The classroom had only ten seats and eight of them mattered. Everything else was tools pretending to be furniture - four writing boards that sat on the walls as if there weren't more that could fold from behind them, rolled terrain sheets clipped to rails, two ceiling projectors like patient owls...
Break time had different rules in here. Arashi used the far board to sketch shot arcs that could never happen in any world with laws. Esen added sound effects for each impossible line, trying to annoy him. Hikari had a thin stack of reports about the northern ridgeline and the old rail cut - she turned pages like you were supposed to hear the map in them. Keahi sat cross-legged on the counter by the window, sipping quiet tea. Lynea was pretending not to look at her notes. Feris occupied a corner and the door with the kind of stillness that told the room it was not alone. Ichiro was… Buried in a book, to say the least.
