skymuffins | [Sept. 9/11] Training Hall, Room 15, Afternoon

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[Sept. 9/11] Training Hall, Room 15, Afternoon

Allison tapped her laminated class schedule against her cheek as she made her way down a hall she hadn't been before. Huge windows showcased an equally huge field and if she stopped and squinted through the sunny glare, she could spot areas that looked a little charred.

Well, there was a reason this area of the school wasn't for those who had no reason to be here. Allison hadn't yet decided what she thought of the fact that she was here, though anything had to be better than setting things on fire when she got upset.

She grimaced a bit while she counted doors. There were worse things than the fires, really, but they were more noticeable to others. Allison supposed that was a good thing. She stopped outside the fifteenth door and double checked her schedule to make sure it was the right one.

It was. She was stalling. That's dangerous, she scolded herself, and then tucked her schedule into her backpack. Then, before she could think better of it, she rapidly knocked on the door (to give her tutor the heads up she was here, in case they weren't one of the ones that could just tell that) and opened it.

"Morning!" she said, poking her head in.

It was one in the afternoon.

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"And yet, where would our civilization be, without her? Eating raw meat, huddling in caves and using animal pelts to keep warm? No light, after the dark. No metal, no transportation beyond a horse, without even a buggy behind it. We'd be little more than apes, Cuttie. Naked apes, until the first winter swept in and killed the lot of us with cold."

His fingers brushed idly against the blistered, mangled flesh of his arm. And then he rolled his sleeve down again. Most people in the school weren't aware that the scar was there at all. He didn't mind if they knew, really. But it wasn't exactly an attractive sight.

His healer had panicked. And a scar, after the fact, was a scar.

"We owe our civilization to her willingness to work with us. Even if she's wilful. Even if she's dangerous. There are certain rules that she plays by, yes. And she's hungry, greedy, spiteful. But if you respect her rules, there's no need to burn."

She couldn't, wouldn't argue with him about the good things that fire had given them. There was no rebuttal to that.

But the ground shivered under her fingertips as she realized there was only one question she could ask and it was one that either he wouldn't have an answer to...

Or one she didn't want an answer to.

"What rule," she asked, almost inaudibly, "did I break then, to have deserved to wake up in the middle of a firestorm?"

"We broke nature's rules entirely, waking up at all," Dover murmured, fiddling now with the cuffs of his shirt. They were fascinating, really. "All of this. The stones. Our rebirths. Fire follows the rules of nature, Cuttie. But there's nothing about any of us at all that even begins to."

A little bit of his Catholic upbringing was peering in around the edges. He tamped it back and shook his head, eyes turned down. There were some shades of guilt that had no place in a conversation like this at all.

"When we came back, there was no common footing at all. Just stones, channelling a fire that fuels itself on whatever power it can take from the well inside of us. Just by being, we broke the rules. Now it's a matter of bending them so that they work for you and the flame, instead."

"I don't know if I can," she said honestly, still not looking anywhere at him. "Bend the rules, I mean. I'm no good at that sort of thing."

She petted the ground with absent fingers. No, his answer wasn't one she liked.

It could have been worse, though Allison wasn't sure how.

"Sure you are, Cuttie," Dover countered, his tone a little more gentle than a moment before. "That's what we are, isn't it? Bent rules all over."

They weren't dead. That on its own seemed like proof enough to him.

"How would you feel if I said, next time we meet, I'd like to see if we can work with that geomancy of yours instead of the flames?"

Her fingers froze on the ground and she twisted her lips into something that was too flat to be a smile.

"Might go better," she said, glancing at him. "Unless that goes out of control too."

"Well, I'll have a bit of a time tryin' to reign that one in. But your comfort level's bloody near half the battle. Unless you've got some sort of past history with rock slides that you figure I ought to know about?"

He was only partly teasing.

"No," Allison said, amused despite herself. "No rock slide traumas."

Her shoulders slumped, from a combination of exhaustion and failure induced ennui. "Sorry," she added, "for making this difficult your first time teaching."

"Aye right?" Dover scoffed, shaking his head a little as he reached for his bag. Instead of pulling out more candles? Those sandwiches he'd threatened to pull out earlier. He'd save the soup. It looked like she'd about had her fill of fire for one day. "Believe it or not, I came into this expecting far worse. What, we had to get you a drink? Not a single brushfire to be had."

And no first-aid necessary. He wasn't going to out and say that he'd been mostly expecting that, too.

Allison would deeply appreciate that, if she thought of it.

"You're just trying to make me feel better," she said and thought that, maybe, it was working a little bit. "If this was a test, I would have failed it miserably."

Which... yes.

