the gauntlet discussion

Cassandra had made it her goal to explore the majority of the academy on her first day so she could not be surprised by anything -- though it was probably against the rules, her family members had sent home letters about this place and the many secrets it actually hid. And the impromtu competitions they liked to throw in student's faces at any and all hours. So, Cassie figured it couldn't hurt to know where everything was just in case it would come in handy later. Not for her sake of course, but for Nora's. Who she had just happened to drag into a creepy looking hall with what looked like at least 100 pictures, if not more, hanging on the wall.

"Oh jesus, my cousin told me about this place but I thought he was lying. They actually have a picture of everyone single person in the year here?! And look, someone already has an X on their face what is that all about? It hasn't even been like a full day, who could have possibly already died?" she looked over at Nora in disbelief, walking over to the picture with the X to see if there were any details. "Do you think it's real? Wait, do you think we're up on the wall?"

Of course Cassie had dragged Nora along. Nora had wanted to go to the cafeteria and maybe get some training done, but nope, Cass had insisted they go gallivanting around the school and get the layout. Which wasn't the worst idea in the world. But now that they were here in this hallway? Nora really wished they were still in the cafeteria, that she was eating another stack of those pancakes. "They could have dropped out. That's another reason for the X. Maybe they never showed up or something." After all, Nora had read the entire student handbook at least twice already, and she'd also read a couple different books on the Academy. She had to be prepared after all.

"I'm sure we would have heard if someone had already died...." Or been killed. That was a possibility too. Nora had read a statistic that 40% of all academy fatalities occurred outside of the official tests and were written off as training accidents. More like someone decided to crush someone else with a weight. "Oh, I'm sure we are....do you think they used decent pictures?" and suddenly it was imperative they find their own portraits, because if everyone was going to be checking these weekly for rankings? Well....what if she looked horrible? Was blinking or something? Had crusty crap in her eye?

Of course there was probably a logical reason that there was an X, but being that Cassie was incredibly distrustful of this entire place, was she thinking rationally about anything? For goodness sake, they were giving up pancakes for this. Pancakes! But it was necessary, if Ainsley was like anything her family members had tried to make her believe, they were in a run for their money. And there was a good chance they could die before the Gauntlet just as easily as they could die in it.

"I'm sure they used the pictures that was a requirement in the application? Nora... how many of them did you send?" by the way her friend was frantically running down the length of the hall looking for her picture, she guessed there had been multiple, and Nora had to know that they had picked the best one out of the lot. Though Cass was pretty sure there was no possible way any of them had been awful enough to warrant running down a deserted hallway. "Nora, slow down! You're gonna' get us kicked out of here or something." she wasn't sure if this part of the campus was technically open yet, they hadn't seen anyone else in a while.

Nora did not send an unreasonable amount of pictures with her application. She had only sent.... seven? Maybe like nine tops. Okay, so it was definitely eleven, but that was the truth. And now she was determined to see just which one they had put up there, what if they'd used some completely random one they got from her old yearbooks or something? So she continued back down the hallway, ignoring the fact that Cassie had been left a little ways behind. Yeah there was no way she was going to leave this hallway without making sure that her picture was- Ah-ha! There it was.

"Oh. I suppose that one isn't...awful. I mean it's not great, I definitely think there were others that were better, but I mean it's not awful," At that point the little blondie turned back towards her friend, a curious brow rose towards her. "Did you find yours? And I don't think we can get kicked out of here. I mean a healthy curiosity was one of my best qualities I put on my application, and it's not like we're destroying anything, we're just checking out the competition. It's smart. Did you see that guy with the shaved head? He looked intimidating," definitely the kind of guy that Nora and Cassie would have to look out for.

When Cass finally caught up to her friend, she almost had to roll her eyes at the disappointment she showed at her lovely picture. She could have passed for a supermodel in a makeup ad, honestly! She didn't even want to know what her picture looked like, to be honest she couldn't remember which one she had sent. "I don't really want to look for mine, not yet at least. We can come back after they post the first stats... at night though, so we don't seem super eager. Or meet anyone else that is super eager, like the beefy guys."

Cassandra looked at picture, wrinkling her nose in distaste. Was than an actual face tattoo? Like people actually did that? "I wonder if there's anyone that went to our school that's here besides us..." she walked along the hall a little bit of a ways, wondering just how many probably over Estalia she could possibly have encountered before. She recognized no one... except, "Jesus, is that seriously Mitchell Raemer? And oh my gosh, his brother is here too! How could people compete against their siblings?! How is it even worth it? This place is insane, Nora. I told you this was a mistake."

If only Nora had any idea what Cassie was thinking she easily would have corrected her friend's thoughts. After all no one wanted to be super pretty in their picture, Nora had been going for sort of aloof. Intimidating in that 'i don't care about anything' kind of way. Definitely not what that picture conveyed. "Oh c'mon Cassie, I'm sure you look flawless. You always do you have those big long lashes and you always look great like some kind of princess or something." Of course she meant that in the best way, and her lips were pulled into a smile as she said it. "Oh yes, obviously we don't want to deal with those beefy guys or those super eager girls."

