[center][h3][color=f26522]Alexander Breckenridge[/color][/h3] Interacting with: [@Jay Kalton], [@ghastlyInc][/center][hr]

[i]“[color=mediumpurple]I guess I was just a bit overwhelmed by the extravagance of it all. But seeing as this is one of the most prominent magic schools in the region, I shouldn't have expected anything less.[/color]”[/i]

	Alexander nodded at this, he understood her meaning exactly. He had been told stories of this place and what it looked like for as long as he could remember, and yet the descriptions he had been given didn't seem to do the place anything even resembling justice. This place was sacred, in a way, and quite difinitively beyond words. He followed her gaze towards around the Courtyard and couldn't help but smile gently at the beauty of the place. 

[i]“[color=mediumpurple]Also, it's perfectly fine to drop the 'miss'. I usually go by Mallory, if it wouldn't upset you to address me that way.[/color]”[/i]

	He turned his head to face her, and was about to respond with his own name when she spoke again.

[i]“[color=mediumpurple]Ah. I think it's starting.[/color]”[/i]

	She picked up her pace, and he did so as well reflexively. He turned his eyes from the back of her head to the podium, where the Administer began the first-year's introduction. He watched, a expression of mild anxiety spread across his face as a great canvas fell and a projector clicked on. He already knew what he would see, but it didn't save him any embarrassment; The face of the Great Military Colonel Nicholas Albert Breckenridge, his Father. His face reddened almost immediately, but it wasn't long until his bashfulness was replaced with a sort of grim maturity. He recognized that place, and he looked away, knowing what was about to happen. The Vivat incident, a massacre, more like. 

[hr]
	After the film had ended and the students had been escorted towards the cafeteria, Alex had stayed near Mallory but remained uncharacteristically silent. He was almost brooding as he collected a small bit of food onto one of the trays, having been reminded of Vivat and the subsequent effect it had had on his father, his appetite was almost non-existent. He sat down diagonally from her, a seat across and to the right, picking at his food absent-mindedly. 

	He was so wrapped up in his own mind that he barely noticed the shouting of a dog-like chimera, but he looked up momentarily to the individual who took the seat next to him. He offered a curt nod to the individual, avoiding eye-contact as he did so. Eventually, he looked up and spoke, a quiet and gentle tone in his voice.

	[color=f26522]"They don't tell you about what happens when you go home, they don't tell you about the nightmares and the panic attacks. They don't tell you how much a thing like Vivat can damage somebody, how war breaks people."[/color]

	He froze for a second, only just now realizing that he had been spoken out loud. He clenched his fist under the table so hard that his fingernails left angry lines in his palm as he stared down into his food, his legs bouncing below him. He knew it wasn't the time or the place, but he couldn't stop the flood of memories that bombarded his thoughts. Things like how his father woke up screaming in the middle of the night for months after that attack, how even the sound of a door closing a bit too hard turned him into a terrified wreck. His father had been the strongest man he knew, and yet even he had been broken by the wars of men apathetic to the plight of soldiers.

	[i]Damn the entire fucking empire.[/i]