Getting to know students
Pondering recent assignments, Reyce and Anwyn run into each other on the games field in the early evening. Briefly, they analyze the frustrations of teaching.
4-30-2008 (Anwyn, Reyce):
Whilst the colder weather doesn't make outside in general the most comfortable of places to be, let alone in the dim light of early evening, the games field has at least two inhabitants for the time being, in the form of Rosalith and her rider. The former sits neatly curled save for her head pointed towards the sky and clouds, whilst her rider lies on one of the nearby benches, flying jacket buttoned tightly around her. It's mostly silent, except for the odd snort from the gold, who seems to find the fog they produce quite entertaining, at least temporarily.
Lost in a thought that keeps his gaze fixed on the ground before his feet, Reyce walks onto the games field. He glances up when he reaches it, immediately spotting the large gold shape of Rosalith. He stops dead, eyes scanning the field for her rider, but he misses sight of Anwyn on the bench. Clearing his throat loudly to announce his presence, he pulls his hands out of his pockets so he'll seem less casual when he nods a silent greeting to her, if she should look.
Anwyn starts at the sudden noise, but sits up to glance around and catches sight of Reyce before she can wonder too long at who else is present. Rosalith too takes a moment to look away from the sky and at the instructor, though she peers back up when she catches her rider's greeting to him. "Evening," Anwyn offers, swinging her legs over the bench and sitting more properly instead of nearly sprawling. She raises a hand, as if to attract attention and not be merely a voice from nowhere.
Hearing a voice, Reyce tenses, and a quick frown passes across his features as he looks around for the source. Anwyn's raised hand helps with that, and he stares at it for a moment or two before shaking his head, hands slipping absently into his pockets again as he steps forward. "Hey," he answers. He draws just within the range of normal conversation, but there he stops. "Duties to your queen," the typically graceless math instructor adds.
"My thanks, and hers," Anwyn responds, inclining her head slightly. "What brings you out this way?" she asks, rather carefully, having caught the shake of his head. She blinks up at Reyce a couple of times and continues, "Would you care to sit?" with a brief gesture to the rest of the bench. She pulls her jacket back into proper order, tugging at the collar so that it doesn't choke her in the process.
Reyce shakes his head again, this time at the offer of a seat. "Going to keep my feet, thanks." He shifts slightly, tapping the heel of his boot into the dirt. "Was taking a walk," he murmurs, glancing out at the field. His eyes skim past Rosalith, not seeming very focused. "Looking at the field," he admits, amending his previous statement with a shrug. "Going to oversee the football players from now on." Replacing the guy who was coaching football before, presumably.
Anwyn nods and follows his gaze, past the curled-up queen. "Are they any good?" she questions. "The players, I mean. We were watching a game the other day, but not paying very close attention, I admit." A hint of amusement tugs at her lips and tries to turn into a smile. It doesn't quite make it. "The girls of the Bloods seemed quite enthralled at any rate." Glancing this way and that, she mumbles, "I was going to try breaking the ice on some of those buckets, but I suppose they'll be frozen again by morning." Essentially pointless work, then.
"They will," Reyce supposes, sparing a glance for the buckets. "Might keep the ice thinner, though, it hasn't had all night to freeze." He steps over to the nearest one, eyeing the frozen surface for a moment before he crouches down to pash it with his palm. "Don't know if they're good," he admits, that done. He pulls his hand back and rubs warmth back into it, that quick connection with the ice (and freezing water beneath it) enough to make it cold. "Haven't been watching."
Anwyn stands and makes for the bucket at her end of the bench. "You could always assign the worst behaved of the players to run out early in the morning and break all the ice," she thinks aloud. Not devious. Nope. "Make them think twice about messing around." Finding a thicker sheet of ice, she makes a fist and dashes it through the centre of said sheet. "Did you ask to coach or were you pushed, as it were?" the rider asks, glancing up again.
Reyce pushes back up from his crouch, giving his legs another shake, as though restless. The crash of ice as Anwyn punches through it makes him pause, his answer delayed, but after a quick look shows that the goldrider hasn't injured herself, he speaks. "They mess up, they're not playing. Not my job to boss them, not in this anyway." Which is perhaps a relief, as his short huff of laughter seems to indicate. He cleans that amusement up with a quick sniff, though, and goes on talking. "Kind of pushed. Kind of asked for it. Headmaster wanted somebody for it, and said I wanted to do something. More," he adds, grunting.
"You might get to know some of them better, at least," Anwyn muses, a quiet hiss for a hand nearly gone painfully numb from a few seconds too long in the water. "Though, on that score, my efforts at getting to know students have ranged from..." she hesitates, frowning, "well, idle conversation to almost disastrous." A harsh smile reveals that she can at least see the funny side of it. Now. She spots the restless movement, but beyond a slight tilt to her head, she doesn't try to pry.
