Post by Tempis on Sept 17, 2017 23:34:00 GMT -6
It’s a grade school AU!
*Party horn*
Authors notes: I am one hundred percent conscious of the fact that there is no way that this establishment would even begin to exist and run as it does, a drow would never be the principal of a grade school, fire is very dangerous, ect. This universe exists because I yearned for something petty and suburban for Joan and Cyldiel, and I will see that wish through.
I tried to iron this out the best I could, but there's probably still errors in here, so give me a warn if you see any and I'll fix them. I honestly never thought I would finish this, I’m terrible for coming up with ideas and never actualizing them. I now shove this work lovingly onto you, ‘Cause this is as done as it’s gettin’.
With little else to do, children served as incredibly efficient rumor mills.
“Yeah, we don’t learn much, but the music is pretty dope.” Zoey bounced the ball over to Dora.
“Mr. Chance sounds cool.” Dora passed to Lavinia.“Apparently we’ve got Mrs. Valamin’s son as a substitute today.”
“Is that allowed?” Lavinia mused, bouncing the ball back to Zoey.
Dora made a noncommittal sound.
“I think I saw him- Skinny guy.” Zoey bounced the ball in contemplation. “Elfy.”
“Like, knock him over with a feather kinda guy?” Anne approached the gathering, putting her hands out to receive.
“Ohmygod can we?” Dora turned.
“No...!” Lavinia protested, weakly.
Tension flickered as Dora and Anne made eye contact. Their relationship was, in a word, dubious. Zoey passed the ball over to Anne.
“No, that’s mean.” Anne said, sweetly, bouncing the ball with a glint in her eye, “But we could take him. We could totally take him.”
--
Mr. Valamin looked somewhere between gleeful and terrified. Earlier, Lavinia caught snips of Mrs. Valamin giving him instructions over the phone, and him going, “Yes, yes, I see the fire extinguisher, It’s right over- I’ll be fine, mother.”
“He is tall...” Lavinia whispered in awe as he buzzed around the front of the room. She checked her phone one last time before shutting it off and putting it in her bag. Her dads didn’t like when she was out of touch, but she decided that she wanted to be nice to the Mr. Tall Elf and not make him do the cellphone thing.
Lavinia looked over to Anne and Dora, who seemed to be sizing him up in their own ways. Anne introduced herself, and Dora gave him finger guns. Lavinia took a leaf out of her hair and made a mental note to give it to him later.
--
The multiculturalism of the classroom shone through the most at lunch time. Alias was sitting at his desk, watching the kids perform their individual pre-meal rituals.
The nixie, Dora, wrote something down in a menacing book. Lavinia was singing a little song to herself, which she seemed to be making up as she went along. Anne set a cookie on fire, which jolted Alias out of his seat, but it was burnt and gone in white flame before he could do anything about it.
Cyldiel had pointed her out in the class picture during his ‘briefing’- “Her name is Anne, she’ll tell you that.” She had run through all of the students, drawing particular attention to special cases and what they were capable of.
Alias had spent the morning on edge, but things were going relatively well so far.
--
Mr. Chance pulled up to the Valamin class door. What he found, when he looked in, was a tableau of a crime scene. Tiny sleeping bodies littered the floor, frozen in mid-action. Some were asleep in their food, while others seemed to have collapsed in the middle of a lunge. At the front of the room, Cyldiel’s son sat with one hand on the fire extinguisher, and the other holding up his head as he surveyed the class. One of the curtains was singed.
Chance knocked on the doorframe and Cyldiel’s son- Yup, he got it from his momma-- took in a breath, held it for a moment, and then spoke.
“...I fully admit that I panicked.”
Mr. Chance made the rounds, helping get everyone up and out the door to the shared gym period. He talked with Cyldiel’s son- Mr. Valamin-- about today being music day for the class. Of course, every day was music day with the right attitude.
--
Rolen did not flinch at the sudden influx of bees.
“No flying!” He shouted to the back, where Zoey was attempting to hover subtly above the ground for the rest of her laps.
“Oh, come on.” Zoey groaned as she landed, bees flying out of her gym uniform.
“You’re doing fine.” Rolen assured, as Zoey started padding along again. She fell back into pace with Lavinia, who was quite pleased with the bees.
