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It's the Saturday before classes start. Ellie has been driving all day, but it's worth it for an entire three months out of the house. And she even drew a single in the dorm lottery, so there's that. It's tiny, but she doesn't have to share.
Suitcases on the bed, she starts unpacking into the dresser that lives underneath. Tops here, pants there, hanging things in the closet. Computer can go on the desk, and then notebooks into the drawers.
There's a girl standing in their route part of the way there.
They've passed many girls, of course, but this one is - odd. People are avoiding her without really seeming to see her. Her hair is an eerily perfect golden tumble over her shoulders, and her skin is smooth and clear and utterly without pores, and her eyes are a crystalline blue. Weirder is her outfit - layers and layers of shiny, gauzy blues, puffs of white like clouds woven in thin layers, embroidered songbirds with gemstone eyes anchoring a few points where the gauze gathers. The sleeves spill down and bunch up around her hands, and she holds a feather fan, and she has multiple pieces of songbird themed jewelry - earrings, a hair comb, a necklace, a bracelet, a ring.
Also, she's looking right at the two girls, despite Ruby's general tendency to keep people's attention directed firmly away.
"I'd like to know your names and business here. I don't recognize either of you."
"We're just tourists, taking a day break from uni. No intent to move here, or mess with the local balance of power, or do any spying - we'll be back to America in a few hours."
"Still, I'm Burning Ruby Tiger Decima, and this's Mystic Storm of Feline Destiny Nyx."
"I'm Delicate Songbird Conjuress Lucia."
"I think you two should go home sooner rather than later. The London scene's... Tense, lately."
"We won't be the ones to start a fight. Won't be the ones who end up regretting it, either."
"I doubt you two have been wielders that long. A year, for Decima, and... A few weeks, for Nyx?"
"London's a building flashpoint. We're up to at least twenty wielders, pretty equally half of each kind, most of them veterans or close to it, and all of them ready to fight."
"I'm warning you. Another magical girl might not."
"She was actually being weirdly nice, for either sort. Most people sticking around a flashpoint are spoiling for a fight."
"Couple weeks ago I would've heard about a building flashpoint and promptly tried to explode it... But. Yeah. Don't want you in the middle of a snafu like that."
Kiss. "You're sweet. I do like fighting. But I can avoid the usually deadly stuff."
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