The pen in Joakim’s hand didn’t feel right. It was too bulky, weighty, and its ink flowed from its nib far too loosely. A month into his forced tenure as a Titanian soldier, even such a simple tool seemed off to him. Of course, it was designed for a bigger, stronger Titanian hand, but Titanians didn’t really use pens with physical ink. Only the very old or very sick, those who could not conduct Reserve had a need for them. A majority of Titanians simply took notes or passed messages along using their multipurpose communicators. In the odd case that Titanians had to write physically, they would use Reserve-based pens which would imprint a very small quantity of Utrium inside the pen onto the paper they wrote on.
None of these reasons applied to Joakim. He was, for all intents and purposes, an ordinary Terran teenager. He was hardened by the labor of chopping down trees and handling wood, and his mind was kept from becoming dull by the continuous application of the Three R’s. As a human, he wasn’t supposed to be Initiated and alas, he could not even use his own Reserve beyond his own body. What had made him so different?
The classroom lessons he took part in that morning were dwarfed by his experience with Sindri Fabricius. The Titanian had barely tried to hide his contempt for Terrans and used every opportunity he got to belittle Joakim. He’d gotten used to them, but the frustration would never go away. It wouldn’t go away until he could watch one of those alien barbarians fall at his feet and die agonisingly. Perhaps once he got to Shargara, he would get that chance.
But for the time being, he would try to act the same as his three peers. He would do as he was asked and do so without protest—though, it was perhaps ingrained in him to hesitate. Remembering the last look on his mother’s face before her execution, he reckoned he must’ve inherited that reluctance from her.
Joakim Holt, he wrote on the top left corner of his sheet. Using both the first name his mother gave him and used his whole life, and the last name of the father he never knew he was related to until his final breathes, he strived to honour them both. As he prepared to write the date and follow it up with a clever title for his reflection journal, three knocks sounded from the door.
“Who is it?” he asked after allowing for a moment of silence.
It isn’t Instructor Gerlachus, he reasoned. She would’ve made her arrival clear and talk in her quirky way right away.
“Hey, Joakim. It’s Lucia. Mind if I come in?”
Not her, he thought as he groaned, getting up from his seat.
Instead of verbalising his permission, he simply stepped up to the door and opened it for his guest, who held a notebook with handwritten inscriptions in it. The half-Titanian girl’s shoulders just barely lined up with the top of the boy’s head, and to any normal Terran, the sight of her would’ve been unsettling. But as a hybrid, the features that made her Titanian were gradually disappearing.
These individuals were always born with either mostly Terran or mostly Titanian features, but after puberty, they would transition towards an appearance that was more like the parent of the other species. Lucia’s formerly blonde hair had started to darken into a shade of brown, and her skin was gradually becoming more vulnerable and not nearly as pale. However, her tall stature and graceful face would always remain.
“What do you need?” Joakim asked, getting straight to the point.
“I want some help studying for our quiz this week,” she said. “Malin went to sleep, and you know Sindri. The least helpful person ever. You’re pretty good at giving random surprises, so if you’re not busy…”
“How long will this take?” Joakim asked, raising a brow.
“Not long at all! I just need 10 minutes. 10 minutes and I’ll be out of your way, I promise.”
She passed Joakim her notebook, already opened to a particular page. The boy returned to his desk, leaving the girl to stand a couple of yards away in front of his door. He hadn’t even bothered to offer her a seat on his bed, the only other place to sit in his room other than the chair he was sitting on.
“These notes don’t look like they weren’t written with Reserve Stylographs.” Joakim noted softly as he glanced at Lucia’s neat handwriting.
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“I like making copies of the stuff I have on my communicator.” Lucia said pleasantly, having heard his voice somehow.
“Uh… yeah. So where do I start?” Joakim asked, ignoring her remark.
“Anywhere.” she answered.
Joakim’s eyes drifted to a question that he felt had a lot of information. The longer the questions, the more he felt Lucia would leave him alone earlier.
“In what year were the Titanian people united and under which rulers?” Joakim read the question aloud.
“250, Before the First Invasion,” Lucia answered promptly. “Under a duumvirate led by co-Emperors Emrys Karesti and Olavi Solich.”
“What is the name of the conflict in which Emperor Bence Karesti declared his noble mutiny from his union with Dunixi Solich and eventually succeeded in in the year 7 AFI?”
