---

Lilly's eyes went wide. She tried to back away, but she forgot she was sitting down, so she just fell on her back. She snatched up her laptop and scrambled to her feet. Why did she have to be like this? She could have just said "I'd rather not talk about it," it would have been fine. Why didn't she do that?!

"I-I never-I never knew who they were!" Lilly stammered, nearly losing control of her voice. "I thought they were just some working for some bourgeois asshole or something, I-I didn't think they were fucking terrorists!" She was losing control. She could feel eyes on her. She couldn't handle it. Holy shit. She needed to calm down, at least a little bit. One deep breath… Pause… Breathe out… Ok, maybe one more time...

"Look, I'm sorry," Lilly said, more softly this time. "You're right, I shouldn't treat it so casually like that. What I was going through back then is really hard for me to talk about, or even think about. I try to just gloss over it… But I had my reasons for what I did, and I certainly never wanted to hurt anyone…"

She tried to look him in the eye. It was hard to tell exactly where that was at the moment. He seemed so nice a minute ago...

"Do you want to hurt me?" She asked.

---

---

Navaeh had picked up a piece of sad-looking bacon before glancing at Nakala. "I'm from France; my family lives in Paris." She set down the piece of bacon and wiped her fingers on a napkin. "You want to see my home? It's, uh, really pretty!" She pulled her phone closer and unlocked it to show Nakala some of the pictures she had taken on her phone. Navaeh was excited to see another person some of the pictures. Most of her interactions with others back home had been online and not in person, so Navaeh was really excited.

"Ah, wait. First you should tell me your Insta." Navaeh handed Nakala her phone with the search bar up for her to write down her handle. "We could follow each other, oui? Have to stick together in a place like this." She glanced around to the other students around them. There were quite a lot of faces in the cafeteria, some that she recognized that had sat around her during the orientation. Some she found annoying too.

"So, where are you from? Here? Also, what kind of powers do you have? Are you excited to be here? I'm just glad to be away from home and my mom." Navaeh rolled her eyes at the mention of her mother.

---

---

Esmeralda had just nodded at the shorter girl as she said her goodbyes and they made their way to get more food. When they sat down, Esmeralda could feel some awkwardness in the air. She didn't mind the silence between them. Esmeralda actually preferred it, but she had promised her mother that she would try to be more social at school. Make friends or a friend at least.

"My power, I guess. I can make illusions." Esmeralda shrugged a shoulder as if it wasn't a big deal. It really wasn't. She had heard about others with mixed powers, people who were able to control others or things. Esmeralda was grateful that he powers something that others could see without her wanting to. She could easily hide hers and live like a normal human being. Of course, she would have to get control of her power before that happened.

"You're not boring," Esmeralda poked at her food. "We're just talking, nothing boring about that." She looked at Kashmira and offered a small nod. "What about you? What kind of power you have?"