Another bright day – another evening’s lounging. Cast about like cats, the Prep cadets and their hangers-on, the picture of leisure, exuded tension like a dice-holding debtor’s naked flop sweat.
The loud attempt at casual conversation by some of the less sensitive and/or more desperate only accentuated the discord, but not one of the highest-ranked cadets had broken their subject-specific silence, so no one else dared to.
“...didn't have to go on about it like last time. What did you think of that Ehren's... Ehren's...?”
“Maneuver. It's a man-oooooo-vur, you dunce.”
“Maneuvers. Feints. Plots. Bullfarts. Couldn't understand a word of it, anyway,” Gother insisted. “Bloody Geronese, what's he doing down here anyway?”
“Oh, Wide-Eyed Mercy, give it a rest – he’s got an accent, not a raiding party,” Trail muttered.
“You soft, southern bastards may have forgotten–”
“Nobody’s forgotten!” Kiso objected.
“Like you’d fuckin’ let us,” Fiachra, newly allowed in their sprawling company, added.
“– down in SHEEPFUCKER country–”
“Blood and Death,” sighed Kiso.
“...forty fuckin’ years ago...” Trail, voice semi-lost in the babble, broke through.
“Cole– ” another voice pierced the chattering veil.
“I remember–”
“Gother, you don’t remember shit.”
“Your Dad, maybe...”
“Your GRANDAD...
“Your GRANDAD remembers BEING TOLD ABOUT...”
“Cole,” the voice said, more insistently.
“I think he’s asleep,” Enda observed.
He was not, Cole thought in self-narration, but Sweet Peace, let them think so. HE wanted nothing to do with the heavy tension in the air – later – later, with some privacy, he might speak with Aspen.
Aspen, who he could see in the fog of his lashes when he cracked open his eyes, sitting on a high rock, hunched like a gargoyle, elbow draped over knee with the hand feeding the edge of an unwrapped bit of the bandage around his head into his absently grinding teeth.
“THE POINT BEING,” Gother stormed, “what’s the bloody point if we can’t bloody understand a word he’s saying?”
“Sounds like an individual issue,” Trail observed, fiddling with a twig by his feet.
Gother, risen to an unexpected Eighth, rose as if to begin a confrontation, only to have Kiso, a Fourteenth who could probably beat him in a fight, catch him with a raised hand and firm under-the-brows stare.
“Bravery’s Balls,” Kiso said, as if the gestures hadn’t happened, “he’s from the bloody border, you twit.”
“But, Cole–”
“Leave him be,” said Enda.
“Why would you wake him, you nit?” Finanin, so far too intimidated to speak, joined in.
The ‘nit’ was Aibhne, still ranked so low it was impolite to observe the exact number, and deeply under threat in such company, except that Cole liked him. He also either knew Cole wasn’t asleep, or didn’t care; the former, if true, Cole didn’t like at all, but the latter he might admire.
“None of the northern cadets have such gammy accents.”
“The northern cadets do to, you just don’t hear it because you sound like a bloody horse humper.”
“Cole,” Aibhne said firmly.
“What am I going to have to tell you, low-fifties?” Enda asked.
“See, it should be the fellows from out by the Pass who are called horse-humpers,” Kiso said.
“The sheep-fuckers are properly miners,” Trail replied.
“Not all of them,” Fiachra objected. “I would say about half.”
“I just think it’s hard enough around here without accents.”
With this, Gother barrelled slightly too close to the Forbidden Subject, and Aibhne took his chance.
“Cole, what are you going to do?”
“About what?” Kiso intervened – and Fate could shit on him for his cleverness, for he diverted them all from what they knew was the matter at hand by adding: “Pleading after a broken heart? You’re not friends with Piet, are you?”
“Piet?” exclaimed Fiachra, toppling everyone but the very highest-ranked cadets into speech at once.
“...don't remember him at Prep...”
“...a baile-breith cadet, fresh of the city? Really?”
“...that blond one, with the curly hair?”
“...what is he, Seventieth?”
“...is that even allowed? What is his Foundations section? One of the ones where they’re still learning how to read?”
