kittyluna45

Northwood Academy

...Stella is going to need all the hugs @Saltwater Thief

Northwood Academy

THEATER CLASS

TUESDAY

AFTER LUNCH

Stella dragged herself to theater class after lunch. It had been a lovely lunch outside, and she was left quite happy, for various reasons. She walked into the large theater and looked around, and plopped herself into an empty seat. The theater seemed relatively empty, only about twenty-five students and one teacher. The teacher was on the stage, and had her hand out, and Stella guessed she was counting the students. She noticed a small frown on the teacher’s face.

After the seeming last student walked in and sat down, and the bell to start class rang, the teacher adopted a smile on her face. “Hello my lovely actors and stage crew, and welcome to theater class. For those who don’t know me, I am Mrs. Wellington and I am the theater teacher, as well as the music teacher here. It is good to see some of you back, and also lovely to see some new faces! However, before I begin, may I have two volunteers? I need some of you to check the costume and prop storage for me, please,” Mrs. Wellington said.

Stella looked around and noticed a lack of hands at first and put hers up. Why not? It was a good chance to see the costumes the school had.

A second hand shot up, belonging to one of the wiry and shifty-looking boys. He just seemed to be grinning. Stella looked over at him and shrugged a bit. “Looks like we have two volunteers! If you both come down here, and give me your names please? A little bit of bonus credit for being so brave to volunteer,” Mrs. Wellington said.

“Stella Herbalem,” Stella said as she walked down to the stage.

“Glen Kerr,” came the response quickly after, the boy stifling a small yawn as he followed, heading to the stage. Stella noted his name in her memory.

“Alright Stella, Glen, the costume and prop storage is just under the stage, right here,” Mrs. Wellington said, pointing to a small ring hole in the stage. “Mr. Kerr, if you could please lift it for Miss Herbalem?” Mrs. Wellington added, while handing two flashlights to Stella. She took them and looked curiously at Mrs. Wellington. “Its a little dark in there,” she added.

Glen took the door, lifting the ring and pulling the door open, sneezing immediately. “And dusty,” he added, waving away some of the dust. “After you,” He finished, looking at Stella. Stella nodded, and handed one of the flashlights to Glen and went into the costume and prop storage. Glen followed shortly after, leaving the door open as he did.

After a few minutes of wandering through the aisles, stopping to take stock of the costumes every so often, there was a sudden clatter of a flashlight and an “Oomph”. A few moments later, Glen’s voice yelled “STELLA! GET MRS. WELLINGTON NOW!”

Stella rolled her eyes. “I swear, if it is a spider, I can...handle…” Stella walked over to where Glen was and saw that Glen was sprawled out over the floor, and he had tripped over a body. She was propped up against the wall, but the front of her school shirt was covered in blood. And at that moment, Stella let out a loud earth-shattering scream. Every worst fear had come true, and her powers surged, causing every plant on the campus to pause in their swaying.

Mrs. Wellington came running in to the prop room and stopped when she saw Glen, Stella and the body. “Arro…” She said so softly, but Stella caught it. “Glen, Stella, you go to the Headmistress’s office… now…” She said, looking at the two students.

“But...but...but Mrs. Wellington… there...there…” Stella started stammering out, but the teacher started doing a very odd thing. She started whistling. “Mrs. Wellington! Real…” As Stella was about to chew the teacher out, a very odd thing happened. She started feeling unusually calm. Sure, there was a dead body in the costume storage, but, it was alright.

“Please, Glen, Stella. The Headmistress needs to be made aware of this situation, but we don’t need to panic the whole school. Please just head to the Headmistress's office as calmly as you can, and then head to the cafeteria afterwards, I’ll be with you shortly,” Mrs. Wellington said, stopping her whistling.

“Whatever you say Mrs. Wellington,” Stella said, and then looked at Glen. She’d seen that he’d been very pale just a moment ago, but he looked like he was pretty relaxed too. He just nodded.

