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“Scarlett is a harlots name.” Darlene’s face remained devoid of any emotion, and she in no way made her judgement of the girl discreet. If it wasn’t for the fact that Scarlett was wearing pants, like a boy, Darlene might have assumed that the girl was, in fact, a whore. She wore so much makeup, and her clothes clung tightly to her chest. The shoes were hellish. Darlene stared down at them, lips thinning at the edges as the girl moved to make room. It took Darlene another several seconds before she decided to enter, very careful not to brush against Scarlett as she stepped in, closer to the bed. She set down her bed linens as the other girl spoke, and frowned in response to the question. Darlene didn’t know what Amish meant, but she assumed it to be a future religion, a false one, like the Catholics, or something along those lines. “Puritan.” She answered bluntly, as if her answer should have been obvious. “You’re not.” She hesitated to ask the girl’s religion, like it scared her to know. “Protestant?” And with a little more dread in her tone, “Catholic?” Her arms folded across her chest. “We were supposed to find salvation in the New World, but --” Did we fail? Darlene abruptly stopped, frowned, and looked down. She didn’t know why she was here, alive, if she was even alive. Maybe this was Hell. Or maybe she’d been put here to convert others; save them. Just as I had been saved from my sins? A pain in her temples appeared, and she pressed a couple fingers between her brows, smoothing out her frown. She needed a clearer head. Prayer? “I don’t know why I am here.”

Scarlett nodded, slowly, eyeing the sheets in the girl’s hands and momentarily glancing behind her at the empty room, as if a few suitcases were suddenly going to materialize next to the bed. “Right. Well… we’ll deal with that later, I guess.” She didn’t really want to get into the why of the lack of possessions just then, mostly because her mind was ticking away at how long this whole thing was going to take. Before the girl had showed up Scarlett had wondered why exactly she’d need extra help settling in, and now that she’d seen her, she wondered if perhaps the girl actually was Amish and had no idea about the modern world. “I’m Scarlett. Niles. If you happened to have met my cousin already then you’ll recognize the name, but if you haven’t then… I hope you don’t meet her ‘till you at least manage to figure everything out around here.” At that point Scarlett stepped backwards into the room, to allow Darlene to step inside, and ran a hand through her hair as she looked around. The room seemed very bare, perhaps because there was only going to be one person staying in there and so the second bed, desk and set of drawers had been removed, leaving an extra amount of blank wall space. Scarlett shrugged then, eyes going back over to Darlene. “Not that much. They just told me you might have trouble settling in and asked me to help out.” She hesitated then, scratching at a spot behind her ear as she debated whether or not to ask her next question. “Okay, so, I wasn’t actually gonna ask you this but now I’m sort of wondering so… are you like, Amish or something?”

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Darlene almost faltered when she got a better look at the woman. She was pretty, and that thought made all of the colour drain from Darlene’s face. Under the other’s stare, Darlene dropped her gaze, eyes discreetly going to the side as if to see if anyone else was watching her; as if she was all of a sudden conscious of her surroundings and how she acted. The black wood rosary beads hidden beneath her cardigan suddenly felt heavier, and she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Girls can think that other girls are pretty. That doesn’t mean a thing. Darlene managed to look back up at the woman eventually, and when she did, her cheeks tinged pink. “A map?” Darlene frowned a little. “I can’t read maps. And why would I need one? They’re for boys, men, not girls.” She hugged her bedsheets to her chest when the woman held out a hand for her to shake, and stood there staring at it. “Darlene Sadler.” Her lips thinned. “You’re not the one who is goin’ to be showing me around, are you?” It seemed a stupid question, considering the woman was already here to at least welcome Darlene into her new bedroom. Darlene glanced inside before adding. “I mean, around the... whole... place. There are a... lot of’ -- sinful people around here. I don’t really want to be around them.”

Alix had been eager to help with pretty much anything since arriving at the academy, and that had included some things she wished she hadn’t agreed to. Night patrols were definitely high on the list of things she didn’t like, and covering for some of the senior classes hadn’t been that pleasant either – she was too nervous to really have any authority and most of the students knew that. The fact that she was a human didn’t help in some cases, though admittedly her fears about being hated for not having some kind of ability had been largely put to rest. So in the midst of the multiple things Alix had dreaded being asked to do again, helping a new student to settle in was perhaps a blessing in disguise. She hadn’t been told much about Darlene Sadler, except for that she might have trouble getting used to things and need a bit of guidance, and Alix was confident she’d be able to help with those things. 

