As they approached the Hall, Oisín grew quiet, his chin up as he cast a glance through the crowd of other First Years trudging in bits and batches to breakfast after Stands. Cole only noticed (well, perhaps not ‘only’) because he was determinedly refusing to do the same, both because it forwarded his careless attitude and because then he might actually find someone he was obliged to be social with.
“Who catches your eye?” Cole asked, investing his question with as much ribald playfulness as he could muster.
Oisín’s grin flashed and faded, leaving him looking rather embarrassed as he tried to come up with a sufficient lie to put Cole off.
“It’s nothing like that,” he said uneasily, trying to laugh.
“Ah, then who are we avoiding?”
Slightly disappointing to see how keenly this shot found its mark. He credited Oisín with being rather self-possessed, admirably able to play the games of the Academy despite beginning at something of disadvantage, given his late start.
“Well,” Oisín said, with too long a pause, “I do have some mates I planned to study with.”
If he was cautiously trying not to insinuate Cole wasn’t invited along to these plans, he needn’t have bothered.
“Oh, that’s terribly dull,” Cole said, with smiling nonchalance. “You really ought to make more exciting plans.”
“Not everyone can afford plans as exciting as yours,” Oisín joked back, ease returning.
“They really should,” he said. “I think it would get a few of them to relax more.”
“Not everyone can afford to relax,” Oisín mumbled almost too low to be heard.
By then they had reached the door – the usual shuffling, low-toned babbling, squeezing and turning and (unfathomably irritating) stopping right in the middle of where everyone was trying to go breaking up groups and conversation. Cole waved a light goodbye as they each parted for their own areas of gustatory interest. Oisín was the sort that could hardly stand more than a light porridge for breakfast, an extremity he had been forced to by the sheer amount of physical work they did now. Cole, perhaps unsurprisingly, was into sausages.
At least lately. They had gotten some kind of spectacular shipment – Kiso had identified some infinitely fine regional variant in the spices that made these exemplars of the sausage race – and for at least a week had great, shining piles of them stacked steaming at one end of the breakfast line.
Cole had not anticipated that the Academy would be able to offer food unavailable in the city. There was something about logistics and scale to be learned there, as well as the friendly relationships with the Relay that allowed bargaining at a distance to happen with greater ease than the average city merchant could accomplish. It also meant that Cole was going to be offered exceptional sausages in plenty, probably for longer than he ever desired them, and could expect them to lie in wait at the bottom of soups once he was entirely sick of them.
For now, though, it was glorious.
After glory came the fall, however, and he spotted the convergence of the Prep cadets at a table towards one side of the long hall. The promise of breakfast and the long walk over meant that he was unbothered, if not content, by the time he took his seat. Passing light greetings to the others amidst conversations already in progress, it was his turn to look around, chin up, for Oisín.
Going down the aisle between two tables, Oisín caught his wave and hesitated, then resumed the walk towards him. Cole suggested some of the others budge up to make room. Oisín, poised before the bench (Cole was already plowing through another sausage) hesitated again. Cole looked up in time to catch him looking at Lin, who looked back, cool arrogance unperturbed. Finanin, a seat down from Lin, also noticed.
“Oh, did somebody mention the baggage?”
Light laughter erupted from the three or four or shared a Tactics class with Oisín and Lin. Cole smiled only to play along – it was a stupid joke.
“Please, let’s not mention the baggage,” Lin said lazily, half-smile on his face.
“Yes,” said Enda, grinning as he stabbed at a pancake on his plate, “we might have a fight with the logisticians again and be late to class.”
This was all very stupid, but Cole, looking back, could see the fiery displeasure under Oisín’s neutral expression.
“Come, sit,” Cole said, “ignore them if they can’t handle their own baggage.”
For a moment, Oisín hung suspended, then Lin, toying with his mug, said, “Really, Cole?” in a tired voice.
This changed the battlefield. Cole looked up at Lin over his sausages. Lin, nigh-expressionless, challenged him.
“I actually just came over to say I changed my mind,” Oisín said to Cole, “I won’t be headed back to the room after lunch, so you should make time to get those books you wanted.”
A lie – Cole wanted no books (carrying them made him look desperate to study, and they were heavy) and they had discussed no such faor. As Oisín turned on his heel to leave, Cole spotted his destination – a waiting gaggle of braile-brieth cadets, just a few tables down, all rapt until they moment they spotted Cole’s attention on them, when various abstract features of the room became instantly fascinating.
But without ado, the cadets who had scooted down to make room for Oisín tumbled like fluffed birds back into the space they had cleared, and Cole’s attention came back to the table, and to Lin.
“Tits, what a stupid conversation that was,” Enda said. “I can’t imagine being so obsessed with baggage.”
The table erupted
“Are logisticians a thing?”
“I don’t think that’s a word.”
“Well, there must be somebody who does it.”
“Nobody who’s trying to be a real officer.”
“What are we even talking about?”
“Shut up – you had to be there.”
“Blood and Honour, be grateful you weren’t,” Finanin said, laughing.
“I know he’s your roommate, Cole, but really,” Lin said quietly – perfectly audible to the rest of the table, who hung on most of his words anyway, but as if he were trying to spare Cole embarrassment.
“I sleep well,” Cole returned, as if it mattered not at all to him, “and only risk learning a thing or two.”
Enda and Finanin cut over each other – “We know WHY you sleep well, and it’s not your roommates,” and “Learning to be unbelievably boring?”
Cole laughed at both of these, as did the rest of the table.
“Just because you’re roommates,” Lin drawled, “doesn’t mean you have to keep company. How you can stand such... low-bred society is beyond me.”
The other ‘low-bred’ attendees at the table shrank back, chuckling nervously under the derisive agreement of those with more pedigree.
Cole had to fix his grin on his face, lest any other expression intervene, hoping no one noticed the shake at the corners of his mouth the strain of it caused. “We all hope to have for company a great deal of society of low-breeding, don’t we?”
“What?” Finanin said, strictly puzzled.
“Well,” Enda meant to explain in a low voice, but found he couldn’t.
“Soldiers,” Cole laughed, all the more pleasant for being at least a little genuine. “If we’re going to be officers, we can expect to spend a great deal of time among soldiers, or with mostly soldiers for company. Few of them write their family names in the Book.”
“Oh,” said Ardghal gently, “you expect to consort with soldiers often?”
“I’ll say he does,” Enda jested, rather spitefully, but a look from Cole stifled him.
“It stands to reason,” Aspen offered levelly. Like Ardghal, he obviously considered this a matter for thought rather than just breakfast-time piss-taking.
“Oh, please,” Lin sighed, “as if officers should consort with soldiers – surely it’s better practice to keep the strata separate.”
“One must maintain distance,” Finanin rolled out in admirable imitation of the Northern accents of the Swordplay ollamh, “for defense, for dignity, for respect.”
This caused a general laugh, much-needed as the tension between Cole and Lin seethed barely under the conversation’s surface.
“Either way,” Cole said, picking up another sausage, “‘In a town, lies a house/ in a room, lies a bed/ but cook, father, or mother/ in the bed/ lies a lover.’”
“I just don’t know how you remember so many poems.”
“He makes up half of them.”
“And how would you know?”
“He just has to,” Enda grumbled, “there can’t be THAT many poems for any situation.”
“I don’t even know what he means,” Ardghal – with a head for everything except perhaps metaphorical language – said morosely.
“Doesn’t matter,” Kiso said over a mouthful, holding up one greasy finger for emphasis nearly causing him to drop his knife, “stake down your tent.”
“I don’t know what that means either,” he responded faintly.
“Yes, getting along with your roommates is one thing...” Lin said, but his affectation of slow-talking ease left room for Cole to interject.
“If one’s roommates can be gotten along with, one should,” Cole added amiably, and to general agreement.
If the interruption infuriated him – and it surely did – Lin chose not to pursue it. Probably because if he was tempted into bad-mouthing his own roommates (or defending them) he ran the risk of disrupting his own domestic peace. And Cole would certainly force the issue.
Conversation returned to its senseless, surface-level breakfast patter, but it took a long moment for Cole and Lin to turn their gazes from one another.
This was punishment.
