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What can it not do and undo
Pendragons and Blues go to high school
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"Ugh," says Yvette, fastening her seatbelt and looking sulkily out the window, at the house she'd much rather be staying in. Why so early. Why this.

"Ooh, we're hitting the teenage angst phase! Are you going to go goth, dye your hair purple, wear lots of eyeliner, join me in the all black ensemble?" wonders her brother, beside her.

"Pass."

Damn, that didn't get the banter started. Morning banter helped her with the awful slog that was dragging oneself to high school. Noel will just have to try again, won't he.

"You sure? It's starting to get colder, it'll be really great in the winter. Stand out dramatically against the snow, absorb all colors on the light spectrum..."

"Because clearly I should dress for efficiency of light absorption," she says, but she's smiling anyway.

"Obviously! It's what I do!"

"I thought your excuse was that it was so no one could see the blood after the murders."

"That too. Black is a multipurpose color. It giveth much. Hail. Hail."

Something in his tone causes his sister to giggle, and Noel smiles. There. Now they're on track.

 

"Have a good day in Hell," says Yvette, after they're parked in the student parking lot.

"You too."

And so begins the day.

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For another pair of siblings, this is their first day at a new school. 

'I'll be fine,' Isobel remembers telling her parents this morning. 'You don't need to worry about me.'

Maybe they're not, but she's worried about herself. It was hard enough making friends at their last school a year ago, when everyone else was new as well. Now, they're coming into a new school two months into their sophomore year. She sticks close to her brother as they walk in.

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Elliot brushes his hand against Isobel's, their private code for 'I'd hug you but we're in public.' He tries to send soothing thoughts in her direction, let her borrow some of his confidence.

His smile says, 'Don't worry, I'm here. I'll handle the scary parts.'

Speaking of which, they need to find the secretary's office, and it's not as obvious as it should be. Talking to people is definitely his job; he looks around until he spots a reasonably friendly-looking person, and aims a smile in their direction.

"Excuse me? I'm looking for the office, could you point me in the right direction?"

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"Yeah, sure," says the reasonably friendly-looking person, smiling back. "It's just inside the main building, first door on your right -" he glances at Isobel, notes her body language, and smoothly adds, "- but there's a side entrance I can show you that's just as quick if you'd rather avoid, uh." He waves a hand at the large crowd of socializing students, just outside of the front door. "That."

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His smile widens from polite to genuine. It's always a pleasure to find someone both competent at people and inclined to use it well.

"That'd be great, thanks."

He follows the helpful - senior? Probably a senior. Might be smart to get on this person's good side, he seems like the sort who would be useful to have as a friend and dangerous as an enemy.

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"Happy to help. I'm Noel, nice to meet you," he says, sounding sincere. "Just moved here?"

The side entrance is smaller than the main entrance, but as promised, isn't too out of the way, and definitely isn't as crowded.

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"Yup," he confirms. "Nice to meet you too, Noel."

A trick he learned a long time ago: it's much easier to remember someone's name if you repeat it back to them, and people like it when you remember their names. 

"I'm Elliot, this is my sister Isobel." 

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"I hope you like it here. Anything I can do to help you settle in?"

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"I think we can take it from here," Elliot says. 

And it looks like this is where they need to be.

"Thanks for your help."

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He'd meant to give them a chance to talk to someone personable instead of bureaucratic, but Noel can take a dismissal. They seem very insular, and they're probably going to get very sick of being the novelty that everyone wants to show around. Wanting space where they can get it is perfectly understandable, and he'd rather not get in the way in some misplaced sense of responsibility. He nods.

"Anytime. Have a good first day."

Then he waves and departs.

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Elliot and Isobel sign forms and are officially registered on databases and collect their schedules. 

Isobel checks hers, and is relieved to find that her first class is the same as Elliot's, Honors English. It's one of the few classes they have together. 

Accordingly, she lets him do the talking again to find someone who can show them where to go. Their last school was smaller. 

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The someone is so thrilled to have them here! Where are they from, are they enjoying the town so far, hopefully the move wasn't too stressful, it really sucks that they had to move mid-year, what classes do they have, are they both in all of the same ones...?

Luckily, the distance between the office and their first class isn't infinite. They are free with only minimal amounts of cheery babbling.

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There are a few seats open near the front, with only a redhead reviewing notes that look to be meticulously color coded.

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And a few seats open near the middle, complete with at least one person that's already bored and doodling in a notebook.

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Isobel is immediately drawn to the color-coding person, sensing a kindred spirit of some flavor. 

But she doesn't like sitting at the front of the room, where she's too visible both to the teacher and to the rest of the class. Elliot doesn't like it either, because he likes seeing what other people are doing and interacting with them, and because he says it looks bad and that's why everyone avoids the front row.

On the other hand, the front row is, therefore, empty, and they wouldn't have to be surrounded by people. She could have Elliot on one side and maybe an empty seat on the other, and no-one would bother them. But Elliot would be annoyed at missing out on meeting someone new...

