Academia: Year One

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                "If I may say so, that is a horribly pitiful excuse for a pirate you lot chose for captain.  I mean that in the kindest way, of course, but in the future, do choose one of a slightly more up-to-par nature, will you?  While I by all means understand being shot in the leg is somewhat traumatic in most creatures, I dare say it is quite mortifying in a pirate of any sort."

Captain Amelia Doppler

OL 349

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                "Do you mind?" she snapped, irritated as she swept over the deck, back stiffly held upright and gleaming feline eyes narrowed with a great deal of warning.  The man entangled with the ropes he was meant to resolutely tie about the main mast gave her a guilty expression, his fingers turning a slightly unhealthy shade of violet that spoke grandly of the state of his blood circulation to the appendages, and she paused before him, holding her arms at her back.  Raising one quelling eyebrow, every inch of her body held in perfect control that she would reveal no weakness, she stated calmly, "I do believe the object of tying the sails is not to knot the ropes tightly around your own self instead of the mast so provided at your fore, Mister Diggins.  I would have expected you to be a bit more adept at ship maintenance considering it was what you had so loudly advertised as being your," she paused, thinking, and added, "meal ticket, I believe you said.  Now untie them from your wrists promptly and do it correctly."

                With that said, Captain Amelia turned sharply on her heel, the formal clicks of her feminine boots striking the deck with a rhythmic tapping, and she tilted her carefully folded tri-corner hat to the wondering face of the RLS Legacy's unexpected guest.  "Missus Hawkins," she began primly, addressing the woman with pale brown hair knotted expertly in back into a motherly bun, "I trust the good Doctor Doppler showed you to your quarters as I requested?"  Her sharp gaze flitted from the woman dressed in a simple cotton gown, hand flying up to touch the new silken cap drawn tight about her bun; Amelia inclined her head approvingly to the bespectacled canine trudging down the left stairwell with two arms laden heavily with books in various states of disarray. 

                "Oh, yes, Delbert showed me to my cabin, Captain," the older woman replied with a smile, hands smoothing over the flounced skirt cast over the thin hoops underneath, "and it's very lovely."  She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, ducking her face just a bit, almost shyly, and for a moment Amelia was thrown off-balance by the eerily similar gesture, seeing where Jim had inherited at least one of his occasional habits.  "When will we get to the port at the academy, do you know?"

                "Just a manner of days, Sarah," Doppler said cheerily, turning his eyes down to peer through his glasses at the books, muttering under his breath as he joggled the tomes around, attempting to organize them in his arms.  "It won't be long at all until we can see ol' Jim again, never fear," he continued, wrinkling his nose briefly at an undesirable smell from somewhere in the galley.  "I certainly hope that isn't the cook I smell," he commented almost miserably.

                A twitching smile flashed into coy existence on Amelia's thin, ruby-painted lips, and she spoke in her usual quick voice, "I myself certainly hope you have learned not to expect the finest accommodations on board, Doctor Doppler, as I doubt you will otherwise appreciate the efforts our new cook has begun to provide hale meals for us all.  If you will excuse me," she inclined her head again as Sarah curtsied in a hasty, polite dip, "I must depart for my stateroom to file some taxing paperwork those imbeciles in higher ranks insist I must complete."

                Being closest to the stateroom, Doppler managed to bustle up the stairwell, a strained look on his face as he fought to keep the books balanced and yet reach the elegantly simplistic door whilst Amelia gracefully ascended the same wooden steps with agile knocks of her heels along the boards.  He clutched the books to his chest, peering just around the sharp corners, and fumbled for the door's latch, tugging it open precisely at the moment the slender captain reached it.  "Captain," he attempted a smile.

                "That's very kind of you, Doctor," she smiled pleasantly before swooping in.  "Completely unnecessary and perhaps dangerous to your health if you don't take care those books stay put, but kind nonetheless."  This having been made clear, she punctually vanished into her stateroom, tugging the heavy door shut at her back, and the noisy tumblers of the lock geared into customary position.

