"Ugh," I groan, dropping my head to my desk with a resounding thunk. "Are your sure Oobleck didn't accidentally add a zero when he said ten thousand words?" Seriously, that's like... thirty five pages of writing. On a Monday, due at the end of the year, which is not far enough away to for me to feel comfortable doing anything other than starting immediately.
And now I'm regretting that decision.
"It is supposed to be a group project," Ren says, voice coming in clear over the sound of turning pages and scribbling pencils. "And if there is a missing zero, it's because he wanted us to write one hundred thousand words instead." I grimace against the table. Yeah, that sounds about right. With a sigh and push myself up to sitting and get back to work.
When I first heard about group papers I laughed. I mean, how do you split up the act of writing a paper? Take turns at the keyboard? Even if you could, what was stopping the try-hard in the group from doing everything themselves? It just seemed like a bad idea through and through. Then Pyrrha, Ren and Nora started talking about who would do what, where to look in the library, possible hypotheses, and I had to call a timeout and remind them (again) that I didn't know anything. Once they remembered that I learned why my worries didn't matter.
First, because the try-hards all know the cost of sending someone into the field unprepared. That lesson gets hammered in pretty hard during the first year of the academies through a number of practical exercise that my teammates don't want to talk about, and after that there isn't really a problem with freeloaders. Heck, Pyrrha's never gone too far with her help, even when it's clear she really, really wants to just do my work for me.
That... doesn't mean she doesn't try to give a little too much advice sometimes.
The other part of making group projects work is that the professors literally assign so much stuff that we really do need everyone pulling their weight. I mean, ten thousand words? What the heck? How do you even talk about internal uprisings and revolutions in Vacuo for ten thousand words? Sure, the place has been in basically constant turmoil since just after the great war, but it's too big of a subject. You might as well ask about the history of the Schnee Dust Company.
Ugh, not productive. If Oobleck didn't define the goals of the project, that's probably because he wanted us to come up with something on our own. Anyway, it's not my problem and I need to get back to work on the problems that are mine.
I tear out the sheet of doodles from my notebook, ball it up, and toss it towards a waste basket. Ren and the others are checking out sources, trying to connect this stuff to work that other Huntsmen before us have done. Since I can't tell the difference between a journal article and a particularly well-researched blog post, we've collectively decided to split up the labor so that the people who actually know what to look for will do most of the planning stuff and I'll do the bulk of the writing.
I sigh and restart my sketch of an outline. Intro yes, conclusion yes, those do have to go somewhere. But what about the body of the paper? The actual point? Asking good questions is always a pain and a half, and it always takes way too long to come up with something halfway decent. I mean, it was never a problem in school. Always managed to get a passing grade, plus a little more to keep Mom and Dad happy.
On the other hand, I can't just scrape by anymore. Pyrrha wants to excel and Ren and Nora don't deserve to have their grades tanked because I don't care. So now it's time to simplify a complex topic into something that I can actually write about.
Man, I wished I payed more attention in language arts.
After half an hour of beating my head against the metaphorical wall of blank paper, I have something close to a coherent plan. It's not pretty and it doesn't cite anything, but by this time tomorrow I should be drowning in secondary literature annotated by my teammates. Give the titles and abstracts a quick read through, then fill out the rest. Still won't be pretty after that, but then I can start writing the damn thing and work to make it better.
I close the binder for oobleck's class and take a moment to stretch. Then I put it away and take out the binder for Grimm Studies. No rest for the wicked, and his snooze-inducing lectures aside Port's class is the most interesting. I mean, Huntsmen and Grimm? The connection isn't hard to see. That and a lot of his stuff is just memorization. It's kind of nice to be able to relax and just do some flash cards.
Ugh. Now I'm looking to flash cards for relaxation. What has my life come to?
"Hello, Jaune," Pyrrha says from somewhere behind me. Right. Partner. I smile ruefully and turn to face her, even as I start shuffling the index cards. She's smiles back and tucks a stack of papers under her arm, offering a small wave. "Done already?"
"I'm as done as I'm going to get," I joke, throwing a wave back as I shift to a one-handed triple-cut shuffle. Flashy? Yeah, but it's an excuse to use those old magic tricks again. "How about you?" She shrugs.
"I managed to find a few things," she replies nonchalantly, motioning to the papers under her arm. "Anyway, I was wondering if you wanted to-"
"I'll never be your, beast of burden!"
