Log/Thread: Initiation WHO: Teddy Riley, Darius Prose, Valentin Graff and Felix De Luca WHEN: 26 October, very early morning {Backdated} WHERE: Top secret House Pegasus hangout NPCs: Other Pegasus kids
Having already been told by Darius that he needed to know where his coat and shoes were, it surprised Teddy that people had kept asking him. They really seemed to tell him about the fire drills, one of the house mentors making it a point to tell him that sometimes the fire alarm went off at night and he needed to dress up warm incase they were outside for a while. He’d been told that sometimes people set them off on purpose - or by accident - and Teddy took it all at face value, not really thinking too much about it.
Not too long after 1am, the fire alarm went off and Teddy’s bed started to vibrate. He didn’t want to sleep with his hearing aids in, and managed to jam one of them into his ear as he stumbled out of bed, slipping his feet into his shoes and coat - that someone had put on the back of the door for him like they were expecting him to need it. That was a surprise, but not an unwelcome one. He slipped into it and stumbled outside, rubbing at his eyes and trying to wake himself up without getting too awake because getting to sleep this whole week had been really tough for him because he was really missing being at home. He missed his mom and dad and his bed and this place was weird.
When the all clear was given, he plodded up the stairs only to find one of the mentors waiting there with a small smile on her face as she pointed at the map stuck to his door. Confused, he tried to open it but was unable, so picked up the map and looked at it. The mentor didn’t say anything, just lifted a shoulder and turned to start walking away and Teddy, well, he just followed her.
She walked in front of him almost like a ghost, disappearing every now and then but reappearing further down the line like she was guiding him somewhere past tokens that he collected and held in his arms, each one seeming to have some kind of use. Overhead, flying close to him and looping around so he could see it was an owl. He was confused but also excited, he didn’t know what was happening, but there were people every now and then, and the house mentor up ahead reassuring him that he wasn’t being taken out to be killed or fed to something (he’d heard that happened to some students).
Finally he was told to follow the last bit of the map where he had to crawl through a tunnel to a huge open caven that lit up as soon as he got to his feet. He was surprised and the cheering was so sudden and loud that he fumbled to cover the ear which had the aid attached just to give himself a chance to get past the overwhelming noise. Teddy liked the silence most of the time.
He was jostled and greeted as people flooded around him, the whole house seemed to be there and he was introduced to the house in a brief ritual that confirmed him as a Pegasus for life.
Teddy was super glad that no one had classes in the morning and he looked around the food and the comfortable settings, taking it all in and feeling touched and included on his own merits for one of the first times in his life. He tugged his coat around himself and as the attention faded from him and people went about their own business, Teddy moved to the table, picking up a bunch of grapes and then turning to watch the people as they moved around each other, talking and chatting but waving whenever they spotted him looking. He lifted his hand to wave back.
Okay, so this was cool. He just needed to be brave and talk to someone. He wished he’d picked up his second hearing aid. He’d just have to be careful.
Darius had only ever been to his own initiation, so was excited to be on the other end of things. There was something kind of cool about it, coming together to try and make everything work right. As low man on the totem pole, he was mostly doing what he was told. That was fine. Let the people with experience be in charge, he'd just carry stuff. Besides, working in a shop his whole life, he understood everything big was made up of lots of little things. No shame in being the one doing the little things.
He did, however, make a point of stopping by Teddy's room after he'd been led off. Kid looked like he forgot something at the fire drill. Sure enough, there it was in his room.
After initiation, people started to mingle and Darius had an opening to talk to the man of the hour. "Hey," he said, tapping Teddy on the shoulder. "You forgot something." And he held out his hand with Teddy's second hearing aid.
“Teddy,” Valentin shouted, appearing by his side. “The guest of honor! It’s a bit overwhelming, isn’t it?” The Pegasus House was big, perhaps the biggest on campus. They were also the most welcoming to newcomers: they wanted you to feel part of the group. Vampires were rare among them, but even so, someone had been kind enough to provide Valentin with his drink of choice.
He was carrying two glasses. One carried blood, the other a clear liquid. “Here’s your inauguration drink,” Valentin said, handing Teddy the glass, “It’s abbey wine, it’s very sweet. You know the Academy used to be a monastery? This is how the Pegasi like to to honour that rich past. You don’t have to drink it if you don’t want to, but it’s just the one glass and it’s really very good…
Almost as good as blood.
Valentin grinned, his fangs showing. “And I see you’ve met Darius! Darius is awesome.”
Teddy was about to thank Darius for giving him the hearing aid once he’d carefully put it in and was able to hear everything that was happening around him in full when Valentin arrived, shoving a drink into his hands. He lifted it to his nose and gave it a tentative sniff and didn’t much like the way it smelt. He wasn’t a big drinker, that was his brothers’ thing. But he took a sip anyway and instantly didn’t like it; that much was clear from his expression and the way he almost physically recoiled away from the glass.
“No- I don’t think I like it,” he said after a moment, trying to make the taste go away before he grinned. “I didn’t think things like this happened in real life,” he confessed, glancing at Valentin before he looked at Darius. “Thanks for grabbing my BTE. I totally forgot to get it. It’s lucky I put one in.”
He put the wine down on a nearby table and returned to plucking grapes off the stem, trying not to stare at Valentin’s fangs. Because seriously. Vampire? Werewolves and Vampires and witches and… whatever else was at the school. It was unsettling.
“Darius and I talked on the journal thing. He was the first one to tell me that I needed to be ready for the fire drills.”
