FanFiction:The Art of the Hunt/Season 1/Chapter 3 - The First Day

T he door slammed open, followed by the loud, obnoxious laughs of two students with a reputation for cutting up and being late: Brutus and Ali, the Couple of Trouble. A corny name, sure, but the two were inseparable and unquenchable: their thirst to create more drama, make more jokes, and end the seriousness of life was unending, and they were complimentary to one-another's arts of this. Brutus, as might be guessed, was a bully: the core definition of one, too, and no one (except, of course, the infamous Ali, and his various friends) would dare to be around him. He was mean, rude, hateful, and loved to play tricks. One of the most hated--and thus most popular--students in the entire school.

Katrina and Calli grimaced at once, looking briefly at one another and then towards the door at the massive boy and the relatively short and thin girl standing beside him. They continued chuckling for a while as they swaggered their slow way through the various rows ahead of them, not bothering to look down, believing they were above the classmates that surrounded them. And in height, Brutus was; he was at least seven feet tall, and very, very bulky he was, too. Some said he benched aptonoth and ate Jaggi; others said he'd found some miracle to make him grow big with little effort. Despite his stature, he was lazy, unless it pleased him to be otherwise. He was cruel, mean, careless, and that, of course, is a bad combination in a place like the Hunting Guild.

But Brutus didn't care. Neither did his girlfriend, Ali, who was literally too dumb to notice his obnoxious, sadistic behavior. She wasn't inherently mean, or even bad; she just did dumb things. Sometimes, that got her in trouble. Of course, she didn't care: her logic (indeed, her moto) was "Don't take life too seriously... It's not like you're getting out alive!" and so she did everything Brutus did, took every risk her peers did, and sometimes, it seemed like her sole purpose in life was troublemaking and being careless. She was likable enough: a kind person, usually, though sometimes kindness or jokes from others would "fly right past her", as they say, and it caused many a person to view her with feigned distaste.

Two such people were Katrina and Calli: both of whom had known Ali since they both started the school, and who had just recently been introduced to Brutus--when he started dating Ali. After that, the friends drifted apart until they were so far that Calli barely remembered what Ali used to be like, and Katrina grimaced to remember.

Ali sat down gracefully, but prissily, as if the act of her taking a seat was of any consequence and deserved attention. Brutus swaggered over to his desk right beside her and sat down, so hard that it bent the two front legs of the metal chair he sat down on. The class erupted in laughter. Miss Karen, the Wyvern Biology teacher, angrily scowled at the young man, causing him to look up mercilessly and laugh his evil, horrible laugh, saying slowly, "Like what ya look at, grannie?" And confidently sitting back. "No," the old woman replied bitterly, "and you will demonstrate proper etiquette in this classroom, or I shall reconfigure what I see to please me." the teacher growled, with threat in her voice. The boy took notice, but you wouldn't have by looking at him: all that changed was his eyes, covered by his thick eyelids, which lit up with a sudden fire but remained closed. "Go ahead," he muttered, under his breath, "Give it a try. I'm inviting you." He said--louder than he had intended.

"Young man, enough. You have given this academy as a whole enough angst for many ages: I, for one, refuse to deal with it any longer." She said, turning to him and grabbing up a Student Quest form from her desk. Writing on it very quickly, she turned back up and looked straight at him: "Tomorrow, your Endweek, you must spend at least three hours of it participating in the betterment of this schooling facility by harvesting wild flora from the area around the Misty Peaks. You are hereby assigned to the Forestry Division. Good luck, young man." The old woman said proudly and solemnly, turning to her work with a rustic movement that showed how little she used her body outside of school. A thin, but very old, woman, who had long ago let her yard be managed by a bright young lad by the name of Taka.

As the class returned to its normal affairs, Katrina and Calli looked at one another, thinking relatively the same thoughts about the two truants who just entered the classroom. But it was no matter now; they could go fetch materials around town tomorrow without any trouble, because Brutus would be far away from it and Ali wouldn't come out of the house until he was back. So, their two main nuisances were erased.

It was a good thing, too; they needed many different products around town to properly do their project, and Brutus and Ali would have made it much harder than it needs to be, the two girls figured.

After the bell finally rang, Katrina and Calli said their goodbyes to one-another and headed out of the school. The school day had finally ended; Calli would walk home, but Katrina, who lived to the west of the school, would take the Aptobus--a vehicle holding fifty young people, and pulled by two monstrous Aptonoth. From there, the plan was to grab a quick snack and head over to Calli's, where they would head out to town to get materials.

