Restless [open]

Harley Graves sighed as she entered one of the Initiate dorms, and tossed her bag next to an empty bed.
Almost immediately after, she launched herself onto the bed itself.
It was, surprisingly, not uncomfortable. But maybe that was just that she hadn't slept in a bed for the last few days.
She wondered who else was in this particular dorm, and whether they'd get along.
If they did, maybe she'd have some more friends - never a bad thing to have.

Jamie pulled the small slip of paper closer to his face. It must have been the third or fourth time he had checked it, but he would hate to be wrong.; he knew the odds of him having a panic attack if he set himself up in the wrong dorm room were pretty high, especially considering all of the circumstancing surrounding him. A new environment, new people, new places to sleep were concepts far too familiar with him, but he also knew that they never had the best outcomes.

As the young man opened the door he spotted the girl he had met earlier that day laying on one of the beds. He gave a little wave to her as he poked his head in her doorway. "Hey. Um, Haily, is it?" He tried to sound cool and collected, but his mind was racing; There's already someone here. I have to share with other people? It's a girl. Am I in the wrong place? Does this school even have co-ed dorms? He hoped that he concealed his distress, but a voice in the back of his mind assured him that he couldn't.

"Harley," she corrected, her tone not unfriendly. "What brings you here, new guy? You the one taking my place?" She was packing her things at the moment, preparing to move into her new dorm so that a new student could take this one. "If you don't mind, can you pass me those?" she asked, gesturing to a pile of three sketchbooks on the floor. "I'd get it myself, but you know," she added, gesturing to the piles of things all over the floor next to her bed. She was folding clothes as she spoke, but offered the other student a friendly smile.

Shit. She's moving all of her things. I fucked up. Here we go again...

"Taking your place?" Jamie actually sounded like he was in control, but it was only because his mind was so far overloaded for him to overanalyze the words that came out of his mouth. Meanwhile, his hands became busy with moving books while his mind raced and chastised himself. I messed up her name. I'm making her feel unwelcome. Way to go genius. What could possibly make you think you could have acquaintances here, let alone friends... Despite his derisive inner monologue, his expression remained eerily calm and his eyes became dark and distant.

She laughed. "Yeah. Placement test got sorted and I was assigned a proper dorm, but I can't move in til all my stuff's packed, you know? You really are new, huh?" she added, trying her best to sound friendly. "These are the Initiate dorms, where you stay til you get sorted into a house, and then you move into a dorm in your house. I'm in Autumn," she stated proudly. "Sorry if I startled you when you came in," she grinned, realizing she was rambling. Hopefully he didn't mind. "I haven't been here all that long either. But it's nice to meet people and make friends."

Friends. That single word pulled his mind out of its rut. He had heard everything else she had said and the explanations she gave gave him relief. "Oh. Yeah, cool." he said with a few reaffirming nods as he rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "And yeah, I'm pretty new to all of this. Not just magic-ish school, but really school in general. I mean, I wasn't, like, homeschooled or anything, but I changed schools a lot. And skipped school a lot. Heh..." He could not help the blush of embarrassment that started crawling into his face at his admission. He was always so anxious in new situations, but, with how quickly this one escalated, it took the cake. Though, he was lucky it had not gone beyond the level of internal panic, or he could have just kissed his chances of making a new friend goodbye.
Speaking of friends... "So have you made a lot of friends here yet?" he inquired.

"A rebel, huh?" Harley asked. "Well, I'd like to think so. My first day I met a couple of nice students, but I haven't seen them again since - they've probably been busy. I guess if I didn't count them, I'd have made... Three friends?" she mused, counting them off on her fingers. Edith. Vivian. Anne. Three. "Yeah, three. Hopefully my dormmates will join that list soon enough, too." She hadn't spoken to that many of her fellow Autumns, and she didn't really know what to expect yet. "How about you?"

He could not help but chuckle at the rebel comment. "Yeah, I guess you could say that. But it was mostly foster care's fault, if I do say so myself." When she asked about friends he gave it a moment of thought. "Well, I suppose I met Vivian, and you. But other than that, no one." he gave a small shrug with his words, "I haven't really done much besides hang out in front of the school while I was waiting to get my student information and walk in here, so I guess that explains it." Besides my crippling anxiety of meeting other people and making lasting relationships, yeah.

