Avia Academy

🌊Chapter Three: Goats and Goodbyes

"The Kishori family is descended from mermaids, you know." It was Aunt Arameta's favorite thing to say, and it always went the same way. She'd bring it up after dinner on a particularly rainy night.

Someone, one of the younger cousins usually, would ask, "what's a mermaid?"

"A myth," Amma would huff. She'd be clearing the table or washing dishes, and she'd shoot a disappointed look towards Arameta that Claire was quite familiar with.

Arameta would ignore her, and say to the young cousin, "a creature that swims in the sea."

The next question would be, "what's a sea?"

Amma would answer, "a fiction."

But Aunt Arameta would pull out her sketchbook and show whatever young cousin it was that day all her drawings of a land covered in water, with no sky below. The other children in the family would gather around too, even Claire-especially Claire. Amma told her often that she was too old for that nonsense, but Claire loved it.

Arameta talked often about the world that existed long ago, before the Gods saved them all and separated Indra from the demon realm of Narak. Indra had once been part of a much larger nation, and across the sea lived creatures of fantasy-mermaids, dragons, fairies, and shape shifters.

Surely none of it was true, Claire was smart enough to know that. But in the safety of their home, she was happy to indulge in these fantasies. She liked to think her family was special, more special than regular Elemei families.

Once late at night, when they were eleven years old, Claire and her cousin Kayah snuck Arameta's drawings out of the drawer and spent hours pouring over them by the light of a luminescent crystal.

"D'you really think we're related to mermaids?" Claire whispered.

After a moment of consideration, Kayah nodded. "I think so. But me more than you."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, Auntie married an earth Elemei didn't she?" Kayah said with a light, uncaring shrug. When she said Auntie, she meant Claire's Amma. "That means you have less mermaid blood. Your last name isn't even Kishori."

Claire frowned. "But that's not fair. My eyes are brighter than yours."

"Well you failed the entrance exam this year, so who cares about your eyes?"

"You didn't even audition! Why not, were you scared of disappointing everyone?" Claire glared, trying to hide her red face of embarrassment behind anger.

The girls devolved into their usual hair pulling and shouting, continuing until Amma woke and rushed into the room to separate them. She scolded Claire more harshly, of course, which only made Kayah smile.

When amma returned the girls to their bedroom, Claire held her back in the hall for a moment and quietly asked "why did you marry baba?"

"Because I love him," Amma answered.

"But how come you took his last name? Aren't you proud to be a Kishori? Even Uncle Vihaan renounced his family name to be a Kishori. Everyone knows our family."

"You said it yourself. Everyone knows our family. Your baba and I wanted our children to be judged on their own merit, not their name." She pat Claire's cheek and whispered, "you are superior to Kayah in that regard."

Claire went back to bed with a grin.

"What's that face for? Do you like getting in trouble?" Kayah huffed.

Claire ignored her, and continued to do so for the next few years, until it was the night before they were both set to depart for their first year of schooling at Avia Academy. While she hadn't done as much out loud, Claire had mentally spent the past two months since her encounter with Professor Donserli rubbing her acceptance in Kayah's face.