The waxy sheen of cold sweat had spread from Professor Byrne's brow to cover her face and neck by the time she had returned to her own room and slammed the door. She flung her suit jacket down to the floor before slumping her herself, hands shaking as she clawed to unbutton the soaked fabric at her collar.

“Sonofabitch," she mumbled, leaning her head back against the cool stone of the wall.

The hair tie binding her messy orange locks was the next to be torn away, followed by the remaining buttons of her shirt. Stray strands of hair clung to her face, starkly contrasting against her sickly pallor.

The ribbed fabric of her undershirt had been so thoroughly drenched that the lines of her chest tattoos and the shape of her scars showed though. She fanned the neckline with shaking fingers.

“Don't bother scolding me,” she said, eyes turned up to the ceiling. “I can handle it, K. It won't happen again.”
@VitofTheVoid

I wish I could believe it was coincidence, Mari...I really do.
Ray just smiled, glad to have some friendly, familiar faces here, even if a good fifty percent of the faculty gave him chills.
"Heh, yeah this place can be a bit of a maze. It took me a while to figure it out, but give it time and it will become second nature to you."
It had been a long time since Ray had been able to just fall into easy banter like this, and it did a lot to lift his spirits. Without even realizing it his shoulders slackened, releasing some of that constant tension he carried like a stone. It almost made him forget about what a complete fucking train wreck his life had become.

"I was just heading back to my quarters now, I can help you find yours if you'd like." Ray himself had gotten lost too many times when he first arrived, and eventually learned his way there through trial and error. The one time he had sheepishly asked for directions he made the mistake of asking Maeve. Her stony silence and diamond scowl set the tone for the rest of her and Ray's interaction thus far, and it was something he found hard to forget.

"I will bother, though I'm not sure why I do at this point."

The slender form of Professor Kovalenko melted out of the shadow of the wardrobe. Her straight hair, neatly buttoned coat, and impassive expression forming an almost complete antithesis of her counterpart.

"We've got an operation to run here Byrne. You need to keep this under control before someone ends up getting hurt."
She reached into the draw on the one side of the room, withdrew a medicine bottle, and dropped it down beside Maeve. The pills in the bottle rattled.

"I don't need to remind you what we've got to worry abou-"

She paused. Oren's gaze flicked over to the door.

Drawn on top of the wood panelling was an intricate symbol of wavy lines, within a circle, punctuated with a line and a smaller circle issuing from it... or rather it would be had a large swipe not been erased, like it had been wiped with a cloth.

Professor K sighed through her teeth and took some brisk steps up to the door. Her coat was unbuttoned, sleeve drawn up, and an obsidian athame drawn from its sheath at her hip, and within moments Oren was painting her blood over the gaps in the ward.

A silence ward.
The ward that was meant for the express purpose of preventing their private conversations being audible to anyone outside in the corridor who happened to listen.

"We're really going to have to do something about the ward problem."

Tatia was on her way to what she was pretty sure was the girl's dorms when she heard speech from behind a closed door.

“I can handle it, K. It won't happen again.”

Tatia slowed down as she passed, catching hint of the buried urgency in the tones and catching a bad case of curiosity as she did so.

"I will bother, though I'm not sure why I do at this point. We've got an operation to run here Byrne. You need to keep this under control before someone ends up getting hurt."

An operation to run? Interesting choice of words for a schoolteacher. Tatia had come to a full halt by now, and had inched toward the door.

In a brief lull, Tatia thought she could hear something rattle like large beads in a maraca. Tatia couldn't think of many other objects that made that noise. And since none of the professors looked like they moonlighted in a mariachi band, Tatia guessed a pill bottle.

"I don't need to remind you what we've got to worry abou-"

When the voice of Professor Kovalenko cut off, followed by quick footsteps toward the door, Tatia nearly fell over in her haste to assume a casual, just-walking-here retreat down the hallway. Damned idiotic of her to try to eavesdrop on literal actual witches. She half expected the door to bang open behind her and one of the professors to shout her down, but nothing happened and she found her room without incident.

Something, evidently, was up with Professor Byrne. Something that could get people hurt.

Huh.

In case things weren't weird enough.

The day had passed without much event, in the grand scope of things. Many students, after becoming settled in their dorms, had taken to wandering the grounds at their leisure. Poking into the classrooms, holing themselves in the library- a few had commandeered the pool, enjoying the vast openness of the place while they could. For the most part, the students were left largely to their own devices.

Except, of course, when the occasional handful of students attempted to wander off site. The professors were surprisingly quick to catch stragglers.

After a few hours of this, the overhead speakers suddenly crackled to life with a bright, cheerful jingle. The dinner bell. Regardless if any students hoped to avoid eating, anyone outside the cafeteria would be eventually shepherded there, awaited by a feast that quite easily put brunch to shame.

Roast beef and potatoes stewing in broth, buttered rolls, sauteed mushrooms. It had been made more to leave an impression than anything, it seemed, although one Madison Lovette certainly wasn’t complaining. He reclined at his seat at the teacher’s table, sipping idly at a mug of hot chocolate as he watched the students buzz about. It had been a good first day, he thought. Certainly not perfect, but still good.

He could only hope that the classes would go just as well.

Madison took another swig, winced as he burned the roof of his mouth, then dabbed his lips clean.

Ray sat beside Madison, eating in small, contented bites. It was supremely delicious, better than anything he had eaten in about a decade. He didn't think anything could burn away the memory of MRE's, but damn it all if this smorgasbord didn't. His lesson plans were sorted, his curriculum all but memorized and he was now available to catch some small moment of leisure before trying to whip these kids into something closely resembling decent spell casters.
The real trick would be to teach them how to make better decisions than he did. He would teach from the basics of Necromancy and Blood Magic beyond, but place heavy, heavy emphasis on defending against both of them. Blood Magic and Necromancy had gotten into the mess that had been his twenties. No other foolish kid deserved that life.

He leaned back in his chair, taking a short break from his meal, and spoke to Madison.
"It's kinda funny, isn't it? We fought a war once, but I'm quaking more about my first lesson than I was about my first battle."
Of course, back then Ray was hoping his first battle would kill him, and so was the Council. No need to waste time on his execution that way.
Ease up, there Ray ol' boy. This is a nice dinner time chat. Don't get all morbid on things now...
"Who knew this many kids could be so damn scary," he said with a light chuckle."

Dinner was irrelevant to Azaziel. Eating was a biological function that he at times enjoyed, but never allowed to get between himself the work he did. So, instead of heading downstairs for a dinner expertly prepared by Marchand's fine cooks, he was holed up in his room, reading, and writing. He had moved his desk to the middle of his room, greatly cutting into his absent roommates personal space. Flanking it, were two books held open on sheet-music stands. They were titled 'A colloquial take on Familiars' , and, 'Treatise on Blood Magic' respectively. A final book was perched in the front. Its human leather binding marked it as a genuine copy of the Necronomicon. He sat cross legged in his chair, in aught but his boxer-briefs.

On the table were several pieces of parchment beside a measure of Heparin in a clear vial. Separate from these, were two stacks of paper, one had very obviously been written on, while the other stack blank, aside from the one he was currently writing on. His writing drifted between haphazard scrawling, and deep, deliberate strokes.

Zaze's free hand moved up to his mouth, bringing the pocket pancake into biting distance. All the dinner he needed.