P. S. Power
Counselor
Chapter One
The knock on the door was startling being unexpected, and made Tor feel stupid when he jumped up as if he'd been caught doing something wrong. It was an old habit, one that fit perfectly with the space he was in. His old school dorm room.
Tor's wasn't sure, but it seemed like it had been left unoccupied in the year he'd taken off from school, almost two years now really, which made everything that had happened in his life seem just that much more unreal. Silly even.
Someone had cleaned it, but the beds were the same, and no new scents added at all except a slight hint of stale dust and possibly a little mildew.
When the door opened he found himself facing an old man, upright of carriage and lean, but with a friendly smile on his face. Kyle Hardgrove, the Dean of Lairdgren School. It wasn't really a shock, once Tor thought about it for a second, since he'd asked to meet with the man about his living situation. It was just that he'd only left the note at his office a few hours before. In a situation like this, a student simply requesting a meeting, Tor had expected to be put off for days, maybe longer on the topic. Then summoned to the office, if the Dean had time for the issue at all. It wasn't like the man had to hop to some kids whims, right?
“Dean Hardgrove!” Tor tried to make his voice sound happy to see him, which wasn't too far off; the man was always kind to him after all. Always a lot easier to like gentle people than not. “Come in, please.”
The Dean looked around the room, and Tor understood immediately what was going on, the old pale eyes searched for clues, noted that nothing had been unpacked yet and that Tor had simply been sitting on the edge of his old school bed, not doing anything. The imprint of his backside still rumpled the drab tan bedspread. They exchanged bows, his going lower than his visitors, because the school was his place and he was, in a very real way, the King here. Or at least the Captain, kind of like on a sea vessel. Either way he outranked Tor in just about every way imaginable. Tor offered the corner of his bed to sit on and sat himself down on the hardwood floor, making his head incredibly low by comparison.
“Tor. So, is there some problem? I notice you haven't settled yet…” The open handed gesture used took in the whole room, which obviously hadn't been touched. Still the man had bothered to observe the fact, which said a lot about him, didn't it?
Not everyone looked all the time. Tor knew he didn't see everything himself. He missed most things in fact.
“Um,” Tor said brilliantly, his face going red before a single sentence could be gotten out. Wonderful. Maybe he could impress the man into giving him what he wanted by stammering him into submission?
“I'd kind of hoped to live off campus this year. I rented the lot next to the student store and put up a house already, but when we got here Ali and I, were told we had to live in the dorms? I… we're married… Is that right?” The words weren't very smooth, since Tor thought the idea of living away from his brand new wife was silly, but he didn't want to fight about it, just see if it could be fixed.
If he'd learned anything in the last year it was that going around starting fights almost never actually helped anything. Normally it just caused you to end up having to apologize later, knocking your head against the floor and hoping no one hit you too much.
Hardgrove smiled gently, an old man’s smile that indicated that from his lofty station of years he could see things a youthful looking eighteen year old couldn't. Probably true, but not exactly the place Tor wanted to start from.
“That's right. Students at Lairdgren have to live in the dorms, and before you ask, no, you and your wife can't share a room. This school has been here for a while, so the rules are pretty well set. If we start letting the wealthy, famous, or even the married, live on their own and do their own thing, then we end up with everyone else thinking they should be allowed to as well. It's happened before, and caused massive problems, so this isn't just some rule being enforced because “it's always been that way” or anything foolish like that.” The man shrugged and put both hands on the bed to push himself up, readying to stand.
“I don't want to be mean, but the tradition is that way for a reason. I hope you'll understand? Now, if you wish to use your own lodgings on your off days, or even after classes, you may, but you're required to sleep in your room on any regular school day. I know that I won't have a problem with you personally, but for those with you, please remind them that failure to do so means expulsion. It's a bit harsh, I know, but with noble children and young adults, we've found that fines just don't work for some reason. They eventually start to look at them as mere rent on poor behaviors.” The expression on the weathered face went wry then, telling him that to a lot of the students there, a few silver or gold coins just didn't mean that much all the time.
Tor looked down, feeling ridiculously young again suddenly. Not that he was old, but coming back as a fourth year student was harder than he'd thought it would be. Of course having taken a seat on the floor probably wasn't all that brilliant a move either. His behind hurt now and getting up would look awkward. Well, at least he wore regular school browns, heavy canvas that was both durable and about as un-stylish as you could get. By doing so it didn’t look like he was flaunting wealth or anything. At least it looked that way on the surface. It was really just a magical device that he'd made that approximated clothing and let the wearer pick what they wanted to have on with an incredible range.
This was school though and the students here wore brown.
Heaving a soft sight he stood, trying not to look half crippled, and shook his head a bit.
“Well, if its tradition there isn't a lot we can do about it. I don't want to make trouble, I was just hoping there might be a loophole for married couples or something like that. I could have missed it, since that's not really all that normal here.”
The Dean gave him a hand up, useless since Tor was standing already by the time it came, and clapped him on the shoulder, not hard enough to make the shield Tor wore turn on and stop his gesture but enough that the movement seemed real. The man smiled at him as if he'd said something particularly intelligent.
“Ah, Mr. Baker… It's always so refreshing to talk to you, do you know that? I have this same conversation ten times a year, some Count’s child that thinks the rules shouldn't apply to them personally or someone that has any of a hundred good reasons that make perfect sense to them and believes they should be the exception to the rule. You know, almost every one of them gets angry and tries to pull rank rather than just simply asking if there's a way. There isn't, but it's always nice to get out of a room without being screamed at.”
That earned a soft chuckle from Tor. What was he going to do? Blast the man through the wall for not giving him what he wanted? If it was a rule, it was a rule. Tor said this, his voice innocent enough he thought. The Dean patted him on the back again.
“Well, everyone on campus probably expects you to get special privileges, being the only Master Builder we've ever had as a student here. Even the Instructors are a little nervous. Don't worry though, I told them to just pile on the extra work and make certain you really earn your grades. Obviously we'll give you a bit of slack because of the war, and your efforts towards that, but otherwise don't expect the same cushy treatment you got before. The expectations on a master of anything are automatically higher. Even when studying another field of endeavor.” A smile came with the words at least. It was hard to see behind the long gray beard that went halfway down the black and green velvet tunic, but it was there.
Swallowing a little nervously Tor nodded. He knew that the whole timid look didn't really fit him very well, since he only looked about fourteen still and being shorter than almost everyone at the school they tended to think of him as younger than that at times. He was eighteen though and should act his age, of course. He straightened and tried to look more confident, after all, he was a Knight now and had to at least not act like a coward when he could help it.
The Dean exchanged small talk for a bit, discussed the school term that would start in a few days and what classes he had scheduled. Some of them were totally new to him, like economics and music. He still had combat
