June 13th, year 024 Angels Descent
It was the morning after the welcome party, and only one person was up and about in the Elementals dorm building. She was preparing many greasy, high-fat breakfasts for everyone for when they woke up. It is common knowledge that after a night of heavy drinking, such meals were like gifts from gods.
The class themselves were all still out of action, as tends to happen to teenagers when they drink near-lethal amounts of alcohol. Currently, Tasha was hanging upside down from the chandelier over the dining table, wrapped up in a blanket, looking very much like a bat or vampire.
In the corner against the sofa, Gunter had settled into his chosen passing out position with Bea curled up on his chest. The pair peacefully sleeping away without a care or worry in the world.
Maxwell himself was sat at the table with perfect posture as befits the son of a Sinful lord. The fact he had passed out in the first hour of the party meant he was still holding the tankard he was drinking from. He also had numerous humorous images drawn on his face, as is the cosmic law of all parties.
To his left was Kline, who had lasted a better few hours into the party. The only difference was he was face down against the table, and his hand was resting in what was originally a bowl of warm water. Much to the party’s disappointment, the warm water bowl prank is, in fact, a myth.
Finally, Daisy was curled up near the fireplace, relaxing on a large pile of feather cloaks that Haddy and Jack had brought out when they had started an impromptu fashion show. Accompanying Daisy were a dozen small duck-sized dragons all peacefully poofing little flames as they slept alongside her.
Their peaceful slumber was disturbed by Rosy's loud clanging of a bell to wake up the dorm building and get them down for breakfast. This had the added effect of bringing the class to their first true experience of what is colloquially known as hanging out of one's arse.
“Arghh gods above…” Maxwell groaned as he rubbed the tankard against his head, not realising his hand was still stuck to it with a stiff grip.
“Why does my brain feel like it is several sizes larger than my skull,” Daisy groaned as she carefully rose, letting the duck-sized dragons curl up on the warm patch she was leaving behind.
Due to the loud clanging of the bell that was continuing, Gunter bolted upright in surprise, only to launch a still-sleeping Bea directly into Tasha. Landing in a rough heap on the table, Bea rubbed her eyes and looked at what had cushioned her trajectory. A still-sleeping Tasha, however, was unaffected by the noise.
“She ok?” Bea asked, gesturing to the elf.
“It’s Tasha… so maybe?” Daisy replied as she approached the table.
“Oh, don’t worry, she got the vampire special; they always wake up when the bacon comes out,” Rosy assured them as she put out a large plate of eggs.
“How are you, ok?” Kline asked as he rubbed his eyes and forehead intermittently, trying to get rid of the dull ache permeating through his skull.
“Oh, honey… we have a tradition of drinking an entire small keg for our first drink. You are so innocent if you thought last night was a real party by our standards.”
“What is a real party like, miss?” Gunter asked.
“Hmm… last time we went all out was a few years ago when little Ali became Gluttony… we kind of burnt down the docks and created a flying ghost ship… well, I say flying it was more falling with style.”
“You were behind the ghost port incident?!!!” Maxwell exclaimed. He remembered watching it from his bedroom window, and his father never elaborated on who was behind it.
“Oh yeah. It’s not just Ali who causes mischief. If Cyano is out of town, we raise all kinds of hell.”
As Rosy said this, footsteps could be heard from the nearby staircase. Walking down, looking wholly unaffected by the sheer ocean of booze they had drunk the previous evening, Haddy and the Boris Twins arrived for breakfast.
“We should have another party tonight,” Haddy suggested, grabbing a few eggs and moving them onto his plate.
“Please no… I can already feel my happiness debt… I don’t need to deepen it,” Kline groaned before covering his mouth to contain a wave of nausea.
“Happiness debt?” Big Boris repeated, confused.
“My father always said drinking lets you borrow happiness from tomorrow. That’s why you feel so crappy after sobering up.”
“Makes sense,” Little Boris said as he munched on a bacon sandwich. An interesting creation where he replaced the bread of the sandwich with more bacon. To the outside observer, it would look just like him squishing an egg between two bundles of rashes.
As everyone proceeded through breakfast, downing copious amounts of artery-clogging foods and concentrated bean water, Jack descended the stairs. Looking at the showy elf, the class contained gasps. They looked like they had spent much of the evening casting various necromantic rituals.
“That’ll teach yah,” Haddy laughed as he dragged jack into the seat next to his.
“You have to walk before you can fly, little turtle,” Haddy said as he rubbed Jack’s head, tussling their hair.
“Can’t waste too much time here, kids,” Alex said as he descended the stairs. The class turned to look at him, half expecting him to be as big a mess as they were and half expecting him to be closer to the Elementals present.
