Academia: Year One
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Traditionally, there are five legitimate school years at the Royal Navy Academy (derived from the Interstellar Academies, which host a various mixture of military specialties): the first three, upon completion, grant a high enough status for one to have the rank of first mate on most hired ships, and a second-in-command on military vessels. To stay on for the standard fourth year presents one the honor of a captain's rank, and is perhaps the most hands-on year (the earlier years focus more on the written knowledge, military history, physics and chemistry, complex mathematics, and so forth, though each year has some form of physical exercise; each summer, a ship training of some sort is offered). The fifth year, however, is one that diminishes the capability of the individual to be captain of a vessel, as fifth year graduates usually become instructors, politicians, or otherwise involved with paperwork. Perhaps of interest to note is that most fifth year graduates are also the upper-class percentage, small as it is.
As a yearling once said famously, "Those snot-nosed bastards are full of crap."
Admiral Bluedwarf was not impressed and the yearling promptly fell out of sight.
Compiled by Ensign Althea Hamilton
A Brief Overview of the Academies in Modern Culture (circa OL 299)Independent publisher (currently out of print)
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The swirling guide light, a tiny sphere of exact measurements and carefully attached bits of metal, froze in place before one of the identical doors stretching the length of the hall it had led him to situated in the juniors' dormitories, a brightly lit tunnel of metal and polished stone on the ninth floor. He paused with it, hearing Morph gurgle cheerfully near his ear, curiously swooping around his forehead to settle in an expectant bubble near his eyes. Absently, he obliged its unintelligible request and poked it swiftly, causing it to pop noisily and giggle almost maniacally as it gathered its free falling particles together into the usual mess of pink disharmony. "Is this it?" he asked the light hovering an inch or so above his eye level, silver nucleus surrounded by crackling haloes and splashing flashes of fluorescent rainbow shades. Morph made a squealing noise and dove to the bag he clutched over his shoulder, wriggling and seeping through the imperceptible holes where the weave broke and connected again in the clasping pattern. "I mean, this is my room, right?" The light flared a deep blue and switched off automatically, leaving the naked orb patiently waiting in the air until he, not sure what to do, held a tentative hand out to it; the silenced light skittered one last red gleam and plummeted into his palm, startling him as he yanked his arm back to his body and tried to stifle the shaky rolling it was making toward his wrist. Snapping his fingers over it, he hissed a muted exhale, surprised at its sudden discharge of final light, and he clutched the unmoving ball tightly as he turned to look at the last scrap of Morph valiantly struggling into his bag.
"That was weird, wasn't it, Morph?" he asked, tossing his shoulder to jostle the bag, begetting a wave of chitters and high-pitched giggles from within it. "I knew you'd agree with me," he said loftily, smiling a little as he turned to the door, free arm pinning the bundle of clothes under his elbow, as many of the articles stuffed into his now almost overflowing bag. "The only problem being I don't know how to even get in. Any thoughts, you gurgling blob you?" He turned again from the door to glance with a muffled laugh at the bag, jostling it a second time to hear, amused, Morph squeak, and an odd tickling sensation in his closed palm caught his attention, begging him to flick his fingers open and see the orb he had clasped in it.
The orb, flecked metal of glittering silver earlier, was shifting, bolted parts of the small metal sheaths moving backwards and forwards, flattening it out and sharpening a protrusion from the miniscule light generator. A row of uneven spikes jutted out, twirling onto their sides to form paper-thin blocks coming out of the neck, and the remnant shapes creased together into a flat handle for better grip. "Handy," he commented monosyllabically, lifting the key to the light and grinning, already envisioning finding a way to research it or take it apart when the day came that he had no need for a guide on the massive campus. Whether or not that day would actually come was not his worry at the moment.