                "She is very bewildering," Doppler admitted to Sarah as he clomped back down the stairs carefully, gratefully allowing her the privilege of laughingly taking several tomes from his teetering stack.  "I don't know what to make of her: she's biting, then she's bitingly romantic, and then she's just biting again."

                "It's a little something called woman, Delbert," Sarah explained gently, clutching her recently adopted books in a firm grip, lips pulling easily into the faint laugh lines wrinkling her lower cheeks.  "You're sleeping in the main loft below, right?"

-

                Amelia frowned minutely to herself, elegant claws picking with crafty expertise at a thick piece of parchment wedge between much thinner sheets regaling her with the boring exploits of accountancy and financial obligations, and she pulled it free.  Setting it aside, she flipped swiftly through the remaining expense sheets and lumped them together collectively, edging the paper into an even pile that she pushed to the side along her carefully maintained desk.  "Now what are you, pray tell?" she murmured, lifting the parchment and standing from her low set chair, tapping one honed claw to her lower lip as she took a few thoughtful steps near the arched bay windows. 

                "Formal heading, quite foppish and unneeded," she remarked to the air, flickering her eyes at great speed down the scripted handwriting presented on the stiff paper, "and I dare say they grow a bit more arrogant each day."  Nearly fully down the page, she paused, eyes widening briefly before narrowing with consideration.  "My, my – pirates, they say?  How very," she sighed, sending the paper spiraling to her small trash-bin with a twist of her wrist, "unsurprising."

                Returning to her desk, she sunk gracefully into her chair and began once more flipping through the papers she pulled to herself.

---

                He stood in the vast stretching hall that was the grand entrance, an oasis of dark shades in the ebbing and swelling sea of brightly dressed students that would be his peers swerving around him, jostling his shoulder, and vanishing into one of the many corridors that formed a spider web from the hub he waited in.  In hindsight, which apparently was twenty-twenty like his mother had frequently gritted after certain run-ins with the police he had few fond feelings for, it might have been helpful for him to find out where, exactly, he needed to go; he assumed the young adults surrounding him in pantheons of movement were headed for their various apartments, what with the main sun outside twirling close to the horizon, and he shifted, bag rough along the base of his spine.

                "Well, Morph," he started with more bravado in his voice than the sardonic self-disapproval he was currently indulging in, "any ideas?"  The blob made a completely unhelpful warbling sound that was easily lost in the din of older students greeting each other happily, and Jim rolled his eyes with a snort.  "Gee, thanks, Morph."  Rocking up on his toes, he let his heels smack back on the polished stone of the tiled entrance antechamber, squeaking his boots just a bit over the surprisingly sticky surface, and he reached up to scratch the back of his head with a burst of air from his lips.  He picked at the tightly bound knobs in his ponytail, scratching blunt fingernails over the knotted string keeping his dark hair in place, and shifted his weight as Morph proceeded to creep out of his pocket, then burst with a series of high-pitched chirps and trills out into plain view.

                "Morph!" he began loudly, startled, catching himself before he could even finish the single syllable, lowering his voice into a pointed hiss as he clapped his hands toward the pink blob.  If anything, his actions only served to cheerfully amuse the small, animalistic creature, and he bit back a swear he had picked up from the dubious crew of the Legacy, turning his head to the side and working back and forth in as inconspicuous a manner as he could.  "Morph," he hissed again, focusing on a distant group of obnoxiously tall aliens preening in the dark blue uniforms that were those of fifth years.  Taking a casual swipe at the blob without actually looking, he quickly returned to watching his arguable pet, taking curt, short swings at it in an attempt to regain control of the situation.  "This isn't funny, Morph, I don't know if you're even allowed here."  He swung a little desperately at the giggling creature and somehow managed to quite forcefully clamp his hands around it; a swell of relief was promptly executed by the bright pink creature wriggling through his fingers in bubbling drips, and he groaned, nearly convinced to just hang it all. 

                Morph, never one to appear remotely guilty over anything, swooped across his cheek in a manner that might very well have been apologetically had it not been for the bright smile it gave him, and he sighed grievously, reaching up to poke it affectionately.  "C'mon, Morph," he said, careful that his voice was pitched low enough to not be picked up too easily by the swirling crowd, "just get back in my pocket, okay?  It's better to be safe than sorry, you know."  The small, gelatinous creature, ever shifting in design, reluctantly granted him reprieve, the game ending far too soon for it, and dove into his cupped hands, allowing him way to close them gently around Morph and place it again in his pocket.

