"Your handwriting is really messy,"
Serene looked up at the girl sitting beside her, staring blankly. "What?"
"You're handwriting," She gestured to Serene's paperwork.
"… So?"
"The administrator might not be able to read it."
Serene wasn't sure what an administrator was. She looked down at her sheet. "It's not that bad," She muttered. "It's just for the support package."
The girl shrugged. "It'll probably be fine," She held out her hand. "I'm Jazz."
Serene shook her hand. "Sera."
"You from around here?"
"I'm kinda… from everywhere." She said vaguely. "I travel a lot."
"Cool," Jaz smiled, turning back to her paperwork. Serene finished hers and turned it in at the office. She stood there for a few minutes as the lady processed it and handed her a plain, standard backpack. Serene took it and headed out the door as more students filed in. She was glad she got a jump on the rush; she didn't think she could handle small talk.
The tour of the school was given by a thin woman dressed in silver and black. Serene heard someone joke about her being a robot from Atlas, but it wasn't very funny.
The professor explained the contents of their starter pack, including their scroll, and that their teams were selected based on their entrance exams. Serene vaguely remembered the people she had encountered in the exam but didn't see any of them in her group.
Afterwards, Serene found the room assignment in the file in her bag and a map on the wall near the classrooms. She followed it to the back of the school, seeing her luggage piled outside the door with a few other bags she assumed belonged to her teammates. Unlocking the door with her scroll she noticed that no one else was there yet, and she claimed the bed near the back-right window.
She wasn't sure how long she'd been lying there before she heard the other people arriving.
Three other girls piled into the room, all carrying varying amounts of luggage from outside.
"Hello again!" Called the girl who told Serene her writing sucked. Serene bit back a groan.
"Hi,"
"So this is team JSMN!" She smiled, looking at the other two teammates who were settling in. "Should we do introduction?"
"You're the leader," Serene muttered, sitting up.
"Okay, well I'm Jazz Lapis." She said cheerfully. Serene tried not to roll her eyes; she was gonna be a handful.
"I'm Nyla," the girl to Jazz's right said in a soft voice. Her hair was a gradient of red to blue with a heavy fringe, and a sweater and trousers matching her hair, "Simian."
"Maizie," Said the last girl. She was a lion faunus, her ears sticking out through thick dark golden blonde hair, her gold jewellery and eyeliner contrasting beautifully with her dark skin.
"Sera," Serene introduced herself under the fake name, raising her hand slightly in a half-hearted wave. It was actually less than half hearted. Quarter hearted, probably.
"Are you guys all from Mistral?" Jazz asked, pulling her trunk up onto her bed and opening it.
"Atlas, actually," Nyla said, kneeling down to open her suitcase and pull out her clothes.
"Vacuo," Maizie said shortly, and Serene noticed the wary gaze she gave her teammate. A thought occurred to Serene.
"Hey, don't we have partners?"
"Oh!" Jazz scrambled for her bag, pulling out the file they'd been given. "Yes. We're partners and you guys are partners." She smiled, turning to Nyla and Maizie.
"Yay," Serene muttered under her breath.
Nyla smiled and turned back to her task of putting her clothes into her drawer extremely neatly, item by item. It was calming in a way. Like a visual ASMR.
Serene didn't realise she was staring until Jazz clapped her hands.
"So, since we don't have an orientation thing like Beacon or Vacuo, why don't we do something to get to know each other?"
"Okay," Nyla said readily. "Like what?"
"We've got four years to get to know each other," Serene said, shoving her clothes into her draw haphazardly and kicking her other boots under the top of her bed.
"Well our training starts tomorrow, so I think we should know each other at least a bit." Said Jazz.
"Are you going to be like this the whole time?" Serene asked, sitting on her bed.
"Probably."
"I appreciate your honesty. Proceed."
Jazz quizzed them on their life story and Serene gave her memorised bullshit answers, most of her attention on going through her paperwork and trying to figure out how to work a scroll.
"You look like my dad," Maizie said, sitting on the end of her bed. "Give it here,"
Serene passed over the scroll, watching Maizie finish configuring it and connecting it to the wifi.
"Here, just put in your fingerprint and you'll be set." Maizie handed it back and picked up Serene's paperwork.
"Hey why don't we just go through each other's paperwork." Maizie suggested.
"I don't think knowing my student login password will make us feel more comfortable putting our lives in each other's hands," Jazz said as she put her toiletries in a small pink basket.
"What if it's like, 'faunusSuck' or something?"
"She's got a point," Serene backed her up with false sobriety. Jazz frowned at her, both confused and concerned.
"I think our passwords are randomly generated," Nyla said, grabbing her own paperwork from the file on her desk.
"Probably," Maizie agreed, "unless Sera is just really passionate about the number five and the colour purple,"
Sera took her file from her and checked her password. 'LilacLavender 5555'
"Creative," She muttered. "What's yours?"
Maizie grabbed her old manila folder and flipped to the third page. "HonoluluBlue8769. Nice."
Serene laughed, because she was kinda immature and grabbed the bag provided, pulling out the rest of her started kit. She had a basic pencil case, a few notebooks and two textbooks; one for history and one for Grimm studies. She organised them on her desk and the shelf above it.
The rest of the afternoon passed mostly in silence until their scrolls buzzed, alerting them that the hall was opened for dinner.
"Oh thank God," Maizie moaned, "I could eat a horse." She hurried out the door, appearing again a moment later.
"Do any of you know how to get to the hall from here?"
The four girls look at each other blankly, before they all dove for their bags for their maps.
