Category: Fiction

Saturday, Sept 5^th, 12:15pm (after 4^th period)
Arts Center Main Hall

The main hall wasn’t crowded – it seemed like the students who had chosen to attend were mostly just first-years.  Our former tour guide – and the student council vice president – had ended up as the presenter, and they were going through sports clubs first.  It was mostly some very bland introductions – typically, someone coming up in gym clothes or a team uniform, and a lot like the one person we knew- “Hi, I’m Amy, and I’m here to tell you about the girls’ Track and Field club.  If you like to run, come join us in the warm-up area outside the swimming pool gate,” and a few sports clubs or teams that had put on demonstrations.   Joel made an appreciative comment about the uniforms of the girls’ tennis club, and the captain of the basketball club spent a minute or so doing some ball tricks – probably  not up to globetrotters’ standards, but it got some applause from the audience.

The fencing club was last, which I’d been curious about since Kai had said he was part of their demonstration.  The VP was unhappy to introduce them – “Last, and I suppose not least, we have the Dueling Club.”

The representative for the club was the red-haired third-year representative I’d pointed out to Joel at the opening ceremony.  She wore a costume straight out of Peter Pan, or maybe Robin Hood – green peaked hat, with a feather, and a blouse and skirt to match.  She bypassed the podium, drew what I thought was a fencing foil, and yelled “En garde!”

From the other side of the stage, someone entered in partial armor – a chest plate and a helmet with bars covering their face.  Except for the face guard, it was a very conquistador sort of look. This opponent was holding another foil and wore a larger sword on their hip.  They did several passes, looking for all the world like something out of a 1930s movie, not at all like the little bit of athletic fencing I’d seen.

Then, after a short while and a few passes across the stage, the armored person withdrew to one side.  The redhead went up to the podium and said “Hi!  I’m Gwen, and this was a little demonstration of why I joined the fencing club.  We are the Academy’s oldest athletic club, and we are lucky to have a two-time junior national epee champion, as well as the youngest person ever to go to nationals in dueling sword.” At this, the armored student saluted Gwen with the larger blade now out of the scabbard.  It was a very serious looking sword.

“We also have a lot of fun.  While the social clubs get ready for their presentations, I’m going to leave you with two of our members answering the age-old question: who would win, a knight, or a samurai?”

And with that, there was a loud yell from behind the stage, and someone ran out holding what I thought was a katana… and like what the armored student carried, it was metal one.  Like the other, they were partially armored, and I realized after a moment this must have been Kai, who’d said he’d be part of the presentation.  He’d said he did kendo, which I’d thought used wooden swords, or something similarly non-lethal.

The two came together with a crash, Kai chopping downward, which the original armored student parried with ease.  The two circled each other, approaching briefly, briefly clashing, and stepping back.  They appeared equally matched at first, but after a few cycles, the first one – with the western sword – sped up a lot.  Beating back another swing, their sword struck out at Kai’s armored chest and landed with a loud clang.  He stepped back and saluted the other, who bowed, and did the same.

“Looks like the knight wins,” said Gwen. She waved her hat at the audience as she left the stage.

Joel had decided to leave at that point; he wanted to help set up the soccer club open house. I stuck around on my own to see if anything looked interesting.  A couple did; there was a board game club, two different magic clubs (the “Mages Club” and the “Magical Research Club”, whatever the difference was) and while I had and have never had any interest in acting, there were three separate theater clubs and each of them had a mini performance.

Towards the end, there was another club that seemed to annoy Neil, “And now we’ll hear from the personal computer club.”

The student presenting waved. “Hey folks.  Some of you who were at the lower school already know this, but we have a student-run computer lab.  It’s a good place to write your papers, and if we’re not too busy you can use them to play games, too.  These guys” – and he gestured back towards Neil – “changed the rules this year so it can only be open if there’s a club member supervising, so we could really use a few more members.  You don’t need to know anything about computers although if you do it couldn’t hurt.  Oh, and if you used it last year and think the new rule is stupid, please tell the student council that.”

