Where Jiana stands as soon as the last freshmen have made their ways through the line, calling for attention. She waits until an expectant hush has fallen over the cafeteria - then begins to speak of the threat of the graduation hall, the greater danger it presents this year... The sheer fact that more of them are surviving, and there often isn't enough food in the meal line...
The fact that the mals are starving, and that this is a threat to all, not just the seniors facing down graduation. That this is why the mawmouth broke out of the hall - that this will be what faces them every year until it becomes a new normal.
"But a thing will only become normal if we let it," she says, voice carrying throughout the deathly quiet. The idea of speaking out of turn, interrupting her, feels... Verboten. Impossible. She has a weight, right now, and she demands their attention. The only sounds are the quiet murmur of people translating for their tables, and even those noises sink helplessly before they can carry. "It will only be normal if we say this is the way it is. If we throw up our hands and settle for the world before us."
"But this is not normal! Half of us dead before graduation - half again before we reach the doors - that is not normal. Nothing about this school is worth settling."
Somebody, baited forward by a brief gasp in the heavy weight of her attention, calls out in disbelief, asks what she means to do -
"I mean to fix it. I mean for us to fix it - every student, every year. Independent and enclaver, Eastern and Western. To fix it together."
"I mean for us to repair the graduation machinery - and do the same, again and again every year, and keep it going - not infinitely, that has never worked, but long enough for another solution. Long enough to give us room to try something else. To do something other than give up and die."
How - someone calls -
"We will need a team," she says, solemnly. "The greatest artificers. Those who know the school best - those who know how to repair it. The greatest shielders. A few of our most dangerous. And the rest of the school supporting them - and I will lead them."
The silence stretches out, incredulous -
- And then an enclaver from Berlin stands, announcing - "Berlin will guarantee a seat to any who join the team!"
- And that was not, actually, who Jiana discussed this with before, to introduce the idea into the still air, but that's perfect, because it opens a rush for all the enclaves to announce the same -
To offer a bribe to the best and the brightest of anybody but us to go die for them.
Jiana keeps the disgust off her face. "Shanghai will guarantee a seat for every member of the team, if they wish," she says, finally and firmly.
- Which is the London seniors' cue for, "And London will commit the entirety of our mana stores," a sentiment she doesn't miss a beat in echoing. (There's no enclaves spontaneously jumping to volunteer for that.)
(She has it handled now, though. Whoever doesn't volunteer - she can pressure, and London can pressure, since the students this year seem to perceive the threat of usurpation a bit more strongly than they have before. Definitely more strongly than the New York students, who are still concerning themselves with a few individuals - and only belatedly realizing they need to worry about this. About the faith of thousands of young students, placed even for a moment firmly in the hands of the daughter and heir of a rival enclave.)
The only thing that's left is actually assembling the team, and actually finalizing who will be planning each detail. To actually plan, to say what they need where and how to get it...
And she has the ball careening down the slope.
This post has the following content warnings:
View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post
