This roleplay is rated M for the following: Possible Violence, Possible Language, Possible Blood and Gore, Possible Alcohol Usage, Potential Sexual or Suggestive Themes
The Second Sisters Faculty of Magic
and
Occult Sciences
If all
I am is wrong
And all
I have is gone
Then how
am I to live?
I can only be who I am
Collace certainly wasn't what you'd expect upon picturing a quiet little Scottish Hamlet. Or actually, was it? Most may imagine a pretty sort of place, with colourful twee little cottages and rolling brooks that babbled through the village centre. The sort of place Peter Rabbit might live, or possibly where the Queen might come to shoot things. So upon arriving at the grey dull and concrete appreciation borough that Collace actually was, the soon-to-be students of the Second Sisters Faculty were often rather surprised.
But Collace was the nearest town to Dunsinane, and therefore the nearest connection to the outside world the Academy had.
The town was functional, but otherwise completely and utterly lifeless and insipid. The population seemed to consist mainly of people over the age of seventy five, and the pebble-dashed houses all seemed to blur into one, they were all that similar. Grey was apparently the towns absolute favourite colour, possibly in an attempt to match the seemingly constant overcast sky, and there was only one shop still open on the high-street. An Under-takers.
Not the most encouraging of places truth be told. But that was alright. The newbies wouldn't be stopping here for long anyway.
Directions to get to the SSF culminated in instructing all would-be students to arrive promptly at the Collace Town Hall bus-stop, and be there and ready to go for twelve o'clock sharp. Be it this was simply because it was the easiest way to do things, or be it an attempt to retain the secrecy and safety of the Faculty's location was unclear. The people of Collace were more than aware of the Faculty's vaguely close proximity to their town. And every year when the students rolled into town to wait for their transportation, net curtains and disapproving glances were brought out in full by the townsfolk of Collace. Never has a glare been so disdainfully cast, a tut so dismissively uttered.
The bus-stop by the town hall wasn't particularly big, it was just an average one not really designed to be an important or substantial waiting point. So the mere hundred or so awaiting students appeared much larger in number than they actually were. A general excited buzz of pre-term chatter and excitement rippled through the small crowd. Giggles were a plenty, and joking jeers echoed spontaneously through the rabble as friendships were rekindled, and groups and cliques re-established. Three Paper planes were suddenly launched into the air, and exaggerated gasps and squeals of delight rippled through the gaggle of children as the jets began to re-inact that one scene from independence day. Meanwhile Marjan Lali was attempting to bring her Furby to life behind the bus-stop, and Dom Paisley was trying to teach others how to do the dance from the new Childish Gambino video.
Term was most definitively starting up again.
A distant rumbling soon garnered their attention however. The sound was hard to describe, for it was both a roaring cacophony, and a guttural gravelly scrape at the same time. As if you were dragging a hundred metal pipes across a gritty road all at the same time. The perpetrator turned out to be a coach, of all things. It was old, but not ancient. Perhaps from the 90s. All of the windows were tinted so they couldn't be peered into, and it was supposedly white, but a few good years of grime and dirt had instead tinted it a unpleasant off-beige. But the name 'Drippy' could be faintly seen through the muck. Dragging itself down Collace's main road, it grinded to an eventual halt in front of the bus-stop. A anticipatory silence blossomed over the crowd of children, as they expectantly awaited whatever was inside.
The doors slid open with an ugly squeak. Absolute silence. Then, a approaching voice could be heard, like she was walking to the door from far away. It sounded like she was on the phone to somebody.
"What? ... Tim dumped you...? No! Come on. You're not worthless. No one's to blame. You tried to make the relationship work, but it didn't. It simply wasn't meant to be."
There was a pause, and then a sigh.
"Margaret Mitchell once said, "I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together again and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken-and I'd rather remember it as it was at it's best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived ........ Also, pretty sure Tim is gay."
