Chapter 3: Chapter 2 - Campus Arrival

“Name?” the bored-looking man said when Loria reached the front of the line. Slouching behind a table outside the administration building, he was wearing the slate gray uniform of the Federation Army, marking down the arrival of each of the incoming students on a roster in front of him. The pins on his cuffs and patch on his chest marked him as a lieutenant, but she had difficulty believing such a sloppy man could be an officer.

“Loria Faldmen.” She’d left her escort two hours before – they had some other business to attend to in Westholden that she knew – well, hoped – had nothing to do with her. She would not put it past her father to try some last minute maneuver to get her change her mind, but from their last conversation, he seemed to accept her decision to enroll with the Couriers.

“Mhmm, Loria Fald-” His eyes jerked to her face. “Faldmen, is it? Then your brother is-”

“Yes,” she said levelly.

“And your father, he’s-”

“Yes.”

The lieutenant blinked at her a second before looking back down. “Right, uh, Loria Faldmen. Registered to the – this can’t be right.” He looked up at her again. “My roster says you’re enrolling in the Courier College, but-”

“There’s no mistake,” she said crisply. She did not enjoy cutting him off, but she also did not feel up to giving a random staff member an explanation for her decisions. “I’ve enrolled with the Couriers, not the Army.”

“I – see,” he said with a small frown. He looked at her for a moment more before shaking his head and muttering something under his breath. A quick scribble on the roster and he nodded. “Well, Ms. Faldmen, Welcome to the Marifond Federal Academy of Magic.” He raised a hand, pointing to his right. “From here, you’ll need to find your dorm – lodging is on the western end of campus. The Apprentice Couriers are housed in the smallest of the lot. There, they’ll do a spot-test of your rating and some ID registration, and you’ll get your uniform, room key, and other admin nonsense squared away. If you get lost, ask anyone in uniform. They should be able to point you in the right direction.”

She nodded. “Thank you, lieutenant.” Sparing the sloppy officer no more thought, she grabbed her suitcase off the ground and set off towards the dorms.

As she walked, she looked around the campus, making mental notes of landmarks worth remembering. Of course, she’d gone over the map of the grounds included in her primer readings, but she quickly realized that it had not been at all to scale. The map left hardly any room between the buildings, which proved to be arrayed in a wide, flat sprawl. There were huge swathes of land separating the administration buildings from the academic buildings, and even more space between the classrooms and the dorms. Long fields for drilling and exercise took up a large portion of the grounds – she knew the Army cadets would make heavy use of them. Behind everything else, a large stone church stood resolutely on the northern end of the campus, its traditional six spires pointing regally into the air. The seminarians would no doubt spend much of their time there. She tried to spot some specific facilities to be used by the Couriers, but she was not sure exactly what she was looking for. She knew most of the first year would be spent on classroom work and training their fundamentals, but beyond that, she could hardly venture a guess as to what her education would entail.

She was not alone as she walked through the campus. She spotted a handful of other uniformed men and women, who she guessed to be other staff members. Also, of course, there were clumps of incoming students. Some seemed to be, like her, working their way towards the dorms, while others were enjoying a late lunch. Finally, there were groups of what she guessed to be students’ parents engaged in some sort of tour, led, she presumed, by upperclassmen. There was an excited, friendly energy in the air, and for a moment, she considered what it might have been like to go on a tour of the campus with her family.

She shook her head, dismissing such thoughts. For now, she had business to attend to.

***

Ten other people had already arrived when she found her way to the Couriers’ dorm. A sign in the lobby had pointed her towards to the dining hall, and she had found her way to the large room easily enough. It could probably hold eighty people, and with only ten spread along the wide tables, it was almost unnervingly empty.

She chose her seat on a whim – not close enough to the others that she would appear to be seeking out conversation, but not far enough that she might seem cold. She made eye contact with a few of her future-classmates, returning their polite nods and cordial smiles as best she could. She was nervous, in her own way, and when she got nervous she retreated to formality and procedure.

