Dinner- first day of spring semester

[Kahlen Jeanne Nox]

Kahlen left her bags in the entry hall and headed into the dining hall. Her stomach rumbled in agreement.

Kahlen immediately went up to the food and loaded her tray with the usual spaghetti and cup of tea. She headed towards a table near the middle of the hall and sat down, putting Mikhail on the table so he could eat some pellets.

She looked around for the professors, wondering if there would be any new ones.

[Damien Griffiths]

Already in the dining hall was Damien, dressed in thick jeans and a sweater over a T-shirt. He looked a bit miserable. He'd gotten some hot food, and several cups of boiling hot tea, which he'd had three of already. He waved over at Kahlen to join him.

[Mellianne Joss]

Mellianne entered the dining hall after Kahlen and looked at the selections, trying to decide what she wanted for dinner. She decided on a chicken fried steak, fries, a small salad, and chocolate cake. As she hadn't had a chance to grab soda yet, she took a bottle of water and wandered towards Damien. "Hello. Have a good winter break?"

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

Once Less Than Beta got his food (steak and butter-laden potatoes, as usual), he immediately went over to the table with Damien and Mellianne. "There are new faces here," he said by way of greeting. To Damien he added, "And you look sick. What has happened?"

[Damien Griffiths]

"Winter is what happened. It's too bloody cold in winter. No matter where I go, it just drains the heat right out of me." He picked up one of the boiling hot cups of tea and swung it back in a single gulp. Any normal person would be blistered and boiled inside, unable to even scream for help, but Damien just shuddered. "Too bloody cold." He swung back another cup.

[Mellianne Joss]

Mellianne blinked. She was fairly certain that the liquid in the cup had been steaming. She hadn't done heat manipulation before, but she decided that she would try to learn how to by next winter. Damien looked horrible. Plus maybe if she could do that, she could manage to figure out how to play in the water even if it was freezing cold.

[Tane Matthewson]

Tane trails in a moment later, and takes a deep sniff. "Ahhhh, kai!" he says, grinning, and immediately approaches the food. He loads up with steak, baked potatoes, greens, and an unhealthy soft drink.

[Parum Callidus Diabolus]

Parum was looking at the food. She had been thinking to herself that eating healthy was important, and she didn't want to gain weight.

Luckily, she remembered she was a demon, and thus it didn't really matter what she ate.

She quickly placed steak, fries, mashed potatoes, cheesecake, and a cup of coffee on her tray and sat down at an empty table.

[Professor Xia Yang]

Yang walked into the dining hall. He smelled the air and rubbed his stomach. He would prefer a home-cooked meal, but he was hungry, and he wasn't going home anytime soon.

Yang took a tray and walked over to the selection. He picked out steak, mashed potatoes, mixed veggies, cheesecake, and, of course, a straight cup of joe.

[William Jason Fredericks]

Groundsman Fredericks shuffled into the dining hall, tucking a small hatchet behind his belt as he does. Without looking up he grabed some food and heads to a table in the far corner of the hall. He ate in silence, occasionally glancing up past his non-existent eyebrows to scan the hall.

[Beau Boudreaux]

Beau wandered into the dining hall, his stomach noticably grumbling. He looked around, grabbed two trays and piled food onto both. He noticed a few other students who looked like first years and made a beeline for them. "Hey yall! My name Beau Boudreaux. Dis my firs' time at dis Dymphna." He smiled broadly as he set down his trays. "Woo boy dey sure set a mmm good table here. Not like dis in da Bayou. So what be yalls names? What you do dat got choo in dis place anyhow?" He began to eat surprisingly politely as he looked at Damien, Mellianne, and Less.

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

Though Less couldn't understand all of what the boy had said, he recognized that he wanted to know their names and why they were there. "I am Less Than Beta of the East Tundra pack," he said as he took a forkful of potatoes. "I am here to learn about human social customs and norms so that I may take on Negotiator's role when she dies, though that won't be for quite a while."

[Beau Boudreaux]

Beau swallowed his most recent bite and looked at Less. "Da East Tundra? So what you can do? What do Negotiator do?" He stopped as a somewhat sheepish look came across his face. "I sorree, don't mean to pry. Dis jus' my firs' time out da Bayou. I jus' curious."