“The Siege of Gez.” she answered.
“What event and its aftermath prompted Emperor Bence to pursue his conquest of Terra and the then-uninhabited Mars which Dunixi Solich refused to address, and when did it take place?” Joakim read the question which immediately followed the previous one.
“The Six-Year Famine, which occurred from 4 BFI to 2 AFI.”
“What were Emperor Bence’s supposed underlying motivations for his conquests?”
“They were to… Joakim?”
“What?” he asked as if he hadn’t purposely made up a question that Lucia hadn’t written in her notebook.
“I didn’t write that question. Where are you getting it from?”
“Well, you told me I was good at giving random surprises, right? I gave you one.”
“You’re right about that. Umm… I remember in the footnotes of our textbook… it said that it has been speculated by some historians that Emperor Bence was bent on resolving certain… pre-Empire dilemmas that had to do with Terra?”
Speculated by some, Joakim laughed to himself mentally. I wonder when these damn freaks forgot about their past to the point that stuff like this has to be speculated.
“Lucia… you’re not going to do great on the quiz if you say things with uncertainty.” he expressed verbally.
“I really don’t think we’ll be asked about that on the quiz.” Lucia remarked.
“That question isn’t for the quiz,” Joakim said. “I wanted to know what you think about it.”
“I don’t know what to think about it, to be honest,” Lucia admitted. “And I don’t have to know about it. The quiz is what matters to me, so that’s what I prepare for…”
Lucia noted how lifeless Joakim’s dark brown eyes were and how the dark circles that he came into the palace with a month ago did not seem to have reduced at all.
“You don’t care about the quiz, do you? Is that what you want to tell me?” she asked.
“I want the truth,” Joakim said. “About everything. About why my parents are dead. About what happened to my little brother. I have to find out why everything is the way it is. These quizzes won’t do me any good.”
“I…”
Lucia could not comprehend anything about Joakim. His sullenness, his affinity for isolation, why he had suddenly come through the doors of the former Solich Palace one evening a month ago while she and her two peers had already been in the system for two years. How he had become adept at countering Reserve while being unable to harness it was another mystery. However, there was one thing she did know.
“…these quizzes can help you find those answers. When we finally get deployed out there, it’ll be because of your consistency and drive that you show through them. It’s not just about being strong in body.”
She walked up to him and held her hand out towards him.
“What?” Joakim asked.
“I’m not going to need your help if you don’t think these are important.” she said, expecting her notebook back.
“No, you will. You came to me for a reason,” he said, pressing the open notebook under his palm. “I always finish what I start.”
Lucia sighed, but she understood that there would be no other way she would be getting her notebook back. Eight minutes passed of Joakim monotonously asking questions, and Lucia answering them but with less fervor than before.
Finally, he asked the last question he could find from the section of the notebook Lucia specified to him.
“This Emperor was the target of a high-profile assassination attempt in 1005 AFI, but his Empress Consort was the one who ultimately perished? What are their names?”
“Emperor Halsten Karesti and Empress Consort Ilmatar… I keep forgetting her surname. Ah, that’s right, it’s Karesti! Or, that is her married name, at least.”
“It isn’t important to know her maiden name,” Joakim said. “It isn’t even in the textbook.”
“Thanks for reminding me.” she nodded, before approaching Joakim again to take back her notebook. This time, before she could take it off of his desk, the boy was already holding it in front of him, still seated.
The book found itself in her hands, but she was confused when Joakim didn’t let go of it right away.
“I don’t like owing people,” he said. “This is my favor to repay you.”
“For what?” she asked.
“For getting in the way when Sindri tries to test me,” he said. “I don’t need you to do it, but the least I can do is recognise the effort.”
“No need to thank me,” she said, taking back her book after Joakim loosened his grip. “I don’t do it just for you,”
She spun around and walked hurriedly to the door. She opened it again, but before both her feet could step into the dark hallway outside, she turned her head to look at Joakim once more.
“Have a good night, Joakim.” She said, before quickly closing the door, leaving before he could return the farewell.
Joakim rubbed his tired eyes and went back to his desk. Right away, he continued with the reflection he was going to write before being intruded on.
I cooperated with a Titanian today, he started with his weighty pen. I don’t know how to feel about it.