“Vinnie,” Zoey wheezed, “Do you know why normal people don’t teach gym?”
“Because they’re not qualified?” She wheezed back.
“Because they’re not fools.” Zoey seethed, cursing every low-stamina bone in her body.
--
Anne watched the scene unfold from a distance.
“She did it!” Tamsin hooped.
“I did not!” Emma huffed in indignation.
“Easy, Easy...” Jayne soothed the raging twins, tossing a hostile glance at Rinaldo, the other yard monitor. He did not seem to be invested in the situation beyond moving away from it’s immediate area of sound.
“Who done it?” Lavinia pulled up beside Anne, taking in the view.
Anne narrowed her eyes, giving it a moment of hard contemplation.
“At least one of them.” She said, self-satisfied.
Lavinia accepted this, and they began to mill around the yard together. They talked about dogs they saw recently, as well as other fuzzy animals. They were making their way over to where Zoey was, who seemed to be engaged in conversation with the new student, when Lavinia saw a smear of blue dip into her peripheral vision.
She turned to see Dora, standing with a saggy balloon in her hand and a smirk on her face. Lavinia had no time to give a proper warning before Anne was hit with the water balloon. She stood for a moment, soaking wet.
“Oh no...” Lavinia whispered as she saw Anne light up.
“Vinnie, I love you so much ok, so back away.” Anne papped a hand on Lavinia’s shoulder.
Lavinia made a sad little sound. She walked backwards, keeping an eye on the two of them, and things escalated very quickly. Soon, there was a lot of water, a bit of fire, and some steam.
“Eat a butt!” Anne yelled her battle-cry as she hurled flames at Dora.
“You eat a butt!” Dora responded while she blasted water back at her.
They gathered student attention quickly, and soon some of the teachers were out, observing and performing damage control.
“Get back!” Mr. Hawklight shouted as the students gathered around him, ushered by Rinaldo. The triangle token next to Mr. Hawklight’s whistle glowed as he threw up a shield around the kids. Jayne shifted into her dire wolf form and ran up on Anne, grabbing her by the back of her shirt and removing her from the flaming grass. The rest was put out quickly, but the earth was charred and soggy where they had stood.
“Puppy!” Anne said cheerfully as she was dragged away.
--
“Fire Bug, Water Bug,” Joan gestured to Anne and Dora, “What am I going to do with you two?”
“It’s an honour thing, ma’am.” Anne said directly.
“You know how it is.” Dora added, shrugging.
Joan steepled her hands in reflection. Yeah, she could be honest with herself, she did.
The three of them talked for a while about acceptable battle grounds. Both of them held firm in their vow to eventually destroy each other, but Joan managed to plant the seed of temporary ceasefire between them.
“You’ll crease Mr. Valamin’s pretty face early if this keeps up.” She offered.
They both considered this for a moment, with grave depth.
“Aesthetics are big in Ghanny town.” Dora pondered aloud. Anne was visibly wrestling with her own hedonistic streak.
After a time, they both spat into their palms and shook hands- holding eye contact all the while.
They left the office, and Joan followed them out, pausing to say hello to Lita at the front desk.
Joan watched the two of them disappear down the hall, having a conversation somewhere between theology and aimless ramblings. They both had a peculiar cleverness about them despite their dispositions. Dora was a terminally free spirit; And Anne was simple, but burning. This was not the first, nor the last time she would see them brought in.
Alias approached awkwardly from the side.
“Thank you for talking to them. I couldn’t-”
“You helped.” Joan assured, patting him on the shoulder.
--
“Yeah, they had a godfight again.” Zoey took a tired sip of her juice box.
“Golly.” Grace remarked. She was new, fresh out of homeschooling, and her world seemed to be getting bigger every day.
“It usually doesn’t get that bad. Sometimes they just have word fights, calling each other scrub and stuff. They’re actually not that different, I think that they would get along if it weren't for... Y’know.” Zoey looked out the window at the scorched grass, slowly being brought back to life by the yard duty druid.
“Wow.” Grace looked down at her sandwich thoughtfully. “Do they bring you into that kinda stuff? I-If you’re looking for something, the Triad is pretty good.” Grace took a bite and looked up again.
