The Emergence was nothing more than twenty years of anticipation finally paying off with a week of satisfied curiosity. "And an influx of witches," Emily muttered to herself. She wasn't with her friends quite yet; first, there were work to be done, and oh, was this the time to do it.

Technology had advanced in such a way that meant a high resolution camera from the Astronomy department could be set up on the highest building in the area (unsurprisingly, this was the Astronomy building on campus) and would take pictures. The thing had been designed to take as many pictures, from as many angles as it could, for the following week. The stars always came in around midnight; and as Em checked her phone, there was still an hour before the stars would step away from their shy curtain of darkness. Now was the time.

Emily checked the wires. There wasn't a battery that the college had access to that could run this sort of thing for a week straight, and Em wasn't ready to wait another twenty years to get the photos that she would miss by having to change batteries. Or by [i]forgetting[/i] to change batteries, or being unable to. Sure that everything was correctly attached, the young woman hit the on switch. Even though the naked eye- or even the assisted eye- might not have yet been able to see the stars, Em would be ready. It was better to start the pictures with minutes of dark sky to avoid missing anything. And with that, the machine started whirring, and muffled shutter sounds could be heard as it took pictures.

Taking a moment to lean over a lens and grin and thumbs up, Emily now realized that the impending Emergence meant another thing: parties. Social life was also very important, especially in college, and just because she was devoted to understanding the stars and the Emergence didn't mean that Emily was going to not focus on anything else. In fact, the opposite was fairly true; a lot of her work had less to do with the stars herself than it did with people's reactions of the stars. There was only so much a freshman graduate student could do.

But the time for work had passed, and so began the time for play. Running down the stairs and through the building, Em nearly plunged herself at the nearest bus stop. But, the buses weren't running- even if it wasn't Emergence, they rarely ran this late; and with a soft curse under her breath, Emily started sprinting for her friends. Luckily, being raised as a hunter gave her an advantage here; Emily had good breath, among other things. Perfect for landing parties. And sure enough, she was just in time to observe the first few stars stray out of the blanket of night that almost continually held them.

Even though her lungs wanted to take in more air, Em managed to silence herself for the few seconds of awe before the fanfare started. She had been five when they last happened, Em recalled; at the time, they were just gorgeous shines in the sky, a treat that should have been there every single night... But since then, Emily had grown up some, and she wasn't a little kid with her parents any more. Now, Emily was a college student, trying to understand the phenomenon.

The blonde girl ran a hand of fingers through her short hair and breathed deeply as the festivities began to make noise. Her lungs appreciated the belated effort, and started to slow down. Now that the parties had officially started, it was time to waste some time. Nothing like a good party to start off the hunting season, was there?