Astronomy was wild.

It was just about the only thing that pushed them through Thursday morning Calculus—the promise that, in a few hours, they would be learning something interesting that wasn’t worthless, abstract numbers. Verse preferred words to numbers.

There were numbers in astronomy. Those numbers were alright, since they meant something real. They meant planets and stars and positions of those planets and stars, and that was a lot more tangible than whatever an “integral” was supposed to be. They could listen to the professor lecture about interplanetary orbit for eternity. The other students probably felt a little differently. Verse didn’t care about the other students. The class was quiet, which was another positive; nothing but the professor’s constant rambling on stars.

And sometimes the sound of torrential downpour on the window, which was the case on this day. The rain wasn’t supposed to fall for at least another hour. Auran weather was apparently feeling particularly unpredictable.

The class had technically ended fourteen minutes ago. But first, Verse needed to finish a paper, of which there was a single paragraph left to write. Then they insisted on staying to stack the chairs against the wall; 35, into five stacks of seven. Then they assured the professor that their other essay would, in fact, be turned in on time and they did not, in fact, need an extension, even though it was technically granted on every assignment according to their student accommodations. Then fourteen minutes passed, and Verse finally left the building.

They very nearly ran into Yuki the moment they stepped outside.

“Woah. Hey,” they said, momentarily stunned.

Yuki stood with a colorful umbrella in hand and a cheerful smile on her face. “Hi!” she exclaimed, waving with her free hand.

“What are you doing here?”

“It’s raining, and you don’t have an umbrella.”

They couldn’t argue with that. Beyond the three feet of shelter that hovered over the doorway, rain tore into the earth in a loud static. Verse joined Yuki under the umbrella. They started towards the dormitories, this time cutting across the courtyard that the academic building had opened onto. Today, though, it was vacant, presumably on account of the pouring rain.

“The gardening team couldn’t meet because of the rain,” Yuki said with a slight sigh.

Verse stifled a chuckle. “Team,” they muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing. How was your class?”

Yuki moved as though to gesture dramatically before realizing she was holding an umbrella. “Oh my god,” she started, “there was this whole bit with Hass. He went off about LSD again.”

Verse paused. “LSD?”

“Yeah, the Legion Sons and Daughters,” she said casually. “We had officer elections. Tresa is convinced her opponents sabotaged her campaign. I just think not everyone agrees with her controversial vegetable-applesauce takes.”

“She lost?”

“No, she won.” Yuki laughed. Then she suddenly pulled a phone from her pocket, tapping at it with one hand. “New Lu-Navi post just dropped on Enneagram. She’s wearing even less than usual.”

Yuki turned her phone to show a social media post; it was a picture of Luca under a pink filter, more skin showing than covered. Not even three hours later, it had over a thousand likes.

Verse stared at the photo. “I feel like she’s trying to test Terms-of-Service at this point,” they said half-seriously.

“Gonna have to move to 4U soon,” Yuki laughed, shoving her phone away.

“Why is she even here? What’s she studying?”

“Photography,” she said, making one-handed air-quotes. “Putting that to use, I see.”

“What about you?” Verse asked. “I mean, you must be almost done with your course, right?”

Yuki smiled wider. “Yup. Will be geospatial-degree-certified a week from today. On to GIS compiling for the Legion Force. Can’t believe I’m really working in a few months.” She paused. “What are your plans for post-grad?”

Academy graduates were under no contractual obligation to work for the Legion after school. That was uncomfortably apparent with the handful of students like Ace who unsubtly flashed their anti-Legion allegiances. But the vast majority of graduates ended up there nonetheless, and the few who did not tended to disappear from conversation altogether. That was a mystery still undisclosed, one even the furtive “Archivist” group some few years ago had failed to unravel. Not that they ever managed to unravel much before the systematic arrest of their leaders. That marked the decisive end to an era of government skepticism. Now there were only two viable outcomes for an academy graduate: Legion, or disappear.

Verse laughed, then sighed. “I have no idea.”

They suspected they were approaching the latter outcome.