"Let's see what they've got for us, huh, Morph?" he called over his shoulder, running his hand down the slick door in search of what was apparently an invisible keyhole. Prodding the numbers at the top of the door, he pulled his fingertips away briefly, watching as the numbers shimmered and seemed, much as the guide/key had done, to rearrange themselves into an alien representation of the dorm's number, queer circles and dots in place of the sharp angles he knew by heart. It was not what he looked for, though, and he frowned, skidding his roughened fingers against the doorframe, seeking some slot or hole the key was meant to join with. After a moment's pointless questing, as Morph made a questioning sound, worried in the dark swathing held within the bag's stifled confines, he paused, turning his attention back to the waiting numerals. He tapped the head one again and it quivered, setting the chain reaction off again until the alien numerals had reset in a different style, one he remembered vaguely from the nightmarish evening of Billy Bones and the end of a chapter in his life. It brought to mind painful things, heat and rain mixing together as his mother cried in dismay, but it also gave to him an idea, staring at the stilling numerals as his eyebrows knit together with thought.
Raising his hand, he hesitated, then quickly tapped a finger on the second numeral, switching to the first as they began changing quickly into the next language system embedded in their immeasurable memories, and he ran his fingers at different patterns over the trio of digits: one, three, two, two, one, two, three, two, three. Morph echoed its earlier questioning mewl, spraying forth from the bag in a wave of pale pink, splurging into itself and twirling in a dizzying display of unintentional aerial acrobatics before managing to gather together into a whole self. Frowning, lower lip curling in with the effort, he drummed his fingers at a swifter pace, trying to outrun the continuing change as it flicked from standard to Arkulian to Mumaq, Tujin, Halibut, Cal'lr, and countless other hastening languages that sparked into slicing angles and gentle twists. He, frustrated, smashed his thumb hard against the second digit as it wavered between a feline language and some undetermined mess, and a part of the door, a small pad directly below the numerals currently flashing a frozen tangle of indecisiveness, peeled calmly away, reversing itself for his viewing. A chunk of the door, neatly fitted into the thin space that would hold it and the sliding arm that stretched it out, waited patiently in front of him, a thin black slot in its dead center and surrounded by nothing else.
Jim jabbed the key into the slot and twisted, popping his wrist effectively. In kind reply, the door immediately swung open, the arm tugging the panel back in, though it remained with the keyhole staring emptily at the hall as he pulled his key free. The lines around it vanished, making it seem as though it were a perfectly normal part of the machinated door, and the marking numbers quickly shifted back to the standard numbers, seven-five-nine that he committed hastily to memory. Morph hung at his shoulder and chattered happily to itself, a cacophony constructed of giggles, yawps, and some other noise he was not too sure of.
The inside of the dormitory was far darker than the hall, the solar lights having been extinguished by the dark figure seated on one of the two low-balanced cots set on either side of the small room, and he had to blink, adjusting his eyes for the shades and darkness enveloped inside the walls. Shifting his bag tightly around his shoulder and checking that none of the clothes he held in his arm were threatening to fall, he stepped into the room, a single footstep where his boot struck the hard floor in the midst of an empty sound. A dull light sprang into being, soft glows coming from the walls themselves, and with each step he took toward the bare, lonely cot that was now his, the lights behind him dimmed and vanished, glowing alongside him. "Cool," he grinned, shedding his bag at the foot of his bed, next to a pair of shined boots that were probably the ones Rout had mentioned, and dumping the uniforms over the perfectly smoothed bedspread. An irritated snap came from his back and he paused, glancing over his shoulder with a disinterested gaze. Jim was more than used to the condescending attitude most older students took to younger ones, recalling all too clearly the once painful hazings seniors on Montressor would invariably give to the freshmen and sophomores until one – namely Jim and a few other youths of questionable esteem – fought back. In spite of the decisively nasty way the husky Feline seated cross-legged on the opposite cot was glaring at him, he paid as little heed to the blunt, yet still very noticeable, claws as was sanely possible and glared right back. It would be a cold day in hell when James Hawkins backed down from an obvious challenge.
