They might pass some time like that, then!

After a bit, Rashel will ask, "What other subjects are you taking? All three sciences, or which two of them and a language?"

"Bio, Phys and Thuria. Krian is taking all the sciences, because he is a nerd like that."

He says the word "nerd" with a lot of fondness.

"Oh, huh! We might be in the same class for Thuria then – I'm taking it too."

"What's the class like?" Kay asks.

"Pretty good," she says. "The teacher isn't a native speaker, but she did some immersion stuff for a while, so she's actually really good at the language, and she's also good with all the technical linguistic stuff so she can actually get the point across."

"Alright, I only really care about learning it for the chance it could be useful while travelling, but alright."

"Yeah, but anyway, she's a good teacher. And the classes are usually pretty fun, at least most people seem to think so."

"Good, are the other teachers good as well?"

"Mmh," she responds, nodding with her pencil between her teeth. She finishes what she's doing on her artwork and grabs 'hold of the pencil again, then continues, "The school's really good at separating us into groups that we work well in, and the teachers all do training courses and things to make sure they're up to date with effective teaching methods and… things. It's really great."

"I remember hearing something about this when mom and Krian were picking a school."

"Oh, really? I think a lot of schools in the area do it – it's part of a scheme that the city set up."

It's not particularly interesting, but it's at least a topic for some quick smalltalk.

"I didn't pay much attention, Krian is the smart one." Kay looks at her work. "That is getting really nice."

"Thanks!" she says, smiling at him. "I'm really proud of how it's turned out, actually, and it's kinda surprising how much fun it's been."

"I can see why!"

They continue smalltalking until the end of class.

And, five minutes before class ends, Rashel starts packing stuff away and suggesting that other people do likewise – it wouldn't do to be late to their next class, gasp.

Even if it is gym, since lots of people don't seem to like that.

Given his muscles, is it any surprise that Kay likes gym class?

It… is not much of a surprise, no!

Rashel likes racket-games, personally, since she's good at running, but she's not too much a fan of games involving tackling. Contact sports: no thanks.

Fortunately, today they are doing tennis! Or, at least, a sport that's very like tennis, even if it might not be precisely tennis.

Sorry, Kay.

There are some other people there too! Like Thar!

And Ev! Ev is here too.

So is Krian!

Is this not-actually tennis played in groups larger than two people against two people?

It… could be! But no, not unless you plan on making it kinda boring for the individual players or add some ridiculous complexity to it.

You could, however, play this not-tennis's equivalent of 'king of the court', where you have like 7 people to a single court, they each do a single return and then run to the other side of the net, and then do another return, and it continues like that. Each person gets a certain number of 'lives', and failing to return a hit means you lose a life, and then you're out if you lose all your lives.

So, no. But you could in theory play it with more than four people, if the people so desire and the teachers agree.

That sounds like an interesting idea!

It does! Rashel managed to the the teacher's approval for the situation, and after they all get changed, they can commence!

Rashel's pretty good at this, so she's not likely to be out first, but she's not the best.

Thar? Thar is really pretty good at this. He likes running, and he practices a lot, and running is a thing he is definitely good at.