First day of captain training. Awesome.
I made sure to be at the caretaker classroom exactly at ten, only to find out the first class happened in the main kitchen. I ended up walking into the room five minutes late. Immediately, twenty-five pairs of eyes looked right at me, one pair belonging to Captain Frost; a tall lizardfolk with blue-green scales and an icy stare. They almost looked like they could captain the soldiers instead.
“Are you the one the admins promoted?” A couple of students at a cooking station giggled, and he shot them a quick frown before turning back to me.
“Yup, that would be me,” I said, slipping my bag off of my shoulder. “Sorry I’m late.” I approached a cooking stand, but they stopped me.
“Don’t. I’ll talk to you in a minute,” they said, turning back to the class. Either something was wrong, or there was a really harsh late policy that nobody warned me of.
They took a list out of a pocket on their jacket, scanning it before putting it back and speaking. “Ok, everyone’s here. Normally, I give a short speech on the first day, but since roll call took so long- '' A couple of girls got a glare. “-I’ll just cut to the chase. Welcome to caretaker class, blah blah blah, don’t do anything stupid or you won’t be coming back. There’s a whole mob of people who would take your spot at these stations in a heartbeat if given the chance. The syllabus is in the handbook if you want to see it.” I checked my pocket for my own handbook, only to find the unofficial one Cel gave me in its place.
“Get all of your questions out now, and you’ll spend the rest of the class either cooking, washing dishes, or cleaning up the butcher’s station, depending on how nosey the questions get.”
A tiefling girl’s hand shot up. “Are you married?”
“Congratulations, you’re the first person on dishwashing duty. Nope.”
“Wait! I have another one.” She didn’t wait for permission to keep going. “Will you marry me?”
The classroom erupted into giggles. “Even if you were my age, I’d rather choke to death on a fork. Any questions from not Talin?” More hands shot up, and one that belonged to a halfling got called on.
“What’s your mother’s maiden name?”
The class continued asking questions, and by the time they were all answered, almost everyone was washing dishes. A few people were even sent to clean the butcher station. I had to say, even though I hadn’t done anything yet, class was shaping up to be really fun. I went over to an empty cooking station, but before I reached it, I got a tap on the shoulder by the captain himself.
“Fran, right?” I nod. “What are you doing here?”
“Um, taking a class?” I heard how snarky I sounded. Big mistake. The main thing I remember from the unofficial handbook: never get on Captain Frost’s nerves. I could immediately hear a more rigid tone in their voice.
“Weren’t you sent to deputy training?”
“Huh?” The confusion was mutual.
“There are only twenty-four spots in the caretaker classroom, but they were all full. I gave you the option to either get private lessons or just go to train with the deputy. You didn’t follow up, so I assumed you just took the second option.”
“What? When?” I didn’t remember any of that being told to me.
“Didn’t your cousin tell you? Did they send a telegraph or something?” That made a lot more sense. I shook my head. They brought a hand to theirs. “Of course. Why am I not surprised?” The captain’s best friend just so happened to be one of my cousins, and this cousin just so happened to be extremely busy all of the time. No wonder I never got the message.
“So… now what?”
“Well, what do you think?” I thought about it. What I really wanted would have been to train with the head chef, so I only had to do the cooking part of being a caretaker. Of course, that wasn’t exactly an option. Then again, how would I know?
“Can I train with the head chef instead or something?” I said, just to put the option on the table.
“Do you care about your sanity, dignity, and personal space?”
“Uh, what? Yes?”
“Then the mere thought of talking to that woman should terrify you. Option one or two?”
“Option one. The private class.” It might have been kind of backwards, but the captain, at least to me, was my second choice for a teacher. Sure, I would have to learn a lot of medicine related stuff, but he’s the captain. Besides, I’ve tasted their cooking before.
“Sure. What time were you thinking?” Right then, the bell rang, and everyone in the kitchen started flooding towards the door.
“How about right now?” I suggested. “Or just after class in general. Because it’s a short day. Right?”
They thought for a minute. “Since you’re only one person, I’d imagine class would be shorter, but even just a thirty minute class would cut it close to my shift at the hospital. I don’t have a problem with that, but I’d have to eat lunch right after telling you what to do, so you’d be on your own most of the time. Is that ok?”
“I think I can manage,” I said. They nodded in response.
“Since you’ll have less time than the actual students overall, we should probably start a lesson today,” They said, walking over to the telegraph machine on a desk in the corner of the kitchen. While they clicked at it, presumably to tell whoever manages affairs regarding the knights about the new class, I set my bag down at a station.
“Makes sense.” They eyed a textbook on the top of the desk, took it and walked back to me. “What’s first, cap?” I got an annoyed look for that, but he didn’t say anything.
“You didn’t take the required classes for this, did you?” That could have been said a little nicer.
“Well, technically no, but I’m a fast learner.”
“You better be. Do you think you can finish this by Wednesday?” They held out the textbook.
“Definitely,” I said. I tried to grab it, but the weight caught me off guard. How did he make it seem so light?
“Awesome,” they said with a completely blank expression. “It would probably be best for you to start now, but the kids on butcher station cleaning duty didn’t do a great job, so…”
Ew. “What nosy question did I ask to warrant that?”
“How about that time you asked me if I could feel emotions even though I’m a lizard?”
“C’mon, that was two years ago!” My extended family holds frequent “family gatherings”, but my grandma makes it a point to invite as many people as possible. That does mean the point is kind of lost, but I get to hang out with my best friends and cousins at the same time, so it doesn’t really matter. One time, Captain Frost showed up to one, and as the nosy kid-well, technically, teenager-I was, I didn’t even say hi before I broke several boundaries. If looks could kill, I wouldn’t have even made it to the eleventh grade.
“Two years ago and yet you never apologized.” I opened my mouth to protest, but they tossed a rag and sponge at me before I could say anything.
“So yeah. The teacher is scary and hates my guts, and now I’m stuck in private lessons with him.”
“That’s not exactly what I took away from the ‘long story’,” I say. To be honest, as someone who witnessed the nosiness of younger Fran, my main takeaway is that it is finally coming back to her.
“That wasn’t all of it. That was just me explaining the whole class time thing. I don’t exactly want to tell you about the first actual class. Long and short of it, I dropped a giant pot of tomato sauce and learned that you don’t need to yell to threaten the crap out of people.” Antonio giggles.
He then suddenly remembers something. “Celly! That…somehow… reminds me!” He reaches in the pocket of his capelet, pulls out a few folded up pieces of fabric, and hands them to me. “Consider this a thank-you gift for the whole captain training thing,” he proudly says. I open them up, and a map looks back at me, each piece a different level.
I can’t even be mad that he’s taking another jab at my troubles with directions. “These are really cool! And they’re going to be really helpful with the scavenger hunt happening! Thank you so much!”
“No problem. We made them in class, so it’s hand-made as well as useful!”
“Speaking of which, now that Fran and I have talked about ours, how was your first day?”
He inhales. “Well…”
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