“Nah, I’m the neutral party. If I were to pick anyone, this whole thing would go up in fla- uh-- it would get really messy.”
“That must be hard.”
“Not really.” Zoey shrugged. “It’s more like not doing something than doing something. I don’t really know about that kinda stuff anyway, and if I did, maybe I would do it wrong and get the gods mad at me or something. Maybe there’s a ‘be myself and see who’s into it’ option.”
Grace meditated on this for the rest of her sandwich. Both Anne and Dora seemed intense, but Lavinia was friendly, and she gave Grace a leaf when she met her. Zoey sat beside her in class, so she was easy to get to know. Grace could make friends here, slowly but surely.
--
The class fished out their recorders as Mr. Goodwood made his way to the front of the room. Lavinia bounced in her seat, eager. She loved music, and her dads told her she was good at it, but she couldn’t be quite sure of their objectivity.
“Good afternoon Mr. Goodwood” The class droned in phonetic unison.
“Bold statement.” He replied.
He took a moment, dourly producing a black recorder from his person. The class was silent as he counted down on his fingers.
Three.
Two.
One-
Outside, a great explosion of birds made their way from the discordant scream of hell itself.
--
Lavinia pointed downwards with gusto.
“Apologize to the grass!” She huffed.
“Sorry grasses.” Anne patted the ground.
“Sorry dudes.” Dora also gave the fresh blades of grass a comforting rub.
“I’m not good at being mad, but this has gotta stop happening you guys.” Lavinia crossed her arms and pouted.
“Boss lady made us truce, so we’re okay now.” Anne said casually, looking up from the ground.
“Really?” Lavinia lit up with hope.
“Until Mrs. Valamin gets better, yeah. We’re chill right now.” Dora gave a demonstrative pat to Anne’s shoulder.
“Why?” Lavinia started to radiate with glee.
“For the greater good.” They said, in unison, both looking to the sky.
--
Alias only started to decompress when he saw the last of the kids leave.
He watched as a half-elf child introduced an aasimar to Dora and Anne, who seemed to be getting along reasonably well for the moment. Alias was confused by that, but he would gladly accept the peace for now. They loaded onto the bus, and could be seen through the windows chatting with each other.
In the parking lot, a stern looking Mr. Earlin chaperoned his triplets into a van. Eulic, Yulik and Julick disappeared one by one under his cold surveillance. Julick turned to wave at a pair of twins, one of which waved back, before he vanished into the vehicle. What are the odds? Alias thought as the van pulled away.
His eyes widened as he saw the car pulling into the parking lot. Alias cursed in disbelief as he watched Cyldiel park in a nearby space and get out, heading straight for him.
“You should be in bed!” He met her halfway, looking her up and down to see if she was shaking.
“You didn’t call.”She looked pale, much paler than usual, but she held firm.
“I was going to...” Alias sighed.
“Did you need to use the fire extinguisher?”
“Mother.”
“Hmm?” Cyldiel narrowed her eyes, pushing closer.
“Yes, I did, and I knew exactly where it was, so don’t worry about me right now. You should be resting.” Alias put his arm around her for support as he helped her back into the car.
--
After a few days of absence, and an abundance of herbal remedies, Cyldiel was back on her feet. The kids were outside for lunch recess, and she stood by the window with her coffee. She heard slow, deliberate footsteps behind her, and turned around with little enthusiasm.
“You’ve raised a good boy. I heard you checked back on the first day to see if he still had all his fingers and toes?” Joan took a sly sip of coffee.
“He is a good boy. I can see he managed well here, the children seemed to behave themselves around him.” Cyldiel gave her best, tightly held, passive-aggressive smile.
“We’ll see if it holds.” Joan smirked back.
“Children are prone to petty fights and grudges.” Cyldiel brushed some of her hair behind her ear, looking out onto the yard.
Outside, kids were moving around at different paces. Some of them were in the air, while others yelled after them in a game of tag. A little circle of druids were playing with the grass. Lavinia and her little group were bouncing a ball back and forth, talking among themselves.
“Some are not so petty. But, we learn to manage, as we mature.” Joan looked out to the little group, watched it, and probably waited for hell to break loose. She took another sip, and looked back over to Cyldiel.
Cyldiel blinked, slowly, and found the inner peace to clamp down on the words she would prefer to say.
