[color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=662d91][i][b]Alexander Polawski[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=662d91]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Outside Administration [i][b][color=662d91]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/BBfr494/Mugsy-1.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] The big C, the sickness that had taken some of his own friends to God prematurely, the slow grasp of death as one grew thin and weak. Alexander looked blankly at Aeron for a moment, processing what he had just been told, as if it was hard to believe. Those days in a world filled with so many things out to kill you, terminal illnesses wasn't something Alexander had thought of. Then he thought back to the first informal meeting he'd had with Aeron and what he had told him back then. All with the same comforting smile then as ever, as now. They'd saved more lives than they had lost, most to old age. What would be Aeron's fate then, and what about himself? How would God welcome his lost lamb back home? Alexander sat quietly as Aeron told him to not mention the secret curse he bore, feeling himself holding his breath as if even a small breeze would take his new-old friend away from him. Though when Aeron once again smiled at him, Alexander took in a fresh breath of air and nodded. [color=662d91]"Your secret is safe with me, Aeron. Maybe one day you'll carry one for me as well."[/color] Alexander answered, standing up as well and returning the smile. Yes, he could keep their conversation in the dark for the others, something he was good at already. Some secrets he carried out of convinience, others out of shame and fear. [color=662d91]"Now that's an order I can follow without question! What's on the meny for today, more sea food? I promised a certain Roman fella earlier I would try the tuna casserole. Caught him with Rolodex in the reception just before I came to see your son…wait…feisty?"[/color] Alexander muttered under his breath those last words, walking alongside Aeron down the path. Something finally ticked off on a checklist somewhere far back in the old veteran's brain. Something about the way Sandra had treated him… [color=662d91]"Oh…ooooh…She's something…"[/color] [color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=B8860B][i][b]Nigel Cooper[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=B8860B]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Education Center (M) [i][b][color=B8860B]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/LrnKm2S/Nigel-Hadrian-1.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] While the office of the Professor was starting to get crowded, it wasn't dampening the mood of Nigel who had just been told that he would be in fact allowed to sign up for the combat training. Both he and Thalia had been evaluated to be able to sign the neccecary paperwork to be on the now infamous D Roster. Nigel, standing beside Thalia and hearing Thana just behind them in the door, was relieved it would be this 'easy'. [color=#B8860B]"Read and sign, that I can do, Professor."[/color] Nigel said back to her, giving Thalia a look back as he accepted the papers and starting to read. It was the [i]more suo[/i] of how he'd done paperwork back in his old life. Contracts of professional confidentiality at highschool, excursions and responsibility for injuries due to meetings with sharpened steel swords. Reading over the papers he would sign, he saw it all there, but more importantly he saw the opportunity to show himself as useful. And with that look from Thalia as he himself began signing it, he would get the chance to sparr with the one-armed Amazon. Perhaps she was more accessable while fighting than drinking, probably. [color=#B8860B]"Agreed, I intend to prove I'm worth my salt. Cum gladio et sale."[/color] Nigel quiped back in good faith, signing in a rusty cursive that honestly wasn't much better than Thalia's hampered writing. The world of Hades didn't require a lot of writing, unsuprisingly. But now writing meant more than all the promises made verbally in a thousand years of troubles. [i]Verba volant, scripta manent[/i]. Two classes he would attend and prove his worth: Teaching and fighting. Wisdom and war. The world was becoming more like the old one day by day. Nigel, having signed most of the papers at this point, followed Thalia's suit and looked up at Thana's words of caution. A look of grinding cogs and mechanical gears, then one of comprehension. [color=#B8860B]"If you mean who I think you mean…"[/color]