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Marzena Idas
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Thu Oct 03, 2019 7:26 pm

10 Hamis 2702
Brunnhold // Detention
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There was something wrong with the ceiling. Marzena could not quite tell what from where she was sitting, but she couldn't quite not see it, either. It was like when there was a spider on the wall, and you were being brave enough to let it just be there because you had checked The Book and knew it wasn't the kind that could hurt you, but you could feel it there just the same, like hot on your skin and tightness in your chest, pulling your eyes and your attention towards it even though you wanted to be looking at something else.

Right now, that something else was outside of the window, beyond the tiny beads of rain that had been left behind when the sun came and took all the other ones away. Marzena was a bead too, left behind just the same, watching as students flocked their way across the campus grounds towards the airship that would be taking them to Plugit for the Cartographer's Convention. She recognised some of them, or at least imagined she did: each short-of-stature girl she saw in the distance was approximated as one of the students from her dorm room, the ones who had been so gleeful about the fact that they were allowed to go and Marzena was not. The cruellest twist was that they didn't even want to go. Marzena had heard them, talking about how maps were dumb and stupid. They weren't even excited about the prospect of riding an airship: they just wanted to not be here. With all the tragic despair her infant lungs could muster, Marzena heaved out a sigh.

Her eyes strayed away from the window, towards the corner of ceiling that offended her sensibilities. Corners were meant to be right-angles. Walls were meant to be straight, and ceilings were meant to be flat. This was not so in the classroom where she and her fellow inmates had been detained. Perhaps the wooden panelling had been mismeasured, or had warped with age, or perhaps it was an optical illusion and the person responsible for painting the dark chocolate brown of the classroom walls and the crisp frosting white of the ceiling tiles had lacked the kind of precision that the task demanded. Or maybe it was something else, something to do with angles, or perspectives; Marzena didn't know. There were spells that could tell her, of course, little quantitative word-equations for measuring such things: perhaps an even cruller part of her punishment was the fact that such magics were forbidden in detention. The initiative, the desire to apply what she had learned in a practical way as part of everyday life, was surely something that Brunnhold should have celebrated, and encouraged. Instead, Marzena was discouraged, stifled, limited, held back by the lower expected standards of the fellow students that just weren't quite as advanced as she.

Their supervisor, their jailer, the warden tasked with ensuring that the gathered students abode by the rules of the detention in which they had been placed, cleared his throat, breaking the uncomfortable silence that filled the room like a thick fog. Marzena narrowed her eyes at him. It was more of a squint than a glare, not quite conveying externally the emotions it was intended to, but Marzena was none the wiser: it was something she had read about in a book, and without the privacy she'd need to sit in front of a mirror and practise until she got it right, her best guess would have to do for now. He was the one to blame for all this; he was the reason she was here, and not getting to experience the miracle of flight for herself first-hand. She'd flown before, of course, but that didn't change anything: magic was magic, and with any luck, there would never be a day when Marzena stopped appreciating how wonderful it all was. She wasn't flying today though, and it was because of him, the stupid butthole of a teacher who was so stubbornly dedicated to his own erroneous ignorance that his only recourse was to punish Marzena for her heroic effort to prevent her classmates from being miseducated and misinformed. Why was it her fault that the tutor hadn't read a single new thing on the subject since he'd graduated from Brunnhold himself what seemed like approximately seventeen centuries ago? Why was it her fault that she'd read Ferman's Ruminations and he hadn't? Why was it that a teacher, here at an institution that claimed to promote knowledge and learning and education, was so afraid of hearing a simple truth?

Marzena knew the reason, of course: it was because she was eleven, and he was approximately one million. It was because she was a student, and he was a teacher. It was because he was the one who was supposed to be right, and because the idea of him being wrong upset the fragile balance of reality. It exposed Brunnhold for the sham that it was. It was supposed to make them better people, smarter people, but for Marzena it was like pouring water on something that was already wet. Back at home, in her safe space, with her private tutors, she could have learned more in a day from a single book than she'd learned the entire time she'd been here at Brunnhold; and she could have slept in her own bed, without the bickering, and the whispering, and the weird nightime noises that the other girls in her dorm were always making. She wouldn't have had to hear those same girls remark on how tall she was, or try to reassure her that aside from her height, there really was no way to tell that she was a Gioran at all, or to whine about how she read too much, and how she wasn't any fun, or to ask why she was wearing her hair like that instead of a way that might make her look more pretty.