It was an eclectic group, even with just the ten sitting around her. Some were dressed for travel while others were dressed in casual wear. One boy was even wearing a formal suit, though it was quite ill-fitting – the sleeves were far too short, and the way he was constantly tugging at the jacket’s neck, he seemed to be stuffed inside it. Her own drab gray outfit hardly stood out, besides the fact that it perhaps too closely resembled that of much of the staff.

The awkward silence of the waiting was broken by occasional bits of conversation, mostly introductions and basic questions. At one point, the boy stuffed into the suit leaned over to her with a sheepish smile. “What’s your name?” he ventured.

“Loria,” she replied, putting on her friendliest smile – which, she fully realized, was not especially friendly. “And yours?”

“Percy,” he answered. “Do you know what’s going on?”

She blinked. “No more than you, I’d imagine,” she said with a shake of her head, “You were here before me, weren’t you?”

“Yes, but – ah,” he said, looking down at the table awkwardly, “you look a little more put together than I feel, so I thought you might – plus, with the uniform your wearing…” His voice trailed off as his confidence failed.

“Ah-” she said, looking down at her clothes, “It’s not the military uniform, just looks like it. My father is in the Army, you see.”

Percy’s eyes widened slightly. “Oh! I’m sorry, I thought you might be an upperclassman – I saw a few of them wandering around the grounds, and from a distance, their uniforms look a lot like your clothes.”

She waved his apology off. “It’s alright. My entire family is in the Army, so I think some of their demeanor has rubbed off on me.” She pinched at her sleeve. “Even the clothes are kind of a tradition. Whenever we go out, we wear these clothes. My father did the same when he was a child, as I understand it.”

Percy nodded along with her explanation. “Fascinating! Of course, I’ve heard of mage families before, but, well, I’m the first one of my kin to come to the academy.” He frowned suddenly. “But, wait – if your whole family is in the Army, why are you here? This is the Courier dorm, isn’t it?” He looked around, suddenly unsure. “I didn’t come to the wrong place, did I?”

He started to stand up, but she grabbed his sleeve, pulling him back to his seat. “No, Percy, you didn’t come to the wrong place,” she said with a sigh. “I enrolled with the Couriers.”

He looked relieved, but continued to study her with curious eyes. “Why didn’t you want to join the Army?”

Her smile suddenly felt forced, and she wrestled with the instinct to snap that it was none of his business. Thankfully, she was saved from coming up with a response by the rattle of the door slamming open. A pair of boys strolled into the room. One, tall and thin with messy auburn hair, was talking loudly at the other. He was covered in dust, and by his tanned skin, wiry arms, and mud-stained work boots, she could tell he was no stranger to labor in the sun.

The other boy was listening impassively. He was a full head shorter, with youthful features, short, curly hair and dark, almost black, skin. The taller boy was rambling at him, and while the shorter one didn’t seem uncomfortable, he looked to hardly be paying attention.

“You ever heard of an Acid Mongrel?” The taller boy asked, earning a grunt in reply. “Well I hadn’t, and let me tell you, after we moved the body, Barry – that’s the guard I was telling you about, fire and earth and martial node, he gave me a good old lecture for the last hour of our trip here. I think he wanted to scare me, because he just listed every crazy, scary monster he could think of – did you know there’s a type of snake monster that can boil your blood with just a look? I’ll tell you, we don’t have anything like that back by Minton, but I suppose I’ve already started to see that-” He cut off as he suddenly noticed that they were not alone in the room. His eyes darted around the room as he found a seat. Amusingly, the other boy, Loria noted, put a bit of distance between them before taking his own seat.

“Did I accidentally stumble into a funeral?” the tall boy asked the silent room. He clicked his tongue. “Why is everyone so quiet?” Loria frowned as an uncomfortable air settled over the room. Already, she had decided this boy was rather tactless.

An awkward moment passed before Percy responded for the room. “I think we’re just nervous – I know I am.”