Only seeing him did they pause, as did the other Elementals. Alex was perfectly put together, far beyond than even the Elementals. He was wearing one of his finer suits and had all the bells and whistles expected to be worn when meeting a high noble.
This shocked many, especially as they had seen him necking literal bottles of bunsen burner alcohol. Something that had at first caused worry but had quickly become a game. What confused many in the Elementals, Alex seemed to remain stone-cold sober throughout the party.
“Aye Ali…. How are you not hungover?” Big Boris asked.
“Oh, that… well, me and Yuu… you know Yuu, right?” the Elementals all nodded.
“Me and Yuu a few years back drank some very potent booze, and ever since, well… it is nigh impossible for us to get drunk. For me, it's a bother. For Yuu, it is an absolute curse. Dwarves already have a culture around drinking, and now she is cut off from it.”
“You gonna share that booze?” Little Boris asked.
“No… Gods no… I am not giving you the fount of knowledge just to get pissed…”
“Anyways, kids, finish up your sober meals and get Tasha down… Kline, we are seeing your parents early this morning.”
“My parents?” Kline repeated, looking far paler than he had when he felt his dinner from the previous evening trying to come up.
“Yep, they only had a morning opening. Come on, let’s go,” Alex said, trying to usher Kline up.
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“Can’t we finish our breakfast first?” Bea asked.
“You can… he can’t. We will be late otherwise,” Alex replied as he rattled Kline's chair.
“Aren’t we coming?” Maxwell asked with an arched brow.
“...No…why would you? This is a parent-teacher meeting?”
“Can they come? I’d prefer a friend to be there when I see my father.” Alex let out a deep sigh and just nodded.
“Very well…”
Hastily finishing up their breakfast and cutting Tasha down, the class set off towards the Noble district. One thing they immediately noticed was a vast increase in guards about the city. It was an order of magnitude denser than it had previously been.
“Good Silvers actually followed through,” Alex muttered as, despite having noble markers, they were thoroughly searched at the gatehouse. The class were curious as to what he meant by that but were still trying to recover from their hangovers to think it was worth asking.
“How is she still asleep?” Maxwell asked, looking at the bundle that was a still sleeping Tasha that they were dragging over the cobblestones.
“Maybe she’s too dumb to wake up?” Bea suggested.
“Probably Elissa’s training,” Alex offered. “If you can ignore most sensations, you can get a very peaceful sleep. I half expect Elissa to sleep through giving birth.”
As they mulled over this new and bizarre possibility, they made their way through the part of the nobles' district that dealt with high nobility. Every manor house was ostentatious to the degree that screamed new money—the kind of people that would buy something expensive only because it was expensive.
Only for Alex to stop in front of an inconspicuous gate that had a lot of greenery around it, the guards at the gate acknowledged their arrival and opened the gates, waving them through.
“Kline, are your parents not as well off?” Bea asked, hoping to have a kindred spirit in lacking funds. Only to have Maxwell snort in amusement.
“You’ll see,” Maxwell replied, gesturing along a long tunnel created by overarching branches of trees. Continuing down the path, the class eventually came to an open area in which sat the grandest palace they had ever seen. It was something that none of their parents, save for Maxwell, could afford.
“Wait… Is kline super rich?!!! You bastard rabbit, I asked to borrow a few silvers, and you said you were broke!!!” Bea grumbled as she looked back towards the palace that must’ve taken artisans to build. It had none of the issues of the rest of the noble district. You could feel the age and nobility of the structure.
“To think a butler would be rich enough to buy this…” Daisy mumbled as she admired several statues arrayed around the palace courtyard.
“Butler?” Kline repeated, confused. “When did I say my father was a butler?”
“You said that he served Lord Pride for generations?” Gunter explained.
“There are more jobs than a butler that serve a noble, guys…”
“So what does your father do?” Bea asked, leaning as close to Kline as she could from her perch.
“It’s more fun to see,” Alex explained as he gestured to the front door that had swung open.
A deep thudding began to approach the doorway as the silhouette of a towering figure arrived in the doorway. Stepping out into the warm morning light was a man whose face was covered with scars. He stood over seven feet tall and looked to be all muscle.
He was exactly the opposite of the image they had conjured in their heads. The man they had imagined to be Kline's father would’ve been a skinny, nervous man with glasses who handled documents for a living, not a prime example of a fighter's physique.
“Is your father a titan?” Gunter eagerly asked Kline however avoided eye contact and mumbled a response.
“What? No, he’s a normal wererabbit.”
“MY BOY!!!!” The man boomed as he stormed up to the class and picked Kline up in a bear hug, all while failing to stop his forward momentum. To the class and their teacher, it looked like a happy reunion between father and son. To Kline, however, it felt like being hit by a charging bull.