Katrina's bus ride went without any event; some kids threw various objects at one another and were reprimanded by the Aptonoth driver, but it did not quench their thirst for attention and it continued. At least Mr. Garan, the driver, could say he tried. Nothing hit Katrina; though she did dodge several tries. The ride finally ended with relative serenity on the bus, after thirty minutes of anticipation. The driver, irritated by his charge's misdemeanor, had already given several of them various punishments, ranging from 2 hours of (relatively) hard hunter labor to 4 hours of detention.

However it ended after Katrina exited the vehicle, she was not given any punishment--she had not participated--and she ate a peanut-butter and nulberry sandwich as a snack. Outside, the day was cooling down to a pleasant temperature of what we'd measure as about 82 degrees. THe setting sun threw back long shadows over the neighborhood, cloaking it in premature shadow, as it normally did at that hour. An especially large spur of mountain sat to the northwest, which obstructed the sun a bit for about thirty minutes right after the school day; after that, the afternoon wore on until at last the mountains, too, were covered in half-blankets of soft light and darkness.

As Katrina sat with her legs dangling off the low balcony, she watched as her friend's shape slowly formed in the distance to her right. This surprised her: she thought that Calli was going to stay at her house. Then she remembered: her own house was closer to Downtown Tanzia, where they would get most of their supplies. Calli must have known this, Katrina thought, and decided to come to Katrina's place instead. At least Calli wasn't in a thinking mood, obviously: she happily, carelessly skipped down the sidewalk, her happy face conveying the utter glad feel of the day. "Come on, we're going to Tanzia!" She shouted as the reached the fence. Katrina smiled and hopped down, clumsily falling to all fours though the drop was only three feet. Calli was bent double laughing, even as Katrina walked up to her; she didn't snap back into her senses until Katrina shouted back at her, "See you after sundown, Miss Laffsalot!"-- a rather corny and childish thing to say, but Katrina rarely was in the mood to joke and her and Calli had become quick friends. The kind Katrina could joke around with.

After a few minutes of brisk jogging, Calli finally caught up with her acquaintance, who was already halfway to the town. The two girls chatted the whole way there. It was a short trip, as the town only lay roughly three miles from Katrina's house, which was the very last on the Tier-1 West-Side block, and went on a curvy path to Tanzia Downtown below.

Tanzia Downtown was a pleasant place, and a common hangout for the younger generation of the surrounding area. It had everything: clothes, shoes, food, restaurants, the whole of every little thing that they enjoyed doing. It was also in good supply of homely stores, which sold trinkets and small homemaking products--like [an early form of] tape, rope, wire for bending, sometimes sand and crushed bone dust, and occasionally pottery from across the various lands. Because of its proximity to the harbor, thankfully, it had all the supplies it needed to keep the western and northern Sectors supplied.

After they returned home from the shop, Calli and Katrina went inside Katrina's house. As the thunderbug light flashed on, Calli winced at the sudden brightness and walked towards the hall, which was darker. Katrina followed suit. The two girls waited for their eyes to adjust, and then went back into the livingroom and plopped down on the couch. It had been a long day. Thankfully, the weekend was here, and since Calli and Katrina would be staying at one-another's houses for this three-day weekend, they would have time to not only finish their project (which was due as soon as they came to school) but to bond. This was good, really, because they had both noticed an odd attraction to the other; Calli was already fairly good at predicting what Katrina would say, and why, which showed that there was obvious chemistry between them. But they didn't give much thought to it right then, laying down, tired, talking slowly and quietly and tiredly about the day's shortcomings and its high points.

Within a few hours, both girls were asleep; When Katrina's father came in, he carefully picked them up and laid them on the bed in Katrina's bedroom. "It's somewhat soothing," thought Katrina's father, "to have a bisexual daughter. I don't have to worry about her being freaked out when she waked up with her friend in bed with her, so no guest bedroom is needed." he thought, giggling under his breath with the notion. He soon went to bed as well. It should perhaps be noted, however, that Katrina was indeed quite surprised to find Calli laying there, though she knew it had to have been her father who put them there: he was a good man, and did what he thought his daughter would wish.

Over the weekend, they finished the project. They put the final touches on it the night before the beginning of the next school week (the day we'd call Tuesday) and got it turned in on-time and with an A score--which pleased both of them.

"All Senior Students, please remember that starting tomorrow, Hunter's Test Training will begin after lunch. You will not go to your normally assigned classes. Thank you," Came the loud voice over the horn as the clock wound down to signal the end of the day. Katrina and Calli glanced at one another; each understood perfectly without any clarification: "Your house, Calli, right after school, we'll work out together for the Test". Over the weekend, they really had become great friends.

To be continued in Fanfic:The Art of the Hunt/Season 1/Chapter 4 - The Study Guide