“...bit low to be playing around with someone who can’t afford to lose a rank, in my opinion...”
“...What happened to that other one? The sandy-haired one with the clever moves? Is he free now?”
“You mean man-oooooo-vurs?”
“Shut up,” Lin said sharply, likewise having been lying with his eyes closed in the grass. This was the first time he had spoken since the gathering started.
And they all did.
Except–
“What are you going to do about Cogadh?”
Well – there it was. Honestly, Cole felt a little relieved. He let out a sigh, cracked an eye open and, temporarily sun-blinded, searched for Aibhne.
“I’ll handle Cogadh,” Cole said gently.
He used the remarkable clearness of his eyes – about the colour of the sky today – to convey to the assembly his utmost confident calm. The Cogadh would be handled, he reiterated, via ocular suggestion. Those insightful orbs weren't just for seducing, though they were rather good at that.
“Well,” said Kiso, showing marked resistance to Cole's ocular suggestion, “it isn't really the Cogadh that’s the issue, is it?”
All eyes swerved towards the open field, where spills and splotches of First Year cadets milled like cows, avoiding the creeping shadow of the walls and taking their rest while they could get it. Oh, sure, it wasn’t the ONLY group NOT lying about doing as close to nothing as possible, but it was the only group actually doing some exercises. And they stood out, by nature, anyway.
Then all eyes slowly tracked back to Aspen, whose ignoble defeat at the Cogadh was precisely the event driving this exceedingly tense relaxation, all of them trying their hardest to look unbothered – precisely why, despite their utterly casual cool, they weren't fooling anyone.
There was blood upon the field (well, metaphorical blood – there was always some actual blood upon the field). The threat to the enclave of Prep cadets was so clear there had hardly been any discussion of what the solution might be; they had all simply fallen back, arrayed for defence in what seemed to be the most natural positions. If it weren’t that they had been so humiliated it might be cause for some pride that they had all made the calculations and come to fairly similar strategic conclusions.
Alas, the only – only – pride a First Year had was his rank. His rank, in turn, fell and rose with the fortunes of the Cogadh. Teams in the Cogadh stepped up together, or went down together.
Unless the team leader was whipped like a dray horse, had his signals stolen, and ended the match beaten and drooling while his team surrendered.
The issue was that Aspen had gone down – personally. Rumor had it that there was one personally responsible for it, too. And it had become Cole’s issue because at least in part because according to the mixture of strenuously debated logic and bird-watching that drove cadets’ Cogadh predictions, it was Cole’s team that would be up to face them next. Cole didn’t like that this seemed to contribute to their collective anxiety, but even he had to admit it was an uncomfortable prospect to face, given how unprepared they had been to consider it all. He could only hope that between Aspen’s glowering and his confidence they would refrain from making it a regular subject of conversation.
Aspen, for his part, kept his steely eyes focused on the field. At one particular form on the field.
“No,” he said. “Cogadh is not the issue. That asshole is the issue.”
Kiso, Fortune be his mistress (And by that he meant, fuck him), gave voice to what they were all thinking:
“The Midraeic.”
**
He didn’t really deserve such a title-like denomination. It wasn’t like he was special. It was just that he was the only one. The only one, ever, as far as any of them were aware.
It had been a few years since the last woman came through the Academy, but it wasn’t like if they had one they would call her The Woman.
Cole might have acknowledged resenting it, if he thought about it, but he didn’t want to – even resenting it gave the idea too much purchase – so he didn’t. Being the only one didn’t make anyone special. The Academy wasn’t that sort of place. It couldn’t afford to be when they could expect only about half of the First Year class to remain by Third Year.
But because he was The Midraeic, he was awfully easy to spy on.
Because nobody really knew what Cole got up to – except that it wasn’t studying – he didn’t have to worry too much about changing routine to observe The Midraeic eliciting any surprise. He wasn’t spending too much time in his room these days anyway, so he could grab his breakfast and observe one of the split Stands sessions while he ate his boiled eggs, bread, and cheese without anyone even noticing a difference. It did mean he got to sit and watch his hunk of bread go soggy while waist-deep in the chill morning fog, and had to pretend to enjoy it. But other than that it was easy: like spotting a swallow in a pack of doves.
