All In A Day's Work
Once upon a time, long ago in the days of yore--
“Gods above!” Vin shouted, flinging the papers over her shoulder. “What part of Krisvyre Academy begins with “once upon a time”?”
Zak jumped and dropped the papers he was holding. “Forty-odd years and I’m still not used to your random outbursts.”
“Look at this! Look at this! Shevek asked them to write about the Academy, and we get something that begins with once upon a time?
“Maybe someone turned in the wrong paper,” Zak suggested. “I did that once. My first year with Shevek.”
“I once wrote the wrong paper for Shevek,” Vin grumbled. “But never in my life have I given him a paper that begins with—”
“Yes, yes, Vin, I know—“once upon a time,” you mentioned,” Zak said. He had long since grown used to Vin’s near-constant ranting, and was quite accustomed to having to defuse her volatile temper. Vin was equally as good at doing this in reverse, although she was usually quelling Zak’s random bursting into song and dance, or spontaneous composition of songs silly enough to make any minstrel make a motion that Vin could only describe as “faceplam.”
Vin looked out the window at the Academy. She and Zak shared an office in the main building. The building was essentially four long hallways that formed the walls around the school. It contained various things—their office, obviously, but also the infirmary, the administrative offices, and non-subject-specific classrooms. Inside the wall that this building formed were five buildings, various pathways, and a large, square field enclosed by a low stone wall. Many students and Zak referred to this as “the quad.” Vin preferred to call it what it was—the practice field.
The four buildings that sat near the corners of the practice field were—clockwise from the top left corner—the girls’ dorm, the boys’ dorm, Zak’s classrooms, and Vin’s classrooms. Directly across the practice field was the library. The Academy was quite small, but it taught some of the most brilliant fighters and sorcerers the world had ever known. Vin and Zak themselves had attended the Academy. Zak had always known he would come back and teach. And while Vin had sworn that she would never come back and try to teach a group of annoying teenagers, she now found herself sitting in her office after another long day of doing just that.
She sighed and leaned back in her chair, staring out the window. Someone had told her a storm was brewing. She hadn’t believed it—the sky had been blue as ever when they had said—but it had gotten dark and windy. Rain wasn’t yet beating against the window panes, but Vin was fairly certain—judging by the leaves on the maple trees snapping in the wind—that Taran would very shortly be dumping buckets of water on their heads.
She wasn’t disappointed. Half an hour later, rain was lashing against the windows and trees swaying in the wind. As she watched students run through the rain—library to dorm, dorm to library, library to main building, main building to dorm, and every other direction imaginable—she chuckled. She remembered those days. Forty years ago, when she and Zak were students….
It didn’t feel like forty years, she mused, looking at her scimitars leaning against her desk. She twirled a lock of hair around her finger. No one would believe either of them was a day over thirty.
She and Zak had met completely by accident. They had been in the same history class, taught by Shevek—who was now the headmaster of the Academy. Vin hadn’t exactly understood the point of taking history when she was supposed to be learning how to fight, but the class had been fun all the same. She met Zak when Shevek was regaling them with a story about one of his visits to Seiryou, and an amusing misunderstanding that had occurred due to his inability to speak the language. Vin had piped up, speaking in Seiryan, at the same time as Zak. They looked at each other, started laughing, and had been fast friends ever since.
Although, Vin thought, looking over at Zak, you wouldn’t guess by the way we argue.
She had often heard that they bickered like a married couple, and often been asked, “how can you work with him if you argue all the time?” She usually smiled when someone asked that, and often shot back, “If we bicker like a married couple, how can you stand to be married?”
She watched a new student running across the practice field. Judging by the uniform, she was one of Vin’s students. She reminded Vin rather of herself at that age—clumsy, slow, and short. She was still short, according to Zak—who was six feet tall to her five-foot-three-and-three-quarters—but she was no longer very clumsy or slow. In fact, when the situation called for it, she was a red and black blur with very pointy objects in its hands.
