Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Opeli took in the unusual group of troublemakers currently seated across from her desk.

Callum Prince, decent grades, but underachiever in comparison to his actual potential. Tended to get distracted, notations only for drawing during class. Anxious and a bully-magnet. Opeli knew him quite well, he had been up here pretty frequently, or at least he used to, getting upset during class presentations or being pushed around by older boys. He was a good kid, certainly he had never been here for anything like this.

Ezran Prince, Callum’s younger brother, his record empty since it was his first day here. His preschool file was exemplary, barring a tendency to wander off while on field trips.

Rayla Ghealach. Her file was… interesting. Conscientious and hard working. Also mouthed off to teachers and tended to descend buildings via drainpipes rather than stairs. Adopted, or rather… since that was not legal, her guardians being both men, under temporary guardianship that was apparently not so temporary. Biological parents on assignment in the middle east. No wonder she acted out. Recently, a lot of citations for reenacting scenes from various action movies on school property, which there was no specific rule against, but Opeli might have to instate one. She usually had the sense to keep the stunts ground level but today was… a day.

First things first though. The younger child. The lesser offense. Certainly the simplest to deal with, because his dad was sensible and she would let him deal with it.

“Ezran.” Opeli turned to the small boy, half-huddled into his brother’s side. “Please return to class. It is your first day of school, it is important for you to meet your new classmates.”

“I’m not being punished? I knew I wasn’t supposed to bring Zym.” The boy looked stubbornly up at her. “It was in the letter you sent. My dad read it to me. I knew and I did it anyway.” Honesty. Conscience. Ever more reason to not punish a 6-year-old for a somewhat minor infraction of the school rules.

“You brought your pet to school. That is a minor offense, which I will ignore, as it is your first. Minor, however, does not describe what your brother and friend got up to, so they will stay here, for a longer chat.” Opeli said, giving both of them a firm gaze.

The two older children both returned remarkably unrepentant stares. She had expected that from Rayla, but Callum? That boy apologized for things he had not done or had anything to do with.

“I would like to hear the story from you two. But first, are either of you hurt? Do you need to go to the nurse’s office before we have a talk? We will still have a talk, mind, provided neither of you are diagnosed as dying.” She looked at them, gauging, as both children shook their heads.

Callum took a deep breath. He tended to be anxious, but he didn’t look it today. “Kasef noticed that Ezran brought Zym to school, when he wasn’t supposed to, and then he took Zym from him, and said he couldn’t tell the teacher because Zym wasn’t supposed to be at school and he would be expelled if he was discovered. And Ez was crying, and then they put Zym in a bucket from the sandpit and hoisted him up the flagpole. And then I tried to get him down and they pushed me and cut the flag line. And then Rayla climbed up the flagpole to get Zym, because the line had snagged, so it was just whipping around the pole in the wind? So she had to go up there, Zym would have died! But then some of the other kids started cheering for her, and Kasef didn’t like that at all, so him and his friends started… s-shaking the pole,” There was more of the anxiousness she had expected, and she sympathized, she did. It must have been very scary to see. There was just no excusing these actions. “But I used my physics project to stop them so Rayla could escape. That’s it, basically.” Yes. Putting it very mildly, maybe. The overly excited 8-year-old she had gotten an account from earlier had described it more like ‘made an awesome lightning explosion like, pew-pew! Hadoken!’. It was, however, technically the truth, far as she could tell.

“Yes. Barring the defense of Rayla’s actions, that does conform to other stories I have heard." She turned to the thus far unually quiet girl across from her. "Rayla. Whatever your reasons, I’m sure you can understand that I cannot let what you did go unpunished, or you will look like some sort of hero.”

“She is! What’s wrong with things looking like what they are?” Callum said. That meek kid was almost off the chair now. What had gotten into him today?

Opeli elected to ignore the 11-year-old lightning wizard’s outburst and kept addressing the 12-year-old Jackie Chan reenactor. “Others may try to do what you did, and probably a lot less successfully.” Callum looked slightly- but certainly nothing close to fully mollified, at that. “I was told you jumped from the flagpole to the roof, then rappelled down the drainpipe?”

“Yeah? Easiest way to get down?” Rayla shrugged.

“Of the students in this school, do you think anyone but you could have made that jump?”

“They could if they practiced! Like I do!”