                "So," he said for his own benefit, shouldering his bag a little more comfortably, "all I need to do is find out where the head dean's office is."  Nodding absently as though the motion might help him in some way find the room, he tapped his palm over his trousers and shrugged, moving forward deftly, elbowing and squeezing through an uncomfortable press of loudly gabbing individuals.  He winced at a particularly high shriek of laughter near his ear and, after hastily moving out of reach, laughed himself, rubbing his hand over his ear as he glanced across the other half of the gleaming chamber.

                Standing directly across the way, only partially obscured by the few students who dared cross the line from residential to academic region, was a wide set of double doors reaching nearly from tiled ceiling to polished floor, a thin line of dark gold bordering the ominously closed doors.  It was, like most of the architecture in the academy he had thus far seen, which was admittedly not a great deal, remarkably elegant in design and somehow seemed completely inappropriate while grand.  In welcome addition, looping cursive above the doorframe suggested in stately letters reading Official that it was more than likely where he would find the desired place.

Jim shifted, turning to glance with relative curiosity at the various age groups clearly ignoring the almost vacant other half of the antechamber, and shrugged again, knocking his boots on the floor and feeling mild discomfort where his feet had begun to outgrow the buckled leather.  "Whatever," he said in a far brighter tone than he would have a few months ago, and he crossed the floor easily, valiantly ignoring the cheerful trilling cricket noises Morph was making though his nose wrinkled with a suppressed laugh.  Pausing, he tapped one of his legs harder to the floor and was rewarded with a fresh spout of muffled giggles from Morph, inspiring him to take more forceful steps with a slew of nearly inaudible Morph giggles, as there was no other way to call them.

"Hey!  You, you!"  interjected a robotic voice with a haughty undercurrent of superiority.  "The boy!"

Though he had the feeling the robot was addressing him, he did allow himself a moment to wonder how effective that cry would be were he still in the milling crowd thankfully at his back, but he squashed the thought before it could manifest itself as words he would blurt without review.  Turning, he smiled at the squat, blocky robot that whirred over the floor with a loud exclamation of whizzing gears and dull, clinking mechanisms in its heavy body.  "Me?" he thought to clarify, asking it as politely as he could, pointing to himself.

"James Hawkins," the robot intoned in a no-nonsense voice he had previously believed only Doppler, for whom it was never quite as effective, could achieve, "I am to escort you to Mister Rout's office immediately for orientation and uniform."

"Oh, thanks," he answered, gripping the strap of his bag in one hand as he gestured with the thumb of his other at the double doors, "but I was already heading there.  I don't want to be any trouble," he broke off.  The robot had voicelessly clamped a rather firm grip around his wrist, the rubber pads lining the steadily squeezing metal providing at least some comfort, and he asked, cautiously, "Did I do something?"

"Please follow me," the robot ignored his last query, the wheels beneath its body chugging rhythmically toward the glittering doors as Jim plodded after, eyebrows raised just a bit in surprise.  "Mister Rout has been expecting you for the past week," it continued in explanation, briskly moving through the doorway, as the doors swung inward with no trace of having been pushed, pulled, or jostled in any way.

"My mom," he replied, aware of how feeble it sounded, "sent the reply that I would be coming today about two weeks ago."

"Quite," came the robot's answer, and then he was jerked forward at an uncomfortable speed, bag smacking painfully along his back as the machine led him through a variety of twisting corridors, always humming its gears in a pleasantly calm style.  After a minute or so of this, as Jim tried to keep his bag from slipping to the floor and being lost to him for what would probably be forever, what with the seemingly never-ending halls, Morph squealing and dodging out of his pocket to weave into his hair again, the robot brought him to a standstill outside a plain door.  Situated at the end of this particular hall, it was a simple wooden door, but for the golden plate screwed into place on the glazed boards informing him kindly that he was indeed at the office of Isaac Rout, Head Dean.

