introduction to being a college student

[self_composed]

Bella packs light. (She can conjure whatever she wants, mooch off Alice for anything she wants to buy. She's wearing her riding gear and riding Tegu and only has a few other favorite-things she'd like to retain in their original forms. The black dress is one of them.) Her swag goes in saddlebags and she goes to Stanford.

It's a road trip; she wants to be able to account for her time, and besides, she likes her motorcycle. She checks into crappy little motels and once spends four minutes watching someone try and fail to disassemble her bike, from her window. (The fellow gives up eventually. Tegu does not want to come apart or move.)

At Stanford, she is there before her new roommate, who is reportedly named "Janine". Bella unpacks, and since no one's there yet, she wishes up some decorations too. She introduces herself to the RA, Maureen, and then loiters in the hall lounge, waiting for more people to meet.

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[edgeofyourseat]

Alice wishes.

Then he steps through the magic door.

His Bella-compass informs him that Bella is quite a ways south.

When he steps back through, suddenly she is not very far at all up-and-thataway.

[Cool,] he says happily.

[self_composed]

[Very nice,] Bella approves. [Now if you don't feel like telling them your mom and Hilary don't need to know that you're probably going to be visiting me all the time.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[Hell, I can stick another door in my basement if I wanna be lazy,] he says. [I think I'll go do that.]

Back through the door, and zoom!

[How's your residence stuff going, anyway?]

[self_composed]

[Janine, my roommate-to-be, isn't here yet that I know of. I've got my room set up and a parking permit for my bike and I met the RA and now I'm hanging out pretending to mess around on my laptop in the hall lounge.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[Aww. I don't know why that's cute, but it totally is.]

[self_composed]

[I can't imagine why that would be cute either,] Bella laughs. [What are you planning to do with yourself while I settle in here?]

[edgeofyourseat]

[Dunno,] he says. [Go back out your door and fly around, maybe. Get to know the place.]

In the meantime, though—ah, there's his house. He drifts in the open back door and zips down to the basement. Halfway there he realizes that he could have just made the door from the other side, but what the hell, this way's more fun.

[self_composed]

[Why was the back door left open?] Bella wonders.

[edgeofyourseat]

[Ask Hilary; it's her kitchen.]

[self_composed]

[I can't ask Hilary, I'm in Stanford and have no way to know that the door was open. Don't you have air conditioning? Is she even there? Are you being burgled?]

[edgeofyourseat]

[I guarantee you we are not being burgled,] he says, sets the door to work just like the other one did but attach to a wall that's in his bedroom, and zips back up to the top of the stairs. When he peeks down the hall, Hilary is just wandering back into the kitchen.

[See?]

[self_composed]

[Well, ask her why the door was left standing open like that, then.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[Do you care enough about that answer for me to fly out of the house, un-invisible, walk back up to the door, and ask why it's open?]

[self_composed]

[Bah. Nevermind. It's going to bug me, though.]

[edgeofyourseat]

He laughs.

[Okay, then yes, you do.]

And he flies out of the house, un-invisibles, walks back up to the door, and sticks his head through it.

"Why's the door open?"

"Aren't you halfway across the country or something?" inquires Hilary.

He laughs, gesturing down at himself to indicate his obvious presence. "Do I have to answer that?"

"Yes."

"Got bored, came back. Why's the door open?"

"Because I felt like it. And if you're so bored, you can help me bake cookies."

[self_composed]

Bella introduces herself to various new neighbors in the lounge as they wander in and out. She makes a point to learn all their names.

[edgeofyourseat]

Alice helps Hilary bake cookies. See, things like this are why it's sometimes more fun to do stuff the long way around.



A short, nervous-looking girl with long blonde hair shuffles past the lounge door, dragging an absurd quantity of luggage—four duffel bags and two enormous plastic packages of what appear to be styrofoam packing peanuts, all tied together with bungee cords and stacked precariously atop a comparatively tiny suitcase.

[self_composed]

"Do you want some help with that?" Bella calls, closing her computer and tucking it into her bag and getting up. Being helpful is a good way to be positively remembered, and this is part of her project, and she is starting today. "Where are you headed?"

[edgeofyourseat]

"Oh—thank you," she says, looking up from where she has been gazing determinedly at the floor and flashing a tentative smile. "Room 314."

[self_composed]

"Oh, you must be Janine. I'm Bella," says Bella, helping herself to half of Janine's stuff and heading for the room. "What're the packing peanuts for?"

[edgeofyourseat]

"Beanbag chair!" says Janine. "You must be my roommate! Are you my roommate? Hello, my roommate!"

The packing peanuts come loose easily, as do the top two duffel bags, leaving Bella with about two-thirds of the volume and Janine with about two-thirds of the weight of the whole ensemble. She trails Bella down the hall.

[self_composed]

"Guess so," says Bella, amused. She opens the door with her foot. "Home sweet home. Beanbag chairs don't come... assembled?"

[edgeofyourseat]

"Not this one!" says Janine. "I will have to assemble it. I have never done that before. It will be an adventure."

Is it possible to be anxious and high-spirited at the same time? Because that is Janine.

[self_composed]

"I've never assembled a beanbag chair before either. It looks like it's going to be really enormous," says Bella. She plops the stuff gently on the floor of the room.

[edgeofyourseat]

"The size of the packaging may be deceptive," Janine allows. "Or we may be in for a very interesting logistical challenge."

She pulls the suitcase up to the unclaimed bed and leans it against the mattress. It teeters. She tugs it out, swivels it around, and leans it the other way. Then she dives into one of the duffel bags on the floor and produces a flat rectangular package containing, if you believe the label, the folded shell of a beanbag chair. Which she proceeds to rip out of its packaging and shake out and pore over in search of a zipper.

"...Would you like to help?" she asks after a moment.