brink of emptiness [cole]

NOV 2003

It was getting totally frigid -- even with five years' experience bearing Ilvermorny winters, Adam kind of hated it. It was outright freezing right now, cold enough that his breath fogged wetly in front of him and the fallen leaves crunched frostily under his feet and his hands were a little numb. He shoved them into his jean pockets, which didn’t help -- instead, he was making his legs cold. Typical.

Neither of them spoke on the way out here. Both of them were too conscious of the likelihood of being caught sneaking around the grounds at eleven. He liked to think that they were both too generally quiet, too -- it was a little less wussy to blame it on their intrinsic character than on the prospect of detention. Besides -- what was there to talk about, on the walk into the mountains? Check out that awesome rock. What the hell.

He took off his outermost hoodie and folded it onto his awesome rock to sit on, fished his lighter and tonight’s weed out of the pocket of his second outermost hoodie, lit up. He liked this spot -- they were close enough to the observatory that he could hear the absolute dearth of wildlife from twenty feet away, but far enough from the castle that they weren’t likely to be sniffed out. There were no astronomy classes or club meetings today; the weekly observatory schedule was the second thing he checked every year, after whether they’d changed the holiday name to “Lunar New Year” yet, like he kept suggesting in the anonymous tips box the student council put out. (No.)

He took the first hit, then passed it over to Cole.

“God,” he said finally -- his voice was hushed, still acclimating to the nervous quiet of being out here late at night, but it would get normal in time. “I hate seventh year, man. I thought after we took the CHEPIs we’d be over the hard part.”

@Coleman Close

Cole took the offered joint from Adam’s outstretched hand, taking a hit as he settled onto his own rock “Oh come on Nguyen, it’s not that bad” he challenged, his own voice quieted. He’d thought about using magic to silence their noise and to mitigate the smell of the weed, but he was feeling lazy, and he didn’t really care if they got caught anyway. “I mean yeah, W.E.N.D.I.G.O’s are next, but like this is kind of great. We can do more or less what we want and we’ve got one year left. Pretty much the perfect spot to be.”

“But, thank fuck I don’t have to take any more new world magic classes” he told the Wampus with a laugh. The Serpent didn’t have a hard time with school, but when those weren’t among his favorite to have to sit through, no matter how easily academics came to him otherwise. He was in a good mood tonight too, and glad to be outside of the castle for a moment.

He leaned back against the cool rock, his jacket collar turned up against the slight breeze as he took a quick hit as passed the joint back “Tell me you at least agree that being here is better than being bored all summer?” He wasn’t sure Adam felt the same way as he did, most kids tended not to – they liked being home. Home with their parents, siblings, maybe a dog. He had Christian’s place now, and that had helped a lot. And he supposed in reality he didn’t have a whole lot to bitch about considering he spent his summers working, reading, and occasionally skating or pickpocketing for the thrill.

“And I know you haven’t missed some of the girls this year..” He asked lightly with a quick grin. He didn’t care if they talked about girls or not, but he was curious to see if bringing them up would change his outlook on the school year or not.

“It’s pretty bad,” said Adam -- he took the joint back and had another hit, rested his wrist on his knee, grinning a little catlike. It was fun to have firsthand knowledge of unpleasant things -- he’d noticed that after he’d become the first of all his cousins to experience a pile of unpleasant things. Puberty, the tetanus booster, standardized testing, his dad’s driving lessons, stitches, getting drunk, getting caught getting drunk, you know. He supposed if he was going to have to know all these loser underclassmen he should at least have some fun with it. “In Cryomagic we have to write an essay every Friday in class. Really tough grader too. Guess you’ll see next year.”

Adam had never had much trouble with New World magic; all it did was make him curious about the Old World Magic they probably had in Vietnam. He doubted there was an entire class on it at Mahoutokoro -- nothing he’d learned about that school had suggested it was much for pan-Asian solidarity -- but it would have been nice. He wished there was a real wizards’ university. For all the shit he’d been fed in the last few years about his many options after graduation, he had noticed that there were still far fewer options for him than there would have been if he’d been a regular no-maj.

You couldn’t go to wizard university and major in wizard physics or wizard business, after all. You couldn’t take Wizard Asian Studies courses. He’d have to just research it on his own, which, obviously, he was never going to do.

“You get to be bored all summer?” said Adam. “I get to work.” This was an exaggeration, and he’d only had to work all summer as a consequence of getting caught getting drunk, but it was proving Cole’s point, though, so he probably wouldn’t mind the fib. “Yeah, yeah, but I still don’t like the weather.” He took a hit, but didn’t pass the joint yet.

What was it with everybody this year and girls? First Jake, now Joaquim had a crush he wasn’t telling Adam about, even his goddamned British penpal wasn’t immune. “Oh?” he said challengingly; he wagged his eyebrows and grinned. “Why you asking, you got a crush?”