Tell me why I'm here again [open]

Seriously, this is where his dear parents had sent him? After a long flight from Dublin he'd ended up having to take a taxi - a taxi! - to this place where he just ended up standing outside the gate. At least it wasn't raining And then it began to drizzle.

The young Irishman hadn't been all that impresesd that his father had asked demanded he go to this school. Thaddeus peered into the grounds beyond with undisguised cynicism. Where were all the people to greet him? Surely there would be beautiful ladies about ready to swoon at the sight of him...

Pulling his hood up over his head to protect his precious hair from getting wet, he stubbornly refused to move an inch. He'd come this far, now they would have to come to him."Great joke Dad," he muttered. This was going to be just awesome.

The drizzle that had started up made Elisabeth feel right at home. While a few of the other students around her grumbled and glared up at the sky, she pulled her hood off her head and smiled, gladly putting away the book she'd been reading for her language class. She reasoned it was to protect the pages from the water that was coming down in thousands of tiny droplets, but she was glad for a reason to have a break.

Elisa stood from where she had been sitting on a brick wall underneath a tree. With a glance at the sky, she threw her book bag over one shoulder and began to walk through the grass, making her way to the paved walkway that was speckled with dark drops. The blonde scuffed her shoes along as she walked nowhere in particular, enjoying the silence for the moment. It was a few minutes before she realized she had reached the front gates and a boy stood on the other side.

She froze, her mind already going into a panic. If he hadn't seen her yet, she could easily sneak away. He looked new and a little lost, as though waiting for someone to appear and guide him, and she most definitely didn't want to be that person. Carefully, her blue eyes focused on him, she started to take small steps backwards.

Perfect, just perfect. Stuck out in some foreign country with no idea what to do, no one to contact, no food to eat, nothing but of load of - Thaddeus jerked his head upwards as he heard a sound, pulling him out from his cynical thoughts. His eyes meet someone else's blue ones and for a moment all the fifteen-year-old could do was stare. Until he realised he's probably been staring too long and for some reason she was... backing away?

"Wait! Please!" he called, stumbling oh so gloriously over his bag. He didn't dare reach out and try to touch her shoulder - no he couldn't face doing that right now. So maybe one of his winning smiles might work. A broad grin danced along his handsome face as he began to speak again. "Please," reiterated. "I'm new and currently I have no idea what to do. Apparently my parents thought letting me take a taxi here and not tell me anything else was a great idea for a joke." His typically cynical and sarcastic demeanour melted away as he spoke. The young Irishman was used to putting up a facade such as this. When one was a Devereax one kind of had to.

So he laced his tone with charm and warm. Perhaps if the pretty blonde didn't react the way he needed, he might resort to flirting. That worked about ninety percent of the time. Maybe seventy-five. "My name is Thaddeus, by the way." Or perhaps only forty percent, but hey, a guy could be optimistic right?

Just great. He had seen her, and now she was trapped by social courtesy. Elisa put on a smile and raised her eyebrows, indicating she was listening, and stopped walking away from him. His request was simple. She could easily tell him where he needed to go and be done with it.

Then he said his name. The blonde realized she couldn't just direct someone and leave them when they gave her their name. Groaning inwardly, she tucked a thumb under the strap of her backpack.
"Um, well, if you're new, then you should probably go the office," the girl said, indicating the general direction of the buildings with a flap of her hand.

"I'm Elisabeth." There was something about the way Thaddeus introduced himself that put her on the defensive. It seemed overly warm and welcoming. She shifted her weight where she stood, stopping her anxiousness from spilling out of her and onto him.

Her gesture to "the office" seemed vague enough to make Thad realise that this wasn't going as well as he'd hoped. Maybe he needed to tread carefully with this girl - Elisabeth, as she had introduced himself. "Thanks," he muttered, a distant look coming into his eyes before he registered his facade had dropped. Coughing awkwardly, he pulled his hood down and ran long, spindly fingers through his dark hair. "I'll be honest with you, Elisabeth," he began, sighing audibly.

"I've just had a long flight. I'm tired. I'm hungry. I really don't want to be here, but my parents practically shoved me on the plane. So here I am." He lifted his green eyes to hers. "I don't know what they hope for me to learn, so maybe you could tell me more about this School." Even as he said it he was sure the skepticism dripped from his voice. Now there was only question: would she take the bait?

Oh, boy. This was not exactly how she wanted to spend her afternoon. But Elisa knew she would've wanted a fellow student to be there when she arrived, someone who would be able to explain things and give her some kind of explanation of what to expect. The school was scary when you didn't know anything except that you had what they called a "gift".

"You have a gift, right?" she asked bluntly. When she realized how straightforward she was, she mumbled an apology. "I mean, you came here because you have a gift. This school is here to help you with it." Along with teaching normal things so they could at least pretend to be normal teenagers, albeit with strange abilities. She glanced at the bags Thaddeus had with him.

"Um, maybe we should talk while we walk to the office," she suggested. It would be easier that way.

Thaddeus arched a brow at her blunt tone, somewhat surprised. Seemed that first impressions really weren't all that accurate. But before he could comment, an apology was swift to follow, perhaps to rectify the manner in which she had spoken. "A gift", that really seemed like a joke to him when he first heard the term. Now he couldn't help but snort in derision when Elisabeth mentioned it again. "More like a curse," he muttered under his breath.

