Dreadlords Inner Peace, Outer Pieces [Dreadkids]

[Maseno Luana]

The Academy
A gloomy, rainy weekend.


It was one of those somber springs where the rain fell for days on end, saturating the academy grounds and all the lands beyond. The only dry places were those within the confines of the stone walls, and while on the weekends most Initiates often sought to be outside to enjoy their newly Republic-given freedoms, the rain seemed to be keeping them at bay. Maseno found himself with a rare but brief pause between missions in that beyond his lesson work, he had nothing pressing on his schedule. Dreadlord Zana was away, so no training to attend with her. His next mission did not depart until mid-week.

Free time. Something he so rarely encountered anymore.

And so while most other students kept their heads dry by staying inside, Maseno wandered out into the peace of the empty courtyard, unrolled his meditation mat, and took a seat out in the open rain.

This wasn't so bad really. Soothing, as a matter of fact. Many initiates believed his meditations to be a waste of time but Maseno discovered a great deal of worth in it. Enough so that he'd gladly share such reveries with the others if only they'd ask to learn.


[This is a SLICE OF LIFE cameo thread. Short posts. Pop in, converse, have fun, pop out at your leisure!] Dreadlords

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen Pirian didn't necessarily want to be out in the rain, but Proctor Magomo's physical training regimen for her was harsh and clear. More strength training had been incorporated now, and this could all be done indoors, but her laps around the Academy perimeter still, whether it was sunshine or rain or thunder and lightning, had to be done outside. You'll warm up as you run, Proctor Magomo countered her petulant attempts to argue when first the regimen began two years ago—and then this was followed by some choice profanity, shouting, and him hounding after her with a switch to smack at her legs and her rear end should she begin to slow down.

It was good that those days were over. Dutifully, Kristen attended to her training herself, and Magomo seldom checked on her, most of the time now just to issue a slight adjustment to the regimen.

When Kristen finally completed her run, coming in through the gates at a brisk walk, she was still warm from the exertion. Steam was visible rising from her forehead. It wouldn't be long, though, before she cooled down immensely. She'd have to get dry and or get a chill.

But on the way back to the dorms, she saw an odd sight. Maseno. Sitting alone. Sitting, as it happened as well, in a very particular way. A way which made Kristen think of Raf.

She couldn't help it. She walked up to him and asked with an inquisitive spirit, "Are you...meditating?"

Maseno Luana

 

[Soleil Verdane]

Soleil was in her sparse room, face almost glued to the window. Her eyes were tense, observing the rain as one might observe an approaching bear, knowing not if the animal would attack or go on its way. Transfixed as she was, she had left her door open, and she didn't care to close it.

On the window sill, her chameleon sat in its docile way, one of its independent eyes also looking out the window.

"Rain? Terrible," Soleil said to the lizard.

The chameleon blinked.

"Me? Get powerful. Find god of rain. Kill him. No more rain."

The chameleon seemed to lock onto something. Soleil noticed.

"You? What see?"

The chameleon shot out its tongue at the window. There was a smudge on it from the outside, appearing to be, when viewed a certain way, a fat insect. But it wasn't. So its tongue thumped against the glass and retracted without a prize.

Soleil smiled. "Hungry? I see. Us? Find bug." She scooped up the chameleon in her hands. "You? Good killer. Kill every bug."

Soleil glanced at the smudge on the window and laughed, even though she didn't need to; but she knew the timing of various forms of laughter so well know that it happened sometimes as a reflex.

"You? If thing look like bug, still try to kill! Good instinct."

She was going to head out into the hall of the dormitory, but first she had to admire the chameleon in her hands, the way its feet were changing color to match the hue of her imitation flesh.

"Very good," she praised the lizard. "Getting better."

 

[Maseno Luana]

An interruption or four was inevitable and he'd known this from the start. Zana had strongly encouraged (re: commanded) that he push his daily practices to greater limits. So while normally Maz meditated in his room or in the observation tower where hardly anyone frequented, he thought perhaps the courtyard would be a good option.

Exposed to the weather and all manner of potential intrusions by Proctor, Guard, Initiate, and Dreadlord alike.

He'd planned to do his best to power through whatever break of the peace he encountered, but his propensity for politeness wouldn't allow him to ignore someone who addressed him directly. Especially not Kristen.

The young man cracked an amber eye open to look up, up, up at a rain-drenched Kristen, "I am ... was," Maz arrested an easy smile between rain water dripping from his locks and eyelashes, "enjoy your run?"