And suddenly the mystery voice was revealed. Framed by within the doorway stood a tall lanky looking girl, in clothing reminiscent of Alex Mack if she'd just realised that having a chest and figure was something she'd simply have to accept after all. Her expression was weary, and ultimately uninterested. Upon seeing the hoard of excited children, the girl sighed, stopped chewing her gum and said, "Look, I gotta go handle the kids. Yeah. Ok. Bye Trixie. Bye, bye." promptly ending the call.
The gathered youngsters were visibly itching to go, eager excitement bubbled through the small crowd, with some children visibly jumping for sheer joy. Noriko looked wanly at them all. She sighed again.
"Right then. Line up and start getting on this here bus. Don't worry about your luggage, me and Mr. Nags will sort that out. When you're on the bus, just keep on walking down the aisle until you see a man holding a sign that says SSF. That's Mr. Carlisle. When you see him, start filing into the seats. Alright. That clear enough?"
There was a general murmur of agreement as the children began to do as they were told. Of course, a bus to a magical school wouldn't dare to be 'ordinary' or 'mundane' in any way, heavens no. The bus held plenty of secrets of it's own. Upon entering, you may have been rather surprised that the bus actually stretched and stretched and stretched, so far that it on the inside, it was actually a good mile or so in length. It seemed the Faculty wasn't the coach's only official stop, let alone unofficial. There were dozens and dozens of seats, all stretching back as far as the eye could see. Names of the various stops and correlating organisations danced across small sign screens above various divides down the length of the bus, the academy's own falling only a few rows back from the front.
Under the Faculty's sign, a man was sat. His head splayed back and mouth agape, soft snores escaping from his parted lips. Seemingly this was Mr. Carlisle. The man didn't even wake up as the bucket load of children all clamoured past him to grab the best seats. It was only when Nori returned that he awoke with a sudden jolt. Wide-eyed, he looked at her in languid confusion. Nori simply got herself another strip of gum. Her cheeks were slightly pink from dealing with all the luggage.
Mr. Nags seemed as spry as ever though. Completely un-effected by the labour. He was a tall, yet chunky man. With a disconcertingly young face, and somewhat wild gray hair. Said hair peaked upon his face, where it formed in a rather magnificently kept bushy moustache. Mr. Nags practically sprang up and onto the bus. A microphone lowered from seemingly nowhere before perfectly landing and placing itself into his awaiting hand. With a unsettling grin, Mr. Nags spoke with alarming enthusiasm,
"WELCOME ABOARD THE MRC EXPRESS! If you see any suspicious activity, please, hesitate to tell me."
And with that said, the microphone ascended and vanished, and Mr. Nags made his way purposefully down the aisle. The cockpit of the bus was relatively obscured, but even still, it was hard to tell who, what or if indeed anybody was in fact driving. But despite that, the coach started to move all the same. It slowly chugged out of Collace, and down an unmarked country dirt road.
The general chit chat of giddy school-children slowly resumed, interrupted only by the occasional outburst from the unseen Mr. Nags over the intercom.
"This Coach is scheduled to stop in about... three months."
Noriko and Mr. Carlisle had started to organise a bunch of papers. Sorting and splitting the large pile between them. After being on the bus for about twenty minute or so, the two escorts stood, Carlisle seeming a little more unsteady on his feet than Nori. They murmured to each other in discussion. Then Carlisle heaved himself out into the aisle, and made his way down towards the rear end of the Faculty section of seating. Nori remained at the front.
"I'd like everybody to wish my Grandson Drippy a Happy Birthday today,"
Nori continued to chew her gum lazily as she spoke. Well, I say spoke but she had to raise her voice quite a bit to be heard over the hyper-active kid-lings.
"Alright listen up! When you hear your name, please... I dunno. Raise your hand, swear, shout your name, I don't care."
She squinted at the first sheet of paper in her hand,
"MacKenna She-"
She squinted more, lifting the paper right up to her face,
"Sayyorr, Sayyir... MacKenna S,"
Frowning softly, she continued,
"Murphy Charlotte, Simone Lupfer, Lali Marjan, Paisley Dom."
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