# Heart And Hometown

Title: Heart And Hometown
Status: Complete
Characters: Fang
Rating: SFW
Classification: One Shot
Author: Anonymous
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Lucy’s leather boots thudded softly against the tiled floor as she made her way towards her classroom. She was as prepared as she could get. She was psyched, she had the course layout papers she’d give out piled up under one arm, she had a rough plan of what she’d do for the lesson laid out in her head. She was ready. She was... well, still a little nervous, if she was to be totally honest with herself.
She was a real teacher now, not a lowly assistant, and this was to be her very first lesson. The grand beginning of her hopefully long and distinguished career as a music teacher. It was a little nerve-wracking when she thought about it like that. Just a little bit.
She knew the ins and outs of running a class by now, after however-many-it-had-been years of being assistant music teacher at Volcano High. She knew everything that would be expected of her throughout the year – more or less, anyway. She knew she was ready for more. Towards the end of her last year, she’d started searching for a position somewhere, and she’d found one fairly quickly in a tiny little town called Hometown. It was the perfect opportunity, but after doing some research on the quiet, insular town, she’d realized it left Anon kind of high and dry for job opportunities. There wasn’t much work for a sound engineer in an old, rustic town with a population of a few hundred, after all.
Nonetheless, after talking about it with him, they’d decided to go for it and make the move to the tiny little town. He was still looking for something in neighbouring Ebott City, but in the meantime her term was starting here and now. If she could push past her nerves, anyway.
She tried to push her second-guessing out of her head as she turned the last corner, and saw her class gathered in a loose gaggle near the door. Her heart thumped hard in her chest as the thought struck her.
Her class.
She really was a real teacher now. This was her class, right here, proof in the pudding. She was making it happen. She was doing it.
“Kris, remind me why I’m taking this elective again?” The closest student to her, a bulky, purple monster of some sort, was grousing away in a gravelly voice as she leaned against the wall. With her back turned, Lucy could see little of her other than a thin jacket and a raggedy head of hair, but guessed from the scales she could see on her forearm that she was some kind of dino. “I hate music.”
The comparatively diminutive human kid in front her seemed to take extreme exception to her words, standing up out of his slouch and drawing in a visible breath as he turned around. He caught sight of Lucy standing there, though, and whatever he was about to say died on his lips as his face fell into a perfectly flat expression.
“Well, that’s a pretty dumb thing to say sitting right in front of the music teacher.” Lucy seized the moment to announce herself, unable to entirely keep the amusement out of her voice.
The purple monster whirled around with a surprised gasp. Lucy had a cheeky followup to go with her quip, but found it dead on her lips. Instead she had to keep a sudden, unwarranted spike of nervousness down as the monster girl’s sheer size was made apparent. Raptor Jesus above, this kid was taller than her and somehow managed to look both built and wiry at the same time. Hopefully she wouldn’t be trouble. Still – she was the teacher. She was in charge, no matter how tall or terrifying this kid might be and she wouldn’t be intimidated, no sir.
Her students had noticed her arrival. She took stock of her class, and immediately noticed just how... weird all of them were. Not weird in a bad way, but definitely representative of the monster-majority town in their weirdness. In this one class alone, there was a yellow lizard kid with no arms, a large... cat of some sort with her eyes glued to her phone, and a snake in a shirt and baseball cap. A literal snake. No arms or legs. Poor guy.
She’d met a few of Hometown’s residents already in the days since she’d moved in while out and about around the town. She didn’t get any feeling of being unwelcome amongst the townfolk or the school faculty, but she still felt distinctly out of place. The first time she’d gone out to buy groceries, she distinctly remembered wondering if she was getting a taste of what Anon had felt like on his first day at Volcano High. The guy who ran the local store literally looked like a skeleton, for crying out loud, bones and eye sockets and all.
Still, she wouldn’t judge. She’d met weirder. Hell, she’d married weirder.
“Morning, everyone,” She gave them a chipper smile as she fished around in her pocket with her free hand. “Gimme a sec to find my keys, I’ll let you all in...”
She strode past them in a way that she hoped emphasized confidence and unlocked the door. As the class filed in behind her, she dropped her papers onto her desk and turned to face her charges with a smile.
The kids found their seats and stared up at her expectantly, and for a moment, Lucy felt her breath hitch in her chest. This was the moment that she’d been preparing for – her first words to her first class, the meeting that would colour their opinions of her for the rest of the term, the rest of the year, the rest of her career here at Hometown. She’d had a whole speech ready to impress her potential proteges.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t remember a word of it at this exact moment.
All she could remember was Anon’s heartwarming smile as she left the house that morning. ‘You’ll do fine, Fang. Don’t doubt yourself.’ No, she didn’t doubt herself, that wasn’t the problem she was having, stupid lovable bastard.
