Academia - Part 7
Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who's posted comments and whatnot. For those of you who are still with me, I'm very sorry this last part's taken so long. All the mundane life stuff just seems to take over for a while, and before you know it, almost a year and a half has passed. I know I've said this before, but I do plan to work more on my writing, so you'll hopefully be seeing more in the somewhat nearer future if you stick around. Please keep up with the comments. I do read them, and it does tend to inspire me to write a little more.
Academia - Part 7
By Zelphair
The door to the headmaster's office opened once again, and Kaze was surprisingly comforted by the fact that there was a real paw on the outside knob, attached to a real cheetah pushing the door. He knew he was going to have to get used to some of the less mundane aspects of the Academy eventually. If he actually knew anything about how to use his own abilities, he supposed he could at least blow a door closed. Still, for now, he'd had enough of things moving on their own for one day.
At least the cheetah that stepped through seemed fairly normal. He must not have had class or anything of that sort coming up soon, because he was out of uniform. Currently, he was dressed in a loose-fitting pair of black jeans, and a shirt for a band with which Kaze was vaguely familiar. The fox couldn't tell much about his build from the fit of the clothes. The cheetah was a bit taller than the fox, anyway. And if Kaze had to guess, it looked like the cheetah probably exhibited the lanky, almost scrawny runner's build so common to his species. His head fur was grown out a little long, with a lock of it dyed red, but for the most part, he seemed to be a normal, friendly guy. There was a big grin on his face as he stepped into the office.
"Hey, Headmaster," he remarked casually, with a nod in the wolf's direction. He didn't really have any accent that Kaze could detect. The voice simply marked him as coming from somewhere in the US. Maybe the Midwest, but he couldn't be sure. "Honestly, just because I don't have morning classes doesn't mean I've got nothing better to do than show newbies around." The words may have been harsh, but his tone, and his continuing grin, left little doubt that he was joking.
The headmaster did not seem amused. Then again, the wolf didn't seem particularly angry either. From what Kaze could tell, there was simply resignation on the lupine face. It was the sign of one who dislikes another's habits, but has come to expect and tolerate them. That, in and of itself, was a higher level of acceptance than the young fox often experienced.
The cheetah's smile still seemed genuine as he extended a paw in greeting. "I'm Jared, by the way." The fox tried to match the firmness in the feline's grip as they shook paws. "As you've probably noticed, the headmaster wants me to show you around."
"I'm Kaze," the fox responded politely, head nodding in understanding. "It's nice to meet you."
"Yes, I think you'll get along well," the headmaster spoke up. The wolf almost seemed relieved about something. "Mister Pricewater will show you around the grounds a bit before dropping you off at Laundry. They should have something that will work until a proper tailoring can be done." The headmaster then turned his gaze back to the cheetah, a bit of sternness creeping into his expression. "And after you've dropped Mister Shiroi off, I expect you to find your own uniform before class."
Kaze suspected he saw the cheetah's eyes roll subtly, but the only response was "Of course, Headmaster."
The wolf didn't say anything more. Apparently, there was no need. The file cabinet in the corner opened of its own accord, paperwork making its way to the desk. That seemed to be as clear a dismissal as they were going to get.
The fox was moderately less shocked on the way out, as the door once again closed behind them. On their way to the elevator, the efficient little mink at the reception desk handed Kaze a very professional looking business card. She smiled warmly and told him to call if he had any questions the other students couldn't answer. She also informed him that he could schedule another appointment with the headmaster at that same number, should the need arise.
The gesture was certainly kind enough, but it sparked further concerns in his mind. He wondered suddenly how much longer his cell phone would work. Surely after everything that had happened, it would only be a matter of time before his father canceled it. Then again, he also had to wonder how he even got signal in the middle of the ocean. Perhaps it was better to just go with the flow for now.
The fox struggled to think of small talk as he and his escort boarded the elevator. "That's a cool streak," he finally commented. It wasn't the most original thing to say, but it was the cheetah's most prominent feature. "How long have you been dying it?"
"It's natural, actually," Jared replied as he pressed a button. Kaze couldn't see which one it was from this angle, but he supposed the information wouldn't have meant much to him, anyway. "My dad made me dye it to blend in growing up. Said he didn't want everyone thinking his son was a freak." The feline gave a short, derisive chuckle. "Looks like that turned out real well, huh?"
Kaze just nodded for the moment. He wouldn't have put it quite that bluntly, but he certainly understood. "I get that," he finally replied. "If my father could have worked out a way to bleach my entire pelt on a regular basis, he'd have done it."
