General education level. Most people have it. Gives you a baseline. I dropped out the day I turned eighteen so I could enlist.

[ His guardian wouldn’t sign him over early, but she let him go on his birthday. She gave him a hard look when he left, then - surprising both of them - reached out and ruffled his hair. It was maybe the only affectionate gesture she ever made him. Ephemera doesn’t know what happened to her afterward. He never wrote to her.

He rests the griddle again, finds it hot enough, and pours some batter down. ]

You miss that? Why?