Neil looked like he was about to rush the computer club guy off the stage, but he wandered off on his own, without ever having either introduced himself or saying where the lab was.

Sports Center, Dueling Club room

I’d remembered roughly where we’d seen the sign on our first tour; it was downstairs below the main gym.   The room itself was locked when I got there, and there were three of us who’d had an interest coming out of the presentations – a first year boy, plus Mina Fremis, who I’d met briefly at physics, and myself.  The first year introduced himself as Galen Alcorn. We’d barely had a chance to do a round of introductions when the doors finally opened.

Gwen opened the door; she was in the regular warm weather gym uniform.  “Welcome!” said Gwen.

The fencing room was long, and somewhat narrow – otherwise like any other room in the gym except for the lack of windows; there were two doors at the far end, and a few people were already there – I recognized Kai, but no one else.  They were mostly stretching, but on spotting us Kai came over.

“So, you three wanted to learn about the club?” asked Gwen.

I nodded, as did Galen.  Mina, however, simply said, “I was planning to join.”

“You’ve fenced before?” asked Gwen.

“At my old school, yes.”

“How about you two?” asked Gwen.

I shook my head, and Galen said, “No.”

“Don’t worry,” said Gwen.  “Most of us won’t bite.”

Kai added. “Mark is the transfer student from my homeroom that I was telling you about, Gwen. Mina is also a second-year transfer and in our physics class.”

“I see.” Gwen raised an eyebrow, and then to Galen, “How about you?”

“Your presentation made this look like a lot of fun,” he said.

Gwen smiled. “Good! That was what we were going for.”

“It’s cool if we’re just here for PE credit?” I asked.

“Of course.  We have practice Tuesday and Thursday in the PE periods.  After school and Saturday practices aren’t mandatory, but if you’d like to check our practice out today it will give you a good sense of things.  If so, you should probably start getting warmed up.

“Mina, I can show you the stretches we use.  Kai, can you show Galen and Mark?”

I am not particularly flexible, but the stretches they were doing to start weren’t particularly tough.  As we worked through them, I asked Kai, “That was you up on the stage, right?”

He nodded.

“You looked cool.  Do you practice with a real sword?”

“Not usually, no.  That whole thing was Gwen’s idea.  It was pretty crazy.”

“Who was it you were fighting?”

He grimaced and nodded over at one of the back doors which had just opened.  There was Cory.

“Are you sure I’m actually going to be welcome here?” I asked Kai.

Saturday, Sept 5th
School

Having to get up for our first day of Saturday classes had me grumpy, although yes, I’m often grumpy in the morning.  When Joel and I got to the lab room, most people had already paired up and picked lab stations.  Jack and his partner were off on their own, while Kai, Amy and two other girls had staked out three stations between them.  The two other girls were quite different; one was quite ordinary in a school where “ordinary” tended to clean up better than at home, and she had the silver pin of a scholarship student, hers in the form of a rose.

The second stood out, and I wasn’t sure if it was in a good way.  She was around my height, taller than many of the girls here.  Except for some bangs, her brown hair was pulled back into a simple ponytail, and rather than the regular uniform she was wearing a baggy sweatshirt and track pants – our colder-weather gym uniform, sized up.  She had a silver dragon pin, so she was a local, and I realized that she was the first person I’d seen up close in this world who also wore glasses.

I’m close to blind to fashion, but while she wasn’t unattractive, she was a girl who either was consciously choosing comfort over appearances, or who was even blinder to appearances than I am.

Kai introduced us.  “Mark, Joel, this is Mina,” indicating the girl standing with him at his station. “She’s also new here,” and then indicating the girl a few steps away, “and this is Cory.”

Mina curtsied; I don’t think I’d ever seen someone do that in real life.  “It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” she said.

“Hi,” said Cory.  Then, to me directly, “I guess we’re lab partners.”

“I guess so.  It’s good to meet you.”

