School Log!

[wise_maiden]

Who: OPEN! Anyone! Teachers, Students, anyone dropping in for the open classes, anyone at the battledome (from about 1-3 pm), newcomers with questions, etc!
What: Catchall school days
When: March! (You can vary the dates if you'd like, if you want something from last week or on the 17th and onward, it's fairly open there.)
(Classes run from 9 AM-roughly 2:30 PM, and the log can include before and after-school activities)
Where: School / Battle Dome
Summary: It's been a quiet few weeks in Luceti, but school is still in session!
Rating: A+



[For some sense of guidelines:

- Anyone joining for the first time is allowed to poke around and ask questions and (possibly) take or have handwaved taking a test so they can join in immediately!

- The playground is open for after school or lunch break interactions. The cafeteria is also open. Also, random classrooms are available for students wanting to use it for private tutoring/study hall sessions/club meetings whatnot.

- World Sharing and Magic lessons are held at the battle dome, so non-attendees can observe if they like.

- You're not limited to the headers! Just do what you want--these are just some suggestions as to what's going on, but they aren't the be-all-and-end-all of what can be played with! Chat with each other, set up things! It's meant to be for CR!]


As always, please add your character to the roster here and update if there are any changes! Also, students/magic class participants, please respond here when you have a chance! Thank you!

Comments

[untrueheart]

[Rue does not have encouragement for him. She barely fills that quota for herself most days. It is her first ever day of magic class - her first real anything with Luceti's "magic" since the day Twila let her go - and she spends most of the lesson standing straight-backed with her arms folded.

The boy next to her sure is taking a lot of notes. She didn't think of that, and reprimands herself for it, because excelling in school as well as dance is something she's meant to be proud of. The next best thing will have to do - standing on tiptoe, unwavering, and reading them over his shoulder, so to speak.

It might have worked, too, if not for those meddling kids if a more enthusiastic student did not choose that moment to get so excited as to throw the people nearby off-balance, Rue included. Her best option is to reach out and catch herself using Billy's arm as a handhold.]

[selfhelp]

[He jumps at the sudden touch, paper crumpling beneath his hand, though he instinctively lifts the other to half-reach it out to her, in case she needs an extra hand balancing herself. He's never seen her before, and she'd been so quiet that he hadn't noticed her at all.]

Whoa there, are you okay?

[untrueheart]

Yes. People should be more careful. [It's meant to be scathing and embarrass whoever bumbled into her, but much of the sting is gone from her feathers today. Seeing so much power, used so casually, has a worse effect on her than she thought. She's afraid to even dream of the things she can do, and yet...]

Thank you for your concern. [It was kind of him not to just step away.]

[selfhelp]

[He shrugs.] Wouldn't be very nice to ignore it. If people are getting rowdy, though, you should sit down. There's lots of room.

[He gestures to basically any one of the empty seats nearby. There's plenty of space.]

[untrueheart]

[Now this is embarrassing. She was standing in the first place because almost everyone else is, and in order to read his notes. Rue blushes, as hard as she tries not to.]

Thank you, but I will stand. [With the appearance of dignity, she hopes.

Some half-remembered conversation with Duck about friendship comes to mind without permission. Rue crosses her arms against it at first, but even the memory of Duck is persistent enough to get her to drop them a moment later.]

This is all very complex, isn't it?

[selfhelp]

It is, and it isn't. For me, this is mostly just review.

[He leans back in his chair, watching the lesson but no longer writing; it's kind of rude (and hard to concentrate) to write when you're talking to someone.]

It gets easier the more you learn, though. Is this your first time?

[untrueheart]

My first time with something like this. [The less said about her abilities in anything other than ballet, the better. It is not quite awkward to stand and talk while he sits, so Rue takes a seat with sheepish haughtiness.] I am hardly sure if I want to keep going.

[selfhelp]

Is there something you're not understanding, or is it just not for you? I know it can be a lot at first, especially when you're joining in the middle of the year like this.

[untrueheart]

It just seems...dangerous, in the wrong hands.

[She would know. Above all she remembers what it was like to fly with the darkness.]

