I spent my mornings cleaning up Saville and Spencer's office.

No, that is incorrect for the word Clean is too strong a description and what I have been doing quite complete miss the mark as to warrant a close appropriation of the word. Teetering towers of books were not taken down but instead reinforced. Loose pages of scribblings and notes piled together and not tossed out. The only thing I ever actually have any worth of being called clean were the various utensils to be found in places where they shouldn't be. Oh how I loved to tear it all down and give it a proper cleaning, the kind that brings honor to the word. But I know Saville and Spencer, though their orders had been to clean, it just meant to make possible for a human being to be able to walk within and without of the room without scuttling their references and tomes to the four winds. The two have this peculiar sense of locating the necessary tome it what may look like a hoarder's lair.

Oh I had already imagined it then. Even as it is, I'd still be privy to their moaning and complaints at disturbing the order of their office. Thankfully, my afternoons enable it so that I could relieve some of the stress and tension.

Aldridge Forum, the amphitheater-styled hall was a marvel for classes that could seat fifty or more students, those at the front being the lowest and closest to the lecturer while at the back was at highest and furthest and still could view the quadruple-joined chalkboard with no difficulty. Voices carried out easily with the hall's enhanced acoustics and old Ayshecombe's shakey voice could need the every help it could get. Be that as it may, there were hardly a dozen students present at the time.

Saville had been correct. The professor hadn't mind. None of them did when I snuck in quietly and took a seat at the back of each remedial class. I am now most familiar with one of the core courses that I would officially take in the coming term. Though having been taking place during the sweltering hour of one thirty in the afternoon, I would oft find myself dozing after laboriously organizing the office. The light would strike just right in the Forum and I would find myself having trouble keeping my eyes open. I would fall into a deep, deep sleep that rested my bones and lulled by the aged but rich voice of Professor Ayshecombe.

These were quiet days, my routine for that first couple of days since my arrival. A time of peace and I relished it as best I can. I had learned that such things do not last, making them all the more precious.

Eventually, I opened my eyes and found myself staring at the lecture hall of Professor Ayshecombe, who was still in the woes of discussing the finer details of operational management to the rest of my classmates. A small trail of saliva had oozed out of the corner of my lips and I tried to rub away the bleariness away from my eyes. Memories of Old Sorez as of late plagued my sleep, dredging up feelings hidden beneath the murk and mud that is my psyche. I tried to put old Ayshecombe and his lecture into focus, better that than trying to relive the day my mother left ( a memory I hadn't thought of for quite some time, truth be told).

"...it is imperative that your prediction models and data be kept up to date! Hence the reiteration of the necessity of an established network of information is vital......" Came the professor's voice from way out in the front. From up on high in the farthest back of my seat, his voice shouldn't have woken me up. Old Ayshecombe's lectures were pretty much derived from the lecture books he prescribed. Books Spencer and I have already poured over months prior.

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My gaze was caught by the bobbing heads of the figures one tier below mine. Henshawe and Wightman, much like the rest of those that had taken their seating arrangements at the far back of the tiered lecture hall, was stuck in their own conversation or distractions. Sandy haired Henshawe and lanky Wightman ducked their heads, oblivious to the ministrations of the professor. I couldn't help but overhearing their conversation, their volume drowns out that of the professor. Much of my colleagues in the College of Industry and Commerce were much like that, fueled by the unending desire to stave off monotony of being relegated to remedial classes during the semestral break.

Henshawe blanched, his eyes growing wide and Wightman followed his gaze and wished he hadn't.

"Serrano," he said with a nervous twitch of a smile. Over the years living of under my uncle's guidance had imparted me of many of the man's characteristics. I never meant for it to pick up, it just happened as it were. I did not know what it was in my gaze but it seems the old mans stone-cracking gaze must've rub off on me or so I've been told.

"So," he started, a nervous twitch to his sheepish smile as he turned to face me, "Me and the lads we're just wondering, we're having a bit of a get-together in the lawns off Wrenne Hall, would you like to come?"

"Thank you for the invitation. I'll see if I could."

Ayshecombe shaky voice, somehow still echoed every now and then, only those at the forefront could ever hear of what is being said.

As everyone was more than eager to head out, I lingered back. the fourth wall of the lecture hall was afforded in a glass pane. The afternoon sun attributed further to the laziness of the students under this schedule. Ayshecombe was a frail old man. Chances are he'd die as a professor of the College of Commerce. A tenured professor. Such was their fate.

"Professor," I greeted in a rather overinflection of my Sorezii accent.

"Ah hello señor Serrano!" he smiled genuinely as he saw me. As I've been able pry, he seemed to like cities. Maybe it's of the fact that he can't travel anymore because of his advanced age.

"Allow me to have your books professor."

"I may be an creaking old man my boy but still I have some pride left!" he said but did not refute when I hefted the heavy tome from him.

"Would pride still be preferable to another week in a care facility? You have two flights of stairs to traverse after all." I teased the old man.

"uhhh....hmmph," he harrumphed beneath his breath. "I would not be swayed by your mannerisms my boy"

"Never would have dreamed of it." I walk at a pace with him. Our footsteps echoed in the wide empty halls of the college as we made our way to his office.

"You are quite unlike your peers, all eager off galivanting," he observed. Good, I thought. I have heard on several mentions from Saville that many of the professors and teachers of the university are connected in elite circles of the city.

"Really?" I said with more than a hint of enthusiasm in my voice. I dressed simply with my white shirt and workman's trousers not quite unlike my well-off classmates. It added an air of sincerity and humbleness that I hoped would ingratiate itself to the professor, "Professor Fane has stories of a much different sort. And they are young, my generation are all too aware of it. So we spend the best of times."

"Such contemplative soul! you would have made a fine philosopher," praised Ayshecombe. We were at his office door.

"Philosophers tend to be on the poor side of things, professor." I replied honestly.

"Haha! Don't you dare tell that to the castellans!"

I said my goodbyes and parted ways with the aged academian, heading towards the great green expanse of the lawn.