After the past few days on the road, a warm bed in a room of his own is the nicest thing in the world. North made a promise to come and visit with Jack tomorrow.
At this point, Jack isn't sure of anything.
Is he staying at this school, and if so, for how long? What does he tell his mom? What about his sister? What will she think? There's so much involved in moving schools in general, paperwork and the like. How is he going to get any of those things?
The worries weigh on him but he merely sinks farther into his pillow and sleeps without dreaming.
When Jack wakes to the sun streaming in through the window, it really confuses him. At home, he had his window covered over completely, not one trace of sunlight was ever able to worm its way into his bedroom.
It takes him a few moments after waking to adjust to the fact that he's not in Pennsylvania anymore. He sits up and makes to rub a hand over his eye but encounters the gauze wrapped in layers over his skin. Instead, he blinks a few times, stands, yawns and makes his way to the door.
Cautiously, he pokes his head out and looks either direction down the hallway. He steps out and closes the door behind. There's a slight chill in the hall and even though it doesn't bother Jack (if cold ever bothers him, then something's gotta be wrong…) it does make him realize how naked he feels without his hoodie.
He'd been given a fresh change of clothes when showed to his room- a white tee, grey sweatpants and ridiculously comfortable socks. While he'd been relieved to find that Bunny had deposited his duffle and backpack in the room they'd chosen for him, he was also beat and changed sleepily into the clothes they gave him instead of the ones he'd packed.
Now, he's choosing to explore the manor in the borrowed clothing.
He can't deny being insanely impressed by the size of the place.
With its high ceilings and ornate rugs and delicate flower arrangements placed randomly on little tables older than Jack himself, he did expect a certain… air of pretentiousness. But none of that came. The men he'd met the other night hadn't had the stereotypical air of superiority about them that came from living in a place so big.
North had been telling the truth, this is a school. Jack's seen maybe three or four kids walk by him carrying books or with bags slung over their shoulders.
One kid even walked through a wall right in front of Jack. It was boggling. If anyone had done that back in Burgess, they would have been ambushed.
But he's not in Burgess anymore. It's a vaguely freeing thought.
He continues down the hallway, idly looking around, and hands swinging easily by his sides. Something up ahead catches his eye and he breaks into a comfortable jog to approach it more quickly.
It is a wide open doorway, set in a stretch of oak paneled wall. It's very visible, now that Jack comes up on it.
The closer he gets to it, the more of the interior he can see and the more awe begins to pool in his stomach. What he can see is the growing edge of a large globe, covering with twinkling little lights.
"Wow." He breathes, fully entering the room, now.
The globe spins slowly, the little lights speckled across the surface reminiscent of the lights Jack would wind around the tree at Christmastime with his family. When the memory surfaces, so does a sinking feeling. He misses them, needs to let them know that he's safe. Especially after the conversation with his mom over the phone yesterday…
He walks around the room, alternating between gazing up at the globe in wonderment and browsing over the titles on the shelves.
Jack doesn't know how long he's been sitting there when a bell sounds out in the building and the sounds of bustling students follows shortly after. He can see handfuls more of the kids walking by.
There goes a girl with blue skin, conversing with her girlfriends, a boy showing off by spitting fire high into the air. A sudden contentment settles over Jack, like he belongs. And it is comforting knowing that, for once, he's not the weirdest person in the building. Not by a long shot.
The halls die down and all is quiet once more. Jack sits on one of the cushioned seats by a window, nestling down. He likes this room, it's calm, serene, and he can watch this odd globe and not have to hide. Jack likes this place, he really does. Maybe, sometime soon, he can come to call it his home.
He ends up picking a book from the shelf, a great, leather bound thing, and starts to walk out when he runs straight into someone.
"I'm so sorry, I wasn't watching where I was going and-."
"-no, no, it was all my fault, I'm sorry-."
Jack looks up to meet eyes with a woman covered in feathers, bright tropical plumage he'd only ever seen in a zoo or on the Discovery Channel.
