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rainbowfic2014-10-22 06:23 pm
kay_brooke) wrote in rainbowfic2014-10-22 06:23 pm
Alien Green #4, Or #18, Wizard #6
Name: kay_brooke
Story: The Eighth Saimar
Colors: Alien Green #4 (I would never lie. I willfully participated in a campaign of misinformation), Or #18 (Humility), Wizard #6 (Ravenclaw)
Styles/Supplies: Canvas, Seed Beads
Word Count: 1,765
Rating/Warnings: PG-13; no standard warnings apply.
Summary: Afry has to answer for his biggest mistake.
Note: Constructive criticism is welcome, either through comments or PM.
“Afry. Come in.”
Gritting his teeth, Afry stepped into Mara’s office--no, Dionos Mara, because while she blithely dropped the title he had spent years earning, woe betide him if he ever did the same--and stood before her carven oak desk, hands clasped, and waited for the Queen Apparent to give him permission to sit.
More like Queen Bitch. Another thing he could never say aloud and expect to leave with his reputation and livelihood intact.
Though she had called him inside, she made him wait. He counted under his breath, in time with his heart, and had reached a full hundred before she finished writing, put down her quill, and regarded him with eyes sharp as a soldier’s knife.
“Sit,” she said, and he did, taking his place in the low-backed wooden chair opposite her, leaning fully back to show that he wasn’t intimidated by her.
“So,” she began, “do you know why I have called you in this morning?”
It could have been any number of things. He has assumed, since it was Mara who had called him in, that it had something to do with his work on ancient translations, of particular interest to the archive committee in Parliament. Not Mara’s area at all, and Afry wondered why he wouldn’t be directly contacted by the committee members themselves, but she was the liaison between the Academy and Parliament and it wouldn’t do for the Queen Apparent to not stick her nose in absolutely everything she could.
But he said, “No.”
She nodded. “This is a bit of an unusual case, of a sort I’m not usually involved in.” She shuffled some papers on her desk. “But there has been some restructuring in the upper levels of the Academy, and we have all been assigned a certain number of the dionosi to assess.”
“You’re assessing me?” What insult was this? Afry was high enough in the ranks of the Academy dionosi that he hadn’t been evaluated in years. If this was true, why had he not himself been given that responsibility? He hadn’t even known it was happening, and that was worrying. Just a month before he had successfully used his influence to get his own daughter admitted into the Academy early.
Or perhaps that was the problem. Maybe he had used up too many favors.
Dionos Mara blinked slowly, the very tips of her mouth turning up. “Don’t be so alarmed. My assessment was mostly positive.”
Damn the saints, he had let her see him rattled.
“Mostly,” she continued, and instead of idly shifting papers around, she deliberately picked up a thick stack tied together with string. Afry recognized it immediately, and resisted the urge to wipe away the sweat that sprang up on his forehead. Of course it would be that, his biggest mistake.
“Part of the assessment, as I’m sure you would realize if you took a heartbeat to think it through,” said Mara, “is assessment of your students. This one here.” She held up the stack so that Afry could see the name on the front, though he already knew who it was. “Jarol Caryaga.”
“He’s not my student,” said Afry. “He has never taken a single class of mine.” He sounded so desperate, even to his own ears.
Mara frowned. “Don’t be disingenuous, Afry. He’s your der-deschi.”
The only correct response seemed to be silence. Afry met her gaze and tried not to blink.
Mara dropped the stack, which made a dry thump against the top of her desk. “You have quite the reputation throughout the Academy for finding nascent ischikothi. Practically legendary.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “I’m not so sure.”
“My results speak for themselves,” said Afry, through lips stiff as Jarol’s damnably large file.
“Oh, perhaps once,” said Mara. She leaned back in her chair, a much more opulent example than the one Afry was in. “But I believe you’ve gotten lazy in recent years, most especially in regards to young Jarol here.”
“I did everything correctly,” said Afry. “I followed procedure. Everything is documented in that very file.”
“I’ve read it,” said Mara. “But written words don’t always tell truth, do they?”
Heart thumping hard against his ribs, he said, “Are you accusing me of lying?”
“Of course not,” said Mara, shifting slightly in her chair, like a snake preparing to strike. “But perhaps you...skipped some things?”
“No,” said Afry. “Everything was done exactly as it was documented.”
“I see,” said Mara. “Perhaps I should set up a meeting with Jarol, see how much of the testing he remembers.”
