RE: The Opulent Quarrel - Round One: Mademoiselle Primfel's
01-02-2016, 02:46 AM
(This post was last modified: 01-20-2016, 10:18 AM by chimericgenderbeast.)
I simply ask you to combat one another over seven perilous rounds-- maybe more than seven perilous rounds, until one of you stands triumphant, the sole survivor of this battle.
Georgia mulled over his words as she navigated her way to the dormitories, her tail flicking irritably back and forth with every step. She felt like she should be feeling something serious, like a sense of crushing hopelessness or fear for her life or dread about her place as an insignificant mote in a hostile universe, but she just felt annoyed. This was just another unlucky break, and she couldn't mentally categorize it as anything more than another obligation she had to deal with. At least I'm not panicking over this, she thought, sliding past a circle of dour, grey-faced schoolgirls who shot the bright pink catgirl a collective look of momentary confusion.
Her eyes flicked over the map again, double-checking that she was clambering up the right stairway, her athletic shoes tapping out a squeaking, staccato rhythm against the marble steps. Maintaining her balance on the eroded stone was a struggle with her worn-out heels-- an unpleasant reminder to look into better shoes, Georgia noted. She glanced at the map again at the top of the steps, stammered out a half-baked apology to a student she almost ran into, and skirted down a corridor to the relative, temporary safety of her dormitory.
"Okay," Georgia said, affording herself the luxury of thinking out loud now that no one was present to judge her. "Figure out what I'm working with, lay low, find Sorry, raise hell. Shouldn't be hard."
The first thing she noticed was what the Academie had provided, laid out on her bed-- a school uniform, a schedule, and a letter congratulating Kyuume-chan Sakura on her choice of finishing school and extolling the virtues of conformity, discipline, misery, and anorexia. Georgia unceremoniously tossed out the letter and leafed through her schedule, saving the uniform for last. "Yeah, okay, I can work with this," she mumbled, noting that she had twenty minutes to get to her first lesson. "Not going to be pleasant, but I can work with it."
A quick check of her pockets and book-bag confirmed she still had everything she kept on her person-- wallet, mecha license, student identification card, keys to Sorry, nutrient bars, credit-sticks and food stamps, depression medication, irritant spray, spare contacts, omni-screwdriver and miscellaneous tools, notebooks, pens, cell-phone, data tablet, sewing kit and thread, duct tape, and the acceptance letter she had been forced to decline. The phone didn't have reception-- not that it would do me any good, she realized.
"Okay, so, he's a misogynistic, sophomoric imbecile but at least he didn't touch my stuff. That's-- good, I guess."
"That just leaves-- this," she continued, focusing on the pile of clothing. Georgia's ears flattened against her head and her tail twitched irritably as she dissected the folded uniform. The pleated tartan skirt had a hemline far higher than her liking and lacked accommodation for her tail, the blouse was missing several buttons, the blazer and tie both looked as though they'd gone through countless students before Georgia, and the thigh-length socks were perforated with tears and holes.
"This is so fucking stupid," Georgia bitterly complained to no one, and began to get dressed.
---
In her normal attire, Georgia could almost pass for being fashionably poor. With her incomplete uniform, considering she was still wearing her beat-up athletic shoes, there was no mistaking her financial state. The catgirl sighed tetchily, as she mentally braced herself for class; her face took on its standard apathetic frown, bitter and cynical enough to deter anyone who would consider talking to her. She quickly brushed her hair with her fingers until it was barely acceptable and walked out of her dormitory, managing a brisk jog down a set of corridors--
--and immediately into the clutches of a gang of loitering upper-class students.
"You look new." The question came out less as a statement of inquiry, and more as a wail of fettered souls and crackle of negative energy. Georgia blinked, then rubbed her eyes and blinked again. Leaning against the wall opposite her was a skeleton, dressed in a somber, all-black school uniform. Tasteful necromantic jewelry of blackened silver and onyx decorated her ivory bones, and her eye-sockets glowed with dull infernal flames. Flanking her were two more schoolgirls-- one human, with a half-feral look in her eye and a dog collar around her neck, and another somewhere halfway between an indistinct, predatory feline and a human.
"Not literally, I mean. Look at those shoes." The two girls accompanying her giggled cruelly. "And the hair-- oh, you poor, poor sap." In an instant a skeletal hand was messing with her hair, two claw-like fingers twisting and pulling its strands-- Georgia couldn't help but shiver slightly with the front of unearthly cold coming off the bones.
"Really? Pink? Did you think that was cool?"
Georgia rolled her eyes. "I need to get to class," she lied.