No, the Academy was no fairy tale. Not unless one had been hit on the head very, very hard. She picked up the scattered pieces of paper and decided to actually read it this time.
Once upon a time, long ago and in the days of yore, there was a girl named Nichole who lived on the Northern Isle. Her mother was mean, and her siblings meaner, and no family members ever wanted to help her. Her friends were animals, or visiting, distant relatives. No one ever understood anything she said—in fact, they acted like she couldn’t speak at all.
One day, her mother started yelling that it was her fault that they had no money at all. With the help of the family rats, Nichole packed her things and ran away from home. It was very cold outside, and Arcvale was in the middle of nowhere. She was huddled in a cave, shivering, when a voice addressed her.
“You’re a long way from home.”
She jumped up, startled.
“Hello?” she called, looking around uncertainly.
“What’s your name?” the voice continued.
She looked around again, until she spotted a small wolf pup, curled up with its siblings and mother. It looked like the runt of the litter. “I’m Nichole. What’s your name?”
“Kevice,” it said. “Why so far from home?”
“My mommy is mean,” she said. “You’re lucky.”
“I have seven brothers and sisters,” it replied. “You have no idea how annoying they got. ‘Specially since my father died, and we had no money, and I was the only thing keeping us together.”
“Money? Wolves have money?”
“I’m not a wolf, silly—look up.”
Nichole looked up and gasped. Situated comfortably on the ceiling was a young man. Despite the fact that he was probably in his late teens, he had sparkling blue eyes and a wide grin that made him look younger than that. His hair was long and black, and he wore a cloak of red leather.
“What are you doing up there?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Just hanging around,” he said, jumping easily from the ceiling. “You ever heard of the Krisvyre Academy?” Nichole shook her head. “Really? I think you’d like it there.” He strolled over to the wolves and scooped up the little one. The rest of them didn’t stir. “Hey, little one,” he said, rubbing his nose against that of the pup. He then held it out to her.
“What? I can’t take it away from its mother!”
“They’ll eat it,” Kevice said. “It’s the little one. You would know all about that.”
Nichole looked at the little wolf, with its big blue eyes and fluffy fur. “Okay. If you’re sure it’s okay…” Kevice nodded.
“Head south until you reach Halekeep, then find work there. Good things will come to you. No one can have that much karma to burn off.”
And just as suddenly as he’d appeared, he was gone, leaving her holding a baby wolf and standing alone in a cave. She looked over at her things. A cloak and a compass had appeared on them. She shrugged, tucked the wolf puppy under her arm, and began the long walk to Halekeep.
Vin raised her eyebrows. Kevice? Was the girl who wrote this a daydreamer who had a crush on the legendary assassin, or was there more to this fairy tale than she’d expected? Although she still didn’t quite see what it had to do with the Academy, she kept reading.
Nichole found work at a tavern and inn in Halekeep. She was a cleaning girl, and the work was hard, but she was fed and warm. Her wolf lived under her bed in the attic, and was surprisingly well-behaved for a wolf. One day, the tavern owner pulled her aside.
“We have very special guests coming,” he said. “Vin Viktrin and Zak Trannyth, from the Krisvyre Academy. Every year, they make rounds looking for talented young people for the Academy.”
Nichole nodded excitedly, remembering what the mysterious boy, Kevice, had said about the Academy. She did her many jobs to the best of her ability, and—as she was carrying firewood in—ran straight into a woman with brown hair and a red tunic.
“Sorry ma’am,” she said quickly, running past.
The woman turned to her partner, a man with black hair and a red cloak, although distinctly unlike Kevice. “She speaks Sylvan,” she said. “I think this one is yours.”
Later that night, Nichole saw the two again. The tavern owner was conversing with them, showering them with compliments and displays of hospitality. The woman rolled her eyes quietly and wandered away from him, sitting in a corner where the light from the fire barely touched her. Nichole hurried over to offer her something to drink.
“Hot cider,” the woman said. “Please.” She looked over at her partner. “Better make that two.”
