First Impressions

A light breeze swept through the courtyard, causing the gates to rattle strangely behind the red-haired girl. Evelyn glanced behind her as a wave of anxiety washed over her. She desperately wished her parents would come back to take her home again, telling her they would never give their daughter over to a boarding school for people who were strange like her, but their final conversation still rang in her ears. Despite being hesitant about being here on her own, Evelyn felt stung by her father's parting words, and she did not want to spend time with him for the next while.

She finally turned her blue eyes away from the gates and onto the scene displayed in front of her. There was a fountain and hedges and other students, lounging about on the grass in the last warm rays of summer sunlight, chatting amiably with one another. Laughter reached Evelyn's ears, and a new hope sprang inside of her. Once she made friends, this place wouldn't be so bad. She could picture it now: her, sitting on a blanket on the open stretch of lawn, a couple of faceless students sitting beside her, laughing about something she had said just moments before. This gave her the confidence she needed to get started. With a deep breath, she began walking forward.

The cool air brushed up against his cheek, The rays of sunlight hitting the top of his blonde hair. What a nice day it was. Gage had been leaning against a tree near the entrance of the academy. He had been here for a few days now, what a boring few days those were. He came here hoping for some excitement. Excitement meaning getting into fights to test his gift. His goal was to get the most out of this academy as far as mastering his gift. Letting out a sigh, he began to get thirsty. A nice refreshing bottle of water sounded good right now.

Gage stood up straight and walked away from the tree he was on. Walking in front of the gates he hadn't notice a girl who had walked in. He bumped right into her and looked at her seriously. "Watch where you are going." it was his fault but he was going to acknowledge that.

The boy hit something hard. He tripped but caught his self. He felt a new energy near. Interested he went to the energy and let some sand loose. A girl. A cut one at that. Oh god. He could feel the blush. He walked closer and held out his hand.

"Hello there ma'am. My name is Sandosius. Nice to meet you. Welcome to Beata."

Evelyn hadn't been watching where she was going as she gazed around at everything, and had subsequently bumped into a blond boy. She was surprised by his rather rude response but supposed that it had been her fault that they had bumped into each other. Her mouth opened, she was prepared to respond in the same rude manner, but ended up closing her mouth again.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it," she muttered, tightening her fists. With a jolt, she realized her fingers had disappeared. Hurriedly, she shoved them into her jacket pockets, hoping the boy hadn't seen. Clearing her throat, she added, "It won't happen again."

Gage raised his eyebrows in concern as the girl had shoved her hand into her pockets. What was that about. Listening to her apologetic response, he looked her dead in the eyes. "It better not happen again." He said in a serious tone. A few second past before he cracked a smile and gave a light laugh. "I'm just messing with you. Sorry about that. I take it you are new here?" The girl before him seemed to pose no real threat. No need for him to be a jerk. His eyes wandered to where she shoved her hands into her pockets. What was she hiding?

His repeated aggression caused Evelyn to take a few steps backward, frightened at this cold welcome. It was her worst nightmare about this place coming true. He suddenly smiled and apologized, and while it was a relief that he wasn't honestly trying to be cruel, she was still wary of him, and kept a couple of feet away from him. She returned the smile politely.

"I am," she told him. "I was just dropped off by my parents. My name is Evelyn, what's yours?"

As she spoke, she caught his eyes wandering to where her hands were now concealed in her jacket pockets. Evelyn attempted to brush it off by not drawing anymore attention to her hands. She shivered, giving him a reason to chalk the movement up to her merely being cold. Despite knowing what this school existed for, Evelyn felt strangely about the idea of a whole place filled with people who had powers like she did, and she wanted to try and ignore the abnormality for as long as possible. She knew it wouldn't last long, but it was nice to pretend she was normal.

He watched as she backed up a few feet away. Jeez. Some people were easily frightened. Shrugging off that gesture, he paid attention to her as she addressed herself.  Evelyn. What a nice name. "My name is Gage." He responded. Looking back up from where she stuffed her hands, He figured it was nothing to investigate.

Yawning and throwing his hands behind his head, he awaited for Evelyn's response. It was such a nice day. He closed his eyes and felt the energy just flowing freely in the air. Opening them after a few seconds, "I suppose the right thing to do is show you around. If you don't mind, I'll give you a quick tour." He wasn't exactly the friendly type but he was in a good mood and wouldn't mind showing the new girl around.

Evelyn smiled when he said his name. She liked the name Gage, it was simple, normal. He couldn't be so bad if his name was so friendly. Slightly embarrassed by her initial paranoia, Evelyn was determined to fix it and show Gage that she wasn't really a big scaredy-cat.