As the blonde suggested, the young Irish lad gathered up his belonging - which wasn't actually as much as he had initially thought and began to follow wherever she had intended to lead him. Thaddeus was silent for a moment before finally speaking again. "So how does this School help?" he asked. "Did it help you?" Careful Thad, he thought to himself. You're getting a by to flippant around this girl.

As they started to walk, Elisa pulled her arm through the other strap in the backpack, securing it on her back. She tried not to feel guilty about letting him carry his own bags, but they were his after all. It wasn't her responsibility. What was that he muttered? She was sure she heard the word 'curse' in there.

"They teach you how to handle your gift," she explained. "You know, how to use it, how to control it." Truth was, the girl felt like she hadn't really learned much of anything about using and controlling her gift. In response to Thaddeus' second question, however, she merely shrugged. Surely she could learn something soon.

Carrying his luggage wasn't too bad, but Thaddeus really wished he'd been able to bring his guitar. But no, his mother had insisted it stay back in Ireland - something about it being an incentive. Whatever. "Controlling it would be nice," he mused, thinking about how he shied away touching people due to the unpredictability of his "gift". But Elisa's shrug of an answer didn't really help him be so certain on how much this place could help.

"Have you been a student here long?" Thaddeus asked, thinking that a change of subject would be appreciated. He chuckled softly, a genuine grin adorning his handsome features for a moment. "Perhaps you could tell me the ins and out. Places to hide, people to avoid. That sort of thing." How I can get away with doing whatever I want, he added to himself.

"Oh, not very long," Elisabeth told him, shaking her head and causing her ponytail to swish side to side. How long had it been? A month, two months? She had lost track of time between calls to her parents, avoiding conversation, and doing homework.

She cast a long, sideways glance at Thaddeus, curious about what he wanted.
"I'm not the kind of person to ask about that," she said, letting her arms drop to her sides so that they swung somewhat awkwardly. The girl didn't want to admit that she'd been focusing too hard on her studies to really explore the school. She didn't want to sound like a total loser.

It seemed that he'd encountered the wrong person to answer his questions, though what bothered Thaddeus more was that Elisa seemed impervious to the charm that usually enabled him to get around. Maybe the people at this school would be more interesting than he originally thought.

"Oh, okay," he said absently, thinking about how else to continue. His eyes travelled over the surroundings and he arched a brow, surprise entering his gaze. "This place is quite big then?" he asked, noting the seemingly sprawling grounds.

"And seeing as its not really full of normal students, what kind of classes are taught here?" Cooking? Painting? Thermodynamics? He smirked a bit at that last one, remembering how his father had tried to teach him the fundamental laws.

Elisa was somewhat relieved when he didn't push her to know more about hidden places. She was sure the school held some secrets. After all, it was somewhat large and had existed for a few years, and it was full of teenagers who needed outlets and escapes. Surely he would find something the longer he stayed here.

"It is pretty big," she said softly. She hadn't really considered it too much before, not since her days were simply full of getting to class and back to her dorm room. The grounds left a lot of unanswered questions of just how big the property was. Tucked in a little corner with a forest and mountains, Elisabeth was positive they were extensive.

"They teach regular classes. Math, English, you know, normal stuff." As normal as one could get with students such as they. "But there are also classes that teach you how to use your gift and stuff. Those are the interesting ones." Full of theories and methods that were yet to be proved by science, but fascinating nonetheless.

It's pretty big. Thaddeus was amazed that apparently that was all Elisa had to say on the matter. He pursed his lips together in thought. Maybe she didn't really like it here, maybe that was why she wasn't really speaking all that much. Or maybe she just wasn't interested in talking to him. It gave the Irishman food for thought for certainly he couldn't remember a time when talking to someone felt like pulling teeth.

"Are there any music classes?" he asked. "I'm a musician, or at least, I dabble. I play the guitar and on the odd occasion some piano." Thaddeus paused before offering her his earphones and iPod. "I have some on here if you want to listen." The tall youth chuckled, "If only makin music was my gift, then maybe coming here wouldn't be so bad."

He was offering her music, and Elisa didn't know how to say no politely. For a moment, she stared at the headphones and iPod, her mouth hanging slightly open. She glanced from his hands to his face as she tried to make a quick decision.

"I-I'm okay, thank you," she said, shaking her head with a small smile. "There are music classes, though, and studios where you can practice if you wanted to." Elisa had never been, but she passed the rooms occasionally and would pause to listen carefully.

Shed aid no. Rejection was an unfamiliar feeling and it burned inside. For a moment hurt flickered across Thaddeus face before he shrugged and gave a lopsided grin. "All right," he said. "Maybe some other time." They walked for a bit longer in silence before the Irishman broke it once more. This time howvee, his tone HD become serious for the question he held felt important.

"Are there lots of different gifts here?" his words slightly clipped as he pondered the possibilities. He paused to look back at the fountain they had passed. "Outside my family, I do not know much about other gifts." Thaddeus chuckled then, but it was a harsh found, almost bitter. "I guess I'm really not the person you hoped to be spending this time with aye?"