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He sighs, recognizing the signs that his sister is trying to overthink a decision, and tugs Isobel towards the seats in the middle row.

He tries his best to get her an aisle or window seat where she doesn't have to sit next to anyone else, but will stop short of actually asking anyone to swap seats with the new people who've just invaded their class. 

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There's one window seat available, behind kid-that-doodles. There's another empty seat beside it. It should do fine for the siblings.

Kid-that-doodles glances up from his doodling, quirks his eyebrows slightly, and then promptly resumes making gorgeous and abstract drawings on lined notebook paper. Apparently he's not feeling social.

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Elliot steers Isobel towards the window seat and slides in next to her, leaning forward slightly to get a better look at the guy in front of them. 

"Hey, cool drawings," he says casually as he sits down. 

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"They're more to pass the time, than anything else," says kid-that-doodles. "... But thank you."

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"Even more impressive, then." 

But they should probably stop talking - and probably doodling - now, because it looks like the teacher is here, and he doesn't really want to get into trouble on his first day. 

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Kid-that-doodles flips the page to a set of sparse and utilitarian notes that... also have doodles on them. Which he then proceeds to expand upon. While looking tremendously bored.

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Good for him.

Elliot would quite like to do the same, but he should probably pay attention to the lesson instead. He takes notes, attempting to preserve the structure of the class and the key points rather than blindly copying one sentence at a time. 

He starts an abstract doodle on a separate page, adding to it a line or so at a time during lulls. He'll tear it out later and put it somewhere safe.

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Isobel doesn't notice, too focused on the teacher, but would tell him to stop it if she did. She takes copious notes in small, dense writing, covering about the same amount of paper as Elliot but with twice as many words. 

She isn't going to pay attention to what anyone else does during class unless they physically interact with her, or block her view of the teacher or the board. 

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The teenager in front of her barely takes any notes, but he takes some.

Once, the teacher calls on him to answer a question. He answers well and without hesitation, just as if he were paying rapt attention, and then goes right back to drawing all over his notes, uncaring.

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Color-coder up front stays reasonably engaged in the class material, taking notes and usually using lulls to go back and add corroborating information to what she already has. She's a bit of a nerd. (She likes English.)

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She seems reasonably non-threatening, and also looks likely to be in other Honors classes. 

At the end of English, with only a little nudging from Elliot, Isobel meets the color-coder on the way out of the classroom.

"Hi. Um, do you know where I go for Honors Biology?"

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She blinks.

"Uh - room 306, with Ms. Forester?" she clarifies. "Yeah, I have it next, I can show you?"

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Success! 

"That would be very kind of you," she says. 

"Um, I'm Isobel, by the way. I just moved here."

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"I can hardly say it's out of my way," she points out, wry. "I'm Yvette. Nice to meet you."

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"Nice to meet you too."

They start walking; Elliot has presumably found someone to point him in the direction of his class. Isobel's not worried. 

"Are you in any other Honors classes? Apart from English and Biology, I mean."

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"Geometry and World History II," she confirms. "We're probably in the same classes, actually; everyone in the Honors classes tend to get lumped together like that if they take them all. Since it's a smaller group than everyone else."

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Isobel nods. "That makes sense."

She gets out her schedule to compare it with Yvette's.

They do, in fact, have most of the same classes, with the exception of languages and electives. 

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Yvette smiles.

"Well, I can show you to those, too, if you'd like. Probably also give you directions to the others, though I don't think I've ever actually been to the band room."

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"That would be great."

Is that the right classroom? This school is so much bigger than their last one. 

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It is!

"Do you want to look at my notes, too?" she offers, once there. "To catch up, I mean, I imagine it must be very confusing to switch from one curriculum to another in the middle."

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"I would, if that's alright!"

This seems like sufficient invitation to sit next to Yvette. Sitting at the front of the room - assuming this is a habit of hers - is less scary if she has a friend next to her, and it's Elliot who really objects to it anyway. 

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She actually doesn't sit at the front of the room! It's a habit for her first class of the day, because it cuts down on unwanted social interaction when she's still kind of cranky. Now, middle of the room is fine.

Notes! They are so thorough and so color coded. ... Yvette is kind of excited to share them with someone, because she is a huge nerd. And they're so tidy and clear!

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Isobel looks over the Biology notes. They are very good considering that they weren't written with her in mind.

"These are really good notes," she comments, smiling down at them.

"I think they're more organized than mine have ever been."

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"Thank you. I - sort of can't process it until after it's all..." She waves a hand at it. "Until all of the progression and connections are laid out clearly? Organizing it is how I absorb it, the nice notes are just a bonus that helps a lot with studying."

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"I can see how it would!" 

Isobel may or may not be ridiculously pleased by Yvette's notes.

"I think I might borrow the color-coding system, it makes so much sense." 

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"Feel free! I am the opposite of proprietary about it."

And here's the teacher, unfortunately cutting short gleeful nerd collaboration.

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Oh no, they have to pay attention to class instead, how terrible. 

However will Isobel survive the horror of being forced to learn things. 

