Wanderings

[Alex Matsuoka]

Lakeshore was not San Diego. There were many, many ways in which Lakeshore was not San Diego- enough that Alex thought he might fill a book with them once he was done counting, and add them all to the growing number of reasons it was a mistake for him to be there. It was cold and slightly damp, no one he knew lived anywhere nearby, the academics were questionable, he had no idea if his credits would transfer to a real college, the place had uniforms and roommates, he didn't even know if the dorms had WiFi or whether he was going to be eaten by something. Possibly another student. He was dreading learning what the social ladder looked like in this place- he was probably at the bottom of it, somehow, not being able to do anything but make stupid lights and even that was probably a mistake.

He knew he was sulking and he didn't care.

Once his parents had settled in, Alex left to be by himself for a while, walking aimlessly through town and hoping to find someplace that looked normal, or at least the kind of interesting that would be useful later. Something.

Not paying attention to where he was going, he found himself in an oddly rural-looking location. His heart jumped out of his chest for a second thinking he was lost, or worse, had wandered out into that forest he'd heard so many warnings about. Over the trees, though, there were buildings. He was in a park, or a garden or something. A big place with plants and bushes and other stupid things.

It was kind of idyllic, actually, but he was still angry, and even moreso now at himself. He rubbed his eyes and stood there trying to compose himself.

[Hitomi Gilespi]

Hitomi settled herself onto the park bench and sighed as she reached the bottom of her coffee cup. She really shouldn't get another, but it was only noon. It wouldn't be so bad—and she did have that pumpkin seed coupon for a free Wonderland Muffin. It wouldn't be so bad...

But it was so nice here in the park, surrounded by the crisp early fall air and the wailing willows—which were singing an old Ella Fitzgerald song—that Hitomi wasn't quite sure she wanted to leave.

Of course, that could have just been the poppies. They had a tendency to make one reluctant to leave.

She opened her eyes to see a boy standing just inside her field of vision and startled slightly. She'd thought she was alone.

"Oh, hello there," she called. "Are you from Dunehelden too?"

[Alex Matsuoka]

Alex froze- thankfully, he nearly jumped- and turned towards the voice.

To his amazement, it belonged to a completely normal-looking person and not a tree or a talking rabbit or anything. It was- well, he wasn't sure if normal was the right word here. She looked better than that. And she looked his age. It was an opportunity.

A smile came across his face, balanced between cool and friendly. "Hello. Not yet. Are you?"

[Hitomi Gilespi]

Hitomi was immediately struck by the fact that he was rather odd-looking for a human, and wondered if he was a fae come from Arcadia to visit the town. He certainly didn't look quite like a fae either, but Hitomi had long since learned that it wasn't always easy to tell.

"I'm a junior there. My name's Hitomi." Hitomi gave him a warm sort of smile. "Is this your first time in a bordertown?"

[Alex Matsuoka]

This conversation was already going places Alex didn't want it to go. He shrugged one shoulder and walked a little closer.

"Alex. I just transferred. Nice to meet you." He glanced away, then back towards her with a little smirk. "You look like the sort of person who pays attention. What are the teachers like here?"

[Hitomi Gilespi]

Hitomi nestled over on the corner of the bench to give Alex room in case he wanted to sit down. The weeping willows transitioned into a barber shop quartet version of 'How High the Moon'.

"Depends on which teachers you mean, I suppose," she said. "There's a little of everyone. A lot of fae, a lot of humans... The school doctor is a dryad."

She smirked. "Unless you mean like, 'how permissive are they and how much alcohol and partying can you get away with', because the Headmistress is pretty vigilant and tends to know basically everything that happens in the school, so most people don't risk it."

[Alex Matsuoka]

Alex chuckled and decided to take Hitomi's offer for a seat. It was beginning to dawn on him that the music in the background was coming from the foliage.

"I was mostly thinking of classes, but all that's good to know too. I guess this isn't one of those boarding schools from movies where people sneak out under cover of night, then? What do you do for fun?"

[Hitomi Gilespi]

"Doesn't tend to work quite as well when half of your teachers don't need to sleep, no," Hitomi replied. "I mean, people manage it, but it's a bit riskier."

She thought about the answer to that question for a moment. "Well, there are plenty of things to do in town. You can go shopping, obviously, and there are lots of cool magical things. There's also a movie theater, a mystical library... Oh!" She grinned. "There's also a really awesome haunted house that opens on the first of October. You have to go to it."

[Alex Matsuoka]

She certainly seemed used to the idea of magic. Or excited, at least.

"Oh really? What's in it?"

She also wasn't bad to talk to. That was a plus.

[Hitomi Gilespi]

"Most of the same things you would see in a normal haunted house, I suspect..." She grinned, then. "Except, of course, most of the things in it are way more real. Last year they animated a bunch of ceramic skeletons, and the year before that they had a big creepy labyrinth."

[Alex Matsuoka]

Alex tried to imagine a haunted house with actual animated skeletons, or worse yet, real ghosts. He felt something like a phantom tail twitching in irritation, and awkwardly scratched his back.

"That's... certainly a haunted house." He leaned back again and thought for a moment. The park was nice and calm, but the nicer he felt here, the more he wanted to hate the place out of spite. "I guess when you have magic all over the place, you can afford to go nuts with it. Are you from Lakeshore?"

[Hitomi Gilespi]

"More or less," Hitomi replied. "I've been here since I was two. My brother and I lived in Ohio with our Mom for a while, but for basically all of my life I can remember, I've been here. I've never actually been outside of Lakeshore — I'm honestly a little jealous of you."

She tucked a long piece of hair behind her ear and considered him for a minute. He seemed like he was a bit uncomfortable with the idea of magic. It wasn't something she had a frame of reference for — as long as she could remember, she'd been surrounded by it — but she could only imagine how weird it must be. She knew that she would probably have a hard time adjusting to being in a world without magic, but to be suddenly thrown into magic, probably never even considering that it existed before? That must have been a hard transition.

"I'm guessing from the way you talk about magic that you're from the human world, right? What brought you to Lakeshore?"

[Alex Matsuoka]

The way she called it "the human world", Alex had no idea if she counted herself as human or not. He also hadn't... exactly realized how obvious he was being that this was new to him. He'd thought he'd been hedging his answers. On the other hand, maybe he had been and that was just what she'd hoped to hear.

It was hard not to be confrontational, but he was beginning to get the impression that Hitomi, at least, might be harmless.

"If your only other experience is Ohio, I can see why you'd be jealous of someone from anywhere else." He smirked. The second question- well he thought he had an answer to it, but it escaped him. Then another one did. Or maybe he hadn't had them at all. He was silent for an uncomfortably long moment.

"Erm- things happened. My-" He licked his lips and tried again. Nope. He had nothing. He truly and utterly had no answer that he liked. Alex rubbed the side of his face, hating how awkward he felt. "It's complicated. I don't know. And, honestly, I'm probably going to have to move my things into the dorms soon."

He had no idea how to end the conversation without looking like a total idiot.

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