“So, one of you can talk,” the tall, loud boy replied with a grin. “I’m Clifford Everhart,” he said with a nod, “but the only one to ever call me Clifford is my momma when I make my sister cry. Call me Cliff.”

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“Percy,” the other boy replied sheepishly.

“Well, Percy,” Cliff said, leaning his walking stick against the table and tossing his backpack on the ground, “I’ve got two questions for you.”

“Ah-” the other boy said awkwardly, “sure, Cliff. Shoot.”

Cliff stuck a finger up. “My first question is how exactly you managed to fit into that suit – it looks like all the seams are about to burst.” Loria clenched her jaw at the rudeness of the question – her mental rating of Cliff dropping from tactless to crass.

Surprisingly, after a moment of wide-eyed shock, Percy chuckled at the question. “My ma got it for me for my sixteenth birthday,” he said, fruitlessly trying to tug the sleeves down his wrists, “she didn’t expect my second growth spurt, and, well, it’s the best outfit I have.” Loria could almost hear the strain of the seams as he shrugged his shoulders.

“Why’d you wear your best outfit today?” Cliff asked. Loria had been wondering the same thing, though she would not have gone as far as to ask the clearly skittish Percy.

Again, Percy chuckled. “We – ah – didn’t exactly know what the standards would be. There was nothing about a dress code in the primer readings, and no one in my family has experience with this kind of thing.”

Cliff snapped his fingers, the sharp sound echoing around the dining hall. “Another scholarship kid, then, hmm?” It didn’t surprise Loria that either boy came from a mundane family. They each embodied one variety of stereotype – the naive one and the brazen one. Cliff looked down at himself, brushing a bit of dust off his well-worn shirt. “I suppose I should have thought a bit more about what to wear.” He kicked at his bag. “There’s a suit in here, but I brought that mostly to appease my poppa – I was never one to dress up.” Again, Loria was not surprised.

“I’m right there with you,” Percy said. He tugged at the neck of the jacket. “Thankfully, I was able to convince my ma not to make me travel here in the suit – she made me put it on after we arrived.”

Cliff clicked his tongue again. “That would’ve been a sight to behold, if your trip was anything like mine – a gentleman like yourself tramping along the Federation’s muddy excuse for a road in a suit three sizes too small.” He grinned. “I can loosen her up a bit, if you’d like. Most suits leave a bit of material to work with in there, and I might be able to make it a bit more comfortable for you.” He gave Percy a closer, more intense look. “Now, I’m not a miracle worker, but maybe we can make it look a little less like you’ve been crammed into your little brother’s clothes.” Loria’s eyebrows rose – she was surprised a boy like Cliff would know how to do something like sew.

Percy started shaking his head. “I couldn’t possibly impose-”

“Nonsense,” Cliff said, cutting him off with a wave of his hand, “I’ve done it a dozen times before, for my own suits and my brothers’ – even widened my poppa’s after a particularly good harvest, if you catch my meaning – it’s more trouble to watch you walk around all uncomfortable than it would be for me to loosen her up.”

Percy coughed, looking suddenly more uncomfortable. “I appreciate the offer, Cliff, but I’m not sure – what I mean to say is, I can’t exactly…” His voice trailed off, and Loria was surprised to notice that he was actually blushing.

Cliff clicked his tongue. “Not another word, my friend. We can talk about it later, but I want to make it clear that this is a favor, understand me? Nothing more.”

Percy sighed, relief clear on his face. “Thanks, Cliff, I don’t mean anything by it, it’s just-”

“Oh, it’s no worry at all. I get it – we’re total strangers and all that. You seem like good people, Percy, from one scholarship kid to another.”

Loria was thoroughly confused. Some silent conversation had happened between the two, but she couldn’t exactly parse the meaning – something having to do with the suit, perhaps? She shook her head, wondering how she had gotten so caught up in the two boys’ conversation.

