While navigating in the busy streets of Sisiphon, I saw a tailor shop nearby, between two businesses, I entered it and a bell chimed at the doorstep, there a kind tailor waiting for me.
The tailor's shop was a quiet sanctuary of cedar-scented air and the rhythmic snip-snip of shears, a sharp relief from the dry heat of the Western District. The man behind the counter was elderly, with spectacles perched on the tip of his nose and eyes that held the soft, weary kindness of someone who had spent a lifetime mending the threads of others. He didn't look at my tattered cloak with judgment, only a gentle curiosity.
"Greetings, young lass, what can I do for you, miss? I see you've lost your eyepatch, though, if I may say, you carry your scars with the grace of a warrior."
I didn't answer. I simply walked over to the display and pointed directly at a male student's uniform, the crisp ivory tunic with gold filigree along the collar and cuffs, the exact attire worn by the prodigies of the Sisiphon Academy.
The tailor blinked, his hands pausing over a roll of linen. He looked at my feminine frame, my brown hair, and then back at the masculine cut of the uniform. He was left dumbfounded for a moment, his head tilting in confusion before he let out a low, contemplative hum.
"A male's uniform, suited for a lad of slight build… I must say, miss, you have a peculiar request. Most young ladies coming through these doors are looking for the gossamer silks of the Southern District or the practical leathers of a scout. To ask for the Academy's male attire... either you are a sister performing a very dangerous favor for a brother, or you are a bird looking for a very specific type of cage to hide in."
The air in the shop instantly curdled. The tailor's kind, grandfatherly gaze sharpened into a look of pure, visceral disgust. He recoiled as if I had suddenly transformed into a leper, his nostrils flaring. The scent of the Lotus Dust, the cloying, metallic sweetness that had seeped into my skin and Zenni's rags during the cooking process, was a death sentence in this clean district.
"Lass, are you an addict? You come in here, a girl pointing at a male uniform, acting like you belong in the halls of the scholars? I've seen your kind before. Several drug addicts have crawled into my shop thinking they can hide their rot behind fine silk, but you... you are the most delusional of them all."
His voice rasped, the warmth gone, replaced by a jagged edge of hatred. He slammed the ivory uniform back onto the rack, his hands trembling with indignation. He pointed a gnarled finger at the sign on the glass door, which I had missed in my haste.
"Didn't you read the sign? This is a clean establishment. No Lotus-eaters. No filth. You should be ashamed of yourself, you one-eyed freak!"
I stood frozen, the anger in my chest going icy. I opened my mouth to defend myself, to tell him that I was the one burning the labs, not feeding on them, but no sound came out. My throat felt tight, constricted by my own silence and the weight of the disguise. I was a Rynd, a hunter of legends, being talked down to like a common street junkie by a man who made a living sewing buttons.
The irony was a bitter pill. To save the city, I had to smell like its poison. To catch the queen, I had to look like a pawn.
The tailor grabbed a heavy wooden broom from behind the counter, brandishing it like a weapon to shoo me away like a mangy stray.
"Get out! Before I call the City Guard to haul you to the South District where you belong! I won't have your stench lingering on my fabrics!"
I backed toward the door, my one green eye glowing with a faint, dangerous light that I struggled to suppress. I could have reached out and drained the life from his veins in seconds; I could have turned his precious silk shop into a slaughterhouse. But killing a clean civilian over a misunderstanding would ruin everything.
The tailor kicked me in the shop and I was left alone on the blazing sun, the cloak was thin as a paper, my skin is boiling just by dampening the sunlight through my skin, I look like a seasoned hotdog on the people view.
"Rough day huh? You won't get past to the academy's doors when you dressed like that, snatch something good."
The sun reached its noon, the harsh light reflecting off the sandstone buildings like a physical weight. High above, the bells of the Sisiphon Magic Academy chimed, signaling the start of the lunch break. In the Northern District, students would be pouring into the courtyards, but here in the Western District, I was an outcast, stained with the scent of the very poison I sought to eradicate.
I knew a public bathhouse wouldn't take me, they guarded their clean reputation as fiercely as the tailor. I stood in the sweltering heat, the heat in my body churning with frustration, until my senses caught a faint, rhythmic sound from a narrow, trash-strewn alleyway nearby.
Moving silently, I entered the shade. There, slumped behind a stack of rotted crates, was a student. His ivory and gold uniform was rumpled, and his eyes were rolled back in a terrifyingly familiar euphoria. He was snorting a line of Lotus Dust off a small silver mirror, hiding in the shadows to feed his addiction.
"D-Dust… I-I… need… more."
It was a grim miracle. This boy was roughly my size, and his uniform, though stained by his vice, carried the official mana-signature threads required for the Academy gates.
I didn't hesitate. With a flick of my wrist, I used a minute burst of strength to knock him into a deeper unconsciousness, a mercy, considering the overdose he was courting. I stripped the ivory tunic and trousers from his limp form, leaving him in his undergarments. To mask the chemical stench of the lab still clinging to my own skin, I found a small vial of expensive, concentrated Lavender Perfume in his satchel, likely used to hide the drug scent from his professors.
[Analyzing genetic data... 100% match found in blood reservoir. Commencing Morphological Shift.]
I began shapeshifting into Zenni, my one eye popped out and creating a black irises, the stump on my arm grew and the tounge appeared in, I was not the bounty hunter, instead I was Zenni.
I donned the uniform. It was slightly loose in the shoulders, but as I pulled the gold-trimmed collar tight, I felt the shift. I wasn't Eirene Rynd, the one-eyed freak addict. I wasn't even the dirty dealer Zenni. I was a high-tier scholar. I poured the entire vial of perfume over myself; the floral scent was cloying and sharp, but it successfully buried the metallic tang of the meth lab.
[Visual confirmation: 100% accuracy. Heart rate, scent, and vocal cords successfully calibrated. Successfully shapeshifted into Zenni Roy]
I stepped out of the alley, adjusting the ivory cap to shadow my face. I looked at the map Brick sold me. I had less than an hour to get into the Academy, uncover Zenni life in his school, before I had to head to the Southern District for the meeting at the Spire.
The Northern Gates loomed ahead, guarded by stone golems and elite mages. I walked with the confident, slightly arrogant stride of a student who owned the world.
I maintained my focus as my body rippled beneath the ivory and gold uniform, my real self within me molding my features back into the nervous, youthful face of Zenni Roy. Even with his skin, the internal alarm of my weakness of the daylight screamed as the noon sun tried to find a way through the heavy captain's cloak. I kept the hood low, blending into the sea of chattering students returning from their lunch break.
"Even in this body, I still get burned." I muttetred to Plasma.
"Funny one Eirene, even when you shapeshift to anybody else, you still get scorched by the blazing sun."
The Northern Gates were a marvel of magical engineering, flanked by towering statues of ancient mages. There was no silver toll here, instead, the barrier was guarded by a single, stern-faced sentry standing beside a glowing, translucent mana stone. This was the true test.
I stepped forward and pressed my finger against the cold surface of the stone. The mana within the rock hummed, scanning my blood and biological signature, thankfully, since I was currently a perfect physical copy of Zenni, the stone pulsed a steady green. A display flickered to life above the stone, showing a long list of red marks next to Zenni's name.
The guard peered at the display, then looked up at me, his eyes narrowing with a mixture of pity and irritation.
"Zenni, where have you been? You've been absent for at least a week, and now you show up late for the afternoon lectures! We aren't a charity, boy. Keep this up and you're expelled before the next moon. Get inside!"
I gave a frantic, submissive nod, the kind of gesture a desperate student would make and hurried past him as the heavy iron-wrought gates groaned open.