Beneath the desk she'd been instructed to sit behind, Marzena fidgeted with the hem of her dress. She didn't like it here. There wasn't anything for her here. She missed Uric, and Eamon, and Tabitha, and Skye. She missed the people who made her feel welcome, the people who made her feel like knowing things was a good thing, the people who told her that being who she was made her special, instead of making her feel like being herself made her wrong.

The teacher's chair screeched across the floor as he slid backwards from his own desk. His coughing and throat-clearing had grown more severe as the minutes passed, and apparently, he had decided that the detention students could be trusted for a few minutes as he went off in search of something that might help. A surge of opportunity flared in Marzena's chest, and she waited, anxiously, as he clomped across the classroom to the doorway, leaving it agonisingly open as he disappeared up the corridor. The instant he was out of sight, Marzena flipped open the surface of her desk and frantically began to rummage within, searching for a scrap of paper and the mathematical tools she would need to unravel the mystery of the corner that wasn't right. There was a thing you could do with lines, and triangles. If you knew how far away something was, if you knew how tall it looked, and how tall it was supposed to be, then because similar triangles were similar, because the angles were the same, because -

Marzena fumbled, and the fabric drawstring bag full of rulers and protractors and set squares and compasses tumbled from her grip and clattered to the floor, rolling and skittering across the gap that separated Marzena from the desk behind her, and into the feet of the student seated there. Panic, horror, anxiety, and a slew of other emotions cascaded into Marzena's thoughts as her eyes climbed upwards, and settled upon a girl about her age, but who she definitely didn't know. Of all of the myriad things about Brunnhold that there were to dislike, the overwhelming number of strangers and unfamiliar faces was quite possibly the worst for Marzena, a girl who probably didn't even need her toes to count how many people she'd met in her entire life.

"Um." Marzena's voice was sheepish, and she tried her utmost to suppress the Gioran accent that Marzena didn't think was even there, but that the girls in her dorm insisted was so weird and funny. "Sorry, I dropped my stuff, sorry. Could you -" She felt heat and a flush of red rush into her cheeks, her every fibre recoiling from the attention that she was drawing upon herself. "Sorry."
Last edited by Marzena Idas on Fri Oct 04, 2019 2:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Niccolette Ibutatu
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Thu Oct 03, 2019 7:58 pm

Morning, 10th Hamis, 2702
Detention
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It was, Niccolette thought furiously, not fair. There were a number of things that had happened to her which were not fair, but the Bastian did not wish to sit and count them. They were very many in number, but that was not the problem. She had much time and nothing else to do – the book sitting in front of her was terribly, painfully boring, which was how all of this had started – but she did not wish to count them, because she was already sure that this was the most not-fair thing of her entire life.

Why should she have to read stupid books about history? Niccolette did not wish to study history. She had not come to Brunnhold to study history; she had come to Brunnhold to study magic. Magic was fun. Magic was wonderful. There was nothing like the feeling of doing magic, nothing in the whole world; Niccolette loved it. She could not stand people who whined about it aching or who were too scared to try the simplest spells; they were, in her estimation, babies. All of them.

Niccolette glanced back down at the book on the desk in front of her, and stuck her tongue out at it. There, she thought. Stupid book! That will show you.

The Bastian swallowed a lump in her throat, and folded her arms on the desk and buried her face against them. It was not fair! Everyone – simply everyone – was going to Plugit for the cartographer’s convention, and just because she had not read one book she had to stay behind for the whole of five days. It would not take her five days to read one book – it was a dumb book and she could read it all in five minutes, if she wished. Niccolette did not understand why she could not simply have read the book when she returned, or on the airship. She did not get airsick, not like some girls she could name. And even they were going!

It was too not fair for words, Niccolette thought, furiously. Everyone else was going, and she was stuck here in detention, and she would not get to have any fun at all. The Bastian sniffled – she was not crying, crying was for babies – and then wiped her eyes on her sleeve and sat up. She rubbed at her not-wet eyes, and then looked back down at her book. Stupid book! She closed it, and sat back in her seat.

“Do your reading, Miss Villamarzana,” the teacher at the front of the room coughed, then cleared his throat, and coughed again.

