Leverage Cassian AU: First Day of School

[last_kallig]

The work and the struggle to 'catch up' in time for the start of the school year has been a LOT, but Ibani and Cassian have managed it. (For the most part, she'll definitely be needing to put in more time at home than her classmates on almost every subject.)

It would be a lie to say she isn't nervous this morning as she gets ready to go to school for the very first time. (Korriban shouldn't count, by any reasonable standard.) With luck, she won't stand out much in a plain green T-shirt, bluejeans, and sneakers.

By school regulations she really SHOULDN'T be wearing her warblade in a spine sheathe, but Ibani figures her having the weapon is less dangerous for the faculty and student body than having her being a nervous wreck without it.

She's checking that she has all of the supplies she needs for the THIRD time this morning as Ash barks excitedly at the squirrels outside.

Comments

[childofrebellion]

Cassian's going to drive her as there isn't a good bus stop near him, "I think you've check it all enough. I'll be here working on the plane and anything else if you need me."

She needs him to be reliable and stable and he will be.

[last_kallig]

Ibani flushes a little at being 'caught' being nervous. "You're right. And I shouldn't be late."

She says goodbye to Ash, grabs her things, and heads for the truck. Reliable and stable is good, and not something she's had in a long time.

[childofrebellion]

"You won't be," Since part of the prep was getting ready nice and early so there was time for a proper breakfast. He starts off down the road, which isn't too busy, a truck or two before they reach the high school.

Its one of the biggest buildings in the area that's not attached to a farm or a ranch and he drives up, earlier in the summer she met the principal and they did the paperwork with the idea of today starting simply.

[last_kallig]

Simple is good!

She hugs Cassian tightly. "See you later."

Then, she takes a breath, unbuckles her seat-belt, and gets out of the truck. She keeps track of Cassian's presence in the Force until she can't any longer, until he's too far away. He's FINE, he's been taking care of himself for YEARS. And surely she'd feel SOME kind of warning in the Force if he was actually in trouble?

She goes to her locker first, to drop off the books and things she won't need until after lunch. Technically, she HAS the combination, but Cassian has taught her how to pick locks so it's nearly as easy to 'find' the right combination by listening with her ears and the Force.

Most of her things stowed, she makes her way to her first class, mathematics of all things. And of course her assigned seat is right behind the girl (Pilar Alvarado) who looks just like the friend she murdered on Korriban. She manages not to freeze, but she's pretty sure she got caught staring. "Sorry," she tells Pilar with an apologetic smile. "You look just like someone I used to know, and it's a bit uncanny. I'm Ibani, Ibani Andor."

[childofrebellion]

"I've seen you around. I'm Pilar," She says with a returning smile before the teacher gets started. Most of the class is going over expectations and assignments then ending with a lesson and assignment to see that everyone's at the same place.

Cassian's driving back and stops at Maz's for a coffee and some errands that he really doesn't need yet. Maz sees him and hands him a pastry with a smile, "She'll be fine."

"I know but this is all different for her," And he wants her to feel safe.

"She will be, she has you to come home to and give her a home."

[last_kallig]

Ibani doesn't feel any other motives from Pilar, any fear, and it's....odd. She's never been around people her age for any appreciable length of time when there wasn't an edge of fear, faint or sharp.

She's discussing the assignment with Pilar when they exit the classroom. Unfortunately, some boys are goofing around in the hall with a soccer ball, and it comes flying right at Pilar's head. The Force speaks and Ibani answers, catching the ball right before it impacts the back of Pilar's head. (Ibani COULD have seen it out of the corner of her eye. She DIDN'T, but nobody else needs to know that.)

She turns to give the boys a look, holding the ball. "You're going to hurt someone, next time you do that," she tells them, her tone very certain.

[childofrebellion]

Everyone stares at her and someone says, "That's so cool like Spider-man."

Pilar laughs and nods to Ibani, "We need to get you on the soccer time, come on. I play but I'm not that good."

[last_kallig]

Damn it, damn it, she didn't want to stand out! She forgets, how slow other people are! She manages not to show her distress on her face, she's had lots of practice at that.

"Just be more careful, please?" She tosses the ball back to its owners. "I guess I've just got fast reflexes," Ibani admits to Pilar. "And a bit of luck."

"Do you like being on the team?" Ibani has a vague idea of what soccer is, thanks to her cultural catching up, but she's never played it.

They don't have assigned seats in Health, but Ibani decides to sit by Pilar since they seem to be getting along. She blinks at the model of a human skeleton up at the front of the classroom, along with models of the heart, lungs, and digestive system. She KNOWS all too well what the inside of the human body REALLY looks like, and seeing it rendered like a toy is rather surreal.

