The Clockwork Mansion

Welcome to the Succubus and Incubus Academy." These words had turned many a young Cubi's life upside-down. Blaine was only the latest one, and not even a particularly exceptional example. After all, he wasn't spectacularly upset by any of the recent events, having done his best to take them in stride...

Still... if I ever see that doctor again... He caught his heart starting to race, and looked down at his hands, claws digging into the fine finish on the cedar chest he was carrying through the halls to his dorm... apparently he would be sharing with another Cubi student. When he asked about what they were like, Fa'Lina had merely shrugged and offered up a response that had, at the time, not seemed particularly useful to Blaine... "Quiet." Now that he thought of it though, wasn't Fa'lina supposed to know most everything about what happened in her Academy? That was the gist of what he'd picked up from his father... so maybe she was hiding something? But what reason would she... Enough. You're thinking too much. It's not important, you're going to meet your roommate soon and get acquainted with them that way. Stop worrying, it won't do any good anyway.

He sighed and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and trying to still his mind. It had been getting steadily more difficult to do so over the past few days, between feeling the chaotic eddies and swirls of the emotions flowing from those around him and hearing snippets and fragments of their thoughts. Especially when at least a couple were using repetitive thought-shields, providing a constant and predictable background hum of noise to send ripples across his mind... it was no wonder it was so difficult to keep as still and calm as he used to. Maybe he'd feel better after he'd dropped his things off and gone to the woodshop... assuming he could find it, that is. He stopped a moment in front of a door, looking around to try and find any indication that he was in the right place, before just trusting that he'd followed the directions properly and setting down the dome-topped chest he'd been carrying so he could knock properly.

"Hello? Is this... Tristan's room? Fa'Lina gave me directions but kind of left me to find it on my own, so..."

---

A loud crack pierced the air as Gideon blocked the blow to his nose with one wing, stretched forward and made hard as iron, before rushing his opponent and grabbing the side of their head, pulling back his elbow for a hard strike to their jaw. That would show them...

DONG!! The cheetah snarled, pulling his blow just before it landed on his opponent's face and glaring over at the man who rang the bell, before hopping over the ropes and grabbing his towel to mop up his sweat before plunking into a chair, leaning forward over the chessboard in front of him and surveying the board, watching his opponent waste time by letting his hand hover over... the black queen, before deciding against whatever move he'd been considering and capturing the bait of an obvious trap.

"Shame. You were doing so well, too. White wins in six... no, four moves. Or less." He clacked a pawn forward, threatening the queen his opponent had been considering moving. "Go on. You can always forfeit." He taunted, leaning back and waiting as his opponent realized there was no way to defend his piece... and that without it he would lose in the next couple of rounds. Gideon loved this part. "That is, unless you think you can call my bluff. I may just let you keep playing this game, after all, if you don't forfeit, because I haven't quite had enough of beating in your stupid little face." He leaned forward on his elbows, supporting his chin on interlaced fingers and watching intently as the younger Cubi rested his finger atop his king and slowly brought it down, knocking the king over in the symbol of forfeiture. Gideon grinned and stretched, yawning and wrapping his towel around his neck. "You weren't bad, though. Your fighting needs work, but you almost had me with that game of chess." He sighed and daubed at his forehead with the ends of his towel, heading over to the shower. He definitely had a few new bruises, but nothing too serious to handle, not like that time he'd rather overestimated himself and left the ring with three broken ribs--don't be such a baby... ribs grow back!--and a thoroughly shattered nose. Thankfully though, as a Cubi there were minimal signs of his prior injuries, even his nose having straightened out after a few years.

Hunh... hadn't Fa'Lina mentioned I have a new roommate arriving today...?  Knowing her she didn't give them a key... guess I better go let them in.

Niall read through the assignment one more time, and then put it back in his folder.  Everything seemed to be in order, the neat typing marred only by a faint bulge on the paper where he'd made a mistake.  The fox incubus knew enough magic to be able to suck the ink away from the paper, but he still hadn't found a way to flatten it back out and with a good eye you could still make out the shape of the errant letter where the typebar had depressed it.

No matter, he thought.  They're grading on the material, not the typing skills.

As he slipped the paper back into a folder in his satchel and warded it, the clock on his desk struck quarter to.  Niall glanced up with a start as he remembered that Fa'Lina had mentioned the new room-mate.  Part of him sighed, he had perhaps become too used to having the entire room to himself after Reuben graduated.

An impish grin spread over his face, and he removed his shirt, choosing instead a pair of arm-sleeves that went well with his leather jeans.  Better give them a Daryil Clan welcome, he thought and lounged on the bed in a seductive manner, waiting for the new student to arrive.

Roxanne opened the door to her dorm, grinning like the Cheshire Cat as she drop the package on the table. She had just gotten back from her lab, and was still dressed in a hospital scrub splashed with still-warm blood. the package she had just picked up from the campus post office. A Special order for fun and her class on improvised interrogation.

She checked around the dorm room. It was still hard for to imagine her old roomy had graduated. All those years together, the fun, the parties, the music... it was nice having her as a sorta of mentor when she was getting used to this whole Succubus thing, that's for sure.

Stil, the new one would be a first year! Now it was her turn to be the mentor, the big sister! This would be fun!

....Just where was the jerk anyways? Maybe that had gotten lost? Roxanne was tempted to check, but remembered Fa'Lina would tend them in the right direction. It must be nice being omniscient.

Grabbing a knife the corgi smiled, giggling as she cut the box open and removed the first item from the styrofoam, cringing a bit from the noise (Though it did give her an idea on psychological torture. She's check with her professors on the matter if somebody hadn't thought of using it first).

It was a portable belt sander. Nice! Roxanne imagine the damage this could do to someone's face, and how much they'd panic as the powered on device inched closer and loser to their vulnerable head...

She then yanked two more items from the box, a power drill and a ceramic tile cutter. She grinned, admiring the metal bits. So clean, so pristine...she'd do her damnedest to keep them this way after each use! Shiny metal bits had a nice psychological effect on the victim.

Horethen checked himself one last time as he stood bathed in the eerie cyan light from the teleporter his clan had hastily assembled. Many changes of clothes, mostly billowing silk, ink, vellum, two daggers, one at his belt and the other tied to a string kept around his neck and hidden by his heavy bronze amulet that concealed his clan mark, the little fat man figurine that his Speaker had given him, everything seemed to be in place. He turned to his left, saw the stocky pig Being smiling through tears. He nodded ever so slightly to the man that had been his left hand for almost twoscore decades, now grey in service and with children of his own almost ready to take up the cord. It was hard, and unfair, but he could not take the man with him, and could only seek assurances from within his own clan that the faithful retainer would be given the best care and the lightest duties possible.

A constant low-level shapeshifting was required to keep his fur from standing on end in the energy emitted by the portal, and he studied the swirling mass of energy for some omen of the future. Ahead to mystery, and behind disgrace if he failed his first task away from the clan before he had even properly started. All the same, he could not shake the the recitals of the now legendary clan founder, and how he was ambushed at feast by a rival clan, even their name expunged from history. Treachery and a lance of energy through the neck could slay any, and Horethen was still so young and weak to be walking into the unknown.

Foolishness, none have blood feud against us now. Biting his cheek at the cowardice, he plunged into the portal and fought panic at the disorientation that always accompanied teleporting. A twinkling of an instant later, and he was arrived.

The first surprise to register was the NOISE. The Clan-halls of Aldoraethar were almost always ghostly silent with only the faint pattering of feet in soft slippers to disturb the contemplative atmosphere. Talking was if not quite forbidden, so rare as to be cause for telepathic gossip. The oppressive walls of sound hemming in from every direction made Horethen realize his smallness in the academy, and a worried check of his mind-shield both helped him re-center and assured him that it was firm now but porous enough to take down for conversation. Many of the 'Cubi traversing the hallways were in various states of undress, often with only abbreviated costumes about the loins, although baldrics seemed to be fashionable. Horethen's billowing silk tunic, with shirtsleeves under it and fine, tough leather breeks tapering into his doeskin boots, made him feel positively overdressed.

His people had already sent ahead his class schedule and his affinities, so his first task was to report to his room and deposit his belongings. It occurred to Horethen that even though it was early morning where he left, he had no knowledge of this place's local time, and from what he understood, it was impossible to enter or leave the academy in a conventional manner. Without a sun in the sky, day and night probably had little meaning.

He spent close to two hours wandering, guided by vague signs until he found the room with the number that had been scribbled on his scrap of parchment. Asking for directions might have gotten him there sooner, but he needed to learn the lay of the academy in any event, so it was time well spent.

He knocked twice pre-emptorily on the wooden portal, before turning the latch and walking in. It was very likely that whomever occupied this room with him was in class at the moment anyway, so waiting for a response was to him a waste of time, and feeling for an individual over the frenzied buzz of the academy background was beyond his capabilities at the moment.

The room was spare, with a mirror, a couple of lapdesks, and assorted nick-nacks taking up a good chunk of the perimeter. There was also a large bed, with wooden beams that supported a canopy up against the ceiling. The bed was occupied by an open fox cubi, headwings (feathered) out, with a strong snout and wearing tight sleeves sans shirt, and leather jeans that made Horethen wonder how they kept circulation going. Dull grey fur that bespoke of Being ancestry somewhere close in the family tree, and Horethen fought down another moment of panic, given that the other was likely to expect him to speak with his mouth.

He turned away from his long regard, and started unpacking his things in the open space that was left him. It gave him a little edge of not having his face towards the other when he cautiously lowered his mind shield just long enough to send out a strong but stacatto burst of thought, sending mental images of fiery letters on a clay tablet, like all of his clan. "I am Horethen, of Aldoraethar. My own accomplishments are small, but I would be happy to regale you of some of the tales of our Clan, if you would hear them. I do not know you or your folk, could you pray help cure my ignorance?"

At the last of that, he had finished in at the least unloading the bundle off of his back, and turned to face the other if he wished to either speak or think at him.

Kart Scubs scribbled furiously onto several pieces of paper. He needed to come up with a successful business strategy for a hypothetical situation. How to sell ice to the races that lived in the cold frigid territories. It was the classic scenario to classify a perfect salesman from all the rest. However even the best salesman would be useless even if he could sell if everything else, quality control, import fees, transportation costs and other factors that were beyond a salesman's ken were not dealt with. The panda took another long draught of coffee. Kart had been at this assignment for the better part of last night and to keep his mind on task, he drank this particular pot black and it burned on the tongue. Kart glanced at a calendar and remembered. Apparently he was going to be assigned a new roommate and the incubus had read that this cubi would be a first year. The panda stood up stretching out his limbs. "Better give whoever this is a warm welcome." he said to himself, the panda went and got the ingredients to brew a latte. Some first years came from troubled realizations that they were cubi and if they have any troubles before then they usually got it from the evaluations. Kart shook his head and waited for whoever his new roommate was to come in. He went back to his assignment, the incubus continued to scribble down a new idea, the use of shredded ice as a condiment. It was ridiculous like some things that his clan had but the panda was getting desperate.      

If Blaine were paying attention, he would notice a calm in the storm of emotions coming from the room he faced. As he knocked however, the door swung open automatically though not from any magic that Blaine could feel. Either the magic was subtle or the door just... did this. At least the hinges were oiled because the door did not creak as it drifted open to reveal the shadowy room with no lights on. Scratch that, there was one light source, a white spot on the ceiling that glowed softly. If Blaine were to summon up a light source, he would find a moderately sized room with black walls and deep blue accents. In between any decorations, white points sparkled the walls and ceiling in what would quickly be apparent as constellations. Shadows still steep the edges of the room, but no one seems to be home. Luckily the atmosphere seems more peaceful than creepy. Blaine's new roommate Tristan does not appear to be here.

OOC: Will get to where Tristan is and what he's up to later.

Niall held his pose steady, grinning as the jaguar entered the room.  Kind of cute, he thought, and then chided himself.  That kind of relationship with your roomie isn't the best idea anyway.

His headwings fluttered slightly as the incubus entered, giving him only a cursory glance and then immediately began unpacking in dead silence.  No-one's done that before, he thought.

When the feline had finished, he turned back to face the fox, and said... nothing.

"See something you like...?" Niall purred suggestively, biting back the urge to laugh at the jaguar's expression with considerable difficulty.

BLAINE:

The fox raised an eyebrow as he stared into the apparently empty room, swishing his tail a bit before double checking mentally the directions he had been given. Maybe he'd missed a left in that big hall... But this looked like the right place, regardless of how dark and empty it was. "Right, that isn't weird at all..." He muttered under his breath as he bent down and picked up his chest, the cedar box rattling a little. Unlike some, Blaine's priorities were on his tools, not his clutching, so he had brought the majority of his hand plane collection. The power tools, what few his shop was equipped with that is, were left to the guild... Inside, he looked around for a bed. Or more accurately, two beds. He assumed if he was being asked to room with someone he wouldn't be expected to share a bed... Though, he supposed that might have been an outdated idea he had picked up from living with beings most of his life. He really had no idea whether that would even be an issue with this Tristan. So far, the Cubi he'd met had been all across the board as far as personality...

As it often is, Kallis's first significant experience with SAIA was a feeling of acute nausea, probably caused by travelling God knows how many miles with the aid of a warp-aci that wasn't even hers to boot.
The cat grabbed a hold of a massive marble pillar in the ingress hall, one of the few places not completely warded from dimensional travel, and pressed her forehead onto its (probably filthy and  enveloped by unsanitary miasma, as she realized moments later)  surface until the world stopped spinning.
Luggage!
A wing-tentacle of hers snatched the handle of an ornately studded leather suitcase and slid it forth with minimal resistance. No wonder - a small slotted forcefield around the lower perimeter with a carefully directed heat generating spell caused it to hover on a cushion of air about an eighth of an inch thick, provided the surface was reasonably flat.
At times, Kallis pondered whether wheels would have been a more practical solution, but then, this required less maintenance, could be turned on and off with the blink of an eye, and besides, this sort of clever artifice did wonders to convey one's status.

She opened her eyes again, and looked around the hall.
It's huuge...
Not quite the size of even the central hall of the old Basileum, (or Imperial Palace, whatever name one might prefer) , mind you - a building that once seated the draconic governor of the whole gubernia, its marble towers damaged by the civil war that marked the fall of the Imperium raising from the middle of the city like a battered crown on an old monarch's head..... but.
But.
This was just the lobby. And it seemed rather full, with a frenetic buzz about as bad as the Port Oriss's central market, albeit with less people, and perhaps not so many rotten fish.
There were demons, mythos, but mostly cubi, with dresses ranging from much like her own (she opted for a dark green dress and an aquamarine robe rimmed with silver thread), to ornate armours on one side, and... Urgh... how can she put that on? A being  wouldn't....
The cat shook, and one of her tentacles reached into an inside pocket, retrieving a small, folded letter.  She spread it open.
Allright.. so that should be where to find this Dr. Ink... I s'ppose with some here, they do have to check us for fleas and lice..

* * *

.. so the arrival wasn't the worst part.
Kallis shuddered and groomed her fur frantically, in her newfound knowledge of having no trace of affinity for love, pain, lust, confusion or terror.  She apparently did have a thing for anger on the side of her usual clan's favourites (pride and drive) though , so one could probably call the whole mess even.
Strolling through the long, twisty halls of what was supposedly the student habitations segment, and periodically checking the small annotated map, she finally found the door to her new home, standing as sturdy oaken door are wont to do, in the second half of the hallway, with a number, a knocker, a handle, and ...
The fresh traces of blood wouldn't be worrying. It was the fact that they were there despite the place decidedly not being a slaughterhouse, or a duelling hall, and the presence of the curious smell usually reserved for the laboratories of those dabbling in the dark arts of anatomy and necromancy.
Her mind stretched like a string, the hapless feline ordered her luggage to rest, took out a ragged handkerchief, tore it in half, and simultaneously knocked and opened the door.
"I... come in peace. Sorceress Kallis Ja'Krath of Clan Ja'Krath, if I may."

The city was covered in fog coming down from the inland sea.  Dosve's last official act had been to declare it unsafe for the fishing boats to go out until it cleared.  What a decidedly undignified way to go, he concluded.  The servants were standing awkwardly while their master dressed himself, affixed the steel cap to his stump once more, and gathered the essentials.  They had not yet grasped that Dosve was no longer the Dictator, and his daughter had not seen fit to enforce the regime change yet; never mind that she hadn't even properly arrived in the city yet- she was still with her mother's family in Kurzmouth until Dosve had left from Donya.

But while they still believed they had to obey his word... "Leave me," he said to them, unemotional and imperious.  "Lock the door, and inform my successor that if she wishes to use this room she will figure out how to open the door without the key."  The minions were already filing out as he spake.  The door was magicked to the nth degree; his daughter would need to be clever to get in.  And if she did, Dosve would give her praise- perhaps the first bit of praise he had ever given her since her birth.

Once the door was locked, Dosve fanned one wing outward.  The candles and crystals that were this room's source of light gently went out.  Hobbling with his crutch to the wheelchair his youngest son had crafted for him-without expecting praise which had in turn earned him some.  Then Dosve created a portal; a simple process starting with an explosion of energy that was slowed down and then stabilized.
Dosve admitted to himself, as he rolled briskly through the halls of the SAIA, that he must look terribly pathetic.  A warrior, a king-former king, he reminded himself, reduced to the state of an invalid by some two-bit Being with more greed than brains.  The other students gave him a wide berth, as well as confused looks.  He hated that.

His class registry was many decades old, and at least two professors had changed in that time, so he spent time stopping at the administrative offices to get an updated list.  A visit to Doctor Ink would be put off for the longest time possible.  He was in no medical crisis, and the best curse-breakers on the planet were already working to resolve his infirmity.

Then a problem manifested itself.  The dormitory assigned to him was locked, Dosve did not have the key, and his room mate, if he had one, was not at home.  He remembered there being a trick to opening the door without the key, but he could not recall specifics.   So Dosve spent a while just looking at the lock.  Surely it wouldn't be a mundane lock when the entire student body could shapeshift their fingers into keys...but Fa'Lina would know immediately if such things happened.  One primary feather from his left wing lengthened, then narrowed, snaking its way to the door, to press into the lock, take the shape of the key, and try turning.

Mira shuffled her way through the halls, towing a large suitcase on wheels, and trying very hard not to think about the "evaluation" that she had recently been through. If she never had to interact with that Dr. Ink again, she decided, it would be about fifteen minutes too soon. Maybe twenty minutes... The shuffling was partly due to her nervousness, but mostly due to the long tight white skirt she had chosen to wear (it was based on something she had read about, called a "mermaid skirt", but she couldn't help feeling that she had somehow made it just a bit too tight. Note to self - alter this skirt to give a bit more stride room...), and combined with her multicoloured halter (painstakingly sewn from an array of different coloured canvas belts) made her look rather like an animated fishing lure. In one hand was a slip of paper from the fortune cookie Fa'Lina had given her (she'd eaten the fortune cookie - it had been very nice), bearing the words "Your room-mate is named Kart Scubs", and a room number.

