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aldersprigFirst: Visiting Doomsday
Previous: Answering
Contains discussion of Keeping in the context of Addergoole..
Nehara had waited patiently and unobtrusively while Luke talked to LaKeziah - so unobtrusively, as a matter of fact, that Luke had nearly forgotten she was there. Now she stepped out of the shadows and took his hand. “You handled that very well, sir.”
“Thanks.” He pressed his wings against his back. “Nice of you to say.”
“Also true. It’s not that cy’Red don’t end up being horrible liars sometimes-” She smiled brightly at him, looking both mischievous and dangerous “-but we tend to stick to the truth when we don’t need to lie.”
Luke thought about that for a moment. It was far more pleasant than most of the things on his mind at the moment. “It gives you the reputation of honesty, doesn’t it?”
“Exactly.” She was doing the you-bright-student smile again. Luke found he didn’t mind it as much as he should. “So. Why don’t I show you the rest of campus? We can go to one end and then walk back down the middle?”
“I’m in your hands.” And where had that come from? He sounded like Mike.
Well, if you were friends with someone for a couple centuries, maybe they rubbed off on you. (Mike had certainly been trying to rub on - and off - Luke for most of that time.)
Thinking about Mike rubbing was not a helpful thought. He looked down at Nehara’s hand holding his, and then looked at the school. “Which way?”
“This way.” She gestured with their joined hands. “We’ll cut down here and go around the back first.”
“Down here,” Luke realized, was one of the central paths cutting through the school. And they were between classes, which meant they were passing any number of Nehara’s fellow students, all while she was leading him hand-in-hand through the school.
He folded his wings tighter against his back. “You should meet Mike VanderLinden some time,” he muttered.
“Oh? Do you think we’d get along? Professor Sweetflower speaks well of her Mentor - so does Professor Gabriel.”
“I think it would be fun to watch Mike get outmanuvered by a Student.”
“Aaah.” She winked at him. “You’ll figure it out eventually, sir.”
Luke’s wings flared, almost hitting a passing student. He pulled them back under control quickly. “What did you say?”
“I said, look here,” she gestured with her free hand. “The stained glass? Professor Doomsday had some trouble finding artists, but when she did...”
Luke shook his head, wondering if he was hearing things. With nothing to prove it one way or the other, he looked at the window. Windows. This had to be the side of one of the classroom buildings, and the triptych of windows would have been in the living room, if it had been the house it was pretending to be.
The left and right panels, at a guess, represented Math and Science; the center panel featured an abstract design.
“Then over here,” she pointed across the way to another house, “this one’s Art, Literature, and History. The Nurse’s office is there, too.” The stained glass windows reminded Luke - much of the houses here, actually - of the Queen Anne houses that had dotted the US before the fall.
“It’s lovely.” And so was she. Luke shook his head again. Cobwebs. He was getting old, letting his thoughts wander. “The stained glass, it’s well done. Not an art I can imagine survived well into the apocalypse, though.”
“Quite a lot of art survived.” She gestured as they approached a fountain, a winged mermaid spouting happily at the cross-paths. “Sculpture. And masonry,” she gestured at the tile-laying for the fountain and around it. “There was so much of the old world, science, medicine, history, art, politics. What burned, what rotted, was -” she coughed and looked away. “I’m doing it again. I apologize. You were there. I wasn’t even born yet.”
Luke was beginning to doubt that. He kept his wings still. “Please, go on.” He smiled ruefully. “I was there - but I spend far too much time in an underground bunker. It doesn’t give me the best insight on what actually happened, up here.”
She graced him with another one of her brilliant smiles, this one seeming almost shy. “You’re too kind. Well - people died, and records burned or rotted, but I mean, humanity has been passing along knowledge for millennia, right? We still build on old knowledge.”
Luke found it interesting that she referred to “humanity” and “we” together. “We do.”
She led them in a leisurely fashion down another footpath. To one side, low picket fences defined people’s back yards, looking more like a neighborhood out of the 1950’s than even Regine’s little Village. To the other side, they were passing the back yards of the science building, and then smaller house-like structures. “That’s cy’Underground,” she added, gesturing at a house done in blue-on-grey-with-blue. “The cy’ree students live with their Mentors until their last couple years. And then cy’Dai.” This house was light green with pink accents, and the back yard was filled with raised beds, flowers in every conceivable color marking the border of the cy’Dai yard.
