[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/j1J3rLO.png[/img]
[sub][color=gray] A [@GhostMami] & [@Kiki is Anxious] Collaboration[/color][/sub][/center]

[indent][color=darkgray]Cael’s blue 2010 Toyota Corolla rolled up to the curb outside his best friends house. A short, quick honk of the horn announced his arrival. Looking up at the pale light of the morning sky, he realized that it was probably way too early to have honked, but he’d already done it, and couldn’t take it back now. Sorry neighbors! Knowing how sleepy Rae could be, he shot her a quick text to say that he was ‘here’ as well. He sipped his salted caramel latte as he watched the front door of Rae’s house like a hawk, eager to see whatever first day of school outfit she had planned. A café au lait waited for her in the cup holder between him and the passenger seat.

Bless that poor soul who would have ever tried to wake Rae up earlier than noon that wasn’t Cael. She was triggered the second she heard the car horn from down in her basement lair bedroom, not that anyone who peeked their head in there could tell from how cluttered it was. The sound of a bunch of snakes hissing reverberated the room before the telltale lyrics of one of the most iconic My Chemical Romance songs about marching bands that there ever was. It worked like a snake charmer, where the lithe teen slithered out from her covers to reach for it at the other end of the room. Still in her pajamas with the rattiest version of bedhead yet. Unlocking it served to only blind her with the light that was Cael’s text, leaving her screeching in a very convincing pterodactyl impression for a few seconds as her tired eyes adjusted for her to read it calmly. Her foot tapped against the ground as the message processed.

Now, her boi Cael, knew her well enough to be able to piece together the timeline from when she sent her response of ‘C U SON’ to know that when she came leaping out of her front door ten minutes later with damp hair and looking like she hopped out of the tv while Coraline was playing, that she forgot that they had planned to do this. From how fast she was running to get to his car, one might have even believed that the Other Mother was inside the house trying to snatch her up, but alas she made it in record time. Opening the passenger door of the blue Corolla and plopping herself in the seat, letting her messenger bag rest by her feet, now taking a good look at Cael before letting out a low whistle. [color=128C8D][b] “You look like you’re about to seduce the lord of the underworld.”[/b][/color]

Cael beamed at the compliment on his first day of school [url=https://imgur.com/gtkSqva]look[/url]. [color=676FA5][b]“Well, if Hades is hot enough and joining our student body from Liberty, then yes, I certainly am!”[/b][/color] He smirked at his dishevelled bff and plucked her beverage out of the cup holder. Handing it to her, he said, [color=676FA5][b]“Drink up, we’ve got a lot of work to do before Hades and his hounds arrive. The trunk is packed full of the best collection of streamers, glitter, poster board, balloons, and more glitter that the Dollar Tree could provide, all in Liberties colors, of course.”[/b][/color] Cael spieled as he punched the accelerator and zoomed down the road to Rosefell. [color=676FA5][b]“And of course, the principal granted us permission to enter the school early to decorate, so we’re all set!”[/b][/color] He took a left turn at a shocking speed, the car feeling like it might two-wheel it around the bend. Driving with Cael was always a bit… [i]thrilling[/i].

[color=128C8D][b]“You could say that he’s hotter than [i]hell[/i].”[/b][/color] Rae responded back, accepting the drink with a small raise of the cup before bravely putting it to her lips to drink because her tongue has honestly survived through enough pizza rolls fresh from the oven to be immune to hot coffee at this point, silently putting on her seatbelt in the meantime. [color=128C8D][b]“They can deal, besides, glitter is better than any of those blood diamonds they use as rhinestones.”[/b][/color] She lamented with a hum, enjoying the taste of the creamy coffee she favored over all the rest, watching the scenery outside the car windows zoom past thanks to the fast stunt double type of driving Chauffeur Cael brought to the table—or road? [color=128C8D][b]“Little Toe really wants to smooth over the transfer so no one starts asking him questions about what happened. Which, respect to that funky cryptid man, but I’m not buying it. I honestly think there might be more there that they might be able to fill us in on.”[/b][/color] Taking another long drink of her hot beverage with no fear of spilling it on herself and becoming disfigured, she put it back in the cup holder to put her arms up as if this was a roller coaster ride instead of drive to school with a laugh enjoying the feeling of Cael’s [i]Fast and Furious[/i] driving skills.

[color=676FA5][b]“Pfft,”[/b][/color] Cael snorted in response to her lame pun. Rae’s descriptions for people were odd, but entirely [i]Rae[/i], and Cael had been speaking Rae’s language for years now. [color=676FA5][b]“Oh, I knowww.”[/b][/color] He replied to her musings with wide eyes as he put the car in park in the empty student parking lot. [color=676FA5][b]“There is something hella sketch going on with this transfer, but I have no doubt that your sleuthing skills will get to the bottom of this mystery.”[/b][/color] He said with a wink before popping the trunk and hopping out of the car. The craft supplies had scattered around out of the bags thanks to his driving, so Cael had to take a few moments to gather everything before he and Rae had to schlep it all into the school. [color=676FA5][b]“I got some silver stuff to pair with the blue and white because I felt like it’d need a bit more… shimmer! Do you think they’ll mind that it’s not [i]entirely[/i] Liberty colors?”[/b][/color] He pondered, already worrying about the thoughts and feelings of these new students.

