The academy returned to its ordinary rhythms with a speed that Arthur found, frankly, insulting. Three days. That was the full extent of the festival's afterglow, three days of excited retelling and enthusiastic speculation, and then the whole institution simply resumed as though nothing of any consequence had occurred at all, lessons continuing on schedule, assignments accumulating without regard for anyone's recent achievements, the whole enormous accumulated energy of the festival evaporating entirely into the ordinary grey business of a term's middle stretch.
FNN: Nobody's talking about it anymore.
He said it with genuine offense, slumped across the refectory table with the particular boneless despair of someone whose entire week had failed to meet expectations.
BRR: Talking about what?
FNN: ANY of it. The festival. The record. My four events.
BRR: Nobody was talking about your four events during the festival either, Finn.
FNN: THAT'S NOT THE POINT.
ELS: What is the point, exactly?
FNN: The point is that Arthur nearly DOUBLED a four-year academy record, and I overheard someone yesterday describe it as, and I'm quoting directly, that endurance thing that happened.
ART: That's genuinely what happened, though.
FNN: IT DESERVES BETTER PHRASING THAN THAT.
Arthur, who had discovered over the past week that his own fame had lasted approximately as long as a decent rainstorm, found he minded considerably less than Finn apparently did on his behalf. It had been strange, briefly. People had looked at him in corridors. Someone he'd never met had congratulated him near the library. A second-year had asked, with genuine curiosity, how he'd managed it, and Arthur had given his honest answer, which was that he didn't know, and had watched the second-year's interest visibly deflate at the unsatisfying non-explanation. By the fourth day, it had all simply stopped.
ART: Someone called me Andy yesterday.
ELS: Who's Andy?
ART: I have no idea. Some other competitor, presumably. They congratulated me on my performance and called me Andy and I didn't have the heart to correct them.
FNN: THIS IS EXACTLY MY POINT.
The lessons themselves proved considerably worse than the general deflation. Instructor Bramwell's diplomacy and etiquette course, which had been merely tedious before the festival, achieved during that first week back a truly extraordinary quality of tedium, three consecutive sessions devoted to the formal address conventions of the seven provinces' respective nobility, delivered in her characteristically precise, unhurried register while the entire cohort visibly deteriorated around her.
BRM: The correct form of address for a Drennick magistrate's spouse differs meaningfully from that of a Corvane hold-keeper's consort, and the distinction, while subtle, will absolutely be noticed by anyone whose good opinion you require.
Yseult, seated beside Arthur, had her chin propped in one hand, her expression carrying the particular vacant devastation of someone whose considerable intelligence was being applied to nothing whatsoever.
YSE: I could be inventing something right now.
ART: Instead of learning how to address a magistrate's spouse?
YSE: Instead of doing anything at all, Arthur. I would rather be doing nothing than doing this. Nothing would at least be restful.
Two rows ahead, Briar had filled four full pages of notes, apparently determined to extract maximum value from material that offered almost none, and Finn, beside him, had fallen genuinely asleep with his eyes half open in a manner that suggested considerable practice. Mira, at the row's end, was reading something else entirely, hidden beneath her desk with the particular careful discretion of someone who had clearly done this many times before.
BRM: Miss Doyle.
MRA: Yes, Instructor.
BRM: What are you reading?
MRA: Nothing, Instructor.
BRM: Miss Doyle.
MRA: Advanced tactical theory. Third volume.
BRM: And is advanced tactical theory more compelling than provincial address conventions?
MRA: Yes, Instructor.
The honesty of it landed with such complete, unadorned directness that Instructor Bramwell paused entirely, and Arthur watched something almost like reluctant respect cross her precise features.
BRM: ...Fair enough. Put it away regardless.
MRA: Yes, Instructor.
Finn's financial situation, meanwhile, had deteriorated from comedy into something approaching genuine crisis.
FNN: I need money.
BRR: You need to stop gambling.
FNN: Those aren't mutually exclusive positions, Briar, and the first one is considerably more urgent.
He had, by the week's end, attempted three separate income-generating schemes of escalating desperation and diminishing plausibility, beginning with an offer to write other students' assignments for a fee, which Instructor Pratt had detected within a single day, continuing through an ill-conceived attempt to sell his own festival participation medals, which turned out to have no resale value whatsoever, and culminating in a proposal so genuinely absurd that Arthur had needed it explained twice.
FNN: I'd charge a modest fee to predict the outcome of things.
ELS: You'd charge people for predictions. You. After the betting sheet.
FNN: My accuracy has improved substantially since then.
BRR: Has it? Because you predicted last week that Instructor Sutton would cancel conditioning drills due to rain, and it did not rain, and he did not cancel them.
FNN: That was a single miss.
BRR: You also predicted the refectory would serve fish on Tuesday.
FNN: And they DID serve fish on Tuesday.
BRR: They serve fish every Tuesday, Finn. That's not a prediction, that's a menu.
By the week's end, the group had settled into a collective, resigned acceptance of ordinary life, and found, somewhat unexpectedly, that ordinary life had its own particular comforts once the initial deflation passed. They claimed their usual table each evening. They complained about Instructor Bramwell's address conventions with genuine, escalating creativity. Finn continued failing to generate income through increasingly ridiculous means, and everyone continued mocking him for it, and Briar eventually, quietly, lent him enough to eat properly without making any particular production of the gesture. Arthur, sitting among them on the seventh evening after the festival, found that the return to ordinariness had stopped feeling like a loss somewhere along the way. The record would stay posted on the board. That was enough. It did not require anyone to keep discussing it, and he found, watching Finn attempt to convince Yseult to invest in some new venture involving, apparently, the resale of secondhand practice equipment, that he genuinely preferred this, the ordinary comfortable noise of people he cared about being thoroughly, unremarkably themselves.
YSE: Absolutely not.
FNN: You haven't heard the full proposal.
YSE: I've heard enough of the proposal.
FNN: The margins are excellent.
YSE: The margins are imaginary, Finn. You've imagined them.
Arthur laughed, and reached for the bread, and let the ordinary evening carry on around him exactly as it was.