The teacher was already there, and not long after he took attendance and let us know to start the lab without further instructions.  I started looking through the lab manual for setup instructions, which seemed like the right thing to do.  From a quick look around, a lot of people were doing the same, although both of our immediate neighbors had started getting pieces together.  Cory was doing the same, and started to say, “Can you hand me…” and then noticed I was reading the lab manual. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Reading the instructions.”

“You didn’t read them in advance.” That was not a happy look she gave me.  “How do you not know to be prepared in advance for a lab?” OK, scratch unhappy.  Furious?  I wondered for a moment if I was about to get punched.

“Sorry,” I said, stepping back.  “I never had a problem with this at my old school.”

“How the heck did I get paired with someone like you?” she asked, and then continued, “Never mind.  Just stay out of my way and take notes.  You can do that much, right?”

She then added, more to herself, “This isn’t the first time I’ve had to do one of these by myself.”

Cory powered through the entire lab, and two extra credit problems, in sixty of the ninety-five minutes we had, all without a word to me except figures to write down.  She stopped a few times to make sure what I was writing down was correct.  At the end, she went up to the teacher, and while I couldn’t make out everything, she seemed to be asking if she could get started on the next lab or more extra credit.  The answer appeared to be a “no.”

She came back to the lab station, took the lab notebook I had been writing in, and said, “I’ll put it in your mailbox once I make a copy.  You get to clean up.”  Then she walked out of the room.

Everybody else was still working, so I went to the teacher to ask what I should be doing.  He said to clean up our station, and then I was free to go as well.  I cleaned up the materials, and then figured I’d get ahead on my history reading while I waited for Kai, Amy, and Joel to be ready to head back to our homeroom.

At homeroom, the girls who’d volunteered for the festival committee had a handout, which I figured I’d look at later. Before we headed off to our next classes, Kai took a moment to speak to me.  “That was classic Cory.  I’m sorry I didn’t warn you.”

“She’s always like that?” I asked.

“She used to be worse,” said Kai.  “I’ve known her since the second year at the lower school, and Amy was in her homeroom in the first year there.  Back then, she’d have been a lot louder in telling you off.”

“How bad was it to try to read out of the lab manual, anyway?”

“For most people, it wouldn’t be a problem,” he said.  “I mean it’s always a good idea to read through it in advance, but it’s only a big deal for someone really serious about taking honors in the science track.  If you want to get all the extra credit in, you need to avoid wasting time.”

“If she’s that serious, how did I get paired with her?”

“We were talking about that before you got to class.  Cory looked at last year’s rankings.  Except for transfers, it looks like the teacher just paired people up in rank order.  You must not have been kidding when you said you are good at taking tests, because whatever unofficial rankings he used put you and Joel both at the top of the class.”

“Could that have been just because we are transfers?”

“Cory didn’t think so,” said Kai.  “Otherwise, one of you two would have been paired with Mina, but she apparently ranked behind both Cory and Amy.”

“Interesting.”

“Really,” said Kai.  “I think she’d actually been looking forward to working with you.”

“Damn.  Well, that didn’t last long.”

“Don’t worry about it.”  He gave me a pat on the shoulder.  “Most of the class is going to want to switch to lab partners they know better, so you probably won’t have to pair with her again.”

Saturday, after class

My meeting after class with Ms. Calliot had gone only slightly better than physics lab.  I’d thrown together a couple of topics I might be interested in.  She’d rejected all of them.

“Mark, I can see part of your problem with papers.  You aren’t trying to make and support a thesis.  Every one of these topics is an open-ended prompt for a narrative.”

“How do you mean?” I asked.

“Let’s take one of these as an example – you have ‘How did Zagras liberate the Kingdom of Kala?’”

I nodded.

“There are a couple of good works on the subject, and while it’s well into antiquity there might be enough primary sources to write a good paper, there isn’t any thesis as a part of it.  Do you have a sense what specifically you wanted to write about it?”

