Wira Boarding School

Zen

Zen

The Bartender
Original poster
FOLKLORE MEMBER
Invitation Status
Writing Levels
  1. Intermediate
  2. Adept
  3. Advanced
Preferred Character Gender
  1. Male
  2. Female
Genres
Fantasy, Modern, Magical, Romance, Action, Urban Fantasy
It was true, she didn't quite care for her job. Of course Yani made sure that the rooms were cleaned and the sheets were washed, but as far as being happy in this place... That criteria was never going to be filled and she had given up hope. The young adult had been here for almost three years and she still never felt quite right. Maybe it was because she was surrounded by teenagers all day long. It wasn't their personalities that set her off - she had grown accustomed to that. But it maybe it was because she was constantly reminded that she was an adult now. No longer able to do what she wanted after school was out or go through that same carefree feeling once more - it was highly depressing. Not only that but relationships seemed to blossom almost out of the blue. For someone who remained single for quite a long time, it didn't help her loneliness.

Today she was tending to the gardens, something that Wira was known for. Yani wasn't the main gardener but she had gotten his blessings to pull out the weeds that were starting to poke through some of their flower beds. She decided to do the chore in the morning, when the afternoon sun wouldn't be blaring upon her back. It also meant saying hello to everyone with dirt smeared upon her forehead and pants.
 
As his footsteps crunched softly on the gravel of the path he'd chosen to wander, Kael let his mind wander, going over the lesson for the day. Most of his peers rushed around him, having forgotten this or that in their office, needing to get to the coffee before their first period or because they just plain hurried instead of taking a slow approach. It was sad really, they were missing a lot by rushing so much. Taking in a deep breath, the scent of the flowers struck him pleasantly, and when he opened his eyes again, he caught the sight of someone gardening. Smiling softly, Kael casually wandered up next to the woman, squatting down to observe her work.

He was about six foot at full height, with copper straight hair pulled back gently, falling to about mid back. His skin wasn't anything of particular note, neither incredibly nice and soft nor was it pocked or had any real flaws; average. He'd shaved that morning, leaving only a small patch of facial hair below his lips and sideburns that came to a clean end just past his ears. But it was Kael's eyes that were to die for, being an enchanting mix of golden and redish tones to make it look like fiery jewels were staring back at you.
 
She was in the middle of pulling a particularly stubborn weed when she sensed someone next to her. Yani lost her balance, falling flat on her rump. A look of irritation crossed her face as she looked up at the person who caused her pants to be dirtied once more.

It was Kael, one of the teachers for the school. Yani never made a huge attempt to talk to any of the teachers, finding out early on that they didn't like to converse with her. She could see why, she was usually caked with dirt or had her hands full with sheets. Although the man's eyes were beautiful, Yani was not one to fall in love so quickly with someone who had pretty eyes. As far as she was concerned, good looks were far more common than good manners.

"Please announce yourself next time. I don't mind company but I don't like being startled."

Grabbing a clean towel, Yani used it to wipe away the dirt on her hands. She grabbed another one and rubbed it across her face. From the dirt on the towel, there was a lot of filth on her face. But now that the dirt was gone, it wasn't hard to get a good look at the woman. She had an oval face, ivory but not too pale skin, and almond shaped eyes. She would have looked pretty if it weren't for the over sized baseball cap on her head. That accessory just made her look like a tom boy.

"You're Kael right?"

She got a good look at him, and went straight back to work, pulling up weeds as they talked.
 
His expression went from calm and peaceful at looking down at the flowers to surprised as she fell over. Many people might have laughed at her, but Kael just extended a hand hoping to help her back up, apologizing "I'm so sorry, I was just admiring your efforts and didn't want to disturb you with mindless prattle." A soft smile played across his lips when he got a better look at her. It was obvious by her attire that getting the job done and practicality were more important than looking good to her, or so he surmised.

Kael's smile only widened when she announced who he was, leaving him to admit he'd been remiss in catching hers. Fact was, he often didn't even know the names of the other professors unless he worked closely with them, though he was friendly and recognized nearly the whole teaching staff on looks alone outside the classroom. He'd just started working at the school this year, and six months later, people knew him before he them.
 
Yani ignored his offered hand, pulling herself back into her crouching position and immediately went back to weeding. Really, it wasn't long ago that she was here with the main gardener, how did the weeds come back so quickly?

"Well your mindless prattle would be different from the silent treatment," she grumbled, tugging on another weed. "I haven't had a teacher stop by and talk to me in - Ooof! Six months."