“Indeed.”
*Party horn*
Authors notes: I am one hundred percent conscious of the fact that there is no way that this establishment would even begin to exist and run as it does, a drow would never be the principal of a grade school, fire is very dangerous, ect. This universe exists because I yearned for something petty and suburban for Joan and Cyldiel, and I will see that wish through.
I tried to iron this out the best I could, but there's probably still errors in here, so give me a warn if you see any and I'll fix them. I honestly never thought I would finish this, I’m terrible for coming up with ideas and never actualizing them. I now shove this work lovingly onto you, ‘Cause this is as done as it’s gettin’.
With little else to do, children served as incredibly efficient rumor mills.
“Yeah, we don’t learn much, but the music is pretty dope.” Zoey bounced the ball over to Dora.
“Mr. Chance sounds cool.” Dora passed to Lavinia.“Apparently we’ve got Mrs. Valamin’s son as a substitute today.”
“Is that allowed?” Lavinia mused, bouncing the ball back to Zoey.
Dora made a noncommittal sound.
“I think I saw him- Skinny guy.” Zoey bounced the ball in contemplation. “Elfy.”
“Like, knock him over with a feather kinda guy?” Anne approached the gathering, putting her hands out to receive.
“Ohmygod can we?” Dora turned.
“No...!” Lavinia protested, weakly.
Tension flickered as Dora and Anne made eye contact. Their relationship was, in a word, dubious. Zoey passed the ball over to Anne.
“No, that’s mean.” Anne said, sweetly, bouncing the ball with a glint in her eye, “But we could take him. We could totally take him.”
--
Mr. Valamin looked somewhere between gleeful and terrified. Earlier, Lavinia caught snips of Mrs. Valamin giving him instructions over the phone, and him going, “Yes, yes, I see the fire extinguisher, It’s right over- I’ll be fine, mother.”
“He is tall...” Lavinia whispered in awe as he buzzed around the front of the room. She checked her phone one last time before shutting it off and putting it in her bag. Her dads didn’t like when she was out of touch, but she decided that she wanted to be nice to the Mr. Tall Elf and not make him do the cellphone thing.
Lavinia looked over to Anne and Dora, who seemed to be sizing him up in their own ways. Anne introduced herself, and Dora gave him finger guns. Lavinia took a leaf out of her hair and made a mental note to give it to him later.
--
The multiculturalism of the classroom shone through the most at lunch time. Alias was sitting at his desk, watching the kids perform their individual pre-meal rituals.
The nixie, Dora, wrote something down in a menacing book. Lavinia was singing a little song to herself, which she seemed to be making up as she went along. Anne set a cookie on fire, which jolted Alias out of his seat, but it was burnt and gone in white flame before he could do anything about it.
Cyldiel had pointed her out in the class picture during his ‘briefing’- “Her name is Anne, she’ll tell you that.” She had run through all of the students, drawing particular attention to special cases and what they were capable of.
Alias had spent the morning on edge, but things were going relatively well so far.
--
Mr. Chance pulled up to the Valamin class door. What he found, when he looked in, was a tableau of a crime scene. Tiny sleeping bodies littered the floor, frozen in mid-action. Some were asleep in their food, while others seemed to have collapsed in the middle of a lunge. At the front of the room, Cyldiel’s son sat with one hand on the fire extinguisher, and the other holding up his head as he surveyed the class. One of the curtains was singed.
Chance knocked on the doorframe and Cyldiel’s son- Yup, he got it from his momma-- took in a breath, held it for a moment, and then spoke.
“...I fully admit that I panicked.”
Mr. Chance made the rounds, helping get everyone up and out the door to the shared gym period. He talked with Cyldiel’s son- Mr. Valamin-- about today being music day for the class. Of course, every day was music day with the right attitude.
--
Rolen did not flinch at the sudden influx of bees.
“No flying!” He shouted to the back, where Zoey was attempting to hover subtly above the ground for the rest of her laps.
“Oh, come on.” Zoey groaned as she landed, bees flying out of her gym uniform.
“You’re doing fine.” Rolen assured, as Zoey started padding along again. She fell back into pace with Lavinia, who was quite pleased with the bees.