Niccolette narrowed her eyes at him – what Miss Andresano called her pouting face, which Niccolette felt was a very not fair way of describing it – and angrily flopped her book back open. She propped her elbows on the desk, plopped her chin into her hands, and kicked her feet slowly back and forth, small legs dangling off the edge of her chair.

Niccolette read one page, turned to the next, then sighed loudly and rested her arms on the desktop again, and put her cheek back on top of them. Stupid book. Stupid classroom. Stupid teacher. He was not even her teacher! Niccolette felt that was reason enough that she should not have to stay here.

The teacher at the front of the room was still coughing, and eventually he got up. Niccolette watched him go without lifting her head, and turned back to her book. She picked up her pencil, and prodded at the pages with the end of the eraser, nudging it beneath them and turning the pages back and forth. It was not fair, Niccolette thought. Detention was not fair, and it was not fun.

There was a clattering of noise on the floor in front of her, and Niccolette looked up, even though she was quite sure it would be unbearably dull. Um, the other student said, and Niccolette raised her eyebrows (she had been practicing, and she could nearly do just one; she was sure she would get it soon).

“Sorry is quite boring,” Niccolette pronounced, and dropped her cheek back onto her arms. Her feet swung slowly back and forth beneath the desk. “You may fetch them yourself.” Niccolette made no effort to suppress her accent; she spoke exactly as she always had, the thick, heavy curl of a noticeably Bastian accent beneath her words.

After a moment, though, Niccolette lifted her head, just a little, and propped her chin on her arms, studying the girl in front of her. “Why do you have all that?” She asked, curiously. “You are doing math?” Niccolette did not mind math so much as history. She thought she would rather like history if it talked about the interesting parts – all the battles! all the magic! – but instead it was just nonsense about the founding of Brunnhold and not even the interesting parts. Niccolette was quite sure that it was not true that everyone had gotten along the whole time and nothing interesting had happened at all as they built the school. Maths - the sort of maths that involved lots of interesting tools - sounded like much more fun.

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Marzena Idas
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Thu Oct 03, 2019 8:33 pm

10 Hamis 2702
Brunnhold // Detention
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The accent stopped Marzena in her tracks. Well, it would have, if she'd actually clambered down from her chair yet, instead of hanging awkwardly off the edge of it as if the long spindly limbs that the other girls teased her about were somehow able to conveniently extend and grasp the dropped equipment for her. It made her brain stop, anyway, and that was an unusual enough thing for Marzena to pay notice to it. There were many students at Brunnhold who weren't from Anaxas. Marzena wasn't sure quite how many, but she knew they existed. Some of them were easy to spot, thanks to all the interesting differences - though sometimes, someone who looked like they were from Hesse wasn't actually from Hesse, which frankly was just inconvenient as far as Marzena was concerned - but some of them looked just the same as all the other the Anaxi students, and it wasn't until they talked, or you heard their name, that you got to realise that they were a little bit different, too. The secret differences were the best kind of differences, because they got to have them and no one knew. Marzena wished her differences were like that; wished they weren't out in the open for everyone to see.

"Polite is never boring," Marzena countered quietly, finally sliding from her seat and scampering across the floor to where her maths kit had fallen, keeping her head low and scampering back equally fast, the whole process complete in what she estimated was exactly three and a bit seconds. There was no way the teacher would have returned in such a short time, and yet Marzena peered anxiously towards the door just the same. Content that she had not been seen deviating from her instructions, she relaxed a little; a sidelong glance was thrown in the secretly different girl's direction, her voice even more quiet. "Polite is the opposite of mean. That's not boring; that's just nice."

Carefully, she wiggled her way backwards on her seat, navigating back towards the position of comfort she'd managed to settle into in the prior eternity that the detention had lasted thus far. Part of her wanted to leave it at that, to consider the other girl appropriately put in her place, and to respect the command for silence that they had been given when this cruel and unusual punishment had begun. But, it was mean and rude not to answer people, and more importantly, it was very teachery to ignore a perfectly reasonable question like that. Torn between disobedience and teacheriness, Marzena settled on the lesser of two evils.

