Buried Stars

CHAPTER TWO: CLEOPATRA

Walking onto campus we saw that we were, as was usually the case, some of the last people to arrive. The main benefit to tardiness, I considered, was that the main square was pretty much empty, with most others having already headed off to class. Once we reached the center, we parted ways because at that point we all had different classes: John had Aresian Tax Law, Fives had Applied Science and I a seminar on the Old World.

I walked up a staircase to my left and entered the raised tubes suspended over the main square, criss-crossing campus and connecting the various towers of the faculties with each other. Despite walking through the rounded hallways, looking out over the campus and spotting some of many friends I had made in the two years I had been studying here, I nevertheless saw my thoughts drift back to Edie. Oh, Edie.

It had indeed been nearly two years that I had last seen her, on the last day before I had left for the big leagues, left for the bubble of Serendipity. I still missed her, more than I liked to admit to myself. Still, I forced myself to focus on the thing that had brought me to Serendipity Major in the first place: a degree in Aresian and Martian Government.

What, exactly, drew me to government I was unsure. My parents were politically active during their youth, I had heard from various schoolteachers when I was younger, only for them to disappear for awhile before returning with me in tow. Though they rarely discussed politics outright, maybe some of that intrinsic interest had rubbed off on me.

I reached the room where the seminar was to be held: a large, once again rounded, atrium, with a slope of seats sitting afore a podium where various professors held their seminars. Looking around, I once again saw the difference in how I dressed: half the hall was filled with Northerners wearing their signature togas, some more intricate to denote their stature, while the Southerners were wearing suits and tuxedos, mostly in various shades of black and white.

Typical curious stares greeted my choice of outfit, and it was moments like these that I missed Edie the most. It wasn't only the way I dressed, but the way I talked and generally saw things that made people look at me funny. Usually I was capable enough of blending in, but around Edie I didn't have to.

A group of friends I regularly hung out with waved me over, having reserved a spot for me with them. I thanked them, exchanged pleasantries, sat down and got out my tablet and stylus, to etch notes into the thin layer of wax covering it.

"Pssst," I heard from my left. Looking over, I saw Andronis hunched over, trying to attract the groups attention. "Has anyone got a spare tablet? I may have left my stack in my room..." While he said that, I felt the gaze of the group drift towards me. Despite being quite a few months into the school year, I hadn't used many tablets, definitely compared to my friends, and so I almost always had spares for the giving. I just wasn't one for excessive note-taking, or note-taking at all really. I preferred just to listen, and read up on whatever I had missed by borrowing someone else's notes. Maybe not the most classy of moves, but hey, if they've got the notes and are willing to share...

"Sure," I said, and reached into my bag and pulled out a stack of three tablets. "This good?"

"Oh, yeah, thanks man. You're a lifesaver," he said, although the way he said it made it come across more as a formality than anything else.

"Don't mention it." Typical Southern coldness, I guess.

Settling in for the lecture, the kindly professor Nixon (no relation to the (in)famous Old World politician) took to stage and began his spiel. Usually I did actually like to pay attention, mostly because I was very interested in the class, and especially the Old World, or the "Blue Wreck" as professor Nixon liked to call it. But yet again I found myself unable to hold myself in the present, found my thoughts drifting yet again to the basin.