"Wrong answer," the human said, getting up from the wall and adjusting to a hunched, predatory stance and shifting-- growing patches of spotted fur and claws and sharp, canine teeth. Her transformation was cut short, as the skeleton rested a bone-chilling hand on the werewolf's shoulder. "Now, now, Victoria," she chided. The werewolf growled, but backed down and slowly shifted back to a more human form as she relaxed again. "This isn't your public school in the slums, kitten. We expect a certain standard--" the lich waved a skeletal hand heavy with onyx jewelry to indicate her clique, presumably to indicate the standard Georgia was falling short of, "--here at Mademoiselle Primfel's. Why are you even here?"
Georgia mentally groaned at the prospect of being verbally berated. She had been through this more times than she cared to count. "Look, I really--"
"Up-bup-bup," the lich shushed Georgia, before she could continue. "It's miss Morinaga to you. And even you should know better than to talk back, kitten." Noticing the uncomfortable twitch in Georgia's ears, the lich continued. "Oh, are you for real? The ears?" A bony digit curled back and flicked at one of them, sending a shock of negative energy down her spine. Georgia winced, then swallowed as she suppressed the genetic reflex to raise her hackles and hiss.
"Ohh, I'm so sorry," Mori said, emphasizing the last word with something that sounded less like sarcasm and more like a wraith's hiss; she was savoring the discomfort Georgia was experiencing. "They're real? Really? Were you born with these, or did you just have one surgery too many? You spent all your family's money on them, didn't you?"
Another burst of mocking giggles echoed through the hall from her clique. "And for what, to become a fetish item?" Mori asked, idly twisting Georgia's hair.
Georgia's scowl hardened, in spite of the painful twisting and pulling. She was bored, more than anything-- the pinching and grasping was aggravating, but the verbal abuse was nothing she hadn't heard before.
The feline in Mori's clique finally looked up from her phone-- her eyes darted between the screen and Georgia several times. "You're not one of the-- you are, aren't you?"
For a brief moment, Georgia felt some reprieve as the lich's claws disentangled themselves from her hair. She quickly brushed out some of less comfortable knots with her hand, for the sake of appearances more than anything.
"Mori, Victoria, look at this," she continued, flipping the screen to show the other two-- Georgia only caught a momentary glimpse, but knew immediately what was to come. "Nekomata, made to order. Looks like our little kitten here is someone's mail-order plaything." Tori immediately burst into harsh, hyena-like laughter, which was immediately followed by the hollow sound of bound souls rattling as Mori joined in. "Oh, that is rich-- unlike you, kitten. Genetically engineered to be idiots? Really?" She said, to the accompaniment of derisive titters. "Seriously, why are you even here? Did your owner--"
In retrospect, it was probably the wrong time for Georgia to yawn.
It was a large yawn, too, a proper cat’s yawn, showing the bizarre combination of human teeth and sharpened fangs inside her mouth. "Are you done yet? I have better things to do than listen to a brittle, decayed corpse with a superiority complex call me a slut."
For a brief moment, Mori was taken aback-- she stumbled a half-step backwards and the flames in her eye-sockets flared slightly, going from dull, smoldering candles to bright pinpricks of light. In short order she recovered-- she adjusted her skirt and straightened out her spine, until she was properly looking down on Georgia.
"Tori, why don't you teach our little kitten a lesson in respect."
---
"What is going on here? What is the meaning of this?"
The teacher's voice brought Georgia back into focus and out of her blurry, disoriented haze. Stinging pain coursed along her skin while sharp, searing jolts traveled deeper through her arms and legs. She could feel cold, wet rivulets dripping down her legs, and the taste of copper in her mouth-- she must have accidentally bit her tongue. Georgia took a deep breath, desperate for air, and fought her body as she forced herself to stand up. Her nerves were screaming after the pummeling, but the part of her that was furious over the injustice of the situation asserted itself past the agony.
"An accident, Mistress Hangnail. Victoria was close to full moon, and this new student came running into us. Sometimes, we must let nature take its course. If it hadn’t been her, it might have been you, Mistress Hangnail. It’s all I can do to keep Victoria in line." Mori's voice echoed down the hall, the cackling necromantic energy almost-but-not-quite approximating a mix of flattery and insincere obeisance. It was clearly a tone she had not quite perfected.
The teacher looked over Georgia, examining the multitude of bruises and scrapes. Her expression almost seemed to communicate the barest hint of pity, as though she was equally helpless. "Very well. Hurry on to class, I don't need to remind you that loitering in the hallways is forbidden."
"Be seeing you later, kitten," Mori said, leading her clique away.
