A/N: Thanks to Juff from the aPGtE discord for this idea, I couldn't leave it unwritten





Principaled





The world spun violently around me and I fell onto something with a whoomp and a crack. The crack felt like it might’ve been my back, whatever I had landed on was hard and lumpy. I should’ve figured that Masego’s experiments with my domain would end up being a pain somehow. Hauling myself to my feet I looked around where I had landed.



I was far from the snow and ice of Arcadia’s tundra, which was where I had expected to end up. Instead I was in some sort of small room. An sturdy wooden desk sat in front of me, some strange black rectangle in the center and stacks of different papers neatly assorted on it. The walls were lined with bookshelves and art, though both looked rather strange to me. Some of the books had bright, colorful spines that reflected the harsh light from the rectangle set in the ceiling. The room was certainly far too rich for my tastes and gave me the impression this wasn’t Arcadia. It must’ve been the office of some wealthy merchant or noble, as if I didn’t have enough of them to deal with already.



Turning I looked at where I had fallen an-



oh for fuck’s sake.



That was definitely the source of the crack. I had been half right, it had been back related. Just...not mine. An elderly woman was bent over in what I knew to be an impossible angle. My landing on her in plate armor hadn’t done wonders for her health. I doubted she would’ve survived even without the plate, but like Hells was I doing this experiment without preparing for the worst.



This was very unfortunate, though. Dislike for nobles aside, I had just landed in someone’s manor from the looks of it and killed someone important looking. I didn’t even know which country my dear, eminently bruisable friend had dropped me into. Certainly not Callow or Praes from the looks of it. If I had to guess, and I hated guessing because it was almost prophetic in situations like this, I had probably been dropped into Procer or Levant. Because it would be just my luck to be stuck in the middle of a Good aligned country with blood on my hands. Too much to hope that Masego would be able to pull me right back before anyone noticed I guessed.



A knock sounded on the doorframe as it slowly creaked open.



Yeah, that about figured.



“Ms. Hawthorne? Are you alright? I heard a crash…”



Right. Think, Catherine. What would Archer do?



Wait, no, that’s an awful idea.



What would Black do? I took a quick look at the body in the knocked over chair and weaved a glamor to match. She was elderly looking so I took a guess and aged my voice a few decades. She was a noble, someone with power, so likely authoritative.



“I’m fine. Just one moment, I….uh, knocked something over.”



I quickly righted the chair and dropped one of the things on the desk onto the floor. The woman who had knocked pushed the door open enough to see inside right as I finished nudging the body under the desk with my foot with a muffled crack. The chair protested with a loud creak as I quickly plopped down onto it in plate. I leaned on the chair a bit awkwardly, blocking the view of anything behind the desk.



“Oh your lamp! I’ll go call the janitor,” she offered demurely, quickly scurrying back into the adjoining room.



“Yes. Thank you.”



I took the opportunity to look at the woman I had accidentally crushed to death again, fixing up my glamor a bit. Not a huge fan of manslaughter, but honestly I had committed enough atrocities at this point that it was, well, passable for now. I grabbed the body, opening up one of the cabinets at the back of the room and shoving it inside. I quickly shut the door and glamored it empty. Best to get all of the hiding the body bits done before the servants showed up.



An older man in strange garb knocked and pushed the door open, carrying a broom in one hand. I sat myself down in the chair, trying to stay out of his way and not do anything terribly out of place. I kept still as I could in the chair, worried it’d give another loud protest if I shifted too much.



“There we go, have that cleaned up in a jiffy. You need a new lamp right away or is the window light workable?” He asked nicely.



I looked behind me at the window that backlit the desk, sitting between the cabinets along the back wall.



“No, no the window will be fine,” I replied with false confidence.



He gave a simple nod, “Alrighty then. I’ll just let Janice know to order a new one.” He raised his hand in a small wave as he exited, carrying the broken lamp with him.



Odd, it hadn’t looked like a lamp. There was no obvious place to put the candle. Some sort of magelight perhaps? If so, he was being awfully casual about it. Something that expensive being disposable meant I had the amazing luck of killing someone obscenely wealthy. Well, Callow did need more coin in the coffers. Don’t suppose I can come out of this with their treasury in tow…The desk wasn’t even gilded, so I couldn’t scrape the gold off it to take home.



Right, I could scheme about how to get something useful out of this later. I had survived the landing, I needed to gather some information on where in the Hells I was if I was going to get home. I could gate back, but like I had told my generals, I didn’t like trying to gate from or to somewhere strange to me. Masego could do the calculations to compensate, but he wasn’t here right now.



