[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/Cr9MNcF.png[/img][/center][center][color=#2E2C2C]─[/color][color=#302E2E]─[/color][color=#323030]─[/color][color=#343232]─[/color][color=#363434]─[/color][color=#383737]─[/color][color=#3A3939]─[/color][color=#3D3B3B]─[/color][color=#3F3D3D]─[/color][color=#413F3F]─[/color][color=#434242]─[/color][color=#454444]─[/color][color=#474646]─[/color][color=#4A4848]─[/color][color=#4C4A4A]─[/color][color=#4E4D4D]─[/color][color=#504F4F]─[/color][color=#525151]─[/color][color=#545353]─[/color][color=#575656]─[/color][color=#595858]─[/color][color=#5B5A5A]─[/color][color=#5D5C5C]─[/color][color=#5F5E5E]─[/color][color=#616161]─[/color][color=#636363]─[/color][color=#666565]─[/color][color=#686767]─[/color][color=#6A6969]─[/color][color=#6C6C6C]─[/color][color=#6E6E6E]─[/color][color=#707070]─[/color][color=#737272]•[/color][color=#757474]⋅[/color][color=#777777]⊰[/color][color=#797979]༻[/color][color=#7B7B7B]༒[/color][color=#7D7D7D]︎[/color][color=#808080]༺[/color][color=#7D7D7D]⊱[/color][color=#7B7B7B]⋅[/color][color=#797979]•[/color][color=#777777]─[/color][color=#757474]─[/color][color=#737272]─[/color][color=#707070]─[/color][color=#6E6E6E]─[/color][color=#6C6C6C]─[/color][color=#6A6969]─[/color][color=#686767]─[/color][color=#666565]─[/color][color=#636363]─[/color][color=#616161]─[/color][color=#5F5E5E]─[/color][color=#5D5C5C]─[/color][color=#5B5A5A]─[/color][color=#595858]─[/color][color=#575656]─[/color][color=#545353]─[/color][color=#525151]─[/color][color=#504F4F]─[/color][color=#4E4D4D]─[/color][color=#4C4A4A]─[/color][color=#4A4848]─[/color][color=#474646]─[/color][color=#454444]─[/color][color=#434242]─[/color][color=#413F3F]─[/color][color=#3F3D3D]─[/color][color=#3D3B3B]─[/color][color=#3A3939]─[/color][color=#383737]─[/color][color=#363434]─[/color][color=#343232]─[/color][color=#323030]─[/color][color=#302E2E]─[/color][/center][indent][indent][indent][indent][justify][color=bdbdbd][h3][sup][sup]𝕳loþhilde watched her sister go; watched her until the distance, the crowd, and the turning of a corner all conspired to conceal her, whereon all at once the enormity of the girl's situation began to subsume her. Above towered the school's crown steeple, the glint of a polished copper bell contained betwixt the buttresses; beneath that, the many spires and crenellations. The bell's ringer, sat precariously near to the precipice at the utmost edge of the eighty-foot drop, ate his breakfast and smoked a [i]cigarillo[/i] with practiced nonchalance, monitoring as a goshawk does, watching for the scurrying of voles from the safety of his eyrie. Others, much nearer to the ground, but still so raptor-like, also surveyed the gathering freshmen. Like their prey they wore uniforms, though of a simpler ilk, the shakos swapped out for a humble [i]képi,[/i] the Ivernii-styled tabard for a mess tunic, the breeches for striped trousers. More remarkable to Hloþhilde, however, were their ornaments, their cuffs and collars heavier with rank, their sashes laden with a great many badges and ribbons of achievement; and most extraordinary of all were their half-capes, not drab and black like hers but scarlet and smaragdine, sapphiric and golden. In coteries they'd gathered, one color never daring to mingle with another, creating a territoried effect all across the courtyard. The reds observed from a rampart, seated playfully between the merlons, or dangling their jackbooted feet over the parapet; the purples, from the windows and mock-murderslits of a second-story skywalk; as for the irreputable greens, the four swapping back and forth betwixt themselves a pipe and a bottle of apricot schnapps, they stood just there, near enough against a courtyard wall for one to choke on their vapors, which mingled on the air with their cheap smoke, and their cheap, strong perfumes.

When she saw that they whispered amongst themselves, these flocks of boys (they were mostly boys), and likewise pointed out to each other certain individuals standing in the queue, Hloþhilde resolved herself not to look too intensely or with too great an interest (though she was most assuredly intrigued). For she had noticed from the freshmen in front of her just how easily the uniforms exclaimed their every movement. They could not take a step without her hearing it jingle about the insignia, and rattle in the rings of their sword belts. But still more indictingly than that, they could not turn their heads, not even in passing interest, without the peaks and the plumage of their massive helms betraying it. So stiffly she stood, statuesque, nutcracker-like, except perhaps in the eyes, preferring by far to appear as if she had not noticed the motley boys at all. But they certainly noticed her; her and the rest of the fresh meat, passing by in a row as if on butchers' hooks.