"Go to hell," Georgia quietly shot back, immersed in too much pain to articulate anything more scathing. She sighed, then growled discontentedly as she gathered her belongings and again made her way to class.
Georgia mulled over his words as she navigated her way to the dormitories, her tail flicking irritably back and forth with every step. She felt like she should be feeling something serious, like a sense of crushing hopelessness or fear for her life or dread about her place as an insignificant mote in a hostile universe, but she just felt annoyed. This was just another unlucky break, and she couldn't mentally categorize it as anything more than another obligation she had to deal with. At least I'm not panicking over this, she thought, sliding past a circle of dour, grey-faced schoolgirls who shot the bright pink catgirl a collective look of momentary confusion.
Her eyes flicked over the map again, double-checking that she was clambering up the right stairway, her athletic shoes tapping out a squeaking, staccato rhythm against the marble steps. Maintaining her balance on the eroded stone was a struggle with her worn-out heels-- an unpleasant reminder to look into better shoes, Georgia noted. She glanced at the map again at the top of the steps, stammered out a half-baked apology to a student she almost ran into, and skirted down a corridor to the relative, temporary safety of her dormitory.
"Okay," Georgia said, affording herself the luxury of thinking out loud now that no one was present to judge her. "Figure out what I'm working with, lay low, find Sorry, raise hell. Shouldn't be hard."
The first thing she noticed was what the Academie had provided, laid out on her bed-- a school uniform, a schedule, and a letter congratulating Kyuume-chan Sakura on her choice of finishing school and extolling the virtues of conformity, discipline, misery, and anorexia. Georgia unceremoniously tossed out the letter and leafed through her schedule, saving the uniform for last. "Yeah, okay, I can work with this," she mumbled, noting that she had twenty minutes to get to her first lesson. "Not going to be pleasant, but I can work with it."
A quick check of her pockets and book-bag confirmed she still had everything she kept on her person-- wallet, mecha license, student identification card, keys to Sorry, nutrient bars, credit-sticks and food stamps, depression medication, irritant spray, spare contacts, omni-screwdriver and miscellaneous tools, notebooks, pens, cell-phone, data tablet, sewing kit and thread, duct tape, and the acceptance letter she had been forced to decline. The phone didn't have reception-- not that it would do me any good, she realized.
"Okay, so, he's a misogynistic, sophomoric imbecile but at least he didn't touch my stuff. That's-- good, I guess."
"That just leaves-- this," she continued, focusing on the pile of clothing. Georgia's ears flattened against her head and her tail twitched irritably as she dissected the folded uniform. The pleated tartan skirt had a hemline far higher than her liking and lacked accommodation for her tail, the blouse was missing several buttons, the blazer and tie both looked as though they'd gone through countless students before Georgia, and the thigh-length socks were perforated with tears and holes.
"This is so fucking stupid," Georgia bitterly complained to no one, and began to get dressed.
---
In her normal attire, Georgia could almost pass for being fashionably poor. With her incomplete uniform, considering she was still wearing her beat-up athletic shoes, there was no mistaking her financial state. The catgirl sighed tetchily, as she mentally braced herself for class; her face took on its standard apathetic frown, bitter and cynical enough to deter anyone who would consider talking to her. She quickly brushed her hair with her fingers until it was barely acceptable and walked out of her dormitory, managing a brisk jog down a set of corridors--
--and immediately into the clutches of a gang of loitering upper-class students.
"You look new." The question came out less as a statement of inquiry, and more as a wail of fettered souls and crackle of negative energy. Georgia blinked, then rubbed her eyes and blinked again. Leaning against the wall opposite her was a skeleton, dressed in a somber, all-black school uniform. Tasteful necromantic jewelry of blackened silver and onyx decorated her ivory bones, and her eye-sockets glowed with dull infernal flames. Flanking her were two more schoolgirls-- one human, with a half-feral look in her eye and a dog collar around her neck, and another somewhere halfway between an indistinct, predatory feline and a human.
"Not literally, I mean. Look at those shoes." The two girls accompanying her giggled cruelly. "And the hair-- oh, you poor, poor sap." In an instant a skeletal hand was messing with her hair, two claw-like fingers twisting and pulling its strands-- Georgia couldn't help but shiver slightly with the front of unearthly cold coming off the bones.
"Really? Pink? Did you think that was cool?"
Georgia rolled her eyes. "I need to get to class," she lied.
