Banished Divinity: Learning to be Human

The lecture ended. Finally. I had been sitting in that hard wooden chair for what felt like three cycles of the Twin Moons of Grathok, which is to say: approximately ninety minutes in mortal time, but also an eternity of suffering.

Students erupted from their seats like they were escaping a cult indoctrination—which, frankly, wasn’t far from the truth.

Chairs scraped the floor with the sound of a thousand chalkboards being murdered. Voices rose in the kind of chaotic symphony you’d expect from a room full of people who had just been forced to contemplate the “elasticity of demand” for ninety minutes.

Professor Kang, the architect of this mental torture, gathered his things and performed a disappearing act.

He gave a nod toward the door—was it for the whole class? Was it just for me? With this man, it was impossible to tell. He walked exactly like Doctor Kim. The same stiff-legged, “I’ve-got-a-ruler-up-my-back” stride.

Interesting, my celestial brain whispered. Perhaps there’s a cloning facility. Perhaps all professors are just two guys in wigs. Perhaps—

No. I shook myself out of the curiosity spiral. I did not have time to solve the mystery of Academia’s Bizarre Walking Dead. I had more important things to do, like forget everything I had just learned.

I stood. I picked up my bag. I adjusted the strap on my shoulder. I prepared myself to walk out of the lecture hall and never think about Gate-Rammer or supply curves or the elasticity of demand ever again. What kind of word was elasticity? Were the demands made of rubber? Did they bounce? I did not care. I would not care. I was free.

“Hey.”

I turned.

Gate-Rammer was still sitting in his seat.

His book was closed. His bag was on the floor. His arms were crossed on the desk in front of him like he was posing for a painting called Annoying Boy Contemplates His Own Annoyingness. He was looking at me with an expression that was not amused. Not mocking. Something else. Something that made the space between my shoulder blades prickle as if tiny invisible insects were having a war there.

“I could help you,” he said. “Study. Catch up. If you need it.”

I stared at him.

The lecture hall was empty now. The silence was complete and heavy, like a blanket made of awkwardness. We were the only two people in a room designed to hold two hundred, and he was looking at me like I was something worth looking at, and I did not understand why. Maybe because earlier, I had drooled on my notes twice. TWICE.

“I do not need help,” I said, drawing myself up to my full and admittedly unimpressive mortal height. “I am a celestial being. I have mastered concepts that would shatter your mortal mind like a fragile egg dropped on a kitchen floor. I have charted the pathways between stars and negotiated treaties between realms that predate the existence of your species. I once argued with a sentient black hole for three centuries about the proper tax rate on dark matter, and I won. I do not need—” I gestured at his book, at his notes, at the entire ridiculous subject of economics, “—this.”

He didn’t laugh.

He didn’t even smile.

He just looked at me, and his eyes were brown and warm and full of something that might have been patience or might have been the early stages of a brain tumour. I noticed a huge scar on side his neck. A good one. A proper one. The kind you get from fighting a beast of pure destruction and winning by the skin of your teeth.

What the hell is that? I thought. Did he fight a beast? Did he wrestle a void serpent? Did he—

“I don’t know what’s going on with you,” he said quietly, apparently not noticing that I was mentally undressing his battle history, “you are acting so weird. But whatever it is, you can ask me when you’re ready.”

He stood. He picked up his bag. He walked past me, close enough that I could feel the warmth of his body (distracting), close enough that I could see the small scar on his jaw that I had not noticed before (very distracting), close enough that I could smell him—like paper and something clean and something else that made my mortal nostrils do a little flip of appreciation.

And then he was gone.

I stood in the empty lecture hall for a long moment, my bag on my shoulder, my hands empty, my mind full of things I did not want to think about. Like his jaw. And his scar. And the way his voice sounded when he said when you’re ready.

Gate-Rammer, I thought firmly. I named him Gate-Rammer. That was good. That was appropriate. He is a Gate-Rammer. An irritating creature who pushes people and smiles too much and has notes that are too organized and a scar that I DO NOT CARE ABOUT.

I walked out.

💖💖 If you’re enjoying this story, please click on COMMENT OR RATE my story👍🏻 — as it really help stories and authors like myself to be discovered. 💝💝