The Academy For Mythical Creatures discussion
Narcissa sits in the far corner of the cafeteria, watching every passing student. She silently begs for them to pass her by. Her food remains untouched beside her and a single, dusty novel sets hidden in her lap.
Kai Yun had many students telling her that she ought to try the cuisine of the cafeteria. Quite enthusiastically, at that. And while she could...enjoy the smells — she couldn't exactly taste anything anymore. Not completely. Or maybe it was that everything she had tried to eat was lackluster in comparison. Whatever the case, she had thought the little juice pouches full of blood had done well enough for her thus far.
She played the straggler in the newest batch of students to enter the cafeteria. Much of the seats had already been filled up, and unfortunately: this meant she might have to sit with someone. Someone that might make conversation. A learned sort of anxiety came over her at this thought, but the only way out of it was through it, right? The singular thought that prompted her to walk to a girl with...horns. This was all very new to her; she wasn't sure how much of it she liked.
"May I —" She paused, uncertain. "May I...sit here?" She gestured to the seat opposite the girl at the table.
Narcissa eyed the girl standing across from her, taking in every bit of her appearance...her large, enchanting eyes, her short hair...she was unsure what to say to her.
She catches the girl nervously eyeing her horns and her wings tucked behind her chair. She slowly folds her feathered wings, pressing them up against the cold wood of the chair, to hide them even more. She looks back at the girl and slowly nods, giving her the permission to take a seat.
Maybe — there were still traces of that anxiety at play. Being appraised — no different from what she had done — wasn't something she was comfortable with. If her heart still actually beat, it might have felt like it was trying to break free of her chest. Had she dressed...femininely enough? Was her voice still too deep?
So wrapped up in those thoughts, she'd almost missed the nod of the girl's head. Kai Yun bowed her head in return, a murmured "Thank you" offered up. She was more than content to sit in silence as she settled in, blood pouch in hand as she shifted to get comfortable in her seat. The jiangshi fiddled with the pouch for a moment, growing increasingly frustrated as she struggled to open it. Since she'd started using them, the nurse that provided them had always been the one handing them to her. Straw inside, ready for her to drink from. Now, though, she struggled.
Her thirst wasn't so bad that she needed it now, but surrounded by all this food — she would need it soon.
Narcissa eyes her one last time before returning her gaze to the dusty novel in her lap.
She wasn't accustomed to sitting across from or next to anyone. She was unsure of what to do with her feet, or how to act knowing the girl across from her was potentially unfamiliar and uncomfortable with her horns. Her runs her fingers nervously through her long, thin hair before reaching for a piece of fruit she had sitting on her tray.
She hesitated to bite into the pulp of the fruit. She had become suddenly aware and fearful that the girl across the table was watching her every move, even if she wasn't. She fidgeted for a moment, her thin fingers squeezing the fruit ever so slightly. She slowly lifts the food to her lips and takes a small, careful bite before returning it to her tray and quickly turning her eyes back to the book under the table.
The memories Kai Yun associated with sitting across from someone were...mostly positive. At least, the later ones. The ones that had featured any sort of school setting had much to do with joining the other girls of her grade on a blanket, and promptly being questioned about why she was there. A funny thing that had been, how easily they'd accepted her answers. Not as easily as opening this stupid blood pouch.
Her attention shifted up to the girl, a silent consideration of whether she should ask for help — no. She was supposed to learn to do this herself. Even if it was leaving her less than pleased. Her grip on the pouch tightened. Still unaccustomed to her own strength, she watched with slight horror as it popped.
A small explosion of blood, contained only partly by her fingers. Maybe they had made it worse. Blood splurted through her fingers, and across the table — onto the girl's book. Kai Yun swallowed, eyes widening minutely as her focus drifted between the blood, the girl and her book, and back to the blood again with a growing sort of discomfort.
Narcissa shoots up from her seat in surprise, her wings accidentally unfolding. The blood from the girl's pouch was now spilling off the sides of the tables, dripping onto the floor.
Her book was covered. Her initial reaction was horror. Her dress and novel had been sprayed with blood that a girl had intended to drink as her lunch. She looks up at the girl, a flicker of anger dancing in her sage green eyes. Her gaze softens when she sees how uncomfortable and sorry the girl seems. Instead of speaking out, she pulls out a long, black handkerchief and hands it to the girl to clean up the mess, but only after wiping her book down. She had only managed to spread the red substance, but it was better than nothing.
