"Are you sure you don't want to say goodbye to your brothers before you leave?" Nico's mother had asked several days ago as he packed for the trip to Four Winds.

[color=f6989d]"No--I mean, I'm sure,"[/color] Nico had insisted, haphazardly plunging into his massive closet in search of more clothes he would actually wear.

[color=f6989d][i]More like, I don't want to bother Elliot and Lucien. They have bigger and better things to do. They always do.[/i][/color]

For want of companionship, Nico had long ago created a sort of mental dialogue so that he could speak his mind to the one person who bothered caring and who wouldn't be offended: himself.

[color=ed145b][i]But maybe they'd still like you to postpone leaving until they're back from their respective genius business...[/i][/color]

[color=f6989d][i]No. I don't want to see them wish me off.[/i][/color]

He loved his family, but there had been no mistaking the relief on his parents' faces when they found out he was someone exceptional after all. And Four Winds was well-known. What better way to usher in the revelation that their middle son was a somebody after all than with an invitation to an elite school?

[color=ed145b][i]You're misunderstanding things, probably.[/i][/color]

[color=f6989d][i]...Probably. But I can't face a lot of things without deliberately misunderstanding them.[/i][/color]


Now Four Winds towered in front of him, a massive monument to eccentricity and mystery surrounded by a fantastic landscape that took Nico's breath away. There was something about the skyscraper trees that set his heart aflutter with a longing he didn't quite understand and the clear air rushing through his lungs silenced even his internal dialogue. At least, for a time. 

After the initial awe wore off, Nico found himself still waiting for the gates to open. Wary of making eye contact with others and fearing being invited to participate in conversations he couldn't hold (and thereby ruining any kind of decent first impression he could have made), Nico awkwardly shuffled around, staring intently at the ground, the sky, the giant trees, the anything that wasn't people. Standing apart from the motley group of teenagers gathered at the elaborate front gates, Nico finally settled on contemplating the color of the grass.

[color=f6989d][i]This looks more like a hunter green than a Kelly green. But some of these patches of grass have more of a fern shade...[/i][/color]

[i][color=ed145b]You're actually watching grass grow.[/color][/i]

[i][color=f6989d]I'm contemplating the color of the grass. It's slightly different.[/color][/i]

[i][color=ed145b]And no less stupid.[/color][/i]

[i][color=f6989d]I can't talk to them. What would I even say? Do they even speak English? What would I even talk about?--Oh, wait, I think I have this shade of green.[/color][/i]

And as he fumbled through his bag looking for the skein of thread with a shade of green between hunter and fern, the focus on something other than himself quieted his inner voice once more.