Godsdammit, scroll! I start scrambling for it, even as Pyrrha blinks in surprise.
"My back is broad, but it's a-hurtin'! All I want is for you to make love-"
"That's mine!" I interrupt, finally managing to slide the 'shut up' button on it before the song can go on any longer. What was it even...
Aw heck.
"I was wondering if you wanted to study together?" Pyrrha says, sliding into the seat next to me with a smile. I shake my head, even as I pack away the flash cards and stand up. Bad timing.
"Sorry Pyr, Goodwitch again," I say, walking backwards with hands held up in a sort of 'what can you do?' motion. Pyrrha frowns.
"Didn't you meet her on Saturday as well?" she asks, and I wince. Yes, I did meet with her... five minutes late. I thought that getting there showered and caffeinated would make up for being a little late.
I was wrong.
"She wants to meet three times a week," I say. "And the next meeting is in fifteen minutes, so..." I point to my wrist and jerk my head towards the door. Pyrrha nods, even as she puts on that plastic smile that tells me I screwed something up. I make a promise to myself to ask her about it some time soon. It's a little hypocritical for me to be prying, but I'll be damned if my team gets hurt because we can't talk to each other.
That's for later, though. I spin around and start running, risking a smile as the hallways fly past me. Now I get to learn.
A professor of Beacon academy has certain standards they must uphold. They must be composed at all times, achieve a level of excellence in their activities that conveys competence, and maintain the image of capability and stoicism in the face of any and all challenges they may face in the course of their duties. It is hard, but perfectly possible.
Fortunately, I don't have to bother managing myself in my office.
"Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong," I mutter, crossing red exes through a series of multiple choice questions about Huntsman law. "And not even the good kind wrong," I add, chewing on the end of the drawstring on my hoodie. Ah, the wonders of working at home. You can say precisely what you feel without fear of accidentally destroying a young girl's dreams and wear sweatpants without shattering the illusion of indomitable discipline instilled in one's students. "Mister Golden will be spending some time in detention I see." A flick of my hand and her name joins the depressingly long list of fourth-years who will be joining me for remedial lessons before finals week. Gods forbid these poor souls should go into their penultimate exams thinking that this is an acceptable level of knowledge.
Once the test receives its final pen stroke (a green one, thankfully), I toss it onto the pile of 'finished' work and stretch, taking a moment to appreciate just how wonderful the loosening my muscles feels. Could I have avoided such stiffness by attending to my duties behind a desk with a proper chair? Perhaps. Would it be as satisfying at the end? Certainly not.
I reach for another stack of forms and start scanning through them. Bart's asking for field trips. Optimistic fool. How many destroyed archaeological sites will it take for him to learn that the majority of Beacon students are more likely to annihilate evidence of ancient civilizations than discover them? Nonetheless, I being to leaf through it-
"I met a girl, I met a girl, on a Holiday."
I check the caller ID and groan before answering.
"What is it this time, Bart?" I ask, shimmying out of the sweats and calling my work clothes to me. Then I check the time, send them back, and summon up my sparring uniform. I suspect it's going to be one of those incidents.
"Well you see, Professor Goodwitch" — if he's using my title it's worse than I thought — "I was attempting to assist a group of students with a makeup lab and I'm afraid things have gotten quite out of hand," he says and I feel my heart sink. There is such thing as a trivial accident with Dust. Such things occur only when dealing with relatively small samples though, which are primarily found in primary combat schools and civilian laboratories.
Here? Any incident that warrants my attention has the destruction of a classroom as the best-case scenario.
"Give me estimates on amount, elements involved, and your initial assessment," I demand, closing the last of the buttons on my shirt and slipping into a pair of combat boots. "I'll be on-site shortly." Oobleck knows Dust as well as any professional Huntsman, but there's a difference between hard-won practical knowledge that tells you how to craft your own munitions in the wild and the academic sort that prevents accidental EMP's from sending a city back into the dark ages. The latter is unlikely, but possible, which is why Oobleck's decision to call me was absolutely correct.
"Red and brown Dust, thirty six ounces of the former and sixty ounces of the latter," Oobleck rattles off. In the background I here panicked muttering and a steady stream of profanity. "Currently, it appears as if there is a pool of lava melting through the floor, including substances that should not melt."
