[center][h1][i][color=Plum]Valencia Coquerdale[/color][/i][/h1][/center][center][sup]Mentions:[@Heartfillia], [@Aerandir][/sup][/center]
Riding in a carriage was a lot more enjoyable than walking. The ability to look out and observe everything around the carriage whilst not worry about the huffing of breath after walking long distances, particularly for those that frequented armour upon their persons, was quite appealing; walking did have it's own benefits, though Valencia Coquerdale was happy enough to sit and wait for the carriage to arrive at it's destination. That is, sit still. Very still. Motionless, in fact. Enough so that perhaps the staff of Hoseforn's Academy may question whether her particular carriage was delivering a student or a statue. The armour definitely helped Valencia fit into the latter. The wings, too, might have helped were they not tucked in underneath the plates. Valencia just hoped that the uniform that she'd be receiving was comfortable enough.

Finally, the carriage came to a halt, and the coachman (so wonderfully provided by her father along with the carriage itself) announced that they had reached their destination, the front of the Academy. It almost embarrassed her that she had to be escorted to the Academy like this, for she knew that the coachman was also there to tell her father how she had acted on the trip, to keep an eye on her during it, as if she was not her own woman and capable of handling herself. She knew this because she had opted for riding a horse of her own to the Academy, and let it settle in the stable for the duration of her stay for whenever she would need to ride, however her father had overruled it. She supposed she had to thank him for not providing a full escort of some frustrating mercenary group or the likes, creatures flapping around like she was an empress, for that would probably have ensured she [i]didn't[/i] come home and instead live out the rest of her days pretending to be a statue out of embarrassment. Stepping out of the carriage, Valencia dismissed the coachman, watching him as he rode away. Only as he entered the distance did she notice a quad of heavily armoured horsemen following on behind the carriage, and corrected her earlier thought; although she wasn't being directly escorted, her father had definitely assigned guards to follow behind. Smart, and thoughtful.

Turning her attention to the Academy itself, Valencia took in everything that was in front of her. The grounds were beautiful, both for their picturesque visuals and for the freedom that they granted her. Here, she was free of the metaphorical chains that her father had on her. Well, she was certain that provided enough push, he'd try to keep an eye on her and her progress, but it was a pleasant thought, at least. Valencia was certainly not the first to arrive, she saw plenty of other people also around, and she was smart enough to pick out the students that had been here before from the first years such as herself; Those that had their uniforms already on, and thus already [i]had[/i] uniforms in the first place, were quite obviously ones that had already been around. First years such as herself, and some of the other unsystematically-dressed individuals fumbling their way around, did [i]not[/i] have said uniform yet. Such an identifying difference was due to vanish by the end of the first day, she knew. The young woman began to walk, ignoring glances from those who had an interest in the intricately-patterned dark steel armour, or perhaps even those who had an inkling of who she was and where she hailed from.

Entering the Main Hall, Valencia paused to savour the grandeur of the room, before her eyes settled on the most prominent feature, the crystal. It was enormous, and she had to take a few moments just to imagine who had the idea of shoving the thing inside of the building, barely questioning how they managed to do it. Following the lead of other students, Valencia trotted her way towards one of the booths that circumferenced the crystal, passing an embarrassed first year student who seemed to be grouching to another equally embarrassed first year about how they smelled - going to a school publicly certainly seemed like it would be [i]interesting[/i], judging by that interaction. The whole ordeal of the crystal was piquing her curiosity however, and she was quite excited to see what would happen when she stepped inside the booth - to which the answer was the greeting from Athena. Like the other students, Valencia was asked to present her acceptance scroll, and once she had done so, was informed of her dorm number - 658 - and told to change, bathe, and return to the Main Hall. The note at the end almost made her wonder how long Hoseforn's Academy had been standing. [i]Attendance is mandatory.[/i] Her father frequented the use of such a phrase, and it made Valencia wonder if her father had been to Hoseforn's Academy before her. [color=Plum]"Thank you for your assistance, Athena,"[/color] Valencia spoke smoothly, once her ordeal with Athena was complete. She stood in the booth for a few more moments, just taking in the crystal and the room itself, before proceeding to use her newfound map to make her way towards the dorms.

Soon enough, Valencia made her way along the halls of the dorms, searching for her own, and adjusting the strap of the pack that was over her shoulders. She had considered taking her armour into the school some other way so that she didn't have to carry both it [i]and[/i] the bag. However, upon leaving home, she had decided that she would have a much better time if she just wore the armour and carried the bag at the same time, in order to ensure the safe journey of both her personal belongings, and of the armour itself, too. Her eyes constantly flickered down to the scroll and then back up to the dorm numbers, following them along and counting out in her head along with the signs. [color=Plum][i]684... 655... 656... 657... Foxgirl![/i][/color] Valencia stopped dead in her tracks as she almost ran into one of the students that she had noticed earlier, the one that had been talking about her smell. [color=Plum]"Oh, hello!"[/color] Valencia says, stepping back to give the other person room. It was then that Valencia noticed that the other had actually been coming from the room that she had been assigned. [color=Plum][i]Oh. A roommate. This will be... Pleasant.[/i][/color]