★1★───🦋
★ Gerald Aldrick ★
April, 27th, 1007
︵ ⊹ ︵⏜︵ ⊹ ︵୨୧︵ ⊹ ︵⏜︵ ⊹ ︵
🦋
Brown, deep, so deep, were her eyes, the color that reminded him of warm honey and freshly baked bread.
She was sweet too. Slick and captivating. He couldn’t escape her if he tried, nor would he ever attempt it.
Elegant. Her hips swayed with each step. Those thighs, so curvaceous, so hypnotizing.
The silky feel of her skin below his bare touch… Her beautiful face, the kind that would awe millions if depicted in a renaissance painting.
Pursed lips.
Those lips.
Lisbeth…
A crash, a thud, and then a smack.
Despite the vivid and warm cocoon of his dream, Gerald woke to the reality waiting for him upstairs.
He opened his eyes begrudgingly; the sun shone past the curtains into his personal quarters. His gaze fixed on the ashy ceiling above.
There was another crash, as if something just broke.
Someone should go check…
Oh, right. Gerald was the responsible adult here.
Gerald Aldrick, the veteran Colonel turned Spirit Academy homeroom teacher. Upstairs were almost certainly his students. They all lived together inside the Indigo House. Seventeen students and two homeroom teachers.
This was his job. This was what he signed up for.
What could they possibly be doing at this hour? Recreating the destruction of the Altan Citadel?
Slow and steady, careful not to make himself dizzy, he rose out of the bed, his feet landing softly on the smooth wooden flooring.
“WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU TWO?”
Ah.
He was already too late.
Her voice alone was enough to make Gerald’s head throb.
“Bastion, pick that up NOW! And you, Nicolas, STOP laughing! Do I need to call Mr. Aldrick here to smack both of your bums until you’re purple?”
Despite the pointed threat from above, Gerald aimed straight for the restroom.
She could handle it. He’d just pretend he hadn’t heard a thing.
He tucked the line away for later as he started brushing his teeth.
Actually, wasn’t that the same excuse he used last time?
Would she notice?
Did he even care?
The scarf he had draped over the mirror had slipped loose along the left edge. He pulled it back into place, blocking the reflection.
After what felt like an adequate time, he put the toothbrush back in its place. He uncapped the bottle of mouthwash and tipped a decent amount into his mouth, letting it freshen his breath before he spat it out.
He plopped a reasonable amount of soap into his hands, rubbing them clean with a deliberate and practiced motion. Once they were scrubbed clean, he bent down, washing his face thoroughly. Freshened up, he dried his hands in the damp towel.
That one has been there for a while now, hasn’t it? He should have changed it by now. Decided, he pulled it off the hanger to throw it in the laundry bin.
As he tossed it away, a fleeting thought crossed his mind.
That was the last piece of fabric he would hold with his bare hands today.
He smiled despite himself. What has become of him?
Back in his personal quarters, he opened the heavy wardrobe. He had arranged everything with deliberate care: pants folded in the bottom section, belts coiled together, ties stacked in perfect rows. His shirts, suits, and jackets hung in strict order of wear, each one spaced evenly apart.
And yet, the first thing his hand reached for were the gloves. He slid them on slowly, feeling the leather mold to his skin. He pressed his fingers together, then worked his thumbs along his wrists, massaging the seams until the fit felt exact.
It wasn’t the best habit, he could admit that much.
And yet ever since he returned from Volnyr, he couldn’t find it in himself to touch most objects, let alone people, with his bare hands.
His sins tainted those hands; he couldn’t risk spreading that onto anyone. Even through inanimate objects, it felt wrong. Like his vile past would curse his colleagues, or worse, his innocent students.
Like he would mark them, destined for a future of suffering.
That barrier of protection allowed him some semblance of peace.
Leon Akradites, Spirit Academy’s head medic, lectured him constantly about the risks—irritated skin from trapped moisture or bacteria, reduced touch sensitivity, compromised dexterity… He even tried to warn him about the emotional toll of avoiding touch.
Gerald would fire back in kind, hard enough that even Akradites’ sweet nurse eventually walked out. Not that it mattered; Akradites had a habit of turning up to work high and probably just zoned out his criticism.
Or he didn’t care.
