Not long after Lucy's father left, Levy's parents did too. There were a lot more tears than there had been between Lucy and her father. Levy's mother looked like she could water the flowers outside with her tears. The second the two left, Levy and Lucy looked each other.
"Excuse me." Levy cleared her throat. "Fuck, shit, dammit." Both girls started laughing.
"Are you not allowed to curse at home?" Lucy asked.
"I can't even say "darn" around my dad." The blue haired girl reached into one of the boxes she was still working on unpacking and pulled out notebooks and packs of pens. "My mom curses like a sailor though. It's weird."
"Huh." Lucy looked back at the wall space above her bed. She was trying to figure out how to arrange all of the pictures and posters she brought. There was a bit of embarrassment thinking about which ones she actually brought. Most of them were just super artistic, classic white girl posters, but then there was her awkward band posters and pictures her friends from highschool had given her. She picked through which ones she actually wanted on her wall. She settled on putting to large poster of the Eiffel Tower in the space at the head of her bed. Then she pulled out the four, one foot by one foot cork boards in adorable painted picture frames. She arranged them on either side of the window over her bed. The rest of the posters ended up wherever they could fit. It ended up being a pretty cute arrangement in her opinion.
Suddenly there was a knocking on their door. Both girls turned to see two people standing by the door. One was a girl with short white hair, the other was a boy with bright pink, spiked hair. "Hello." The girl greeted.
"Hey." Lucy responded for both her and Levy. "Can we help you?"
"Ours parents already left so we're acting like hot shit." The boy grinned, walking right into the room. "This is a cool setup you have here." He looked around at the arrangement.
"Natsu, don't just walk into a girls' room like that!" The white haired girl slapped the boy's shoulder, but he didn't seem to mind. "Sorry about him. He has no boundaries."
"It's fine." Levy smiled, then went back to organizing her desk drawers. "The door was open after all."
Lucy looked over both of the people who had just entered her room. The girl looked very tidy. Short white hair was well kept and tucked behind her ears. She wore a yellow tee-shirt and jean shorts, but considering the temperature outside, it was well warranted. The boy next to her looked much more wild. Lucy's eyes immediately fixated on his pink hair. She couldn't tell it if was natural or dyed; it was so hard to tell with some people. Even if his pink hair had been perfectly normal, there was also the massive tattoo on his right arm. The black tank top he was wearing showed it off well. From what she could tell, it looked like a red dragon head mounted on his shoulder. It spat out flames which circled around the guy's upper arm, and ended inches away from his elbow. It was insanely detailed, and contrasted completely against his black tanktop and shorts, and the white scarf that he was for some reason wearing despite the heat.
"Natsu! Where the hell are you?" A voice yelled down the hall.
"Crap. I gotta go." The pink haired boy turned tail and ran out of the room. Lucy could hear more yelling in the hallway, and it just sounded like a bunch of dumb insults though.
"Sorry about him. His brain doesn't function like a normal human beings." The girl, who was still in the room, commented. "Oh, that was Natsu by the way. And my name is Lisanna." She introduced herself.
"Nice to meet you Lisanna." Lucy hopped off of her bed and went to greet the girl. "My name's Lucy."
"I'm Levy." The bluenette added in.
"Nice to meet you. Welcome to MCC." Lisanna said. It took Lucy a few seconds to realize that those were the initials of the school. She probably should have known that considering they were printed on almost every handout and pamphlet she'd ever received. "I was just going up and down the halls with Natsu and introducing myself to whoever was around."
"That's cool." Lucy said. "I'll probably do the same eventually."
"You could also just wait until the building wide meeting." The white haired girl noted. "Mira asked me to tell people about that. It's at seven tonight in the lobby. Basically, everyone who lives in the building sits around and the RA's are going to talk to us."
Lucy and Levy exchanged a look. "Sounds cool I guess." Levy shrugged. "It's going to be pretty crowded though."
"Yes and no. Not everyone is moving in today after all. It's pretty much just going to be us first years."
Levy made a little 'O' shape with her mouth. She continued to stack books on top of her desk, since there was no longer room on the book shelf she had brought. There was a moment of silence as she looked around at what space was left in the room. "Do you think I'd be able to get one of those 'over-the-bed' bookshelves?"
