It was a quiet Saturday. Perfect time to set up the classroom for the start of the semester on Monday. The multiple trips from Y/n's car to her classroom made her curious about the teacher's room across from hers.

Y/n sighed as she put down the last box and finally got a proper look around the room. She was a math teacher, not an art teacher, so decorating was not quite her forte. She needed ideas.

An idea popped into her head to visit the science teacher's classroom for inspiration. Knocking at the door but there was no response from someone in the room. She took it as a sign that she was maybe free to take a quick look through the doorway, as it wasn't locked.

The door creaked open and there she saw a solar system model hanging from the ceiling, multiple science posters plastered around the wall, a coffee cup forgotten beside a stack of papers, student projects displayed, and writings on the whiteboard about sound waves.

"Why would someone with a doctorate in molecular biology choose to spend his days explaining atoms and ecosystems to twelve-year-olds?" She whispered to herself.

It wasn't meant as criticism. If anything, it was genuine curiosity.

With some inspiration gathered, y/n headed back to her classroom to start decorating.

~

Y/n went to school early to prepare for her first day. Putting up last-minute decorations and practicing her introduction to her new students.

"Knock knock," a voice sounded from the doorway.

She turns around to see Mr. Ryland Grace standing in the doorway of her classroom. "I'm not good at jokes," she immediately recognized him. It was hard not to. Ryland Grace looked exactly like someone who could have a doctorate and still choose to spend his days surrounded by middle schoolers.

"Not good at jokes who?" He smiles back. "Are you the new math teacher?"

"Maybe."

Grace laughs. "Welcome to Grover Cleveland Middle! Hope you enjoy your stay."

"Sounds more like a hotel greeting to me," y/n leaned against her table.

He steps inside her classroom, looking around. "You know, classrooms are easier to decorate when you understand spatial relationships."

"Are you implying I don't understand spatial relationships?" Y/n raised an eyebrow.

"No, I'm implying I don't," he looks back at y/n. "Science classrooms are easier. You just put up things that make kids curious."

"And math classrooms?" Y/n places her cup of coffee on her desk, curiously watching the science teacher looking around her room.

"You put up numbers and hope nobody runs away."

"That's the worst sales pitch for math I've ever heard."

Y/n chuckles and picks up one of the last decorations that needs to be displayed—a pretty-looking fractal poster.

"Mandelbrot set?" He looks at her.

"You know that?" Y/n stops putting decorations up, genuinely impressed.

“You don’t spend years studying molecular structures without appreciating patterns," Grace crosses his arms.

“…Okay. I’ll admit, that was actually a good answer.”Y/n stares at him, “I thought scientists only cared about test tubes.”

“That’s a very unfair stereotype of scientists," he puts his hand on his chest to dramatically indicate that he's offended.

The bell rang, indicating that it was almost time for class. "Well— G'luck on your first class," Ryland waves at y/n, walking out of her classroom.

"Wait—" He stops mid-step, "I didn't quite catch your name."

"Ms. y/n y/l/n"

"And I am—"

"Dr. Ryland Grace?" She cuts him off, already having familiarized his name from the teachers who welcomed her over the weekend.

"Mr. Ryland Grace, thank you very much," he corrects her before heading to his classroom.

~

Y/n struggled with her first class. She knew what she was doing with math; she did enter academia after all, but she realized that teaching twelve-year-olds was different.

The bell rang for lunch, and every student rushed out to the cafeteria. Y/n stood in the hallway, greeting her students. As the hallways grew quiet, she went back into her classroom to stare at the lesson plan she had prepared for the week. "What did I do wrong?" She thought to herself.

"First day?" The science teacher leaned against the doorway of her classroom.

"Was it that obvious?" Y/n doesn't look up from staring at her lesson plan.

“You reorganized your desk three times before your first bell," and with that statement from Mr. Ryland Grace, Y/n finally looks up to him and stares menacingly.

He immediately notices and places his forehead against the doorframe, "—sorry."

"I don't know if my students are really just rowdy or if it's my lesson plan." She gets up from her seat and stands in front of him.

“Middle schoolers can tell when teachers are nervous. They can also tell when teachers care. The second one matters more.”

It made y/n think. Maybe she really was too nervous and focused on staying on track of the lesson plan and forgot to make the class engaging enough.

Grace noticed that she fell silent at what he said, "you figured something out, didn't you?"

She nods, "Don't let it get to your head."

"Anyway, here are extra supplies," he hands ten five-piece packs of pencils.

"Oh— Thank you..?" Y/n was thankful but more amazed. "But isn't this a bit much? Do you still have supplies for your classroom?" She adds.

"Oh yeah. I have a drawer."

"A drawer?"

"A few drawers."

"How many pencils do you have?"

"Enough."

"I always keep extras since my students always lose them," he adds, and y/n takes the pencils and smiles at him to show appreciation.

"I'll head back, enjoy lunch!" Grace heads back to his classroom. "You too."

Y/n was slightly surprised because she expected another ten-minute explanation on the psychology of having extra pencils for his students. According to everyone else, Mr. Ryland Grace was incapable of ending a conversation once he found something interesting.

But he simply wished her a good lunch and left.

"Huh.." She whispers to herself.

She stashes the pencils away to start a 'pencil drawer', figuring out that it was a good start to show her students that she cares for them.

She was done for the day and had no more classes left, but stayed in her classroom for an hour or two to reconfigure her lesson plan and teaching strategies to be more engaging for her students.

