The days just before Freshman move-in week is supposed to be a time of frenetic energy, powered by the thrill of living on one's own and being responsible with one's own destiny for the first time in a young person's life, filled with the foreboding weight of this new reality balanced by the lilting sense of freedom that this brings. Yet, for Roxanna Paraveesh Shapiro, the shuttle that runs from the freshman parking lot to the student buildings had become her own personal ferry to the mythological underworld, and the driver (a pleasant father of 5 in his mid-forties named Phil) had become, to the young woman in his charge, the embodiment of the skeletal boatman.
Roxie sat rigid in the shuttle bus seat, clutching her worn messenger bag to her chest like it was a life preserver. Her back was straight. Her legs were pressed together. Her entire posture broadcast: "Don't look at me."
It wasn't a prayer or a wish. It was a command — to the world, to the other passengers, to the faint reflection in the shuttle window. It was the first thing Roxanna Paraveesh Shapiro had thought that morning, and it had been on loop ever since. She knew what people saw when they did look. And a part of her hated herself for it. The part of her that was jealous of the normal people.
Even curled into herself, she took up space. Nearly seven feet tall in bare feet, and still trying to fold into bus seats made for average people. Her long legs were crammed awkwardly into the narrow aisle, her arms crossed over a chest that would've made a pin-up girl jealous. All of it swaddled in a hoodie three sizes too big, sleeves tugged down to her wrists like she could disappear into cotton. She was trying to be small. She always tried. But Roxie wasn't made small. Her hair, waist-length and dark as raven wings, had slipped free of its braid, and now spilled down her back and shoulders like storm clouds. A single stubborn strand curled over her cheekbone, softening the edges of a face that had always looked a little too perfect for her comfort. There was an almost unearthly symmetry to her features — the sculpted bone structure, the high cheekbones, the arch of her brows. Her mother's Persian beauty, etched in marble and mystery. And then there were her eyes. Wide, sad, impossibly green — the color of holy places and broken promises. The kind of eyes that always looked like they were mourning something, even when she smiled.
*"Don't look at me."*It wasn't a wish. It was a plea. No — a command. Not to the passengers on the shuttle bus or the driver idly humming off-key up front. Not even to the reflective window beside her, catching and warping the outline of her too-tall frame.No, it was aimed at the world.At everyone. At anyone who might see her for even a second too long.
Roxanna Paraveesh Shapiro had gotten very good at going unnoticed. It was a skill born of necessity — when you were nearly seven feet tall, all curves and shadowed edges, people tended to notice you whether you wanted them to or not. Especially when the truth you carried behind your eyes could tear a building down.
Even here, hunched in the seat with her hoodie pulled low and her knees up against the back of the seat in front of her, Roxie felt seen. Not in the way people yearned for — not seen and loved. Seen like a warning light on a reactor.
She blinked down at her phone. The group chat was still open.
"D&D Par-tay!" The name mocked her now.
The scrollback was short. She hadn't replied quickly enough. Again.
Amber: "It's not personal, Roxie. But you never show up. We're tired of keeping an open seat."
Kyle: "This campaign is our time, y'know? We wanted it to mean something."
Trent: "Three cancellations in a row. You're a flake, end of story."
She had tried to type something. Once. Twice. Each time she deleted it.
*You have no idea what I'm holding back.*
*I miss you guys.*
*I'm sorry.*
None of it mattered.
They couldn't know that Roxie, head in the clouds, overly structured Roxie who loved elves and dragons held a secret. A real and dangerous secret. A secret so bleak and black that the act of simply existing in its radius could be lethal. And the bearer of that secret should not want such simple things as this.
But she'd wanted it anyway. She'd laughed with them. Played with them. Let her guard down, just enough, in those long nights around a table where dragons were fake and friendship felt real. And now they were gone.
She minimized the chat. Her fingers trembled. A part of her wanted to drop the phone out the window and watch it shatter on the asphalt below.
Instead, she turned her head, pressed her cheek against the cool window, and watched the world blur by.
St. Petersburg passed in sun-drenched vignettes. Palms swayed over old stucco buildings, their paint faded by decades of Gulf Coast heat. Strip malls and food trucks, cracked sidewalks and murals in various stages of weathering. It was a city with one foot in the modern day and one stubborn toe still dug into the sand of decades past — blue-collar roots with an artist's pulse. Fishing piers gave way to yoga studios. Dive bars sat shoulder to shoulder with boutique crystal shops. A city of contradictions. Of new money and old scars.
And nestled just east of downtown, framed by a row of moss-draped oaks, was the St. Petersburg Institute.