"I'm doing science, actually," she corrected, as she carefully unstrung the fabric bag and began to pull out the implement she needed, the urge towards urgency having - for the moment - slipped completely from her thoughts. After all, she was explaining things, and explanations should never be rushed, not if you wanted to leave people smarter than when you found them. "The wall," she explained, pausing for dramatic effect, turning her eyes on the other student and gesturing towards the offending corner with one of her elongated and yet somehow still childishly chubby arms, "Is wonky."
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Niccolette Ibutatu
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Thu Oct 03, 2019 8:59 pm

Morning, 10th Hamis, 2702
Detention
Niccolette watched curiously as the other girl snatched up her things and rushed back to her seat, glancing anxiously at the door. “Nice, not polite, is the opposite of mean,” Niccolette countered, very seriously. Something sparked in her eyes, and she lifted her head off her arms.

“And anyway, it is mean to waste time,” Niccolette continued, utterly confident in the logic of her argument. “Therefore to be polite is to be mean.” She thrust her conclusion out triumphantly. The other girl had a nice way of speaking, the Bastian thought. It was in her vowels; they were not so boring as the way that all the Anaxi said it.

She was a time-waster, Niccolette decided. But she had a nice accent, and whatever it was that she was doing did not seem boring. Science was not so bad - Niccolette liked biology especially. She had read books about biology, even if they weren’t meant to be studying it yet. Niccolette did not like that about Brunnhold; she had gotten to decide what she studied at home, once she had learned all the baby things. Miss Ferralioli had not let her choose what she wanted to read, but Miss Andresano had, and Niccolette had liked that quite well.

But there were more important things happening. Niccolette flipped her book closed and shoved it to the side of the desk. She hooked her feet up cross-legged beneath her, little black shoes clicking against the seat. Carefully, Niccolette levered herself up onto the desk, and leaned forward over it, her arms resting against the wood, so that she could see properly. She was, the galdor thought virtuously, still in her seat; her toes were touching it. Therefore she had not broken the rules.

Niccolette followed the sweep of the other girl’s arm to the wall. She examined the offending spot, very carefully, a solemn frown creasing her face.

“It is!” Niccolette gasped. She saw it! The corner did not look right at all. She looked back at the taller blonde girl, and grinned, enthusiastic now. “What is wrong with it?” Niccolette squinted at the corner again.

Niccolette’s eyes wandered back to the other girl’s tools - the rulers and protractors and all sorts of other things. She made a little face, almost concerned. “I do not think you can fix it with those,” Niccolette pointed out, a little doubtfully, as if unsure both what the other student intended to do and why she would want to fix the ceiling.

It did not occur to Niccolette to check the door, to check whether their teacher might already be returning. He was boring, detention was boring, and this conversation might be the most interesting thing that would happen to Niccolette all day. All of her attention was fixed on the blonde with the accent, and Niccolette, even if she was perhaps skeptical, was curious what the other girl would say.

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Marzena Idas
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Thu Oct 03, 2019 9:32 pm

10 Hamis 2702
Brunnhold // Detention
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It was, quite simply, the stupidest thing that Marzena had ever heard, and she wasn't even sure how to begin unpacking it. To be polite is to be mean? That was the same kind of backwards logic as the girls who said they were only being mean to help her. It was the kind of justification that bad people used to convince them that they weren't. Even the assertion that being polite wasted time was wrong: it was one of the few things that Marzena had learned from her mother, that being nice to people made things go smoothly, and that sometimes it worked out better that way in the long run.

Quietly, Marzena dwelt on that notion for a moment, wondering if she'd forgotten to apply that lesson here. She was certain that she'd been right to stand her ground against the teacher who was trying to teach her and the other students the wrong thing, but look where it had landed her: look at what the consequences of her benevolent actions should have been. Perhaps she should have handled the situation more like her mother would have. Her mother always met her challenges with a smile, if she could. She let people be wrong, because it would have taken too much time to explain to them what was right. She let people say things that weren't nice, and just smiled through it, because people were less likely to make deals with you if you pointed out to their face that they weren't nice people. She laughed at jokes that weren't funny. She let men hug her when they'd drunk too much wine, even though Marzena knew she didn't want them to. My sweet little Zee, her mother would say, stroking Marzena's hair while she sat in bed, confused about why her mother let things be wrong and never tried to set them right, There are some things that just cannot be fixed, and there are some people that just are not worth the effort.

This girl, Marzena decided, was one of those people. If she wanted to be wrong about niceness, then fine. That was her business. But Marzena would continue to act the way that a nice person was supposed to act - and maybe, just maybe, the secretly different girl would see that example and realise how wrong she'd been, all on her own.

