They point her up the stairs

She runs up the stairs and into the classroom, interrupting whatever is currently happening! 

What's currently happening is:
- Miss Bustier is going over French grammar.
- A boy is drawing a comic and his friend is passing him notes.
- Two girls are whispering mean comments to a boy who is doing his best to ignore them.
- A few people are passing notes.

All of this cuts off when the unfamiliar person walks in!

"You must be our new student." Miss Bustier says. She looks at the grammar lesson and decides it can wait. "Would you like to introduce yourself?"

She bounces in.

"Hi everyone! I'm Musoka Azul. I'm from Ribadesella, Spain. I'm staying with my Aunt here in Paris and it's so amazing here! I'm really excited to meet you all!"

She's grinning sincerely as she says this, beaming in the general direction of people but not exactly making eye contact with any of them in particular.

When she finishes talking, she looks expectantly at Miss Bustier. 

A girl in the second row laughs. "Is that supposed to be French? That accent!"

A girl in the back row shoots to her feet. "Leave her alone, Chloé!"

"What?" says apparently-Chloé, "We were all thinking it! I can barely understand her!"

"I can understand her fine." a girl behind Chloé whispers to the girl next to her. Other class members are whispering to each other or glaring at Chloé or trying to say things to Musoka. 

The girl behind the only empty seat slams her hand down on her desk and everyone goes quiet for a second. "Girl, don't listen to anything Chloé says. The rest of us are excited to meet you."

Musoka tilts her head in mild confusion at the initial comment, and further at the expanding set of responses. She grins at the girl behind the empty seat, before looking back at Miss Bustier.

"... Should I take the empty seat?"  

"Yes, please." Miss Bustier says. She waits until Musoka sits, and then resumes her grammar lecture.

Musoka hurries to her seat and takes diligent (if doodle-heavy) notes. She tries to keep track what the other students are doing, without being too obvious about it. 

Does anyone talk to her? (She's not going to initiate a conversation during a lecture on her first day of class, but she is way too ADHD to stick to that principle if someone else starts a conversation with her)

Musoka is allowed to stick to that principle until class ends. Miss Bustier leaves, and the girl sitting next to Musoka smiles at her.

"Hi! I'm Lila! I haven't been in the class long either." In only slightly clumsy Spanish she adds, "You said you were from Spain, right?"

Friend!!! Who speaks Spanish!!!!!! :D :D :D 

"Hi Lila! It's really good to meet you! Yeah, I am! Gosh, your Spanish is pretty good; do you have relatives there?" 

"Not exactly!" Lila says, "My mom's a diplomat, so we've moved around a whole bunch. I know lots of languages. When we were in Spain, I actually helped her resolve some tensions with Kowar. Of course, she did the actual resolving, but I think it helped a lot that Prince Ali and I are really close friends. It meant he was more willing to hear them out, you know?"

The girl from the back row has walked over and is leaning on the table behind theirs. She looks like she wants to say something, but doesn't know enough Spanish to know if it's a good time to interrupt. She waves slightly. 

Musoka glances at the newcomer briefly and notices her hesitation. She smiles and waves back, then turns back to Lila, switching to French as she responds. 

"You're friends with Prince Ali??? Ohmygosh. How'd you meet?"

Then she smiles and looks at the other girl again.

Oh! She's the one who yelled at that rude blonde on Musoka's behalf, earlier. Gosh. She's very pretty. Probably it would be weird to say that?

...Wait, it's definitely weird to just stare. She needs to say something!

"Hi! My hair is bluer than yours!" 

AAAAA WHY DID SHE SAY THAT

She blushes immediately and suddenly is very interested in folding a scrap of notebook paper she doesn't actually remember picking up.

"Um! I mean. Thank you. For earlier." 

"Uh, you're welcome." Marinette says, "I'm Marinette. I just wanted to say I'm rass clep- uh class rep. And to welcome you! And if you need anything feel free to ask. Alya's my deputy and she's great too, if you, um, I'm sitting kind of far away from you. But you can always find me! If I'm around."

Alya reaches forward from the row behind to offer a hand. "Hey! Yeah, what Marinette said. I'm, like, half as useful but only half as busy, so-"

"Marinette, Alya, nice to meet both of you!" She shakes Alya's hand and smiles at the two of them.

"Thank you both so much! If I need anything I will be sure to ask", she continues.

(Wait, is she being rude to Lila now? Whoops)

"Lila was just telling me that she's friends with Prince Ali! Which is really cool, I've never met a prince. What's he like?" she says, turning back to Lila.

"Oh, I don't want to feel like I'm bragging about it. Why don't you tell us about your move here?" Lila suggests.

"You know, Rose has been helping Prince Ali out at his children's hospital. I bet she'd love to talk about it. Or you could go help out with her sometime." Marinette suggests.

Marinette doesn't seem to like Lila? Oh dear.

