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Vay took Umbraja's kiss with a flat look and pointed at the twitching bag she dragged behind her. "What in the name of sanity are you doing now?" the man asked with a bit of bite to his voice though lowly to not yell.

"Noothing~" Umbraja drawled in mock innocence then shook her head with a laugh. "Got a present for Jikial. Was gonna take some of the kids out to find him."

Vay's expression flattened even more and he just stared at the woman a moment before dropping his eyes to the bag, then back up at her, then to the little crowd over her shoulder. "You. . ." he started but trailed off with a sigh and shook his head, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration. "What's in the bag?" he asked as if he didn't really want to know.

"Oh, don't worry bout her. She's harmless," Umbraja brushed off his concern as she shoved the bag under the table with a push of her foot.

"You've said that about a manticore," Vay grumbled lowly with a warning look to the woman but didn't stop her from stowing the still flailing bag underneath his table.

Umbraja huffed a dismissive sound and shook her head, "Bag's not big enough for one of those. Besides, Mantibro was perfectly harmless. We had an accord."

"Yes. . ." Vay trailed off with a drawl then shook his head. "An accord that forgot to include not eating the villagers."

"Pah. . . minor oversight in the terms," Umbraja waved him off. "I won't make that mistake again," she flashed him a toothy grin with a little laugh.

Vay just stared at her, unimpressed a while before he shook his head with a sigh. "Alright. Fine. I guess you want me to look after her while you go off on another adventure then?" he only half asked.

"But of course," Umbraja answered with a perky chirp and bright, asking smile.

"Wonderful. . ." Vay drawled sarcastically then gave a glance to the waiting crowd as he took a moment to consider before nodding his head with a defeated sigh. "Just be home for dinner," he half muttered then gave a little squeak when the woman glomped him in a tight hug. "Alright, Love," he purred a slight laugh at her as he returned the hug gently. "You'd better get going before the natives get restless."

(OOC: For those of you that don't know, Umbraja and I know each other. We decided this would be better than spamming the thread with a lot of little posts so we worked together to write this scene. Hope you enjoy and have fun following that white rabbit.)

Flipping up his collar he proceeded to move with the group


(Sorry kinda busy here will participate when I can)

Duo, who had been standing by as the others communicated, was searching around in his files. Not for anything specific, just... searching. He was always kind of doing that subconsciously, it was only sometimes that he paid attention to what his subconscious was doing.

As Umbraja called for Duo and the rest of them to follow her, Duo was quickly following. He had been designed to follow orders of a certain individual, and now that that certain individual was dead, his mind just began to follow any (and almost every) order. He followed behind Lupin, silently walking into the snowy quad.

OOC: Holy crap, I officially HAAATE the word subconscious D:<

Umbraja stepped into the snow with a shiver and pulled a 12 foot scarf from her bag, pausing briefly to wrap it around her neck as she lead the others across the snow and through a few more hallways, passing the bonfire in the quad and rows of classroom doors, past the library and out into the fields beyond. The forest loomed at the edge of campus. Tall, dark trees stood like a wall against the pale grey sky. Icicles hung on leafless branches and chimed in the wind as Umbraja lead the group into their shadows.

"Sooo. . ." the woman called back to the others. "This is the forest," she turned about to face them with a wave at the trees. "Where'd ya wanna start lookin?"

Duo watched the trees as they wandered into the forest. Being that he was, well, a robot, he didn't feel the cold. If someone were to touch him, or even merely just brush up against him, they would feel that his skin was cold. But really, his inner body temperature was perfectly fine.
Lupin suggested that they split up. Duo nodded. "Yeah. Splitting up would cover more ground in less time." He said, doing some quick calculations. If they spent an hour looking with one group, they might get 1/10th of the forest done. Two groups would only accomplish more... Besides, they had a lot of people with them. What was the good in taking all these people, when they could just take two, or even three, groups.

Umbraja gave Lupin a winking nod for his question of her scarf. "Gift from a certain Doctor I used to know," she purred coyly then arched a brow at the discussion's turn among the rest of them.

"So you want to split the party then?" she asked as if it might be a bad idea and gave the woods around them a wary stare, noting the dark, icy branches and unkempt wilderness of it. But that didn't seem to phase her. He just flashed a Cheshire's grin at the group before shrugging her shoulders with a little hmph and turned on her heel. "Whatever you say~" she trilled brightly at them, walking off into the woods. "Whoever wants to come with me better get to following," she called after without looking back to see how the group chose to split itself.

Lupin peered around the group as everyone wondered who they would go with through the forest. Umbraja started her journey claiming that anyone who wanted to follow could. There was no one else in the group that Lupin really knew besides Duo. He could either get to know them or stick with familiar surroundings. Lupin was not at all outgoing, so he hurried after Umbraja. He was about as tall as her. Therefore, their strides were even. He glanced around the forest nervously as they continued deeper. "I went with familiar surroundings. I'm not what you might call outgoing." Lupin stopped himself before he could continue on into a really long rant. He didn't want to burden Umbraja, however, he felt that just by tagging along, he was doing something he would regret.