A/N: So, I am working on the little Deryn/Deryn story, but I had written this a few days ago for the Contest, and I decided to not submit it. Christian Gurd is an actual living person, and although I only stole his name, I did not steal his personality! And Sophie is OC as well :) I hope you all like it :)
Christian ran. He did not walk, he ran. He did not, in fact, have time to walk to his freshman psychology class across campus because his bloody roommate had unceremoniously unplugged his alarm clock. So no, he did not calmly walk through the campus, admiring the beautiful trees or even whistling to young ladies, to his first class on his first day of university. No sir, he ran like a maniac instead.
Once getting to the large building, he busted through the door, attempting to find room 305. It took him a steady jog down the hall looking at numbers to make him realize that he was on the wrong floor and that he needed to go up three more flights of stairs.
In reality, it would have been wise for Christian to simply have blown off his first class, and give the professor the impression that he was just another careless young man who was simply there due to his parent's urging. But Christian was not that sort of person. He was smart and respectable, and also the only student on a full scholarship at the university, and did not have the luxury of making a bad impression.
Shoes slapping on the floor, sweat slowly making its way down his forehead, Christian kept running until he reached the large amphitheatre where his first lecture was being held. He opened the door as quietly as he could, careful not to interrupt the lecture. He needn't have worried; really, any creak, scrape, or scratch that the door might've made was drowned out by the professor's low and death-like monotone, amplified by the carefully engineered acoustics of the amphitheatre.
There were around fifteen rows of plush velvet chairs surrounding the stage. All of the seats that were free were either in the front row, or in the middle of the audience. And, although the room was very dark, if Christian were to go take any of those, he would have surely been noticed by the professor and called out on his lateness. He spotted a single chair in the last row on the very edge of the aisle. Christian made his way up the small set of steps to the very last row.
The girl who was sitting in the chair beside the free one was so concentrated on the professor's dull words that she did not even notice Christian asking her if the seat next to her was taken.
"Excuse me, miss? Is that seat taken?" He asked once again, this time a wee bit louder. The girl flew in her seat, nearly knocking the elbow of the boy sitting to her other side.
"Gott verdammen Sie!" she swore in a hushed voice, and then looked up to meet Christian's eyes. Her bright green eyes were wide in both anger and surprise. "No, the seat is not taken." She snapped, her voice clipped and vicious, letting Christian hear a hint of a Scottish lilt underneath her carefully groomed English. "You shouldn't sneak up on people like that! It's barking frightening!"
Christian took the seat, and turned over to her, extending his hand for her to shake. "Christian Gurd. Pleased to make your acquaintance, miss."
She stared down at his hand for a moment, but then took it, delicately shaking his with her small, slender hand. "Sophie Chotek," she replied.
"Is that German, Miss Chotek?" He asked, curiosity taking over him. "Your name, I mean."
"It's Austrian, actually." She said, now veering her attention back to the professor, but her head tilted slightly toward Christian, as if inviting him to continue speaking to her over the professor's ramblings.
"So what's an Austrian doing in London? Last I heard, you were all hiding in shame over there."
Sophie chuckled lightly. "Me Ma's Scottish and me Da's Austrian. He got picked up in Switzerland during the Great War and started working for the Zoological Society of London as an ambassador. You could say that he was a big factor in the ceasefire of the War."
"Wait right there a minute. Are you Deryn Sharp's daughter?" Christian asked, his eyes trained on the professor, but his mind wrapping around the turning cogs in his brain.
"Aye." She said, her head nodding slightly.
"Doesn't that mean that you're the air to the Austrian throne as well? Since your mum married that Emperor bloke?"
"Aye. I'm studying Politics, so I can go back to Austria and fix up the government. It truly is a mess there, at the moment." She paused for a moment. "What do you think I'm doing here? Being pretty?" She challenged.
"You don't need to come here to be pretty. You can be pretty all on your own." Sophie looked at Christian, her face flushing with heat.
Before she could come up with anything to say back, the professor suddenly looked up at the audience. "Well, students, that is all for today. I will see you again in two days for our next lecture." The lights of the theatre came up, and Christian swore under his breath. Not only had he missed more than half of his first lecture, but also he had spent the part of the lecture he was present for talking to Deryn Sharp's daughter!
"You have more creative swears than my mother," Sophie remarked as she reached under her seat for her satchel, "and that's saying something." She then did the most bizarre thing. She reached up to the shoulder that was not facing Christian and removed a small frog from it. Looking at it straight on, she said, "end recording," and put it into the bag.
"What's with the frog?" He asked, curious as to why she kept an amphibian literally on her person.
"Oh! You mean Kermit? He records what people are saying when I tell him to." She said.
"So you have that entire lecture saved. On a frog. Named Kermit." Christian supposed that he seemed a bit slow, but in truth; he had never actually encountered a fabrication of that complexity.
"Yes." Sophie said, giving him a look that made him feel that the thoughts he had previously had been correct.
"Right..."
"So..." She began, looking at him expectantly. "Are you going to move out of the way willingly, so both I and the rest of this row can leave our seats, or will I have to tackle you to the floor to get you out of the way?"
Christian looked past Sophie and saw that their entire row had already stood up and were patiently giving the both of them glares. He shot up out of the seat and moved to go down the steps, towards the exit. Sophie followed suit, staying just a tiny bit behind him. He slowed his pace down so to walk next to her.
Once he was walking in time with her, he began. "So, I was just wondering, could I, by any chance, get my hands on that recording frog of yours? You know, to listen to the lecture."
"I wouldn't trust you with him. And besides, he doesn't respond to anyone but me." She said. This is going to be a lot harder than I thought, thought Christian. They turned stepped out of the door of the theatre and walked down the hall together.
"Maybe I can take you out to lunch or a walk in the park, and you could show me how your frog works?" He tried again as they turned to walk down the stairs.
Sophie stopped in the middle of the staircase, causing the constant flow of people to walk around her. "Are you going to pay?" She asked.
Christian stopped and turned to face her. "Is that a yes?"
"Don't answer a question with a question." She said, narrowing her eyes.
"Don't answer questions with empty answers." He shot back. The corners of her mouth twitched slightly, as if she were trying to stifle a smile.
"Answer my question and I will answer yours."
"A gentleman always pays on the first date." He stated.
"It's a date then?" She asked, her eyebrow quirking up.
"I suppose it is. Stop pacing around the question and answer it already. Yes or no?" He pressed.
Sophie rolled her eyes. "Yes, I will go out for coffee with you." She put her hand into her satchel and began to search for something. When she had finally found a pen, she stepped down so she was one step closer to him. Grabbing his hand, she began to scribble a neat combination of numbers onto it. When she had finished, she inspected her work, and, satisfied, said, "there. Call me with the details." Sophie put her pen back into her satchel and walked away from him, without even a backwards glance.
Christian stood dumbfounded on the stairs, staring down at his hand, where eleven neat numbers had been inked onto his skin. "I should be late more often."
A/N: Remember to review!
