23 Disorderly conduct

At the end of the first term, was short for this class that had to play catch up. She made it among those that were able to continue natural progression for the 2nd grade. They couldn't make up their mind to send her back a year, because of her age and how this could cause problems later in her grading path. She passed the minimal high band with only four others. The rest of the fall classes are repeating first grade.

The end of what should have been the year term is followed by 5 events that get intertwined as the last four weeks before the class shuffle. The students going into the high school dorm have mock or real exams for their national standard scoring. Most high school students change schools for less the creep learning or get jobs, the norm for the freaks of society is that they stay for the already provided college and university study here. There is an all-welcome parent week. The culture clubs in the teacher annexe get to set up a carnival on the grounds, which was to showcase the extra curriculum provisions to students and parents. It also has these clubs evaluated for how much funding each will get for the following year. Every club has a roster shuffle since the older students were leaving and needed to be replaced. Speaking of the older leave, the school holds a final night party for them. There is so much packed in the final four weeks, normal class is postponed until the new student term starts. There isn't a student release holiday during this time, which a state school does. Simply that these four weeks are about finding a culture club to help or be a member.

Lea doesn't seem welcome into any of the clubs. Rumours have begun to spread that she was stupid or had more than just Dyslexia problems. A school of gifted that shone her for being indifferent to spirits or that they misunderstood her. The spirits know the truth but the living doesn't know. They can't help her suffering here. Even still she wears her quirky acts with pride. She may be dancing every step she walks, avoiding the unseen. There is a sense that she was comfortable when no one else is. She thrives in the suffering on her. Taking kindness with blank uncertainty because when someone is nice to her, she never expects it.

"Lea!" She heard a shout as she exits the classroom. It was desk buddy, nicknamed Lord J or Mr J. She waits for him since he said her name. He softly approached causally, it must have been a telepathic message. They did this so she can ask about how to spell longer words in not to disturb the rest of the class. He smirked in glad that she got his thought in time. He leads her and she follows softly behind him, walking the same steps as him. He took a no-students pathway through the building but she is unfazed. Spoke nothing as they crossed by demon court waiting rooms. They eventually came to a private room, an office within the demon court paperwork pushers. He entered and sits on the sofa. A servant has already taken his bag and another puts tea on the table. It is the lunch break, and there was a neat tray of finger sandwiches and chopped fruit on cocktail sticks. She looks around the office more, walks in but steps around to look at the file names and painted pictures. Once she was done being nosy, she went to the seats and sheepishly sits down. A servant offered her tea in a respected not trick way. She gently takes it, has a smell, and savours the reason this tea was expensive. Brewed correctly, with no need for sugar and milk. She managed to keep some etiquette about her, holding the cup and saucer the right way. She has even crossed her legs in sitting and straight back. Even still she was silent.

"That's what I like about you. You don't ask or fuss about things. You don't react to us demons or stare." Mr J sighed, "Forgive me for not explaining myself." She flaps her left hand as always, "You have an undertaker background. You have neutral ground. You do not intervene unless it was for social cue or law overstepping." She sips the tea softly at hearing him being weird.

"Get to the point, J. I may have an interesting tolerant nature. You are correct about my ways of using the undertaker profile." She puts the tea down, "Going by the look of this nice office. You had a court-related question. Or there are folks here interested in my opinion in a specialist subject." She holds her hands to her lap, "Winning my favour can damage you in later things, as a warning."

"You choose to take no attachments to any kingdoms. The one you could have hasn't asked for your return. Here, there is no erasing the fact that you were an off-books court hunter." He waved and a servant pulled a trolley of stacked files, "You're success and testimonials were always never in favour of one side or another. Always character witness or much needed perspective to some abnormal places." She picks the tea up since all he said was logical and give his spirit position - access like this was bound to be. He hadn't made what point he was getting to yet but she can follow the sound logic for where this could lead. She sips and he studies the no correction or denial, "Lady Mystic, I need your eye interest in a case that is coming alight. The reason I started human schooling was due to this." She tilts showing she listens, "The headmaster is the one making the accusations. The accused was a Trickster, to be exact - the direct next in line. A Seer." She clamps the saucer so tight that it creaks the porcelain. She puts the set down now.

"Sorry about the porcelain." She softly coughed, "It be wrong for me to give a professional opinion. I am biased influence."

