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There was a particular kind of silence that only ever existed in classrooms like hers. Not a stiff quiet that came with exams, nor the bored, insect-buzz silence of students waiting for the clock to run out the minute hand, but something altogether warmer, threaded with anticipation and affection and just the faintest shimmer of awe, and Vi felt it settle over the room as naturally and familiarly as her old jacket slung around her shoulders.
She had been pacing again, of course. She always did when she taught. She could never just stand in front of them like those statuesque, perfectly composed professors down the hall, couldn’t hide behind a podium or a tidy stack of index cards. Vi moved as she spoke, long legs carrying her in lazy loops between the front row and the windows, hands cutting through the air as if the myths she spoke of needed to be wrestled into visibility, her shoulders rolling with every half-laugh, every exasperated huff, every sarcastic little aside she allowed herself when a student made an especially tragic attempt at intellectual insight.
Her pink hair was pulled half back today, a sloppy knot that had loosened over the hour, soft strands clinging to her temples, catching the light that filtered in through the tall, dusty windows, turning almost golden. She could feel the gaze of everyone, the way their eyes followed the movement of her arms beneath the rolled sleeves of her shirt, the way some of them pretended to take notes while very obviously doing anything but writing, the way others watched her mouth as if every word that fell from it was something sacred.
She didn’t blame them.
Hell, if she were nineteen again and she’d stepped into a lecture hall only to find herself standing at the front, she probably wouldn’t have been paying attention to Greek etymology either.
And still, she gave them her best. Always.
Because mythology wasn’t just dusty old stories to her; it was blood and bone and flawed, beautiful humanity blown up to a divine scale. It was Achilles and his self-destruction, was Persephone and her quiet defiance, was monsters born not from evil but loneliness and misunderstanding. Vi talked about them the way she might talk about old friends, with that familiar roughness to her voice, sometimes leaning back on the edge of her desk, sometimes crouching on the steps between rows, sometimes pointing a marker at a name on the board as if daring the legends to argue back.
“People love to pretend myths are just stories,” she was saying, rolling the cap back onto the pen with her teeth and an absent little smirk, “but tell me you don’t recognize yourself in them. Tell me you’ve never been stupid for love, self-destructive for pride, or brave for someone who didn’t deserve it. That’s all gods ever were. Just people with louder consequences.”
A contagious half smile drifted through the room. She had them. She always had them.
Her eyes flicked, habitually, toward her left hand as she gestured, the light striking the simple, well-worn wedding band she wore as if it were a second skin. She made no effort to hide it. In fact, she angled her hand slightly sometimes, a subconscious little act of possession and pride. She liked that they saw it. She liked that it was noticed. She liked that it was a silent boundary and a not-so-silent boast all at once.
Still, she caught the flushed cheeks in the second row, the slightly-too-long stares, the overenthusiastic laughter at jokes that weren’t that funny. She caught the phone camera that dipped down just a little too slowly, the quick, embarrassed apologies, the way some of them tested the waters with flirtation wrapped carefully in academic praise.
“Professor Hund, is there a modern equivalent of divine intervention in literature?”
“Yeah,” she’d replied without missing a beat, curling a finger around her ring. “It’s called a long-suffering spouse.”
And she’d laughed too, deep in her chest, head tipping back, eyes squeezing shut for just a second. A sound that was unguarded, rough-edged, genuine. Vi always laughed with her whole body. Her shoulders shook, her hands came up as if to shield herself from the force of it, like laughter was a blow she welcomed.
She knew what they called her. Everyone knew. It had somehow made its way to her through a colleague who definitely pretended to disapprove while clearly being entertained.
“Dilf of the year. Three years running.”
Honestly, she’d been more impressed than offended.
She found it flattering in a strange way, a confirmation that time hadn’t dulled her too much, that age had only sharpened certain lines and softened others. The confidence, the ease in her skin, the way experience sat on her shoulders like a cape she never bothered to acknowledge out loud but carried effortlessly anyway.
Still, it was important. Critical, even, that she never let it cross a line.
They could look. They could admire. They could crush from a safe and very, very respectful distance.
She was married. She was happy. And she valued her life enough to acknowledge the fact that her wife had more first places in shooting competitions than the number of students in this room.
