The fork scraped against Percival's beautifully manicured teeth. This lunch had been one of the best he had in a while. The mashed potatoes seemed mushier than usual, the steak was juicier, and the wine was utterly exquisite. His momentous jawline grounded down the food placed in front of him immediately. He glanced around while the tiny particles of food were being destroyed. The other diners around him were not his usual company, but he loved to shake things up; it was in his blood.

The girl to his left, Abeline Ixbridge, was one of his old pals from his early living courses and he was trying to get to know her again. The boy to his right was a different story. Campion Luccullis, one of the odder people Percival knew, he had only known for a month or so. Their friendship was as new as the freshly driven snow outside the cafeteria. They met over very odd circumstances that would be rather painful for any other student to know.

"Well it's quite nice to have you two sit with me this afternoon. How is everyone? I hope the snow outside has not affected anyone." He said, brushing a few flakes from his uniform green jacket.

Campion really liked days when mashed potato was on the menu- they made such excellent sculpting material. Sticking his tongue out, he artfully manipulated his knife embelleshing the details on his potato representation of Brunnhold, complete with a cabbage duelling lawn. So engrossed was Campion in his mash-art, that he wasn’t his usual on-guard self. Chervil, his brother, was off somewhere being vile to first years so Campion didn’t have to worry about having a plate of lunch dumped on his head (someone else’s, of course, Chervil wasn’t the type to waste his own precious food on a mash-hat for his little brother) and Maggie was at her lunchtime study group…not that Campion had gone out of his way to learn her schedule or anything…but it meant a well earned break from gazing at the back of her head.

Percy spoke and Campion looked up from Mash-Brunnhold. The snow had been affecting him, of course it had. The icy dampness of Campion’s socks could contest this, as on his way to lunch he’d been waylaid by the most ripping snowball fight! It was all tremendous fun! Particularly when the other’s had got bored of flinging snow at eachother and simply pinned Campion down and filled his trousers with snow. It had been a jolly good laugh.

“We’re undertaking to make a snowman when class lets out,” said Campion cheerfully, “some of the chaps and I are going to steal the pater’s pipe, shoes and glasses and make the very image of him in the snow. You could join us…if you wanted, Perce.”

He bit his lip and looked at Abby, wondering if he was being rude not to invite the bespectacled young lady “You too, Abby.” Privately, though, he wondered if the ‘chaps’ would like that, particularly his best friend Teapot, on lunchtime detention at this point- who didn’t really see the point of having girls about unless they were ridiculously pretty and did nothing but giggle or kiss him- it was incredibly tiresome and Campion was very glad that his Maggie wasn’t like that. Maybe the giggling part…he wouldn’t have minded it very much if she did want to kiss him.

“I love it when it snows, I really do…you should have seen old Professor Figgy falling on his rump on the way to the history building! And the class was cancelled because of it!!” Campion smiled triumphantly, “I thought I was going to get lines for my last history essay- ‘I must not call the previous King a fat halfwit’!! But Figgy was so confused after his fall, he gave me top marks…the chaps and I all about died!”

Campion beamed into his plate; Chervil was elsewhere, there was mash for lunch, he’d gotten out of detention and Maggie had promised to help him with his ethics- life was wonderful, despite the melted snow in his underpants.

"What," Abby looked up from her music notes, smirking, "and pass up this magnificent reading weather?"

Why were the boys always inviting her to things? It was so bothersome. Didn't they know she had a book list longer than Professor Figg's droning lectures? Perhaps she should put up a sign--'No Boys Allowed'--but that wouldn't do any good. Sometimes males could participate in intelligent conversation, and it wasn't like girls were any better (with one exception).

Where was Millie, anyway? Abby's spectacles reflected the whole of the cafeteria as she peered about. Nowhere to be seen. Probably traipsing in the woods somewhere.. not a half-bad idea, really, but... snow was damned cold.

She cleared her throat and tried to concentrate on the oboe concerto on her lap, but no luck. This was lunchtime, after all, and perhaps she should spare a minute to feed herself. Although she'd never admit it, the potatoes did look almost appetizing.

