He spoke the runes aloud as he scribbled, “C - O - R - O - N - A -”, then the trailing scribble after that was completely illegible but he said, “-virus,” which was what that personal shorthand stood for, and surely they knew how to spell that right?
He spun around. Sha nakaz snaga kiddos…
Only Slater was still awake, but of course they were just counting down the seconds until-
The bell rang.
“Don’t think there won’t be another quiz after mid semester break!” Gullding scolded hopelessly, as his students scurried away, for he knew that this curriculum only bored them more as they advanced. Though he was fascinated by the tragic collapse of the nation states of the Godlike Beings into the superstates during the Million Wars, even he had to admit that was ancient history now. And the further back they went, the less sure he was himself of the accuracy of what he knew.
“Material sha slept through will be covered. Remember. Million Wars, the Harbinger, coronavirus. Elites versus Mutants. Sha best gesh it all before sha come back!”
As they left, Deyandra scooped Githarie by the shoulder into hers.
“Sup, Dey?”
She leaned in close clandestinely. Close enough for Deyandra’s undercut to brush the earlobe.
“Sha ready to pick up that order, zug?”
Githarie had given Deyandra some silvers a few rotes ago to get her some cocaine, just a personal stash for herself, and hopefully Lawrah, if she could smuggle her away from the Chief. Zholl and Zhon would have scuffled with her if they ever found out, insisting that since they were Lions too, she should just stick to whatever she could handle. But ganja sometimes made her too sleepy. Outside of surfing, Githarie’s great love was music, and she was often the second of the Thraxes – her mother was the first – to kick up her feet and begin dancing. She just wanted to make sure she stayed awake for it all and experienced as much as she could! The festival would be three rotes of nonstop performances, starting tomorrow after the end of the fortrote.
“Sha sure sha know what you’re doing with this stuff, Gith?”
“Yah. Gesh it.”
She did not. She had never tried it before.
Dey slapped Githarie’s butt as if to shoo her away, and Githarie could feel the crinkle of a crumbly fist sized package underneath her palm. She moved to seemingly brush Deyandra’s hand away and snatch the payload, swiftly, unassuming, and demure.
“Terima Kasih, Dey!”
“Sama sama. See sha there, Gith. On Lok,” Deyandra skipped away to join Bhair with the rest of the Lions, including Githarie’s older brothers, to ditch the rest of school for the rote, as they usually did after the first class.
Finally, what she had been waiting for! Atul’s favorite class, physical education, or P.E. Orcans were physical beings, rejoicing in the endless shapes they could shift to, and to prepare the broodlings for the labors of the Horde, and to ensure fitness should there ever be another elvan attack, the young would be trained and tested in all sorts of trials of the body. It was the largest class, involving nearly all the children of the village at once and their best chance to socialize.
It was the only class that Githarie and Lawrah had together too! Githarie jogged up to Lawrah, easily located by her mohawk.
“Heya, Law!”
One term of school lasted one quarter the revolution, and these took place during the long dawn and the long night. The children had the entirety of the long day and the long dusk to themselves.
These two semesters were called the dawn semester and the night semester. They were currently halfway through the dawn semester, and always there would be a mid-semester break, and between-semester break, of three rotes from school. Since school was on for all ten rotations of the fortrote, the mid-semester break was eagerly anticipated by all the children. They would kick off the festivities with the razza.
During the first third of the dawn semester, P.E. had been mostly focused on building cooperation and teamwork with competitive games: football, cricket, basketball. Githarie hated that. She didn’t get what was so special about running back and forth from net to net, with scarcely the chance to even touch the ball. She was especially scared of the cricket ball; she could not help but flinch when she tried to catch it. For this reason, she found herself often in extra deep cover, practically on the boundary. But she didn’t mind basketball. Her short stature meant she was easily the best dribbler on her assigned team of five, so they made her the point guard, a role which she relished. On the expanse of a field her mind would drift, but in the closed intensity of a court, with her as the playmaker, she felt totally absorbed. Of course, her team still placed third to last, but she didn’t care.
Lawrah got straight to durban mode, “Psst - didsha thrak it?” She didn’t have to keep her voice too low as the crowd of almost thirty orcan children had broken into a hubbub of chatter.
