"What are you doing Skye?" Jason asked suspiciously. It wasn't as if it weren't obvious there was something going on, Skye might as well have a neon sign over his head flashing "major secret alert".

"Shush...don't wake Billy" Skye replied evasively, glancing over to the left quickly. Jason turned to see his friend sprawled, dead to the world, on the couch, a note pad with scribbled diagrams slipping off his chest, and a half eaten donut by his side dribbling jam on the carpet.

Jason grinned a little. In some ways Billy hadn't changed a bit. But he could tell, he could tell when someone was hiding something and he wasn't going to let go quite so easily. "That's gonna give you an interesting status among the Deshaadra. You're wild, which means the only authority you have to answer to is the Elders- and me, of course, but only for the next couple weeks. Unless there's something huge going down, the Elders will basically ignore you, so you're pretty much covered. Only thing to remember when you meet another Deshaadra is not to kill them unless they try to kill you first."
          Chelsea threw him a half-smile. "Sounds simple enough." Her first class ended early, and she figured that was a good thing considering Andros' idle energy. She had already caught him drawing on the arm of his chair and teaching himself to uncap and recap her pen one-handed before he started writing notes to her. He hadn't offered any reason for accompanying her to class in the first place, but she suspected he was trying to prove something.

"Well, that was exciting," Andros remarked, scooping up her backpack as the classroom started to empty out. "Even I lecture better than that professor."

"Andros!" She glanced toward the front of the room automatically, trying not to giggle. "Don't say things like that in here," she warned, gathering up her notebooks when she was satisfied nobody important had overheard.

          "It's a pretty uncomplicated life," Duke agreed. "Not easy, but uncomplicated. Now, the Council's gonna be a little leery around you, since you're kind of an anomaly. You're the first Earth person to enter our ranks, and you're the only apprentice to serve outside a garal."
          "What about you?" she asked curiously.