Her eyes are violet and the feathers are sleekly aligned as far as he can see, not one quill seems to be out of place.
He realizes, belatedly, that he's staring and the woman has stopped speaking. She's looking at him with an expression on her face that says she's done this before.
"Your feathers are really cool." He blurts and then blushes.
Her brows move seamlessly beneath the feathers, moving toward her forehead.
"I- I didn't mean to-." He presses a palm to his face and stands for an awkward moment.
"You must be Jack." The woman hedges, a small smile curling her mouth, "I'm Toothiana, I'm a teacher here. You can call me 'Tooth' for short."
Jack sinks further into his pit of despair and embarrassment. He just told a teacher she looked cool and sounded like an idiot. How is this his life?
"Um, yes. Hi."
Tooth notices where he's come from, looking from Jack to behind him. She flutters around him and this is the first time he notices she's got translucent wings.
"It's pretty impressive, isn't it?" She asks. Jack's sure it's rhetorical, but he joins her side and says, "Yeah," anyway.
"Do you know anything about this place yet, Jack?" Tooth asks.
"No. Not really, North just told me that this was a school for mutants."
"Well, it is. Here, we teach a variety of subjects. But we also teach students how to handle their abilities, if they do, indeed, have any. To control their power, so that it does not control them."
There is a moment of silence as they both watch the globe turn before Tooth says, "Each light is a mutant, out there. Every single one."
"Really?"
"Really."
They stand, each waiting for the other to fill the silence but neither breaking it first.
The sounds of small feet pattering against the wooden floor toward the globe room reach their ears and they turn almost simultaneously to see a little girl with long, stringy blonde hair skid passed the door way. She quickly back tracks, poking her head around the corner, "Miss Tooth! Jamie got stuck in one of the trees outside. We need your help."
"What are you guys doing outside in the first place, Sophie? It's freezing out! C'mon, let's go get silly Jamie un-stuck from the tree." She smiles as the little girl takes her hand and begins to pull her along.
"I'll see you later, Jack! I hope your first day here is wonderful!" She waves to him.
Jack listens to their gentle banter fade as they slowly make their way outside, a smile playing his face.
"I was trying to get a better view, Miss Tooth! I swear!" Jamie grins his gapped grin at Tooth.
"A better view of what, Jamie? The trees that cover most of our grounds or the road leading here that takes up the rest?" She replies good-naturedly, buzzing up and attempting to extricate Jamie's coat from the tiny sprigs in the tree's branches.
"Well, no," He admits, and Tooth isn't sure whether the rosy hue across his cheeks is from the cold, or if he's just being bashful, "I saw something moving in the trees; I wanted to see what it was. So I climbed the tree 'cause sometimes being high up makes it so you can see better." He shrugs.
"What'd it look like?" Tooth finally gets Jamie untangled, catching his free falling weight in her arms and then gently setting him on his feet.
"I can't really say. It was there and then it wasn't, I didn't get to see it well enough." Jamie says, straightening out his coat. He turns to take his sister's hand. Tooth makes an inquisitive sound.
"Let's go back inside, kids. It's a little too cold out here for me." Tooth jokes and her smile is a little stiff and little too twitchy around the edges. Jamie and Sophie, however, do not notice. They walk back to the mansion together, Tooth glancing frequently over her shoulder at the trees. Some of the tension in her shoulders eases once they are safely inside.
"Don't go climbing anymore trees, Jamie." Tooth warns him warmly, sending the siblings on their way and hoping they'll find something much more productive to do.
She flits down the hall quickly and quietly, headed the opposite direction of the children, toward her classroom. Maybe she'll be able to get some papers graded for the older students.
She does not see the figure moving stealthily along the tree line. In fact, the figure is barely noticeable, cloaked in dark and staying solely beneath the lowest branches of the trees, here and then gone in the blink of an eye…