The Choice
3 September 2022 Lowell Campus
The cooling of the summer days. The shortening length of daylight. The crunch of leaves underfoot. The mugs of cider and the cups of spiced lattes. These are the things many look forward to as fall arrives on the doorstep of Portsmith following the beginning of a new term at Lowell Academy. Students and faculty usually return refreshed and recharged. Ready to tackle the challenges of the year ahead of them. The Order of the Primrose is no different.
With the apparent lack of identifiable activity from the Order, Lowell had been lulled into a disquieted complacency. Yet many understood that the rumored secret society had gone too far in their quest to rid Lowell of Scholarship Students for the Order to truly be gone. Instead, they laid in wait. Watching.
Whispers among Scholarship students and trusted allies presented an untested but trusted idea that Halloween would likely be the primary occasion for worry. As September ushered in its first days, their assurances only grew more concrete that at least the days leading up to the annual Masquerade would be safe.
They were mistaken.
Perhaps the Order’s stark return was prompted by the seating of the new Student Council upon a recount triggered by an obscure bylaw of the Student Council charter. This bylaw allowed the challenging of election results from any faculty member and would trigger an automatic recount.
BETO AYALA challenged the credibility of the Student Council election results after no scholarship students won a seat. This challenge led to the discovery of a few hundred votes for some scholarship candidates. Headmaster Blackwood gave a humble apology and noted that while he had been away there was a lot of administrative shuffling around Lowell’s offices to accommodate for George and Magnus running the school. He said that he had earnestly counted the votes he’d known about upon his return and promised these new votes would be honored.
New this year to the Student Council for Dominants are SAFFORD LOWELL, sympathetic to Scholarship students of all classifications, TRISTAN KNOWLES who is a scholarship student himself, and Legacy write-in candidate SEBASTIAN ST. CLAIR who appears to be trying to make up for the embarrassment of being stripped of Lacrosse Captain while he tended to his health.
For Switches, SEONG MIN-JUN, long known to love power and wield it as deftly as he wields his foil. Newcomer NIKOLAUS KOBLE seemingly had support from the Headmaster himself and who won despite arriving not long before the election started.
Joining submissives on the Council is the Charter student, SHEN LAI, who is poised to outperform all the other submissives in the school and be the first to enter a claim if he seals the deal with St. Clair. JAMIE WHITLEY, a Legacy with ties to many powerful Legacy families shares the mantle of representing submissive handling of authority. Because of the mishandling of votes and mistrust in the integrity of the results, OAK WILDE was granted a position as an alternate council member. He must show up to every session to stay abreast of all Council happenings, but will only step in to vote if Shen or Jamie cannot make it to a vote or must otherwise recuse themselves in matters in which they are personally invested.
Further, a new regulation stipulates that submissive members of Student Council must cast their votes together before it will count toward any decision. This means that of the two submissive seats available on the council, unanimous votes will be required if the submissive students wish to have a say in Council proceedings. This teaches the power of cooperation and ensures they understand the gravity of the power with which they’ve been entrusted.
The presence of Scholarship students on the Council alone would likely have been enough to enrage the Order but having Scholarship sympathizers on Council who could vote alongside Scholarship students only worsened matters. It prompted not just action but seemingly a focus on one singular question. Loyalty. Who was giving their loyalty to the right side? And what was the penalty for not choosing correctly?
As fall began, old acquaintances had the chance of renewing social ties and building bridges. If NIKOLAUS thought it strange that a certain old friend was fast warming up to him, he didn’t show it much. The Order, looking to test the loyalty of FELIX, tasked the newcomer to get close with his old flame and rekindle friendly feelings. They asked for something simple…keep an ear to the ground and report back to the Order via a drop site in the library for passing messages. If he proved useful, they would reward Felix.
They let Felix know that they had someone watching him. That he wouldn’t want to doublecross them. That their friendship could be mutually beneficial. The trick would be to learn what Felix wanted most. The Order would dangle it in front of Felix. Bait. Bargaining chip. It didn’t matter. They often got what they wanted.
Including from ETHAN FORELLI. When Sebastian St. Clair went looking into the print shop which produced the photos of Oak which they used to send a veiled threat toward Oak, the Order realized quickly that they would need a fall man. They tasked Ethan with finding the perfect person to pin it on. Someone believable where not a lot of questions would be asked. Someone that could maybe take the fall for more than one thing.
MIN-JUN received a loyalty test too. As a Legacy and someone with a cunning knack for negotiation and retribution, they asked Min to ensure Ethan followed through on framing someone. If he didn’t, Min was to let the Order know and they would do whatever it took to believably frame Ethan for the crimes. Min would be the one to frame Ethan if Forelli failed.
Luckily for Ethan he happened upon someone who was perfect.
