fandomhighdorms | Second Floor Common Room, Sunday Night

Wei Wuxian walked into the common room with a white bunny cradled in one arm. He froze when he saw the creature on the couch with his classmate.

"They're a fox," Wei Tudou said gently. "I promised to warn you if there was a dog, didn't I?"

"Yeah." Wei Wuxian flashed a grin at her. "I knew they were a fox." Still, he sidled around the edge of the room until he got to the fridge, where he retrieved a bag of baby carrots.

"She's far more likely to bite than I am," Nestor offered from where he was comfortably being used as a pillow by Illyana, though his tail waived slightly in greeting. "...and she doesn't even have her fangs out tonight."

"Rude," 'Yana complained, though she kept rubbing his ears. "Sorry, don't mind him."

"Do you have fangs?" Wei Wuxian asked curiously. He chose the chair furthest from the couch and shifted his flute to the side of his belt before he sat down. He rested Wei Tudou on his lap and opened the bag of carrots.

'Yana eyed Wei Wuxian for a moment before shrugging. "Sometimes. This isn't my only face."

"They're all lovely faces," Nestor assured her, nuzzling into her hand for a moment. "And if you work a little harder at illusion magic, you can wear any face you like, whenever you like."

'Yana quirked a slight smirk at Wei Wuxian. "I wonder what our Ethics teacher would have to say about that. Maybe I should wear his face to finals, if I get good enough with it."

Wei Wuxian laughed at the idea of Master Skywalker facing himself. "Bet you'd get extra credit if you could give him a good reason for it."

"She'll come up with a reason," Nestor added dryly. "She very nearly used one of her other faces last class, just to make a point."

"It was just frustrating!" 'Yana retorted. "Why do we enjoy the pain of others? Because we have the power in that situation, and are not the powerless. It's not hard to be honest about it."

"I can't eat plastic," Wei Tudou complained, nudging the bag of carrots with her nose.

"Oh, sorry," Wei Wuxian said. He pulled a few more carrots from the bag and placed them on his lap for Wei Tudou to eat. "How would you have used someone else's face to make a point?" he asked 'Yana. "Whose face?"

"Not someone else's. Still mine, just not this one."

And suddenly the Illyana sitting across from him looked a fair bit more...demonic. Fangs, two goat-style horns curling out of her forehead, devil tail, and glowing red eyes. Any magic-user would be able to sense that it was no illusion, it was just as much Illyana's real face as the one she wore on a day-to-day basis.

"She is intimately familiar the darkest parts of the human heart," Nestor said quietly, as Illyana tried to gauge Wei Wuxian's reaction. "Of course, she tends to view things a bit cynically because of it."

And then it was gone, with just small, blonde, human-looking 'Yana sitting there again.

"I mean, if you had a demon sitting in class, saying 'hey, you enjoy it because you're all scared deep down to be powerless and I know because I've seen it used to break people,' that would probably make a point, right?" she said, going back to petting Nestor's ears.

Wei Tudou stopped eating and stared at 'Yana. A couple of orange carrot crumbs still stuck to her chin. Wei Wuxian blinked at 'Yana. As he listened to Nestor's and 'Yana's words, he frowned, then scowled. "Hey!" he said indignantly. "Just because I don't have horns and fangs and..."

"Tail," Wei Tudou offered. She resumed munching on her carrots.

"A tail?" Wei Wuxian asked Wei Tudou. "I didn't see it." The transition had been brief and she had those eyes....

"I know about tails," the rabbit said primly.

"Okay, a tail," Wei Wuxian. "You don't need a tail to know evil. You could have a normal - handsome, but otherwise unremarkable - face," if bunnies could roll their eyes, Wei Tudou was doing it, "and still know about darkness in the human heart!" He sank back in the chair, folded his arms across his chest, and pouted.

"Obviously you don't have to be a demon to know evil, but people are stupid and sometimes need a sudden scare to see sense. They'd rather believe the pretty lies about themselves, or take pretty faces at face value. And the pretty little justifications in there were pissing me off."

