[center][h1][color=limegreen][u]Beth Carson[/u][/color][/h1][/center]

Although she had originally been excited to ride on a boat for the first time, Beth very quickly regretted stepping foot on the boat.  Having never been on a boat before, she had no idea that she would be prone to seasickness, or that it could be so awful.  The sea sickness she was dealing with had struck less than an hour after she had gotten on the boat, which she couldn’t help but feel was a little pathetic.

Somehow, she had managed to make her way to the infirmary that was located below deck without covering the entirety of the hallway in vomit, but, unfortunately, the nurse was unable to provide her with any medicine that would effectively treat her motion sickness because the doses were far too high for someone of her size.  They were able to provide her with ginger ale, however, which did soothe her nausea enough that she didn’t feel the need to throw-up.

At the nurse’s insistence that going up to the deck would be better for her seasickness than laying down in one of the sick beds, Beth began stumbling her way out of the infirmary and to the deck of the ship where most of the other students would be, quickly locating a chair pointing off the port side of the ship to recline in.  Once she was comfortable, relatively speaking, she tried to enjoy the view, spotting a few small landmasses off in the horizon. 

Incidentally, having something stationary like the ground to look at also helped soothe her nausea to the point where it was able to be ignored.  No longer quite so occupied with her stomach doing flips on her, the rocking of the ship as it sliced through the water was actually quite relaxing, and it quickly put her to sleep until she was woken up by the increase in volume of the students on deck and the announcement that the boat had docked at the Academy.

After she had finished stretching and whatnot, Beth followed the crowd of people who were currently disembarking by way of the large set of stairs that had been lowered from the ship.  While she walked, Beth ran her fingers through curly, coppery red hair in a futile attempt to eliminate some of the tangles that had formed while she slept.  It wasn’t a desire to look good that motivated her to try and fix her hair, as she really didn’t particularly care what she looked like, but rather her desire to be essentially invisible to those around her.

The outfit that she was currently wearing, a brown and white flannel short-sleeved shirt, a pair of faded blue jeans, and her green and black sneakers with Velcro fasteners, was chosen with this goal in mind, as it didn’t stand out particularly well against the flashier outfits most of the other students wore on their first day. In fact, the only thing that she was wearing that could be considered flashy was her silver and black bracelet made of tungsten carbide that allowed her to store some of the excess charge her body built up over time.

Of course, all of this that didn’t mean that she was truly invisible.  Several people around her seemed to have noticed her and were whispering to some of the others around them.  Though some might be paranoid about what was being said behind their backs, Beth figured it was a question or an expression of confusion as to why such a young child, as Beth appeared to be, would be at the Academy.  Thankfully, however, such interest in her seemed to be short-lived as the crowd continued towards their destination, which was apparently somewhere inside the massive castle that was the Academy itself.

While the staff members that had welcomed them to the island guided them towards wherever it was they were going,  they answered a seemingly constant stream of questions from curious students concerning a variety of topics like what they could do for fun or what kinds of facilities the Academy had to offer to them.  By paying attention to the questions that were being asked, Beth could kind of ignore the anxiety that she had been feeling since boarding the boat.  It also made the walk go by a lot faster, so much so that Beth was rather surprised when they stepped into the castle itself.

Shortly after that, they emerged into a beautiful garden where a stage and several rows of seats were set up.  As the students filled the seats, Beth was able to get a look at the stage where a stern-looking woman in a sharp pin-stripe suit and a somber-looking man dressed in black everything were standing.  Almost immediately after everyone was seated, the woman began speaking, though Beth could no longer see what was going on due to how short she was.

Though it was a good bit harder to pay attention to the speech when she couldn’t see the speaker, Beth did manage to keep focused on what was being said, particularly when it came to the rules that the Academy operated under, like the fact that everyone needed to be in their rooms by 10 PM or that fighting outside of a special place called the arena was prohibited.  Overall, Beth was surprised by how short the speech ended up being, as they were very quickly dismissed to attend the annual banquet.

The journey to the cafeteria where the banquet was being held was, as expected, much shorter than the walk from the docks to the Academy itself.  It also seemed louder too, as the students were beginning to loosen up and talk to one another in the hopes of making new friends or catching up with old ones.  Regardless, the crowd arrived at their destination in no time, the students breaking up to grab something to eat before getting a table with their friends.

Due to her small size, getting a plate of food was a lot harder said than done for Beth, as people tended to either have a hard time seeing her or just not caring that she was in the way.  Eventually, however, she managed to wriggle through the crowd and get a plate of chicken parmesan and a glass of root beer.  From there, she had to wriggle back through the crowd and find a place to sit.  Unfortunately, virtually every table had been taken by the time she had gotten her food, which meant that she was going to be forced to sit with someone else.

After scanning the tables that were nearby, Beth decided to sit at the one where a thin boy with a pink stripe in his black hair was already sitting, as he appeared the least intimidating and/or likely to be interested in her.  And so Beth set her plate down on the table and sat down, her feet dangling quite a distance above the tiles of the floor, without saying a word, though she did offer a small smile to be polite.  If he would try and start a conversation, she wouldn’t be rude and ignore him, but that didn’t mean that she was going to start the conversation.  In all honesty, being ignored was preferable.