Narcissa sits back down, still quiet and dumbstruck. She tucks her wings back behind the chair once more and nervously pulls strands of her hair down in front of her horns.
Kai Yun was, for a moment, stricken with several emotions at once. The first was shock. The adjustment to her strength was...slow going. On most occasions, she didn't handle anything all that delicate; her few interactions with more breakable, or burstable, objects were few and far between with the way the academy was built. Fortunate, really. The second emotion was a sense of less. Like when you dropped your ice cream cone after just getting it. In her hands was a mess of plastic and blood — she sniffed; A positive? — that she really couldn't drink.
Well, she could. But she was pulled from her stupor, and the potential of impulsively licking the blood from her hands, by the girl giving her a handkerchief. Her clothes had been covered, too, it seemed. And the pages of her novel was marred by blood. Smeared, even, to make it worse. She grimaced as she took the handkerchief from the girl.
"I am — er, very sorry. I do not— not know how to...control—?" She flexed her fingers, as if to make up for her momentary forgetting of the word she meant to say.
Narcissa nods to the girl and gives her a weak smile. "It's okay." she thinks to herself, knowing very well the girl couldn't read her thoughts.
She sinks lower into her seat, pressing her hand on the blood spots on her dress. She closes her eyes and concentrates on the idea of a forest. A forest she once loved. A forest full of pines and plants. A forest without fire...
Magic spills from her fingertips in wisps of deep green. It was a healing spell, one that was known to lift blood. Of course, it was used more often to help save an animal when it was injured rather than help a girl clean up her lunch, but it seemed to be doing the trick. One by one, the blood spots were lifted. She used the same spell on her book, then the table. She looks up kindly at the girl. "It's okay."
Kai Yun was born from a place of superstition. A place where magic and all its devices and machinations were for scholars of it and priests of varying titles. The very same magic that had brought her back from death was as foreign to her as the magic the girl used. Btu the reaction was much the same: a horrified fascination.
Morbid curiosity as she observed the girl with the horns — things she could associate with demons, as per the missionaries that had passed through her village on one occasion and through the streets of Shanghai. She swallowed thickly, gaze flickering back to the blood as it lifted into the air. Her own abilities were limited to her physical state at the current moment; as far as she knew.
"Th-thank you." Her head was spinning; not literally, this time, but it might as well have been. Kai Yun would have preferred the simplicity of merely wiping down the table. Might have found comfort in it, even. The idea of returning to a familiar task — cleaning — would have made all the confusing parts of most interactions now so much more bearable.
The blood all drifts down into a plastic cup that was empty on her tray. Narcissa slides it slowly over to the girl sitting opposite her.
She notices the girl seems unbelievably uncomfortable. She appeared to not be used to magic yet. Narcissa wipes her hands on her dress, thinking of what to do next. Maybe it was better to explain herself. Introduce herself.
She wanted to swallow her fear. She hoped this girl was harmless. But that's what she hoped for the fey back home. They saw her as different. They saw her as peculiar. Those same people tied her to a dead pine tree and burned her. This girl in front of her was clearly not familiar with the magical world. She would see her as different. She would see her as peculiar. But she needed to explain her actions.
"Sorry if that startled you." she mumbles quietly. "I'm Narcissa."
It was funny, that she should be so displeased with the idea of drinking blood that had spilled and been moved magically. Funny, because it remained the same blood. Funny, because it was drinking blood versus magic. Old ideals held fast. Her jaw clenched as she took the offered cup, but did not drink from it. Wary, mostly, of if the magic had done something to it.
Manners — no, habit for causing someone else discomfort by simply being there had Kai Yun shaking her head. It had been her fault, after all, that the blood had spilled in the first place and that magic had to be used. "It is...fine. I am Kai Yun."
For just a moment, she hesitated. The idea that even touching the magical would somehow curse her had been so strongly rooted in her behaviors. Hardwired to the point that anything different felt...wrong. But she was different now, wasn't she? "Thank you for—" She gestured toward where the mess had been before letting her hand rest on the table.
Narcissa watched Kai Yun's every movement and twitch. Every nervous twitch...
"It's no problem!" she says sweetly before going silent again. Just in the way Kai Yun had held her cup and looked at the liquid inside made her guts twist inside. She had over stepped. She had done something wrong. A small lump arose in her throat. She wanted to apologize. She wanted to make sure he hadn't conducted the situation in an inappropriate manner. But her shy and quiet nature made it stupidly hard. Yet Kai looked young and new. She had an innocence to her that meant she would either fear this world, accept this world, or grow to conquer it.
