Disclaimer: I don't own Legends of Chima. All original characters are mine unless stated otherwise.
Dear Readers: I'm super excited about this new story. It's going to be mostly character-driven but I'll try and put some action in too.
This Story Contains: One lesbian couple, as a main plot point.
Weird Update On The Author's Personal Life: My essay is done and it sucks but that's okay because the last essay I did sucked even more. Also, join my new forum, Tales From The Pond.
A middle-aged eagle with light blue feathers walked into the room, opening up the windows. He navigated around the desks (some noticeably messier than others) and looked around. He then started to dust off the shelves in his classroom. Every so often, he would pick out a book or a small model of an eagle jet and add it to a growing stack in the crook of his arm. He set the stack on his own desk and thought for a second before writing "Welcome Back To Mechanics Of Flight" on the board. The room looked like it was once an ordinary classroom, but the mechanical parts strewn across the shelves, as well as the blueprints and schematics covering the walls suggested otherwise.
Everus was the eagle's name, and it was his second year teaching Mechanics Of Flight, an elective engineering class for the young pilots and innovators of the world of Chima. The students had two weeks off of classes to celebrate Illumination Day, a holiday created about eighty years ago to celebrate the day when the second Illumination created by the phoenixes and the legendary heroes of Chima restored the land to peace. All of Chima celebrated with a special Speedor tournament and other festivities.
Now, he was preparing to teach again. Everus had always been passionate about both engineering and flight. Back in his peak he had fought in the military, flying an Eagle jet of his own design. He was too old for that now, but he chose to spend his time teaching the next generation of pilots and inventors alike. The class was held at the base of Eagle Spire to give the other tribes easier access, because though it was run by the eagles they wanted to make the class open to all of Chima.
The first day back was always hard. Since his class was an elective, thankfully everyone involved wanted to be there (to some degree). Everus thought himself lucky for that, but his students could still be unruly sometimes, especially after vacation.
"Hello, is this Mechanics of Flight?" A black-furred young adolescent bat walked into the room.
"Yes, you must be… Bruthis?"
The bat nodded. He stood at half a head taller than Everus. Bruthis was a new student in the class, and Everus had asked him to come a few minutes early so he could get to know him. From what the eagle had heard, Bruthis was a very skilled engineer and excited to be taking the class.
"You may call me Mr. Everus, and I'm going to be your teacher. As you probably can see. I'm sorry, it's pretty messy in here." Everus gestured to the random stacks of books and papers. "It's not always like this. Just most of the time." He chuckled at his own joke.
Bruthis smiled slightly.
"I've been told that you're familiar with some of the content we covered in the first semester of this class," Everus said.
"I think so. I could always review it, if you want."
"How about we just see how it goes. You can sit wherever you like."
Bruthis sat down near the back of the room and took out his notebook.
"Good morning, Mr. Everus," a silver-furred bat said, walking into the room. She was followed by her friend, a slight raven girl.
"Good morning, Briza and Rakta," he replied. "You're early."
"We know, I'm up at this time anyways." Briza shrugged.
"We just missed you, Mr. Everus," Rakta quipped.
Everus smiled. "You can sit anywhere today. Also, this is Bruthis. He's going to join this class."
Bruthis looked up. "Hey."
"Hello!" Briza grinned. "I'm Briza, and this is Rakta." The raven gave a little wave.
Briza sat down next to Bruthis, and Rakta followed her. "I feel like I've seen you around."
"Yeah, I might have seen you somewhere in the caves."
"Cool! I'm glad you're here, this class is pretty neat."
Everus smiled to himself.
The other students arrived. The class was small with only twelve students, ages fourteen through sixteen, and noticeably trended towards the winged denizens of Chima. Besides Rakta, Briza, and Bruthis, there were three eagles, a vulture, and another raven, but there were also students from some of the other tribes.
Everus cleared his throat and made his way to the front of the room. "Good morning students, and welcome back. Did you have a good Illumination Day?"
Some of the students responded, mostly positively.
"Good. More importantly, are you ready to learn?"
