45. Warm Up
Avocato let out a little grunt as he leaned far over, stretching his back and legs as he began his warm-up routine. It was still hours before he was scheduled to run, but he needed something to do. He would be lying if he said he wasn't nervous about what they were about to do - which amounted to painting huge targets on their backs. The social norms of the court were too deeply ingrained in him to abandon so easily, but he realized now exactly how incredibly stifling they were.
That he realized this certainly did not mean that anyone else did or would or would even want to. He did not expect his enlightenment to spread very far, but three people, at least, believed in and supported them. It was a start. Indeed, Chief Binx had already asked Kedi to teach him ice running and he had even tried it a few times when, late at night, they had assembled to practice. It was not lost on Avocato that Commodore Leoni, Colonel Cataloupe, and Chief Binx were not from noble families, and so would not have stigmas as deeply ingrained as his own. He knew the real pushback would come from the titled houses.
Over one hundred and fifty teams had signed up for the relay today. Each team member ran one segment of four kilometers, symbolic of the supposed forty kilometers run by each person in the original Smilodon relay. With the average race time at a little over an hour, timing that many athletes took a great deal of organization, especially when some were truly awful at running and took a great deal of time. Luckily, this was a military academy and if the military mind was known for anything, it was organization.
He knew today would not endear him to his peers, but nothing he did at this point would and fortunately, he really didn't care. Avocato was not at the academy to be universally loved. He had his core of friends, a wider circle of people who at least respected his intelligence and skills, and then people who ignored him or pretended he didn't exist. Finally, there was the majority of cadets who simply hated him for being too smart, too skilled, too blue, too royal, too well connected, too rich, too entrenched with commoners, too arrogant, too much of something they wished for themselves but could not magically produce to best him. His presence had thrown the academy and the military off pace, and both were struggling still to find their footing. People found reasons to blame him for everything, and when they couldn't find them, they made them up. It was time to give his detractors something solid to hold on to.
More cadets filed into the gymnasium, some talking, some yawning. Some sat in the bleachers to wake up, others began warming up. Avocato just sat in his corner and stretched, thinking how he'd collect Kedi and Nikos and go get some breakfast before going to watch the starting relays. His team was scheduled to run towards the end of the day. If that was better or worse than going early, he had no idea. It just allowed for slightly less reaction time out of his peers. All he knew was that tomorrow was not going to be an easy day.
His hopes for a quiet morning evaporated when one, two, now three teams of fourth- and fifth-year cadets came and stood all around him. Now what? Given that most of the gym floor was empty, there was no reason for them to be here other than to be obnoxious. Wonderful. Surrounded by petty prats who had no better way to spend their morning than harassing him. He was getting an early start on the difficult day to come.
By their speech, Avocato could tell they were nobles without bothering to look up from his stretch. He had no intention of lingering, but he also had no intention of being driven off until he was done. They had come to him, after all.
"What is this thing?" demanded one of the cadets.
"A third-year," another of them replied in a voice dripping with disgust.
"Avo-cato, isn't it?" asked a girl. He looked up and recognized her.
"Rale," he replied, knowing what this was about. He had not seen or spoken to her since that fateful day on the ridge, but he had heard rumblings.
"That's Cadet Rale to you," she snapped. "Stand up when you address me."
"On the contrary," he said, deliberately polite as he continued his stretch at a leisurely pace. "By failing to address me as Cadet Avocato to start, you, as the higher rank, have established that this is an informal discussion, and therefore no rank applies. Rale."
Rale's amber eyes narrowed sharply at being corrected so sharply. Clearly she had neither forgotten nor forgiven his role in allowing Kemuri to pull ahead of her in the fifth-year class ranking last semester, especially since she had not been able to recover her position so far this semester.
"So," she said with a little smirk, falsely pleasant, "you're running the relay! With your same little team of peasants, no less. How quaint and revolting. Are you going to cheat on this, too, and depend on the academy to make excuses for you?"
