"Hi there! I think we're new dormies! How exciting is this?!"
Luce could feel her whole body clenching as she stood awkwardly, mug in one hand, dorm room handle in the other, on foot cocked and carefully balancing on the ball of her toes. This felt, to her, not dissimilar to sleep paralysis; although she was very much awake, and very much aware of it. Her eyes, fixed like a hawk on the rich wood-grain of the door mere inches in front of her, flicked across her hands, each knuckle bone-white from the subconscious force of her grip.
Somehow, miraculously, she managed a smile - although you'd be forgiven for calling it a rictus grin - and craned her head around like it was swiveling on a pike to look at who had burst in on her familiar solitude. A thin, blonde, bubbly girl was bouncing through the door, taking in the sights of the common area before flocking to each door, seeking her name. She squealed when she found it, a sound which pierced through Luce like cheese wire through a wheel of brie. Luce suppressed a shiver.
"I don't want to be insensitive - but - from your scars," Eden said, absently tracing a finger over her own face to mirror the one struck across Luce's, "and from what I remember of the attack, you must be Lucille, right?"
Luce nodded sharply, flinching subtly at her full name.
"Luce." She offered.
"Luce, I'm sorry. I'm Eden! You're with Blackjack, right? That motley cabal!" Eden put on a funny voice, to which Luce remained stone-faced. Eden smiled awkwardly. "I didn't see you at the team swap, though? Or the House ceremony."
"I wasn't there." Luce paused; that much was obvious. She decided to head off the obvious question with a half-truth. "I was doing my community contribution."
Eden nodded. "So you're sticking with Blackjack, then?"
Luce looked away, back at her mug at the cooling coffee within. When she and her escort had arrived back at the intake dorms, the three House invitation letters still laid unopened on her bed. Her escort had wasted little time in scooping them up and away from her; she hadn't been told which team she'd been assigned to until they'd arrived at the Myotis dorms, and the envelopes had then been left discarded on her desk for her to peruse meaninglessly. Eclipse was a mystery. Though, given the events of the team swap that she had not been privy to, Blackjack wasn't necessarily a known quantity either.
Eden was still looking at her.
"I moved to Eclipse." Luce answered, and Eden smiled.
"Samesies! I'm on Eclipse too! That's great, housemates and teammates!"
Luce smiled wanly. She hoped it looked more convincing than it felt.
"Oh, but I've got to get unpacked. But I'll see you later! We can hang out, watch a movie, I can show you my abilities, maybe have dinner! Oh, exciting, we're going to be such great friends!"
And then Eden disappeared into her dorm room, and Luce escaped into hers, her hand aching from clutching the mug of coffee so hard.
Location: P.R.C.U.First Class #2.94: First Day Jitters
Interaction(s): Alyssa, @Lord Wraith // Inigo, @Mao MaoLuce awoke sharply to the low buzzing of the alarm coming from her phone. It had been a few weeks since arriving at the academy and adjusting to the new routine, but while she'd always been a relatively early riser at home, she'd always been able (at least in the seasons with longer days) to rise gently with the cresting sun. She'd yet to get used to the sudden, artificial jerk of wakefulness that was an alarm clock.
Still, she dragged herself from her plush and cozy covers and trudged across the room to the bathroom, rubbing her eyes as the shower warmed up and steam began to pool around her feet. She washed with a striking efficiency, avoiding witnessing her own body as much as possible; the scars that had, initially, been easily hidden beneath a wrapped towel, now crept across her skin. The puncture wounds in her torso; the lacerations on her ankle and elbow; the unavoidable, forever-marked gash struck down her face. She had begun to avoid mirrors.
Clean and prepped, hair combed back for the lowest-maintenance style she could manage and dressed in day-to-day uniform - she noted the House Myotis accents on the usual finish - she picked up her bag and headed to the bedroom door, ready to step out and start the day. Greenhouse first, then a session with Dr. Mercia, then cla-
Absorbed in mentally cataloguing her day's agenda, Luce was head-down as she opened and stepped out of her dorm room, walking straight into the woman stood directly behind it, elbow cocked and hand poised to knock. The pair careened to the ground, tripping over each other's bodies as both tried to step around the other and ended up locking legs entirely. Luce was a flurry of apologies as she picked herself up and helped the woman off the floor, both re-adjusting their clothes and smoothing their hair back in place.
The woman put her hand out to Luce, who looked at it for a split-second before realizing it was proffered for a handshake. Luce took it in her own grasp and shook.
"Nice to meet you, Luce. I'm Kylie, Myotis House Captain.