By the time she turned back toward the projector, the slide glowed like a pale ghost against the board, words swimming slightly in front of her eyes as she realized with a twinge of regret that the clock was edging dangerously close to when she would usually wrap things up. Thirty minutes still remained, precious minutes she normally filled with discussion, with tangents, with personal anecdotes she somehow twisted into academic relevance.
Yet today, there was a gentle impatience under her skin she couldn’t ignore.
She moved toward the computer slowly, fingers hovering over the mouse for a brief, suspended moment, and she felt the shift in the room. She didn’t even have to turn around to know that her students were confused. They knew her trusted routine and this wasn’t it.
She paused, let the silence stretch thin and tight, and then turned back to face them with a crooked, soft chuckle spilling from her lips.
“Easy,” she murmured, hands slipping into the pockets of her trousers as she leaned back against the edge of her desk, shoulders relaxed, chin tilted. “You all look like I just killed a god or something.”
She scanned their faces, every familiar expression, every mind she’d guided through legends and metaphors, every spirit that had, for a few hours a week, tangled itself so seamlessly into her own world.
“Listen… small change of plans,” she continued, her voice slipping into that more casual, personal register she saved for moments like these, when the boundary between professor and person softened just enough.
“I’m taking a two-week leave,” she said, pushing off the desk with an easy roll of her shoulders, one hand already reaching for her worn leather bag. “Heading out to visit my in-laws in Ionia for a bit. Bit of country air, a bit of family chaos. You know how it is.”
A collective hum of understanding spread through the room. Nods, soft murmurs, a few dramatic sighs that sounded far more heartbroken than the announcement warranted. They recovered quickly, though; they were used to her. Used to the fact that Professor Hund had a life outside of them, a life she never quite managed to keep separate from the classroom.
One hand hovered in the air, fingers slightly bent in a polite, hesitant curl. Vi immediately recognized the student; always in the front third of the room, spine straight, pen poised, eyes sharp and constantly hungry for more knowledge.
“Do we have any homework for the two weeks you’ll be absent, Professor?”
Vi opened her mouth to answer, already constructing something appropriately academic in her mind, something about reflective reading and comparative essays and how she would definitely, absolutely read all of them even though they all suspected she wouldn’t…
The sound of her phone cut gently through the space.
She blinked, distracted, then gave a sheepish little grin that tugged at the corner of her mouth. “One sec, sorry,” she muttered, already fishing the device out of her pocket. Her thumb swept across the screen.
Lav: I’m right outside your classroom :)
For a second, all thought of mythology, grades, and even the question she was answering left her head.
“Oh,” she breathed out loud, the sound barely more than a lovesick exhale, but loud enough to be heard in the sudden hush of the room.
Her face seemed to light up from the inside out, like someone had flipped a switch beneath her skin. The corners of her eyes crinkled, grin spreading wide and unapologetic, and without even answering the poor, diligent student’s question about homework, she turned on her heel and took long, hurried strides toward the door.
Her boots thudded against the floor with familiar purpose, then she swung the door open.
There stood a teenager with her head bent over her own phone, shoulders relaxed, weight resting on one hip, hair falling forward in loose strands that caught at her face. She looked strikingly composed and yet somehow awkward in a way that reminded Vi painfully of her wife at that age, the quiet awareness of growing into a new, unfamiliar version of oneself.
Vi didn’t even bother to speak at first. She simply lifted an arm in a loose, crooked beckoning motion.
“C’mon in, kid.”
Lavender looked up and for a split second, a flicker of surprise passed across her expression before her eyes softened. She slipped the phone into her pocket and stepped inside, the door closing behind her with a muted click that sounded far too loud in the space of the classroom.
Every single pair of eyes locked onto her at once. Vi, completely unbothered by the sudden attention, moved to meet her halfway, large hand settling naturally over Lavender’s shoulder, her touch warm, familiar, grounding. She guided her into the middle of the room, as if this was the most natural thing in the world, as if her classroom was simply an extension of her home.
Her chest swelled with something proud and fierce, a smile stretching across her face so broadly it almost ached.
“This,” she announced, voice ringing with unmistakable affection, “is my daughter, Lavender.”
