Here's a long Erik chapter for you. :) It's the usual speech today. I don't own POTO. Comments, review, ideas, suggestions, questions, etc are much appreciated.
"May we go in now?" Erik knew that it had been rude to not talk to her since they left the house, but he very simply had nothing that needed to be expressed to her. She had been explaining some of his questions as they were walking. No point in wasting the air to say something already answered. Maria waved her arms crazily. He suspected that it might have been a mocking gesture of invitation and gave her a side glare. Still, he opened the door they were standing in front of and went in. She followed behind him.
They had entered into a room, more of a hallway than a room per-say, with coat hangers, benches, three sets of doors (that he could see from where he was) and a lone door apart from the others going inwards.
"You go in through that blue door there." Maria directed him towards the lone door. "The only times you don't are during seated lunch, and even then faculty likes to get their food before the students sit down." They passed through the door. "We want to stay to the right of that wall. If you go left, you go into the dish-pit." Dish-pit? "The dish-pit is where all the dirty dishes are put and washed after a meal. But the direction we are going opens up into the serving area. Essentially this area has all the cooked food." They passed to the right of the wall and entered into a proper room, and he let Maria go in-front of him. If she thought anything of it, she kept her mouth shut, and he was grateful.
As soon as he stepped foot into the buffet area, his ears were assaulted with noise. The clanging of dishes, the hum of machinery, and voices were all combined in a giant, noisy stew. Yet the number of people in the room did not match the number of voices that he heard. Erik looked around. He found another set of doorways leading into yet another room. Most of the voices were coming from those doorways. To his left, there was some piece of machinery where people were getting drinks, and to his right what appeared to be a fruit, bread, and soup station.
"Because it is dinner, everything right now is set up buffet style. It's rather straight forward. That there is a salad station, and that over there has the main meal of the day and noodles. Over there by that window is where desserts are set up. Everything is normally self served." She grabbed a pair of plates from under a counter and handed one to him. "Here, your going to need this. Unless you want the soup. Not really sure what it is tonight though." She went over to where people were helping themselves to the main meal, and he had nothing better to do but follow her. He could feel people staring at him. He never had liked that feeling. Silently he served himself some food, though he felt like he would be too nervous to eat it.
"Maria! How ya doing? This the new guy?" A man was coming over to her. Much shorter than Erik, with grey eyes set in a long face topped with a full head of brown hair. About the same size as Maria, in fact. He had a plate full of salad in one hand, and a glass of water and silverware in the other.
"Peter! Long time no see! I'm fine, thanks. This is Erik Destler. Erik, meet Peter DeWitt, an English teacher and the JV boys soccer coach.
"Nice to meet you Erik!" Peter appeared to be taking Erik in. He felt rather self-conscious right then. If Peter even noticed the mask, he wisely didn't say a thing. "Anyway Maria, the crew and I are over at table 17 if you want to join us."
"That'd be nice. And it would be a pretty good way to get him to meet some people." Maria nodded her head towards Erik. Even Erik felt as though he must look slightly petrified.
"Fair enough! See you guys over there in a minute or two then." He smiled. "I'll tell them that the new fellow has shown up." He left before either Maria or Erik would have had a chance to say anything to protest that, not that they would have anyway.
"Peter is a good person. Very happy all the time, quite a spirit lifter. I haven't seen him all summer though. He was with his family for most of it." She smiled. Erik was trying to focus on what she was saying. Her voice was like a lifeline for him, keeping him from drowning in this torrent of people. He could not recall (unsurprisingly) if he had ever been this public among people. He had a feeling that he had... at one point. He frowned slightly. In fact, he knew that he had been this social before! Just not on his own free will. There was fear then too. Way more so than whatever he was feeling now.
"Come on Erik. Grab some silverware, and we'll go sit down. And try and smile. It makes you look less scary, no offense." None taken to that last comment. He had to admit that if he met himself on some obscure back street, he would run. Actually, now that he thought about it, he probably would fight, or hide, not run. Whatever. He forced his lips to return to a neutral position. "Better. Let's go," He snagged a fork, knife, and napkin as he passed by the containers holding them.
Erik had thought that there was a goodly number of people in the kitchen. In this room, the real dining hall, as Maria stated to him, there was more. A lot more. Although it was obvious that this room was built to hold many more than what was seated in there right now, to him it seemed as though it was crowded. There were groups of teachers all over the place, from up on the raised area in the back of the dining hall, to the set of three doors that he had seen coming in. There was practically a group at each table. Movement caught his eyes, and he looked slightly up. There was a railing and another section to the dining hall, up above the floor that they were on. He wondered if it went underground too.
"Up there is what we call the pantry. There is only one table up there, so not as many as you probably are thinking." It was like she could read his mind. "the table we are sitting at tonight, 17, is that one there. Right by that isle. It seems that the whole crew really is there tonight. This'll be the first time in ages." Maria smiled happily and waved to a few of her friends. Erik tried to hide his nervousness better.
"Maria! Good to see you again! I would ask how your students are treating you, except they haven't yet arrived." A lady was speaking, her dark brown curls bouncing with every word she spoke. It seemed as though she hadn't even noticed Erik when he sat down next to Maria. He concluded that observation was not one of her skills. Everyone else at the table though, they noticed him. He was, after all, a rather hard figure to miss.
"So, Maria, are you going to introduce us to your friend there?" Another women was speaking, this one looked shyer that the brunette that had been spoken. She had a pair of square framed glasses perched on a small nose, and her long, light colored hair was pulled back in a ponytail.
"Oh! Right. Sorry. This is Erik." He smiled nervously at them. She nudged him with her elbow and whispered under her breath something about greetings. He got his hint immediately.
"Hello." He hoped that one word would be good enough. Oddly though, they looked surprised. He had to wonder once more if his accent was really that bad. He cast a flighty glance at Maria, and she winked.