Opeli sighed. “But do you think they will practice? Or do you think there are… elements… in this school who would be tempted to try to do what you did without the years of practice you have put in, if it was in any way seen as… cool.” Soren would absolutely do that, and probably break his back. She had some serious concerns that it would take more than punishment to make that maneuver look not-cool, but she could at least try. Fighting the inevitable was in the job description. So she turned to Callum, next. “And you-”

“Callum didn’t do anything!” Rayla protested, indignant.

“He electrocuted three children, Rayla.”

“He got an A in physics!” Rayla argued, seeming to think this was a reasonable escuse. “I’m sure it wasn’t even deadly or anything! Callum knows all about the voltages and stuff, you can ask Mr. Ibis!” Yes, the amperage had been at a safe level, she had already consulted Ibis. She was expecting that argument from Callum himself, but the boy was just glaring, clearly seething, but not defending himself with anything like the passion he had Rayla.

“That does not excuse it-”

“They could have killed her!” Callum burst out. Oh there went the anger. He did have a temper, she knew, and he was almost shouting now, his fists balled, his eyes shining. “You heard what happened, what they did! You think I should have stood by?! You’re saying that instead of talking to some mildly-electrocuted bullies’ parents, you’d rather explain to Runaan why his kid is-” Callum cut off, wiping his eyes angrily.

No. She would not have preferred that.

But sometimes, her job entailed punishing crying children who were right to have done what they did.

They were left on a bench to wait for Ethari, the only parent free to pick them up in the middle of the day.

Callum glanced nervously sideways at Rayla next to him. Runaan was way more strict than Harrow. She was definitely in trouble. And she was hurt too, she had lied to Opeli about that, he could tell when she got down from the building and even now she was holding her left wrist, curled around herself like she did when she was hiding something.

It was all messed up-

“I’m sorry about your science fair project.” Rayla said sadly, looking down into her lap. “You’d have won, too.”

“I don’t know-” Callum started, but Rayla cut him off.

“You would. And now you won’t. And you’re in trouble.” Rayla looked upset, as if that was the most pertinent issue on his mind right now. He was really very well past caring about his physics project or being suspended from school.

He shrugged, a bit sheepish. “Ah, it was worth it.” Obviously.

“What?!” Her head snapped up to look at him. She sounded… actually taken aback.

She… didn’t know she was obviously more important? To him and in general? That made the anger come back for some reason. An hour ago she had dangled from that pole only saved by the cord she had wrapped around her wrist and it had tightened and she had cried out in pain and… and- and the feelings of nauseous dread he had felt were still too close and intense and making indignation into actual anger. “What do you mean, ‘what’?” Callum snapped. “You don’t think you getting smashed is more important to me than some glowy ball I built getting smashed?”

“But you were really proud of it.” She said, looking at him, still upset. “It made you feel good about yourself, I could tell.” He wanted to tell her that she did too, but the words got kinda… stuck in his throat. And she looked angry now, too. “And it’s not fair! I started it! It was my dumb idea to climb that flagpole.” But she had done it for Ez. His brother. And his brother’s bearded dragon baby. Her anger… and upset… made his own go away, somehow.

“Rayla?” He said, hesitant. She still looked angry. He knew she wasn’t angry at him, but- “I have something for you. It’s probably a bit melted, because I couldn’t give it to you with Ez here, he would have eaten it, and anyway, it’s probably not hygienic at all, now that I think about it. Sorry. It’s a dumb idea. I’ll go to the nurse’s office and get you an actual- Uh. It’s closed now.”

And she was still cradling her left hand in her lap, although she wasn’t complaining, because Rayla didn’t do that. She hadn’t even cried when she had cut her forehead open on the monkey bars in 2^nd grade, and most of the other kids, definitely including himself, had been crying, because there had been a lot of blood and they were all sure she was dying.

That was when they became friends though, even though she had called him a dummy when he had gone over to her to hold her hand, because it hadn’t seemed right for her to die alone, and he had told her so, and in hindsight, that was probably just slightly over-dramatic.

He reached out to take her hand again now, and pushed up her sleeve a bit. The skin around her wrist was chafed and raw where the cord had wrapped around it. Swelling too, he thought. She really should have gone to the nurse’s office. Ethari had been a nurse before he got his jewelry business running, he knew, so at least he could have a look when he got here.

He didn’t ask if it hurt, because it definitely did, and she would definitely say no.

Anyway, that was what the popsicle was for, it was one of those that was in a plastic cover instead of on a stick. It was melted a bit, and kinda… floppy… which was not nice if you were gonna eat it, but turned out to be pretty good for wrapping around Rayla’s wrist, which he did.