P.E. Master Gruk announced to the assembly of young orcans that “We’re going on a field trip, this rote-” and before he could finish, he was met with raucous whoops and hollers. Before long they were all chanting “FIELD TRIP! FIELD TRIP!”
“Yeah,” she fingered the rolled-up leaf packet all crumbly soft, which she had shoved into the band of her trousers.
Led by Master Gruk, the class had marched out from the school’s ancient runway entrance, out to the side of the village facing away from the shore, where sat a rock outcropping worn and weathered into a small butte. The wind whipped Githarie’s hair up. Lawrah said something, but between that, and the chants of “FIELD TRIP!”, she couldn’t hear her.
Now crossing exaclty halfway through the second third of the day semester, P.E was focused on individual skills, much simpler tasks of survival and navigation. First, they all went swimming, rote after rote, and Githarie easily came first in the freestyle race. Then they did track and field, and Githarie couldn’t understand what bizarre task the shotput was supposed to prepare them for, and she wheezed on the sprints, for having transmogrified gills limited her oxygen intake while above water and kept coming dead last no matter what length they had to run. But no one teased her for it, because she whupped all their snaga asses in the ocean. The memory of her victory triggered an irrepressible smirk. She still remembered track and field fondly. When she wasn’t in an event, she spent her energy cheering Lawrah on. Lawrah excelled in almost every class, so she took first in several of the races, and it was glorious. They had just done the final races, and now, in the final rotation before the break would be…
“Rock climbing.”
Wait. What did he say?!
Luruk spread his arms open once they reached the base of the sedimentary butte, windshorn from the ground. Most Rotherans just referred to it as ‘the rock’, a few in the group had stolen behind it to make out, but otherwise no one ever thought much of such an insignificant geologic feature. But this time was different, for Master Luruk had laid out big inflatable mats all around the rock. Only now did Githarie finally notice oddly even protrusions across the surface of the old rock, which when she looked closely were steel bolts with rings on the end, for strung through the topmost bolt’s eyes were thick cords of hemp rope dangling down the sides - climbing routes. As she traced her eyes up the path of the rope, pushed to the side by juts and swaying freely as the wind pushed it into large indentations, she couldn’t help but grab Lawrah’s arm in terror, with only a little squeak, but it was drowned in the cheers around her. Finally, something more exciting than running!
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Lawrah turned to Gith in concern, for she knew the one thing her best friend hated most was heights.
“This is really nuk-nuk, Law, I cannae do this. Please. I cannae do this. I’m gonna lok off-”
“Lok Ting, Gith! Luruk will see sha making your way back to town. Sha really can’t afford getting another bonk from Striglin. Atul bub,” – it’s all good – “there are ropes, they’ll thazag sha-” – the ropes will protect you-
“There is wu way.” – There is no way. – “Wu Lok Ting, Law!” – I have no chill, Law! “I’m freaking out here, I cannae! I just cannae!”
“Okay, shut up, atul!” roared Master Luruk. The class fell silent. Githarie morosely so. She couldn’t bear to look him in the eyes.
With that, Master Luruk went about demonstrating how to tie together a rappelling harness around their waist. He produced silvery carabiners, explained that climbing partners would clip in on both ends, and the climber would be supported by the counterweight of her belayer. He stressed the importance of the climber making damn sure the harness was on right and the carabiner properly clipped on before shouting the signal that she was ready to start: “On belay?” At which point her belayer would then shout, “Belay on!”
It took a while before he could manage to tie a proper harness around every member of the class – getting the leg loops right was awkward — and by then their excitement had petered out. Some were sitting cross legged on the ground, grouching, including Githarie.
“Some field trip this turned out to be, we’re barely past the gates,” Githarie complained.
Lawrah kneeled to nudge Githarie. “C’mon, a breath of fresh air - better than being krimped inside, isn’t it-”
Githarie cut her off, “No, hai. It’s not.”
Now, the seated ones had scooted to face the Master, as he explained how to rappel, how to manipulate friction with the Munter hitch by pulling the rope closer into your body to brake and pulling it away to loosen. He explained how the climber should yell “Slack!” if they wanted to climb without interference from the rope, and “Up!” if they were about to fall and needed tension.