She fell back onto her rump again, a massive turnip looking weed in her hand. Although she took the damned thing out, she knew from looking at the hole it made that she would have to go in there with a trowel and dig out all of the roots. Suspicion quickly crossed over her face as she mulled over her next several days of work. Gritting her teeth, she tossed the weed aside, and settled onto the dirt. There was no point in continuing with her work. It was simply going to be a long day. Taking a few minutes out of the day to talk wouldn't harm her efforts.

"I'm Yani by the way, Yani Armani." She looked down at her hands, spotting the dirt streaks. Wincing she replied, "I would offer to shake your hand but well... They're kinda filthy."
 
A frown creased his brow hearing that people didn't speak to her. She seemed to work as hard as anyone else he'd met on staff so far, perhaps in some cases harder. It had always bothered him in the profession he was in that his peers held themselves above certain others on the sheer fact that the other had to get dirty to do their work. Truthfully, he wasn't much cut out for her line of work, but it never stopped him from talking to the gardeners.

As he smiled at her introduction, he gladly held out his hand for a shake, explaining he didn't care about the filth. "And as you know, I'm Kael Townsend, just started this year, and am pleased to make your acquaintance." His tone was sincere, no hints of mocking or negativity. After the shake, he quickly checked his watch, wincing, "Opps, I'm afraid however Yani that I must leave you to your beautiful work, or I shall be late for my own class." giving a wink to her before standing again and starting to head off in the direction of the building once more.
 
[DASH=white]The woman inclined her head towards the teacher, knowing that class was going to call him away from her. Once he was out of sight, Yani let out a soft sigh. At least she had some human interaction today... It beat having only the bed sheets and flowers to keep her company.
[/DASH]

Nearby a group of young teenaged boys snickered by their lockers. Through the window they could see Yani struggling with the weeds that they enchanted. They all knew that Yani didn't have any magical abilities and thus would have to deal with the problem manually. They greatly enjoyed taunting her, seeing as how their studies did nothing to keep away their boredom. Having come from wealthy families they never had to endure the hardships of manual labor and thus couldn't relate to poor Yani.
 
Even in his hurrying to class, Kael found himself staring up at a group of male students. He might have been new to this particular school, but teen boys in a group were very similar no matter where you taught. His expression looking up to them was stern enough that they'd hopefully get the hint to get to class just by seeing it; and then he lost sight of them, coming in close enough to the building that the windows above where at the wrong vantage point.

Within a couple minutes, Kael was entering his classroom, pleasantly smiling once more. Lifting his arms in a welcoming gesture like he had every morning, he greeted his students to mixed responses. The rest of his classes went pretty smoothly, and when it was finally time for lunch, Kael found himself sitting on the grass under the shadiest tree he could find to enjoy his sandwich in relative peace and quiet. Most of his coworkers ate in the lounge, where they spent more time complaining about their students or bragging about this or that one, it was something he never really enjoyed. All his students were important to him, and it was his belief that a teacher just needed to find the right way to get through to an individual student. Yes, it was a lot of work, but the results were satisfying enough that he continued his best to do it.
 
Normally Yani would be enjoying her lunch as well but the problem was she didn't have time to today. She had gotten rid of the turnip looking weeds from the court yard and was now working on fertilizing the grounds. The woman looked absolutely horrid from her time in the flower beds, dirt caked almost all of her clothes and she smelled like a mixture of manure and flowers.

She knew though that her work was interrupted by the same sort of kids who normally pulled such pranks on her and the housekeeping staff. They were the wealthy kids who found it very enjoyable to make everyone else's life miserable. Unfortunately Yani didn't harbor any sort of magical powers and had to fix everything manually.

Wandering through the trees, she spotted Kael, eating in the shade. Narrowing her eyes at him she instead focused on her task at hand instead of moving towards him. Sooner or later she would have to pull out the weeds by his tree anyways so why rush?
 
The teacher just finished his lunch and was about to relax when his eyes scanned the area out of habit. There again was that same group of boys from earlier this morning, this time outwardly pointing at something they felt far enough away from to feel safe in mocking. Sitting back against the tree Kael watched them a moment before turning enough to see what or rather in this case, whom they were making fun of.