Luce nodded. "Luce. Which you knew."
Kylie nodded back. There was an awkward pause; Luce had never been much of a conversationalist.
"Sorry. I need to get going."
"Of course. The greenhouse, right? For your community contribution? We've got plenty of time to get there; you seem to be quite the punctual person, ironically."
Luce's face flashed in concern, and eyebrow rising sharply as mild panic washed over her expression.
"W-we?" She said, stumbling over the intrusion to her day.
"No one told you, did they? I'm supposed to be your chaperone around campus. Temporary, of course. Until you're deemed 'trustworthy' by the powers-that-be again."
"S-so you're just going to...follow me?" Luce asked, her throat dry at the thought of spending her entire day tailed by some faculty-assigned stranger.
"Mmmm...more like a buddy-system, really. It's just to make sure you're going, y'know, where you're expected to go. Instead of further punishment. The academy likes to be as forgiving as possible."
Kylie smiled politely, clearly considering how such an allocation would impact her own day as much as Luce was considering the impact to hers.
"Right." Luce said eventually. "Well...greenhouse, then. Is where I'm going."
"Where we're going. And then Dr. Mercia's office?"
Luce's eye twitched. She felt like she'd inadvertently sacrificed some privacy.
"Right."
Kylie stepped back, gesturing toward the dorm exit with her hand. She smiled warmly, which Luce did not return.
"After you!"
The greenhouse had been fine; Luce had spent some time there over the weekend finishing up the clean from the storm, and were it not for the handful of missing panes dotted across the roof, securely covered with tarp and tape, you wouldn't be able to tell any damage had ever visited upon the garden. The replanted stalks were flourishing under new compost and practiced watering, and the aubergine that had begun to fruit a few days ago was now fully purple and plump, the skin shiny. Luce would pick it this week, probably tomorrow or the next day, and it would represent the first successful growth since the attack.
Pride of place was the blue orchid in center-frame of the primary bed, though. It had thrived, and was bursting with blossoming flowers, every petal and brilliant and vibrant ultramarine. Over the weekend Luce had taken to quietly whispering to it while she worked around the greenhouse, offering what she could of the latest goings-on, of her own secrets and anxieties, of what she knew about her peers' day-to-day's; perhaps not the healthiest way to handle her lingering trauma around Cass' death, but better, she surmised, than bottling it up.
Dr. Mercia had asked her about it, of course, multiple times across their sessions, but Luce had declined to answer, or skirted around the issue, or thrown up old walls that they then had to spend the rest of their time re-dismantling. Slowly, Gila had tapered off with questions around Cassander and the night of the attack, and that sat just fine with Luce. Both silently agreed that Luce would talk about it when she was ready to talk about, not when Gila had poked and prodded her enough about it.
Kylie wandered through the doorway, giving a polite gentle knock on the glass panes next to the entrance to let Luce know she'd returned.
"Ah, good, you're still here."
Luce stood, taking off her gloves and wetting a towel to rub some dirt from her skirt. "Yep." She replied, matter-of-factly, completely expressionless. Kylie cleared her throat and checked her phone.
"We better head over to Dr. Mercia's office for your..." Kylie trailed off. Luce rolled her eyes.
"For my therapy session. Yes." She picked up her blazer and slung it over her shoulder while she unrolled her shirt sleeves, buttoning the cuffs before crossing her arms over her chest.
"It's not personal, Luce. It'll be a week, at most. I promise I'm not like, enjoying being made to babysit you."
"Babysitting?"
Kylie sighed, shaking her head slightly. She had expected resistance.
"Forget I said anything. Let's just go, or we'll both be late."
Kylie gestured toward the door, and Luce - after a moment's more petulance - walked ahead of her, following her well-practiced path from the greenhouse to Dr. Mercia's office.
"So, Luce, it's been a week since our last session. How are you feeling?"
Luce sat across from Dr. Mercia in her familiar seat, her hands resting in her lap. It had indeed been a week since her outburst following the incident, and she felt a strange sense of guilt, sitting beneath Gila's gaze.
"I'm fine."
"Fine?"
"Yes, fine. I feel...level."
Gila made a note on the pad in front of her, and then put down her pen and looked across at Luce. There was a moment of quiet, and Luce fidgeted.
"I think I should apologize for my outburst last week."
Gila made another note.
"You are entitled to your emotions, Luce. In fact, on reflection, I was proud that you were able to express yourself so...vibrantly. It seems like we may have lost some progress against your flattened emotions in the interim, however." Luce looked away, and Gila scribbled something else down before continuing. "What are your thoughts of the academy like today?"