"There are some things that just cannot be fixed," Marzena quoted directly, though it came with disenchantment and a sigh, rather than the gentle certainty that her mother had provided. "But for science, you don't have to change things, or fix things. Science is about knowing what's what, and having the evidence to prove it. With these, and some maths, I can prove that the wall is wonky. I won't just think it, I won't just know it, it will be definite and proper and irre- uh, irre-" Her brow furrowed, a small breath taken, a verbal run-up on the Estuan word that was giving her trouble. "- irreflutable. That means no one can prove that it isn't."

Her eyes squint-winced towards the vacant space where the teacher wasn't. "And that way, the stupid dumbfaces will have to accept that they're wrong, and won't be able to put you in detention for it."
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Niccolette Ibutatu
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Thu Oct 03, 2019 9:58 pm

Morning, 10th Hamis, 2702
Detention
Niccolette was pleased and disappointed that the other girl had not argued with her further. Pleased, because that meant she had won the argument. Disappointed, because she had thought of many other things to say but now she would not get to say them. That was how arguments worked; once you had won you were supposed to stop.

Niccolette did understand that it was important to be polite. If you weren’t polite - if you didn’t say the right things - you got in trouble. Sometimes you got in bad trouble; sometimes it hurt. She knew that. But it seemed to Niccolette like she had to say polite things only because everybody else did - even when they did not meant them - and if everyone could just not agree to say them, they would all be better off. Nobody would have to waste their time with lots of words they did not really mean.

And Niccolette did not like having to do things. Even if it was only to say please and thank you and yes sir. Niccolette did not see why she should have to say thank you when she was not grateful; she knew that she did, but she knew also that she did not like it. She especially was sure that she should not be punished for not saying it; she knew, as well as she knew anything, that it was wrong.

This was one of the many not fair things that Niccolette did not wish to count. And she would not; there was plenty else to do now, and she seized on it with considerable excitement.

Irreflutable was a new word for Niccolette, but she liked it immediately. “No one?” The Bastian asked, wide-eyed. If you proved something and no one could say you were wrong, that would be very nice. She giggled at the other girl’s conclusion. “I like that.” Niccolette said, enthusiastically. She hadn’t known that science could keep you from being in detention, but she accepted the premise immediately and without reservation.

The Bastian leaned a little more forward, small enough that the desk didn’t even creak beneath her. “I shall help you prove it to those dumbfaces,” she announced, lifting her chin and proclaiming the words with considerable grandeur.

Now committed, Niccolette looked expectantly at the other girl’s paper and her tools. “How shall we do it?” Niccolette asked, her feet clicking against the chair beneath her, toes tapping one then the other against it. The history book sitting on the edge of her desk was gone, utterly forgotten in the excitement of the moment. It was not quite as nice as experiments involving people or as biology or as learning monite or practicing spells, but Niccolette quite liked the idea of being irreflutable.

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Marzena Idas
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Fri Oct 04, 2019 2:56 pm

10 Hamis 2702
Brunnhold // Detention
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Help. Marzena paused, as if the other girl had been speaking an unfamiliar language. She knew what the word meant, but knowing and understanding weren't the same thing. Marzena was not someone who was often helped: she seldom needed it, and when she did, it usually wasn't there to be found. It was not a word that Brunnhold had readily offered, either, and yet here suddenly was this stranger, this secretly different girl, offering to help without even know how she would be helping. For a fleeting moment, Marzena found herself so unprepared for the concept that she wasn't sure how the girl could possibly help either. But she was going to help, she had sounded very sure about that, Marzena was determined to let her.

A word floated through Marzena's mind. Alliance. That was what they were doing here: they were alliancing, a grand alliance against the buttfaces. A science alliance. Marzena decided immediately that there could not possibly be a better type.

"Okay!" she enthused, and began frantically unpacking her maths supplies. Everything was spaced out neatly on the desk, a moment taken here and there to adjust things so that they lined up properly. Neat minds have neat desks, one of her tutors had told her once, and it was something that Marzena had taken very seriously. Neat meant tidy, and organised, but neat also meant cool and awesome, and Marzena very much wanted to have a mind that was both of those things.

As she unpacked, she contemplated what task she could give to this other girl, her eyebrows trying furiously to knit themselves into each other as she thought. Finally, her desk was arranged, and a decision was reached. She turned to the other girl, a ruler held triumphantly in her hand. "Okay."