He smiled at her, standing and stretching his back a little more, as if unconcerned. He did not lie as he said, "No more than I did the day you lead your troop into an ambush."
"So you will cheat." She shook her head. "So sad that's the only way you can come out on top."
He shrugged. "I don't need to cheat to come out on top, Rale. What's sad is your refusal to accept a loss with any grace or take any lesson away."
"Oh, and you think you're one to teach me?" she demanded hotly, stepping forward fearlessly even though he was a full head taller than she.
Avocato yielded not a hair to her. "I believe I already did."
Her face - which any other time Avocato would have called pleasing - darkened. Her claws were out, and her hand was moving to strike him when another hand shot out and seized her wrist. She gasped as her arm was jerked away and down, and surprise seemed to bring her back to her senses and she found herself restrained by Cadet Biri.
"Cadet Rale," Kemuri calmly said from behind them, announcing his arrival and that of his track team. "Did I just see you move to strike Cadet Avocato?"
Biri leveled a hard glare at Rale, daring her to lash out. There was a brief, silent struggle as the two young women strained against each other's strength for control, but Biri had the advantages of a sure grip and better leverage, and she twisted Rales's arm down before she shoved her away from Avocato. Rale fell back, rubbing her wrist sullenly as she glanced at her friends, her tail lashing the air and her fur bristling in annoyance.
"Well, Cadet?" asked Kemuri. By the silence of the other fifth years, Avocato could tell Kemuri's class ranking was higher than all of them, nominally placing him in command.
"I have no idea what you saw. Sir."
"Threats and intimidation are expressly against the academy's code of conduct."
She turned a scornful eye on her rival. "Are you threatening me, Cadet Kemuri?"
"No more than you're threatening me. I'm just reminding you of what you already know. Cadet Avocato, with me. The rest of you, carry on."
The dismissal was like a slap, but they could not do or say anything against Kemuri. Avocato walked past Rale and fell in with Kemuri, Biri, and another fifth-year cadet he did not know.
"Did she strike you?" asked Kemuri softly, leaning close. They headed for the doors and exited the gym. The morning air was cool and crisp and the wind carried a promise of rain later in the day.
"No, sir," said Avocato. He looked over at Biri. "I'm sure she would have, so thank you."
Biri let out a tiny snort. "I was hoping for a chance to deck her."
"They just wanted to stir up trouble." Avocato shrugged. "I shouldn't be surprised. This has been every day of my life since I started school."
"Well, that's miserable," said the other fifth year. He cast Avocato a wry smile. "I'm Choon, by the way."
"Avocato."
"Yes, I . . . I know." He looked and sounded apologetic, clearly grasping Avocato's frustration.
"So . . . Rale never recovered?" asked Avocato after a moment.
"Pfft," said Choon. "I doubt she ever will. I was one of her lieutenants that day. She did everything she was supposed to, but with all those men and heavy weapons, she was too sure of her own success to take more care. I can't imagine what the brass made of Kemuri here pulling victory straight out of nowhere. I'm sure he upset the whole balance of the universe." As he spoke he gave his friend a playful shove.
Kemuri smile and rolled with the push. "Rale and I go back to before the academy," he explained in an aside to Avocato. "Our families have similar status. She's always been competitive with me but being here pushed her to a whole new level."
"Kemuri is being a gentleman," Biri interjected, having none of their noble niceties. "The truth of the matter is, he declined her romantic overtures both at home and here and she can't handle not being the center of the universe. Rale is a disappointed brat who lost her status as second heir to House Ra when her brother and his husband contracted with a courtesan to produce a child and ousted her as the pampered pet." She looked at her companions, but neither young man contested these facts.
"She has a chance of pulling ahead of me again in the class ranking if she wins today, either for our grade or squad or the overall relay," Kemuri said.
"In other words, she's desperate," said Biri tartly. "She won't win, by the way. She might match me, but you're still faster than Grenda."
"There's no way she or anyone else will be faster than Tiggo," said Choon without malice. "He's made of speed, and his team has been practicing for months."
"Is Tiggo the favorite to win?" wondered Avocato, and not without a pang.
