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Libertus hated this. He’d begged to be able to lead a class of rookies in practical skills, and he’d earned it full well by his demonstrated ability on and off the battlefield. He knew he was a decent leader; even the Captain said so. He could come up with good plans and adapt them pretty well on the fly, he looked after his unit, and he could rally people and keep them focused on a goal, even if he had to drink tea for the next few days from all the yelling.
And he was good at one-on-one mentoring, too! Just look at Crowe. She was turning into a semi-upright member of society. Better than average for a teenager, even. And she only said she hated him about once a week. He’d said it every other day to his dama when he was her age, and then once he’d moved into the bar it had been like they had never fought at all, even planning lunch meetings every other day to catch up on gossip and advice. So he wasn’t too worried about that. Besides, she usually apologized – not in words, that was too vulnerable for her, but she would find a way, like finding a new seed to try for their window garden, or scrubbing down the kitchen without being asked – within the second or third day, so he was pretty sure she wasn’t going to shank him in his sleep, even if Nyx kept saying she would. Then again, Nyx was the one who ended up hearing most of her rants about him, just like Libertus heard her rants about him. Delegating, Nyx called it with a grin.
So he wasn’t a stranger to leadership. But that was practical things. And it was everything that wasn’t practical (seemed downright impractical, actually) that was tripping him up. His experience of leadership didn’t come with having to choose at least three kids each day whose work was “deficient”, or haggling for budget leeway to repair the uniforms that were inevitably going to break even if they hadn’t done so just yet outside of the regular unit channels, or having to submit a lesson plan for the Captain to approve every day. He’d at least managed to scrounge some plans from the officers who had done this sort of thing before so he at least knew what the plans should look like, but it seemed like the better he planned, the worse the day went, and the worse scowl his plans got from the Captain, the better he was able to find something that worked to help them. He just wanted to know what the Captain wanted from him, or what he was doing wrong before his class ended up paying for it.
And a lot of the proposals seemed dumb. His recruits in this class were all refugees from Tenebrae. They spoke decent Lucian, and Libertus had recruited Crowe and her friends to help them with practicing it with the promise of learning how to curse in Ténèbrés in return. Axis’s attempt to recruit them to his master plan of teaching everyone (in their unit, in the Glaive, in the Citadel and Patchwork Quarter where they lived, better known as the Patch; some days Libertus swore Axis’s ambition was to make every single person in the country fluent) Oracular sign language for line-of-sight communication backup and secret way to insult people and inclusive tool or whatever reasoning he was giving today was actually helpful as well, as at least one of them knew it already and the rest were honored that a Tenebraenne system was valued. But the point was, he couldn’t parade a line of strange blond glaives through the Citadel parks or any of the surround neighborhoods without the police and probably the Crownsguard getting involved before they got back to the Perry, no matter how many time Capt. Drautos or Lt. Lilia suggested it.
Nor could he take them climbing, like Nyx suggested. The center training area was being dug out because of plumbing issues in the old building, and climbing the outside of the Perry was just as likely to get Crownguard attention. Plus, they were Tenebraenne. Libertus was pretty sure they could handle the heights just fine. Probably felt weirder on the ground, actually, amid the cement towers of the Citadel Hill complex at the heart of Insomnia. And he would rather stay near to the earth if he had to demonstrate warping, thank you very much. Nyx could take over that training later on, the weirdo.
Sparring was fine. They were pretty good at it, if a bit formal for his taste. Rather like most of the recruits they got from the city, in fact, where drilling martial arts all morning on Bahamut’s Day every week was the norm, even for those who didn’t much revere the city’s scaly patron: they were used to the shape of the movement, but also to pulling their blows somewhat, to being showy and not quick. He was working on it, but habits were hard to break. And if it was anything more than light sparring and basic drills, if he changed it up or added new elements, they either froze up or went back to their old habits. They weren’t used to being able to fight and watch out for each other – they weren’t used to working in groups at all. Libertus wondered sometimes how they even managed to get to Lucis alive, never mind survive basic.
Crowe was much better at ranting than she was at listening to rants, but she mostly paid attention as Libertus vented his frustrations to her while cooking dinner. He generally tried not to bring home problems to her – she had enough hunts on her list without adding his on top of them – but he didn’t want to lie to her either when she started pressing harder about what had him so frustrated.
“It’s kinda nice to see you mad about someone else for once, honestly,” she quipped, blowing her hair out of her face as she sprawled on the floor just outside the kitchen, working on homework.
“I’m not mad at you!” he protested.
“Yeah, not right now, I know.”