In discussion in Tactics, Cole had taken Oisín’s side against the Prep cadets. To be honest, he had done so not because it was such a great idea that Oisín had brought into the discussion, but because he had lost control of his irritation after the latest addition to the uncountable total of snide, superior dismissals of the ideas of anyone who wasn’t in their group (it was a defensible idea, but far from the best idea that had been so dismissed). This was less offensive than the fact that when Lin had issued a biting, sarcastic rebuttal meant to end the matter entirely, Cole had instead mounted a more furious rejoinder.
He had lost his mind a little. It had been a very trying day. He didn’t truly care, and suspected he could have made good with Oisín later without defending his idea in class any further, but...
At the time, it had seemed pertinent. And he had been infuriated, and struggling to hide it. And it really wasn’t so stupid of an idea – and, and, and...
He could justify it all day, but he had lost his temper, and instead of laughing it off and agreeing with Lin had forced the class into a discussion of logistics and thereby stepped out of his place (that the ollamh called it ‘very productive’ didn’t soothe his fury or help the situation).
So, yes, this was punishment. Cole debated internally whether Lin would feel it sufficient punishment.
His hand was shaking. He bit into the sausage and switched hands, taking a deep breath, shaking out his fingers as if to clear them of grease. Made himself smile along as the banter continued. His other hand was also shaking, but he could hold it so the shaking was less obvious until he was better able to get a handle on his fury.
Lin would get his, but Cole had to be patient.
Only a year or so – a year in which they would become only more terrifically busy, and maybe Lin would grow tired of his own unpleasantness. Or, more likely, another cadet would and would eventually fix it for him. And then Cole could glide smoothly into Lin’s place, and Lin’s buffer of cadets defending their own rank could become his. Better beloved, he expected it to be a much more pleasant regime – maybe even one that could last into the first few months of their Second Year, a desperate an overall disgusting time if everything he had head proved true. (There was nothing about Second Year that made it so, except that everyone left for the break between years and returned ready to either make over or make good their reputations. A fresh start that led to fresh grudges).
Until then, everyone had to think this sort of thing was normal – become used to the hierarchy the Prep cadets established and maintained – such that they didn’t give a thought to overturning it. Once the battleground levelled, they would all struggle, so Cole was happy to keep it tilted in his favor, for now, even if it demanded a little sacrifice.
The minute it asked too much, he could always abandon it.
In the physical classes, there were different rules than in the more academic classes.
It hadn’t taken long for the Academy to overrun the knowledge imparted to the cadets who had attended Preparatory – just long enough a few were no longer used to struggle, or at least deeply reluctant to return to it. It helped that standards of performance were so much more stringent. Whereas Prep drilled and drilled and drilled and let those drills get sloppy, the Academy expected drill-perfect performance in bouts and moved on the moment the majority achieved this. Those that fell behind were left behind, to use their spare time to reach perfection or to mourn their life choices.
One quickly had to adapt to the fact that one never really knew how a class bout was going to go these days. Some nobody, or worse, some braile-breith cadet could come from nowhere, having practiced for hours in the off time, and mastering a set of forms absolutely wipe the floor with any number of superior cadets. This infuriated and unsettled most of the Prep cadets (except Aspen, upset by no stout competition, and Cole, upset by nothing), meaning their alliance came more and more into play as the balancing factor in maintaining their dominant position.
Losses in class didn’t mount quite like losses in Cogadh, or failure in examinations, but ollamh noticed a consistent loser, and a consistent winner. It was beyond most of them to achieve consistent winner status, so avoiding being a consistent loser would have to do. They couldn’t make every cadet afraid to face them, but they could make it consequential to beat any of them.
This was the social layering on top of the sheer performance of rank. Aspen resented it, a position which Cole could understand, if he bothered to give any thought to the possibility of things working a different way. But then he would be annoyed and dissatisfied, so he didn’t give it any thought.
Sweat soon turned cold in the moments of rest between bouts as the weather, like an overloaded cork boat, finally showed indications it would tip soon into winter. It had been a long fall already, a bit too warm this late in the year, which everyone familiar with this region of the country grimly predicted a deep and bitter cold to come. Extremes were never good.