"Ah ha, finally!" burst from her mouth as she reached the room whose number matched that of the slip of paper. She paused for a moment, adjusting her clothing, then knocked, and swung the door open. There was a panda in a suit (a male room-mate? Oh, well, Grandma had warned her...), bent over an array of papers, a mug of coffee next to him. Judging by the smell of coffee in the room, it seemed likely that he had been at it for quite some time.

Mira cleared her throat, and put on her best friendly smile. "Excuse me? Are you Kart Scubs? 'Cause if you are, then I'm your new room-mate."

Gideon coughed a bit, clearing his throat behind the invalid trying to open the door with a poor facsimile of a key. "Please. Surely you know better than that. In a university where lockpicking courses are taught, you -really- think that's going to work?" He reached into his pocket, pulling out the room key and holding it up before edging around the wheelchair and unlocking the door. "I was expecting a roommate, but I had thought he would be a bit more... complete." The cheetah mused idly as he walked by, tossing the keys haphazardly onto a shelf. "So what's with the leg? Waiting for it to grow back? That can be a bitch, there was this first year that I knew a decade or two back that pissed off one of the senior students. Nearly got himself beaten to death with his own arm." The felid flicked his tail side to side, arms crossed over his chest as he looked his new roomie over. Fashion sense, general demeanor, and clan mark all indicated he wasn't an ordinary first year: he was well over a hundred years old, at least. Either back for further studies after a prior graduation, or else he had, for whatever reason, not attended SAIA earlier in life. Strange.

But, not his business anyway. He extended a paw to Dosve, and a smile. "Name's Gideon Owona. Nice to meet you."

Horethen blinked twice, face openly wearing shock, at the other 'Cubi's odd reply. Could he not read minds? Surely even a half-breed could manage such.


Taking great care to lower his mind-shield, he again projected his thoughts in a focused burst at the other. "I am Horethen Aldoraethar. I find it vulgar to speak as the lesser Creatures do, and I was not permitted the accompaniment of my Speaker. I am new here, and apologize if my ways are offensive. Is it customary in this place for new acquaintances to bond over sex? I do not understand the reason for your manner otherwise."

Worried that the other might not understand him, he did not immediately re-raise his mind shield at the close of the message, but stood ready to repeat it, "louder" if need be, until he was understood.

The panda looked up and saw that his new room mate was a girl... Really sometimes Fa'Lina's judgment was rather... questionable at times, a female and male, this could bring trouble. It did not do to take it out on people who had no fault though so Kart let out a smile "Ah welcome yes and it seems as if I will be your roommate for as long at this state of affairs holds. Please sit down." The incubus took on a thoughtful look, it seemed as if the clothing of the succubus was disheveled even with attempts to straighten it. "I trust that you have paid a visit to Dr. Ink?" The panda sat up and prepared a latte and asked if she would like cream and sugar, laying down the drink in front of her. "As you have stated I am Kart Scubs of Clan G'ian. May I have the pleasure of hearing your introduction? I am sure we have much to discuss about our living arrangements." Kart took on a calm diplomatic look. 

Excellent timing.  "It is better to try and to fail than to never try at all."  A philosophy that Dosve didn't wholly agree with, but it fit the situation.  He smoothly rolled out of the feline's way, and then into the room after him.  The door closed behind Dosve, pulled so by a tentacle.  "I'm afraid it's a cursed wound.  I must wait for the curse-breakers to find a counter to it."  Dosve examined his new compatriot.  Hmm, a warrior.  They would most likely get along well, then.  Especially given the boy was from Owona's line.  The dog met the hand and gave it a firm shake.  "Dosve Donya Piflak."  The dog's wings spread out, and his belongings flew through the air to the empty spaces in the room meant to be left for a new arrival.  "I'm going into Artifice, what about you?"

Forget two beds, Blaine would not be able to find even one in this room without being terribly creative. There were several very comfortable looking armchairs the perfect size for curling up in and several bookshelves filled with random books around, but nothing that looked remotely like a bed. Further searching would show that the room was essentially designed to look like outside at night from some place you might be able to identify if you knew a lot of astronomy with a nice setup for reading by moonlight (if Blaine were to pull a book or two out, he would find them very easy to read despite the lack of bright light), but no amount of searching would turn up another person in that room. Whoever, whatever, and whereever Tristan was, he did not seem to be here.

Meanwhile at the library...

Off towards the back of the library and a few shelves up, Tristan sat against a wall with one leg dangling over the edge of of the bookshelf with his wings hanging loose to either side ready to flex in case he needed to restore upset balance. In front of lay open a book on the history of some country or other long gone in some obscure language while in the air next to him floated a few more books of reference; one on the relevant language, one a translated version, one a theoretical suggestion of lost mysteries, and one a book of fiction that he had been reading and was now cross referencing for accuracy.

After a certain point he abruptly sat up straighter, almost losing his balance a moment, before looking from the fictional work to the historical text and back a few times before smiling. 'I knew there was something fishy about that part! King George died BEFORE the revolution began so they couldn't have executed him at the end of it,' he thought happily, closing his various reference books and turning back to the work of fiction to continue reading. Before he got halfway through the next page however a murky green tentacle shot into his vision and snagged the book away from him.

"Oolong!" Tristan exclaimed in consternation, perhaps a bit too loudly for a library, but rather quiet for a conversation. "I was reading that!" he continued with a slight frown. A head at the end of another tentacle snaked forward to look at him. Yes, the head said in a voice that echoed emptily as if coming from everywhere at once and at the same time from nowhere at all. You were. But now you're not. You can finish later, but Fa'lina has asked me to remind you that you have a new roommate arriving today and you need to go meet him.

Tristan's slight frown deepened into a more full version. "Oh... right." He had completely forgotten about that. Or rather he remembered but could have sworn it wasn't until a few days from now. Actually for that matter, what day WAS it? Tristan made a sign with his left hand and a few symbols popped up above it. Tristan read them in alarm, jumping off the shelf extending several tentacles from his wings to lengthen the impact, softening his landing. "Ah fluffernutters, I'm late!" he swore as he dashed out the library entrance and right into an outstretched pink arm.

Groaning slightly from the ground just in front of the library doors, he looked up at the headmistress of the school who was shaking a finger back and forth while 'tsk, tsking' before walking off. She didn't really say anything and she really didn't have to as Tristan mentally kicked himself for falling into her trap. Most students ran often enough that her warnings were close enough together for them to remember to not run in the hallways, but Tristan didn't run very often so he'd always forget about this habit of hers when he did and he was certain she took delight in catching him over and over again. Picking himself up off the ground, he set off again, this time at a brisk walk. Well he was definitely late and getting later, but his new roommate would just have to wait a bit longer.

Blaine had given up finding the bed in the room and simply tucked his trunk into a corner, sighing and looking around the dark room. Books... lots of books. Guess he knew what "Quiet" was supposed to mean. Well, he didn't mind sharing a room with a bookworm. They'd probably be mostly out of his way... absorbed in study... busy with whatever it is academics were prone to doing. He settled into one of the chairs in the room and leaned back, suddenly noticing it felt a lot quieter in this room than it did outside. He was able to keep his mind clear much more easily. Yes, perhaps this would be a very good thing... He wrapped his wings around his body to keep warm and, having had a very long and tiring day--seriously, screw Dr. Ink--resolved to fall asleep for now. If it turned out he was in the wrong room, he'd just have to explain himself. These Cubi seemed reasonable enough people, rather contrary to what society at large believed though his father had always been very tolerant of Creatures. Which, as Blaine thought about it, made complete sense now that he knew more about his dad. He wondered how the city had explained his sudden disappearance to the Guild... he wasn't a prominent figure by any means, but he was still a journeyman carpenter. People knew his name. They'd notice he and his father had vanished without a trace. So were they in on it, too? Or was the city just going to cover it up? Was he dead as far as his hometown was concerned...? Well, maybe that wasn't such a bad thing. It was as though he intended to return anytime soon. There was much he could learn at SAIA, even just in woodworking. And he wouldn't only be studying that, either; the shielding class seemed promising. Maybe he would finally enroll in some magic classes. He'd wanted to as a child, but his father hadn't let him. Probably so that his clan marking wouldn't come in. Well, it had shown up as a result of his own experimentation as a teen, anyway, with no-one the wiser... no harm done...

His thoughts continued along such a rambling trail until eventually, they slowed down and diverged so far from the original thought process that he couldn't be bothered to keep track of them anymore, and he slowly slipped into sleep.

---

"Dosve, huh? Weird name. Never heard that one before..." Gideon shrugged and walked over to his bed, flopping onto it with his hands behind his head. "I'm studying to be an adventurer. Or an adventurer-slayer, depending." He shrugged and looked up at the ceiling. "Whichever it turns out to be. Combat skills, mostly. I assume you're studying magic for the most part, then?" He glanced over at a chessboard nearby, narrowing his eyes at the game in progress between himself... and... well... himself, at the moment. "Tricky stuff that. I've never been fond of it... I like to stick to the basics. When I want something done, I hit it in the face until it's done. ...I guess that usually works for me because most of what I want done is knocking people out." That was, predictably, a gross exaggeration, but not wholly untrue... he wasn't the brute he was portraying himself as, but he didn't mind Dosve thinking that.

---

Matthias grinned and bounced up and down, his floppy ears following suit as he waited for his roommate. He was looking forward to being the older roommate for once! Being taken seriously! ...not that he thought that would last for too long, though. Most people didn't really take him seriously for more than a couple minutes. He clasped his hands eagerly, looking around the room to make sure everything was prepared properly to welcome his new roomie. All the lights were out, good... an obscure arcane ritual circle had been scribbled on the floor, along with what looked very much like blood (but smelled like paint considering that's what it really was) splattered on the walls and floor, and many black candles lining the room and placed at seemingly strategic points within the circle. An enormous open book which, in the dim lighting, you couldn't tell was just a faded old dictionary, and some seemingly arcane props strewn around for good measure, with a prop knife he'd grabbed on his way out of a theater class earlier in the week for just this purpose. And now his roommate would be here any minute and he was so EXCITED and he couldn't WAIT for them to get here and be absolutely terrified! Of course, failing all this, he could always pull the cord connected to the bucket of ice water hanging just inside the doorway, but... that was a last resort. He picked up the prop knife and knelt behind the "grimoire", swathed in black robes (his bedsheets magically altered for effect), and did his best to summon up some patience. Being as excitable as he was, that was... something of a feat.

Mira accepted the invitation, and the latte - she refused the cream, but did put in three spoons of sugar, before sipping at it cautiously. "Wow, that's really good!" she exclaimed, inadvertently broadcasting her pleasure as her shields wavered for a moment. "You're really good at this - you must have been doing it for a while, not too many people seem to know how to make a decent latte in Zinvith, this is the best I've tried in some time..."

The toast-coloured feline halted herself in mid-spate, and gave the panda a sheepish look. "Sorry. I have a bit of a case of 'runaway mouth' sometimes, especially if I'm in a situation where I'm in a completely new environment like now and surrounded by unfamiliar people, and coming from Zinvith that's saying something, and I'm doing it again aren't I..." This time, Mira put her drink down and put both hands over her mouth, then closed her eyes and forced herself to take several deep breaths, before opening them again. Way to make a first impression there, Mira, she scolded herself mentally, not realising that she had broadcast this thought to the room. Now he thinks you're a motor-mouthed airhead...

"Sorry again. Introductions, right... I'm Mira Whalen, of Clan Di'Tharn. As I said, I'm from Zinvith, where I grew up. I only discovered that I was a Cubi about two weeks ago, when my headwings popped up. My grandmother -" an image of a cougar Succubus, who looked to be in her forties (and looked not unlike an older version of Mira, although less flamboyantly dressed) seeped through her mind-shield "- gave me some basic instruction on things like hiding my headwings, and what it means to be a Cubi, and then sent me here to learn more."

It wasn't long before Tristan made his way back to his room. He activated the 'unlock' sigil only to realize he had forgotten to lock his room in the first place again. As he pushed open the door and looked around he mentally winced as he realized the constellations were all out of place and... really just wrong. Calliope was supposed to be further to the east and... well... not flirting heavily with a horse that wasn't even a constellation to begin with and the Krellian Demon shouldn't be making lewd, suggestive gestures at her father who had in mythology banished her from his household meaning they shouldn't even be in the same sky together in the first place. This was going to take a while to fix back to how it should be, though he made a point of locking the wards this time. Honestly, sometimes being part of clan Dimanika could be quite a pain.

Still, that was something to do later. The upswing of forgetting to set the locks on his wards were that his new roommate hadn't had to wait in the hallway, even if he had fallen asleep. Tristan took the opportunity to observe his new roommate in peace. A fox, unfamiliar clan signal (not that that meant much), golden coloring, black markings, same length hair as him, overall kind of cute, perhaps a bit young, but not too much so. Still, that wasn't something he would be looking into until he actually knew the fellow better. Plus there was the fact that they would be roommates to consider, but that could actually work out sometimes.

Still, all of this was physical stuff and Tristan never let himself make proper judgements on people until he knew a bit about their personality which could only be learned by watching them do stuff. Although... he (Blaine he seemed to recall) was asleep... and had fairly shoddy mindshields being new to the whole thing. It would not be that hard to slip past them and look into his dreams and that was the best way to meet people because they usually didn't realize they were meeting you. Plus dreams were just interesting to watch when you don't dream yourself anymore. Of all the things about being young, dreams were what he missed the most.

And so Tristan decided to weave his way through Blaine's sleep to watch his dreams and learn what kind of person he was. Depending on what he saw, he may even introduce himself, though probably still in the dream since he recalled people new to being a cubi still needed lots of sleep and he didn't want to wake him up if he needed sleep. In fact, sleeping in a chair like that was probably uncomfortable (even though Tristan himself had done it a few times and knew it wasn't so bad) so as an after thought he pulled one of the bookshelves off the wall where it unfolded to reveal a bed (the books kept on the shelves because they rotated. or maybe it was magic. who knows?) which he levitated Blaine into (keeping him asleep with a fairly simple charm) before sitting in a chair himself and slipping into Blaine's dreams to see what he would find.

Blaine carefully sighted down the length of a board, holding it up to the desert sun to check the warp before grabbing a jointer plane from the empty shelf beside him and starting on getting the edge flat so he could glue it properly. Translucently thin shavings of wood peeled off the surface of the board as he worked, the hot sun slowly fading as he became so absorbed in his task that his surroundings were falling into abyss, as he took no notice. His mind was clear, so clear that he didn't recognize that he was preparing a board for gluing... without a second board to glue it to. By the time he recognized this fact, he had forgotten where he was, and the scenery seamlessly reconstructed itself around him, finding himself in a forest.

"--with this herring!" The fox swished his tail to the side as he looked around the forest. Where am I...? The leaves rustled, he took the herring, and started to walk. That's right... Something about a shrubbery, if I'm not mistaken. Where would I find a shrubbery...? And what's the herring for, food? He shook his head, not entirely certain what was going on but not yet aware enough to question reality itself, and continued walking, the forest falling apart behind him as he walked unawares towards where he somehow knew there was a town.

OOC: coordinated between Eli and myself

As Blaine reaches the town, tumbleweeds roll past as Tristan steps out of a saloon into the street ahead of him, the both of them suddenly wearing trenchcoats and low brim hats. They hold their twitching fingers above their holsters as the noon sun shines brightly above them. Suddenly at some unspoken signal, they each quickly draw their herrings and shoot them at each other, the beta fish clashing in midair where they begin to violently thumb wrestle.

Suddenly the saloon doors slam open and Blaine wakes up in the chair he fell asleep in to see a ferret walk in. Seeing that the fox is awake, Tristan reaches over to the side of the door and slides his fingers up on the wall filtering the night sky into apparent daytime with a sun shining overhead and clouds drifting by on the ceiling with a light breeze blowing through. In the brighter light, it's apparent that Tristan is a ferret incubus with a mix between dusky blue with mixes of gray, black, and white with all his wings out.

"Oh... Tristan, I hope? I do hope I haven't fallen asleep in the wrong room..." Blaine said. Polite, well that was good Tristan mused. "Yes, you're in the right room. My apologies for being late. I trust there weren't any problems?"

"No, no problems... you always leave the door unlocked?" Blaine rubbed his eyes and sat up a bit. Tristan visibly winced. "Umm... more often than I should. I'll show you how to operate the locks and lights and stuff later, but for now I just wanted to meet you and say hi."

"It's good to meet you, Tristan. You're... less quiet than Fa'Lina led me on to believe. Then again, I guess a one-word description isn't much to go on..."

"Oh yes, I'm normally more shy than this, but am trying to make an exception since you're my roommate. Plus I'm not sure this really counts." Tristan goes over to a bookshelf (the same one Blaine is sleeping in back in reality) and pulls it down into a bed. "Also, if you're going to sleep you should probably do it in a proper bed."

"Doesn't... count? How so?" Blaine cocked his head, rubbing his eyes again and shaking his head, unable to quite clear the fogginess of sleep from his mind.

Blaine blinked slowly, feeling the world around him start to shake every time his eyes closed. Yes, that was... quite a good idea. "It's strange... usually I'm a very light sleeper..." He murmured, standing slowly and walking over to the bed.

Tristan helped him get settled in and headed over to the door as he replied, "As for why this doesn't count? It's the same reason you're feeling so tired. We're not really talking right now. You're still asleep." And on that last sentence, he flicked his fingers down the wall plunching the daytime sky into a starry night as he himself disappeared into a constellation of stars which exploded into pieces dashing the coherency of the room around Blaine into chaos with him in the bed as the epicenter of the storm.

"...Oh." Blaine muttered. "Well then," he stated as even that last bit of sanity fled and he fell back into regular dreaming while Tristan exited the dream, savoring the flavor of sudden understanding that resulted. Even if the rest of his dreams faded, Blaine should be able to at least vaguely recall that meeting which dealt with introductions and would even explain where the bed came from. In fact, if he timed it right, Tristan may even be around for when Blaine woke up and started trying to figure out if that actually had been a dream or not. Maybe having a roommate wouldn't be so bad after all...

The look of shock on his room-mate's face was too much for Niall and he collapsed into helpless laughter.

"Sorry," he gasped.  "If you could just see yourself..."

With some difficulty he managed to control himself and sat upon the end of the bed.  "Niall Daryil," he said, extending a hand, and taking the time to look over the panther in more detail, trying to figure out his approximate age.

"You... you do speak the Common Tongue, right...?" he said, slightly concerned at the silence.  If he can't, thought-reading won't work either.  Dammit, Fa'Lina, have you given me a broken roomie?

"Oh, wait... of course, new 'Cubi," he said, and lowered his mental filter slightly.  "Thought-reading is a nice novelty," he said, "and it can be handy at times.  But it's considered rude to use it too much.  Creates a lot of practical problems, too."

Kart nodded his head "Very good then so you at least know some things about your heritage, now then to business. We are going to be roommates for the foreseeable future and this with the added fact that the headmistress requires a co-op existence between us, we should set up some ground rules between us right now to avoid any arguments." The panda set aside his assignment and took another clean sheet of paper. "Now then do you have any suggestions for rules between us?"

