Arrival

[BluesAi]

((apologies to everyone for taking so long to put this up ))

Mary gave a soft sigh as she and the other girls finally stood in the airport. They had just gone through quite a tedious process; reception, picking up there bags...but now what? She pulled her suitcase close to her as her eyes scanned the area. It was strangely empty, unlike the airport in which she had boarded.

She was about to ask if the others knew what they needed to do now when they were approached by a small, mousy looking woman who seemed to be in her mid-twenties. She wasn't small in the sense of height--in that department she was quite tall, towering all of them by a couple of heads. Her features however seemed quite tiny. She was thin with a stick-like figure, her mouth and nose seemed doll-like; especially when compared to her eyes which seemed the be the only large thing about her. Her har was a faded brown color and held up in a messy bun that failed to catch small tendrils that fell over her face and shoulder. Tucked under her arm, she carried a large rolled up piece of parchment.

"Hello." she said, giving a curt nod of her head and fiddling with her fingers.

Mary wasn't quite sure how to respond and only gave a small nod in return.

"My name is Aja Palermo. I will be the mentor of one of you girls at the school." she explained "I've come to take you there." she said, her hands fidgeting more. If you'll..please follow me." she said and turned to lead them away. Mary wondered what sort of vehicle they would move in now, some sort of enchanted car? Much to her surprise instead of being taken outside the woman led them to an empty bathroom.

"Before we leave, is there anything on your mind? I'll try to answer any questions you have." said the obviously nervous woman. Mary was a little confused as to how they would leave this way, but said nothing figuring they would find out soon enough.  

[Aenakume]

Anna raised her hand. "Yeah, uh, do you really need to have all of us in here to go? Cause, I mean, we can wait outside. I'm sure we'll be fine for a few minutes, you know. Actually, how much time are you planning on taking? Is this a number one or number two? I only ask for the sake of figuring out where we should wait."

"By the way," Anna added, gesturing at the parchment, "You know they got rolls of stuff in there already to use. Probably feels better than that stuff, too. Hell, this is a nice airport. It might even be two-ply."  

[Saria Mithril]

Saria sighed and rubbed her eyes. "Miss Palermo! Please excuse her. I think she was dropped on her head as a child. I do have a question. I was wondering what facilities and amenities shall be available to us at the school, and if there are any... err, supplies... that we need to pick up before we go, either for our classes or for our persons? Is the school in or near a town, and would we be allowed to go there to get anything we needed? Or is there some other arrangement?"  

[BluesAi]

Aja gave Anna a rather blank look, unsure if she was being serious or not. Thankfully she was saved a response by Saria and her fidgeting lightened a bit when she was given a question which she could answer "No, no. I'm certain as of now that the school will provide you with almost everything you need," a small smile finally creeped its way to her face, "I'm certain that you will find yourselves quite comfortable on your stay with us. Sasillia does have a deep affinity with magic and it hurts her to see it dying, but she is also capable of acknowledging how nice some of science's advances are."

She paused and unfolded the parchment and stepped up to an empty wall of the bathroom. She placed placed it up against the wall and ran a finger along its top edge, somehow making it stick. She stretched it out as much as she could so there would be no wrinkles as she began running her fingers along the rest of the edges.

"The school isn't located close to any cities--but we have means of transportation that can get us to any quickly. You will be given bi-weekly trips to the nearest port city and a allowance to spend as you see fit." she stood up once she was finished and stepped back to examine the piece of parchment which was now plastered against the wall for any folds. Now Mary could get a look a see that on the inside, the parchment was heavily inked, and depicted a rather crud drawing of what seemed like a room with several lanterns hanging on either side of the stone walls. A long..hole, it was hard to tell exactly what it was since it was just in black, stretched from one end of the paper over to the top. Within this there seemed to be about three pillars equally spaced and with baskets on top of them. She tilted her head to the side as she tried to catch more details but gave up after a moment.

Aja stared back a them before continuing the strange act "Are there anymore questions before we go?"  

[Aenakume]

"Uh, yeah, uh," Anna said, cautiously this time, "We're not gonna have to wear uniforms or anything like that, are we? And....... ah......" she looked around nervously, glancing from the parchment on the wall to the stalls, "This isn't our art classroom, is it?"  

[Larinna]

Dorothy had her goggles on as usual and looked at the woman. My she's nervous Dorothy thought, looking at the other girls. "Uniforms?" She had always been in public schools, so she couldn't very well justify why they would have to wear a uniform. "I never saw the use for them." She said quietly to herself. "Expression of character I say. They probably wouldn't allow all my goggles."  

[Aenakume]

Anna put her arm around Dorothy and gave her a gentle squeeze. "Don't worry, cherie," she whispered to her, "They'd probably just make you paint them with the school colours."

"Anyway," she said louder, "Uniforms have their place and all. I don't object to uniforms on principle, but I'll be damned if I'm going to wear a skirt."  

[Larinna]

"I'm not going to paint my goggles!" Dorothy said, taking her goggles off and putting them in one of her pockets. "They can't take them from me!" She joked, holding a different pair of goggles.  

[Saria Mithril]

Saria groaned. She had been very concerned about making a good impression at the new school, to make a good start. Now she was afraid that Miss Palermo would think they were all crazy. Frantically she tried to think of something else to ask to distract her from Anna's bizarre questions and Dorothy's strange fascination with goggles. Clearly Miss Palermo was already a little nervous, so their strange behaviour was probably making her quite uncomfortable.

She spoke up to buy herself some time, and hopefully circumvent more questions about the bathroom. "Thank you, Miss Palermo. I'm sure that Mistress Sasillia has already thought of everything. It's just that we all have so little knowledge of magic that we don't know what it is capable of. Also, we know nothing of the school."