It was hard to miss Kristen when she was out and about the grounds.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

"An acquired taste, as they say." She smiled bashfully. "I certainly would have said otherwise two years ago."

The rain left no room to be forgotten. Kristen brushed back a damp, rogue bang that was all but clinging to the corner of one eye.

"Pardon the interruption. I was merely struck by the sight of you practicing alone out in these adverse conditions."

Maseno Luana

 

[Maseno Luana]

Nobody liked to run. Well, maybe that was an exaggeration, but of all the exercises he could do given the choice, running would not be high on the list of enjoyment or priority. But stamina counted for many things and sometimes could mean the difference between living or dying.

But damn was it ever hard on the knees.

"Admittedly, this is not my usual place," Maz agreed with a short look around the empty courtyard, "normally it's too busy out here. But today it is quiet and peaceful." Then his gaze turned up to peer toward the clouds above, "And I do not mind the rain so much. Rain cleanses the mind and soul as much as the lands. Would you care to join me?"

 

[Kristen Pirian]

"I could, for a time," Kristen said. She had not been selected for Winter Training this year, so mayhap a little acclimation wouldn't hurt, despite her worries about a chill. Much like running, one had to ease into bearing cold weather to build endurance. The Nordenfiir people, when she had gone onto the expedition to the Blightlands, could bear unbelievably cold environs.

She sat down cross-legged on the space available on the mat.

"Do you remember Raf from the class above, by any chance?"

Maseno Luana

 

[Zaire]

Down the halls a echo of a mumbled song could be heard.

“I’m so tired of the Academy,
I’m so tired of Vee-A,
I got all these bullshit proctors in my blood and in my brain,
I keep saying that I’m leaving, but it doesn’t work that way…”​

Zaire hummed the rest, taking a moment to readjust all the equipment he had to carry from Room 202 all the way to the storage room out in the rain. He was a quarter of the way there. Even with his magic to help him be stronger and have better balance, this was still a chore.

And the rain wasn’t going to make anything easier.

 

[Maseno Luana]

"Rafael? Yes," Maseno nodded, the smile he'd formed at her joining becoming a bit dimmer at the mention, "I was saddened to hear of his fate. He was kind to myself and others. I greatly respected him for that."

And while Rafael may not have been the reason Maseno decided to be the same, it certainly helped make that choice. "Years ago, when I faced the decision to add to the horrors here at the academy or become a balance against them, I could have gone the other way by sinking into the anger and fear and uncertainty."

He went quiet for a few moments as he thought about this, reflected on his journey and that fork in his path, "But my family and their faith provided a better way, and I was grateful to have Rafael to speak to during moments of hardship."

Kristen Pirian

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Rare things to hear within these walls, practically everything that Maseno said of himself and of Rafael. Yet Maseno was himself a rare exception, and proof in Kristen's eyes that one could rise above the harshness of the Academy's old way, to not be consumed by it, to retain one's virtue. All evil began in the heart, when one allowed it to slay the good that rested within.

"You reminded me of him," Kristen said, "sitting as you are, meditating. 'Twas the first I heard of the practice."

Somehow, in retrospect, what she was about to say sounded funny, even though it was brutish and uncouth. Kristen's lips wriggled as she suppressed a giggle.

"He, um...he shared with me that he once tried to tell Noel about meditation but...she just punched him."

Maseno Luana

 

[Maseno Luana]

"Did he meditate as well?" Maz gave her a look of curious surprise, "I never knew."

A pity he'd not gotten to know the upper classman better, then. Setting his hands loosely upon his knees where he sat, a low chuckle entered the warm spring rain and immediately was lost within it. Noel was another he was not very familiar with, but he knew enough. Heard enough to see the irony in that statement.

"I am grateful you did not do the same. Noel is fierce but I think you might have her beat for reach and strength," his low tamber broke into a gentle laugh and he offered her a playful look of wariness as he mocked leaned away from her, just in case.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen flushed with embarrassment. Such as it was, even compliments about her height ended up making her feel a tad self-conscious, reminding her that she would have liked to be small and adorable like Fennec or little Liza (or, one could even say, Noel herself).

"I learned of Noel's ferocity firsthand," Kristen said. She nibbled her bottom lip, then added for truthfulness, "By my own asking. She obliged me with a lesson fit for the old way."