Blaine, once more lost in his dreams, rolled over in the bed, the movement jostling his brain just enough to bring him back to some semblance of consciousness. Finding himself without explanation in an unfamiliar bed, he opened his eyes to try and gain some insight into his situation, the circumstances in which he had gone to sleep still distant to his half-asleep mind. Empty room. Comfortable bed. Guess if I got drink let night, I didn't go home with anybody. But in that case, why am I... Oh... SAIA. That's right... There was that blue ferret... Or was that a dream? No, I hasn't been in bed... In fact, I didn't think there were beds. Blaine sighed and sat up, putting a hand to his head. Too much thinking. He would be fine. He supposed that he'd really met Tristan, but had drifted off while talking to him and the dream has just intermingled with reality. It was, honestly, not that uncommon a situation for him to be in. Well... He supposed he had better find out how long he had slept. He was pretty sure he wouldn't be in classes for another day, but it always paid to make sure. Never act on an assumption without planning for the off chance you're wrong. It was a useful idea in more than just joinery. The fox stood, cracking his spine and stretching his wings before heading over to the door. If there was a clock in the room, he didn't see it... So he would have to look outside for one. And what time had it been when he went to sleep, anyway? Morning, afternoon, the dead of night? Bring indoors like this, unable to see the sun, that was something he'd have to get used to.

Well that was more disappointing than Tristan had hoped. There had only been a moment of confusion before his new roommate had suddenly dismissed the it somehow or other. This could be more of a challenge than anticipated, but if there was one thing he was not short on, it was time. So Tristan finished the passage in the book he reading (the sequel to the one from the library which he had finished by now after dropping by the chess club) and opened the door just before Blaine did coming face to face with him.

"Oh!" Tristan said, as if surprised. "You're up! I trust you slept well. Since we're both here, did you have any questions about classes, layout, people, etc?"

Dosve knew better than to take an Owona at his word.  The Shadow Clan's information manipulation specialty was well-known to him; he had hired them on more than one occasion for the purpose of propaganda.  "Well then, perhaps I could make you a magic item to help you out later on.  Perhaps some weapon, or armor, or a magical space to hide the bodies."  Schematics were already going through his head; simple things at the moment, but in a week or so Dosve was confident he could begin to actually put them to paper.  Then he noticed the boy paying attention to a chessboard frozen in the middle of a game.  "You play chess?"  Dosve never cared for the game.  It certainly had nothing to do with his inability to actually -win- a match in his younger years.  No, not at all.  The dog finished decorating his portions of the room with a bronze-metal box in which a red rhomboid gem floated, slowly rotating; Dosve left the box open so that the gem could catch the light.

Blaine stopped short as he saw the door open just as he arrived there, smiling down at Tristan. Interesting timing. Coincidence? It would be easy as a Cubi to be aware of when I woke, but that's hardly evidence. Suppose it's not important one way or another, though. "Ah, Tristan, I take it? Forgive me if this sounds strange, but I have met you before, right?" He reached up and ran a paw through his hair, which was still down and quite straggly by now, after the ordeal involving the horrid doctor had somehow ruined his ponytail. "It's just that I think I was half-asleep at the time, so, well." The fox widened his smile apologetically before stepping back to let Tristan in.

"I think I'll be quite able to figure the layout out myself, at least so long as it's less confusing than the headmistress, so I suppose my primary question would have to be 'What time is it?' D'you by any chance know? I didn't see a clock in here..."

---

Gideon grunted an affirmative as he sat up and walked over to the board, narrowing his eyes at it before moving a black knight to threaten the white king and a bishop at once. The move offered a tradeoff to white, either protect the bishop by sacrificing a solid defense around the king to capture the black knight with a rook, or else sacrifice the bishop by fleeing the check. Being that he was playing against himself, he ultimately knew the choice he would make, but for now he would consider possible alternatives. "Yeah. I'm not great, but when it's between rounds of full-contact bareknuckles sparring, I have a pretty good win rate. Guess the other guys find it hard to think after getting their jaw broken."

Woah, Blaine was tall. Tristan hadn't noticed that earlier while Blaine had actually been asleep. Between that and his running his hand through his hair, Tristan once more found himself thinking thoughts best not thought. Blaine after all had quite enough on his plate to be sure and Tristan was glad he kept his shields tight. "Ye.. yes," he managed to get out, stammering slightly. "We met last night. Though..." Tristan collected his resolve again internally smirking a bit. "You weren't exactly what I would call awake. I'm not surprised it seems fuzzy."

Tristan stepped inside as Blaine continued and replied, "Of course I keep a clock in here. It's..." Tristan squinted slightly at the wall behind to where the Maid of Callendre was blowing a wet raspberry at him. "Oh... right. Sorry, my clock is broken right now." He sighed and started editting his wallpaper to fix the night sky, relative positions first... he could rotate it to match the time and coordinates later. "So, not sure what time it is. Morning I think. When you don't eat or sleep, losing track of time is pretty easy. I only pay attention so I know when classes, activities, and such are. Though while I'm thinking of it, let me give you the 'keys' to the room so to speak."

So Tristan gave Blaine a brief demonstration on how to operate the room; different lighting settings from night sky (no sun) to day sky (always sun) to real time (time appropriate sun), how to open and close the wards on the room, and what furniture turned into what useful objects and how they could be stored into the wall.

"Um. Ground rules. Good idea." Mira covered her confusion (she hoped) by taking a sip of the really excellent latte she had been given, and considered what little she knew of Cubi. The stimulating beverage was, paradoxically, helping her calm down and focus - or possibly it was the effect of being with someone who seemed to be taking things very much in stride. Or both...

"I may need to ask a few questions - Grandma didn't really have a lot of time to fill me in on everything. First off, I guess - eating and sleeping arrangements? I don't know about you, but I'm still at the stage where I need to do both. How are we set up for that?"

Blaine nodded and mostly remained quiet as he watched Tristan go through the motions of showing him how the room worked. It was very clever; the shelves rotating the way they did when lowered into beds was a very interesting notion to him. Perhaps one day he would design his own mechanism to do that; it would definitely be difficult, he was more trained in the arts of joinery and the like than in how to properly design and make mechanical workings, but he figured he was up to the challenge. When the tour seemed to be over and there didn't look like there was much left to be done, Blaine gestured to one of the bookcases. "Now, you've told me how these work, of course, but I am quite curious to know, what do you keep on them? What does a person who lives for hundreds of years find suitable to stock the shelves of his home with?" The fox sat down in a chair, the same one he had earlier fallen asleep in, and put his arms behind his head. "That is, unless you're too busy to take the time to talk about personal matters. I understand if that's the case; it isn't as though I won't get a chance to get to know you later, after all."

"Ah, well to be honest I'm not picky. I mean several of these are reference books on magic theory, but most are books I just happen to have," Tristan admitted to his new roommate. "I like books and collecting them and my goal is to one day have enough to have my own library." He ran his hand along one of the shelves mentally reviewing the books he already had, occasionally pulling one off the shelf to look at it a moment before putting it back. "A bunch of these are from the library actually and I have to switch them out every other week or so, but I like having them here. It reminds me of home..."

He placed the book he'd been reading in the hallway on one of the shelves and pulled off a light blue tome off to look at. Memories of his childhood flashed through his mind... the way his father used to push his glasses up his nose, the smell of freshly made cookies, fire... Tristan clutched the book to his chest giving his head a small shake to clear his mind before turning around as if nothing had happened. "What about you? You're a carpenter right?"

Blaine nodded quietly as he listened to Tristan talking, making a mental note to ask Tristan another time about his home. It sounded like an interesting topic, at least to him. "Yeah, I was raised as a carpenter... up until a day or two ago, I thought my dad had been too, but, well, his being a Cubi kind of showed me otherwise. I was raised as much by the local carpenter's guild as by him, though... it's really all I know." He smiled and shrugged, glancing over at the chest he'd brought with him to SAIA. "Wood has a certain calmness to it; it may change with time, expand and shrink with the weather and heat, but it's never in too much of a rush." The fox laughed and closed his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest and shaking his head. "From what I can tell of Cubi, that seems to not be the way my life is headed. Guess I have to get used to that. Just something of a shock, as I'm sure you're aware, to find out that so much of what I thought was real turned out to be... well... at least it was a well-intentioned lie." He murmured, now seeming to talk more to himself than to Tristan, before getting a grasp of what he was doing and where he was.

"Sorry, this is getting rather melodramatic and angsty. Better to focus on the positives, right? I've never had much education, and now I can have all that I could ever want. Enough education to fill the time I expected to live several times over. That can't be anything but an up side, right?" He beamed over at the ferret and stood, habitually brushing off the front of his pants--he was used to their being covered in thin shavings from his planes--before stretching, his arms up and wings out as he took a deep breath. "I think it's about time for breakfast. I don't suppose you still eat by any chance, do you, Tristan? Only thing is I can't think where the cafeteria would be if the school even has one, so I would rather appreciate someone to help me find it. If it's inconvenient, though, I'm sure I could find a map somewhere..." Well, this life could definitely be worse... not what I expected, but I'm not sure it isn't what I wanted. And maybe that's the best position to be... in... I wonder if Tristan is as scrupulous about not eavesdropping on people's thoughts as I am. Not that there's anything I could do about it for now, I suppose, but... well. It's not like I have anything to hide that he won't eventually learn anyway, and if you can't control the outcome, and it doesn't make a difference one way or another... why worry? He smiled to himself, glad to have determined what he considered the logical course--to assume Tristan was listening and to not care one way or the other--and glanced over at Tristan again. "Oh, and... do I need to pay for food? Because I don't believe I brought any of my money with me, and... really I don't know if my money would even be good here. Heh... so maybe I guess I do need a bit more help than I'm letting on."

Tristan nodded in general agreement as Blaine spoke, though anyone paying attention to the emotional field would have felt the sadness, sense of loss, and a tinge of bitterness rolling off him as he mentally compared Blaine's situation to his own. Blaine felt that his life was melodramatic. Tch, his story was actually one of the nicest. It was the rare cubi who was raised knowing what they were and Blaine's situation was the most common by far. Tristan's own situation was certainly worse, even considering how well he took learning he was a cubi in stride. And Tristan didn't even try to fool himself into thinking his story was the worst. There were stories out there that positively dwarfed his own.

Still, Blaine was still young and it was hardly his fault for being so self-centric when nearly anyone under the age of thirty would be the same. It takes a while for a newly turned cubi to grasp just how little things like that mattered for people who live to be thousands of years old. In a way Tristan was almost glad his parents died when he was still a child, for how much worse would it have been to watch them grow old and die while he remained the same. Tristan clutched the book he held tighter. For all that he had had it the longest of all his books, it was the one he had never actually read. Better afterall to hold onto the memories and the hope than to dash them against the cruel rocks of reality.

Tristan tuned back in as Blaine mentioned being hungry and then had what could almost count as an epiphany in his mind. He briefly considered the comment about 'scruples' and recalled the filtering instructor's advice from so many years ago, but dismissed it once again. He was too used to watching people instead of talking to them. It was so much easier sometimes to listen to someone's thoughts than to actually talk to them after all. Still, Blaine's question deserved addressing. "Yeah, cafeteria is free. Money doesn't really mean much here after all. Follow me, I'll take you there."

"Food is more or less free since the majority of cubi give it up. As for sleeping," The panda looked and saw only one bed "It will be better if you take the bed,I can make arrangements to sleep on the floor instead. " Kart looked around "Yes that would make it easier to divide the room,what are your affinities if you do not mind?"

Horethen's heart sank down to his knees at the news from the other 'Cubi. Still, his words implied receptiveness, so turning up the "noise" of his projection, he tried once again, walking forward to clasp the other's wrist with a delicate grip. "Truly, are all here such as you? I was not permitted to bring my Speaker, and it would shame my Clan to speak with my throat the way lesser races do in anything but the direst need. Is there any way to petition the Tri-Wing to relent in such a case?"

The leopard shook his head, and walked around in a short arc to his left, still facing the fox before projecting again.  "But I am troubling you with baselessnesses. I am Horethen, of the Aldoraethar. It is an honor to meet you, Niall of the Daryil. What are your clan's deeds, and is your Founder still with you? If I have my time correct, it is many hours before my first class, and swapping tales is a pleasant way to pass the time, no?"

Horethen allowed himself a small smile, and hoped that this would actually ignite a conversation.

"To answer your questions about my Clan..." Niall began carefully, and paused.
"Daryil's clan has a certain notoriety.  You may perhaps have heard of Johan Cross?  Or Werrew, who slew King Thias in single combat and stole his throne not a century back?  Those are deeds of our clan, for better or worse.
"Our master himself seeks to emulate Dimanika's ways and this has upset some of the more haughty clans.  To Piflak we are the 'bumpkin clan'.

"I do not know who our original Leader was, but he was assassinated during the Dragon Wars.  To keep the clan from fragmenting, we sought to choose a new chief - just a normal, bi-winged 'Cubi, not an ascended Leader."

"There was a... disagreement, and the clan branched off.  Lord Daryil led our faction," he said, glancing down at the marking on the right side of his belly.  "His aim is to ascend.  So many have tried and failed," the fox added.  "And with the Dragons still pissed at our race... I just hope he knows what he's doing."

"I really do think you should try talking though," Niall said.  "Thought-reading is considered vulgar, a breach of trust.  It's something you do to spy on someone usually and that means you don't trust them.  But there are practical problems too.
"Pretty much everyone here speaks Common, but not everyone can thought-read.  Younger students haven't necessarily got the power quite yet, and there are more than a few on staff and students who are not 'Cubi.
"Also, while people speak the Common Tongue, it's not necessarily their first language.  Sooner or later you'll run into someone who speaks Common, but thinks in Smargash or something, and then where will you be?"

"Oh hey!" Roxanne leapt up and rushed towards her new roomy, Kallis. The Corgi's tail wag, and while the woman's height was somewhat lacking, the source of the smell was...apparent. It was hard to tell if one should be afraid of her roommate.

"I'm Roxanne Tannis, nice to meet you!" She grabbed Kaill's right hand and shock it furiously. "Oh my Gods a first year, don't worry Kallis, old ROxanne will show you the ropes on how things work here!" She winked, made a "Nck Nck" Sound and elbowed the feline.

Suddenly, the excitement disappeared as Roxanne sensed Kallis'...worrying. Roxanne giggled, blushing a bit."Oh silly me! i was so busy looking at my new toys I forgot to clean myself up!Sorry, just had a lab." The Corgi said, half laughing as she looked round."I should hop in the shower and get changed. Sometimes I forget, I mean, Fa'Lina told me herself way that guy barfed on me.Some people just can't handle a little blood, ya know?"Roxanne chuckled, stepping back.

As the overjoyed corgi succubus leapt forwards to accost and greet her prey, Kallis instinctively stretched and knit her wing-tentacles in front of her in a blocking attempt, still holding the halves of the now rather bloody handkerchief.
Somehow, the corgi managed to manoeuvre through.... and shake her right paw vigorously enough to almost yank it out of the socket. What was worse...
Ew...
The corgi's paw was slightly sticky, and the curious smell from before far, far more intense. Some more excited yapping an elbow strike, and more yapping later, she retreated, and left the happless feline holding her right paw  as far to the side of her body as possible, which due to the lack of shapeshifting skills wasn't quite enough. She went on to wipe the filth off with the cleaner of the handkerchief fragments, drew a small ornament with one of the wing tentacle's fingers, and the rag alongside with remaining contaminants disappeared in a puff of black, though lavender-smelling smoke.
Having calmed down,she turned  her attention to the 'cubi in front  of her, who still looked like bundle of joy someone has bled upon during transit.
"It's a honour to meet you, Roxanne of Clan Tannis... Uh, I have never heard of such a clan before.. the world is so large. I'm sure your clan.. you.. you have a laboratory?" - Kallis blurted out.

Kody sat down on the avenue strode quickly down a hallway with a carefully neutral expression on his face. The truth was, this was the fennec's THIRD attempt to find his new lodgings, having had to retrace his steps each time due to his less than stellar sense of direction. It's something of a running joke among his friends, but in this particular case, it was proving to be quite infuriating. At least, until he caught the number of the room he was looking for out of the corner of his eye, and stifled a relieved sigh. Stepping up to the door, he knocked. His roommate, Fa'lina had told him, was expecting him, and he had been given a key, but in an academy for Cubi of all clans and with their notorious impulsivity, he felt it the better part of discretion to allow his roommate to allow him entry. Putting on a friendly smile, he waited.

Mira sighed, her nerves relaxing a bit further in the face of her room-mate's reasonableness. "Thank you. That's one more thing - make that two more things - that I was worried about. Some of the things I'd heard... Well, never mind. Affinities..." She thought back over the results of her evaluation, shuddering again at the memory of Dr. Ink's methods, and took another sip of her latte to help calm herself.

"Uh... my main affinity is surprise. Surprise and confusion. Surprise, confusion, and... what was the other one? Oh, yeah, pleasure. Which kinda fits, now that I think about it - I've always liked doing things to surprise people, and being a bit off-beat."

Mira giggled. "That sounded a bit like a comedy routine, didn't it?" She stood up and struck a pose. "My chief affinity is Surprise! Surprise and Confusion!... My two chief affinities are Surprise, Confusion, and Pleasure! Wait..."

She sat down again, laughing. "Gods, that felt good." She sobered, and took another drink. "Ahem. One other thing they mentioned - my shields and filters might be a bit erratic. I might be accidentally broadcasting stuff without realising it." She paused, and looked at Kart, suddenly anxious. "Um. Have I been doing that here?" She looked dismayed by the prospect. "I hope not - I know I probably haven't exactly given a brilliant first impression, but that could be going a bit far..."

Kart nodded again, cool and unflappable. "Really? I have not noticed though if you are really worried about that you could get a tutor for additional help, if your shields are weak and you are projecting your thoughts, I worry about the strength of your shielding against receiving thoughts. You do not have to worry about me peeking into your thoughts." The panda winced at his black coffee, good for keeping awake but not for conversation, and set to brewing something for keeping the throat moist.
"In the manner of your affinities I do not suppose you are aware that the majority of the dorms are usually sorted by groups of affinities? With that in mind how do you want to decorate your side of the room?" He nodded towards the large bed with its head against one wall. "It would be fair to divide the half with the bed your side and the side without the bed mine. Yet I do not wish to come back to our room and seeing clashing decor styles." 

"Weaklings," was Dosve's prompt reply.  "Come from class then, have you?"  Dosve's first class was not for several hours; he had arrived ahead of schedule purposefully to have time to determine the chemistry with his potential roommate, and the sentiments of the student body.  Perhaps make a short list of student organizations he would conquer when he had free time.  So far the chemistry with his room mate was not good from Dosve's understanding.

That would need fixing...but how.

