fandomhigh | Breaking the Glass Ceiling, Tuesday

The woman whose boots tapped firmly against the floor as she entered, moved with a more than obvious confidence. Her long red hair had been pulled into a loose ponytail, and her clothes were utilitarian, showing fairly little.

"My name is Lieutenant Sarah Kerrigan," she began. "Or rather, that's what it once was. I served as a lieutenant, yes-- in a group called the Sons of Korhal. They treated me like I was invaluable. Something special. And I did my job pretty well."

She stopped moving in front of the desk, and leaned on it with her hands. "Then one day, as it turned out, a dead pretty young female lieutenant is a good martyr for the cause. I was suddenly more than expendable." Beat. "Lucky for me I'm a little hard to expend. And I'm a little more important currency these days."

She pulled away from the desk. "I'm not interested in why you joined this class," she continued. "I'm not interested in what year you're from, or what your favorite meal is. I'm sure somebody's going to wind up asking you these questions this week, but I won't. All I want is your name, and what you plan to be. Take that as esoterically or as practically as you'd like."

"The truth is, life isn't fair, and I'm sure that's not news to most of you. Unless you're from a very specific subset of life, you're going to wind up expendable, or worse. People are going to try to keep you where you'll be useful to them - until you're not. What we're going to be working on these next few weeks is making you useful to yourselves."

In a manner of speaking. They'd find themselves useful to Kerrigan, too.

"Which is why what we want from the future is the first and last thing we need to know about ourselves. Or you're going to wind up just another chess piece with only two squares to move to. Talk."

[[ ~~wait for the~~ ocd up! ]]

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"So do you still want us to call you 'Lieutenant,' or is there a different title you'd prefer?" Emma asked, walking up to her after class.

"I think the phrase 'a rose by any other name' applies," Kerrigan said, dryly, and tilted her head at her thoughtfully. "You're interesting."

"Thank you. I do like to think of myself as fascinating," Emma replied, tilting her own head slightly. "Although that's not usually the first word people think of to describe me."

"You're rather interesting too."

"And now I think we're both speaking metaphorically."

Kerrigan used to be able to recognize a fellow Ghost at ten paces; she held no illusions about other telepaths. "Yes, I am." She didn't expect that to stay a secret long - her lack of morality as to that fact was another thing.

"No, I meant you're interesting, but the metaphor fits too," she said. "Although there's a few of us that fit that definition of 'interesting' around here. Why are we always girls?"

Sorry, Jono, but you don't count. Telepathy's a side-effect of your mutation.

"Because we're better at handling power?" Kerrigan asked, her voice dry. "Especially this one. Imagine what the men might get up to with it..."

"I don't need to imagine, I know." Emma's lips twitched in amusement. "It's no secret that I'm a telepath, and sometimes my friends enjoy teasing me -- and amusing themselves -- by taking advantage of my gift."

"I could do with a few less pigs undressing me in their mind," Kerrigan replied, but her expression was thoughtful. "How long have you had it?"

"I started hearing voices just before I turned fourteen, and it grew from there." Emma shrugged. "As if 8th grade isn't hard enough, I thought I was going crazy on top of it all."

She had to dip down into the well of her old humanity here, to dig up enough interest to seem genuine. She found a spark of recognition.

"Yeah?" Kerrigan asked, with a slight snort. "And I guess everyone else thought you were going nuts, too."

"Right. Because I absolutely ran around telling people I could hear what they were thinking," Emma deadpanned. "Except not. Everyone just thought I was faking my headaches and nosebleeds to get out of tests."

"Because you wouldn't be the first kid to be terrified of voices," Kerrigan said, with equal deadpan. "So why are you here? Parents figure that boarding school would make you do your tests?"

She sincerely doubted that, but some slight provocation...

Emma laughed. "That would require Winston or Hazel to remember which one of their children was which, or to care where we were," she replied. "No. A friend who knew about my powers suggested I come here. He said I could learn how to use them here, and that I'd be 'safer.'"

"He must not have known about the semi-regular invasions."

"The school omits those from the folders for practical reasons." Kerrigan's voice held a curl of dark humor.

Breaking the Glass Ceiling, Tuesday

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