Having finally gotten my scroll straightened out, my team headed over to the breakfast counter while I sat down at a lone table as far from other people as possible. Shortly later, my team joined me, each carrying their own tray of food.
"Not hungry?" Ren askes, raising an eyebrow quizzically.
"Already ate." Not technically a lie, I have eaten within the past 24 hours. Ren nodded and turned to his own meal, which consisted of eggs, pancakes, and breakfast sausage. To his left, Pyrrha was eating a similar meal, looking at me cautiously. I let out a sigh.
"Pyrrha, why are you looking at me like that?"
She freezes up, "I saw that deathstalker impale you."
This legitimately confused me. I'd thought she would say something about the crunching noise. I hadn't actually been stabbed by the deathstalker's stinger, the thing had hit my armor. Then realization struck. She had been running away too, so she probably hadn't clearly seen what happened. I can use this to my advantage.
"No, you really didn't. The thing impacted my armor, not me." I don't even have to lie to do this.
"Yes, I did see, and it flung you off, and you were dead," she's a stubborn one.
"No," I held up my hood for them to see the hole in it, "This was impaled. I was not." I let go of my hood, letting it fall to my shoulder. She's starting to believe me, I can smell the ebbing fear in her sweat.
I focus my vision on her left eye, and speak slowly, enunciating each word, "I'm Not Dead."
The fear smell dissipates, she is convinced.
Throughout the exchange, Ren and Nora watched quietly, or rather, Nora watched quietly, while Ren was looking at Nora with a concerned expression. "Are you alright Nora?" he asked, causing her to blink. Nora brings up a point I hadn't thought of.
"Then why was Weiss shrieking about you being dead?" she asks. Pyrrha's fear smell returns.
This, I had been prepared for. I wave off the question. "All the dust she carries around, I'm surprised she doesn't see leprechauns."
Ren looked confused, "Why would dust make you see leprechauns?"
I plugged one nostril and inhaled while sweeping my head across my place at the table.
"Ah," is all the response I get.
Pyrrha's fear smell disappears again, and she lets out a nearly inaudible laugh.
After that, we had a normal conversation. Jokes, interests, ideas, all the like were tossed around jovially. Turns out, Pyrrha is a great person to talk to when she isn't screaming about you being dead. Ten or so minutes later, and the first bell rings, signaling the beginning of the first class. Ren, Nora, and Pyrrha took care of their trays, and we walked as a group to class. I mentally compared our group to the 'packs' of undead searching for humans, but I derailed that thought. Don't think about the past, think about the now. According to Ren, who I am now assuming to be the most organized of the group, our first class was Grimm Studies with Professor Port, so we all followed his lead to the classroom, where we arrived about five minutes early. One step in and I swear that I could smell Grimm bacon. Most of the seating was occupied by bored looking students, so we took four of the only empty seats. I glanced around the classroom, idly wondering where team RWBY was, and if they even had the same first hour class.
Speak of the devil, RWBY just entered as the bells went off. They took the last empty seats, as a man with grey hair and a grey mustache stepped into the front of the classroom. This must be Professor Port. I need all the information I can get. I lean forward.
"Monsters…" Is all I hear, as I actually feel my brain cells shriveling from this guy's speech. I didn't even know I could sleep, but one moment I'm leaning forward to listen to information, and the next moment I'm watching Weiss jump off a giant snowflake to kill a boar Grimm.
"Excellent…" I hear the professor say, once again causing my neurons to shrivel, only to be healed by my aura. I can proudly say that I didn't black out this time, but I might have stopped paying attention. It's just self-preservation, honest!
The class was dismissed, so my team and I headed back to our dorm, because apparently there was only one class period today. I wondered why.
Entering my team's dorm room, I was greeted by four beds and a nightstand. I walk in squinting and start slowly turning in circles.
"What are you doing?" Pyrrha asked.
"It's… too bland. I would've thought… Never mind. Which bed is mine?" I ask. Not that I'll really need it, but I've got to keep up appearances, and living people sleep. Pyrrha just points at the bed to the far left of the four, "We selected beds in correlation to the parts of our names to he team name," she explained. "Got it," I said, walking over to it. There's a school uniform laying neatly folded on it, and something occurred to me. "How did I not get reprimanded for not wearing my school uniform?" I ask no one in particular.
"It's because you got a weak presence!" Nora exuberantly replies to my rhetorical question.
"True," Ren says, "It is like you are not even there."
I honestly don't know if I should be glad or disappointed. Should I be glad that I'm inconspicuous or should I be disappointed that my only friends think that I'm not even here.
I shake my head. "Anyway, what do you guys want to do for the rest of the day?"
I hear three synchronous stomach growls.
"Lunch it is."
Sorry about chapter, formatting got messed up. I will eventually rewrite entire story. Expect another chapter within next week.