One of the other students asks if the skeleton is real, and Ibani has to stop herself from answering 'No' out loud. The health class proceeds much like the mathematics class. "Overview of all the organ systems of the human body for homework, not too bad," she says to Pilar as they leave. Ibani already KNOWS this information, though some of the names are new to her and her education was more focused on making parts of the body STOP working.

[childofrebellion]

"You okay?" Pilar asks after Health, "Your face went kind of weird. I'll tell you about soccer later, I like it, but I don't think we're in the next class together. Hopefully we've got the same lunch."

[last_kallig]

Ibani decides to tell the truth, or at least a version of it. "Didn't mean to call attention to myself like that," she tells Pilar. "I'm not really comfortable being the center of attention."

Because standing out is dangerous, unsafe, gets you into trouble.

"See you at lunch, hopefully."

The chemistry teacher is unfortunate in that they don't vary their tone of voice as they speak, much. But Ibani is used to needing to retain information under ACTUAL torture, so can't quite agree with many of her classmates about them being DREADFUL.

Lunch is next, thankfully, and it looks like she has the same lunch as Pilar! "Hello, Pilar," she calls, having retrieved her packed lunch from her locker.

[childofrebellion]

"Yeah, but at least its a cool way. Let's sit over here and I'll introduce you to everyone," Pilar goes through her friends who are mainly from the soccer team with a few friends that she's known for years. The conversation moves fast once it gets going.

[last_kallig]

Ibani does have a little trouble, once the conversation gets going really fast. It would be even worse if the Force didn't allow her to get a sense of what was actually meant. But she learns everyone's names and Force presences, commits them to memory.

She hangs back in conversation a little once things get fast, only chiming in from time to time, when she can be certain of what's been said. It's rather a pop-culture DELUGE, to be honest. So many things to look up later!

After lunch is gym, which Ibani is not looking forward to. Not because of the physical activity, she's quite certain she's in better physical shape than any of her classmates, but because she'll be changing clothes in a locker-room and there's no real way to hide her scars AND the warblade and the weapon is the thing that has priority on being hidden.

Pilar also has gym, although Ibani's not certain if that's a good thing or a bad one, yet. The warblade has to stay with her more concealing clothes, all too obvious under gym wear. It's easy enough to hide the weapon from the others, but the scars...

There aren't as many as there SHOULD BE, burns, cuts, slashes from claws. But the worst of them is on her left leg, the scars of the Sith Hound that tried to rip her leg off too alien and too organized to be easily explained away. It was a large beast and left its mark on most of her leg, upper AND lower. Ibani can FEEL the horror, the disgust cut with morbid curiosity that some of the other students are feeling.

Only one of the girls gives voice to it, though, Erica. "What the FUCK happened to you?" Erica does not have much of a filter between her mouth and her brain, alas. Ibani tenses, stiffens, under her stare. It's not the first time shes' felt ashamed, far from it, but it HURTS.

[childofrebellion]

The other girls wait and then Esme, she led a lot of the conversation but also listened says, "Something attacked her and its not our business. Do you really want to get into body stuff?"

There's a murmuring of agreement and then the gym teacher's voice yelling at them to get out to get class going.

[last_kallig]

Erica flushes, embarrassed at her tactlessness being pointed out. "Thanks, Esme," Ibani says to her quietly as they file out to the class.

Dodgeball is as it ever was. Ibani can understand the need to practice dodging, it's an important skill in her opinion. Not one shared by the rest of the class, apparently, because there is definitely sighing. Ibani doesn't really understand, in her bones, that most people will never NEED to dodge, that they live in a world that is mostly safe.

Ibani listens to the mood of the class, watches the averages, judges when it's best to ALLOW herself to be hit. (She could dodge them all, easily, but she's already gotten herself enough attention for today. Hopefully, no one will notice that she got hit when she did on purpose.)

[childofrebellion]

No one notices that much, they all want the class to be over. In moments when they can, there's continuation of some lunch room talk. Once the time's done, the changing happens quickly, Erica apologizes before they all head to their almost last class.

[last_kallig]

Ibani wasn't expecting an apology, but she manages to accept it, somewhat gracefully.

Sadly, Pilar is not in Ibani's last two classes of the day. English is interesting, though.

Shakespeare though, Shakespeare is a bit baffling. "This, this does not look like English," she mutters. She gets paired up with another student, a short, shy, boy named Jose, to read a certain section and dissect it for various themes and other literary tricks.

"Ugh, I think I sprained my tongue on that last bit," she complains to Jose. "How did English mutate so rapidly in only a few hundred years anyhow, ridiculous!"