Only ten students ahead, the secretary at the podium had just admitted another one, sending her on her way down the hall and on to the assemblage beyond. [i]di Valdemar[/i] was her name, if Hloþhilde had heard it true; a daughter from the southern duchies, not that she could say just how far the other girl had traveled, nor the importance her family claimed among the peerage. Despite growing up around talks of territories weakened, corrupted, and shrunk—highwaymen, treaties, and revolution—it left Hloþhilde to wonder whether Laachtalia was still far too great for any one girl to see in the entirety, even with horses and inns and the ever-expanding railroads to assist in her travels. She listened a little more closely then, wondering if she might next hear a stodgy, oatmealish name hailing from the salt-swept lowlands of Lóðyria, or the mellifluous dialect of a Tuonon; perhaps even a fellow student hailing from Marsènne—her Marsènne, the streets still fragrant with bay myrtle this time of year, the tables copious with the vines' first harvest—Marsènne, which it was much too soon to regard with such sentimentality, there, before she'd even passed beneath the spires and the belfry and the gatehouse......

Another freshman processed, another shuffling-forward of the line. Ötz, or Lutz, or something similar was the lad's name, Hloþhilde hadn't been listening all too well, but sharp in its monosyllabism, ending crisply on the teeth like the biting of an apple. Onward he strode, past the secretary and her podium, beneath the decorative portcullis. Eight now.

Suffering from a dearth of anything better to let draw her eye, Hloþhilde retrieved from one of her abundant pouches and pockets the proceedings' formulary, already wrinkled and corner-worn by half a dozen such reiterations. She affected to remind herself of its contents, though in truth she had already committed them to memory the previous night, wary of joining a march to the wrong step, or a song of the wrong key; of rising to attention when she should be seated and sitting when she should rise. After all, in anything and all things was it this child's aim to go unnoticed; to be unworthy of scrutiny was to suffer no scorn. Thankfully, whether by sensing some quality of hers which their coteries deemed loathsome, or, inversely, by sensing that she [i]lacked[/i] a quality requisite in all their members, for the moment the wolfish boys in the cocked caps and the gaudy half-cloaks did not waylay. Hloþhilde chanced here and there a sidewise peek, and indeed, to her relief other boys farther back in the queue, taller boys, stronger boys, appeared to have drawn to themselves that hungry appraisal.

Looking down at the formulary once more, Hloþhilde noted at the very top of the billing, lauded in so many fanciful words, the Ansbourg Students' Band & Choir, opening the ceremonies with their rendition of the [i]Syggstrunnslied[/i]; and further down the page several more lays and hymns, interspersed between various speeches from alumni and valedictorians; even a drill or two from the acting ensigns. It occurred to her then to wonder: just who [i]were[/i] these ruffian boys that had time aplenty to loiter and drink and leer at the freshmen while more important happenings proceeded mere rooms away? And what precisely could be the significance of their colors, brandished on their persons with the same pride as a flag, a banner, a coat of arms—those colors' sanctity guarded with the very same zeal as these?

"Good morning, [i]Mein Herr,[/i]" said the secretary, her nearby voice more bounteous then among the stirrings of the crowd, all the clinking and rattling and the other ungainly adjustments of bodies unaccustomed to their trappings, "family name, please?"

"Von Hulmboldt, ma'am, should it please you," said the student whose turn had arrived.

Another heartlander, Hloþhilde remarked to herself. And there, with but three or four spaces to go until her turn, did it strike her to ponder: did others among the students listen out, as she did, for names while they were uttered? Did they too scour for familiarities or recognitions, searching for commonalities in rank or in region? And from these questions spawned more still: where did an earl's second daughter rank up among this throng? Should she speak with humility or with pride, as a better or an equal or a subordinate? She did not know. She did not know, and all her father's instructions and all her sister's artless bluster had not prepared her for this, her very first interaction at the academy. One rendered effortless by her fellow students' assuredness and ease, but which gnawed deeper at her the longer she dwelt on it. Perhaps the simplest way her career could begin—a greeting, a name, and a brisk walk down a hallway to an assigned seat—and already was her first panic setting in.

In three years' time, ancestors willing, she would be a second lieutenant, braving shot and sword and spike; all odds would she defy, Death himself would she provoke! How long then did she mean to tremble and fret over such toothless exchanges as these? It would one day be a queue-headed, saber-swinging Sároveč coming at her, or a Jethaian [i]darwan's[/i] lance, purchased in fine silks; so why there, ere she had even passed beneath the very first threshold?

"Godspeed, and have a good year," the secretary was saying. "A most blessèd morning to you, my lord," she said, having processed one and moved on to the next (and, evidently, recognized him without introduction at that). "The professor favored with Your Grace's pupilship this year is......"