Cole’s last bout had been hard, but he resisted throwing himself to the ground or making too much of a show of wiping his brow, no matter how the cold sweat prickled. Breath was the only thing he couldn’t control – he needed to pull deep lungfulls of air in – and that would have to do for admiration of his opponent’s increased skill. Likewise, his screaming muscles would have to live screaming with the fact he wouldn’t let them rest as long as they weren’t obviously shaking. He had found another quiet niche buried deep in the buildings that would let him exercise away from the rock field and the prying eyes of other cadets, and had maybe overdone it a little. Determined not to build up a pattern to his movements, it had taken him too long to find this new place and thus had been too long since he had exercised.
So now he stood, weight casually on one leg, arms resting with thumbs hooked into the pockets of his jacket, its bottom bunched over his elbows as he had it slung over his shoulders like a cape, observing cooly and physically desiring death to free him from his pain.
In the center of their practice group, a low-ranking Prep cadet named Fiachra faced off against a ferocious country cadet named Mathúin. Cole had little acquaintance with either, and was thus listening to Aspen and Trail dissect the match.
“Well, you can’t blame him, can you? He’s had it out for Prep cadets from the beginning.”
“Mostly Brahn,” Aspen corrected absently.
“Which one?”
“Inntachtig, though they hardly see one another.”
“At least it wasn’t a ‘Brid’,” said Trail, properly named Brahn Toirdhealbhach, both of those being given names as he refused to acknowledge his family name beyond what it took to get his pedigree recognized among the noble Prep cadets, and going by either Brahn or Brid in this place was useless.
“He could just be good,” which was high praise from Aspen.
“No,” Trail said, “he’s just got a grudge.”
“Doesn’t mean he’s not good,” Aspen said, and watching Mathúin ferociously throw Fiachra to the ground, “that was good.”
“That was unnecessary,” Trail returned, as Mathúin had followed up the throw with a desperately violent and half-cocked blow to Fiachra’s side.
Aspen only grunted and nodded. Cole noted the way a small group of the other non-Prep cadets clenched their fists, a few letting out quiet cheers of triumph.
Fiachra, having guarded well from the blow, also interpreted this as unnecessarily brutal violence, given the way his face scrunched with rage and the ready position he took after twisting furiously to get his feet under him and rise up from the ground. Cole kept a wary eye out for the ollamh, but as usual, he was trusting a group of highly-ranked cadets to self-monitor and give more attention to those struggling at the bottom of the class (a feature of his lessons the Prep cadets both took advantage of and derided as a waste).
The grapple rejoined had little to do with their current lesson, but was more the butting of two rams against one another. The group of non-Prep cadets was only barely stifling their shouts of encouragement as Mathúin seemed to hold the upper hand.
“It’s not his time,” Naos observed, joining their conversation.
“He’s got one or two victories to stretch into,” Trail replied.
Aspen only glowered – this rationing of the ‘victories’ allowed non-Prep cadets irritated him.
“Not like that,” Cole finally weighed in.
Mathúin had been flagging, obviously struggling though equally obviously still winning. He might have eked out a draw – that would be the tactical thing to do, the thing that would meet social expectations – but instead he desperately swept Fiachra’s foot out from under him. With little guard against serious injury, he dropped forward with his whole weight on one knee onto Fiachra’s prone body, and had he landed true might have grievously injured either his thigh or stomach. The thigh was perhaps the thing he could be arguing he was aiming for, as such a blow to the stomach could have put Fiachra with the medics for month, as the best possible outcome.
Fiachra was able at the last second to both deflect and cushion the blow with his arms, body twisting snake like aside so at most Fiachra’s full weight only grazed his side. The match should have been called – and technically was, for all the good the cadet-judge’s shout to halt did – but now Fiachra was furious.
Again, the tactical thing would be to pull aside and wait to take vengeance in their next match. Fiachra had been losing and would have lost even without the desperate act Mathúin had taken. But both had made moves to put the bout beyond the class’ petty rules.
“You motherless wretch,” Fiachra said, finger raised into Mathúin’s face.
