fandomhigh | BWI Airport Portalocity Lounge, Saturday Morning

One moment, there was nothing in the lounge except seating, banners, balloons, and a sign reading 'FANDOM HIGH'. The next moment, a swirl of a portal opened up and a small, white cat-like creature hopped out of it with a flirt of his tail. The concept of interplanetary travel was not new to Kyubey and he was mostly of the opinion that it just made sense that interdimensional travel was not much different, aside from the scale.

With a jump up onto a nearby bench, Kyubey glanced around at the airport—it looked much the same as any human airport that he'd seen--before settling down, head resting on his paws.

He was early, as he'd meant to be, which meant he was the first one here. Good, good. He'd get a chance to see the quality of the new students before gauging the potential of the current ones. The lure of so much energy, just waiting to be harvested… well, he couldn't be careless.

With a twitch of his ears at that thought, Kyubey waited.

Watched.

[~~Please to be waiting for the~~ OCD is up, up, and away!]

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Kuroko was glad that international flights let you buy additional baggage allowance. She'd had to save up her allowance for it, but it had been worth it. Of course, a decent chunk of the cost had been buying the five brand new exactly-the-right-size trunks which she'd packed to capacity that had been necessary to get the minimal amount of her belongings onto the plane.

Now that she was in an unfamiliar airport, she was glad she'd splurged enough on the trunks to get automated ones. The way people stared at her as she walked through the airport trailing a little train of humming wheeled trunks that followed her on their own was a sharp reminder that the technology here was decades behind what she was used to. Still, a few stares were a small price to pay for not having to find one of those luggage carts which would have, inevitably, had a broken wheel that tried to ram her stuff into walls.

Aaaaand, there was a giant "FANDOM HIGH" sign. Probably where she was supposed to go. She thought that the balloons were a bit much, but at least whoever had set this up had stopped there. She knew some people who would have kept adding decorations until the sign disappeared. Kuroko walked over to one of the seats and stopped to stretch, her arms going up and back and her spine arching. It had been a long flight, after all.

By the time she finished working out the kinks in her spine and flopped onto the seat, her trunks had all gathered up and settled onto the floor next to her. They even mostly managed to get out of the way of anyone else.

As far as strange things went, luggage that moved by itself wasn't very high on the list.

"Hello!" Kyubey said, winding his way over to hop up on a seat closer to the new girl. He was small, about the size of a kitten, and he studied her curiously. "Are you also one of the new students?"

Kuroko took a couple of seconds to study the new arrival, not totally sure what mental box to stick it into. She provisionally decided on 'AI robot pet/assistant thing'.

"Why, hello." She smiled. "Yes I am." She glanced around. "Are we expecting any non-students to join us?" She was not at all certain how this whole shuttle thing operated.

"My understanding is that teachers may also show up," Kyubey said, following her lead and looking around for a moment, before glancing up at her. "I'm Kyubey! It's nice to meet you!"

"Kyubey," she repeated with a nod.

"My name's Kuroko Shirai. Nice to meet you, too." She considered for a second before adding. "What's your role in all of," she waved a hand vaguely, "this?" Like, guide, maybe?

Kuybey's tail flicked back and forth.

"I'm a student!" he said cheerfully.

...

Kuroko fell silent for a moment, processing that.

"You're a student?" she repeated, completely unhelpfully. She wasn't trying to be rude, but... you were clearly a sort of kind of cat thing.

"Yes," Kyubey said, with a modest looking bow of his head. "I'm rather looking forward to it; I've never been a student anywhere before."

Huh.

"Well, I've been a student for quite a while, and known a lot of other students." What with being from Academy City. "And I've never met one quite like you."

"I just hope I'll get along with everyone," he said, laying down on the seat with a full-body stretch. "It would be nice not to stick out too much!"

Yes.

"Huh. You know, I'd never worried about sticking out too much." But now she kind of was. Because she'd never expected to share a classroom with someone like Kyubey.

"No?" he wondered. "Why, you must be a very confident sort of person!"

"Well, I suppose I am." Kuroko shrugged dismissively. "I mean, why wouldn't I be?" She was awesome!

BWI Airport Portalocity Lounge, Saturday Morning

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