Rahvi had been largely attentive during the beginning of class. A lot of this, she had heard before in bits and pieces from her father or other Hammer Folk, but never explicitly like this, but merely as an array of facts and hearsay. This was directed learning, lectures that finally helped her to string the bits and pieces she'd picked up into a coherent foundation of knowledge. She didn't take notes apart form a few scribbled words, choosing instead to focus her whole attention on Borghild, whose teaching method was direct and easy to understand. Rahvi soaked her words up as easily as a sponge.
Her attention was only to be captured for so long though. Before too long, she noticed Steven turning in her peripheral vision to a Borderman girl behind them, who was throwing notes, obviously disinterested in the knowledge Borghild had to impart. Rahvi did try to ignore them, but once she saw the girl's method of distraction, a grin lit her features. Just as she was about to retaliate by throwing her notes and powders off course with little bursts of telekinetic energy, Ella fell from her chair.
All thought of her mischief making vanished and Rahvi half stood up in her chair to go after her roommate. Ella woke abruptly, obviously embarrassed, but that didn't stop their teacher from rounding on her in what seemed like a resigned manner. She had been waiting for some kind of misdemeanour to occur. Rahvi felt a burst of indignation for Ella. She had fallen asleep because they'd had such a horrible night the night before. Borghild had been there. How did she expect Ella not to have horrendous dreams after that nightmare? Ella didn't need her to leap to her defence though, or if she did, she hardly left her time.
Everything that happened next happened fast. Ella lost her temper. Thal responded in kind, finally moving from where Rahvi had been uneasily eyeing him since the start of class. Borghild finally showed some magic, and why she hadn't acted out the night before. She obviously hadn't been willing to risk a repeat. As she fell to the floor and Thal was escorted out, even the thought of tugging on the end of one of Thal's bandages lost its appeal. Rahvi leapt over her desk, eyeing all the others in the group. Steven's eyes misted as though he had gone far away, and the girl from the back row started making suggestions. Jagton quickly took charge, surprisingly. Apparently he was good in a crisis as long as it didn't involve potential bodily harm for himself. Rahvi considered his bravery the night before and tried to reconcile it with his running away before it all started in her mind. She couldn't quite decide what to make of him.
It didn't take long for guards to arrive or for Ella to start blaming herself. And then, abruptly, the rest of Rahvi's first year buddies had been carted off to the infirmary. Realising quickly that that was where she should have gone for her hand to be bandaged, Rahvi understood she had an in. She could follow them down at her leisure and get admitted based on merit of her 'injury'. She had already had to try and change the bandages. It probably wasn't a bad idea to make sure she didn't get infected.
But she had time before she had to act. Joining the rest of the first years being escorted back to their dorms, Rahvi let herself be swept along in the flow of confusion. Something about the whole situation had stuck in her mind. The chaos flowed over her, as usual. The pinch of fear at seeing their teacher fall, at Ella's face when a guard condemned her, it all flowed through her perfectly naturally. But there was one detail she could not understand. Just one snag in the swirl of emotions she was already processing that she had no explanation for. As she followed behind the paper-thrower, she replayed the flashes of images and words in her mind until mere steps away from the dorms, she realised what it was.
The void born guard. He'd said something Rahvi had almost lost in the quick clip of orders before they left for the infirmary. Something to Mikida. He'd said that she could help understand Borghild's physiology. Mikida had not disagreed. In fact, she'd looked as though she was trying to be as small and forgettable as possible.
What would a Verdantkin child possibly know about Wastelander physiology that a master healer would not? And furthermore, why would the guard assume she had this knowledge? Unless Miki had met a great deal more guards on her way to class this morning than the one Rahvi had found her with, this guard had no reason to know her at all. Rahvi tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, but it was as though that first question had unlocked a flow of others she had never thought to ask. Rahvi didn't judge anyone on anything that didn't happen in the moment. If someone wanted their privacy, she gave it, but there were far more odd things about Mikida than she had initially let herself realise.
What was Miki learning? Why was she allowed here, so young? Who had let her come? Why did she sleep so much? With everyone, you got a glimpse of their home life, from their complaints, from their comments about the food, from their passing banter about brothers and the quality of the weather or the bedsheets. Mikida had given no such information, not even to Rahvi, who excelled at pulling these random details from people in casual conversation. Not intentionally, but simply because she tended to offer a lot of details in return. Rahvi wasn't exactly difficult to talk to. Quickly scanning through her friends, Rahvi saw that she had some kind of knowledge about each of them before they'd come here. But Miki...there was nothing. Maybe she had a reason to want to leave it all behind her. Rahvi could respect that, but suspicions started taking root in her mind.
There was also the matter of this morning. Something had happened that Mikida had not wanted brought up. The eternal guardian of good moods, Rahvi had passed it off, but Mikida's nervous response, the pain showing through her smile, had told her how bad it really was. Mikida had not explained it, but she had obviously been attacked by someone. She had been shaken, that was obvious, but Rahvi had just made sure she ate and got to class ok.
Who would attack a little girl in the halls? Rahvi suspected Thal, but he'd been in bandages and escorted all morning. Perhaps it wasn't so odd an occurrence in this place, but piled with the other incongruities and peculiarities, it painted Mikida in a highly secretive and secluded light. And Rahvi was concerned for her. If anything she suspected was correct, Miki was walking on a knife's edge.
Of course she wouldn't confront her until Mikida brought it up herself, not unless the need was dire, but...
Maybe that guard's passing comment was far more telling than he had meant it to be. Even if somehow, Miki was simply an expert on Wastelander physiology and the guard somehow knew, there was a lot more to her than Rahvi had realised.
With that thought, she stepped into the dorms, right on the tail of the paper-thrower.