"Well, I wanted to see Paris! I've always wanted to live in a big city, and you lot have had a lot of exciting things happening in the news, lately. My parents told me I could study abroad if my grades were good enough and I handled the logistics, so I talked my aunt into letting me stay with her in exchange for some help around the house, and here I am!" She smiles, like this is a perfectly reasonable thing for a fifteen year old to have done.

Wait, children's hospital? !!Healing!! She turns to Marinette suddenly." Oh! I would love to talk to Rose about that!"

Wait, Rose? "Who's Rose?" 

And here is their chemistry teacher!

"Rose is our classmate!" Marinette says, pointing at a couple of girls who are holding hands and whispering. It's unclear if Rose is the tiny blond or the taller goth. "I should get back to my seat, though. I'll try and introduce you to everyone during lunch if you don't live too far away?"

"I have a bit of a commute and was planning on just eating here, but would love to meet people! Talk to you more then!" She turns back towards the front of the class.

Ooooh, chemistry! She likes chemistry. She puts her grammar notes into her color-coded tab for grammar (very dark navy blue) and pulls out a new sheet of paper.

The teacher starts on a chemistry lecture right away! She's moving fast, but she stops every few minutes to answer questions and make sure everyone is following.

And next to Musoka, Lila is crying quietly.

Oh no!!!

Musoka quietly tears off a scrap of paper, scribbles "what's wrong? :c" on it, and passes it to Lila once the teacher's back is turned.

"S-sorry." Lila whispers, "just- that Marinette girl really doesn't like me and I don't understand why! I've only ever tried to be nice to her! She turned the entire class against me and now I don't have any friends! I really hope they're nicer to you than they were to me!"

She did what? UGH. Why can't people just be nice? 

Furious scribbling on another scrap paper. Passed note.

"You don't have to be sorry! I'm sorry she's been being so mean to you, that's really messed up! Do you want to get lunch together? Would you like me to try and figure out what her problem with you is?"

"I don't think it would help anything. I think she's just jealous, which is a shame because if she would just talk to me I'd be happy to introduce her to Prince Ali or whoever it is that she wants to talk to. Anyway, I would love to get lunch together!"

scribblescribble pass. "Alright. Um, will it bother you if I let her introduce me to people before we eat together? I do want to meet everyone in class."

"I shouldn't have said anything! I don't want to bother you on your first day! Of course you should go meet everyone, I'll be fine alone while you do."

scribblescribblescribblescribblescribble pass

"Don't worry, you aren't bothering me. All you've done is answer my questions and be nice to me. I'll see you at lunch, okay?"

There's a very low quality doodle of two girls with their approximate hair types sitting together and smiling.

Lunch arrives eventually and brings with it: a Marinette delivered right to her desk! As well as a few other classmates who introduce themselves unprompted -- the boy sitting right behind her is named Nino and the girl with colorful dreadlocks is Myléne, apparently.

Marinette waves Rose and her seatmate over as they head out of the classroom. "Musoka, this is Rose and this is her girlfriend Juleka." Juleka is the goth one and the Rose is the blonde, "Rose, Musoka wanted to hear more about Prince Ali's hospital."

"Oh! I go sing and play with the kids on Saturdays before band practice! Do you want to come see?" Rose says, "Or were you wondering about Ali? He's busy this month, but he said he'll probably have time to visit again next month if you wanted to meet him!"

Musoka waves hi and reintroduces herself to everyone, smiling and waving and shaking hands as appropriate. She compliments people on their outfits or hairstyles, when she can think of something to say. (She loves Myléne's dreadlocks and chats a bit about hair )

"Hmmm, when is band practice on Saturdays? I would love to come along some time when I can, I just have a wonky time off schedule because I really like going to local sporting events." (She sounds mildly embarrassed about this). "Meeting Ali sounds cool too! How'd you get involved with volunteering at the hospital?"

Rose looks at Juleka. "We're practicing at 5 this week?" Juleka nods and Rose repeats the answer more confidently to Musoka.

She looks a little embarrassed. "I actually got akumatized and kidnapped him," Rose admits, "but he was really understanding and told me about it after. I told him I thought it was incredible how kind he was and how I would love to be able to make a difference like that and he asked if I wanted to volunteer!" 

(Musoka shows an obviously increased interest when Rose mentions being akumatized, but manages to avoid asking about it directly within 2 minutes of meeting her. They'll be time for that later!)

"Gosh! That sounds like it must have been a pretty overwhelming experience. I'm glad he was so kind about it! Sounds like things worked out really well overall."

She pulls out her phone and pokes it a bit. "Ah, there's a game I really want to catch this Saturday -- local football, it's supposed to be a close game and people are really excited -- but I tag along next weekend, if that's ok with you?"

"That would be wonderful!" Rose says.

"Oh, Alix and Kim are our two biggest sports fans. I wonder if they're going to the football game too." Marinette says, "Alix! Kim! Are either of you going to the football game this Saturday?"

