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Heterosexual
✧☽ ᴅʀᴇᴀᴍᴇʀ ᴀɴᴅ ᴅᴏᴇʀ ☾✧
"You never have to prove yourself to anyone who doesn't accept you for who you are."
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Post by ✧☽ ᴅʀᴇᴀᴍᴇʀ ᴀɴᴅ ᴅᴏᴇʀ ☾✧ on Nov 13, 2023 18:11:20 GMT -5
"Well, I've heard it's easier to focus when everyone is doing the same thing, so…" He lifted his suitcase onto the bed beside his egg and flipped open the lid. "Let's test that theory."
(And I'm just gonna skip... xD)
☆~☆~☆
Trey never found out if the theory was true or not, because Austin was a horrible test partner.
For one thing, he almost never stopped talking. He asked endless questions, went on multiple tangents that often only ended when he ran out of breath, and he jumped between topics at random, so many times that Trey quickly lost count. Trey didn't even need to contribute to the conversation half the time; Austin was perfectly fine to keep talking with only the occasional eye contact to confirm Trey was still listening.
Since listening was really all he did, Trey was able to put all of his things away in no time. What he was not able to do was read any of the guide books he'd gotten today. It wasn't a requirement, but it was highly recommended for the students to read them. Trey had planned to spend his afternoon doing just that, but with Austin as a roommate, that was proving impossible.
Instead, he spent the afternoon sitting in the center of his bed — Austin had let him have the bed by the windows — with his egg in his lap, listening and occasionally replying to Austin, and reminding the other boy every chance he got to finish putting his stuff away. And, in the back of his mind, he would nudge the quiet presence he felt there.
Trey had found that the more he nudged, the clearer each subsequent response became. At first, all he'd gotten was a sense that he was being nudged back, as if he were just as unknown and foreign to it as it was to him. But slowly, Trey started to get… not emotions, exactly, or thoughts. Trey didn't know what to call the feeling. This presence didn't know human words or emotions, but it was sending him information and Trey was understanding it.
He recognized it for what it was now: the baby wyvern within his egg. It — he — was far more sentient than Trey had been expecting for an unborn (unhatched?) wyvern. He knew they were incredibly intelligent, that they learned and adapted far quicker than any other animal. That was how they coexisted so well with humans, even the wild ones. But an unborn baby? It was rather mind boggling at first, but Trey found he was getting used to it quickly.
At first, the information he got translated into uncertainty and confusion. Trey got the sense his wyvern was as unaccustomed to having a strange presence in his mind as Trey was. But with each little nudge, each transfer of information, the uncertainty faded. In its place was curiosity, and from that a sort of conversation blossomed.
It was strange to have a conversation without words or visual clues, yet Trey did. He learned that his wyvern was indeed male, something assumed based on his egg size, but there was no way to know for sure with any wyvern until it hatched. He discovered that while the baby wyvern could not see or smell anything within his shell, he could hear, though sounds were all extremely muffled unless made against the shell. But magic, Trey found out, came more easily to an unhatched wyvern, and this was how he was able to take in the world around him.
Trey would have loved to discover how, exactly, his baby wyvern used magic from within his shell, but something else he learned quickly: babies tired very easily. The baby had taken two naps throughout the afternoon already, and Trey coukd sense him nodding off into a third. The previous naps hadn't been long, but Trey couldn't help feeling a little disappointed; things had just been getting good.
He was distracted by a three-tone chime that sounded above them, followed by silence.
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*Nightwhisper
"And guilty I may be, but don't give up on me... We will still be thick as thieves."
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Post by *Nightwhisper on Jan 8, 2024 20:24:04 GMT -5
If Austin was disappointed by the lack of responses on Trey's end, he didn't show it. He came from a very social family. And by that, his family were all talkers. They could all carry a conversation for hours without the need for anyone to chime in and help support the topic. That didn't mean they talked over everyone. But rather if they knew they had an audience, then they would entertain.
Now, he wasn't an idiot either. Austin knew that his roommate was only half listening to the things he said. He couldn't blame him really. When there was an egg perched in your lap, it was hard to focus on much else. In fact, Austin himself got side-tracked several times in his unpacking, asking questions about the egg, how long it'd be before it would hatch, if the wyvern would be able to fend for itself, and so forth. He was eager to get his own, but instead of going to find out when his turn for the ceremony would be, he had to finish putting his things away.
By the time the three-tone chime sound, the taller boy was sprawled out on his own bed, feet hanging off the side and kicking a bit. He was starting to get cabin fever, itching to go explore his new home. However, he had been reminded by Trey that if he wasn't here when it was his turn to look at the eggs, he might not get one. That alone made him wait, if not impatiently. "What was that for?" he asked.
(I don't know if I had anything typed up for him getting an egg or not, but I am currently brain-dead and still have no idea how his part of that ceremony would go. It's something I just haven't been able to think of since I guess I'm still not familiar with this world/story well. So if you would like to skip it and move on a bit, that is fine with me. I might be able to write about Austin getting his egg in the future. Right now, it's just not coming to me.)
