A Run-in with a Dragon

Turned out that card had a handy phone number, perfect for damsels in distress. Fortune favoured him for once.

Fortune did not favour him when he wound up in the academy president's office for an interrogation. And turned out to have missed the evening orientation meeting, to boot.

"Your name and age?"

"Bronnewhin, Lachlan Neale Connor, sir, twenty-two," he rattled off, trying to keep his accent neutral. The look he'd once gotten from the recruiter in town the first time he had to give his name to a local had been hilarious, but here it'd just make first impressions worse than they already were. "Most people call me Roku here. It's easier."

"Indeed. How did you arrive on our shores?"

Internally, he sweated. "I came to Nihon from Shang, but the boat got caught in a storm and rebounded to the other side of the ocean after it'd already crossed the rift, and I ended up shipwrecked on the east side. A fishing village took me in, helped me find my feet, and, ah, helped me get citizenship."

It was close enough to the truth.

"And did this village know you were an obake?"

Starting to feel like I'm on a minefield, here. He licked his lips and went for the honest answer. "No. Except for the one family I stayed with."

The man made a noise that wasn't quite a grunt, not quite a hum, and impossible to read. "Kyubi-sama gave me her reasons for recruiting you. What were your reasons for accepting?"

That sounded maybe positive. Not like he was being thrown out, possibly. "I want to protect my people. The military seemed like the best way to do that, so when she offered, I accepted."

"And how much do you know of these people? Our culture? Our language?"

"I— that's a little—"

"Can you read this?" Matsuki reached forward, and Lachlan's eyes automatically followed him as he tapped at a paper on the desk.

He flipped it around, running over the mostly kanji. "It's... a letter."

"Read it from the beginning."

He really had gone back to school somewhere in there. Principal's office all over again. "'Uncle, I hope this letter finds you well. I am honoured to be chosen for the'... ah... I've never seen that one before. Something to do with samurai. Samurai program, I guess. Your...." Damn, who used this many complex, rare kanji in a regular letter, anyway? "Benevolence? Is...."

"How many of these do you understand?"

He squinted. Oh God what even is that. "Most of them. Apart from these. And I have no idea what's going on here." He tapped at some section that might as well be runes for all he could make out, because putting them individually together came out with nonsense. "Your nephew or niece likes big words. Name's cute though— 'Little birds playing'. Must be a prodigy."

"He's speaking of technical details which you would do well to know. It's clear you may know the basics, but you will need to know that which is more advanced."

"...What?" He glanced up a little warily.

"And you will need to learn respect as well."

Dammit. "Ah, yes sir. My apologies, sir."

"You will be taking a supplemental language course alongside your training to ensure you know what you should." The man retrieved the letter, watching Lachlan's face. "You have objections?"

"I... no sir." He kept a careful poker face, not letting the offence show. It wasn't like he'd known the meaning of every Angaelic word, either. Nobody had expected him to take an entire language course just because there were words out there only technicians and scientists understood.

On the other hand, it meant he wasn't getting booted out. Small favours. He could live with being forced to take an advanced grammar course if it meant getting in. "Thank you for accepting me, sir."

"We'll see." Matsuki's cool eyes held his. "Someone will show you to the mess hall, and you may retire to your room."

With that, they took him away, a Lieutenant-major Kusanagi directing him past the view of a well-kept internal garden, complete with blossoming cherry trees, and pointing out the no-entry zones as she went. Which were clearly marked, with the training facilities all in the same section, but he went along with it anyway.

She left him at the door with a full tray after their trip to a surprisingly small dinner hall, and declined his polite, cheeky offer to share with a look that could've frozen hell. About what he'd expected, really. He smiled to himself as he balanced the tray and moved to open the door.

Only for someone else to, from the inside.

And he abruptly found himself eyes to chin with whoever had blocked it. Or rather eyes to impressive glare when he belatedly craned his gaze higher, an air he couldn't define freezing everything solid and setting it on fire under a stare less brown and more flames of hell.

He went for a smile. "Hi there."

The bear of a man flinched, and the glow abruptly died.

Before Lachlan could do more than blink, the other shoved past him, and he sent a befuddled glance after the disappearing... whoever. Well that was odd.

One of the other cadets he was bunking with? There were four doors out in the corridor, but as he walked in, he found himself in a mini dining room, complete with a kitchenette that included a sink and a microwave. Talk about stepping into the modern age.

He didn't bother with it. Little too tired to do anything but pick out one of the four doors—the one marked with lucky number sixteen, which he'd been assigned—and head into what was luckily not a bunkroom.

God, I need sleep. He set the tray on a little bedside table/dresser and rubbed his still-gloved and now itching-uncomfortably hands over his face as he fell back on the bed. Train rides are exhausting.

He never had gotten to buy his LMFC. Miss my feckin' chooks, he mourned. 

Plain old chicken-rice would just have to do. At least I'm here, he reflected as he shovelled it into his mouth. Maybe not the best start, but things can only go up.

If only.