Without the teens seeing him, he found a way to walk up behind the group and leaning over tsk'd "You know boys, making fun of someone who's putting in work to give this school a good name is very rude." The kids were startled, all turning to face the teacher who'd sneaked up to ruin their fun. One of them spoke up, presumably the leader of the bunch, "Hey teach it's okay, that lady doesn't know, and besides, she's not like us." Leaning in to whisper, "She can't do any magic"

Ahh so that was it was it. Kael smiled at the group of boys, patting the leader's shoulders as he spoke, "Well, you know what, I think all three of you would benefit from some extra credit." A pleasant smile plastered on his face. At the protests from the boys about having good enough grades, the teacher repeated himself with a firmer tone that said this wasn't a choice. And soon, Kael was guiding the three students right to the woman they were previously making fun of.

"Yani, I have some students here that would just love to help you out today."
 
Startled, Yani jumped a bit when she heard Kael speak. The woman was so absorbed in her work and rage that she didn't hear the group come up behind her. Upon turning around, Yani's eyebrows came together and she pursed her lips, a look of deep displeasure. Oh she knew these group of kids. It was hard not to. They were the pride of Wira but not because of their grades, it was because of their deep pockets. The school practically depended on them sometimes, they were so rich.

"You can take them back to the school Kael," she said tartly, turn back to tossing fertilizer onto the ground. "I don't need help, I've got most of my work done."

It was pointless to ask the children to help her out. One, they would probably do a horrible job with the plants, trampling all over them and what not. Two, once their parents heard of this Yani wouldn't hear the end of it from them and her boss. It just wasn't done, asking these rich snobby kids to get down on their knees and do some hard labor. Even if they contributed more to Yani's work load.
 
His face contorted for just a second as Yani essentially undermined his teaching technique in front of the boys. It would be even more difficult now to get them to behave in his classes, but the woman said she didn't need the help and Kael let the boys go. Before they left he demanded a paper from each of them by the end of the week on the flowers planted in the garden around the school in the hopes they might ask Yani for research if nothing else. He was trying to teach them the lesson of respect and learning more about another person before judging, clearly it was going to be difficult to teach if neither the boys or the subject he'd tried setting them up with were cooperative.

Once alone again, Kael shook his head lightly, his tone soft and even when he spoke, "You know, I wasn't trying to hurt your pride or anything by having those boys give you a hand. It was supposed to be more for their benefit than anything."
 
She had a shovel in her hand now, slamming the metal into the hard dirt. Yani kept her back turned towards Kaelso to keep him from looking at her face. The man shouldn't find out how much her body was exhausted and how much pain this job was causing her as of late. It seemed like every year the children became more and more troublesome and bold. Or perhaps it had more to do with Yani's lack of a voice.

"I know and I'm sorry for being so tart." She moved a pile of dirt away with the shovel. "But you don't get how things like that would work for me. Those kids are rich and their parents contribute a lot to the school's funding. If they tell their parents that I had to make them do work, I won't hear the end of it from my boss... Hell you probably won't either by tomorrow."

The end of lunch bell rang, signaling the students to return to class.

"You should probably go," the woman mumbled, "I don't want to get you into more trouble."
 
Well this was certainly not going how he'd wanted it...it being getting to know this woman he'd just met. She was different than all the others around the school, and that intrigued Kael.

Without really even thinking, he knelt down next to her, placing his bag next to him. The man watched Yani's movements for a minute or two before starting to mimic them, though he didn't have the small spade she did. With a smile on his face as he looked over to her, "Well, guess it's lucky I have a prep period." sure, he hadn't graded the rest of the papers and the kids had been bugging him about the grades all week, but that could wait. He was giving them a test today, he could grade and watch for cheating at the same time.

"As for the boys, the need the lesson, and if trying to teach it to them is going to get me in trouble, I will do it a thousand times over so long as it gets taught. Because it is what is right and needs to be done for those boys education." Oh yea, he was a real idealist this professor was.
 
The woman stared sidelong at the man who was mimicking her movements. Yani wouldn't have minded except the man didn't have a spade to do any work. It was very, very uncomfortable and she wondered why the hell he was doing it. Was it to make her feel better or something? Maybe it was best that she didn't draw attention to any of the teachers. Were all of them this... Odd?

A hollow laugh escaped from her red lips; Yani couldn't help it. She hadn't heard such a thing in a while. The professors were here to get the children ready in their careers not teach them humility. If she had learned anything from eavesdropping classes, it was this: Humility makes you lose business, finding a way around the system is what reaps the rewards.