"I don't see why not." Lucy shrugged. "What we really need is a carpet or something though."
"You could probably check out the school store for that." Lisanna said. "It's just at the Campus Center. Do you know where that is? I can show you the way if you want."
Lucy shook her head. "Thanks for the offer, but I think we can figure it out. I sort of remember from tours."
"Alright." Lisanna smiled. "It was great meeting you guys then." The white haired girl began walking out of the room, but stopped in the doorway. "Oh. I'm in room 338. Come find me if you ever want to hang out." With that, she waved her goodbye and left the room.
Once Levy had come up with a way of organizing all her leftover books, Lucy helped pin up some of the posters her roommate had. Her favorite was a large one that they put in the middle what had pictures of bookshelves in the back, and large cursive letters that read 'My room doesn't just look like a library, it smells like one too'. It didn't take too much time to secure the posters and photos to the wall, despite the low quality wall tacks, and then the two newly made college girls looked around their shared room. Levy's side of the room had an opposing color scheme to Lucy's, but still blended in quite well. The bed had light blue fitted sheets and pillowcases and a gray comforter that had a white stripes crossing to make gray diamonds. A few stuffed animals sat at the head of the bed. If Lucy had learned anything in her college research, it was that your bed is the defining factor in your room style.
Lucy pulled her cell phone out of the side pocket of her backpack and flashed on the screen. It was only about three in the afternoon, and both of them were already fully situated. "What do you want to do now?"
"We could just walk around like….." Levy paused for a moments. "Is it bad that I already forget that girl's name?"
"Nah. You're good." Lucy said as she when into her wardrobe and took out a small brown purse. She threw the lanyard with her keys and ID inside along with her phone. "I just remember that it started with an 'L'."
"Glad to know I'm not alone." The blue haired bookworm hopped off of her bed and landed on the tile floor with a thud. She located the little blue purse that she had moved in with and slung it over her shoulder. "I'm so bad with names."
The pair left their room, locking it behind them. They started walking down the girl's hallway, poking their heads into any of the open doors. Most of the girls they met were still hectically trying to move all of their things into their rooms to really chat. Lucy and Levy ended up going all the way around the building until they found the room of the girl they had talked to before. They saw from the door decks that the girl's name was Lisanna, and she was rooming with some other girl named Juvia. Lisanna was in her room, organizing the drawers of her desk. One side of the room, the one that Lisanna was sitting at, was covered in dark purples and black and had only a few photos taped on the wall. The other side of the room was much better decorated. The general theme would probably be "water". The bed spread was blue and turquoise, and there was a large wall decal of a sailboat and anchor on the wall over the bed. White christmas lights were strung through the ceiling tiles to go over that half of the room as well.
"This is such a cute space." Levy said as she stepped into the room, admiring the organization of everything. "Is your roommate still moving in?"
"Nope." Lisanna shook her head. "She finished up a little while ago, then said she was going to take a walk around."
"Well, we're thinking of sitting outside and watching the chaos." Lucy looked at a mirror on the wall and fixed her hair. She took it out of the pony tail it had been in and let it hang naturally over her shoulders. They she turned back to the other girls in the room. "Do want to come with?"
Lisanna took a moment to think over the offer. "You know what, I'll come join you when I'm done with this."
"Alright. See you in a bit then." Lucy and Levy excused themselves from the room. It took a moment to locate a stairwell that would take them back to the lobby. When they had finally gotten out the front door, the two girls wandered around the circle until they found an empty patch of grass in front of Fairy Tail Hall that they could sit down on. They watched a lot of families scramble to get as much out of the backs of their cars as they could. One group had a massive U-Haul trailer hooked on to the back of their already massive truck. They seemed to be heading into Quatro Cerberus carrying not one, but two flat screen TVs.
"Boys." Levy shook her head. "I don't get it."
"Not at all." Lucy agreed with her roommate.
"Natsu! Get your ass back here and say goodbye to your sister!" A large booming voice nearly silenced the entire circle. A tall man with dark red hair was standing on the sidewalk that lead to the entrance of Fairy Tail. Next to him stood a small girl with long blue hair, who clung to the leg of his pants.
