Saint Joseph School

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The sun was starting to peek over the horizon, signaling the start of a new day, but Nigel continued to sit motionless on the park bench, reluctant to let go of the last. Not until he could make sense of it, anyways.

He’d returned to the little park near the Promenade after walking Kara back to the dorms a few hours earlier, their magical evening together finally coming to an end. He still couldn’t get over how beautiful she’d looked in her Homecoming dress. All night it had been a struggle to keep from drooling over her like a goon. Nigel was sure he’d managed to come off like a clueless dimwit at the dance, but as long as Kara was happy, he didn’t care.

There was no way he was going to screw up the best thing that had ever happened to him.

The young mutant paused to sip the beer he’d acquired… somewhere. The last six months had been utterly crazy: the accident at Seacliff, the move to Paragon City, a new school, new friends, meeting Kara, then joining the football team on a whim and finally culminating in the events of the previous evening. His life had turned around completely and he wasn’t sure how.

Nigel had always been clever. He had a nose for malcontent, always able to spot the ones who weren’t entirely happy with their lot. Always able to figure out what people really wanted as opposed to what they thought they wanted. It wasn’t hard to make connections, to make deals, to get things for people they couldn’t or wouldn’t get for themselves. In six months at Saint Joe’s, he’d put together an impressive network of contacts. People who owed him favours, or just plain felt grateful to him. That included quite a few who wouldn’t dare be seen with him in public. That was fine with Nigel though. Public was never his thing.

Until now.

The Homecoming race had been another whim. A way to needle Brianna and Stephen. He’d pulled a few strings to make sure he and Kara were on the short list for the election. It wasn’t until a day after the notice went up that he realized his girl might have a shot at winning. He was surprised how many people she’d seemed to touch and connect with in her short time at Saint Joe’s. And of course, being who she was, she’d left a favourable impression on almost all of them. Plus… well… it turned out there were a lot of nerds at this school.

So Nigel went all out campaigning for Kara, not realizing that all that effort was making him visible too.

People knew his name now.

Nigel Barlow.

Rebel.

Football star.

Homecoming King.

“Mom’s going to absolutely freak!” he exclaimed suddenly, startling a nearby gaggle of geese. “Dad… well… dad’s going to give me hell for all those penalties I took on Friday.” Nigel turned to the birds for sympathy, but they didn’t seem concerned with his paternal issues, offering no advice worth repeating.

Finishing the last of his beer, the newly crowned King hopped to his feet and began making his way back to the campus. The whole way he ran over the previous few days in his mind, savouring the good times and the pleasant memories. Not until he was back in his bed did a less than pleasant memory re-emerge. Again he heard the cold voice, menacing even as a whisper, cutting through the cheers and the congratulations. Again he heard those words, planted like a seed, destined to grow into a gnawing sense of dread.

“You’re dead, Barlow.”


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When I was a fighting man, the kettle-drums they beat,
The people scattered gold-dust before my horse’s feet;
But now I am a great king, the people hound my track
With poison in my wine-cup, and daggers at my back.
- Robert E. Howard, The Road of Kings


It could have been an accident.

It was probably an accident.

Nigel rubbed his shoulder, watching Paul Leeds continue down the corridor after the collision. The big Flyers’ centre hadn’t said a word as he’d passed, casually knocking his teammate against the lockers without a glance. But the hallway was crowded this morning, in that way peculiar to Mondays where everyone darted about clumsily, urgency and lethargy merged in perfect balance.

“Yeah, just an accident,” he muttered to himself. Leeds wasn’t a friend by any means, but there’d never been any friction between them either. They didn’t even butt heads at practice as a rule. Their positions rarely put them in direct conflict despite playing on opposite sides of the ball. Paul was actually a pretty good natured guy, always laughing and joking around with his buddies Frank, Mark, and… Biff.

Paul was one of Biff Hannigan’s friends.

Nigel shook his head. That didn’t mean anything. Sure, Biff may have been a little put out at losing the Homecoming election, but getting a buddy to shove a rival in the hallways wasn’t his style. No, if Hanny had a problem with a teammate, he’d be up and in his face about it. This was just an accident. That’s all it was. Nigel closed his locker and headed for his first class.

