Second (History Plays, Book 1)

6: and in the day when he shall walk abroad

Gaveston

Six am comes far, far too early. It takes me a solid minute to realize I'm warmer than I ought to be. A comforter, a thick blue one, the one that was on Edward's bed, is tucked over me.
"Is this yours?" I ask, sitting up, rubbing my eyes.
"No," Teddy mumbles. Edward ignores me, but that's uncharitable to say like that; it's not clear he's awake.
"I don't want it," I say, pushing it to the floor. Did he get up and put that on my bed? Is that not creepy? That's creepy. It is. I've decided.
The other boys grumble, Teddy disappears into the bathroom. Edward puts on shoes. So he slept in what he plans to go to practice in. Clever. In fact, I'm doing that later. I wore my regular things to bed, not the Admiral sweat shirt and pants that we're to wear to work out in.
We not at all quietly take our turns in the bathroom and getting changed. Teddy changed in there so I follow suit. Then we all three wordlessly make our way down the hall, the other athletes stumbling out of their rooms as roommates shush them. All of us are similarly clad and half asleep. Most have water bottles. Mine is in my fencing bag, I should have thought to bring it. Oh well. We are joined by Canterbury house's few athletes, as well as all the females from their house, the only ones I really recognize being Izzy, Clare, and Mortimer, none of whom look any more awake than I am.
Edward ignoring my existence isn't all that odd, since he looks like he's still asleep, as do the rest of us. I'm glad enough of the silence, and am more than happy to follow the straggling crowd of students towards the sports complex. My first day. First day. I'm starting to be excited. Then I catch sight of Edward and start to wonder what he's plotting.
When we get to the sports complex the hockey players break off to go and get changed. I recognize several of them from summer Junior Olympics, though I'm not positive of all their names. To be fair, we do compete in actual masks so it's not like we see one another's faces half the time.
To my surprise, Moritmer breaks off with us fencers.
"I play hockey as a back up, Coach has me work out with you guys three days a week and skate the other three," he explains, when he sees me look confused. His black hair is tied up in a bun on the back of his head, and he actually flashes me something like a polite smile.
We drop our zip up jackets and water bottles on the bleachers. Noticeably, Mortimer is the only one who doesn't strip down to his Admiral's mustard yellow t-shirt, instead keeping his zip up. Coach Marlowe joins us as we're just starting to stretch. For his part, he's awake, with a unhealthily large thermos of coffee and smelling already of cigarette smoke.
"Louve, lead them in stretches, then jog. I've got a schedule drawn up, but we can work out the finer points later. I want to see where you're all at. If you need anything, shout," is his rousing speech before going back down to his hockey players.
"We usually just run," Izzy says, and we all shrug. There's about twelve of us in total, a small team. But at least enough to pair off since we're an even number now that I've joined.
We jog around the bleachers, some people put headphones in, though most are eager to catch up and discuss shared classes. I'm fairly quiet, but Izzy purposefully draws me into the conversation, and within moments she's arranged for me to have either an escort to and from or a buddy in each class. I was going to ask the purpose of this, but Teddy sort of shakes his head so I let it go.
The Admirals are a lively bunch, if clique-y, which would come from living together I'd suppose. Teddy even brightens up as we all gradually wake up, laughing and chatting with the others. Clare, though reserved, laughs as well, cracking jokes mostly with Izzy and Teddy though she seems close with a couple of the other girls. I join in a little, mostly gathering information about the school, and observing hierarchy.
Nobody goes out of their way to talk to Mortimer, I find. Izzy includes him as a courtesy though he usually gives brief answers. He's soon dripping with sweat, but does not shed his zip up, instead mopping his face with his sleeves and just carrying on. Nobody comments, so I assume this is typical behavior.
Soon we are all sweaty and happy, content with our work out. Izzy was right. I do value the rink's cool air, now. Not a bad place for a morning run with friends. I mean, the cool air bit and the new friends bit should be the highlight, but I would be lying if I said that watching the hockey team fail miserable at everything wasn't entertaining.
Mostly it's Edward. I pick out his number 2 from here, and it's very obvious he's less interested in hockey and more interested in knocking over and hitting his teammates with the puck. Coach has to bench him twice and it doesn't help at all.
Anyway, we hit the showers before the hockey players, though most of us just elect to go back to the dorms to wash up and get ready for breakfast. Teddy and I jog most of the way there. Perhaps today will be a good day.