Lavender’s lips pressed into a shy smile, cheeks tinted faintly pink as she lifted her hand and gave a small, timid wave. She kept her gaze somewhere between the floor and the first row of desks, clearly embarrassed and overwhelmed, but she didn’t step away from the arm around her shoulders. If anything, she leaned into it just a tiny bit, soaking up the warmth and protection even as she pretended to want to disappear.
Vi squeezed her gently, glancing down at her with pure adoration.
“She’s the reason I’m darting out early today,” she continued, glancing back at the class. “I’m driving her for the last time before her driving license exam. One last ride with dear old mom in the passenger seat, and then she’s free from my road rage commentary forever.”
A few students laughed, delighted by the image.
“She just turned eighteen two months ago,” Vi added quickly, as if the thought had only just occurred to her, thumb brushing absently in a soft, affectionate arc over Lavender’s shoulder. “Which is wild, by the way. I still remember when I could fit her on one arm and now she’s trying to steal my height. She asked for a motorcycle for her birthday—”
Lavender groaned quietly, her head dipping.
“—which her other mom shot down immediately,” Vi said with a dramatic roll of her eyes and an amused snort, “but instead, she got offered a car and a four-day trip to the horse ranch near her hometown with her side of the family. So, yeah, we’re heading out towards Ionia for that exact reason too. Family, horses, fresh air, all that good stuff.”
Lavender huffed a small laugh at that, finally loosening just a little as the students exchanged amused, charmed glances. A few of them smiled at her in a soft, encouraging way.
“Oh! And,” Vi added, suddenly animated again, unable to stop herself, “she’ll be studying here next year too, actually. Though I doubt any of you will be seeing her around much. She’s going into engineering.”
That seemed to earn more surprised reactions like murmurs, raised eyebrows, impressed hums.
“Funny choice, really,” Vi continued, tilting her head thoughtfully, her grin turning playful. “Considering how hard her other mom tried to break the whole ‘eldest daughter becomes an engineer and takes over the family business’ tradition, and now here Lav is, marching right back into it like it’s her destiny.”
Lavender finally lifted her chin a little higher, lips twitching into a more confident grin as she added gently,
“I’m rather fond of my grandmother to not follow her steps, unlike someone…”
Lavender’s line, sharp and clever and landed with that gentle, inherited confidence, was barely allowed to settle in the air before Vi’s hand came down on her shoulder in a very deliberate, very theatrical slap.
“Alright, alright,” she huffed, the corners of her mouth betraying her as they tried and failed to stay serious. “That’s enough attitude for one afternoon, mini-me.”
Lavender winced dramatically, even though the touch had been light, familiar, affectionate in the way only a parent who had been sparring with their kid since they were small could manage. She ducked her head, laughter spilling out anyway, cheeks flushed with warmth and just a hint of embarrassed pride, and Vi’s hand lingered there for a second longer, her thumb giving one last, gentle squeeze before she stepped away.
“You’re done showing off now,” Vi added, voice softening again as she turned back toward the front of the classroom, all long limbs and easy grace, the same loose, confident stride that had once made people think she was going to snap at any given second, yet now only made her seem more at ease in her own skin, more home.
She returned to her desk and began to clear her things in no particular rush. Loose papers gathered into a messy pile, a book slipped into her bag, the worn notebook she’d been using for the semester tucked carefully beside them as if it mattered more than the rest combined. She moved with an absent-minded efficiency, still riding the high of having just shown her daughter to the people who adored her most in this tiny world, still smiling to herself every time she caught Lavender in the corner of her vision, awkwardly shifting her weight from foot to foot near the board.
There was a small, polite cough from the front row.
Vi froze for half a second, then blinked, realization dawned, and she turned with a soft, crooked grin.
“Oh— Right. Shit, I’m sorry,” she said, pointing at the very student who had raised the question earlier. “You see my kid once and my brain just shuts down apparently. What was it, homework, right?”
The student nodded, lips quirking just slightly, clearly amused rather than offended.
Vi leaned her hip against the desk, folding her arms briefly as she thought, eyes drifting to the window as if Ionia itself might paint an answer across the glass for her.
“Alright,” she said finally, pushing herself upright again, voice taking on that familiar authoritative-but-still-warm edge. “Since I’m going to be surrounded by it for two full weeks anyway, I want each of you to pick a myth from Ionian mythology. Doesn’t matter which. Gods, spirits, local legends, heroes, all of it’s fair game. Choose the one that speaks to you the most… and research about the similar modern stories you might find."