This achieved a more mixed response.
"Before we begin, I have an announcement to make. We have a new student today." Everus noticed that most of the students looked pretty tired. "I know it's early in the morning, so you don't have to come up here, but Bruthis, could you maybe raise your hand? Or do a little dance for us." A few animals snickered.
Bruthis waved. "Hi everyone. I'm Bruthis. I like mechanics, and flight's cool, and I heard there was an open spot in this class."
Most of the students greeted him with friendly smiles and hellos.
"We're very glad you're here," Everus said to Bruthis. "Now who's ready for a review of what we covered last semester?"
This warranted a slightly less enthusiastic response.
Thankfully for Everus, most of the animals were too tired to be loud or rowdy, one of the benefits of having class early in the morning. Granted, Everus thought that a good hour after sunrise gave them plenty of time. He had found most teenagers were just lazy. Adolescents took their sleep very seriously.
"Today, I'm going to be handing out some blueprints. Your job is to find the flaws in the designs and propose some changes in how this hovercraft is constructed," Everus said, opening a drawer in his desk. "Working with your peers is allowed, and I actually would recommend it, since these are complex and it's our first day back." He pulled out a folder with a stack of blueprints and passed them out. When he passed a sleeping beaver, he cleared his throat and poked him in the nose with the paper.
The beaver instantly perked up. "Fix it! Fix it!" He snatched the blueprint from Everus.
Everus chuckled lightly at the beaver, who was now intently studying the diagrams.
"A hovercraft. That's interesting," Bruthis murmured, seeming deep in thought. "Would something like this be feasible?"
"You tell me," Everus replied as he passed by the black bat.
"I doubt it could be as fast as a Speedor because of the lack of tribestone, but I bet we could use big hovercrafts for transporting supplies," Briza offered, overhearing the exchange. "I know it's kind of nerdy to want to know, but this seems cool."
"We're all nerds here," Everus interrupted cheerfully. A few of the other students groaned.
"Yes, that could work, but how would we create fans to have a better energy efficiency than wheels?"
Rakta could've joined in. Hovercrafts were intriguing, and she had some thoughts about the pneumatics in the system. She wanted to know their opinions.
But she couldn't. She didn't want to bother them. So she just kept working.
"I think that the hull isn't thick enough," Briza said, and Bruthis nodded.
"But will it generate enough lift if we add weight?," he mused.
"Rakta, what do you think?"
The raven had been unconsciously covering her sketches with a talon, but hesitantly revealed them to the bats. "What if we took some of the material off of the sides to make it more streamlined? Then it would be light enough to have a reinforced hull."
Was it a good idea? Probably not, Briza was way smarter than her.
"That would work, thanks." Bruthis started to write some notes on the blueprint.
Briza smiled at Rakta.
Rakta gave a slight nod and a smile back.
This would always happen. Briza was the closest thing Rakta had to a best friend, but being much more outgoing than the quiet raven, Briza ended up having a lot of other friends too. Rakta considered herself the ultimate third wheel, a awkward nerd who Briza somehow still stuck around.
Rakta returned to her work.
"Class is over, everyone. We'll continue this tomorrow," Everus announced.
"Thank you, Mr. Everus," Briza said over her shoulder as she left the classroom. She fell into step next to Rakta. "Hey Rakta, you wanna go to the fort after school?"
"That sounds cool," she responded, a bit too readily. Rakta then remembered. "Sorry, my cousin's making me help out at his racetrack today."
"Ah, Rilfor, right? He's the one that runs the Speedor tournament."
"The super sketchy unofficial one? Yeah, that's him."
Briza snickered. "Well, have fun with that. Maybe tomorrow then?"
Tomorrow. Maybe it could be the two of them, just like it used to be. "Sure!"
An afternoon with her annoying cousin, Rakta could handle. She just had to make it through the day.
The chapter feels a bit rushed to me, but I don't think I'll get much out of staring at it more. What do you think? Be sure to review, I love getting feedback. Also, if you want one of your characters to have a cameo you're welcome to PM me about it.