“Blood-drinking sow,” Mathúin shot back (the country folk reacted very pointedly to this, though its import – beyond drinking blood and being a pig not being ideal states – was lost on Cole. City insults had a lot more to do with family, cleanliness, and... well, faeces in general).
A real fistfight threatened – was, in fact, breaking out, being cheered on by the now openly vocal non-Prep cadet group (most of the non-Prep cadets were keeping out of it, which was smart). Aspen looked tired. The other Prep cadets, for some reason, looked at Cole.
Well, he knew the reason. He just thought it was very stupid, and also, was very tired himself. The only downside to not allowing himself to vocally complain about how tired and sore he was might be that people assumed he would step in as the highest-ranking cadet in such situations. It certainly wasn’t going to be their miniscule judge, somewhere down in the seventies, though he was, at least, shouting at them.
Cole grabbed Fiachra – who needed the most protection – and dragged him away, one arm out to insist to Mathúin that he not approach. They were still shouting at one another, but Fiachra was more likely to listen to Cole without feeling like he was losing face. And he did, in that he looked at Cole as if ready though reluctant to let the battle go...
Except that Fiachra’s eyes widened just a bit too much–
Cole spun back around and narrowly avoided taking Mathúin’s fist to his face. A low blow – a coward’s blow, aimed right at the back of his head. Mathúin sought to press the fight even with Cole now facing him, but instead, Cole used his still-outstretched left arm to seize Mathúin’s shirt front, stepping in and around to the right to use the force of Mathúin’s ready and already flying left fist to spin him around and over Cole’s cocked hip. Mathúin’s back hit the ground only because Cole had practiced enough not to fling him down directly onto his face – faces bled and caused a lot of concern impacting the ground like that.
He gasped like a fish, the breath knocked clean out of his lungs. Cole’s muscles screamed at him some more. Yes, a big twist like that with his sore back and stomach was much more than he really wanted to do, much less unexpectedly, today.
An abrupt silence had fallen over the ring of cadets, and Cole – thinking only of the fact that NOW he could probably sit down – realized as he was walking back to where Aspen and other Prep cadets stood that they were staring at him as if puzzled (well, not Aspen – Aspen had that expression he often had when mentally taking notes). Cole turned back to make sure he wasn’t going to be attacked, and saw a seething hatred on the faces of the non-Prep cadets – but no one dared approach. Not him, and not their comrade, gasping on the ground.
“Well?” Cole cocked his head at them, and returned to help Mathúin up, but as he bent, Mathúin struck his hand away, making a pitiful attempt to both catch his breath and roll himself to the side and up on his own power (neither quite succeeded).
Cole sighed and raised himself up (he hadn’t wanted to do that, either – oh his poor back muscles), and this time didn’t look back or up at his own side until he was back on the edge of the circle and could sit down. Once he was down, the non-Prep cadets rescued their friend from the center of the circle.
“Playing it a bit too cool, aren’t you?” Trail asked.
Cole frowned, mostly from fatigue. “Fiachra, are you all right?”
Fiachra – who, Cole thought, was smart enough to realize he had made a series of stupid mistakes and that being rescued by Cole from his own furious stupidity wasn’t a great result compared to taking a draw – stood uncertainly a moment before trying to match Cole’s sangfroid. (See? He was smart).
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, brushing himself off and trying to hide the tremor of rage still quaking in his voice. “That brazen little country fuck couldn’t get me without cheating.”
This wasn’t true – Cole hoped they all realized this wasn’t true – but it didn’t matter.
“I’m tired,” Cole said. “How much longer until Tactics?”
“Only you would look forward to Tactics,” Naos grunted.
Cole unwittingly evoked an omen.
Though nobody discussed it directly – at least around him – Tactics made it clear that this breach of the subjection demanded by the Prep cadets (and, by inference, Cole’s unsatisfactory handling of it) had reached the rest of the higher-ranking cadets, including Lin.
Nothing any non-Prep cadet said was left un-derided. No thought was good enough. No idea worth acknowledging. No person worthy of any response but ridicule. It got bad enough to annoy the ollamh, who offered to prove to them all, this moment, they were equally idiotic, and let their ranks reflect it. After that, it merely simmered, building heat, beneath the surface of the class.