Actually, that was really odd. My mantle felt different. The idea of forming a gate didn’t seem to mesh well with it anymore. Instead it felt like it was rooted in a different place, like I was looking at it through the wrong lens. I was less and less sure of being able to rely on my workings here, so probably for the best I hadn’t just stabbed my way out.



I turned to the copious amount of papers on the desk for clues. Surely somewhere in these piles of reports there had to be an idea of where I was. Even the country I was in would give me more than I had right now. I started to look over the papers. Lots of reports on different people, on finances. Some strange coin called a dollar, which wasn’t any currency I was aware of. The reports seemed to focus on classes and performance. An academy of some sort? Perhaps a school. A very wealthy one if so, judging from the room I was squatting in. Strange names that I didn’t recognize too. I knew what a History class was of course, but US History? I wasn’t familiar with whatever shorthand was used for these reports. They were impressive though, each was written in the exact same handwriting, clean and crisp beyond belief. I almost wondered if a Named had written it, perhaps Page or some local equivalent to Scribe.



Oof, that was a bad thought. I’d hate to be on the bad side of whoever was an equal to Scribe. I was less scared of her these days, but I had little doubt she could still do a lot of damage if she was of a mind to. The top of some of the papers had a seal. Hopefully the seal of this place.



“Arcadia High School”



Huh. Well that wasn’t particularly helpful. It was a school of some sort...named...after...Arcadia.



Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me.



I reached out for my domain and rummaged around like I was going through the pockets of some kid trying to hide the candy he filched.



I swear to all the Gods Below if you’ve gone and done this power-



I was pulled out of my increasingly angry inner monologue as there was another rap on the door.



“Yes?”



The door opened again, this time the woman, Janice if I remembered correctly, was corralling a tall teenage girl into the room. The girl, for her part, looked a mix of annoyed and defiant.



“Your two o’clock meeting with Victoria Dallon?”



I nodded as if I had any idea what that meant.



“Ah yes. Thank you.”



I took a seat again, temporarily choking down the urge to manifest my domain and stab it. The girl reluctantly pulled the chair out on the other side and took a seat at an angle from me. If I had to guess, she didn’t like me much. I had learned much over the years about reading body language and she wasn’t hiding any of it. She was annoyed, a bit angry, and definitely a little worried. Also clearly waiting for me to speak. Fuck. Uhm.



“I take it you know why you’re here?”



Stay coy Catherine, remember how much of a dick Akua was. Channel that dickishness. Reveal nothing but still manage to say things. Don’t get your head lopped off though by being a smug bitch who thinks she’s better than everyone.



She nodded, with a sullen voice, “Yeah.”



I gestured for her to continue. I had to remember I looked old and authoritative. I had all the social pressure here, which was actually a welcome change. I had plenty of authority in Callow, but it was still nice to not have to work for it for once. Being young hadn’t helped my legitimacy. Neither had all the murder, but at least I had gotten a say in that part.



She sighed and continued on, “I’m here because of all the absences right? Look, it’s not my fault, it’s all the stupid criminals’. I can’t not go out if the Undersiders or Empire are pulling stuff nearby.”



I had no idea what she was on about, but I couldn’t say that it seemed like a particularly good idea for a student to be running out because of crime. It actually reminded me a bit of something out of the House of Light or the orphanage. Being absent too much was a good way to get a stern talk.



Now how to reply? I am an haughty old crone with more money than I know what to do with. I think the House of Light is an amazing institution and that children have no respect for their elders. This girl isn’t showing me the proper respect for my station and I’m annoyed at her for taking up my time despite the fact that I’d probably just play shatranj and tax commoners more with it.



“That’s no excuse for your attendance. This school has a high standard it expects from its students. I expect for you to live up to that standard.”



That was good. Keep it vague Catherine, don’t show that you have no idea what you’re talking about. Just get her out of here, finish going through whatever papers are here, and get the hell out of here.



The girl stared at me agape and I started to have the prickly feeling down my back that I had said something wrong.



She stammered out, “What- You can’t- I’m-”



I shook my head, “Rules are rules. Now I imagine you have studies to get back to?”



“You can’t mean that! You’ve always allowed it before! I know it’s been a lot lately, but my grades are still okay and-” She raised her voice, slightly hysteric.



Hmm, I might’ve gone too far. Oh well. Shame I had no idea if this Ms. Hawthorne was stern or not, but I guess she was now.