A tall, muscular boy looks up from where he's arm-wrestling with a short, pink-haired girl. The girl takes the opportunity to pin his arm and cheers, then says, "I didn't know there was a football game this week. I have a race."

"I was gonna go with Ondine. Why?" says the muscular boy. 

"Well, Musoka was planning to go too." Marinette says, "You probably don't want a third wheel on your date, though."

"Nah," Kim says, "We're going with a bunch of Ondine's friends. It's fine. You wanna come too?"

Oh god they're going to find out she's a fake sports fan that sounds like a problem for future Musoka! Present Musoka is making friends and plans :DDD 

"Oh, that sounds great! I'd love to join you." She calls out her social media contact info to him (with the hopes that other people in earshot will also hear and add her) and tells him to message her plan details.

(She spares a moment to glance at Lila. What's she up to?)

She's talking to Alix about something! She looks annoyed about something, but apparently not annoyed enough to stop having the conversation.

A few people friend Musoka or promise to friend Musoka later. Kim adds her to a group chat with a mix of people from their school and another nearby school that is apparently where most of the football game coordination is happening. Alix is apparently in the chat -- as are their other classmates Nathaniel and Max -- though Kim is the only one who can make it to this game in particular. Kim introduces Musoka and the chat starts pinging insistently as people send hellos.

Musoka friends people happily and messages the group conversation with a "Hey, great to meet you all! :D" shortly followed by "Looking forward to the game Saturday!", then gets distracted by a notification and is dangerously close to getting pulled into giggling at all the memes in the backscroll of her Spanish friends groupchat before Mom 2 reminds her that she's at school, and indeed in the middle of meeting people. She hurriedly puts her phone away and looks back up, smiling at everyone before trying to make eye contact with Lila and give her an inquisitive "you ready to eat?" look.

Lila is now talking with Chloé and doesn't notice Musoka. 

Valid of her! Musoka will wait until Lila's ready to eat and otherwise chat with her new classmates, answering any questions they have about what Spain is like or why she moved here, and working on memorizing everyone's names and other facts about them as they come up in conversation! (She's going to get a good grade in transfer student, a thing that is normal to want and possible to achieve)

It doesn't take long for Lila to storm away from Chloé. She makes it to the door of the classroom, then remembers Musoka exists. She glances back to see if Musoka is still meeting people.

 Musoka extracts herself from the group ("It was great to meet you all! Gonna go grab lunch, I'm starving." ) and catches up with Lila.

"Everything alright?" she asks in quiet Spanish.

Lila sees Musoka looking at her and quickly pastes a smile on. "Of course!" Lila says, "Everything's fine. You ready to grab lunch?"

Oh, good! Musoka loves it when things are fine. "Yeah! Let's get some food, I'm starving." 

She has no idea where to go, so she looks expectantly at Lila.

Oh good! Lila had kind of expected to have to do more convincing.

The cafeteria is this way!

(A fun thing about Musoka is that if you tell her something and you'd obviously know better than her if it were true, if she isn't already suspicious she'll just believe you!)

She follows. "So, how long ago did you transfer? Where were you before this? Have you seen" any of the superheroes "anything cool or interesting since then?"

(That is a fun thing about Musoka! Lila appreciates it!)

"A few months ago, technically." Lila said, "I got akumatized on my first day, though, so I only just rejoined the class last week. I've seen so much interesting stuff while I've been out, though! Like, you know the Majestia comics? Did you know the writer actually lives in Paris? I talk to him sometimes and I'm even the one who suggested the twist where Lord Tadpole joins the villains!"

If Lila is skilled in the ways of observing people, she almost certainly noticed Musoka's poorly-suppressed spark of interest at the mention of being akumatized. However, Musoka herself has already mostly forgotten about this by the time Lila finishes speaking.

"Woah! That was you? Ohmygosh, I loved that twist, that's one of my favorite issues!!!" She continues to gush about her love for Majestia and other such comics ("I just love superheroes, you know? Don't tell anyone, but that's actually part of why I wanted to come study in Paris...") as they get lunch. 

She eats concerningly quickly ("...ah, sorry, I have 2 older brothers with bottomless pits where their stomachs should be, too used to having to eat fast if I want my fair share...") and continues chatting happily. What else does Lila want to talk about?

Lots of things! It turns out Lila knows lots of cool people. She's helped out with the costumes for that one movie and found a missing pair of lucky cleats for a football player and helped a little girl find her dad who turned out to be the lead developer on that one video game everyone's talking about! It would be a kind of boring litany of good deeds if it hadn't resulted in a bunch of connections with projects Musoka's excited about, but Lila's mostly succeeding at figuring out what Musoka's into and telling those stories. 

Holyshit Lila is sooooo cooooooooooool

Musoka will happily chat with her until it's time for More Class.