[Ruqa Reyes]

The cafeteria was a loud affair, bustles of students coming and going to get their grub on. The majority of the diners were just out of class or coming back from their extracurriculars, congregating into a dense mass of hungry youth. Friends were reunited with joy from their wearisome classes, with new drama and stories to keep the other updated on. Already, it was obvious that social cliques among the student body have been already been formed and more or less solidified which let little room for new kids to find a spot among the chaos.

Somehow the cafeteria was an even more nerve-wracking place to meet new people. It was easy to come up with reasons that this next half-hour would be a social disaster. What if you asked to sit beside someone who wanted to eat in silence? What if they thought your eating habits were disgusting?? The thought of it made Ruqa choke up but damned if she let that stop her. All of them were here to become hunters and if that wasn't enough in common to start a conversation nothing would.

Ruqa carries two trays of food, balancing them while navigating the cafeteria floor. Haven provided pretty standard fare in terms of school lunches but with extra health food for young Grimm warriors to grow up big and strong, she supposed. Stacked onto her plate was a mass of unsalted, unseasoned, steamed chicken, tropical fruits, and a packet of peanut butter. Low in carbs, big on protein. This kind of meal was something people with a weaker constitution might get sick of the taste after having it for every lunch but Ruqa didn't have such a dis-concerning appetite. Whatever kept her going was good enough.

She slides into an empty seat, setting down the trays away from her and pulls out a protein shaker from her bag and setting that to the side. Her four mechanical arms are brought out from under her jacket, propping up her chin with one hand, grabbing utensils with the other three, and idly shovelling spoonfuls in her mouth in quiet, careful bites. The bored look on face says that she doesn't think much of this streamlined eating process, after all food was just fuel and nothing more than that. It presented an odd image of impressive biotechnological engineering that, when operated in unison was a really really excessive amount of work for this mundane task. Her thought process was that maybe if she ate quick enough she could run over to the fitness centre before the next class. She takes a swig of her protein drink to wash the meal down.

[Aegle Verdant]

The press was all about her; A veritable wall of bodies pushed and shoved, this way and that, surrounding her on all sides. 
"S'cuse me, pardon. Could I just..." Aegle tried to make her way through, pushing and shoving with elbows and shoulders, to make some kind of path for herself through the throngs of students crowded in to get their lunch. She'd been among the first to be served, having sprinted to the cafeteria, now that she knew where it was, not about to have a repeat of yesterday. That had been a mistake though, because no sooner had she gotten her food, than the flood gates had swung wide open, and her not an especially strong swimmer. Aegle didn't think the other students were trying to get in her way, but there were so many of them crowding the hall, either trying to get their own food or searching for seats, that they just couldn't help it. One boy let out a surprised yelp when he tried to step out of another's way, backing right into her bony elbow in the process. He swung his head around like he'd been shocked, and Aegle couldn't do much more than smile contritely back; It wasn't her fault her elbows were right at kidney level. A girl, lunging across the space between tables, nearly turned Aegle's lunch into the world's wettest shirt, the smaller girl barely pulling back before the two of them collided. She didn't even look at Aegle, but loped past on long, slender legs, light as a feather. Aegle watched her pass with no shortage of envy. 

She would have just sat down, it was such a bother trying to escape the thronging crowd but, for all the people standing, there somehow weren't any seats. Aegle recalled what Aaron had told her about Atlas Academy, and wondered if they had this problem. Somehow she doubted it; More likely everyone was fed by order of rank and had an assigned seat in the mess hall. Once that might have struck Aegle as soul-crushing, had she not been currently so mired in the alternative. 

The tray rattled, loose in her unreliable grasp, and Aegle grit her teeth, determined not to drop it; She wouldn't miss lunch twice in a row. Her knuckles were white, and her forearms aching when she finally broke free of the crowd. Looking down to ensure she still had everything, Aegle then scanned her surroundings. The tables were all pretty full up, even clear of the mob. A few had seats available, and Aegle made for the nearest. Then she saw the familiar way its current inhabitants were talking with one another. Faces open, smiles wide, bodies relaxed or intent with the topic of conversation;'Friends chatting', Aegle deduced. She looked to the next nearest spot, and found its residents much the same, players in different costume acting out the same role. 
She hesitated, and someone brushed past her, the same boy she'd elbowed on accident. He slipped into the empty seat she'd been headed towards, to a chorus of nods and greetings. The table laughed as one, full now with people who knew each other.
Aegle laughed as well, and walked on. She walked past the second nearest spot too, where a girl with silver ringlets was whispering earnestly to the four other students seated around her. And the third, where a blond boy was twirling a knife in one hand as he made plans for that afternoon, going back and forth with a blue eyed girl and another boy who might have been her twin.
Aegle passed by them all, and into the no-man's land beyond, where the tables were less sparsely populated, if they held any students at all. A few people were eating alone, Aegle noted, separated on the benches by space enough for two or three other bodies. Students attacking their meals with no thought to the world around them, or else sullenly or methodically eating, like it was an onerous task, best finished quickly. Her arms ached, and her fingers tingled. This was nothing like what she'd imagined lunch time would be like. She looked across the stony shore of solitary diners, then back to the sea of faces she'd so recently escaped. The storm of lunchers was clearing, and more students had started trickling into this place or that, finding knots of friends and people who knew them. Aegle remembered that she'd arrived late, that these people had all had months to get to know one another, and find their place. As though she had needed a reminder...

