Issue 1 Downtime

Mahua had been shopping as evidenced by the several bags she had with her. She stopped in at a bakery and was spending some time peering into cases, trying to figure out what she wanted.

Kay walked in behind her, apparently not noticing the teacher as she walks past her to buy some donut-like things.

Hearing a familiar voice, Mahua turns to look. "I guess I'm not the only one with a sweet tooth today."

"Oh!" Kay says, fumbling with the bag of sweets she's being handed. "Hi... Yeah... I guess." she smiles awkwardly.

"Have any recommendations? I'm not sure what to get."

"Oh, uhm, the bearclaw-like thingies are pretty good? I think?" she mumbles.

"Is something wrong?" She asked, noting the mumbling.

"Oh no no, everything's fine!" she smiles. God, you're acting like a spaz.

"If you say so," she said, adjusting her glasses. "Have you been keeping busy?"

"Yeah, mostly classes and stuff. We had, like, an orientation class about Molly being a vampire. Is that really true?"

"As far as I can tell, yes. I probably don't know much more about it than you do."

She nods.

"I'm just worried cause I don't think she likes me very much..."

"I think she's got a lot to adjust to, just like everyone else. It probably wouldn't hurt to give her the benefit of the doubt for now."

"At least now I don't have to see her in class anymore..." she mumbles.

"That bad?"

"I dunno. She's just one of those people. Her parents are rich, everything goes her way and now boohoo she's got to hang around with all the freaks."

"Everyone takes a shock to their system when this happens, it just takes different forms for everyone."

Kay looks like she really wants to say something about this but swallows it down because she doesn't want to (or dare to) argue with a teacher.


"Well I've barely seen her lately so it's not a problem anymore."

Mahua raises an eyebrow, but doesn't push it. "Other than Molly, are things going okay with everyone else?"

"Yeah. My new roommate's kinda weird but she's alright."

"She's the pyrokinetic, right?"

"Yeah, the one from that other underwater place."

Mahua gestured towards one of the small tables in the bakery to get them out of the way of other customers, "I really should find some of the high school classes to teach. It might make a nice break from the college classes and it would be nice to know everyone at the school better."

"That'd be great!" she blurts out before she can stop herself. "I mean... getting to know everybody and stuff..." she tries to salvage it.

Mahua crossed her arms at the salvage attempt, "Alright, Kay. What's going on?"

"Nothing! Just... you're nice. Having you as a teacher would be great." she mumbles awkwardly.

The arms remained crossed. "Kay," her voice was somewhat maternal.

"What? It would be."

Mahua adjusted her glasses to peer through them at Kay, but decided to let it drop. She got up without a word, coming back shortly with tea and cookies. "Thought we could both use a snack."

"Thanks. But I really am fine, Miss Clarke."

"If you say so," she said, offering Kay a cup of tea.

"I am. Things are fine between Bri and Resa again and no one has tried to kidnap me for, like, at least a couple weeks."

"What was going on between Bridget and Theresa?" She sipped at her own tea.

"More what was going on between me and them... I kinda pissed off Brigid when that whole body-swap thing happened."

"What did you do?" She seemed to be having a hard time believing that Kay actually had it in her to piss someone off.

"I was messing around with her power and having fun with it and she kinda hated that."

"That's a strange disagreement to have."

"It's just one of those 'My power sucks, yours is so much better' things... I mean I wish I had her problems 'cause being a Jungle Princess who can kick everyone's ass sounds awesome to me and she doesn't get why I'm upset about the way I look cause, well, she's a Jungle Princess who grew up surrounded by dinosaurs and fish-people and lizard-men. And then we swapped bodies and I was a giant butt and kept showing off and stuff, which she hates cause she thinks everyone's gonna see her as some kinda dumb brute in a fur bikini."

"I see," said Mahua, sipping at her tea with a remarkable amount of composure.

"And I kinda broke up with... somebody over this whole stupid swap thing too. It was just super awkward with me looking like Bri and I dunno, it was kinda my fault too so maybe I'm the problem."