Y/n didn't realize Grace still had classes next door until she heard a bunch of students scream. It made her jump up from her seat and look through the window of her co-worker's classroom.

It was his students enjoying an experiment they were doing with Grace. "Again! Again! Again!!" The students cheered, followed by another explosion of what looked like smoke.

She smiles at the sight of students actually enjoying learning something from their teacher. A student raises their hand and asks a question, followed by Grace explaining and pointing at the diagram he drew on the board. It made her smile as she started packing up to go home.

Maybe Mr. Ryland Grace really is a good teacher.

~

The first few weeks at Grover Cleveland Middle passed faster than Y/N expected. Her classroom became less rowdy and more of a place for learning and fun math games.

Somewhere between morning greetings in the hallway, conversations that started about school and somehow ended with debates about teaching methods, and the occasional emergency pencil delivery from the science teacher across the hall, Ryland Grace became a familiar part of her routine.

"One of mine tried to convince me that negative numbers weren't real," y/n took a sip of her coffee, labeled 'Life is better with a little ∑'

Grace, now seated on one of the students' tables instead of leaning against the doorway, also took a sip of his own coffee, "a reasonable philosophical argument."

Y/n looks at him menacingly and throws a pencil at him, "You're encouraging them."

The teachers' afternoon conversation was not so rudely interrupted by a student knocking at y/n's classroom door. "Come in!"

"Good afternoon, Ms. y/l/n! Can I ple—" The student was surprised when he saw Grace sitting on a student's chair in y/n's classroom. "Oh, good afternoon, too, Mr. Grace!"

Grace raises his hand to greet the student in the middle of sipping his coffee. "Yes, what is it?" Y/n asks the student.

"Can I please have a pencil? I forgot to bring one for my art club meeting."

"Sure! You know where they are," y/n lets the student in to grab a pencil from her 'pencil drawer'.

Meanwhile, Grace was watching all of this unfold before his eyes and realized that y/n also started a 'pencil drawer' for her students. "Thank you, Ms. y/l/n!" The student merilly went along their way as y/n closed the door.

"Pencil drawer, huh..." Grace reads the label on a drawer where the student grabbed a pencil. "What about it?" Y/n walks back to her chair.

"What can I say? Others really do learn from the best." Grace's face was filled with satisfaction, with a smug smile that made y/n increasingly annoyed.

"I thought that I reached my daily annoyance limit yesterday. You continue to surprise me every day," y/n starts typing away at her laptop.

"You have a group outside your room, by the way."

Grace looks outside y/n's classroom window and sees a group assigned to present a topic tomorrow. "Oh fudge— I didn't notice them," he immediately stands up and goes outside.

"MR. GRACE?! WHY ARE YOU INSIDE OF MS. Y/L/N'S CLASSROOM?!" One of the students exclaimed as he shut y/n's classroom door. Y/n lets out a chuckle, "fudge? Really?" She quotes Grace.

An hour passed, and Grace hadn't come back for his coffee in y/n's classroom. She figured he was still busy helping out his students with their presentation and decided to bring it to his room.

Y/n opens the door to his classroom, coffee in hand, and sees Grace on the floor with 5 students and a project in progress. "Hi, Ms. y/l/n!" The students greeted her as soon as they saw her.

"Hello! I just came here because your science teacher forgot his coffee in my room again," she says, setting down Grace's coffee on his table.

“So you guys have coffee together every day?” One of his students asks.

"No," Grace answers a second too fast. "Not every day."

Y/n chuckles and walks to the door of his classroom to head out. "Not really. Enjoy your project!"

~

She keeps a steady, green-eyed gaze on me as I match her stare. "There are always exceptions in the law for extreme circumstances," I respond, "and those who wrote the Halmish code explicitly agreed that such events could be examined on a case by case basis by the courts afterwards." I raise an eyebrow at her. "As we learned in this very class."

Correia's plump face betrays no change in expression as she steeples her fingers, eyes narrowed and flitting between the two of us. The entire class of around two dozen students in total are congregated around me and Velle, all eagerly listening in. I catch Deon off the edge of my eyesight paying special attention to our debate. My best friend nods in encouragement, and I feel some more resolve slip into me. My argument is ironclad, so far.

Velle scoffs and responds with barely a delay. "And nine out of ten cases, the courts would determine you guilty. Since you mention the Constitution's writers, Anton… may I remind you of what Reverend Hollsmann said?" She smiles, cocking her head. "To paraphrase him, Pyromancy is an arcane element of such special, extraneous nature, that its usage lies outside the normal judgments we'd apply to those using the main three elements. You cannot apply the same standard to that element; fire is inherently damaging all on its own to most people. Fire can spread and propagate all on its own, given space to do so. Fire is the element of choice for soldiers and terrorists alike. Almost no one is using it to… what, save others?"

She stops to take a deep breath, then continues again. "All the other Writers agreed unanimously, by the way. Wysom said using fire in full view of others ought to be a crime all on its own. Logris even suggested that people should be charged retroactively for doing Pyromancy unknown to others, as long as it ever happened where it could spread and cause damage. This is all from the Republican Papers. The Constitution even lays it out explicitly; even for certified Pyromancers —which precious few people are, of course— the penalty for public usage is revocation of their license at minimum. And if you even accidentally harm someone in the process, then Spirits forbid, but your case would be aggravated. That's years in prison. So." She cocks her head. "Functionally speaking, uncertified, public Pyromancy is illegal. In every sense."