Valeria Malaspina (paladina) wrote in lightning_war, @ 2008-12-23 15:38:00 |
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Current mood: | pissed off |
Early Thursday afternoon, 17 September 1942, outside on the path to the Royal Academy greenhouses...
Valeria Malaspina was in a foul mood after luncheon, but she’d asked around, and she knew where to find the person she was looking for. Even better, a lot of the people who would normally have objected to the conversation she intended to have with the person in question were off somewhere else, having taken a sudden unusual interest in advanced mathematics. Did these people have no real entertainments at all? Oh, well, she was about to have some entertainment. There, there he was. She walked along the stone fence quietly, amazed that the heat of her anger wasn’t coming off her in waves like a road on a hot day. When she found Paul Pettigrew, she jumped off the stone wall—it was only a storey, so what—and landed on her feet in front of him. “Pettigrew! What the hell have you been telling people about me?”
“Eeep!” said Paul, who had been walking along toward the greenhouse to see what Olivia Goulston was up to. He knew she and Colette Saint-Germain were working on something in there—growing illegal herbs, probably, for their ‘potions’ work—and he’d intended to catch them at it. But while the Avalon Tarts were wily as ever, they did not usually fall out of the sky in front of him and land, half crouching, like cats that were ready to pounce on a mouse. “I daresay I was not ‘telling’ anyone anything. I do not spread gossip.”
“Liar!” Valeria cleared the distance between them in seconds and grabbed Paul’s tie, holding it close to the knot as if she intended to use it to strangle him—she was thinking about it in fact, as an incentive to get his attention. “You wrote that letter to Mathers, yes or no?” She pulled him down to her level. Valeria was a lot shorter than most people, and she wanted him to know his height was no advantage over her.
Paul squirmed. It wasn’t every day an attractive girl voluntarily touched him, but he still felt uneasy, mostly because she looked like she wanted to rip his throat out. “Er…yes. I may have mentioned something to Professor Mathers something distasteful I might have noticed that occurred during the raid.” He cleared his throat. “It is my job as a prefect of Caerleon.”
“Did you actually see me or did you just repeat some piece of twaddle some other arsewipe told you?” Valeria growled. “Because I know what I was wearing when I came out of the planetarium and I had all my fucking clothes on!”
Paul gaped, and his gaze inadvertently fell to her shirt and her bosom, which of course was heaving. He bit his lip, hoping he wouldn’t sprout wood, and blushed as he looked back into her eyes, which were green, though he’d expected red. “I…I was merely relaying a report I received, as necessary.” It occurred to him that he was supposed to take points when people swore in front of him, but he couldn’t quite manage to get that out of his mouth because she was yelling again.
“You mean you were repeating gossip!” Valeria snapped loudly. “And you’re going to go and tell Mathers this IN FRONT OF Magistra Chattox or I’m going to relocate your arse up somewhere between your shoulders. The one you actually SIT on that is!”
With a slight gasp, Paul grabbed her wrist and put pressure on one of the small bones, then tugged his tie free from her grasp.
Valeria gasped; he actually knew something. That was a bit of a surprise.
“I told Professor Mathers what I knew—that some information had come to me I felt he should know.” Paul cleared his throat and smoothed his clothes. “I will not be talked to in this fashion, nor will I indulge in fighting a girl.”
“I don’t think you have any choice about either one,” said Valeria, and caught him on the nose with a strong left hook, feeling vindicated when she connected. “I was asleep when the alarm went off, but I had all my clothes on by the time I got downstairs!”
Paul gasped as his back hit the wall, his hand coming up to grip his nose. In all his admittedly few years (well, weeks, officially) of reporting students’ scandalous behaviour to the teachers, never once had any of them ever treated him as such. And a girl no less. “Miss Malaspina!” he said, staggering a bit. “I…I was unaware…” he started, then coughed and straightened a little.
“Well, you’re aware now,” said Valeria, crossing her arms across her chest. “Mathers wrote a letter to Chattox demanding Tom Forrester’s badge! Meanwhile half the school is talking about my tits, which I know for a fact that you’ve never seen. You need to go and tell Mathers right now that you either made this up or heard it from someone else, whichever it is, or Tom will lose his badge, and if he does, I’m going to stick yours so far up your arse, you’ll be able to spit it back out!”
Paul’s eyes widened when she mentioned Tom—so that was what this was about! but then he blushed again when she mentioned her…tits. “That most certainly was not my intention, I assure you Miss Malaspina. I rather respect Mr Forrester, and do not wish him, or you for that matter, ill will.” Paul rubbed his nose slightly before continuing. “I believe I can have a word with Professor Mathers about the misunderstanding.”
“Good,” said Valeria. “I believe you’ve taken the point. I’m not the sort of person who runs around in front of the first-years with no clothes on and I want you to make sure people know that.”
Paul could easily imagine her without her clothes. The trousers she was wearing were indecently tight and that was one of the reasons he didn’t like seeing girls dress that way. “The drill was completely FU—” Paul stopped himself, remembering what FUBAR stood for, and that it wasn’t a word he should use in front of a girl, even this one. “Well, it was quite a mess. The so called report I received indicated such a disrespectful way for a Prefect to act, I did not think to question it.” His eyes widened a bit suddenly, and he gestured emphatically. “Not that I would think such things of you, Miss Malaspina. I admit I do not even know you properly. In the future, perhaps, I will check up on my sources a bit more.” She might have been in Avalon—but none of the other Tarts would have defended herself. Probably because they all knew there was no defence possible.