“He was eight!” Afry burst out. Then he took a deep breath to get himself under control. “I’m sure he won’t be able to remember the finer points, of course.”
“Oh, I think you’d be surprised,” said Mara, “at what children remember. I’ve read his file, remember. I know what conditions you took him from. His mother sold him to you. Highly irregular; we do not exchange money for people. But we looked the other way because of your reputation.”
“It was the only way to convince his mother to let him go,” said Afry. “She was going to miss him so dreadfully.”
“Now you are outright lying and I’m going to ask you politely to stop,” said Mara, the first sign of a hard edge creeping into her voice. “This is not about the monetary exchange. My point is that you changed his life then, and from his viewpoint, for the better. I think, if I asked him, he would be able to remember every single detail of that day.”
Afry bit down hard on his cheek, the pain reminding him not to open his mouth so foolishly again.
“Well?” said Mara.
“She practically shoved him at me,” he said, slowly, carefully choosing his words. “She wanted both of us out of her house immediately. She didn’t give me time to administer all the tests.”
“So you did them on the journey back to Spirathua?”
He was so angry he wanted to spit. “No. It was the beginning of the rainy season. The journey was rough. I didn’t want to exhaust the boy, lest he become ill.”
“So you never did the tests you claimed you did?”
“I didn’t need to,” said Afry. “I know talent when I sense it, and he had talent.” And that was the truth, which was all he had left. He had no excuse for why he had so blatantly disregarded procedure, other than that he had been absolutely sure. And he’d spent eight years trying to ignore that great mistake.
“Afry,” said Mara, almost kindly, though he could hear the mockery in her voice. “The boy is amanisch.”
That dreaded word, the one he sometimes had nightmares about. Very rare, the amanischi, the false ischikothi. The vast majority ot people in the world either had the deschi or didn’t. But then there were some who had it but not quite, who could sometimes wield it but not control it. Thankfully, the amanischi were usually so weak that their uncontrolled abilities were not dangerous. Jarol was stronger than most, but it had become clear almost immediately that he was not a true ischikoth.
Afry had made a grave mistake, one that would have destroyed his reputation as one of the best deschi sniffers in the world. The amanischi only felt real to the shallowest senses; any deeper test would have revealed what he was. Tests that Afry had skipped, because he was so sure. And who could have predicted he had come across something so rare? He had only met one other amanisch in his whole life.
And he had ignored his mistake for eight years, had hoped Jarol’s poor performance would be put down to his uncooperative attitude or his disregard for authority, or even the assumption that he was simply just not very bright. Talented, but unsuited for the Academy for other reasons. And he had hoped someone else would take care of it. Someone else would arrange for Jarol to quietly leave the Academy, and Afry himself could carry on as if the boy had never existed.
But Jarol had instead kept advancing, each one of his instructors unwilling to expel him for such vague reasons. For eight years. And now it had come to rest right where it had started.
“I take it from your silence you are well aware of this,” said Dionos Mara. “Yet you’ve allowed him to advance and never said a word. You’ve allowed the time and energy of numerous dionosi to be wasted on a boy who will never be able to graduate or even be trained properly.”
“He was never my student,” said Afry again. “I merely brought him here. It was up to his own instructors to identify those problems.”
“And yet had you spent any time testing him properly, none of those dionosi would have been placed in that position.” Mara sat forward. “Believe me, everyone involved in this incident is being interviewed. We cannot allow a situation like this to happen again. But you understand why you are of particular interest, yes?”
He did. And he hated himself for it, just as much as he hated Mara and every other dionosi who had looked the other way while an untalented boy was passed right along to the next.
But it had been his mistake to begin with.
“What would you have me do?” he finally said, because there was nothing he could think of now, nothing to get himself out of punishment.
Mara looked at him for a few moments, then said, “I recommended your dismissal. But your reputation saved the day; the dionoseli did not agree. So you are to keep your position here.”
Afry quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
“However,” said Mara, “all of the der-deschi you have found in the past eight years will undergo new testing. You will no longer be allowed to travel the continent, looking for ischikothi. You will be allowed to do so within the city, provided there is another dionosi with you to verify your claims.”
Afry nodded, a new surge of embarrassment overtaking him. Like he was a student.
“And finally,” said Mara, “you will dismiss Jarol Caryaga from the Academy and return to him his family name.”
That, at least, he would be glad to do. “Is that all?”