"I don't suppose it's cooling down as it goes?" I ask, shielding my mouth with a hand as I sprint as quickly as my legs can carry me. "And there's no substantial increase of temperature around it?" The few students still in the halls jumping out of the way with wide eyes and open mouths. Few of them consciously recognize just how fast professional Huntsmen can move when they are so motivated, even when they themselves can reach such a speed in combat. Mundane utility that Oobleck strives to teach his students in all of his lectures, but a pearl that such swine rarely pick up.
"I lack a device with which to measure its temperature but no, that does not appear to be the case," he says. I manage to suppress a groan. If only it could be as simple as cooling it down. "Additionally, the patch appears to be growing."
"Perpetually-heated stone," I say, eyeing the rapidly-approaching building. There's a shell of students around it, but they're already making a path for me. He kept the children safe. Good. "Lava with a half-life of several million years, but it also transmits relatively little heat compared to its natural counterpart."
"Which in turn makes it of marginal use when compared to something like spark Dust," Oobleck adds. I can already imagine the lines of thought running through his head, but by now I'm running through the front doors, up the stairs, and there's Bart, his thermos waving from side to side as he sprays the occasional burning object with ice. "Again, I'm terribly sorry for this-"
"Thank me by taking the students responsible to task," I interrupt, walking past him and flicking my crop twice. The first gesture clears the steam out of the way, and the second picks up the hazardous waste in a telekinetic field. "They will be the ones responsible for neutralizing this mess." Until then I'll have to keep it floating in a zero-gravity environment, well away from anything it would destroy. For that I'll need more gravity Dust, which needs to be billed to the school through forms-
"While the poetic nature of your punishment deserves recognition, I regret to inform you that this is my error," Oobleck says. I pause to stare at him, crop still leveled at the blob of lava. "I was setting up materials with which to run the lab, took a sip of my beverage" — he shakes his thermos once — "and accidentally knocked over two vials. I will, of course, be willing to assist you in-"
"No," I say, cutting him off as I pinch the bridge of my nose. "It's... acceptable," I squeeze out, suppressing half a hundred other words. "I can create the counter-agent more quickly on my own, and while it may be valuable for you to learn such a thing, the disciplinary aspect would be lost." I being to walk away, the sample floating after me. The discipline would lost on him, yes, but the catharsis it could offer me would be nothing short of divine.
"In the interest of preserving the illusion of equally distributed labor, might I take over some of your grading?" he presses, walking up next to me. I sigh.
"I would appreciate that," I say. Say what you will about Bart, he tries to right any wrong he sees, including his own. We both know that figuring out how to solve the problem of physics-breaking molten stone will be far more engaging than checking boxes, but the finance forms that will pay for the reconstruction of the laboratory can only be filled out by me or Ozpin. "That will have to wait for later. Once this is somewhere safe, I have a student to get to." If I run again I can probably make it to the ring on-time.
"I wasn't aware there was a student who had crossed you," Oobleck comments as we speed up. "Might I inquire as to what precisely they are responsible for that requires your particular attention?" I sigh in resignation. Is my reputation really such that any student I spend time with must necessarily be in trouble?
"In the interest of preserving the illusion of my perpetual bad mood, I will withhold the details for now," I answer, throwing Oobleck's words back at him and drawing a smile from the man. "Now then, if you would be so kind as to prepare a containment field?" Students scatter before the two of us as we close in on the weapons storage building and Oobleck nods once.
"I'll have it done before you get there," he says, peeling away from me as he pours on the speed. I take a moment to check my scroll. Plenty of time left. Now, what weapon to bring to training?
"That's... not a sword," I say stupidly as Goodwitch swings around the flail a few times, chains clinking and the flanged head whistling. She quirks an eyebrow at me and I immediately realize just how ridiculous my words really were.
"Yes, but can you tell me what it actually is? What new factors you'll have to consider when you face it? How you'll have to change your fighting style? Go," she finishes, letting it drop to her side, the end resting lightly against the ground as she looks at me expectantly. I blink, then get my head in gear and start talking.
"Well, it doesn't have the same reach as the longsword, so I don't have to worry about retreating as much. It's going to hit a lot harder though, so more dodging and less blocking. Don't want to be knocked over if I can't angle my shield right." I get enough of that in class against Cardin. "Practically? I should focus on waiting for you to over commit to a swing, then rush you. More moving around and less trying to press into your space." She stares at me for a moment longer. What could she- Oh, right! "And it's a flail," I add lamely.