“I MISSED YOU SO MUCH!!!!” Kline’s father continued as he rubbed his course sandpaper-like stubble against his face.
“Hello, father,” Kline grumbled as he tapped his father's giant bicep signalling he submitted.
“Francis dear, let our baby boy go,” an elegant voice said as its owner approached the class. Looking to its source, they could see a stunningly beautiful woman in riding gear with only one fault in her features which, like Kline’s father, was a scar across her face. Other than that, her every pore exuded elegance.
“Hello there, I am Emily Rabbiton, Kline’s mother,” she greeted, making the gestures of a curtsey despite there being no skirt.
“Francis, I said let him go,” she said pointedly, focusing a gaze on Francis, who stiffened and let a now wheezing Kline down.
“Good to meet you all; my name is Frank. I am chief of Prides personal military,” Frank greeted as he thumped his chest in salute.
“Good to see you again,” Maxwell said, giving a little wave as he retreated behind Alex.
“MAXY!!!! COME HERE AND LET UNCLE FRANK HUG YOU!!!!”
“I’d rather not,” Maxwell politely replied.
“Who are these other ones, son?” Frank asked, looking at his still-recovering son.
“My classmates' father…. That’s Daisy, Bea, Gunter, and the one wrapped in a blanket with ropes is Tahsa.”
“HAHAHAHAHAA, SUCH INTERESTING FRIENDS THIS IS A DAY OF TRIUMPH FOR THE RABBITONS!!!!”
“Are you really wererabbits?” Bea asked, unable to accept such boisterous personalities that birthed the timid Kline.
“We indeed are. We prove our bravery and live up to the Rabbiton name,” Emily replied.
“But you seem devoid of fear?”
“The greatest bravery is not the absence of fear but the ability to overcome it. It is why we have such high hopes for Kliney.”
“Mother,” Kline whined at his mother's use of his pet name.
“Come on, Kliney; I am just telling your friends how brave you are. Like you didn’t ever need a knight light.”
“MOTHER!!!”
“Son, I was very proud to learn the Crimson Raiders have named you their over boss. We were swelling with pride when we learnt about it,” Frank said as he slapped Kline on the back and launched him into the sleeping Tasha, finally waking her up.
“It is good to see you two again. I thank you for accepting this meeting,” Alex said as he gave a picture-perfect noble greeting. The class was now confused as their teacher was usually rather inept when dealing with nobility. They were, in fact, rather shocked he actually could give a noble greeting.
“Yes, Lord Alex. we have a small table with tea and snacks set up,” Emily said, gesturing to a table under a gazebo.
“You have any wonder cure?” Alex asked.
“Been drinking?” Frank asked.
“No, they have and are enduring a lot for it,” Alex replied with a grin as he gestured to the class, who, while not as bad as when they first woke up, were still suffering.
Settling into the table with a few cups of tea. The class enjoyed their cups with added wonder cure. It seemed to their surprise there was a hangover cure. Alex himself reached into his pocket, lowering his entire arm into the pocket. Realising he had his pocket-pocket-dimension on, they wondered what he was going to bring out, only for it to be anti-climatic as he took out a notebook and opened it.
“Kline has come leaps and bounds from where he was at the start of the year. His goal is ultimately to become far braver and more assertive, which I’m sure you two would commend. I have seen that he has a genuine talent for bardic magic and would highly recommend you look into expanding that if he so wishes.”
Alex’s assessment and explanation of the events of the year so far continued, with Kline’s parents nodding along every so often, adding an observation. The class was somewhat weirded out that their teacher acted like a real teacher. He usually was led by the nose by his whims. To realise he was making such detailed observations genuinely surprised them.
“Mother, father, I hope I have made you proud.”
“Kliney, we have always been proud. We have an entire trophy room for your awards. Everything from you learning to go potty on your own to your recent accomplishments. We will always be proud of you,” Frank said as he wrapped a beefy arm around Kline’s shoulder.
Despite the praise, Kline went a deep crimson shade of red at how overly doting both his parents were. They were an absurdly high goal to reach for, but they never pressured Kline to do so. Never in his life did they put purposely put pressure on him to follow in their footsteps.
“I commend you on your parenting,” Alex complimented as he paused to take a sip from his cup.
“Are you a parent?” Emily asked.
“Kind of. I cover the Kindergarteners and see them like my flesh and blood. These kids as well are as good as family to me. Not to mention my love has one in the oven.”
“LOVELY, YOU SHALL MAKE AN EXCEPTIONAL FATHER!!!”
“Now, Kline…” Frank began his tone becoming serious as he looked at his son.
“I have heard of your skills growing in combat… show me… I want you to fight with the intent to kill me… show me the strength your teacher has spoken of.”