Luce looked back. She had a lot of thoughts about the academy.
"I don't like my escort. It's embarrassing."
"You don't like your escort, or you don't like being escorted?"
Luce's eyes flicked to the closed door to their side, beyond which Kylie undoubtedly lurked.
"Either. Both. I'm not a child." She answered, pouting in a way that made her assertion unconvincing.
"Given your previous bout of truancy, do you agree that there's a compromise that must be accepted?"
Luce often felt frustrated at how reasonable Dr. Mercia was. She nodded, but didn't speak.
"Anything else?"
Luce knew what Gila was prodding at, and a spat of petulance made her reluctant to provide it. She set it aside; being honest was more a duty to herself than co-operation with Gila.
"I apologize for my behaviour; but I still feel the same. The academy is supposed to keep us safe, and they failed spectacularly. If P.R.C.U. are supposed to be our guardians...the students need to know what's being done about security. Hyperion's still out there. I- we're just living in fear."
Gila nodded slowly, but didn't reply. It was important Luce be able to express herself, and Gila was proud she was able to do so in such a collected manner. She changed tact.
"How do you feel about joining team Eclipse?"
"Nervous. It's hard to meet new people. It's my own fault, I know, but that doesn't make it easier."
"Would you have stayed on Blackjack, if you'd attended the ceremony?"
This actually gave Luce pause. Would she? There were plenty she'd alienated with her behaviour - Trace, Inigo - and a few that she'd not liked in the first place. But others - Calliope, Haleigh - she'd began to forge a common ground with. Was it all for naught?
"I'd have held back. Seen where others were going. Try and distance myself from some people - get closer with others. So I guess...I guess I was prepared to move."
Gila smiled.
"And it's that preparedness you need to remember and hold onto. If you were ready for a new environment then - then you're ready for a new environment now."
Luce nodded, turning her hands over in her lap. It was a solid argument - now she just had to believe it.
After therapy it was just a chain of escorts. Kylie walked with her to the Mess Hall where the teams were convening for the proper start of their semester, and then she followed Aaron and her team to the first class of the year, winding through the Academic Quadrangle with Blackjack - though not quite the Blackjack she’d known - closeby, heading toward their own destination. Eventually, Eclipse went one way and Blackjack went another, and before she knew it Luce was sitting in a classroom, feeling oddly nostalgic for her education in Houston, despite its subpar delivery and her subsequent subpar performance.
“Alright. Break into groups. Share your opinions. Accept others’ opinions. Be empathetic - be constructive - be open. I’ll be joining each conversation to monitor how you’re getting on and provide guidance.”
Well, that may prove a problem. Luce’s opinions hadn’t quite endeared her to the last set of people who’d heard them, a handful of which she found herself in this supposedly ‘new’ team with. Why Kenna? Why Inigo? Even Trace, who’s own reaction to Luce’s outburst was no less vitriolic, would have been a better classmate.
“Hi!” The redheaded girl who had been sitting in front of Luce suddenly exclaimed, spinning around energetically as she extended a hand, “Lucille Calder right? You look like you could use a group. I’m Alyssa Townsend, I don’t think we’ve had a chance to be properly introduced yet.”
”Luce.” Luce corrected. She was doing a lot of correcting today. ”Just Luce.” Luce took Alyssa’s hand in her own, giving it a single firm shake. She hesitated; perhaps best to let her classmate espouse her views first, lest Luce inadvertently offend yet another peer.
”So, Alyssa. What do you make of what happened?”
“It was honestly heart breaking, I’ve been struggling a lot with it lately,” Alyssa unloaded, “I keep picturing the boy, Cassander Charon, as my brother. They have a lot of similar features and I can only imagine what his family must be feeling right now.”
The redheaded girl paused for a moment.
“It seems no matter which institute I go to, some sort of incident is bound to follow. I was pulled out of the Alexandria Foundation because it was unsafe only to turn around and enroll at Pacific Royal only for Hyperion to show up. If anything, it almost normalized that Hyperhumans are doomed to be followed by tragedy. Power begets conflict kind of ideal I’d guess. Humans, or ‘mundanes’ as my Uncle calls them, not that he’s a Hyperhuman, he’s his own entire sort of deal, a lot of the family are. My grandmother was very disappointed that Oliver and I took after my mother’s side of the family and not my father’s. But anyways, mundanes, those without our abilities fear us because of a perceived imbalance of power, while those like Hyperion only hunger for more power and step over anyone in their way to achieve it. They clearly have a god-complex.”