"I-I'm sorry if I ruined your lunch..." she says, her words coming out in a slow, quiet mumble. "The whole magic thing is just...habit, I suppose. I didn't mean to make things worse." she says, watching Kai Yun's face for a reaction.
Kai Yun's own gut twisted, but for a reason different from Narcissa's. A mixture of distrust, and hunger. The same that she had attempted to abate preemptively and found herself in this position to begin with. The pouch had made blood drinking...bearable. She could think away the idea of blood when it didn't taste so much like it to her. No more than a fruity drink. Maybe; it seemed to vary with the source, like the diet of an animal someone ate. That comparison neither helped nor hurt her in terms of overcoming the aversion.
But at least she could pretend with a pouch.
A cup revealed too much, and that was the problem. "No, no. Not ruined. Just — it is...very hard...to drink." Further elaboration escaped her, leaving the jiangshi to simply shrug in conclusion.
Narcissa looks at the girl with quiet concern. In her mind, it was still ruined. She has made the girl uncomfortable. So uncomfortable that she struggled to even swallow her own lunch.
"Is...is there anything I could do to help?" she asks, wringing her sweaty palms together. She prayed that she could help this girl, then possibly never see her again. When first impressions display you both seemingly as a monster in the other one's head, why would you want to find the other? Narcissa had successfully managed to startle a girl with magic and ruin her meal without saying more than five sentences to her. She wouldn't take it personally if Kai Yun left the table that very second and never spoke to her again.
It would seem that both sides would assume they had done something to offend the other. If she could be paler, by some miracle, she might have done so. A human reaction that no longer existed — the blood draining from her face — would have the first reaction to Narcissa's offer to help.
Then, came the assumption that she had not explained it well enough. It was hard to do, using words she wasn't used to. Or rather, using a language she didn't have much of a vocabulary of. Lips pursed for a moment, she tried to ignore the press of her fangs against the flesh of her mouth. Or that hungry tint of red to her eyes.
"Blood is hard to drink. Not — not you. Uh." She could get something from a source. But the rippling consequences of that would better left unlearned. Kai Yun gripped at the cup, much gentler than with the pouch, and promptly downed the cup. A grimace settled over her lips as the taste of iron lingered on her tongue. Oh, it had been one of the less than pleasant ones. "I am — good."
"Oh, I-uh...I'm sorry. I know that probably isn't enjoyable for you." she stammers.
"Narcissa you idiot, of course it's not enjoyable." she thinks to herself. "Maybe if I just actually talked to someone for once in my life...she clearly needs someone to guide her through the magic world."
"For the record, uh...I don't-I don't want you to think that people will judge you here or purposefully try to make you uncomfortable. You'd be surprised to discover the other sorts of things we see here. I just thought, you know, you were kinda new here so, uh, yeah." she says, her words coming out in a messy, flustered mumble.
Enjoyable? Kai Yun wouldn't associate the word enjoyable with her blood drinking. A necessity, really, but one that wasn't the only option. She would...much rather not think of the second means of obtaining sustenance. Maybe — she could just go into a deep sleep again. Although, that would likely defeat the purpose of what Bolin had done.
The dark cloud of a memory wasn't blown away even by Narcissa's assurance. Maybe it made it worse; she didn't know. She did know that none of this was what she'd wanted. "I am very new." Her tone was dry, expression falling into an unimpressed flatness. Kai Yun had been outfitted by the eccentric couple that had found her and thus: there seemed to be some confusion about whether she was young or decrepit. But the last time she'd been in any city had been in the 50s and times had clearly changed.
Not to mention she was in a place entirely different from her home. "What gave...it away." Even with the stall of needing to find the right words, the brittleness of her tone could be felt. Not a question, but the heavy steep of sarcasm.
Narcissa furrows her brow as she sees Kai Yun's eyes flicker from one point to the next. She was thinking about something. A memory perhaps. Or maybe she was judging her...
She shrugs. "I suppose it was because you were startled by the use of magic." she mumbles, staring into Kai's eyes. "And, also, you seemed a little flustered when you sat down so I'm guessing you still aren't familiar with horns and wings and such?" she suggests.