The sound of giggling made him stop and look around. A few yards back, he could see Denise and Ingrid covering their mouths. He thought Denise had looked away suddenly when he turned, but he couldn’t be certain. They could have been laughing about anything; then again, they could have been laughing at their new Homecoming King being shoved against a locker. No way to tell. Nigel strained his neck a bit trying to tell if there was a “kick me” sign on his back, then realized he probably looked like an idiot and stomped off. More giggles followed him down the halls, but he resolutely refused to look back. If his pace quickened a bit, that was just a coincidence. He had a class to get to.

“Nigel Barlow, just the guy I need to see!”

It took an effort, but somehow Nigel managed not to slam into the slight boy who suddenly appeared in front of him. Yoshi Tanaka was a photographer for the school yearbook, and appearing suddenly was his specialty. It only took a few minutes for Nigel to start wishing that “disappearing” was also in his repertoire, but a vague agreement to meet during lunch break allowed the new King to politely withdraw. It was kind of funny, really. Scheduling a photo shoot wasn’t the kind of thing the perpetual outsider ever figured on having to do.

“That’s great,” Yoshi called out as they parted. “I’ll let Brianna know what time to be there.”

Nigel stopped dead in his tracks.

“What?”


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Nigel liked rain. Liked the sound of it. The sight of it. The feel of the wet air. Even the smell of it, if there was such a thing. It was soothing. It relaxed him. He even found a strange kind of beauty in the sight of wet pavement and a drenched city. Maybe it was a sub-conscious feeling of cleansing. Like something bad was being washed away, out of the city, out of his life.

Or maybe he just liked rain. But on a day like today, when the rain was coming down so hard and heavy it was like standing beneath the Falls… he was glad he was able to like it from the other side of a window.

The library was a little busier than usual, as various students of Saint Joseph’s School took the opportunity to catch up on their studies. With finals approaching, some of them were even serious about it. Like Kara, his beautiful red-haired girlfriend. She sat at a table a few yards away, her brow furrowed, concentration focused on some impossibly thick textbook. Nigel smiled in her direction, not caring if she wouldn’t notice.

“Gosh, is this ever going to stop?” Aura asked suddenly from behind him. Nigel turned to see his young friend starting out the window with a dejected look on her face. She had a book held open in one hand, but Nigel wasn’t sure if she’d read more than one paragraph in the twenty minutes or so they’d been there.

“It can’t rain all the time,” he answered blithely, as always taking an opportunity to quote a favoured movie. Aura smiled at his answer, but he couldn’t tell if she recognized the reference or not. Making a mental note to add “The Crow” to the playlist for the next movie night, he turned back to the window and shrugged. “It will end when it ends. Until then, at least we’ve got something to do.”

“I don’t feel like reading today,” she said plaintively. “My eyes are bugging me.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have stayed up so late last night talking to that new guy?” Nigel teased. He regretted it almost instantly as Aura’s unnaturally pale face turned red with embarrassment.

“It wasn’t like that! I was just showing him around the school. He didn’t know where anything was, not even the bathrooms.” The girl looked genuinely indignant, and Nigel decided to change the subject.

“Okay, sure. So your eyes hurt. That’s rough. What can I do to help?” Nigel was rewarded with an instant smile from the young girl, then made a little nervous as the smile turned radiant and she straightened in her seat, abandoning all pretense of studying.

“You could tell me a story?”

“What kind of story?”

“Any kind of story.”

Nigel looked back towards Kara, possibly looking for some kind of out, but she was still engrossed in her textbook. With a bit of surprise, he noticed that rather than her usual physics or engineering volumes, this one was a collection of old English folklore. From the way she was staring blankly at the pages, he gathered it was as incomprehensible to her as advanced science texts were to him.

Still, it gave him an idea. He turned back to Aura and smiled.

“Okay Miss King, I’ll tell you a story.”

“Really, Nigel? You will?” Her voice picked up a notch, earning a few glances from nearby students, but no hushes yet.

“Yes. I’m going to tell you the story of Sir Giles, the Border Knight.”


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