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It's a new term, and the end of the break between terms most students have been enjoying. But time marches ever on, and so at 1:00 PM, just after lunch, twenty-six students all around the age of fifteen are finding seats in an obnoxiously decorated classroom. It's one of those classrooms that tries very hard to be peppy and inspirational, and only succeeds at being very out of touch, and kind of creepy.
Soon it will be time to read about things long-dead people wrote.
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She starts laughing.
"Ah," she manages, once she's gotten a hold of herself. "That - okay, sure."
thisvorlunatic
"Our teacher seems determined to make me suffer, so I am determined to make him regret it," says Miles. "I am going to write such an essay."
She snickers, then asks, "When do you want to meet up to finish reading the play?"
thisvorlunatic
He shrugs. "When's convenient for you? I'm not exactly overbooked."
"All right."
Class ends, and assorted students depart.
(Yvette is silently thankful that she did not blabber on like a lunatic today. Good job, Yvette.)
And then, the next day: the study rooms are not all full! He seems to have gotten there before Yvette, but there is a room that Miles can claim.
Class ends, and assorted students depart.
(Yvette is silently thankful that she did not blabber on like a lunatic today. Good job, Yvette.)
And then, the next day: the study rooms are not all full! He seems to have gotten there before Yvette, but there is a room that Miles can claim.
thisvorlunatic
He checks the registry, inputs his student number, and goes into the newly claimed study room to sit and read the play and regret his choices. Brilliant idea, Miles. Shut yourself away in a small room with a Vor girl to explore your feelings about being an unlovable demi-mutant. This is bound to end well.
...
Gosh this is a small room they're going to be alone together in for a while, isn't it.
Right, moving on.
"So um, I don't - actually have a plan for how we'll tackle this. Have you finished reading the play?"
Gosh this is a small room they're going to be alone together in for a while, isn't it.
Right, moving on.
"So um, I don't - actually have a plan for how we'll tackle this. Have you finished reading the play?"
thisvorlunatic
"Admittedly I might've gone over it a little fast. I was mostly looking for whatever would produce the most upsetting possible essay."
She smiles.
"Fair. Honestly I thought the first few acts were the most interesting, the last were - I was actually kind of disappointed in Richard for just switching to rampant murder."
"Fair. Honestly I thought the first few acts were the most interesting, the last were - I was actually kind of disappointed in Richard for just switching to rampant murder."
thisvorlunatic
"I... okay, so in the opening monologue he's almost straight-out telling the audience 'hello, my name is Richard the Evil Cripple and this is my eerily straight-out-of-a-Barrayaran-folktale Villain Motivation', but if I look past that... I really feel for him? I mean obviously I don't approve of his actions but," he gestures inarticulately, "God, I've been there. ...And my main concern at this point is getting this reaction written down in a way that will make Frank cry but not cause him to say anything about Barrayaran cultural attitudes that will end with me in therapy for leaping onto his desk and punching him in his stupid Betan face."
"Please do not leap onto his desk and punch him in his stupid Betan face," says Yvette, sounding like she would very much like to see that. "But I see what you mean. Hm. Explain a bit more? I can maybe help."
thisvorlunatic
"...I mean, you heard me," he says, with a vague wave in a direction meant to indicate their classroom. "When I say the character speaks to me, I mean—"
He glances at the vid screen where the opening monologue of the play is currently displayed, skims the lines he's thinking of to make sure he still has the wording down, and delivers them with an intensity of emotion that surpasses even his first recital.
"But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, not made to court an amorous looking-glass; I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty to strut before a wanton ambling nymph; I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion, cheated of feature by dissembling nature, deformed, unfinish'ed, sent before my time into this breathing world, scarce half made up, and that so lamely and unfashionable that dogs bark at me as I halt by them—why, I, in this weak, piping time of peace, have no delight to pass away the time, unless to spy my shadow in the sun and descant on mine own deformity."
His hand thumps his chest on every emphatic 'I'; his voice twists with self-loathing, slashes the air with vicious rage, strains with anguish; and when it's over he draws a shaky breath and avoids looking at her. That was a lot more of his soul than he meant to bare.
He glances at the vid screen where the opening monologue of the play is currently displayed, skims the lines he's thinking of to make sure he still has the wording down, and delivers them with an intensity of emotion that surpasses even his first recital.
"But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, not made to court an amorous looking-glass; I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty to strut before a wanton ambling nymph; I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion, cheated of feature by dissembling nature, deformed, unfinish'ed, sent before my time into this breathing world, scarce half made up, and that so lamely and unfashionable that dogs bark at me as I halt by them—why, I, in this weak, piping time of peace, have no delight to pass away the time, unless to spy my shadow in the sun and descant on mine own deformity."
His hand thumps his chest on every emphatic 'I'; his voice twists with self-loathing, slashes the air with vicious rage, strains with anguish; and when it's over he draws a shaky breath and avoids looking at her. That was a lot more of his soul than he meant to bare.