"You never know who you'll meet in front of the school," Harley snorted. She had, after all, run into him there, as well as Edith. She finally finished packing the last of her clothes, and moved on to various piles of things on the floor. Who knew that three weeks was enough time for a such a mess to happen? Besides her mother, anyway. Was that a mom thing? She was kind of thinking that was a mom thing. "You met Vivian?" she chose to ask, tilting her head. Was there more than one Vivian at Beata, though? It was possible. Maybe even likely. "You never answered my question, by the way. You taking this dorm when I'm done packing? 'Cause I could help you get your stuff set up, if you want. It'll only be a few minutes before-- see, it's done," she rambled, wanting to make her friend - should she call him that? - feel welcome at the school. She closed the last of her bags and arranged them neatly near the door so they were out of the way.

"Ah, yeah. I guess I'll go ahead and take this room. I would hate to take anyone else's place on accident." he said with a slight chuckle. He slipped a large dark backpack off of his shoulder, set it on the floor, and unzipped it. "Would you mind helping with my clothes? Since you were in here last you would probably know the best places for all that stuff, right?"

Jamie approached the nightstand and opened one of the drawers to peer inside of it. With a satisfied expression, he motioned back toward the bag without even looking. The bag itself rustled a bit before one...two...three, four, five daggers flew out of the bag, narrowly missed Harley, and settled themselves in the boy's waiting palm. Without a second thought, he started to lay them out inside of the waiting drawer.

"Whoa. Impressive," Harley commented as the daggers passed her by, although she was screaming internally. "Yeah, the best place for clothes is probably the dresser," she snorted, pointing it out. It was in a corner, though, so it was easy enough to miss. "It's a good room. I like it, anyway." She paused. "So, that's your gift? Pretty cool." And terrifying. Hers seemed pretty unimpressive in comparison. Well, at the moment, at least. "Where are your clothes?" she asked, looking around. She wasn't about to go into the dagger bag - for one, invasion of privacy, and for two, dagger bag.

"Ha, thanks. And I hope I'll like it too, for however long I'll be in here." he said as her turned back around to face the girl.

"Oh! They're in the bag too, but I should have gotten them out for you, sorry. Wouldn't want you getting hurt by anything in there, or, more importantly, you hurting anything in there." He swiftly plucked the bag from the floor and deposited it onto the bed. The amount of clothes he dragged out of the bag-- in a single large knot, mind you-- was meager, to say the least. It did not take much for Jamie to make himself not feel self-conscious about his shortcomings; he was lucky enough to be here and away from the hell he had been in, so he had no reason to complain about much of anything. "Don't worry about any of the weapons, they won't do anything I don't tell them to." he added lightheartedly. "If it's not rude to ask, what is your gift?" He was still trying to get used to the proper etiquette surrounded this new found world of gifted people.

Harley grinned. "Before I get started with the clothes, how about a little demonstration?"

She didn't wait for an answer, however, and a moment later she was gone - in her place was a tiny bat, small enough to fit in someone's hand, which struggled to keep in place, and chose to fly over to and subsequently land on the bed rather than fall to the floor in her struggle to stay aloft. She squeaked, which was as close as a bat to get to an irritated grumble, and rolled on the bed a little. She decided she wanted to try something, and grabbed the tip of one of the clothing items. She struggled to pull it apart from the rest for a good ten seconds before finally conceding her defeat. She squeaked, which was yet another attempt at grumbling, and hopped off the bed. She actually managed to decide her destination before taking off this time, and landed on Jamie's shoulder. She gave a final, pleased squeak at her accomplishment, and waited for his reaction. And sincerely hoped it wouldn't be to hit her with a flyswatter - it wasn't like it hadn't happened before.

Jamie's eyes widened as he witnessed the girl transforming. He watched her with his mouth agape as she flew about and made several different squeaking noises, which he could only assume were Harley's way of communicating in this form. He had started to reach for the pile of clothes that she was struggling to try and untangle when she flew up onto his shoulder.
He froze in place, though not out of fear, but more to keep still and allow her to gain her footing-- Do bats even have feet? Jamie ever so carefully made his way into the bathroom to look at the sight of the little bat on his shoulder. "Well, if that isn't just the cutest little thing I've seen all day!" he said as he reached up to his shoulder to give the gifted girl's head a light scratching. As an afterthought, he wondered if this was the reaction she was hoping for, because he would very much like to avoid having a digit bit today.

Another pleased squeak came from the Harley-bat, although she flew off of his shoulder and allowed herself to drop down to the floor so she could change back. "It's kind of... Only really useful in really specific situations. But it's fun," she added cheerfully. "After all, who doesn't want to be able to fly? Still, it's not nearly as impressive as what you can do," she shrugged and leaned against the wall, grinning. And, although she was certain it would confuse him - or maybe because of that - she said, "And thank you for not hitting me with a flyswatter. I appreciate it."