[center][h3]Nova Infinitum[/h3][/center]
Every day, before any of the children wake up, a scientist comes into the common room and posts a list of daily assignments on the board. This might include class schedules, special operations for finding and recruiting other Stars, and other special notes.
Today, there are no assignments. It is a free day.

[hr]
The silvery sound of a flute echoed through the dorm, quiet enough that it shouldn’t wake people. Unless they were light sleepers. It was somewhat a standard thing, at six-thirty in the morning, the music would start, and would continue until people were up and going about their day.

A flashlight beam fell across the source of the music. A tiny girl, barely three feet tall, her eyes shut and fingers flying over the keys of her piccolo, her black hair hanging in a cloud around her. The black star on her forehead stood out dramatically against her pale skin.

For several seconds she was so absorbed in the music that she failed to notice the frowning scientist in front of her, until he quietly coughed.
She jumped three feet into the air, whirling to face the white-coated man with wide gray-blue eyes.
“Astraia, we’ve been over this. Put that dog whistle of yours away until after everyone’s awake. It’s their one day to sleep in.”
The girl scuffed her feet. “S-sorry…” she made as if she was going to put the tiny flute away.
The scientist watched her, then turned and walked back out of the dorm.

The instant he was out the door the piccolo came back to the girl’s lips and she resumed exactly where she’d left off. She knew the scientist would hear, but he wouldn’t do anything. Battles had to be chosen. And her music was the one thing she was adamant about; they wouldn’t dare take her flute from her. They needed her too much.
[hr]
Andromeda flailed awake as soon as Astraia played the opening notes of “Oh What a Beautiful Morning”, and mentally cursed. She shouldn’t have been sleeping, not when that project… wait… had she finished it, or just dreamt that she’d finished it?
Ugh. Too many thoughts in her head.

She fumbled for her laptop, sending notebooks flying off the edge of her bed. All her research books, she just kept them where she slept, in case she remembered something in a dream and had to write it down. 

She couldn’t find her laptop, and rolled, thinking she might have fallen asleep on top of it. Unfortunately, she rolled to the outside, not the wall side, and fell the five feet off of the edge of her bunk, landing hard on her stomach on the floor, and smacking her face into the virtually-indestructible case of her laptop with a muffled “OOOPH” sound. Pain shot through her nose and she cursed as she felt warm blood sliding down her throat.
Oh, what a beautiful way to start the day.

Holding off her bloody nose, she gathered up her notebooks and threw them unceremoniously back onto her bunk, intending to organize them later, and grumbled as she gathered up her toiletries and clothes, intending to be showered and dressed before anyone else was even up. And then she could go finish her part of the damn project.

Showered and feeling much better for not being covered in her own nosebleed, Andromeda headed to the lab, passing some of the other early risers with a quiet greeting.

The raised door seal. She ALWAYS tripped on it. Today was especially bad, the contents of three manila folders, not to mention her laptop, going spilling across the entire laboratory floor as she fell.

For a moment she laid there on the floor of the lab, trying to reorganize her thoughts and attempt to regain her composure. 

She sighed, forced a smile, and picked up her notes *again*, taking them to her desk. She went to sit down, only to have the chair she sat on fall to pieces under her, causing her to again smack her face (on the desk, this time) and setting her nose to bleeding again.

“OH FOR--” She started to shout. Perhaps it was for the best that she choked on the blood running down her throat and started crying, rather than finish the sentence. To add insult to injury, her leaky water bottle toppled over, falling onto one of her folders and soaking it and probably ruining the contents.

What a beautiful morning, indeed.