She lowers her gaze. It didn't feel right to talk to her about magic. Of all people, a tortured, burned Dark Fey with social anxiety was not the person to tell a magical deity who still wasn't even comfortable with her diet about the mythical world. What she needed was an escape. She needed a pine forest with a river and a breeze and nothing but the sound of bugs humming in the tree tops.
Kaylee was sitting at a table near the back of the cafeteria, eating lunch and reading. Her lunch consisted of Ramen and Onigiri with a side of French fries, a weird combination but she didn't care.
The book she was reading was on cats and their abilities.
Kaylee glanced up quietly from her own book and noticed Naruhito pull out on of his own. She sent him a small smile and went back to eating her French fries.
Kaylee flipped the page of her book and read for a few minutes, before looking up to see what Naruhito was reading, always interested in finding something new to read.
Kaylee smiled to herself. She'd read Divergent and quiet liked it, although the ending of the trilogy was quite.....devastating, to most readers.
@bqnners
Kai Yun could remember, vaguely, having a conversation like this. Different subject, same tension. "No, I am not." Said sullenly, and perhaps a little harsher than she meant. She wasn't one for confrontation of...any sort, even if she seemed built to handle such things. Her attention returned to the cup, now empty, in front of her.
But her aversion to these things — magic and confrontation and the like — were things she would need to overcome. Her...condition was one that required it. Whether it be getting used to the idea that she would have to subsist on blood or interaction with horned entities, Kai Yun would have to get used to it. Suck it up, so to speak.
The question was could have been phrased better. Or maybe it was fine and there weren't any differences in social interaction among....creatures. "What...are you?"
Eclipse ~Your innocent little soulmate~ wrote: "(Honestly, already read it like 3-4 times lol)Naruhito quickly flips through the book, only stopping when he hits the end and looking up, monitoring the area around him."
((Nice! Lol))
Kaylee flipped to the next page in her own book and said quietly. "Divergent is really good, are you enjoying it?"
"Nice, I'm glad," she responded just as quietly.
@goule
Narcissa glances at Kai Yun, confusion flickering in her eyes for a moment. What was she? Unaware if it was a question or an insult, she sighs and replies quietly. "I'm a type of species called Dark Fey. I was raised in a colony of Fey who were trained to be warriors. I, on the other hand, developed a peaceful affinity with nature." she tells her, leaving out the part about how the other Fey once tried to kill her.
@bqnners
Well — none of those words made much sense to her. Kai Yun had not heard the term Fey before. Various names given to perhaps the same species they knew as the maidens in the heavens. Those who served enlightened beings. None of them had ever been depicted with horns, that she'd seen. Her eyes narrowed as she let the word settle in her mind. The nature aspect was perhaps the only thing that she had gotten. Lips pursed, she nodded as if she understood. "I...see." She didn't think much of what might have been left out from that explanation. "Are there...many — like you? Here?"
Narcissa studies her expressions carefully...she wasn't grasping what she was describing, but she wasn't asking questions about the species. Just the amount of students like her in the school.
Narcissa shrugs. "I'm...I'm not actually sure. Not many. I don't really talk to people, so I haven't actually seen many anything." she admits. She didn't want to overwhelm Kai Yun with an extreme number, even though she was being honest. Something about Kai just seemed like she could be easily quote-unquote "spooked" when it came to magic.
That was decidedly — unhelpful. Kai Yun didn't suppose that most...creatures could pinpoint how many of each other there were, but didn't they have a sense of community? She'd been trying to wrap her head around why they would all group together like this. Why they would choose it over a want for solitude. Maybe that was just her, and her need for things to uncomplicated. To live and die, and stay dead.
"Oh." She could only guess how many like her — those that had to drink blood to survive — were at the school based on the supply of blood bags in the nurse's office. "Why...do you not...talk to people?"
It was hard to explain...a detail about her life that made her look different. It made her look weak. It made her look...
It didn't matter how she looked. She had scars to prove that it happened. It wasn't even worth lying about. She couldn't hide the fact that she didn't belong anywhere. She couldn't hide who she was just because she was afraid.
"It's...hard to explain. I guess, back home, I didn't fit in and that was that..." Narcissa replies quietly. She leaves out the fact that she was too weak to hold a sword and fight. The only thing she had going for her was her powers...the powers that made her different and was the reason for her scars.
