Moving In

@"Paksimadi"

Zati was definitely an... energetic teacher. She seemed nice, though, and that was the more important part. Charlie was glad she'd come across that janitorial closet in time. Wait, were plastic kettles really unconventional?

It was magic land. Of course regular electrical things were unconventional. He could let Zati think whatever she liked about them. It hardly hurt Char.

She kept cleaning while Zati collected the water, and then approached to see the tea. "Uh, I don't really know much about tea, so I guess you can pick." And maybe explain the reading thing-

Zati was in his face. Oookay. "I honestly have no clue what's involved or what comes of a tea reading," she admitted.

@"Paksimadi"

Being used to college quality, rather than establish household quality, Charlie honestly didn't even notice if the kettle was on the cheap side. If it worked, then that was enough. It wasn't something to get worked up over.

He quickly cleaned her hands (using the back of his hoodie, but then she hadn't been leaning against anything weird). Well, Zati was both the teacher and the... tea leaf reading expert. Definitely in comparison to Char. He scooped out some leaves, trying to get roughly the same amount as Zati had - yeah yeah she hadn't made tea this way before - and honestly kind of just dumped them in. It wasn't a complete dump, but he wasn't really inclined to spend five minutes letting the little dried bits slip into the cup.

The water was the easy part. Char just poured some on until the cup was mostly full.

@"Paksimadi"

This was quickly getting weirder and weirder. Down the rabbit hole, only Char was still sitting in the half-cleaned-and-entirely-unpacked office. Well, if the tea was magic the power was in the leaves. He hadn't seen anything strange.

Zati... wanted her to talk? Well, he supposed he might as well. "It's a lot to adjust to," she said to start. "I'm not exactly an academic. I didn't grow up on fairy tails and fantastic creatures. Maybe when I was really little, but definitely not after I broke my ankle trying to fly - twice." He snorted at the memory. "My parents never let me forget that idiocy, even after they divorced." She was getting into life story mode, not opinion-of-this-place mode. "Anyway, point is that I haven't heard of most of the... types of people and stuff here, much less believed in it before. Kind of a learning curve."

He gave his cup a little swirl, watching the steam twist and turn in the air, dancing only the way tiny things could on the breeze. That flight wasn't for anything else. She sipped. Still hot, but as he had proven before getting her letter, heat didn't really love to destroy her. The tea didn't seem relaxed to him. It felt like it was fighting to escape, trying to get into the air and just... fly away.

"I haven't really met any students here yet. I've done a bit of exploring, but I've spent most of my free time running. I always have. Makes it easier not to stare whenever I come across something new, I guess." She could glance and look back at his path, and let her pace push away those vague wonderings about why he was even here.

"I really don't know what to think of my so-called latent powers. I'm really not special, unless you count preferring to run ten kilometres over studying for a tiny quiz or something." She sighed. "I mean, I get that this is all real - I agreed to come here, and I'm here now, and I trust my eyes well enough - but it just feels like I'm stuck waiting. I don't even really know what I'm waiting for, just some vague 'power.'"

@"Paksimadi"

Where Zati belonged?

Char didn't know if he belonged here. No less than he'd belonged anywhere else, though. Belonging honestly wasn't something she was very familiar with. People said it, and told him she belonged, but it had never really... fit.

This place was so otherworldly, as Zati put it, that it seemed impossible for him to belong here at all. But once - if - his powers showed up, he definitely wouldn't fit in anywhere else. If someone had gone around with weird, truly inexplicable magic in her home town, they probably would've been shot by sundown, if not strung up and burned as a witch.

Well, maybe not quite that dramatic, but the reception would have been that sort of warmth. Dangerous and unwelcome.

The thought of layers of memories, clinging and cloying and choking, was similarly unwelcome. Char shivered and glanced around. It felt as full of memories as any old office - touched, yes, but about as full as a colander of water. Well, maybe something thicker. Freshly mixed jello, maybe, before it had a chance to set. He glanced around again. Yeah, there had been people there before, but it mostly felt like it was... waiting. Sleeping.

Yes yes, focus. Like many things that could be said, easier said than done. What was her future? He hadn't the foggiest idea. If her future was lost in mist, then he was standing on a mountain and all the fog was down on the prairies a hundred klicks away. Still, she made a vague attempt to visualize that mess of indiscernible cloud rolling up, like a too-poofy sleeping bag that somehow had to make it back into the tiny bag it had come out of, and pouring down into the cup.

It was a pretty ridiculous exercise, but finishing it had let enough time pass for him to down the tea and mostly not grimace at the bitterness. There. Now what?

@"Paksimadi"

Char wasn't too bad at following directions, overall, and the newest round was simple enough. He was very experienced with breathing, since air management was kind of a thing for athletes and she spent a lot of time running at different rates. The worries thing was a bit weirder, but he just visualized a box with 'WORRIES' scrawled on the side with sharpie - conveniently folded closed - and then imagined booting it out the window.

Goal.

She slid the tealess cup across the desk to Zati. "You're the expert here. I'll let you decide where this goes." However much decision was involved in that.