Room for Growth (Atten Cal)

[Locke]

Alric

Alric threw his head back and laughed. He’d had the same confused response when he first met Katrie. In the year he’d known her, he had begun to understand her though. Finally managing to control his laughter, Alric answered mater-of-factly, “She said, she wanted to know if she could.”

There wasn’t much more to say, most of the strange things she did were to simply satisfy her own curiosity. “I guess some more stuffy sorts would probably criticize her for not trying to answer much loftier questions, but that’s not always the point of scholarship. We aren’t all trying to change the world, or preserve great knowledge. We just have questions that need answers. I guess she can come off rather eccentric though. Unlike you, a historian, she doesn’t really have a core focus, she just latches onto whatever catches her interest.”

Lacing his hands behind his head, Alric studied the ceiling, “I might be somewhere in between, my formal training in Mayene was in the Classical Style, so I was trained in a broad variety of disciplines, even if I only care to pursue a few of them. Did you ever have a master or any tutors?”

[Cal]

To satisfy her own curiosity, well it was as much reason as most had for their research he supposed. Just most people tended not to throw marshmallows around the library. But by the sounds of it this Brown wasn't like most people. Truth be told she didn't sound like anyone Zuin had ever heard of. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, just a little out of the ordinary.

His own scholarly interests were not exactly normal either. War theory was not the most common reading topic for a teenage boy. They might enjoy reading of battles and heroes but the actually details of a battle were a different thing. Most found it hard to be excited by the movements of troops on a battlefield, by the plans and back up plans that commanders made before battle, by the strategies upon which wars were fought. True war wasn't fought in a single battle but rather in collections of battles and strategic moves of power control. Sometimes losing a battle didn't matter so long as it gained what was needed be that buying time for the rest of the army to escape or for reinforcements to arrive. War was complex and what appeared to be a victory at first could later turn out to have been a lost.

"I had a couple of tutors. Mainly they taught general world information but once I started to make my own studies then my father got more specialist tutors to work with me on those subjects. I think he was hoping I might enlist at one point or another and try to become a general." Zuin explained. He shivered at the thought of joining the army, even if it was as an officer. He had no inclination to try to run a battle and put men's lives on the line.

[Locke]

Alric

Laying back and staring at the ceiling, Alric said, “I don’t think anybody in my family wanted me to join the army, I sure as hell didn’t. Well, I’d never actively thought about it. It was just about as likely as me going to become a baker or a brick layer or the bloody First of Mayene.” He waved his hand dismissively, that was a different lifetime. He’d fought and killed for a foreign power and had been left with very little so show for it.

“We’re going to be living together, we should probably get some ground rules down so we don’t end up killing each other. First, they do room inspections here. They don’t care whose side of the room is dirty, if it’s a mess, we’re both in trouble. We both keep our sides clean. Don’t be afraid to ask for help though. If I see something out of line on your side of the room, with your permission I’ll fix it, you have my permission to do the same for me.” Furrowing his brow, he thought back to some of the rules he’d established with other roommates or that he’d wished he had. “Visitors, I don’t care who you bring back here or what gender they are, just give me fair warning.”