"Don't worry, they'll get over it soon enough. I had the same reaction when I first heard you too." She said softly under her breath.
"And what reaction would that have been?" He muttered back at her, equally quiet, and quite curious to hear if it wasn't any accent he might possess.
"Shock, surprise, and awe. You have a really amazing voice with a stunning quality to it." She paused before continuing. "It made me think of the voice of an angel."
He was the one to be surprised right then. An angels voice? Couldn't be possible. Clearly she must have been dreaming when they first met. He elbowed her. She gave him an innocent look followed by a glare. He returned it.
"So... How are you Erik?" Finally someone had recovered their wits. It was a person sitting next to Peter, an older man that was in the beginning stages of balding.
"Fine, thank you." He responded politely. He had a premonition that they was going to be questions. Lots of them. Inwardly, Erik groaned. He didn't even know the names of these people!
"You could at least introduce yourself Garrison! Maybe we should go around the table and say our names and what we teach. We do need to at least give the poor man a chance at recognizing us." The woman speaking smiled and waved a hand at him. "Hi. I'm Jessica. I'm a Bio teacher."
"Is that seriously all you could come up with for ideas, Jess? Could we at least make this creative?" A man with a French accent was speaking. "Bonjour Erik. I am Ricard. Clearly, I am from France.
"Where in France?" The question escaped from his lips before he thought about it, which also meant that it was in French itself.
"Another French speaker! I hail from Marseille, and you?" He responded in English. Erik wasn't sure whether to find that odd or not.
"I lived in Paris for a while." He did indeed know that he had been in Paris for a while, although he didn't know how long. He also somehow knew that he had been in some middle eastern country before that, though he could not recall where, and before that, a northern country.
"And before that?" Erik didn't like how personal this was getting.
"A small town in the Northern part of the country."
"Northern France is a large are-" He was cut off by a fellow that had yet to introduce himself.
"I do believe you have interrogated him enough for one day, Monceux." The speakers tone of voice made it evident to Erik that Ricard's presence was not welcome. He looked at the speaker, who sat at the head of the table. Even sitting, Erik could tell that the man he was looking at was quite strong, and probably rather tall. In a side part of his mind, he wondered which of them would be taller than the other.
"But I only just got here, Maddox!" Ricard whined, and Erik's opinion of the man continued to fly south.
"And you have just finished." Indeed, his plate was spotless though that wouldn't have mattered anyway.
"Well, I'm not full yet. My curiosity has not been sated! Erik, my boy," He bristled at his words and tone of voice. "Pray tell me, what is it that you are hiding? Under a mask, no less? I can see that something is clearly wrong with your lip. Perhaps what you are hiding is the rest of it? Is something wrong with you, mon ami?" Marceux stood, as though he hoped to intimidate Erik by height. "Tell me, my friend. Something is wrong with you, no?" Erik didn't say anything, though his words were true. "Come now, I know that you are not mute, as I have heard you speak! Unless you are stupid. That would make sense." Ricard gave him an evil smile, and even Maddox seemed unsettled by how far he was taking this. "You are hiding from your own stupidity. Now what a stupid idea that is! I bet that you hardly understand what I am saying! You..." The Frenchmen's insults continued while Erik passively sat watching the others reactions. Their faces were drawn and shocked. Finally, he grew sick of hearing that whining voice.
"Enough." It was spoken clearly, but the venom dripping from it could have poisoned a snake. Ricard froze. "I recommend that you leave now and do not annoy us further. You are nothing more that an insect to any of us at this table, Ricard. I wonder how long it will take for you to realize that." Erik let his loathing and pity mix with the venom. "Leave now, Ricard. Get out of here." Erik glared at Monceux's retreating figure. Where his glare at Maria had been gentle, and had simply frozen her to the spot, this glare was hot, seeming to burn the mans back. Only when the man was out of sight did the others at the table unfreeze. They seemed thoroughly shocked by how he had made him flee, as they stayed silent for what seemed like forever.
"Well... I've never seen anything like that before. Remind me sometime to not get you mad. I do think it would be a thoroughly unpleasant experience." The older man spoke, Garrison, Erik recalled.
A chorus of agreement came from the group. A heavy silence descended between them. At last, the man Erik knew only by the name of Maddox broke it. "Thank you for getting rid of him. I have been trying, and failing, for years. He never did seem to get it until now. I hope you realize that whatever he was saying about you wasn't the truth. He was trying to goad you on. He practically lives for fights.
"With all honesty, I zoned out after the first sentence or two." Erik smiled sheepishly at him. In truth, he had listened to the whole thing, but didn't absorb any of it. It was like he was used to being insulted, much worse than that.
Maddox returned his smile. "I like you, Erik. The name's Logan, by the way. And I think that you are going to like it here." He nodded his head in the direction in which Ricard had left. "Idiots like him are far and few between. He's just an exception. Anyway, welcome to Arxs School, Erik. The name is quite suiting. In Latin the word Arx, Arcis means fortress, castle or citadel. Therefore, welcome to our home on the hill, Erik, our fortress and our castle. In time I do believe that you will grow as fond of it as us."
Maria elbowed him. "Don't you begin to think that you are done meeting people for the night. You haven't met the department heads, or even the headmaster yet!"
Erik groaned. He had had enough people to last him a month.
Jessica, who seemed to Erik to be the bright and bubbly one of the group, piped up.
"Don't worry! If you think this is a lot of people, wait till you meet all the students!" His expression must have read to them as something close to 'Oh God. More people!', for they seemed to get some amusement out of his plight.
"Speaking of..." Peter bobbed his head in the direction of the kitchen, where Erik could see people begging to line up. They looked younger than the teachers. "It appears that the prefects have returned."