Blaine nodded, holding a paw up to cover his muzzle as he yawned, the effects of such a deep sleep still in the process of wearing off. "Much appreciated, Tristan. Oh, but if you'd give me a moment, I think I'd better get out of these clothes... they're probably far too dirty to go out in public in." He walked back towards his chest, opening it up and carefully lifting out several different handplanes, setting them on their side on the floor for now--he'd find a place for them eventually, maybe a locker in the woodshop if they had any--before picking up a neatly folded red shirt and pair of jeans. ...Maybe I should ask him if changing here is alright? I mean, he may want to leave the room or something... eh. He's a Cubi. I'm sure it won't be the first time he's seen the naked form. And if he doesn't like it, he can always leave... Some of that cultural prejudice he'd picked up from growing up around Beings his entire life was clearly still present, whether or not he was aware of it. He stood and tugged his shirt off, his torso as slim and lithe as his arms would suggest, with a gleaming white patch over the middle of his chest and stomach. His clan mark, a dark blue semicircle with two short lines through it, stood out even more now against the simple coloration of his fur; wearing a shirt broke up his form and tended to mute the contrast of the blue against the yellow. Remembering he had yet to put his hair up again, he knelt down and rummaged through the chest once more, eyebrows furrowing and his head starting to dip inside as he got more and more frustrated by the search. "Hair tie... hair tie... ah, here we are." He emerged from the chest holding a hairbrush, with a hair tie stretched around his wrist, and he sat back on the floor as he started to comb his hair, make it look at least somewhat presentable. Woodworkers were allowed to be vain, too. Especially woodworkers that had just found out they were Cubi.

---

Matthias suppressed a squee of excitement, rushing to get back to his position at the book, with knife in hand, and tried to figure out how to let his roommate in without ruining the prank. He bit his lip, then, in the scariest of voices he could muster--being that he had taken a specialized class on altering his voice as well as his appearance, for acting purposes, it was very much an evil-sounding rumble--he raised his head and roared, "I have been expecting you. Enter at once." He lowered his head again, hoping the hood would hide his giddy smile as he raised the knife up into the air, poised to stab himself in the heart, and at the same time take advantage of his shapeshifting to explode a small blood squib he'd packed into his robes. His roommate would be TERRIFIED! And that pleased him to no end.

---

"Yes, well... if you can call it a class. Something of a club, really." He glanced over at Dosve. "You know, for a Cubi, you keep your emotions on a short leash. Just an observation, but... normally you would have swerved one way or another by now, several times maybe. Why haven't you?" The cheetah bit his lip, brow furrowing as he did his very best to determine whether Dosve was just emotion jamming him with... what, calmness? Was that even a thing? He hadn't ever tried it... But he was confused about why Dosve seemed so... unruffled. Very unusual for Cubi. In fact, Gideon was so confused, he was himself starting to get ruffled.

It was annoying, not having a window. The little figurine really belonged on a sill of some sort, but the lack of open space obviated the need. He'd need to build a shelf or something for it.

"I will not sully myself with spoken conversation. It is the act of our lessers, creatures of meat and bone and lacking higher faculties of mental sharing, that communicate such. Besides, if I have a mindshield, and you have a mindshield, one can only project, not winnow through another's thoughts for secrets. And it solves the communication problem neatly. If you feel more comfortable speaking with your throat, I do not have any particular problem with it, but do not expect me to act such. I am the first representative of my Clan to this place, and I will not cast aside our honor so lightly."

Shapeshifting was obviously out of the question, and crafting magic had never been his forte. Still, if he had material, he was certain he  could come up with some sort of simple adhesive and place the figurine on a platform. He tucked the thing into his tunic's pocket, and turned back to the Fox. "I understood however, that this place was a sanctuary for our kind. I did not realize any non-cubi were residents. Would it be possible to secure accommodation for my Speaker? Truth be told, I would be greatly heartened by having the old Being along, and I am unfamiliar with dealing with the Mistress of this place; all the contact had been arranged by those higher in esteem in the Patriarch's eyes than myself."


Not particularly caring if the other spotted his consternation, he let the mindshield stay down for future conversation, letting his air of regret and long fond memories of the faithful retainer fill his mind and leak out to any who would hear them.

"I probably could do with some tutoring, just to avoid any embarrassing incidents," Mira said, giving the matter some thought as she surveyed the room and its decor, or lack thereof. "And no, I didn't know about the groupings - I was given my room assignment in a fortune cookie, of all things."

"Since, as you say, a decor both of us can live with is a good idea - what sort of style do you like? And since I've told you my affinities, mind sharing yours?"

"Well," Niall said slowly, "It's not my place to judge or criticize your clan and their tenets, but I can't help noticing that they are... well, a little different to the average clan.  So much so that I am kind of curious how you ended up here.  It sounds like your clan is rather insular, and such clans usually use their own teachers, rather than sending their young off to Fa'Lina, whose goals may conflict with theirs."

He shrugged.  "As for your speaker, you'll have to ask Fa'Lina about that.  But... well, a lot of classes are focussed on impersonating other races and at the end of the day and unless you want to pose as someone with their tongue cut out, that is going to require verbal speech."

He gave a faint grin.  "Does your clan sing, by any chance?"

"Ah yes that is a habit of the headmistress for giving information." The panda looked thoughtful "though it's usually unpleasant information..." The incubus looked back into Mira's eyes "So for my clan our affinities are for contentment, a rare thing to actually find pure, and isolation. I myself for some reason have a particular affinity for anxiety. However I rather dislike the feel of that emotion so I rather prefer a very restrained decor for our living space." The panda tapped his fingers on the table "Some rather calm colors and nothing exactly extravagant, rather flowing seamlessly. Maybe something in the style Art Nouveau?" The panda waved his hand as he described the flowing rather natural inspired decor style. 

For a second that stretched far longer than it should have, Tristan's brain froze as Blaine began changing right in front of him. Should he look away? Should he pretend he didn't care? He felt he should probably look away, but he couldn't tear his eyes away from the way his roommate's muscles rolled as he removed his shirt and tossed it negligently to the side as he rummaged in his box for something to tie his hair with. As he arched back (arched for crying out loud, you can't not do this on purpose) to pull his hair back, Tristan wrestled his thoughts back into coherency mentally and aside from an eye twitch and a slight blank stare, he managed to mantain a good poker face. He took a moment to be very glad he wasn't prone to nosebleeds. He took another to be even more glad of nearly thirty years of experience holding his mindshield under stressful conditions. After all, one did not survive this long in a cubi school with such an exploitable weakness without developing at least some way to keep it a secret.

Pulling himself steady for a moment, he managed to say drily, "I'm sure the food will greatly appreciate your efforts to look nice for it." Was it just him or did that sound bad? Still, it was the best he could come up with on short notice and at this point you just had to carry through.

"Yes, well... getting my hair in my food has always been irritating enough." Blaine finished wrapping the tie around his hair, grabbing his replacement shirt and pulling it on before looking down at his pants, trying to assess whether they really needed to be changed. Granted, they were pretty dirty, but the bulk of the distress applied to his wardrobe during his "placement test" had been to his shirt. He supposed that he'd be fine for now. Besides, his modesty had gotten the better of him in the end. He stood smoothly, pushing himself up with one hand on the floor before tossing his jeans back in the chest and bending down to pick up his shirt, dropping it in as well. "But, point taken. And I wouldn't want to be ravished by any of the Cubi here; from what I understand they tend to be... impulsive. Lead on, Tristan." He gestured to the door and smiled warmly. Suppose I'll just change when we get back. When did my first class start, again...? Sometime in the afternoon? Ugh... too much of a blur to remember.

With Blaine's shirt back on, Tristan had an easier time thinking and was able to guide them just fine to the cafeteria. Though as he did he was nagged with trying to figure out whether or not he was disappointed Blaine had opted out of changing pants. However with no active prompter he was able to chase those thoughts away without too much effort. Really it was lucky this didn't happen to him with every incubus or there would have been no way to hide it. Plus as a stroke of luck, the kind of person likely to take advantage of it was also the kind of person that didn't trigger it in the first place. It took a mix of looks and personality to get through to him like that, but Blaine had just the right bits. This could possibly be a looong roommate assignment.

Arriving at the cafeteria, Tristan got a selection of food, some of which he offered to Blaine, and found a good place to sit. Checking the time, he turned to the fox and said, "My next class isn't for a few hours yet, so I have a bit more time to get you oriented with what your classes are and where to find them. Do you remember what you have or do you have it written down somewhere?"

For a moment, Dosve let the reversed emotion filters used to reflect his emotions back at him (a useful thing in combat against mind-readers) loose, opening gaps in their protection, to allow his emotions to broadcast normally.  "Dreadfully sorry.  I recently came from a political hotbed, I believe the proper term is, and had to put up wards against my enemies reading my emotions to gain an edge.  They should be broadcasting normally now."  The dissonance from the dog's broadcast, currently a mix of cold anger, awkwardness, and an all consuming hunger would be greatly disturbing to the lay man.  "As for your club, I'm going to be making an abundance of magical artifacts during my course work, some of which may even work.  If you or any of your club members require something to be made, I ask that you come to me first.  I promise excellent quality."

Blaine settled into a chair when the two of them arrived at the cafeteria, noticing Tristan making a beeline for the food without him. His headache, at least, was seeming to relent a little. It had picked up as they walked through the halls, stray thoughts--or, quite often, mind-shields repeating a mundane phrase loudly--sending ripples of various degrees through his psyche, but he supposed that the cafeteria was further from the epicenter of most of the activity, so the disturbances were fainter even if they were still present. The fox took a moment to himself so he could close his eyes and appreciate the relative quiet, collecting himself so he could think properly. Right... there was that poodle... Fa'Lina... she told me when and where all the classes would be... but she didn't write any of them down. And I didn't either... He reached up, covering his eyes with one hand and furrowing his brow as he tried to recall his schedule. Well, he knew the classes themselves, at least. Perhaps Tristan would be able to help with the rest. Otherwise, he might have to track down an authority figure to get help. ...come to think of it, ARE there any authority figures? The only ones you've met are Fa'Lina and that doctor... maybe you're on your own here. Just as he was running that line of thought to its end, he heard Tristan's footsteps as he came back with the food, nodding his head graciously as he took what his roommate offered him. It wasn't exactly what he was used to--his dad's cooking had never been extraordinary, its appeal lying solely in familiarity--but it did look good enough.

"Aah... funny thing about that, Tristan, I don't know when my classes start, at all. I seem to recall being scheduled for a Basic Shielding class first, though, and it was sometime in the afternoon... I'm not sure, though." He smiled sheepishly, nomming off a large section of the... fish?... sandwich Tristan had gotten him, so as to circumvent being asked a question he may potentially need to answer.

---

Gideon sat straight up as soon as he felt Dosve's emotions, even if it was just for a moment, letting a grin creep over his face. Before letting himself think too much about what the cause might have been, he rechecked and redoubled his mind shield, just in case Dosve didn't want to hear his speculation. That taken care of, the cheetah leaned forward, chin in hand thoughtfully as he narrowed his eyes, looking the Piflak cubi up and down. Emotion jamming? It's difficult to maintain, especially with something that complex... but then, he wouldn't have to maintain it, not for a short burst just to get me to back off. Now... what if it isn't jamming...? In that case I may have to be careful with this one... however you cut it, he's going to be interesting.

"Excellent quality, you say? And yet you qualify your earlier statement by implying at least some of your little projects won't even work. So which are you, an incompetent vainglory, or a hypocritical double-talker who pretends to be humble while being the cockiest one in the room?" He grinned, rustling his coal-black wings, being sure he was ready to defend himself with them if it should prove necessary. Even so, he wasn't making even a half-hearted attempt to emotion-jam his roommate, so the thrill, excitement, and curiosity flooding his system right now would probably reveal his goading for what it was: an attempt to keep pushing Dosve until he snapped. When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. When your only "people-skill" is being an asshole, you see opportunities for that skill to shine, everywhere you go.

Tristan raised an eye incredulously. "You don't know when any of your classes are? I think I know where the shielding professor prefers to teach, but I don't know when it would be..." He poked his own food with a fork as he thought, not quite sure if he actually wanted to finish eating it. He'd been here long enough that he really didn't need to eat and sometimes food just didn't seem appetizing anymore. Still, he had been raised not to leave his food half-eaten so he put another forkful in his mouth anyway, grimacing only slightly at the taste he did not fancy just then. Chewing slowly (honestly, just about ANY food looks disgusting if you think about it too hard), he mulled over a few possibilities once again wondering whether it wouldn't be easier to get a warp-aci.

He swallowed and said, "Well the best thing I can come up with is to just go over and check. Although... knowing Fa'Lina, it's very possible she set things in motion so that whenever you happened to go to the room to check when the class is, the class would be right about then. If that thought makes you nervous and feel you might be late if you put it off, your class is probably soon and you should head over now. If you find the idea relieving, then you probably have a few hours and you should head over when you're not doing anything. I wouldn't rely on that for long though, or she WILL trip you up on purpose at some point, maybe even this time. It's hard to tell with her."

He started constructing a light map (yes, one made of light. also one that is light on details) to the room which he gave to Blaine. Most cubi didn't use these much because they were easy to make and just as easy to alter if the person using it didn't pay careful attention and by now they were practically a beacon for Dimanika jokesters, not that Blaine would know that. Tristan may not be quite the fiend some of the members were, but when you were in that clan you had to have SOME standards, even if it was just laying the groundwork for someone else to roll through. Besides, having more than one person in on a scam obfusticates some of the details and makes it harder to catch onto in time. After all, the clan's heavy hitters would never get anywhere if everyone saw them coming which is why people like Tristan existed in the clan too. Or at least that's how Tristan interpreted it. In a clan like Dimanika, things hardly ever get collaborated or planned on purpose. All too often it was just happy coincidence.

Roxanne chuckled, going to the kitchen sink and washing her hands. "Oh sorry, Tannis is my last name silly! I'm Clan Golgotha by blood." She gingerly washed her hands and wiped the blood off.

"Oh I don't have a lab. Well, you know what a lab is right?" Roxanne cocked her head."Like where you go practice what they teach you in class."She chuckled"Oh man that lab was blast! Ever since Fa'Lina made that deal with that prison they send us all the condemned guys and we can go nuts on them! Shoulda seen today's guy! Man he started screaming and bawling about how he didn't do it and--"

Roxanne chuckled again. "Oh sorry, I can tell ya later. Mind if I hop in the shower hun?" Roxanne smiled again.

"Art Nouveau, hmm? That could work - all those nice flowing lines, and graceful curves..." Mira got up, and shuffled over to her suitcase. Opening it, she took out a measuring tape, and started to measure up the walls. Or at least, tried to - her skirt kept getting in the way.

"Look, I have to change out of this skirt - it's becoming really annoying. Are you okay if I change clothes in front of you, or would you prefer to leave the room first? I don't mind either way."

Matthias would be pleased indeed! Although the voice seems to have little to no effect, after a brief fumbling with the keys the diminutive (and adorable) vulpine stepped into the room, just in time to bear witness to the lapincubus' performance. The burst of sheer terror Matthias would receive is intense, but also short, as the poor overstimulated fennec freezes up, lets out an inarticulate squeal, and then faints dead away, landing in a poofy heap just inside the doorway.

"Yes, that would be the best idea." Kart took his assignment and walked out of the room. As he closed the door behind him, he flushed and put his palm onto his face. "Truly this has every possibility of being a painful bother." There were so many things that could go wrong rooming with a female. Still it only meant that Kart needed to be more careful of his actions. The panda went back to completing his coursework distinctly remembering to always knock first before entering the room.

Turning fully to face the fox, Horethen sat against the wall, legs at a rigid ninety degree angle. It would not do to fall behind on exercises, and this was one he could do while he conversed. Already a bit of burn was entering his thighs.

"Insularity was not entirely by choice. To stay secret is to stay safe, and it was mostly other clans that were our rivals and worries. As for my purpose, it is no secret. Our clan has entered into a period of peace that is not common in our history, and over the past millenia or so, our numbers have grown there are now over a hundred of us. The Patriarch frowns upon unions too close in blood, but most of the other 'Cubi in Atharra were wiped out by the Thularian rampage. We need new blood, but we do not forget entirely the lessons of old. I am young and unaccomplished, I haven't even reached my third century, and therefore as good an emissary as any, with little critical work back home to perform. But shapeshifting and impersonation, those I have been taught.


The burn in his legs was becoming almost unbearable, so he straightened and stepped away from the position he was in before beginning in proper. It wouldn't do to destroy his clothing, and that limited his options somewhat, so he mostly changed his face; turning the jaguar's snout and fur into something porcine, older and scarred, one running through a milky left eye. The back-wings remained, and the headwings retreated into his pate, and at a last burst of inspiration he removed most of his left forearm to make enough of his self to generate an ersatz battleax "held" in his right. 

Do not think I cannot speak if needful. If it would serve the clan to have this crude image of a demon presented to the world as truth, I could and would talk without having to lower my eyes in shame. But this is an academy for our kind; everyone would know it is a falsehood, and there can be no purpose in debasing myself so. And as for your last question, no. Our music tends more towards stringed instruments and drums endlessly rolling. I have little talent for music myself however, although I do enjoy listening. What of you? You seem to have no taboo with throat-speech. Do you like to sing? If I could find a fiddle, I could accompany, although with less skill than most.

Released from the throes of the excited corgi succubus, Kallis tiptoed into the room, watching out for more stains of blood and worse - a fear that has fortunately not materialised. It was almost hard to keep a track of her roommate as Roxanne seemed to oscillate between various locations inside at a slightly worrying rate.
With an arcane gesture, she activated the spell on the suitcase once again, and effortlessly slid it in, while keeping up the chatter.

"Clan Golgotha... your clan must be large if you've got a family name on top of your clan's... I mean, not even that incubus from Zezzuva's clan had one, and they're like, twice our size, I think, and their leader's alive. Say, where can I-"

The sound of flowing water seemed to have startled the feline succubus as she turned towards the washing Roxanne and fall quiet for a second or two. She must have let go of her suitcase too, as it continued to slide through the room, driven by its inertia, and hit the foot of a cupboard on the opposite side with an audible thud.

"Wow..Like a mansion-" The cat seemed to regain self-control and grinned nervously.

"Oh, don't think I haven't seen indoor waterways before. When I was working as an enchanter for a woodworking company we were doing repairwork on an ornate ironwood safe of Count Afanasios Ka'erith of the Ka'erith angel family, there was a water outlet on every floor! I even got to use one of them- eh, what am I going on about... Labs.. right? Eh.. so it's more like when we had training sessions in the lyceum - I thought you were doing  something like one of those professors with their demonstrations, you know, using a dead body to do menial work, or showing the pathways of the humours.. you kinda smelled like them and the blood...  but they clamped down on such things in most places anyways these days. And .. er. . if you need to go somewhere I don't mind ... just show me where to put my stuff and which bed is mine if you will be gone for longer."

Blaine nodded, taking the light map from Tristan and thanking him as he looked it over. The route wasn't that complicated, he could probably get there within a few minutes if he needed to... and, well, best to go now and inquire about the class, in any case. Even if it weren't starting just yet, it would mean he didn't have to just guess or rely on Fa'Lina. Trusting her was one thing, of course, but trusting his memory...? Yeah, he would much rather not. "I think I'd better go check out the classroom now. I vaguely remember the time being in the afternoon, but even if I'm mistaken, showing up early and getting to speak with the professor can only be a good thing." He polished off the last of his food and stood, picking up the plate and waving to Tristan, looking for somewhere to deposit the plate... well, there were some dirty dishes over by the kitchen, it seemed. That seemed as good a place as any. Try not to make more work for other people, as he'd been taught growing up; if he didn't put his dishes back, someone else would have to.

