It’s extensive, six years in one go, but a lot of it blurs into repetitive misery. The beginning stands out—Laios is twelve years old and leaving his home village for boarding school. It’s his own choice, born from outrage and disgust at how his sister is being treated… but also the desperate need to just get away from adults who would treat a child with such hostility and suspicion just because she has a talent for magic. She’s going to be sent away, too, to magic school… but as far as he knows, she doesn’t want to go. She cried about it so much! She’s basically being banished!! Sometimes he dreams about monsters swooping in and devouring everyone in the village except for the two of them.
He feels some guilt about leaving first, thus leaving her in their village alone with parents he doesn’t trust and neighbours who are malicious, but he comforts himself that by doing this, he’ll be able to find a way to make a living, so he can go get her, and the two of them can live in happiness.
It doesn’t work out that way, though…
School is awful. He can’t get along with the other students. He’s bullied, verbally and physically. He gets into fights. He exasperates the teachers by daydreaming and not paying attention. He’s trying. And then he’s trying to try—but it’s so hard to want to try when he feels set up for failure. Because of his interest in monsters, he produces some good scholarship in naturalism classes, and the teacher takes note. For awhile, there’s talk of how he could earn a chance to study in a university, and become a real researcher of monsters. But he falls too behind in his other classes, unable to make himself focus on the things that bore him and without support to help him through, and that talk dies down. He fantasizes a lot about monsters coming in and eating all the other students in the school, too.
He writes to Falin faithfully. At first her life at magic school sounds as lonely as his own… but eventually she makes a friend, and then it begins to sound like she’s having fun every day. He’s so relieved for her…
…that’s the rhythm of his life until he finally scrapes through to graduate. He’s eighteen, now, but with a dismally undistinguished academic career behind him, there’s nothing left to do but join the army.
no subject
When he opens the book, a memory washes over you.
It’s extensive, six years in one go, but a lot of it blurs into repetitive misery. The beginning stands out—Laios is twelve years old and leaving his home village for boarding school. It’s his own choice, born from outrage and disgust at how his sister is being treated… but also the desperate need to just get away from adults who would treat a child with such hostility and suspicion just because she has a talent for magic. She’s going to be sent away, too, to magic school… but as far as he knows, she doesn’t want to go. She cried about it so much! She’s basically being banished!! Sometimes he dreams about monsters swooping in and devouring everyone in the village except for the two of them.
He feels some guilt about leaving first, thus leaving her in their village alone with parents he doesn’t trust and neighbours who are malicious, but he comforts himself that by doing this, he’ll be able to find a way to make a living, so he can go get her, and the two of them can live in happiness.
It doesn’t work out that way, though…
School is awful. He can’t get along with the other students. He’s bullied, verbally and physically. He gets into fights. He exasperates the teachers by daydreaming and not paying attention. He’s trying. And then he’s trying to try—but it’s so hard to want to try when he feels set up for failure. Because of his interest in monsters, he produces some good scholarship in naturalism classes, and the teacher takes note. For awhile, there’s talk of how he could earn a chance to study in a university, and become a real researcher of monsters. But he falls too behind in his other classes, unable to make himself focus on the things that bore him and without support to help him through, and that talk dies down. He fantasizes a lot about monsters coming in and eating all the other students in the school, too.
He writes to Falin faithfully. At first her life at magic school sounds as lonely as his own… but eventually she makes a friend, and then it begins to sound like she’s having fun every day. He’s so relieved for her…
…that’s the rhythm of his life until he finally scrapes through to graduate. He’s eighteen, now, but with a dismally undistinguished academic career behind him, there’s nothing left to do but join the army.
The memory fades…