Cloudflair
Legacy Name: Cloudflair

~The Professor~

Saying your farewells to a good group of students is never easy. Professor Cloudflare has been teaching at Ziara University for nearly twenty years and it still hurts when the final exams are stacked on his desk and he gives the dismissal one last time.

There are unforgettable members of every class. Zuri's orb that simulates the stages of the moon is one of the best virtual models he's ever seen and Rolly had a way of getting everyone in class to laugh, even after the disastrous campus-wide computer meltdown that forced most of them to redo their midterm papers.

There will be no failures in his class, though a few will skate through with average marks. Cloudflare is selective in filling the desks. A student need not be brilliant coming in but they must have the dedication required to put in their best efforts through sixteen intensive weeks of projects, papers, and exams. They must look to the stars with wonder and aspire to know better those distant moons that are cousins to Atebus. His is not a science course for the lazy or unmotivated. One very special student will find their financial worries wiped clean by the Cosmic Character Award, a scholarship he helped to found for those rare and few astronomers with the scientific minds to combine a love of space and science to further the Subeta Space Program.

Silazia rises from her cushion beside his desk, giving her fur a good shake. She is all the assistant he will ever need, collecting papers in a little basket she pushes with her nose and running the projector as he lectures. Her passion for the mysteries of the universe is no less than his and she can alter the constellation patterns on her fur at will.

"You've got to have those results posted in three days, Cloud. Besides, we've got that lovely Ikumoradeekanox to eat up before our shuttle flight."

Silazia always knows how to keep his thoughts from turning gloomy. He offers her a small smile and tucks the exams in his briefcase. Some professors like to languish, scrambling to get their papers through the corrections computer at the last possible moment. Cloudflare will never count himself among them. His round of results are the second posted to the university web page, second only to Professor Startail who also happens to be president of ZU.

He holds four full PhD degrees, splitting his interests between Atebus History, Geology, Geography, and Languages of Atebus ranging from the primitive dialects of the first humanoid creatures to colonize the surface of Atebus all the way up to the special binary code that is universal among Blackmoon's robotic servants.

Sometimes great knowledge is a real burden on feelings of security. As the shuttle to Subeta Main hitches and shutters, Cloudflare runs through the probability calculations of a fiery crash for the sixth time. Silazia places a reassuring paw on his knee as the forty year old hunk of flying metal crashes through Subeta's ozone layer and gives the passengers a view of the forests and fields below. Every year Cloudflare tells himself that he will spring for tickets on a more luxurious rocket and every year the remnants of his paycheck from Centropolis Univeristy prove him a liar.

He does not waste time on tourist traps. The busy streets of Centropolis hold no appeal for a keeto who can literally lay awake all night just admiring the patterns shaped by starlight. He takes a cab directly to the sprawling campus of Centropolis University, eyes traveling over the familiar sights of the Fountain of Knowledge in the courtyard and the brick learning halls with their trailing ivy vines and ionic marble pillars.

Professor Arcano is there to greet him, showing him into an office that smells of leather and expensive wine. The current president of CU has an abundance of school spirit revealed by his official Centropolis Chais scarf, pennants on his office wall of every athletic victory the school can claim, and even a laptop case with a stylized C and U engraved on the surface. Arcano's ruddy mane is dyed with red and white streaks, the primary colors of the logo of Centropolis University.

"It is a real pleasure to have you back, Professor Cloudflare. It's a shame we can't convince you to stay with us for more than a few months out of the year."

Cloudflare shakes the huge archan's paw, minding the razor-sharp claws. Arcano has an exuberance that has given quite a few visitors reason to stop by the University's infirmary. "I could hardly pass up the opportunity to study the phases of Atebus from a secondary location. The director of the Sebastian P. Lain Observatory has informed me that my two classes were filled two weeks before primary enrollment even opened."

"Half of those students had their name on the wait list before we'd even renewed your contract. You are a popular chap, and for good reason. I've sat in a few times in the past and even I find it hard to go back to shuffling budget papers when I hear your discussions of lunar effects on everything from the life span of flowers to the ferocity of the tides. You almost make me miss my own teaching days."

"You're welcome to my classroom anytime, sir."

Cloudflare turns down the offer of a drink. He never could get a taste for anything brewed outside Libertine Lounge.

He goes through the usual boring lecture about the contents of the syllabus. It is not at all surprising that his students are more interested in their ham and cheese subs and texting their roommates. CU policy requires that the dull document be read.

He dims the lights as Silazia goes for the projector. "All right. Now that we have that out of the way, let's have five volunteers."

A charismatic rreign is on her feet in an instant, the only one brave enough to be the focus of a new professor's gaze. He chooses the other four with care, selecting a shy hippotu, a bored-looking tigrean, a particularly hungry ruffie and a pherret that appears to be painting her nails. These five serve as the newly discovered planets of Subeta's solar system and by the time Cloudflare is well into his lecture he's got waradors playing the part of comets and a sleepy-eyed chelon representing his homeland, the beautiful moon of Atebus. Students stumble over backpacks and giggle as their whole solar system is threatened by unexpected meteor showers in the form of crumpled paper globes. There is not one student left out of his interactive introduction to the wild forces that make up a solar system.

Much to his delight, there is not one cell phone screen to mar the beauty of the night sky by the time he gets his class seated on the commons beneath the stars. Their eyes shine like tiny suns as they look up on the moon that he describes with flourishes of his gold-streaked paws.

His joy at touching young minds evaporates at the sight of his living quarters. The couch sags in the center and smells strongly of tortilla chips. The kitchen is tiny and none of the cabinet doors in the bathroom have knobs. He strips the bed despite the fact that the sheets appear clean. One just never knows on a college campus. He has made it a point to travel with his own sheet set and towels, even when he stays at well-established hotels.

Silazia lets the swirls in her fur take on the patterns of home as he lies down on the bed to stare up at the ceiling. His quarters are slightly improved from last year, at least. A whole family of ploofs had taken up residence in the wall and he could hardly hear himself think. He admires the patterns Silazia creates on the white walls, daydreaming about where he will be when Spring Semester comes to an end and he is free to go home.

The Space Cadets summer camp was his idea, a way for underprivileged youths of Atebus to learn about the beauty and importance of the moon despite the fact that their parents worked in the mines. Many of these children would not escape a similar life, but there would be those few who went on to become Atebus Ambassadors or who would venture to unexplored worlds and bring back knowledge to further the good of all Subeta-kind.

Cloudflare does not hope to take part in such a mission but he likes to believe that in some small way, he is present in the knowledge that allows his star pupils to survive the unknown.By: Pureflower

~Credits~