Stands weren’t a great demonstration of skill, but since they were in opposite halves of the class, he was going to have to make moments for observation happen where they might. His vantage point wasn’t particularly good (to put off counter-spying and also generate deniability of his activities), but all he really got was that The Midraeic maintained good form and had a serious face.
A serious face that was also seriously Midraeic. Once, Cole had paid for the privilege of bedding someone with those looks. It hadn't been worth the extra coin. There was nothing special about the followers of Midras in bed, just slightly different skin tones, darker hair, maybe a sort of smell but that was easily attributable to using a distinct perfume, and even then there was so much perfume about the place in general it was hard to tell if it was a personal scent and not just the bedclothes. It had satisfied Cole’s curiosity – generated by the fee difference, for the most part – and had it perhaps been slightly less expensive, it would've been reasonable payment for dispelling Cole's thought that there might be differences between the Ainjir and the Midraeics. Physical differences, anyway.
Cole's brain wasn't at its best this early in the morning, so a good bit of cheese and a lively revisiting of that memory (it hadn't been bad – not at all – just expensive) kept him from noticing practice ending until the field full of cadets had almost totally dispersed. He hurriedly wiped his hands on his pants, hid his plate under a bush, to be returned when he wasn't going to be late, and sprinted for class.
**
There was another reason, of course, this was being pinned on Cole.
Class was tiring.
Tiring, as in, boring.
Cole spiced things up by signalling to answer at every other question. Since he wasn't listening to the lecture, it meant thinking on his feet. It pissed the ollamh off, too, but since Cole more or less nailed each answer, there wasn't anything he could do about it.
Generally speaking, this wasn't wise; Cole was well aware how advantageous having the favour of the ollamh could be, but, in truth, he was finding the Cogadh mess happily preoccupying.
The trick was, of course, that the Midraeic wasn't the team leader. Nobody would put a Midraeic in charge of a team, even amongst the bottom-feeders that were that team (might as well have taken the last eight people on the List and made them team from the beginning).
That thought gave Cole pause, though, because the Midraeic wasn't actually in the bottom of the lists. He was doing pretty well – no doubt he would be the highest ranked of his team on the next evaluation, which should be soon. Since they were in opposite sections, who knew where that rank had come from. Sometimes things just fell out that way. Maybe he was good at tests.
Aspen wasn't good at tests. Oh, he did fine – he studied hard, and was smart, but rather mumbled and hesitated or didn’t put his thoughts together clearly when under the eye of examiners. Aspen had made a mad rush for First, demonstrating a stunning brutality, well aware that his strongest trait was his physical strength (and also well aware of the advantages of being intimidating, like Cole used the power of being unassuming). Lin hadn’t beaten him there just through luck – they hadn’t faced one another, and that was definitely luck – but partially because Aspen tended to rush through, making stupid mistakes. For example, not changing his signals for each round of Cogadh.
That wasn’t really his fault, though. He had expected to have a bit more time, since they didn’t like to have teams play consecutive weeks. But the brackets were starting to narrow at this point. But even Aspen would say one always had to be prepared. Everything was a test. (Cole didn’t like thinking it but he, too, probably wouldn’t have changed his signs).
And classes were starting to challenge the Prep cadets, but not Cole – or, at least, not the subjects they had been covering lately. Not seriously. Not yet. Like Lin’s victory, perhaps like the Midraeic’s upset, this was a partial fluke. Even Cole didn’t think it was because he knew so much more than the others; the Prep cadets had all attended the same lessons. It even wasn’t that Cole had attended more closely to those lessons, though in some ways he had – in some ways he had learned a little more than was strictly ‘taught’ at Prep.
But this thought tasted bitter. Indeed, all he had done in the time between Prep and Academy was go over his lessons and exercises (well, and rack up his father-disappointing debt). His classmates, with less bitterness to carry with them, probably had the opportunity, or need, to do other things. But it meant he was (in their eyes) staying ahead of his ollamh quite handily. And maybe that was making him complacent, but he ought to indulge in the privilege while he could, oughtn’t he?
