AN: Exciting action chapter, there's "epic" duels and the mysterious blondes even get names. I actually own those wonderfully stereotypical characters and thus will try to develop them a bit better in later chapters, I promise... and thank you for Shizuku Tsukishima749 for giving advise on grammar and punctuation for this, I would otherwise be completely lost... :)
With the arrival of the next day, Christian felt a rather nauseating blend of nerves, anticipation and dread. Yesterday had been bad enough, and that had simply consisted of brief encounters and wrangling his way in here. Today entailed actual lessons, with his new fantastically welcoming classmates. He simply couldn't be more enthusiastic.
Still, he had the quiet of the morning to prepare himself in, both mentally and physically. The en suite baths were not to go underappreciated either, especially considering how he'd set his alarm two hours early to test them out, and they did not disappoint.
Whilst he was used to the cheapest bottle of best value shampoo and soap two-in-one, lined up along the side of the bathtub –which was more akin to a Jacuzzi, square in shape and with real, working air jets on the bottom and sides, which occupied Christian for a good twenty minutes- were sixteen tiny little bottles, like the sorts they provided in hotels, of excessively luxurious soaps and shampoos, each a different colour and a different scent. Admittedly, Christian may have gone slightly over the top by the end, when all the bottles had been emptied, the bath water was an odd greenish blue colour and he closely resembled a prune.
Not that it's healing powers had failed, he was pretty confident that by the time he'd climbed out and towelled off, he'd never been so relaxed in his life. So great was its power that he was barely even thinking about the delightful Marian as he clipped the bra over his chest and tucked the implants in, and when she slipped out of her room and went down to the food court for breakfast, she was perfectly able to ignore the undisguised stares and gossiping. Having been a hooker for two years, she was more than used to having to deal with other people and their judgemental attitudes.
Sitting on her own at breakfast, Christie felt she did a fairly good job of giving everyone who was glaring at her the most patronising, beaming grins possible and downed her food in two minutes flat, escaping as soon as possible. One meal down, only a year's worth to go.
Bumping into her face as she opened the door out of the food court, Dora crashed into her and a dazzling display of blue sparkles spattered off of her from the collision, blinding Christie entirely so she ended up walking into the door. Erupting behind her were the quick giggles and whispers of everyone who had witnessed the act of such elegance. Christie had been able to handle being thought of as a slut or slum trash, but that did not mean she was going to let them think her an idiot.
Brushing herself off and straightening, she continued quickly out and had to count to ten in her head before being able to speak civilly to Dora. "I am so, so sorry," Dora apologised sheepishly, over and over again, and since she was the nicest person Christie knew here, and her only friend, she naturally had to forgive her.
"It's fine," She sighed, the effects of the bath wearing off as reality set back in. "Any idea where my next lesson is?" She inquired hopefully, since whilst the tour had been just lovely, she couldn't remember where absolutely anything was. Naturally the food court was the exception to that rule, since it was, well, food, and even her memory had its priorities.
Seemingly overjoyed with the chance to prove her worth, Dora did another one of her odd little backflips in the air and then spun around, another shower of sparkles floating off of her and then they clustered together, glowed bright for a moment and then with a little popping noise, turned into a sheet of pink, laminated A5 paper, which required Dora's full arm span to hold it. First she looked at it and then flew over to hand to it Christie, making a little groaning noise as she did so. "Poise lessons, and first thing in the morning too," She grumbled moodily, her sulks just as energetic as her cheers as she folded her arms across her chest and pouted dramatically.
Smirking subtly to herself, because the whole idea of being taught poise and proper things like that amused a commoner like her, Christie glanced over her new timetable. She did indeed have poise lessons scheduled first thing on that Wednesday morning. "Where exactly is the dance hall?" She asked, trying to recall which of the huge, Olympic sized rooms had been dubbed the dance hall. After the first few rooms of gaping at how over-sized everything was, things had begun to blur into one another, all rather overwhelming.
"Modern block, east wing," Dora recalled with a military like precision, springing out of her sulk just as easily as she had slipped into it and quickly whizzing off to lead the way. Having finished breakfast far faster than anyone else, all the other little princesses and lady royals in trainings having clearly been trained to eat with delicacy and grace whilst she'd learnt to consume what she had as fast as possible to avoid it getting pinched by Emile, Christie was able to head over to her first lesson with relative ease, the few people she encountered too tired or too caught up in chatting to their friends to even give her a decent appraising look over.
As predicted, the dance hall was far larger than could possibly be necessary, decorated in the same blue, purple and pink hues as the rest of the modern block, yet ornate pillars had been put in place to try and give it that 'authentic' feel. Standing awkwardly in the corner whilst she waited for the rest of her peers to arrive along with whoever their teacher was, Christie once again experienced the sensation of being rather insignificant compared to how massive everything here was. Yet she was never going to survive here if she felt sorry for herself, so she straightened her back and kept her head up.
Gaggling together in the centre of the room, each new arrival would go over and find her friends and a spot to stand in, and then without fail, each one would turn to look over at her. Eventually Christie got rather fed up with the malice or amusement in their expressions, so she walked on over to join them, to see if she could play on their basic human decency to not discuss her to her face.
