ArchivedLogs:Vignette - Valediction

Vignette - Valediction
Dramatis Personae B
In Absentia	XS Graduation Day, 2015 '
Location <XS> School Grounds
Xavier's School is situated on grounds as luxurious as the mansion itself. The tree-lined drive brings you up to the lush green sweep of front lawn and the wide front porch with its bench swing, often frequented by students studying in pleasant weather. The large oak tree in the front yard is home to a tire swing, installed long ago beneath the sturdy old treehouse. The lawn rolls out all the way down to the thin rocky pier at the edge of the glittering lake. The water stretches huge and wide off into the distance, the boathouse a small blip at its shore. Along its bank, forest stretches dense and shady to one side; to the other cliffs start to rise, high and rocky, providing trails for hiking or climbing, for the adventurous. The blue sharkpup that makes her way up to the microphone to deliver the closing speech at Xavier's Commencement ceremony can barely be seen over the podium; there's been a box placed behind it for B to stand on to elevate her to a properly visible height. As per usual, her smile is shy and timid, her gills slightly fluttery until she clears her throat, smooths out her robes, takes a deep breath. It takes a moment for her to start speaking; her voice is clear enough, though, once she does. "I'm certainly not the first person to stand up here on this stage who wasn't at all sure I'd make it. I don't even just mean to graduation -- I'm pretty sure there's a lot of us who weren't ever sure we'd live to see this day at all. There are so many barriers standing in our way. Families and schools that are unsupportive if not actively hostile. A world that tries to abuse, imprison -- outright kill us. There was a time in my life it was unfathomable that there would be a place I could study, even thrive academically without fear for my safety. Absolutely unfathomable that there was a place in the world that might make even the barest attempt to protect us. And for that -- for that maybe we're supposed to be thankful. To have had a place where we fit in, in all of our weirdness, all of our quirks and oddities and differences -- to have somewhere where no matter how much of freaks we are we still belong. But this place does us, I think, a disservice. We spend our time here being told that they'll keep us safe. That they'll prepare us for the world, that if we study hard and learn to follow the rules maybe even after our approximately normal high school experience we can approximate some kind of normal life. Only none of it's true. And it never has been. No matter how hard we study, no matter how well we behave, the world isn't going to let us have normal. But if there's one thing I've learned living and working and fighting alongside all of you for the past six years it's that normal is -- pretty overrated, anyway. What we've all been given is exceptional -- and it shouldn't be. Whether you're here or out in the world don't ever forget that the normal rules and normal paths just don't apply to us. Don't ever let anyone make you afraid to fight to make your own way in life. And it is going to be a fight -- it's always going to be a fight -- but it's one that's well worth fighting. And it's one that this school, this administration, seem absolutely unwilling to take seriously. They would rather sit here behind tall walls and fortified gates clinging to the illusion of safety than take up the fight to make sure we have it, everywhere. Rather pretend that assimilation is the path to a future for us rather than join the battle for a world where we don't have to hide. We've had a very long road getting here, and I'm not going to tell you to be thankful for scraps. I'm not going to say congratulations. Our fight is only just starting."