She lifted a finger, emphasizing the point.
“Not a summary. I can get that online. I want your thoughts. How it connects to the modern world, to you, to anything we’ve touched on in class. Three to four pages, nothing crazy. I’ll grade them when I’m back with actual fresh, firsthand Ionian inspiration running through my veins.”
A murmur of approval rolled through the room. Some of them were already scribbling ideas down, others nodding thoughtfully, clearly excited by the personal angle she’d threaded into what otherwise would have been a standard assignment.
“Email them to me by the end of the second week,” she added, slinging her bag over her shoulder again. “And yes, I will absolutely read them all. You’re not getting out of it just because I’m on leave.”
She scanned the room one last time, imprinting the sight of them into her memory. faces she’d come to recognize without thinking, the ones who always argued back, the ones who listened in complete silence, the ones who pretended not to care but never missed a class.
“Be good,” she finished, a teasing warning in her tone. “Try not to summon anything you can’t put back while I’m gone. And have a good two weeks. I expect to come back to a room full of intellectual miracles.”
A chorus of “You too, Professor,” and “We’ll miss you!” and “Good luck!” followed her as she stepped over to Lavender again, looping her arm around her shoulders with instinctive ease. Lavender relaxed immediately, sinking into the side of her mother as if it were the safest, most natural place in the world. Together they headed for the door, Vi’s hand pushing it open while she kept Lavender tucked under her arm, her voice still carrying back into the room:
“Don’t break anything important.”
The door clicked shut behind them, and for a moment, they left only quiet behind.
Slowly, the spell broke.
Some students gathered their belongings and left, still talking about the assignment, still smiling, some replaying the moment in hushed, giddy tones as they filtered out into the hallway. Others remained in their seats, reluctant to erase her from the room just yet, lingering as if her warmth might still be absorbed from the desks she’d leaned on.
In the front rows, three girls leaned toward one another in a huddle that had, over the semester, become more and more unofficially recognized as the Vi Hund fan club, though they’d never dared call it that out loud.
“I knew she had a kid,” one whispered, eyes still wide. “But it’s… different when you actually see it.”
“She’s so… normal,” another murmured, stunned and endeared all at once. “Like, in the most unreal way possible.”
“And her daughter’s pretty cool,” the third added quietly. “That whole energy… You can tell she was raised with love.”
A small silence followed, thoughtful, a little emotional.
“Still can’t believe we’ll just… not see her for two weeks,” the first one muttered, resting her chin on her hand. “You can’t even stalk her online. She doesn’t even have anything.”
“Most of them don’t,” the second agreed. “Old-school professors and all that.”
A pause later a slow, mischievous glint sparked in the eyes of the girl in the middle.
“But her daughter does.”
Her fingers were already moving, unlocking her phone, opening Hextagram with the ease of someone very familiar with searching for clues in a world that thrived on digital footprints. The bright screen glowed against her palm as she typed in the search bar with careful precision.
L A V E N D E R … H U N D
She watched the loading icon spin, the anticipation in her chest tightening as if she were about to unearth something sacred and forbidden all at once, while the other two leaned closer, their shoulders brushing, faces illuminated by the same curious, conspiratorial light.
The girl in the middle scrolled.
Once. Twice. Three times. Her thumb dragged lazily down the screen, the way it did when boredom had settled into her bones and she had already accepted that she would find nothing of interest, that this was just another wild goose chase sparked by a half-drunk rumor whispered in the back of the cafeteria and exaggerated between sips of terrible vending machine coffee.
“Nothing,” she muttered under her breath, lips pursed, brow furrowed. “I told you it was probably a dead end. People lie about their handles all the time. Especially rich kids. They love to be mysterious or whatever—”
She was about to flick her thumb again, a little harder this time, when the screen loaded.
And then she froze.
Slowly, almost as if frightened of shattering the moment, her thumb hovered above the glass. Her eyes widened. Her mouth fell open, shaping an unholy sort of gasp that turned into a broken, unbelieving laugh stuck halfway in her throat.
“No. No, there is absolutely no fucking way,” she breathed.
“What?” one of the other girls asked immediately, leaning over her shoulder. “What did you find?”