Because what a shame that would be. To seem like you actually cared- oh the horror.

"It's not insane. After all you're here. That means you're part of the crazy, sweet-cheeks." So you know, best to stop thinking this place was so silly and wild and crazy. Because now Cassie was just as much a part of it as Nora was. "Mitchell's pretty cute though and his brother is too. So at least we know there are two cute boys here, that aren't like girl haters or anything. Fair competition and all that," Which was better than everything else, after all Nora was tired of this 'girls are the weaker sex' bullshit that everyone was being shoved down their throats.

Just because Cassie was here did not mean she would be buying into anything that they were trying to brainwash them with here, like honestly if she dropped out or left early it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Her mom would expect it, most likely. They probably had bets or something on how long Cassandra would last -- but it didn't matter, as long as Nora was here, so was Cass. "I'm not part of the crazy, trust me, no one is selling me into any of this crap, and pretty soon you'll see it just the way I do, just watch."

Nora would be focused on the fact that there was cute boys. But it was kind of an interesting thought, "You know, this is the first year the school had gone coed, how many people to you think are gonna' hook up? If no one does, it's probably going to be a pretty long year." she mentioned, glancing back at the picture of Mitchell and his brother. They weren't really her type, neither of them were. "I like the looks of that one, maybe?" she said, pointing at a boy with bright blue eyes. "Oh jesus christ his last name is Moss. Do you think he has an affinity for Earth because that would be incredibly ironic."

"Oh please, it's not crazy to want to win the Gauntlet. Everyone wants to win. Even some part of you wants to win and you can't fool me," Nora even went so far as to stick out her tongue at her best friend before her lips twisted up into that classic half smile of hers. "Oh definitely, boys being around girls and all this training barely any supervision? Co-Ed bathrooms? I'll be surprised if there aren't at least two accidental pregnancies by the end of the year. All this competitive tension is bound to lead to hook ups. And people get horny, so why not relieve that stress." Sex was no big deal to Nora after all, it was just part of life. Everyone had it. And she was certain everyone here would be having it too.

Oh ho ho. What was this? Cassie liked the looks of that one? What was his name, Nora actually made sure that she peeked over and read that fools name. Daniel Moss. Well Danny boy, prepare yourself, cause Nora Greene was going after your ass and making sure that there was at least one hook up this year: Cassie and Danny Boy. Obviously. See, Nora was nothing if not a good friend and the true mark of a great friend was being that person who set your friend up with other people. You had to make sure that your friend got the hotties. "That would be ironic. I bet you could find out. Cassie Moss, cute ring huh?"

Cassandra laughed loudly, and it rang down the hall -- this seemed like a place that had never heard laughter before, everything about this hall was creepy. She immediately stopped laughing, but she hadn't completely lost her smile. "I don't think I've ever seen someone 9 months pregnant try to run the Gauntlet, I wonder if they would make the girl and her baby a Guardian." she wrinkled her nose at the very thought. Of course the entire idea of that was ridiculous. The Gauntlet was brutal as hell, there would be no one a girl would be crazy enough to run pregnant and risk injuring her child like that. There had to be rules against it.

After all the years she had been friends with Nora, she should have known better. Of course to Cass it was just a simple comment about a boy not looking half bad, but to Nora, it was a declaration of something far greater. She should have noticed the look in her friend's eyes, but of course, Cassie was oblivious and continued to joke around with her friend. Because you know, she thought it was a joke. "I don't need to marry him to figure out his element, Nora, I could probably just ask him?" she rolled her eyes, continuing to walk down the row of pictures. Maybe if she could see them as actual people with real fears she wouldn't feel so scared about all of this. "Dude, this guy is a VanKent, that's not even fair!"

Nora laughed at Cassie's clever little quips, skin around her blue eyes wrinkling as she shook her head. "you're awful, you know that? A baby as a Guardian? Oh how the riots would start. Ainsley would start taking in three year olds and forcing them to run the gauntlet," Already the Academy was accepting girls, something they never would have done before. What happened when a pig won the Gauntlet? Would they start accepting all animals or just pigs? And really, Cassie was off her game today if she didn't see that manipulative gleam in her best friend's eyes. Because c'mon, as if Nora would think this was just a joke. Boys were never a joke when it involved her best friend Cassie. "A VanKent? And that girl down the hall was a Bronte. Guess we really have our competition cut out for us huh?" Not that Nora was worried. Legacies like that had failed before, and she was sure that she could prove herself.

Cassie had a lot more faith in the legacies than Nora seemed to, just because they had failed before didn't mean they would now. Just knowing that they were legacies meant that they were training basically since birth, and they probably didn't even need the academy because what else could they possibly have to learn? Nothing, that's what. Or at least that's how Cass saw it, bleak as hell was always her form of optimism. "Whatever I'm done looking at all of this stuff, I'm ready to go. Lets go get some more pancakes, if that's what you want to do, I just don't want to think about all of these people anymore, imagining how many of them are probably going to die in that stupid race. And all the ones who don't even have academy training? Ugh, come on."