Don't touch my stuff. (Mia)

[Elin Nyström]

Elin sat by herself at a table; her class work from that day sorted neatly around her. She began working on what she knew she would be good at: Foreign Language. It helped that she was fluent in three. She started writing, in perfect cursive, the translations for French. Her eyes caught someone moving around the edges of the table. They were staring at her papers. She stopped writing. Don't touch my stuff, She thought. But of course, they did. They had grabbed up her Algebra homework; it was half finished.

“What do you want?” Elin asked the other student.

“Nothing. Everything looks too perfect, it annoys me,” the boy replied.

She didn’t respond; just looked down, fingers tightening around her pen. She wanted him to put her tings back. Instead he tossed them across the table, scattering them and other papers around them. A few flew off the table and floated to the ground. Elin took in a sharp breath. The boy laughed and walked away, leaving her in a panicked state.

She went for the papers on the ground first. After they had been gathered she set them on they table with a sigh and began sorting.

[Mia Keystone]

Mia had been minding her own business, well, in a way. Sure, she was in the process of writing a detailed dossier on one Chase Kilbourne, but in so far as looking for trouble she was totally minding her business. So when she glanced away from the search engine she'd just finished programming to see a kid start messing with some blonde chick's homework, her first instint was to just roll her eyes and let them do their thing.

But it was a bit off, just how unok the girl was with the situation. Her hands were trembling and her mouth was a tight line. It was just homework, geeze... But still, it was enough that when the boy looked over his should and started to turn around, Mia sighed and stood up.

"Hey, McMormich," she said pleasantly, "You touch her stuff again, and you'll be left to wonder why your mom is asking about the photos of animals fucking that she's been sent from you're phone." she grinned, her eyes bright and hard. "Now fuck off, before I upgrade my ideas."

It looked for a moment like the kid was going to throw something back, but one of his friends nudged him and shook his head. Mia had something of a reputation; mysterious computer viruses, random calls from hookers, and that one time in her first year where she sent a kid to hospital... it was enough to get most people to bugger off.

Mia shooed the retreating guys away, then turned around and with a raise eyebrow, and in a not so friendly voice, asked "any reason that's flipping you out so much? You have the formula for eternal youth in there or something?"

[Elin Nyström]

Elin looked up at the girl who was able to get those awful guys to go away. It took her a moment to translate on to her native language, create a response and reply in English.

“Thanks for that. I have no secrets here, only my homework. I just like things to be neat,” she said as her hands skittered across the table, rearranging the stacks of paper.

She had never seen the girl before; then again she hadn’t seen many people here, having just transferred. Elin took another look at the girl. She had shorter black hair and dark eyes; she also seemed not to be the friendliest of sorts. Elin looked back down at her work.

“Thanks,” she said again.

[Mia Keystone]

Mia frowned, absentmindedly chewing on her lip rings as she watched the girl still stack her things perfectly. It reminded her a bit of how she must look when she started working on a program or code, or when she was trying to rewire something. Or when she heard the beginning of something and not the end. It was not ok, the world could very well end it if wasn't done right. She had an accent too.

"You're new," Mia said, not asked. She knew faces, she knew all the faces, but she didn't know this one. Yet. "And you're foreign." Her mind started sorting out possibilities, even as she sent herself a message to check the lists for any new transfers to the dorms. "That's pretty cool." Mia sank into the seat opposite the girl; she seemed kind of interesting, besides Mia couldn't leave now until she knew where she was from.

Everyone has their little ticks, after all.

"I'm Mia," she said finally.

[Elin Nyström]

Finally Elin’s things were stacked neatly. She sighed in relief. This girl was the first person to actually have a conversation with her for the first week she’d been at Hammel. Elin nodded as the girl noted she was new as well as foreign. At the mention of her foreign status she flashed to her family’s home in Sweden.

The day her father announced that they would be moving to the United States. She sat with her mother and little sister, Elsa who had just turned 3. Elin was home from Kocher on a two-week break. She was excited about experiencing a new culture, though slightly confused about what she was to do about her schooling.

“But Pappa, what about school? I’ve only three years of training and am no where near ready to graduate,” Elin questioned.

“You may have to stay at Kocher ‘min kära flicka’. Unless the school would be able to find a way for you to study abroad,” Niklas said to his daughter.

Three weeks later she found herself moving into the dorms at the Hammel Institute. Goodness, how her life had changed.

“Elin, nice to meet you.” she said to Mia.

Things might not be as bad here as she thought.