Harvest 12 – 18, 855
Hurrying across the yard, eyes squinting against the driving snow, Buu did his best to keep his bearings. Only one hundred feet of open space separated his classroom from the dorms, but the blizzard that appeared during his arithmetic lesson turned the whole world unfamiliar.
The professors got angry if he didn’t bring his books to class, regardless of whether he used them. He kept them under his robes as he ran the gauntlet of the storm, stumbling as one slipped too low against his belly, catching at the top of his legs. By the time the dormitory door loomed out of the white before him, Buu shivered all over, panting with exertion.
Shortness of breath. Chills. Buu thought.
As he reached for its handle, the door burst open, catching his arm painfully and flinging him onto his tailbone. His books tumbled out of his robes, sliding into the snow. When Buu looked up, a pair of boys stood in the doorway.
They were the same boys that laughed at him in class whenever the teachers made him prove he didn’t know anything, and whispered to one another as he walked by, their stares burning against his skin.
“Oh! Sorry Buu,” Tiy, the leading boy said, not sounding very sorry at all. “We didn’t see you there.” Behind Tiy, one of the other boys laughed, only to be elbowed into quiet by his smirking companion.
Tuag loomed out of the snow, padding up to Buu and looking distinctly unimpressed. He had the uncanny knack of disappearing into the background of human awareness, despite his size and glowing eyes. His sudden reappearance wiped the grins off the boys’ faces. Tiy cleared his throat, sidling past Buu, his friends hot on his heels.
“We were just heading to the library,” he explained to Tuag. To Buu he added, “we’d invite you, but we know reading isn’t your strong suit.” The disdain in his eyes belied his sincere tone. They turned, swallowed up by the blizzard, leaving Buu firmly planted in the snow.
Brushing himself off and rubbing at his sore tailbone, Buu pulled himself to his feet. He swung his arm a few times to test his shoulder, and on finding it only bruised he adjusted his robes back into place, shivering as snow fell into his collar. As an afterthought, he gathered up his books.
“You could have growled or something at least,” Buu muttered to Tuag. “What’s the point of having a giant killer attack dog if it just…” he waved a vague hand at the grimm’s impressive bulk, “… looms.”
Tuag didn’t deign to answer, instead shaking as if the snow could stick to his ethereal coat. Buu paused, hand on the door handle, and took a deep breath. He just needed to get to his room, then he could sleep and put another awful day behind him.
The common areas of the dormitory burbled with quiet activity as students hunkered down to weather the blizzard. Keeping his head down, Buu ignored them all, walking as fast as he could without breaking into a run. He felt eyes on him like slugs, heavy and cold.
Nausea.
He practically fell into his room, eager to be alone and relatively safe. His foot caught on something soft, sending him stumbling into the centre of the dark space, but he caught himself before he tumbled over. He squinted to see anything by the dim light pouring in from the hall. He tripped on his bed sheets, strewn across the floor with a great tear down the middle. The notes that he painstakingly forced onto paper sat scattered in scholarly flurries, crumpled and battered. A strong odour of piss permeated the small space, his chair and night table laying on their sides like fallen soldiers.
Buu’s mouth dropped open as he took in the scene, his heart constricting in his chest until breathing became a chore. Turning on his heel, he stood outside the threshold, staring up and down the corridor, hoping for an explanation or perpetrator. But Tuag stood alone in the hall, shooting a disinterested look over Buu’s shoulder and into the ruined room beyond.
With every bone in his body screaming reluctance, Buu returned to the room, hoping that somehow it would be as he left it this morning. It wasn’t.
Fumbling through the overturned nightstand, Buu found his candle and a match. In the meagre light he took in the full carnage of the room. Tears stung at his eyes as he took in the words scrawled over his bed in bright white chalk. Buu couldn’t read them yet — the letters danced too quickly for him, responding to his pounding pulse — but he could feel the hatred etched there.
Eyes stinging, Buu remembered the smug grins of Tiy and Kijah. The pair out of place in a dormitory they didn’t live in, their eyes cold and victorious.
Buu considered running after them. Face growing hot, he savoured the image of each boy doubling over, their hearts in his hands as he showed them how hard he had been working to keep from lashing out. How good it might feel to finally let go. To let the other students know that the grimm wasn’t the only monster worth fearing on their campus.
The idea only sung to him for a few moments, its voice simultaneously grating and seductive. He wanted to throw up, but the bile taunted him from the back of his throat, unwilling to give him relief from his building nausea. Buu sunk to his knees, unwilling to lay on the bed where the smell of urine stank strongest. Staring at nothing, he tried to disappear.
His professors buzzed around him like flies — quick and circling, but without any purpose Buu could deduce. From his stool, Buu could see the entire artifice lab from the perspective of the teacher. Workbenches spread before him in organized ranks, empty stools flanking them, waiting for their students.
Trying to distract himself from the sight of Professor Buryn carefully selecting a pin from a set of glistening options, Buu studied the walls around him. Shelves stretched from floor to ceiling, each piled high with half-finished projects from students at every stage in their university careers. Some pieces glowed faintly, others spinning or twitching on their own. One wall was filled entirely with miniature owl statues in various states of completion — his own year one project sitting on the bottom shelf of this wall. One sad, shapeless pile of components among the almost finished work of his peers.
