Narly kicks back and makes a paper airplane out of his registration form.
Despite the obviously crappy construction the thing flies about remarkably well executing a series of daring strafing runs on the holder of the forms thanks in large part to magic.
|
"Silly Chocolate," chides Shona in what passes for a gentle manner for our blunt young heroine, "if anything he's proud of how resourceful we are. Now don't forget to cross that 'I'" she adds pointing.
"That's a 'T'," the thrush adds with a sigh. "Perhaps it would be helpful if we practice having you actually write things on your own?"
However, Shona had stopped paying attention rather immediately as she saw a badly made paper airplane go fluttering past doing feats of aerial daring. In response to the look of admonishment and the, "Don't even think about it," uttered by the thrush, Shona gives a pout and returns to petting the sloth while muttering in a stage whisper that devolves into cooing, "You'd let me fold my stupid old form into an airplane, wouldn't you my sweet wittle magical boy?"
Chocola, busy filling out the form before anyone can take it to her, misses the question at first, but soon looks up. "Hmm? Oh. Maybe for a written record or something... Wait, do you think he knows we took these forms instead of receiving them?" Chocola suddenly looked very nervous.
A shining bald man winks directly at the camera.
Offscreen, a very harsh spoken girl asks, "Sir, pardon my inquiry, but did you just wink at that blank wall?"
The Omnesiac turns to his visitor. "Perhaps I did. But anyhow, it seems that the new students are getting a little rowdy, stealing eachother's form and whatnot. I'm still dreadfully busy," camera zooms out to reveal a game of solitaire being played with a deck of at least a few thousand cards, "So I'd like you to sort everything out. And see if you can round up the other three members of the Elite Four while you're at it, it'd be good for the fresh faces to meet some of our top students."
Not finding anyone to convince to give the group more forms, Vinda sighs and starts playing a crazy riff on her guitar, then starts singing to the students. She sings a glorious tune about how some people don't belong in school, how they can make their way in the world so much better on their own. She sings about giving the finger to "the man" and saying school is for posers. She sings about a beautiful, carefree life as a nomad. Grinta even dances next to her, adding to the overall performance.
At the end of the song, she looks around, waits for the clapping to die down, and says "Now, I know at least one of you will give me your form, yeah?"
Attention caught by the sound of some rather well-played music, Kayin finds himself drawn away from his seat to its source deeper in the crowd. When he discovers who is playing the music, he is rather surprised to learn that it is one of the women from the group he'd encountered earlier. Looking around, he quickly locates the other two, who are apparently deeply involved in filling out one of the coveted registration forms with the aid of a small bird and the sloth. Strangely, the sloth seems more interested in the attention it is getting from the louder of the pair, and Kayin smiles at its dopey expression of bliss.
A new burst of music draws his attention back to the performer, and he stiffles a snicker as he realizes what she's trying to accomplish with her song. Since he actually does want to attend, however, the song's words have little hold over him. When it comes to finish, Kayin applauds with the rest of the crowd and casually remarks to another potential student that the performing feathered lizard really sold the show.
Very much impressed by the quality of the song, if not entirely agreeing with its actual contents, Tre heads over to Vinda. "That was a very, um, pretty song. You can have this form if you like, I can make another" [b] She hands over the copy of the form she made earlier . Tre starts to head away to start working on making another copy of the form while the details were still fresh in her head, but curiosity piqued she turns back and asks [b] "I hope I'm not being impertinent, but in your song you sorta made it sound like you don't really like schools and learning, and stuff. So may I ask why you are here?" Blushing furiously she then whispers "Oh dear, I hope I didn't seem too rude or forward"
Shiro tiptoes out from under the crowd, heading almost to the edge of it, in sight of Boscoe when the crowd crushes in tightly. "Oh no," she says quietly as somebody starts shredding on a guitar and singing. All at once the crowd of kids turns into a moshpit. The halfling bounces between legs in the crowd, trying to hold onto her stolen paper. She jumps, trying to climb her way out of the forest of legs, but can't quite. "Boscoe, help me out!"
The beachball, transformed now into a purple walrus, obliviously taps its flipper on the ground in time to Vinda's song.
"You worthless beachball," she says unsubtly, a vein popping out in her forehead, and then tries again to climb.