Rae was quick to get out of the car and put her feet back on the ground, her bag comfortably placed on her shoulder and her coffee in hand as she followed Cael to the trunk from her side, casually sipping her drink nodding along to his own observation of the suspicious transfer. A Cheshire grin forming on her lips at being flattered by her bff putting his faith in her detective abilities. [color=128C8D][b]“If I don't, they’ve replaced me with a clone.”[/b][/color] She was joking for the most part about that, but at being asked about the color choices. She took a deep breath through her nose, pursing her lips, before ultimately shrugging. [color=128C8D][b]“Should be fine, us deviating makes it more like we’re welcoming some distant cousin back for the first time instead of us hella simpin’ for their money and trying to jedi mind trick them into thinking we are a better school than we actually are.”[/b][/color] Taking a good chunk of the supplies into her arms, Rae grinned at Cael, gently knocking her hip into his. [color=128C8D][b]“Seriously, it’ll be fine. The territorial spats that are gonna go down between the wolf pack and the empusa squad are probably going to be the only real fights that come up.”[/b][/color]

[color=676FA5][b]“Can’t wait!”[/b][/color] Cael grinned. Rae was right, this transfer was going to stir up some delicious drama and gossip. Cael, for one, couldn’t wait for it all to unfold. Queen Melissa in particular was going to lose her shit… and absolutely will [i]hate[/i] his and Rae’s decorations. [color=676FA5][b]“This place seems haunted this early…”[/b][/color] Cael observed as the pair entered the school. The halls were empty and only dimly lit by the sunrise. He found a switch and flicked on some of the lights to brighten it up. There was a table set up with name tags and paperwork on it, but no one was manning it yet.

[color=676FA5][b]“Alright, let’s get to it!”[/b][/color] Cael exclaimed before pulling out a roll of poster board. He unfurled it on the table and began to work his magic with paints, glue, glitter, fuzzy pom poms, and markers. At the end of it all, the signage flamboyantly read: “Welcome to Rosefell High!” in shades of blue, white, and silver. This would be his pride and joy of the whole display. [color=676FA5][b]“Their colors are so much prettier than ours, it’s a shame they have to switch to the edgelord knight’s colors.”[/b][/color]

Rae gave a hearty laugh at Cael bringing up the fact that the school [i]looked[/i] haunted. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine ghouls and other creepy things hidden from them for one reason or another lurking around in the darkness.  [color=128C8D][b]“Plenty of people die of boredom here for it to be possible.”[/b][/color] The thought didn’t bother her much as she followed after her friend with the DIY decoration supplies in her arms, her discerning eye looking over the dimly lit space before the lights flickered to life and she could set all the things down by the table.  Since she was horrible with any form of drawing, she was stuck with handing her bff the supplies to work his magic when she wasn’t coloring in stencils as directed. Sometime into it had begun humming under her breath a tune that kept shifting to different songs halfway through. Leaning back, she looked over Cael’s shoulder to look at his work. [color=128C8D][b]“Ooooh, nice touch. I’d definitely trade the black for silver. But having red isn’t too bad as [i]Rose[/i]fell’s colors.”[/b][/color]

[color=676FA5][b]“True enough! I guess I’m just biased because red is [i]really[/i] not my color. Way too angry of a color.”[/b][/color] Cael nodded in appreciation of his completed poster work. [color=676FA5][b]“Oh, you’ll like this next bit!”[/b][/color] The purple haired boy exclaimed before digging around in his bag of goodies and pulled out some baggies of blue and white balloons. [color=676FA5][b]“While the poster dries, we can just blow a bunch of these up and tape them… like… everywhere.”[/b][/color] He said, pulling out a blue balloon and inhaling deep before inflating it with a mighty sequence of exhales. [color=676FA5][b]“But if you aren’t as good at blowing as me, then there’s streamers that need to be hung up too.”[/b][/color] Cael winked at the intentional innuendo. [color=676FA5][b]“You can climb to your heart’s content to hang em. Just twist the colors together and then do little swoopy swag things.”[/b][/color] He explained, making gestures with his hands of the intended shapes.

[color=128C8D][b]“Yeah, red is hella intense, but isn’t it also supposed to mean passion or something… Yeah, you’re right. That doesn’t fit this school at all.”[/b][/color] Rae started off strong but soon quickly fell into her thoughts about the symbolism of red, and soon found herself agreeing with what he had said before. Her confused expression morphing into glee as Cael brought out the second steps for decoration.

[color=128C8D][b]“And be shown up by the master, I’ll stick to the hands on approach.”[/b][/color] She grinned back with a shake of her head, laughing a bit before taking the bag of streamers so she could work a little farther down the hall first. [color=128C8D][b]“Gremlins gotta climb, and I’m good with my hands, so this should be a piece of cake for me.”[/b][/color] Rae called out from the end of the hall as she got the first three sets of streamers to weave together before attempting to do any climbing, or the swoopy swags for the flourishes.