"Half marks," she says impassively and I wince. Ouch. "What's the advantage of a flail over, say, a mace?" she ask, lifting her weapon until it's parallel to the floor, the head hanging down off nearly a foot of chain. I fall into a fighting stance, even as my mind races. Come on, think back to the early part of the year!
"Well, the chain means it's more flexible?" I try. Goodwitch rolls her eyes and that's fast back up back up back up! I manage to step away in time to avoid the sudden strike at my head, but I'm off-balance enough that I have to throw my shield up to try and block the follow-up overhead, try being the operative word. Instead of the slightly-numbing jarring sensation that I'm used to though, I feel a slight pressure on the side of the edge of the shield and ouch my arm! My hand spasms and I nearly lose my grip on my shield, falling to my knee with a hiss. What was that?
"The advantage of the flail is that it can go around blocks," Goodwitch says, spinning the weapon fast enough to whistle. "Against a mace, blocking is inadvisable. Against a skilled flail user, it is near-impossible." She extends a hand down and I grab it gratefully. She hauls be up to standing before taking a few steps back and letting the flail fall back to her side, eyes meeting mine. "Again."
I learn a lot about how flails work over the course of the next hour. I learn how the can wrap around limbs as a sort of grapple, how having a free hand gives the wielder all sorts of fun opportunities for hand-to-hand strikes, how a minute shift in the grip on the weapon can completely change the angle of an attack, how trying to get fancy by striking at the chain just leads to a swift disarmament and jab to the solar plexus from the pommel...
And also how much they can hurt.
For the first fifteen minutes I'm hopelessly lost. I've never actually fought anyone with such an unpredictable weapon and I almost call uncle. Then I managed to get my shield in the right place by accident and completely stop the head for long enough to throw a clumsy cut at Goodwitch. Then I manage a few more lucky blocks. Then they're not so lucky anymore and I almost see it-
Goodwitch steps around a stab, into my space, bashes my shield wide with the haft of the flail, and slams her open palm into my jaw. I go stumbling back, barelystaying upright, and then she sweeps out from under me with a kick to the side of the knee. I get my shield up in front of my face in anticipation of the finishing blow...
Which doesn't come? I lower my shield and look up at Goodwitch, who nods once.
"Better," she says, extending her hand down once more. I take it and she pulls me up, yet again. There's an old saying about it not mattering how many times you fall down, so long as you get back up again. I wonder if there's an analog for knocking someone down, but helping them get back up? Probably not. "You've adapted gamely to the shift in weaponry. I suggest incorporating a shifting arsenal into your sessions with Miss Nikos as well." I nod back, suppressing an internal grimace. Yay, getting my butt handed to me by Pyrrha with a poleaxe as well as a sword and shield. That should be fun.
"Um, how would we go about getting loaner weapons?" I ask, sheathing Crocea Mors and rubbing my shoulder where a particularly hard blow landed earlier in the spar. Again, going to be sore tonight. "Is there a form we have to fill out or...?"
"It would likely be easiest for the two of you to simply shift your choice of venue," Goodwitch says, gesturing around at the ring. "While students are not permitted to access the weapon storehouse directly, we do keep a rotating supply of temporary equipment that can be accessed upon request. They don't leave the building though," she adds, shooting me a look. "That decision was made after a student tried to make an axe/sword/spear/hammer/sword mechashift weapon by smuggling them out using the excuse 'group bonding'," she says and I tilt my head.
"Did you say sword-"
"Twice," she interrupts and I can almost hear her teeth grinding. "Needless to say, they were sufficiently chastised after the incident, but the rule remains in place." She sighs and her eyes soften. "She has since learned to make a living off of her mischief. Last time I checked, she's employed as a weaponsmith in Vacuo, happily married." I blink.
"You keep track of your old students?" I ask. I mean, I knew a few teachers who did that in middle school, but for the most part, they were pretty apathetic. Goodwitch shrugs.
"I look at casualty reports for all of them, but I only really stay in touch with a few," she says casually. "Primarily the ones who go into teaching themselves, but there were also a few that were so much trouble that I couldn't help but remember their names." I chuckle a little at that and I swear I can see the corner of Goodwitch's mouth move up. When I look for it again though she's back to her polite-but-strict default.