"I told you I was coming you old fart." A barely familiar pink haired boy made his way towards the man. When he got close the little girl ran up to him and gave him a big hug. "I thought you guys had already left." After that point, any words that any member of that family said were too quiet for Lucy to make out properly. But she was certain she could see that the little girl was sad to see her brother go. The pinkette let his sister climb onto his back, before he started running up and down the path towards the parking lot. The man, that must have been his father, followed behind.
"I can't imagine having to say goodbye to a brother or sister." Lucy brought up when the family was out of sight. "It was hard enough saying it to my father."
"Are you an only child?" Levy asked.
"Yep." Lucy nodded.
"Same. My mother's attached to me enough though." The smaller girl smiled, remembering how just moments ago how hard it was to get her mother to leave the new dorm room. "I don't know what she's going to do without me actually…"
"Maybe she'll get a dog?" The suggestion wasn't too out there. Many parents would try and compensate for losing a child to higher education, and often times the best idea they could come up with was to get a fuzzy replacement. Lucky for her, Lucy knew she didn't have to worry about that with her father. He wasn't the type to suddenly get emotionally attached to another living thing. She wouldn't be too surprised if he bought himself a boat though.
The boy with pink hair, Natsu, if Lucy remembered his name right, came back into view, walking out of the parking lot alone. He stopped for a moment at the corner of the sidewalk, scratching the back of his head. He was clearly wondering what to do next. Lucy watched him suddenly run towards the door of Fairy Tail Hall, where he met with Lisanna, who was exiting the building. The two exchanged a few words. Lisanna looked around the circle, then pointed towards where Lucy and Levy were sitting. The pair walked over to the two girls.
"Hello again." Lisanna smiled as she sat down on the grass in front of the other two girls.
"Hey." Lucy nodded.
"What's up?" Natsu grinned, standing above them. He wore a really toothy grin. "My name's Natsu by the way. I don't think I ever actually said it before."
"I already told them your name." Lisanna explained, rolling her eyes.
"What? Why would you do that?" The guy grinded the toe of his sandals into the grass. "I wanted to have a super cool introduction too."
"Since when did you care about first impressions?" The only response to the comment was Natsu sticking out his tongue before dropping to sit cross-legged on the ground.
"Anyways, what were your guys' names?" Natsu asked. "Luigi and Levi was it?"
Lucy couldn't tell if Natsu was joking around by suggesting both her and Levy had boy names. She looked at him, trying to figure out his expression, but he looked like he was already focused in on a stick he picked up off the ground. "Not quite… My name's Lucy."
"And I'm Levy. I guess that's a least kind of close though." The blue haired girl laughed. She seemed to be brushing off Natsu's comments as a joke.
"I don't know how many times I can apologize for him." Lisanna sighed.
"I don't need anybody doing that for me Lisanna." Natsu grumbled.
"So…." Lucy jumped back into the conversation. "Did you two know each other before coming here?" She couldn't help but notice that the pair were unusually close for day one.
"We went to highschool together." Lisanna explained. "I actually didn't know we were going to be at the same school again until orientation over the summer."
"Well I hope you guys at least get along." Levy said. She leaned back until her back was on the grass. "That would suck if you didn't."
"You're more worried about getting along with your roommate." Lisanna jabbed Natsu's arm with the point of her elbow.
The pink haired guy swatted away the attacking limb. "Shut up." He had a scowl on his face. "Not my fault he's a prick."
"How do you already have problems with your roommate?" Lucy raised an eyebrow. She was honestly impressed more than shocked. Today was the first possible day to move in for new students, and unless they had gotten into a fight over the summer, they would have needed to get into an argument within the last few hours.
"I put up a few pictures of my cat, and he was all "what kind of guy has a cat?"! Can you believe him?" Natsu was clearly very passionate about this. He was staring right at Lucy, clearly expecting her to make some sort of reaction.
"That's rude." Lucy finally said.
"Isn't it?" The male huffed air out his nose and crossed his arms over his chest. "It's fine though. My sister showed him a picture of my cat and her cat together, and he had to admit that they are both cute as hell." Natsu dug around his pockets and pulled out his cell phone. He hit the button that lit the screen up, and immediately showed it to Lucy and Levy. The backdrop was a picture of two cats. One was white with a pink ribbon tied in a bow on its tail, the other was bright blue.
Both girls stared at the picture, then back at Natsu. "Natsu….." Lucy began. "Why that one blue?"