"I dunno about you," an unfamiliar accented voice drawled from the nearby shadows, "but I don't think the kid likes the wine."
A fairly tall italian looking boy stepped forward with a grin firmly in place, dimples planted in each cheek and there was just something about him that exuded warmth despite the smoke hanging to his form from the lit cigarette he'd been smoking a mere moment ago. "And, Valentin, fangs." He winked at the vampire to soften the remark before a hand was presented. "Name's Felix, don't think I've had the pleasure. Welcome to house Pegasus, Teddy."
He nodded his head over at Darius. "Darius, nicely handled by the way. Pretty bloody impressive considering it wasn't too long ago you were undergoing the same trial."
"It's cool," Darius said, in answer to… pretty much everything. Bringing the ear thing, not wanting to finish the wine, Felix's compliment for… actually he didn't know what Felix was complimenting him for, but he didn't want to show that he didn't know what they were talking about, so he just went along with it.
He had a glass of wine of his own. Not that he was a drinker, he figured it was one of the ways he could make life easier for his parents, but it was hard to see how one glass of wine as part of a special celebration was that big a deal. Like a New Year's toast, or something. And it was really tasty.
"They were extra nice to you, giving you the house mentor to lead you. Me, I just got Dave. He's the owl. Actually he's that third year over there, but he's an owl sometimes. He makes it real spooky. I half thought I was getting axe murdered at the end."
Valentin briefly frowned when Felix called him out on his fangs. “I’m drinking,” he huffed. It wasn’t in bad taste if he was actually drinking. As if to emphasize, he brought the glass to his lips. Now, he didn’t gulp, he didn’t want to seem sloppy and walk around with blood-mouth. Besides, if he drank it like regular people drank their fluids, it was almost like he wasn’t drinking blood at all. The idea of it -- drinking blood -- was still weird to him.
He swallowed and gave a content sigh. Inside him, something was deeply satisfied.
“I think,” he said, “that if a student were killed by an axe, that would actually be something special around here. I mean, c’mon. I’d just rip someone’s throat open, Teddy’s brother would… well, do the same, only more mauley-werewolfey, and you two, you’d just kill somebody with your brain or something. An axe? An axe would be quaint.”
Teddy’s eyes widnened a little as Valentin talked about axe murdering and ripping throats open and- and Matt mauling someone. He swallowed, fingers flexing a little around the stem of the bunch of grapes he was holding, feeling a surge of something approaching fear in his stomach because he didn’t want to get his throat ripped out and he didn’t want Matt to maul anyone because that wasn’t good or friendly and God, was that what Matt was now? Was Matt a monster? Would he hurt someone like that when he was all… werewolf’d out?
He chewed on the inside of his lower lip, looking down a little though his heartbeat - for those with sensitive hearing - had quite obviously picked up.
“Hi,” he offered belatedly to Felix. He sounded foreign. Like someone off Sherlock. Cool. “Do a lot of students die here?”
...well this conversation went off the rails in a hurry. Darius opened his mouth to reassure Teddy that no, people didn't just randomly die here. Except then he realized he didn't know. And that it would actually a really good thing to know. Trent had been starting to tell him the real deal, though then there was that prank, so Darius didn't know how much to believe.
So instead, he shut his mouth again and looked at Felix and Valentin.
Valentin really, really needed to work on his welcoming of the new kids to the school, especially with the whole mentioning of death and throats being ripped out. Granted it was all part of the package deal with the supernatural, but, still, there were ways and means of saying stuff and that just wasn't it.
Well, bollocks.
As for killing people with his brain? He wished. Only not because yeah not good. He soon turned his attention back to the blonde who looked as if he'd just gone a funny shade of... white.
"Uh..." Felix began before something caught his interest, just in the corner of his eye, and his head turned. Only there was nothing there. For fuck's sake, he hated it when ghosts played hide and seek with him, he really did. "Honestly, mate, I've not known anybody that's died here so I think it's safe to say you'll be alright."
“Um, dude,” Valentin said, not realizing he was freaking out Teddy, “there’s a graveyard right outside. The whole reason Halloween is such a big deal around here is because of all the people that died here, isn’t it? What with the spirits rising from the graves and all…”
He gave Felix an odd look, not really understanding the boy’s reservation. “I mean, really, you should know that, right? What with what you can do and all?”
Valentin was easy to talk to and people generally had no problem feeding him info and gossip: coupled with his innate curiosity, it’s why he knew so much about the Academy and Camden in such a short time. The problem was that Valentin also freely shared this information with anyone, regardless of whether it was a good idea.
Felix rolled his eyes at Valentin. “I didn’t say nobody had died here, I said I didn’t know anybody who had so my point still stands. Plus, I’m pretty sure freaking the new kid out isn’t getting us anywhere so how about we agree to ixnay on the ghosts, huh?”
And he snorted quietly a second later. “And trust me I see way more dead people than I care to so let’s not get into that, yeah?”
Felix decided right there and then that yeah he could do with a drink and so helped himself to one.
Darius wasn't quite sure what to make of all this. Trent had talked about ghosts, but that had turned out to be a prank, so he was a little wary about Felix bringing it up. But Valentin was talking like there were ghosts too, and not just the one in his head, so maybe there was something to it. He should go ask a teacher more about it. Yeah. That would work.
And shouldn't it be ix-nay on the osts-gay? Not that that was relevant to anything but…
You know, it was time for a new topic of conversation.