Poetry Problems
Nile glared at the growing pile of paper in his trash can. This was a stupid assignment. He hated poetry with every fiber of his being. He had thought Three was joking when he said to write a poem to his favorite weapon. No. No, he wasn't. Nile wanted to sob. It was just so frustrating. English wasn't even his native goddamn language. Why did it have to be in fucking English?! Nile crumpled a piece of paper. Too many damn erasure marks. He shuddered at the memory of Three telling him that his poetry was subpar in the creepily nice grandpa voice. Nile had nearly had a stroke at that. He'd also given up on the rhyming schemes. No, he was not writing a limerick. The shortest poems should be the easiest, right? Wait, was using a Japanese poetry form with a Chinese teacher bad form? Fuck if he knew.
Nile glared at his pens. None of his classmates were particularly helpful. He got the feeling that they had enjoyed watching him get his first re-do assigned. Fuckers. All of them were evil backstabbing shits. Nile grit his teeth and stared at the paper. No words were coming to mind. His mind felt as blank as the paper in front of him and that was an accomplishment. Would this count as a meditation breakthrough for Yermalov? Probably not, but it was worth a try. Nile began chewing on his pen and staring at the paper. Gum had been banned at Malagasto since the first year. Maybe he could try to get some sort of medical exemption for a chew toy? This was not helping him focus and he normally chewed gum to focus. Nile was sweating as he stared at the page.
Shiny swords
He crossed out that line. It left him with only one syllable. Grr. Nile felt the pen snap in his hand and gush ink all over his page of paper. The ink began to seep through the paper and onto the desk. If they were doing the stupid inkblot test with Steiner he'd say it looked like the puddle of the blood of the guy who invented poetry that Nile time-traveled back to personally stab. Fortunately, he was done with those stupid appointments with Doctor Steiner. Frankly, Nile would have rather kept his fear of heights than seen him for more than one visit. It was unlikely that they would have let him refuse the therapy. It felt more like torture to him. Psychological torture. Nile was pretty sure that he couldn't squeeze those two into a Haiku. He did his best to wipe up the ink but ended up smearing it all over the desk. Nile cringed internally at the mess and prayed that it wasn't worth punishing him over. He dumped the paper towels in the trash and grabbed his stuff to flee the room before he could be caught accidentally vandalizing school property. Thankfully, nobody spotted him on the way to his room. If they had seen him before he used alcohol to remove the ink, he'd probably be screwed. Nile decided to grab more coffee. This was going to be a long night even if he put off his poetry until the end of the night.
Blood flowing
Nile scratched off the fresh attempt at poetry at eleven at night. Time for more coffee. He wasn't the biggest fan of the taste but the caffeine helped him focus on his assignments. Nile liked to bounce between assignments because his brain seemed to dislike focusing on anything for longer than about twenty minutes. At least the ink had come right off of his hands. Nobody had said anything to him at dinner after he 'accidentally' broke one of his fellow student's nose during the sparring matches that day. He'd gotten off pretty lightly, all things considered. Nile was pretty sure Yermalov had figured out that the other students were bullying him since this was the third time he'd broken a nose in class. The man hadn't said anything except to tell him that a nose breaking could be lethal. Nile was going to take that as tacit approval for punching his more obnoxious classmates, as long as it was non-lethal. 'Accidents happen' seemed to be Yermalov's most used phrase. That and 'run faster, you lazy shits.' Nile was pretty sure that the Russian words he was using were roughly equivalent.
Nile finished mixing in a bunch of sugar and cream into his coffee before returning to his damn poetry assignment. The blank paper seemed to be mocking him at this point. Nile wondered if they really would kill him if he failed his poetry homework again. Probably. Three was known to murder people for random nitpicking reasons. Nile heard one guy had been done in for 'eating too loudly.' Maybe that's why table manners were mandatory. Oh, yes, half the board has misophonia so everybody has to suffer and learn table manners. That would be the boring truth behind it all. Nile inhaled sharply as he picked up the pen again.
A sword is like fire,
Cutting through organs and skin.
To kill, stab it in.
That was it. Nile didn't care anymore. It was a poem. It followed all of the stupid little poetry rules for Haikus. He was an assassin, not an English major and this was his third language. Fuck this assignment. He was never taking a post with Doctor Three, the sadistic prick. He didn't care if he had to do a rotation in Siberia. Never. Nile picked up the paper and tucked it into his folder. He didn't care if he got murdered. He was not doing this a third time. Nile rubbed his eyes and let out a sigh. Midnight. At least he would get five hours of sleep instead of three hours of sleep. Hopefully, he would not have a repeat of the previous day's nightmares about being publicly executed by Doctor Three for failing the poetry unit. Nile sighed and ditched his coffee cup. Now he was wound-up and had the jitters. God, he wanted to be done already and they said he'd have to stay four more months. Nile let out a groan and put his head into his hands. Shower time. Because Yermalov had beaten the last student who skipped one and then forcibly bathed them. Oh, well, he was pretty sure he'd pass.
Fin
Based on a prompt by Zyzyax (see story summary). This is the 69th work in the Winds of Change 2022 Alex Rider Prompt event, where a new prompt (plus a short 1-3K work) is posted every day. For more details, see the AO3 collection :) Want to discuss? Leave a comment beneath, or join the discord (Link on AO3 Fics or just PM me, lol). Want to take part in our Alex Rider anniversary celebrations in September? Join the WoC discord to take part in a fanfic event!