Mother of Learning. Arc 3 Incomplete

The next to come was Raynie — the red-headed mystery that transferred into their class in the previous year. She was reserved, polite, extremely attractive, a good student and absolutely refused to tell anyone about her family or origins. The only one who knew anything concrete about Raynie was Kiana, another of his female classmates, and she was resolute in her silence.

And so it went, student after student, until the list was complete and he could finally slip inside and try to rest for a bit before class started. He absent-mindedly erased the blackboard with a single alteration spell, causing the chalk to simply peel off the surface and fall to the floor, and sat down to wait.

«No, Ben, you cannot turn in your assignment a week from now,» Zorian growled. «The deadline was yesterday. I have to hand them over to Ilsa today. Don’t you see the problem here?»

«Come on, Zorian, this is what friends are for,» Benisek complained. «What good is having your best bud as the class rep if you can’t ask him to cut you some slack?»

«You’re not asking for a favor, you’re asking for the moon,» Zorian told him, giving him a flat stare. «I cannot help you in this regard.»

«But I really, really can’t get another demerit,» Benisek said, giving him a hopeful smile.

«Tough,» Zorian said. «I guess you should have thought about that before you decided to completely blow off another assignment from Ilsa. You already know she can’t stand students boycotting her homework.»

«She’s completely ridiculous!» Benisek said. «What kind of teacher gives out 3 assignments during the first week of the year?»

«Umm,» a new voice cut in. Zorian silently offered a prayer to whosoever was still listening on the spirit planes for the interruption. He was seriously ready to strangle Benisek to get him to shut up. This wasn’t the first time he was suffering through this conversation, but he usually wasn’t so tired when dealing with his… sort-of friend. He was honestly rethinking his connection with the boy at this point.

As it turned out, the interruption was by Neolu, though Kiana and Jade were also hanging behind her. All three were holding a sheet of paper.

«I know the deadline for the assignment was yesterday, but I was sort of wondering—»

«If you could turn it in now?» Zorian finished.

She nodded furiously and extended the paper towards him.

«No,» Zorian deadpanned.

«Seriously?» Jade piped in. «You’re going to make a big deal out of this?»

«Yes?» Zorian asked rhetorically.

«Why don’t we just leave this here,» Kiana said, placing her assignment on his desk, «and you can decide whether you want to bother with them when Benisek is done annoying you and you cool down a little.»

«Hey!» Benisek protested.

«Sure,» Zorian shrugged. «You do that.»

Zorian patiently watched as the three of them left their assignments on his table and filed out of the classroom, waited until Benisek finally gave up on convincing him to… write Benisek’s assignment for him, he supposed? And then he calmly fished out a pen from his backpack and wrote ‘did not turn in assignment within the deadline’ at the top of each sheet of paper before unceremoniously shoving them into his backpack along with the other assignments. There, let Ilsa decide what to do with them.

«Why are you still here, Ako?» Zorian sighed, turning to the last person remaining in the room. «Your assignment was flawless, if that’s what’s worrying you.»

«I’m glad you decided to take the position from me,» she said. «I don’t think I could have gone through another year of it. When I accepted the position back in our first year, the teachers said it was a privilege. That there were benefits for the class representative. That it commands respect. But it was all a sham and by the time I realized that nobody was stupid enough to take the position from me.»

«Hey…» protested Zorian lightly.

«I’m not saying you’re stupid for taking it,» she immediately clarified. «You accepted it because it was bundled along with the apprenticeship with Ilsa. You were far smarter about it than I had been.»

«More like less naïve,» Zorian said. She flinched at his remark; apparently he hit too close for comfort. «Why did you sink so much effort into it if you hated it? Why not just boycott the whole thing?»

«Because it would be wrong,» she said vehemently. «You shouldn’t shirk your responsibilities. And I had accepted the class representative duties as my responsibility.»

Zorian gave her an incredulous look.

«What?» she challenged. Defiant. Daring him to tell her she was wrong.

«Nothing,» Zorian said. He didn’t want to argue with her. Ever since he had started to develop his empathy, he became increasingly sure she had a crush on him. A small one, but it was there. And while he didn’t return her feelings at all, he also didn’t want to hurt her emotionally. And he would have hurt her if he started talking to her honestly — they were two very different people, with different worldviews and ideals, for all that Akoja seemed to think they were alike.