The Class Delinquent

“I’m sorry I’m late, Keeria.” his voice was muffled as he held out a slip of paper. Ka. Hiseki grabbed a pair of tongs from where she was hiding behind her desk —what the Hades—and took it from him. He pointed at his leg, which had a brace made of thick bandages wrapped around the ankle. “I fell down a staircase last night, so—”

“That’s alright! Please go to your seat already!” She panicked. The boy's shoulders seemed to slump even more, but he nodded respectfully and gave a short bow toward their teacher. As he walked through the aisles, everyone leaned away from him, some people going so far as to get out of their seats and hide on the other sides of their friends' desks. Asteria stared blankly. So… this Rhei was the class weirdo, right? It seemed like an overreaction.

Rhei dropped tiredly into the seat next to her, a sigh barely audible through the thick scarf covering his mouth. He moved to adjust it, only noticing Asteria out of his peripheral vision. He gaped, flinching back and flailing as his chair proceeded to fall over. He fell on the ground, his casted foot sticking up. Everyone glanced back, then quickly looked away. Asteria stared at him, unsure how this mess had somehow made it into the advanced combat class.

He covered his mouth, and Asteria wondered if he was about to cry, only for a quiet giggle to escape. He sat up and smiled at her, mouth now visible as his scarf had pulled aside when he fell.

“Sorry, I wasn’t expecting anyone to be there.” He stood up, carefully avoiding putting pressure on his foot, and sat back down, but not before moving his chair far to the edge of the desk. Oddly, he kept his arms tightly wrapped around himself, and sat on the far end of his seat. He turned toward her, his hair brushed aside enough to show the glint of honey-brown eyes. “It’s nice to meet you. My name’s Rhei,” He said quietly, but still did not offer his hand, Asteria noted.

“Asteria.” She greeted back with a simple nod, and his smile warmed as they both turned their attention back to the front of class. Their classmates whipped their attention away as if they hadn’t been staring.

Class continued without a hitch, still quite boring, though Asteria did enjoy watching her new classmates. Rhei beside her remained intently focused on the lesson about controlling Blessings, while Alexander was taking very dedicated notes despite Aerin leaning over to whisper to him the whole time. A blond boy around halfway through the classroom seemed to be bullying a shorter boy who seemed to have something to do with Hera, specifically Argus Panoptes, based on the… many eyes scattered (tattooed?) across his skin. The blond was flicking scraps of parchment at him and snickering whenever it hit one of the eyes—which were flat like tattoos but magically animated and quite expressive—and particularly pissed off by the blond if their glare was anything to go by.

Finally Ka. Hiseki called a break, and the class exploded into motion, everyone circling Asteria. She chanced a glance toward her deskmate, only to find he’d already moved into a dark corner at the back of the class, huddling there like a kicked puppy. Based on what Asteria had seen so far, he was probably aware of how adverse his classmates were to him and wanted to avoid conflict.

“Tell us more about you!” A tall, excited boy with bluish hair and dark skin asked.

“Where’d she come from?” This was from the blond who’d been throwing stuff at the multi-eyed boy.

“Are you a danger to the state of Athens—kghh!” Alexander got cut off as he was politely elbowed by Aerin.

“Is she really not Blessed?” Murmured a pale girl with long dark hair hanging over her eyes.

The hundred-eyed boy leaned over, peering at her—an unsettling motion as all the eyes visible squinted and scanned her up and down. His golden lashes flickered as he looked her up and down. “Eh…?”

The crowd quieted and looked over at him. “Argan?”

“Well… there’s some mageia present… but it’s faint. Hard to pinpoint. She’s definitely not from Hera’s family, though.”

The chatter died down instantly, and Asteria tilted her head as the eyes on her suddenly became steely.

“But that’s… none of the fourteen then?” A muscular, nervous-looking girl with dark teal hair piped in.

The room fell silent again, before all eyes shifted over to Rhei, still in his corner (though now looking toward them all), then back to Asteria. Everyone inched back and began murmuring amongst themselves.

Asteria caught a few whispers and paled as she heard questions of “Titan-blessed?” echoing throughout the room. Asteria turned back to Rhei, catching another glimpse of those honeyed eyes as he was carefully watching the group. Was he Titan-blessed? Asteria wracked her memories for Kastallia and Pythia's explanation of Blessings. Kronos had done something to the first fourteen gods which damaged their Fate Threads. That did not explain how someone would end up with a Titan-blessing.

