diatu | Day 1

Who: Lea and you. Yes, YOU!
When: The day all the new people arrive, prior to him meeting Xion
Where: Around the Academy
What: Lea is stuck in a new world and generally not a happy camper. Pick your scenario or make one up.
Warnings: Shouldn't be any?
Notes: Lea won't succeed in getting rid of his familiar, here or elsewhere, but have fun watching him try for a bit. X3

Un-familiar

Lea had accepted the box full of stuff that the academy staff had given him reasonably politely; he might not be happy about it, but for the moment at least, he wasn't in a position to refuse their hospitality. They'd given him his dorm assignment and some basic directions on how to get there, as well as a weird magical glass eye that Lea quickly stuck in his pocket after a moment of using it to look at himself; he'd probably find a use for it later, but right now it was super creepy. Not to mention disorienting.

When he picked up his box of stuff and turned to go, though, one of the staff members called out to him. "Wait a moment, Lea," he said. "You're forgetting your familiar."

"My what?", Lea said.

"Your familiar," the man repeated, indicating a rat in a cage that had been sitting on the table. "Your animal companion."

Lea looked at the rat for a moment, then turned his gaze back to the man. "I don't want a pet rat," he said.

"I'm afraid you don't get your choice of familiar," the man said, apparently preparing to launch into an explanation. "Familiars are matched to to their respective wizards through a secret and long standing magical-"

"No, you don't get it," Lea said, interrupting. "It's not that I want a different pet. Or familiar, or whatever you call them. It's that I don't want any pets. You can keep them."

The man looked slightly taken aback. "But it's already been bonded to you, and-"

"Well unbond it and give it to someone else," Lea said, interrupting again. "Maybe someone who actually wants to be here."

By now the small argument may be drawing a bit of attention from those passing by, but Lea didn't much care at the moment. First he gets kidnapped and told he's not only trapped, but will die horribly if he doesn't learn to use their world's magic, then they try to stick him wit a pet he didn't want on top of all the other crap that was going on? No thanks.

Dis-orientation

Lea wandered through the halls of the academy, looking for the Ka dormitory, where he'd apparently been assigned. Despite the basic directions he'd been given, he'd apparently gotten a bit lost, because so far as he knew, he definitely should have been there by now. Maybe he'd made a wrong turn at that last gargoyle or something? "Great," he said sarcastically to no one in particular, readjusting his grip on the box of stuff he'd been given as much as he could; he'd been walking around for awhile now, and it was starting to get heavy, especially with the addition of the rat in a cage on top of everything else. "Just great. Kidnapped, stuck, and now lost; exactly how I felt like spending my day..."

Wild card!

Choose your own scenario!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The rat seemed to enjoy the petting, then nibbled on the offered bread a bit. It's obviously not super hungry, but like most animals, it's not gonna refuse free food.

"A friend, yeah," Lea said. "But I've never seen this rat before in my life, so that doesn't really apply to it, whatever magical tweaking's been done. Besides, it's still a rat; I don't see how a rat- no matter how smart it is- is gonna be much help when it comes to doing what I have to do around here."

She let it finish the piece of bread it had, but decided not to give him any more. She didn't to make it too full.

"But animals make wonderful friends, if you give them a chance. And the familiars are meant to help us with what we're learning here." She gave gentle skritches behind the rat's ear. "Even if it's just having someone who'll listen to you when you need to talk."

Once finished with its bread, the rat sniffed her hand briefly before turning to watch Lea.

"I prefer my friends to be able to talk back," he said. "Besides, what happens to the familiars when they eventually find a way to send us all home? I don't think we can take them with us."

She frowned a bit, glancing at the rat in her hands.

"I'm...not really sure," she admitted softly. In truth, she hadn't thought about it before. And she couldn't really argue with the point either.

Lea glanced at the school staffer, who looked similarly uncertain, as if this was a point they hadn't considered before. "I'm... certain we'll have a plan in place, if an when the time comes," the staff member said rather awkwardly.

"See? Even he doesn't know," Lea said. "Frankly, I'm not sure why everybody seems to be so accepting of them to begin with. I mean yeah, none of this is the animals' fault, but the humans don't have any excuse for not just, you know, taking the time to ask people whether they wanted a pet or not. It'd probably save a lot of time and effort in the long run."

"But handing out familiars to new arrivals is a proud Diatu tradition, dating back to-", the staffer protested.

"Just because it's traditional doesn't mean it's good for everyone," Lea said, interrupting him once again. "Especially when you're talking about people not even from your world."

"That's...kind of all the more reason they're important," she replied. "Since we're not from this world, it helps having our familiars to help guide us and get us used to being here. They help build a connect to this world."

"I don't want to be connected to this world," Lea said, aware even as he spoke that it came out sounding somewhat childish. But it was true nonetheless. "I want to go home. I have actual important stuff to do there and friends who are counting on me to be there to help them; I don't have time to be worrying about classes or a pet."

"I just...", he started, then trailed off with a sigh. "Look, I get what you're saying, and I understand that normal students coming in probably know all about familiars and that they're going to get one. But I'm not one of those normal students; I wasn't asked about this, I wasn't even told ahead of time that taking care of an animal was part of this deal, and frankly I'm getting tired of the whole 'not being consulted about my own life' bit seeming to be the theme of this place."

"Besides, the staff here knows basically nothing about us," he said. "What if somebody is one of those people who can't even keep a houseplant alive? What if they have allergies and can't be around animals? What if they're just a total evil jerk who should never be put in charge of the care of anything alive? There's basically no way for them to know."

She really couldn't argue that last point. While her own familiar had found her, she had wondered how the school staff matched students with their familiars. She could only think that the did have a way of knowing, and could give students familiars that matched up with their personality accordingly. But even she knew that that was stretching it a bit.

Instead, she gave a sigh herself. "I can understand what you mean. Like I said, a lot of us were taken from our own worlds. We have friends and people that we're worried about, and we weren't asked about learning magic here either. But the people here don't really know how we got here, or how to send us back. So maybe connecting with this place, learning how to use this world's magic, can help us get home."

Lea wanted to fire back, but aside from being technically right- really anything, including the familiars might be helpful in getting them home; there was no way to know- she just seemed so quiet and generally nice that he didn't quite have it in him at the moment to keep arguing with her.

"You're... really not gonna let me leave here without this rat, are you?", he said with a bit of a sigh.

Glancing down at the rat in her hands again, she then held it up so Lea could see it better.

"Even if you don't plan on keeping him...he still needs to be taken care of in the meantime."

"That's kinda why I wanted to give it back to them," Lea said, indicating the school staff members. "Since presumably they had somebody taking care of it up til now, they could probly just as easily keep doing it."

"But OK," he said. "Put it back in its cage, and I'll take it with me for now, and make sure its taken care of, at least until I can find someone else to take it permanently."

With a nod, she lifted the rat up to put it back in his cage. Though not before another little scratch behind the ear.

"It'll be okay," she said reassuringly. Then she held him up to the opening, and once he was settled back inside she closed the door and latched it up.

Lea wasn't sure if she was talking to him or the rat with that last comment but chose to take it encouragingly anyway. Once the rat was safely back in its cage, he added the cage on top of the stuff that was in the box before picking the whole thing back up again.

"Alright, that should do it," he said, turning back to the colorful girl. "Anyway, see you around. Hopefully under better circumstances next time."

With a slight smile, she nodded. "Right. Take care."

Day 1

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