Hard to control.

[selfhelp]

...Yeah, it is.

[He fidgets a bit uncomfortably, because that's basically what's kept him away this long. Still... Teddy's words ring true, too.]

But that's what practice is for. The more you try, the more you improve. It's the same as anything else, really.

[untrueheart]

I still don't know if I'll stay.

[Actually, she doesn't know if there is such a thing as a trial period for classes. The small part of her that lives occasionally free of hangups about love and desire and whether she'll get what she wants is never free of the desire for approval, so if she starts this and doesn't excel...

Rue is not a fidgeter by nature. Instead, she looks down at the floor, hands half-folded in front of her.]

[selfhelp]

That's okay, too. It's an optional class, so if you're not comfortable with it, you don't have to come.

[He hesitates, then adds uncertainly,]

I did, for a while, and no one minded it. This is my first time back in months.

[untrueheart]

What kept you away for so long? You seem like you know what you're doing.

[selfhelp]

...I... had some bad experiences. My magic... it was used to hurt people. I was used.

[It's hard not to take all of the blame now, but he's been... trying. To get better at not doing that.]

I thought that if I just stopped using magic, I'd be... you know, safe. But that's not right. Not when it's a part of me.

[untrueheart]

[Rue doesn't notice her mouth drop open while he talks. Not when it's a part of me. She turns her head away then, half-hiding behind her hair. Moments when people could strike her heart with their words used to come up so infrequently...but here. Here they grace every single page of the story.

My magic was used to hurt people.

What would she be, without it? Human, ordinary, isn't that it? Her wings rise and flutter and she hates when they do that, when it feels like they act without her permission even though she's the nervous one. Suddenly she's aware of how long it's taking her to answer.]

You don't...seem like the kind of person that would happen to.

[Instant regret. That isn't at all what she should have said.]

[selfhelp]

[Maybe not. He's not angered by it, but he does frown tightly.]

You can tell just by talking to me for two minutes? That's impressive.

[And also inaccurate. If he hadn't been the kind of person it would happen to, it wouldn't have happened, would it?]

[untrueheart]

[It isn't impressive, she thinks, it's embarrassing. She looks it, too, blushing without permission and furious with herself because of it.]

That didn't sound the way I meant it. [In small, zigzagging steps, she is at least learning to admit when things haven't gone her way.]

[selfhelp]

...Mm.

[He figures she's telling the truth, but that doesn't mean her words didn't sting. He's quiet for a long moment, mulling it over.]

Bad things happen to good people sometimes. Here, back home, it doesn't matter- it happens everywhere. There's no magic shield that protects you from it.

[untrueheart]

[Most stories don't work that way, do they? Sure, awful things happen to people who don't deserve them, but they're meant to end well anyway. Happily ever after. Rue thinks of Mytho and of Duck - people who deserve the happy ending - and shakes her head.]

Maybe there should be.

[selfhelp]

...Maybe. I don't know. I'd only want that kind of thing if it could shield everyone... and that would be impossible.

[untrueheart]

You would want to protect terrible people from bad things happening to them?

[After her last verbal misstep, she carefully keeps accusation out of this one.]

[selfhelp]

If I can, yeah. I mean, I'd want to stop them if they're doing terrible things to other people, but I wouldn't want them to suffer, either. Terrible people can become good people if their situation changes.

[He's the son of two villains, after all. He'd know.]

[untrueheart]

[Yet again Rue finds her voice stepping outside her usual control:] How do you know about all of this?

[Because, of course, his words apply so well to her and to her life and, well, doesn't everything? It does when she's all tied up in the emotional state where her rejection and need for love share a bunk.]

[selfhelp]

[He's somewhat startled by that - her voice, and the words themselves - and leans back in surprise. Why...?]

Know what? I'm just sharing what I believe...

[Had those words hit a little too close to home?]

[untrueheart]

Oh.

[They hit so close they might as well crash on the couch. Rue looks away again, already berating herself for her utter failure to be anything other than confrontational and strange. Isn't it hard enough, to face "magic" and know her personal dark awful secret and try not to be that terrible person?]

That's noble of you.