“Vinnie,” Zoey wheezed, “Do you know why normal people don’t teach gym?”
“Because they’re not qualified?” She wheezed back.
“Because they’re not fools.” Zoey seethed, cursing every low-stamina bone in her body.
--
Anne watched the scene unfold from a distance.
“She did it!” Tamsin hooped.
“I did not!” Emma huffed in indignation.
“Easy, Easy...” Jayne soothed the raging twins, tossing a hostile glance at Rinaldo, the other yard monitor. He did not seem to be invested in the situation beyond moving away from it’s immediate area of sound.
“Who done it?” Lavinia pulled up beside Anne, taking in the view.
Anne narrowed her eyes, giving it a moment of hard contemplation.
“At least one of them.” She said, self-satisfied.
Lavinia accepted this, and they began to mill around the yard together. They talked about dogs they saw recently, as well as other fuzzy animals. They were making their way over to where Zoey was, who seemed to be engaged in conversation with the new student, when Lavinia saw a smear of blue dip into her peripheral vision.
She turned to see Dora, standing with a saggy balloon in her hand and a smirk on her face. Lavinia had no time to give a proper warning before Anne was hit with the water balloon. She stood for a moment, soaking wet.
“Oh no...” Lavinia whispered as she saw Anne light up.
“Vinnie, I love you so much ok, so back away.” Anne papped a hand on Lavinia’s shoulder.
Lavinia made a sad little sound. She walked backwards, keeping an eye on the two of them, and things escalated very quickly. Soon, there was a lot of water, a bit of fire, and some steam.
“Eat a butt!” Anne yelled her battle-cry as she hurled flames at Dora.
“You eat a butt!” Dora responded while she blasted water back at her.
They gathered student attention quickly, and soon some of the teachers were out, observing and performing damage control.
“Get back!” Mr. Hawklight shouted as the students gathered around him, ushered by Rinaldo. The triangle token next to Mr. Hawklight’s whistle glowed as he threw up a shield around the kids. Jayne shifted into her dire wolf form and ran up on Anne, grabbing her by the back of her shirt and removing her from the flaming grass. The rest was put out quickly, but the earth was charred and soggy where they had stood.
“Puppy!” Anne said cheerfully as she was dragged away.
--
“Fire Bug, Water Bug,” Joan gestured to Anne and Dora, “What am I going to do with you two?”
“It’s an honour thing, ma’am.” Anne said directly.
“You know how it is.” Dora added, shrugging.
Joan steepled her hands in reflection. Yeah, she could be honest with herself, she did.
The three of them talked for a while about acceptable battle grounds. Both of them held firm in their vow to eventually destroy each other, but Joan managed to plant the seed of temporary ceasefire between them.
“You’ll crease Mr. Valamin’s pretty face early if this keeps up.” She offered.
They both considered this for a moment, with grave depth.
“Aesthetics are big in Ghanny town.” Dora pondered aloud. Anne was visibly wrestling with her own hedonistic streak.
After a time, they both spat into their palms and shook hands- holding eye contact all the while.
They left the office, and Joan followed them out, pausing to say hello to Lita at the front desk.
Joan watched the two of them disappear down the hall, having a conversation somewhere between theology and aimless ramblings. They both had a peculiar cleverness about them despite their dispositions. Dora was a terminally free spirit; And Anne was simple, but burning. This was not the first, nor the last time she would see them brought in.
Alias approached awkwardly from the side.
“Thank you for talking to them. I couldn’t-”
“You helped.” Joan assured, patting him on the shoulder.
--
“Yeah, they had a godfight again.” Zoey took a tired sip of her juice box.
“Golly.” Grace remarked. She was new, fresh out of homeschooling, and her world seemed to be getting bigger every day.
“It usually doesn’t get that bad. Sometimes they just have word fights, calling each other scrub and stuff. They’re actually not that different, I think that they would get along if it weren't for... Y’know.” Zoey looked out the window at the scorched grass, slowly being brought back to life by the yard duty druid.
“Wow.” Grace looked down at her sandwich thoughtfully. “Do they bring you into that kinda stuff? I-If you’re looking for something, the Triad is pretty good.” Grace took a bite and looked up again.
“Nah, I’m the neutral party. If I were to pick anyone, this whole thing would go up in fla- uh-- it would get really messy.”