Aegle stopped at the nearest bench, and sat down kitty-corner to a swarthy girl attacking her lunch with three well-armed mechanical arms. It was quite the spectacle, and a fine demonstration of prosthesis. As Aegle seated herself, she wondered where the girl had gotten her arms, and whether she might be Atlesian. Her brace whispered beneath her hoodie as she took up knife and fork, and speared the seared chicken breast she'd been given. Somehow, she found she'd lost her appetite. Aegle bit off a mouthful anyway, and looked away from the four armed girl. If she'd sat down all the way out here, she probably didn't want to be stared at; Even Aegle was not so dense as to not know that.
Swallowing, Aegle raised the chicken for a second bite, then promptly fumbled her fork. She hissed, dropped her knife, and snatched up the chicken before it could tumble to the floor.
"Traitor." She hissed at her fork hand. Her fingers said nothing; They only twitched at her like they always did. Holding the chicken breast was easier than holding a fork, so Aegle simply hunched forward, elbows resting on the table, and worried the meat with her teeth, to tear off the occasion hunk and swallow it down, without much relish.
She didn't know what she had been expecting lunch at Haven to be like, but she'd definitely imagined something else.

words - 1,003

[Ruqa Reyes]

As Ruqa reduces her meal to scraps she spots a new face in the midst of the cafeteria, apparently struggling to move through the crowd. Such wasn’t a problem Ruqa was familiar with herself, her size intimidating most people whose height started with a 5’. It wasn't something she'd given much thought, typically pushing through crowds and ignoring the stares. Still she found herself pitying the girl trying to navigate to an empty seat. She watches the girl fail at picking her food, resorting to using her hands to tear at the food and decides she just had to go talk to her.

Ruqa realized that for all her efforts, she hadn't really made any friends outside of class or for missions. She was a good partner to have in the middle of combat but her fun personality hadn't seen much outside of school. Hell she barely even visited the dorms outside of school hours. It was about time for her to have some small talk or she'd go crazy. Ruqa starts to lift herself out of her seat.

Somehow, despite her apparent size, the four-armed woman silently shows up behind Aegle without warning and leans over. She balances the food tray in two hands while the other two arms act in motion, one of the upper arms intermittently feeding bites of her food and the other gesturing at the the fork of betrayal.

“Is the food fighting back? I’m beginning to suspect the chicken still thinks it’s alive.” She mutters in between chews “Hopefully it doesn’t fight its way out. I dunno Haven’s hella weird. Anything could happen I guess.”


WC 282

Cat Burglar (Athletics) [F]

[Aegle Verdant]

Aegle didn't notice the girl with the four arms stand up, far too busy worrying her chicken and staring at her plate. Now that she really considered it, she didn't even know what the first step to making friends was. In comics and anime, it always seemed to happen off screen, and her brothers had never mentioned how they'd made their friends at the Academy. Considering it, it was more than likely they were just friends they had made in prep, who happened to carry on to Atlas as well.

Aegle had never gone to prep; She had not done a lot of things.

Eyeing her chicken, chewing, Aegle shoved those thoughts aside. Her eyebrows furrowed, annoyed with herself, and she dropped the half gnawed remains back onto her plate. She'd never get anywhere, she knew, thinking that way; No matter how true it was.
A shadow fell over Aegle then, accompanied by a faintly earthy scent and what might have been deodorant or perfume. She looked up, and found the four armed girl leaning over her, so close that Aegle just about jabbed her in the ribs when she tilted back her head. It was so unexpected that, for a moment, Aegle did not even move. Then she hastily dropped her head forward again, eyes staring dead ahead, with an entirely blank expression on her face.

