The first thing Mace did when he got home was call Krut. He was thankful to receive the pre-recorded "leave a message" bit he'd installed into the watch—Krut hadn't even changed it from Minion's basic, "I'm not in right now" message to a more personalized one—but then again, Mace now realized he'd forgotten to tell Krut how to do that, and the bigger boy probably didn't know how.
"Ollo, Krut," Mace greeted the empty watch. "I can see you're not on top of your watch right now—you're probably in cluss—class," he corrected quickly (Depending on the parts of Crypt and Cerul, the Cryptonian calendar ran anywhere from one day and two hours to four days and six hours ahead of Cerul's). "You're probably in class, so you'll get this message later in the day.
"Anyway, I wanted to notify you that Aida would rather you not visit—"
"Sir," Minion said in a warning tone from across the room.
"Oh, don't be a pill, Mignon," Mace said, covering the watch briefly with his hand.
"What does that even mean, Sir?"
"I don't know—Krut used it on me the last time he was over. Now hush, I'll explain myself in—" A knock came on the door.
"Mace?" Mendje called. "It's time for second lunch!" Mace sighed.
"Be right there!" he called before uncovering the watch and looking back down at it. "I'm sorry, I have to go. But, yes. That's about the gist of it. We'll be in contact as always, my fair-skinned Cryptonian friend. So long!" Mace shut the watch down and he and Minion were quick to join the others for second lunch.
***Break***
"Well if it isn't our own Puritanical Bluenose!" Neren exclaimed, coming up and throwing his arm around Mace's neck as the boy entered the school.
"That's a complete redundancy," Mace pointed out, raising one eyebrow and lowering the other.
"Oh, don't do that," Neren's twin sister Nistrom cried, holding her hands up and shuddering at the sight. "It's so weird!"
"Weird?" Neren asked, practically aghast at her choice of words. "You're talking to Mace Mind! He's the living symbol of weird turned upside down and stamped with society's highest approval rating! This guy makes weird look cool!" Mace laughed and shoved Neren playfully as they went walking down the hall. The other boy was shorter than him, with a slightly smaller head and almond-shaped, dark blue eyes. His face was short, his jaw square, and his face was covered in deep blue freckles that threatened to overtake it. On Crypt, Mace knew, they might have called him a ginger—though his face was currently smooth, his bright reddish-orange eyebrows stood out, and when he occasionally forgot to shave in the mornings, the small facial hairs were glaringly obvious against his dark skin.
He was more outwardly muscular than most, with wide shoulders and almost bulging muscles—he was not, needless to say, a very attractive kid.
His twin sister was as identical as fraternal twins can be—she had the same eyes, the same face shape, the same height, and the same bright eyebrows as her brother, but her form was feminine rather man masculine, and musculature was not something she had at all.
"Nice to hear, Mr. Viper-blood."
"Hey, that stuff tastes good," Neren insisted defensively. "Sure, they lie about all of the health concerns it alleviates, but at least I know that!"
"You realize you can get a lot of diseases from animal blood, right?" Mace asked, quirking his brow again.
"He knows that," Nistrom answered for him, rolling her eyes at her brother. "He just refuses to acknowledge it."
"Well, I suppose I can't teach you what you already know," Mace said with a shrug, then looked around. "Your minions are in their wing, correct?" he asked.
"That would be accurate," Neren agreed. The Minion Wing of the school was where the minions congregated before classes to speak amongst one another and store things in their own special lockers, mostly little knickknacks or things that their Master or Mistress didn't want to keep on them and didn't trust to their own.
"Ah," Mace said with a nod. "I suppose Minion will be having this same conversation with Sincha and Chinsa, yes?"
"All except the first part," Nistrom agreed matter-of-factly. "Minion doesn't have the correct anatomical parts for Sincha to call him a bluenose. He'll probably call him a bluenostril instead—something with the equivalent meaning but without any elegance in the phrasing."
Neren opened his mouth with a finger raised as if to protest, then let out his breath and shook his head. "I can't fight with that," he admitted. "Sincha doesn't have the keenest grasp on the Cerulean language. But, that doesn't make you and Minion any less bluenosed!"
"Are we really on this subject again?" Mace demanded, rolling his own eyes. "Why must you continue to harass me about never having dated? It is my choice, is it not?"
"Mace, you're going to be seventeen in two months," Neren pointed out, clapping his friend on the shoulder. "You'll be a legal man and never have so much as kissed a girl! And you! Such a looker, so popular with the ladies—"
"I'm sorry to disappoint you, Neren," Mace said, removing his friend's hand from his shoulder. "But I'm afraid you are most certainly not a lady, and I am not exactly attracted to that type of organism." Nistrom giggled at Mace's suave turnaround, and Neren simply glared.
"You can just go right straight to Ferr," Neren growled, but he didn't really mean it, and the three of them all knew it.
