"So you live in the Jackrabbit dorms?" Lily asked. She wondered what dorm she'd end up in. Hopefully she'd get along with whichever fellow students she would be rooming with. "I can appreciate a good prank, as long as it isn't mean, I think." She wasn't much of a prankster herself, for fear of getting into too much trouble at home, and she'd been the victim of a good many awful pranks to like those, but she considered herself to be the owner of a fairly decent sense of humour.
Moss, looking around at the various scattered students by the entrance to the school, almost ran into the dark skinned, dark haired kid they had seen earlier, arm still in a cast. Oops. "Whoa, sorry. Your arm okay?" ((moss' default intro method seems to be to run into people.))
"You're good. I think it's broken, but I drank some Painfree so it doesn't hurt. I'm about to head down to the healer's to see about getting it mended. It shouldn't take too long, but I wanted to see if the Coyotes were doing anything else besides the fireworks," Avery answered.
"Yes I do!" Rifka said cheerfully. "And yeah, usually the Coyotes are pretty good at not doing anyone real harm, but it doesn't hurt to keep an eye out. It can be pretty funny if you catch them first."
Lily smiled. "Oh, I'm pretty alert most of the time." Sometimes she was caught off guard when she was distracted by other things, but she usually had at least a little bit of a hint that something was about to happen, even if she was powerless to prevent it.
"Spoiler, I don't think we are. Were the fireworks not cool enough for you?" Moss laughed. "I was going to head in too, need a hand with any bags? I have at least one more working arm than you."
"What, I thought you were always up to something. No, man, those fireworks were awesome. Some of the newbies about fell over dead seeing them, did you see their faces? Most of them have no clue what they're in for here. It's kind of cool, you know, seeing the- the wonder in those kids' eyes." Avery said, grinning. "If you don't mind, that'd be great, thanks. I was just going to levitate all of them in front of me, but it's a lot to control. My mom makes me pack like, everything." ((I think this will be a good chance to explore the school a little, on the way to the healer's office, get a feel for the place, make some stuff up as we go along))
"Pffhaha!" Moss hefted their pack a little higher. "Yeah they were pretty sweet. I think some of those charms are still experimental, so I'm pretty glad nothing exploded. Or, well, nothing unintentionally exploded. "And yeah, kind of reminds me of my first day, really. Good times. I think that was one of the unsuccessful sinkhole years, though, so I lost most of my stuff to the mud. Had to use secondhand clothes and books until we were able to order new ones. And that was before we got any wifi, so..." They grabbed some bags and staggered for a few seconds until they were able to counterbalance. "Geez, it certainly feels like it! I've been packed for ages. And after that first year, I got pretty used to not having a lot of stuff." Moss walked backwards in front of the other kid, pushing doors open with the bags, and not particularly looking where they swung them. ((and yeah, definitely! Did we ever name the nearby-ish town? or are we making that up too? I should reread that thread....))
"Yeah, I feel like since I don't have any siblings, my mom gets a little...overprotective? of me. Like, she recognizes that I'm almost an adult, but she's not ready to let go of the idea of me being a little kid, and every year when I leave for school it's kind of hard on her." He picked up the rest of his bags and stepped into the school, let out a small breath of relief at the slightly cooler air that was inside. Avery paused for a very brief moment, glancing appreciatively at the taxidermied animals that all stood in the front hall of the school. His favorite, the small brown bear, seemed to be sleeping just then, but the one of the ravens tilted its head toward Moss and Avery, very slowly. "It's good to be back, though. It can get a little lonely back home." (( I think the town is actually night vale and we never mention it by name? idk))
Jay followed after him, still contemplating the marble. She looked up to ask a question- "Hey, how do we know which kids are new?"- but was cut off by the sudden burst of light and sound and the emergence of the fireworks. She whooped in excitement, forgetting her task as she chased after the nearest firework until it bit by bit faded away. This time last year she hadn't fully appreciated the Coyote prank- she may have been just slightly a little terrified- but now? She couldn't be more excited. After the last sparks had disappeared, she looked up and around and found that she had ended up far away from Santiago. She pursed her lips- she didn't like her chances of finding him again in this crowd, and even though there was sweet pranks to be had she figured it was a headache she didn't want. Besides, she knew the school like the back of her hand by now, she'd be able to find him later and return the marble. For now she headed through the doors, still unable to keep a bit of wonder out of her eyes as she walked into the front hall.
(( i think a. moss may have abandoned your character beside the cliff when your previous username got tossed, but i don't think everything was quoted. ))
"I have a lot of questions, I just don't know which ones to ask first," Lily replied. "I feel like maybe I should just, I don't know, sit back and see where this place takes me? Is there an orientation or something?"
Moss shrugged at that, overbalanced, and caught themself before they ran into a wall. "If my mom knew what I was doing she'd probably lose her shit. Which is probably why she doesn't try that hard to find out." They turned to face the taxidermied animals, letting the door close behind them, and shifted Avery's bag onto their shoulder. At the raven's head tilt, Moss let out a "gronk" - it had never really made the taxidermied raven react in the past, but there wasn't any harm, Moss thought, in trying to have a conversation. "I... think the healer's office is that way. I know the halls shift a lot, though, if you aren't in a lot of hurry." Moss added, nodding to a door on the far left of the front hall.
"Well, if it's moved, we can have an adventure. I'm probably not dying, so, whatever." Avery shrugged.
"Eh, not really an orientation. Older students usually sort of mentor the new kids," Rifka explained. "For now, just ask away, I've been here for a while."
"Oh, huh, which dorm are you in, anyway? We can probably try to drop your stuff off first, since Coyote's way on the other side of the campus." ((Ok, theoretical explanation for this: Coyotes do pranks. Pranks are loud. Over time, I'm assuming everyone was like "please stop being in the middle of everyone". On one hand, yes, no loud noises, no one gets woken up by pranks. On other hand, coyotes have a lot of space and time to work on perfecting terrible terrible puns. Anyway))
"Well, dorms are all over the place. I guess you wouldn't know which one you're in yet though. You usually end up in the same dorm as your assigned mentor," Rifka explained. "That's assigned later on."