“Where do students stay their last years?” Regine, Luke, and Mike had considered the Mentor arrangement - it was traditional, out in the world, after all - but put it aside in favor of encouraging the students closer together. They were trying to make the next generation, after all - and trying to encourage crew bonds. They’d done better at one than the other.
Of course, they’d managed with Boom, but he’d never been clear exactly how much of that was shared trauma pinning them together.
“Generally, students crew up for their last couple years. There are houses down here,” she gestured at several more houses in the same style as the cy’ree homes, but done in many more colors. “They all have apartments in them, generally four apartments a house, big enough to house up to five people. Sometimes they engage in practice-Keepings, and then, of course, they live with their Keeper.”
“Of course.” He raised his eyebrows. The houses were in good shape, the yards well-tended. “I’m surprised that they chose to allow practice Keepings.”
Nehara smirked at him. It was far too knowing an expression for Luke’s comfort. “Professor Doomsday has been known to say that there’s nothing wrong with Keeping if the Keeper knows what they’re done. Of course, considering her history, it’s not surprising she’d say that, is it?”
Luke winced. Dysmas, Eriko - they definitely hadn’t known what they were doing. It was hard to tell what Eris had known or not. The only one of Boom who’d come out of Keeping halfway clean was Howard, and Luke wasn’t so sure about that one. “That’s fair.”
Nehara tilted her head at him, her smile gentling. “You’re doing it again, sir. Do you have this problem with your children?”
Luke flapped. “Keep my kids out of - what problem?” He folded his wings back again.
“Forgetting they’re grown-ups now. Remember.” She set her hand over his arm gently. “They were children a long time ago. It’s not safe to assume all their opinions were formed then.”
Previous: Answering
Contains discussion of Keeping in the context of Addergoole..
Nehara had waited patiently and unobtrusively while Luke talked to LaKeziah - so unobtrusively, as a matter of fact, that Luke had nearly forgotten she was there. Now she stepped out of the shadows and took his hand. “You handled that very well, sir.”
“Thanks.” He pressed his wings against his back. “Nice of you to say.”
“Also true. It’s not that cy’Red don’t end up being horrible liars sometimes-” She smiled brightly at him, looking both mischievous and dangerous “-but we tend to stick to the truth when we don’t need to lie.”
Luke thought about that for a moment. It was far more pleasant than most of the things on his mind at the moment. “It gives you the reputation of honesty, doesn’t it?”
“Exactly.” She was doing the you-bright-student smile again. Luke found he didn’t mind it as much as he should. “So. Why don’t I show you the rest of campus? We can go to one end and then walk back down the middle?”
“I’m in your hands.” And where had that come from? He sounded like Mike.
Well, if you were friends with someone for a couple centuries, maybe they rubbed off on you. (Mike had certainly been trying to rub on - and off - Luke for most of that time.)
Thinking about Mike rubbing was not a helpful thought. He looked down at Nehara’s hand holding his, and then looked at the school. “Which way?”
“This way.” She gestured with their joined hands. “We’ll cut down here and go around the back first.”
“Down here,” Luke realized, was one of the central paths cutting through the school. And they were between classes, which meant they were passing any number of Nehara’s fellow students, all while she was leading him hand-in-hand through the school.
He folded his wings tighter against his back. “You should meet Mike VanderLinden some time,” he muttered.
“Oh? Do you think we’d get along? Professor Sweetflower speaks well of her Mentor - so does Professor Gabriel.”
“I think it would be fun to watch Mike get outmanuvered by a Student.”
“Aaah.” She winked at him. “You’ll figure it out eventually, sir.”
Luke’s wings flared, almost hitting a passing student. He pulled them back under control quickly. “What did you say?”
“I said, look here,” she gestured with her free hand. “The stained glass? Professor Doomsday had some trouble finding artists, but when she did...”
Luke shook his head, wondering if he was hearing things. With nothing to prove it one way or the other, he looked at the window. Windows. This had to be the side of one of the classroom buildings, and the triptych of windows would have been in the living room, if it had been the house it was pretending to be.
