Karana knocked at the door, fidgeting with her pack. She hoped this was the right one. She checked the little scrap of paper again. Young girls' dorm, first form's floor. She knocked again, wondering if the Matron was in. She wanted, needed, to go shopping, but she had to stow her things first, and maybe get a nice bath. There'd been a few of those on the last part of the way in, but between getting here today, and her various encounters...

Well, she needed to be clean if she decided to get things fitted anyway. If a girl was going to get that close to her, she deserved not to have her nose assaulted. Karana might just change into the first things she bought, and toss what she was wearing now.

She was thinking to far ahead, though. First she needed to meet the Matron, and get her things stowed.

Maisy Hawthorn looked up from her book. It had been really lovely and quiet today, the girls were exceptionally good. That was the good thing about first years, they were too new to start trouble. Pulling herself out of the deep comfy chair, she crossed her office, straightening her uniform, and opened the door. There was a young, very burnt Gioran girl there.

"Oh, hello dear. Can I help you?" Maisy asked, removing her reading glasses and smiling kindly at the girl, yellow eyes kind and welcoming. Her orange hair was pulled into a neat french roll and she wore a green staff uniform, quite similar to the girls Brunnhold uniform.

Karana looked up, smiling reflexively back at her. "Hello. Is this the first year's dorm? They told me to come here at the office." Belatedly, she remembered to introduce herself, "I'm Karana Lutker. I'd call myself the late student, but I've heard there's ghosts at Brunnhold, and I wouldn't want to confuse people." She winked at the older woman, from behind her blue tinted glasses.

"But really, I'm a new student, and they said this was where I should go. Is it?"

Maisy smiled and gestured the girl inside the warm, tan office.

"Yes dear, this is the right place. I believe I heard a new student was starting soon. Did you have a name child? I should have received your paperwork by now."

Karana edged inside as she repeated her name, a little louder, "Karana Lutker, ma'am." She perched on a chair, and looked expectantly at Ms. Hawthorne. "Do I need to fill out more papers, then?"

Fiddling more than anything else, her glasses were in one hand, rubbing against a cleanish spot on her sleeve to clear them.

"Karana...Karana....Karana....." The orange haired woman mumbled as she put on her glasses and flicked through the papers on her desk.

"Aha! Karana Lutker, here you are my dear. Alright...no more paperwork for you dear, paperwork for me." She chuckled and moved to a wall cabinet. Pulling it open, Karana would see it was full of keys with number tags on them. Reaching up, she took one off the hook and closed the cabinet. Coming back to the table, she took out a form and began to write on it.

"Okay, this is your room key. Your on the second floor, fifth door from the stairs on the left. You'll be sharing a bunk with Loraine Peille. She's Hessen actually, so you two might have something in common. Although...from what I gather, you might be slightly older than her. But don't worry. She's a mature young thing." Handing the key to Karana, she stood again, moving to a large dressing cabinet, when opened revealed uniforms, blankets, sheets and pillowcases. Taking two from each pile except for the uniforms, she turned to the Gioran.

"What size uniform are you my dear? Any idea?"

Karana's relief that she'd have no more paperwork was perhaps shy of gracefully masked. On balance, she didn't care. She was happy she didn't have to deal with it.

The commentary brought that smile back under control however. The topic of age she left without comment. Her papers named her only eleven, but the other girl might be precocious. "Hessen ma'am? I passed through there, but I come from Gior. We're ... rather different." It was an understatement, at best. She didn't consider that the woman might have meant both were far from home, recalling instead the apallingly flat lands she'd passed over, where the galdori hadn't the grace of proper homes, instead building ... she pulled her mind from the tangent. They did the same here in Anaxas, even the university, though it's solid sandstone was comforting.

"I'm not sure, ma'am." she answered regarding the sizes. "I've One hundred fifty eight centimeters, and my waist was sixty two, last I was measured. "

The orange haired woman turned back and rifled through the uniforms, till she finally pulled three sets from the cabinet. Closing it, she walked back to the girl and handed her the pile of clothing and linen.

