Within one of the larger, more open rooms of the airship, where many of the passengers seemed to have chosen to congregate, a single prospective student stood off to the side near the entrance, eyeing the crowds nervously. Most people present were conversing with people they either knew or heard of, since the majority had embarked upon the trip with members of their graduating class alongside them. Technically, Alistair had as well; except he was only vaguely familiar with the people from his own school, and many of those he knew resented him for making a fool of their friend in the exams. Which really wasn't fair, if anything, Alistair was the one who had looked like a fool, having his own weapon jam in the middle of a match.

But he digressed. Almost instinctively, he drew his coat tighter around him, like it would somehow help with his indecision. Should he try and say hello? Greet people? Make a conversation? But they all traveled in packs, there didn't seem to be any that weren't in a group, and trying to introduce himself to a group was social suicide... And how much did they know? Had his former classmates said awful things, thus ruining his first impression?

...

[i]Alistair, you're overthinking this.[/i] He chided himself silently. [i]None of them are that vindictive. Probably. Besides, you're going to Beacon! You made it! You should be excited, you've worked for this for years, and you made it.[/i]

And he did feel excited, more than could possibly be imagined. He had boarded the ship gleefully, practically bouncing aboard, coat tails flapping about with a similarly manic joy. But quite quickly, he had run out of things to do by himself. His books were all in his luggage, as were the tools to do maintenance on Hell and Heaven, and he'd run out of weapons to try and guess the function of.

Which left him with time to think, which in turn led to anxiety over every minor detail, and led even further down the path to his current indecision. This wasn't helping him. Steeling his nerve, he took a few steps forward, plunging into the veritable sea of social norms and interaction, searching for someone to introduce himself to that looked like they wouldn't reject him on si-

Bad train of thought. Needed to lose that, it really, really wasn't helping.