The final common path is movement

Rain tapped and tapped on the scratched glass of a window. The window of a small, shabby apartment in a totally normal city, in a totally normal land. Its residents were totally normal teenagers too; they just had some inhuman pupils.

It was a totally normal world too. To anyone concerned, the world was what it was, their life too. What one knew was, at the end of the day, all they knew.

But most of the time, people are too occupied with their mundane chores to be lost in such thoughts, the lucky ones at least. Or the uncaring too. Or perhaps the road to being uncaring wasn’t paved with luck, or maybe it was. Everyone would agree to disagree on that. It was that kind of pickle.

The two in the room were in a pickle, too. A less stimulating one though. Way too unstimulating for the creatures.

"Did you know that in an old civilization they had a concept called the final common path? Apparently it links the brain signal to the muscles, initiating movement." Roxanne told her thoughts out loud to her roommate, unprompted.

Ryu looked at her then went back to his task. "And what does that have to do with your agriculture final tomorrow?" He said with a flat face while pulling off splinters of glass from his fingertips with a pair of tweezers.

"And what does chilling here have to do with finishing your auction artwork?"

"I'm stuck, it's not coming out as I imagined."

"Eeeh? Making excuses aren't we?" She smirked.

"..."

"You just wanna fight so you can procrastinate?" His unreadable expression naturally suggested acclimation to the antics.

"My cells are disintegrating from boredom!" She exclaimed, dramatically laying down on the floor.

"Sure."

"Really?!" She sprang upward.

'It might be good for inspiration.' He thought.

A broom tore through the gray clouds, rendering them wet for a short while before the acceleration left the wind a dry off duty. They remained unbothered as the sunlight hit at a strange angle up there.

"Shouldn't we fly above the dukedom?" Ryu asked, looking down at the couple of mansions built around the marble castle.

"Weather constraints, dear passenger!" She announced. "Also it's fine, they're never gonna detect us."

And never detect they did. As the dukedom’s knights yawned and zoned out blissfully while guarding the border between their blue zone, the humans' zone and the green zone. Unaware of anything inside or outside.

"Hey, all this land is as calm as it gets. Why don’t we claim it?" One new knight asked the yawning superior.

"If that were possible we wouldn't be sitting here."

“Why are we guarding this distant spot anyway?”

“We get orders to stand here every now and then.”

“We are leaving the castle quite bare with this formation…”

“Less talking, more guarding, newbie. The duke has more useful assets than us anyway.”

In a secluded hut between the marble mansions and bushy gardens. The duke fed an elixir to his children like he did many repeats. Thanks to his useful asset the three kids were in better shape than their last elixir intake. Unlike them, Karaza wasn’t in better shape than the last time she went to the wild to hunt another elixir.

The young woman lay down on the porch of the hut, arm blocking the sun from her eyes as the messy locks of her dyed hair covered the wood. She was hyperaware of her bones grating into one another. Discomfort was like the scent of a room, something that faded once she acknowledged it. But as of late it became less of the smell of a room and more like a stench with an endless supply that invaded all the breathable air. Always lingering, unescapable.

As the long dress covered the reopened wound in her leg, the quietness of the surroundings eliminated anything to distract her from the pounding margarine in her skull. She let out a faint hiss.

The stomping of polished shoes made her sit back up reflexively, using up energy she didn't have. The duke quickly hid from the sun in the shadow of the wall. She wasn't too sure about what she should say.

"I think it's over." He looked at the sky, eyes softening in relief.

"Not yet. One last elixir is vital for the recovery." She noted. The weight of her own words hit her with a delayed effect.

"I see." He simply murmured. A couple of blinks washed away any micro-expression he'd shown.

As she walked behind him, back to the castle. The two creatures flew back to their home, and for a split second they flew right above them, paths meeting.

Roxy pressed on the broomstick to fly slower while Ryu gave a glance downward.

“Feels like someone really strong down there.” He commented.

“Desho?” Roxanne smiled, amused. “Maybe I should land and fight them!”

“That’s the dukedom, you will blow your human cover for a fight.” He scolded.

“Can’t you support me for who I am?!” She exclaimed, dramatic as ever.

“No. You have your last exam tomorrow. Go and study. I wanna go back too.” He deadpanned.

“So you dispose of me after getting your inspiration back!”

As she ranted to her broom about how her roommate hated her, the boy looked down another time, not for a specific reason. No matter what was actually there, the ground looked beautiful from the sky. Something that deserved a second look. It helped the creative process, and non-creative processes too.

"Ah! So the movement is the last step of your common path thing." Something clicked in his head.

"It's not mine, though," Roxy pouted. "Although I hope some movement happens soon. It is pretty boring these days." She smiled as the shabby apartment building appeared on the horizon.