Through silent glowers, barely noticeable gestures, the requirement of a settlement was made clear.
Cole, though he hoped not to be involved at all, hoped it might be resolved in Groups, but the cool separation of Lin and the other Prep cadets from deep engagement with their exercises that evening refused such an informal resolution. Mathúin and the little knot of non-Prep cadets also drew back, making the ordeal one of uniform agreement: this was a matter of honor.
That meant it couldn’t happen until dinner.
And if Cole had any luck at all, he could make some excuse to head back to the dorms and miss the whole thing. With that in mind, he not-so-surreptitiously sought Oisín, hoping they could conspire on some decent excuse to absent themselves.
It was a very rude surprise to find him not only in company with Mathúin and the other non-Prep cadets spoiling for the fight. Though he arrived from a different direction, Cole appeared only moments before Lin and the others did as well.
Oisín’s look at Cole was a hard one, though tinged with something like regret – maybe even pity. The approach of the Prep cadets catching the attention of his companions left Oisín and Cole only a moment to confer.
“Surely, there’s better things to do,” Cole said.
“Not really,” Oisín said. Then, with more pleading in his voice, “Don’t you think it’s enough? They step all over us, all the time.”
“It’s only a little while,” Cole whispered.
“A little while?” Oisín said, disbelieving. “It shouldn’t happen at all.”
“It won’t last long,” Cole said, glancing over to make sure the others were still too far to hear, “and then you can get it all back. The battlefield will level.”
“It should BE level,” Oisín said firmly, “now. Isn’t that the point of this place?”
“Yes, but,” Cole said quickly, following the approach of Lin and the others with his eyes.
“But you don’t have to work at keeping imbalanced,” Oisín interrupted, before going on more quietly. “I know you won’t say it, but you think this is stupid, too – all this gaming, all this rank, nobility, city-born bullshit. If it’s not even going to last, stop helping it along.”
With this plea, the short time for their conference ended. The Prep cadets squared off against the group, headed by Mathúin.
“There are rules,” Lin said, in his usual, drawling, arrogant way.
“You shouldn’t get to set them,” Mathúin snapped back.
“Some are born to rule,” Lin replied. “Some are not.”
“Bullshit.” This came from Oisín, who had pushed to the front by Mathúin’s side.
Lin raised his brows, as if surprised he would dare to speak. “Such eloquence clearly signifies leadership qualities.”
“I’m tired of this shit,” Mathúin said, and indeed, now Cole noticed he had obviously been taking beatings, and for some time given the age revealed by the healing of his bruises, and the dark circles under his eyes. He was a stout person, broad shouldered, but with a delicate chin and dark brown curly hair held back by a tie. Cole suspected that even without the rare shine of strong character polishing him up, he would be handsome.
Terrible shame he had chosen this moment to show off that character.
“If these contests were fair, half of you wouldn’t be ranked as high as you are now. But they’re not. You bully us. You come after us in off hours. You fuck up our studying and prevent us from getting time to talk in class. You’re assholes. Almost as bad as the Second Years. And you don’t deserve the position of leadership, you’ve set yourselves above us for no reason.”
“Not for no reason,” Lin answered, looking over the group assembled behind him. Even without Aspen, they made a much more formidable group than the non-Prep cadets, who didn’t even match them in number. Height alone told them apart.
“For dumbass reasons,” Mathúin countered.
“For reasons we’ll be happy to demonstrate to you.”
Brave, but not stupid, Mathúin could count, and much of this patter was for formality’s sake anyway.
“It doesn’t have to affect everyone. We’ve all got classes to attend.”
“You issue a challenge?”
With only a fractional hesitation, Mathúin nodded. “I’ll take you. One-on-one.”
“Take me?” Lin queried, hand to his chest, curious but unconcerned.
“Any of you,” Mathúin said – again, he wasn’t stupid.
The whole benefit of being First, with this Prep cadet group behind him, was that Lin rarely had to fight on his own behalf. Mathúin was right that it was both tiring and stupid to arrange additional combat work, much less risk the additional injuries. It was also doubly good Aspen wasn’t here, then. That honor bouts were stupid – and the fact that he agreed with Mathúin – was more than enough reason for Aspen both not to be around and not to be encouraged to be around. It was still ballsy, however – Lin could accept the challenge himself, and he was a formidable opponent, or Gother, ranked eighth, who stood behind him – a rematch with Fiachra, rested though he now was, would likely go the same way...