Gerald didn’t know which was more impressive.
If Akradites could treat children with an impaired mind to cope with memories of amputating limbs in wartime, then Gerald could cover his hands to avoid thinking about the atrocities he committed in that same war.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
He was fully dressed by now, but didn’t bother checking himself in the mirror. If his shirt was wrinkled or his tie uneven, his partner would be quick to remind him.
What was that hag yelling about earlier?
And just like that, he opened the door to their shared teachers’ quarters.
Of course, she was standing there, prepared for him like a battle-hardened soldier.
“Well, about TIME, youngster! What do you think you were doing inside of your room for so long? Did you not hear me screaming MURDER at Bastion and Nicolas just now?”
Cece Solbakken, his homeroom partner of two years now. She was a tiny woman, her fresh face contrasting with her snow-white hair. Even on her tiptoes, she could barely reach up to his chest.
Gerald smiled, practiced.
“Ah, my apologies, Ms. Solbakken. I must have misheard.”
She didn’t buy it. Or she was just angry for anger’s sake. With her, those reactions blended into one.
Her cheeks flared with that pink color as she no doubt released another launch of her fury. Gerald shut it down, an interesting thought entering his mind.
He wondered—why couldn’t NBSA have included women to the mandatory draft too? Most tsarnians would flee Volnyr at the sound of this one annoying woman’s screeching voice. Her pitch alone could be classified as a weapon of mass destruction.
Or better yet, she would be dead and he wouldn’t have to be dealing with her now.
Then again, wasn’t she a bit too old to be drafted? What was she? Sixty? Seventy?
The tiny woman clapped in his face.
“Are you even listening to me? For the last time, you WILL respect me in this house. I am fifty-three, and I am your SENIOR! I’m not some—”
Ah, thank you, Ms. Solbakken. That was indeed the one piece of data he was missing to conclude his theory.
In that case, yes, the draft launched in 994. That would make Ms. Solbakken… She would have been forty-four at the time.
Yes, definitely too old to be drafted–let alone as a woman. Women were allowed to volunteer, but at that age, she would be turned away even if she suddenly cared for anyone but herself.
Unfortunate.
He resumed his focus on her, but she was still shouting. How did she have the energy for that at her age?
“—what I meant is you can’t ignore me when there is a CLEAR emergency. If you continue acting like this, I will—”
Gerald was actually getting worried. What if she were to have a heart attack? If it happened right now, he would be the one responsible for performing first aid.
That was not worth the momentary satisfaction.
Then again, he could never understand how this haymaker of a woman functioned. Gerald was thirty-four now, and yet Ms. Solbakken, in her sixties, looked younger than him.
Younger than the students they were teaching, in fact.
No doubt, thanks to her witchcraft. Her room was filled with these objects he could only assume were cursed, designed to instantly kill him were he to touch them. He knew from her own exposition that she used those to maintain her youth.
But did it affect her health too? Like was she a teenager in appearance alone, or was she physically as healthy as a young girl?
He might have to pass that question off to Akradites in his next appointment.
“—so Nicolas, the little scoundrel, broke the upstairs toilet. So how about you make yourself USEFUL for once and go FIX it.”
That caught his attention. He cocked his head down to face her.
“Oh? How did that happen?”
“H-how?” she screeched, her hands now violently shaking. “What do you mean HOW? Did you not hear a word of what I just told you?”
Gerald exhaled. If she hadn’t realized he, in fact, was not paying attention, now she knew for certain.
“I’ll fix it. But I have history with the second years in just under an hour and I still need to finish grading their tests from last week.”
“Huh?” Solbakken stomped, reaching up to him like a toddler and jabbing her painted nail in his face. “What do you mean you haven’t finished that yet? You had a whole weekend off! How many times am I supposed to tell you not to leave things until the very last moment?”
Gerald ignored her. He walked out. Her screaming persisted, something about the audacity of doing as he pleased.
Normally, he would stand there and take it. Lord knew he had been through worse than a single teenage hag in a perpetual tirade.
But today, he just needed some peace….
If this continued, he really might…
He left the teachers’ quarters before those thoughts could drown him further.
︵ ⊹ ︵⏜︵ ⊹ ︵୨୧︵ ⊹ ︵⏜︵ ⊹ ︵