“It is,” said Dionos Mara. “If you’ll excuse me, I have another appointment.”
Afry nodded, and got up to leave.
kay_brookeStory: The Eighth Saimar
Colors: Alien Green #4 (I would never lie. I willfully participated in a campaign of misinformation), Or #18 (Humility), Wizard #6 (Ravenclaw)
Styles/Supplies: Canvas, Seed Beads
Word Count: 1,765
Rating/Warnings: PG-13; no standard warnings apply.
Summary: Afry has to answer for his biggest mistake.
Note: Constructive criticism is welcome, either through comments or PM.
“Afry. Come in.”
Gritting his teeth, Afry stepped into Mara’s office--no, Dionos Mara, because while she blithely dropped the title he had spent years earning, woe betide him if he ever did the same--and stood before her carven oak desk, hands clasped, and waited for the Queen Apparent to give him permission to sit.
More like Queen Bitch. Another thing he could never say aloud and expect to leave with his reputation and livelihood intact.
Though she had called him inside, she made him wait. He counted under his breath, in time with his heart, and had reached a full hundred before she finished writing, put down her quill, and regarded him with eyes sharp as a soldier’s knife.
“Sit,” she said, and he did, taking his place in the low-backed wooden chair opposite her, leaning fully back to show that he wasn’t intimidated by her.
“So,” she began, “do you know why I have called you in this morning?”
It could have been any number of things. He has assumed, since it was Mara who had called him in, that it had something to do with his work on ancient translations, of particular interest to the archive committee in Parliament. Not Mara’s area at all, and Afry wondered why he wouldn’t be directly contacted by the committee members themselves, but she was the liaison between the Academy and Parliament and it wouldn’t do for the Queen Apparent to not stick her nose in absolutely everything she could.
But he said, “No.”
She nodded. “This is a bit of an unusual case, of a sort I’m not usually involved in.” She shuffled some papers on her desk. “But there has been some restructuring in the upper levels of the Academy, and we have all been assigned a certain number of the dionosi to assess.”
“You’re assessing me?” What insult was this? Afry was high enough in the ranks of the Academy dionosi that he hadn’t been evaluated in years. If this was true, why had he not himself been given that responsibility? He hadn’t even known it was happening, and that was worrying. Just a month before he had successfully used his influence to get his own daughter admitted into the Academy early.
Or perhaps that was the problem. Maybe he had used up too many favors.
Dionos Mara blinked slowly, the very tips of her mouth turning up. “Don’t be so alarmed. My assessment was mostly positive.”
Damn the saints, he had let her see him rattled.
“Mostly,” she continued, and instead of idly shifting papers around, she deliberately picked up a thick stack tied together with string. Afry recognized it immediately, and resisted the urge to wipe away the sweat that sprang up on his forehead. Of course it would be that, his biggest mistake.
“Part of the assessment, as I’m sure you would realize if you took a heartbeat to think it through,” said Mara, “is assessment of your students. This one here.” She held up the stack so that Afry could see the name on the front, though he already knew who it was. “Jarol Caryaga.”
“He’s not my student,” said Afry. “He has never taken a single class of mine.” He sounded so desperate, even to his own ears.
Mara frowned. “Don’t be disingenuous, Afry. He’s your der-deschi.”
The only correct response seemed to be silence. Afry met her gaze and tried not to blink.
Mara dropped the stack, which made a dry thump against the top of her desk. “You have quite the reputation throughout the Academy for finding nascent ischikothi. Practically legendary.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “I’m not so sure.”
“My results speak for themselves,” said Afry, through lips stiff as Jarol’s damnably large file.
“Oh, perhaps once,” said Mara. She leaned back in her chair, a much more opulent example than the one Afry was in. “But I believe you’ve gotten lazy in recent years, most especially in regards to young Jarol here.”
“I did everything correctly,” said Afry. “I followed procedure. Everything is documented in that very file.”
“I’ve read it,” said Mara. “But written words don’t always tell truth, do they?”
Heart thumping hard against his ribs, he said, “Are you accusing me of lying?”
“Of course not,” said Mara, shifting slightly in her chair, like a snake preparing to strike. “But perhaps you...skipped some things?”
“No,” said Afry. “Everything was done exactly as it was documented.”
“I see,” said Mara. “Perhaps I should set up a meeting with Jarol, see how much of the testing he remembers.”
“He was eight!” Afry burst out. Then he took a deep breath to get himself under control. “I’m sure he won’t be able to remember the finer points, of course.”