The Institute was a modern campus, but it couldn't quite help standing out. Its main buildings were white stone and glass, clean lines accented with an almost Eastern European sensibility — a touch of onion dome curvature here, a faint gold inlay there. Nothing extravagant. Just hints of Russian heritage woven into Florida's sun-bleached coastal fabric.
The central rotunda had a steep green roof, almost chapel-like in its symmetry, flanked by lecture halls with large arched windows that caught the morning sun and bounced it off the polished walkways. The tech building had a subtle iron crest carved into its face, stylized into something that felt official but carried no real national identity. It was young, only founded a few decades ago, but ambitious. It wasn't elite. It wasn't ancient. It wasn't special.
It was, however, a college. A real one, with bright white buildings and practical lecture halls, wide open walkways lined with scrub palm and oak, bulletin boards crammed with sun-faded flyers and ink-bleeding announcements. The architecture had a strange blend of modern design softened by splashes of old-world influence — onion domes here and there, a spire or two, leftover flourishes from a long-forgotten Russian developer with big ideas and too much money.
It didn't know it was a sanctuary. It didn't realize it had been chosen. But for Roxanna Paraveesh Shapiro, the St. Petersburg Institute was something sacred.
It was normal.
It was structure. It was syllabi and midterms and campus bookstores that sold overpriced pens. It was cafeteria food and late-night library sessions. It was the fantasy of a normal life. Not the real thing — she was never going to have the real thing — but a shape to fit herself into. A place to pretend.
She wasn't here to become powerful. She already was. She wasn't here to find herself. She knew exactly who she was.
She was here to disappear into a crowd. To start a life. A quiet one.
At least… that had been the plan.
The plan had been to move into the dorms a week ago.
A fresh start. A tidy little room with concrete walls painted over in too many coats of white. Two beds, two desks, two strangers awkwardly navigating toothpaste schedules and shared minifridges. Roxie had pictured it, even looked forward to it — the shape of ordinary. But the room she was assigned to had not been built with someone like her in mind.
Two lofted beds, each raised to make space for a study nook underneath. Stylish. Compact. Functional. And completely unusable.
Roxie had stood there, her head brushing the ceiling tiles, trying to imagine contorting herself into the bedframe like a pretzel. The ladder rungs were delicate as bird bones. The desk under her bunk left her with about two inches of headroom. Even the chair felt like doll furniture. Her roommate, a girl named Shelby with an impressive glitter collection and a complete lack of spatial awareness, had smiled brightly and said, "You can take that one! I don't mind the right side."
As if Roxie could even fit.
The moment she wriggled onto the mattress, the frame creaked like it was filing a complaint with OSHA.
She'd politely retreated and filed for a reassignment within the hour.
Since then, she'd been staying at a temporary residence hall — less "dorm" and more "repurposed faculty housing" with sagging couches, weak air conditioning, and no working elevator. They hadn't been able to find her a roommate yet.
So she was alone. Still new. Still too big, too awkward, too much.
Her duffel bag sat beside her on the bus floor now, scuffed from the move. Her hoodie sleeves were tugged down past her hands as she stared into the middle distance. Raven-dark hair fell in curtain-like waves over her shoulders and back, hiding her eyes from anyone else's curiosity. But it couldn't hide the panic — not really.
And then… it happened.
A sharp snap of tension.
Her shoe had come untied and the student shuttle had come to a stop. Roxie stood and stepped toward the stairs, just another day no matter how crappy but between one step and the next the world shifted. Gravity kicked in and threw Roxie violently head over heels to the concrete of the sidewalk.
Chapter One (cont.): The Day the Sky Fell Down
Perspective: Dianna Annabeth Rodgers
The thing about mornings in St. Pete is that they lie.
The sun comes up like it's got nothing to hide, all golden and smug, lighting up every pastel rooftop and palm frond like a postcard. The breeze pretends it's gentle. The birds shriek like they own the damn place. Everything smells like salt and overwatered hibiscus.
It's all very convincing.
And Dianna Annabeth Rodgers wasn't buying a second of it.
She'd seen too many things splinter under sunshine — marriages, bodies, promises. The world didn't get cleaner just because it was bright out. It just got better at hiding its bruises.
She walked fast, earbuds in, one foot ahead of the other like forward momentum could drown out the static. Her shift had already started — campus auxiliary EMT duty, third string to the real medics, but someone still had to man the booth near orientation tents and pretend a CPR dummy was going to change anyone's life.
This wasn't where she was supposed to be.
Not Florida. Not this sweaty little campus with its pastel domes and dollar-store palazzos. Not here — miles and lifetimes away from Sydney, from the hospital track she'd fought tooth and nail for. But her mum had checked out after Dad died, and Dianna... well, she'd stopped waiting for her to check back in.
So she left.
Started over.
It wasn't a tragedy. It wasn't brave.
It was just survival.
