The shower was hot and the water pressure was excellent and Hermes stood under it for considerably longer than was strictly necessary.
He ran his fingers through his hair. Long. Black. Silky. Reaching well past his neck.
Hm.
He stepped out and reached for a towel.
Then he looked in the mirror.
He stood there for a moment.
Oh.
He was beautiful. Not handsome, beautiful. The distinction mattered. Bright emerald green eyes like polished jade. Snow white skin. The black hair falling in clean lines past his shoulders. The kind of face that cultivation novels reserved for jade beauties that young masters would start wars over.
He stared at his reflection.
His reflection stared back.
First things first, he thought, and looked down to confirm the continued presence of his family jewels.
They were present.
Good, he thought, with the profound relief of a man whose priorities were correctly ordered. Good. Okay.
We're working with something here.
He looked back at the mirror. At the jaw, the eyes, the hair, the general presentation of a person who, if encountered in a corridor without context, would be assumed to be female by approximately everyone including, in all likelihood, himself.
He was, without any ambiguity whatsoever, a femboy.
I am not complaining, he decided. This is objectively a bonus.
He pulled on the tracksuit and went back out.
Sunny and Jet both looked up when he entered.
Something crossed Sunny's face, not quite confusion, not quite certainty, it was as if his whole perception had just been revoked and contradicted. He looked at Hermes. He looked at Hermes's face and hair and general presentation.
He said nothing.
Jet looked up and said, with the brisk efficiency of someone ticking off a checklist, "She's finally done—" She stopped. Cleared her throat. "He's finally done. Let's head to the cafeteria."
She turned back to her communicator with the professional composure of someone who had absolutely not just done that.
The cafeteria was institutional and indifferent, designed to feed people efficiently rather than pleasantly. Jet set trays of synthetic food in front of them and sat across the table with the relaxed authority of someone who had a script to follow and was not thinking about what had just happened.
Hermes ate. He was, it turned out, extremely hungry. Three days of bland potatoes and salty soup had not prepared him for the specific joy of food that was merely mediocre rather than aggressively uninteresting.
Across the table Sunny was eating with the focused intensity of someone processing something terrible one spoonful at a time.
Hermes snuck a glance at him.
There he is, he thought. Sunless. The main character.
He looked exactly as described. Unremarkable face, pale, tired around the eyes in the specific way of someone who had not slept properly in days. Nothing about him that would make a stranger look twice.
He fought a Tyrant, Hermes thought. And survived.
He looked back at his own tray.
I attended school and escaped through a hole in the floor.
We are not the same.
"So," Jet said, setting down her utensils. "As per protocol, I'm obligated to inform you both of a few things." She glanced between them.
"First — you are both entitled to free psychological counselling. No matter what you experienced in your trials, there's no shame in asking for help. Your mind is as important as your body." A pause. "Are either of you interested?"
Sunny shook his head without hesitation.
Hermes considered it genuinely for a moment.
"I'll be fine," he said.
Jet looked at him.
It was a strange look. It was something in between, as though some part of her was registering him on a frequency that had nothing to do with her eyes. She held it for just a moment longer than the situation warranted.
Then it passed and he wasn't sure he hadn't imagined it.
"You can also talk to me," she said. "If you need to. Was it very hard?"
Hermes thought about that.
"Stressful," he said honestly. "But manageable. Mostly I was just very scared for most of it."
Jet nodded. "That's a reasonable response. You handled it well." She turned to Sunny. "And you?"
Sunny looked up from his tray.
"It was simultaneously much worse than I expected and exactly as bad as I expected."
"That's a good attitude." Something softened briefly in her expression. "Us outskirts rats are more resilient than people think."
Sunny blinked. "You grew up in the outskirts, Master Jet?"
"What?" She grinned. "You can't tell from my exquisite manners and polished exterior?"
"I couldn't tell at all," Sunny said, with genuine surprise.
Hermes said nothing and ate his food. He was sitting at a table with Sunless and Master Jet. One of them had already accidentally misgendered him once and been visibly flustered about it. He was having a wonderful time.
"What about you?" Jet asked, turning back to him.
"Outskirts as well?"
"Homeless, mostly," Hermes said. "Before the trial."
Something shifted in Jet's expression. Quiet and genuine, the specific softness of someone who recognised a particular kind of history.
"I see," she said.
She was looking at him again with that quality of attention that had no name, vague and instinctive, the way you might catch a scent you couldn't identify or hear a sound at the very edge of your hearing. Present enough to register, unclear enough to dismiss.
Her broken soul core leaked constantly. It made her sensitive to things that whole people weren't. She had learned not to trust the feeling entirely.
But something about this particular, this particular person felt strange. Different. Like nothing she had encountered before in all her years of killing and surviving and killing again.
"Are there a lot of people like us among the Awakened?" Sunny asked.
Her smile disappeared.
"No. There's not. They can be counted on one hand."
A silence settled over the table. Sunny looked at his tray. Hermes ate.
"So what happens now?" Sunny asked after a while. "What else are you obligated to tell me?"
Jet leaned back.
"That's basically it. There are some additional hoops to jump through, mostly having to do with family, but—" she glanced between them "—I've read your files, so I know it doesn't apply. The only thing left is to decide how you'll be preparing for your first journey into the Dream Realm."
She looked at her communicator and grimaced.
"Your luck is exceptionally bad. Both of you. There's not a lot of time at all." She set it down. "You're free to do what you want. No one is forcing any particular decision, you can prepare on your own, or not prepare at all. Party until the lights go out."
Wouldn't that be nice, Hermes thought.
"However, I would advise against that. As Sleepers you're both entitled to enroll in the Awakened Academy. Food, lodging, a wide choice of preparatory classes. This late in the year you won't be able to learn a lot. But it's better than nothing." She paused. "More importantly, you'll get acquainted with most of the people who will enter the Dream Realm with you. Some of them might become your companions for life."
Sunny was quiet for a moment.
Hermes had already decided. He needed to get to the academy. He needed to meet people, build relationships, position himself before the Dream Realm swallowed everyone whole. He had a list. He had a rough plan. He was not taking chances.
Well, he amended. Except Cassie. That's a whole other problem.
"So," Jet said. "Do you want me to take you to the Academy?"
"Yes," Hermes said, without hesitation.
Sunny nodded. "Yeah. I want to go."
Of course you do, Hermes thought.
He finished the last of his food and set down his utensils and said nothing.
Then Jet stood to gather the trays and said, perfectly naturally, "Alright, let's get you girls — you two moving."
She stopped.
A very short silence followed.
"You two," she said again, firmly, to no one in particular.
Sunny stared at the table.
Hermes stared at the table.
Neither of them said anything.
They got up and followed her out.