"You are a Trickster, I had thought that would be a problem." He looked disappointed.

"Oh no... no. I hate my biological father. He did something unthinkable, the problem stems from him. I wish you all well on having him punished." That wasn't the answer this lord J was ready to hear. In any case, he gets that even if she could testify anything the ruling wouldn't allow her. She was too blood close, even if she wasn't by bond. She was comfortable having a few bites of the food provided. She settled a new pose, less ladylike and more like a casual friend. She enjoys the tea and lunch. It was nice that this place seems quiet.

"No other demons want this office because it is beside the visitor's lounge." He relaxed too.

"But we are living people, unable to hear them due to the law of veils. Someone could be screaming on the other side of the door and we can't hear it. But given we are both negative energy types, we can be entertained a trying to wonder what level of pain is happening." He cracked a demonic smile at hearing her be so right. They both follow a shared laugh at this notion but she sighed first, "There is something you can still ask me at a professional but bellow table way. I, of course like other Tricksters, access the same books. I can read the family tree or spill some dirty secrets the lie about being the book preventing them. Although the tomes indeed have sentient properties, they can hide what it has to. Even from gods." She then sips tea and nods in sighing.

"I will ask with an appropriate price reward if it crops up." They take into silence. Some eating and more tea. The door slammed open with a force that wafted a breeze past them both. They are indifferent or play casually. She brushed her hair out of her eyes.

"Curse them!" The demon seats on the desk, and the file thuds on the surface.

"So tense. I knew the ass hat was a smooth talker." She commented.

"Your displeasure towards the Seer is not needed with strong language." J pouted.

"You would curse him if you knew his real crimes. Crimes even gods find inexcusable but the universe has some way of Karma. I am just waiting to see it served." She smiles at knowing this truth.

The servant filled in the demon at the desk about what was going on. The man glares in wondering if she was just saying her hate in ply for case information. But she hadn't even asked a thing about the current one. The awkward long silence of saying nothing.

"Another dusted witness!" An undertaker hissed growls.

"The clean-up crew is getting rusty." She spat, "That is unless the murder was interrupted. I bet you have been finding candle wicks. They always use lavender candles. Unless the target was special. They add spices or salt." She frowns, "If they bought any of my old candles, there be orange oil included. I lost a lot of my older records for what happened to my first candle crafting business." She frowns, "I was stabbed through the stomach and left to crawl." She shook at this afterthought, "Wow the recall of my past lives is stronger here in this realm."

"It makes sense. You did spend a lot of those lives here. You sent Lord Spike to the death Mill in hell."

"Oh yeah. I kidnapped the demon lord. Great times. I forced him a booked holiday out of the hell court seating." She laughed at that, "That was also capturing red hand." She pointed with her left hand, "That freak was disgusting."

"Because it was a clothus?" J asked.

"He was using his victim's corpses like clothing. He would cream them out to hollow and then force himself through. It was disgusting. He stinks of death." She puts the tea down and tried to not gag recalling it. He equally gets it, being put off from his tea and food, "Sorry."

"Nah, you are a myth among myth ranks. I am sure you had trouble hiding your living status a lot. Could you even teach me how you do it? Like your voice."

"Which one? I have a lot of them. If you mean the way I speak as the dead do. Oh boy, it requests a near-death experience." She waved her left hand dismissively.

"Why do you only use your left hand to comment or express?" He asked using his left hand.

"That's a sigil thing." She pats about and then took out a copy of the guide for outsiders, "If you agree or wish to sell soul on something, you indicate with the right hand. This is a trick clothus use to steal your soul often, to shake your right hand while speaking a flimsy but powerful contract. The most casting of magic is an exchange of energy, so you use your right hand to cast spell craft. Snapping my right-hand fingers would enter me into frozen time-space, the same as death gods and walkers." He takes the guiding hand to him her left hand, "The left hand is a safe way to agree to disagree. We can in a causal way assume it to agree with the topic. But you will not allow any demon contracts to cast if I use my left hand to gesture it. All the Seers are the same. Branch-off names don't have enough behind them to protect themselves, unable to m6ove in frozen time. They have to suffer or make shady deals to save themselves. Many branches of the family don't last, and many turn insane. The Fallown family is such that made a deal back a time. It will fall apart and this branch will crumble." She frowns, "No disrespect to you demons but being human with a small percentage of use to you. When the generation of deal makers dies, it will be on my shoulders to carry the debt. Demons have such cruel debits. No rest for the wicked and salvation to us fools."