Alyssa took a breath, something that surprised Luce because the rate at which the redhead spoke she was sure her indefinite lung capacity must have been her Hyperhuman ability.
“The worst part is how easily Hyperion was able to divide the campus and sow division among not only the student body but also the faculty. I see the way they look around at each other, wondering if they’ll turn coat or turn out to be Hyperion themselves. And then there’s the students either praising the boy who lived and turning him into some kind of hero and those who want to march on Hyperion’s door and kill them. While on the other side, you have those who have been so hurt by the conflict of the world and the conflict of being Hyperhuman that they sympathize, if not outright agree with Hyperiona and their mission to establish a dominance over the world.”
She surprisingly paused again.
“I guess, I just wish everyone would realize that we’re all here to share one planet and that we each have something to learn from each other. We’re all part of one body and while some of us might be toes while others are ears, having a different and complementary role doesn’t make any one less important than the other.”
Luce leant back subtly. Alyssa certainly had a lot to say on the matter, though Luce was confident in thinking Alyssa probably had a lot to say about any matter. She had no idea how to respond to the barrage she’d, admittedly, freely offered herself up to; eventually, she settled on: ”Toes. Ears. Sure.” And hoped that was enough to indicate she had actually paid attention. There was something specific in the diatribe that had tweaked Luce’s ears, though, and - uncharacteristically - she pried.
“Your uncle. You said… not ‘mundane’, but…his own thing?”
“Oh, yeah sorry, I guess most people aren’t aware that Hyperhumans are far from the only oddity in the world.” Alyssa replied somewhat sheepishly, “Most people just dismiss what they can’t explain, as in the supernatural, as ghost stories and urban legends. And to be honest, they really shouldn’t. There’s an entire side to the world that has remained and still remains hidden to this day. I think Hyperhumans kind of pissed them off by throwing such an early coming out party for themselves.”
She cleared her throat, looking around the classroom to ensure Luce and Alyssa weren’t being explicitly eavesdropped on.
“They call themselves ‘Magni’, or rather it’s an umbrella term for a bunch of subsets of more or less human beings. Kind of similar to our Hyperhuman classifications except there’s so much more nuance to it. Entire societies built around these Magni, most of them have had a hand in guiding history since the pyramids were built. My Uncle, and indeed many members of my ancestral line have been Jägers. They’re a lot of the reason most people don’t know about the supernatural lurking around the corner. Creatures that would normally prey on the living, my Uncle refers to them as Hellions. It’s where our stories about vampires, wendigos, werewolves and the like come from.”
The redhead girl leaned back, a warmth coming to her cheeks causing them to match to her hair.
”It’s okay if you want to laugh, I’m pretty used to it. Explaining my family history tends to get a little weird and most people are more comfortable with writing me off as a little cuckoo than rationalizing that the things that go bump in the night are actually out there.”
Luce raised an eyebrow, sitting back in her chair. She was, admittedly, half-tempted to write Alyssa off as loony, but she spoke with such matter-of-fact conviction that Luce found herself feeling convinced. Still, she was already exhausted from the last couple weeks, and she feared internalizing such a revelation might just be the item to tip her over the edge. No, better to tuck that one away for now. That can go in the dark corner of her brain where her brothers lived. Still though, Alyssa’s grounded explanation gave way to an aura of authenticity, something Luce appreciated.
“I wouldn’t laugh.” She replied, remaining stone faced as ever as if to prove it. “That’s, um…a lot to take in. But -” Luce paused, feeling awkward. Alyssa had revealed a lot, and Luce hadn’t said a word. “-thank you. For your honesty.”
Tori wandered near, only catching the tail-end of Luce’s reply.
“That’s great, girls. Calm, measured responses are key; we must strive, whenever possible, not to instigate. We aren’t standing on an even playing field - and those who aren’t Hyperhuman are painfully aware of this. We can’t instigate, and we can’t talk down.”
Tori scanned the room, noticing some students weren’t quite yet engaging with the exercise.
“Inigo? I understand your opinion on recent circumstances were perhaps just as fiery as Miss Calder’s, here. Although perhaps not quite aligned with one another.”
Luce diverted her gaze, almost hanging her head in latent embarrassment.
“I think you’ll find Alyssa and Luce are more than appropriate partners. Come join them.”
It wasn’t so much an invite or polite suggestion as it was a teacher firmly advising an approach to the lesson. Tori pulled an empty chair out from a desk next to Luce and Alyssa, and gestured to the vacant seat, waiting for Inigo to move to discuss with the girls.
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