Frank is early, actually. He sits at his desk with a large smile on his face, greeting students by name despite the slight hints of red around his eyes and the prominent box of tissues that have mysteriously appeared within easy reach.
It is probable that he cried, but hard to prove considering the evidence.
The comments are glowing and sympathetic and commend the ability to empathize with a villain - there is a tangent about how maybe empathy is all Richard needed, and something he never really got at all during the play, not even from his allies.
The essay also got extra credit points. Ten of them.
Class begins.
After gushing about the essays some more and stating how thrilled he was to read them, Frank explains what they'll be doing next.
"Now that we're all familiar with Shakespeare's plays, I'd like to introduce you to some of Shakespeare's other works. Unfortunately we don't have very much time to spend on them, but it seems a shame to just go, 'Here are the plays, and now we never look at anything else he ever did'! So just for today, we'll give some of his sonnets a read, and next class we'll get started on something else."
He directs the students to the correct file, and then asks for volunteers, while giving Miles a significant look.
He glances at the first poem, and snorts softly. Yeah, he can definitely put his heart into that one.
"I'll read it," he volunteers.
He sits up straight and takes a breath and glances over the sonnet to get a feel for the words; then he reads, with clear diction and genuine feeling.
"Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action, and till action, lust
Is perjured, murd'rous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had,
Past reason hated as a swallowed bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit, and in possession so,
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows, yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell."
(Given that this is a class on Beta Colony of all places, he expects very little agreement from his classmates; but the depth of emotion in his voice isn't there to convince anyone, just to illustrate a perspective.)
He smiles slightly. Thank you for your kind offer. I might feel the need to rant afterward if I make it through this whole class without verbally eviscerating these smug assholes. Should I meet your sister? Your sister sounds very cool, I would not at all mind meeting your sister.
"LPSTs and contraceptive implants aren't some kind of inviolable magical charm against anyone ever having bad experiences with sex," says Miles, finally goaded into speaking up. "I think you're all vastly underestimating the complexity of the writer's intent if you interpret the poem as a straightforward assertion of universal fact. The point is not that it's like this for everyone all the time; the point is that it can be like this for many people some of the time. Regardless of the presence or absence of therapists."
It's all right. I'm not upset with you, she clarifies. Nor do I disagree. Just the - situation is unpleasant. I wish you were not in a room full of Betans try to tell you that - I don't even know how to word it, 'We are better and so the things associated with this poem do not happen, you do not exist, all is well, the delusion is secure.'
I get cranky and lose my filter, she volunteers instead. So I am both thinking less charitably and also more willing to say the less charitable things.
Yvette's sister isn't in an obvious place. In fact, Yvette doesn't bother to look for her at all near the entrance or on the main path, just walks down a smaller, more out of the way path like she knows exactly where she's going. Which, she does.
It is a very pretty arboretum. Also a rather nice walk.
She glances up at the sound of footsteps, and then smiles and waves.
"Hello," she says, smiling. If there was any question of who she is, her Barrayaran accent makes it quite clear.
"I don't actually have a plan for this," she says lightly. "How much have you heard about me? Has she been badmouthing me behind my back?"
"Well!" she says, her smile broadening a little. "Excellent job, Yvette, exemplary example of sisterhood, he will never know my terrible character flaws now."
She folds her flimsy up and slides it into a pocket of her trousers, before getting up to lead the way for food.
Getting up jostles her hair enough to reveal her earrings. They do not mark her as unavailable like her sister. Nor do they say 'Have sex with me now, ask me how!' They mark her as only comfortable with sex with someone she knows, and then proceed to state that she's not picky - male, female, hermaphrodite, any's fine. Just no random strangers, ever.
She seems completely unconcerned with Miles's opinion of what metal she puts in her ears - instead, she is on a mission to find offensive food. She leads the way.
"Oh, I know," she muses as they pass a restaurant advertising the best vat-grown meat the diner has ever had. She smiles a mischievous vulpine smile. "This way!"
Off they go, to a nice-looking little food place that seems - pretty ordinary, actually. The cook is also the cashier, and he seems to be the only one on duty.
Sabine smiles a bit when she sees the cook, and then sidles up to him and begins small talking to him.
In a chirpy Betan accent.
She's being very charming about it, too. Not quite flirting, but somewhere in the vicinity of potential flirting. She compliments how his cooking looks and smells ("Can't know the most important part 'til I've tasted it, though," with just a hint of a wink.) and orders up various food items.
"Miles," she says, offhandedly. She just remembered that Miles is not her sister and she can't just order his favorite food for him. "No issue with the foods...?"
"Okay then," she says. And then she goes back to almost-flirting.
She earns herself a discount through a mix of almost-flirting, friendly small-talk, and leaning on what looks to be the cook's affection for jump pilots.
Food is prepared and then put in a nice little plastic to-go box.
"Thank you very much," says Sabine, in a remarkably unlocal Barrayaran accent. "It was a pleasure talking to you."
The cook stares at her like she's grown a second head. His countenance changes from friendly almost-flirting to - not that. But it doesn't seem to be in him to attempt to hit her, he's too Betan, but he looks like if it were in him to react violently, he probably would. As is he's just sort of turning red and trying to scrunch up his face to look like a raisin.
Sabine smiles near-innocently, only a hint of vulpine at the edges.
When he opens his mouth to do what looks like swearing, but she interrupts him with, "Thanks for humoring my practice, accents are fun! Bye!"
And off she goes, expecting Miles and his tall muscular shadow to follow, blithely ignoring how the cook is clearly Offended.