She turned to ask the beings what they meant by their strange words only to find herself alone on the sandy shore. Behind her the sea of light receded and warped until the strange castle and she were alone on an island of darkness. When she shivered the sword rang out in a clear command; she had to keep going. There was no turning back now.

"You are always so studious when I see you, Nepeta. No wonder you won the school's highest scholarship."

Kanaya Maryam pulled out a chair to sit next to the other girl, offering her a warm smile in greeting. Nepeta returned it happily; Kanaya radiated a sense of collected calm that it normally took being a mother to gain. It made sense that she was pursuing a career as an obstetrician, though her secondary love of clothing design had brought her to be in the same Drawing One class as Nepeta.

"It's not really studying, just... random writing." Nepeta said almost-honestly, closing her notebook in favor of her sketchbook. "Nothing as amazing as what you keep calling doodles."

"Come now. You're not so bad yourself." Kanaya tapped her shoulder in light reprimand, which made Nepeta giggle softly. Apparently the older girl had decided to adopt her as a younger sister... Which made Nepeta infinitely happy. She was an only child and had never known what it was like to have a sibling to look after and be looked after by. The closest she got was Equius, but a brother was way different than a sister. "Stop talking down about yourself, Nepeta."

"She does have a bad habit of that, doesn't she?" Aradia took a seat at Nepeta's other side, making Nepeta jump slightly. She hadn't heard the other girl approaching...

Of all the current freshman, Aradia was the one Nepeta knew the least about, much to Equius' disappointment. The simple fact was that no one knew anything about her and Aradia wasn't especially interested in correcting that deficit. Still, Nepeta liked her; Aradia was creative and unique and... well, an outsider. Like her.

"All of you calm down." The lazy voice of their art teacher, Professor Dirk Strider, worked its way through the collective chatter of the classroom and effectively silenced it.

He slouched to the front of the room, looking out over the assembled students with a raised eyebrow. Seeming to need a moment to collect the energy to speak, Professor Strider opened his mouth-

Only to be interrupted when the door flew open an a flustered male student rushed in, holding his partially opened backpack close to his chest. "Fuck, sorry! Some jackass ran into me on his bike and didn't even stop to help..."

Nepeta could feel her cheeks warming slightly as she quickly averted her gaze. Karkat Vantas... He seemed eternally angry at life in general, cranky and cantankerous; yet in him was a natural sense of leadership. It attracted people to him despite his attitude which seemed to serve only to annoy him further. For Nepeta it had been crush-at-first-sight, her heart skipping a beat when his dark-rimmed eyes met hers for that brief second...

Eridan, who firmly held to the fact that he was in the class only for a fine arts credit and not because he was inclined towards any sort of artistic pursuits, noticed the faint flush of Nepeta's cheeks... as did Kanaya, who smiled softly.

Author's Note: And with that all the trolls are introduced! Are you excited? I am! MWA HA HA HA HA. After this the story really begins and all of you who have stuck with me this far deserve some candy. Here ya go.

Also, I really hope this chapter makes sense, I wrote it on very little sleep due to cosplay shenanigans for two straight days.

As always, if you've read this far please leave me a comment!