“What was your second question, then?” Percy said.

Cliff snapped his fingers. “That’s right! I’d nearly forgotten. What exactly are we doing?”

“What?” Percy replied.

“I mean – they sent us here, and we’re, what – Sitting around? Didn’t the man in the uniform mention something about getting administrative business done?”

Percy looked around at the rest of the folk waiting. When he made eye contact with Loria, she shrugged. “I suppose we know about as much as you,” Percy said, “I figure we best wait until someone in charge shows up to tell us what to do.”

Cliff nodded slowly. “That’s good enough for me, I guess.” He glanced around until he spotted the boy he’d walked in with. “It was great meeting you, Percy,” he said before hopping up from his seat and dropping into the one next to his earlier conversation partner. “Thalos, as I was saying-” he started, resuming his earlier ramble right where he’d left off. Loria couldn’t do anything but pity the boy, Thalos.

Loria looked back to Percy, who was watching cliff with an unsure expression. “I hope you weren’t offended by his question,” she said quietly. She knew she would have been, if someone had asked her a question like that.

Percy turned to her with a smile. “What? No, not at all. He’s right, this suit is far too small for me.”

“A bit presumptuous of him to try to fix your problem, though, isn’t it?” There were few things Loria hated more than people offering her unwanted charity. She could take care of herself, thank you very much.

Percy gave her an odd look. He shook his head. “I suppose it might not be the case where you’re from, but I think he was just trying to help, nothing malicious about it. Besides,” he said, gesturing around the room, “I’m not even sure that was the point of the conversation. Look how much livelier things have gotten since he got here.”

She wanted to say that was just Cliff’s voice echoing off the walls, but, looking around, she realized that he was right. Sure enough, the others who had been sitting silently with themselves until the loud boy’s arrival had begun conversations of their own, and soon enough the room was filled with the low din of half a dozen conversations.

She turned back to Percy. “You think it was on purpose?” Somehow, it was hard for her to believe that someone like Cliff would use an off-color question to put everyone at ease.

Percy shrugged. “Maybe,” he said, “or maybe not. Some people are like that – they can read the room and get people talking with just a smirk and a sideways comment. He’s going to be quite popular with the other students, I’d wager.”

“Hmm,” Loria replied, not sure of what to make of Percy’s judgment. It was true that he’d managed to lighten up the atmosphere in the dorm, but she couldn’t see herself liking him, not unless he tightened up his demeanor quite a bit.

***

“All I’m saying is, if they wanted us to come in an hour, they should have told us to come in an hour,” Cliff loudly complained. Loria’s eyebrow twitched in irritation. He’d been the first to grow bored of waiting. After his first round of complaints, he’d dragged Thalos through the rest of the dorm, coming back moments later when he realized all the doors in the building were locked. Another twenty minutes of waiting, and he’d started up his complaining again.

“I understand, Cliff,” Thalos replied, his voice, blessedly, much quieter, “But I’m sure they’re busy dealing with all the incoming students – you can’t blame them too much.”

“You’re wrong, Thalos. If they were dealing with the incoming students, they’d be dealing with us. Whatever it is, they’ve clearly decided it’s more important than our time, and there’s few things I hate more than someone trying to waste my time.”

“What about someone who won’t wait quietly,” Loria muttered to herself. Cliff turned to give her a sharp glare, and she blinked. She had not meant to say that so loudly.

“Come on,” Cliff said, standing up from his seat, “I saw some crates at the front of the room, let’s go see what’s inside.”

Thalos sighed but rose from his chair, following close behind. “Are you sure we should be doing this? Don’t you think they’ll be mad?”

“Well they said we’d be getting our uniforms and such here, right? So it’s eventually going to be ours, hmm? They can’t get mad for taking a look at something that’s ours, can they?” That was, Loria thought, some of the worst reasoning she had ever heard. Perhaps whatever was in those crate was meant to be theirs, but that didn’t mean they could skip the process and grab it first – it was completely improper! Besides, if it really was their uniforms, she didn’t want him getting his hands all over hers – he was covered in dust.