She wondered if she had imagined it, but she could still see the shadow being cast over her, and still smell the girl as she craned over her.
"Is the food fighting back?" Asked the four armed girl, her voice wet and slightly garbled around a mouthful of food, "I'm beginning to suspect the chicken think's it's alive."
Aegle had no answer to that, save to hunch a bit further forward over her food, as the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She was not at all comfortable with this, having someone stand right behind her and lean over her while she ate.
"Hopefully it doesn’t fight its way out. I dunno, Haven’s hella weird. Anything could happen I guess."
There was no denying that; If this sort of behavior was normal at Haven, that certainly constituted 'hella weird'.
"Nah..." Aegle answered, after hesitating just long enough to be awkward, "S'not the food that's the problem." She was trying not to let on how uncomfortable this was making her, speaking to someone right behind her, looming over her like a cat ready to pounce. She wiggled a hand out in front of her, past her habitual slouch, where the tall girl could see. "My hand's just not cooperatin', s'all." Her accent was broad and rural, with the faint lilt of the highlands to it. It squashed her words together and pressed them out, all atop one another, like her tongue was in a hurry to speak them.
"S'not a big deal. Nobody's gonna care if I eat without a fork, yeah?"

words - 491

[Ruqa Reyes]

Ruqa had been called eccentric before but she's never realized exactly how eccentric she was. The way she moved and how she spoke sometimes turned people off and she just wasn't sure why. After all, she was just a normal girl with normal elbows! She joked but really this lack of self perception and tendency for her mouth to be faster than her brain was often a cause of awkward situations but Ruqa had all the confidence of an untested grenade and would rush in despite it all.

Ruqa doesn't seem to notice the smaller girls discomfort at her presence, all the meanwhile picking her teeth while listening to the girl's admissions. Aegle was an oddball, that's for sure, she thought. She reminded Ruqa of someone else but she wasn't sure who. She racked her brain for faces and names that she knew and estimated them against the new girl's. It was just eerily familiar but she just couldn't pin it down.

Obviously because Aegle was willing to talk to her was enough permission for Ruqa to sit next enough to her so Ruqa made herself comfortable. She plopped down next to Aegle, kicking up her feet up and taking up a lot of room on the bench. Now that her lunch was gone she hadn't much else to do but talk.

Aegle apparently didn't feel the need for utensils which Ruqa found pretty funny. Cause really, this was a school for hunters, not some prep school to learn table manners. When you were a hunter, people quickly learned what hunters considered polite and impolite etiquette. If this were a fine dining situation Ruqa would use whatever damn fork she liked and if this was a fight to the death situation Ruqa would also use whatever damn fork she liked!!

(Oh damn, you know what I bet she'd love? Some of my stories!) she thought to herself and pulls up her scroll.

"Oh yeah you do whatever you like. I betcha grown hunters play with their food all the time. I know this dude, from Atlas, he was like on tenure at Argus or something." Ruqa gabs, not intending on stopping for quite some while. "He was having his birthday there and all the folks there got him a huge ass cake to celebrate." Ruqa shows Aegle a picture of the cake.

It was, as she said, a huge ass cake covered in dark chocolate, white icing, and red cherries. Standing from a far it was clearly decorated with the face of an Ursa, as lifelike as a birthday confectionery could be. A young girl is in the picture, wearing a bit of icing on her check and sticking her tongue out while using an icing bag to decorate the already unbelievably sugary cake. She was icing the top of the cake while being held up in the air by a tall boy not much older than her, most likely her big brother. Upon closer inspection the girl in the photo was obviously Ruqa herself, back when she was far smaller and still had both of her original skin arms made of real muscles and skin. Evidently this was quite some time ago, before she'd replaced them back than. She looked so incredibly happy to be there.

Ruqa doesn't seem to spend any time reminiscing on the scene before moving on to the next photo.

"You know what this guy did??? He fuckin thought to himself, 'hmm I don't have any knives to cut this with but I do have this neat sword!'" Ruqa swipes over to the next photo where a grown man is raising a zweihander sword over his head in the motion on swinging it down. "He chopped it in half but it just ended up everywhere. His suit was ruined! And you could see his realization of the mistake juuust before the damn table finally gave up and gave his kitchen a new flooring" She swipes again and there is only the figure, unrecognizable under a pile of white icing. His face is one of utter confusion as though he had wondered 'hmm how could that have happened?'

"His husband was fucking pisssssed. It was amazing and it wasn't the last time he did it either," Ruqa guffawed, hardly trying to contain her laughter. She grins at Aegle, hoping to get a friendly response in return. She really did want to get along with this girl!

WC 740

[Aegle Verdant]

Aegle stared back at the swarthy stranger, utterly speechless. Had the story had a point, and she'd just missed it, or had it really been as aimless and meandering as it had appeared. She did not want to be rude but, at the same time, Aegle was utterly bemused as to the four armed girl's purpose. Though she waited several hearbeats for some sort of coda or continuation of the narrative, none was forthcoming, and so Aegle was left to simply assume it had all been for naught. 
"Oh, yeah..." She said, uncertain, "That's real weird, y'know?" It was not all Aegle might have said, but it was all she could say without being rude. Baffled as she was, Aegle did not want to upset someone just because they had made the wholly inexplicable decision to talk to her. 