[childofrebellion]

"Shakespeare's his own language," Jose's understands some of it, he likes poetry and plays and the class ends with him attempting to explain through Spanish poetry.

[last_kallig]

"Thank you, Jose, that makes a lot more sense now." Her smile is soft, pleased. "I haven't done much like this, before, seeing how language...works."

The last class is American History, which is the arrival of the Europeans to North America to start with. (At least Ibani hasn't already had to learn this about a half a dozen times.)

She shares a raised eyebrow with Jose over the wordings their textbook uses for things to try and gloss over just how many horrible things this involved.

[childofrebellion]

A student who looks to be Native actually starts arguing with the teacher, which makes the class go quicker.

[last_kallig]

It does, especially since Ibani is willing to help the argument along! Her experience with oppression, with colonization, is different from the Native students, of course. Racism as Cassian's universe would understand the term has never really been a widespread thing where she was from, for one. (Prejudice based on species and culture though, very much alive and well! And the Sith Empire tended to be brutal and blunt in its prejudice and its means).

Finally, the teacher gives in in exasperation that Ibani can feel and they end up having a very DIFFERENT discussion than the lesson that had been planned.

[childofrebellion]

The class ends in unexpected solidarity and the teen who led the discussion heads straight to Ibani to continue the conversation as they head to their lockers. They also tell Ibani about the organization they run that's trying to change what's taught.

When the school's days over, Cassian first arrives far too early so drives around before ending up still early and so sips his coffee in a parking space.

[last_kallig]

Ibani smiles to herself when she feels Cassian come back into the range of her senses.

Ibani gets their cell phone number and the numbers of most of the rest of the organization as well. Jose's locker, alas, is far away from Ibani's. She feels a warning in the Force, a pull, and she excuses herself from her new friend, saying she needs to be somewhere else right then. Which is true, just not in a way that most people would think of it!

Jose is small, and timid, alone by the lockers except for the boy who is bullying him. The bully is much bigger than Jose, older too. She can feel the bruise as Jose gets shoved into a locker. "I've no tolerance for bullies", she tells the bully in question. Her body language has changed, to the body language of an assassin, a killer, and her anger in the Force is as subtle as a punch to the face.

Ibani has always lived among people who had learned the hard way how to tell who was dangerous or not. To HER mind, she's being as obvious in her threat, in her deadliness, as a coiled and rattling rattlesnake. The idea that the bully could FAIL to understand that never crosses her mind.

He lets Jose go, and Ibani turns around, feeling that the encounter is over. It's not.

She feels anger, threat, desire to hurt in the Force as the bully grabs her shoulder from behind and she REACTS. Training, so deeply ingrained as to be called instinct takes over. It's like a martial arts throw over her shoulder, except Ibani doesn't let go. He's halfway through the arc of the move and she's bringing her knee up toward his spine before actual THOUGHT kicks in. This move is meant to permanently maim, to break the spine, and this is NOT a battlefield! The Force answers and something tears in her left arm as she slows the descent of the bully's body enough to not do him serious harm. It's going to HURT though!

Ibani lets him go, her face pale with fear and anger at HERSELF. "You ignorant CHILD, you could have been seriously hurt!"

[childofrebellion]

Around here there's yelling with moments of silence as a teacher comes out from a classroom and leads the three of them to the principal's office. The bully keeps staring at Ibani, terrified as Jose mumbles a thank you.

Cassian gets the call not long after he's parked and walks inside, his posture and demeanor is incredibly neutral. He needs to see the situation before he decides the best way to protect Ibani.

[last_kallig]

Ibani has met the principal before, briefly, and intellectually she KNOWS that this isn't going to be anything like Korriban, but some things are hard to shake.

Ibani is carefully neutral, still, in full facing interrogation mode, as it were. She's unconsciously put herself closer to the principal than Jose, even closer to the principal than the bully. Unconsciously making herself a better 'target' in case of physical punishment, because she could take it better.

Cassian will probably understand what her body language means, what she's unconsciously doing. The principal, who knows?

"Mr. Andor, thank you for coming so quickly," the principal greets him, offering a hand.

[childofrebellion]

Cassian walks in and sees the body language and worries to see how Ibani's holding herself. He shakes the principal's hand firmly and is using his officer's voice as he first turns slightly to say, "Ibani, are you okay? What happened?"

The principal is thrown in his prepared explanation and says, "There was an altercation and Ibani attacked Elias."

Elias, the bully is holding his arm and putting on an act that usually works before of being hurt and regretful. Jose is feeling more confident than he normally would, he knows who Cassian is from his family who say that Andor finds justice even when its hiding.