"Wrong answer," the human said, getting up from the wall and adjusting to a hunched, predatory stance and shifting-- growing patches of spotted fur and claws and sharp, canine teeth. Her transformation was cut short, as the skeleton rested a bone-chilling hand on the werewolf's shoulder. "Now, now, Victoria," she chided. The werewolf growled, but backed down and slowly shifted back to a more human form as she relaxed again. "This isn't your public school in the slums, kitten. We expect a certain standard--" the lich waved a skeletal hand heavy with onyx jewelry to indicate her clique, presumably to indicate the standard Georgia was falling short of, "--here at Mademoiselle Primfel's. Why are you even here?"
Georgia mentally groaned at the prospect of being verbally berated. She had been through this more times than she cared to count. "Look, I really--"
"Up-bup-bup," the lich shushed Georgia, before she could continue. "It's miss Morinaga to you. And even you should know better than to talk back, kitten." Noticing the uncomfortable twitch in Georgia's ears, the lich continued. "Oh, are you for real? The ears?" A bony digit curled back and flicked at one of them, sending a shock of negative energy down her spine. Georgia winced, then swallowed as she suppressed the genetic reflex to raise her hackles and hiss.
"Ohh, I'm so sorry," Mori said, emphasizing the last word with something that sounded less like sarcasm and more like a wraith's hiss; she was savoring the discomfort Georgia was experiencing. "They're real? Really? Were you born with these, or did you just have one surgery too many? You spent all your family's money on them, didn't you?"
Another burst of mocking giggles echoed through the hall from her clique. "And for what, to become a fetish item?" Mori asked, idly twisting Georgia's hair.
Georgia's scowl hardened, in spite of the painful twisting and pulling. She was bored, more than anything-- the pinching and grasping was aggravating, but the verbal abuse was nothing she hadn't heard before.
The feline in Mori's clique finally looked up from her phone-- her eyes darted between the screen and Georgia several times. "You're not one of the-- you are, aren't you?"
For a brief moment, Georgia felt some reprieve as the lich's claws disentangled themselves from her hair. She quickly brushed out some of less comfortable knots with her hand, for the sake of appearances more than anything.
"Mori, Victoria, look at this," she continued, flipping the screen to show the other two-- Georgia only caught a momentary glimpse, but knew immediately what was to come. "Nekomata, made to order. Looks like our little kitten here is someone's mail-order plaything." Tori immediately burst into harsh, hyena-like laughter, which was immediately followed by the hollow sound of bound souls rattling as Mori joined in. "Oh, that is rich-- unlike you, kitten. Genetically engineered to be idiots? Really?" She said, to the accompaniment of derisive titters. "Seriously, why are you even here? Did your owner--"
In retrospect, it was probably the wrong time for Georgia to yawn.
It was a large yawn, too, a proper cat’s yawn, showing the bizarre combination of human teeth and sharpened fangs inside her mouth. "Are you done yet? I have better things to do than listen to a brittle, decayed corpse with a superiority complex call me a slut."
For a brief moment, Mori was taken aback-- she stumbled a half-step backwards and the flames in her eye-sockets flared slightly, going from dull, smoldering candles to bright pinpricks of light. In short order she recovered-- she adjusted her skirt and straightened out her spine, until she was properly looking down on Georgia.
"Tori, why don't you teach our little kitten a lesson in respect."
---
"What is going on here? What is the meaning of this?"
The teacher's voice brought Georgia back into focus and out of her blurry, disoriented haze. Stinging pain coursed along her skin while sharp, searing jolts traveled deeper through her arms and legs. She could feel cold, wet rivulets dripping down her legs, and the taste of copper in her mouth-- she must have accidentally bit her tongue. Georgia took a deep breath, desperate for air, and fought her body as she forced herself to stand up. Her nerves were screaming after the pummeling, but the part of her that was furious over the injustice of the situation asserted itself past the agony.
"An accident, Mistress Hangnail. Victoria was close to full moon, and this new student came running into us. Sometimes, we must let nature take its course. If it hadn’t been her, it might have been you, Mistress Hangnail. It’s all I can do to keep Victoria in line." Mori's voice echoed down the hall, the cackling necromantic energy almost-but-not-quite approximating a mix of flattery and insincere obeisance. It was clearly a tone she had not quite perfected.
The teacher looked over Georgia, examining the multitude of bruises and scrapes. Her expression almost seemed to communicate the barest hint of pity, as though she was equally helpless. "Very well. Hurry on to class, I don't need to remind you that loitering in the hallways is forbidden."
"Be seeing you later, kitten," Mori said, leading her clique away.
"Go to hell," Georgia quietly shot back, immersed in too much pain to articulate anything more scathing. She sighed, then growled discontentedly as she gathered her belongings and again made her way to class.