Ancaladis on Iron Triumph
(Ancaladis angry - university unlikely to let students to class on Iron Triumph with predictable yearly mood - was this altered in other shorts?)
No-one gave a tongue-lashing quite like Mistress Ancaladis. She never clenched her fists, never waved her hands; even the expression on her impassive, porcelain face barely changed. She certainly never shouted. But the freezing contempt in her voice was somehow sharper and more savage than shouting, and the undisguised loathing in her bright blue eyes was an intense thing to have directed straight at one's face.
Unfortunately for Samara and her class, that was exactly what they were experiencing this sunny morning. It -should- have been a sunny morning - it certainly was outside the boundaries of Mistress Ancaladis's hill - but inside, where the weather changed and flowed with her moods, light snow and a bitter arctic wind were swirling.
"If I had my way," Mistress Ancaladis said in that icy voice, her awful eyes gleaming in the snowy gloom as she stood at the head of the shaping-stone, "you would all be sitting in front of stone blocks to -chisel- your play-dragons. If you want to do arts and crafts, you ignorant, callous little cityborn, go and tug on your mother's skirts until she buys you scissors. -This- is Making. I -will not tolerate- your treatment of this as handicrafts for the bored and the dull-witted."
Cringing with more than the cold, Samara and her class collectively hunched in their blue apprentice-robes where they sat, cross-legged, in front of the mistress. Ancaladis had been pursuing this vicious invective for close to a half-hour now by Samara's estimations, touched off by a very innocuous question from Yulie as to whether she could use coloured paper as an ingredient for making today's dragon. Yulie had been in floods of tears ever since.
It was all very puzzling, Samara thought to herself, watching Taramyn - a far more frequent source of class discord than Yulie - surreptitiously patting the sobbing Yulie on the shoulder while Mistress Ancaladis carried on. Of course this was hardly the first time Ancaladis had lost her temper with the class. She spared no opportunity to tell them how much she despised their entire race, after all. Besides, the class itself contained Taramyn and Luthan Ashcroft, who no doubt would have pushed even a benevolent instructor past endurance.
But today was very unusual. It -might- just have been explicable in a full moon phase, when Ancaladis's dark hair turned silver and her temper turned sourer - but she was still in her young woman phase now, a whole week shy of the full moon. No, it was not at all like the icy fae to let her hated class provoke her over trivial matters.
Well, whether it's 'like her' or not, she's right there doing it, Samara thought wearily, pulling the neck of her robe more tightly closed with a fist at her collar.
"It makes no difference to you however many times I say something, does it, children?" The fae's soft voice seemed to sizzle with that venom, redder than her crimson clothes. "What does it matter to the grand masters of the world and their spawn? What can the fae possibly teach you and your reeking arrogance? Nothing and nothing."
Samara sensed rather than saw Dael leaning fraction by careful fraction towards her. "No class today," he whispered very softly.
She gave a faint grimace and nodded. This was definitely shaping up to become one of Mistress's peremptory dismissals, though they usually only came after extreme Ashcroftian aggravation.
"Should've seen this coming, I guess."
"How come?" she whispered back out of the corner of her mouth, but Dael didn't answer. Mistress Ancaladis had broken off in mid-indictment, the wind and snow whirling colder with her fury.
Very fortunately for Samara and Dael, it appeared that Mistress Ancaladis hadn't located the source of the whispering. Their good luck changed into misfortune for Yulie, though, since the emotional little redhead refused to stop sobbing and hiccoughing for all Taramyn's urgent shoulder-pats.
"Nothing ... and nothing." Ancaladis repeated the words slowly, her tone making it clear she was also giving her opinion of the human race. She passed around their huddled group in a slow, disgusted survey, her loose red trousers whipping floridly in the storm of her anger. Then, after a full circuit, the tall Mistress bent down to Yulie - her blue-black hair whipping and curling like angrily flexing fingers - and turned the girl's tear-reddened face up to look at her.
"Am I truly expected to teach anything of meaning to such small-minded, spoiled children?"
Yulie, being Yulie, only cried with that terrible, white-lipped face in front of hers.
Then a voice that Samara had actually been expecting for quite a while spoke up. "With all due respect, Mistress ... yes."
The class held their collective breath. It was always the thing to do after Luthan Ashcroft used the phrase 'with all due respect'.
Mistress Ancaladis turned her head to look at him, expressionless. Luthan, a veritable poster-child for the arrogance and sense of entitlement that the fae despised in humankind, stared back with his usual chilly defiance.
As far as I understand it, Mistress," he went on, his breath steaming in the increasingly cold air, "that's exactly what the university asks you to do in return for residence. But if you don't feel like teaching us today, you might as well dismiss us in time for the parades in town."