As Campion retold the events of the day, she took a pinch from her personal stash of paprika and sprinkled it over her dish. Then, she noticed his model of the school, and offered, "Here, take my paprika. You could increase the accuracy of Brunnhold-au-gratin over there by turning it red. Well, sort of an orangey-red, but close enough."

Khymarah entered the cafeteria quietly, hugging a grimoire to her chest, her eyes on the floor. Glancing up once, she noticed a group of younger students, laughing and jesting. Blushing slightly, she passed quickly, hoping they wouldn't see her. She moved in a beeline, straight for the lunch spread, taking a tray and balancing it on her book. It was a mash day today, with roast and gravy and all the trimmings. The redhead didn't particularly like mashed potato, but it was better than peas. Taking herself a serving of potatoes, roast and gravy, she quickly turned and made her way to the furtherest empty table. Sliding onto the chair, she placed her stuff on the wooden tabletop and proceeded to eat, keeping her eyes on the food at hand.

Occasionally, she would flick her eyes up to check the immediate area. It seemed safe enough, no one had noticed her. Lifting a hand, she opened the grimoire beside her tray and began to read, satisfied that for now, she wasn't going to be harassed. As soon as she was finished her food she could retreat to the library.

Charlton was looking at Perce again.

It was a daily ritual of sorts. He didn't have any classes with Perce, except for his sport class, but they had the same lunch hour and Charlie liked to look at him with his friends. Sometimes he thought Perce was looking back, but he could never be sure as he'd avert his gaze whenever Perce turned his head. It wouldn't do to be caught staring the way he was. With a sigh, he shouldered his bag a little better and tried to find somewhere to sit. His friends from last semester didn't want to talk to him this semester, which was understandable he supposed. His grades in maths had slipped again, and his Living professor had loudly and publicly decried him as one of the worst magic students he'd ever taught. It was small comfort that this particular professor had been teaching less than a decade.

Still, there had to be someone he could sit with. Blue eyes darted back and forth, looking for a familiar face. It was always a challenge to find one quickly, before he'd reached the limit for standing around looking. One could only stay there for so long, pretending you just had to find the right people, before it was obvious there were no people to be found.

At last, he spotted someone he knew. Luccullis was in some of the same classes as him-- remedial, all of them, though he wasn't sure anyone would ever say such a thing to Luccullis' face. They said it to his plenty, but he and Luccullis were not such great friends that Charlton could just ask. He liked Luccullis, if only because they seemed to be sort of equally pathetic.

"That's very accurate." He gestured with his tray at the mashed potato school. "My-- my friends are at a study group," he lied. (It wasn't entirely untrue, after all-- it was just a study group he could see from where he stood.) "Could I sit here today?"

Before the blonde to his right could speak, Percival was already up and welcoming the new stranger. “Welcome, welcome, welcome! It is an honour to have you here.” Percival, the ever jovial host, exclaimed. “It’s always a pleasure to meet a new face and eat with a new body. I was beginning to tire of these two!” Percival’s eyes darted from Abe to Campion and back again. “I tease, I tease. I am quite sure I would never grow tired of either of your company.”

Percival, still standing, gazed around the cafeteria for other potential diners. The mohogony walls were filled to capacity with green clad students awaiting their meals and others already consuming it. He wanted his group to be the largest, most magnificent group in the cafeteria. It didn’t matter if he couldn’t stand half of the people he was dining with; he wanted to have a crowd around him.

The thespian spotted a sheep headed man looking for a seat. He appeared to be an older student, quite burly; he was obviously half-Hessean. “You there! Hessean!” The Hessean was in a close enough proximity to be alerted by the shout. “Come, Sit with us!” The Hessean blatantly stared at Percival. Then, without saying anything, walked away.
“Well . . . that didn’t work out as planned.” He whispered to the inhabitants of his table. His face shot up again, at the sight of red hair. “How about you? You don’t seem to be dining with anyone else.”

