fandomhigh | Mad Kings & Queens, Final [Monday, Period 4]

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mad kings & queens

Mad Kings & Queens, Final [Monday, Period 4]

When the class arrived today, they'd find the desks missing. Instead, there were cushions on the floor surrounding a number of low tables, and each table held one of two boxes.

"I'm going to assume that most of you are completely unable to focus on anything remotely academic today," Ghanima stated. "So today we're going to do a practical application."

"There is always a cost to removing a corrupt monarch from power," she continued. "People. Resources. There's not even a guarantee that you'll win."

"Each of you is a revolutionary trying to save their people. The person opposite you is a corrupt or insane ruler, that must be deposed." Ghanima held up one pawn, smiling. "It's up to each of you to decide where to draw the line for acceptable loss. Each army you lose is a point off your grade, unless you win it all."

"Welcome to your final. Pair up, or make teams, and have fun."

[Last verse, same as the first. ~~Wait for the OCD!~~ OCD up! Show her what you've learned!]

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"End of the semester," Ghanima agreed, raising an eyebrow at the twitching.

Really. Reno had been training with her for a year. It was like reading a picture book.

"Kinda the end of an era or somethin', too," Reno mused. He was fiddling with a pencil that he'd pulled from his pocket. It was a fidgety kind of realization, really. "I got two more classes, and then it's grad time, yo."

"Have you finalized your plans yet?" Ghanima asked idly. "You're at Fandom, there's literally portals of opportunity available to you."

"Nothin's ever really all that final," Reno noted, shrugging and stuffing that pencil back into his pocket. "I'm goin' back to Gaia, though. Still a bunch of work to be done in Edge, and every pair of hands they got workin' on it is gonna help. I mean, I ain't expectin' to be able to do miracles there, yo. I'd settle for gettin' a few people fed, at least. Or maybe some more roads put up. Or somethin' like that."

He shrugged.

"Kinda wanted to thank you. I mean, I ain't gone yet or nothin', but if anything keeps me from bein' taken apart back home, that trainin' you've been givin' me is gonna be it."

Edited 2009-04-20 22:23 (UTC)

"You've been paying attention," she teased, smiling at him slightly. "Nothing is ever final."

"Although what will keep you in one piece is you. My training means nothing unless it's embraced by the person wielding it." Ghanima reached out to tap his heart lightly. "I have faith you'll do your best, Reno."

"Thanks," Reno replied, wearing a wry little grin on his lips as he glanced around to make sure nobody was listening. "I, uh. I'm kinda scared shitless, thinkin' about goin' back, though. Is that... I dunno. Bad, or somethin'?"

It was all alive, here. Edge wasn't, so much.

"If you weren't frightened, then I'd be worried I dropped you on your head one too many times during training," Ghanima laughed. "You're walking into a hostile situation that is no longer familiar. Facing a den of lions would be more calming."

Reno nodded a little.

"I could handle lions. It's the people in Edge I'm more worried about." He gave his shoulders a shrug. "I'd say I gotta change outta this uniform, but there don't seem to be much of a point to that. My eyes brand me, anyhow. It was easier when I wasn't livin' right there in town."

Not that he was complaining, really. He was just trying to figure out how the heck he was going to last a week. Sleeping with one eye open all over again, maybe.

"Whereas in parts of my world, anyone without eyes like ours would be killed as an outsider." The irony was not lost on Ghanima. "Have you considered trying colored contacts? Or will those not help with your condition?"

There were certain specialty lenses that could hide the Spice addiction, but she was not sure if they would work for someone from an entirely different universe.

Reno tilted his head a moment, thinking that over, and then he shrugged again.

"Guess I could do somethin' like that. The Mako's got a bit of a glow to it, but it ain't like some quality contacts won't more or less cover that up." He craned his neck back, looking up at the ceiling and frowning. "Never really had to hide it before, yo. Never really gave it a hell of a lot of thought until now. S'weird. A lotta things keep kinda just occurrin' to me outta nowhere, lately. Stuff that might never be an issue, but, damn, better take it into consideration now, before I'm there and it's too damn late."

"Sunglasses?" she suggested. "Or just wait and see what happens. It's possible that people are too busy surviving to care about a particular shade of blue, so long as you pull your weight."