A momentary fearful glance was cast towards the doorway, but the coughing teacher had yet to return. They would need to be fast, but sometimes two people made things twice as fast, so that was good. That would help. But two people couldn't do maths at the same time, not unless they were sharing the same brain somehow. Which meant there was only one thing the other girl could possibly do.

"Okay, so," Marzena began, grabbing her notebook and flipping to a page that was already graced with a few scrawls and scribbles around the outside margin. Marzena ignored them, instead heading for the central space, and beginning work on her all-important diagram. When it came to science, diagrams were vitally important. The thing with science was to remember that everyone was probably a little bit stupid, so you had to explain things nice and simply for them. Some people were so stupid that they needed things explained by pictures, and those were diagrams. While Marzena did not know the other girl all that well, she had some very silly ideas about some very simple things, so it seemed likely that a diagram would be extremely necessary, and so Marzena set to work, a little stick figure representation of herself, seated at her desk, holding an arm out ahead of her as if it was archery; and then across the page, another stick figure - carefully drawn to be just a little bit shorter than the stick Marzena, because that was a fact, and facts were important in science too - standing beside a line that was very clearly the wall in question. Last, some lines connected everything together: lines that connected stick Marzena's eye to the top and bottom of the stick Other Girl - she hadn't said her name yet, and Marzena needed to call her something, else how would she write about her science properly? - passing through the bow that was really a ruler. Triumphantly, she traced the outline of the two triangles she had now created on the page.

"Everything is triangles." It was an oversimplification, but the Other Girl seemed like the sort where that might help. "If you are looking at two things, and you are the third thing? Triangle. So here on this diagram -" She hesitated, glancing at the Other Girl to make sure she was understanding. "- which is a fancy science word for a story-picture, there are two triangles. One triangle starts at my eyes, and goes to the top of your head and the bottom of your toes, and the other one uses the top and bottom of the ruler. But because everything lines up, they are similar triangles, which means that the first one is just a bigger version of the second one, so all of the angles are the same, and that is real important."

She paused, drew a breath, and continued. "Because they are similar, that means that we can use the small triangle to figure out things about the big triangle, and we can use the big triangle to figure out things about the wonky wall. We just need to measure two of the similar sides, and then we know everything. And the easiest way to do that -" It was a lie of course, there were far easier ways; but this was the easiest way that made use of the two people involved. "- is to figure out how many yous tall the wall is. If we know the wall, and because we already know the ruler, that's everything we need."

Marzena frowned. "In science you need to use units though. It is very important." She cocked her head to the side slightly; there was only one solution to the problem, clearly. "I am going to need to know what your name is."
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Niccolette Ibutatu
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Fri Oct 04, 2019 3:23 pm

Morning, 10th Hamis, 2702
Detention
Niccolette watched, wide-eyed and enthusiastic, as the other girl unpacked her things and set them out on the desk. Her feet click-clacked steadily against the chair beneath them, and even though it started to get a little uncomfortable balancing against the desk, Niccolette refused to sit back down. If she sat back down, then she would miss everything, and Niccolette could not bear to miss everything.

Niccolette watched curiously as the other student make stick figure drawings in her notebook. There was a little person as a desk, and then another smaller person, and a stick, and then a bunch of lines. Niccolette made a little face at the other girl’s opening statement – Niccolette was quite sure that some things were circles, there were circles right there on the other girl’s drawing – but she was willing to accept it as a premise, if necessary.

“I know what a diagram is,” Niccolette said, scornfully. She wriggled a little closer on the desk, and squinted at the diagram, and then back at the other girl. Niccolette was not entirely convinced she understood, but the two triangles did look similar in the drawing, and the other girl seemed very certain.

“I,” Niccolette pronounced, “am Niccolette Villamarzana.” It was an enormous amount of name for the tiny galdor, wearing her little green uniform, the skirt slightly rumpled from having been sat on, sock clad ankles waving gently in the air over her seat, long dark hair pinned up with a clip. The Bastian made a little face. “But it is too long,” she said. “To my friends I am Nicco.”

“So,” Niccolette said. “You wish me to go to the corner so that you can use these similar triangles to measure the wall,” Niccolette bit her lip; now she did glance back over her shoulder at the door, and then back at the corner.

