Recent Posts

Sebastian read the email with a sigh of relief. So far, things seemed to be starting out smoothly with the Colony of Antarctica. They seemed willing to meet with the Pax Academy teachers, and had not (yet) objected outright to allowing students to eventually visit the colony. It would be truly a wonderful learning opportunity for the students, and perhaps even the colonists, if everything worked out.

He carefully selected the “reply” button and began to slowly type his response. Writing on a computer wasn't anything like typing on a typewriter. For one thing, the keys were so sensitive that letters appeared if he so much as thought about pressing a key. As a result, there was not a satisfying clacking noise when the keys were pressed, nor was there a ding to reward him for finishing a line. It made the writing seem much more laborious.

For some reason, the computer also decided to underline many of his words in red. According to his cheat sheet, that meant the computer was disagreeing with him about the spelling of a word. Honestly, a typewriter would never have been so quarrelsome. Also, Sebastian thought, whoever had decided that the spelling of words should be changed from their original spellings should be dug up and given a stern lecture.

"Dear Doctor Wills,

Thank you for your response. I am encouraged by the possibility of arranging for student visits to your peaceful continent. Thank you for considering the possibility along with your council of leaders.

Your partner's ability sounds like it will make traveling the long distances very convenient. I hope that bridging the long distance will cause him no inconvenience. Certainly, I hope that my knowledge of his mutation shall likewise be less than troublesome and I shall handle this knowledge with the discretion possible.

The two teachers who will be accompanying you back to Antarctica are Sara Nobes and Rayne Srisai. If it is convenient for you, they will meet you at platform 22 as the train station in New York City on the first of October at noon. I will ask them to be prepared to travel whenever you are ready to make the return journey. In the meantime, I hope they can show you some of the sights of the city.

I look forward to your further correspondence,

Sebastian Csendes
Headmaster of Pax Academy"

Sebastian allowed the computer to have its own way with the English spellings, then delicately pressed the send button and allowed the message to travel nearly instantaneously through wires and airwaves, across continents and oceans, to the inbox of Garrett Wills, head doctor for the Colony.

Sebastian checked his cheat sheet, and carefully followed the steps to check his email, all the way from "Move the mouse to the Fiery Fox logo" to "type the password and press enter". There, in his email box was a message from Antarctica:

>>>Mr. Csendes,

>>>I would be pleased to receive your emissaries. I have studied your information online about your Academy in detail. It is a very substantial and important advance in relations. While we normally do not allow humans here, I am sure we can work something out. Most of this is due to the fact that the majority of our residents have suffered at the hands of humans and the Council here wished to be free of the general ongoing drama between the two species.

>>>I, myself, believe this is an excellent step in the right direction. I would like to ask for your discretion now. My assistant, Peter, has a mutation that allows him to open gateways across space. We could easily access a common place in New York and give your emissaries a way to traverse the long space between there and here without the 22 hour plane flight. this keeps down on costs and danger for both of us. I look forward to hearing your response.

>>>Cordially,
Garrett Wills, M.D.

Shifting older would apparently be preferable to both of them. Sebastian wanted to grow back into his more normal, more fearless self. He started shifting, growing older at a rate of a year for every ten seconds. After a minute he had reached puberty and hit for the next thirty seconds his growth accelerated even faster as everything from his bones to his vocal chords stretched to their full lengths.

As he grew, his thoughts also matured. Suddenly shifting older seemed like a bad idea. After all, Hunter hadn't tried to kill him as a child. He had showed no qualms about killing him as a twenty year old. Yet, he had demanded that Sebastian shift to his prime age, and not doing so was possibly the more dangerous of the two options.

Another minute and Sebastian looked approximately the same age as Hunter. His chin sported its usual scraggly goatee that came along with his young adult self. Even his horn had grown and inch or two. He was still rather shorter than the dark haired immortal, but it was as tall as he was going to get.

“Thank you for your patience,” Sebastian stated politely. All traces of fear were gone from his voice, for he no longer had any reason to be afraid. He would heal from whatever the other man could do to him, as had already been tested. “Do you have any other questions for me?” There was an almost undetectable note of sarcasm in the statement.

Sebastian placed his quill back in the ink bottle, blew the ink dry, and added the sheet of paper to one of the growing stacks that were neatly arranged, but nevertheless covered a significant percentage of the desk. Also on the desk was a nameplate that read “Headmaster Csendes” but the last name had been covered by a piece of paper with “Blinky” written in a childish scrawl. Sebastian had been too busy to remove it lately. Sebastian swiveled his chair ninety degrees to face the red laptop that sat on the opposite leg of the “L” shaped desk and touched one of the keys to “wake it up”.

It was the beginning of another school year, the busiest yet for Pax Academy. It was the first year that the Academy offered classes for all levels kindergarten through twelfth grade. There were all sorts of arrangements to be made for the senior class trip, as well as the usual new students and new teachers to get settled in. In addition, there were constant emails from London, where Pax' sister school would be established in just one year.

Sebastian had almost enough to do to distract him from the fact that he would soon be taking the first airplane ride of his life- but not quite. The thought of hurtling through the air at hundreds of miles per hour in a flying piece of metal thousands of feet over an ocean did not sit well with the headmaster. Flight was for those lucky enough to be born with wings. Those who were not so endowed should learn from Icarus.

Sebastian's computer had flickered to life. On the plain “desktop” were three “windows”. Sebastian moved the “mouse” toward the one labeled “Firefox” and clicked. His “home page” appeared. Sebastian always forgot the next step. He opened a desk drawer and removed a cheat sheet with steps listed on it. The next one was to click on the “bookmark” labeled “Yahoo!”

