Admittedly, Dawn was a bit concerned about what the Norrevinter girl would do if she didn’t move, gaze flicking over her shoulder as the redhead spoke. She didn’t have to look hard to see the glow of power that had begun to surge through the Norrevinter’s veins, or even look at all to feel the heat practically radiating off her. That didn’t stop Dawn from standing her ground, however. Her own magic swirled to the surface, but before she could put any of it to use, a thick fence of ivy had surged forth to separate her and Larke from the Norrevinter. The sheer force of the divider’s appearance had sent Dawn stumbling a little, but a good amount of the tension had gone out of her shoulders by the time she had collected herself. A teacher. There would be no fight for now.

A good chunk of the tension returned, however, upon seeing [i]who[/i] exactly the teacher was. Dawn did a decent enough job of hiding it, returning the rather cool smile with a polite one of her own, but she couldn’t quite keep a sort of sense of discomfort from twisting up in her gut. [color=#98AFC7]“Thank you, Professor.”[/color] She went to sit back down, hands folded stiffly in her lap. 

Another student made a dry quip about the Professor’s message- something the Professor responded to in kind- but most of Dawn’s attention had returned to the conversation at hand. [color=#98AFC7]“It’s, um. It’s alright. I’m glad you’re not hurt.”[/color] She smiled at Larke, absently adjusting the cuff of her shirt as she spoke. [color=#98AFC7]“I just hope that no one else gets tackled again any time soon.”[/color]

Although knowing how...heated family issues could get, that would be easier said than done.

[@vitofthevoid][@akayaofthemoon][@avanhelsing][@scoundrelqueen]

[hr]

The arrival of the professor brought some mixed feelings from Esperanza. Disappointment that the fight was ended before it could have even begun, for one- she had never seen two users of different magics fight before. It was, however, alleviated somewhat by the means in which the teacher had separated the two (three, now, one of the other students had stepped into the fray). Eyes growing wide as saucers, Esp quickly snapped a few more pictures of the event, the teacher himself, then, once the wall had slithered back out of view, the decimated husk of the plant that it had been built from. 

[color=#8B4513]“This is all so very cool,”[/color] Esp gushed. She took a moment to send all the pictures to her family before stuffing her phone back into her bag, although her enthusiasm was given some pause at the clear discomfort of her new companion. [color=#8B4513]“Is there something wrong?”[/color] She gave a puppyish tilt of the head, brows furrowed in confusion. Evidently, the idea that Helena might have been made uncomfortable by the prospect of the fight didn’t quite cross Esp’s mind. 

She was a bit distracted from Helena roughly around the time her bag started crying, however. Not the whimpers of the animal, but the wails of an infant in distress. There were sound of shuffling, some gasps, and then some [i]thing[/i] began to try and poke its head from the opening Esperanza had left for it. A look of pure, unadulterated delight fell upon Esp’s face at the sound, and she quickly knelt to open her bag further. “That is my Chu,” she said. After fumbling for the zipper a moment, Esperanza managed to unzip her backpack all the way, allowing the creature within to hop out with a grumble.

The thing that had been concealed within Esp’s luggage had crawled straight from a nightmare, where some unspeakable sin had given birth to some ungodly horror. The folds of skin on the top of its head were distinctly catlike, as was its nose and the arch of its back as it stretched free- although the slender build of it, as well of its hind legs, suggested a weasel. The mishmash of clashing traits didn’t stop there, however. The front paws spoke more of an aye-aye than anything else. Its teeth, and the tongue that rolled across them, were disturbingly humanlike in shape. A spider’s nest of silver eyes clustered together across the front of its skull, and its tail was entirely its own- long and furry, forking off in seven different directions at the end. They groped at the air, opening and closing and reaching about for something unseen. 

The entire beast itself was covered in a thick layer of tawny fur, save for its belly, which seemed to be plated with overlapping, toothlike bone. The thing snuffed at the air once, made a few more babyish cries, then began to gorge itself on the globs of yogurt the redheaded girl had thrown in her flailing. 

Esp giggled, petting it between the ears as it feasted. [color=#8B4513]“He is my Familiar. I am thinking that he is cute, but...in the ugly way, yes?”[/color] After it had cleaned the outside of the bag completely of yogurt, Esperanza scooped him into her arms, nuzzling it and beaming when it ran its tongue along the side of her face. A trail of thick, grey saliva was left behind, which she promptly dabbed away with the leftover napkins. 

[color=#8B4513]“He does not bite,”[/color] Esp said, [color=#8B4513]“but he might try to steal the food.”[/color]

[@VitoftheVoid]

[hr]

Percival shrugged, reaching for another of the cinnamon rolls on his plate. [color=#F87217]“Can’t say I blame you. Skulls are pretty much the de-facto symbol when it comes to necromancing. That, and maybe those little blanket-sheet ghosts you see around Halloween. Y’know the type.”[/color] He made a little [color=#F87217]“ooo”[/color] sound, then laughed at himself and took a huge bite from his roll. 

[color=#F87217]“Nothing wrong with a good ol’ bit of symbolism,”[/color] he said after a swallow. [color=#F87217]“I got named after that one guy from [i]’The Scarlet Pimpernel’[/i]. Well, kinda. Mostly just the ‘Percy’ part. The rest was kinda just tacked on.”[/color]

He leaned back, then did a grand, sweeping gesture at the plate he had gotten for himself. [color=#F87217]“Feel free to take whatever you see fit, my good man. I mean, still the risk of gluten and all that, but pretty sure I have an apple or something in there somewhere, too.”[/color] Percival grinned a little at Isaiah’s question. [color=#F87217]“Nah. Norrevinters and Sterlings just kinda hate each other’s guts by default. Some kinda thing with their ancestors and a bunch of trade sanctions, and yadda yadda, centuries long-feud.”[/color] Percival moved his wrist in a lazy circle. [color=#F87217]“Prrrrrobably won’t be their last fight, if I had to give it a guess.”[/color]

And then a Professor stepped in to restore the status quo.

And then Percival had to do a quick double take on, who, exactly, it was that had stepped in.

[color=#F87217]“No way.”[/color]

The words were murmured, but they were there. Spire Schippers. He’d seen the face in the reports his dad had gotten enough to recognize it after a good moment or two. He had aged since then, yeah, but it was still definitely him. Working at the school. Percival was so legitimately taken aback that he didn’t even join in on the snark trading going on between Schippers and some other student, instead scratching the back of his head and watching until the Professor slipped out of the room, dragging another, clearly bewildered teacher that had wandered into the room in tow. 

[color=#F87217]“Yikes.”[/color] He shook his head, grimaced a little, then turned to Isaiah. [color=#F87217] "Anyway. All that aside. What Secondaries you planning on heading into, anyway?”[/color]

It wasn’t a bad topic. Already, he could dimly hear the question being echoed across the common room. In a place where Primaries tended to be tied to last names, Secondaries tended to get much more varied results than anything.

[@Prosaic]