DYER - The Durban Wolves [discontinued - pending V2, someday, maybe]

.:3:. Dyer

When Divan got home, just more than a week into the apprenticeship program, he was a wreck.

"Looks like someone got a bad mentor." His mother winced as the boy collapsed on the couch.

"Less of a mentor than an ambitious lady who's too lazy to do her own paperwork." Divan sighed as he slumped ever deeper into the upholstery.

"...That's actually pretty normal." Divan's father shrugged.

"Andries!" His mother scolded, slapping his arm a little as she walked past.

"Well, I'm pretty sure that it's not normal to have to sort printouts of genetic code for a borderline transhumanistic researcher whose sole interest lies in figuring out a way to turn her hair blue without having to get it dyed."

"Uh... what?" Andries blinked.

"He's talking out of his science fiction books, Love." Divan's mother shrugged.

"I wish." Divan felt as if his eyes were going to explode from the strain of trying to find any sort of order between the reams of paper covered in ridiculously tiny print.

His neck, back, tailbone, even his legs hurt from sitting awkwardly, trying to make out the tiny runes on the pages. He had a throbbing headache, and the way his jaw ached all around, Divan was pretty sure he'd never clenched his teeth so hard in his entire life.

As if to throw petrol on his smouldering attitude, an incredibly bubbly Erika skipped into the room, clearly looking for Brian.

"He isn't here." Divan answered before Erika could ask the question at the tip of her tongue.

She was about to turn to leave, but something stopped her.

"Dy, are you okay?" Erika asked with an expression of concern. "You haven't been looking too good the last couple of days."

"I haven't ached like this from doing nothing before in my entire life." Divan said honestly. "Between the bomb and the rugby, pain is a familiar concept, but not like this."

"Maybe I should book you in for a treatment at my spa..." his mother began.

"Elsabie!?" Andries gasped in horror. "Not the pixie palace!"

"Please, not the pixie palace. Anything but the pixie palace!" Divan moaned, covering his face with his hands for dramatic effect.

"What's the pixie palace?" Erika blinked in confusion.

The so-called pixie palace was a beauty salon that Divan's mother, Elsabie, had recently discovered after collecting Divan from the Lab. Decor was the done thing, and the done thing was purple with a faerie of some description everywhere you looked without fail. On a whim, Elsabie had decided to have a facial done the same day without giving Divan the option of escaping to a more masculine setting, and therefore had to sit uncomfortably wedged between a lamp crafted to look like something he guessed was probably a Spriggan, and a gnarled old woman who was almost certainly one. He spent close to two hours like that, being teased by the therapists almost as mockingly as the glass-eyed sprites that formed the light fittings, holding the energy-saver bulbs in their porcelain fingers with their perspex wings fanning about them to form lampshades. Divan couldn't be bothered to remember what it's actual name was, but he didn't care to.

"It is a place where nobody with any sense of manhood should ever willingly return to." Divan explained sourly. "I'll take Dr Schneider's paperwork over that punishment any day, thank you."

Erika winced in sympathy, considering Divan's grievances.

"Just don't wear yourself out, okay?"