Another topic, potentially embarrassing, considering how the encounter went at the Festum Libertatis.

"May I ask you something?" she said, pausing. "Is it true that Dreadlord Zana is personally tutoring you?"

Maseno Luana

 

[Fernando Matos]

A quill scribbled over parchment once more. Grading the poetry of the fourth years was a grueling task (you could only read a metaphor about plucking the hair of an elf so many times). However, Fernando took solace in the fact that every single one of the younger initiates had submitted a poem, a much more encouraging trend than the members of the older classes.

Perhaps his dream of transforming these children from weapons of war to introspective warrior poets was not a lost cause.

He stopped his task though and rushed out of his office as he beheld the lovely voice of a tenor echoing in the halls. "Initiate Glaive! I didn't know you enjoyed singing!" A wide grin sat on the Proctor's face as he stared down at the student expectedly.

 

[Maseno Luana]

"Ah, yes?" Maseno eased back into his seat as she spoke of her experience with Noel, listening with a curious ear. That someone would approach Noel of their own accord for a lesson with her was certainly something. He believed her to be among the elite of her class - a category of those you did not willingly mess with - but Maz could see the value in learning from one such as that.

"Interesting," he said as she fell quiet, "but you already knew she was fierce ... what did you learn of yourself?" Perhaps she didn't need to answer him, but it might spark the process to answer it for herself.

As for Zana, he felt a shift of guarding move the muscles of his face. A wariness to speak of things he wasn't really supposed to. "You know about that?" Maseno asked her, confirming the rumor on the spot with a faint nod, "I have been training with her for the last several years. I try not to speak of it openly ...Dreadlord Zana prefers discretion and privacy. Why do you ask?"

 

[Lumen]

On the wide grassy-lawn surrounding the courtyard and beneath a lone apple tree, Lumen was dressed in light leathers. Golden hair bound back. Skin glistening with the light rain that snuck through the fruit-tree branches. Sword gripped in both hands as she practiced.

Arcs and angles cut through the air.

A thousand faces weighing down her shoulders, two among them the most important.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

...what did you learn of yourself?

"That I wish for fairness." Emphatically had she made her case to a baffled Noel, who at first and through an act of mercy was prepared to spare Kristen the "tutelage" Proctor Magomo discreetly assigned her. Kristen herself was conflicted on it. By the drive for fairness proved the brighter. It had furthermore prompted her to more recent "remedial training" with Marcella.

On Zana.

"O-Oh, my apologies. I thought this likely to be another of the wild stories Initiates conjure concerning her or Talus or other noteworthy Dreadlords. It is certainly not my intention to pry. Especially...well..." A frown overtook her, "...since I did not leave a very good first impression with Dreadlord Zana."

Maseno Luana

 

[Soleil Verdane]

Soleil exited her room, chameleon cradled to her chest. She had heard Zaire's singing but made nothing of it. Until she heard another voice. Proctor Matos, whose presence Soleil always found strange: he was not a killer.

Such as it was, Zaire and Proctor Matos were down the hall from her, with Proctor Matos's back to her.

She paused. Made a signed message with one hand (holding her chameleon with the other) to Zaire:

Need distraction?

Zaire Fernando Matos

 

[Aelita]

Wet footsteps approached from behind Lumen. A yellow hue shined through the rain from behind.

“You know, now’d be a bad time to get a cold,” Aelita’s voice told Lumen.

Aelita stood behind Lumen. Arms clasped behind her back. A smile upon her face.

The source of the light hovered above Aelita’s head – a luminescent dome of light acting as an umbrella.

 

[Zaire]

At Proctor Fernando’s large, booming voice that echoed in the empty hallway, Zaire dropped nearly everything he was holding onto the ground. He winced, watching the supplies clatter to the ground before he slowly— oh ever so slowly!— turned to look at the proctor.

Proctor Matos is what they were supposed to call him, like how they did with the other proctors. Somehow, they all ended up calling him Proctor Fernando, and perhaps that was because of the proctor’s doing and not the intiate’s lack of respect.

“Oh. Uh.” Zaire looked at Proctor Fernando, then at the mess he made on the ground. “I don’t… like… singing like that.” He mumbled, bending down to begin picking items up. Did the proctor not hear his lyrics or…. “It’s just like, well, it was raining so…” His bi-colored eyes caught sight of Sol, and her quick hand-movements.