"No harm made." J nods getting some real insights about the Seers in how well she speaks confidential information. To even reveal that she cast magic with her right hand, he could use that against her just as much as the Seers. She had better weapons to protect herself than play tricks.

"Get this Trickster out of my office." A cast was made to banish spirits off the aligned veils. This did not affect her or J. He sighed at how rude that was, and she smirk at getting it.

"Don't worry about it." Her living voice tuts, "I take it this is your father and this is his office."

"Sadly his my grandfather." J corrected her.

"Pish posh." She smirks and he laughed at that.

"My father is managing the hell that is the current murder grounds of this case." He stops to see if she asked.

"I wonder if the death god in charge was paid under the table. There are several reapers of low ranks that accept bribes like that. To not make a loud report of a broken law." She chooses useful information instead, "You can also source soul removal items. There is a salt mixture on the death black market to remove the soul from a corpse. Souls can wander to the next life freely without a grim witness. A grim reaper is for those to attach. Willpower or that the realm needs to release the soul through a veil." She crossed her arms, "It's easy to write names after the fact, cover up in the soul count events."

"Neat. I like talking to you." J smirks, "We both should have back to class."

"But the woman sobbing about her dead lover was getting good." She plays it humanly sarcastically.

"So you can hear?" J asked.

"No... I am cursed. Negative emotions are universal, both living and dead alike. You get hurt, I can smell blood a mile off like a shark." She summons her mask, "I am a broken one. I can devour those like me. With the mask, people can feel emotional too. Unlike them, I can eat their sorrow. The perfect masks can't eat other masked ones." She let it go and it faded away hidden once more, "All the Tricksters have them. It's how a Trickster knows a Trickster. I am happy to point them."

"Oh. neat." He stands and bags back on, "Reckon we get summer homework?"

"Yeah. This is school after all. At least it isn't crazy hard. It is to finish reading a book or research something. Minimal a few sentences." She follows him.

"Nooo!" The interruption of them both was an undertaker laying on the floor. Hysterical in screaming about losing their partner.

"Oh, that is tough." She tilts with empathise thoughts.

"That it's an undertaker?" J asked.

"Look at their ring." She points to it with her left, "The partner is dusted in such a way that the soul fragment given in trade of their oath was affected. This isn't a normal dusting case. This is worse."

"Oh. I didn't consider you an expert in the topic." J pondered.

"Well, I had made an oath once too. I was just in that undertaker's position. Not did I lose my only friend. I lost a part of my soul in that binding of our contract." She lowers to the sobbing undertaker, casting a sleep spell over them. She now lays the undertaker comfortably and a stick candle in their hand. It's a soul-searching candle, expensive to stock. Even still there was that share of sorrow, it was the least she can do in helping them.

"You do this a lot." J picked her off the undertaker.

"Yeah. But you can trace me." hand posed open, "I leave ash where I touch. It's a dirty method for a living person to touch the spirits. I prefer it too. I can be accounted for where my hands had been."

"I like the thinking." Back to the living world and the bell rings.

They weren't last in at least. The two of them had their normal seats and even with not everyone being seated. A pair of undertakers were answering class questions and it was about the upcoming spirit events.

"The spirit visit by high ranks is on hold this year. Too much unrest." A pair of undertakers stating news to the folks that settled, "But this doesn't stop any recruitment or sigil applications. You are needed. There is a little hope that the monarch will still show while most dukes and Duchess will be away to manage territory management." The class is alright with the resolution, "Especially the high grading and potential ones."

"No longer does having abilities entitle some from the rest of you. It's what you do with the little you have that will be the judging factor." The partner glares at the Seer at the front where Lea sits back. She wasn't going to matter to them. J leans forward in sorrow that that might mean he was excluded because of his blood. The pair of undertakers start to make leaves with the last few folks seated but the first nearly through the door stopped frozen. Bumping and backing into the room. A cat of hers carried an interesting envelope, which she snaps fingers to freeze time in the case. She noted J didn't freeze up as the cat disguise thing changed to the snake. Slivers all through people and up her leg.