                "Um," he started, quickly lifting his hands to paw at his mussed hair, rubbing tousled strands down from the wind-tossed aesthetic he had gained, "thanks."  Struck with a worrying thought, he hurriedly felt along the tight weave of his ponytail, fingertips finding the familiar gooey, yet not sticky, texture that was Morph; the pink creature extended a slippery tendril in weary assurance and slowly dribbled free of his dark hair, splattering on the back of his neck and causing him to jump slightly, face contorting as the entirety of Morph conglomerated at the base of his neck and then swished into his shirt, pulling out through his sleeve.  "I was worried about you, Morph," he mock-scolded and it made an uncharacteristically unhappy sound before sliding back into his pocket where it seemed the poor thing wanted to rest.

                "Name, place of origin, year," the robot droned in recitation, studiously paying little heed to the alien currently residing in his pocket.  It turned the silver doorknob on the carefully glazed door and pushed it open an inch or two with ease, whirring past him and down the hall as he stared after it, absently sticking his hand in his pocket and tickling an exhausted Morph.

                "Well, let's go," he murmured, creaking the door open and stepping into the room a bit more tentatively than he would have preferred to.  After all, he was supposed to be in charge of his own destiny and whatnot, if he remembered correctly, and blast anyone who said otherwise.

                Head Dean Isaac Rout, however, was a very, very massive Arkulian, which was something of a peculiar statement to make, as Arkulians were notoriously large and just as infamous for their notably unpleasant natures.  As for whether or not the constant accompanying stench of dried fish had anything to do with it none had gathered enough courage to venture before.

                Smiling politely and scrunching up every strand of self-control he had to keep from showing any visible sign of discomfort, the boy managed to speak clearly, wrinkling his nose just slightly, "James Hawkins, sir."  Always use your proper Christian name, his mother had reminded him before sending him ahead of her on the RLS Victory, and for heaven's sake, Jim, try to address everyone as sir or ma'am.  He did know it would take some time for her, much less most of the people he had known, to get used to the change from juvenile delinquent to something a little closer to respectable, and he was going to do his best to do it right.  His nose twitched and the smile grew just a bit strained.  "I'm from Montressor and I'll be a first-year student."  After a moment, he added quickly, hoping for recovery, "Sir." 

Wincing a little, Jim picked aimlessly at his wrist, waiting in the uncomfortable quiet of the room as the immense dean shuffled a few papers studiously, peering through cut spectacles tied about his neck with a delicate gold chain.  Finally, the dean took mind to glance up at his new charge, watching him for several seconds before clucking his tongue in a manner that was both irritating and guilty.  With stern, slow movements, he stacked the papers together, thumping the edges gently on the cluttered desk to arrange them into a form of synchronicity and order.

The portly Arkulian studied him gravely over his half-moon glasses behind the massive shelter of his glossed desk, double mouth tugged into a severe line that did little to reassure Jim's slightly apprehensive feelings, and Rout sighed a deep, blubbering exhale of utter long-suffering weariness.  "I hope you do understand, James, that we try to discourage students from signing up at such a young age, much less as late in the Empirical Year as your mother did," he began in the same grave manner.  He lifted several carefully separated papers from his desk and effortlessly filed them together, dropping the gathering into a crisp manila folder he whipped out of what seemed the air alone.  He lowered his flabby head, dark, beady eyes glinting with what seemed to be warning as he handed, rings glimmering where they rested on his rolled fingers, the manila folder to Jim.

He took it carefully, twisting it about to face him and twirling it up in a few spirals between his fingers to flip it open, and he began thumbing through the thin stack of paper as the Head Dean continued with a stern-sounding voice.  "But as Captain Amelia herself sent a rather strong recommendation for your entry, and taking into account the equally strong word-of-mouth involving the Treasure Planet, we found we had little choice but to add you to the first year roster."  A sour expression on the Arkulian's face squarely informed him that the man had by no means ever believed in the tale of Flint's trove. 