Reyce considers that for a moment, his chin tilted up and eyes thin. "Goes like that," he decides, giving a short, stiff nod as his focus returns to Anwyn. "I was a student, I had a lot of conversations like that - didn't mean anything, or they got hostile. Can't blame them," a hand waves back at the Caucus proper, "doing the same. You don't know anybody or trust them, makes you careful who you're talking to - that they might be hiding something, or after something." He's having some trouble getting this thought out precisely the way he wants it to, and it shows in the gathering frown as he speaks, picking his way through those ungrammatical words.
Anwyn stands and sits back on the edge of the bench. "I tend to go on the assumption that everybody is hiding something and everybody wants something. Rather, that they will take it if they can," she says, in a reasonably quiet voice. "Secrets, everywhere. Not that I particularly wish to know them, but some of the students seem as if they might be quite harmless, were it not for the world surrounding them." She studies Reyce's expression for a moment, but looks away before it becomes staring. "...It is...stressful," she thinks that's the word she's looking for, "watching, looking out for anything untoward all the time."
Reyce nods, shuffling his hands back into his pockets. There, still trying to restore the heat he lost from having them out in the cold air (not to mention punching the water), he balls them into fists. "Yeah. And the students do that, too, and probably figure - we're instructors, we're meant to teach them how to do that kind of thing, keep secrets, but we're in it too. And supposed to be best at it. Would have to ask, how honest are we being, teaching them?"
"Well, I /am/ supposed to teach them how to behave properly," Anwyn sighs. "And whilst it is good to see progress, it only makes me wonder if ever I will be able to read them, if I do the job properly." Her bark of laughter echoes a snort from Rosalith. "We are all liars in our own ways. Falsehood teaching falsehood. Even if we try to tell what we can of the truth." She shivers and her gold slowly rises to her feet. "I suppose we should simply try and survive without savaging each other."
Falsehood teaching falsehood. Reyce echoes the words silently, then presses his lips together, traces of his frown returning. Finally, he pops out with a murmured, "Speak for yourself." A low note of amusement, fittingly dark in the deepening twilight, runs through the words. "I teach math." He must have heard the gold getting up, because he steps back after saying this, giving Anwyn a small nod. "See you, anyway." And that's enough of a farewell for him, as he turns to walk away, leaving Rosalith enough room to get off the ground while he himselfresumes slowly pacing the field.
4-30-2008 (Anwyn, Reyce):
Whilst the colder weather doesn't make outside in general the most comfortable of places to be, let alone in the dim light of early evening, the games field has at least two inhabitants for the time being, in the form of Rosalith and her rider. The former sits neatly curled save for her head pointed towards the sky and clouds, whilst her rider lies on one of the nearby benches, flying jacket buttoned tightly around her. It's mostly silent, except for the odd snort from the gold, who seems to find the fog they produce quite entertaining, at least temporarily.
Lost in a thought that keeps his gaze fixed on the ground before his feet, Reyce walks onto the games field. He glances up when he reaches it, immediately spotting the large gold shape of Rosalith. He stops dead, eyes scanning the field for her rider, but he misses sight of Anwyn on the bench. Clearing his throat loudly to announce his presence, he pulls his hands out of his pockets so he'll seem less casual when he nods a silent greeting to her, if she should look.
Anwyn starts at the sudden noise, but sits up to glance around and catches sight of Reyce before she can wonder too long at who else is present. Rosalith too takes a moment to look away from the sky and at the instructor, though she peers back up when she catches her rider's greeting to him. "Evening," Anwyn offers, swinging her legs over the bench and sitting more properly instead of nearly sprawling. She raises a hand, as if to attract attention and not be merely a voice from nowhere.
Hearing a voice, Reyce tenses, and a quick frown passes across his features as he looks around for the source. Anwyn's raised hand helps with that, and he stares at it for a moment or two before shaking his head, hands slipping absently into his pockets again as he steps forward. "Hey," he answers. He draws just within the range of normal conversation, but there he stops. "Duties to your queen," the typically graceless math instructor adds.
"My thanks, and hers," Anwyn responds, inclining her head slightly. "What brings you out this way?" she asks, rather carefully, having caught the shake of his head. She blinks up at Reyce a couple of times and continues, "Would you care to sit?" with a brief gesture to the rest of the bench. She pulls her jacket back into proper order, tugging at the collar so that it doesn't choke her in the process.
Reyce shakes his head again, this time at the offer of a seat. "Going to keep my feet, thanks." He shifts slightly, tapping the heel of his boot into the dirt. "Was taking a walk," he murmurs, glancing out at the field. His eyes skim past Rosalith, not seeming very focused. "Looking at the field," he admits, amending his previous statement with a shrug. "Going to oversee the football players from now on." Replacing the guy who was coaching football before, presumably.