Walking through the corridors towards the destination, Blaine found himself passing by quite a few Cubi of various clans, even spotting a couple bearing the same red clan marking as Tristan had on his hand... though that was rather to be expected, he supposed, with a whole school full of them. The concept was still foreign to him, as though he thought he might wake up any time in his woodshop... the familiar, comforting smell of sawdust, the sounds of a quiet city morning, the scratchy bedsheets that woke him up early enough to actually hear those sounds early in the morning... he missed it already, even the things he thought he would never want to put up with again. It'll probably get easier, as I get used to it... Cubi live for a couple thousand years, don't they...? It's fair to expect I'll be here between one and two hundred years... in that time I'm sure this will come to feel like home. He held a hand up to his mouth and yawned as he walked, before looking down at the map. That was strange... he could have sworn the next turn he had to make was a left. Well... the map knew best. To the right he went, certain to become hopelessly lost before long. Unbeknownst to him one of the Dimanika cubi he'd passed in the hallways had indeed messed with his map, indeed to such a degree that he found himself lost for long enough a stretch that he began to get worried about being late to his class. Tossing the map to the side, he tried to remember the original route as he had committed it to memory, and started off in that direction at a light jog...

Only to find himself on the floor before he knew it, appreciating the inexplicably fuzzy lighting in the room. This floor is not at all comfortable. ...Why am I... His vision refocused a bit, the ringing in his ears subsiding a bit as he noticed a smiling poodle standing over him. "Fa'Lina. Did you... by any chance... clothesline me, just now?" She grinned, her pointed teeth enough to set aback even the cheshire cat, and leaned over Blaine as he started to stand.

"Oh dear, I wasn't unclear when I told you "No running in the halls," was I, Blaine? I didn't think you would have forgotten so quickly." The fox brushed himself off and glared at her, making a mental note not to trust his new headmistress. Something about her expression told him that she was well aware of that little thought in his head.

"Thank you for the reminder, then. I don't suppose you'd mind giving me... a..." Fa'Lina was holding out a small, golden-tan... thing. Shaped like a bizarre bow-tie, almost. "...If I want to know what that is, I have to ask you, don't I?" The fox said dryly, plucking it out of her hand nonetheless and holding it up, peering intently at the shape and smelling it a bit, apparently much to the amusement of the other Cubi walking through the hallway. ...Walking, not running, it would seem.

"You're supposed to open it, silly. Haven't you ever seen a fortune cookie before?" Blaine narrowed his eyes and snapped it open, pulling a folded slip of paper from the inside. "Your answer should be in there. Have fun getting to your class without running!"

---

Matthias laughed loudly, rolling over on the floor when he realized he'd actually scared his roommate to the point of fainting dead away. Oh this would be fun. When he was done thumping the floor and laughing, he stood, shedding the thick black cloak and revealing his crazy-loud clothes underneath, walking over to the fennec and shaking him by the shoulder, wiping tears from the corners of his eyes with the other hand. "Hey, buddy, get up. It was just a joke, you didn't really walk in on a sacrificial ritual." The bunny grinned, showing off his razor-sharp teeth as he peered down at the fox. Poor guy was probably terrified of horror movies... Matt would have to make sure there was one playing every time his roomie got back from classes. Ooooh or he could make them just start at random times in the night! Matt rubbed his paws in glee, evil, fuzzy-bunny glee.

Dosve didn't even slow down in his moving about, checking that all things were in place to his satisfaction.  "Even a paperweight can be a masterpiece, can be beautiful.  Even if the devices I craft do not function as intended, they will be excellently made."  The boy almost goaded Dosve into lashing out.  His lack of being able to train with his own sword had gotten the better of him; he was losing the self-control that had lasted him so long.  This couldn't happen here, not ever here.  Not when she was watching.

"Though I suppose I haven't answered you either/or question.  Allow me to reintroduce myself.  I am Dosve Donya Piflak, former King of Donya.  To answer your question: I am a politician."

"No-one I know here really does have a taboo on speaking," Niall said simply.  "It's too inconvenient.  Even those who can survive without breathing still breathe in order to speak.  Thought-reading is considered a breach of trust, and most of the non-'Cubi staff can't do it anyway.

"My clan, my Lord Daryil hopes to achieve some measure of peace and cooperation with Beings, so naturally we need to be able to speak to them and understand how they live.  Which isn't really much different from us, frankly.

"I have been studying music," Niall said.  "More recently, the Being science of manipulating electricity.  It is a Being world out there, so it behoves us to have at least some basic understanding of the devices Beings may build.
"More recently I have been combining the two disciplines," Niall said.  "Electrically amplifying a lute or guitar allows for interesting new tonalities which could not be achieved otherwise.  I have heard that Beings are starting to use this technique themselves."

Mira waited until Kart left the room before shedding her skirt in favour of a pair of culottes, in a green which matched her hair. This could get awkward, she thought, in an unconscious echo of Kart's own opinion. I can't keep kicking him out of the room every time I want to change clothes. Hmm, maybe a screen of some sort? I might have enough fabric with me to fix something up...

When she was 'decent' again, she opened the door, and waved Kart back in. "I'm thinking we need a screen or something for changing behind," she told him. "I'm not exactly body-shy, but it doesn't seem fair to interrupt whatever you're doing every time I want to change. And I suspect the same goes for you - you probably aren't all that comfortable changing in front of me, especially since we don't know each other that well yet. I'm guessing this is your first time sharing a room with a female?"

"A politician, huh? So in other words, you're both? Suppose that does explain your expert spin on a device that doesn't work being a good paperweight. I suppose you would know, though, about things that are best at just sitting around and doing nothing." Gideon smirked and stuck out his tongue at the other cubi before he glanced around at the things he was arranging throughout the room. "You know, Dosve, I have to hand it to you... you are exceptionally good at keeping yourself in check. Probably a good survival tactic, for a politician such as yourself. Any fights would have to be started by the other guy, so it'd make you look better, yes? And I imagine you think I could stand to learn something of that from you as well. It would likely assist in my strategic endeavors, that's for certain, but it would be unacceptably boring. What about you? Don't you ever get bored of holding back your emotions?"

Left to his own devices once more, Tristan considered what he should now be doing. His roommate would be tied up for the foreseeable future (unless you were Fa'Lina of course, but that was cheating) and he was just about finished with the library for now. His constellations were... mostly back in order and he didn't feel like tracking down the minute details of what stars were out of place just now so he decided that he may as well head to art class early. By now he had practiced enough that he could sketch a decent figure, but he was still working on getting the shapes right, especially the hands. As he waited for the class to start, he would pick a random person nearby who wasn't going somewhere and try sketching them before moving on to a new target. A few he even tried to sketch from memory when they went by too fast. Mostly he kept the sketches small, several to a page, but ocasionally he would do a larger scale and every so often he would get irritated and shake the paper, effectively wiping it clean of what was on it. Using paper that cleared so easily was very convenient for not running out of paper when you didn't really want to keep the results around.

"An intelligent idea, true this is my first time sharing a room with a female. Even then however I prefer to keep my modesty intact. " Kart sat back down.

Really.  The boy was trying to provoke him, a seasoned -if weakened- veteran, into violent action.  Perhaps the cheetah was a mix of Owona and Taun, but then the Shadows also had an affinity for rage...  Either way, the display did little than turn to face the feline fully; leaving the final items to settle on their own.  "Is this how it shall be between us?  I make conversation, you metaphorically play 'I'm not touching you' until I snap and engage in a brawl with you?"  Irritation began to bleed off him before the gaps in his reversed emotion filters were filled.  "As a matter of fact, no.  Politics was secondary to that endeavor.  I learned self control so that I could fight demons and other such rabble effectively.  And no, I do not hold back on my emotions at all.  I feel them, and let them pass, but do not act on them."

The canine stood, balancing on his one leg while his arm stretched out, bidding his crutch to come through the air to his hand, while the chair rolled into a corner.  "I have no intention of teaching you anything you neither wish to learn, or do not ask for.  That is the task of the professors.  Now, I am going to go out and see to my first class of the day.  May I see your key to make a copy?"

The fun-sized-fox, upon regaining his consciousness, immediately picked himself up, straightened his clothes, and defaulted into deadpan snarker mode. His 'son I am disappoint' face was legendary among people who knew him, almost Tommy Lee Jones impressive. It didn't last all that long however, once the miniature fox got a decent look at his new roommate's dentition, at which point it all fell apart again, along with any hope he had of retaining any shreds of his dignity.
"Ah yes, pranks. I really should have anticipated something of the like, I suppose. I'm Kody Craig, and we're going to be best of friends, you and I, I can just te-heeeeeeeth..."
The resultant alarmed look on Kody's face is utterly priceless.

Gideon pulled the room key from his pocket, tossing it over to Dosve and chuckling to himself. This promised to be more fun than he had expected. The canine may not have been showing it, but he was angry. Angry enough, at least, to permit his tongue to lash at his new roommate, with whom he had no doubt expected to be on good terms. "I wouldn't say this is how it'll always be, by the way." Gideon said, watching Dosve on his way out of the room. "I was simply feeling you out, today. Don't expect much attention from now on; I have classes too, y'know. Can't spend all my time screwing with my roommate. Enjoy your class."

---

Matthias stretched his grin, gripping the momentarily paralyzed fennec's paw and shaking it warmly. "My smile? Why, I'm glad you like it! I'm from the clan Kish'ta; it's just part of how I look." He wiggled his little rabbit-tail happily, ushering Kody into the room and setting him down on an electric blue couch. "It's nice to meet you Kody. My name's Matt, and as you've probably guessed, I like scaring people. So that's going to include you. A lot. But don't worry, I won't really hurt you." Matthias paused as if considering something, counting silently on his fingers. "Oh! Except in, like, a few weeks or so. But don't worry about that either, you probably won't even notice."

Roxanne giggled, not losing the spring in her step for a second. "Oh, Golgotha tend to be hush-hush. Even I didn't know who they were until I got to SAIA. But mom being sorta dead kinda had a hand in that situation."She sighed, becoming only slightly less excited. "Man I can't wait to find the guy who got the drop on her. Maybe I'll show him his own entrails before he dies! Or she." She laughed. She didn't sound angry...more like a kid proclaiming what they'd ride first when they got to WallyWorld.

Roxanne smiled, giggling. "Oh we had running water back home! Of course my home is sorta being centric and advanced. Well, sorta. We had the world's best technology!" She laughed. "if it had to do with fish and fishing. Yeah, most advanced fisheries in the world. Dad was a fisherman." She chortled. "And Yes, I've spent time at sea. SAIA's my third home. Kinda wish they had more naval classes, but eh. I've meant to bring it up with Fa'Lina when I get the chance."

Roxanne rolled her eyes."There I go again rambling on like a total blabbermouth! Dad said mom was like that. Hard to get a word in with her edgewise and OHBYTHEOLDONEYOUNEEDTOSEETHESHOWER." Roxanne darted to the bathroom, then poked her head out a moment later. "Get over here! You'll love this thing!"

"I ... so sorry to hear that. Filthy scum like that deserves to have their souls eaten. Or.. or worse."
The statement-of-fact tone in which the Roxanne spoke of the tragedy was rather ... jarring, Kallis thought. Beings killing each other was one matter, but murders of creatures, even though unfortunately common back home, was something not taken lightly. But then, this place *was* full of surprises.

For the time being, the cat placed her suitcase into a corner near the bed, and shut off the hover spell, continuing to listen to her roommate's chatter. The suitcase landed with a distinct thud.
"Running water at home, and advanced beings, I see..... what else did you have, a gryphonless carriage? Cold torches? Literate weres?"  A smile spread on her face, and she began to giggle, perhaps even louder than her roommate. "Come on, Roxanne, you have to try harder than that, I wasn't born yesterday."
Still chuckling, she followed Roxanne into the bathroom.

Horethen was starting to become tired of this long conversation, and he was having trouble adjusting himself to the decidedly odd notion that he would be the odd one, not flapping his gums to produce sounds like the rest of them. 'Cubi should be better than this. Where as the pride and the might that was the heritage of the race?

Still, this Niall had done him no injury, and it would not do to offend the fox. He twisted his mind shield lower for a reply.

"If you do not wish to open your thoughts to me, and I have no desire to force the issue, than there can be no breach of privacy. By raising and lowering my own shield, I can transmit; it seems the only privacy at risk is mine alone. But you are quite correct, about the Beings. They multiply, they expand, they develop. Much faster than we; I think it is their short lives, when you only have six or seven decades to pass what you can make to your heirs, you must need take risk, and attempt great things. But their strength worries me. The story is taught to all in our clan, though it was before my time, it was when the Patriarch was younger than I am now. But Beings very nearly slew all creatures in my homeland, and to this day, large stretches of Narukh are unpopulated from the wars. Many a house of Angels, Demons, and 'Cubi clans are gone. And the forces that drove them back were also mostly Beings, though in Astarea many can trace some measure of lineage to Creatures.

He raised his shield again quickly, for the sight of the other 'Cubi in the bed and his musings about the darkness in the past had tired him, and even the steady, pulsing waves of emotion coursing in from all directions seemed insufficient for a nonce. Such weakness could not be exposed, not to an outsider, no matter how friendly this one seemed.  And electricity; he was familiar that some of the beings there used it, mostly for lights, that someone would spend something so expensive on a frippery like music implied that it was far easier to generate than what they knew back home, and THAT had some troubling implications.

Niall picked up on the other's discomfort and got down off the bed.  After all, unless there was some kind of crippling disagreement, they'd likely have decades to get to know each other.  It was time to change the topic.

"So," he said, "Do you need a hand unpacking?  Anything you want to know about the Academy?  Anywhere you'd like me to show you?"

The reference to the upcoming event in a few weeks provoked more confusion than anything else, as both Fa'lina and his mother had made it clear that the students are under protection at SAIA. Kody returned the handshake with a lack of resistance that spoke of his mind being elsewhere. "Pleasure to meet you Matt. You'll be happy to learn that, as has been amply demonstrated, I am rather easily startled. In fact, that was likely why our headmistress placed is together, both to keep you entertained and well fed as well as to inure me to these sorts of things." The fennec's tone was controlled, and those who knew Kody better would recognize his analysis of Fa'lina's motivations as having an implied "so she's neither actively malicious nor a complete imbecile" at the end.

Matt smiled, flexing his wings. So then, how to get this little fennec to warm up to him now that he was reasonably well aware of the situation awaiting him as roommate to a Kish'ta. After all, he didn't want the poor thing not to like him; nobody should have to stay with a roommate they couldn't stand. And he'd gotten his fill of scaring the newbie for at least the next few hours. Lessee... he's a new student, so he's probably still eating and sleeping. Maybe take him to go get a bite to eat? Or ask about his classes or something, getting to know him would be a good start. He was, of course, not stupid enough to ask about Kody's life before SAIA. Plenty of the cubi here had traumatic backstories and, on the chance that Kody was one of them, it was best to wait until they were established friends before opening that can of worms. Food it was, then. "Yeah, she generally knows what she's doing. She's really smart and has everyone's best interests at heart; part of that is trying to make sure new people always get paired with someone that knows how to show them the ropes and stuff. Like for instance I bet you still eat, like, food and stuff, so you'll want to find the cafeteria, right? I can take you there if you want. Or we could just, you know, talk and stuff. Of course since we can do that while we walk..." He took hold of the fennec's wrist and pulled him out the door, the picture of a happy and bubbly incubus as he led his roommate down the hallway. "So Kody! Do you know what you're going to study? I'm going into cinematography myself. Horror movies and acting and stuff like that."

Dosve's class went smoothly.  A lecture upon the basic principles of artifice; establishing a function, creating a stable and long lasting power source, and the pathways from the power source to all affected areas.  As it was the first day of the first year of study, they learned primarily about the different types of power sources; and a bit about functions.  Which power sources were stable/unstable, which lasted the longest while remaining stable, and of course where a soul ranked alongside the standard sources.  Neither the most powerful, or the most stable, but the most renewable over a long period of time.  Dosve had already moved to filling quartz gems with magical energy; making the little rocks batteries that he could cheaply use to recharge magical items, or provide a boost...once he learned how to establish a connection between the rock and the item.

Dosve would venture to the library after class. His metallurgy lesson would not be starting for hours, and so he had time to read through the text book.

After a number of sketches, several of which Tristan actually thought looked pretty good and considered keeping, Tristan packed up his stuff and headed over to class. Today's lesson was on painting a scene in motion. The idea was to find a point in the scene you wished to use, and then paint it from memory and prompts of what was left over but in a different position. Assuming you painted well enough, there were additional bonus points for accuracy, but also bonus points for creativity if you take the objects and put them in something that could have happened even though it did not. Tristan was unable to pick up either as his painting looked blotchy and somewhat indistinct as if someone were viewing it through a pair of incorrectly focused lenses. Still, this was a marked improvement upon the smears he wound up with the first time he tried this, so Tristan left class with a cheerful demeanor and headed to the library where he would often hang out when not engaged in other activities.

However as he entered the room, he paused a moment, spying an unfamiliar cubi. He wasn't giving off much in the way of emotions, although that was actually not too uncommon and even Tristan himself kept a tight leash on what he broadcasted, but whether from the missing limb or his overall stance the other cubi seemed fairly intimidating. Tristan decided that he did not want to attract this cubi's attention too much, so decided to head to a different wing of the library where he wouldn't attract the other's attention by being too close.

"Well, I have had some experience sharing rooms with people of both sexes," Mira replied. "Plus I'm a costume designer by trade, so I'm used to seeing folks in various states of undress. I did bring a load of fabric with me, so we can rig something up for now."

Horethen's back itched. Glancing around, there seemed to be little to do at the moment, so he thought he'd take up hiis new roommate's offer. Lowering his mind shield, he projected,

It is some hours before my first class, on Thak'um Literature. I already have the first books, and my family is expected to send the rest later. But  have not had an opportunity to stretch, and I miss it. I am certain that SAIA has gymnasiums or the like, but I do not know where they are. Could I impose so much as to beg you to lead me there?

Awaiting a response, Horethen fished out his first two books, (he had skimmed them, but the sorts of emotions they tried to convey were strange), and waited for the fox to either deny his request or to lead on. He re-raised his mind shield.

"Certainly," Niall said, and began to lead the other down the corridor.  "The gym facilities are quite extensive.  A lot of students and staff make use of it, after all.  There's a sparring area as well, but that's usually booked up by the adventuring and battle classes." he gave a small bark of laughter.
"Quill has been running that department for... I don't know how long," he said.  "She's a Taun.  But it's kind of creepy to think that even though Quill is such a fixture, Fa'Lina was ancient while Quill was still a... calf... cub... whatever she was when she was small.  No offence intended," he added hastily, glancing at the ceiling with a reverent expression.

"I dunno," he said, "Maybe I'm still used to looking at things from a Being's lifespan, even after spending several centuries here..."