“C’mere,” Cliff grunted, hoisting one of the wooden crates onto a table. He scrabbled with his fingertips on the top of the crate for a moment, trying to find purchase to pry the lid off. “Help me with this, Thalos.”

“That’s enough!” Loria said, rising from her seat and walking to the front of the room.

Pausing in his fumbling, Cliff raised an eyebrow at her. “Excuse me?”

“Put the crate back down,” she said, “we should just wait until one of the staff comes to explain what we are supposed to do.”

“I’m tired of waiting,” Cliff said, resuming his attempts to get the crate open.

Loria placed her hand firmly on the top of the crate. “That doesn’t mean you can come up here and flaunt the rules.”

He glared at her. “Flaunt the rules? They told us to find the dorm, nothing more – they didn’t mention anything about waiting for hours and hours. Besides, it’s probably just our uniforms inside.”

“Yes, but you don’t know that. It could be some kind of equipment, or sensitive documents, or – or something else entirely – regardless, you can’t just come up here and rummage through these crates because you’re bored,” she continued, feeling like she was lecturing a child.

Cliff grinned. “Well, there’s only one way to find out whats inside, isn’t there? Come on, take your hand off.”

“No,” Loria said, “Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to touch things that aren’t yours?”

The grin fell from Cliff’s face. “Begging your pardon-” He blinked. “Ah, I’m sorry, what’s your name?”

“Loria,” she answered sharply.

“Ah, right – begging your pardon, Loria, but aren’t you a mite curious what’s in this crate? I know I am. I’ll open her up, take a look, and, if it makes you feel better, I’ll leave it at that. Now, please, move your hand so I can take a look.”

“No,” Loria said again, “You’re acting like a child. Have some decency – this is an academy, not a daycare.”

“Back me up here, Thalos,” Cliff said, turning to the other boy, who had remained notably silent.

“I told you it was a bad idea, Cliff,” Thalos said with a shrug.

Cliff sighed, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the crate. “Now, I don’t mean to be rude, Loria, but you’ve been glaring at me since I walked into the door. I’m not sure what I did to offend you, but I don’t need my Gift to tell me that you’ve got some problem with me.” He shook his head, grinning again. “For whatever I did, I’m sorry.”

Loria grimaced. That was another thing that bothered her, his incessant prattle about his Gift. He’d brought it up an uncomfortable amount of times, and she’d always been raised that talking about such things so openly was rude. “That’s one thing. It’s rather crass to talk about your Gift like that, don’t you think?” she said.

Cliff blinked twice. “Is it?” he said, looking at her oddly, “Ah – I get it.” His expression turned suddenly mischievous. “Perhaps you’re right, but unlike you, I wasn’t born into a family that teaches such things.” He turned to look at Thalos. “A few folks told me that students from Mage families would discriminate and dress it up as propriety, but I didn’t think it would happen so soon.” He looked back at Loria. “Tell me, princess, does everyone in your family have a fantastic Gift, or just you?”

A surge of hot anger flooded into Loria’s veins. “You know nothing about my family,” She snapped. The mischief fled from Cliff’s face, and he seemed genuinely taken aback by her anger, but before he could muster a response, a new voice called out.

“Now, now, children – its the first day, and you’re already flirting?” Loria jerked her hand away from the crate like it was a hot stove. Cliff, on the other hand, continued to lean into the box, but both of them turned to look at the newest arrival in the room.

He was a short man, wearing the black vestments of a priest of the Church of Gaeon, a long-sleeved knee-length cassock over black pants. Interestingly, his garments were trimmed in red, instead of the normal green or gold. His hair and eyes were dark to match his clothes, and his skin was a tawny amber.

“My name is Templar Roose, and I have the privilege of being the advisor for the incoming class of apprentice Couriers – that is to say, you all,” he said. “I apologize for the wait.”