Anwyn nods and follows his gaze, past the curled-up queen. "Are they any good?" she questions. "The players, I mean. We were watching a game the other day, but not paying very close attention, I admit." A hint of amusement tugs at her lips and tries to turn into a smile. It doesn't quite make it. "The girls of the Bloods seemed quite enthralled at any rate." Glancing this way and that, she mumbles, "I was going to try breaking the ice on some of those buckets, but I suppose they'll be frozen again by morning." Essentially pointless work, then.
"They will," Reyce supposes, sparing a glance for the buckets. "Might keep the ice thinner, though, it hasn't had all night to freeze." He steps over to the nearest one, eyeing the frozen surface for a moment before he crouches down to pash it with his palm. "Don't know if they're good," he admits, that done. He pulls his hand back and rubs warmth back into it, that quick connection with the ice (and freezing water beneath it) enough to make it cold. "Haven't been watching."
Anwyn stands and makes for the bucket at her end of the bench. "You could always assign the worst behaved of the players to run out early in the morning and break all the ice," she thinks aloud. Not devious. Nope. "Make them think twice about messing around." Finding a thicker sheet of ice, she makes a fist and dashes it through the centre of said sheet. "Did you ask to coach or were you pushed, as it were?" the rider asks, glancing up again.
Reyce pushes back up from his crouch, giving his legs another shake, as though restless. The crash of ice as Anwyn punches through it makes him pause, his answer delayed, but after a quick look shows that the goldrider hasn't injured herself, he speaks. "They mess up, they're not playing. Not my job to boss them, not in this anyway." Which is perhaps a relief, as his short huff of laughter seems to indicate. He cleans that amusement up with a quick sniff, though, and goes on talking. "Kind of pushed. Kind of asked for it. Headmaster wanted somebody for it, and said I wanted to do something. More," he adds, grunting.
"You might get to know some of them better, at least," Anwyn muses, a quiet hiss for a hand nearly gone painfully numb from a few seconds too long in the water. "Though, on that score, my efforts at getting to know students have ranged from..." she hesitates, frowning, "well, idle conversation to almost disastrous." A harsh smile reveals that she can at least see the funny side of it. Now. She spots the restless movement, but beyond a slight tilt to her head, she doesn't try to pry.
Reyce considers that for a moment, his chin tilted up and eyes thin. "Goes like that," he decides, giving a short, stiff nod as his focus returns to Anwyn. "I was a student, I had a lot of conversations like that - didn't mean anything, or they got hostile. Can't blame them," a hand waves back at the Caucus proper, "doing the same. You don't know anybody or trust them, makes you careful who you're talking to - that they might be hiding something, or after something." He's having some trouble getting this thought out precisely the way he wants it to, and it shows in the gathering frown as he speaks, picking his way through those ungrammatical words.
Anwyn stands and sits back on the edge of the bench. "I tend to go on the assumption that everybody is hiding something and everybody wants something. Rather, that they will take it if they can," she says, in a reasonably quiet voice. "Secrets, everywhere. Not that I particularly wish to know them, but some of the students seem as if they might be quite harmless, were it not for the world surrounding them." She studies Reyce's expression for a moment, but looks away before it becomes staring. "...It is...stressful," she thinks that's the word she's looking for, "watching, looking out for anything untoward all the time."
Reyce nods, shuffling his hands back into his pockets. There, still trying to restore the heat he lost from having them out in the cold air (not to mention punching the water), he balls them into fists. "Yeah. And the students do that, too, and probably figure - we're instructors, we're meant to teach them how to do that kind of thing, keep secrets, but we're in it too. And supposed to be best at it. Would have to ask, how honest are we being, teaching them?"
"Well, I /am/ supposed to teach them how to behave properly," Anwyn sighs. "And whilst it is good to see progress, it only makes me wonder if ever I will be able to read them, if I do the job properly." Her bark of laughter echoes a snort from Rosalith. "We are all liars in our own ways. Falsehood teaching falsehood. Even if we try to tell what we can of the truth." She shivers and her gold slowly rises to her feet. "I suppose we should simply try and survive without savaging each other."
Falsehood teaching falsehood. Reyce echoes the words silently, then presses his lips together, traces of his frown returning. Finally, he pops out with a murmured, "Speak for yourself." A low note of amusement, fittingly dark in the deepening twilight, runs through the words. "I teach math." He must have heard the gold getting up, because he steps back after saying this, giving Anwyn a small nod. "See you, anyway." And that's enough of a farewell for him, as he turns to walk away, leaving Rosalith enough room to get off the ground while he himselfresumes slowly pacing the field.