Except Lin was looking at him. At Cole. At Cole who was going that leaning thing precisely because his muscles had only become moderately less screamy by the end of the day.
“You’re obviously not fit for it, and I’m obviously overkill,” Lin said to Mathúin. “He’s your next-ranked, and he’s mine.”
Sheer coincidence, though Lin could not have planned it better. Oisín ranked just above Mathúin, while Cole ranked just below Lin (after absent Aspen). There were others of higher rank than Mathúin in the group, who now pushed forward, but there was a certain balance to the arrangement that appealed to such contests.
“You also tried to sucker-punch him,” Lin said to Mathúin, “so there is something to settle there – and you should care,” he said to Cole.
“And yet, I don’t much care,” Cole said, hoping to some degree his coolness of attitude would put Lin off actively selecting him. “We settled that in class.”
But no – this was punishment.
“If this were about class, we wouldn’t be here,” Lin said.
While this exchange went on, furious whispered arguments happened amongst the non-Prep cadets. Cole wasn’t sure of anything except that they were all trying to dissuade Mathúin from accepting the challenge as a personal one. Cole had handled him too easily in class.
“I’ll do it,” Oisín said, stepping forward.
Some of the higher-ranked non-Prep cadets seemed unhappy with this, but unwilling to argue. After all, Oisín was an almost-even trade, and they had seen him fight against Cole in class before.
“Can’t someone else defend our honor?” Cole said, using all of his persona lazy geniality to make his case. “I’m really rather tired.”
“Well, that will help even the odds, then” said Enda. “And we can all be saved having to get together for such nonsense again.
“I don’t need odds-evening,” Oisín said, stepping out between both groups, who already began to form a circle.
“Really, it’s not about that...” Cole complained.
“What is it about, then, Third?” Lin said, folding his arms. “Either you’re willing, or you’re not – at least your little roommate is being brave about it.”
Fuck you, Lin, Cole thought, but couldn’t say. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.
He knew. He knew. This was a double punishment, then.
Cole had always handled Oisín too easily in class, too, just not in the same way he ‘handled’ Mathúin. Lin had quietly called him out for it before – it was probably why it was so easy for Oisín to attract his ire in the first place.
“This is foolish,” Cole said, facing Oisín, whose fists were up, feet already starting to circle.
“The whole thing is foolish,” Oisín said. “But I guess we’ll find out if you’re a fool,” (at this there were some gasps) “or at least how much foolishness you’re willing to take. It’s about time you had to pick a side, anyway.”
“I honestly might rather be a fool tonight,” Cole said, both to cool the insult and beg Oisín to let it go. Or at least show some sign he wasn’t taking this as seriously as seemed to be.
“Then fight, fool,” Oisín punctuated this by closing in.
Cole dodged his first blow easily, but it had hardly been meant. Dodging the second put a bit more pressure on Oisín to either mean the third, or switch tactics. He did try the third, and Cole honored him by batting it aside.
Perhaps it was then it started to sink in, or perhaps that was Cole’s wishful thinking. Heat built behind Oisín’s attacks, as he switched from trying to box to closing for grappling. Here, in the grapple, where he thought he could use his better grounding to his advantage, he only found Cole unmoveable. Sweat started on his brow, because now he truly knew – he had to – how badly he had volunteered to outmatch himself.
Cole let him make almost all of the offensive moves, and stalemated anything he couldn’t outright push aside. The cheering on the non-Prep side dipped as the stalemate continued, the silence of the Prep cadets overwhelming.
Oisín kept trying, until sweat turned almost to silent tears. His desperation drove wilder and wilder attacks – blatantly against formal class rules, and then tipping into being against the much less restrictive rules of combats of honor.
In the next clench, Cole whispered, “This needs to end before you do something you’ll regret.”