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Heterosexual
✧☽ ᴅʀᴇᴀᴍᴇʀ ᴀɴᴅ ᴅᴏᴇʀ ☾✧
"You never have to prove yourself to anyone who doesn't accept you for who you are."
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Post by ✧☽ ᴅʀᴇᴀᴍᴇʀ ᴀɴᴅ ᴅᴏᴇʀ ☾✧ on Jan 8, 2024 20:53:56 GMT -5
( That's fine. There's no rush. I'll share Trey's trip later via PM, I think, just cause I'll be able to get it all down in one shot there. )
Once his egg was secured in its case, Trey followed Austin out the door, bag on his shoulder. "Um, I have no idea. I've never eaten in any of the cafeterias before. But there will probably be a variety of things, something for everyone, you know? So, maybe."
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*Nightwhisper
"And guilty I may be, but don't give up on me... We will still be thick as thieves."
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Post by *Nightwhisper on Jan 8, 2024 20:57:49 GMT -5
(Sounds good to me! )
"How have you never eaten here before? I thought you pretty much grew up here?" Austin asked, leading the way from their dorm. "Your mom is the head honcho. Did you guys have, like, a person chef or something to bring you food? Or your own dinning area?"
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*Nightwhisper
"And guilty I may be, but don't give up on me... We will still be thick as thieves."
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Post by *Nightwhisper on Jan 9, 2024 16:42:21 GMT -5
(Okay! I will go read it soon! )
"You made your own? You can cook? What kind of stuff can you make, Trey-man?" Austin asked, throwing out the nickname. Chances were, it wouldn't stick, but that was part of the fun of figuring out a nickname for someone was using random things until something worked.
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Heterosexual
✧☽ ᴅʀᴇᴀᴍᴇʀ ᴀɴᴅ ᴅᴏᴇʀ ☾✧
"You never have to prove yourself to anyone who doesn't accept you for who you are."
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Post by ✧☽ ᴅʀᴇᴀᴍᴇʀ ᴀɴᴅ ᴅᴏᴇʀ ☾✧ on Jan 9, 2024 20:54:07 GMT -5
( Noted. xD )
Trey just smiled. He didn't have a close relationship with any of his grandparents, but his mother could sometimes get protective of her kitchen too.
The dining room, when they got there, was full of hungry boys. Though “full” was a relative term, as the room wasn't even at half capacity. Only the First Years were eating here today; the Second, Third, and Fourth years had been granted special permission to eat in their rooms tonight.
Most of the boys present had carrying cases like Trey's, all with an egg nestled within. They were showing them off to the few who hadn't gotten their egg yet, or comparing their eggs to others’, often boasting the bigger egg or quicker find.
Like lunch, dinner was served buffet style, with a long table along one wall laden with food. Burgers, fries, pizza, chicken sandwiches, onion rings, hotdogs, coleslaw, and macaroni salad covered most of the table; the end had dozens of condiment bottles. Only a handful of boys were still making their way along the table, taking what they wanted and chatting amongst themselves while they were at it.
Trey followed Austin to the back of the line and picked up a plate. He was starving, he realized, remembering that he hadn't eaten since breakfast. He put one of everything on his plate — save the onion rings — and then went and found himself an empty table, half expecting Austin to wander off and make new friends.
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Heterosexual
✧☽ ᴅʀᴇᴀᴍᴇʀ ᴀɴᴅ ᴅᴏᴇʀ ☾✧
"You never have to prove yourself to anyone who doesn't accept you for who you are."
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Post by ✧☽ ᴅʀᴇᴀᴍᴇʀ ᴀɴᴅ ᴅᴏᴇʀ ☾✧ on Jan 13, 2024 9:21:49 GMT -5
After dinner, they went back to their rooms. Almost immediately, it felt to Trey, Jacob returned to bring Austin to the ECC. Trey waved goodbye, admiring his roommate's confidence, and settled in to wait.
He spent the half hour Austin was gone with his nose in his new books. His wyvern slept the whole time, his longest nap yet. Trey found out from his wyvern book that it was likely because it was around the dusk hour. An earth wyvern was considered at its strongest at dawn, and at its weakest at dusk. Magically, there was very little proof of this. However, it had been observed in the vast majority of wyverns that those of the earth were the most active, alert, and even the smartest during the dawn hours, between five and seven in the morning. Reversely, during the dusk hours (five to seven pm), they had been observed to be their most lazy, vulnerable, and rather… dim-witted selves.
It was well past seven now, but in the egg care book he read that the dawn and dusk hours (or midday and midnight hours, in the cases of fire and water) tended to start earlier and end later for wyverns within their first year. It also advised that each individual wyvern was different, and therefore the hours would affect them each in different ways.
Before he knew it, a half hour had passed. Austin was back, and he had a carrying case.
Trey grinned and set his books aside. "You did it!"
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