"And I'm plannin' on pullin' my weight," Reno agreed. "I'm overthinkin' it, ain't I? I mean, the worst of the disease is taken care of, and people are startin' to work on livin' again. Tseng's probably got work waitin' for me when I get back home, so it ain't like I'll just be standin' around like a Moogle waitin' to get his pompom shot off, yo."

It was a perfectly valid simile, dammit.

"I have no idea what that means, so I'll just agree," Ghanima replied dryly. "But your friend Tseng does not seem like the type to just let you idle about while there's work to be done."

"If you'd even let yourself laze about."

"Hey! I was the laziest of the Turks back when Midgar was still standin', I'll have you know." Reno didn't seem entirely upset as he relayed this information. "Just because I went and turned into a workaholic now that there ain't no Turks don't mean I'm gonna be all productive or whatever once I get back to Edge."

This was accompanied by a grin as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Tseng don't got enough work to keep me productive, so far as I'm concerned. Too damn much to be done, whatever time I put in's hardly a drop in the bucket, anyhow."

"But the bucket gets filled, one drop at a time," Ghanima countered. "If atoning for our sins were easy, Reno, the world wouldn't have any sinners."

"And then life wouldn't be interesting at all."

And that earned a bit of a snort.

"Yeah. It'd be pretty damn boring if we all played by the rules," he agreed. "But then, maybe we'd have an easier time findin' places to bury everyone, too."

He rocked on his heels for a moment, and then glanced at Ghanima. "Hey, Leto ever mention anything to you about chocobos? A while ago, he was lookin' at maybe gettin' a few from my world to serve as mounts back on yours. His. However that weird-ass time-rift whatever works."

"Maybe you need a new set of rules," she murmured, almost to herself, before shaking her head. "Chocobos? No, he has not."

"I was gonna invite him to Gaia for a bit, see if I can hook him up with maybe one to start," Reno agreed, tabling the conversation on dead people for the time being. It seemed easier to talk about goofy-looking birds than it did to discuss corpses, anyhow. "There are different breeds, yo. They do different things, like the blue ones can cross rivers, and the green ones can handle mountains. I'm thinkin' maybe he could check out a green one, actually. Mountains and desert are pretty different, but it's all rough terrain in the end, yo."

He rubbed at his elbow. "Just figured maybe I'd run the idea by you, too. Either it's a good idea or a crappy one, and you kinda got a bit more, uh, experience on him?"

Or something?

"Leto will go where Leto will go, and it's his future and my past," Ghanima laughed. "I'm not one to deny him an adventure."

Reno had himself a bit of a chuckle at that, too.

"Fair enough, yo. Just askin, in case you were wonderin' where your brother happened to come across a big green chicken, yo." He grinned, perhaps a little mischievously. "Could probably get 'em on a two-for-one deal, yo. Ain't like the breeders are doin' real good business lately. People gotta get to 'em without gettin' eaten on the plains on the way, after all."

Mostly, he was just amusing himself at the thought of Ghanima riding a chocobo. It was unfortunate that she made everything look so regal, he was really less amused than he was impressed at the mental image.

"If he comes home with a pair of oversized avians, he's the one that will need to care for them," Ghanima said firmly as she crossed her arms. "I do not think the hotel would take kindly to me housing one in the basement."

"Although arranging for their transport to Arrakis, that I could do."

"They do eat greens," Reno added. "I ain't sure what kinda agriculture you got out there. Gotta make sure that won't be a problem, first."

Edited 2009-04-21 02:23 (UTC)

"So long as we keep the breeding population down, it would be doable in my era," she mused. "Although we may want to start them on another planet, just to give the vegetation a chance to take-hold before some large birdbrains decide to make it a salad."

"Our ecosystem is still in-flux, you see. Shifting from a world of nothing but stone and sand to plains and trees, rain falling from the sky. In fifty years, there will be forests everywhere; but for now the desert changes slowly."

Still too fast for Ghanima's Fremen tastes, always too fast.

"I dunno if I'll be around to speak of in fifty years," Reno noted. He hadn't expected to make it this long, in all honesty. "But that don't mean we couldn't make arrangements to have some sent off to Arrakis from Gaia, once you think the place can handle 'em. Pass the message along through the Turks or whatever, you know?"

If the Turks lasted that long. They technically weren't Turks, either, but that hardly mattered.

"Give Leto one or two, both the same gender so your planet ain't crawlin' in chicobos in a few years, just to see if people can get a feel for 'em? An' then send more later?"

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Mad Kings & Queens, Final [Monday, Period 4]

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