"For the fifth-years, yes," Kemuri said, fixing Avocato with a shrewd eye. "I'm not sure if I'd put my money on him to be the overall winner, however."
Biri and Choon followed his gaze to Avocato. They both nodded and let out little hums of agreement, having borne witness to the speeds he could achieve. Kemuri held out his arm.
"I think I can speak for us all, Avocato, when I say I hope that whatever you and your friends did that day as my scouts, you'll do it again today."
Avocato clasped the offered arm, returning the strong grip with a smile.
"Thank you. I can promise you; we intend to."
Three more people on his side.
OoOoOoOoOoOoO
"Well, it comes as no surprise that random women feel the need to threaten you, Cato," Nikos said, sprinkling a spoonful of spark pepper powder on his plate of eggs. Instantly everyone at the table let out loud complaints as the powerful spice hit their sense of smell. Kedi sneezed, as usual, and Avocato felt his eyes water a bit.
"Ack! If I'm not crying, it's not breakfast with my friends," said Avocato, fighting a cough.
"Thank you, Nikos," Muser called from a table away. "I was congested. Was."
"Weaklings all!" said Nikos loudly enough for Muser to hear. A squeak followed by a laugh answered .
"Who wants to kill you now?" asked Kedi.
"Rale," said Avocato, applying himself to his food. "She hasn't forgiven our scouting trip. Kemuri still loves us, though, and he'll love us more if we keep Rale from winning."
"No one will beat Tiggo," Toshi said confidently. "His father hired a track coach to work with him all last break."
Avocato considered. Grand Lord Tigger was a distant cousin on his father's side. He was wealthy, but did not hold much political sway, and he rarely came to Alfitrix. Avocato didn't know him well, having met him only once or twice at official events in past years. He vaguely remembered a tall, slim, ginger man who didn't smile. Even here at the academy, as busy as they both were, Avocato had never actually interacted Tiggo outside of acknowledging the other's existence with a polite nod in passing. After today, he was probably going to get to know Tiggo a hell of a lot better than he ever wanted.
Nikos smiled as he lifted his glass of juice, softly saying, "Good thing you have your lawyers warmed up already."
"Wasn't Tiggo's eldest brother negotiating an engagement with Lady Clawdia?" asked FannFee, her eyes bright with mischief. "Something about a challenge to duel?"
"Don't remind me," grumbled Kedi, swatting her away.
Felice arrived, plunking his tray down and causing a welcome distraction by coughing and waving at the sharp smell of spark pepper powder.
"Are you prepared for a new record, cadets?" he demanded. "Toshi, Argen, and I are going to have the highest run time in Smilodon history. Best estimate is we should finish some time tomorrow."
"You could walk it faster," Pawlette pointed out.
"You could crawl it faster," muttered kedi.
"You wound me," Felice shot back. He shook his head. "Engineers. All cold logic. No empathy. We've been training hard!"
"And by hard, he means hardly," Toshi clarified. "I'm in it for the ribbon and that little check mark on my academy record saying I did something while I was here."
"We all want that," Kedi said wryly.
Toshi smiled. "Yes, but you three," and he gestured to include Avocato and Nikos, "actually have a chance if you run like you did in that fifth-year scenario. I never saw someone lose as badly as Cadet Rale that day. It was beautiful."
"Apparently she hasn't forgotten," FannFee said.
"It's hard to forget making such a complete ass of yourself," said Nikos.
"Voice of experience?" teased Felice.
Nikos laughed. "You'd be hard pressed to find me someone who hasn't made an ass out of themselves at some point or another."
There was a pause, and almost on cue, everyone looked at Avocato. He gaped at them, mouth open, and set his drink down hard. He couldn't decide if they thought he was somehow above making an ass of himself, or if he'd managed to make a royal ass out of himself. He assumed the latter.
"You are the sorriest excuses for friends in the whole of creation."
"That's a yes," translated Nikos.
"Shut up," he snapped, but a moment later he was laughing right along with them all.