Unfortunately, just as she was unable to think of more to say regarding the stranger's story, Aegle could think of little and less to say to the girl following it.
After tearing another hunk from her diminishing chicken breast, chewing and swallowing, she proffered a quiet, "M'Aegle, by the way. Nice t'meet'cha."
She didn't have a good explanation as to why she'd introduced herself, other than that it seemed the sort of thing she ought to do when some random weirdo came up and started telling unsolicited stories. Usually, Aegle would also have offered her hand for a shake, but her hand was presently covered in chicken grease and a dusting of seasoning, so she kept it to herself.
"Y'a first year too?"
She didn't look like a first year to Aegle, seeming too old, but Aegle didn't look much like a first year either, though for much the opposite reason. She wasn't sure she even cared, and wasn't sure what she might do with whatever answer the stranger proffered. It would have felt more awkward to say nothing though, Aegle knew, and she wanted to avoid any further awkwardness from this strange, somewhat intimidating, four armed girl that had randomly started talking to her...

words - 344

[Ruqa Reyes]

Ruqa rubs her chin as if in deep thought, taping her finger idly. “Aegle, Aeeegle...” Ruqa words the name slowly like she was testing it out. “S’good name. I like it.” Ruqa smiles and gives a thumbs up as though it passed some undisclosed approval process.

“You a first year huh? Here in Haven they call that grimm fodder,” Ruqa jokes, giving a rather scary smirk but breaks into laughter quickly. “I’m just kidding~ I’m in the same boat as you! Yeah first year at Haven, of course I’ve been training to fight since I was twelve and it got me here. Was excited to attend given that they do a lot of practical application missions with hunters and the sort. Do definitely try it out, I mean, unless you’re scared or something like that.” There was a bit of a challenge in her eye but the kind to inspire competitiveness. If any Haven student didn’t go out into a couple hunter mission, whether it was diplomacy or combat, they were wasting their time. Really, how could they be serious about this dangerous, stressful occupation if they didn’t have an idea of what it was like working as one?

That moment on the cafeteria was brief, cut off short by the bell. It was a sharp sound, one that signaled the end of lunch and the start of a class. The student body shuffled meekly back to their respected classes though depending on their attitude some just lingered in the dining hall, simply not in a rush at all. The time Ruqa and Aegle spent together might have felt awfully short for the former and grudgingly, awkwardly long for the latter.

Ruqa sat up from her seat and wordlessly gave Aegle a robotic fist bump.

It wasn’t the most exciting luncheon she’d had. It was kinda hard to gauge Aegle’s reception of her, seeming to only nod and yup at her stories. But it didn’t matter to her, it was pretty chill to hang out like this.

“Well was nice meeting ya babe. Gonna run, have a little prep work for a mission I’m on. If you hear anything about buckets of glue, well it was probably me” Ruqa shrugs, not at all shy about leaving that completely random tidbit. “Oh by the way, I’m Ruqa Reyes. But you can call me.... anytime~” With a flourish she whips out the finger guns, making little pew pew sounds in the imitation of flying bullets.

“Heh see ya sis. Next time I wanna see some of that huntress fire!” Ruqa laughs over her shoulder as she walks out of the cafeteria.

WC 439

Colour Hex: 54e1fb

[Aegle Verdant]

For several long moments, Aegle did not move, not even as the other students began filtering out around her. She simply sat where she had been, watching the door Ruqa had left by, her forgotten lunch growing cold in her hands. After a few dazed heartbeats, Aegle realized how warm her cheeks had grown and thought to close her mouth, which had been hanging open quite without her notice.
"Call you, anytime?" She repeated, bemused, then, "What an incredibly strange girl..."
She wasn't sure why that parting remark should have startled her as much as it did, nor why it had made all the sense leak out of her head, as water through a sieve. Aegle was left with the troubling impression that there was much more to the four-armed huntress than she might have initially credited, and a dim sort of regret that she'd not been better able to see it.

It was some consolation that she would almost certainly see Ruqa again; They were in the same year, which meant they would have a very similar schedule. Aegle should have been happy about that, that someone had been so friendly to her, but what she really felt as regretful, and maybe even a little guilty.
'I was uncomfortable the whole time,' She thought, returning to her chicken as she was left all but alone in the cafeteria, 'Should've been friendlier, she was just tryin' t'be friendly, wasn't she?'

Shoving herself up, Aegle stuffed the last morsel of chicken into her mouth and, belatedly, followed the tide of bodies out into the Academie's corridors. She would be more friendly, the next time someone tried to talk to her, she decided. And maybe she would ask some questions about Ruqa too, and try to learn what sorta person she was before trying to talk to her again...

words - 309
Total - 2,147

[Wolfe]

XP Distribution

Aegle: 21

128 + 21 = 149

Ruqa: 22

189 + 22 = 211