Be Gay, Do Crimes: Ros Vs Everything, Apparently

raiden's herpetology license is revoked

Chinhae was trying not to cry in Good Deeds, and Raiden, Jade, Jackson and Marcus were panicking.

They'd only been in class for five minutes, but Raiden knew full well Chinhae wasn't going to make half an hour without someone noticing. They had deliberately arranged themselves in a wobbly sort of diamond around him-- Jackson's bulk and Raiden's chair doing most of the work, since Jade was tiny and Marcus, though tall, was not exactly burly-- but it wasn't going to last long. Not with him in this state. There had to be something they could do to get him out, but they'd have to alert Fournier, and no one wanted to do that.

Unfortunately, it looked as if she was about to notice on her own. She kept glancing over at their side of the room, and several times had leaned sideways, as if she was trying to look around Jackson. So when she turned away, Raiden shot Marcus the do something look--

But before he could, there was a tremendous smashing sound, and Fournier gasped, whirling from the chalkboard and bustling towards the newly-shattered window. So did everyone else, and in that instant, the attention was away from Chinhae, whose whole body was trembling, now.

"Goodness me, what happened?" Fournier demanded, peering out across the bay --

"Think a stymph just went past. Caught it with the tail spurs." Marcus said quickly, and most crucially, calmly. Raiden, however, noticed Jackson, who was next to said window, was holding his training sword at a curious angle. Quick thinking, from someone who was so convinced of his own stupidity.

Fournier, mercifully, bought it, probably because it wouldn't be the first time it had happened. She scowled and flounced back to the front, muttering to herself;

"I must have words with Dean Sophie about letting those creatures fly about on this side of the castle..."

Raiden barely had a second to relax, however, because Chinhae suddenly lets out a quiet, pained, sort of sound, akin to a sob. He seemed totally unaware of proceedings; his world had shrunk to the size of the letter that had arrived that morning. Raiden and Marcus had not been shown it, nor had they asked to see it, but it wasn't hard to guess.

"She can't have died." Marcus had said grimly on their way down to breakfast (sans Chinhae, who had cited a headache, and they had pretended to believe him). "Because we would have heard about it. More likely she's just very, very unwell."

"Have your parents said anything?" Raiden had tried, but Marcus had already been shaking his head.

"No. They wouldn't have known before Chae anyway, it's not protocol. Not unless one of them was there at the time, and they're at home." he frowned. "At least, I think they are. There was some garbled thing shoved onto the end of their last letter... but that doesn't matter. What matters is that we have to get him through classes without anyone noticing."

Unfortunately, Chinhae was loud enough to mean that Fournier did notice this time, and her face briefly grew oddly grim, before smoothing into a sort of sickly motherly concern.

"Is everything alright, dear?" she asked, in that cloying, loud tone people always reserved for the ailing... or the bereaved.

Chinhae finally looked up, and saw everyone staring at him. He seemed to crumple--

Jade launched herself out of her chair and howled bloody murder.

"PROFESSOR I JUST GOT BIT BY SOMETHING--" she shrieked, and several other girls started to shriek too, because she did have two puncture marks in her calf-- though she was also shoving a bloodied hairpin in her pocket.