"That one's mine." The grin on Natsu's face spread from ear to ear. "He fell in some paint once when he was a kitten, and it looked really awesome, so I dye his fur."
"Right…" From what Lucy could tell, Natsu was just about as logical as a five year old. First impressions could be wrong though, or so she hoped. "What's his name?"
"Happy." Natsu said, returning his phone to his pocket. "And my sister's cat's name is Carla."
"It's cool that you have pets." Levy commented. She was still laying down on the grass, probably not too keen on moving anytime soon. "Lucy and I already figured out my parents are probably going to get a dog to replace me now."
The four sat in the grass for a while longer. Their conversations were rather sporadic, most of it starting from reactions to the people who were still moving into the dorm buildings, or Natsu's overly randomized statements. Lucy couldn't tell if that boy was listening to what others were saying or not. He seemed to just be off in his own imagination one minute, than overly involved the next. Levy had finally sat upright. She enlisted in Lucy's help to remove the grass and leaves from the back of her shirt and hair.
"Lisanna!" The group of freshman all turned their heads to see Mirajane and one of the other Fairy Tail RA's, a guy with long green hair, stood on the sidewalk that passed in from of the dorms and went around the circle.
"What is it?" Lisanna called back.
"We're going to get dinner. Do you and your friends want to come with us?"
Lisanna looked back to the group she was with. "What do you guys say?"
"Hell yeah!" Natsu jumped up to his feet immediately. "I'm starving."
Lucy looked at the clock on her phone and saw that is was only a little past five o'clock. That being said, she was feeling a little hungry. She and her father has gotten an early lunch so that they would get to the college campus at a good time, so it had been a while since she had eaten. "Sounds good to me." Lucy stood up off the ground, then helped Levy up too.
"Yeah. Who could turn down food?" Levy laughed.
The two groups met on the grass in the middle of the circle. "Shall we?" Mirajane then began leading the way.
"Have you guys eaten in the dining hall here yet?" Lisanna asked Levy and Lucy, walking side by side with them.
"We had to during orientation." Levy said.
The now decent sized group followed the sidewalk between Quatro Cerberus and the strange looking artistic building next to it. The sidewalk turned into a brick pathway as they crossed over a hill. From the top of the hill they could easily see that is led up to a large pond.
"It's really cool, isn't it?" Natsu said, suddenly appearing next to Lucy.
"Huh? Oh, yeah. It really is." The blonde agreed.
"Come on." Natsu grabbed Lucy's wrist without warning, and began running to the pond. They stopped right in front of it, where there was a separation on the path. On the left, the brick led up a hill towards a large brick building. The majority of the people who were on the pathway seemed to be going in that direction. The right looked like it just walked around the pond, towards a forest area. It wasn't until Lucy looked again that she saw another brick building, similar looking to the other three dorm buildings, peeking out from behind bushes and trees. But what really grabbed Lucy's attention was what was directly across the pond. While that body of water was pretty on its own, on the completely opposite end, and across the piece of road that was there, was the water front.
A large river created a coastline on the small college campus. It was one of the main reasons why Lucy came to this school. From where she stood now, Lucy could also see the little white boat house that was right by the water front. "I love it here."
"Don't ya?"
"Hey Flamebrain, move it." An unfamiliar voice made Lucy turn around. When she did, she saw a tall guy with dark hair, and a big frown on his face.
"Ey, how's it hanging Icebreath?" Natsu stuck out his tongue.
"Oh, you know, slightly to the left."
Lucy cringed her nose when she realized the meaning of the comment. She then looked out for Levy and saw the smaller girl just a few feet away, starting up the hill. Lucy ran after her, rejoining the original group. Natsu and the other guy followed behind.
Levy looked back at the new guy. "Who's this?"
"Gray." The dark haired boy said. "I have the….. pleasure of being assigned to the same room as this pink haired menace."
"Oh. You're the roommate who hates cats." Levy's comment made Gray raise an eyebrow.
"You're both in my hall, aren't you?" The green haired guy that Mirajane had been with, his name was Freed based on the nametag sticker on his shirt, said to the only other males in the group. He was another RA in their dorm building. "I hope you won't end up being my problem children."
"We'll cause as many problems for you as we can." Natsu grinned.