"Solved it kinda quick, didn't'cha," the defined tiger-like creature stated coolly, dark pools of blackened obsidian studying him with disdainful recognition, and he switched his powerful gaze to the wall connected to the door, closing those perpetually scowling orbs to the world. "Most juniors don't e'en get it 'til the fourth day and hafta wait for a professor ta open the door for 'em."
"Really," Jim said neutrally, guiltily calling to mind his mother's hopeful words that wouldn't he just try his best to stay out of trouble until at least the third week. "Well, I'm a fast learner." He scratched Morph's arguable chin distractedly, cupping the small thing and holding it to his other palm for a moment for no other reason than the soothing presence of an admittedly strange friend. "What time do we eat?" he asked, deterring from the suggestion to ask for any older textbooks.
The tiger cracked an eye open, heaving an annoyed sigh as he swung his heavy legs over the side of his cot, white muzzle at odds with the golden yellow and shadowed black of the majority of his fur, and growled, "When the really loud bell rings, we eat." He stretched claws out to their full, unfriendly length, producing a few inches of previously withheld jet tones streaking out between the wide fingers of each paw, and tapped a flat disk on the small desk by his bed. Light flared into bright existence on his side of the dormitory, obscured somehow on Jim's newly adopted side, and he grunted, "Anythin' else, freshman?" A strong dislike was thrust into the double syllables, filling them with the unexplained hatred every student seemed to feel for those who had just arrived, throwing logic, which would suggest that as they had once been first years themselves perhaps they could exercise a bit more gentility, out the proverbial window.
"Yeah," he said with every scrap of dignity, politeness, and slightly irritated kindness he could find in his mind. "Dean Rout said I should ask for any old texts you might have." The tiger had snorted as soon as he stated the name, earning the tiniest bit of respect and grudging affinity from the boy what with the short impression he had received from the man. "If it's okay with you," he added, that bit of warmth giving him the power to make good on his personal vow to do better.
"Get'cher schedule out," the older male suggested, twenty years of feline muscle adding an undertone of menace, which Jim easily ignored, grabbing his bag up and yanking the drawstring open. Morph, unsure of what to make of the still hostile tiger, chattered nervously near Jim's ear, hovering and zipping around his head, trying at one point to hide behind the small beads of his self-consciously bound ponytail. "What kinda thing is that?" the tiger queried bluntly, watching the pink shape shifter squiggle around the smaller boy's head in a chaotic tumble of equally chaotic motions.
"He's a morph," Jim answered with a grunt, struck by the similarity of his words to that of Silver's as he tried to pull the schedule sheet free of the folder and clothes, "and his name is the same." The paper wrinkled out, crunched into a pathetic twist, and he winced, pulling it to the sides with his hands and trying to smooth it temporarily with the back of his hand. He shrugged and decided it was fine enough as it was, crossing the floor in his old boots with Morph doing its greatest impression of Scroop in some basic attempt to frighten the glowering tiger. Morph was losing horribly.
"Might have some of 'em," the tiger said with a guttural noise of negative connotations, taking the schedule in his massive paws and holding it with a surprisingly ginger grip. Taking into account the ease with which he could undoubtedly tear a person, much less a paper, in half, it was perhaps understandable. "Yeah, th' usual freshman stuff: military history, rud'ment'ry physics, navigatin' in any environment, blarh-blarh-blarh," he muttered in his grating voice, and then he paused, narrowing his eyes to stare with comic disbelief.
He said, in a composed, rational voice, poking a warning claw straight at the line squarely positioned in the third time slot, "What the," he swore delicately, "is Vehicle Design and Buildin' doing on yer list? That's a third year class. I haven't even taken it yet."
Jim grinned as Morph tittered happily and relatively oblivious to what was happening.