The left and right panels, at a guess, represented Math and Science; the center panel featured an abstract design.
“Then over here,” she pointed across the way to another house, “this one’s Art, Literature, and History. The Nurse’s office is there, too.” The stained glass windows reminded Luke - much of the houses here, actually - of the Queen Anne houses that had dotted the US before the fall.
“It’s lovely.” And so was she. Luke shook his head again. Cobwebs. He was getting old, letting his thoughts wander. “The stained glass, it’s well done. Not an art I can imagine survived well into the apocalypse, though.”
“Quite a lot of art survived.” She gestured as they approached a fountain, a winged mermaid spouting happily at the cross-paths. “Sculpture. And masonry,” she gestured at the tile-laying for the fountain and around it. “There was so much of the old world, science, medicine, history, art, politics. What burned, what rotted, was -” she coughed and looked away. “I’m doing it again. I apologize. You were there. I wasn’t even born yet.”
Luke was beginning to doubt that. He kept his wings still. “Please, go on.” He smiled ruefully. “I was there - but I spend far too much time in an underground bunker. It doesn’t give me the best insight on what actually happened, up here.”
She graced him with another one of her brilliant smiles, this one seeming almost shy. “You’re too kind. Well - people died, and records burned or rotted, but I mean, humanity has been passing along knowledge for millennia, right? We still build on old knowledge.”
Luke found it interesting that she referred to “humanity” and “we” together. “We do.”
She led them in a leisurely fashion down another footpath. To one side, low picket fences defined people’s back yards, looking more like a neighborhood out of the 1950’s than even Regine’s little Village. To the other side, they were passing the back yards of the science building, and then smaller house-like structures. “That’s cy’Underground,” she added, gesturing at a house done in blue-on-grey-with-blue. “The cy’ree students live with their Mentors until their last couple years. And then cy’Dai.” This house was light green with pink accents, and the back yard was filled with raised beds, flowers in every conceivable color marking the border of the cy’Dai yard.
“Where do students stay their last years?” Regine, Luke, and Mike had considered the Mentor arrangement - it was traditional, out in the world, after all - but put it aside in favor of encouraging the students closer together. They were trying to make the next generation, after all - and trying to encourage crew bonds. They’d done better at one than the other.
Of course, they’d managed with Boom, but he’d never been clear exactly how much of that was shared trauma pinning them together.
“Generally, students crew up for their last couple years. There are houses down here,” she gestured at several more houses in the same style as the cy’ree homes, but done in many more colors. “They all have apartments in them, generally four apartments a house, big enough to house up to five people. Sometimes they engage in practice-Keepings, and then, of course, they live with their Keeper.”
“Of course.” He raised his eyebrows. The houses were in good shape, the yards well-tended. “I’m surprised that they chose to allow practice Keepings.”
Nehara smirked at him. It was far too knowing an expression for Luke’s comfort. “Professor Doomsday has been known to say that there’s nothing wrong with Keeping if the Keeper knows what they’re done. Of course, considering her history, it’s not surprising she’d say that, is it?”
Luke winced. Dysmas, Eriko - they definitely hadn’t known what they were doing. It was hard to tell what Eris had known or not. The only one of Boom who’d come out of Keeping halfway clean was Howard, and Luke wasn’t so sure about that one. “That’s fair.”
Nehara tilted her head at him, her smile gentling. “You’re doing it again, sir. Do you have this problem with your children?”
Luke flapped. “Keep my kids out of - what problem?” He folded his wings back again.
“Forgetting they’re grown-ups now. Remember.” She set her hand over his arm gently. “They were children a long time ago. It’s not safe to assume all their opinions were formed then.”
no subject
Date: 2015-04-24 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-04-24 03:44 pm (UTC)Her smile was bright and mischievous, not at all bothered. For a moment, she looked very much like Mike indeed. "Someone has to, sir. That's what I do."
Luke counted silently to ten in Latin. "Say what you're really trying to say."
"Just what I said, sir, sa'Hunting Hawk." She looked disturbingly innocent. "You came to see Boom's school. But you're looking at Boom's School and you're seeing the school 4 impulsive kids put together. So... you're not really seeing the school, are you?"
He found himself staring at her. "I don't like being lectured, miss." even if he had a sinking suspicion that she had a point.