[color=676FA5][b]“Don’t hurt yourself!”[/b][/color] Cael called down the hall as he went about his task. After inflating two dozen balloons, his cheeks were flushed redder than the Rosefell colors they were just discussing. He bunched the balloons into groups of two, one blue and one white, and taped them all around. Some on the sign-in table, some by the doors, some along the halls near the entrance. Deciding that the balloons themselves weren’t flashy enough, he got some of the silver glitter and sprinkled it atop the balloons so that it could stick to them via static. Blowing glitter around the halls got Cael thinking with a mischievous smirk. He made his way over to where Rae was working and waited for her to get down from the chair before saying, [color=676FA5][b]“Hey, Rae!”[/b][/color] When she turned to respond, he blew a cloud of silver glitter towards her face before cackling and sprinting away.

Rae had managed to line the hallways with swirls of blue and white, that crossed at the entrance before she was left with the choice of going farther into the school with what little she had left, or get creative. So she made puffy flowers from the streamers to hide where the ones lining the hallways were taped down. While she was making her way down from putting one of the last makeshift flowers up, she could hear Cael come up behind her and call her name. A glitter attack to the face was not something she expected, but she was happy to have kept her mouth shut at least. Still, she was left sputtering and wiping the glitter away from her eyes, nose, and mouth for a few seconds. His cackling poking her growing need for pay back. [color=128C8D][b]“Oh you are gonna get glitzed Cael!”[/b][/color] She yelled, snatching up one of the tubes of glitter from the table and setting off running after him because he chose to run away despite knowing dang well she was one of the stars for the track team. When she would catch up to him, she was so going to drizzle it over him just as heartily as he had puffed it into her face.

[color=676FA5][b]“Aaaackkk!”[/b][/color] Cael screeched in response to being caught by his much faster friend. Instead of a light dusting, Rae had gone for quantity over quality and dumped an entire tube of blue glitter over his head while he tried to slither out of her spidermonkey grasp. [color=676FA5][b]“Awe, c’mon, not the [i]hair[/i]!”[/b][/color] He said with a whine but followed it with a giggle. Shaking his head caused a puff of glitter to sprinkle all around the both of them. The glitter fight and shenanigans continued until the faculty chastised the pair and some students started to arrive. [color=676FA5][b]“We should… probably wash up before our Liberty Bells get here, anyway. What’s the name of yours again?”[/b][/color] Cael asked as he placed a name tag on himself.

It was her turn to cackle now that her revenge was satiated, and she wasn’t the only one who looked like she was an extra for a Twilight spoof film. [color=128C8D][b]“Now we match~”[/b][/color] She chirped happily in an almost devilish sing-song tone after the cost was clear of the faculty that had caught them in the Glitter Act. Though that happiness morphed into an intense thinking expression where she pressed her lips into a thin line while trying to recall the email she had read a week ago for the name of her assigned tourist.

[color=128C8D][b]“I think my hair is gonna have glitter in it for at least a few days even if I did… But maybe I can convince one of them that I'm a sparkly vampire with it? I got a belle named Olivia Howard, so maybe she is still in the Twilight phase and it’ll work.”[/b][/color] She answered while placing her own name tag on the front of her coat since she only really needed it for the tour and not to wear all day, or so she thought rather hopefully. [color=128C8D][b]“I’ll probably go find them first and have the bathrooms be the first stop. Kill two birds with one stone.”[/b][/color] She added with a small salute to her partner-in-glitter-crime while backing up all the way to the entrance to start looking. [color=128C8D][b]“Good luck with finding that Christ dude.”[/b][/color]

[color=676FA5][b]“It’s Christian, you goober!”[/b][/color] Cael said and stuck his tongue out, still feeling the aftereffects of their silliness. [color=676FA5][b]“Good luck with the vampire thing, but I’m going to try to make a slightly better first impression. I mean, what if he’s uber hott?! Catch you on the flipside, cupcake!”[/b][/color] Cael said and saluted his sparkling biffie before heading to the bathroom. After doing his best to wash the glitter off of his face at the very least, Cael left the restroom in time to hear his name being spoken around the corner by the sign-in table. 

Cael flitted over to the students there gave one of them a light smack on the shoulder. [color=676FA5][b]“Goodness, don’t lie to them, Peter. You knew I was just in the bathroom real quick!”[/b][/color] The lavender-haired teen looked up to see a pair of new faces — well, one of them was new. The other one was… [i]black eye coffee[/i]? He nearly blurted that allowed, but instead just stared like a confused idiot for a moment. What was he doing at a high school? And god damn, he was wearing the [i]glasses[/i]. Cael practically swooned, but was quickly disappointed to see that his name tag read “Caspian” instead of “Christian”. Caspian, huh? He’d have to remember that for later. But for now, he grinned at the nearly equally handsome Christian and greeted him. [color=676FA5][b]“Your search has ended, my friend. I’m Cael! Welcome to Rosefell.”[/b][/color] Extending a hand for the boy to shake, he wondered if [i]all[/i] of the Liberty Boys were built like these two. Gods, one could hope.[/color][/indent]