"So, have you seen the Medulla twins?" Mace questioned, looking around. "Or the Parietal twins?" On Cerul, twins were very common—there was a good chance of getting them, and there was about a fifty-fifty chance that a pregnancy would result in twins. Actually, that result probably progressed with the generation, seeing as twins were more likely to have twins themselves…
"Oh-ho, don't go avoiding the subject, Macey boy! Seriously, it's unnerving."
"How is it unnerving that I've never dated?" Mace demanded. He didn't see any connection between the action (or lack thereof) and the emotion. Nistrom giggled again.
"He's jealous because his girlfriend keeps her eyes on you whenever they talk about the dance," she teased. Neren glared at her, but said nothing. Mace laughed.
"Don't worry about that, Neren," Mace said, clapping the shorter boy on the back. "You'll be happy to know that I just so happen to already have a date for the dance," he answered confidently.
"And who might this new girlfriend be?" Neren asked, ever searching for the latest gossip. He was what Mace considered the better type of gossip—he wanted the information, but he generally kept it to himself. "I know it isn't Deldja—I heard you knocked her right over the other day during lunch. Which reminds me; what did she do? I saw you get into an emergency vehicle with Minion, and I saw Deldja being led into a Law Enforcement vehicle, but no one knows anything but that—and that you planted a pretty big bruise on her face."
"Well, first of all," Mace stated, blushing slightly, "she isn't necessarily my girlfriend. Yet," he added. "We're just going to the dance together. Second, I'm not sure I'll tell you who she is—I think I'll show you. And, third, Deldja attacked Aida Cerebellum. Brutally," he added in a growl.
"The hughman?" Nistrom asked.
"Human," Mace corrected, and nodded. "Yes, the human girl."
"The one you've been sitting with at lunch?"
"That's the one."
"Reminding me yet again," Neren went on. "Does this mean you'll be eating lunch with us again? Spending less time with the Aida girl?"
"No," Mace answered with a confident smile. "In fact, I think I'll be spending even more time with her!"
"Your girlfriend isn't going to like that," Nistrom chided.
"I don't think she'll mind," Mace laughed. "I don't think she'll mind at all."
"That's convoluted logic if I ever heard it," Neren stated, but Mace waved him off. "So when exactly are you going to show us this girl of yours?" Neren asked.
"At the dance, of course!" Mace exclaimed. Neren and Nistrom both rolled their eyes.
"It's always a dramatic entrance with you, isn't it?" they asked together.
"Of course!" Mace exclaimed, turning as he walked and throwing his hands up, a grin planted on his face. "After all, it's all about the presentation!"
***Break***
"Roxanne," Mace exclaimed as he caught sight of her in the halls. "Ollo!" She flashed a smile and blushed before looking down again, Gilda keeping close to her. Gilda never went to the Minion's Wing. She kept close to her Mistress all day—some days it seemed like she was the only thing between Roxanne and a lynching, and while that had alleviated some, Gilda was determined to stick close to her, especially with her real body damaged the way it was.
"Sorry I'm late," he added, catching up to her and Gilda with Minion close behind. "Neren and Nistrom kept pestering me."
"And Sincha and Chisna were the same with me," Minion added apologetically.
"Now," Mace announced, linking arms with her. "Let us get you to First Hour!"
"You don't have to link arms with me," Roxanne mumbled bashfully. "Everyone will think you're a freak like me."
"You're not a freak," Mace scoffed. "And the students at this shool are so closed-minded as far as you go; they'd never even consider it as anything more than strange. The racists," he added under his breath. "But it's good for now," he resumed with a grin. "I plan to shock them all when I show up to the dance with the prettiest girl in school on my arm—if that's all right with you," he added quickly.
"Sorry, Mr. Mind," Roxanne couldn't help but tease. "But you just helped put the prettiest girl in school behind bars."
"You're getting Sty-Eyed, Roxanne," Mace teased back as if to warn her. She might have shoved him if she wasn't completely overjoyed by the fact that he was there. Her heart…Wait. Her heart? Had it stopped beating? Oh God, it had! What was—
Mace cocked his head at her. "You're not…supposed to turn blue like that, are you?" he asked uncertainly. Roxanne gasped, only to find her empty lungs filling up with air and her heart resuming its regular pace. She could have slapped herself—forgetting to breathe! How stupid was she? "That looks better," he decided, smiling again as color returned to her face.
I beg to differ, Roxanne couldn't help but think, certain that she'd look much better blue, but held her tongue.
"By the way," Mace added, a little hop integrating itself into his stride, "I talked to my parents this morning, and they want to have you over for dinner tonight! Would that be all right?"
"Dinner?" Roxanne asked meekly. "With your parents?"
"Mhm," Mace agreed, not even noticing the quaver in her voice. "Mom hasn't had a chance to actually meet you yet, and whenever Dad sees you he's either talking to someone else or checking to make sure you're still alive—not that that isn't important, but I'm sure it kind of stints the conversation, huh?"
Roxanne nodded. She couldn't argue with that—She preferred not to talk when she was being examined. She wasn't a very talkative person, and on top of that, it made her nervous.