“I’d planned to read through a more detailed history than the textbook, sum up the arguments for it, and go over the basic timeline.”

“Was that kind of survey paper adequate at your last school?” she asked.

“I didn’t get a lot of As, but it was always better than just passing.”

“I see,” she said.  “It may be good enough in your regular history class, at that, although I don’t recommend it.  It’s usually a lot more work to do that well than a more focused paper.”

“How should I have approached it, then?”

“You want not just to have a general idea, but a specific proposition that you can support with evidence.  I don’t recommend this as a paper at your level, but the classic argument is whether Zagras’s marriage to the goddess Mina was literally the case in life or a metaphor for after his death and deification. As a paper topic, you’d take one side or the other.”

“OK,” I said.  “How do you recommend I narrow these down?”

“I don’t recommend you do, at least for this first paper.  Unless you feel very strongly about it, I’m going to give you a topic.  I’d like you to write an outline, or at least two pages, by next Friday’s class.  If it looks OK, you can expand it to the full first paper.”

She took out a sheet of paper, and at the top wrote,

Between the fall of the second Empire and the rise of the
Great Kingdom, warfare was the first business of the state.

“Is that clear enough?” she asked.

“Is that specific to the nations that are now part of the Great Kingdom?” I asked.

“You can limit it to those,” she said, “or try to make a case for or against it for all human nations during that time.  Which do you think is easier?”

“To be more specific rather than more general?”

“That’s usually the case, yes.”

Joel and I had planned to eat lunch during our free period, before the clubs assembly, so I headed off to the lunchroom to meet him.

Thursday, Sept 3rd
School and then our apartment

The bike ride to school in the morning had gone well; it was a long but straight shot on the boulevard to school, and unlike my ride into the city back home, I didn’t have to go over any bridges.  There was a covered bike rack next to the sports center; it was almost full since I arrived late during my free period.  Amazingly, many of the bikes weren’t locked up at all, and those that were had locks that wouldn’t have lasted long in New York – there wasn’t a U-lock among them.  I wondered whether this was just that safe, or if you could get some a spell that would protect your bike from thieves.

Classes were still just starting today, so there wasn’t much new, and it was nice to have found a small crew to hang out with – Jack and Kai, plus Amy came along for lunch today.  We had another mandatory PE orientation for the last two periods of the day, and then Joel headed off to the soccer team meeting with Jack, while I biked home.

It was still during work hours, so traffic was lighter than in the morning, and I worked up a good sweat biking back in the heat.  Once at the apartment, I brought my bike around the back bring it straight into the laundry room and was just going to go in when I heard a cat meowing.

There was a gray and white cat, peeking out of the bushes behind the house.   It looked at me, meowed again, and ducked back into the bushes.

I showered and thought about what to do with the rest of my afternoon.  I hadn’t really had any time at home to myself outside of the late evenings; at home, my brother kept to himself and my folks, if they were home at all in the early evenings, were usually busy grading papers or working on some publication or other.

I decided I was going to make something to bring in for my lunch tomorrow; I looked in the refrigerator and didn’t see anything I’d like.  When we’d been moving in, there hadn’t been time to go ourselves, so Joel’s mom had given Dormer’s housekeeper a shopping list.

There were no cold cuts, nor any cheese I knew I’d like – although there was an unlabeled brick of soft white cheese that I tried and rewrapped.  It might have been the local version of jack; creamy enough, but quite bland; better to cook with than for sandwiches.  What we had were too many vegetables which were going to go uneaten unless Dormer sent his housekeeper over to cook them.

The pantry was mostly full of unfamiliar stuff, although the local Crispy-Squares cereal was decent.  There was pasta, at least, and sliced bread but nothing like a bag of sandwich roll.

I decided to go to the nearest market and see what I could get.  My dad had left me with a full semester’s worth of lunch money and allowance, the lunch money particularly generous since I was getting free lunch on the scholarship.  At home, it would have been a little over $300; at the exchange rate here, it has made for 3 and a quarter Imperials… 250 mil, as they’d have said here.  It felt like a lot of money for someone my age, but it had to cover me until winter break.

