“Try not to take it too hard,” your father says, pulling up a weed. “Just think about what you’re going to do next.”
It’s been about twenty-four hours since you got your entrance exam scores back, and not taking it hard is still a struggle. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much if you hadn’t fallen short by such a narrow margin. How many more right answers would it have taken to get the score you needed? Five? ...One?
It’s unseasonably warm today. You’re sitting at a glass and wrought-iron table, still wearing your school uniform. Your physics homework is spread out in front of you, ignored.
You sigh. “All the schools with the sports programs are also the ones that have the best...everything else. I didn’t even make the cut-off for my third choice.” You lean back and stare at the sky. It’s unreasonably blue today, and you occasionally see distant waves of purple shimmers glinting off the edges of the nearly-invisible hexagonal panes in the sky. “I don’t know what other disciplines I want to focus on.... Makes it hard to choose.”
You hear the rhythmic chock of a trowel turning up the dirt as your father prepares the beds for spring.
“Taking a year off isn’t so bad,” he says. “You can try the exams again next winter, and get some work experience in the meantime.” He peeks his head up from behind the plants to look at you. The crow’s feet in the corners of his eyes are coming in, and the hair on top of his head is going out, but his face is round and gentle. “I did that too, you know. I didn’t even consider business school when I was seventeen, but getting a job over the summer gave me some direction that I didn’t have fresh out of school. Maybe something like that will happen for you, too.”
“Maybe,” you say. A purple shimmer briefly ripples against the sky and vanishes. “...There have been some Kingsglaive recruiters coming by the school lately. Apparently you can get a pretty good education, and the pay’s really good.”
Your father is quiet for a moment, hidden again behind the plants. There’s the sound of a particularly stubborn root popping free. “Think really carefully about that one.”
“I dunno. Maybe I’d be good at it, since I’m better at athletic stuff anyway.” You lean with your elbow on the table, cheek in hand. “Plus, I’d get to use magic. That’d be really cool... Anyway, they say that the skills you learn are competitive in the job market, so maybe I could use that to get something better later on. ...I don’t know.”
“Well, you still have some time before you have to make any decisions. There’s nothing wrong with getting a job and saving up while you think about it.”
“That’s true.” You tap your pencil against your homework. “I’ll give it some more thought.”
Behind you, the door to the house slides open and your mother peeks out. “I made some tea,” she says. “Would either of you like any?”
“Yes, please,” you and your father say in unison.
“Come help me, please, Shen?”
“Sure,” you reply.
You take off your sandals at the door and step into the dining room. It’s spacious and spotless, a Western style room with hardwood floors and paintings on the walls. There are fresh-cut flowers in a vase on the table, courtesy of your dad, always, no matter the season.
You follow your mother into the kitchen and get the tea cups out of the cabinet. “What kind is it?”
“Black tea with rose and cardamom.” Once the cups are on the counter, she begins to fill them one by one. “It’s a new blend. Tell me what you think.”
You take a cup between your palms and draw it close. The tea is a deep maroon against the porcelain. It smells like the garden on the hottest days of summer, when the air is heavy with the scent of flowers and the drone of cicadas. You take a sip and the flavor is smooth, both sweet like petals and spicy with the citrus-mint flavor of cardamom. It’s complex. “Is there vanilla in this too?”
“Yes, just a bit! Do you like it?”
“It’s excellent.”
She smiles all the way up to her eyes. “Take this one to your dad, please,” she says, handing you another cup.
You carry both cups of tea back out to the garden, sliding the door open with one stocking foot and slipping into your garden shoes as you step back onto the patio.
“Tea,” you say.
Your dad emerges from behind a cloud of winter flowers. “Ah, thank you,” he says, standing as his knees pop, brushing the dirt off his pants.
He shuffles over to the table to where you’ve put his tea, then takes a sip. His gaze turns inward for a moment, putting flavors together. “Rose and… cardamom?" He takes another sip. "Mmm, that's good."
He takes a seat at the table with you, and your mother joins you a moment later with a plate of cookies. The three of you admire the garden together and talk about lighthearted things, and you find that the disappointment over your test scores is a little easier to push away for now. In this moment, with your family beside you, a cup of tea in your hands, and a beautiful blue sky overhead, everything is good.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Memory 2 - Ronin Year
“Try not to take it too hard,” your father says, pulling up a weed. “Just think about what you’re going to do next.”
