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Rean pushes off the wall of the pool and starts another lap. Outside, it’s a chilly March morning, and Thors’ gymnasium isn’t much warmer. He’d shivered when he slipped into the water, but now that he’d been swimming for a while, he barely felt the cold. Master Ka-fai would approve of this kind of training… though, knowing him, he’d probably find somewhere outside to swim.
The door to one of the locker rooms opens and closes, and after a moment a familiar voice reaches his ears. “Good morning, Rean!” A red-haired boy, dressed in swim trunks and a plain undershirt and carrying a towel, raises a hand in greeting.
Rean kicks off the wall once again, but this time he lets himself float on his back and take a breather. “Oh. Hey there, Elliot.”
“How long have you been here?”
A glance over at the clock on the wall shows the time is just past eight in the morning. “A little over two hours, I think. Though I haven’t been in the water the whole time. I was in the fencing club room for a while, practicing with my tachi.”
“You really practice in every free moment you get, huh? I’m amazed you manage to find the time to eat and sleep.”
“I have to, if I want to move past intermediate level.” Rean grins. “Besides, is the rising star of the Wind Orchestra really gonna lecture me on practicing too much?”
Elliot laughs, raising his hands in surrender. “You’ve got me there. Though it’s a bit harder to practice the violin early in the morning—I don’t want to wake everyone else up!”
Rean reaches the edge of the pool and pulls himself part of the way out of the water, propping himself up on his elbows. “Anyway, what brings you here his morning? Out of all of our classmates, I’d expect Laura or Fie to be more likely visitors to the pool.”
“I think they might still be asleep,” says Elliot. “With exams coming up, all of us have been studying the extra material, and Emma’s been pushing us as hard as she can.” He scratches at his cheek with one finger, looking a bit embarrassed. “If I didn’t know better, I would think she was punishing me for the intensive music training I put you all through for our performance at the festival.”
“Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if that did have something to do with it,” Rean replies. “Just remembering the hell you put us through makes me sweat…”
“Oh come on. I wasn’t that bad, was I?”
“No comment.”
Elliot shakes his head. “Well, either way, Emma and Machias’s study sessions are pretty punishing. Fie and Laura both had to stay late to go over the answers they missed on the ‘Mach Quiz,’ so they’re probably sleeping it off.”
“That explains why they’re not here, but that doesn’t answer my question,” says Rean with a wink.
“Oh, right…” Elliot begins stretching, warming himself up. “I thought I might as well make the most of the gymnasium while I’m still here at Thors. The music academy in Heimdallr probably doesn’t have this kind of training facilities.”
“Yeah, I kind of doubt it,” says Rean. “Well, as long as you’re here, we might as well exercise together. I may not be fresh, but I should still be an acceptable training partner for Instructor Neithardt’s Manway Method.”
Elliot laughs. “Somehow I have the feeling you’re going to leave me in the dust anyway… but okay, I won’t back down from a challenge!” He sheds his shirt, leaving it and his towel on one of the benches. “Bring it on, Rean!”
“You got it!”
Elliot jumps into the pool with a splash, his bravado evaporating with a yelp the moment he hits the water. He comes up spluttering. “Aidios, it’s freezing!”
Rean chuckles. “You’ll get used to it. Come on, let’s get started!”
~
After half-dozen races up and down the pool and some playful splashing around, the pair decides to call it quits. While Elliot deposits their used towels in the hamper, Rean heads down the hall to grab cans of juice for both of them from the vending machine. They sit together quietly on the bench, sipping their drinks, until Rean speaks up.
“Are you looking forward to going? To the music academy, I mean.”
“Do you even have to ask?” says Elliot. “I can barely wait! I’ll get to have classes with Ron, Morris, and Kalinka again…” He rubs the back of his neck. “Though, to be honest, I’m really going to miss being at Thors.”
“I’ll miss you being here,” says Rean. Elliot puts a hand on his shoulder.
“C’mon, it’s not like you won’t see me at all. Trista’s not far from the capital, and with Angie’s old bike you can head over any time you want.”
“You know what I mean…”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Elliot looks up at the ceiling. “It’s kind of funny. I never would have expected, when I first came here, that I’d enjoy going to school here so much.”
Rean rubs at his chin. “When the two of us first met and you told me why you were here, I remember thinking that your dad must be a real jerk to send you here when you obviously didn’t want to go. But now that I’ve gotten to know him, well…”
Elliot’s cheeks flush. “Yeah, he’s, uh. He’s a bit overwhelming sometimes, with how affectionate he gets.”