“Let’s go, then…” He said, and with that, he headed out, momentarily pausing to make sure he hadn’t gotten blood on himself, or so Stella assumed. She headed with him to the Headmistress’s office, and knocked on the door.

“Come in.” The calm pleasant voice that belonged to Mrs. Standiford said from the other side of the door. Upon entering the room, Stella noticed that the office did not have a lot of furniture or, decoration in it, but there were some rather spiffy looking comfy chairs and a few filing cabinets.

“How can I help you?”

“Uh, Mrs. Standiford…” Stella was cut off.

“Dead body in the theater,” Glen interrupted rather rudely, though he was starting to look nervous again. “Just thought you should know.” Mrs. Standiford stood quickly.

“Thank you. You may go down to the cafeteria.” She added, almost as an afterthought. “Someone will be there shortly.”

Stella blinked, and nodded, heading to the cafeteria with Glen and looked at him. “Was it just me, or did she handle that way too well?” She asked.

“... Practice?” Glen asked reflexively, obviously not thinking.

Stella blinked. She remembered hearing about the girl from last year, hints of things. She paused in heading to the cafeteria. Her eyes went wide. Everything was wrong with this school, and she had known it from day one, and this was just the icing on the cake.

Glen wasn’t with her now. He seemed to have vanished into thin air between when they had left the headmistress’s office and when they’d gotten to the cafeteria.

“Glen? Glen?!” Stella said, snapping back to reality. She didn’t need to lose him on top of everything else going on in that moment. She also really wished that Tobias was there.

“Stella?” The steady voice of Mr. Johnson came from behind Stella. She turned around and did one of the most un-student like things and hugged Mr. Johnson.

“Mr. Johnson! There was a body, and now Glen is missing and everything is just wrong, and the headmistress was too calm about this and I don’t know if I want to be here anymore!” Stella blurted out, on the verge of tears.

Mr. Johnson hugging Stella back said, “Mrs. Standiford is always calm looking. I’ve seen her handle some crazy stuff without having a hair go out of place. Now who is this Glen? Where did you see him last?” He gave her a reassuring pat on the back before pulling out of the hug a way, his hands on her shoulders.

“Um Glen… uh… Glen Kerr. He’s in my theater class. We were headed to the cafeteria together, and he vanished in the hall,” she said, pointing back the way they had come. It was at that moment she noticed that there were mirrors in the hallway. Mr. Johnson’s gaze followed Stella’s. A look of worry crossed his face.

“Let’s sit for a moment.” He gestured to one of the tables. “Tell me everything that happened from the beginning.”

Stella nodded, sitting down at the table with him. She did notice the rest of the class was there, looking like a mix of confusion and worry. She looked at Mr. Johnson and told him everything that had happened in the last twenty minutes.

He had nodded along as Stella told him everything without interrupting her. “All right, now if you still want to leave, and I cannot blame you for it -” The PA crackled to life and Mrs. Standiford’s voice came in over the system.

“Would all students and staff report to the gym for an announcement.” The PA turned off again.

Stella frowned at the announcement. “I guess that means us,” she said, and stood up. Her stomach was doing flips.

Frontier – [ Full || Sci-Fi || Firefly-Inspired ]

I will totally be down to do a collab on Tuesday or Wednesday, since I will have those days off, with whomever.

Northwood Academy

Hey, yeah. As Kirah said, we hope to have a post up sometime next week. Just been super busy with work here. So yeah.

And no problem @Siaya Dragalorn whenever you can get in that is awesome.

Frontier – [ Full || Sci-Fi || Firefly-Inspired ]

Jinxy and Amir

Engine Room

Jinxy had gone back to the engine room after dinner, if one could call what they ate dinner. However, it was way better than prison food, so it had that going for it. She paused as she looked around the engine room and sighed. She picked back up her coveralls and put them on, tying the top part around her waist. It was a bit hot in the engine room, and she was already working up a sweat.

