Elihu staggered into the room. He hadn't even bothered to look at the door. First, his eyesight was so bad that he wouldn't have been able to make head or tail of it without first focusing for a few seconds, which would then lead him to contemplate the environment around him, which would force him to think about the PEOPLE around him, and that was a dark place he had no interest in going to. No, in the same way that he knew where every thing in Brunnhold was, which was to say rote memorziation of every space in the city and acadamy, Elihu knew this was his room.

Twelve, thirteen, fourteen steps took him to the small stage that the instructors stood on at the front. Taking one step up, he felt himself climb it, as easily as if he was actually looking for it. Elihu often thought that even if he died, he'd commited so much of his schedule to muscle memory his body could likely continue without any conscious thought. Indeed, what if all he was were merely the echoes of a soul long perished, a husk of flesh feeling, reacting, but never truly living?

Taking a long draught from his bottle of Hanged Man fortified wine reminded himself it really didn't matter either way. The gulping didn't stop as he felt around for his chair, found it, sat down, and continued funneling wine into his ready gullet. Another day of class began, same as any for the decades he had worked at the proud academy.

Horace made his way into the desolate lecture hall. He had only begun attending the course, but he was already mesmorized by all he was being taught by the eccentric Professor Sturmvos. He enjoyed every second of the anthropological babbling of the aged man. Though many students steer cleared of the course for that very reason, Horace reveled in the fountain of knowledge that was given to him.

The red walls were lined with a stunning gold trim, like every other lecture hall in the university. To go along with the similarities between the halls, the hall was shaped in a way akin to an amphitheatre.

Horace sat patiently, a smile plastered on his face. Another day of learning what makes galdori galdor and humans human. He waited for the professor to take another swig from his bottle. He knew the professors routine as well as the professor knew it. He had been studying everything more closely since his return from Hox. He started to understand the values of self-composure and intelligence. He decided that the only way to use these values to the fullest was to study everything and everyone as a specimen.

Elihu finally decided that he had been fortified enough. Plunking the bottle down, he prepared himself for a nap. Shuffling his skeletal frame down into his chair and began to close his eyes to... oh gods. There was someone in front of him. Squinting, he began to lay out the face. This one was simple enough. He'd seen it far more often than he would ever have liked.

"Young Horace Aquila." It came out flat and without any emotion, positive or negative. It was merely an acknowledgement. Like noticing that there was a raccoon sitting on his desk. IT was in front of him. The bane of his existence. Students. Well, A student. But still, it existed.

"Why are you even here?"

The oh-so pretty lecture hall was so immensely barren Eden had no idea this could be the right one. All his classes had, well -- students in them. And teachers. And from what Eden could see this room was replete of both. Just some spindly redhaired thing -- could be a student, that -- and some leathery thing of a teacher. With each step he took down the steps into the foyer -- and each echoed monstrously -- a smell that was a lot like the inside of his father's office prickled at his nose.

Cirrusy brows knit in consternation as he paused to fish his class schedule from the satchel lashed across his chest. For the fourth, or fifth, or sixth time. The brown leather contraption was so weighted with engineering book bricks he couldn't bear to read it looked as if he might topple over any moment.

Ronic Anthropology with Professor Elihu Sturmvos, Vespeth Lecture Hall the well-wrinkled parchment said in frilly script. Eden frowned magnificently. Given the stale emptiness, he direly wished he'd been wrong.

"Excuse me, sir?" Eden piped up, still wavering half way up the stairs (that smell was so off-putting). His already too-loud voice echoed in the emptiness resonantly as his footsteps. "You wouldn't be Professor Sturmvos, would you?"

The words that spilled forth from Professor Sturmvos' mouth stung Horace slightly. Horace was fascinated by the professors' lectures. Why wasn't he happy to have someone enjoying them?

"Well, professor, I am here because I enjoy this course. It's similar to history, but has physical evidence right in front of us. Though you might be asking for a different reason." Horace glanced down at his schedule. "It seems I am supposed to be here. I was here, in this exact lecture at this time, for the two weeks prior to the recent holiday." Horace looked around the lecture hall, he was the only other student in the hall. "Though it seems my other peers have seemingly dropped the class. Which is very sad. I'm sorry." Through it all, Horace had a giant smile on his face.

"Oh! It seems a student needs you, professor."

They were multiplying.

Elihu took a few seconds to look at the new thing. The vague silhouette was enough for his eyes to hood like a vipers and a the craggy wrinkles in his brow and around his eyes to deepen further, an already haggard face becoming set in the visage of a demon.

"Please. Sit down." The words were forced through teeth clenched together like a portcullis gate. So, these little fools decided that they would try to make his life difficult by making him do his job? Very good then.

He had no notes prepared, as usual. He never needed them. Notes were either for simplifying the transfer of knowledge from professor to student, or to aid the professor in remembering the material of his class. Elihu remembered everything and had no interest in making things even fractionally simple on his students.

"Today, we are going to cover the four case studies compiled by Lord Victor Noen of the bones of mariners found in three wrecks around the southern Muluku Islands. I trust that my..." he hissed the word out. "Students, have done all the required reading for the first lesson, as specified in the syllabus?"

