[center][b]Loreal[/b][/center] During her first year, Loreal was constantly late for her morning classes. She was used to waking when the sunlight found her eyes and the wildlife around her awoke from her slumber. Being in a dorm, however, closed her off from nature and she never woke up on time. Needless to say, she got in trouble with teachers. As a result, she managed to get her hand on an alarm clock. This didn’t solve her problem. The alarm would blare into the elf’s sensitive ears and she would awake too suddenly. She would spend the rest of her morning exhausted with a lingering headache. She was getting to classes on time, but she struggled to stay awake and pay attention. Her grades in her morning classes were less than stellar and she often felt groggy until lunchtime. No one wanted a partner who seemed to slack so hard, so she had trouble making friends. She was instead assigned a tutor: a fifth year from Earth with messy brown hair and freckles all over his pale face. He was ridiculously intelligent and specialized in magitech—a major contrast to his twin sister and partner who was a passionate soul who specialized in ass kicking—and he [i]did[/i] help Loreal in getting her grades back up to acceptable. During their time together, the older student was confused: Loreal clearly wasn’t stupid. “You’re smarter than my sister,” he would comment. “So why are you having so much trouble in class?” Loreal had explained her issue with alarm clocks and how harshly it contrasted to life at home, and Aiden seemed to be just as exhausted as she whenever they met since. Then, halfway through the school year, he gave her a strange device. It appeared to be a digital clock, but there was more to it: an orb that hovered around it. He explained it was an alarm clock to solve all her problems and bragged that they wouldn’t be meeting for tutoring any longer. [center]~[/center] Today, Loreal awoke with the sun in her eyes and birds chirping. The pale yellow light of the morning sun radiated from the orb on her alarm clock, slowing growing brighter by the minute. Emitted from the alarm clock itself was the ambient noise of birds singing their morning song. At first, she didn’t recognize most of the calls and she quickly learned that these were calls from birds at Aiden’s home, Earth. She stretched her arms above her head, greeting the morning with the smile and prepared for the day ahead. [center]~[/center] After a filling breakfast, Loreal arrived in her classroom. She wore her fur coat over the school uniform and lightly armored cloak. She may have finally adjusted to the unnatural sleep schedule of student life, but home for the elf was still the tropics. So this January snow left her shivering as she took a seat in the room assigned to class 2-H. She looked around at the other students as she hugged herself, recognizing faces from the year before but having trouble recalling names. [center] ____________________________________________________________ [b]Dagny[/b][/center] Dagny always started off the year pretty enthusiastically. When 7:30 AM rolled around, she was in the basement of the gym—a place designated for the creatures and species that needed more of a challenge than the typical one or two hundred pound bench-press weight. Rap music blasted into her ears, her tastes stuck in the Eminem era of Earth. She hissed, steam escaping her nostrils as she pushed upwards on the tubing. Clearly there was magic weaved into the equipment because there was physically no way a tube Dagny could grip in her human form could hold up two garbage trucks from the early 2000s. “Fifty,” she growled as her arms straightened out above her. She stubbornly held the literal tons in the air for a good three seconds before slowly lowering the weight back onto the rack above her. She sighed and sat up, rolling her shoulders then flexing her arm to rub at the bicep. Admittedly a little disappointed in her muscle mass after not training at all over break, she sighed again and stood up. The woman gathered her gym bag to return to the dorm. There, she took a quick shower, changed into her uniform—which she left quite untidy—and headed to homeroom. [center] ____________________________________________________________ [b]Class 4-Q[/b][/center] Dr. Li sat at the front of the room as students trailed in. He was of Earth and appeared to be of Asian ancestry and young—no older than 30 perhaps—with long, dark hair. Most noticeable about him was a mole or freckle or beauty mark of some sort on his lower cheek. Though, there was something mystical about him as well, given away by the unnaturally bright blue and ageless eyes if not by his relaxed yet attentive demeanor. In his hands was a wooden figurine and a knife, and he scraped and carved expertly into the block as he waited for 8:00 AM to roll around. At 8:00 AM on the dot, he set the small wooden figurine on the desk—it appeared to be a canine-in-progress. Perhaps a fox or coyote. Then, he stood up and looked around the room with a rather neutral gaze before suddenly allowing a small smile to come to his lips. “Good morning and welcome to your fourth year,” he greeted the students, blue eyes flickering between them. He gestured to his name, written on the board in flowing and quite legible hand writing. Almost too legible, quite frankly. “I am Dr. Li and I’ll be your homeroom adviser. I'll also be instructing you in mathematics. However, as it’s only day one, today we’ll be going over what to expect over the next year. What I expect from you and what you can expect from me.” He moved from his position behind the desk to stand in front of it, hands on the wood behind him. “But first, let’s get to know one another. We’ll go around the class and you will stand up, give your name...” He paused again, eyes raising to the ceiling as he thought. “Your name, your favorite food, and one interesting fact about yourself. “But please keep it appropriate,” he warned, eyes flickering to any recognized trouble makers pointedly. Then he continued, “I’ll go first. You know my name is Dr. Li. My favorite food is [i]Oryctolagus cuniculus[/i]. And I like to whittle.” To make his point, he gestured to his work-in-progress of some sort of canine. “Now, who’s next?” An unfortunate soul caught his attention when she walked in just as he asked. “Ah, Ms. Ek. Thank you for volunteering,” he said, gesturing to the dragon as she took a seat in the back. She blinked and looked around the room. “Volunteering for what?” she asked, scowling. “Your name, favorite food, and interesting fact about yourself,” he repeated boredly. The student rolled her eyes but complied, nonetheless. She raised her hand in a half-assed wave to the rest of the class, and cleared her throat before speaking. “I’m Dagny Ek—you can leave it at Dag. My favorite food is…meat,” she decided. “And my favorite color is orange.” “Thank you,” Dr. Li concluded for her, looking to the next student with a warming smile.