No longer did Hloþhilde let astray her attention toward the bell or its dour-seeming ringer, or the school's magnificent spires and shingles; not the sharpness of the uniforms or the clacking of their ornaments; not even the gaily colored ruffians with their pipes and their bottles and their daggers. A madness seeming to overcome her, she soon found herself listening obsessively, singularly, for cues from the very few students who before her yet remained. Whether they spoke in hushed timbres or bragging ones, whether they sauntered or skulked; whether some measure of humility, as pupils in a place of learning, should supersede their status as lords and ladies, or the children of such; and furthermore, whether earning the notice of their peers should be worth earning likewise the notice of those delinquents all over the courtyard. All of these Hloþhilde measured and meted down to their most painstaking units. And most of all, lest the right words, the most graceful, nonchalant words, should not come to her naturally, she began to rehearse. Recite. Until she'd shambled far enough forward, and she stood unimpeded before the clerk, herself so poised, so effortlessly dignified despite her station, speaking (for all anyone knew) to dukes and princes with all the same ease as one addresses a bellhop or a waiter.

"A lovely morning, [i]Fräulein,[/i]" the woman said. "Your name, please?"

"Hloþhilde!" volunteered the child.

"Ah—......A beautiful name, no doubt—strong, and queenly—" the woman smiled a reassuring, motherly smile—"but I do mean your [i]family[/i] name."

"Oh. Uh, it's du Guillarmes," she answered. Despite the pleasant shade to be found in the threshold beneath the gatehouse and its hoardings, her face was beginning to feel terribly warm. "Well, maybe [i]de[/i] Guillarmes—a common-enough mistake—[i]not that you would make such a mistake,[/i] of course—I only mean—well, I'm sure you know what I mean—but it's Marsènnish, so it should be under [i]du,[/i] not [i]von,[/i] or maybe [i]de,[/i] like I said—"

"Guillarmes is fine," said the woman, her countenance remaining stiffly pleasant, her cool, steel-blue eyes sliding down to a page her spindly fingers had already turned to as if with a will of their own. "And I see it right here. Herr Schöst will be your professor this year. His is Section E. Godspeed and the very best of luck to you."

"You too!" Hloþhilde hurried to say, suddenly wincing. "I mean—Schöst. Yes. Thank you."

"Good day......Good morning, sir. Your name, please?......"

Hloþhilde gripped tightly her present and hurried on into the courtyard proper, and through a tall set of doors, following where she had seen the others go; her face by then utterly aflush and hot with humiliation. All the sudden, staring down Death's rifled barrel, or seeing Death's eyes reflected in the glimmer of a freshly stoned blade, did not seem half so unpleasant.[/sup][/sup][/h3][/color][/justify][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][center][color=#2E2C2C]─[/color][color=#302E2E]─[/color][color=#323030]─[/color][color=#343232]─[/color][color=#363434]─[/color][color=#383737]─[/color][color=#3A3939]─[/color][color=#3D3B3B]─[/color][color=#3F3D3D]─[/color][color=#413F3F]─[/color][color=#434242]─[/color][color=#454444]─[/color][color=#474646]─[/color][color=#4A4848]─[/color][color=#4C4A4A]─[/color][color=#4E4D4D]─[/color][color=#504F4F]─[/color][color=#525151]─[/color][color=#545353]─[/color][color=#575656]─[/color][color=#595858]─[/color][color=#5B5A5A]─[/color][color=#5D5C5C]─[/color][color=#5F5E5E]─[/color][color=#616161]─[/color][color=#636363]─[/color][color=#666565]─[/color][color=#686767]─[/color][color=#6A6969]─[/color][color=#6C6C6C]─[/color][color=#6E6E6E]─[/color][color=#707070]─[/color][color=#737272]•[/color][color=#757474]⋅[/color][color=#777777]⊰[/color][color=#797979]༻[/color][color=#7B7B7B]༒[/color][color=#7D7D7D]︎[/color][color=#808080]༺[/color][color=#7D7D7D]⊱[/color][color=#7B7B7B]⋅[/color][color=#797979]•[/color][color=#777777]─[/color][color=#757474]─[/color][color=#737272]─[/color][color=#707070]─[/color][color=#6E6E6E]─[/color][color=#6C6C6C]─[/color][color=#6A6969]─[/color][color=#686767]─[/color][color=#666565]─[/color][color=#636363]─[/color][color=#616161]─[/color][color=#5F5E5E]─[/color][color=#5D5C5C]─[/color][color=#5B5A5A]─[/color][color=#595858]─[/color][color=#575656]─[/color][color=#545353]─[/color][color=#525151]─[/color][color=#504F4F]─[/color][color=#4E4D4D]─[/color][color=#4C4A4A]─[/color][color=#4A4848]─[/color][color=#474646]─[/color][color=#454444]─[/color][color=#434242]─[/color][color=#413F3F]─[/color][color=#3F3D3D]─[/color][color=#3D3B3B]─[/color][color=#3A3939]─[/color][color=#383737]─[/color][color=#363434]─[/color][color=#343232]─[/color][color=#323030]─[/color][color=#302E2E]─[/color]

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