“‘Elliot, my boy, jump into your father’s loving embrace!’” says Rean in a gruff imitation of the general’s voice. Elliot puts a hand over his eyes, his blush deepening.
“Exactly.”
“So that got me wondering. Why exactly was your dad so insistent that you attend Thors? I mean, it’s okay if you don’t want to answer, but…”
“No, it’s fine. I don’t mind sharing the story with a friend.” Elliot shifts the towel hanging around his shoulders, glancing down at his chest. “It has to do with these scars.”
Rean cocks his head to the side quizzically. “Oh?” Elliot, like Rean, preferred to hide his scars when possible, but he’d seen them before during swimming lessons. Unlike Rean’s scar—a single, massive mark above his heart—Elliot’s were less noticeable: two thin and fading lines along his ribcage, beneath his sternum, marked out with surgical precision.
“Growing up,” Elliot begins, “I took after my mother in pretty much every way. Looks, manners, interests… I was basically a miniature version of her. But as I got older, things started to change.”
“Oh,” says Rean again, but this time it’s with understanding.
“Mom used to read stories to me and Fiona every night, to help us to get to sleep. Just fairy tales and other short stuff when we were little kids, but eventually we moved on to more, uh, advanced reading. She’d pick out a novel and read us one chapter every night. And in one of those books, there was a boy like me.” Elliot smiles. “I think Mom must have noticed that I was feeling uncomfortable, and picked that particular story to show me that it was okay. So after we finished reading it, I told her and Dad about, well, me.”
“How did they react?”
“Dad cried.” Elliot sees Rean’s eyes narrow and hurriedly adds, “No, not like that! He was overjoyed. ‘I’d always wished for a son, but to think I had one all this time!’ Or something along those lines. Honestly, it was a bit much.”
Rean laughs. “I can picture it. Is that why…?”
Elliot grins. “Yeah, that was when he started peppering every sentence with ‘my boy’ and ‘my son’ and stuff like that. To make sure I knew he supported who I was. I was a little scared at first, adjusting to new things, but I knew that as long as I had Mom, Dad, and Fiona, everything would turn out all right.” He stares off at the wall, and his smile disappears. “Of course, it wasn’t long after that Mom died.”
Rean nods, but says nothing, content to let Elliot tell his story. The other boy takes a long drink out of his canned coffee before resuming.
“After that, Dad was…” He bites his lip. “Not different, exactly, because in a lot of ways he was the same as he’d always been. He’s always been a worrier, but he got more and more protective. When he found out that a few of my upperclassmen were teasing me for being girly, Fiona had to talk him out of riding an armored car through the wall of the principal’s office.”
“That sounds like something he might do…” says Rean, scratching at his cheek.
“Anyway, when the time came for me to choose an academy to attend, I wanted to keep pursuing music, but Dad wouldn’t hear any of it.” Elliot sighs. “I mean, you’ve seen what he’s like. Strong-willed, honorable, decisive, a great fighter; the epitome of traditional Erebonian manliness. With him as my father, I have a lot to live up to.”
Rean considers for a moment. “Ah. I think I see where this is going. He sent you to Thors so that you could be more like him, right?”
“In a way, yes.” Elliot shakes his head. “I think it really got to him that I was being bullied. The way he saw it, if I went to Thors and made a name for myself, then everyone would have to accept who I was.”
“Because you’d be strong enough to beat them up if they didn’t?” says Rean with a raised eyebrow.
Elliot giggles. “Because I’d be strong enough to beat them up if they didn’t.” He toys with the tab of his coffee can. “It was frustrating, but at the same time, I understood why he felt that way.”
“And that explains how we ended up here.”
“Yep! Thanks to everything that happened this year at Thors, Dad realized he doesn’t need to worry about me so much anymore. I’ve been able to meet all sorts of men with different paths in life: Lord Arseid, Toval, Instructors Thomas and Makarov, Prince Olivert. There’s more than one way of being a man.”
“You’ve got that right,” says Rean. “I guess General Craig realized you’d be able to find your own way, even if it wasn’t what he was picturing.”
“Yeah.” Elliot smiles broadly. “And even if it’s tough, I know I’ll always be able to keep going. Not just because Dad and Fiona will keep supporting me, but because now I’ve got all of Class VII cheering me on, too!”
Rean clinks his mostly-empty can against Elliot’s and drinks the last of his coffee in one long gulp. “Here’s to Elliot Craig, Erebonia’s future most famous musician!”
“H-hey, let’s not get too carried away…”