"Man, screw blending in!" The cheetah's voice was certainly full of conviction. "And screw your old man, too. I think having some cool colors never hurt anyone. Standard ones are boring."
The fox had to smile a bit. The cheetah certainly seemed to have some ideas after his own heart. He could actually almost see himself becoming friends with the feline. Still, there was something strange about him. It wasn't anything as obvious as his clothes or his attitude, although those were certainly different. There was something more...primal, something he couldn't quite pin down.
He was saved from having to make further conversation by the soft ding that marked the elevator's arrival at their destination. As the doors opened, the fox followed the cheetah into a scene that could have come from any large mall in the world. A panorama of different furs, mostly around his own age, either wandered toward a destination, or gathered in small groups. Some were in the Academy's uniform, while others displayed every manner of casual dress.
Aside from the student population, the other main thing that caught his attention were the usual trappings of a mall. He could see all the expected stores, mostly centered around clothing at this end. Within easy view, he could make out American Beagle, The Cat, and Zebracrombie and Colt. As he took in the sights and sounds, the next thing he noticed was inevitable.
His stomach rumbled as his nose took in the unmistakable scents of the food court. Any mall designer worth his salt knew to place the food court and the air vents in such a way that no matter where one stood, one was downwind of that delicious scent. For species like his, with particularly good sense of smell, it made the mall a place one really didn't want to visit while hungry.
"What's the matter, huh? You hungry?" Jared grinned sympathetically. "You probably haven't had breakfast yet, and that sensitive nose can't help." The young cheetah rolled his eyes and shrugged. "You'll have to get something later. Your student ID has your meal stipend on it. I'm guessing you don't have yours yet, and I don't have enough to cover extra."
"Then what was the point of bringing me here?" Kaze asked, his tone making it quite clear that he was joking. "Planning to sap my will with hunger?"
"Nah, I would've taken you directly to the food court in that case," the feline countered. "I didn't figure you'd be able to smell it that well from here." The cheetah rubbed the back of his head self-consciously. "Anyway, what I wanted to do was show you there's another face to this place. There are great big chunks of normal in the middle of all this freaky stuff."
Kaze had to smile at that. This time, it wasn't just to be polite. He had to admit that the small gesture did make him feel a lot better. It told him that just about every student who came here was a bit freaked out at first. It also told him that, whatever weird abilities his fellow students might have, they were still just normal furs with normal concerns. "Thanks," was all he said, but he hoped the meaning behind it came through. "This mall must have just about everything."
"Well, just about," the feline said with a bit of hesitation as they stepped back into the elevator. "I've been trying to get them to open a head shop, but Old Whitepelt up there doesn't like the idea."
Kaze simply nodded a bit. He wasn't so innocent that he didn't know what the cheetah was referencing, but it was still relatively foreign territory. "Well," he ventured, "pot's illegal, so I can kind of see his point."
"That's the thing, though," Jared insisted, "It's not illegal here. The Academy's technically in international waters, so the only law's the Academy's rules. And those don't specifically ban it."
The fox had to tilt his head at that. "Really? You're sure it's not just an oversight?"
"Pretty sure," the cheetah confirmed. "It goes as far as to specifically ban most hard drugs and prescription stuff. It's even updated every time there's a major new drug on the market. But it's completely silent on Mary Jane. No one's ever been disciplined for having it, for smoking it...or even for growing it."
"Huh." Kaze couldn't really argue with that. It seemed only a step down from blatant approval. "Then what's the headmaster's objection?"
Jared rolled his eyes at that. "He says he doesn't want to give the mall area the wrong image. I think he just doesn't like the smell."
That was when it suddenly occurred to the vulpine what had been bothering him. He took a sniff of the air to be sure. He wasn't getting any scent off the feline, other than a mild floral aroma. There was certainly nothing identifying the cheetah, though, no unique scent like he got from anyone else. He was, in fact, so shocked, that before he even realized he was doing, he leaned in and took a close sniff of the feline's chest.
"Um...do you mind?" the cheetah asked with a bit of alarm.
"S-sorry," Kaze stammered in embarrassment, a huge blush spreading under his fur as he quickly snapped back to standing upright, facing the front of the elevator. "It's just, something had been bothering me for a while now, and I finally figured out what it was. You have no scent...or at least, nothing unique to you."
"Oh, yeah...that's my own fault," the cheetah admitted, looking embarrassed once again. "There's some stuff I use after I light up, to cover up the smell. Sometimes it works a little too well."