Why on earth she'd expected that much from these people though, she had no idea, especially since the three people she'd ended up walking to stand behind were two familiar blonde heads, and then soon joining them came Marian, who gave Christie a bemused smirk before joining her little followers. With no hesitation whatsoever, they began discussing her in hushed, yet somehow still very loud voices. "She's a street rat, you know what they're always like, they can barely put one foot in front of the other," One of the blondes sniggered, earning a slap on the shoulder from the other blonde and a giggle from Marian.
"Jean quiet, she might hear you," The other blonde scolded her, snickering all the same.
"So what if she does? Lottery girls never make it through the first term, let alone the year. We may as well have our fun whilst we can." Marian drawled confidently, now shamelessly looking over at Christie and raising her eyebrows.
Cutting through the two blondes to stand directly before Christie, Marian flicked her hair back behind her shoulders, straightened herself out and then narrowed her eyes, clearly readying herself to attack. "Christie, it is Christie isn't it? We're very honoured to have you at our school," Marian purred, giving Christie nothing to argue with or use against her. Perhaps it was rather sad that Christie found her fake niceness far worse than her open bitchiness, like back at home where everyone was comfortable with openly swearing at and insulting one another, and then it would all get brushed over.
Quickly garnering the curiosity of the other gathered students, Marian used the attention to her advantage. "Won't everyone give Christie a proper princess charm school welcome?" She enquired of her audience, turning round to look at them before once again facing Christie. The first to move, Marian dipped down into a very proper, very formal curtsey, even dropping her eyes. Following her, some eagerly and some hesitantly, the rest of the students mimicked Marian, curtseying with all the poise and elegance of true, well-bred princesses.
Christie had never in her life been taught to curtsey, and could tell that although it was completely beyond what she was used to, this little ritual of theirs was somehow trying to show her up. Clearly, based on their speech and attitudes, they thought everyone from the slums were incompetent whores, who hadn't a shred of character or grace.
Letting the rest of them all straighten so they could watch her properly, Christie gave Marian her sweetest smile before perfectly repeating her curtsey, careful to drop her eyes, to keep her posture delicate and not to wobble as she dipped down. Upon resurfacing, she found the irritated tick Marian was sporting indicated that she'd managed to pull it off, turning Marian's little poise-off around on her. "Thank you for your kindness, Marian," She simpered back, perhaps going a little overboard with the sarcasm, but it was clear from the disappointed or agitated expressions on the rest of their faces that just because she could copy their curtseying sufficiently, it didn't mean they were all going to be friends.
Arriving moments after that came their teacher, a woman Christie recognised as the rather comically 'evil' dame Devin, dressed in a glamorous skin-tight gown that Christie couldn't think very useful or walking in, let alone working on your poise. "Girls," She called to them, clapping her hands together to draw their attention away from Christie, "welcome to your first lesson in poise. Marian, if you would go and fetch the books from the cupboard, Jean, Abigail, you two help her. The rest of you, please gather around and listen carefully, I will not tolerate any misbehaviour or anyone failing to perform as I expect them to." She ordered quickly, speaking with a brisk precision that hurriedly jolted everyone out of confronting Christie and to slip back into being good, obedient students.
Trailing along behind everyone else as Marian and her two blondes, Jean and Abigail, ventured over to fetch the books from a cupboard in the corner, Christie only half listened as dame Devin rambled on and on about the importance of poise, how it defined a woman and gave her power. Her lack of focus meant she forgot to stop herself snorting at the irony when their teacher announced that poise was something that gave women the upper hand when among men. Having earned herself more glares with that little slip up, she managed to keep quiet for the rest of it, surviving the speech at least.
Spending an hour of her life every week learning to balance books on her head seemed rather alien though, but then she'd always been a bit of a cynic towards the education system. Classifying this as education was rather new to her too, but then since these women were all learning to become rulers or pretty dolls, she doubted things such as science and math were necessary, which in all honesty was a relief; she'd always been awful in normal citizen school.
Feeling as though every pair of eyes were scrutinising her, waiting expectantly for her to live up to their expectations, Christie plucked a book up from the table they'd been displayed upon and after glancing around to try and make her peers at least feel guilty for being so obvious in their judgement of her, she placed it upon her head. Whilst the others around her wobbled about, awkwardly trying to keep their books on their heads, contorting their bodies everywhere in a rather unladylike fashion to keep their balance, Christie just stood there, trying to get a feel for the book.
Whilst she could not claim to ever have thought that balancing a book on her head was a great idea, although she'd done it a few times when she was bored or as a joke, she liked to think this was something she could manage, albeit for the entirely wrong reasons. As a prostitute, your income relied on several factors, one of those being how attractive your clients found you, obviously, and another being how good you were at sex, as this determined reputation and repeat customers.
Hence the reason serious prostitutes worked out. Working in the niche market for transgendered prostitutes recently, although she had started out as a male, Christie had done her research and knew the kind of attributes that went down well for her target clients. Flexibility, balance, elegance and femininity all worked rather well, since they all seemed to enjoy the illusion she created, and then stripping that off later. Which was why, although she couldn't exactly claim she'd done it for 'educational purposes', Christie had built up her poise and endurance rather accidentally, simply through her efforts to become a successful hooker.