She got under the main engine, hoping to get some things worked out with a few parts before the captain walked into talk with her. She sighed to herself. Engines and machines she knew well, but people? People are hard.

“Knock knock,” said a voice from the doorway. Amir grimaced at the rust obvious on the protective railing. Tying his hair up with a rubber band and wiping away the trickle of sweat running down the back of his neck, he stepped down towards the engine and the boots he could see peeking out from underneath. “So – a tour, Jinxy?”

Jinxy pulled herself out from under the engine and looked at Amir and smirked. “Welcome to hell captain. Certainly is hot enough to be hell. And also all the work that needs done… well... “ She sighed. “As you heard earlier, I had to break one of the engines to get her to not lull, but that is only because I couldn’t find enough parts here to fix the broken one. Anyways, as for the tour, we’ll start here, with this... “ She paused. “Its a piece of shit. We managed to find one of the oldest ships in port I think, and whoever owned her before wasn’t keeping her up to date. Some of it was being held together by chewing gum!” She shivered a bit. It had not been fun trying to pull those awful things out of the parts they were holding together and just fix the ship.

“So beyond that, we now have both the left and right engine broken, and I do apologize for the wrench sticking out of one of them. That was all me,” she said, looking a bit sheepish at that.

Amir, to his credit, looked completely unperturbed by the knowledge they were in a junker in worse condition than they had imagined, inspecting the engines with an untrained eye. “So long as she gets us to Oberon and we don’t blow up entering her atmo.” He crouched down to get a better view of the remnants of the bubble gum, reaching out to scrape a bit off with a snort of laughter. “Is it worth keeping her, do you think? None of us are particularly attached at present, and if she ain’t good to fly...”

Jinxy had to smirk a bit. “If I get the right parts and a few days with her alone, I can get her in a better condition than she was when she was new. However, that is up to you. We can ditch her if you don’t think that’s worth the effort…” She trailed off a bit as she noticed his arm. “Is that a Hunter mechanical arm. However, it’s a bit out of date I would think. That was the free insurance model…” She walked over and looked at it, the best she could without getting in his personal space. “However, there are some very nice modifications made to it… “ She paused and looked at him and then blushed. “Sorry… uh… I have issues and sometimes those issues include remembering that people have personal space and the like…” She looked away, suddenly shy.

“S’all right. Nothing unusual to me,” Amir said with a shrug. He held out his arm, palm up. The strip of fake flesh, barcode included, stood out in stark contrast to the mess of metal and wires that made up the limb. “It’s must be fifteen years old by now, and it was outdated to begin with.” The captain smirked. “You look like you want to dissect it, or whatever the techie equivalent is. I’ll take it off, if you want, but usually it takes dinner and a date for that.”

She smirked. “Oh trust me captain, if we had dinner and a date, I’d want you to keep it on,” she said and looked at him, giving a wink. “However, if you ever want me to give it a bit of a tune up, I’d be more than happy to. Tinkering with mechanical limbs is a bit of a hobby, on top of fixing engines. Wouldn’t want it to give out on you in the middle of something… interesting,” she said.

She coughed and composed herself a bit. “Shall we get back to the engine tour I promised ya? Or have you seen enough of this mess to want to get out of here and just ditch this rust bucket once we get to Oberon?” She said, leaning against a wall and looking at him. She did look him over a bit, wondering what he was thinking. She realized the top of her chest tattoo was peeping up from under her tank, and she tugged it up a bit.

“It’ll take more than that to make me blush, Jinxy,” Amir said with a raised eyebrow, straightening up after one last glance at the hopeless engine. “And, it just so happens that I’ve got a thing for the underdog ships like this girl.” He hit one of the metal support beams in a gesture of camaraderie, only to wince when it creaked and groaned. “I’m guessing the worst is still to come?”

