Reserved
There were seven very bright students in the Fledging an Empire class and Damien was astounded to see that most of them were in their first few hundred years. One student, an ambitious young man with two sires, was only fifty-seven. Still another student was somewhere over four hundred years old with a sire who had passed nearly three years ago and left behind an enormous amount of wealth for her. Most of the students had no sustainable money and had come to the class to learn how to get more beyond thieving. Two of them held temporary jobs within the human population, others had dwindling funds they had saved over their human lives, or relied upon friends, donors, anyone who would help. A couple of them had faced homelessness. One had gone to ground in the 1960's and come back recently to a digitalized world. Every last one of them had at least one fledgling.
Damien had prepared the night's lecture well in advance and, as everyone expected, he had gone above and beyond with his information. He had printed up copies of his own bank statements - the smaller ones, with the account numbers whited out, of course - to give examples of routine deposits into foreign accounts that accumulated wealth. There were documents from his Wall Street broker - a page or two - for each student to peruse. Tonight, however, was the discussion of sustainable deposits and expenditures. They would be doing actual calculations of how expensive it was to have and keep one fledgling and themselves safe and well maintained - costs of purchased blood by week, fines for punishments of broken laws (as back-ups of course), light-blocking technologies, Academy costs, etc.
After the initial greetings that he made to the class - their intimate numbers allowing for a brief reconnection with all of their personal lives and with his during the first few minutes of class - he launched right into the discussion of fledge expenses, thankful that none of them had brought up the recent article in the paper announcing his newest pet project - running as Campaign Manager for Jake McCloud. He preferred to keep his students, his family, his business separate from his politics. There was no need to mix them, after all. He was well aware that the information would reach everyone's ears soon enough and that the announcement would create some issues with some of his staff, his colleagues, and his family, but he was ready for the eventuality of it all.
Damien lead the class with a quiet sort of command, neat handwriting on a whiteboard that he couldn't quite reach the top of. Students would simply speak if there was something they needed to say or needed clarification on, once again the intimacy of the group creating an opportunity for everyone to respect and bond with each other - including with Damien himself. If the side conversation had ever gotten so much that they couldn't focus, Damien would wait, allowing his age to subtly leak into the room with a sense of command, a small smile and a guiding statement as attention returned to the front. "Shall we continue?"
About a quarter of the way into the lecture, he heard the door in the back of the classroom switch open and watched as a familiar face entered the room. Damien didn't miss a beat with his lecture, estimating that a new fledgling would cost roughly $1,350 per day on only bagged blood, proving that consensual feeding was the easiest, most cost effective way to save money immediately. He made eye contact with the other above the wandering eyes of the students, who craned to get a good look at who had walked in unannounced to their classroom, but continued on with their lesson, raising the walls of his mental defenses as he did so as the stranger got settled. "Any questions so far?"
