Shattered Tapestry
By Makura Koneko
E-mail: makura_koneko@hotmail.com
Chapter Seven
HoneY: Thanks ever so much for catching that name blooper! I hadn't even noticed! I know I was typing it right, so it must have been my spell check. *sigh* Well, at least I know not to use the auto one anymore…Guess it's back to good old fashioned manual monitoring for me! ^_^ Thanks again. -Makura
In the last installment of Shattered Tapestry…
"This place has gotten so corrupted that they need to spy on their own cadets?" Silvra said in a bewildered tone of voice. "That's..."
"Sad." Rodica finished.
"Very." Jovia agreed.
After that, there really wasn't much more to say, and they all split up to get ready for the 'real orientation.'
And Now the Continuation...
"They keep us up till midnight with speeches and junk and then they expect us to actually be awake this early in the morning?" Rodica grumbled as she and Amenea stumbled down the corridor together, passing and being passed by several other students when they reached the main wing on their way to the mess hall; they'd been informed the previous night that the Hall was only used for special occasions. That and repairs needed to be made.
That was another thing…this was one expensive place, they had learned, this grand establishment. Was that what all their taxes went into? Repairing buildings that got demolished from tests? It sounded rather odd, and from what they had all gathered, previous tests had been the non-harmful kind. Illusions, trick questions, competitions, etc.
Breakfast was a sleepy blur, and only Nenaphe was awake enough –in fact, she was almost humanly comprehensive by now- to gather their schedule sheets from a Captain on their way out. It was a now amused Nenaphe who guided the girls to their first class which they, not surprisingly, had together.
Somewhere along the way, the twosome picked up Nenaphe and Jovia. Neither noticed, through their sleepiness, that Silvra wasn't present. They did noticed this fact, however, when, along with everyone else, they were jolted completely awake by a screech loud enough to wake the entire city, Above and Below.
Wincing for their friend and for their ears, the four girls sighed as they entered their first classroom. Five minutes later, as the teacher, a portly man who was to teach them advanced mathematics, was about to take roll, the door was nearly bashed off it's hinges.
"So sorry Professor!" Silvra gasped as she stumbled to a seat beside Amenea. To Silvra's luck, the Professor hardly noticed, only mumbled something about not letting it happen again. Apparently he, too, had stayed up too late the night before. It seemed he also had a bit of sympathy for his students, for he only assigned them one sheet each of math problems to do, then once they were done they were supposed to 'compare results with friends.'
Half the class slept, including Silvra.
The girls –except Silvra- were decently awake by now, and they did get together to do some discussing, all right, but no the mathematical sort.
"Have any of you wondered why the Generals admitted that they weren't cadets so easily?" Nenaphe asked in a hushed, barely audible whisper.
"It does seem rather…well, off." Amenea agreed. "I mean, they don't know us, they have no way of knowing that we won't tell anyone. So why tell us?"
"A motion of friendship? Of trust?" Jovia suggested. They all shook their heads.
"Not likely," Rodica snorted. "Not after that 'move in on our turf and your dog meat' crap they gave us after the entrance exams."
"So, then, why did they tell us?" Jovia frowned. "Like you said, Am- er, Nen, sorry. Like you said, they have no reason to trust us, so why tell us?"
"That, ladies, I believe is the question of the hour." Amenea sighed. "And until we know them better, I don't think we really have any way of figuring it out."
The class was called back to order, then, and Rodica poked Silvra awake. The silver-blonde haired girl glared at her friend before, with a sigh, turning her attention back to the teacher.
The class was dismissed, and they trudged to their next one, expecting pretty much the same thing. What they got, however, was something completely unexpected. The teacher immediately commanded their attention, and anyone who entered and continued to laugh and talk when they took their seats was pierced by deep burgundy eyes under emerald green bangs.
Once everyone was in the room, the teacher gave a shrill whistle. At once, everyone jumped and stared.
"In your seats, mouths closed, feet on the floor, hands folded in your lap, faces facing front, eyes on me." The voice was musical, but left absolutely no room for argument. At once, even the most dismal students found themselves obeying. Immediately, the 'Goddesses' felt something twinge as they regarded the woman with a long, tight braid down her back, dressed smartly in a black Elite uniform.