The fox was once again saved by the ding of the elevator. The door opened on a row of classrooms like almost any he had seen during his tours of campuses. The one immediately across from the elevator held a group of students showing various levels of interest in the badger orating at the front of the room.
"Anyway, this is the classroom section," Jared explained, seeming as eager as the fox to change the subject. "If you wanna go to a specific one, just punch in the number after you hit the classroom button. Otherwise, it'll just take you to the nearest entrance. That's the way it works with most of the sections."
"That makes sense, I guess." Kaze eyed the maze of buttons before him with slightly less trepidation. Deciding to take some initiative for once, he reached a paw forward and hit Laundry.
"Fast learner," Jared remarked with a grin as the door closed. "Laundry's down in the basement, so it'll take a while." There was an awkward silence for a moment as the cheetah seemed to consider something. "Say, as long as we're getting into each other's personal business, mind if I ask you a question?"
"Oh...um...sure," the fox replied with a smile, though there was also a hint of a blush behind his fur. The crack about personal business was obviously a reference to his earlier sniffing. Given that the subject had been brought up again, he was more than a bit nervous about the feline's question.
"Well, I was just wondering..." the cheetah began, seemingly a bit embarrassed to be asking the question. "...the headmaster said your last name was Shiroi. That wouldn't happen to be any relation to Shiroi Industries, would it?"
"Huh? Well, yeah, I guess." That certainly wasn't the question the fox had been expecting. His blush faded, then returned, though this time for an entirely different reason. "It's my father's company. It's been in my family for a few generations." He couldn't help but sigh a bit. "But I guess it's not my family anymore. So no, no relation anymore."
"Hey, it's all good," the feline replied with a nod. "I know what that's like, everyone lumping you together with your old man, even when you want nothing to do with him."
"My father was pretty low on the list of things people noticed about me," the fox said honestly. "With my fur and...everything else, I wasn't exactly normal."
The cheetah put a comforting hand on the fox's shoulder. "Look, man, normal can kiss my spotted yellow ass. We don't need normal; we're special. We can do things most people can't even imagine, and that means in a few years, all those normal people will owe you, big time."
Kaze was once again saved from the need for a response by the soft ding of their arrival at their destination. As the doors slowly slid apart, he could certainly see that they'd come to the right place. As they stepped out, in every direction, the walls were lined with washers and dryers. On the open floor space inbetween, tables were filled with young people working at particularly difficult stains or meticulously repairing and altering garments.
"Jared Pricewater, ye'd best not have ruined another set of uniforms!" exclaimed a voice behind them, flavored with an Irish accent. "I swear, we should start chargin' ye for the fabric."
"Hey, I'm innocent!" Jared protested, as they turned around to face a middle aged grey ewe dressed in clothing that matched her fur. "The headmaster sent me down to get my friend here some uniforms."
"Well, lad, I know ye far too well to believe ye're innocent," she remarked goodnaturedly, "but I'm sure we can do something about yer friend."
Kaze blushed at being called a friend so soon, even if the cheetah probably only meant it supericially. He said nothing about it, though, simply extending his paw in greeting. The ewe shook it with a surprisingly firm grip.
"Kaze," Jared said with a grin, "this is Matron Margaret, the Academy's Head of Textile Services. Matron, this is Kaze Shiroi, incoming freshman."
"Bah, 'Head of Textile Services', my tail! I'm just a washerwoman with a fancy title ," Margaret insisted.
"Don't forget seamstress," Jared supplied.
"Oh, aye," she replied with a roll of her eyes. "Now off with ye, cat. Ye won't be getting a note from me this time. Get changed into a respectable uniform and get ye to class."
"Yes, ma'am," he told her, without sounding too insincere. He turned to the fox and gave him a quick pat on the shoulder. "It was nice to meet you, man. I'm sure I'll see you around."
Margaret chuckled as the feline made his way up in the elevator. "Now, let's see what we can do about uniforms." She went a few paces behind her and selected some finished pieces from the tables. "Put these on, lad." She tossed them in his direction, and by some miracle, the fox managed to catch them.
Kaze blushed a bit and looked around him. This was an awfully public place to get changed...
"There's a changin' room to yer right, lad," Margaret remarked with a chuckle, "though I keep tellin' ye lads ye haven't anything I haven't seen."
Not knowing how to respond to that, the young fox simply nodded and looked to his right. Sure enough, well disguised among a row of dryers, there was one of those doors that were open at the bottom, the kind that screamed fitting room. Carefully managing the bundle of clothing with one paw, he got the door open with the other and stepped inside, closing it behind him.
