math kills kittens--and babies (stuff-bear, come on down.)

[Anonymous]

Clytemnestra sighed, dropping her shoulders, as she folded her thin body over her book. It was unusual for the girl to struggle with school work, as she was quite intelligent, so the fact that she could not seem to wrap her head around the concepts about which she was just taught frustrated Clytemnestra to a point that almost grew to anger. She stared at the page in front of her with her eyes focused and glossy, and she pulled her thin, brown eyebrows together into a frown. Her mouth was not curved downwards, however, rather she set her mouth in a tight line, tightening the skin on her face, so that she scowled at her book with a stern, set face. Clytemnestra knew she should leave the room, as the class had been released quite awhile previously, but she was determined to remain seated until she figured out the work with eluded her. If she stood up and walked back to her room, Clytemnestra might lose her train of thought and have to work through the problem again, or maybe she would become so distracted by something in the dormitory that she neglected to finish all together. She needed to stay put.

Instead of pulling her hair all the way back, Clytemnestra pulled it into a tight ponytail, which bobbed behind her head with her small movements. She normally tied her hair in a bun, but today, she had decided she needed to switch up her appearance. Stuck in the dreary classroom in which she sat, though, Clytemnestra’s adventurous hair provided her no attention.  The coat jacket, the same charcoal colored jacket everyone wore, lay on the table next to where she worked, in a small crumpled heap. She had gotten hot during the class, and had removed the coat. She knew she should hang it over a chair or some similar object, because at the moment, it was contracting wrinkles she would just have to attempt to remove later. The candidates were expected to keep all their things painfully neat. This was usually not an issue for Clytemnestra, who grew up with her single parent believing in keeping everything around him clinical and clean.

Despite her determination to finish, Clytemnestra’s gaze kept drifting to the walls, mostly to the clock above her head. The more she pushed herself to work, the more distracted she became. It was as if her mind would not let her finish. It was probably a reaction to her difficulties with the material, but Clytemnestra could not even make herself concentrate by remembering the importance of doing well, a tactic which almost always scared her into ambitious submission. For a candidate, Clytemnestra was more motivated than most, but then she assumed that was because she had a lot at stake and was also very aware of the reality of TRIM. The girl finally gave up, and dropped her head to her book, so that the skin of her cheek, the side with the light birthmark, touched the cool paper. The book was much more useful like this, Clytemnestra mused, and she allowed her golden eyes to flutter closed and her body to drift into a slower, less excitable state.

[Anonymous]

Absolon stretched his arms out above his head when his class came to an end, resisting the urge to gape his mouth in a loud, obnoxious yawn as everyone promptly gathered their belongings and made to leave.  So easy.  Too easy.  How could that couple of classmates have been doing as badly as they were today, didn’t they read their notes?  Didn’t they go and train?  Or did they just sit on their arses all day doing nothing?  Solo thought a lot of himself, sure, but he still knew the value of putting in the extra hours to get ahead.  Getting embarrassed in a class?  Ha!  No, thank you.

Besides, seeing someone answer a question that you know the answer to and fail gave such a lovely, warm feeling of satisfaction.  Yes, he was better than them.

Standing up, Solo slipped into his uniform jacket, pulling the sleeves down, straightening it out, ensuring that it was presentable.  He was careful in keeping his clothing immaculate, lest he invoke the wrath of his superiors.  He’d seen it before – carelessness with your uniform didn’t get you anywhere.  Creaseless, clean-smelling clothes?  They simply radiated success.

He brushed past some faceless Candidate as he exited the room, making his way down the hallway to his next destination.  With that being his last class for the day, Absolon was free to do as he pleased, but ever eager to stay on top of things, he was quick to head straight to another classroom to collect some documents.  Though he certainly did not want to admit it to anyone, Solo’s grasp over his abilities were not quite as honed as his mind and his body.  So, craftily, he’d requested some items that he described as being for ‘research purposes’.  Not to better his own abilities, but rather, to simply learn more about them or what have you.  

It wasn’t as though doing that was a rarity for him, anyway.  Solo had an insatiable appetite for knowledge when it came to working out all of the finicky details of combat or psychic abilities or other abilities – know your enemy, so they say.  What he didn’t research to discover things about himself, he did so to discover the weaknesses of others, and hell did that come in handy.

When he wandered into the classroom, Solo went straight to the desk where the book and accompanying documents and holocards were already laid out for him.  He saw the girl slumped over her desk out of the corner of his eye, but waited until he’d ensured that all of the necessary things were present in the pile of papers before doing anything to acknowledge her.

“Being awake makes it a lot easier to read, you know,” he couldn’t resist.

[Anonymous]

The voice that cut through her slumber horrified Clytemnestra. She was never supposed to actually fall asleep, and the fact that she had been caught performing such a pathetic action modified her. What the boy who talked to her must think! She was not lazy or pathetic, in any manner, she was just rather tired. Clytemnestra slowly turned her head so that she faced the boy, and from the corner of her eyes, she realized her coat was on the table in a crumpled heap. She could not have been caught in a more humiliating position. To rectify her dignity, Clytemnestra grabbed her coat and shook it out, which, in the girl’s defense, removed almost all the wrinkles, and hastily draped it across the back of her seat. She turned back to the boy. She was quite humiliated, which showed as ruddiness in her dark cheeks, but she managed to keep her face perfectly composed. Her eyes were glazed with thought, but her mouth and brows remained stiff and cold.
“I was reading, and then I happened to fall asleep. For those of us who study, such an event sometimes occurs.”
 Clytemnestra explained. Her voice lacked tone, so that her delivery was serious and straight. She could not assume that this boy was someone who did not study, so her comment was more a comment about the general habits of candidates. Most of the ones she knew were highly unmotivated.

After a few seconds of eying the other person suspiciously, Clytemnestra shrugged her shoulders and returned her face to her book. She kept the other form in the edge of her vision, but continued to read her text.
“There’s not another class in here for awhile. Why are you here?”
Clytemnestra questioned. Her voice was inquisitive with an accusatory tone. She did not actually find the boy’s presence that suspicious, but she was angry and embarrassed by the way he found her, and she wanted to turn the tables against him. She did not want to be the only person caught in a compromising situation. That was not fair. Clytemnestra felt that she had to treat this boy with a defensive, prickly manner, due to his intrusion onto her study time and his witnessing of her accidental slumber.

The girl sighed, and turned back to the boy so she could judge his appearance. He appeared spotlessly neat. This trait usually would have pleased Clytemnestra greatly, but now, he was just a perfect example of what she usually was ,and now was not, Her eyes narrowed, but she said nothing. She had reached a stopping place in her book, and was thinking about leaving the room. She was not going to leave the room, however, if this boy were to think he chased her off. She was determined to never give him that much power. So she watched him wearily, the fatigue clear in her golden eyes and her tight face, and did not say anything else.

((Horrible reply, but I am beyond exhausted. I hope it's alright.))