"Now, as we were unable, due to your late registration, to send you a list of required reading material, dress code, and a class list, I'm afraid you must peruse these sheets tonight.  Fortunately for you, all of the first year quarters have been claimed, so you will be bunking with the third years, one of whom is surely a packrat and will be able to supply you with some books."  Leaning his chair back and straining to reach something obscured by his desk, he caused Jim to look up from his skimming and slowly bend his head to the side, as if to see what it was the elder man was trying to grab.  The desk, however, was quite obviously solid and so he raised his head again, tossing it briefly to free one of his long, trailing bangs from his large green eyes.

"This," came the muffled voice as the man made a pleased sound and rocked up into his previous sitting position, one pudgy hand raising to smooth an imperceptible wrinkle on his suit, "will be your uniform.  All first years are required to dress in the black uniform provided by the school and our fine retail establishments."  He gently rested a much larger stack on the end of the desk, at least a week's worth of uniforms presented to the boy, and he tapped a fingertip firmly on the top jerkin, a glint appearing in his eyes that warned of a coming lecture.

"I can clean my own clothes," Jim cut him off, flipping the manila folder shut and reaching over to stuff it into his quickly opened bag.  In his pocket, Morph made a silent, gooey sort of bubble and he grimaced before he could stop the reflex at the unpleasant feel, "I'm not going to contaminate anything, or whatever it is you guys are afraid of."  He offered a charming smile, the corner of it strained as Morph, suitably, morphed into something sharp and not very gentle to the touch.

"Indeed," said the head dean slowly, and he lifted a long-nailed thumb to tap his spectacles a bit farther up the flat bridge of his nose.  "In any case, there are a few things we need to address right now so far as dress code, which you seem to be breaking just by walking into our very establishment."  Jim noted with a cold little frown that the man was still speaking as though the young man was neither welcome nor appreciated, and as though the university was the dean's alone.  "First of all, earrings are strictly prohibited when worn by male students, boots of a non-standard material and worn quality are not to be worn on the campus, your clothes, as previously mentioned, must be changed, and as for your hair," Rout paused, smiling a quaint, fake smile.  "Well, I'm sure you know what to do about your hair."

Somewhat lost and unsure in spite of his dislike, Jim felt the back of his head at the ponytail bunching together the dark strands, hoping it was something other than what it seemed to be by the Arkulian's speech.

"In any case," Rout pressed on, his voice taking a bored, twining tone to it, "you will begin the school year with the other students tomorrow.  Curfew is ten each night and you will be waking at four in the morn for an hour of physical exercises before going to the nine classes outlined in your schedule sheet."

"Nine?" Jim blurted in that split second between thought and wisdom, a grant to the unspoken laws determining that all should speak before thinking once in awhile.

Rout studied him again, for a few painful seconds, and finally said, "Yes, James, nine classes.  You are supposed to have been aware of the schedule we hold in precious regard here, and I can guarantee I run a stiff ship, if you will pardon the obvious pun.  One of the robots will guide you to your room and it will be up to you to remember the way.  Dormitories are across the main courtyard, where physical exercises are held.  Please, do leave now."

Jim obeyed, biting his tongue with a remembrance of his mother and his own personal vows to keep back something he would certainly regret, and nodded his head, shuffling out the door with his bag bouncing along his back once every quick step.  Reaching back with fumbling fingers, he closed the door and was swamped with a rush of affection and annoyance as Morph peeked out of his pocket, swirling up to burble unintelligible things.

"A good ev'ning to you, too, Mister Rout," he muttered and Morph, feeling the need to comfort its much larger friend, immediately popped into an identical, miniaturized version of Jim.

"Good ev'ning, good ev'ning!" it cheered.

---

I really, really appreciate feedback (and I know I desperately need constructive criticism).  Many thanks, by the way, to Team Bonet for reviewing (I'm working on my Jim characterization and Lord knows I need more practice).  Flattered!

Disclaimer, as I forgot previously: I own naught but my dubiously written original characters and whatever story ideas I come up with that are somewhat original.  Should I beg forgiveness?

Edited 05/14/03: Spelling mistake, again.  Despite the fact that I had official source after official source in my hands, I still managed to misspell Delbert's name.  Apparently, I reek oblivious joy.  ;]  Yay noodles!