Desdemona Moore's Story

Desi crossed her legs at the ankles and folded her hands again, watching the teachers s they began to speak. She was especially curious about who would be teaching her, besides her father. She was more than familiar with how Dami taught necromancy, so it wasn’t anything new. It was the others that were worrying.

Professor Lovette was first, listing off the rules that Dami had read to her the night before. The next teacher meanwhile, was a nervous wreck. He was teaching familiars and…great. She hoped nothing stressed the dude out too much, or he’d be impossible to listen to.

The next teacher was another Oren type, a strict man who would be teaching her as well. Levitation. Contrary to Tessa’s thoughts, Desi wondered what had really happened. She knew the teachers were all hired for extraordinary skill and ability (and was more than a little proud of her adoptive father), so whatever had gotten past the defender had to have been quite the attack. It was sure to be an interesting story, if she could learn it…

The combat teacher was scary. And for that matter, Desi hated combat. She did ballet, piano, and shooting, not combat. Desi’s type of combat was “summon a poltergeist to slam attacker into wall”, not actual fighting. Why hadn’t Dami warned her? She gave her father the stink eye as he took the stage, but snickered at his choice of rule to address.
Nice job dad.
Clearly it wasn’t meant to be taken too seriously, except the last bits.

The opposite could be said of the aquamancy teacher’s speech, which left no room for misinterpretation. This was not someone you wanted on your bad side, and well…fuck. Furrowing her brow, Desi decided tuning out was safe, and began to try to script an apology.

Without grovelling, though, she was better than that.

She only tuned back in at the final hush and rise of small talk again, and grinned immediately, looking at her table-mates. “What do you think of the teachers?” she asked as small talk as they took a tour of the lovely grounds before getting to their dorms.

“How about we find our rooms and then talk later? I want to see my room- see you at lunch?” she suggested, before going off. Her door had an unfamiliar crest (she was bad at recognizing them anyway) beside the Moore crest, which was a skeletal hand on a black background with a red rose growing up the bone and resting in the palm.

Creepy, yes. But she liked it.

She opened the door and pulled her stuff in, beginning to put her things away. She was first so she could choose, right? She wanted the bed away from the window and coincidentally, the door, so she turned to survey the beds, onyl to realize that oh, she wasn't first.

“Oh, hello!” she greeted cheerfully. “Sorry, I didn't notice you there! I'm Desdemona Moore” pause, smile, hold out hand to shake. “But please, call me Desi. Mind if I take this bed? I like being away from door and windows, stereotypes and all that. Nice to meet you...” she trailed off, hinting for a name.

A soft smile crept across Mitch’s face at Tover’s mention of Apple, and she reached down to scritch the back of his scruff. He responded with a throaty rumble before curling tighter around her feet, his fronds drooping at the sides of his face.

Before she could respond, though, the blur of light in the room was tossed into a blur of darkness, and the professors began to speak.

There was some degree of motion and whispering taking place in the room, but she did her best to keep her entire focus forward, cataloging voices. If nothing else, she was relieved that there were so many accents amongst the faculty: It made it quite easy to categorize and compartmentalize the voices.

She shrunk back in her seat as Lovette mentioned the rule regarding familiar conjuration. Her shoulders slumped and she folded her hands in her lap, hoping that by appearing small she could hide from any accusative stares.

And then there was Professor Schippers. The man’s voice was soft, and she recognized the name immediately from her class schedule: Professor of runes and conjuration. His mention of the “prior permission” clause was somehow both embarrassing and a relief at once, but his stammer pulled it closer to the latter.

There was something comforting about her main professor being a bit “different,” too, though she would not have admitted it.

Then came a small parade of accents: Staunch voices talking of strict policies, each of which she tried her best not to shrink away from. She had no classes with Ulftern or Kovalenko, thank God.

She would not be filling out the form by Byrne’s door, her mother’s prior advice be damned.

When a French voice spoke up, and then began to speak from different corners of the room, she reached out to touch the chair next to her. Tessa? She thought it was Tessa. It was disorienting, and she flinched when he sounded closer to her than he had before.

She did not like Professor Oliver.

Professor Moore, Schippers, and Lovette.

That was the entire list of faculty who did not frighten her.

Splendid.

As Lovette announced a tour was about to begin, Mitch gave her small click to Apple, and the pair once again stood in tandem. “I’ll catch up after,”she told her group of friends, “It’s easier for Apple if we hang toward the back.”

They waited patiently for the tour group to move out, and then Apple followed immediately at her heels. She listened religiously as Lovette spoke, doing her best to keep track of both what was being said as well as mentally logging footsteps and relative distances in her mind. The exact locations of classrooms were still a mystery, but she assumed there would be someone nearby she could latch onto and ask come the first day of proper classes.

The gym room and pool were unpleasant and disorienting at best; the echoes made it hard to understand the size of the space, and the idle chatter around her nearly drowned out any ability to understand Professor Lovette.

When they reached the muter softness of the common room, she was more than relieved.

Her stomach twisted into a knot at the discussion of roommates being written on the board. She did not want to shove to the front, nor did she want to have to pull out her reading glasses and take the time to skim for her own name while everyone was forced to wait on her.

She was relieved when she heard her name.

“Me!” she piped up, waving in the direction of the voice, “I’m Ingram. Over here!” Quite helpfully, Apple joined in Mitch’s efforts: He let out a sqwuaking chirp and rose onto his hind legs, just in case someone had managed to overlook his friend.

He was such a helpful Apple.