Jinxy smirked. “Trust me, I have yet to try to make you blush, Captain. But yes, the worst is still to come. However, I’ll do what I can to fix her up when we get some time and parts. However, if I do find something that is a bit more alarming than a few support beams groaning, I will let you know that we need to abandon ship, and hopefully before we leave Oberon,” she said, the smirk gone. She sighed. She hadn’t even thought about a few of the other systems the ship would need to operate, and had yet checked them.

“Make sure she’s in tip-top shape for leaving orbit, that’s all I ask. Everything from Life Support to – making sure there’s no weird noises when she moves.” Amir said. “I know a couple of guys – Waegu – who run shops on Oberon. Hopefully they’ll give us a discount for old times sake.”

She frowned a bit. “Waegu huh? I’ll pass on stopping by the shop,” she said. “Gotta ask… are you currently… y’know?” She asked, crossing her arms in front of herself.

Amir shook his head, a small smile born out of nervousness crossing his face. “Former. Former big-shot, I should add – if that’s a problem..?”

Jinxy let out a small sigh of relief. “No, no problem if its former. Anyways, I’ll make sure everything is in tip-top before we leave Oberon. We’ll get there fine, but nothing too much further than that,” she said looking at him.

“Right on,” Amir let out a breath he must have been holding and stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets. “Compile a list of the parts you definitely need – I’ll take… maybe, Angel out shopping instead. Girls like shopping, or so I’ve heard.” He turned to leave, hopping up the step that led up to the main body of the ship. “Unless there’s anything else..?”

“If you’re ever serious about that date, you know where to find me,” Jinxy added with a wink and waited to see what Amir’s response would be.

“There’s much, much better places than Oberon out there in the ‘Verse for a date. I’ll let you know if we stop on one of them.” The corner of his lip turned up into a smirk and with one waggled eyebrow he turned on his heel and left.

Jinxy chuckled to herself and smiled, and then realized she was actually blushing! “Augh, put those thoughts out of mind, we got work to do!” She said to herself and went back under the engine, humming to herself as she tried to scrape more gum off of it.

Frontier – [ Full || Sci-Fi || Firefly-Inspired ]

AUGH!!

Sorry y'all. Will try to be on chatzy Wednesday morning to hopefully work on the collab. Just... yeah.

Frontier – [ Full || Sci-Fi || Firefly-Inspired ]

SORRY! I have just started a new job and it has been eating my time and energy. I should be around more Wednesday so MCH and I can do our collab post, but otherwise, I'm kinda busy. Sorry y'all.

Frontier – [ Full || Sci-Fi || Firefly-Inspired ]

"If if did, I vote to rename it piece of shit..." Jinxy muttered under her breath, between bites of the mystery food. It wasn't the best, but it wasn't the worst.

"Also, thanks captain. I'll give you the grand tour once we're done with mystery meat," she added. She sighed a bit as they continued to eat. "So, have we figured out if there is anything useful on this ship yet? Because if we've found any mechanical parts, I'd like to call dibs... mostly to see if there is something I can use to fix this ship up a bit more," she said as an afterthought, also looking to keep the conversation going a bit.

Northwood Academy

Breakfast Tuesday Morning 6:30 AM

Stella Herbalem and Tobias Rivenridge

@Saltwater Thief

Stella almost dragged herself to a table that morning. It had not been a productive nights sleep. Her powers were fluxing a bit, and so at random points in the night, all she would feel was the urge to just leave the school. The fact that the plants were almost screaming now was getting to her. Now that she was more awake, she was focusing all her energy into tuning them out, but it was costing her a bit.

She set down a tray of food, and a rather large cup of coffee, which seemed odd for a fourteen year old. She starting sipping her coffee and eating, but seemed to be miles away while doing so. So much so, that she didn't notice someone sit down next to her.