She makes her way onto somebody's back just in time for the song to end. She finishes clambering up onto the beleaguered student and points across the heads of the crowd at Vinda. "She's completely right! School is terrible. You should all give up your papers and value your freedom!" Heh-heh, she thinks. If they all leave, nobody has to see my transformation.
When Kayin hears the halfling who is apparently using taller students as some sort of road, he jumps up and down in place, arms waving frantically to get her attention as he call out at the top of his lungs,
Though he's quite earnest in his appeal, he's more interested in seeing her reaction to his words. At this point, he figures it highly unlikely that he'll get in, so Kayin decides to have a bit of fun and end the day on something of a high note.
Shiro stops, a bead of sweat on her forehead. "Registration form? You silly fox! This is... A letter from my dearly departed father." In a flash, it's folded in half and tucked inside her pocket. "It was his last wish I attend school here. It's my burden to bear, far too heavy for a child! You should all enjoy the youth I was never allowed!" Sweeping her arm across her forehead dramatically, she falls backward off of the students shoulders, then crawls out from under the edge of the crowd, on the other side of it from Kayin.
The walrus at the edge of the crowd turns towards Kayin. "Please pardon her. She's a terrible liar."
Kayin laughs at the halfling's overblown performance, almost tempted to applaud. The laughter grows when the walrus quite casually destroys her efforts at reception. "Terrible though she may be," he replies cheerfully, "She's at least entertaining about it."
A broad grin on his too-pretty face, Kayin looks over the crowd, as best he can given his relative lack of height, for more situations to amuse himself with. He's feeling a rather strong urge to indulge in mischief, and were his tails visible, they'd be lashing in a rather cat-like fashion from the anticipation he feels.
Crawling on her belly, Shiro rounds the still gathered and waiting crowd, making a beeline for Boscoe. On all fours, she crawls up the Walrus' tail, onto his body and whispers vocally into his ear, "I did it! Got one!" She glances up, double-taking at Kayin, and then audibly falls off of the walrus, landing on her back. A few people in the crowd wince at her completely unsubtle performance.
"Yes, quite," says the walrus amicably, slapping his fin onto the Halfling. "Shiromori, please introduce yourself to your classmate."
"He never saw me," says Shiro, peeking out from under the Walrus' flipper. "I, Shiromori Okyoni, am the very height of stealth."
Hearing the halfing's declaration of success, in both acquisition and stealth, Kayin gives her a flat stare, though a barely-suppressed smile has the corners of his mouth twitching. "Oh, indeed, the very pinnacle of stealth. I do believe there was a rock over yonder that completely missed you," he says, voice bubbling with laughter. "And may I be the first to congratulate you on getting one of your, what was it again, father's letters," Kayin asks dryly, his smile no longer suppressed.
Stepping a bit closer to the walrus and his amazingly subtle charge, Kayin bows politely. "Kayin Ashok, and I'm not likely to be anyone's classmate at this time, as I was unfortunately late for the orientation and thus missed getting a registration form of my own." He straightens up and looks back toward the crowd, and continues, "A problem I am not alone in suffering from, it appears. But," he says with a shrug as he faces the walrus and halfling again, "I will figure something out. Hopefully something a bit more subtle than the other efforts I have witnessed today." Kayin is obviously referring to the musical performance, the numerous snatch attempts, and other sundry chicanery taking place at the gates.
Vinda looks at the sylph with surprise. "Oh, I wasn't singing about MY beliefs... I was.. nevermind. What was your name? I'm Vinda. Thanks for the form, though I'm sure I could have convinced one of my fans to give one up for me..."
Chocolas eyes widen as Vinda finishes her song. "Wow! THat was amazing! Can you sing another?" She finishes up with her form.
"I ALSO ENJOYED THE SONG!" Chocola giggles quietly at the sloth.
Taken aback at the incredibly loud sloth, Vinda stammers "Th- thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it." Vinda's previously grouchy exterior seems to have been chipped away by the praise for her singing, and her smile at Chocola is genuine.
"Unsubtle, why, Shiromori is the very height of..." Shiro starts to say, but her voice is muffled by Boscoe's flipper again. She struggles ungracefully out from underneath the Walrus. "Hmph. Nice to meet you," she says, her mouth still turned into an exaggerated grimace. "My name is Shiromori Okyoni." She extends her hand, with the registration letter in it. "Here. I can get another one, I'm sure." She leans in, as if she's imparting a great secret, and whispers, "This isn't actually a letter from my father!"
