[IC] || { Refracted: DH } ||

[sntabe]

Sebastian sprinted across the field, document in hand, tail trailing behind him. Only in the city did it matter whether he looked human; here, it was irrelevant, since everyone had to earn their place in DHHQ. And he had just earned his.

A wide grin broke across his face as he spotted Daya, his new coworker. Sure, it probably wasn't the best idea to register graduates he'd just met as his teammates, but he didn't really care. After so long of dreaming it, he was finally on an official team - and as its leader, no less. "DAYA! We're accepted!" he called, hugging her though he'd only known her for a couple days. The paper in his hand crumpled slightly, and remembering it was there, Sebastian handed it to her.

"See?" he pointed, teeth shining. "We're a team."

[PopeMaddi]

Daya smiled, her hard lips curling upwards. "Great! Do you know who the team leader is?" She asked, glancing down at the crumpled sheet of paper. "Well, I mean, do you know them personally, or something." She added a moment later.

[sntabe]

"Well, I'd hope so, 'cause he's me!" Sebastian winked. He had to crane his neck to look Daya in the face, something he wasn't used to. It didn't help that the sun was almost directly above her. "I wonder what you'd do, though, if I suddenly got amnesia an' forgot who I was. WHO'D BE THE TEAM LEADER THEN, DAYA?!?" He shook his hands in a dramatic gesture for comedic effect.

Hopefully, his teammates had a sense of humor. Sebastian didn't know what he'd do if he'd gotten himself stuck with a couple of sticklers, though he wasn't too worried. Daya seemed all right, and though Ethan was kind of standoffish, he did manage to get a smile out of the kid the other day. Where was Ethan, anyway?

[PopeMaddi]

"I dunno. It'd suck though, since you'd have to go to school all over again." Daya smiled at his antics. "Where's that Ethan guy? It says he's in our team, too." She asked quietly, looking around the courtyard. All the faces were unfamiliar to her.

Sebastian seemed like a nice, if a bit hyper, guy. She'd met Ethan before, but he was a bit more.. well, not rude, but he wasn't very kind either. A few seconds later, she spotted his almost white hair among the other people in the crowd. "There! He's by the lake, I think." She pointed in his direction.

[sntabe]

Sebastian followed Daya's directions until he found the splotch of white. "ETHAN!" he screeched, despite being too far away to be able to make his voice heard. He held the paper above his head and raced over the grass, trampling a few unfortunate flowers.

Ethan was sitting by the lake, staring off over the water. One might think he was brooding over the expanses of the world as he contemplated the horizon, but the opposing shore of the lake was only a hundred feet away. There was nothing in particular to look at aside from the color blue. Even so, Ethan did not stir when Sebastian ran up screaming behind him.

[PopeMaddi]

Daya snorted, then ran to follow Sebastian. She slowed to a jog when they neared Ethan.

"Ethan, stop looking so depressed! You're part of our team now." Daya gestured towards Sebastian. Her feathers were a little ruffled from the run, so she stopped to fix them. That's the thing she hated most about having feathers; they got so messed up after you do anything! Especially on windy days, that sucks.

[sntabe]

He didn't respond for a moment. "Hm? Oh, that's nice." Ethan smiled lightly, and Sebastian, whose expression had gone from ecstatic to confused to concerned, beamed again as Ethan did so. His ears perked up and his tail wagged excitedly - an endangerment to those standing too close.

"Ethan, you're pro'ly the youngest Demon Hunter EVER. Wait, there was one who was fourteen, I think. Aw, man, you just barely missed the record. S'okay, though, 'cause we're going to celebrate! WITH A MISSION!"
"...What? Now? Are we allowed to do that?"
"YES! We're an officially approved team!" Sebastian looked to Daya for support.

[PopeMaddi]

Her already wide eyes widened a bit more. "Uh, shouldn't we like.. train first? Like, learn how to use a weapon?" She asked, glancing at Sebastian. "I'm not saying we couldn't, but.. it just makes sense that we should prepare first."