I walked up to the boulevard, and a couple of blocks down found the place Dormer had sent his housekeeper – called Super Jordi’s.  It was small for a supermarket, but clearly more than a convenience store.  They also had a meat and deli counter, and all I was able to get enough lunch meat and bread for a week’s worth of sandwiches, as well as some more familiar cheese and some canned foods.  Not bad at all for a week’s lunch money!

On the way back into the house, I got meowed at again.  There was the same cat, in the bushes near the front of the house.  It looked at me expectantly and meowed again.  I decided to offer it a slice of ham out of my shopping bag.  It wouldn’t approach me, but when I put it on the ground about halfway towards it and walked back to the door, it dashed out and took it.  As I went into the house, I was almost sure I heard it say, “thank you!” but must have been reading too much into another meow.

Math homework awaited me, and I lost track of time.  Joel came back quite a bit later, practically bursting in.  “You wouldn’t believe what just happened to me!” he said.

“I’m guessing this isn’t about the cat in our yard?”.

“There’s a cat in our yard?” He shook his head.  “Never mind that.  I just rescued a girl.”

“You what?”

“Rescued a girl.  You remember the girls we saw on our first ride to school on Tuesday, right?

I nodded.

“One of them was on the streetcar coming home, and there were a couple of shady looking guys who followed her off, so I followed them off.  Sure enough, they were hassling her and when I told them not to, one of them grabbed her bag so I chased after them and got it back.”

“Dormer is not going to like that at all.”

The door opened just as I said that, and both Count Dormer and Special Agent Morgan walked in.  “What is it that I’m not going to like?” said Dormer.

After Joel had finished his story – and in greater detail – Dormer was, as expected, not happy.  “Joel, while you said you were bigger than they were, they outnumbered you, and one of them could have had a knife or worse.  You don’t have any magical wards, which they could have had, or bigger friends nearby.”

“I can take care of myself,” he said.

“Have you ever been in a real fight?” asked Dormer.

“Not really, no,” said Joel.

“You need to be more careful. Especially if you don’t want either Agent Morgan or me to be shadowing you closely.”

“I understand,” said Joel.

Dormer told us a little more about what to exChpect; it sounded like Ms. Yali would be back to start teaching us (well, mostly Joel) some magic next week, and that at some point they’d be doing some self-defense classes as well.

After Morgan left, Dormer had some more questions.  “So, was this the girl from your class that you were talking about from the trip committee?”

“No,” said Joel.  “Violet’s a first year.  I didn’t realize it until after I got her bag back, but she’s in my Obdresti literature class.”

“Was she the one you were pointing out to me at the opening assembly?” I asked.

“No, that wasn’t Violet.  She said they usually took the streetcar together, though.  Maybe I can get her to introduce you.”

I shook my head.  “I think that’d be a bad idea if you want to keep a good impression with Violet.”

“Don’t sell yourself so short, Mark,” said Dormer.

Dormer had a few more questions about Violet; Joel had walked her to near her house, and it sounded like her parents were rich.  When they were done talking, Dormer said, “I don’t want to be too negative, you know.  It was not smart, but it was a very gallant thing you did for her.  Your instincts did you credit.”

I had one question for him before he left.  “In this world, can cats talk?”

“House cats?” he asked, and I nodded.

“Not normally,” he said.  “Why?”

I told him about the gray and white cat outside.  He explained a bit more about the house’s magic wards, and finished saying, “I don’t think there’s any chance a magical creature could have gotten in.  You must have been imagining things, and it’s not a good idea to feed strays.”

Friday, Sept 4th
School

We had our first physics class the day before, and it seemed harmless enough.  The class had its labs on Saturday mornings, and things took a turn for the weird part way through class on Friday when the teacher, Dr. Amril, started talking about lab partner assignments.