Nichole nodded politely and hurried off to get the cider. When she brought it back to the table, the woman and the man were talking quietly.
“How long have you spoken Sylvan?” the woman asked. Nichole looked confused.
“What?”
“You speak Sylvan. I don’t think you realize you’re doing it,” the woman said. “You have an affinity for nature that is very, very rare. Even Zak can’t compare to being naturally fluent in Sylvan.”
Nichole was about to ask, “What’s Sylvan?” when she realized something—she knew exactly what Sylvan was. It was the language of the animals, of the trees, and the river, and nature in general. A smile crept across the woman’s face.
“My name is Vin,” she said. “And this is Zak.”
“Would you be interested in training as a Druid at the Academy, in Krisvyre?” Zak asked.
“I don’t have any money,” she said.
Vin waved her hand to dismiss the matter. “Neither did we.”
And Nichole lived happily ever after with her wolf puppy, training to be a Druid with Zak at the Krisvyre Academy.
Vin was startled by the sudden (and, by the look of it, hastily scribbled) ending. She looked out the window. The rain was lightening, and there was a teenage boy with long, black hair and a red cloak sitting on the roof of the library. He spotted her looking out the window at him and grinned. Vin returned the gesture. She looked out—there was a girl with mousy brown hair and a shabby uniform marking her as one of Zak’s students stroking a tree in the corner of campus, speaking softly to it. Vin felt her eyes widen, and she looked back down at the papers in front of her.
“I still think the Academy doesn’t begin with “once upon a time,” ” she said. Zak looked at her.
“Did you read it?”
“I did. And it looks like Morrhigan needs some practice in writing novels, because the sentence structure is repetitive. Storytelling could use some work—she’s already met Kevice, why not subject her to Elya’s minstrel skills?”
Vin got up and put on her belt with her scimitars. It was time for class. Time to see if her students could fight on slippery grass. She had warned them that this would happen if they didn’t do their work and obey her rules. They hadn’t listened. This would teach them a lesson.
“Happily ever after?” she grumbled. “We’ll see.”
“Gods above!” Vin shouted, flinging the papers over her shoulder. “What part of Krisvyre Academy begins with “once upon a time”?”
Zak jumped and dropped the papers he was holding. “Forty-odd years and I’m still not used to your random outbursts.”
“Look at this! Look at this! Shevek asked them to write about the Academy, and we get something that begins with once upon a time?
“Maybe someone turned in the wrong paper,” Zak suggested. “I did that once. My first year with Shevek.”
“I once wrote the wrong paper for Shevek,” Vin grumbled. “But never in my life have I given him a paper that begins with—”
“Yes, yes, Vin, I know—“once upon a time,” you mentioned,” Zak said. He had long since grown used to Vin’s near-constant ranting, and was quite accustomed to having to defuse her volatile temper. Vin was equally as good at doing this in reverse, although she was usually quelling Zak’s random bursting into song and dance, or spontaneous composition of songs silly enough to make any minstrel make a motion that Vin could only describe as “faceplam.”
Vin looked out the window at the Academy. She and Zak shared an office in the main building. The building was essentially four long hallways that formed the walls around the school. It contained various things—their office, obviously, but also the infirmary, the administrative offices, and non-subject-specific classrooms. Inside the wall that this building formed were five buildings, various pathways, and a large, square field enclosed by a low stone wall. Many students and Zak referred to this as “the quad.” Vin preferred to call it what it was—the practice field.
The four buildings that sat near the corners of the practice field were—clockwise from the top left corner—the girls’ dorm, the boys’ dorm, Zak’s classrooms, and Vin’s classrooms. Directly across the practice field was the library. The Academy was quite small, but it taught some of the most brilliant fighters and sorcerers the world had ever known. Vin and Zak themselves had attended the Academy. Zak had always known he would come back and teach. And while Vin had sworn that she would never come back and try to teach a group of annoying teenagers, she now found herself sitting in her office after another long day of doing just that.