“Oh, I think you’d be surprised,” said Mara, “at what children remember. I’ve read his file, remember. I know what conditions you took him from. His mother sold him to you. Highly irregular; we do not exchange money for people. But we looked the other way because of your reputation.”
“It was the only way to convince his mother to let him go,” said Afry. “She was going to miss him so dreadfully.”
“Now you are outright lying and I’m going to ask you politely to stop,” said Mara, the first sign of a hard edge creeping into her voice. “This is not about the monetary exchange. My point is that you changed his life then, and from his viewpoint, for the better. I think, if I asked him, he would be able to remember every single detail of that day.”
Afry bit down hard on his cheek, the pain reminding him not to open his mouth so foolishly again.
“Well?” said Mara.
“She practically shoved him at me,” he said, slowly, carefully choosing his words. “She wanted both of us out of her house immediately. She didn’t give me time to administer all the tests.”
“So you did them on the journey back to Spirathua?”
He was so angry he wanted to spit. “No. It was the beginning of the rainy season. The journey was rough. I didn’t want to exhaust the boy, lest he become ill.”
“So you never did the tests you claimed you did?”
“I didn’t need to,” said Afry. “I know talent when I sense it, and he had talent.” And that was the truth, which was all he had left. He had no excuse for why he had so blatantly disregarded procedure, other than that he had been absolutely sure. And he’d spent eight years trying to ignore that great mistake.
“Afry,” said Mara, almost kindly, though he could hear the mockery in her voice. “The boy is amanisch.”
That dreaded word, the one he sometimes had nightmares about. Very rare, the amanischi, the false ischikothi. The vast majority ot people in the world either had the deschi or didn’t. But then there were some who had it but not quite, who could sometimes wield it but not control it. Thankfully, the amanischi were usually so weak that their uncontrolled abilities were not dangerous. Jarol was stronger than most, but it had become clear almost immediately that he was not a true ischikoth.
Afry had made a grave mistake, one that would have destroyed his reputation as one of the best deschi sniffers in the world. The amanischi only felt real to the shallowest senses; any deeper test would have revealed what he was. Tests that Afry had skipped, because he was so sure. And who could have predicted he had come across something so rare? He had only met one other amanisch in his whole life.
And he had ignored his mistake for eight years, had hoped Jarol’s poor performance would be put down to his uncooperative attitude or his disregard for authority, or even the assumption that he was simply just not very bright. Talented, but unsuited for the Academy for other reasons. And he had hoped someone else would take care of it. Someone else would arrange for Jarol to quietly leave the Academy, and Afry himself could carry on as if the boy had never existed.
But Jarol had instead kept advancing, each one of his instructors unwilling to expel him for such vague reasons. For eight years. And now it had come to rest right where it had started.
“I take it from your silence you are well aware of this,” said Dionos Mara. “Yet you’ve allowed him to advance and never said a word. You’ve allowed the time and energy of numerous dionosi to be wasted on a boy who will never be able to graduate or even be trained properly.”
“He was never my student,” said Afry again. “I merely brought him here. It was up to his own instructors to identify those problems.”
“And yet had you spent any time testing him properly, none of those dionosi would have been placed in that position.” Mara sat forward. “Believe me, everyone involved in this incident is being interviewed. We cannot allow a situation like this to happen again. But you understand why you are of particular interest, yes?”
He did. And he hated himself for it, just as much as he hated Mara and every other dionosi who had looked the other way while an untalented boy was passed right along to the next.
But it had been his mistake to begin with.
“What would you have me do?” he finally said, because there was nothing he could think of now, nothing to get himself out of punishment.
Mara looked at him for a few moments, then said, “I recommended your dismissal. But your reputation saved the day; the dionoseli did not agree. So you are to keep your position here.”
Afry quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
“However,” said Mara, “all of the der-deschi you have found in the past eight years will undergo new testing. You will no longer be allowed to travel the continent, looking for ischikothi. You will be allowed to do so within the city, provided there is another dionosi with you to verify your claims.”
Afry nodded, a new surge of embarrassment overtaking him. Like he was a student.
“And finally,” said Mara, “you will dismiss Jarol Caryaga from the Academy and return to him his family name.”
That, at least, he would be glad to do. “Is that all?”
“It is,” said Dionos Mara. “If you’ll excuse me, I have another appointment.”
Afry nodded, and got up to leave.
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