Outside the academy, another arrival pulled up. The driver, a dark-haired, angular, keen-eyed man, didn't look quite old enough to be the father of the boy in the passenger seat, a gentle-featured young man dressed not unlike some kind of dorky professor, but despite the difference in demeanor, the family resemblance showed in the structure of their faces: brothers, albeit separated by more than a decade.
"Ready, kid?" the elder, Spire, asked, door open and one foot on the pavement.
"Hang on," Toby mumbled, sliding down in his seat, even though he wasn't the one who should be doing the hiding. He had spotted two distinctive figures descending the steps. Even if Toby hadn't seen them before, the red hair told him Norrevinter.
Spire shut the door and watched them pass with a wry smile, his hands thrumming on the steering wheel as he obviously fought to restrain himself from popping out and saying hello, just for the simple pleasure of seeing their reaction.
Toby's cheeks went red at this reminder of why he feared this crowd.
Spire reached down and popped the trunk, evidently thinking better of accompanying his brother inside. "Tell Byrne hi for me."
"Okay," Toby mumbled.
"Are you nervous?" Spire checked, since he was famously bad at interpreting the nuances of those kinds of things.
Toby shrugged. "I mean. As much as you'd expect."
"Don't be. Nobody is going to mess with you," Spire assured him.
Toby laughed once. Only because they'd be afraid he was related to a psychopath, he thought. They said their goodbyes - no hugs, just a punch on the shoulder, and Toby retrieved his duffel from the trunk.
Spire rolled the window down. "Hey. Please do something irresponsible for once. I'm beginning to worry about whether you're human."
Toby gave an awkward through-the-luggage wave goodbye."I'll t--turn in a paper late just for you," he promised.
...He totally would not turn in a late paper, ever.
After checking in, Toby wandered into the common room to find it...remarkably quiet. A few side conversations persisted at the fringes of the room, but the focus had been drawn to a demolished buffet bar, where a teacher appeared to be breaking up a fight between a boy and a girl who looked a whole lot like the Norrevinters he had just avoided. He took mental note to steer clear of the girl, and to find a time to approach the boy. He remembered from attending functions in rooms full of mages from his earlier youth that this was a world where one needed allies, even more than in mundane high school. And enemy of my enemy is...
Not that Toby wanted to have enemies. It wasn't exactly his fault everyone thought his brother had arranged for Ren Norrevinter to be killed to cover up his war crimes.
Toby fussily adjusted his collar beneath his argyle sweatervest and scanned the nearby students. He would rather curl up in the corner with a book for now. But this was about social survival.
He eventually sidled up to a boy and girl he spotted on his right. Survival skills kicked in - graphic tees and comic book symbols, often a sign of the laid-back and the less popular, more likely to be safe for conversation than, say, the the confident-looking blonde and tall, curvy dark-skinned girl at the table on his left who either knew each other before or had already found each other like glamour-magnets. They might be perfectly nice. Or they might be vicious, stereotypical mean girls...with super powers. Best play it safe.
"Hi," Toby said, directing the question to the innocuous boy and girl, though the two aloof young women were still in earshot. "Are you...ahm...what's g-- what's going on up there?" he asked, a bit lamely, since it was pretty clear what was going on.
@caliban22 @Dodi do 900 @Mr Allen J