"Isn't the male supposed to meet the female's family first?" she joked to try and cover up her discomfort. She'd never dined at anyone else's home before, and how was she to know what to expect from Mace's parents? She'd never actually met Mendje, as Mace had just pointed out, and while she was acquainted with Macklnn, she had no idea how he'd react to her actually being romantically inclined with his only son—she was an alien, after all…
"Oh, fie on that," Mace exclaimed with the toss of his free hand. "They want to meet you, and Mom has to leave again next week—there's a huge thing going on with all the Vassals on Crypt, and she needs to be there 'just in case.' I think it has to do with the illegal selling of sub-sub-kingdoms, and…I don't know," he admitted with a grimace. "I don't much care for pol-o-tics."
"Politics, Sir," Minion corrected quickly. Mace flushed.
"Yes, that's the one; thank you, Minion. Polo-Politics. I don't like them. My impediment doesn't either," he added, and Roxanne giggled. He immediately decided that sixteen years' worth of mispronunciations was all made worth it right then and there. "So what do you think?" he asked, suddenly excited all over again. "Do you think you can make it?"
"I'll ask my parents," Roxanne promised. "It's not like Gilda and I have other plans."
"Wonderful!" Mace cried, his enthusiasm causing his voice to rise in volume, garnering the attention of all passers by. Roxanne looked quickly down at her feet. If Mace hadn't been there, she would have immediately picked up her pace.
But the friendly Cerulean just waved at everyone who continued to stare, grinning jovially at them all. "Hello!" he greeted them all. "Such a wonderful day, isn't it?" Most of them laughed back and immediately agreed—they all knew who he was—and those who didn't looked quickly away, feeling ashamed for their less-than-kind glances.
"You've got that right!"
"It does seem like a good day to be alive!"
"Wonderful is an understatement!"
Roxanne just watched from the corner of her eye in silent disbelief at his ability to be so friendly with complete strangers and have them be friendly back. She didn't envy him though (OK, maybe just the tiniest little bit). She knew the names of all of the kids who were in her Year and a good number of the ones who weren't, and she wanted little to nothing to do with any of them. She had nowhere near the memory capacity the average Cerulean had, but she would still never be able to forget every little thing each of them was guilty of. If given a list of all of her classmates and asked to separate their names into groups of who had abused her verbally, who had done so physically, and who had done both, it would take her all of five minutes.
Mace looked back to her and shook his head as he rolled his eyes in slight amusement. "People are ridiculous. But Gilda, my fine fishy friend's fishy friend! How are you doing? Feeling better?"
"Much," Gilda answered bluntly, absolutely stunned to have been spoken to so directly in such a public place. Realizing how rude that might have sounded, Gilda began stumbling over her own words as her brain kicked back on, that "if-minions-could-blush" look on her face again. "I mean, yes, I am, thank you, thank you very much for asking, and—um, thank you for—for modifying my suit, and for…well…everything."
"No trouble at all," Mace answered brightly. "It was my pleasure, and—OOF!" Mace failed to see the door to Roxanne's classroom standing propped open and dropped Roxanne's arm as he tumbled to the floor. Roxanne gasped and tossed herself down on the floor beside him.
"Are you alright?" she asked in concern, setting her hands on his arm. He blinked up at her, rubbing at where his cheek had met solid wood. He smiled (he was a naturally smiley person).
"God, you're beautiful," he breathed. Roxanne blushed and tried to keep from smiling herself.
"I think the fall must have scrambled your brains," she accused in good humor, pushing gently at his shoulder before helping him to stand. Mace sniffed the air as if trying to detect something.
"Hm," he pondered. "No. I most defiantly do not smell scrambled brains this morning, Miss Cerebellum."
"Do you mean defiantly, or did you mean definitely?"
"Well, it certainly doesn't matter if Mignon and I are late to Language, now, does it?" Mace asked, catching sight of the time. "We'll be seeing you next Hour, girls," he promised as they touched heads and the two boys dashed off down the hall. Roxanne giggled and Gilda smiled good naturedly as they watched them both crash into another boy and his own minion before the two headed into class.
It felt so good not to have Deldja there.
Author Comments:
The twin thing-Kinda not relevent to the story, but my head is all kinds of whacked up, and someone (LarkSparrow, I think) once asked about Metrocity's menstrual cycle on the Truth Or Dares, which made me think about the differences of fertility, and I decided that Ceruleans are (generally) more fertile. I could launch into my own secondary explanation about how it's less of a strain on resources and time in such an advanced society, especially with the minions to help with raising the kids and better diets and fertility whatnots and blah blah blah, but I'm not quite in the mood tonight. =P
AAAaaaaannnndddd...Yes. We met some of Mace's friends here! So that's fun, huh? Um...Yep. Um...I don't really think I'm missing any eplanations, am I? Everything else pretty self-explanatory? Yes? Good. Enjoy! :D
OH YES! HIOWEHGIUHKEJFGSIOFJ THE SECOND LUNCH! XDXD, Ceruleans, having a longer day than we do, have a few more meals. So yes. :F