The tiger gave him a look that was usually seen preceding violent crimes and disturbing newspaper articles, speaking with a rumbling growl, "Wipe that smirk off y'face, shrimp. You're gettin' ya hair cut right off t'night, and then ya have to wake up at four fer the exercisin'. If y'member to breathe when they getcha bleedin' and sweatin' outside, maybe then you'll make it in th' actual school day." There was a subtle jest in the way he said it, an underlying tone of challenging humor, and the boy sat back on his cot, kicking off the aged boots as he cross his arms smugly under his rib cage.
"What're you saying?" he said, sprawling his legs in front of him as they stared unwaveringly at one another, nonverbally testing the edges of the other's will. "That I won't last? I didn't get on a stinkin' ether-car for the fun of it."
Surprising him, the tiger grinned, baring rows of polished ivory fangs, and he admitted, "Y'did solve the door test thing, and if they trust ya in here with me, y'gotta have somethin' that impressed 'em or pissed 'em off. M'name is Cardigan Clemenceau, figger I'm pleased t'meetcha." He did not extend his paw and Jim was perfectly fine with it, nodding and grinning in a friendlier manner that Cardigan returned easily, the almost territorial quality in the large Feline's eyes fading into a quieter quality.
"I'm Jim Hawkins," he said back, catching Morph in his hands and stroking the goopy creature as he swung his legs up to the cot, and he closed his eyes briefly, resting the back of his head against the wall, brush of his ponytail sweeping against the faint stretch of skin his shirt exposed in the back. "Maybe we won't eat tonight, okay, Morph?" he asked as Cardigan stood, unfolding a monolithic height in the small room, forced to bend slightly to keep from crushing his swiveling ears, and the tiger moved toward the large chest at the foot of his cot. The quiet sound of a lock pinging open and books being sorted through served as harmony for the moment, and he blinked, forcing himself up as a thought occurred to him. "Got a knife I can use?" he asked, absently releasing Morph to bubble into the air, happily babbling and squirting a wave of silver bubbles to glitter prettily in the faint air current twisting about.
"Yeah," Cardigan grunted, dropping several heavy books to the floor and reaching into a pouch sewn into the satin cloth on the interior of the chest. A sheathed dagger was flipped expertly through the air and Jim caught it, fiddling his fingers around the bound hilt and sliding it free, twirling it up as his other hand grasped the thin trail of his ponytail, tugging it sharp and holding it in place. The sharpened blade slid easy enough through his dark brown locks, the entirety of the ponytail still tied but coming free in his hand, and he clutched it, staring at the testimony of years past. "Bangs, too, shrimp," the growling thunder voice added and he sighed, grabbing the trailing tendrils to slice them as gingerly as he could for fear of poking, say, his eyes out.
"Kinda ragged there, aintcha," Cardigan noted and he snorted, sheathing the blade and tossing it carelessly back to the tiger.
"I don't really care," he said cheerfully, flicking Morph away for the moment as he shifted the clothes to the floor and rested on his back, closing his eyes as the shape shifter squeaked around his head. "Quiet," he ordered, seeing dimly at the back of his eyes the lights downing with excellent timing, and Cardigan laughed low, his cot creaking as he crept back onto it for whatever meditation he had been occupied with.
"I'll get t'wakin' ya when we need t'stroll on to the mess hall," the tiger grumbled kindly and Jim nodded, faking agreement when he had barely heard the words at all.
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"Stay," he had a distinct memory of saying to the usually feisty shape shifter, earning himself a puzzled look and an acquiescing sigh. The aftershocks of the waking bell rung in his ears, a disconcerting resonance that had him blinking as he picked his way behind a far more alert Cardigan through the halls, new boots flopping along the painfully bright corridors.