The second girl said nothing. She had already leaned in too, close enough that her breath warmed the skin at the back of the first girl’s neck. Their shoulders pressed together, forming a tight half-circle around the glowing screen.
“This isn’t real,” the first girl insisted, but she didn’t look away, couldn’t look away. “It can’t be real.”
“What, did you find Lavender Hund Jr. or something?” The name came out half-joking, half-reverent. Everyone in the comparative literature department had heard of Lavender Hund. The quiet sophomore with the unsettlingly sharp essays and the distant eyes and the intimidatingly perfect attendance, the one Professor Vi always softened around, whether she meant to or not.
“No…” she swallowed, then tilted the screen so they could see clearer. “…I found Lavender Hund Kiramman.”
Silence.
Then: “Shut up.”
“I’m serious.”
The pinned post stared back at them with damning clarity.
Lavender stood against a wooden fence, autumn fields stretching out behind her in gold and amber waves. Her hair had been longer than any of them had seen just now, dark strands braided loosely over one shoulder. A horse’s head dipped into the frame beside her, its white-speckled brow pressed to her temple.
There was a small, delicate tag in the corner of the image. It wasn't obvious at all, but it was telling.
@v101ethvnd
@cki11amman
The second girl clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh my god.”
The first let out a strangled sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a scream. “That’s the ranch. That’s the one Professor Vi talked about.”
“Scroll. Oh my god, scroll.”
And she did.
The feed unfolded like a secret, a quiet narrative spilling open before them. There were photos of books stacked on a wooden desk, corners marked with handwritten notes, brutal red slashes they recognized as Vi’s, and precise blue ink comments that could only be Caitlyn’s. There was a candid photo of Vi in the background of a mirror selfie, arms crossed, expression caught halfway between a scowl and something painfully fond as she stared at whoever was behind the camera.
“You see that look?” the third girl murmured. “That’s professor’s ‘don’t make a big deal out of this or I’ll pretend I’m mad’ face.”
“Yeah, except she never is,” the second girl added. “She looks…
Another photo loaded. Then another.
There was Caitlyn sitting at a kitchen table, glasses perched on the edge of her nose, sunlight washing her in pale gold as she read. Vi’s reflection caught in the window behind her, as well as Lavender who's the photos. Caitlyn wearing one of Vi’s old jackets, ones that her students learned that she cherishes. The same red leather that had hung over the back of Vi’s chair in her office forever.
“Oh my god, they share clothes.”
“Stop it, that’s so domestic that I have trouble believing it's Professor Kiramman..”
There were pictures taken from behind: the two women walking side by side through the city, their shoulders occasionally brushing, Caitlyn’s taller frame angled just slightly toward Vi as if unconsciously shielding her from the crowd, Vi’s hand resting just barely against Caitlyn’s back.
Appearances, So many appearances that there was no longer any doubt.
Then they reached another post, Lavender’s graduation. She stood between them, dressed in deep violet robes, her cap slightly crooked. On her left, Vi had one arm slung around her shoulders with unmistakable pride, her smile rare but shining, eyes crinkled at the corners in a way none of her students ever got to see.
On her right, Caitlyn stood in her pristine suit, one hand resting delicately at Lavender’s back, the other lifting to fix her daughter’s tassel. Her expression was soft, ridiculously fond.
They were closer than professional colleagues had any right to be. Well, not that sharing a daughter meant they're colleagues. But even without the surnames there, it was so obvious that somehow the two ends of the spectrum were married.
The girls just stared.
There were pictures further down. Holidays. Lazy Sundays. A blurry candid shot of Caitlyn asleep against Vi’s shoulder on a train. A video of Lavender flexing about being the passenger princess to Professor Kiramman as her other mom is sulking behind.
Another video played, which seemed like it was from a game night. There were many faces that they stumbled across the account but only two they knew. Vi’s voice was in the background, filled with laughter. “You’re cheating, Cupcake.”
Caitlyn scoffed. “You just don’t know how to play properly.”
“Properly is boring, Kiramman.”
“You’re impossible.”
“And you love me.”
“Rub salt all over it, won't you?"
The girls stared at each other, eyes blown, not knowing what to do with the information. Finally the phone lowered, and their classmate who was watching the whole thing with stealth finally talked and made all three flinch.
“Fuck you mean Professor Overshare and Professor Brick Wall is married?!”