"That is quite a lot of caffeine," came a familiar voice as that someone eased into the seat to her right. A look toward the sound revealed it was Tobias, looking a little sleep deprived himself, but cheerfully smiling nonetheless. "Having trouble waking up?"

Stella blushed as she looked at Tobias and then back at her coffee. It was more out of embarrassment than anything at that moment. "I didn't sleep very well last night. Still getting use to being in a new place," she said, lying a bit. However, what could she tell him? The truth? That would be the quickest way to lose him as a friend.

"You look like you didn't sleep very much either. Is everything alright?" She asked, looking a little bit concerned.

Tobias took a long pull on his own drink, tea from the smell of it, before he answered. "Oh, uhh... yes, I'm quite alright. Just wound up staying awake most of the night dealing with some, er... malfunctioning devices," he said, his voice a little nervous as he seemed to struggle finding the right words. "Though I think I might also still be warding off the jet lag, home's a solid 6 hours ahead of here."

"Still," he continued while he ate, "This place seems alright, on the whole. A little eerie, but the people are nice."

"I will agree with that. A little eerie, but the people are nice," Stella said between bites, smiling a bit. She did notice he seemed a little nervous talking about his devices. "Because I am curious, what of your devices were malfunctioning so much that you had to deal with them last night? You don't have to answer if you don't want to... just... as I said, I am curious," she said, looking at Tobias.

Tobi seemed to spend an oddly long time chewing a piece of bacon while he pondered her question. "It's mainly the power supply," he finally answered after he finished it, "Most of the bloody things need some electricity to work, but just the right amount. Too little, and they don't turn on. Too much, and they might light something on fire. And when I left some of them alone the last couple of days, they sort of... built up too much of a charge, so I had to figure out how to get rid of the excess and then see if I could get them to not do that. Couldn't really figure it out before I collapsed into bed, but a least there shouldn't be any problems for right now."

"And what about you? What in particular kept Stella Herbalem awake? If you're willing to share it, of course. If not, I'll just keep my nose in my tea cup."

Stella shrugged. "As I said, I'm still getting use to a new place, and my bed at home was way more cushiony than these things they attempt to call mattresses..." She paused and then frowned a bit. "Have you heard about the missing students? If I'm really honest, that's what is keeping me up at night. The fact that there are people missing from this school, but we're just continuing on like nothing is wrong. It doesn't seem quite right to me," she said, admitting to what was really on her mind at the moment.

Tobias stopped eating at the mention of the missing students. He set the fork he had been using down and crossed his arms on the table in front of him, his face screwed up in thought. "I know what you mean. Anywhere else I've gone to school, people vanishing like that would have the place on lock-down with the authorities all over the place. But everything here is proceeding like the poor sods never even attended. Makes you think about some things. It'd keep anybody up at night."

Stella nodded. "That is why I was up most of the night. I do hope something is being done, but... part of me just wants to leave. However... I don't want to just go. Not just yet," she said a bit softly. There was something that was drawing her to the school. She wasn't sure what it was, or who, but there was something here. Her own curiosity wouldn't be satisfied till it was figured out. "What about you? Knowing that... are you going to stay?" She asked, turning to look at Tobias, waiting for his answer.

Tobias took a deep breath in and let it out slowly as he seemed to consider the question heavily. When it had been completely been let out, he gave a single, small chuckle. "Well, it's quite a puzzle in and of itself, and I've never really been one to walk away from a puzzle. Besides," he said as his chuckle became a modest smile that he turned toward Stella, "I think I've found a few things here that are worth sticking around for." With that, he grabbed the mug of tea and held it out toward her in a toast gesture. "Here's to some better mornings to come, eh?"

Stella blushed softly, and smiled, and held up her mug of coffee and clinked it with Tobias' mug of tea. "To better mornings then. And maybe a puzzle we can figure out, possibly together," she said, muttering a bit at the end.

Northwood Academy

Yeah... sorry... still up for that collab @Saltwater Thief? I have all weekend free!