★ Gerald Aldrick ★

“Well, about TIME, youngster! What do you think you were doing inside of your room for so long? Did you not hear me screaming MURDER at Bastion and Nicolas just now?”

Cece Solbakken, his homeroom partner of two years now. She was a tiny woman, her fresh face contrasting with her snow-white hair. Even on her tiptoes, she could barely reach up to his chest. 

Gerald smiled, practiced.

“Ah, my apologies, Ms. Solbakken. I must have misheard.”

She didn’t buy it. Or she was just angry for anger’s sake. With her, those reactions blended into one.

Her cheeks flared with that pink color as she no doubt released another launch of her fury. Gerald shut it down, an interesting thought entering his mind.

He wondered—why couldn’t NBSA have included women to the mandatory draft too? Most tsarnians would flee Volnyr at the sound of this one annoying woman’s screeching voice. Her pitch alone could be classified as a weapon of mass destruction. 

Or better yet, she would be dead and he wouldn’t have to be dealing with her now.

Then again, wasn’t she a bit too old to be drafted? What was she? Sixty? Seventy?

The tiny woman clapped in his face. 

“Are you even listening to me? For the last time, you WILL respect me in this house. I am fifty-three, and I am your SENIOR! I’m not some—”

Ah, thank you, Ms. Solbakken. That was indeed the one piece of data he was missing to conclude his theory. 

In that case, yes, the draft launched in 994. That would make Ms. Solbakken… She would have been forty-four at the time.

Yes, definitely too old to be drafted–let alone as a woman. Women were allowed to volunteer, but at that age, she would be turned away even if she suddenly cared for anyone but herself.

Unfortunate. 

He resumed his focus on her, but she was still shouting. How did she have the energy for that at her age? 

“—what I meant is you can’t ignore me when there is a CLEAR emergency. If you continue acting like this, I will—”

Gerald was actually getting worried. What if she were to have a heart attack? If it happened right now, he would be the one responsible for performing first aid.

That was not worth the momentary satisfaction. 

Then again, he could never understand how this haymaker of a woman functioned. Gerald was thirty-four now, and yet Ms. Solbakken, in her sixties, looked younger than him. 

Younger than the students they were teaching, in fact. 

No doubt, thanks to her witchcraft. Her room was filled with these objects he could only assume were cursed, designed to instantly kill him were he to touch them. He knew from her own exposition that she used those to maintain her youth. 

But did it affect her health too? Like was she a teenager in appearance alone, or was she physically as healthy as a young girl?

He might have to pass that question off to Akradites in his next appointment.

“—so Nicolas, the little scoundrel, broke the upstairs toilet. So how about you make yourself USEFUL for once and go FIX it.”

That caught his attention. He cocked his head down to face her.

“Oh? How did that happen?”

“H-how?” she screeched, her hands now violently shaking. “What do you mean HOW? Did you not hear a word of what I just told you?”

Gerald exhaled. If she hadn’t realized he, in fact, was not paying attention, now she knew for certain. 

“I’ll fix it. But I have history with the second years in just under an hour and I still need to finish grading their tests from last week.”

“Huh?” Solbakken stomped, reaching up to him like a toddler and jabbing her painted nail in his face. “What do you mean you haven’t finished that yet? You had a whole weekend off! How many times am I supposed to tell you not to leave things until the very last moment?”

Gerald ignored her. He walked out. Her screaming persisted, something about the audacity of doing as he pleased.

Normally, he would stand there and take it. Lord knew he had been through worse than a single teenage hag in a perpetual tirade. 

But today, he just needed some peace….

If this continued, he really might…

He left the teachers’ quarters before those thoughts could drown him further.