"For the parades. The Iron Triumph." Mistress Ancaladis nodded, gliding back to the head of the shaping-stone, clasping her long-fingered hands before her.
No-one gave a tongue-lashing quite like Mistress Ancaladis. She never clenched her fists, never waved her hands; even the expression on her impassive, porcelain face barely changed. She certainly never shouted. But the freezing contempt in her voice was somehow sharper and more savage than shouting, and the undisguised loathing in her bright blue eyes was an intense thing to have directed straight at one's face.
Unfortunately for Samara and her class, that was exactly what they were experiencing this sunny morning. It -should- have been a sunny morning - it certainly was outside the boundaries of Mistress Ancaladis's hill - but inside, where the weather changed and flowed with her moods, light snow and a bitter arctic wind were swirling.
"If I had my way," Mistress Ancaladis said in that icy voice, her awful eyes gleaming in the snowy gloom as she stood at the head of the shaping-stone, "you would all be sitting in front of stone blocks to -chisel- your play-dragons. If you want to do arts and crafts, you ignorant, callous little cityborn, go and tug on your mother's skirts until she buys you scissors. -This- is Making. I -will not tolerate- your treatment of this as handicrafts for the bored and the dull-witted."
Cringing with more than the cold, Samara and her class collectively hunched in their blue apprentice-robes where they sat, cross-legged, in front of the mistress. Ancaladis had been pursuing this vicious invective for close to a half-hour now by Samara's estimations, touched off by a very innocuous question from Yulie as to whether she could use coloured paper as an ingredient for making today's dragon. Yulie had been in floods of tears ever since.
It was all very puzzling, Samara thought to herself, watching Taramyn - a far more frequent source of class discord than Yulie - surreptitiously patting the sobbing Yulie on the shoulder while Mistress Ancaladis carried on. Of course this was hardly the first time Ancaladis had lost her temper with the class. She spared no opportunity to tell them how much she despised their entire race, after all. Besides, the class itself contained Taramyn and Luthan Ashcroft, who no doubt would have pushed even a benevolent instructor past endurance.
But today was very unusual. It -might- just have been explicable in a full moon phase, when Ancaladis's dark hair turned silver and her temper turned sourer - but she was still in her young woman phase now, a whole week shy of the full moon. No, it was not at all like the icy fae to let her hated class provoke her over trivial matters.
Well, whether it's 'like her' or not, she's right there doing it, Samara thought wearily, pulling the neck of her robe more tightly closed with a fist at her collar.
"It makes no difference to you however many times I say something, does it, children?" The fae's soft voice seemed to sizzle with that venom, redder than her crimson clothes. "What does it matter to the grand masters of the world and their spawn? What can the fae possibly teach you and your reeking arrogance? Nothing and nothing."
Samara sensed rather than saw Dael leaning fraction by careful fraction towards her. "No class today," he whispered very softly.
She gave a faint grimace and nodded. This was definitely shaping up to become one of Mistress's peremptory dismissals, though they usually only came after extreme Ashcroftian aggravation.
"Should've seen this coming, I guess."
"How come?" she whispered back out of the corner of her mouth, but Dael didn't answer. Mistress Ancaladis had broken off in mid-indictment, the wind and snow whirling colder with her fury.
Very fortunately for Samara and Dael, it appeared that Mistress Ancaladis hadn't located the source of the whispering. Their good luck changed into misfortune for Yulie, though, since the emotional little redhead refused to stop sobbing and hiccoughing for all Taramyn's urgent shoulder-pats.
"Nothing ... and nothing." Ancaladis repeated the words slowly, her tone making it clear she was also giving her opinion of the human race. She passed around their huddled group in a slow, disgusted survey, her loose red trousers whipping floridly in the storm of her anger. Then, after a full circuit, the tall Mistress bent down to Yulie - her blue-black hair whipping and curling like angrily flexing fingers - and turned the girl's tear-reddened face up to look at her.
"Am I truly expected to teach anything of meaning to such small-minded, spoiled children?"
Yulie, being Yulie, only cried with that terrible, white-lipped face in front of hers.
Then a voice that Samara had actually been expecting for quite a while spoke up. "With all due respect, Mistress ... yes."
The class held their collective breath. It was always the thing to do after Luthan Ashcroft used the phrase 'with all due respect'.
Mistress Ancaladis turned her head to look at him, expressionless. Luthan, a veritable poster-child for the arrogance and sense of entitlement that the fae despised in humankind, stared back with his usual chilly defiance.
As far as I understand it, Mistress," he went on, his breath steaming in the increasingly cold air, "that's exactly what the university asks you to do in return for residence. But if you don't feel like teaching us today, you might as well dismiss us in time for the parades in town."
"For the parades. The Iron Triumph." Mistress Ancaladis nodded, gliding back to the head of the shaping-stone, clasping her long-fingered hands before her.