Campion grinned as his mash masterpiece began to take shape, thanks to Abby Ixbridge’s help. It would be such a shame to even contemplating eating it.

The idiot, the bookworm, the passive sympathiser, the runt and the impure girl- they made for rather strange lunch fellows, and- Campion thought, backed by five years of knowledge of your average Brunnhold bully and sixteen of his brothers, both of them above average Brunnhold bullies- a really rather easy target.

It wasn’t that Campion actively disliked the red-head with the strange colored eyes, good lady of course not- Khymarah had gone into Brunnhold the very same year as him and he had seen her about and the Almond boy was as pleasant a chap as you could find in a remedial class- if only there were someone to bring him out of his shell- but, honestly. It’d taken years of Teapot stuffing Campion into waste receptacles, countless detentions, and a practically lethal amount of pickled eggs consumed in one sitting last year for Campion to be able to call himself one of the ‘chaps’.

Despite all this, however, Campion couldn’t help himself but smile at Percy’s good natured exuberance as he sat at their table, welcoming the nervous looking Almond with a magnanimous speech like the king of the land of misfit toys.

“You’re our guest of honor according to Perce,” he turned to the Almond boy with a good natured grin “I must apologize that I’m not wearing formal attire or anything, sir. And by the by, you haven’t done the remedial static homework yet have you? How long did the essay take you?”

Tonight was all about ethics with Maggie, and Campion didn’t need to be thinking about something so trivial as schoolwork. He could picture it now, the two of them in a dark corner of the library, he could smell the books even in the cafeteria and Maggie’s soft scent, flowers and fresh earth as she was just returned from lacrosse practice- the kind of thing that Teapot and the older boys did, outside of sight of the librarian- Campion would tuck the strand of hair falling out of her braid behind her ear, he could feel it and he would…and that was sort of where the imaginings ended, because Campion couldn’t quite picture things from that point.

He knew how to kiss, of course, that dreadful girl at the summer house just outside Virthmore had practically tackled him face first when he was thirteen- but everything else….he’d heard from Teapot and the Chaps and, well, he highly doubted that his friends were all as experienced as they said they were. And then there was Maggie herself- girls wore an awful lot of clothes really. He’d sat in his mother’s room as a very little boy watching the torture Hyzenthay put herself through in order to look attractive. It took two whole fully trained lady’s maids to get her into her damnable corset , goodness knows how Campion would be able to get anyone out of one!!

“Abby,” said Campion tipping his head to his dining companion, his face the very picture of boyish innocence, he could have been a wide eyed eleven year old learning his first push spell from a revered professor. “I was sort of wondering….what….I mean, your underwear, ladies underwear in general….what on vita is going on?”

He looked up at poor Khymarah too, involving her in this horribly inappropriate luncheon topic- had Hyzenthlay Luccullis been in the room she would have walloped her son with her fan for such subordination, but Campion being Campion didn't quite realize the terrible implications of what he was saying- "Yes, Miss Theraldon, isn't it? You seem a feminine sort...your corsets? How does one get into them?"

Khymarah looked up sharply as Percival addressed her, looking left and right, before glancing at him again. She blushed deeply, winced a little and returned to her grimoire. Surely, he was trying to make a joke out of her, and the last thing she would do was give him the ability to do it. People didn't invite her to sit with them, unless they were going to be nasty to her.



That was just...the redhead looked up again, dual colored eyes wide and a deep scarlet blush covering her face, down to her throat.

"I beg your pardon?!" The young girl almost whispered, feeling suddenly ill with disgust. Who on earth asked a lady that! As if she would be giving young men information on how to get into her corset! The sheer thought turned her face darker still, and she quickly glanced away. They were baiting her, making fun of her. Surely.

"Campy, quit bothering the poor thing. I doubt she has any experience in the matter." Abby peered over her spectacles, the perfect icon of a teacher's pet.