In any case, it was with a greater deal of morning comprehension than many of the other students that he stumbled out of the dormitory with the outward propelled crush of bodies, rubbing his palm hard against fluttering eyelids to rid them of an unpleasant texture therein. Pausing, he let his hand fall down his face, scratching momentarily at his cheek, and blinked wearily at the stately driller bellowing in a deep voice unholy at such an hour, "Freshman, first years, whatever ya wanna call yourselves now, front an' center here! You have fifteen seconds, cadets, and I don't want to have to break any spirits before breakfast today!" Judging that to be something of a barometer he was most likely supposed to follow, Jim somehow managed to pick a way through the milling, confused gang composing his peer group, staggering a little in the regulation boots at least three sizes too large for him, and tried to ignore the dull chill on his legs.
"Rows, people, if it isn't too hard," the driller said in a droning voice, dark green suit at vicious odds with the sophisticated image he had always received from Captain Amelia. "If you're going to be this sloppy, then why the blinkin' devil did you sign up for the Academy!" he barked rhetorically. The tall, undefined creature spoke it in such a way to bring directly into mind a capitalized letter, turning the word into an undeniable noun and perhaps the most important thing in the morn before the first of the three small suns woke past the horizon.
He hazarded quick glances at the third and fourth year students, noting they had all formed perfect aisles and were in the midst of a series of push-ups, chanting a count that was tossed away by pre-dawn fog and the breathlessness of exhausted waking. Sinking briefly to his knee, he quickly rolled the wrinkled cloth of his standard trousers into the boots, jerking his long sleeves away from wrists before he levered himself into the appropriate position for the push-ups his sleepy companions were beginning to tumble into. Jim breathed out, and then yawned against his will as one of his eyes made to close temptingly at the stretching muscles, and he shook his head doggedly. It was uncomfortable, the lack of previously never thought of weight gone where his ponytail and shaggy bangs had been, and he grimaced, both kinetically off-balance and feeling mud slowly oozing up through the cracks where his fingers lay flat on the ground.
"This is pathetic!" the driller snapped, as Jim held his position on the ground, tips of his boots sliding slowly and precariously through a patch of mud exposed where grass had been trod away by rough footsteps. The tall man, weaves of tentacles swept back from his face with a heavy black ribbon, strode up and down the ragged rows the first years had formed, and he placed his boot firmly on the ground in front of Jim's head, glowering at them all. "You will learn order, cadets, even if we have to beat it into you! On my order, you will follow the excellent lead you see around you. Now!"
Breathing out an even gust of air, the boy lowered his upper body, muscles protesting at the exercise so early in the morn, and took a careful breath before repeating it, putting as much of his weight in the fractionally moving boots as he could. It was easy enough getting into the pushing rhythm of the exercise and he closed his eyes briefly, hearing the other three age groups crying their upward counting chant as his fellow first years merely tried to keep limbs moving. The likelihood of his drifting back into a dozing sleep were undoubtedly high, as he was relatively exhausted from the scant five hours of uncomfortable sleep on a cot instead of the hammock he had grown accustomed to; perhaps saving his dignity and the arguable cleanliness of his shirt before he fell asleep, a muffled sound somewhere 'tween a grunt and an exasperated whimper came from his left, giving him cause to reluctantly open his eyes and turn his head slightly. Still bending his arms in the working motions of the push-ups, he managed around carefully maintained even breaths, "Are you okay?"
"You are not supposed to talk, idiot," the questioned figure on his left gritted, lowering a small body with thin arms, ragged crimson hair framing the dark face with crinkled waves. He raised a thick brown eyebrow and winced, a cramp forming in his chest where he had taken an erratic skip in his breathing, and Jim blew an absent funnel of air from his lips up, as if to sweep away a nonexistent bang. "In any case," the tiny person continued with a pained breathlessness, tightening jaw muscles at the unwelcome pressure of continued movements, "a proper naval cadet does not request assistance in his or her chosen duty."
He rolled his eyes, bending one of his legs forward to grip the mud at his heels with more of an advantage, the chill trickling away as the largest sun rose from the horizon and began swiftly heating the courtyard. "I was only checking," he answered, lifting the curved heel of his palm out of the thin mud there, a suction noise following it. "Are you okay?" Jim persisted, his right boot sliding uncomfortably along the slick mud as he continued with the exercises, his sleeves beginning to unfurl down his arms.