It was, Niccolette knew, forbidden to leave one’s seat during detention. The galdor wriggled slightly. It was definitely forbidden to go stand in the corner. If she got caught, she would be in trouble – in even more trouble. But, Niccolette thought defiantly, if she did not go, then she would not get to do anything interesting all day. And she had given her word to help, and Niccolette knew that it was very important – really important – to do things that you said you would do.

There were all sorts of people who promised they would do things but did not; Miss Andresano had promised that she would stay with Niccolette and keep teaching her all the way until she went to Brunnhold. She had not; she had left Niccolette all alone, and then Miss Marchetti had come instead, and she had not been nice at all. This was another not fair thing, and it hurt just to think about it.

“Very well,” Niccolette nodded, agreeing. “Wave at me when you have finished.” The Bastian took a deep breath, glanced back at the door again. She plopped back onto her seat, hopped off – it took a little effort to wriggle over the edge, and dashed across the classroom to the corner, standing in it just as the other girl had indicated in her diagram. She held still – one heartbeat, two –

The door opened, and the teacher stepped back inside, his eyes sweeping over the room. They stopped on Niccolette.

The Bastian was still standing in the corner. She looked back at him, careful not to look at her seatmate, and crossed her arms firmly over her chest.

“Miss Villamarzana,” The teacher said, slowly. “What are you doing?”

Niccolette swallowed, hard; her breath was coming a little quickly now, but she lifted her chin and leveled her best effort at a glare at the teacher. “It was boring in my seat,” Niccolette said, and shrugged. She did not look at her science mate; Niccolette was many things, but she was not a snitch. She held, her little chin raised, her arms crossed over her chest, unyielding and determined, and stayed just where she had been before - in case her science mate hadn't yet finished.

The teacher closed his eyes, and coughed into his hand. “Back to your book, now,” he said, firmly. “I’ll be sending a note to your parents after this detention, Miss Villamarzana. One more infraction, and you’ll have a demerit.”

Niccolette walked, chin raised, steadily back to her seat, all too aware of her heart pounding in her chest - of the fresh heat rising behind her eyes. She sat back down, picked up her book, and plopped it open on her desk, head bent studiously over it. The teacher made his way back to the front of the room, rubbing his face, and sat again.

Niccolette peeked up at him, then looked back down at her book. She drew the notebook she was meant to write her report in over to herself, and carefully wrote a few words on the page. She brought it down to her lap, ripped the paper as quietly as she could, and folded it in half. Carefully, Niccolette edged it forward and nudged it against the other girl’s back; her field pulsed, gently, drawing her attention.

The note read, in neat, rounded script, each letter carefully formed:

You have finished?

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Marzena Idas
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Fri Oct 04, 2019 4:01 pm

10 Hamis 2702
Brunnhold // Detention
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As the teacher entered the room, it was like the world ended. Time moved slowly. The air seemed thick and heavy, weighing down on Marzena like she'd fallen into a vat of honey, the crushing weight pouring into her lungs. This would be when the Niccolette Villamarzana would betray their short-lived science alliance, and Marzena would once again find herself suffering the injustices of dumbface teachers and stupid betrayers all over again. It had happened before, with the girls in the dorm, who blamed her for everything even if she hadn't even been there; and it would happen again now.

But it didn't. Niccolette didn't even so much as look at her, let alone say anything that cast blame in her direction. She shouldered it all herself, instead. It didn't make sense. It wasn't what people did. It wasn't fair, either, because she was only trying to help. Marzena should have been the one getting letters sent home, the one threatened with demerits. But no. In some of the stories Marzena read, people bravely stood in the path of danger to shield someone else. Sometimes it was because they cared for the other person. Sometimes it was because the other had important work to do. One person took an arrow, or a knife, or whatever else, so the other could continue on and save the day. That was what Niccolette had done, for Marzena and for their alliance. As she returned defiantly to her seat, Marzena's heart swelled a little with pride.

Her mind didn't stop thinking, though. Her stylus scratched away on the notepaper, racing through the calculations, That was one of the great and special things about maths: even when you weren't doing what you were supposed to be doing, it still looked like you were. The measurement that Marzena had taken - how tall Niccolette had seemed, measured by her ruler at arm's length - was scribbled down, and as Niccolette had returned to her seat, Marzena had used the desks themselves to figure out her height. She'd double-check later, of course, to make sure her calculations were exactly right - triple-check, even, because in science you did everything three times - but for now, the provisional calculations were in, and Marzena began to right down the height of that corner in Niccolette's.