Then, she pounded her elbow on the table and leaned over to the class clown. "Now, there's a trick to it, you see..." Abeline whispered instruction to him, operating a series of elaborate gestures on an invisible girl. "And then you--" More gestures, which were becoming as complex as an advanced spell. "And then the tricky part--" Her hands moved too quickly to be seen, weaving with astonishing speed through imagined lace and ribbon.

"And there you go." She grinned wryly, a touch of color to her cheeks. "Now did you get all that? If not, I hope you took notes, because I won't be telling you a second time."

Laur had no one to sit with at lunch, as usual. But it was too chilly to sit out in a deserted corner of the Cloister and read books. (Also, it was snowy, and the books would get wet. She couldn't bear the wrath of the librarian.) She would have to eat inside. But of course, there were no empty tables. Of course. Not for the first time, Laur wished she had a real friend. Then, she wouldn't be worrying about this. Even Charlie still being nice to her would've sufficed. But even her former best friend couldn't be bothered to say hi to his awkward, chubby little sister anymore. She tugged at her pigtails, tried to adjust her ill-fitting uniform, which was unfortunately meant for people with waists. Curse being thirteen. Why such an age existed, she didn't know.

She longed to be twenty, a full-grown woman who would most likely be an incredibly acclaimed scientist or something interesting like that. Not an awkward little student anymore. The mass of idiots would finally recognize her for her genius, and she would have gaggles of girls dying to be her friend. She'd accept, despite all the mean things they wrote about her in the bathrooms--she was just that kind of good person, to forget all the things they'd done. Well, she wouldn't forget--one never forgets--but she'd forgive. She would have dozens of boys wanting to court her. But she'd turn them all down, because she was not that kind of girl. Well, maybe one. But he'd have to be cute. and not too tall. (Her parents would never let her bring home a tall boy. The possibilities for bad blood!)

She finished this daydreaming as she got her tray of food. Eww, steak. She had never liked red meat. Still, it was food, whatever. The mashed potatoes would be stomachable, at least. But where to eat? Glancing around the cafeteria,she spotted her brother. Maybe he would be courteous enough today to let her sit with him. Or not.

"Oh, hi, Charlie, do you think I could--" And then she noticed all the older students sitting with her brother already. Clocks. "Oh. You're with your friends. Nevermind. It's not snowing that much. Sorry." She moved away, but not too much; she hovered about six feet away from the table, wanting to stay but needing to go.

Charlton was a bit taken aback by the blonde-who-was-not-Luccullis' exuberance. That wasn't quite what he'd been expecting. Of course it was hard to say just what he had been. Perhaps a begrudging "you may", if not outright rejection.

"I-- oh uhm. Yes, I did. Well, almost. It's mostly finished." It wasn't, in fact, much more than started, but Luccullis didn't need to know that. Neither did anyone else at the table. He took a seat, trying not to look too eager. It wouldn't do, after all, to have everyone know that he wasn't here by choice. Nevermind that anyone reasonably clever would already know.

He did try his best to ignore his sister, though. How terrible would that be? Ditched by friends, talking about his remedial classes-- and then hanging out with his baby sister? No, thank you.

Percy disregarded the conversation going on either side of him. He had little need to know how to untie a corset. A corset was something a fine lady of consequence wore. Percy had never been attracted to a lady of consequence, so the knowledge of untying was entirely useless on him. Instead, Percy was obsessing over all the new members of the table. The offended redhead was now stuck at the table, Campion's acquaintance was now seated, and it seemed his sister was going to join them too.

"Oh! Please sit down, child!" exclaimed Percy, beckoning to sit at the seat across from her brother. "We can never have too many dining companions. It seems that I have filled this table up quite nicely, wouldn't you all agree?" He said, looking over the table. "What a fine group of people assembled. I am truly honoured to be in your presence. It is such a wonderful sight to see so many future professionals in one place." Then a thought struck him. "Well, my fellow students," He said, taking his seat once more. "What do you all plan on doing as adults? I myself plan on being a thespian of magnificent proportions." Percival smirked slightly.