“I am right before you,” Asteria growled. “Just ask me.”

Alexander coughed. “I tried before—are you a danger to the—” he got cut off by another cheerful elbow from Aerin.

“Where are you from?”

“Greece.”

She got a few doubtful looks, and some of the students side-eyed each other.

“Where else?” Someone rolled their eyes.

“Are you Titan-blessed?” Aerin asked.

“No.” Technically speaking.

“So… are you Blessed at all?”

“Ughhhh,” Asteria groaned, slumping over her desk with her arms stretched out. “Why? Do you wish to tell me I am too weak to be here too?”

The room shifted a bit. Blondie scoffed. “Well, it does make you completely useless—like Xander.”

Alexander scoffed. “Hah, if I’m useless, what does that make you, Carex? I’m not the one who keeps getting skipped for promotions—”

“You bastard!” Blondie yelled, and suddenly everything seemed to redissolve into chaos. Asteria quickly checked out.

A gentle hand on her elbow pulled her out of it, and she met the warm brown gaze of a short, round girl with particularly long lashes and speckled skin. Floppy cow ears lay over her dark curly hair.

“I’m Ima,” she whispered. “Don’t worry about them. They’ll forget about you soon enough. Everyone has too much on their mind to care about someone new for long.” She shrugged delicately. “I’m in the class only through a registration error, and they forgot to fix it. Did something similar happen to you?”

“No. I said before. I am here because I need to meet Athena.”

“Huh… oh? Well, good luck?” She looked very doubtful. “Those two are top of the class, so you don’t need to worry about them… or maybe you do? Competition and all… uh… anyway! They’re both Captains, even if Alexander is technically higher ranked.”

Asteria tilted her head to regard Ima, realizing she had a prime source of information in front of her, especially if she went as unnoticed as she said. Asteria could kind of believe it; she was a few heads shorter than the rest of the class—and even slightly shorter than Asteria herself. “If he is a captain, why did the golden-haired one call him useless?”

Ima blinked. “Oh, Alexander is Demeter-blessed—not that his blessing itself is a problem,” she corrected quickly. “There are quite a few highly regarded Blessings, not only for agriculture but in combat. Chlorokinesis obviously, but also things like frostbite. His parents had top-class Demeter Blessings, even. Alexander’s is just…”

Asteria waited expectantly.

Ima winced. “He makes flowers bloom.”

“Ah.” She looked at the tall, muscular student, with hair the same color as gladiolus petals. Such a delicate power didn’t seem to fit him. “Then… he must be skilled in combat.”

Ima nodded enthusiastically. “Alexander isn’t really respected by lay people, but the higher-ups like him. He’s particularly close to General Alista, so people do claim he had an unfair advantage, but to my understanding, the Elders, and especially Dean Educere, praise him. He’s a strong swordsman and well-versed in military strategy, and he worked very hard to earn a place in the guard.”

She pointed toward Aerin, who was watching the argument with interest. “Aerin is his childhood friend and aide-de-camp. He’s got Athena's Blessing, so he gets a lot of favoritism. People say it's the only reason he ever graduated from being a cadet. He’s really awful with weapons. Together they make a bit of an infamous pair.”

Ima nodded over at the blond guy. “Carex, on the other hand, is Ares-blessed, with mastery of blades. It’s very much focused around his own combat ability, and he’s not great at strategy, which has kept him from promotion, so he’s just a little touchy about it.”

“Just a little, huh,” Asteria commented wryly, watching as Carex tried to deck Alexander, who easily ducked out of the way.

“I think he’s also bitter Alex is close friends with an Athena epithet,” she pondered, watching them too.

“Epithets?”

“Oh, is that not a concept outside of Athens? Sorry,” she apologized absentmindedly. “Because of our appraisal system, Blessings get specific names. Every once in a while, there’s a Blessing containing more of a god’s power, rather than just a fragment. Those get epithetic names. Athena: the Owl-Eyed, for example, is Aerin's. If you’ve heard of the Thread Theory, it would be equivalent to his life thread being more tightly wound with part of Athena’s thread. It technically makes him a higher caste than the rest of us, even though his Blessing isn’t practical.”

Asteria and Ima turned their attention back to Alex and Carex. They watched the two tussle for a little longer before Ima turned to look up at her. “We have combat training for the next class. Do you have an athletic uniform?”

Asteria shook her head, and Ima nodded. “I’ll help you out. Follow me!”