"Great." Freed's smile was replaced with a frown and furrowed brow.
"Oh, I'm sure they're both be lovely." Mirajane clapped her hands together.
The brick pathway led in between two brick buildings. One was a library, the other was known as the Campus Center. There was a large patio with tables and benches in front of the Campus Center, with entrances on either side. A small staircase outside led to a balcony that stretched the length of the second floor.
"Alright, well," Mirajane turned to Lisanna. "You don't have to eat with me if you don't want to, but you're certainly welcome to join us."
Lisanna looked over the group of fellow freshman. "Yeah, maybe not tonight."
"Don't forget about the Hall Meeting tonight." Mirajane and Lisanna hugged before the group split apart by just enough steps to distinguish the difference. They all headed up the stairs to the balcony, and went through the door to enter the building.
The dining hall took up the entirety of the top floor. The hallway had windows on one side, showing the balcony and a lovely view of the library and path. The other side was lined with small wooden cubies. Students and parents like placed their bags and any other personal belongings inside while they eat in the dining hall. It was one of those peculiar things about this college. People could leave their bag unattended while they eat, and no one would bat an eye or worry about someone taking their things. It was an unusual school though.
"Alright now, settle down all of you." Max looked like he was about at his wits end. It was past seven o'clock, the time scheduled for the mandatory meeting for the residents of Fairy Tail Hall, and Laki and Freed were still running around trying to track down all of the first years. The ones that actually managed to show up relatively on time were rather rambunctious.
"Poor guy." Levy leaned over a whispered to Lucy. The two sat on the floor; they came too late to get a seat on one of the couches or chairs in the lobby.
"I feel sorry for him." Lucy agreed. "At least this isn't the all-guys dorm."
"That's true."
"I'm not allowed to curse at you lot, so hurry up and shut up before I'm tempted to." Max finally yelled. The upperclassman seemed to be losing his patience. He saw Laki walk through the double doors into the hallway, with two more students following after her.
"That may or may not be everyone." Laki said, standing beside the other Residence Assistants. Freed had made his way in from the opposite hallway. "My hall's all here, give or take six."
"I'm only missing two." Freed said, looking over the crowd.
"Well, we're going to start this meeting in true MCC fashion, so fifteen minutes late." Max finally started. "Welcome to Fairy Tail Hall folks. The four of us all did introductions already, and I know it's a pain 'cause there are a lot of you, but you all get to go around the room and say a quick 'hello'." There was a collective groan throughout the room.
"Oh come on, it's fun to know your neighbors." Mira cheered. "Who would like to go first?"
"I'll do it! I'll go first!" Natsu's excitement did not go unnoticed. The pinkette's hand was in the air before the sentence even came out of Mirajane's mouth. "I'm Natsu. Natsu Dragneel. I live with the guy sitting around without a shirt on over there, in room 246. I'm gonna be a chemistry major, and my spirit animal is either a dragon, or a cat with wings, I can't decide."
"Who the hell said anything about spirit animals?" Levy asked, whispering back to Lucy.
"I'm more surprised about the chemistry thing." Lucy responded. She wasn't paying attention to the guy who went after Natsu. "Sciences are weird."
"I don't get them at all." Levy and Lucy spent the time chatting to each other, judging people based on what they decided to say as their introductions, and, of course, physical appearances.
"Juvia Lockser." A girl with very pale skin and long blue hair began. She had a very soft voice, and the entire room had to try to be quite in order to hear her properly. "Psychology is the most likely area of study Juvia will study. Juvia doesn't have anything else to say."
"Poor thing. I wonder if she's shy?" Lucy mentioned. Her eyes began searching out the next person to go, but it seemed all eyes were starting to focus on her. "Oh great." She took a deep breath before starting. "My name is Lucy, and I'm an English major. I want to be a writer some day. I'm not sure if I'm going to minor in anything yet, we'll see." Once she finished, Lucy nudged her roommate to go next.
"Alright, I get it. Nice to meet you all. I'm Levy. I'm also an English major, but I'm probably also going to a history major, and but I also want to do museum studies or archeology. But at the same time I might just take a lot of language classes instead. We'll see."
"Smooth." Lucy giggled when her roommate was done.
"Oh shut up." The blue haired girl puffed out her cheeks. "Like you did any better."