We stand there for a moment, sort of enjoying the silence, meeting one another's eyes.
Then it goes on for a moment too long and it's awkward again. Damn it, why does this always happen? I reach up and scratch the back of my head, breaking eye contact.
"So... Wednesday?" I ask. She nods.
"I will see you then," she replies, turning around and head for the women's locker room. I turn as well, teeing up my list of responsibilities. Reading through Pyrrha's compiled papers, fleshing out the outline, Port's flashcards, maybe make headway into the backlog of books my transcripts say I've read...
I let out a breath and walk off. Somehow, it doesn't seem quite as daunting as it did two hours ago.
As I get back into my sweats, I take another look at the stacks of paperwork in front of me and briefly imagine throwing it all into the shredder. Then common sense reasserts itself, and I plop back down on the couch, shoulders already slumping. Ah, the joys of employment. Back to where I started at the beginning of the day, albeit with slightly smaller piles. Some of that is due to no small effort on my part, part of it is due to sending the completed tests back to their takers, and most of it is the result of Oobleck's visit, expressing just how thankful he is to have someone with an intimate understanding of Dust on hand to correct his mistake.
The stack of tea tins and bottle of rather expensive wine now resting on the island in my kitchen may also be a part of that apology.
I fix myself a pot without moving and examine the next pile of work. First-year essays. Wonderful. That means in addition to the basic spelling and grammar errors, I also get to put up with writing that has yet to mature. I could just start tearing into them, highlighting the weakest parts of their argument, show them precisely where they went astray and the painfully easy corrections that would save them from a failing grade...
But that wouldn't help, anymore than beating Jaune into the ground over and over again would improve his skill.
I sigh and pick up the first paper, scanning the first paragraph for a thesis, hoping against hope to find something interesting. Feeding him an easy blow, aiming for his shield rather than his skull, could've backfired, made him too confident in his own skill. If I had tried it with a more arrogant student, it likely would have.
Instead, it gave him enough of a boost to start learning how to act on his own. A piece of the puzzle, then let him figure the rest out on his own. Sometimes those little nudges are all a student needs to get on the right track.
I shake my head. No clear statement of what the paper is about. I'm familiar enough with poor writing to understand the concept of what Mr. Thrush was going for, but the language is too confused to get his point across clearly.
Time to try and nudge him in the right direction.
I don't hold back my language. Garbage diction, poor sentence structure, and misuse of commas still receive my full ire. For the ideas though, I leave questions. I press the writer to come up with deeper explanations for their ideas, to figure out a more perfect structure for their argument. If their core argument is fundamentally flawed, I leave nothing more than a large red 'X' on the page. Those papers will require complete rewrites. They are few and far between though, and I'm pleasantly surprised when I finish scrawling notes on the last paper and find that barely an hour has passed.
Time truly does fly when one's work is worthwhile.
I place the lot of work in the out box by the door and begin dinner. This is the calm before the storm. Students are gearing for the exams just around the corner, and us professors will refrain from assuming excess work in the interest of letting them study, which incidentally leaves us with far more free time than the rest of the year. When those tests come in though, each and every professor will be up to their ears in corrections and grading. Notes will have to be sent to fourth years in danger of failing, first years will learn that being a big fish in a small pond in no way prepares you for your first 'C', and there will be nary an unclaimed caffeinated beverage in all of Beacon. Meanwhile, the majority of the students will have vacated the premises, ready to let all the information they had crammed into their skull drain away over the break.
It's amusing in a way. When the students stress, the professors relax. When the students relax, the professors stress. I'm sure Kitsune will begin handing out her study aids soon, and I'm equally sure those foolish enough to accept them will see their productivity skyrocket once the burning sensation in their mouth dies down. Nonetheless, even the most devoted academics rarely go back for a second dose.
Once the soup is set to simmering I retrieve the novel from my bedside and return to the story. Halfway through the book and I can already see the ending, a story with roots tracing back to the very beginnings of my experience as a reader. I still suspend my disbelief though, still gaze in wonder at the heroic moments and sudden reversals of fortune. Why? Because sometimes my expectations are subverted. Sometimes there is an author who does do something completely new, something so totally novel that I cannot help but be awestruck. That, and even if the story never deviates, even if it ends exactly the way I expect it to...
I can hardly say that it wasn't an enjoyable ride.