Yeah, it'll be fun!

Sounds good! You and Jace hurry to catch up with Miranda, who isn't walking very fast, but did manage to get a bit of a headstart on walking down the path.

"Miranda!" You call out once you're sort of close.

Startled, she spins around at top speed, eyes wide behind her glasses. She relaxes a little bit when she sees the two of you come to a stop just in front of her, but she's still a bit tense.

"O-oh, um, h-hello. Guys. Hello guys. And girl. Guy and girl, hello guy and girl." Miranda does one of those hard-blinks that means regret.

"Hello girl." Jace says.

"Want to find a place to sit and hang out for a bit?" You ask excitedly, swinging your wargear case from side to side.

Hearing that, Miranda's tenseness seems to leave her, even if her general nervousness stays. She must've been worried you guys were gonna be mean or something, which is stupid, because neither of you are named Delilah. Delilah sucks.

"Y-yeah, sure." Miranda says in one exhaled breath. "I-if you two want to, that is."

"We should probably discuss it some more, to be safe." Jace says. "C'mon, let's find a good spot to put our bags down."

With Jace taking the lead, the three of you head the rest of the way down the gravel path. Miranda keeps eyeing you weirdly as you walk, like she did in a lot of classes last week, but you pretend not to see it to be polite. For all you know, it's not even true, and her glasses just make her eyes look like they're following you. Ben says that paintings do that, and Ben knows his stuff, so it's very possible.

Jace tilts his head to look back at the two of you. "Hey, Miranda, your bag looks super heavy. Like, 'these straps will cut off my arms' heavy. You shouldn't bring so many notebooks home."

"I-I don't, I only take the ones I nee- I, I mean, I do. Take too many. I'll try not to."

"Want me to carry it for a bit?"

"NO!" Miranda says very very quickly. "N-no, it's okay! Really....."

Jace shrugs, and goes back to facing forward as the three of you enter the familiar building once again. You locate a nice nook in the first floor carpeted halls right near the building's entrance, so that you can see through the windows if any more buses arrive, and set down all of your heavy wargear cases and backpacks. Free at last, you flop back onto your bum with a contented huff of relief.

Miranda slowly lowers herself into a cross-legged position on the ground, still wearing her backpack, and Jace gives one last peer out the window before dropping down to sit with the rest of you, leaning back on his hands. As the three of you talk, the hallways are filled with occasional passers-by that are walking from room to room, or chatting with their friends, or just arriving back after walking slowly on the gravel path. Your bus is the first one that arrives, so it's just the (many) people that were on it here right now.

"Miranda, your glasses are all smudged up!" You gasp, looking across the circle at her. Really, it looks like she just puts her fingers all over them! How can she even see out of those.

"O-oh, I can see fine, don't worry."

That won't do! You reach out and nab them off of her face, holding them above your lap and untucking your shirt to give them a quick clean with the shirt fabric. It's not ideal, since it's sort of rough material, but it's still better! Miranda gasps when you pull the front of your shirt up to clean it, eyes locked on your suddenly exposed midsection, and wide-eyed face turning a deep, deep red.

"Here you go!" You beam, letting your shirt flop back down and holding out the freshly cleaned glasses to Miranda.

"U-uhhh..... th-thank, thank you....." Miranda is breathing pretty fast, and staring down at the ground, when she reaches up to take them out of your hand without looking and put them back onto her face. Her head pulls back a little bit when they go back on, and she looks up to look around again. "Woah, this is.... this is actually way better."

The three of you chat for a little bit, mainly about last week and all of your favourite bits, but also about what you're expecting from the rest of the year. It's mainly you and Jace talking, but every now and then one of you will specifically ask Miranda something to make sure she's included, and she answers then. You're pretty tempted to ask her what she does every free time, but you'll probably only do that when it's just the two of you, so it's like a secret for you to keep. Those are fun.

"Yeah, I'm expecting the academic stuff to really ramp up from here on." Jace says, reclining on his palms on the carpet floor. "My cousin in his third year here gave me a bit of a warning. We're all going to have to start taking tons of notes in class, the first week was basically a freebie -- but I guess that won't be a problem for you, hey Miranda?"

Miranda blinks a few times, then tentatively nods. She hesitates for a little bit, like she's deciding if she should speak, and ultimately decides to go for it. Good job, Miranda!!

"Y-yeah, but all of the physical stuff is going to ramp up too, and I'm...." She trails off. "L-like, like the camp next week. That's going to basically be three whole days of Combat class, in the wilderness, away from any desks or lamps."

You and Jace stare at her.

"Camp?" You ask.

"Well, y-yeah. Don't you guys read the weekend newsletter?"

You do not read the weekend newsletter. It lacks the funny pages.

"I-I'm sure they'll tell us about it later this week, anyway." Miranda says. "It didn't go into much detail about it at all."