Boscoe quietly chuckles. "As you can see, the little one does have a heart. You may just have to dig a while to find it." The halfling ineffectually punches his bulk, still holding up the form for Kayin.
|
|
As Chocola is praising and chatting with Vinda, Shona goes skipping across in the background cutting off the group of handsome boys who were trying to approach the lovely singer as Shona is bound and determined that they must have been coming to see her. Following behind, the thrush is simply shaking his head.
"Nice to meet you Vinda, my name is Tremetorideria, but you can call me Tre if you like. Don't worry about the form, I think I have time to make another before we need to hand them in"
As she says this Tre pulls out her pens and another sheet of paper and begins trying to make another copy of the form.
As she does this the brooch she is wearing glows and transforms into a dwarf caiman.
"Are you sure you should be doing this? Forging a form on your first day is sure to get you into trouble" it states with some degree of agitation.
Tre looks up from the paper and gently shoves the small green reptile, "Don't make such a fuss Chaki. It has all the same information on it and it looks mostly the same so whats the problem. It's not like I'm stealing one or anything"
Kayin blinks in surprise as he's handed one of precious forms. He takes a moment to look it over, then smiles at his unexpected benefactor. "I sort of figured that might be case," he says when Shiromori reveals the truth of the matter. He looks again at the form and chuckles. "I spent so much time and effort trying to get one of these, and now that I actually have it, it seems rather anti-climactic," Kayin adds with a bigger smile.
He then looks at the walrus and nods. "So it seems, even though your charge apparently doesn't want that being known by anyone." Kayin pauses as a thought occurs to him. "I just realized, I don't even know what I'm supposed to do with this after its been filled out. Do either of you," he asks of Shiromori and her walrus.
Vinda looks indignantly at the mini-crocodile. "Yeah, and I bet the higher-ups will praise her for her resourcefulness. Good on you, Tre, beating 'the man' at his own game. Now to fill this thing out... cup size: 'Ample'. That's enough information for them... if they want more specifics they can ask me for an in-person measurement! Age: Seventeen. Birthday..."
|
|
Shona, overhearing Vinda narrating aloud as she fills out the part about cup size, interjects, "You need an ample cup? You must really like coffee!"
Some of the handsome boys look awkwardly around as if unsure whether that was intended to be a joke or if she's really that clueless.
The thrush is certain she really is that clueless.
Bored, Narly slouches over.
Vinda looks at the sylph with surprise. "Oh, I wasn't singing about MY beliefs... I was.. nevermind. What was your name? I'm Vinda. Thanks for the form, though I'm sure I could have convinced one of my fans to give one up for me..."
"You weren't? Too bad." He walks past with polite but lazy wave. A filled out airplane orbits his head. "Nice tune though. Later."
He wanders off to look the joint over with the air of an eternal transfer student.
Tre's ears prick up at the mention of coffee, seemingly having missed all the context behind it. "Ooh, you like coffee! I LOVE coffee! I brought a coffee pot here with me, one of the Galtian style ones. I've been trying to work on something even better than coffee at keeping you awake but it's not quite right yet, I'm struggling to keep it stable"
|
|
Shona, hearing this exciting news about coffee and stronger-than-coffee-but-not-coffee leaves the group of boys behind and pops right over to Tre's side.
"I like coffee! It helps me not sleep, 'cause that's boring. By the way, I'm shona. This is Mr. Thrush," she says, gesturing over her shoulder, "and that's my friend Chocolate. Her sloth is totes adorable!" she says, squealing a bit.
Chocola giggles. "We should all go and get some coffee when this is over. And my name is actually Chocola, but that's okay. And this is Petro." She finishes the form with her signature and smiles, looking at it. "Done!"
"Nice to meet you Shona. And you as well Chocola. Not to forget Mr Thrush and Petro, of course. I'm meeting so many lovely people today" Tre says as she stands up and extends her hand to shake. "My name is Tremetorideria, or Tre for short, and this is Chaki. Coffee sounds lovely but I don't think we should wander off right now"
As she says that an idea pops into Tre's head. "Actually we might be able to make something that tastes like coffee right here!" . She pulls out a flask of water and mutters a few words, warming the flask with
"All I know is if you don't get one, you face automatic expulsion. I don't know what that means, exactly, but coming from that big guy--"
"The Omnesiac! Your headmaster!" Boscoe interjects.