“You should,” said Valeria, and then she shook her head. “Look, the drill was completely fucked up beyond all recognition. If there had been an actual enemy trying to get in we’d have all been in trouble, but spreading rumours about people like this is not going to help! Would you prefer that people come out and drill when the alarm goes off like they’re supposed to, however they’re dressed and whatever they’re doing, or would you rather they all wait and make sure their shirts are all buttoned correctly before they get out of the dorms?”
“I do not spread rumours, Miss Malaspina. I admit to this time not properly checking my source before reporting, and for that I apologise to you and for any damage to your reputation. But it was not done intentionally.” Paul said quietly.
Valeria threw up her hands in frustration. “Did you hear anything I said after the words ‘spreading rumours’? If you repeat something someone tells you, you’re spreading it around. But that’s not the point! The point is that if people get talked about, and reported and censured, because of what they do or don’t have on at a midnight drill, they’re not going to come right out like they should, they’re going to wait till they look respectable!” She groaned and crossed her arms again. “Look, assume that somebody actually is having sex when that alarm bell rings. Do you want them to just get decent, grab the rest of their clothes and evacuate, or do you want them to wait till their ties are on straight and get killed?”
“I would want them to not be in such a situation, but in any case I see your point.” Paul shook his head. “Of course, I would want them to evacuate with all due haste to a place of safety. That is the purpose of a drill, after all.” He sighed, and crossed his arms to mimic hers.
“If you want people to do the right thing,” said Valeria, “it’s better if they’re not afraid they’re going to be talked about. If I were a prefect and I heard people talking about who showed up at the drill with their clothes messed up, I’d give them demerits.” She shook her head. “Because as it stands, the message that’s coming down from this is that you can be asleep, show up to the drill like you’re supposed to with your blouse unbuttoned or your skirt on backwards, and then the next thing, the guy you’re walking out with loses his badge because some fuckwit says you must have been shagging like minks!”
“I understand you, Miss Malaspina. Repeating yourself will not make your words any clearer,” Paul said, not relishing the idea of another intimate introduction with her left hand. “If you will excuse me now, I must go straight to see Professor Mathers.”
“I would be the last to try and keep you from that,” said Valeria.
Paul started to turn to walk away, and then thought better of it. Instead, he stepped back a pace and softly said, “Would you like to come along? Not that I am inviting you to walk with me. I merely thought…” The words dried up.
Valeria looked up at him sidewise, and then she chuckled. “I know the difference between an invitation to walk out with a boy and an invitation to discuss the problem with Mathers. I don’t honestly know. Charis—she’s my stepsister, and she’s the one who thought the letter came from you—said I should avoid Mathers, that you could end up in front of him and he’d ask you questions and you’d end up confessing to stuff you did three years ago. A boy named Vieira got into a lot of trouble that way. I don’t want to get into it with Mathers if I don’t have to. Do you think he’d listen to me if I told him he ought to be taking other problems more seriously, or just use it as an excuse to go after Chattox? I expect it’s the latter. He’s probably never served in an actual fight.”
Paul gaped and paused for a moment, filing away Miss Leffoy’s name in his memory. Then he thought for a second longer before answering her. “It is no secret I consider Professor Mathers a very intelligent wizard. He is the head of my household, and he is quite astute.” A slight chuckle escaped his lips. “However, you are correct. He can be very inquisitive and he can deduce many different things—as if he were a mind reader. He is not, though, I assure you.”
“No, he’s not a telepath. He’s a mesmerist,” said Valeria, rolling her eyes.
Paul shrugged. “ I was thinking more along the path of you coming along to add in anything you might think I am leaving out, or even to add your tuppence if need be.”
Valeria nodded. “There are a lot of things I’d like to say to Mathers. But I think that probably Professor Goyle should take that part of it up. If I can trust you to just tell Mathers that you had misinformation I think we’ll be fine.”
“He is? Oh, I did not know that.” Paul scratched his head. “Well, thank you for correcting my misinformation. I assure you, you have my word as a future Constable that I will endeavour to clear up any misunderstandings concerning you and Mr Forrester. Again, my apologies—it was not my intention.”
“Thanks,” said Valeria. “Sorry about your nose. You have a reputation in Avalon College. People think you want to hurt the girls.”
Paul bristled somewhat. “I would never intentionally hurt any girl.” He smiled slightly and rubbed his nose. “As for the punch, I suspect I had it coming. Wake up calls are rarely nice. You are indeed well handled for a girl.”
“Thanks I think,” said Valeria, frowning. “But you need to figure out why you have this reputation. Do you really call all of us ‘tarts’?”
Immediately a long list of names filled Paul’s mind that deserved the title, but he cleared his throat and merely said, “There are a few names that stand out, but it is, quite possibly, only my opinion. And I fear, until recently, my opinion was rather skewed toward the conservative side of life.” He tilted his head a bit and added “In just this year alone I have learned much of our world that has opened my eyes—I suspect it has to do with the new attitude of responsibility that comes with this.” He tapped his badge. “Up until now I have, unfortunately, been rather childish in my actions.” He shrugged. “So I can see why my reputation suffers in Avalon College.”
Valeria nodded. So that was his handle. Well, she could play that. “When you call girls ‘tarts’ the first-years think it’s okay. You do know that right?”
“I am learning. Words spoken sometimes carry more magical power with them then a true spell does. As I said, my past years have not been exemplary; I am striving to correct that this year.”
“Good for you,” said Valeria. “And good for you for taking this like a man.” She shrugged. “Okay, I need to go talk to Goyle now. And then find out if Liane’s still under the power of gravity. See you around.”
“Goodbye.” Paul watched her go, rather fearing she was fooling him and she would attack again when his back was turned. But when it appeared this was not going to be the case, he set his feet straight toward Professor Mathers’ office.
epistle_of_paul and paladina