Technology was a marvelous thing. It allowed students to attend classes from the safety and comfort of their own homes. It allowed people to communicate instantly with others across oceans. It allowed people to carry libraries worth of information in a convenient, travel sized bag. Sebastian had no idea how it all worked.

As Sebastian waited for his email to load, he remembered the first time he had ever seen an electric light. Sebastian's mind was transported back to that time. The memory was so clear, that it was as if he was living it for the first time. He could feel the same sensation of the light burning his eyes with its' surprising brightness and he felt the same sense of wonder and astonishment as the light illuminated the dark night like a miniature sun without any fire or smoke.

Quite suddenly, Sebastian was back in his office again, staring at the ceiling with his mouth hanging open. What had that been about.

“Ahem. Sorry to disturb you,” came a voice from the door. Sebastian turned to see a woman and a very young girl of about six standing in the doorway. He closed his mouth again.

“Not at all, please come in. Sebastian Csendes, at your service,” he stood and bowed.

The woman looked surprised for some reason. Perhaps she hadn't expected the headmaster of a school to look like a twenty-year-old boy with unkempt white hair, the scraggly beginnings of a goatee, and a spiral horn growing out of his forehead. Or perhaps it was because the man was wearing a bright yellow silk hanfu. She got over her surprise relatively quickly, as she recalled the reason for her visit.

“I was wondering if you could help us. My daughter... has a unique gift. You perhaps noticed what happened when we came into the building?”

Sebastian realized that she was referring to the odd vision he had experienced moments before their arrival. He nodded thoughtfully and the woman continued, “We think she is causing memories to be stirred up within people. It isn't a bad thing, but it is very distracting as you can probably guess. And it can be very dangerous to do things such as drive.”

Sebastian nodded again as the woman trailed off, “I can indeed help. You've come to the right place. Our school can help you daughter learn to control her powers and we offer classes for parents as well.” Sebastian handed her a brochure.

The woman glanced at the pamphlet, “So Marilyn can live at home?” Her voice sounded relieved.

“Indeed,” Sebastian assured her, “Most of her classes will be online. And if you don't have computers or holo-projectors and such, we can also provide all the computer equipment.” Sebastian nodded, proud that he remembered the term for the thing that sent real looking pictures across the internet, but hopeful that she wouldn't need all the equipment. Sebastian eyed the doorway to the closet next to the filing cabinet, the closet he usually avoided. The closet was labeled “Extra Equipment” and it was filled to the brim with doohickeys, thingamabobs, and whatchamawhosits. Sebastian would rather knock on the front door of a vampire than open that closet door. Almost.

“That would be wonderful.” Sebastian was afraid she's say that.

I'll be gone this weekend too. It's been a crazy week, and now a weekend at the cabin. I will be caught up again in my threads... someday!

Sebastian was beginning to get more comfortable with the boisterous man sitting so nonchalantly at the Sanctuary's front desk. Sure, he was a little odd, but then again, so was everybody. So far, he was winning the prize for the best hospitality in New York City.

“Turning into a unicorn sounds better than it looks, trust me. To get there, I age myself rapidly. Then at the point where I should be passing from life into death, I pass into a new life as a unicorn foal instead.”

The man turned out to know more about Mr. Antonescue than Sebastian had expected. Apparently the other immortal was somewhat infamous. Sebastian honestly wasn't too surprised, given Hunter's blood thirsty tendencies.

“I can assure you I mean no harm to the Sanctuary residents and if danger comes here on my account, I will do all I can to alleviate the threat even if it means leaving. I'd much rather help your community in any way I can. Healing can come in very handy, I've found. I imagine it will be especially useful in a safe community for mutants in a city where the mutants and humans don't exactly get along.”

If the community they had here was really all that Pluto said, Sebastian would be more than glad to join it. He had traveled and lived alone for many years in his long life and had found that he much preferred the companionship of others, whether they be mutants or humans, over the ghosts of his past for company.

Was there anything in particular he'd like to know? Well, lots of things. He was eager for knowledge and never tired of learning. He did have a question about the Sanctuary, "Tell me, what is the history of the golden doors? They seem to be from another time and place, so beautiful, yet so different from everything in this city."

First impressions usually reminded Sebastian of someone he had met before in another life time. The person who answered his knock on the golden door was not like anyone Sebastian had ever met, and he was fairly certain he would have remembered someone like this. The big red man was very loud, for one thing, but he seemed friendly and very at ease with himself. Sebastian would not have called him either respectful or professional, but times and manners were changing faster than Sebastian had ever seen before, and New York was even ahead of the times. Perhaps it would be the new custom to roar greetings to people when answering the door. Or perhaps there was something distinctly odd about this big red man that couldn't be attributed to changing times or New York manners.

He did have a tail, though, so he got bonus points for that. Sebastian's own tail, only half regrown, was hidden inside his clothing practically twitching to be out in the fresh air.

Sebastian followed the man into the reception area, taking in his surroundings and stroking his beard thoughtfully. (He had actually taken the time to trim it this morning and it was feeling very soft.) Whatever kind of place this was, they certainly welcomed all sorts, if the man sitting at the receptionist's desk was any indication. “Well,” Sebastian glanced at the name plate on the desk. Lisa? That couldn't be right. “...Sir, I am looking for a place to stay. Rent isn't an issue, but I am having difficulties finding an apartment that isn't discriminatory towards obvious mutants.” He indicated his horn, then shrugged to show his exasperation.