---
She was crossing in front of the student center, to get herself an icee to fight this infernal humidity, when the sky fell down.
Or something close enough.
There was a thump, loud and meaty, like a fridge hitting pavement. A bag burst open. Papers flew. A human shape crumpled against the concrete, and instinct crushed hesitation.
Dianna ripped her earbuds out and sprinted.
She dropped to her knees a heartbeat later next to the fallen woman— not reckless, not flustered. Focused. Sharp.
"Hey, hey—don't move."
The words were firm, practiced. She was already scanning: position of limbs, angle of neck, color of skin. No blood, no obvious fractures. Pupils looked even. Breathing steady, though shallow. Her hoodie had ridden up slightly, revealing a wicked bruise forming along her hip.
Dianna swallowed.
She was big. Tall. Thick with muscle and softness both, built like a myth — all stormcloud hair and impossible curves, folded up like some fallen saint. There was something wrong about seeing a girl like this laid out flat on a sidewalk like roadkill. Not because she was hurt. But because she looked like the kind of thing that wasn't supposed to fall.
Dianna pushed that thought aside.
Training first. Fantasies about massive breasts later.
"You fell hard," she said gently, checking for spinal tenderness with careful fingers. "I need to do a quick check before you try anything fancy, alright? Can you talk to me?"
A beat, an infinitely frightening beat, considering the swelling road rash on the larger woman's forehead.
Then: "...M'fine."
The voice was low, husky, threaded through with pain and embarrassment. And maybe something else too. Shame?
Dianna raised a brow. "Yeah, and I'm a koala. Humor me anyway."
She moved briskly now, fingers methodical and eyes scanning sharply. No sign of concussion. Nothing dislocated. Range of motion in the arms and legs passed basic checks. Her right knee was going to be angry tomorrow, but nothing was broken. Dianna hovered, watching her face, waiting for any sign of a lie.
Finally, she leaned back on her heels and blew out a breath.
"Alright, looks like you got lucky. Which is impressive, considering you hit the pavement like a Greek tragedy. Can you sit up slowly?"
The girl hesitated. Then nodded.
Dianna offered a hand. Not because she needed to — the girl looked like she could bench-press a Vespa — but because it was offered. Not a command. A kindness.
And this time, Roxie took it.
The contact was electric.
Calloused fingers curled around Dianna's own — warm and strong and trembling, just slightly, just enough. Their eyes truly met for the first time, not EMT to possible patient. But in a moment of sapphic wonder, and Dianna's whole world cracked like glass under heat.
Eyes. Green. Not grass green or eye-drop ad green. Deep green, strange green. Holy green. The color of lost temples and sea glass and childhood stories she hadn't thought about in years. Grief lived in them. And fire. And something so quietly sacred, it made her breath catch.
She didn't let go.
"Full name?" she asked, voice suddenly softer.
"Roxanna Paraveesh Shapiro. But most people call me Roxie."
The nickname came out like a well-guarded secret.
Dianna smiled, just a little. "Roxie. Do you want me to put the whole name or should I just write Tower Girl on the incident report?"
Roxie flushed. Actually flushed. She looked away.
Roxie adjusted the strap of her messenger bag, trying not to wince at the scuff on her knee. Dianna stood beside her now, arms folded, watching as if she might swoop in again if Roxie so much as wobbled.
"Well," Roxie said, voice still soft, "thanks for… checking on me. Sort of."
Dianna smirked. "Anytime. Falling damsels are kind of my thing." Roxie raised a skeptical brow.
"Okay, not my only thing," Dianna conceded with a shrug. "But definitely top five."
Roxie shook her head, half-smiling, and turned toward the student center. The shuttle had dumped her a bit farther than she'd expected. She started walking, long legs taking slow, measured strides.
Dianna fell into step without asking. It wasn't a decision — it just happened, like gravity. Like she was being pulled into orbit around Roxie without even realizing it. And honestly? She didn't mind.
"So," Dianna said as they walked, "student center?"
Roxie blew out a long suffering sigh, attempting to convince that one loose strand of hair to sod off, before replying. "Yeah. Need to check my housing forms. Again." She groused. "Sorry..."
Dianna skipped backwards, and gleefully drank in the tall woman in front of her. "Do not apologize." She pirouted and dropped into step beside the taller woman. She was amazed at how much she had to quickstep to keep up with Roxie, even though the woman appeared to be moving at a languid pace. "You get booted or something?"
"The dorm was... not built with people my size in mind."
Dianna let out a low whistle. "Yeah, nah. Those top bunks barely hold me. I can't imagine you trying to climb into one without knocking out the ceiling tiles."
"I might have done exactly that," Roxie said, deadpan.
Dianna barked out a laugh. "God, that's beautiful."