"Fortunate that I don't test on the first lesson, then, innit?" Dover smirked as he held one of the sandwiches out to her. "Rule I just made up. No tests on the first bleedin' day. We'll give you some time to learn your theory before I go and pull a stunt like that on you."

She stared at the sandwich for a moment before reaching for it. She wasn't remotely hungry, which meant she probably was, under the reaction from expending so much untrained energy.

"Thanks," Allison said, trying to decide what it would taste like. "For the food." Her eyes flickered with something a little wry. "And not testing me so soon." She considered that, casting a peek at his face, and decided he'd be okay if she added. "Of course, if I bombed a test of yours on the first day, that would make you look bad too. So it's all for your benefit. I understand."

She was totally teasing him.

"Ah, so you've got me all figured out already? I'm a selfish bastard, but usually I'm better at hiding it," Dover laughed. "I suppose I'll have to put off any serious testing for a while longer, just so that I look better once I've got you trained up right and proper, like a real professional, then."

There was a method, see? To the madness?

To some sort of madness, at least.

"If that's the case," she said, smiling slightly, "then I guess I can't keep failing."

She didn't want to fail. She really didn't. At the same time... Allison was pretty sure fire and her were going to have difficulties mixing.

Fair enough. Dover and his own flame didn't really hit it off well for the first little while, either.

Obviously.

"Gonna hold you to that, Cuttie. We'll get you reigning it in like a pro in no time." He nodded to the sandwich. "Now, tuck in. And if you don't care for it, that's fine, too. I'll make something with a little less tofu in it, next week."

Because tutoring meant cooking, right?

Hush, you.

Allison just shrugged a little. "You don't need to make anything," she said, though it was very nice of him to do.

Sweet, even.

She was pretty sure he wouldn't appreciate that comment and so, in the interests of not saying it, she bit down on the sandwich.

"Eh, don't worry about it. Keeps me occupied when I'm not rotting away in lectures. Just think of it like I get going and make too much to eat all on my own, and so long as it doesn't taste like cardboard to you, you're welcome to as much as you care to eat."

Mm, tofu. With vegan mayo on it.

No, really. It tasted way better than it sounded.

"Brought some soup too, if you can get your appetite up again."

He was absolutely a mother hen.

It certainly tasted different than what she was used to eating. Allison really wasn't certain how she felt about it, though, she took another bite so it wasn't dreadful or anything.

She had to admit that she wasn't certain how she felt about anything right now, not after the way this lesson had gone.

Still, he deserved some sort of answer. "Doesn't taste like cardboard," Allison said, studying her sandwich. Weird. So weird. But not cardboard. "I guess you'll have to just admit you're not awful at cooking."

As for the soup, though...

"No soup for me," she said, because she was pretty sure that was too much for her to take right now. "But you can have it."

She'd just... not watch when he warmed it up.

And he'd just shrug and pull the thermos from his bag, fully intent on eating it cold.

Mother hen.

"Suit yourself," he replied, shrugging a little. "Let me know if you get thirsty, then. That much is easy enough to take care of, as it is."

He poured the soup from the thermos into the lid, and looked at it thoughtfully before he glanced her way again.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

"I don't know if they're worth that right now," Allison admitted, glancing back at him. "I'm sort of wallowing... in everything right now."

She shrugged.

"Wallowing? What, over this?" Dover gestured to the glassy ground with his soup hand, sloshing veggies over the rim of the cap. "Or over the fact that you've got it at all? If you're upset because you think you're some kind of failure for not getting it right on the first bloody try, I'm warning you now, Cuttie, I don't hesitate to shake people when they're expecting too much, too soon."

"And then you'll make me cry and then where will we be?" she asked him, smiling a little despite herself. "It's not about doing it perfectly at once," though maybe it was a little, "but more about... fear. And what you said, about the sun. Things like that."

"The fear... I get that," he offered, after a moment's pause. He leaned forward, inspecting just how many veggies he lost, and then shrugged a little. "You'd be insane not to be intimidated by something that can do what this power can do, at least until you get a better handle on it. And the rest?"

He wet silent for a moment more, sipping idly at his cold soup.

"It's big. I'll grant you that. But it's not impossible to swallow. I've got faith you'll manage."

She took another bite of her sandwich and chewed thoughtfully before answering. "Why?" Allison asked curiously. "You don't even know me. How can you have faith in me already?"

And in response to that, Dover just offered Allison a crooked little smile and a shrug.

"Obviously you didn't meet me back when I was in eleventh grade." Obviously, indeed. "If a gobshite like I was can figure this out all on his lonesome, anybody can. Just takes time, is all. I'm not expecting results by tomorrow, Cuttie."

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