He deftly began pulling the students into pairs of roughly equal weight, assigning each pair to one of the routes he top-roped himself earlier on lead, and proceeded to pay them absolutely no supervision. But upon pairing Githarie and Lawrah – knowing how inseparable those two were – he put his hands on his hips and looked down at a meek Githarie, wrapping her arms as tightly around Lawrah’s waist as she could. She tried her best to give Master Luruk big moony eyes, but he was adamant:
“Eh - sha two. Well, Lawrah, sha lot heavier than Githarie here, no offense–” his eyes could not help but travel when he said this so Lawrah rolled her eyes and replied sarcastically, “None taken.” Luruk was oblivious to her irony, so he continued, talking over her, “-so I’ll be helping Githarie belay. Here.”
There was no going back now. Githarie’s fate was bound to Lawrah’s, as was her body, and there was no way her tall ass was going to be able to sneak out of here, nor would Lawrah ever want to, that consummate attender of class!
He clipped a carabiner from his harness to Githarie’s and patted her on the shoulder with a smile. “See? Wu worries.” He glanced at their route. “Besides, this is the easy ash. Just make sure not to summit.”
Githarie heard a faint scream, as, on the other side of the rock, one of the climbers fell quite a bit due to an inattentive belaying partner, jerking hard when the slack was finally taken, and painfully so, as the harness squeezed into his crotch. Master Luruk paid no heed.
Still, she could only feel relief and gratitude to Luruk that she didn’t have to climb first. But then again, maybe she would feel less anxious if she just got it over with…
She was interrupted from her dread with a no-nonsense, “Belay on?”
Lawrah was already gazing up towards her goal - the summit.
Githarie snapped out of it. Lawrah was counting on her!
“On belay!”
Sometimes even he could not read his own shorthand writing.
To prepare as History Master, he traveled far and wide to visit the other village libraries and verify what he thought he knew, but sadly, things became more and more inconsistent the further he tried to reach anything past -552 BE, the Peace of Westphalia, the formation of the nation state system itself. Even more hopeless when he tried to delve through the arcana and unlock the secrets of the arcane stores. Gullding was convinced a wizard had hacked it and deleted or edited almost everything, or it was corrupted by some other force to begin with.
The Lions dealt with rogue traders themselves to get smuggled Protorcan coca leaf; alchemized it themselves with ghasholine to produce the fine powder and then sold it all across the island.
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It was Lawrah who gave her the silvers she used to pay for it, after all.
Very demure. Very mindful.
The teacher to pupil ratio was ignored when it came to P.E. You simply needed the numbers to organize the games, and the rules were never that complicated after all. It was no secret that all the other Masters looked down on the Physical Education Master, Luruk Prozo. Anyone could have done this job!
In the quadri-seasonal system of the Upper Lost Lands, where most of the Godlike Beings resided, before the death fog, belt of storms, and desertification made them uninhabitable, these periods were known as 'northern hemispheric winter break'- the long day, and ‘northern hemispheric summer break’- the long dusk. Matching more closely to the orcan experience, 'Summer' and 'Winter' was flipped around for the Godlikes who lived below the equator- Oceanics, and those from the Lower Red Path and Lower Black Path. Nonetheless the pattern remained the same- two breaks per revolution, instead of the single half-revolution long break that the orcan children enjoyed. Lucky orcs.
Unlike the Godlikes of the Lost Age, which made sure to give their children what was known as the ‘weekend’, but at least the orcan children did not have to attend schooling for half the entire revolution.
But this was because no one passed to Githarie.
Not so much helpless but only giving half the effort when the cricket ball sailed over her head. When her team would give her evil eyes, she would respond with a mere shrug.
It was not surprising that Team Seven fared so poorly, for they were the final team to have formed after the members of Team Seven were either rejected by the other teams – the lone wolves, the misfits, the outcasts – in Githarie’s case, that she had not even bothered to engage with the team forming phase, so mad was she at pouting about Lawrah not wanting to be on her team for once, because, in Lawrah’s own words, ‘she didn’t want to lose’. Indeed, it was probably out of spite that she actually tried, for once.
Can you smell what’s cooking?
‘Lok Ting’, orcish for ‘chill the fuck out’.
‘Thazag’, orcish for ‘protect’.
[无为]
‘Wu Lok Ting’, orcish for ‘I have absolutely no chill right now’.
Only the finest grade tungsten-titanium alloy could manage the weight potential of an orcan.