She sighed and leaned back in her chair, staring out the window. Someone had told her a storm was brewing. She hadn’t believed it—the sky had been blue as ever when they had said—but it had gotten dark and windy. Rain wasn’t yet beating against the window panes, but Vin was fairly certain—judging by the leaves on the maple trees snapping in the wind—that Taran would very shortly be dumping buckets of water on their heads.
She wasn’t disappointed. Half an hour later, rain was lashing against the windows and trees swaying in the wind. As she watched students run through the rain—library to dorm, dorm to library, library to main building, main building to dorm, and every other direction imaginable—she chuckled. She remembered those days. Forty years ago, when she and Zak were students….
It didn’t feel like forty years, she mused, looking at her scimitars leaning against her desk. She twirled a lock of hair around her finger. No one would believe either of them was a day over thirty.
She and Zak had met completely by accident. They had been in the same history class, taught by Shevek—who was now the headmaster of the Academy. Vin hadn’t exactly understood the point of taking history when she was supposed to be learning how to fight, but the class had been fun all the same. She met Zak when Shevek was regaling them with a story about one of his visits to Seiryou, and an amusing misunderstanding that had occurred due to his inability to speak the language. Vin had piped up, speaking in Seiryan, at the same time as Zak. They looked at each other, started laughing, and had been fast friends ever since.
Although, Vin thought, looking over at Zak, you wouldn’t guess by the way we argue.
She had often heard that they bickered like a married couple, and often been asked, “how can you work with him if you argue all the time?” She usually smiled when someone asked that, and often shot back, “If we bicker like a married couple, how can you stand to be married?”
She watched a new student running across the practice field. Judging by the uniform, she was one of Vin’s students. She reminded Vin rather of herself at that age—clumsy, slow, and short. She was still short, according to Zak—who was six feet tall to her five-foot-three-and-three-quarters—but she was no longer very clumsy or slow. In fact, when the situation called for it, she was a red and black blur with very pointy objects in its hands.
No, the Academy was no fairy tale. Not unless one had been hit on the head very, very hard. She picked up the scattered pieces of paper and decided to actually read it this time.
Once upon a time, long ago and in the days of yore, there was a girl named Nichole who lived on the Northern Isle. Her mother was mean, and her siblings meaner, and no family members ever wanted to help her. Her friends were animals, or visiting, distant relatives. No one ever understood anything she said—in fact, they acted like she couldn’t speak at all.
One day, her mother started yelling that it was her fault that they had no money at all. With the help of the family rats, Nichole packed her things and ran away from home. It was very cold outside, and Arcvale was in the middle of nowhere. She was huddled in a cave, shivering, when a voice addressed her.
“You’re a long way from home.”
She jumped up, startled.
“Hello?” she called, looking around uncertainly.
“What’s your name?” the voice continued.
She looked around again, until she spotted a small wolf pup, curled up with its siblings and mother. It looked like the runt of the litter. “I’m Nichole. What’s your name?”
“Kevice,” it said. “Why so far from home?”
“My mommy is mean,” she said. “You’re lucky.”
“I have seven brothers and sisters,” it replied. “You have no idea how annoying they got. ‘Specially since my father died, and we had no money, and I was the only thing keeping us together.”
“Money? Wolves have money?”
“I’m not a wolf, silly—look up.”
Nichole looked up and gasped. Situated comfortably on the ceiling was a young man. Despite the fact that he was probably in his late teens, he had sparkling blue eyes and a wide grin that made him look younger than that. His hair was long and black, and he wore a cloak of red leather.
“What are you doing up there?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Just hanging around,” he said, jumping easily from the ceiling. “You ever heard of the Krisvyre Academy?” Nichole shook her head. “Really? I think you’d like it there.” He strolled over to the wolves and scooped up the little one. The rest of them didn’t stir. “Hey, little one,” he said, rubbing his nose against that of the pup. He then held it out to her.
“What? I can’t take it away from its mother!”
“They’ll eat it,” Kevice said. “It’s the little one. You would know all about that.”
