This one comes with a warning: If you already actively dislike the Addergoole staff, this is not the story for you.
I don’t usually say things like this, but I’m in a foul mood today, I wrote this for fun, and I don’t want it to turn into a discussion about how Regine et al are evil stupid horrible monsters, please.
That being said, story:
On occasion, the staff at Addergoole found themselves needing to implement a new policy.
Their school had been entirely experimental at the outset, and none of the three founders had all that much experience with teenagers. Their first policy changes had involved the sheer violence of teenagers – something they might have picked up from Lord of the Flies or Heathers but learned on their own quickly enough.
Their second policy major change came about because of the secondary purpose of the school – to ensure genetic diversity after the coming storm – and the quaternary, to allow Regine to study the genetics of half-breeds. They had not expected students forced together by pseudo-Keepings to form lasting bonds (although they had expected some of the Crews to last). For the most part, those couples formed by Keeping did not last – but some couples, however formed, stuck together through the four years of Addergoole and beyond.
A later policy change was implemented much more quietly, and very few students ever saw it in action. Once again, they had failed to allow for exactly how violent teenagers could be, and at the same time failed to realize how badly a former Kept might react to a Keeping that, by their new rules, was closely-monitored and carefully mentored.
The original Keeping had been skating the edges of acceptability: the boy had isolated his Kept, treated her like a pet, and controlled every aspect of her life for a school year. When a routine visit found her Keeping him post-school, however…
They had pulled in her Mentor, his Mentor, Solomon, and Mendosa, and just barely managed to talk her into releasing what was left of the boy. He had survived – but only just, and it would take Caitrin and Mendosa three years to put him back together.
The Addergoole staff had always encouraged their alumni to find each other. After that, however, they started asking more questions.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/866797.html. You can comment here or there.