After a month of being a student at Wyndham College, Mona had started to feel a bit more comfortable in her skin. She had gotten used to her Wyndham routine; wake up to an alarm, brush her teeth, brush her hair, and when she first arrived at school, she never put on makeup, she just always naturally looked like she had done a bit of clean girl concealer with eyes and lips. Now, though, she would sometimes wear a bit of mascara, because it was what she saw on the new tv shows that she watched from her dorm room. That was another thing that Desdémona had gotten used to since her arrival at the school; there was nothing much to do on weekdays, no animals to talk to and play her yard games with, no pets to feed aside from Kiki. She didn’t have the chores that she had back on the farm either, like cooking dinner or cleaning with the maid.
Considering the tranquil, rustic lifestyle that she had always lived, one would imagine that in her spare time, the girl would pick up books, but she did not, choosing to spend her time with nature instead. At her prestigious university, she tried to read because she was supposed to. She would roll around on her bed trying to get into a position comfortable enough for her to read from, but it seemed that her positioning was never the issue. It was… the sentences. They were often very long, with big, stretchy words that were sometimes too academic for her to understand. One could say that she did not try hard enough, but she really did, as hard as she had tried to memorize the names of the students and history of the ninth house. For some reason, however, her attempts were all proven futile. When she read to Thalia or studied information to recite to her peers, she did it perfectly fine, but doing so for herself? It made her feel stumped, like anything done exclusively for her own benefit would just be counterproductive.
That was her reason for watching films instead, and sometimes bringing with her some snacks to lay beside Kiki’s small green body, her chest contracting and expanding as they sat together. She helped Desdemona not feel so lonely when her friends were occupied. She used to eat only healthy things when she was sedentary, as Mom and Dad had perscribed, But as time passed by, the control they consciously had over the girl was beginning to dwindle. She had not realized it yet, but some of the choices she was making now, she did not even think of them, only her new life. As well as they had raised her, she was not a robot coded to follow their every command, and her condition was delicate; easily stained by new feelings that she discovered or topics she had not spoken of. Time would continue to tell whether or not it was wise of her to be forgetting Mom and Dad.
On the day of the scavenger hunt, Desdemona had gone about her little routine before breakfast, and before leaving, had decided to spend an abnormal time admiring the looking glass, thinking that if she looked at it long enough, she might begin to know herself.
She had changed into her outfit of the day. It was a creamy-greenish dress with a small floral pattern, as flowers reminded her of home, and it fit her form quite well, save for the places where her brown cardigan covered it as she had to be just a bit modest, and very cute.
It had become apparent to her that she had a very proportional figure. Her waist was impeccably small, and her hips were wide enough so that they seemed to sway a bit when she walked. Her back profile was apparently also fairly attractive, with a plump, full buttocks that made some of the male students look at her for what her friends said was too long, but she had never thought about it that way. Personally, she had never perceived her flat stomach as anything out of the ordinary, and her butt just made for comfortable sitting. The way that the people of their society perceived each other was very odd, in her opinion, valuing each other based on specific features that just sounded like more of a list than actual people. When she felt attraction herself, another new feeling, it was inexplicable. She almost preferred it that way, along with life in general. It takes from the sincerity of life to measure it with cups, because a measurement is conducted by the mind, and a moment is experienced by the spirit. It would be rude to interrupt the spirit, and it would be bleak to replace vision by algorithm.
Desdemona was content with her fantasies, keeping words to a minimum because she did not need language to understand what mattered most, but most importantly because if she had read the books that she tried to entertain herself with, she would have been crushed with just one scene. The clouds surrounding her headspace muffled sounds of violence.
During her first month at the ninth house, she had made a few friends during free times where Thalia was busy, or they had simply taken a day off. Sometimes she would see the other new girl at monday campfires, say hi to her while she walked around with the other Cipher students, and she had recently become interested in the girl that she caught Thalia glancing at far too many times, or rather… wondered why that could be, although she did not comment on it. In a very short period of time, she had met many people. One could say that she was even becoming… popular.
She did not expect people to pay attention to her, but Mona supposed it was logical that they did. She was friendly and very extroverted, often making plans to see her friends around the campus when classes ended. She was also innocent, assuming everyone to be a good person, easily amused, with some (many) people-pleasing tendencies. And the most obvious thing was that she was beautiful, with the delicate, feminine features of a pinup doll, like her small nose, and big, dreamy eyes.
One of the most memorable encounters she had as a new student was with Dominic, or as he introduced himself, Nic. They had met September 5th, the following day after even from her Cipher dorm room she heard rioting and other male noises from the Umbra suite, from the early part of the night when she was with Thalia to the late hours when she was trying to sleep. Dominic had been in one of the two altercations that occurred, telling Desdémona in the garden that he had been mostly healed already, but was still a bit sore. It was a Tuesday, so the groups had been mixed up in their afternoon core classes. Desdémona and Dominic had been placed at the same time with Professor Novik, who had decided to take the class out to the gardens for Ninth House Chronicles. Sitting in the grass, closing his eyes from the brightness of the sunlight, he had reluctantly told her parts of what he remembered. Of course, she offered to use her healing powers to make him feel just a little better, and he accepted. Since then, she considered them to be something like friends.
For that reason, she saw no problem approaching him.
After she had finished her long gaze in the mirror, Desdemona walked through the dark oak wood corridor, lit by a combination of sconces and daylight, and then trotted down the long flight of stairs that would lead her to her breakfast. On the bottom floor, she could see the rustling trees outside each window, like the building was a butterfly spine and the forest it’s wings. Her small, Mary jane-like heels clicked under her feet, and she directed herself to the dining hall, entering the grand, open doors that curved at the top, lined by a lintel shaped like an arch. Inside the hall, students were assembling their buffet meals, and some had already gotten their breakfast. Some of the people at the tables sat down, and others stood, one leg propped up on the bench like ill-mannered Umbra brothers. Perhaps she should have been eating with Thalia, but the girl had not asked, and so Desdémona did not mind her absence.
“Hi, Mona!” A girl called out to her as she walked past. “Oh… hi,” she replied shyly, as she had been focused on her wonders as to where to sit.
At the corner of a table, she saw him, it was the boy she had healed, with fair skin, and dark, acute features. He dressed in a very remarkable way, like he was very serious, and probably always cold, considering his trench coats. Desdemona smiled when she saw him, and decided to walk over before she thought about food with quick steps. “Nic!” She beamed, “Can I join you for breakfast?”
There was a bright hope in her eyes, holding her breath because she could not exhale until he said yes.
@viiel.x Dominic