"You honestly think you can make a difference huh?" She said, a small sneer on her face. "Boy are you at the wrong school." Yani shook her head, inadvertently knocking her baseball cap off her head. Not only did the action release her mid length black hair but it also showed a very odd feature of hers.

Soft fluffy black cat ears.

"Ahem."

She snatched the fallen cap quickly and squashed it on her head. The movement made her wince.
 
He'd stopped, putting his dirty hands on his knees as he looked up at her. He was about to tell her that it was not the wrong school, there were so many here that needed that lesson, when he saw her hair fall from the cap. It was beautiful, and the man caught a glimpse of her ears just before the hat was unceremoniously shoved back on. "Why do you cover them?" Later on he'd wonder if she were hiding a tail as well, but for now, he was focused on the ears.

The way he'd asked the question, there was only curiosity in his tone, it wasn't malicious or prying. Kael had found the differences between species fascinating since he could remember. After all, he wasn't one to talk, not being human and all. But his he had to hide for more, obvious reasons. No sense in forcing people to wear sunglasses just to look at him or possibly setting something on fire if he got too excited and wasn't paying attention.
 
She went back to using the shovel, quickly tossing a pile of dirt onto another pile. Yani wasn't going to bother with putting her hair back in the cap, especially since her hands were dirty - No use in dirtying her hair. For a minute or so she ignored Kael's question, preferring to work off her embarrassment with her shovel.

"I got teased about it a lot," she mumbled. "You know, when I was young."

The woman wondered if Kael would be able to notice her tail. She was very good about hiding it. Yani always wore baggy pants, and longer than average shirts. It concealed the 'bulge' well, although there were many a time when she broke her tail bones because she landed on her butt far too hard.

"The school kids don't bother me that much about it, neither do the teachers. I guess you could say that it's just a force of habit." She glanced side long at him. "Are you human?"
 
He kept watching her, nodding a little in understanding as she explained her reasoning. Kids could be awfully cruel to one another, he'd observed it many many times. Kael didn't really notice the tail, though he'd wondered about it, he didn't go looking either, mostly out of respect since it would require a slightly uncomfortable moment between the two of them where he was staring at her backside. Instead he just smiled quietly, at least until she asked.

"Well, that's a bit forward, now isn't it." He was still smiling, and the initial response wasn't meant to be rude, just making a statement that he'd not expected such a question. Tilting his head and shaking it slowly, he answered with a sincere tone, "No, I'm not. Many don't bother asking because of...you know..." pointing to his fiery colored eyes as they seemed to flicker at her just a bit, or was that a trick of the sun?
 
A bead of sweat trickled down, which Yani wiped away. It left another streak of dirt on her face. She really should take a break. The sun was bearing down on the both of them, at least Kael got to eat lunch. Although the thought of food was suddenly swept away as she looked at Kael's eyes. They were a very unusual color, a color that she didn't normally see... Or would never see?

She shook her head, once again, shaking off her cap.

"Goddamnit," she muttered, watching it being carried away by a faint breeze.

Yani was about to retrieve it but thought to just leave it. The students or the teachers didn't care, she was just being insecure about who she was. The woman allowed her shovel to drop onto the ground. It was getting too hot and she was getting hungry. Maybe I could catch a mouse or two, she thought derisively. She plopped herself against a peach tree; the plant was slowly coming into bloom with the change of seasons. Yani swiped away the locks of her hair on her lap, sending them onto the ground. She looked up at Kael curiously. The expression was an odd and shocking one, because she was so grumpy as of late. Youth emanated from that look, what with the sunlight glancing off of her eyes and her hair framing her face. The dirt streaks should have made the expression comical but it only added to what could unmistakenably be, cute.

"So if you aren't human, what are you?"
 
Yea, this woman was definitely attractive, even with all the sweat and dirt. In fact, those two things made Kael more interested, because she wasn't afraid to get dirty to do what she had to, and would work hard till it was done. As she sat down against the tree, he moved to sit sort of next to her, but still facing her direction. He was wiping the dirt on his slacks when Yani had asked what he was, causing a momentary pause in the cleaning. Looking back up at her, Kael was smiling softly. After considering his options he finally gave a calculated response.

"That is a good question, Yani. Unfortunately, my species has been hunted to brink of extinction, as such I hope you understand my desire to keep that information for now." A part of him really wanted to tell her, but he didn't know who was listening, as many of the students...hell faculty even, had ways of spying on others to use the information for blackmail later if they needed it.
 
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