IAN MCCALLISTER had a boyfriend in his early years at Lowell who had been known to brag about his affiliation with a secret group who had the inside scoop on all the most advantageous claims. This secret group was rumored to be the Order of the Primrose. Ian happened to be drunk and drugged on Halloween according to his infirmary intake forms. Ian had been acting erratically and displayed a confused memory. He could easily have done something rash during the Halloween Masquerade. He had previously hooked up with Sebastian several times and was likely jealous of his tryst with Oak. This may have caused Ian to target him on Halloween, sending Tristan away so he couldn’t protect his friend Oak, and spiking the punch so that people would be distracted during the whole ordeal. His continued jealousy caused him to choose a new Lacrosse captain so Sebastian would see his mistakes, and when that wasn’t enough, Ian learned a few tricks from the photographer he was sleeping with and decided to send a veiled threat to Sebastian about Oak with the photographs.
This is the story Ethan was to paint in the form of planted evidence and the starting of poisonous rumor. The only thing left when the time came to unveil the evidence and the rumor was to have someone discover his ties to the old Order and bring him before the newly seated Council to be investigated.
For his part SEBASTIAN ST. CLAIR isn’t sure how he got his council seat. He’s not certain if he can interpret the signs right. But the charging of Ian in these crimes of passion seem to be a punishment for choosing someone else to replace Sebastian as Lacrosse Captain. This is made all the more suspicious by the fact that the man chosen to replace him, ELLIOT WARNER, is suddenly being sued by his ex-boyfriend’s family. Rumors are that Elliot falsified his admission records to conceal his guilt in the death of Elliot’s former boyfriend Benji. Could this be coincidence or could it be another consequence of slighting Sebastian?
Sebastian wonders if the Order is trying to curry favor with him so he doesn’t look into them further or if they are setting up in the perfect position to fall on Lowell’s sword if he messes with them again? The charging of Ian is flimsy at best and the investigation into Warner leaves a vacant spot for the Captaincy in Lacrosse. It could never come out that Sebastian knew Ian didn’t do the crime he’s accused of or else the Order would frame him next for being the very person to orchestrate the whole thing in his mission for power and respect. His getting appointed under the circumstances of the vote re-count when his name wasn’t initially on the ballot would be enough to make people suspect Sebastian used his Order connections to gain the seat and punish those who wronged him. So Sebastian is caught between wanting the power he’s got in order to protect his social standing, and knowing that at any moment, one wrong move could send him into a dark room on the end of questions he can’t answer.
‘Play nicely and so will we,’ They seem to be saying. In this they are requiring loyalty from Sebastian.
The Order isn’t playing nicely with IGNACIO WESTINGHOUSE however. It’s hard to say whether they’re punishing him for spending time with GRAHAM MONTGOMERY or if they simply wish to twist the knife with Elliot Warner, but planting photos of Graham and Ignacio out at Gaze’s Fetish Night seems to do both at once. The rumors started as soon as the photos were published in a small but growing SCANDAL SHEET which is now circulating Lowell and Portsmith. The students were quick to jump to conclusions and their eyes told them what they wanted to see. Ignacio stepping out on Elliot with Graham. Being disloyal to him. Precisely in Elliot’s most turbulent hour of need.
CAMILO MORALES was sorely surprised to learn in that same article that this isn’t the first man Ignacio entertained. ANTON MARTINEZ seemed to have cozied up to him before he left. The two were no strangers.
Just the same way that IHSAN DEMIRCI is no stranger to Tristan and DR. MAGNUS HOLM. While it was always clear to everyone that Magnus and Tristan were a couple, it was never clear just how close Ihsan was to both of them, especially while Ihsan was still posing as his deceased Dominant twin Sinan.
Yet the three seemed to have taken a vacation together and Tristan was seen helping Ihsan move into the submissive dorms with little confusion. It appeared to anyone paying enough attention that the three were close and that this transition was no surprise. Could it be that they knew of Ihsan’s deception all along and concealed it?
Long looking for a way to target Magnus and oust him for the dual purpose of opening a new counseling position and single handedly dealing a blow to the main source of support for scholarship students, the Order took action.
One evening IHSAN returned to find a heart etched by knife into his door with three sets of initials inside it. TK + ID + MH. Rose petals were scattered around the doorframe as though on a wedding night. ‘Don’t let our invitation get lost in the mail’ said an empty save-the-date invitation. Whether they were guessing at impending future claims or implying they knew of any brewing plans, the Order wanted everyone to see. It would be up to the rumor mill to try to guess the people whose initials were in that heart.
In one final sweeping act…it was during a back to school bonfire that the Order summarily announced their presence. At the height of the gathering, the acreage next to the main building lit up as the outline of a primrose erupted in flame. A message burned above it as smoke billowed in the air: Leave or Suffer.
A gauntlet was being thrown, a choice presented. Legacies or Scholarships. Loyalty or Sacrifice. Love or Success. Leaving or staying. None in Lowell would be spared having to answer.
FIN.