She was one of the weird girls. Like Marci. Like Houri. Therefore, Zaire knew taking her help may be more trouble than it was worth. He glanced over his shoulder at the out-of-touch proctor. Which would be the lesser evil?

“Have you heard Soleil sing? She’s really good at making noises. We could do a acapella group.” He said as he pointed at Sol’s direction. Luckily, she was in plain sight.

Fernando Matos Soleil Verdane

 

[Lumen]

Her breaths came out in quick, hot puffs. She didn't even flinch as Aelita's voice sounded behind her. She finished the sweeping moves and then slowly turned to face her fellow classmate. "Aelita," a breathless exclamation as her heart-rate tried to settle back down.

Sword fell to her side, the deadly point aimed at the wet grass.

"What are you doing out here?"

Tawny-eyes flickered over the light umbrella.

"Cool trick."

 

[Fernando Matos]

There had never been a smile so large as the one worn on Fernando's face.

Not since he had joined The Gentle Persuaders back at Ravengrowth University in Elbion had he been so pleased with himself. How had the idea to form a musical ensemble not occurred to him before? The fact that Zaire was quick to suggest acapella was even better as that's precisely what his old troupe was.

"Oh my!" somehow the curvature of his lips grew even wider, "what a grand idea! Initiate Verdane, what say you? Will you join Initiate Glaive and I as we form the academy's first acapella group?"

With a hand on his chest he stared down at Zaire. "You may not know this but back in my youth I was a baritone for The Gentle Persuaders. The pre-eminent acapella group at Ravengrowth University."

 

[Soleil Verdane]

...as we form the Academy's first acapella group?

"No."

Soleil clicked her tongue against her teeth and smiled widely and didn't wait for any response before she went down the hall and to the stairs. She still had her chameleon cradled to her chest and her mission on her mind. Proctor Matos? Zaire's problem now.

Maybe one of the privy rooms would have a bug in it. Or the common room on the first floor of the dorm. Proctors used to beat everyone in the dorm if the common room wasn't spotless, but that policy had since been made a little more lax. Maybe a bug or two would be there.

If not, things would get tricky. Rain did bring out some insects, but it was also rain.

Zaire Fernando Matos

 

[Zaire]

Zaire looked at Proctor Matos. Then looked back at soleil as she just said no and ran away.

His mouth dropped open. Soleil’s feet hardly pattered along the hardwood floor, her spindly legs carrying her quickly down the hallway. His last glimpse of her was of the chameleon on her shoulder that seemed to look back at Zaire. It raised a front leg, maybe to say good bye or to just flip him off.

If he was the vengeful sort perhaps he would tell Sol that she would rue the day she dared to put as much distance as she could between her and Proctor Matos. Not that he blamed her. He wished he could run after Soleil and escape the stupid idea of singing.

Imagine that, a singing dreadlord? Well, now that Zaire thought about it, wasn’t there an initiate who amplified their voice? Maybe…

“Uh proctor,” Zaire turned back around to look at the proctor, hoping he didn’t look too disappointed at Soleil’s abandonment. “What… do I get in return if I join your singing group?”

Fernando Matos Soleil Verdane

 

[Maseno Luana]

Fairness. Maseno's expression shifted at the admission, curiosity hanging to that thought branch but the moment to pursue it fleeting as a bird.

The Initiate's smile faded under the weight of the new topic of discussion. Of all the Dreadlords he interacted with on a regular basis, Zana was by far the one he concerned himself with. Her patience and expectations were not to be trifled with ... but Kristen just plunked an undeniable morsel in front of him. Maz affected a short grimace.

"First impressions are difficult to get right with her - what happened?"

Kristen Pirian

 

[Fernando Matos]

Disappointment colored his features but he wasn't going to let Soleil's aversion to joining the greatest club to grace these halls ruin his day. Who knew, by their first performance she may be running to Fernando to request an application to join!

His attention re-focused itself upon Zaire and disappointment quickly shifted to enthusiasm.

"What will you get out of it?" Ah, yes, that's how these students thought of everything. What do I gain? What advantage do I achieve? "You'll get the satisfaction of working with a team, of brightening the day of any audiences who witness your performances, and a better understanding of yourself."

The discipline required to become a successful acapella group was quite high. Sure, probably not as challenging as learning to pulverize one's enemies but a different kind of challenge for certain. "I'd also add that, at least in my experience, the students in the acapella group have been the most popular ones at every university that I've attended."