"Christie Summers don't just stand there, move!" Dame Devin barked aggressively from her viewing position at the end of the hall, overseeing them all as they embarrassed themselves. Exhaling in a whistle as she tried to focus on using her attributes to her advantage, wishing Dora was there to do her whole cheerleader routine instead of being off doing other magical sprite things, Christie took a careful step forwards.
Bordering on arrogance, she quickly found that this was nowhere near as hard as the others were making it out to be. So long as she was careful and moved intelligently, the book stayed perfectly still on her head. In fact, the biggest danger was that if it fell, it could slip her wig with it, and that threat only made her focus more. Concentrating so hard she barely even noticed the curiosity of her peers, she helped herself to another book, as dame Devin had instructed if they were feeling confident, and then a few minutes later, another.
That was when the competition began. Who else would be talented at this other than the perfect, flawless Marian, who had started out on three books and had now worked her way up to four? Only once Christie had reached five books did she notice that Marian was watching her intently, eyeing her books and posture. Moving with all the sophistication of a well-bred young lady, Marian glided over to the table and helped herself to another two books, over taking Christie by one.
Rather enjoying some healthy competition, which was vastly preferable to bitching at the girl, Christie slowly placed another book upon the pile that was forming on her head, froze when she felt it wobble a little and then at snail pace, topped it off with another book, bringing it to the grand total of seven. It wasn't enough to just balance them however, she had to prove she could walk with them, and after giving herself a little mental prep speech about how she would be forever ridiculed and put down if she fucked this up, she put her hands out to the side slightly and moved.
It worked, it actually worked! Unable to bounce up and down on her heels childishly as she wanted to as the book tower didn't come toppling down, Christie bit down on her lip to stop herself babbling about the achievement and then kept going, determination turning into pure stubbornness.
Perhaps it was rather conceited and cruel that she felt a rush of achievement and smugness when the sound of several crashing books could be heard behind her. Turning gradually so as not to meet the same fate, she rotated to see Marian stood amongst a pile of fallen books, clearly seething with her fists clenched at her sides.
"Marian, pick those up and start again with one," Dame Devin drawled dryly, interrupting the silence that had fallen across the hall, every student having turned to watch the outcome of the contest, most having taken their books from their head and were holding them in their hands mournfully in respect for their fallen unspoken leader. Nodding silently, flushing scarlet, Marian squatted down and started gathering up her books, scowling moodily. Christie almost felt sorry for her, and against her better judgement sighed, took the books off from her head and set them back down on the table, and then went over to help her fallen opponent.
"I don't need help, lottery girl," Marian snapped bitterly when she approached and tried to offer her one of the books that had been thrown furthest, its spine slightly cracked from the fall.
"I'm just giving you your book back," Christie pointed out flatly, quickly realising this attempt to appease her opponent was going to be rather futile.
Snatching the book out from her hands, Marian gave her a filthy glare, glanced over at dame Devin and then decided against making a comment and stormed off, dumping the spare books back on the table and then placing the reaming one upon her head, ignoring everyone else as she balanced it perfectly. "Congratulations, you beat the boss level," Snickered a rather grave voice behind Christie, which somehow managed to sound solemn despite being quite clearly amused.
Turning, Christie found one of the other students had actually talked to her, and she could be wrong, but she thought that it was almost a compliment. Christie didn't recognise her as anyone Dora had pointed out, nor had she seen her hanging out with Marian at all, so she suppose that granted her a little bit of hope. With dark chocolate skin and black hair in a bob, the girl had a rather memorable appearance with heavy, decorative black makeup around her eyes and she was probably the only person Christie had seen here to have a piercing, a silver stud at the bottom of one lip.
The pierced girl did not say anything else however; she just gave Christie a look over like everyone else did, shrugged, and then walked off, no book on her head or in her hands. Nor did she sit next to her at lunch, in which Christie sat in stony silence whilst Marian whispered very rapidly to her gathered admirers, her words rather unkind judging by the mix of amusement and shock on her audience's faces and her cruel expression.
Real trouble came however in the last three lessons; Maths, Chemistry and English. Whilst this time she was not challenged to any exciting duel of book balancing by her peers, she was instead very much aware that next time these lessons came around, her teachers were most likely to have a very public discussion with her about the fact that she hadn't written a single answer –or certainly not a correct one-, and by the time English came around she was doodling hopelessly in her margins, and then was forced to reluctantly hand in her exercise book at the end.
Her patience had run out by the end of the day, so she skipped dinner, giving a rather lame excuse to Dora about how she was feeling unwell, and then crawled back into bed, exhausted from having to try and work out what a quadratic formula even was, and from deciphering all the equations her chemistry teacher had gifted her with. Homework was assigned here in great quantities and with short deadlines, but her bag containing her exercise sheets had been dumped alone in the corner of the room, which she was now scrutinising accusingly. There was going to be hell to be paid for her failure, she was sure enough of that, but for now, sleep was too tempting an escape to pass up.