Nichole looked at the little wolf, with its big blue eyes and fluffy fur. “Okay. If you’re sure it’s okay…” Kevice nodded.
“Head south until you reach Halekeep, then find work there. Good things will come to you. No one can have that much karma to burn off.”
And just as suddenly as he’d appeared, he was gone, leaving her holding a baby wolf and standing alone in a cave. She looked over at her things. A cloak and a compass had appeared on them. She shrugged, tucked the wolf puppy under her arm, and began the long walk to Halekeep.
Vin raised her eyebrows. Kevice? Was the girl who wrote this a daydreamer who had a crush on the legendary assassin, or was there more to this fairy tale than she’d expected? Although she still didn’t quite see what it had to do with the Academy, she kept reading.
Nichole found work at a tavern and inn in Halekeep. She was a cleaning girl, and the work was hard, but she was fed and warm. Her wolf lived under her bed in the attic, and was surprisingly well-behaved for a wolf. One day, the tavern owner pulled her aside.
“We have very special guests coming,” he said. “Vin Viktrin and Zak Trannyth, from the Krisvyre Academy. Every year, they make rounds looking for talented young people for the Academy.”
Nichole nodded excitedly, remembering what the mysterious boy, Kevice, had said about the Academy. She did her many jobs to the best of her ability, and—as she was carrying firewood in—ran straight into a woman with brown hair and a red tunic.
“Sorry ma’am,” she said quickly, running past.
The woman turned to her partner, a man with black hair and a red cloak, although distinctly unlike Kevice. “She speaks Sylvan,” she said. “I think this one is yours.”
Later that night, Nichole saw the two again. The tavern owner was conversing with them, showering them with compliments and displays of hospitality. The woman rolled her eyes quietly and wandered away from him, sitting in a corner where the light from the fire barely touched her. Nichole hurried over to offer her something to drink.
“Hot cider,” the woman said. “Please.” She looked over at her partner. “Better make that two.”
Nichole nodded politely and hurried off to get the cider. When she brought it back to the table, the woman and the man were talking quietly.
“How long have you spoken Sylvan?” the woman asked. Nichole looked confused.
“What?”
“You speak Sylvan. I don’t think you realize you’re doing it,” the woman said. “You have an affinity for nature that is very, very rare. Even Zak can’t compare to being naturally fluent in Sylvan.”
Nichole was about to ask, “What’s Sylvan?” when she realized something—she knew exactly what Sylvan was. It was the language of the animals, of the trees, and the river, and nature in general. A smile crept across the woman’s face.
“My name is Vin,” she said. “And this is Zak.”
“Would you be interested in training as a Druid at the Academy, in Krisvyre?” Zak asked.
“I don’t have any money,” she said.
Vin waved her hand to dismiss the matter. “Neither did we.”
And Nichole lived happily ever after with her wolf puppy, training to be a Druid with Zak at the Krisvyre Academy.
Vin was startled by the sudden (and, by the look of it, hastily scribbled) ending. She looked out the window. The rain was lightening, and there was a teenage boy with long, black hair and a red cloak sitting on the roof of the library. He spotted her looking out the window at him and grinned. Vin returned the gesture. She looked out—there was a girl with mousy brown hair and a shabby uniform marking her as one of Zak’s students stroking a tree in the corner of campus, speaking softly to it. Vin felt her eyes widen, and she looked back down at the papers in front of her.
“I still think the Academy doesn’t begin with “once upon a time,” ” she said. Zak looked at her.
“Did you read it?”
“I did. And it looks like Morrhigan needs some practice in writing novels, because the sentence structure is repetitive. Storytelling could use some work—she’s already met Kevice, why not subject her to Elya’s minstrel skills?”
Vin got up and put on her belt with her scimitars. It was time for class. Time to see if her students could fight on slippery grass. She had warned them that this would happen if they didn’t do their work and obey her rules. They hadn’t listened. This would teach them a lesson.
“Happily ever after?” she grumbled. “We’ll see.”