Like sticking with the Prep cadets, slowly rising through the ranks – it was all part of his clever plan. And he had some proof of its cleverness in Aspen’s defeat. Look at what being the perfect cadet got you! A dose of humiliation with defeat. No – Cole was justified in coasting, for now.
Flinging his hand up to field another question, Cole only received a frustrated glare. The ollamh called on someone else. Grinning in his own mind, Cole let his attention wander again, playing with strategies for Cogadh in between other, more pleasant fantasies.
**
“...I’m not sure this is a good idea,” Hal said.
“You’re the one who says he’s not as bad as he seems,” Wynn retorted.
Hal’s cheeks reddened before he could control it, and he stubbed the toe of his boot into the ground, turning slightly away from the group. “Well – but, that’s, like, personally. He’s a fucking brutal fighter.”
“Even he’s not going to pick up the moves in a single session,” Teä said, pulling at the mat they had dragged out to mark their makeshift arena.
Dominicus observed Hal; no, Hal didn’t seem to think that it was possible he would pick up the Third Year techniques in a single session, but he wasn’t comfortable.
“Look,” Hal said, after a few moments in which they moved the thick rope they were staking down to mark something of a ‘border’ for their practice ring, “I just think there’s probably a better way to do it, if we even have to do it at all. There’s a lot of assumption behind this plan.”
Dominicus, bristled, but hardly had time to open his mouth.
“He’s the one they sent after Oisín, and Oisín was his roommate,” Teä said stubbornly. “He’s their dog. Either they’re going to send him after Galen, or we’ll be facing his team in the Cogadh. They may not be trying to eliminate those of us at the bottom of the lists,” he said bitterly, with a nod to Wynn whose conspiracy theory it was, “but it is hard to tell the difference between that and how they’re setting things up in the Cogadh. One way or another we’ve got to prepare.”
Wynn, finished jumping on one of the stakes, hopped over to them. “Hm, I do think there’s a potential we’re giving away a team advantage by letting him know how prepared we are to use these techniques. What’s to say he’s not going to start practicing them himself?”
“He already could have been practicing them,” Hal said, his voice again conflicted. They had agreed to carefully open up their practices of the Third Year techniques to some of the lower-ranked First Years, as Dominicus has been persuasive the advantages outweighed the risks. Hal was their face for these lessons, as he not only picked the moves up the quickest but had the best associations amongst the class – partiality to some of the Prep cadets notwithstanding. Evidently, though, their particular subject had not been attending Hal’s less-secret sessions teaching.
“Well, wouldn’t this prove their use?” Wynn said.
“No,” Dominicus said, “I do not think so.”
“Why not?”
“It is not in his character.”
“I’m not sure about that,” Hal said, but his objection was weak, full of hesitation.
“Just ‘cause you’re fucking him,” Teä said to Hal, “doesn’t mean he’s telling you everything.”
“Or that we’re worried about you,” Wynn added. “Though the kind of guy who would beat up his own roommate...”
Both of them were looking at Hal with a certain sympathy, though this seemed neither to surprise nor embarrass him. Dominicus was embarrassed, but thank God, nobody was looking at him. His thoughts had tumbled like a duckling tripped over a root, and he was afraid the blankness of his stare might reveal that he had not known this about Hal. It had not occurred to him to think about it. He did not want to think about it. He would not think about it. Hal could do what he wanted. (But, really?)
“Thanks,” Hal said, uneasiness somewhat mollified but apparently also stemming from some other cause. “I guess I just... I would prefer that you met him some other way than fighting.”
“Oh, I bet,” said Wynn with a smirk.
Hal returned his smirk, but also returned to seriousness quickly. “I think once he’s clear of the Prep cadets, he’ll be a good guy to know. You might even like him.”
“We can like him once we’ve kicked his ass,” Teä said as he passed, pacing out the area of the ring.
Hal laughed uneasily, and Dominicus wondered if it was because he wasn’t sure whether HE would like THEM if they defeated him.
Well, that was none of Dominicus’ concern.