Truth be told, as he stripped down, he still felt a little self conscious. Anyone on the other side of the door knew damn well he was undressing in here. Still, at least the dryers surrounding the little changing room kept it comfortably warm, even as he stripped down to his briefs.
He was surprised by how soft the uniform was. The simple but elegant white shirt and black pants weren't even that horrible of a fit. The pants were a bit tight, the shirt a bit loose, and the belt nearly on its last notch, but not bad. Either the ewe outside had a pretty good eye for sizes, or she had gotten very lucky.
"Not bad," she confirmed as he stepped out. "Molly, lass, could I trouble ye for a bit?" She gestured, and a leopardess who was probably near his own age detached herself from one of the tables.
The feline moved with a swift and professional stride until she was standing before them. She didn't speak a word, but looked the fox up and down with a critical eye. Her face was primarily taken up by large, round glasses, but he could also see that while her primary fur color was a typical white, her spots were actually a very pale blue. He also noticed that she wore a student's uniform, with a black ribbon. He also couldn't help but notice that while she had been seated at a table of clothes menders, she had no needle and thread, only a clipboard.
"Please try not to move," she remarked, in a voice so low he had to strain a little to pick it up. Her paw ran up and down the length of his body several times, never quite touching the clothing. With each pass of her paw, the clothes seemed to fit a bit better. By the time she turned her attention to her clipboard, Kaze would have sworn the garments were tailor fitted for him.
He began to get a vague idea of what the young leopardess' Gift was when he saw her with the clipboard. She had no pen, but as her paw slowly moved over the page, notes appeared on it in a small but neat script. "This should do," she murmured as she handed the paper to the ewe. "Might have a growth spurt left, though."
And without another word, she turned and walked back to the table. Kaze was left blinking in her wake. "That was...interesting."
"Oh, Molly's a good lass," Margaret assured him. "She doesn't mean to be rude, though she's not necessarily shy, either. Just a might..detail-focused, I suppose ye'd say. She's got a hell of a Gift. Lets her alter matter to her will, though it'll likely ne'er get much past the scale it's at now."
"And you have someone with that kind of power working in the laundry room?" he asked incredulously. A moment after the words left his mouth, he remembered who he was addressing. "No offense, ma'am," he quickly added.
"Ah, none taken, lad," the ewe replied with a smile, "and it's a valid question. This isn't exactly the kind of place ye'd expect to find a lass with superpowers. But it helps her fine tune her control, and provides a valuable service at the same time."
"I suppose so," Kaze agreed. "Nothing's been quite what I would've expected, the people included. Everyone seems nice so far, though."
"Most of them are," she assured him, "even that layabout cheetah who brought you here today. He has his quirks, mind ye, but I suspect anyone would, growin' up with his da. Got a bit of a temper, too, but those are in no short supply with most of the Fire types." It seemed to take her a moment to realize what she'd said. "No offense, lad."
He gave her a confused look for a moment before his head connected the dots and realized that what she said may have offended some. "Oh...none taken. That's not my...uh...Gift, anyway."
"I had a feeling it wasn't," she said as she rooted around in a bag at her hip. "I've been givin' these things out for quite a few years now, and if I had to guess, I'd say this is more yer style." From the depths of her bag, she pulled a ribbon of pale blue, just a shade lighter than his fur.
As she handed it to him, he remembered his earlier conversation with Dylan and nodded. "I suppose so." It was silly, but as he pinned it to his shirt, he couldn't help but feel like he'd taken the largest first step of his day.
"Now," Margaret stated, "the clothes ye just changed out of will be sent to yer room, along with some more uniforms once we get them tailored. Ye'll want to get goin' to the Registrar now. They'll get ye set up with the hard parts."
"Thank you, ma'am," he replied sincerely. He turned toward the elevator and cautiously made his way inside, still more than a bit intimidated by all the buttons.
"Administrative, R-5," Margaret called after him with a wink. The young fox gave her a heartfelt smile of gratitude before setting the elevator on its way.
As he rode, there was one thing that occurred to him. Jared and Margaret had both said things that seemed to imply that not only was Jared's father not the cheetah's favorite person, but it was the someone the fox, and perhaps everyone, should know. For that matter, the name did sound incredibly familiar.
Wait...no, that can't be it. He can't mean Senator Pricewater, can he? The thought was more than enough to keep him occupied for the rest of the ride.