The fox turned a corner.  "It's around here," he said.

The room Niall entered with Horethen in tow was expansive and, as expected with an academy full of students who don't catch a wink of sleep, replete with Cubi going through all manner of exercises. Whether weightlifting, stretching, tumbling, or gymnastics, if it was a physical activity, it was represented in this room. Nearest to the door was the warm-up area, with a number of students going through their stretches. Not far away was a sprung floor, with a few Cubi taking turns tumbling down the lanes at various levels of skill. On the distant end of the room was set up a number of what appeared to be rings or arenas, all of them occupied by sparring students and most of them surrounded by classes. Between were the exercise machines and assorted gymnastic apparatus, including several sets of high bars, most of which were being used as pull-up bars rather than for gymnastic routines, though there was one incubus going through such dizzying moves as backflip aerials. In the weightlifting and general exercise area, most of the equipment was unsurprisingly low-tech, considering the insularity of the school, but there was a very wide range of kettle weights, dumbbells, medicine balls, and some magical machines such as treadmills. All of which were, as with every gym ever, occupied. And on the far left, the delighted squeals of some wonderfully colorful Cubi could be heard, varying in pitch and volume as they bounced up and down on what appeared to be an enormous trampoline. It's never, after all, very difficult to find someone who loves a good trampoline, and judging from the height these Cubi were getting to, it was not an entirely mechanical one; it was just a good thing the ceiling was raised so high.

The panda nodded when suddenly a warp-aci popped in front of the incubus. "And what is this about?" Kart noticed that this warp-aci bore the symbol of Clan G'ian, his own clan. "The warp-aci said "Hey it's your turn to pick up the medicine, I've been told to tell you." The warp-aci popped out of existence again. Kart's face took on a look that was a mix of disgust, annoyance, and denial. "Ugh, why must I be selected to pay a visit to Dr. Ink again." The panda incubus frowned.

The fennec was borne behind the bubbly bunny, bearing a bemused expression. This was already more conversation than he was used to having with someone he wasn't close with in a day by far, and was beginning to approach the amount  he allotted for the average week. "Yes, I still eat food, although as much for pleasure as for necessity if I'm honest. I could probably subsist on emotion at this point, my mother explained it and taught me the basics, but I like food so I keep eating. And my initial speciality is in watchsmithery, I've always had a fascination with timepieces, you couldn't keep me away from them as a little one. Also, fine timepieces, antique and modern, will likely always require maintenance and repair, so it should be a fairly steady career."

Mira gave the panda a concerned look. "Medicine? Do you have some illness that I should know about?"

Horethen followed the fox, making sure to keep always more than four feet but less than six away from his guide, and trying to get a grasp of the maze of hallways through which he was being led. When they finally arrived at the gymnasium, Horethen's breath was taken away.

It was far, far more elaborate than the facilities they had back home, and there were scores, perhaps hundreds of other 'cubi wandering to and fro and using the equipment. While most of the stuff like the weights and the mats and the Rolling Balls were familiar, there were a number of strange apparati, such as a moving strip of floor that some seemed to race against, and a bouncing mat; although its users seemed more like children at play than doing serious workouts.

Horethen turned to his guide and smiled, giving a short bow in thanks for the guidance, and headed to a relatively quiet section of the gym. He hoped he didn't need some kind of permission or reservation to be here, but surely Niall would have mentioned if that were the case. Another gaze around the room, at all the frenzied activity, and Horethen quailed a bit inside. So very, very many, and none of his clan.  If he were to misstep or his best was below par here, it could bring shame on all Aldoraethar. Still, to slink away after coming here without doing any exercise would be worse.

Horethen gave his tendons a little pull, via shapeshifting, feeling the back of his legs twinge ever so slightly; he had moved too quickly. He started his stretches  for real now, using a bit of magic to "harden" some air so he could stand a bit above the floor with only the balls of his feet supported, and his heels pressing downward, and behind his knees he felt the pull. Then dismount and toe-reaches, side stretches, splits, and shoulder stretchings, two minutes per muscle group.


Feeling more limber, Horethen looked around; there really wasn't enough space to do the full blade dance routine, not without accidentally lopping off someone's limbs. He tried to substitute in his mind an equivalent routine, one with an unarmed fight instead of an armed one, and quickly lost himself in spinning,  sidestepping, blocking, and punching, punctuated with occasional bursts of magic (merely making hardened platforms of air to spring against) and occasionally shapeshifting in the direction of an attack or a parry.

Niall watched his room-mate at the gym for a bit and then grew bored.  He wasn't exactly a gym-rat himself, but he did have a routine and he knew from bitter experience that to disturb it in any way would ruin it.

He seems happy enough, the fox thought.  And he knows where the room is, or if not Fa'Lina or someone can guide him to the appropriate wing.

He wandered down the corridor for a little way and then stared at the wall.  "So, anyone in need of some love...?" he asked it.

"I've told you before, this is an academy, not a dating service," Fa'Lina replied, appearing behind him.

"It was worth a shot," he said.

Matthias nodded, yanking Kody around a corner he'd nearly missed, walking just fast enough to avoid technically running. "That's good to know. I mean, watches and clocks are neat stuff... I've never been able to figure out all that gear-ratio and mechanical leverage stuff, myself. It's complicated. I don't suppose I could get you to make me a clock during your studies, could I? A really cool clock though, one that went to thirteen hours instead of twelve. And at random intervals it'd, like, have tentacles come out and like scream and everything! Could you do that, do you think?" Matt asked, grinning widely over at his new fennec roommate, the juxtaposition of his predatory smile with his innocent nature proving, as usual, to make him look utterly ridiculous.

"I suppose I could go from door-to-door," Niall mused, glancing at Fa'Lina.  "Actually, have there been any other new arrivals?  And are any of them cute...?"

"Still not a dating service, Niall... But if you want to welcome some poor, unsuspecting soul to the academy, there's a new student getting out of his first shielding class who will probably be utterly lost without you." Fa'Lina pointed down the hall at a now-open door, a yellow fox stepping out calmly and glancing around as if unsure of which way he had to go. He hid any nervousness well, at least externally, but his shields were leaking emotions like a sieve and betraying his unfazed exterior. Now, which way did I come from to get here...? How long was that class anyway? Is it still morning? Lunchtime? This place is terribly confusing... Which way will take me outside? Biggest damn building I've ever seen... Blaine was still frustrated by the prank his new roommate had played on him, and as a result his thoughts and emotions were all over the place despite his attempts to keep them in check.

"Thank you, Fa'Lina," Niall said, and was not wholly surprised that when he turned back, the poodle was gone.  Although he didn't have a true Clan Leader, Niall was aware that a Tri-Wing was able to create projections of themselves and he took it for granted that Fa'Lina did this extensively.

He's a fox too, he thought dreamily, and then chided himself mentally.  Whatever he had said to the headmistress, seducing a new arrival was kind of callous, even in a place like this where the occasional fling was taken for granted or considered to be casual.

"How are you finding things so far?" he asked politely, approaching Blaine.

Blaine glanced over at the wolf incubus, finding his own clothes to suddenly seem... somewhat overdressed, in a way. He was surprised he hadn't noticed earlier in the day that most all of the other incubi in this academy were wearing considerably... less. Leather pants and what appeared to be... a pair of shirtless sleeves, it seemed. He might have expected as much from the incubi in this academy if he had thought about it... "If I'm honest, I'm... kind of not. I barely made it to my class in time... place is a labyrinth." The fox scratched the back of his neck and laughed, holding out his other hand to properly greet his fellow student. "I'm Blaine. I don't suppose I could ask you to show me how to get... um, outside? My sense of direction has never been very good, and my roommate's map isn't exactly helping with that..."

"Sorry to hear that," Niall said.  His earlier desires had tailed off somewhat, replaced by mild concern.  "It does take a bit of getting used to at first.  There are cloisters and outside areas, but you can't really leave the campus completely unless it's urgent.
"As I understand it, the academy is inside a bubble dimension to restrict access, which is the only thing that's really prevented the Dragons entering and slaughtering us all.  So the 'outside' isn't really real, it's probably a construct controlled by Fa'Lina.  I think that for convenience she maintains the day and night cycles on Zinvth time, but there was this one April when it was day to the east and night to the west, and there was one before that when the stars spelled out little messages at night.

"So yeah, if you just want a breather, yeah, I can show you that.  But if you're thinking to do anything too unusual, just keep that in mind - it's not strictly real."

Blaine nodded and smiled. "Yeah, it'd just be nice to see some trees and sky and stuff. I'm not used to being inside all day; I imagine it'll feel more natural after a few months here, but I'm used to my workshop, which is open to the outside." The fox stuck his hands in his pockets and shrugged. "And, I think I'll probably have to get used to being on a schedule... for the past few years now I haven't had much of a schedule, just got up, worked, ate when I got hungry, and slept. It's going to be strange having free time between my classes and nothing to do with it. But I digress; I'd appreciate it if you could help show me around. Assuming you're not busy with anything yourself, that is." I wonder if my shield is working... can he hear my thoughts? Am I blocking them right? Ugh... I need more practice... Blaine stuck his hands in his pockets and closed his eyes momentarily, the emotional field of the academy washing over him and sending ripples through his psyche before he raised his filter's strength, taking a deep breath in the calm and trying to let go of any frustration he'd felt over being given what was clearly a faulty map. He found it difficult, more difficult than it should have been, but was able to coax his brain into calming down and accepting that it was in the past and wasn't worth stressing over now. Opening his eyes and smiling at Niall, the thought crossed his mind that he probably looked rather strange. And just as quick as the calm in his mind had been brought back, it was immediately replaced by embarrassment. He kept his cool externally, smile never wavering, but it was impossible to keep his ears and cheeks from feeling flushed. Aside from that he still hadn't learned to block his broadcasting of his emotions, so he was certain the other Cubi would instantly be able to see through his facade. This was most definitely going to take getting used to...

"I think there is some parkland," Niall said.  "I mean, something has to replenish the air and the gardens aren't quite going to do it by themselves.  I haven't been out in the woods much myself, though.  Reminds me too much of my childhood." the fox shuddered slightly and blessed himself with a curious gesture, tracing the rough shape of a noose in the air.

Once his own equilibrium was restored, Niall glanced at the younger fox critically.  "Your thoughts are none of my business, really.  You do need more practice shielding yourself, though.  But don't worry, it will come soon enough.

"I was actually showing my new room-mate to the gym, but he seems to be enjoying himself there for now.  I'm not sure I can spare the time for a comprehensive tour, I'm afraid - the academy is quite large, after all.  But I can show you the cafeteria and the outer garden areas.  I'm assuming you still eat... uh... I don't think I asked your name.  I'm Niall Daryil," he said, with a slight bow.

Blaine nodded as he listened, taking the criticism as best he could--being a (now former, it seemed) member of a guild the way he was, and having apprenticed under the workers skilled enough to have reached mastery, he was quite used to being told any one thing he did 'needed work'--and lowering his head politely in return to Niall's bow. It seemed a... somewhat appropriate, at least to him, response. "Blaine Rath, pleased to meet you. And yes, I do still eat, but I already had lunch, or... breakfast... or whatever it was earlier today, so I'm not all that hungry. Just a walk out in the gardens would be very nice, though." He swished his tail and smiled at the fox, feeling a bit more at ease with Niall. He hadn't realized it, but the unconfirmed possibility that Tristan had read his thoughts throughout their conversations was a little less comfortable than someone openly acknowledging that they could hear them and not seeming concerned with that fact.

"So Niall, I take it you've been here a while longer than I have... what are you studying, if I may ask? I mean, the topics must run dry after twenty-five or so years... I can't imagine being in either practical training or academic study for hundreds of years without becoming thoroughly bored of the whole experience."

Niall looked at the other fox, sensing a subtle change in his attitude after he'd been told that his thoughts were fairly open.
"Yeah, it's not considered good form to pry.  Partly because it's rude, partly because if you make a habit of it, people will spot you for a thought-reader and string you up or take off your head.  Even so, one thing which will often attract people's attention is thinking 'Are they reading my mind'..."

"I've been here about 250 years," Niall said.  "They say 200 years will cover the basics, after that people often specialise.  It's best to have some kind of refresher course before you graduate, though.  Partly to make sure you remember the important stuff that will save you from a messy end, but also because the world outside doesn't stand still.  I hear that Beings have started to build gryphonless carriages again, for instance.  They've rediscovered electricity and at this rate, things are going to be very interesting in the world outside by the time I'm ready to rejoin it.

"Careers are an important part of the course, though.  Maybe things will get better but for the most part we have to pretend to be some other race, just for our own safety.  But in order to settle down you have to be able to take part in society, right?  And that means you need a career.  I mean, it's no use taking the identity of a warrior or a carpenter if you can't actually do it, right?  That's no disguise at all.  So a lot of us try to get at least some proficiency at a handful of different careers.
"Right now, I'm studying electricity and electronics because that's likely to be really important by the time I graduate.  I'm doing music too, though.  Being able to perform is always handy.
"But there is another reason the courses can take a while - we have bad attention spans."

Blaine nodded and stuck his hands in his pockets. "Yeah, I had always thought my dad learned carpentry while I was growing up, but it would certainly make sense to just pick up a few trades here in school so you can settle down... I guess that's probably what he did, too." Niall seemed nice enough, quite straightforward--a trait that Blaine hadn't realized he'd valued so much before finding out his life had pretty much been a lie--and, having been studying for two and a half centuries, likely very interesting.

"I've never been a very musical individual myself, but now that I think about it, seeing as I've got so much time ahead of me here, maybe I ought to learn. What instrument do you play?" The fox laughed to himself as he noticed the meandering path their conversation had taken, the trip to the gardens nearly forgotten by now, some evidence of that short attention span Niall was referencing that Blaine hadn't really put much thought towards in the past. It certainly did ring true, though, at least for himself; focusing on one thing for any stretch of time was never one of his strong suits. Not that it usually mattered in his prior line of work, though he was sure it would come back to bite him in his studies.

"Ah, brought up as a Being, then?" Niall said, and nodded understandingly.

"And oops, I promised to show you to the gardens," he said and began to head that way.  "Mostly I've been playing plucked strings.  Lutes and guitars, recently.  Beings now amplify them electrically and that has made for some rather interesting study."

Blaine followed Niall and listened, not just to the other fox's words but also to the echoes of their footsteps through the relatively empty hall, to the murmurs of chatter from classrooms they passed, to the world around them. It struck him as a frighteningly strange environment.

Blaine hadn't been in a school in almost a decade, and that time had long since been left behind in his memories. Not that this school was really anything like the one he'd attended, but it was the closest thing he had and it felt odd to him, like he was living in the past... he supposed that would probably pass, but what would that make his life in the Guild? A separate category, dusty and forgotten on a shelf in the back of his mind, half-remembered like a story he'd once read but not anything that had happened to him personally? He wasn't sure that was what he wanted... But. That was all irrelevant to the present, nothing to trouble himself with now. He slid the thoughts to the back of his mind to churn in the dark parts of his psyche while returning to the scene at hand. A brief check through his memory showed him the context of what Niall was saying, and he turned his head to the fox to give his reply.

"Electrical amplification of instruments? I recall there was a luthier in the guild that I had met once; how would one amplify a lute with electronics? I've never completely grasped the workings of technology, but wouldn't it be easier to simply use magic to increase the volume of the instrument, or alter the resonance of the wood somehow to make it carry further?"

The panda shook his head. "It's not actually for me, our clan leader or perhaps founder, is not all really that clear of mind." The incubus looked away rather awkwardly. "So really he needs a mix of actual medication and some placebos to keep him from causing some... interesting times." Kart stood up and went over to the door. "Usually its Doctor Ink that's trusted to distribute this, because he is one of the best doctors. But it's the clan members who are at SAIA that have to pick it up. I'll be back in a while, I'll leave you to your screen making"

"Ah," Niall said, eyes gleaming slightly, "But once the sound has been made into electricity, you can do things to it.  Distort it in strange ways, imprint it onto a cylinder or disc of softened material, and press many copies.  You can take several electrical signals and mix them together with far higher quality than magic or acoustics would allow.
"And best of all, you can deliberately make it distort.  Done creatively, it allows you to make new sounds that would not occur in nature."

Roxanne lead kallis into the bathroom and turn the tap on, a stream of water flowing from the facet.

"TADA!" She grinned, chortling. "My God this thing is amazing. I get usually get all the blood off me if the lab gets messy. Very useful."

"oh I almost forget!" Roxanne chimed."See that flower in the living room? That's Saint Paula. You are not allowed to touch her with my permission. "

Kallis looked around the bathroom. The floor and walls were tiled with some manner of unfamiliar shiny stone or ceramic, there was a tub near one of the walls, and above it, an oddly shaped, overlong water tap. It didn't take long for the succubus to put two and two together, and a barely concealed expression of disgust appeared on her face.
So here, they wash like the easterners, waddling in their own filth. Honestly, with indoor waterways everywhere, I'd have expected a bit more class.
"That's ... nice. At least you don't have to bring in the water from outside I guess."
Her roommate ignored the remark, turned one of the taps and the purpose of the superfluous metal pipework became apparent as water began to emerge from above, in a large number of thin streams, and the room began to steam up.
The succubus's expression became one of surprise, as she reached out, and poked one of the thin strands of water with a tentacle. It was hot, almost scalding.
In retrospect, it was a trivial idea - have a fire spell heat the water in a receptacle of some sort before passing it through a faucet, filling it up when it emptied - an inlet controlled by a floating bob could do the job.  It wasn't that useful either.. asides from perhaps washing out something very filthy, she couldn't think of why someone'd bother installing an outlet for hot water rather than heating it up in a pot or a washing tub. Still, Kallis just couldn't shake the feeling that what she witnessed was so incredibly clever and inventive, and a smile spread on her face.
"That's... It's so silly it's awesome. I mean, flowing hot water.. Imagine a fountain like that, with a cloud of steam all around it, visible from a mile or so... if I'll ever become someone important, I'm SO building one. Or using a thin stream, like one of those, just stronger to force old gritty lubricant from a gearbox, or..  This place really is full of mages and inventors, isn't it? I wonder who thought this one up, I..." 
The excited succubus finally noticed her roommate's attempts to introduce her to Saint Paula, and attempted to look concerned as she tried to turn on and off the tap several times, while carefully poking and prodding the entire shower assembly.
"Interesting. What is she a saint of? And you better give me a permission, otherwise I might touch her."
Hmm, maybe they'll have something about hot waterways in the library. Maybe I'll have time..
The cat dried off her tentacles with a quick whirl, pulled out a plain silver-looking pocket watch from somewhere within her robe, and gave it a quick glance, followed by a long stare at a piece of crumpled paper.
I don't. Hell. "Uh.. It was a honour meeting you , Roxanne of Clan Golgotha. We shall talk more after you wash yourself.. I have to rush. Metallurgy lecture..."
Grabbing a stack of papers, a quill, a drying pad,  and a bottle of ink from her suitcase, Kallis almost flew out of the door, and left the hab block, then to the left... only to find that the hall she was supposed to leave to her left ended with a window.
Cursing silently, she turned back and attempted to retrace her steps.