This sapped the strength of Oisín’s assault, and Cole tossed him back – hard enough to separate them, not so hard that Oisín fell. The clear determination of his last attack had caused the non-Prep cadets to renew their cheering with even greater force, and now it choked and hollowed again as both they and Oisín realized he was going to lose.
The only question was how hard.
Cole wanted it to be as soft as possible.
Yet in that moment, at opposite ends of the circle, he could see Oisín decide he was going to make it as hard as he could possibly stand.
That was why he threw himself forward, and Cole rocked him back with a blow to the jaw. He close, not half-risen from his reeling, and Cole grabbed and rolled him back onto the ground. Oisín rose, dizzy and bleeding, and tried a kick – really none of them were good at, or supposed to be doing many kicks yet – and Cole closed, the few blows they exchanged quickly becoming Cole punching Oisín, who could do little but absorb it.
Cole held him up by his shirt. “Tag out – call it – you’ve done well enough.”
Oisín spit blood in his face. “Coward.”
Cole ended it.
Hal touched the stone of the Library walls, dragging his fingers along as he walked, and had filthy thoughts.
Surely that wasn’t what most people thought upon entering a library, but then again, he wasn’t exactly here for the Library.
Yesterday had been a bad day; he knew it had been a bad day.
Something trilled in his chest, and he felt properly bad about it, but not for long. A bad day was a chance to make the next day good, and he was the lucky one who had found that out.
He didn’t know exactly where Cole went – no one did – but he knew more or less where to find him. When he would be hidden, if not where. And there were some where he knew to search.
It wasn’t really the library, but a sort-of-secret set of alcoves that had been created around the library when parts of it had been closed in by other buildings being built around it. He only knew about it because on another bad day, he had stumbled across the fabled Esras Cole studying furiously, in the semi-secret dark.
He had been first astounded, and then incredibly nervous, though Fortune Favor him he hoped he showed neither. He suspected he didn’t, because otherwise he thought Cole might have taken advantage of one or the other. Instead, the advantage had been all Hal’s, as, off-guard, Cole had simply stared at him, something unfathomable stirring deep in those cold blue eyes.
He knew he had seen something secret. Esras Cole, studying! He pretended like he never did, but it stood to reason he put as much time into it as everyone else. He just preferred to do it alone.
That didn’t mean he preferred to be alone.
Or so Hal had discovered. Once Hal had seen him, there was no reason to pretend. And without any reason to pretend, Cole was actually quite charming. Oh, sure, he was easy-going, humorous, ready with a nice bit of verse or reference in social settings, but he didn’t socialize, strictly speaking, with those at Hal’s rank. Critically, though, he wasn’t like the others – he didn’t NOT socialize, either. In fact, he could be rather gratuitously social, and by that Hal meant he would fuck your brains out if you caught his eye and were so inclined.
Sure, maybe Hal was a little inclined, but he knew better. He knew a lot better. And Hal was good at what Hal did, too, so while nothing happened the first time, and nothing happened to second time (equally fortuitous), by the third time, they were ready to fuck each others’ brains out.
Hal had shown a little of what he could do, which was ride well, and Cole had shown a little of what he could do, which was make that ride good and lasting. Since then, they had discovered a few more of each others’ talents, and though it hadn’t led to any more public socializing, Hal took that as a good sign.
He had a secret permission, a way in – knew things others weren’t allowed to know about the third-highest ranked cadet in their class. He opened up to Hal. Hal opened up for him.
So maybe he could be excused his dirty thoughts, by-chance wandering in the hidden places of the library.
It wasn’t anything serious – it couldn’t be, could it? It was just fucking, and Hal happened to know it was fucking occurring alongside fucking a lot of other cadets, too. But none had lasted.
Hal didn’t intend for it to last, but he was certainly going to get as much out of it as he could. And he did like that smile – the one he saw now, turning a corner to find a tucked-away spot, in which lounged Esras Cole, feet up, book in his lap ready to be tossed aside – and the semi-secrecy. Anybody could know they were fucking, but they didn’t know all the stuff that went on around it.
That was fine, if he could get that smile, and return it. Feel that hand on his waist, and the bump of the hips that came with it. They rarely had to talk first – that would come after.
And the secret to be shared, that maybe he was a little bit in love.
For now, just fucking would do, though.