[sntabe]

"We ARE prepared. We're all graduates! You have your dagger things, Ethan has his... magic, and I have claws! I think we could take on a low-priority demon. I've seen some, they're like feral cats. It'll be a one- or two-day expedition, an' a great teambuilding exercise!" he insisted.

[PopeMaddi]

"..Okay." She shrugged. "I'm still not very skilled with these though." Daya pulled them out of their sheaths, and proceeded to spin them around a bit. She learned how to do that on one of the first days she got them. She remembered the moments where she had messed up, and rubbed the scars on her arms form the incidents.

[sntabe]

Sebastian sensed their discomfort, and remembered that not everyone was as enthusiastic as he was. Even so, training to be a DH took years, so they had to be at least a little excited about taking a mission. "Hey, I'm sure we'll make a great team. We'll have fun, get t' know each other, 'n stuff. I've already got our office key!"

[PopeMaddi]

Daya nodded, "Yeah. I just think we should try and know each other better before we do a mission." While she was talking, she seemed distracted by the water. "Can we go see the office now?"

[sntabe]

"I like your plan!" Sebastian began the walk to the office building, which was thankfully not far. "I got us office 321, so it's easy to remember, but that also means it's three floors up. I guess it's not as bad as 1021, could you imagine climbing ten flights of stairs jus' t' reach your office?" He led them inside and up to a door labeled 321. The other doors had small sheets of paper stuck to them, but their door was clean and blank. Along the walls were carved magic circles, each about the size of a small plate and emitting a soft glow. It wasn't noticeable during the day, when sunlight streamed through the windows, but at night, they were the only source of light in the building, as fire wasn't allowed. Sebastian heard that they glowed a different color on each floor. Theirs were pink.

"Fabulous." He unlocked the door and pushed inside, revealing a roomy, though dusty, office. It was rather bare, containing one round table in the center of the room and a rectangular one pushed up against the wall adjacent to the door. Opposite Sebastian was a long counter that ran the entire length of the room, installed with a water basin and cupboards. There were no chairs.

[PopeMaddi]

Daya looked around, though there wasn't much to see. "I wish the lights were green. I don't really like the color pink." She placed her bag, containing her lunch and other things, on the lone, circular table. "It's nice though. There's lots of room. We need chairs, though." She pointed out.

[sntabe]

"I'll get some," Sebastian offered. "I'll also ask around about the magic glowy lights." He set their acceptance letter on the counter and went downstairs, only partially closing the door behind him. Ethan stared at a wall.

[PopeMaddi]

"Ethan, you okay bud? I thought you'd be more excited, since you worked so hard to get here, and at a young age, too." Her brows furrowed in concern. Daya always seemed to notice when someone felt bad, even if they haven't known the person for very long.

[sntabe]

"Oh, no, yeah, I'm fine, I just don't really know what I want to do. Now that I've gotten to- now that I've gotten here. Gotten to this point." He wasn't a good liar. He didn't say anything else.

[PopeMaddi]

"..I see." She mumbled. She looked outside a window, and at the lake. "Hm. I wonder if there are any fish in there." She thought out loud.

[sntabe]

"It's probably not a very healthy ecosystem. The lake," Ethan shrugged. "There could, I suppose, but it's not a natural lake. People have probably released fish into it for fun or something, but the question is whether they'd survive." He'd not thought much about the fish in the lake, though he was mildly concerned by it. There was no place for the water to flow, so it was just stagnating there, for as long as DHHW has been here. What kinds of nasty creatures would that foster?

[PopeMaddi]

Daya hummed, her fingers tapping on the windowsill. "Maybe they could. As long as there's algae or something that the small fish can eat, there could be an ecosystem and a food chain." She backed away from the window, opening her lunch.

Daya leaned on the wall as she ate her tuna sandwich. "How old are you again?" She mumbled through bites.