"Sounds fun." Jace says. "Don't worry too much, they always advertise camps like it's going to be all learning, but I bet you it's going to barely be about Combat class, and mostly goofing off."

Miranda seems unsatisfied. You probably seem satisfied, because you feel pretty satisfied, but you can't know for sure. In any case, Jace notices that Miranda's looking sort of down, regardless of whether or not you do too.

"Hey, by the way, do you think you could help me out next Equipment Maintenance? I drafted a ton of ideas for how to make my crossbow and bolts better over the weekend, but I'm not sure I'll be able to put it all together. Really, there's like, eleven hours or so of stuff to go through. I got really excited thinking about it."

"Y-yeah, I could do that." Miranda says. "I actually finally had a breakthrough over the weekend too, s-so I'm feeling pretty excited too."

"I can tell."

"What'd you do?" You ask, leaning forward towards Miranda. You bet it's something really cool and clever!

Miranda looks back over to you again, and her face tints red, but less deep than before. Struggling, but succeeding, she manages to look at your big and enthused eyes all the way through her response.

"I-it's a pill I've been prototyping the design of forever, and I think I've come up with something that'll work. The idea is that it will boost adrenaline, quicken the clotting process, quicken healing -- several combat benefits, basically, by way of magnifying the body's response to most things. I need to actually put it together to make sure it will work, and to make sure it doesn't magnify things like lactic acid build up or metabolism by an unacceptable amount, but I'm really looking forward to seeing if it'll work. I need to spent some time in Nurse Riley's lab this week to put it together and test it."

Miranda speaks really eloquently and fluently when she's talking about the stuff she enjoys! That's cool. So, you'll probably be able to visit her in the Nurse's office most free times, then? That sounds neat! You're about to offer, when a sudden scary and unexpected voice calls out from down the hallway. Delilah's voice!

"Oh, THERE you are J! I've been waiting for you in our room!"

"Dellie?" Jace shuffles up to standing, as Delilah marches her way over to where your group is sitting. "I thought my bus was the first one that came in."

"There's- listen to me." Delilah breathes outwards through her nose, standing beside a scared-looking Miranda. This time, you don't need to think about how you seem and how you feel -- you definitely look scared too! "I have been- there's spiders, I have been fending off spiders in our room for- for minutes. You must have left some of that food in our room, from that night."

"Oh- sorry." Jace bends down to pick up his backpack and wargear case again. "We should probably deal with that." He quickly turns over to the two of you. You get the sense he's trying very hard to get you and Delilah away from each other. Or, more likely, Delilah away from you. "See you guys next class!"

He gives you a wave, and then turns to head down the hallway towards the stairs and their room. Delilah stays just a second before joining him{if DelilahGotYa == True}, looking right at you. You tense up and prepare for the worst as her lips tense and untense, like she's about to say something. Eep! Her mouth opens slightly, then closes again, and she sets her jaw and furrows her brow.

"Debbie." She says, giving you a small nod. Before you can fully comprehend what just happened, and get out of your defensive position, she's already done a quick turn on her heel and walked off to catch up with Jace.{else}, to give you an icy deathglare. You stick your tongue out at her, even though you're afraid.{endif}

As they're leaving, you hear Jace talking to Delilah. "Dellie, did you know there's apparently a camp we're doing next week?"

"Don't you read the newsletter?"

And then, as their voices fade out to nothing, peace at last returns. You breathe out in relief, then look over to Miranda with a beaming smile that says "we're safe now". Miranda totally agrees.

"W-well, we should probably head to our rooms too, th-then. We don't want to miss class or anything." Miranda stands up, and doesn't need to pick up her backpack at all, because she is tactical and chose to keep wearing it. "Thanks for....."

She stares down at you from her standing position, and rubs her lips together in thought. Then she walks off.

That was good fun! What a nice way to slide back into the schoolweek. Well, everybody's heading to their rooms then, so you'd better do the same. You stand, pick up your suitcase with two hands on the handle as is customary, and waddle your way down the hall to get to the stairs, and eventually your room on the second floor.

{if DelilahGotYa == True}When you pass the glass double doors that lead into the central Courtyard, you look out, and you see Toffee sitting proudly and licking himself at the far end of the space.

With a grin, you take one arm off of your case to give him a wide wave.

"TOFFEE!" You call out. He stops licking for a second and looks around, before his eyes find you. He stares for a bit, then goes back to licking himself. Oh, how cool! Seriously, how can such an awesome cat belong to such a cruel lady.

With that, feeling validated, you head the rest of the way to your room.{elseif OopsToffee == True}When you pass the glass double doors that lead into the central Courtyard, you look out, and you think that you see an orange cat licking itself on the far end of the space..... hey, wait! You stop and squint, craning your neck to get a better look as you stand in the hallway with your case. Is that the cat that cut your zipties earlier? You think it is! Oh, if only you were close enough to say thanks. Well, anyway, you go the rest of the way to your room.{endif}