"I see... and making those copies, that would most likely be much more difficult to do with magic, then?" Blaine asked, his curiosity piqued by the possibilities of electricity. Perhaps he'd look into studying that during his stay here, as well. From what Niall was saying, it certainly sounded like a field that would only get more important with time.

"What sort of mechanism gets the sound to convert to electricity? Or are the vibrations of the strings themselves directly harnessed?" He hadn't learned much about sound in his few years in school, but he'd had the local luthier explain the principles of making a stringed instrument to him once or twice. The strings are attached to a softer, springier wood top, which vibrates in concert with the strings, and the box amplifies that vibration into audible sound through the f-holes or round sound hole on the top. That much was complicated enough for Blaine; he couldn't imagine what one would have to do to get those strings to make electricity instead of sound.

"Magic tends to be fickle," Niall said.  "You can't rely on it to retain information accurately over time.  Imprinting sound vibrations on a solid object can be more permanent.  But it's really the tonal possibilities I'm more interested in myself.
"Back before I joined SAIA, my father obtained some advanced technology from another world, and he had brought back some discs of black polymer which had truly remarkable music recorded in them.  They were about ten, twenty years ahead of where we are now.  Most of my life I've wanted to be able to make those sounds too, but I never knew how.  It's taken until now for Furrae to start to catch up."

"The mechanism is fairly straightforward," Niall said, and wiggled his fingers so that his first three digits were pointing 90 degrees to each other.

"Electricity and magnetism are intertwined with each other and there is a motive component as well.  Vorgrath's second law."  He glanced quickly at the other incubus's hands - that particular mnemonic fell flat on its face if you had less than three digits or lacked opposable thumbs.

"If you move a piece of wire inside a magnetic field, it will generate a pulse of electricity down the wire.  If you string the guitar with metal strings and suspend them inside a magnetic field, plucking them will convert the string's vibrations into an electrical form.  If you amplify this signal, you can use it to move something, whether that is a loudspeaker to reproduce the sound, or a cutting blade to engrave the vibrations.
"By moving a thin metal shutter in front of a light sources, it's also possible to convert the sound waves into flashes of light which you can record onto movie film.  Using another light source and a special sensor that converts light into electricity, you can play it back again and that's how the Talkies work."

"Alright, I'm going to pretend I understood that, Niall." Blaine joked, a smile crossing his face. Partly thanks to his joke, of course, but mainly because the world was far more complex than he'd ever dreamed... and this was the place to learn about it. He'd understood electricity to some degree before now, or at least he'd thought he had, but it seemed there was far more to it than he could have imagined. Magnetism and electricity reacting with one another, purely according to the laws of the universe, and making things possible that were so... insane. Putting sound, pure sound, into a physical object without the help of magic...

"You've got to show me your instruments sometime. I've never made a guitar before, but an electric one...? I think I might like that." He said, grinning over at Niall. This school was turning out to be a more pleasant experience than he had expected from the rest of the day. "And I have to say, it's nice meeting a Cubi that isn't interested in messing with my head."

"I'd be happy to show you at some point," Niall said.  "And I wouldn't worry too much about not understanding it straightaway.  But don't neglect it either.  I think that electricity is going to be big.  You don't need to fuss around exhausting yourself casting spells all over the place, it just works, as long as there's a power source.  Beings can do it just as well as Creatures and it takes a lot less time to learn.  To me, that makes it a game-changer. 

"I take it you come from a fairly rustic area?" he asked.  "In the big cities they're already using electric drills, saws and grinders, from what I've heard.

"And thanks," his ears turned slightly pink at the compliment.  "Not all 'Cubi are trustworthy.  It varies a lot from person to person, from clan to clan, and how the members were brought up.
"Most of the clans with an ascended leader have a policy against causing too much trouble with Beings, not least because that tends to get folks killed.
"My clan doesn't, but most of our members were brought up as Beings to try and get us to see things their way.  See, our chief has long felt that Beings are liable to come out on top in the long run, as their technology continues to accelerate.  He believes that we should try to make a good impression in the hopes that we'll be able to broker some kind of peace deal with them...
"But that's not always easy," he sighed.  "So many folks still just want us dead.  And at the best of times it's an easy trap for us to fall into, thinking that Beings are just a resource to be used... even I've felt that way sometimes.  But at the end of the day?  Most 'Cubi just want to get on with their lives."

Blaine nodded and scratched behind his neck at the comment about where he'd lived. "I suppose it's a combination of rustic surroundings and traditionalism in the guild; I'd known about those sorts of tools, but all my power tools are magic, not electric. And they can be finicky... maybe I'll set up shop with all electric tools when I graduate. Plus hand tools, of course; no such thing as finish carpentry without a handplane.

"It's strange, finding out I'm an incubus. I guess a lot of the students here go through it, it's just... I never thought I was anything but normal. I could use magic, but... that never struck me as odd, since after all, normal kids can sometimes too. Dad said I got my wings from my mom's side; always just assumed that meant she was an Angel or something. They never seem to have reputation problems, except in the really backwater parts of the world. I wouldn't have been nearly so surprised to find out I was one of those, you know what I mean?" He sighed and shrugged, closing his eyes as he walked and quelling the thoughts, pushing them to the back of his mind. "It's like you say though. I just want to get on with my life. I can't waste this time wishing things were different. I believe the saying goes that you can't change the hand you've been dealt, isn't that right?"

"Yeah, everything has its place," Niall agreed.  "Magic and electrical tools can be great time and effort savers, but you wouldn't want to use them alone."

"And no, you can't really help what you were born as.  Though 'Cubi can come close.  Most of us hide our wings, or pretend to be a Demon or something.  You can fake that out pretty well, but there are complications.  If you pose as a Being you'd have to move around or fake ageing and dying, and if you're discovered, people will hold the fact that you were hiding against you, no matter what your true intentions are.  And is that really what you'd want anyway?  Living a lie?
"Hiding as an Angel is better, because you've already got the wings and the Creature reputation.  It's best of all if you can find a Creature-run city or something where 'Cubi are tolerated, but those are pretty scarce."

"I knew I was adopted, so it came as less of a shock, but some folks have had it really rough, found out that their loving father or mother was actually a psychopath in disguise and that it was all a lie.  Often it's somewhere in between, where the 'Cubi parent takes them aside one day and breaks the truth to them.
"And then you have those who were brought up in a 'Cubi stronghold and always knew what they were.  But that's not always for the best - they tend to be vain and vicious towards the other races and I don't think that's right.  They can't help what they were born as either."

Blaine nodded quietly, then shrugged. "It's just a product of their upbringing. I can't say for sure that had I been in the same circumstances, I wouldn't be acting the same way. One's nature can only go so far, part of it is nurture as well. If you grow up hearing that your race is the best and that Beings are just livestock to be taken advantage of for your own gain, then you'll come to believe it. I don't like it, but it seems to be the fact of things. Just as when someone grows up hearing that Creatures can't be trusted, of course." He looked around the hallways as they walked, trying to build his own mental map and knowing it would fail miserably--he never did have much of a sense of direction, not a problem when you just have to go out to the shops and to the lumberyard once in a while--before giving up on figuring out the layout of the school.

"So, Niall, what little of my story has happened so far, you've gotten the gist of it. Would you care to share anything about yourself? So far I really only know what you're studying and such. You've been alive hundreds of years now, haven't you? That's got to make for some good stories. I'm always inclined to listen to my elders; can't say I'm used to them looking as close to my own age as you do, but that'll probably change as I spend time around here where the oldest teachers don't look much older than the youngest students."

"If you ever get really, really lost, ask the wall or the ceiling," Niall said, glancing at Blaine as he looked around nervously.  "Fa'Lina knows everything that happens here, she'll hear you.  But after a couple of years most people get the hang of the place anyway."

"Most of my life has been in SAIA," the fox admitted.  "I grew up in a small town on the outskirts of Ha'Khun.  They were very... odd there.  There was this strange messianic religion, their founder was hanged for his beliefs and so they came to look upon hanging as somehow being holy.  They killed a lot of people, and we had to watch for the benefit of our spiritual development.  All the suffering and emotions made my headwings come in a few years early.
"When that happened, the church decided that I was a servant of darkness and that only by hanging me as well could my soul be purified of the taint of evil.
"They were about to do it, when someone broke free of the crowd and killed the executioner.  He was an incubus, and he killed many guards in order to get me out of there.  I thought he wanted to take my soul, but he was actually the ruler of Ha'Khun, and he believed I was his heir.  Like, his great-grandson or something.  I'm not really clear on how the lineage worked, it was a bit weird."
"But anyway, he adopted me as his son just to make things simpler, and I spent a few years as the heir to a half-insane tyrant.  That was an interesting time, but it didn't last long.  Dad sent me here.  Partly because he was doing some dangerous diplomacy and he wanted to keep me safe, partly because he didn't want me to become a monster, and partly because he knew that I would get a better education here.
"He gave it all up a few decades back and became a lecturer at the academy.  He set out to do what he intended as ruler, but was ashamed at how he had achieved it, so he quit in hopes that he could make amends for his madness."

Blaine laughed a little at the suggestion that Fa'Lina would somehow be listening if he asked the wall where to go, but filed it away as something to try if he really did need her help. A couple years, huh? Used to sound like a long time. Doesn't seem that bad anymore... As Niall went on, talking about his childhood and what'd almost happened to him, Blaine just listened silently, his heart sinking. He knew that this sort of thing happened in the world, obviously. He wasn't so naive as to think everything was sunshine and puppies everywhere. But despite knowing it intellectually, there was an unanticipated emotional reaction to hearing it from someone who'd lived through that sort of thing. There has always been, and will always be, a difference between knowing something and understanding it... The fox wasn't sure exactly what to do, but knew he had to do something, so he put a hand on Niall's shoulder.

"Well... I'm glad you weren't killed, Niall. I didn't realize talking about the past would involve painful memories like that; sorry if I've, I don't know, brought up something I shouldn't have." He laughed nervously and lowered his ears, trying to figure out how to not look like a completely awkward first-year student. He was twenty-three, for crying out loud, an adult. Getting embarrassed this easily was supposed to happen to kids. Compared to him, you ARE a kid. A thought immediately dismissed, of course, by the fact that his upbringing had raised him as though he wasn't, so he still had a responsibility not to act like one.

"What, um... what's your grandfather teach here?" He asked, stumbling over his words for the first time since he'd arrived at the Academy, his composure beginning to falter.

"That's normal," Niall said, as the other fox radiated awkward emotions and became slightly distressed.  "'Cubi become more sensitive to emotions as we come into our powers.  That's one good reason to attend the academy, so you can learn to control them.  Otherwise you may end up killing someone in a moment of rage."

"And yeah, I've had time to get over what nearly happened.  But sometimes I think... that I should be looking at more battle and stealth classes.  Being a musician is all very well, and being able to hide is well and good, but sometimes I wonder if I'd be wasting my life like that, when what I could be doing is helping rescue other 'Cubi from the same kind of persecution.
"Dad does several things here.  He helps teach Being technology, a field that has really been picking up now that they're using electricity.  But he's also a film-maker.  Sometimes he leaves to shoot talkies, brings us back moving picture films of the world outside, innovations and changes that have been happening there.  I mean, you've been stuck here for 350 years or something, you need to know what life is like outside before you leave, right?  What he's doing with movies has revolutionised that."

"And here we are, outside," he added.  "Well, as near as you can get in a place like this, anyway."

(OOC: Someone other than me and Tapewolf has to respond sometime... it's been over two weeks since someone else took their turn. Someone post something before this turns into a two-man roleplay.)

Blaine took a deep breath and smiled, arching his back and stretching out his wings. Sure, the hallways weren't exactly cramped or anything, but there was just something nice about not having walls wrapped around you. He supposed that, keeping in mind what Niall had said about the academy being in a pocket dimension, he wasn't "outside" as such, but at least he wasn't in the building. That was definitely a nice change. Feeling even the subtlest of breezes on his face made the air feel that much more fresh. "Thanks for the directions, and the talk." He said, turning towards Niall with a grin across his face. "You were on your way to class or something before I grabbed you, right? If you need to go, I'll be fine by myself now, I think." Blaine walked over to a nearby tree, feeling the bark and looking up at the leaves before jumping up, flying to a perch in the branches and leaning up against the trunk.

"Of course you're welcome to stay too, if you want."

Niall started slightly as Blaine flew into the tree.  Most of the Academy was indoors, so people tended not to use their wings for flying very much.

"You seem like a nice enough guy, Blaine," he said.  "Maybe we can hang out sometime.  But yeah, I should really be looking after my new roomie."  The fox sighed.  "He's weird, some reclusive 'Cubi-supremacist clan or something.  Why Fa'Lina paired us when I could have had you, I can't fathom.  But she always has a reason.
"Maybe she was worried I'd try and get you into bed or spook you or something," he shrugged.

"Take care of yourself," Niall added, "And remember, SAIA is not a bad place to be.  But it does take getting used to."

He turned to go, mentally planning the quickest route back to the gym, if his room-mate was still there.

An indeterminate amount of time later, Horethen's workout completed and the perspiration that he had accumulated throughout the drilling had reached a semi-uncomfortable state. He stepped out of the gymnasium, and found a relatively clear area of hallway to cast a minor cleansing spell on himself and his raiment. A second cantrip told him the time, and Horethen started in shock. Far too long in the gym, far far too long. His class on Thak'um Literature was about to start, and he quickly scooped up his books and hurried off at a quick trot (his elders had warned him it was against rules and would bring great shame upon the clan were he to run in the hallways.)

By the time he arrived, he was perhaps ten minutes late. It wouldn't have happened if the passers-by he had asked for direction didn't have their filters up so tightly, but there was that.

Still, the professor (thankfully a 'Cubi) didn't seem too perturbed by his tardiness, and told him to get a syllabus on the way out. His thoughts turned to the novel he had been directed to read before enrolling a work titled Selling my Soul for Guilt.. It was an odd, complicated tract, at once shorter than the epics he usually read, but at the same time taking celebration in the weaknesses of spirit, arguing that it was they, and not the strengths, that enabled one to act in a noble fashion. But the loops of paradox seemed to excite the professor, if not the score or so students he shared the class with. Still, he managed to answer a few questions without feeling completely inadequate, although nobody seemed to come up with an answer that completely satisfied the professor.

An hour and a half later, he emerged into the hallway, only slightly staggered from the experience. Another long while until his next class, which was good.

"Okay, then,"  Mira replied. "Have fun with that."

As the panda left, she grabbed her tape measure again, and began measuring the walls, estimating how much fabric she had, and whether it would be sufficient to decorate the walls as well as provide the screen for changing.

Blaine nodded at Niall, raising his hands and resting them behind his head as the fox left. "You too; I'll probably see you around. Big as the school is, it's not big enough that over the next hundred years we won't run into each other." Once Niall had gone, Blaine smiled to himself and closed his eyes, settling backwards into the tree to take an hour or two and think about what'd been going on, not to mention getting practice in on his shielding techniques. Judging by the schedule Fa'lina had given him and the position of the sun in the sky, he had at least that long before his next class. It was as well, too. Blaine had always been more comfortable alone for long stretches of time--part of why he had been so happy simply working in his shop all day--and needed time to get back to normal. Tristan, Fa'lina, his teacher, and Niall, that was quite a lot more personal interaction in a day than he'd had since back when he was still learning his trade years ago. Not that he minded, they were all pleasant enough, it was just... draining. Thanks to that, it wasn't long before the fox incubus drifted off to sleep, this time devoid of dreams.

--

Gideon had piddled around in his room for some time before growing bored, itching to do something rather than sitting here and playing chess with himself. He resolved, then, to head to the gym. If nothing else, he could work out there, but he was sure he could find something more interesting to do than simply lifting weights. Surely there would be some foolish student there who was unfamiliar enough with the battle classes to not know to stay away from him. The cheetah grinned to himself, thinking of what kinds of games to play. Perhaps, though, no great games... he was more than happy having screwed with Dosve. Well, I'll decide that when I come to it. The feline pulled off his sweaty shirt, opting to simply go shirtless rather than wearing a stinky, stained shirt. This was SAIA, anyway, a shirtless incubus was nothing to look twice at.

As Gideon arrived at the gym, he made a note of anyone he saw that stood out. One individual was definitely bending the rules about running in the hallways; Gideon didn't recognize the jaguar, meaning he was either new or not a regular in combat classes, and judging from the books in his arms, he was headed to a literature class. The cheetah smoothly sidestepped him as he hurried down the hall, turning his head to watch the other student curiously. Perhaps nothing of importance, but then, nothing of importance ever shouted its presence. In any case, Gideon was clearly not going to find someone to mess with here in the gym, so he settled on exercises for now while waiting for something to happen. He took a position in the exercise machine area, grabbing a set of dumbbells and going to work with them. This -is- SAIA, after all... how long could things possibly go without something interesting happening?

After checking out the third corridor which fitted the path she had memorized about as well as the previous two, Kallis began to lose hope of ever finding the lecture room. There still was some time, but given the scale of the building and occasionally very inobvious architecture, she could prob'ly wander around for a day and still not know half of it. 
Maybe if she'd ask....
No, she reminded herself. You're representing the whole of your homeland here, in a way. If you aren't smart enough to figure out the directions to the damn classroom, no use showing it off. Besides... they likely won't know either. Three above, if there was some staff around....
A moment after her mental oath, Chance has proven she's got a sense of humour. Along the corridor, walked a somewhat handsome jaguar incubus screaming importance as loud as one can do it without rattling off a two minutes long title to your face. He was of an imposing, if a bit slender stature, his walk was purposeful and sure and unlike those around, he was clad in what obviously belonged to a nobleman, a dress cut in an elegant manner and made from expensive, coloured silks. The chain on his neck with a symbol she never seen before merely finalized the picture. Of course he must be a professor, or someone very important in the faculty... best to make a good impression.
With a bit of a tremble, the feline succubus reflexively dusted off her robe, and approached the stranger with a curtsy.
"Honoured to meet Learned Sir.. .  If they'd deign to show me the way towards Lecture Hall C-21, I would be most grateful."

As he left Blaine and entered the building, Niall froze.  He still sleeps - I should warn him that 'Cubi can get in his dreams.  He glanced back but then decided against it.  He probably already knows.

He made his way back to the gym, looked around, but Horethen had clearly left.  He hung around near the entrance to decide what to do and pulled from his pocket a large marble.  It was actually a miniature crystal ball, and peering into it he could see the hands of the clock in his room.

Still an hour or so before class, he thought.

Gideon turned and watched the fox that had shown up, smiling to himself as he seemed to be looking for someone who was clearly not present. Perhaps he was after that new student, the jaguar he'd seen... If that were the case, it was only right to inform him which way the other had run off. That didn't mean that was what Gideon would do, of course... From the looks of things, though, the fox had time before his next class and no way to spend it. Well, if nothing else, he's not bad-looking. Worth a look, anyway.

He lowered the weights he'd been working with to the ground and grabbed a towel from a nearby incubus too focused on working out to notice anything of his getting stolen, draping it around his neck as he headed over to the fox.

