Interlude
As spring approached, Adam's parents told him he'd get a new set of companions in the new year.
A few weeks later, Man-at-Arms returned from the Academy Commissioning ceremonies wearing a smile and bearing Adam a letter.
Adam,
I'm sorry I haven't been able to communicate better. Because some of my roommates were nosy, and we had to submit the letters through the Academy (and who knows who was reading them), I felt like I only could send letters to my father about boring routine stuff. Good thing we worked out our code ahead of time – you don't know how many times I wanted to say I missed everyone, but didn't want to have to write the words. But now that I've been passed into the second year I can go into town every other week for an afternoon, so I can post a letter there and know that no one is reading it - or at least, no one at the Academy is.
The first year was harder than I ever imagined. I never had a moment to myself. Our dorm had six girls to a room and a communal washroom for all the first-year female cadets. (And no, I'm not going to give you more detail on the latter!) We started at dawn with combat, which wasn't so bad for me given the routine we followed the palace, but some people really moaned about it. Then breakfast, classes, lunch, target practice or other drills, another class, dinner, study time, and lights out and sleep. At least, sleep on the nights when they didn't wake us up in the middle of the night to jump into the frozen river, run three miles in bare feet, clean the showers, or eat bugs. Some of those bugs were really squishy. I'm feeling sick remembering it.
And I should mention my hair is a lot shorter now. Maybe I'll tell you that story when I see you in person.
Oh, and Solstice was horrible. Not only did they not tell us until three weeks out that we weren't going home, they didn't tell us why and what we were going to do. The first few days turned out to be "guard duty" where we patrolled the Academy – including the basements! - and made our own meals and cleaned. I began to relax and think they were punishing us (although I didn't know for what) by just making us doing pointless chores around an empty school instead of going home. On the fourth day, though, just before lunch we were told to go into a supply room and pick out everything we'd need for a week in the Vine Jungle. We had two hours working as a team, and we only could take what we could carry. Luckily yours truly remembered anti-venom or half of us would be dead. They put us (12 first-years and 4 cranky third-years) in a transport and flew us to the swamp and just left us there as it was getting dark. We had to find a dry patch of land, fortify it, and set up the tents. Night patrol was mainly against snakes and we had 7 bites on 4 people that first night before people got good at spotting them and using sticks to extricate them from camp. The next day the 3rd years gave us a map and said we had to find an abandoned city and retrieve a cylinder left there. Because I wasn't bit, I was voted onto the exploratory team, which turned out to be lucky because those left behind in camp had a swarm of tsanti flies descend upon them, and the bites swelled and itched something awful. We'd brought bug repellant but the one we chose turned out not to be that effective. Anyway, my team found the cylinder without awakening any ancient demons and got back just after nightfall. The next day we had to decipher it and…and I'm getting tired of writing. Anyway, we ended up spending 6 days in the Jungle and I learned a lot about survival and teamwork and finally made some friends but I'd rather have been staying up all night at the Solstice party. Did you have fun without me? Father told me about Orko and the presents. Don't worry, I'll take back my old job next year.
So starting tomorrow I'm in a room with only three other girls and I'm hoping the midnight interruptions will be done. No one will give a straight answer about that.
If you write back, can you not sign the letter and ask Katrin to address the envelope? I'll send letters to her to forward to you, so please let her know what's going on. As our parents keep saying, we don't want people to think I got in here because I'm the prince's childhood friend, and I definitely don't want them to think that if I get any honors it's because you or your father put in a good word for me.
I'll write again in two weeks.
T.
Adam felt better than he had in ages. After finishing the letter, he realized that he really didn't feel whole without having Teela to talk to – she really knew him better than anyone else. And now they'd be able to write directly to each other! She still sounded like her old self, only more responsible and with better grammar. He wondered how short her hair was now, and if her role during the jungle trip was more important than she said. She certainly seemed upbeat – even anticipating receiving honors at some point.