The Shepherd is a name that she hasn't heard often, but it's impossible not to recognise it. Her face and symbol are everywhere, after all, as the current dean of the Imperial Education Programs.
Marduk hadn't realised that she was a proctor as well.
She's never seen a helmsman trainee before, either, and now that Riccin has identified themselves as such, she's desperately curious. Everyone knows they start the wetware installations at a young age, but if there's apiculture integrated into Riccin's flesh, there's no way to tell: they're swathed head-to-toe in cloth, from the suncloak to the boots to the gloves on their hands, and there's nothing to see on their face save for the blue spark of their eyes and the white dabs of paint.
It's not the time to ask, anyway. They've drawn themselves up to their full height and they're looming over her, their lip curled in a sneer. If they're trying to intimidate her - well, it's working, because Marduk has to steel herself to keep from stepping back. "Who the fuck sent you?" they ask, voice flat.
Their eyes might be blue, Marduk reminds herself, but if they're part of the helmsman program, then that means she's the highblood. Most of the kids in the legislacerator program are jadebloods, like her, but there's more than a few violets and indigoes: all the isolated castes, that can't be regulated by tealbloods for one reason or another.
Her roommate is one of them, a snotty indigo cusp with her nose perpetually stuck in the air. She can't think like Marduk right now, because all she wants to do is duck her horns and leave. No, she has to be her roommate. What would Sappho say?
"His moirail," she says pompously, and her voice doesn't even crack, because she's Sappho, and she wouldn't care about a helmsman, even if the proctor was the Empress herself.
It's that thought that sends her stepping forward to the smaller figure, chin up, horns canted.. not defensively, but assertively. She doesn't have to be defensive, not when she's the highest caste here by two.
"Your handle is RS, isn't it?" She holds out a hand, and she steadfastly ignores the way it's shaking. "My online personal identification tag is forsakenSebayt. We've engaged in prior communications."
no subject
The Shepherd is a name that she hasn't heard often, but it's impossible not to recognise it. Her face and symbol are everywhere, after all, as the current dean of the Imperial Education Programs.
Marduk hadn't realised that she was a proctor as well.
She's never seen a helmsman trainee before, either, and now that Riccin has identified themselves as such, she's desperately curious. Everyone knows they start the wetware installations at a young age, but if there's apiculture integrated into Riccin's flesh, there's no way to tell: they're swathed head-to-toe in cloth, from the suncloak to the boots to the gloves on their hands, and there's nothing to see on their face save for the blue spark of their eyes and the white dabs of paint.
It's not the time to ask, anyway. They've drawn themselves up to their full height and they're looming over her, their lip curled in a sneer. If they're trying to intimidate her - well, it's working, because Marduk has to steel herself to keep from stepping back. "Who the fuck sent you?" they ask, voice flat.
Their eyes might be blue, Marduk reminds herself, but if they're part of the helmsman program, then that means she's the highblood. Most of the kids in the legislacerator program are jadebloods, like her, but there's more than a few violets and indigoes: all the isolated castes, that can't be regulated by tealbloods for one reason or another.
Her roommate is one of them, a snotty indigo cusp with her nose perpetually stuck in the air. She can't think like Marduk right now, because all she wants to do is duck her horns and leave. No, she has to be her roommate. What would Sappho say?
"His moirail," she says pompously, and her voice doesn't even crack, because she's Sappho, and she wouldn't care about a helmsman, even if the proctor was the Empress herself.
It's that thought that sends her stepping forward to the smaller figure, chin up, horns canted.. not defensively, but assertively. She doesn't have to be defensive, not when she's the highest caste here by two.
"Your handle is RS, isn't it?" She holds out a hand, and she steadfastly ignores the way it's shaking. "My online personal identification tag is forsakenSebayt. We've engaged in prior communications."