"I'd love a tour!" she said brightly. She had studied the map studiously from the moment she got it, but it wasn't the same as actually seeing all of the landmarks, and besides, she could be about to make a friend. Hesitantly, she pulled her right hand from her pocket, glancing at the fingers to make sure they were visible again before gesturing. "Lead the way!"

"Alright then. Let's get going." He said with a smile across his face. Evelyn seemed like a nice person. He began walking further into the school. Looking back to make sure she was following. "Well, I should probably tell you that I'm fairly new here as well, but I know the basics of this campus."

After a few more feet he stopped right in the middle of the pathway. "So if you couldn't already tell this is the main entrance. Those buildings over there..." He pointed to a small building structure. "...Those are the offices. Pretty self explanatory right?" This was weird for him. He felt so odd. It was too late to back out of this now.

As she followed Gage, Evelyn began to wonder if this was the best course of action. She hadn't been given specific instructions for when she arrived at the school, but it made sense to head to the main office to get instructions. It surprised her to hear that he was new as well, and she merely made a soft, "Oh" sound when he told her. It could be worse, she supposed.

The offices looked fairly simple to her, and it made sense to her. They seemed to be right where the students were, and, being so close to the entrance, they were accessible to any visitors or guests who came by. They were also some of the first buildings she had seen when she reached the front gates.
"Yeah," Evelyn agreed. She glanced at Gage and could see something in his eyes. She couldn't quite place it, so she pushed it from her mind, focusing instead on the surrounding landscape. "I do have one question. What time do classes get out? There are so many students out here, but I thought classes ended a little later."

"Well classes start at 8:15 AM and end at 3PM." He brought up his left hand to look at his watch. A nice silver watch he had gotten from his parents as a going away present. "Right now it is 12:48PM, meaning that is a class break. That starts at 12:40 and last for forty minutes. You came right when the break started; that's why there are students out and about." He said with a smile on his face.

Looking around at some of the students as they passed them by, wondering if there was anything else she should know while they are here. "Oh! You might want to head into the office and check in. They'll give you some paperwork and they'll assign you to the initiate dorm." Gage began recalling when he arrived almost a week ago, soon he should be moving into one of the bigger dorms. Why they were named after the four seasons he had no clue. "After a week or so you'll be placed into one of the four bigger dorms after you take the placement test." Speaking of which he needed to take soon.

While Gage spoke, Evelyn nodded, gazing around her at all the students, understanding their taking advantage of the sunny day on their break. He mentioned the houses, and she turned to face him, her interest piqued as he mentioned an aspect of the school that still confused her.
"What are the houses again?" she asked politely. She remembered reading about them in the information she'd been given, but she couldn't remember what exactly they had been.

"It's basically the four seasons; Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. Why they are named after that is beyond me." He really had no clue and could care less about it. "They place you into one of the four based on your personality or something like that. That's pretty much what the placement test is. A bunch of questions about you and based on how you answer them they'll sort you into the house that fits your answer choices." He continued. As he said it aloud, he questioned how odd that was. Basically it was like being in a dorm with a bunch of people like you. That could be either bad or good depending on the person.

"That's a really interesting way of doing things," Evelyn said. She looked around for other buildings, knowing there were dorms somewhere to house all the students. "I do remember that before we take the test, we're in a separate dorm from the students that are already in houses, correct? I've never been in a dorm before." Her mind wandered back to a few times she had gone to a summer camp when she was little. At the time, she had shared a cabin with five other girls her age, and they did everything together. One night at dinner, her hands had started to disappear, and when one of the others noticed it, they panicked and she was ignored the rest of the week by the girls.

Now that she was older, however, she knew that being in a dorm wouldn't be so hard. Evelyn thought of another question as she wondered who she would be sharing with here.
"Are the dorms co-ed? Or are girls kept separate? I hope I'm not asking too many questions, I know you're still new, too. I'm just curious."

"Correct. For us new students, we stay in the initiate dorms. Way different from the other dorms. You're only in their for a week or so." he paused after she mentioned never being in a dorm. He had been in something like a dorm. More like a detention center. Of course, this wasn't going to be like that was. "It's not too bad. I'm sure you'll be fine." He said with an assuring smile on his face.

"Oh no, it's perfectly fine. Don't worry about it. To answer your question, Yes, they are co-ed. If I remember correctly, each person has their own room with a small living space between the rooms." that's what he remembered off the top of his head. It sounded about right. He looked down at his watch to check the time before looking back at Evelyn.