Kai Yun didn't perk up at the mention of 'not fitting in,' but she understood. Before she'd met Bolin and things had been so much easier — there had been a wrongness to her trying to fit in the others. With boys that didn't quite get her fixations and girls that understood too well. Almost supernaturally, then. And when she'd moved toward that particular crowd, there were still things that she would be ostracized for.
"That...can be hard." Stated simply, but with all the weight of someone who knew. "I am sorry if...I made you...uncomfortable? With the question."
Narcissa looks down at her burned arms. She didn't fit in there. But she was welcome here...right?
"No, no, it's fine. I get it. It's tough...when you don't know anything but your life before, you know, before you come here. It took me a while to get used to it, too." she replies softly.
She knew something in her words was wrong. She didn't seem to provide comfort, or any helpful knowledge. She was sitting in front of a girl who was lost, confused, and uncomfortable in her own world and Narcissa had lacked to provide her with anything useful. "I'm sorry...I suck at this. I don't think I'm the right person for you to be talking to if you're new to magic."
It was kind of hard not to react to the mention of a life before. Because the before of it all had been an era so far removed from this one. With its portable phones and many advances, on top of the addition of the supernatural. She'd been asleep for most of the time that had passed, locked away after the greatest mistake of her life thus far. Death, actually.
She gave off a soft hum of acknowledgment, not too sure what to say that wasn't just an unloading of everything that had happened to her. Lips pursed, she tipped her head to the side. No longer hungry and slightly less agitated, she could (somewhat) think beyond panic. The quip came quick as a whip, but sadly not in a language that other would know. "Is anyone the right person to ask about magic?" A wry twist of her lips as she glanced back at the students in the cafeteria, the Cantonese flowing easily off her tongue.
Narcissa lifts her brows in confusion. The language had spilled from Kai's lips like honey. But she looked like the dialect was something she was familiar with...something she knew in her heart.
"What does that mean?" she asks, her voice soft and low.
( sorry this is so late! )
Kai Yun was used to communication being hard, but it still...frustrated her. It would make anyone a little unhappy to have to continuously repeat themselves. But, it was worse when she had to find the words to translate the English she'd learned before her death and after it, and all the apparent slang that there was.
"Uh, it was. Mmm...not joke. S-sarcasm? Is anyone...the right one to ask...about magic." The tone wouldn't really feel the same to her, in a language that wasn't in her native tongue. "That is what I said."
Narcissa nods slowly and lowers her gaze. "No...no I suppose that's actually right." she says, twiddling her thumbs underneath the table.
"No one was the right person. I wasn't the right person. None of this feels right." Narcissa thinks to herself. It didn't feel right that she couldn't offer support or help. It didn't feel right that neither one of them would really talk to the other. It didn't feel right that their first impressions were based on horns and a pouch of blood.
"Is...is there anything I can do for you?" she asks, not quite sure what answer she was expecting (and honestly not sure exactly what she was asking Kai Yun.) She just said it because her gut told her to "fix this."
Kai Yun wasn't quite sure how to respond to that. Not many people had asked what she'd wanted outside of an obligation do so because of service such as a restaurant. But this was a school...an academy in a time period she was unfamiliar with. Beyond the obvious supernatural elements at play in the world for her now, there was a matter of time. The times had changed in her hibernation, and she was, to some degree, still reeling.
"Do you know what." Hm, how to describe it. She held her hands out to make a frame of the tiny black things she'd seen some students holding. "Is small; bright...screen? What is it?"
Narcissa narrows her eyes, slightly confused. She must mean the phone things... She found herself at a loss of words. She wasn't sure how to explain them to her because she herself had never held one in her hands.
"Um, they're called phones. I don't have one and I've never used one, but kids use them to play games, I guess. Communicate with each other. I think they just use them when they're bored." she replies timidly. Was that good enough? How was I supposed to explain such a thing when I grew up in a woods with no contact with anyone... Narcissa bites her lip, realizing she had found something they had in common. They were both outsiders, completely unaware of the society they stepped into.
At this answer, Kai Yun squinted. Not so much out of disbelief of her answer, but at the apparent capabilities a small device had. Why would children want to play games on a small screen? Wouldn't they much rather run out in the open? A sneer of sorts had settled over her lips. "That seems...bad."
But, also: "Why did you not have one?"
Astro walked into the cafeteria and sat down at a table in the front. He grabbed his lunch from his backpack and took a bite out of his sandwich
Astro shifted into a small fox. He looked around and made a bark sound
Astro went back to eating his sandwich as a fox
After he finished his sandwich he yawned