“How about this?” Professor Buryn asked as he pricked Buu’s arm with his pin.
Buu jumped, not having heard the large man approach. The jab stung, growing more painful as the professor continued to prod the same place. Buu grit his teeth until he couldn’t help the groan that escaped between them.
Tuag sat by the door, watching the proceedings with amused puzzlement written across his muzzle. As he once again failed to react, the hard clack of chalk on slate rang out — another variation being scraped from the list.
“I really thought that one would work,” Professor Buryn said to Professor Ryoh as he returned the pin. “It might only be a genuine threat that riles it.”
Buu twisted to stare at the professors, but they only looked at him like he was a puzzle to be solved. Rubbing at his sore arm, he turned back to see Aru crouching before him, waiting patiently for his attention. Buu cringed when he saw the feather in her hand.
“Really?” he asked.
“We have to rule everything out. If you want to get rid of the grimm, you need to let us experiment. None of our instruments could determine anything definitive about your bond with him, so we need to see what makes him tick.”
Aru’s voice wasn’t unkind, but nor did it have much patience left in it. This would be their second session in the workshop, both of which had lasted hours. Measurements, readings, poking, prodding, endless questions, all escalating as each option failed to determine a result.
“Shoes off please.”
With a groan, Buu complied, prying off the new deerskin shoes that had been provided to him and wiggling his toes in the cool air. As Aru brought the feather to his feet, Buu braced himself as best he could. Aru only stopped tickling him when tears rolled down his face.
“Okay, next up is magic,” Professor Ryoh announced, running a long chalk line through another option on the board.
He marched over to Buu with a long, elegant wand in hand, something he had probably made in this very room. Ignoring Buu’s nervous shuffling, he began to wave the wand in a simple loop, incanting in a monotone until Buu reached up, not quite grabbing at the tip, and cleared his throat loudly.
“Is this really necessary? The grimm only seems to react when I cast something, maybe we should start there?”
Professor Ryoh shot him an annoyed glance, dismissing his own spell with a flick of his wrist. Plastering a fake smile across his face, the professor knelt before Buu. When he spoke, it was with the sugar-sweet voice people reserve for speaking with children when they think they won’t understand.
“Buu, we are doing what is best for you. The grimm may have reacted to your magic in the past, but we need to be methodical and patient to work out if that’s the only thing it responds to. We’ve all been doing this for a long time,” he gestured to his colleagues, “so you need to trust the process. Okay? We’re just going to start with a healing spell, so if you even feel anything, it will be a pleasant sensation.”
Buu sighed, nodding stiffly as he eyed the board, only half of its scrawled items crossed off. He didn’t like the way Professor Ryoh had said start with a healing spell, but he couldn’t concentrate for long enough to decipher what other options awaited him on the unapologetic slate.
He watched the wand’s tip as it resumed its loops, a soft gold glow gathering there, catching on the air around it like spiderwebs. The wand came to rest on Buu’s arm, over the site of the pin pricks, the strands of light worming their way through Buu’s skin.
Buu closed his eyes, waiting for the pleasant sensation he had been promised. Instead, a wall of queasiness rose up to meet him, burying him until he retched. He stood from the stool, casting around for one of the sturdy garbage barrels used in the workshop, but couldn’t reach one before he heaved, his half-digested dinner spewing across the floor in a bile-yellow spray.
Retching and coughing, Buu gasped in what air he could, the room spinning around him as he clutched onto the nearest workbench for balance. His throat stung as a cold weight settled across his body. Suddenly stiff, Buu tried to twist towards the adults, instinctively looking for some kind of assurance or comfort.
Instead, he found himself face to face with a young woman, drawn and grey. Her eyes stretched too wide, hair a wild tangle as she reached for Buu. He flinched, but couldn’t dodge her grip as he retched again, his stomach spasming under his hands.
The girl’s nails tore at his face, one finger catching and coming away red. She felt fever warm as she scrabbled against Buu, pressing against him hard enough to knock him off his feet and following him to the ground as he tumbled. The total silence of her conflicted with the crazed frenzy of her assault, like an alarming painting come to life. Even hitting the ground with Buu, her body made no sound.
Buu coughed out a scream, throwing up his arms to try to shield his face, kicking and squirming as primal terror clenched his muscles in its grip. His chest ached, black spots floating at the edge of his vision.
As quickly as she had appeared, the girl vanished, pulling apart into whisps of grey smoke as Tuag lunged through her body. With a snarl, the grimm shook his head, teeth snapping against the empty air as he dissipated the smoke.
Panting, Buu lay still, trying to fill his lungs with enough breath to satisfy them. Beyond the grimm, he could see the teachers, his teachers, pale and staring, hands halfway to weapons, or wands, or poised with pen or chalk. Several mouths hung open in shock. No one moved to help him.
Buu sat up slowly as Tuag placed himself between Buu and the professors, no longer taking a threatening pose — his position enough of a threat on its own. Ignoring questions from his teachers that made it painfully obvious they had not seen the girl, only Buu having some kind of fit, Buu carefully got to his feet.
He left the workshop without a word, Tuag in his wake. Stumbling along the corridors, he muttered prayers to Anaya asking for safety — protection — courage — anything to stop his fear. He walked until he found an empty classroom. Finally alone, he lay down and cried himself to sleep under the watchful, impassive gaze of the grimm.