#his team was owen / florence rigel / him / alanta niege. ]

[etruatcaelum]

🍾 A school memory for ozpin

[ ozpin is a lightweight. ]

“People make fun–” By people he really means Glynda. “—people always make fun of the initialisms.” Ozpin doesn’t wobble as he steps outside, crisp autumn air bracing against the stultifying warmth inside; no stranger who glimpsed him ambling south along the sidewalk would guess he was remotely inebriated, although a sharp-eyed friend might intuit slightly too much wine from the unusual care in his steps, and the rambling. “The team names. I don’t know why. I thought it was clever—but that was a long time ago now—

“It’s just, you see, it’s like acrostic… or a word puzzle, it just takes a little flexibility—say you have four students with the usual number of names, that gives you eight letters—with eight letters it’s quite simple. Quite simple. One only needs to be thoughtful about it. And of course it’s important not to take it too seriously. Glynda complains when I pun on the leader’s name.” He exhales, morose. “This quarter she’s cross with me for naming a team EVAN. Led by Evan Caeso. That’s not a color, she said. It’s confusing, she said. Well, I’m the headmaster and I say it isn’t, so there!

“D’you know what was confusing? Team IRON! We were in the same year as James! When our classmates weren’t puzzling over who was the ‘I’ and who was the ‘O’ they were assuming we were Ironwood’s team—I’m not sure what Headmaster Cardoon was thinking—I was the ‘O,’ in case you’re wondering. Owen Iglesias was our leader. All surnames. I suppose that part was unavoidably confusing. But there’s no excusing IRON! We could have been… oh, I don’t know, ONOR. See? It’s easy. And Evans blue is a dye, thank you.”