"I told you she was a cynic," Nestor sighed.

"Well, you can't just show them a face. They'll call you the monster," Wei Wuxian said. "If you want to wake them up, you have to make them fear themselves."

"I'm a monster whether they call me one or not," she shrugged. "I could always tell some fortunes, get them riled up."

"She doesn't really see the future," Nestor promised. "Even if her relationship with time can be flexible."

"His relationship with time is flexible," Wei Tudou said.

"I don't think he means she likes to sleep late," Wei Wuxian told the rabbit. "What do you mean?" he asked Nestor and 'Yana. "Do you pull their 'fortunes' from their minds? Their worst fears?"

"Oh she loves to sleep late and stay up all night. It's a miracle she makes it to class some days," Nestor barked a laugh.

"But what Nestor actually means is that I'm a teleporter," Illyana said, "...and that ability is tied to a plane outside this one, where time runs differently. Once I get a better handle on my powers, my mentor says I should be able to move up and down the various timelines. So I could nip forward, see where everyone's at in ten years, and come back to tell them, but it's not stable. Even me moving along time could cause it to change."

"...or I could use magic to pull out their worst fears, but I am trying to Be Good."

Some days were, obviously, harder than others.

Wei Wuxian suddenly became very still. "Can you change the past? Can you save someone's life?"

"Wei Ying," Wei Tudou said gently, and nudged his arm with her nose.

"Absolutely not," Nestor said firmly, but Illyana was looking thoughtful. "No, lisichka, I know what you're thinking, but you risk erasing everything from that event forward."

"But if no one saw the death happen, I could pull them out of that moment to another point in time. Nothing changes because everyone thinks the death occurred."

"There's the problem of a body," Nestor pointed out, "--so cease this thought experiment, please, before you cause a temporal paradox."

"She could have mine-" Wei Wuxian began, but then shook his head. "No. I'm already dead." Wei Tudou left the carrots and nuzzled up against Wei Wuxian, who pet her absently.

"You're dead?" Now Illyana was squinting at him, or rather past him, as if she was looking at something outside him. "Necromancy?"

"No, I haven't done any major demonic cultivation since-"

Wei Tudou bumped his hand with her nose. "I think she means you."

"Oh," Wei Wuxian said. "Yes, yes, I died." He shrugged, as if that wasn't anything important. "I arrived here, and I thought I was supposed to stay here until I reincarnate." He frowned. "But I'm the only dead person I know here, so there may have been a mix-up."

"What's this, now?" Jules asked as she made her way into the common room, Camden by her side as always.

"Wendy the Werewolf Slayer," Illyana said, waving at Jules and Camden as Nestor perked up at their entrance. "It's a tv show about a Chosen One girl who hunts werewolves. I loved the reruns as a little kid."

"And what, pray tell, is a werewolf?" Camden asked, as Jules settled herself on the opposite end of the couch, balancing her crutch against the couch's arm.

'Yana tilted her head. "...a person who can become an 'evil' bipedal wolf-monster under the light of the moon, at least in the mythology of this show. Did you talk before and I missed it?"

"Rude, Illyana. Camden is like me for the weekend," her companion sighed, in the same slightly-British accent as Illyana, though his voice was filed with mirth. "Miss Jules. A pleasure to see you in person. I am Nestor."

"Hello, Nestor," Jules replied. And if he'd been a familiar, she would've offered her hand for skritches, but something about that just felt... not-quite-done, with the way things were this weekend. "It's a pleasure."

"I don't know how or why this has happened, but it's certainly interesting," Camden remarked. In addition to the talking, her connection to Juillenne was... deeper. More profound. Which was saying a lot, because it had already been a pretty profound connection to begin with.

"I like it," Illyana admitted, and Nestor's tail waived in agreement. "I don't quite understand it, but it feels...right."

She could research it later. Right now, being close like this felt more important.

"I was always here, you just couldn't see me," Nestor promised, licking her fingers for a moment to keep her from going melancholy. "You are never without me, lisichka."