"Oh for the sake of God," came the person's androgynous voice, an unusual quality that effectively destroyed any sound of gender in it, "if I answer, will you leave me to struggle in peace?" He or she, as the humanoid being showed nothing to help label as masculine or feminine, tilted downward, lips thinning. If anything, the person, male or female, could hardly have been beyond the age of twelve, much less on par with even his age, out of place in the mass of older teenagers and young adults.
"Whatever," he responded off-handedly, finding it easier to say as he was forced to adjust both of his feet along the mud, lowering his own head briefly as the first droplets of sweat made themselves known. A dying burst of chill wind, desperately seeking to pull free of the growing heat as the largest sun of the three haunting the planet sparkled a quickly rising temperature, stung the salty liquid not yet thick into a cold sheen.
"I am fine," replied his speaking partner flatly, turning a swarthy head to stare at him with a complete trio of almond-shaped eyes, the middle one nearly hidden by a cropping of crimped bangs in the center of the forehead. "Please shut the bloody hell up." With this out of the way, the small being persisted in quivering motions, straightening thin arms and slowly bending them again, bangs collapsing around the third eye to obscure it from view.
"Excuse me," Jim muttered, turning his own face to the slowly rippling mud underneath, thankful that the months spent on board the RLS Legacy had put him in some sort of shape. "Didn't mean to piss you off." He heard another hiss from his left, saw from the corner of his eye as the person wavered then carefully caught that fine line of balance again, and did his best to ignore those around him, biting his lower lip as the minutes steadily clocked by in silent apathy. His boots, once impeccably polished when he had pulled them on before stumbling down the stairs with a more alert Cardigan and the entirety of the building's junior population, were stained with the sticky wet soil and had begun to slide away from him a second time. He swore under his breath, a strong word he would make sure his mother would never know he had learned on his gold-seeking quest, and carefully shifted his foot again, tightening his grip imperceptibly on the drier mud at the fore.
A startled noise, the sort of exhale that was made when one slammed hard into something, erupted from his unfriendly companion and he glanced over to see the small figure's arms had finally given way, sending mud up to meet the falling body. Biting his tongue sharply and keeping his lips firmly together, as well as switching his gaze quickly away from the silently fuming person, he managed to keep from laughing, his breath hitching a little from the effort. There was an adage, after all, an old one that went somewhat like, What goes around comes around, and she had certainly deserved it.
A strong boot landed squarely in the middle of his back, applying swift force to the tender spot between shoulder blades, and with a startled half-finished cry of, "Wha," Jim had been shoved into the ground, knees and elbows striking the mud with a satisfying sploosh. He lifted his head from the mud, gripping with his boots in preparation to climb up into a more balanced stance, and spotted the perfect, forest green boots of the driller, tilting his eyes up through raggedly cut bangs to see a dark expression on the aquatic designed creature's face.
"If you feel the need to socialize, cadet," he hissed down at the mud-spattered boy, "then I suggest you do so when you are sleeping. We are not here for your social enlightenment, so you and your little friend can sit these exercises out, since you can't keep your yap shut and it," he jerked one thumb from his four arms toward the smaller figure slowly picking free of the mud clinging desperately to thin red clothes, "can't even keep the pathetic pace you lot set for yourself. You two will report for kitchen duty and will forfeit breakfast." His countless beady eyes, glimmering dark pearls set in the threatening, angled green face, flashed a heady warning as Jim nearly protested out of sheer habit, and he almost cut his tongue snapping his jaw shut, remembering lessons he had promised himself he would obey. The driller turned quickly on his heel, splashing the faintest spray of mud up and into one of the few clean spots on Jim's face, and the disgruntled teenager passed a muddy hand over his face, only serving to smear the uncomfortable wetness further across his features.
