CLOUD ACADEMY discussion

a very well-groomed garden, with both flowers and a variety of fruits and vegetables for the kitchen. it's quite beautiful, but nobody knows who maintains it.

Danny had taken a seat on one of the stone benches around the gardens, twirling a pen between her fingers. This math homework was kicking her ass. She knew she'd been taught the formula, but she didn't remember it, and so she racked her brain for what it could possibly be. Something with a lot of letters, a weird amount of letters for a subject that was mostly number-based. Math had always been weird like that. She nodded her head up and down to the beat of her music, which was clearly audible through the shitty earbuds she treasured so much.

Kieryn walked in through the entrance. She spots someone sitting at a table. Great. Maybe she should go back to the library... But no. She wasn't going to allow one person, actually, two, to ruin her day. Kieryn watches her from behind a rosebush. She gets bored and looks at the flowers. She spots her favorite, a morning glory, hanging off a fence.

Danny closed her eyes, still nodding to her music. She sang along under her breath, but she only knew so many of the words and had to just hum for the parts she didn't know. She hadn't realized she wasn't alone yet. The garden had been completely empty when she'd arrived. She took a glance up from her homework to see Jasmine peering at her through the roses. "Oh! Hi!" Danny pulled out one of her earbuds, waving to the girl with a cheerful smile. She seemed friendly enough.

Kieryn dropped a morning glory flower and sighed. Time to actually talk to someone. "Hello," she said, taking a seat at Danny's table.

Danny grinned. "Hey! I'm Danny, you?" She was pretty well-liked among the younger years, seen as something of a big sister figure to everyone. She wasn't sure she'd seen Kieryn before, but she didn't mind. Meeting new people was fun for her.

"I'm Kieryn. Nice to meet you," Kieryn said. She had noticed this girl around campus, helping other kids, but so far hadn't known her name. After her ordeal about age in the library, she wasn't sure how to deal with this older kid.

"Good to meet you too!" Danny closed her notebook and set it back in her bag, giving her full attention to Keiryn. "Do you need help with something, or you just hanging out?" She was pretty used to people coming up to her asking for help with stuff, but she didn't want to assume.

"I'm just looking at the flowers," Kieryn said, her gaze floating back to the morning glories. She remembered her adoptive mother introducing them to her...
"Look here, Kieryn. These flowers are called morning glories." Kieryn glanced at them. "They're pretty." She picked one. Her mother smiled at her. "They are pretty, but wild. They can overgrow fences and knock them down. That's why I like them. They are pretty, but wild. Just like you..."
Kieryn blinked. She shoved the memory to the back of her mind.

((Hello? It's been quite a while since you posted... Are you dead?))

(not dead sorry lol)

Danny nodded slowly, not quite sure how to respond to that. Of course, that was what people mostly did out here, but it wasn't a ton to go off of conversation-wise. "Cool, cool," She nodded. "Good to get outside early, you know? I think it might rain soon, I felt a few droplets..."

"I like the rain." Kieryn's gaze floated to the paper on the table. "Math homework?"
((THANKS!))

Danny sighed. "Ah. Yeah. I know how to do it, it's just tedious." She tucked the paper into her bag - out of sight, out of mind. "Letters and shit. Boring, right? I'll get it done." She was usually one to offer help, but accepting it from other people was a whole different story.

"I can help." Kieryn sighed. What was wrong with her today? Usually, she was the LAST person to offer help.

"Nah, it's alright. I can figure it out. I know all the stuff, I just have to remember it." Danny smiled sheepishly. She didn't have anything against Kieryn - she actually liked the girl - but she didn't really want help from anyone. If she couldn't do it on her own, she just needed to try harder. That's what her parents would've said.

"Uh, okay. Sorry. Um, I'm not sorry. What?" Kieryn scratched her head, confused.

"I don't need help." Danny clarified with a self-conscious laugh. She looked around at all the flowers, trying to think of a way to change the subject. "So, you're a first-year, right? Who's your favorite teacher?"

"Didn't feel like going to any of my classes," Kieryn says. She frowns.

Danny blinked. "None of them? Don't you get in trouble for that?" She seemed more than a little shocked. Her expression quickly turned to one of almost motherly disapproval. "You should be careful about skipping. It's your first year, if you miss out on learning the basics then it'll be even harder to learn it next year."

"Yeah, yeah. I get it." Kieryn sighed and pushed her minty hair over her shoulder. "It's not like I'm the best at school."

"It's not always about trying to be the best," Danny said - ironic, seeing as that was what she was doing constantly, although that was personal and she didn't see how it applied to the situation so it didn't matter right now. "But if you get all those bad habits now, you won't be able to break them later. Some of the classes are fun! Like parkour." She gave the younger girl a warm smile. "I'm also always here if you need help with stuff!"

"Parkour?" Now Kieryn was excited. "No one told me about that class!"

"Yeah, parkour!" Danny nodded, sharing the other girl's excitement. "There's a bunch of cool classes. Combat, stealth, codes... it wouldn't be a spy school if it was all normal classes, yknow?" She laughed. "Combat's one of my favorites, but that might just be me. Also, two of the instructors for that class have super intense beef with each other and it gets brought up at least once a day. It's fun to watch."

"Neat... You're right. I won't skip tomorrow," Kieyrn promised. She was re-thinking her decision to skip all the cool classes.