Alder's Grove

This comes after Whilst at Doomsday.

Nehara was fascinating - her story was fascinating. Luke cleared his throat. "I'd love to hear more about The Res, miss - but I'm here right now for a tour of Doomsday." Business, that's what he needed to focus on. All business.

And her smile suggested that, wise beyond her age, she knew exactly what he was doing. "Of course. Why don't we start with Professor Agislaw's class? It's right here, and he knows we're coming." She gestured across the street from the Dining-Hall-church.

The building didn't look that much more like a school than the Dining Hall did - indeed, the three story brick building looked like an old Victorian house or, perhaps, one of the apartment buildings Luka had walked past on his way here. Only the stained glass windows on the first floor - showing bright scenes of education - gave it away.

They followed three pre-teenaged-children - all three in the black-grey-and-white school uniform - through the wide front foyer, past a comfortable-looking sitting room where a few older students were sitting and into the first obviously-school-looking room Luke had yet seen.

Nestled between what he was pretty sure was a kitchen and that living room, the classroom was exactly that - smaller than the norm, perhaps, housing only ten student desks, but it had chalkboards at the front and maps on the side wall.

And, standing behind the teacher's desk, dressed in more expensive tailoring than was available in the world anymore, was Kheper, former student of Addergoole.

Luke cleared his throat. Well, she'd said she was staffing the school. He shouldn't have been surprised. And yet, somehow, he was.

Next: Discoveries at Doomsday - http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/838972.html

Kheper

Rich, entitled... beetle.

Kheper is a handsome, strong-willed and strong-chinned young man who comes from privilege; he is well-dressed and well-spoken, with expensive tastes and very strong views on almost everything.

He's a short, slight young man as he enters Addergoole, at about 5'7" tall. In his first year he gains three inches; in the subsequent three years in the school he gains another inch a year. He has black hair that he keeps shaggy and shoulder-length because it offends his mother (his first-year Keeper, Cynara, is amusingly not at all offended by it), chocolate brown eyes, and slightly-too-shaggy eyebrows. His skin is dark tan, and his features show his Egyptian/Arabic heritage.

Being Kept subdues his temper and views not at all, although a year in the battlefield of Addergoole does begin to mellow him very very slightly.

There is a longer description of Kheper here

Addergoole Year Nine won the reader poll for "Next Year's serial;" the story proper will begin the first full week of September.

In the meantime, please enjoy the third of twenty-something character profiles: Kheper.

Kheper
b. March 15, 1987

Kheper is fiery, stubborn, strong, and hardworking, a handsome dark-haired man with a resemblance to Disney's Aladdin. His Change involves chitin armor, beetle wings, and claws, as well as scarab horns.

His mother, Tanith, is an Egyptian student-visa to the US. Her Name translates to Brings the Pain and her Change is draconic, with arm-wings that are long and fluttery and head-spikes that are quite intimidating. She is iridescent orange in color, at least in her scales and wings.

She was a studious, serious student and matured into a strong, serious woman who demands the very best of everyone around her.
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