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

"Negotiator stays in contact with the villagers to make sure they don't mistake us for real wolves and shoot us," Less explained. He didn't mind prying questions, but he did mind only being able to understand a few words in every sentence. He hadn't understood the second-to-last one at all.

[Beau Boudreaux]

"Real wolves? What choo mean? I don't see no wolves..."

[Shihab]

Shihab walked in, glad he'd finally found the place-- his stomach had started growlilng irritably, as he hadn't had anything to eat since he'd left Egypt. Loading his plate with chicken, potatoes, vegetables, and fruit, he paused, and as an afterthought, grabbed a bottle of water, before sitting down a few seats away from the already-established group, listening and trying to look like he wasn't.

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

"Wolves that aren't weres," Less explained. "I'd shift here, but I've noticed that tends to scare people." He took an unusually large bite of steak and spent some time chewing it noisily.

[Beia Meiling]

Beia walked in and headed to the food counter. Her travels had left her hungry, though her food choices weren't all that appealing. "Hmm, the salad looks good, these noodle things are alright, tea was substandard....and cake!" she squealed quietly. They rarely had cake at the mansion, even then, it was always gone before she got any. She sat down at an empty table and commenced eating. Her attempt to use forks as chopsticks ended in failure, though was quite amusing to watch.

[Beau Boudreaux]

"Is you a 'onest ta goodness werewolf? Dat's da coolest ding I ever heard!" Beau looks at Less with genuine interest "You change anytime o' jus' da full moon?"

[Professor Xia Yang]

Yang was drinking his coffee when he noticed Beia struggling with her utensils. Picking up his tray, he walked over to the Youkai and sat beside her.

"These might help you," he said and produced a pair of chopsticks from his sleeves.

[Destiny Valencia Everett]

Destiny dropped into a seat with two glasses of milk and three hamburgers. She wolfed the first one down before she even looked at anyone else, then gulped down half a glass of milk.

With her stomach feeling much less like it was trying to digest itself, she looked up at the students around her. She hadn't realized how much she felt at home here.

[Kahlen Jeanne Nox]

Kahlen had joined Damien, Mellianne, and Less at their table. She set Mikhail down and he resumed his munching.

She listened to Less' coversation with a new boy. She found the conversation about werewolves amusing, because she was in the same boat that didn't know about werewolves.

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

"Anytime at all," Less answered after he swallowed his chunk of steak. He was finally starting to get the hang of the other's accent. "I'm not reliant on the full moon, and I still don't get why people think silver's a good metal for weapons. Are you full human?"

[Destiny Valencia Everett]

Destiny's curiosity had gotten the better of her; and since other people seemed to be asking questions-- "Less? What's it like to be a wolf?"

A slender tabby cat had insinuated itself under the table. Destiny surreptitiously tore off a chunk of hamburger and threw it to the feline, who pinned it down with a paw and began her own meal.

[Beia Meiling]

Beia smiled at Yang but pushed his offer back with her hands. "It's ok, I will have to learn how to use these...exotic utensils sometime. Might as well be now." She looked out to other students for an example, giving a overly dramatic dumbfounded look. "Is....is it really that simple?" She asked Yang, nodding to the other students eating.

[Professor Xia Yang]

Yang sliced a piece of his steak off and ate it.

"It is."

[Beau Boudreaux]

Beau answered Less earnestly, his handsome face beaming. "Oh I 'uman all da way through. Nuttin' too special...I just strong, heal good, and I got da juju. Oh, and I luckee too."

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

Less scraped his plate with his fork in a futile attempt to get more potatoes to appear. "Strong. I can move things I wouldn't be able to in human form. You do not have words for the smells, so that is hard to describe. Everything has a different... flavor to it. Me switching to wolf form is like a human turning the lights on. I cannot see colors well, though."

[Mellianne Joss]

Mellianne was slowly, ever so slowly, starting to sink towards the table. Her lack of caffeine was taking it's toll again. She didn't even notice when someone had asked her her name.

[Destiny Valencia Everett]

"And you hunt things," Destiny said. "Like Tigger does. She hunts mice and she's really good at it. She brings me some, sometimes, except I don't eat mice." Destiny giggled. "Tigger's silly," she said, glancing at the tabby under the table.