"Decky." She lifted a portion of it to hug and pet. Making it coiled on her lap, "You don't need to be a cat if you're a snake." She softly removed the letter from her jaws and the snake bite her hand. No teeth. it was a play bite. Still sobbing. She let it and it stopped with the last hold on her skin. It slips away, under feet and back through the doorway. The undertakers backed away more to the walls. She looks at the seal of the letter and what this was all. She opens and attempts to touch and read. The being didn't press hard as the typical writer does. She would normally assume bad news with a curse. But the delivery of a crate at the front of the classroom. She has to read this. She looked and gladly it was written in sigil hieroglyphics. She studies the explanation of it being off universe goods. Signed by Twilight herself. Complete with a scale.

"Crap." She tucked the paper quickly now to herself and rushed down to the crate. She looks about the box for openings or damage. She sighed gratefully.

"I am so happy they are safe." She hugs the crate, "Their mother is crazy." She peeled the lid top with her inhuman ways, "One..." She counted the contents. Petting some and throwing meat sometimes. She softly sighs in relief, "All 60." She takes her letter back out, lid closed, and sits in the crate. She reads the personal parts like meals and instructions to care. She pets the box while sitting on it and focused on reading, "That's amazing." Off the box and she pats her lap, "Come along little guy! I have a nice dark spot for you." She pats and the box lifted its legs and began walking to follow her, "You're a good monster. I am so happy to have you." A tail wags happily and she waved it to follow. She lifted her shadow to force it into a door shape. It goes into a private room with no problems. She pulls her shadow into the cloth and wears it.

"Say J. Do you happen to know any demons that sell blood? One of my pets will need some." She returns to sitting at her desk and clicked time back. The undertakers leaned to the wall afraid to move.

"Not caring for where it's sourced?" He asked.

"Well, it has to be dead realm blood. Living realm stuff would just pass through. The ghost effect, you know." She lays on her desk feeling the box and contents moving around her, "Ugh... I wonder if there is a punishment like this." She holds pressure points, "So many mouths and hands."

"You are the crazy god-slayer woman." J laughed.

"These aren't god slayers. The box too. It's considered in the living world to be a collection of haunted objects. They can move and stuff." She was acting like she having a mental breakdown, "Twilight trusts me. I don't know of the shroud over humanity knows I am 5 years old." J snickered, "Seriously J. I turn 6 this year." She pouts with a bunch not human language things. She said them so fast that he knew she wasn't saying them to him. She was telling the collection off. He still laughed. The rest of the class looks at them two being chummy.

"Decky?" J snickers.

"He is the guardian between thing and thing. I don't know where I named him that. He is the living mosaic pattern on the walls, depicting a black-scale reptile. He likes making drastic poses and changing them while you're looking away."

"Will you two stop talking?" A student hissed.

"Oh, do you happen to have a metal weapon in that cursed collection?" J asked.

"Well... yes." She frowns, "You trying to duel me?"

"Nah, I would be toast."

"Well, I could pry your soul out I guess if that's what you mean." She stretched over her desk and tendrils of metal were spreading over her arms and under her skin. Patterns of her veins were visible from this process. She doing a lot of fast snaps of strange words. Her hand reflexes at holding a paper thrown at her, which now burns into green flames and dusted her desk. She doesn't realize her hand did that, snappy words.

"Maybe I need to take you to the nurse." J tried to pick her up. He couldn't bundle her. He lifted his hands of how wet they were. He widened of it being blood, lowered at shaking her, "Wake up!" He demands. She is so pale but does look up. She had an annoying expression of not liking being worried, she posed her right hand to open her palm. The freed blood flows into the cupped hand and back through her veins, colour returned to her face. Still looking at him strangely.

"I am not trying to duel you. Promise." He surrenders hands show. She no longer looked at him oddly, "How did you do the blood thing?"

"Don't worry about it. Don't try to pick me up. I dislike it." He sits back in his seat. He sits worried about her for the rest of the class. The undertakers stay around recording the event. Once the metal in her veins settled, she also settled. Tendrils of dark cloth were putting sticky and plastered on entry points along her leg and arms. Both arms are bandaged with healing salve. She spent an of this class laying on the desk in pain and unable to focus. J making notes for her to have got later. Whispers of other students disliking this so-called friend zone.