Pre-Jump Earth Literature

[aestrix]

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.

Comments

[poll_the_stars]

"She did, it's true. She'd probably be serious about it if it meant she could enlist, but - Barrayar."

Why is she saying these words, where is her filter, she just keeps saying things! HELP! SOMEONE SHUT HER UP!

[thisvorlunatic]

"Barrayar," Miles agrees with a sigh and a half-smile. "And, uh, if she was planning to lie extensively and never get found out, her chances of pulling it off have just taken a sharp dive, I'm sorry to say."

[poll_the_stars]

Of course. ImpSec.

"Got talked out of something like that by Mother years ago," says Yvette serenely. "Too suicidal, and if she were found out there'd be no way for us to help her. She's training to be a jump pilot, according to her that is almost as good. I think her current plan involves finding her in through Komarr, though I've lost track of the specifics."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Well, best of luck to her."

[poll_the_stars]

"Thank you," she says. "I'll pass that along."

...

Is. Is that it? Is she done? Can she stop blabbering on like a lunatic with no regards towards propriety? Yes? Good.

[thisvorlunatic]

Smile? Smile.

[poll_the_stars]

... Yeah, okay. Smile.

[thisvorlunatic]

Aaaaaa no wait why are they smiling at each other this is terrifying.

"I have to go, but - I'll see you next class?"

[poll_the_stars]

"Ah, yes. I won't keep you. Next class." And she curtsies, because one does not talk while curtsying, she is safe.

Now, at long last, it is completely appropriate for her to flee in a non-obvious fashion. Excellent. She doesn't actually have to be anywhere immediately, but she would like to go back to the room she's staying in and collapse face first into her pillow to bemoan whatever the fuck is wrong with her.

She can only hope that she will not blabber on like a lunatic next time she talks to him.

Whyyyyyyy.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles, meanwhile, meets Sergeant Bothari in the corridor outside the school complex and goes home to his grandmother's apartment, where he shuts himself in his room to avoid his grandmother's sympathy and then has to put up with the Sergeant poking his head in suspiciously anytime there is a noise that could remotely be construed as alarming.

The next day he has a completely different set of classes, but the day after that it's back to Pre-Jump English Literature. Can he leverage Frank's guilt to avoid ever having to speak in class again? Let's find out.

[aestrix]

Well. Maybe. Frank leaves him alone for this class, anyway.

But Miles has a message sent to his terminal from Frank, asking if he would like to take the class with another teacher, or perhaps see a therapist about possible trauma from 'Unfortunate circumstance related misfortune,' and that either way Frank would hate to see Miles's education suffer.

[thisvorlunatic]

Really. Really.

Miles replies: Don't flatter yourself by assuming I need to talk to my therapist about your ill-considered choice of reading material.

[aestrix]

Frank flinches when he reads this, in a subtle fashion.

Well, when you feel up to participating again in class, let me know.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles doesn't deign to reply to that one at all.

[aestrix]

Well, that's okay.

Class continues. Classmates read. Shakespeare is discussed. Then, near the end of class:

"Now, I think that you've all got a good grasp of Shakespeare. But, I think a lot of you have felt kind of shy about talking about your thoughts while in a classroom environment." He does not look at Miles. (To be fair, Miles is not the only student that is trying to avoid attention and not talk.) "So! I'd like you all to group up into small groups of two or three - even four, if no one's being left out - to pick one of Shakespeare's plays that we've either read over in class, or another one of your choice. Over the weekend, I'd like for you to meet and discuss the play, and then write me a short essay on what you discussed. Doesn't have to be long or eloquent, I just want to hear what you think!"

[thisvorlunatic]

At the back of the room, Miles snickers.

[poll_the_stars]

The other Barrayaran in the class suspects that the teacher would really rather not hear what she thinks. Frank gets a dry, unimpressed look. Really. This is what he's going to do? Okay. Fine.

Time to find a group. Yay. Her very favorite thing.

(No it isn't.)

[thisvorlunatic]

Unsurprisingly, absolutely no one in the class wants to go anywhere near Miles. Fine by him. If he ends up left out, that will just mean no one but Frank has to suffer through the essay he plans to write.

[poll_the_stars]

It turns out that he is not left out.

"Would you," asks Yvette, voice even and attempting to be casual but not quite making it, "like to group up?"

[thisvorlunatic]

...He considers this.

She was surprisingly tolerable about all this last class. And it would save him having to pair up with a Betan.

"Sure," he says.

[poll_the_stars]

Good, she wanted to not be paired up with a Betan, too. Not that Betans aren't nice, but - Betans. She would like to talk to someone who is not from Beta Colony or her sister, even if that person is kind of terrifying in a child of the Regent (well, now Prime Minister) and plays board games with the Emperor kind of way.

She nods, and borrows a seat from an unused computer terminal nearby.

"I don't really have a play in mind, I sort of vaguely want to read The Tempest but I'm not set on it and not picky," she says. "You?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Take a guess."

[poll_the_stars]

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."

[poll_the_stars]

"Of course you are. Of course."