"My name is Professor Meioh." She began, a crystal pointer in hand as she leaned against the heavy steel desk. "To start off, I will tell you flat out that no matter how good you are, no matter how strong you are, there will always be someone stronger and better than you. Always. Sometimes that person cheats, sometimes they use paranormal powers, sometimes they are better simply because they know you better than they should, better than you know yourself. You may never meet your better, or you may be lucky enough to meet them on a down day and win. But they exist. They always do."
Whatever that twinge had been, Jovia felt herself liking this woman immediately.
"My job," Meioh continued, pushing away from the desk and pressing a button on the wall. "Is to prepare you for everything not taught in your other classes. To expect the unexpected. This will range from showing you subtle places on the human –and alien- body that will render your enemy helpless, unconscious, even dead, to simple paranormal influences that even the ungifted can wield."
"Paranormal influences?" Someone piped up as the lights dimmed slightly and two metal rods rose up from the desk, and once they were raised a transparent 3-D image of various formulas and diagrams flickered into view.
"Did I hear someone speak?" Meioh raised an eyebrow. "I could have sworn I didn't see any hands…"
The youth that had spoken flushed, and snickers filled the room. Silvra glared at the snicker-ees, eyes flashing. Briefly, Meioh spotted this, and made a mental note…
That note registered, Meioh's own eyes snapped, and her silence was suddenly deafening. Slowly, she looked each and every person that had laughed in the eye for a full minute. The tension and sudden fear of the woman before them was so palpable you could cut it with a knife.
Rodica and Jovia exchanged smiles, and Amenea's small, tight grin was approving. Silvra beamed at the woman, who flitted a small smile in the girl's direction as Amenea fidgeted nervously.
Her silent point made, Meioh moved and turned, standing beside her desk. A few breaths of relief were let loose before Meioh flicked a glance at her pupils, an eyebrow raised, her message clear, 'don't let it happen again.'
"To explain your question, Cadet Flimeighter." She directed this at the young man that had spoken. He nodded, respect clear in his eyes. "Paranormal influences –or abilities- is more commonly known as magic."
Cries of disbelief were released, then sharply cut off as the ruby eyed woman flashed a stern frown at everyone- everyone but Silvra, who was quite obviously very pleased, and Nenaphe, who looked as if she'd just remembered something.
"That's right…" Nenaphe thought. "I never got a chance to tell Seren- er, Silvra yesterday…or this morning…"
"I have been informed that a select few of you possess a natural talent for wielding this anomaly. Those few I will list after class and they will stay with me for further instruction on the matter while the rest of you will go to your specials training, after which will be lunch, then general training." She then waved the crystal pointer at the 3-D images.
"What you see before you are various diagrams of tesseract. It is the only known instrument to give us any inkling of how time really works. To understand magic and physics, you need to understand how the universe, my students, is something mortal minds cannot grasp until they understand the universe's building blocks. And since time is the simplest of those building blocks, we will start with it. Next month we will move on to Matter, then to Magus- better known as 'Space'- which will lead us into Magic.
"Now, to start off, who can tell me the five main elements of Time?"
Immediately, only four hands went up. To the slight surprise of a few of the Goddesses, Silvra was one of them. Meioh called on her.
"The five main elements of Time are Endurance, Destruction, Death, Life, and the Tapestry." She hesitated. "Theoretically."
"You're right, on all accounts, including the theoretic part," Meioh smiled slightly at the girl, who went from nervous to blindingly perky. No one noticed, but Meioh was hard pressed not to laugh….for more things than one. Oh, what a joy to see this girl once more! Quickly, she shoved those thoughts aside. No time for that now, especially when it was so clear that none of the five girls before her remembered anything… Again tucking such ponderings for later, Professor Setsuna Meioh returned to teaching her class on the very thing was foremost in her knowledge.
"All but the last Elements Cadet Monstrahl mentioned are pretty self evident." Meioh began, tapping the diagrams with her crystal pointer. The students now noticed a word below each diagram, which were actually symbols and runes- apparently each one represented one of the Elements of Time. "The Tapestry is under the control of the Three Fates of Destiny. No one knows their names- they have had various ones throughout mythological history, and in truth their existence is pure theory. The concept is that the Three Fates are constantly weaving a tapestry of life, of events, disasters, anomalies, etc. A visual, magical retelling of the history of existence itself."