They crossed a small plaza, heat rising off the concrete in gentle waves. The breeze rustled through palm trees overhead. Roxie could feel Dianna's gaze on her again — curious, never quite invasive, but present. It made her stomach flutter in ways she didn't understand.
"So," Dianna said after a moment, "I've got to ask… what's the name from?"
"Hm?"
"Roxanna Paraveesh Shapiro." Dianna gave her a sidelong glance. "It's kind of unforgettable."
Roxie hesitated. "It's... complicated."
"Fair." Dianna didn't push. "Cool, though. You sound like a fantasy princess. Or a Tolkien elf."
Roxie's lips curved upward, just a little. "That's ironic."
"Oh?"
She glanced at Dianna, then, half-smiling, said in flawless Sindarin, "Edregol nîn ú-bedin."
(My secret is not easily told.)
Dianna stopped in her tracks.
Roxie took another step before realizing and turned back. "What?"
Dianna stared, wide-eyed, then slowly broke into a grin like sunrise over storm clouds.
"Pedil edhellen?" she said, her accent precise but warm. (You speak Elvish?)
"Sí," Roxie replied, the soft fluency slipping out before she could help it.
"Ae aníra gin," Dianna said with mock reverence, "bedo i peth lín a thîr ú-chîn."
(If I desire you, speak your word and do not deny me.)
Roxie flushed, eyes darting away. "That's not what that means."
"Oh, I know," Dianna grinned. "But it felt right."
They kept walking, their conversation drifting between English and Sindarin, like a secret being passed hand to hand beneath the sun.
By the time they reached the glass doors of the student center, Roxie didn't know what to make of the girl beside her — the short shorts, the band tee knotted at the hip, the chaotic tattoos that curled like vines up both arms, the dyed-blonde undercut with hints of violet, and those ocean-deep eyes that seemed to see through her hoodie and all the walls she'd built beneath it.
Roxie had never met anyone like her.
And for some reason… Dianna had chosen to walk with her.
They walked side by side across the quad, heading toward the looming brutalist monolith labeled Student Services & Administration — all right angles and zero charm. But Roxie barely saw it. Her full attention was locked on Dianna, who had just thrown down a casually devastating take on The Silmarillion.
"No, see, Morgoth isn't just evil," Roxie said, hands animated, eyes bright behind her flyaway locks. "He wanted to create beauty — something new. That was his downfall. He tried to do what only Ilúvatar could do, and in that pride, he fell."
Dianna gave her a long, sideways glance, smirking. "So what you're saying is, the big bad guy just needed a hobby and a hug?"
"No! Well—maybe." Roxie smiled, completely engrossed in the conversation. "But there's tragedy in it. He was the most powerful. He could've made wonders. But he wanted ownership, not harmony."
"You're really passionate about this," Dianna said, quirking an eyebrow. "I mean, I've never heard anyone describe Morgoth like a failed art major with god issues."
"Well," Roxie said with a small laugh, "he kind of is."
"I dunno, to me he just seems like a—"
Dianna never got to finish the thought because in that instant, Roxie walked directly into the metal doorframe.
CLANG.
The sound echoed like someone had swung a bat into the building. Roxie jerked back with a startled yelp, stumbling a step before catching herself. Her hand flew to her forehead, more out of surprise than pain. The doorframe didn't get off quite so easy — a noticeable dent now marred the steel edge where her skull had collided with it. A few flecks of chipped paint drifted to the floor.
Dianna blinked slowly, looked up at the damage, then back at Roxie.
"Okaaay... That's two accidents today. You good?"
"I—yeah. Yeah, I think so," Roxie said, blinking hard, the faintest blush blooming across her cheeks. "I was just—uh—thinking about... Morgoth."
"You walked into a wall, ya bogan," said Dianna flatly, her Australian accent thick with amusement.
She didn't point out that if Roxie had been a half-step slower, Dianna herself would've smashed into the closed steel door.
"Do you need to suffer my tender ministrations again that badly?"
"I was listening to you," Roxie said, adjusting her hair in frustration, like that would somehow undo the moment. "I tend to pay attention to people who are having a conversation with me."
Dianna let out a low whistle, lips curving.
"You were looking at me so hard you didn't see a steel beam coming. And then you broke it."
Roxie made a quiet, mortified noise — because it was true.
"I swear I'm not usually—"
Dianna stepped in a little closer, eyes glinting.
"Nah. Don't apologize." Her voice dropped just slightly — velvet over teasing steel.
"I like it when you're distracted by me."
Roxie blinked, and her cheeks burned crimson. "You—what?"
"You blush easy." Dianna tilted her head, gaze flicking down to Roxie's cheeks, then back up to those green eyes she was coming to like so much. The tiny woman was openly pleased with herself.
"That's adorable."