"--him, I'm sure it's no good. Be right back." Shiro jaunts away, back into the crowd that's slowly dispersing, students milling around.
Still mostly hiding underfoot, she makes to snatch a form again. She gets bumped by the student she stole from before, who's patting himself down trying to find his form. He turns to see her, form in hand and staring up at him. Shiro gulps audibly, then points to the student she just stole from and says "He did it." Without waiting to see his reaction, she turns and flees.
She vaults over Boscoe, settling down on the other side of him, out of view and pointedly ignoring the brawl that starts to unfold behind her. "See? Piece of cake." She says to Kayin.
|
|
"Well, I still think the buildings would probably have coffee, and I'm sure they'd share some with an adorable girl like me and my friends..." she says, drifting off with her words and looking more and more intrigued by what the sylph is up to the whole time.
The thrush takes that opportunity, and momentary silence, to interject, "And my name is not Mr. Thrush, it's actually..."
"You can seriously make coffee right here?!?!? That's amazing!" Shona calls out, interrupting. She then turns back to the group of assorted handsome boys and strikes her cutest pose while saying, "I don't suppose one of you would be willing to go get me some cream and sugar would you?"
The boys are there in unmoving silence for a moment, then disappear on their errand.
"I just need to get the water hot enough." Tre said, muttering over the flask again casting . "I've never tried this before but it should work, boiling is just heating something again and again and again after all"
She then takes a metal beaker with a lid and plunger out of her backpack and adds some coarsely ground coffee and the hot water.
"There, now we just need to let it brew for a few minutes. I hope "
Setting the pot to one side for a moment she turns toward the thrush, "If you're not called Mr Thrush, then what would you like us to call you, if you don't mind me asking?"
Chocola smiles at Tre. "Everyone here is so awesome! You know how to do magic? That's so cool! I'd love some coffee. And you don't want us to call you Mr. Thrush? I'm sorry I didn't know that." Chocola scratches her head in embarrassment.
|
|
Just as the thrush opens his beak to respond to the girls who oh-so-kindly asked what he would actually like to be called, Shona pinches his beak shut with her thumb and forefinger.
"No, Mr. Thrush! I told you you're only supposed to be speaking to me!"
At that same moment, several of the handsome boys pop back into the scene smiling broadly and carrying various containers with milk and cream.
"Oh, thanks! Aren't you all so sweet?" Shona says as she takes some sugar and cream at random. She then turns to her group of friends and asks if any of them would like cream or sugar for their coffee. "I brought plenty," she adds with a smile.
Tre blushes, "I know a little about magic but I'm not really that good at it yet. My parents taught me about alchemy and I, ah, picked up some other bits and pieces from books. I'm hoping to learn a lot more here though. How about you Chocola? I've never met a catperson before."
Chocola blushed. "Oh. I'm nothing special. Don't know any magic or anything. I'm more... physical..." She blushed harder.
Kayin is somewhat stunned by the ease with which Shiromori acquires a second form, though it's the small brawl she incites immediately afterward that really makes his jaw drop. Shaking his head as she returns, he doesn't know quite how he should respond to her actions. "I've never seen such actions in all my life. I don't know whether I should be horrified, impressed, amused, or what," he admits as he watches the brawl suck in more unwitting victims even as it moves steadily away from them, leaving groaning applicants sprawled out on the ground and wondering what just ran them over, and why.
He then casts a look at Shiromori, a slightly worried expression on his face. "We had better hope at least that these forms aren't via magic to the people they were assigned to. Otherwise this pilfering, to say nothing of what appeared to be a very enterprising forgery session going on over there," he says with a nod of his head toward the small group now huddled around one of their number holding a pot of some sort, "Are going to end very badly."
"You can be all of those things," Says Shiro, drawing a knife from underneath her rough-cut, leather parody of a school uniform and picking her teeth with it, watching the unfolding brawl with a casual disinterest. She stops, sucking on the point of it slightly as Kayin brings up the magic.
"I didn't think about that at all." She says flatly, suddenly worried. She unfolds the piece of paper. "I don't know if they have any magic on them, but he signed in pen. Apparently my name is... What the hell kind of name is Dragneel?" She angles her head up, looking at Boscoe. "Are they enchanted?"
"I'm sure I don't know," says the walrus airily. "And if I did, I probably wouldn't be able to tell you anyway."