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Kid-that-doodles does not look quite so easy to win over. He doesn't seem particularly talkative, or like he's in any rush to pack up his things to leave the classroom, apparently content to let the crowd disperse before he makes to move.

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While Elliot would, actually, really like to make friends with this guy, he isn't going to act like that's a particularly high priority. It seems like it would be counterproductive to interact with him beyond what's already happened, for now.

Instead, once Isobel has successfully asked Yvette for help, he picks someone else at random and asks them for directions to his World History class. 

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This person is not going to his World History class, but can give directions! Go straight down that hallway, take a left at the giant crowd - don't worry, you'll know it when you see it - and it should be down that smaller hallway. On the right. Elliot has the room number.

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He thanks the person, and starts walking.

Crowds don't bother him as much as they do Isobel, and if he waited for them to disperse then he might be late for class, so that's not an option. 

He's pretty good at remembering and following directions, so he should be able to find the room pretty easily.

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Wow, yep, that's a crowd. Isobel would hate this, it's hard to move in it at any reasonable speed, and once someone's in it, it looks very difficult to get out quickly. It's not a crowd all heading in the same direction, it's two separate crowds colliding; people trying to get out of the hallway, and people trying to get in, and neither getting much of anywhere.

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Wow. There's probably a shortcut; he'll have to ask someone later.

On the other hand, there might not be, because it feels like more people might be using it if there was. 

Whatever, Elliot doesn't know a shortcut at the moment, so wade through the crowd it is. He's going left, so he tries to sneak along the wall and not get sucked into the middle of the crowd. He's probably not the only person trying that, though. 

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He is not the only person trying that! If anything, people at the edges move slower. There's only so much wall space, and a lot of people have had Elliot's idea.

Eventually, he can get through.

He's not the first one in the class, but he's one of the earliest. Lots of other people have gotten held up in the hallway, it seems.

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He observes the available options, and carefully picks a seat out of the middle few rows. 

Window seats are popular, don't want to go for one of those because if it belongs to someone, they'll be more protective of it than a random seat in the middle of the row. Aisle seats likewise, much as he'd like to sit near the door. Instead, he chooses a completely innocuous seat towards the door side of the middle row, not sitting next to anyone yet. He'll move if anyone complains. 

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No one complains.

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Someone else slides into the classroom just before class begins. The teacher rolls his eyes, but doesn't call him tardy. The student doesn't look particularly repentant, just vaguely smug.

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Good for him. Elliot doesn't take that sort of risk, hasn't in years, but he doesn't particularly mind other people doing it as long as they don't get him in trouble. 

He wonders vaguely if the kid is going to doodle his way through this class as well as the last one, and also how many classes they have together. But he should probably be paying attention to the teacher now, since class just started. 

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The kid is totally going to doodle his way through this class. ... But does actually first do the work that's handed to him, so he's probably not failing.

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Elliot gets on with his own work, trying to catch up since his last school had a slightly different curriculum for World History.

He's getting tired of mentally referring to his classmate as 'that kid', so he listens carefully when the teacher takes attendance, hoping to catch his name.

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His name's Sebastian, apparently. He has probably heard many jokes about The Little Mermaid, and does not look like he'd appreciate any of them.

He's not very social in this class, either. But something he says does cause one of the students near him to quietly crack up, though Elliot can't actually hear what he says.

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That's fine, he needs to concentrate on the work anyway. 

Some of the material is a little confusing without context, but he'll ask Isobel to explain it later. She's good at history, and if she doesn't remember the specific context she'll know where to find it.  

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The teacher is patient with Elliot, anyway. He gets a packet that's already partially filled in. He'll have to study it on his own time, but he doesn't have to search through any books for the information everyone's expected to have.

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This time, when class ends, Sebastian is nearly the first out of the door. Maybe he doesn't like history.

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Elliot does happen to like history, but he knows perfectly well that it's not everyone's favorite. 

Sebastian isn't in his next class; that would've been starting to get creepy. Isobel is, though: they both took Spanish. 

"How's your new friend?" 

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"Amazing," Isobel whispers. She's long since stopped questioning the fact that Elliot knows whenever she makes a new friend. 

"She has color-coded notes on everything."

From someone who doesn't normally pass such a definitively positive judgement on people until she's known them at least a day - although a negative one can take as little as a few minutes - this is practically a declaration of undying love. 

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Class proceeds! There aren't really any notable doodlers or color coders this time. There is a lot of Spanish, and this seems like a pretty good class for the two of them to catch up. It's pretty laid back, they're not likely to get in trouble for talking.

Eventually, class ends.

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Elliot heads off to Biology, and Isobel has Geometry. Yvette is in Geometry, since it's another Honors class.

"Hi, again," she says, a little shy. "Is it OK if I sit with you again?"

Maybe she'd find another friendly person if she sat somewhere else, but really, one new person is enough on a day when she's already having to deal with a new school. 

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"Hi! Absolutely," says Yvette, smiling back.

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"Oh good." 

Let the Geometry commence! She bets Yvette has color-coded notes for this class too.