“No, I –!” he huffed out a breath, realizing he was about to yell, or what she called a yell, anyway, and he called an insistent voice. “I get mad at things you do, sometimes. Especially when I think you’re going to hurt yourself or someone you don’t mean to. Collateral damage—”
“—is a sign of poor planning, stupidity, or desperation. And all three are bad days, yeah, I know.” She sounded more fond than mad, though, so Libertus let it go. “The point is, it’s fun to help you with things that are actually problems.”
“And my point is, just because I’m mad at things that happen, or even things you do, doesn’t mean I don’t like you.”
She ignored him and kept talking. “So how do you think you learned how to do those things?”
“What things?” That earned him an eye roll.
“The things you think they don’t do well enough. The…adaptability and ability to do a bunch of things at once and work together? How did you learn them? Or...or Pelna? Or Nyx?”
“Aside from blood and blade, you mean?” he grumbled. “I don’t want to take them on to the battlefield to learn, that would just get them killed first. That’s the whole point of training.”
“So why didn’t you die, then?” she said, skeptically. “You’re telling me that there’s nothing you had that they don’t?”
“No, but I don’t know how to teach that! They didn’t train with their cohorts, they didn’t get to go exploring in the jungle and run from wild beasts and play dumb games together like we did!” He threw up his hands and then immediately returned them to the veggies he was frying. Burnt food would just be insult to injury at this point.
“So play dumb games with them now? Or teach them some of your cohort games?”
“We can’t.” He glared at the pan so he didn’t glare at her. “Cohort games are sacred. You can’t teach them to other people unless you have permission from three other people. And we don’t exactly have—”
“And Selena was part of your cohort? Or your cousin Des?” He had to stop her from hanging around the other glaives; she hadn’t interrupted people like this when they first found her. It was easier to think about that then about the stab of pain the names brought up. He was ignoring it so successfully, in fact, that he didn’t grab the handle correctly as he shifted his grip on the pan to add more sauce and burned himself.
The pain was short but the excuse to curse was welcome. Between managing the pain, keeping his language teen-approved, and keeping the veggies moving enough they didn’t burn like his hand, he had a few moments to gather himself before he had to respond.
“You know they weren’t.” And if he hadn’t been entirely successfully in covering up the pain in his voice, he could blame his hand and his distraction.
“So you never played out in the jungle with them?”
“No, we played with them in the jungle. Just not cohort games. But those were baby games!”
“Somehow I don’t think either of them stood for baby games.” That may be so, but how would she know? Libertus tried to forget that question and the reason for its answer as soon as it crossed his mind, turning to toss the meat back in maybe a little early. The veggies being little crunchy was still better than raw. They’d survive. And maybe it would give Crowe something different to tease him about.
Once he had that under control, he approached the subject from another angle. "It's not like we have a jungle here, anyway. That's where most of the..." he waved his spatula vaguely, "chaos came from."
“The urban jungle not enough for you, then?” He could hear the sharp smile in her voice.
“Bah!” he said, resisting the urge to spit. “I don’t care what they say, this is nothing like the jungle. Frost-blind Insomnians and their metaphors with places they’ve never even seen…”
“You could use the park?” It was too innocent to be sincere, but he couldn’t resist the bait. It was just such a dumb comparison and he’d heard it too many times.
“Not you, too!” The exasperation was only half-exaggerated. “The parks are the opposite of a jungle. The only thing they have in common are greenery and territorial creatures. And I’m not subjecting them to those busybodies; they get enough of that just getting between here and the patch.”
“But it at least has more…obstacles than a training room, right? Or could you go out by the wall?”
“Can’t go out to the wall until they finish this round of training and the Captain passes them off,” Libertus grumped. Dinner was looking just about finished, at least, which was good because they’d made no progress on his planning, and next week’s proposal was due tomorrow before noon.
“So how do you bring the jungle to them? Flood a training hall? Have Nyx’s unit pretend to be trees?” Ha. Nyx had plenty of practice with that. He’d been a pretty reliable tree for Selena to climb, or any kid that asked, back in Galahd and he’d loved freezing in the weirdest shapes when they’d jump out and shout “Shiva’s breath!” and blow on him and Nyx, who’d count down from thirty-six very loudly until the older boys could “unfreeze” and give chase. He told Crowe all about it as he plated up dinner, and they plopped onto the sofa together. She was hungrier for the stories than the food - and she was always a good eater - not having had much chance to play with the other kids her age growing up, so he found himself telling her more and more memories, even as he knew his paperwork was calling and he would pay for it later.
“And every fall as the Stormfather’s constellation rose, they elders’d either declare the newest cohort of kids complete and they’d have their binding ceremonies to tie the cohort together, or they would say there hadn’t been enough who’d turned five yet and they would wait another year, right? Either way, the two youngest cohorts would then have all winter to prepare for the evacuation drills in the spring. It was always the best when there was a new cohort that year, though, because they wanted to make it special cause it was their first real chance to prove themselves. So they’d change the threat up – it was fire the year Nyx and my cohort had our first, and I think Selena’s group did a flood, and then the next group did like a coeurl attack. Yeah, it was a coeurl attack, but everyone thought they were daemons because they did such a bad job at their costumes and their acting, and so everyone in the village pretended they must be crazy to see daemons during the day and ignored them. The kids were so mad.” Even now, the memory made him laugh so hard he almost cried.
