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Bella is seriously considering refusing to tell anyone else what her major is. Honestly. The way people flinch -
Well, no, that's not fair. She'd flinch too if she were unprotected and a subtle artist walked by. Just because most don't, in fact, casually or unintentionally read thoughts, doesn't mean that none of them do. Her tutor back home thought that her aversion to having her mind read was why her arts were set up so defensively and everything else was secondary for her.
She doesn't like the flinching, but it is fair. Maybe she'll go to the lab and scribe off a few copies of a mini fact sheet so she can hand them out when she meets people. No, that would be obnoxious.
She'll wait for it to wear off. Eventually she'll make some friends who'll know how she works. Or who are other subtle artists; she's probably more likely to make friends in classes than in the dorm, anyway.
She's not sure how she feels about the mixed-sex dorms. The rooms are singles, at least - that's why she's in Thatcher Hall, automatic single rooms for no extra charge at the price of having to maybe live next door to somebody who's not all human. There's a short list of species who qualify to be out of Harlowe and in predominantly-human Thatcher. None of them scare Bella. The orientation guide called Thatcher a "salad bowl". The junior who was wandering by at the time called it a pit.
The building looks nice. Bella's room looks nice. She unpacks her stuff and then goes back out to explore a little and encounters a stark naked man.
"Dude!" she exclaims. "Put some clothes on! This is a mixed sex hall!"
subtly_artistic
subtly_artistic
"I guess you could build up a decent pain tolerance that way," says Bella dubiously. "But the dishtowel is right there."
"I don't care about the dishtowel," says Celo. "The dishtowel is a solution to a problem I don't have."
"Wait'll they're cool," he says, smiling crookedly, "you'll burn yourself."
And he starts laying out the next batch on the baking sheet.
And he starts laying out the next batch on the baking sheet.
"Very true," he agrees. "But I better check to make sure they won't burn ya."
He grabs a cookie off the tray and pops it in his mouth, closing his eyes and doing a little wriggle of happiness while he chews.
"Perfect," he announces, wiping a smear of chocolate from the corner of his mouth and licking it off his fingers, then collecting the rest of the cookies onto a plate. "Help yourself."
He grabs a cookie off the tray and pops it in his mouth, closing his eyes and doing a little wriggle of happiness while he chews.
"Perfect," he announces, wiping a smear of chocolate from the corner of his mouth and licking it off his fingers, then collecting the rest of the cookies onto a plate. "Help yourself."
subtly_artistic
Bella stares intently at a cookie for a moment, then gives up and picks it up. "I have," she sighs, "no talent to speak of at telekinesis. Professor Winters thinks I might be able to get a little bit, but I sure don't have any now." She bites her untelekinetically retrieved cookie.
"I love it when people eat my cookies," says Celo, leaning against the counter again. "Makes the whole thing feel that much more worthwhile."
subtly_artistic
"Can I take a couple for later? I get munchy around an hour before bedtime and the vending cabinets are highway robbery."
"Sure!" he says. "Take as many as you want, nobody else seems to be showing up for the cookies anyway."
subtly_artistic
"Did you advertise that they're for sharing?" Bella asks, forming a stack of six of them.
"Sure, but I guess everybody figures 'cookies' is a euphemism," he says with a roll of his eyes. "I'm a nymph, for fuck's sake, I don't need to eupheme, if I wanted to advertise that I was hanging out in the kitchen waiting for someone to fuck me I could just say so."
subtly_artistic
Bella rolls her eyes. She tucks her homework under her arm and holds her stack of half a dozen cookies. "Well, more for us, then. Thanks. I'll tell anyone who asks me where I got these."
"Thanks," he says, casually blowing her a kiss. "I'm making more kinds if you wanna come back in an hour, and leftovers are going in the fridge if you don't."
subtly_artistic
"I might come back for more kinds and I wish you'd warned me before I ate three of these," she says. "No blowing me kisses, please, that's weird."
subtly_artistic
Bella goes off with her cookies and does homework in her room with the door open. She goes back into the kitchen an hour later.
There are platefuls of three more kinds of cookies lined up on the counter, and Celo is watching over a fourth as they bake.