She hesitated, Niccolette's words floating through her thoughts. To my friends I am Nicco. It had seemed like a statement of fact at the time, but only now did Marzena consider the implications. While it might have been a taunt, the kind of cruel thing the girls in her dorm might have said, before forcing Marzena to call them by their full name just to put her in her place, Niccolette had shown that she wasn't like them, at least not completely. Had it been an invitation, then, for Marzena to call her Nicco too? And, if that were so, did that mean she and Nicco were now friends?

An eerie sort of silence seemed to descend across Marzena as that thought settled into place. She didn't think she'd ever had a friend before. Not one that could talk, anyway. Was that why Niccolette had done what she had done, then? Not because they were allies, but because they were friends?

It was as that thought was contemplated that the pulse of mystical energy caught her attention. She took the note as if she had been handed some rare, priceless treasure, and glanced around her to make triple-sure that she wasn't being watched. Her stylus eagerly found the scrap of paper, ready to scribe her response, but she hesitated, more on her mind than a simple answer to the question.

Yes, for now.
Was my fault.
Why didn't you say?


The note was discreetly returned, and Marzena's attention settled on her calculations once more, and their one apparent glaring error. She reached for an eraser, carefully sweeping aside some of the letters, and corrected her calculations to measure the height of the wall in Niccos.
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Niccolette Ibutatu
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Fri Oct 04, 2019 4:37 pm

Morning, 10th Hamis, 2702
Detention
Niccolette looked back down at her book, and read another few pages, turning them carefully. It was not too bad to read while she waited, even though she was very excited; soon she would know the answer to her question, and she would know whether it had been worth it – whether the other girl’s science had succeeded despite the teacher’s interruption.

But as she read, Niccolette kept half an eye on the other girl’s back, and at the tiniest sound of the rustling of paper, Niccolette reached her hand forward and took the note again. She glanced around, shifted on her seat, and carefully unfolded the note.

Niccolette frowned, reading it carefully, and then reading it again. The news that science had succeeded – irreflutably, Niccolette hoped – was a relief, but she was confused by the next two lines. First, she did not like the idea that it was not her fault. She had known it was not allowed, but she had gone to the corner. It seemed to Niccolette very rude to say that it was only the other girl's fault - as if Niccolette had not known! She could not let such a thing stand.

But the most confusing part was the last question. Niccolette thought it was very obvious; she would never tell on a friend. The other girl seemed very smart – she drew diagrams and she did math to understand walls – but Niccolette realized, for the first time, that she might not be, at least not about friends. That was all right, Niccolette thought. She supposed that she could make some allowances for somebody who thought the whole world was made of triangles, and that being polite was the exact same as being nice. She would teach her.

Niccolette turned her attention back to the note.

Niccolette wrote her answer neatly beneath the other girl’s writing. She paused, then went back to the first word, and carefully traced the pen over it again - once, twice, and then she stopped, because she didn't want the writing to bleed through the page. There was a cough from the front of the room, and Niccolette quickly slid the folded up paper under her book, her heart racing. She focused her eyes on the page for a long few moments, then carefully peeked up again, and, satisfied that the skies were clear, carefully eased the paper back out. Her field gave a little pulse again, and she reached forward, brushing the other girl’s fingers with her own as she handed the note back.

You have finished?

Yes, for now.
Was my our fault.
Why didn't you say?


Friends do not snitch!

Niccolette turned her attention back to her book, her feet swinging a few inches above the floor. It was, she decided, not so bad in detention. It was not fair, of course, but that could not be helped. She had thought it would be very boring to sit here, but now she thought perhaps it would not be so bad.

The first hour of the morning had crawled by so slowly that Niccolette had thought it was some kind of magic she hadn't learned about yet; every time she had looked up at the clock, the hands seemed barely to have moved, and she had almost wondered if the teacher was moving them back. But Niccolette turned her attention to her book, and she read, and she wrote a little bit of her essay, and then before she even knew it, the bells had chimed 11, and then 12, and then 13, and then 14.

"Dismissed for lunch!" The teacher called. "Back here in one hour, all of you."

Niccolette slammed her book shut and wriggled out of her chair. Instead of rushing towards the cafeteria like the rest of the students, though, Niccolette went forward to her new friend's desk, and grinned at her. "We shall sit together for lunch," Niccolette announced, as if it were not a question or a request so much as an absolute statement of fact. "What is your name?"

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