"Alright, if you follow me, I'll show you to your room." Stepping past the girl, she pulled open the door and held it open for her.

Karana felt buried, or perhaps barricaded, behind the small pile of cloth. It was almost a nice feeling. Stepping out into the hallway, she shifted, juggling things to drape the loops of her bag over one shoulder, and followed the dorm matron.

(temporarily out of conversational gambit ideas)

Maisy led the girl down the hall and up the two flights of stairs rather quickly, waiting on the second floor landing for the walking hamper to catch up with her. Striding past the first door, she crossed the hall and continued past another three. Finally, she reached up and wrapped sharply on the fifth, before entering.

The room was rather medium sized, with two bunks on either wall and one at the back, making a total of ten beds. Most of them were empty, the girls either at classes or somewhere studious. But one sat quietly at a writing desk between the right hand bunks. She pushed her chair back and stood when the matron entered, bowing politely.

"Good afternoon Matron." The girl said in a high, childs voice. She had thick yellow hair, pulled into two braids on either side of her head. Her skin was a warm color, covered in freckles and her eyes a bright amber-yellow. She was a stocky little thing, but she had a very friendly smile. Maisy smiled at her.

"Ahh hello Loraine dear, I was rather hoping you'd be here. This is Karana Lutker, she's just arrived all the way from Gior. Would you kindly help her get settled in?" Turning to Karana, she nodded.

"Your class schedule starts tomorrow, Loraine is probably in most of your classes, so she can help you find them. Dinner at sixteen. Lights out at the eighteen." With a curt nod, she left them, shutting the door.

Loraine looked at Karana and grinned.

"Wow, Gior!? Thats so cool! Is it cold? Do you like Brunnhold already? Are you always this pale? Did you know your eyes are so..wow!" She tripped over her words, excited at the new room mate.

Setting her newly accumulated possessions in a pile by the bunks, Karana prepared to answer the barrage of greeting questions. It took her a few ticks to sort them in proper order. "I didn't think so, the stone keeps everything at a nice temperature. A little bit. I'm usually a lot paler, I've got sunburn. Probably."

She grinned back at Loraine, sharing her enthusiasm, and a little smug she'd managed to translate and answer the stream of conversation. "She said you were from Hess? Have you been here long? Which bed's free? Do you like it?"

Loraine grinned and nodded brightly.

"Yes! I am from Hesse! Been here for about four months now. My family sent me here after I scored a six on my test. It's so lovely here! Have you been to the library yet? It's so clocking huge! And oh, the Living Magic teachers here are really really good, they have an excellent faculty. Professor Dallium, she's the Perceptive Magic teacher, she's a bit of a stiff, but the rest of them seem alright. Professor Moore, he is just so lovely. All the girls like him, some of the boys too. He's rather dreamy." Giggling to herself, she skipped to the end bottom bunk on the right.

"This one here is free, and its right under mine! The wardrobe between our bunks and those ones is for our clothes and the study desk on the back wall here is for us to share. It's a little bigger than the one up the front, and you get the breeze from outside if you open the window." As if to demonstrate, she pushed open one of the windows facing out onto the West Garden.

"A six? you beat me, I only got five and six tenths." Karana congratulated her new friend. "I got lost in there! Does, like, every other corridor end there? It felt like it." The faculty talk washed past, stored but not commented on.

The wardrobe, on the other hand, gave occupation to her hands. She picked up her new uniforms, and began hanging them in the wardrobe as they talked. The other clothes would go to the wash... or the rag bin. They weren't all dirty, the last part of her journey had been relatively civilized, but at this point she couldn't find memory or care for which were clean.

"You get your exercise trying to climb into bed then?" she teased, eying the bunks. "Better make sure your laundry stays clean. Dirty feet in my face will result in retaliation!" She grinned, tossing the shets and pillows into her new bunk and joining Loraine to look out at the neat garden.