Getting an idea for a question, she asked quickly, "If I may ask you, what do you teach?"  

[mobile v2]

Mia stood silently there, listening to the others questioning the poor, nervous woman. She couldn't help but feel somewhat sorry for her. Then again, this was her job, and she's probably just nervous because meeting new people can be quite an exciting thing for some people. Anna and Dorothy weren't helping to calm her down either.
She sighed softly, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear as she thought about uniforms and chuckled. She's always wanted to wear a uniform to school, actually, thiking it was somewhat cute and much better than having to choose a different outfit every morning like she always has to do in her school. She drifted off into her own thoughts, blankly staring at the painting upon the parchment  

[BluesAi]

"I teach Geomancy." she said quietly, raising any eyebrow at the behavior of the girls but saying nothing about it. She had learned in the few months she had spent with Sasillia and the other mentors that a couple of them were quite strange themselves so she had now learned to hide her surprise well.

"There are no uniforms, or any sort of restrictions to what you want to wear. Sasillia is rather open-minded in that area." Aja answered, thinking to herself that the only reason she was, was because she didn't want to restrict herself to any sort of clothing. She stepped up to the parchment at least and placed a small hand on it. Nothing happened for a moment but when she stepped back the lines of the illustration began to peel away, they tiny lines made it hard to see---but it was evident to all that what they saw through them was -not- the wall of the bathroom.

"Alright, I need to go last to make sure this gets taken away." she said jerking her head to the parchment.

Mary stared at it briefly, and going against every notion that her body was telling her stepped up, dragging her suitcase behind her. "Er, what do I do?" she questioned hesitantly.

"Just step right on through." Aja instructed. Mary stared at the wall skeptically, looked towards Aja, the other girls and back to it. She glanced back once more to the girls her eyes landing briefly on Anna before she quickly looked back. "Be seeing you guys." she said and walked towards it slowly. Her foot passed right through the sheet and wall as she came up to it and for a moment she stayed right there, eyes wide as half her body was in the bathroom and the other half---somewhere. She took a deep breath and plunged right through dragging her back with her and stumbled to a cold, hard ground.

She blinked and looked behind her where there was a similar parchment, only it had a sketch of the bathroom she had just been in, instead. Her had whipped around in front of her and she let out a tiny gasp. She was in a large room, with a low ceiling. The walls and floor were made of a dark coppery color. It had a low ceiling from which hung many golden chandaliers, some wielding candles and others drapped with an assortment of flowers. Most surprising of all was that in the center, and spanning most of the room was a large, sapphire colored pool. It reminded her of the sky colored oceans of her home. About the pool stood several platforms which she figured went all the way down to the bottom--thats what that hole in the picture had been. A pool. She stood up dusting herself off and turned back to the wall, eagerly awaiting whomever came next.  

[Aenakume]

"Whoa," Anna breathed, watching Mary disappear into the drawing. For a moment she felt a cold sweat on her neck. This can't be real. Magic doesn't exist. This has to be a trick. Still, if it was, it was a pretty clever trick. Anna prided herself on being able to spot stage magician tricks with ease. But she honestly had no idea how Madame Palermo had managed to pull this trick off. Mary had apparently disappeared into a drawing.

If it had been anyone else, Anna would have hung back for a while, watching the others go through, trying to figure out what the trick was, and secretly building up courage. But the moment Mary's eyes met hers before she stepped through, Anna knew she had to follow. There was no way she could not.

Summoning up false bravado, she pushed through the other girls and tossed her duffel bag through, then backed up a few paces. She whooped, "Yippie kai-yo, yippie kai-yay!" then ran at full tilt into the picture, jumping and diving into it with her arms up in front of her like Superman.

She was determined to keep her eyes open through the trip, but blinked by reflex as she passed through. She came through the other side flying and landed with a whump on her stomach, knocking the wind out of her. She laughed triumphantly on the ground, quickly grabbing her bag and rolling out of the way. She rolled up to Mary's feet, and smiled up at her from the floor, panting as she tried to catch her breath. She put her hands behind her head and crossed her legs, shrugging, "What can I say, cherie? I couldn't very well let you go without me."  

[BluesAi]

Mary jumped a bit at Anna's sudden appearance but quickly relaxed and let out a laugh. She looked down at Anna returned the smile. "Aw, I'm touched." she said kneeling down next to Anna--might as well get comfortable while they awaited the others. It was a hard thing to do one the stone floor however.

"You alright?" she questioned, half teasingly and half with genuine concern as she noticed Anna's short breath. That introduction with the floor she had just witnessed the other girl have didn't look quite comfortable.  

[Aenakume]

Anna chuckled and shrugged, then lifted her shirt up to look at her stomach and chest, which were, of course, quite red. She made a face and poked at her tummy to see if it stung. Then she looked up at Mary, "Oh yes, I'm good. I know that to the untrained eye it may seem like the floor won that round, but trust me, I was just letting it get its hopes up before I strike the final blow. I'll win the next round, trust me." She chuckled.  

[BluesAi]

Mary winced somewhat at the sight of Anna's stomach but managed to smile a bit at the joke. "Well if you ever want a hand in that you'll know who to ask." she said looking at the floor with a scowl--an expression that almost seemed foreign on her face.

Her eyes drifted back to the placid pool and chandiliers "I don't know what to think of this place. I love this room but it doesn't really seem to tell much about what the rest of this place might be like." she said running her hand across the bumpy stone floor. Was the rest of it this..ancient looking?