“The elders made them redo it which made some of our parents' generation grumpy because they said we hadn’t failed the drill, we’d responded to the threat adequately and so we shouldn’t have to do another one until next spring and it was a whole thing. And then the kids interrupted the meeting actually pretending to be daemons and it was great. Everybody said they recovered well, and they got a little bit of their pride back. The next year they managed the coeurls, though. Nyx let himself get “mauled” just for the fun of it, the idiot, and when he tried to complain about the punishment work for failing the drill we just reminded him it was his own dumb fault. He couldn’t even stop smiling enough to pretend to be upset. It was pretty great.”
He chuckled to himself and surrendered his plate, as Crowe finally started to gather up the dishes. “You should have him re-enact it for you. It’s pretty great, and he cracks himself up. And we get to laugh at him flailing around on his back like a bug as he pretends small children are tearing him limb from limb and eating his guts.”
“Ha! Maybe I will. That sounds pretty ridiculous.” He hadn’t left too much clean-up, so she shouldn’t have too much to do, so he didn’t have to feel too guilty about keeping her from her homework for a little too long. “Why don’t you do something like that this week?”
“Planning a drill? That’s not really what we’re supposed to be working on here.”
“Then one of the other games, idiot. The freezing game or whatever.” She piled the pans in the sink with a little more force than usual, but he wasn’t sure what she was mad at.
“You just want to see me jumping around and huffing and puffing on people like I’m the frosted Glacian, huh?” he said, trying to lighten the mood again. They’d been having a good time.
It seemed to work, as she let out a chuckle. “The frosted Glacian, really, Libertus? Isn’t that kind of, I don’t know, redundant?” she teased, before pausing. “I mean…have Nyx or me or someone jump out as they’re training and have them freeze or something. Just to make sure they can hide or obey orders or balance or whatever.” She sounded almost nervous, and she turned the water on full as soon as she said it, giving Libertus time to think and not just say the first thing that came to mind. After the sink was full enough, she turned off the faucet but immediately started banging around the pans and scrubbing noisily enough he still couldn’t speak.
It wasn’t a bad idea, actually. They could use something like Shiva's game to practice sneaking around and to keep them listening. Maybe even bring in someone else so they had to make sure to listen to only his orders and ignore those meant for other people. Or they could do the follow-the-leader game and run all over the Perry, maybe with two groups to cause some interference, though maybe that part should wait until they get the hang of the original game first. He could grab one of the other glaives from their year and use them as an alternate leader if they worked up to it, though. Or maybe Nyx if he timed it right. Maybe they could use blindfolds, to simulate night missions? He snagged his paperwork off the end table and got to work, scribbling away.
“How many people in a line before you can’t see the leader, do you think?” he asked Crowe absentmindedly, only realizing the noise had decreased enough to be able to do so after he’d asked it. She paused in balancing the dishes in the drying rack to glance over her shoulder, her expression hard to read.
“You mean like, in a room or in a hallway?” she asked, voice somewhat quiet.
“Uhh…a room was my plan, but a hallway sounds interesting…” he mused, scrambling for Shivasday’s paperwork. “Half and half, probably, just so the Captain doesn’t say I lost the rookies…” He lost himself in the work again, but noticed things seemed quieter.
Half an hour later, he looked up from his work to see Crowe scribbling away in her notebook, listening to something on her headphones. It wasn’t her usual fare – he couldn’t hear it from here, even through the headphones, which is how he could tell – and she didn’t seem as involved in it as she sometimes got. “Crowe!” he called, tossing a pen in her direction.
“What?” she hissed, pulling off one ear of the headphones.
“You wanna drop by on Fritsday during your study period and shout fake orders at my baby glaives?”
She pulled the headphones the rest of the way off and beamed at him. “Is Ravatogh hot? Hell yeah.” She slammed the notebook closed and turned off the music before bee-lining toward the couch. “But you’re gonna owe me,” she said, mock sternly.
“Oh yeah, what do I owe you for giving you an excuse to leave school early?” He drawled back, glad she was in a better mood.
“I get to choose which TV show we watch this whole week,” she crowed, grabbing the remote. Libertus pretended to groan, but didn’t really mind. Their tastes were pretty much the same, Crowe was excited, and he had his lesson plans all prepped. All in all, an excellent evening. Even if he had to watch nothing but Lil Malbuddy all week.