The case study was what drove most of the students out of the first class. The fact that Aquila was here probably meant that he had done it. He would be a real thorn in his side. But he'd broken many hopefuls. Plus, he was old, and that made him patient. Horace would be gone soon. Now as to this new one... well, we'll start with the obvious. "How about you tell me about... the recovered remains from the first of the four studies Lord Noen did, master..." he let the question trail off and locked his eyes onto the new addition to his student roster. A hawk looking into the eyes of his prey. Go on, little bunny, which way will you run?

Eden wasn't expecting there to have been any sort of questioning. At least not immediately -- he hadn't even sidled to a seat yet, how disastrously unfair. That stupidly spindly red head boy, sitting there all smug and proper. Perhaps he should ask him, he wanted to whine.

Eden knew of Horace Aquila, and didn't like him on general principle. Horace was Smart, Monic Gifted, and Anaxi Handsome -- everything Eden decidedly was not. Also Horace was a duelist, and that was the big fat nail in the coffin lid. Duelists were horrible creatures.

But probably not quite as horrible as the professor just down the flight of stairs from him. Eden wavered, going so far as to ease back up a stair or four, a nervous smile hitching up his lips.

"Ah..." That note of indecision echoed softly through the lecture hall.

Had he been given the case study to read over break? Perhaps he had -- he was most certain he had. But it was probably crushed at the bottom of his satchel under a novel brick, not been touched since it was first laid in his hands. Eden had wasted the break in Hesse reading wondertale books and living one too, a bit -- the idea of 'school' had been utterly sandblasted from his head for the past week. Brunnhold didn't exist.

"I don't rightly know, sir...?" He spoke louder than usual, louder than needed -- his grandmother looked younger than this....thing...at the base of steps, and she had trouble hearing. Eden was doing his best to be polite. "I neglected to read the study over break, sir. My mother took me home for break and I became awfully distracted. I'm, um...very sorry?"

"..." Oh, Elihu had dealt with students like this before. So many times. Elihu didn't take any pleasure in breaking students, all he desired was two hours in his schedule where he could drink and not have to talk with anyone. It was never personal, the old professor was as impersonal as it got. Still, Eden's type was easy, and Elihu saw this as a blessing. At the very least, he wouldn't have to deal with two Horace's.

Again, had Elihu been a sociopath, he would have smiled when he heard the weak apology escape the boy's lips. "You're sorry. You are sorry. You refuse to do the assignment, for a class I imagine that you knew you were going to take. You actively made the decision to... snub the instructions I gave to my students. And then you say you are sorry." He squinted at the boy, his mouth frowning even deeper at what he saw. A little dolled up thing, all airy hair and giant eyes. Oh, this would be too easy. "Well,you are right. You are indeed, one of the sorriest things I've ever had to look at. Get down here, climb onto the podium. And empty out your satchel. I want to truly see what you think about my class."

Horace sat there, eying the situation as it unfolded. He had never seen a professor scold a student in such a way. The student being scolded looked so young, only beginning to reach puberty. Horace felt for the young Hessean.

He weighed his choices carefully. He could either stand up for the Hessean for not doing the work or just simply watch and wait for the reprimand to end. Now, Horace wasn't technically in favor with the young student (He should have done the work) but Professor Sturmvos was taking it too far. If he chose to help the boy, a reputation as a rowdy student could have formed. Horace wouldn't be able to handle a reputation such as that. He decided on the latter of his choices.

Ignoring the scene was easier than he thought. He reached into his satchel and took out three sheets of manuscript paper. A small idea for a concerto had been running through his mind all day. Besides, it was a good distraction from the ruckus.

"Sir?"

Those tea saucer eyes dilated to widths unheard of. Eden clutched his satchel strap tight, huddling his shoulders up around his ears -- effectively looking like spooked turtle, scrunching back into its shell. His mother told him many times, under no uncertain terms, that a boy's elder's should always be obeyed without question. But this was very, very odd question.

"I don't think...I see no reason..." Eden quietly protested. But in spite of that, he shuffled down the steps -- squirming out of orders seemed beyond reckoning. There was nothing else to do. Maybe if he were some willful plowfoot boy from some novel or whatever, but that character always ended up getting beat or magicked anyway. He shot that Horace boy a look venomous as a garden snake as he passed. A very small impulse in him ached to swat that parchement pad right from under the boy's nose -- but he could never. He'd spent too much time around plowfoots. That's all it was.

And Eden was not about to upend his bag all over the podium. There was way too much stuff in there, it'd make so much noise. And that had to be absolutely avoided. It'd probably echo in here forever. Instead, he delicately set the bloated satchel down on Professor Sturmvos's desk.

"Sir...?"

"... Boy," Elih leaned his face down into Eden's. The old professor was a scarecrow of a man, much taller than most of the faculty, even stooped by age. And it was all spare, nothing left but bone, skin, and the booze running through his veins. The booze swimming in his fishy, empty eyes. The booze on his breath, like a poisonous cloud as he talked to the poor little Hessean. "I said... Take. Out. The case study. You don't want to do your required reading? You will do it here-" He pointed to a corner of the podium. "Right here. You will do it out loud, since I apparently can't trust you to do it on your own accord. And you will do it, as I actually get to teaching the only damn student who decided to do what was told of him!"

The last part was a hoarse, plegm infused thundering that left the old man hacking into a white handkerchief. Pulling it back, a trail of blood was on one side of his mouth, a small dribble that he wiped away with no surprise or dismay. Still he looked at the young student with his dead eyes, eyes that were not filled with hatred or even anger, just contempt. "What are you waiting for? I gave you your assignment for the day, now do it."