"Humph. Well, this is a magical school, right? Somebody's gotta know." Shiro sheathes her knife again, glancing around for a likely suspect.
Kayin snickers softly as she mentions the name on the form. "Hmm, I don't think that form will do much for you in any case, magic or not. Unless, of course, you don't mind going through your entire time here as Dragneel," he conclude with a grin.
"As to who would know," he continues with a somewhat more serious tone of voice, "That knowledge would probably be above what a student, or potential student, could discern. Keep in mind, this is one of the Houses of Perfection. This opening day aside," he says with a wave at the crowd and the... interesting... personalities that comprise it, "They must have something in place to keep out the unwelcome candidates."
"Well, I'd prefer not to," said Shiromori, considering, "Then again, making it through years of school training with no one knowing my real name could be my greatest feat of stealth yet." She glances over at Kayin. "Ah, except for you, of course! Seeing as somebody introduced me."
"The House of Unyielding Radiance does have measures in place to keep out the riff-raff," intones Boscoe, sniffing and turning his nose up, making Shiro dodge out of the way of one of his tusks.
"Isn't that why we have animal invitation letters anyway?" Shiro asks. "Speaking of which," she turns back to Kayin, "Where's yours?"
Kayin points to his headband with a grimace. "Told me not to wake him up unless I got expelled. Not exactly overflowing with friendliness," he says with a soft snort of annoyance. "He pops up out of nowhere on what was, in hindsight, not one of my better days, tells me to come here or else, and then spends the entire trip nagging me about every little thing," Kayin finishes with an aggrieved huff.
"Go here, do that, no we can't stop to check out those ruins," he says in high-pitched voice, clearly meant to be that of his guide. "Annoying flea-chaser," he mutters in his normal voice. The moment he finishes speaking, his headband glows brightly for a moment and Kayin doubles up with a grunt of pain, hands going to his head. "Guess the bastard heard that, because he just gave me a nasty little headache," Kayin says with a pained laugh and tears in his eyes.
Narly throws down his board with skates on. It rolls ten feet in front of him. He casually hops aboard. He rolls lazily down the halls of the school picking the least populated routes at each intersection. At one, he reached up and tore off a laminated, color-coded, emergency evacuation map.
He turned down one deserted hall with half its overhead lights buzzing noisily and the other half burnt out. It was the sort of hallway janitors didn't go down alone lest they get caught in one of the tremendous spider webs and not have anyone there to pull them out again before the spider arrived. He rolls to a stop in front of the boy's room.
He kicks the door in. Dust settled out of the stale air.
Narly kicked his board forward. It rumbled menacingly over the uneven tile past the urinals and to the stalls where it stopped in front of one with a thin whiff of donut-scented vapor wafting above it and kicks the door in. He hauls out the secret vaper and slams his bodily into the row of sinks.
He holds up the map.
"Vice Principal's office. Now."
|
|
Shona, growing quickly tired of waiting for the coffee to be ready, begins nibbling on sugar cubes.
"You'll simply get a sugar rush doing that," chides the thrush.
"Yes," Shona say to Tre, ignoring the thrush, "my verygoodfriend Chocolate is basically a cat and cats are awesome! And adorable!" then she flashes a big grin at Chocola before extending her hand full of sugar cubes and saying, "Want some?"
After flushing the hapless vaper to a 'place-man-was-not-meant-to-know', the Rolling Chaos makes his way to the Vice Principal's office leaving only a the hint of his theme music echoing quietly in his wake....
Tre checks the pot. "I think the coffee should be ready now. Shall I be Mother?" She says picks up the pot. "Milk and Sugar?" Do you take milk then coffee or coffee then milk? I find that you get a creamier result if you add the coffee to the milk, because of a more gradual heating, but it can be hard to judge how much milk you want and then you can end up with too much milk and you can't really taste the coffee, but different people have different tastes and some people say putting the milk in first is common and vulgar, although I can't see why, and..." A blush spreads across Tre's face again, looking like it might almost be a permanent feature, "Sorry, I'm rambling aren't I? I'll just pour the coffee"
Chocola blushes at Shona's comment. "Oh well.. Thanks..." She takes one of the sugar cubes and politely licks at it.
"Any way you want to make the coffee is fine with me. Im not picky and Im thankful for you making it." She smiles sweetly at Tre.