"What would happen if this tapestry were to ever be broken, supposing it really exists?" Ameana asked once she had raised her hand. Meioh's lips quirked.
"That, too, is mere speculation. Some think the universe would cease to exist. Others think time would become unstable. Some think it would 'shatter' so to speak, leaving the Fates as good as nonexistent, until someone either destroyed the remaining pieces or rewove them together. Until then, destiny and time is as watery as a mist, completely unset. Most likely the world would be thrown into Chaos."
Immediately, everyone's minds went to the times before the Elite had been formed.
Another hand went up. Meioh acknowledged it with a nod.
"Professor, what if the Tapestry has already shattered? What if that was what happened all those years ago, in the Dark Times? Does that mean we are in the age of the 'Shattered Tapestry' so to speak?" The speaker was a young woman with a very curvy figure and waist length dark blonde hair in a tight French braid, and bright eyes of a pale sea green color, an almost light silvery green. Her interest in the subject was blatantly obvious.
Something in Meioh's eyes shifted slightly as she regarded the girl. "Excellent observation, Cadet Pétillante. Who knows?" The Professor smiled slightly. "All we know that if that is so, it is a miracle our society isn't even more desolate." Her eyes flitted to the Goddess sitting in the second to the front row, all next to each other, taking up almost the whole row to themselves. The silver-green eyed girl was sitting behind Amenea.
"Since there isn't much more to learn about the Tapestry, let's move on," Meioh tapped the diagram marked 'Destruction' and it maximized, eclipsing all the others, and other smaller diagrams were visible. "Get out your pads, and copy down those diagrams by hand," she told them, immediately the shuffling of papers was heard, and grumbles that they couldn't just use Pads and Pointers.
"And listen while you do," she added. "We'll continue with the first Element of Time, and the easiest to understand, Destruction. Again, the title is self evident. There are scant few things that can't be destroyed. Love, for example. Hate, even. All other emotions can be degraded down to pure humanity, and I assure you, ladies and gentlemen, even humans will one day be destroyed. Everything eventually is, save for those scant few things I mentioned, which we will go into later. Until then…"
She proceeded with the lesson, going from Destruction, to Endurance, Death, and then finally Life.
"For a bit of homework, I want a three-inch long, four inch wide paragraph in size 10 print –yes, I want you to print it out, no flexis- for tomorrow." She suppressed a small flicker of a smile at the groans. "Now, be glad I'm not giving you whole pages to be due by tomorrow, and believe me, many teachers today and in the future, will." More groans.
The large digital clock mounted on the wall behind Meioh beeped loudly, signaling the end of class.
"Hold up!" Meioh snapped as everyone rose with sighs of relief. "Sit! Now!"
"You not our teacher again until tomorrow," a boy sneered, with slicked back black hair and piercing ebony eyes. He rose to his feet, leering at the shapely professor. "I'm gone."
At once, something happened that caused more than a few gasps screeches, and several screams. A faded grey-green smoke whirled up from the floor around Meioh's feet, swirled up her legs, around her torso, then spiraled around her right arm. She raised that arm, holding the wand, and pointed it at the boy, whom had whirled and was now staring at her, eyed wide and holding no little amount of fear.
The smoke poured into the wand, and it filled with a deep burgundy light. A bolt of light shrieked from the tip of the wand and struck the boy. At once his arms snapped to his side, his legs together and his feet planted firmly as his books and flexis went tumbling.
"You've all heard the jokes about witches and wizards and warlocks and sorceresses with wands, amulets, staffs, etc, I assume," she smiled slightly. "They're not jokes, rumors, or hoaxes, at least not for the most part." She waved the wand, and the burgundy glow surrounding the youth retracted, and was pulled back into the wand. The wand flickered, then faded til it was plain, glass-smooth crystal once more.
"For those of you whom came out positive in the tests last week," Meioh continued as the youth grabbed his books and sat. "You will learn to do that and things like it with simple glass wands. Your graduation in four years will be to select, make, and Bind your own personal one –also called a magora- be it wand, staff, amulet, sword, etc.