“That must be hard.”
“Not really.” Zoey shrugged. “It’s more like not doing something than doing something. I don’t really know about that kinda stuff anyway, and if I did, maybe I would do it wrong and get the gods mad at me or something. Maybe there’s a ‘be myself and see who’s into it’ option.”
Grace meditated on this for the rest of her sandwich. Both Anne and Dora seemed intense, but Lavinia was friendly, and she gave Grace a leaf when she met her. Zoey sat beside her in class, so she was easy to get to know. Grace could make friends here, slowly but surely.
--
The class fished out their recorders as Mr. Goodwood made his way to the front of the room. Lavinia bounced in her seat, eager. She loved music, and her dads told her she was good at it, but she couldn’t be quite sure of their objectivity.
“Good afternoon Mr. Goodwood” The class droned in phonetic unison.
“Bold statement.” He replied.
He took a moment, dourly producing a black recorder from his person. The class was silent as he counted down on his fingers.
Three.
Two.
One-
Outside, a great explosion of birds made their way from the discordant scream of hell itself.
--
Lavinia pointed downwards with gusto.
“Apologize to the grass!” She huffed.
“Sorry grasses.” Anne patted the ground.
“Sorry dudes.” Dora also gave the fresh blades of grass a comforting rub.
“I’m not good at being mad, but this has gotta stop happening you guys.” Lavinia crossed her arms and pouted.
“Boss lady made us truce, so we’re okay now.” Anne said casually, looking up from the ground.
“Really?” Lavinia lit up with hope.
“Until Mrs. Valamin gets better, yeah. We’re chill right now.” Dora gave a demonstrative pat to Anne’s shoulder.
“Why?” Lavinia started to radiate with glee.
“For the greater good.” They said, in unison, both looking to the sky.
--
Alias only started to decompress when he saw the last of the kids leave.
He watched as a half-elf child introduced an aasimar to Dora and Anne, who seemed to be getting along reasonably well for the moment. Alias was confused by that, but he would gladly accept the peace for now. They loaded onto the bus, and could be seen through the windows chatting with each other.
In the parking lot, a stern looking Mr. Earlin chaperoned his triplets into a van. Eulic, Yulik and Julick disappeared one by one under his cold surveillance. Julick turned to wave at a pair of twins, one of which waved back, before he vanished into the vehicle. What are the odds? Alias thought as the van pulled away.
His eyes widened as he saw the car pulling into the parking lot. Alias cursed in disbelief as he watched Cyldiel park in a nearby space and get out, heading straight for him.
“You should be in bed!” He met her halfway, looking her up and down to see if she was shaking.
“You didn’t call.”She looked pale, much paler than usual, but she held firm.
“I was going to...” Alias sighed.
“Did you need to use the fire extinguisher?”
“Mother.”
“Hmm?” Cyldiel narrowed her eyes, pushing closer.
“Yes, I did, and I knew exactly where it was, so don’t worry about me right now. You should be resting.” Alias put his arm around her for support as he helped her back into the car.
--
After a few days of absence, and an abundance of herbal remedies, Cyldiel was back on her feet. The kids were outside for lunch recess, and she stood by the window with her coffee. She heard slow, deliberate footsteps behind her, and turned around with little enthusiasm.
“You’ve raised a good boy. I heard you checked back on the first day to see if he still had all his fingers and toes?” Joan took a sly sip of coffee.
“He is a good boy. I can see he managed well here, the children seemed to behave themselves around him.” Cyldiel gave her best, tightly held, passive-aggressive smile.
“We’ll see if it holds.” Joan smirked back.
“Children are prone to petty fights and grudges.” Cyldiel brushed some of her hair behind her ear, looking out onto the yard.
Outside, kids were moving around at different paces. Some of them were in the air, while others yelled after them in a game of tag. A little circle of druids were playing with the grass. Lavinia and her little group were bouncing a ball back and forth, talking among themselves.
“Some are not so petty. But, we learn to manage, as we mature.” Joan looked out to the little group, watched it, and probably waited for hell to break loose. She took another sip, and looked back over to Cyldiel.
Cyldiel blinked, slowly, and found the inner peace to clamp down on the words she would prefer to say.
“Indeed.”