Private Tales Pride and Steel

[Kristen Pirian]

THE ACADEMY​

"This is the last time I want to see you, Pirian," said Proctor Magomo. It sounded harsh, from his tone to the words themselves, but to Kristen's trained ear this, from Magomo, was high praise.

"Yes, Proctor," she said. Though she maintained her military bearing, standing rigidly before Magomo, it came at great effort—she was so excited! And containing it proved to be a worthy challenge.

"Remember: just because you earned a title doesn't mean shit yet. It's just the beginning for you, Pirian. You've got to earn it everyday from here on out." Proctor Magomo grinned, a rare sight indeed outside of a punitive context, and said, "And if you disgrace it, or do something stupid, or if you don't fight your best when you do get into a fight: I will find you, and I will fuck you up."

"Yes, Proctor," she said.

Proctor Magomo gave a jerk of his head toward the Academy dormitories. "Now go get your possessions, and report to me at the gate."

"Yes, Proctor!" Kristen said, and with that was dismissed. Whilst still in Proctor Magomo's sight she moved with a purpose, hurrying across the Academy grounds. At last she reached the dormitory, thinking as soon as she went through the doors the same thing she thought of the Academy gates.

Today, she would depart from them for the last time.

Today, she would leave the Academy as a woman having come into her own, having earned at last what she had long struggled to achieve.

Today, she was born anew.

Dreadlord Kristen Pirian.

 

[Zinnia]

Well...today was the day. Butterflies fluttered within Zinnia's stomach to a degree she'd never thought possible. To think that she'd actually be getting to don her formal wear and stand before her betters, a graduate. As she sat on the edge of her bed making the last of her preparations, ensuring she looked in tip-top shape, she held Seri in front of her with a grand smile.

"It's f-finally happening, Seri. I made it!" she said merrily to the grub, which wriggled and cooed enthusiastically in her grasp, assuredly not understanding her words but excited by her tone nonetheless. "I can hardly believe it..."

She owed much of what was to come this day to others. She owed it to Caeso, mostly, for driving her forward and setting her down the right path in his own way. She owed it to Proctor Salak for digging deep into what Zinnia had done in the wake of Soleil's actions, and for the fast track that Salak had provided Zinnia for her efforts. And she certainly owed it to...

Zinnia stepped out into the hallway of the dormitory, closing her door for what would surely be one of the final times, three words playing on repeat in her mind: "I made it! I made it! I made it"

As she glanced up, her fingers slipping from the brass handle of her door, she saw her dearest friend and melted into the warmest of smiles.

She owed it to Kristen.
"We made it!"

 

[Kristen Pirian]

At the sight of Zinnia, how could Kristen not return a smile of her own? Her excitement was such that within her she felt the mighty impulse to bounce gleefully the rest of the way to her friend, but her noble composure, her sense of propriety, kept the soles of her boots on the hallway floor. She did however throw out her arms in anticipated embrace as she approached. It was their last day in the Academy! It was now measured in minutes! What prying eyes, what naysaying judgments, could cast them low now?

Kristen hugged Zinnia, and said to her, "Yours has been a journey longer than mine, and here we both stand. Sisters in battle."

A cause for celebration—and an honor. For did they not both pass the Republic's very first implementation of the new way for Graduation? No foul plots from dissident elements, no sabotage, nothing of the sort. On the road which led to the future of the Dreadlords, they could count themselves among the number of those first to walk it.

Zinnia

 

[Zinnia]

The way Kristen carried herself with such elegance and poise was so far from what Zinnia had known of her back when she'd first entered the Academy. Even back then, from Zinnia's self-imposed solitude, she'd caught glimpses of the elder girl's clumsy antics, heard whispers of her repeated embarrassments. Now? All that seemed so distant that it might as well have been another life.

Kristen Pirian was the emblem of everything an Anirian should aspire to be, and as the noble girl embraced the orphan, Zinnia looked up to her in every sense. She nuzzled into Kristen and shook her head.
"You've come so much farther than me in s-so short a time. I really do admire you, Kristen," she rolled her head upwards so that she could see into Kristen's eyes and smiled brightly. "I'm so p-proud to be doing this with you today."

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Where else could the golden mark of humility be found in greater quantity than in Zinnia herself? Some of their former classmates, those of lesser repute, took it as their pleasure to scorn her mild-mannered demeanor, her stuttering. They knew nothing of the warrior within. And they did not recognize that though the Academy surely tried all of which it was once capable in the days before the Revolution, it had been soundly defeated; Zinnia emerged intact, not as the sword—the weapon—the Academy had wished her to be, but as the woman who wielded it, sound of judgment and sure of heart.

The greatest of tribulations made fertile ground for the blossoming of peerless virtue.

Kristen held Zinnia's shoulders and said, "Then let us walk out of those gates. Together." Others had made what choice pleased them; many opted for the military, allaying certain musings that the Reservist option would dominate; one Initiate, at least, among their class even choose the option of voluntary exile. For the most part, many of their erstwhile fellows were proceeding along on their own individual paths—which included walking out of the Academy gates for the last time. Many thought nothing of such a momentous occasion, much less of sharing it with someone.

Friends, actual friends, were still a rarity in the Academy environment, and likely it would be some years yet before the corrupt culture of old withered enough for the new to take prominence.

Kristen, in the very motion of starting toward her room, keeping her gaze on Zinnia as her body practically skipped along, said, "All else is done! I just need to collect my possessions!"

Her cheeks almost hurt from the breadth of her excited grin.

Zinnia

 

[Zinnia]

Zinnia beamed as brightly as she could, brimming with pride. Pride not just in Kristen, but in herself as well. It was a feeling she never thought she'd be capable of truly feeling, years of self-hatred having conditioned her to feel nothing but shame. Not today. Today was about achievement, and reveling in it.

Gold eyes filled with determination, Zinnia gave a hearty nod of agreement to Kristen.
"Together!" she concurred. She could feel the excitement coursing Kristen's veins!

As the noblewoman moved away towards her dorm room, Zinnia bounced on her heels. What Zinnia couldn't grab herself the proctors had agreed to have delivered to her eventual housing later. For now, she had just a couple of bags, an equipment case, and of course, Seri atop her head in the form of an Anirian military cap.
"No rush!" she assured Kristen. "I'll be here!"