When he made to withdraw his hand, she stopped him, gripping it. He was… holding hands with a girl. That was… weird. Well, it was not really a girl but Rayla, and he really wasn’t sure that made it more or less weird.

He didn’t draw his hand back, though, but squeezed hers, because if he had been scared when she had been dangling from that pole, she probably had been too. Her hands were really small, he noted, smaller than his, even though she was older and taller.

They sat without speaking for a while. Without moving, too. Her hand was warm under his. The cold condensation from the popsicle made it wet, so it was probably not noticeable that his palms were all sweaty.

“Where did you even get that?” Rayla broke his reverie. “I mean… thank you. It’s nice.” That meant it did hurt, if the ice helped.

“Opeli has a small fridge with an icebox.” He explained. “She has those for the kids that get sent to her upset because they were bullied or something.”

“You stole from the principal’s office? You?” Rayla eyes were wide and staring. They were a really pretty grey-blue, he thought. Like stormy skies. His cheeks felt warm. Rayla’s gaze flicked down. She looked embarrassed too, but blushed in a much prettier way than he ever had. She looked back up, bashfully adding. “For me?”

“Uh. Yes?” He rubbed the back of his neck. “It was no big deal, really, I knew where she kept them.” He had been to the principal’s office quite a few times when he was younger. Today was both the first time he had been there for misbehaving, and the first time he had been proud and not ashamed of the reason he was there. Grown-ups were really weird about things.

“Callum? Why did you know those popsicles were there?” Her eyes narrowed, as she looked at him. “Did someone make you upset enough that she would give you those? Because you just tell me who, and-”

“No!” Soren was in 9^th grade and about twice Rayla’s size, but he knew that wouldn’t deter her at all. And anyway, that wasn’t why. Usually. “I used to… really not like to give presentations to the class. It’s pretty dumb, but it scared-” Honesty was important, his dad had said. And Rayla wouldn’t make fun of him for this. “-scares me. I wish I was as brave as you.”

“What?!” She looked very offended. “You’re really brave! You were always really brave! When we met? All the other kids were scared to come near me, but you did. That was really brave. I mean, it was pretty dumb that you thought I was dying, but it was brave of you to want to be there instead of standing back. And today too. Lots of people just stood there, watching. You didn’t.” The warmth in his cheeks were ran all the way through him, now. “You did okay though? When we did a presentation together last week?”

“Yeah, because you were there-” Oh this was definitely not a pretty blush. His cheeks were burning.

But Rayla either didn’t notice or was kind enough to ignore it.

Callum scrambled through his backpack, he wasn’t sure what for, just that he couldn’t look at Rayla right now. Oh right, a distraction, that was what he was looking for. And he found it. Rayla’s shoes. He had never gotten around to giving them back to her, after she had unceremoniously shoved them at him so she could climb the flagpole.

He held them up now, presented like they were a gift, which was dumb, because they were already hers.

Yeah. This was the dumbest distraction in the history of ever, because how was holding her feet less embarrassing than holding her hand? He tied her shoelaces anyway, fumbling more than he should considering he had tied Ezran’s every morning for years.

“Thank you.” Rayla said. “For… everything. Saving me.”

“Well, I do owe you, there.” As long as he had known her, she had unfailingly stood up to people who teased him, completely uncaring about the consequences to herself. He had some idea what the last five years of school would have been like without her, because she had gone to Japan last year with Runaan and that had been pretty much the worst month of his life.

“What?! No, you don’t!” She looked almost offended.

“Yeah I do.” No point pretending he could do for her what she did for him. She wasn’t scared of anything, much, and unlike him, could definitely take care of herself.

Rayla looked down at her hands, fiddling with the corner of the plastic popsicle wrapper. “You remember back in 2^nd grade? I was sad about my parents, and you drew my Sailor-Scout-ninja alter ego for me? Sailor Moonshadow? To cheer me up?”

“Yeah?”

She looked up at him, cheeks very red, but defiant. “Well, I still have that. I still look at it when I’m sad. So there.”

”What, really? I could draw you a way better one-” He had used the crappy school crayons, and-

“Dummy! No!” But she was laughing now. “I meant, you… make it better. All the time. For me. You don’t have to do the same things I do for you. We’re not good at the same things, anyway.”

And that was a good thing, he realized.

They could learn things from each other.

They already had.

Rayla reached out her good hand, asking for comfort, because he had taught her that she could and he would give it and never laugh, and Callum took it, because she had taught him to do the things that scared him, because they might be really good things.

Here's the Sailor Rayla Callum drew when he was 7:

And the header for the original birthday bash story: