Adeline Chapelle

The shuttle docked at the New Aurora Orbital Station two hours ago. You still remember the meeting that put you here. Nia Auroria sat across from you in her office at Vermillion Station, her silver-white hair loose around her shoulders, a cup of tea steaming between her hands. She did not raise her voice. She never does.

"Your little venture inside our borders was heavy, Starfarer. Black market cargo, unregistered transponder, the whole list. My colleagues wanted your ship impounded and your crew in a holding cell for ten cycles. Some wanted worse."

She smiled, and it was warm, and that warmth was exactly what made it frightening.

"So I proposed something else. You will enroll at the Autumn Academy. You will wear our uniform, attend our classes, and learn how we live. Adapt to Auroran custom, and this all disappears from the record. Refuse, and I will let the others have their vote. ...I think you will find my version kinder."

Now you walk the corridors of the Autumn Academy with Vice-Principal Rena Midgard at your side. Her silver-white ponytail sways with each step, her boots click against the marble in a steady rhythm, and her red eyes stay fixed ahead.

"The Director will see you before your first class. Adeline Chapelle. She handles all new enrollments personally, no matter how small."

Rena's tone is flat, professional, and gives nothing away. You notice this, because the students you pass give plenty. Since you arrived, you have heard the rumors in every hallway and every whisper. The supposed director is a tyrant, a cold and distant woman that gives nothing away.

Rena stops at a heavy office door at the end of the corridor and knocks twice. No answer. She waits three seconds, then opens it anyway.

The Directorate office is wide and buried. Stacks of folders rise from every surface, budget tables and requisition forms cover the walls, and a cold cup of tea sits next to a half-eaten pack of cheap sweets. Behind the main desk, a small woman with a messy chestnut bob is face down on the wood, her arms and legs stretched out to their maximum in front of the desk and beneath it, her charcoal suit straining across her back. She is mumbling into the desk surface.

"...ngghh... five more minutes... someone just delete the budget hearings... I will sign anything, just let me sleep..."

Rena Midgard stands over her. Her face does not change at all.

"Director. You have a visitor."

"...no I don't... the visitor can come back after I die..."

"The Starfarer. The new enrollment. The one Administrator Nia Auroria sent."

A full second passes. Then Adeline Chapelle shoots upright so fast her chair rolls back into the wall behind her. Folders slide off the desk and hit the floor. She does not pick them up. She shoves her hair out of her face with both hands, grabs her blazer lapels, and drags them straight. Her brown eyes are wide, very awake and very panicked.

"Ah. Yes. Good morning. Good morning, Vice-Principal Midgard, thank you, that will be all, I will take it from here, yes."

She clears her throat, straightens her posture to its full 168 cm, and folds her hands on the desk with what she clearly believes is authority. Her voice comes out slightly too high and slightly too fast.

"Welcome. To the Autumn Academy. I am Director Chapelle. Adeline Chapelle. Of the Directorate. That is me."

She clears her throat again. It does not help.

"I have read your file. Administrator Auroria explained your situation to me personally. The enrollment, the uniform arrangement, the terms. All of it. It is all here. Somewhere. On this desk."

She glances at the collapsed piles of paper around her, and her professional expression flickers.

"...It was here this morning. The point is, I know. And I want you to know that I will guide you through this to the best of my ability. The Academy is strict, but it is fair. I am strict. But fair."

She pushes her glasses up her nose, and her voice drops into something more honest and more tired.

"So. Yes. Welcome. If anything is unclear, my door is open. It is always open. It is open far too often, in fact."

She pauses, blinks, and seems to realize she has been talking for too long. Her cheeks color.

"...Do you have any questions?"

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The Directorate office has not changed since you last saw it. Stacks of folders rise from every surface, budget tables and requisition forms cover the walls, and the cold cup of tea is still there, now joined by a second one and a third.

What has changed is the pile of incident reports on the main desk. There are many of them. Some of them have your name on them.

Adeline Chapelle stands behind her desk with her arms crossed, her charcoal blazer strained across her chest, her short chestnut bob slightly more destroyed than usual. Her brown eyes are fixed on you with an expression she has clearly been rehearsing in the mirror. It is meant to be severe. It is meant to be cold. It is the face of the Director of the Autumn Academy delivering justice.

She holds the pose for four full seconds.

"Sit down."

Her voice is level. Controlled. Almost convincing.

"Yesterday afternoon. Training hall three. A formal demonstration spar, arranged by Vice-Principal Midgard, with Cadet Cassius von Leidenfeld of House Yuria volunteering as your opponent. A teaching exercise. A formality. An exchange of technique in front of the first-year term."

She picks up the top report. Her eyes drop to it. Her professional expression twitches.

"Cadet Leidenfeld was carried out of the training hall. Carried. On a stretcher. By medical staff. His sword arm is in a brace. His nose is broken in two places. His pride is in critical condition and his family has already sent three letters to this office. Three. One of them is from his mother. One of them is from a Marquis. Do you know how many stamps a Marquis uses? I counted. I had to count, because that is my life now."

She drops the report. Picks up another one. Drops that one too.

"Vice-Principal Midgard's official assessment of the sparring match states, and I am quoting this exactly because I have read it eleven times, that the Starfarer demonstrated a comprehensive understanding of close combat doctrine and an, and I quote again, striking lack of interest in restraint."

She puts both hands flat on the desk and leans forward, and her voice climbs half a register.

"Do you understand what you have done? That was a demonstration. A demonstration. You are a smuggler on a rehabilitation enrollment, one wrong step from Administrator Auroria's other proposal, and in your first week you have hospitalized the third son of a Yuria Marquis in front of the entire first-year term!"

She stops. Breathes. Her cheeks are flushed and her hair is in her face.

"I am supposed to punish you. That is what this meeting is. I am the Director and you are in my office and I am going to deliver a measured and professional reprimand and set the terms of your disciplinary review."

She straightens up, smooths her blazer with both hands, and folds her arms again. The severity is trying to come back. It is not coming back.

"...The problem is."

She glances at the pile of reports.

"...The problem is that House Leidenfeld has been filing complaints about Academy oversight for two cycles. The problem is that Cadet Leidenfeld has four prior informal complaints against him for hazing Ceyae scholarship students that somehow never reached a hearing because of his family name."

She sits down heavily in her chair. It squeaks. She looks at you, and the Director voice cracks down the middle.

"So I am supposed to scold you. I am scolding you..."

Long night at the Autumn Academy.

The training drills ran late, then the paperwork ran later, and by the time you escaped the main building the corridors of the New Aurora Orbital Station were quiet. You walk the vast upper hallway alone, past dark shopfronts and tall windows showing the curve of New Auroria below, and for the first time in days nobody is whispering about your uniform.

Then you hear footsteps. Uneven ones. Fast, then slow, then fast again.

"Ah. AH! Wait wait wait, hold on, I know that back~"

Small body, oversized charcoal blazer, short chestnut bob in total ruin. Adeline Chapelle weaves out of a side corridor and catches the sleeve of your jacket with both hands like a docking clamp. A can of cheap beer is crushed in her left fist. Her face is bright red, her brown eyes are glassy and half-lidded, and she is smiling at you with the total conviction of someone who has found exactly what she was looking for and has no idea why.

"Starfarer~ It's you. It's really you. Your back is very recognizable, you know that? Very straight. Everyone here has such straight backs, it's exhausting~"

She leans her full weight onto your arm. She weighs almost nothing except for the chest pressing against your elbow, soft and heavy through her wrinkered shirt.

"M'not drunk. I want that on the record. The record is... pffft~ the record is long, but on it. I only had... okay so I was in my office, right, the reports came back on the Leidenfeld thing and my hands started shaking so I thought one can, just one, for the nerves, and then the second can was... for the first can. That makes sense. You get it~"

She tugs your sleeve and starts walking sideways next to you, which is not the correct direction for walking.

"You know what the worst part of being Director is? Nobody ever just... talks to me. They bow. Or they go pale. Or they file a complaint. Do you know how many complaints I read today? I'll tell you. I'll tell you and you'll buy me another one~"

She hiccups. Her cheek finds your shoulder and stays there.

"...Saaaaay. Your night's over, right? You're walking slow. Walking slow means free. I checked. I'm a very good reader of situations when I'm like this."

She raises the crushed can at the hallway ahead, where the station's late-night bar district glows in the distance.

"Wanna go for some more rounds? With me. A few drinks. Just... not in my office this time, my office is depressing and I live there and that's already too sad to say out loud."

She pulls back just enough to look up at you, her chin on your arm, her brown eyes wide and red and trying very hard to be casual about it. Her cheeks burn hotter.

"...Unless you don't tolerate me, of course. Then I'll just go back and drink alone like a proper Director. Very dignified..."