It’s been about twenty-four hours since you got your entrance exam scores back, and not taking it hard is still a struggle. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much if you hadn’t fallen short by such a narrow margin. How many more right answers would it have taken to get the score you needed? Five? ...One?
It’s unseasonably warm today. You’re sitting at a glass and wrought-iron table, still wearing your school uniform. Your physics homework is spread out in front of you, ignored.
You sigh. “All the schools with the sports programs are also the ones that have the best...everything else. I didn’t even make the cut-off for my third choice.” You lean back and stare at the sky. It’s unreasonably blue today, and you occasionally see distant waves of purple shimmers glinting off the edges of the nearly-invisible hexagonal panes in the sky. “I don’t know what other disciplines I want to focus on.... Makes it hard to choose.”
You hear the rhythmic chock of a trowel turning up the dirt as your father prepares the beds for spring.
“Taking a year off isn’t so bad,” he says. “You can try the exams again next winter, and get some work experience in the meantime.” He peeks his head up from behind the plants to look at you. The crow’s feet in the corners of his eyes are coming in, and the hair on top of his head is going out, but his face is round and gentle. “I did that too, you know. I didn’t even consider business school when I was seventeen, but getting a job over the summer gave me some direction that I didn’t have fresh out of school. Maybe something like that will happen for you, too.”
“Maybe,” you say. A purple shimmer briefly ripples against the sky and vanishes. “...There have been some Kingsglaive recruiters coming by the school lately. Apparently you can get a pretty good education, and the pay’s really good.”
Your father is quiet for a moment, hidden again behind the plants. There’s the sound of a particularly stubborn root popping free. “Think really carefully about that one.”
“I dunno. Maybe I’d be good at it, since I’m better at athletic stuff anyway.” You lean with your elbow on the table, cheek in hand. “Plus, I’d get to use magic. That’d be really cool... Anyway, they say that the skills you learn are competitive in the job market, so maybe I could use that to get something better later on. ...I don’t know.”
“Well, you still have some time before you have to make any decisions. There’s nothing wrong with getting a job and saving up while you think about it.”
“That’s true.” You tap your pencil against your homework. “I’ll give it some more thought.”
Behind you, the door to the house slides open and your mother peeks out. “I made some tea,” she says. “Would either of you like any?”
“Yes, please,” you and your father say in unison.
“Come help me, please, Shen?”
“Sure,” you reply.
You take off your sandals at the door and step into the dining room. It’s spacious and spotless, a Western style room with hardwood floors and paintings on the walls. There are fresh-cut flowers in a vase on the table, courtesy of your dad, always, no matter the season.
You follow your mother into the kitchen and get the tea cups out of the cabinet. “What kind is it?”
“Black tea with rose and cardamom.” Once the cups are on the counter, she begins to fill them one by one. “It’s a new blend. Tell me what you think.”
You take a cup between your palms and draw it close. The tea is a deep maroon against the porcelain. It smells like the garden on the hottest days of summer, when the air is heavy with the scent of flowers and the drone of cicadas. You take a sip and the flavor is smooth, both sweet like petals and spicy with the citrus-mint flavor of cardamom. It’s complex. “Is there vanilla in this too?”
“Yes, just a bit! Do you like it?”
“It’s excellent.”
She smiles all the way up to her eyes. “Take this one to your dad, please,” she says, handing you another cup.
You carry both cups of tea back out to the garden, sliding the door open with one stocking foot and slipping into your garden shoes as you step back onto the patio.
“Tea,” you say.
Your dad emerges from behind a cloud of winter flowers. “Ah, thank you,” he says, standing as his knees pop, brushing the dirt off his pants.
He shuffles over to the table to where you’ve put his tea, then takes a sip. His gaze turns inward for a moment, putting flavors together. “Rose and… cardamom?" He takes another sip. "Mmm, that's good."
He takes a seat at the table with you, and your mother joins you a moment later with a plate of cookies. The three of you admire the garden together and talk about lighthearted things, and you find that the disappointment over your test scores is a little easier to push away for now. In this moment, with your family beside you, a cup of tea in your hands, and a beautiful blue sky overhead, everything is good.