Fuck it, she’d just have to wing it.
“So! Good morning, everyone.” She gave her class a wide smile, and a curt nod. Casual professionalism. Casual professionalism, just like she’d practiced. A good first impression. Best way to win ‘em over. “I’m Mrs. Mous – Nice to meet you all. I won’t make you do any of that dumb ‘tell me about yourself’ crap, but since I’m newer here than any of you, I am gonna need some introductions at least.”
She pointed first toward the little deer monster at the front of the class, prompting her with another short nod.
“Er – H-Hi, Mrs. Mous. I’m Noelle.” The doe’s voice was timid and quiet, and she kept her eyes down on her desk as she spoke.
“Nice to meet you, Noelle.” Lucy said happily. Deciding she would tick off the morning’s roll call as she went, she fished it out of the stack of papers before she pointed towards the next student, a horribly smug-looking blue bird.
He cleared his throat before talking in the most nasal voice Lucy had ever heard. “Good morning, ma’am. My name’s Berdly.”
Lucy managed to keep her polite face on. She would not cringe, goddamnit, she had to be respectful with them. “Good morning to you too, Berdly.”
They went on through the introductions, and Lucy struggled to commit each of her students’ names and faces to memory. She’d been center stage for larger audiences than this before, larger by far, but the interactions between a band and a crowd were a lot more onesided than this. She was a teacher this time, not a singer. She’d never had to directly manage so many people before. It was really weird, when she thought about it – nearly half her life, she’d been one of those kids sat behind a desk, and now she was on the other end of the classroom. Now she was the one up the front, the one that everyone would be paying attention to. All eyes on her – just like a performance.
But hell, she was good at those. She was just worrying herself overly much. People hadn’t given Mr. Carldelewski any grief, after all, and he barely constituted being called a teacher. Now she thought about it, until the last half of her last year, she herself hadn’t even really cared for half the lessons she’d had to sit through at Volcano High back then. These kids probably just wanted to get through the class without any hassles, just like her. They weren’t so different. She’d be fine.
Just a few students left. She pointed toward the tremendous purple dino up the back, who’d already taken the liberty of leaning lazily back in her chair, seemingly completely chill now.
“My name’s Susie.” She accompanied her short introduction with a lazy, two-fingered half salute.
“Morning, Susie.” Lucy checked off her name, then pointed at the last kid. The human in the far corner.
Her brows furrowed as he initially failed to respond. Odd vibes from this kid, now that she was looking at him properly. Something strange about him she couldn’t quite place. Maybe it was the face – with his eyes completely covered by his bangs and a blank, emotionless expression on, it was hard to get a read on him. Hopefully he wouldn’t be another one to watch out for.
“... Kris.” He finally introduced himself, his scratchy voice just barely loud enough for her to hear.
“And morning, Kris!” She beamed, putting the roll behind her with the last name ticked off. First hurdle cleared. “Okay, so! Let’s get right into it. Music – You’re all here because you’ve got an appreciation for it on some level, I’m presuming. Everyone does, really, whether they admit it or not. Whether they know it or not.”
She didn’t miss how Susie shifted in her seat slightly.
“Seriously. Absolutely everyone, believe it or not. No matter where you go, you’ll find music’s been our constant companion going back thousands of years now. It inspires people, it sets moods, it allows people to truly express what they feel and who they are. Music is quite literally in our blood – or dust as it might be,” She corrected herself quickly. She didn’t need any sensitivity training to remember to be sensitive, especially in a monster majority class. “Absolutely everyone appreciates music on some level. Hopefully, this year, you’ll walk away with both a greater knowledge of music, and a greater appreciation for it.”
The class seemed to hang on her every word. If they were in a church she might have mistaken the silence for reverence as they looked up at her. Except for Susie and Kris up the back, that was... with their faces shadowed by their fringes as they were, for all she knew they might have just been asleep. She forged onward anyway, deciding it would be better to give them the benefit of the doubt for at least her first lesson.
“So I’ve got your course outlines for this year here – Noelle, how about you hand this half out for me? – and we’ll just run through them together quickly before we get started...”
​
-
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All in all, her first class had gone as well as she could have hoped. No real mistakes, got through everything she wanted – an easy A performance by anyone’s measure. Or it would be if she was still the one being graded, that was.
After breezing through their introduction to the class, Lucy had spent the rest of the lesson getting a feel for where her students stood with regards to musical skill. It seemed like a fine enough place to start; being new to the school herself, she didn’t know the first thing about any of the kids in her class, and she’d need to get better acquainted with them at some point.