"My greatest, undying gratitude for your display of bravado and self-will," the equally dirtied figure next to him said flatly, sitting up beside him and shaking arms with a grimace, flecks of mud dropping with plops. "However could I have ever had such exhilarating fun on my first actual excursion into the academy I have prepared for in the past ten years of my life." She turned to look at him as he groaned and fell back, spreading his arms in the mud, deciding he might as well get mud on the back of his shirt as it was already thickly caked on the front. "Are you quite insane or is this just an irrational display of idiocy?" she asked politely.
"Why're you rude?" he shot back, sending his eyes to the corners, glaring at her from behind his mask of mud, hair seeping into the pillowing mud underneath him. "And like this was fun anyway," he continued, raising a hand from the mud and shaking it, ignoring the sounds of their fellows muttering and quavering with quickly dying strength. "Aren't you kinda young to be here? You look just like," he cut off, interrupted by her curt words and a dangerous narrowing of her two human-set eyes, the top one unmoving.
"A little girl?" she suggested. "That would be rather difficult, as my species has no gender. I am biologically devoid of the physical characteristics that might classify me as either one of the standard genders. In addition," her, or its, eyes narrowed even further, "I am seventeen Empirical years in age and am your chronological senior by two years."
There was a pause as he sat back up, shaking his arms with abrupt motions to send slingshots of mud hard into the moist earth, feeling his muddied and spiraled hair where the strands had been forced into an uncomfortable mess, caked into place in a way that would desperately need showering.
"I am Rubin Glidewell," she finally said as they watched each other in mutual suspicious kinship, and a thin smile whitened a slash of teeth in the dark mask plastered to her thin face.
"Jim Hawkins," he said for the second time in the past few hours, holding a weary hand for her to shake. She did so and he pulled her into the mud, earning him a noisy swear that would have turned his face scarlet had it not been for the mud covering his face. "What goes around comes around," he muttered as the students filling the courtyard to nearly bursting continued their elongated chant, and the driller made a shrill barking sound, interrupting the entirety of the cadets' group. The drillers for each class year made accompanying sounds to give their charges pause, and both Jim and Rubin watched him, the latter adopting a narrow-lipped expression of carefully lidded threat as the boy picked at the mud in his hair. It was unreasonable to expect him to be pleasant to everyone he met, especially at an ungodly hour with a large sun steadily, heatedly streaming into the waiting sky of the thrumming world host to the main campus and countless cities and peoples.
"All right, kids," the driller shouted, "we've gotten the first fifteen minutes out of the way. Flip onto your backs and get ready for some sit-ups. We've got forty-five minutes left, and we want you as muddy as all get out when you waste water in the showers. Now!" He turned calmly and began pacing between the uneven rows, stately ignoring the abounding groans and muffled curses.
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Notes: Be careful to never make the mistake of thinking Rubin to be a girl. :] I'm using the feminine pronouns as they fit the character best, physically and mentally, and I want to make it clear to my maybe two readers that Rubin is not a love interest. I've had her in my head since I started this fanfic. Speaking of original characters, Cardigan Clemenceau's last name is a pun: Clemenceau was the last name of one of the "Big Three" following World War I (David Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau, and Woodrow Wilson), and he was nicknamed "old tiger." Catch it?
A thousand thanks to nameless shadow, who took the time to give me a review at a most welcome moment. I was convinced my story had something horribly wrong in it and was therefore the reason no one seemed to be reading, which is silly of me in any case. I really appreciate it. :] I just hope my writing isn't suffering in this chapter, and I can assure everyone I'm still working on characterization.
And, for the heck of it, I wrote a teaser for a Silver/Sarah fic ('Happenstance') posted at my blog, which seems to be hosting several random informal essays that wander vastly and more than one inane thought. It's the closest thing to fluff I've written in ages and that's really a pity, as fuzzy romances have always been my strong suit…
-Palla.
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