“I expect you to follow the rules. Now shoo.” I channeled the Matron from the orphanage now instead of Akua. Probably for the best, since as far as I knew the Matron hadn’t been beheaded or killed thousands.



She stood up, angry. “Is this because I’m not a Ward? Is that it?”



The shape of a word came into my mind.



“Discipline,” I invoked, “is an important part of your education. No excuses.”



My power and I were about to have a very serious chat about what in the Hells it thought it was playing at because that definitely wasn’t an Aspect I had before. I felt a wooden measuring rod materialize in my hand. The blonde student raised a hand to protest before flinching, pulling her hand back wide-eyed. The sound of a rod hitting her wrist as she did. Gods that was kind of satisfying after having been on the receiving end so many times.



The girl yelped in surprise as the ruler left a red mark on her wrist and batted it aside, splintering it with surprising force. I scowled at her and summoned another, hitting her other wrist in retaliation. Another surprised yelp and she batted that ruler aside as well, cracking it apart. I switched between hands, more rulers coming into existence as I laid into her wrists, each ruler being broken in turn by increasingly heated blows.



“How are-ow!-you even-ow!-doing that?” she growled angrily. A wave of something touched upon my mind, but passed over it, unable to find a hold.



I wound my arm back, getting a solid swing in at her shoulder. That’d give her some pause so she stopped destroying my rulers for one bleeding second.



“Stop that! I swear to the Gods Below I will have your parents hear of this!”



I didn’t even know where I’d even begin, but she wasn’t an orphan so perhaps this was a threat that actually worked on other children. She visibly paled in response, pulling her arm back while she massaged her shoulder tenderly. The abrasive and domineering behavior suddenly replaced by uncertainty and nervousness.



“Oh shi-Uh, I mean...I’m sorry Ms. Hawthorne. I really didn’t mean to, I just, things can’t hurt me and I was surprised and I totally didn’t mean to use my powe-”



I cut her off, the ramblings of a teenage girl were not overly interesting. “Well you’re in my school, so I can. If you promise to behave then I suppose no one needs to be informed.”



She quickly nodded several times, far too eager. I guessed her hot-bloodedness must’ve calmed down and she was finally realizing she had just picked a fight with...whoever I was. I was just happy that she hadn’t called my bluff and I’d be able to get rid of her without needing to figure out how the hells one sent a courier here.



I waved my hand at her, directing it towards the door, “Back to your studies now. Shoo.”



With that she hurried herself out of the room.



Turning my attention back to my domain I tried to conjure ice in hand. Instead I got a pencil. Weirdly yellow and shaped, but recognizably a pencil nonetheless. I pushed harder, reaching for Winter and trying to chill the room to a halt. The room quieted, the clock ticked more loudly, and an oppressive aura hung in the air, but none of that was from Winter’s frosty touch. Attempting to summon more ice just got me even more pencils, some sheafs of paper, a few rulers, and some weird triangle made of an odd, transparent material. This was decidedly a downgrade in terms of power since I doubted I could shoot pencils through platemail. Attempting to summon the essence of my domain so I could stab it was about as fruitful as my past attempts.



Great, I can throw pencils at people and lower Hakram’s administrative costs. Fan-fucking-tastic. All because apparently some academy somewhere is named Arcadia and my domain got confused like a doddering old man in his cups! We don’t rule a fucking school domain, we rule Winter. You know, a bleak, hopeless tundra full of treacherous backstabbing assholes?



Huh, actually other than the tundra part, that was surprisingly similar to a school. I looked out the window behind me. There was a soft dusting of snow on the ground.



I’m disappointed in you right now domain. So incredibly disappointed. If we survive this I’m letting Hierophant dissect you.



Well, I wasn’t going to learn too much more inside this office and frankly I had probably already blown my cover in record time. I seriously needed Thief for these kinds of shenanigans, I didn’t have a stealthy bone in my body. I might’ve once upon a time but that bone had long since been broken and replaced, since I was some strange essence of Winter made physical these days.



I found the latch for the window and popped the bottom portion of it open. One of the few advantages to my height was it lent itself to climbing out windows. I was sneaking away from the back of the academy when suddenly I fell flat on my back.



Of course, what fresh addition to my personal hell is this?



I stuck a hand out tentatively and was met with an invisible force, pushing back against it. My hands reached out to the sides, feeling for an edge to the barrier and finding none. It seemed to form a straight line all the way to what looked like some strange pathway covered in smooth black stone. I followed the barrier towards the pathway, a sign sat on the invisible demarcation. I looked up and it and read:



“School Zone 20 M.P.H.”