"I will read that list of people now," the buzzer went off again. "Then you may go." She touched the screen behind her again, and a list came up. She began reading names. To the surprise of many, the cheeky youth was one of the first ones called. Some people looked relieved when Meioh passed the letter of their last name, others disappointed.
"Faesilvria Monstrahl," Meioh raised an eyebrow at Silvra, who grinned widely, beaming, practically bouncing in her seat. She looked at her friends as they congratulated her- they knew how much it meant to the girl to know that she had the potential to be good at something that most people couldn't even hope to get good at no matter how hard they studied and practiced. Silvra spotted the knowing gleam in Nenaphe's eyes, and made a note to ask about that later, as something in the back of her mind clicked.
The Pétillante girl was also on the list- "Andromeda Pétillante" was the name Meioh called. The girl hissed an exuberant 'yes!' under her breath.
The last name called ("Moraine Zelany"), and Meioh dismissed the rest, who bolted, either not wanting to be late, or wanting to get away from the mysterious woman who was their professor.
"You knew!" Silvra said in an excited, but hushed tone as she rose with Nenaphe and touched the girl's right upper arm. Nenaphe smiled slightly.
"I remembered seeing a man walking around during testing," Nenaphe explained. "I watched where he went, and he went to seemingly report to someone. He was looking and motioning towards you, looking quite excited. Then both men went to the Colenol that I knew was in charge of keeping track of scores to be posted after the testing."
Nenaphe and the other girls were the only ones left in the room that wasn't supposed to be there. Spotting this, and flashing a nervously apologetic smile to Meioh, who only raised an eyebrow and flitted her gaze to the door pointingly, Nenaphe hugged Silvra and left.
"Knock 'em dead, princess!" Jovia winked at the shorter girl before letting the door close behind her.
Silvra took her seat again, aware that all eyes were on her. She suddenly felt quite alone without any of her friends, without Kana, without her grand robes to ensure some measure of treatment. She flushed slightly and grinned. The girl on her right returned it, and Silvra recognized her as the one whom had recited the theory of the Tapestry, Andromeda Pétillante. Suddenly Silvra didn't feel quite so alone as Meioh called her students to order again, once again snapping out the orders of no talking, feet on the floor, facing front, eyes on her.
A surge of excitement making it hard for her not to wiggle, Syvlia, for the first time in her life, listened with rapt attention to ever single word her professor spoke. So help her, she would be the best Mage in the class! Grinning as Meioh began to discuss with them the pros and cons of Magic and Mage working, Silvra touched the silver gem at her throat, just barely hidden by the high collar of her uniform.
Not only was she going to be the best, she thought, but she already knew what her magora would be…
These new thoughts in mind, along with the memory of the words exchanged between her and Arden a few nights before, made her smile quite brightly indeed. For once, Silvra thought that maybe this 'disgrace' business wasn't so bad after all…
To Be Continued.
I'm finally over my writer's block! WAHOO! You have my plot fairy, Althea, to thank for that. ^__^ Chapters should be coming quicker, now. I do apologize for the long hiatus. It shouldn't happen again. Thank you all for sticking with me! I confess I did consider 'shelving it' as Ceila put it, but your encouragement made me stick it out a lil longer til inspiration struck again. Thanks!
I admit the response to this fic is less than excitement-inspiring, but I think that's just because I got spoiled after Will of the Ring, I mean, eight hundred? For a subject that doesn't get nearly as many visitors as, say, the Harry Potter or LotR section, and for a crossover that seems to be less and less popular lately… 0.0 I'm still getting over the shock.
By the way, does any of my readers watch Andromeda? By Gene Roddenberry? I have a lil tickle fairy (better known as a plot bunny) wiggling and tickling my brain about an idea for a SM/Andromeda crossover. I might give it a whirl, because I haven't seen many of those if nothing else.
Well, this is a longer A/N than usual. At least, I haven't done such a long one in a while, lol. ^_^ Until next time! Ja!
Hope Makes the Universe Shine,
Makura Koneko
ALL STANDARD DISCLAIMERS APPLY