"It reminds me a little of home," Jules admitted.

"Except for the talking."

"Except for the talking," she agreed.

"Are familiars common where you're from?" 'Yana asked, interested.

"Excuse you, I'm a daemon," Nestor huffed, rolling his eyes. "I am not some common conjuration any fifth-rate sorcerer could create."

"I'm no conjuration, either," Camden retorted, her tail twitching.

"For a naturalist, yes," Jules told Illyana. "Summoning one's familiar is one of the first great tests of the gift."

"What's the difference between a naturalist, and the other schools of gifts?" Illyana asked, her curiosity about different types of magic wide-awake and taking mental notes.

"I'm going to guess it has to do with nature, 'Yana," Nestor replied sarcastically, but there was a grin to his voice. "--But I'm still stuck on how you called Camden and I conjurations."

"I'm sorrrrrrrrrrrrrry," she said, pouting slightly. "I will make it up to both of you later I swear but I know you want to hear about this as much as I do, Nestor."

"Naturalists have command over plants and animals," Juillenne confirmed. "Oracles can read signs and see into the future. Elementals control the elements. Poisoners are immune to poison, and can create potions and tonics that can either kill- or heal. And the war-gifted- their weapons never miss their targets, and they know where their enemy will strike often before their enemy does."

Illyana let out a low whistle. "Those all sound very useful," she replied. "Do people cross-train, or is it a single gift that you don't get to pick?"

"A single gift. Usually." Jules told her. "And you're either born with it or you're not."

"The part she's not saying is those born with two gifts are typically doomed to madness, and so it's seen as a kindness to kill them before it becomes an issue," Camden remarked mildly, her tail twitching.

"I can see how conflicting gifts could cause issues, like a war-gifted oracle seeing too many futures at once to make a decision about where to strike, but that should be solved with training and support," Illyana said, blinking. "No one is ever 'doomed' to madness, there's too many infinite timelines for that to be a constant in every single one. Somewhere out there, there's always a chance to get it right."

"And this is why you aren't allowed to play with time yet," Nestor reminded her. "You're too eager to 'fix' things."

"That might be how it works in your world," Jules said, frowning a little. "But it certainly isn't the case in mine."

Lana nodded at Illyana and came to sit in a comfy chair. Gemis sat curled against her legs, and she rubbed his head. "What are we watching?"

"A television program about a teenage girl who's 'Chosen' to fight werewolves," 'Yana answered ~~because her player just remembered the meta is 'stalker' not 'slayer'~~, idly petting Nestor's ears. "I used to watch the reruns as a little kid, to learn more about America."

"I did not realize it was fiction, before you ask. I was maybe six or seven."

"From what I've seen of this place, most things are fiction - even the news," Lana answered wryly. "Did it help even so?"

Ryder padded into the common room and flopped down in a comfortable looking spot, Adora close at her heels.

"Oh, those aren't surveillance screens?" Look it was a reasonable inference for someone who grew up on n the Fright Zone.

"I mean, they probably could be if one of the tech-nerds set up cameras," Illyana mused. "I wonder if we could tap the teacher's lounge..."

"But no. It shows entertainment programs."

"So it's fiction? Like that movie they showed us in class the other week?"

The one with the woman who reminded her of Huntara for some odd reason.

"Some are fiction, like this one, some are non-fiction, some claim to be the news but really it's just people yelling opinions and being stupid," Nestor offered, looking up. "Hello, Miss Adora. I am Nestor, it's very nice to meet you."

"WHY do you keep addressing my classmates by formal titles?" 'Yana sighed. "Don't be weird."

"It's not weird. I'm simply the one of us with manners, as she hasn't had the pleasure of my visual acquaintanceship yet."

"Hi, Nestor," Adora said, reaching down to scratch Ryder's ears. "This is Ryder, I think she's some kind of cat."

"Caracal," Ryder corrected gently. "But close enough since Etheria doesn't have many Earth animals."

Second Floor Common Room, Sunday Night

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