.
I was used to that look, I had seen it my whole life. The quiet questions hiding behind polite restraint. What are you? Not who, it was never who.
I kept my head down and my pace steady, my fingers curling around the strap of my bag. I told myself what I had told myself a thousand times before. Stay quiet, stay small, stay unnoticed. That was how you survived places that weren't built for you.
Dormitory C sat at the edge of the grounds, half shadowed by a line of ancient trees. The building itself was narrower than the others, it's stone worn smooth with time. Inside, the air was cooler, quieter, less... alive. Good.
My room was on the third floor, tucked at the end of a long hallway. When I pushed the door open, yhe soace greeted me with bare efficiency, two beds, two desks and one window overlooking the forest. My roommate had not arrived yet.
I let out a breath I had nit even realized I was holding and dropped my bag onto the bed closest to the wall. For a moment I just stood there. Listening. The academy had a sound, not jiise but something deeper, a law steady presence beneath everything else, like a heartbeat pressed into the stone itself. It should have scared me, instead it felt...distant, like a song playing in another room.
I unpacked slowly, folding my clothes with care, placing my few personal items where they wouldn't draw attention. There was a mirror above the desk, I avoided it until I couldn't anymore.
The girl staring back at me looked ordinary enough, dark hair pulled into a low braid, calm eyes, nothing sharp, nothing loud. Nothing that screamed danger.
A knock sounded at the door, shape and sudden. I turned just as it opened, revealing a girl with golden hair and confident smile. "You must be the transfer," she said, stepping inside without waiting for permission. "I'm Elowen." "Liora," I replied. Her smile faltered, just for a second.
Her eyes flicked over me the same way the registrar's had, quick, searching, puzzled. She frowned, Inhaled subtly, then frowned deeper. "...weird," she muttered. "I get that a lot," I said evenly. She flushed. "Sorry. I didn't mean...well I did, but not like that. You just...don't smell the way I expected." There it was. "I'm human," I said simply.
Her expression shifted again, surprise followed by something like discomfort. "Oh right! I didn't know they were letting humans in now." "They're not," I replied. "This is a special case." She laughed awkwardly. "Of course it is."
We fell into silence after that, the kind that pressed rather than settled. Elowen busied herself unpacking, but I could feel her glancing at me when she thought I wasn't looking. It was uneasy, like I had broken some unspoken rule by existing.
Later, as the sun dipped low and the forest is outside darkened into silhouettes, a bell rang through the academy deep and resonant.
Dinner.
The dining hall was massive, all vaulted ceilings and long wooden tables. The energy inside it was different, louder, sharper. Wolves tiled the space with presence alone, laughter echoing, voices overlapping. I hesitated at the entrance. Elowen noticed. "You coming?" "Yes," I said. "Just... taking it in."
She nodded, but her eyes were already scanning the room, searching for familiar faces. Packs friend naturally here. You could see it in the way they clustered, the way they leaned towards each other. I moved alone.
As I walked, the air shifted, nothing dramatic but the space around me thinned like an invisible current diverting around a stone. A group of wolves at the nearest table went quiet, not all at once just enough to be noticed. One of them frowned, nostrils flaring slightly. Another tilted his head, eyes narrowing. I felt it again, that look, The judging question, "What are you?"
I took a seat at the end of an empty table and focused on my tray. I told myself not to look around but I failed. Across the hall, a group sat apart from the others, they were not larger or louder, but they were heavier, the kind of aura that didn't need to announce itself. I didn't know who they were, I didn't know why my attention snagged on them, only that one of them glanced up briefly, he had ocean blue eyes, casually his gaze passed over me without recognition. It was like he looked at me in absence like I wasn't there at all. My chest tightened, I looked away quickly, my heart beating for reasons that I didn't understand. It shouldn't matter, I didn't come here to be seen, I came to disappear.
And yet, as the academy settled around me, as whispers brushed against the edges of my awareness and the forest outside pressed closer to the walls, one unsettling truth rooted itself deep in my bones. This place didn't know what to do with me and somehow...neither did I.