She stood in the doorway of room 104, fiddling with her fingers and shifting nervously from foot to foot as she waited for the girl to show up. When she eventually did, the words that Alix had rehearsed over and over again in her head all but dried up, and she stood there staring at the brunette for a good few seconds after she’d spoken to her. “Um – sorry, I’m here to help you. With, y’know, settling in here and everything. I brought you some… leaflets. And a map. But someone told me it wasn’t accurate anymore so we’ll just… forget about that.” Alix hastily stuffed the map into her pocket, swallowing and smiling at Darlene as she held out her hand. “I’m Alix. Winchester.”

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Darlene quite languidly eyed the girl’s (was it a girl?) get up. She understood that this was the future, or so she’d been told, and that much had changed in the past couple hundred years, but the clothing on this girl’s body, and the stuff on and around her eyes, just seemed obscene. It made Darlene swallow hard, and she straightened a little more when she was spoken to, as if the girl was actually a witch whose words were disguised curses. The taller girl wriggled her toes in her simple shoes, expression passive save for when a question was asked. She followed the girl’s gaze to the bedsheets in her hands, then up again. “This is all I have.” Before she’d left her temporary home that morning, one of the women, Grace Walker, had mentioned that they’d set up a room for her accordingly, and that she would find her necessities already inside, waiting for her. The door to her bedroom was already open, and Darlene took a look inside from where she stood. Sitting atop a small table next to her bed was a copy of the Bible and a crucifix. Her attention turned back to the girl she was with. “My name is Darlene Sadler.” She hesitated, about to say that she didn’t need any help settling in when she suddenly changed her mind, and attempted a small smile instead. “...What were you um, told about me?”

Scarlett never liked being asked to help people – if she was going to help anyone it had to be on her own terms, because she wanted to, and because she thought they deserved it. Even though it was Vera that had informed her that a new student was moving into the dorm next to hers, and that this new student might need a little help settling in, she still hadn’t liked it. She’d tried to palm the task off on Lia for a while but the other girl apparently had plans, and that was how Scarlett found herself stood in the doorway of room 104, waiting for some girl to show up. She’d been toying with her phone and staring at a spot on the wall in front of her for a while as she wondered if anyone was actually going to show up. Then she’d noticed the way a couple of the kids up the hallway turned their attention to something (or someone) and began to whisper to each other, and seconds later a brunette wearing an outfit that wouldn’t look out of place in an Amish society came into view. Scarlett had never seen her before so she had to assume that was who room 104 belonged to, which was only confirmed when the other girl stopped in front of her and said as much. 

“Uh, hello to you too. I’m supposed to be helping you… settle in or whatever. Which I think just means showing you where things are and helping you move your things up here.” It was then that Scarlett noticed the lack of bags or any luggage at all, just a set of bed linens in the girl’s arms. “Where’s the rest of your stuff?”

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For the past two months, Darlene Sadler, daughter of John Sadler, had been isolated from the rest of the inhabitants at Morgana Academy. Nobody knew of her, except for several of the adults that periodically came to check on her, to talk to her, to teach her about this life. She remembered their names. Grace Walker was Darlene’s most frequent visitor. Vera Keneally her least. The latter had come once or twice. The first time was to inspect her health, but when asked to remove her clothing so that her body could be examined for any irregularities, Darlene had vehemently refused. You will do no such thing, she’d said, and had been prepared to fight. But the small woman had only looked at her, then calmly nodded her demission. Darlene knew that her body would be marked with old wounds from beatings, both from others and from herself. She didn’t want anyone seeing those; not out of any shame, but because the markings would raise only more questions of which she was not willing to answer. Not yet, at least. She needed to make up a believable story.

For two months, Darlene had been kept a secret. Today was the day they were integrating her in with the rest of the people, and as she moved down the corridor with neatly folded linens for her new bed, a lot of heads turned to stare at her. Darlene’s lips thinned at the edges, and her mouth grew dry. Several people she passed eyed the dress she wore, and the cardigan, and one or two them, clearly judging, giggled. Her fingers curled around the edges of the bedsheets, but she made no inclination of retaliating. She was good at keeping her temper, and she wanted them to believe her a nervous sort. Meek. Thus she tucked her chin into her chest and continued walking, slowing only as she got to the door of her bedroom, where someone was apparently waiting. Darlene squinted once at them, then at the number on her door just to check that it was, in fact, her room. 104. It was. So who was this stranger? Cautiously, she approached. “This is my room. What are you doing here?”

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