“I noticed that we have exactly the same number of girls and boys in the class,” he said, with a smile that was a little creepy coming from a teacher. “I know you all probably have friends that you’d like to work with but trust me… at your age you should consider this an opportunity.”

He then ran through the class roster, in order of the girls’ last names.  A girl from another homeroom named Mina Fremis got paired with Kai.  Amy got paired with Joel.  Then, when he got to N, the teacher called for someone named Cory Nement who was paired with me.

There was a bit of a buzz in the room, and it didn’t sound encouraging.  I meant to ask Kai about it, but by the time the teacher got through the rest of the class, and we went off to homeroom, I had forgotten.

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Interlude
Thursday, Sept 3rd
Surrat-Efrel Boulevard streetcar
About 6:30

Violet was nervous.  OK, very nervous.  She had gotten out of tennis practice and changed, but Tess turned out to be stuck with student council work until late, and Violet had felt brave enough to try coming home alone.

There had been a fair number of Queen Sara students who got on with her, but as the streetcar had gone along most of them filtered out, the car was now mostly adults and a few students from other schools.  Two boys who’d come on recently kept staring at her.  They were in a uniform she didn’t recognize, with grey collarless jackets.

She’d be glad to be off, and her stop was coming up.  It was a little bit of a push to get from her seat to the door, and as she got off her nerves got worse.  When she and Tess normally got off, no one else was leaving, but she heard people moving to get off after she did.

She didn’t look back and just started walking for home.  Someone behind her called out “Etay tesaya,” or something like that; she recognized that it was Old Imperial but had never learned it.  The voice was louder, and getting closer, “Jessit tesaya.”

Then one of the boys from train stepped around her, blocking her way.  He said something else in old imperial. It was too quick to follow; then from behind her she heard, in strongly accented English, “What’s the matter, rich girl?  Don’t understand us?”

She tried to step to the side, not liking being stuck between two strangers.  “No, I don’t speak Old Imperial.”

“She doesn’t speak Old Imperial,” said the one who’d been behind her.  “My friend thinks your very pretty.”

She did not like the way either of the boys were looking at her.  She was about to run, when another person stepped up – and in unaccented English, said “Are you two giving her a hard time?”

She looked up – he was taller than the two boys, and around thirty centimeters taller than she was – and thought he looked familiar, as did the blue track suit.  The one of the boys who’d spoke English said, “it’s none of your business,” and tried pushing him.  It didn’t work.

“I’m making it my business,” said man in the blue track suit, and he pushed back, hard enough to knock the boy down.

The other boy, who’d been the first to talk to her, said “kayjet,” then grabbed her bag out of her hands and ran.  The one who’d fallen followed.  The man who’d stopped to help said “watch this for me,” leaving something at her feet, and ran after.  She looked down; it was a backpack.  A moment later, she realized why the track suit looked familiar; it was out-of-season gym clothes from her own school.

She couldn’t quite see what happened about a block away when the man – taller boy, given that he went to her school – caught up to the two boys in grey, but there was some shouting, and then the third boy walked back holding her bag.

“Are you alright, miss?” he asked, giving her the bag.

She nodded, not looking up at him.

“You go to Queen Sara too, right?” he asked.

She nodded again.

“I’m Joel,” he said. “I think we’re actually in one class together.”

She looked up at him.  “Oh! Yes, I think so.  You’re also in Obdresti Literature?”

“Yeah,” he said.  “That’s it.”

“Thank you for getting my bag back,” she said.  “I’m Violet Conniello.”

“Good to meet you,” he said.  “Are you going to be OK getting home from here?”

As a reminder, you can find a version of this you can comment on and interact with on either Scribblehub or Royal Road. If you’re reading on a desktop browser both are good, if you read on mobile the Royal Road app is the way to go.

As of Oct. 2025, with 30+ more chapters – I should be caught up in mid-November as I’m posting two per day here.  New chapters will be up here simultaneously with the others, whenever I’m off hiatus.