“Was I being innapropriate?” said Campion delightedly- to behave offensively was something of a schoolhood goal at sixteen years old and it always pleased him to know he had accualized said aim.

Campion squinted as Abby made her convoluted hand gestures, and as his eyes got smaller and smaller he branded the entire situation as utterly hopeless. “Why on Vita would anyone make that so complicated!” he said weakly. "Surely a pair of scissors is just easier!"

When the subect turned to future carreers, Campion’s face visibly darkened. At sixteen, Campion was perfectly happy to wish the future far away.

All the same Campion did not have to think long about his ‘ambitions’, he had never had that luxury. When it had become apparent that their youngest son wasn’t ever going to become a great magister they set about choosing a non magical career path and with one son set for politics, the other for finance, the law seemed a repectable, luxcrative career choice.

“Law, If my father gets his way and he will, because he always does. Anything else on the entire planet if I get mine,” said Campion gloomily, a longing glance at his mash-brunnhold.

When he thought about the man he almost certainly be in ten years time, Campion never liked what he saw but it was almost an inevitablilty- working in a law office, doodling away his more creative aspirations in his spare time, married maybe, he’d go to dinner parties and smarm and be so incredibly boring.

“Still, the theatre sounds fascinating, Perce- we don’t go very often, mother doesn’t like it much.”

Before he’d been able to attend his parent’s dinner parties, Campion had entertained himself by watching the guests arrive in their finery from his place at the top of the stairs. One evening he had heard two of his mother’s friends commenting on his father’s first wife, his mother’s aunt. Campion had heard stories about her before of course and as a child Campion had lived in fear of the ghost of the woman who’d thrown herself from the roof of their home outside of Vienda long before Campion and his brothers had been born. Beatrice, these woman said, had been a patron of the theatre and had donated a lot of money to the Aeterna in Vienda following her wedding to Campion’s father- they’d given her a plaque in the foyer with the other patrons. Campion could imagine that the plaque would cause Hyzenthlay, who’s speedy marriage to her uncle following her aunts death had resulted in no small amount of scandal at the time and had resulted in the young woman having to work hard to achieve her position in society, some discomfort.

"But if I ever found myself able to sit still for longer than one of old Figgy's lectures I would be more than happy to sit through one of your plays."

Abby, on the other hand, had a bright future ahead of her. Near the top of her class, she was likely to graduate with honors in living magic, own a successful private practice in uptown Vienda, make a medical breakthrough or two, and retire a respected member of society, possibly with a professorship in her cronehood.

Whether there'd be a spouse in there was still a bit fuzzy-- inquisitive, cheerful, able to hold intelligent conversation late into the night.. wouldn't be so bad, but such people were rarer than pink aerra, and ones that might return potential feelings were rarer than pink aerra that recited epics at children's parties. But no matter. She could be perfectly content without in-house access to debate and wordplay, as long as she lived within short walking distance of a well-stocked library and an eccentric coffee-shop. If she could somehow finagle a membership in the Pendulum, she'd be set for life. And she'd wear trousers. As often as she liked!

However, despite these great expectations, she wasn't too keen on sharing the more adventurous aspects of her prospects with acquaintances.

"I know I'll go to the theater as often as I can. I love plays. And operas, and symphonies," she smiled, her young eyes gleaming. "With the heads I'll be making as a healer, I'll be a patron of the arts. I could very well be indirectly responsible for your salary, Percy."

Laur gingerly sat down at the end of the table, as far away as she could get from the older students. Better spot to leave from when they decided she was annoying. Plus, maybe they had bad aim and couldn't hit her if they decided throwing things was fun. She narrowly avoided, upon putting her tray down, spilling her water glass--she didn't like wine--all over the table. Oh no, oh no, what if it had gotten on Abby Ixbridge? Laur had always looked up to Abeline; they were generally on the same class track except for Abby's music classes and she'd been compared to the student a few times. She sat very awkwardly then, picking at her potatoes.

Out of her mouth came a very quiet statement on the subject--so quiet that perhaps no one would hear it. "I kind of want to be a teacher."