Some of them were pretty promising. The armless... lizard kid had thoroughly surprised her with his proud proclamation that he played the trumpet, and then proceeded to surprise her even more by actually doing it. And pretty well to boot, in spite of the fact that he was playing with his feet. The quiet little deer girl had somehow only ever played a sleigh bell, of all things, but she had a lovely singing voice that would do her pretty well as part of a choir. And the human kid had endeared her well enough with his quiet admission that he played piano.
There were a few complications in the bag, though. Students of the class were supposed to already be reasonably well grounded in music coming into the elective, but there were a few who, for one reason or another, simply weren’t. In particular the snake – Jockington, his name was, God his parents must have hated him – had a few home truths to face up to. He admitted freely he’d never held an instrument in his life, and given his lack of arms, she didn’t doubt that claim. His prospects for learning to play something were pretty slim as well – she didn’t really want to disparage, but being completely limbless kinda sorta severely limited his options for playing an instrument. Given those two factors, she couldn’t honestly guess why he had signed up for the class.
And then there was the other musically disinclined student of the class – the massive purple whatever-she-was, Susie. Lucy had presumed her to be a dino of some sort, but she actually had no idea what species. She didn’t fit any mold.
In any case, although she might have been physically capable, she seemed to have near to no musical experience whatsoever. She’d just stared blankly at the example sheet music Lucy had passed around the class, and Lucy was pretty sure that she’d seen her right afterward trying to look over Kris’s shoulder. Like it was an exam sheet she could copy answers off of.
Again, she didn’t really want to put anyone down... but at the same time, she was honestly pretty sure she’d died inside a little after seeing that.
She’d have to talk to both Susie and Jockington and see what she could sort out. Most of the class had already left, but Susie was still loitering around near the door, waiting for Kris as he fiddled around with his bag. They seemed to be friends to some degree, but Lucy couldn’t really imagine a more unfitting pair. Susie looked like she could pick him up with one hand and toss him through a window if he pissed her off.
“Susie, would you come up here for a moment before you go, please?” She called out as they finally made to leave.
“Wha – Am I in trouble already? It’s the first day, I didn’t even do anything!” The purple monster growled, her hands thrust out in incredulity.
“No, you’re not in trouble! I just need to talk to you about something,” Lucy reassured her. She had no idea how she was going to break the news, though. What she was about to say was the kind of thing that, personally, she wouldn’t want spread around. “Kris, you don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”
To her consternation, the pair of them just exchanged glances and a shrug, and Kris actually started to follow Susie up to the desk. Of course he had to stay and make it awkward. Ah well.
“Susie, why did you decide to take this elective? You haven’t taken any music electives before, have you?”
She just shrugged. “I dunno. Kris was taking it. I had to pick something.”
“Honestly, Susie, I don’t want to discourage anyone from pursuing music, but you might consider switching electives before it’s too late in the year. With no prior music experience, this is going to be a really hard class for you.”
“There wasn’t anything else good I could pick, though,” Susie looked away, a sharp grimace on her face. “It didn’t say I needed to know an instrument or any crap like that to be in this class.”
“Strictly speaking, you don’t. Music isn’t just about knowing an instrument,” Lucy clarified. “It is an extremely important part of it, though. Actually playing is the best way to show what you’ve learned for your tests and exams, and it makes up a lot of your credit. It provides a lot of the fundamentals you’re expected to know in this class, too.”
Susie scoffed. “So what am I supposed to do, then?”
“I could help her learn something.” Kris cut in quietly before Lucy could answer, drawing her attention. “If she can play something, can she stay?”
“I wasn’t kicking her out.” Lucy said insistently as she considered it. It was a good idea, but... “Learning an instrument obviously isn’t something you can do overnight. It takes time and dedication.”
“Well, what are my other options exactly?”
“Switch electives, or keep going.” Inwardly she winced. Sounded painful when she just said it plainly like that, but that was the stark reality of it. “Like I said, I’m not kicking you out, Susie, but... you’re really going to struggle with a lot of the coursework at this point.”
Susie stared Lucy down for a tense moment before giving another scoff. “Whatever. Nothing’s ever easy, anyway.”
“If you’re interested in learning something, it would take a lot of work. You’d have to spend time doing it at lunch and after school.” Lucy sighed and ran a hand through her hair. She felt bad for the poor kid. She didn’t want to just leave her high and dry. “Look, I could maybe spend some lunchtimes helping you out. I taught my husband how to play guitar. But you have to promise that you’ll be serious about it, alright? No half measures.”
“I’ll help too.” Kris offered again. He had a tiny little smile on his face as he looked up at her. “If you want.”
Susie met his gaze, and for the first time in the conversation, a look of genuine consideration fell upon her face. “Hmm... Guitar, huh..?”