"I'm not sure, but unless I'm mistaken, you don't make your way down here often. Right? What brings an apparent academic down to the gym? Unless you were looking to tell your new roommate he'd be late for class, that is. He left not fifteen minutes ago, seemed in quite a hurry. Jaguar, somewhat antiquated fashion sense?" It was blatantly obvious Gideon was just having fun explaining what he was able to tell from apparently insignificant details. "Name's Gideon. If we've met, I can't say I remember."

"Niall Daryil," the fox said, unfazed from long centuries in the academy and the omniscience of Fa'Lina.  "And yes, that was him.  I'm glad he's not roaming lost or something, anyway.  And no, I don't come here often, though that might have to change.  And no, I don't think I know any Owona clan members."

His mind on the class he just exited, Horethen almost trampled over the small 'cubi in a bright robe trying to get his attention. Short, although somewhat thickly built for a female, slightly cross eyed, She must be young then, new to shapeshifting. Unless it's an affectation, but that would be an odd one indeed. She was asking where a  lecture hall C-21 was, but that wasn't any of his own classrooms, and Horethen looked around a bit in askance before replying. He lowered his mindshield and projected.

"I am new here myself, little miss, and I do not know its location. A harsh smile broke out on his features. And I am hardly learned. I am Horethen, of the Aldoraethar, my own deeds are small, but my clan is venerable. But come, walk with me. We shall accost someone until they yield the information we seek.

Keeping his own shield lowered, Horethen walked over to one of the more undressed students; as the local "culture" favored abbreviated costume, those seemed like the best candidates for someone who had been there a while, and threw out a line of thought. "This lady here wishes to know where Lecture Hall C-21 is. Do you know?"

Gideon extended a paw towards Niall, smiling amiably. "Well, you do now. Nice to meet you, Niall. Can't say I've known any Daryil clan members, either." The cheetah took a second to glance up and down over Niall's form, noting the fox's build and clothing--it helped that he was bare from waist up, aside from a pair of shirt sleeves attached at the shoulders, revealed more of his musculature--and, to the extent he could with all the shapeshifting going on in this Academy, made a somewhat educated guess about his combat experience. Overall conclusion, if he really needed to, it was likely Niall could defend himself against a Being, or a Cubi not too well-versed in fighting. Of course there was really no way tell, in the end: Gideon had been bested by more slender opponents than Niall before, after all. "I've heard the gossip about them, of course, but there's gossip about every clan and I know better than to buy into it. Your clan leader's not really as crazy as they make him out to be, I'm sure."

"Well met," Niall said, "I have not met my lord, my upbringing was a little haphazard.  But I have read his laws, which I find fair and just, and I have corresponded with him.  He likes his fun, but I don't believe he's insane in any legal sense.
"You do him honour to call him my Leader," he added.  "Since he is not ascended.  He has tried to mimic characteristics of an ascended clan using his cunning.  Some take this as an affront, but others say that there will never be another true Clan Leader and that Cyra was the last.  If they are true, his fakery may be the best our race can hope for.
"Be that as it may, Daryil makes no secret that he wishes his clan to rank among the high ones if he can do so."

"In fact, his last correspondence urged me and my father to explore the new science of computing machinery.  He believes that by using complex mathematical models, it may be possible to work out why others have failed to ascend and learn from their mistakes."

Kart looked down in exasperation at the errand that he was sent to complete. While he was not running, never running as that would call the arm of the Headmistress like a bar of iron to block their way. Still his power walk would lead him towards Dr. Ink's office. Whether or not the panda would get there without any collisions was another matter... 

"Well, to be frank with you, I don't know all that much about these sorts of things. I couldn't name all the triwing clan leaders if you paid me." Gideon shrugged dismissively. "And even had I known Daryil wasn't ascended, he still leads you to some extent, and still heads up the clan. Refusing to acknowledge that is semantics. Anybody that picky is just looking for a reason to ignore your clan, so their snooty opinions are justified." The cheetah scoffed, shaking his head.

"Social politics, am I right? It always boils down to "I'm better than you", but nobody wants to just out and fight to prove it."

"That may be," Niall said, "But Taun and some of the other Founders get pretty pissed about Daryil being called a 'Leader'.  And Owona clan are close allies to Taun from what I understand.
"As for our clan's aims, they are not militant in nature.  Where he wishes to expand his reach, Daryil seeks to do so by means of peaceful cooperation and mutual benefit.  He finds that than force of arms eventually leads to resentment and a backlash and that alliances are a better approach.
"Maybe it's still a little early, but I believe the days are not too far off when one can go around with their headwings in plain sight, within certain realms, at any rate.
"For now," the fox added, "I think his craziness is part of a desire to improve the image of the 'Cubi race, though I'm not sure it's working.  So far it's earned us a reputation as mischievous tricksters.  Though I suppose that's an improvement over being labelled as soul-stealing monsters."

The jaguar decided to reply by mental projection, streaming thoughts directly into the short succubus's mind.
Ilya's wing, thought mail! When was the last time, back when I gave a paw to Arize during the finals, what was it, deriving the basic conjuration formula from aether theory axioms? Still can't believe the commission didn't notice.. granted , that cubi on the board seemed far more interested in chatting up our invocations lecturer. The cat succubus smirked inadvertently at the memories, but quickly refocused at the situation at hand, lowered her mindshield and replied in kind.
Forgive me, for I had mistaken you for a member of the faculty. Regardless, it is an honour to meet you and I am thankful for your assistance, Horethen of clan Aldoraethar. Myself, I am Kallis, of clan Ja'Krath of which I could tell likewise. She raised her shield for moment, then lowered it again. Forgive the intrusion, but I am curious. . . is speaking by one's mind rather than throat the custom of this place, or merely yourself? It is a habit of 'cubi and those skilled in the ways of thaumaturgy after all.

"Well, whatever politics Owona gets into is between her and Taun. And Daryil, if he has a problem with it. But from what you've said, he doesn't sound much like someone who's concerned with appearances. Unless he's allying himself to them." Gideon shrugged, not wanting to delve into a conversation about who was allied to whom, or why. So he disagreed with the thought of going with peaceful solutions all the time; wasn't likely to matter that much, in the end. All the nicest people needed their dirty work done eventually, and being that he was going into adventuring, that dirty work was his intended stock and trade. As long as blood was going to end up on someone's hands, Gideon would prefer they be his. It tended to prevent your own blood getting on someone else's.

"So Niall..." Gideon leaned against the wall of the gym, crossing his arms over his chest. "How long are you free before your next class? Enough time for a friendly spar?" He considered adding 'I won't hurt you,' but figured it probably came off as a bit too... arrogant. Accurate, in his opinion, but arrogant. Well, he doesn't need to know I'll be going easy on him, anyway. He wasn't sure whether they'd be able to get a spot in one of the rings, but it was worth checking if the fox was interested. Or perhaps they could find an open space that didn't have too many people nearby. One or two of the cloisters were probably empty right now, they would likely do.

"You know, I think I might," Niall said.  "I never really wanted to be an adventurer, but self-defence is always useful.  And it's been a while, I can't let myself get rusty.

"I have about an hour," he said, glancing at the marble again.  "But if we can keep it under 30 minutes that would be great."

It felt nice, to have a response in the kind of a civilized 'cubi, although the thronging waves of emotion and thought from all around in the hallway from unsecured minds made it a little difficult to understand what the other said. Still, he caught the gist of it, and nodded to the other before sending.

"No, I am afraid it is not the custom here to communicate such. It is merely the way of my home clan, and I would bear you no ill-will if you prefer to speak with your throat. I think it has less to do with skill and more to do with custom; we of my clan very rarely communicate with non-'cubi without a retinue of followers to speak for us, so the need is not very great. But come, let us find you that lecture hall. How much time do you have before your class starts?

Half listening for an answer, Horethen kept his own mind shiled down and resumed accosting passers-by for directions.

Gideon nodded and turned to watch the sparring matches going on in the rings presently. It seemed that one wasn't reserved for class at present, and--just going by the worn look on the combatants' faces--would be vacated before long. "I don't think that should be much of a problem." He said before pressing his face into the towel around his shoulders to clear any sweat that he'd missed and beginning to walk towards the ring, his hand lifted in a gesture for Niall to follow him. "What was your last combat class? I wouldn't want to go into this expecting an expert and finding a novice, you understand; if I can help it, I'd prefer not to hurt you by accident." Gideon smiled and started getting to work on his pre-fight stretching. Twisting at the hips, pulling his arms across his body to loosen his back muscles, cracking his knuckles, and all sorts of other fun-looking things.

(OOC: Tape, would you be interested in doing this sparring match in an instant messaging client, so as to not have dozens of short posts clog up the thread as it proceeds? Once it was played out pretty much in full, we could consolidate the match into one or two more formal posts, so that it could be posted up here in a more complete, polished form. Not an order, just a suggestion. ^^; )

For a moment, Kallis appeared puzzled, and soon enough, Horethen received another message.
Curious... if the speakers aren't of the 'cubi race, how do they know what message to relay? As far as I know, without the aid of magic, a being mind is no better at picking up a thought aimed at it than a sieve can scoop up water, and demons aren't much better. But yes, let us go.
The cat took out her pocket watch again and looked at the dial.
To the best of my knowledge, the class begins in about fifteen minutes - and I have spent at least as much wandering these halls to no avail.

Niall furrowed his brow for a second.  "A refresher course in self-defence.  Level 3, I think," he said.  "That was about 25 years ago, but I've done enough of them in my time.  It should come back quickly enough."

"Did you have any particular rules in mind?"

Gideon shrugged, cocking his head at the two cubi still stubbornly trying to show each other up in the ring, before glancing over at Niall. "It's a fight, isn't it? If I get knocked out, you win. If you get knocked out, or give up, I win. Polishing it up by saying certain moves are dirty or unfair is... at best, dishonest." He was starting to consider jumping into the ring to knock out one or both of the fighters just to get them out of the way, but unfortunately he didn't get a chance. They hugged as though trying to murder each other's consciousness had all been a game, and walked out of the ring. Ugh. No proper resolution... how can people stand to not finish things? He gestured to the now-empty floor with a grin. "Those rules work for you, Niall?"

"You said it was to be a friendly spar," Niall said, raising and eyebrow and suppressing a hint of irritation.  "What you're proposing sounds more like a brawl.  Not particularly sportsmanlike, if I may say so."

"I've always found sportsmanship to be dishonest and rather pointless. I don't like things that serve no purpose." Gideon paused, biting his tongue before he continued along the scathing line he would usually pursue on this topic. No need to lay into him. No chance of getting anywhere with him if he thinks I'm a dick. "But, whatever floats your boat, I suppose." He said, smiling. "Very well, if you were to set the rules, what would they be?"

"It depends what you're trying to do," Niall pointed out amiably.  "My lord doesn't really subscribe to the Demon way of thinking and prefers us to avoid battle if we can.  I think that's a difference of opinion we'll just have to try to set aside if we can.
"For me, sparring is more a game or a means of exercise, so if we can I would prefer to keep things above the belt, no eye damage and nothing broken or scarred.  I'd prefer to avoid too severe cuts either, I'd rather not miss the next class or hurt my chances of being able to pull later on," he added, with a very slightly coy tone.

Kart bumped into the door of Dr. Ink's office. The panda didn't notice that he had walked all this way so soon. Kart Scubs sighed, this visit wasn't likely to be uneventful. The doctor, while following the Oath of Hippocrates had a preference for other people's pain. Still better to appeal to professionalism. "Dr.Ka'rith, it is me Kart Scubs. I'm here to pick up that drug cocktail for our clan founder."

The library was quiet.  Dosve both loved and hated it for that reason.  Oolong didn't trouble him, for he did not require to speak to her often.  A simple divination 'point me' spell helped him to find many books that he cared to look for.  Of course, it had been so long that he had conversation that wasn't piteous, confrontational, or awkward that Dosve would have welcomed the words.

The textbook actually had decent information about the process of metallurgy in artifice.  He was particularly interested in the effects of combining softer metals with harder metals to make a strong metal that was flexible.  It seemed counter-intuitive to lessen the hardness of a metal in that way, but he empirically knew that a sword that could flex instead of break was infinitely useful.

He realized then that he missed his sword, and the ability to just go out on a nine hour excursion for entertainment by inserting the sharp metal into the soft bodies of people thinking they could take him in a fight.  It was at this point that Dosve knew that his stay at the SAIA wasn't going to be fun, given this longing to be out in the action again, and that perhaps that was the point.  Perhaps She was punishing him for failing so spectacularly by spending a few centuries utterly miserable.

If that was the case, then so be it.  He would serve his sentence and be free one day.  He had a life expectancy of three millenia, it was inconceivable to him that Her cursebreakers would take that long to find a reverse for his infirmity.  But he was growing tired of the library; time to go to class.

Re-shelving books, and fetching his crutch, the dog evacuated the library, and passed down the halls to the Industry building.

(OOC: BLAAAArrrrGGHHggghhglgleffgghhhghh. Gah. I wish I had gotten this done MUCH sooner than I did. Curse my life for... existing... I shall do my best to stay on top of things better in future. Also, I know Malyka Ka'rith's owner is here on the forums somewhere, so if you're reading this I apologize if I got him out of character. :c I've left some cookies out on the counter for you, but Santa ate them a while back, so... he may have left some crumbs? ^^; )

Gideon nodded, amiably as he could, and hopped into the ring. "That suits me fine, I suppose. Keeping you from getting a date would be a damn shame; though if the injuries were bad enough, sympathy lays might come your way too." The cheetah said casually, holding out a hand to help Niall up. That was sportsman-like, right? It certainly seemed like the sappy sort of thing Niall would indulge in, but Gideon didn't have much practice putting on a friendly face in the ring. Usually he was all about intimidating his opponent, weakening their psychological defenses and control as much as he could.

~~~

Malyka Ka'rith. What could be said about him? Other than that he was an absolutely malicious bastard who only got into medicine because of his affinity for pain and anguish, that is. To be honest, not all that much... "Oh, Kart! You again. I was wondering when your turn would come up again." The fox turned to his patient and held up an (apparently) oversize syringe full of a swirling poison-green liquid. "Let me just take care of this student; the doctor will be right with you, Mister Scubs..." The mouse's eyes went wide and she started to squirm nervously. "Ohh, I'd forgotten, you're afraid of needles, aren't you? Unfortunately this is the most efficient way to get the medicine into your bloodstream, so unless you're not too sick for class after all..." Immediately, the mouse bounced to her feet, excuse after excuse spilling from her lips as she blazed her way out of the good doctor's office, spinning Dr. Ink around dizzyingly as she whizzed by.

"Works like a charm every time. Now, Mister Scubs, the medicine for your leader, yes...? I took the liberty of doing something new with it this time, in the hopes it may better alleviate his condition." He pulled a brown paper bag from a nearby cupboard, holding it out between his fingers. "Instead of pills, here are the raw ingredients mixed together. Tell him to steep a tablespoon of the mix in a cup of hot water until it's a dark orange; he should know perfectly well how to make tea. It'll taste terrible, but ought to do the same thing as his regular medicine. One dose a day. Inform me if there are any changes in his status, would you?" Of course, giving Kart the medicine in tea form wasn't strictly necessary, but the doctor knew what annoyed the panda and anticipated some sort of response. It was always difficult to get a rise out of this one, not that Ink ever did less than his level best. Pushing buttons was rather his 'thing'.

"Works for me," Niall said, and got into the ring hoping he wasn't going to regret it.  Even so, better I regret it in here than outside where everyone would love to kill me.

Kart closed his eyes and gave a fake smile, if one was looking for it, they would be able to say that his expression would be irate. Figures out of all the types of applying his leader's medicine it had to be the one thing that he hated among everything in the world. The panda respected and would never doubt the professionalism of the doctor. However he just couldn't help himself while taking the medicine with his thanks. If Dr. Ink wanted to fan the flames, then he was going to give it as good as he got. "Thank you very much Dr. Malyka Ka'rith, I am sure Aunt Marian would be overjoyed to hear of your effort to help our poor leader. Why I believe she would approach with nothing but earnest praise. How novel! Giving him the medicine in the form of tea!" Aunt Marian, 165 going on 4, an adventurer hippie succubus whose weapons were peace and love and sheer optimism to the point of terrorizing the forces of evil through fortress walls. She was also a student here and thought that Dr. Ink's antics were just "cute" and thought the best of the fox. With her around everything around Dr. Ink would taste of joy, rainbows and lollipops for weeks after she left. Not a tone of sarcasm emitted from Kart's voice, the only sign of such was the extremely formal style of speech. Your move Doctor was the thought behind the mind shields       

In all of his admittedly somewhat limited years of life, Horethen had never before had to deal with the task of attempting to have "two" conversations at once. The technique of mental "shouting" made for a more declarative mode of communication, and one, when removed from the silent solemnity of home, that was awkwardly public, which made the young jaguar 'Cubi feel undressed, in a fashion.

Some of our Speakers have magical training, but most simply; Excuse me, do you know where room C-21 is? We need to be there in fifteen minutes but most who have that talent do not want to spend their lives as servants, understandably. Excuse me, do you know where room C-21 is? We need to be there in fourteen minutes. Most are taught an intricate kind of sign language. They are usually to our rear and right Excuse me, do you know where room C-21 is? We need to be there in fourteen minutes., so it is often a matter of a 'language' of subtle shapeshifted signs to convey what they are supposed to Thank you very kindly. speak. Did you catch that? What the green elephant with the demon wings said. I do believe we have enough time to make it, if we hurry. 


Horethen made a face, thinking of his own newness to the compound and assuming we do not get further lost.

Kallis looked at the tall jaguar incubus, and lowered her shield again.
.. Yes, and I presume we should reach the lecture in time. her ears folded backwards for a moment, accompanied by the rythmic tail movements getting quicker It's... I have been through almost the same way - just that the portal at the end of the L-shaped way over didn't quite resemble one, and there was no one else going through the time and it looked like a window...not like I haven't been through some odd-looking waythroughs before, like the hallway in our lyceum  which wrapped upon itself after an accident with dimensional magic.  just..  Let's go, anyways.
After a silent while, as the pair reached the place of confusion - a large window-like door linking the building to another one by an air corridor clearly suspended by advanced spellcraft,  she broadcast again. Nice sight, I wonder/Thank you for your assistance so far, you have been most kind.Two thoughts, sent at once and slightly intertwined, a short pause, and a tail flick. If I may pry.. what of the country you come from? What does your clan, and your countrymen pride themselves in?  this is a place full of things I haven't seen... often, and you walk so surely.. it is making me unbearably curious.

A soft thump preceded the canine by about fifteen seconds.  He had passed by the home economics wing on his way to the lecture hall, and was waylaid by the enthusiastic teacher.  She had assumed that his lack of a leg would affect his ability to dodge, and thus his delay was minimal.  As it was, Dosve fully expected to be the last to arrive.

Which was promptly undone by sighting a pair of cats, a male and female, in the doorway to the lecture hall bridge.  The canine stood still for a moment, making sure his emotion filters were properly in place to keep  surprise from leaking out, and inclined his head, "Good morning..."