Aikida, my goddess… I love you.

Chapter Two: Time Flies

That was how I came to be; in a large, airy house settled comfortably between the waving golden plains and the sandy shore of the eternal blue of the Alpathes Ocean. It is not necessary for you to know exactly what became of me in those first ten years of my life. Those strange and deluded few who sympathize with the man I have become have tried, or so I have heard, to convince the rest of the Universal Population that I had a sick and tormented childhood; that I was abandoned as a baby and forced to beg for scraps of food on the street corner. Nothing could be further from the truth.

My childhood was happy; undoubtedly so. My parents, Elva Eve Halifax (nee Leblanc) and Lieutenant Masou Halifax were both strict but fair; though I was a child full of spunk and energy, I never ‘crossed the line’, to use an archaic term. My father retired from his line of work – that of a moon station commander – when I had ten Standard Years; a respectable thirty-year career. He was highly decorated and widely regarded as a fine commander and a finer citizen. It is easy to imagine that I idolized him, as any son does a father, and he did his best to raise me to be a better man even than he was.

My mother, Elva, was of a middle-ranking family of the aristocracy of Ibiri Tertius. Her favorite thing to wear was a gown the sea-green color of the ocean before a storm. It was a light, flowing material, and the floating fabric personified her. She was a dreamy yet patient mother; a girl and a woman at the same time. Later on in her life, she became prone to forgetfulness and to late-night partying; often the two would feed off of each other and she would end up drifting from party to party until someone found her and brought her home, where she was needed. For all of her faults, I loved her.

We lived in the Junnarak Plains, where thundering herds of Tundarks with their high-pitched calls grazed on the fibrous gold-colored reeds that are Ibiri Tertius’s prime export. Toryiou, a small market town to the east of our country home, was my primary play-place while growing up. The town was a fairly good-sized province, having about two thousand citizens to call its own, and was the pit stop of choice for many weary wanderers. Gypsies in particular spent much time spinning tales on the streetcorners of Toryiou, talking in gutteral voices and wearing bright colors and disappearing as quickly as they came on their silver-striped beasts of burden, the hooved and antlered Ililin from the West. My earliest memory was becoming entranced by a gypsy Loomer, her silver hair tied back in a leather binder, wrinkled hands weaving delicately together the fabric of a rug on her loom. I must have been about four, staring entranced with a treat in my hand, wide-eyed and probably open-mouthed as the rug took shape.

The gypsies gave me my first ‘best friend’ in the form of a mutt of a canine that I named Anjou in respect to the leader of that particular gypsy clan. Anjou had about thirty Cent-Metres and was white with brown blotches on three of his paws, one ear, and one eye. His eyes were dark and almond-shaped and seemed to speak to me. I spent many long hours on the prairie or in the water with Anjou, and never wanted for a ‘best’ human friend because of it.

When I had ten Standard Years, as I have said, my father retired. It was an interesting time to retire, and looking back on it I think he chose it for a reason. Males and females on Ibiri Tertius who wish to serve in the Grand Navy must graduate first from a military preparatory school and then, if they desire a higher rank in the Navy, a secondary academy of the same nature. In order to gain entrance to the prep school, they must take an entrance exam at the age of ten Standard Years. I know now that my father retired just in time to tutor me through that time of my life.

The exams were grueling; a difficult task to undertake for anyone, let alone hyperactive ten-year-olds. We sat for four days at stone desks, necks and backs aching as we bent over the Standard Tests, veins sticking out of our small, sticky hands. I still remember the proctor with the dark irises eyeballing me suspiciously every time I looked up to check on the timepiece how much time I had left to complete my essay on why I wanted to be in the Navy.

In the end, only a few of us made it through. Out of the six hundred hopeful students who took the exams with me during those four days, only fifteen of us received our acceptance letters to LaBrea Military Academy, the best Naval Academy for systems. It came in a felt envelope. My father was so happy that he picked me up and swung me around and around, and then clutched me to him like I had just saved the Universe from certain destruction. My mother smiled serenely.

My first form of LeBrea Military Academy came and went in a whirlwind of friends and work, frustration and joy. We were divided into Upper and Lower divisions at the beginning of each form by way of another Standard Test, and I successfully placed into the Upper division of my form. We sat for long hours at our benches, scribbling furiously on thick paper while our Masters lectured on elementary maths, grammar, etiquette – oh, by Ibiri, the etiquette lessons we endured – and languages (our native Yarei and the dead language that came before it, Moraba), and rudimentary cellular and physical sciences.

I completed my first form with honors. There was a ceremony for every class between forms, and I remember the tears in my parent’s eyes as I was named the top performer of my class. I remember one other thing about that ceremony, and though it meant little then, I look back on it now and wonder at it. I took my piece of paper denoting me the top performer of my class and clasped my Masters’ hands; and when I turned to sit down, I accidently looked directly into the eyes of a brunette I was not then acquainted with in the third row. His eyes even then were the smokiest gray-blue I’d ever seen, and it felt for a moment like a bucket of ice had spilled into my stomach. I recovered quickly – it only took a moment – and sat back down. I thought about it little for the next few days, and, not being able to come up with any answers as to why this unnamed boy’s gaze had disrupted me so much, quickly put it out of my mind.

Thus ended my first form at LeBrea. There would be eleven more forms to follow, each harder than the last, each of which I excelled in. I remained the top performer for four years until a girl named Elia Liax bested me in the sciences. We remained in friendly competition until graduation, and she was a part of one of my many circles of friends. I had inheirited the drifting gene from my mother, and so I floated from table to friendly table in the mess hall of LeBrea. My friends were simple, straightforward, and honest, and I appreciated them all.

There was one, however, that I appreciated above all the rest.